Episode 52 - Reclaiming Man: Brad Dawson pt 2 Let it Go, Build Character

Brad Dawson returns for a continuation of the conversation about how he is Reclaiming Freedom and shares some great insights.

Episode Transcript

Preston (00:05):
All right.
Welcome to episode 52 of theReclaiming Man podcast.
We got Don Miguel, also known asMichael, the mastermind Beckwith
in the house.
He got me, Preston, the SouthernCanuck Radomski, and we have our
good buddy Brad Dawson, rollingback in for round two.

Brad (00:21):
Lieutenant Dangle here.
Oh, that's right.

Preston (00:26):
Since the last time we have talked Brad has officially
earned a name in the RedneckRodeo and become a pretty much
official member of the Nashvillechapter, I guess worldwide.

Brad (00:37):
Yeah, and when you're new to Redneck Rodeo You got to pull
your weight.
So

Michael (00:42):
we've been getting dangle.
That's right.

Brad (00:44):
I say that cause I just spent like an hour and a half
doing some contracts and stuffand yeah, I'm happy about it.
I'm happy about it.

Preston (00:51):
Yeah, it's good stuff.
So he gets the name Michael, wegave him Lieutenant dangle
because he's.
Since I've, since he's been inNashville, I don't know if you
had that mustache back inCalifornia, but I don't think
you did.
Maybe a little bit, you did fora little bit, but he's got this
like hideous mustache that hethinks it's like real good
looking.
And he actually wears it quitewell, but there's, it just

(01:12):
reminded me of a cop of somesort.
And I was thinking about naminghim like chips, but I was like,
no, one's going to get thatreference nowadays.
It's just such an old show.
And I don't even think anyone'sgoing to get that Lieutenant
reference, but there's, rememberthat show Reno nine one one.
There was

Michael (01:26):
just like, there was, I remember it, but I never watched
it.
So that's the that's thereference maybe.
Yeah.

Preston (01:32):
Go look it up.
He's like the

Brad (01:34):
best character in the show.
Yeah, for sure.
Hands

Preston (01:37):
down.
And so he

Brad (01:39):
wears cowboy boots and like little Daisy Dukes shorts.
He wears like little shorts.
Perfect.
I'm going to, I'm going to behim now.
So the quick first chance I getto dress up like him, I'm going

Preston (01:49):
to next Halloween show.
I was just thinking maybetomorrow, I think you should.
Why not?
Of course.
Let's just freak Ryan out justbe like, This is how we roll,
bro.
And he'll be like, oh boy.

Brad (02:02):
I'll just be full on Lt.
Dangle back there on the kit.

Preston (02:04):
That's

Michael (02:07):
cooler that way.
I

Preston (02:09):
don't know if we talked about having Yawn again there,
Lt.
Dangle Brad, but Coming intothis, I don't know if we
necessarily, if we want to pickup on your story where we left
off, or if you want to have anyidea, Mike, like what we were
thinking about doing, it'sfreeform it's Friday night for
us here in Tennessee and up inMinnesota for Michael.

(02:29):
So we're just having a Fridaynight hang with the guys

Michael (02:32):
podcast.
Yeah, we're on reclaimingfreedom.
This is the 52nd episode.
We, on March 9th last year,released episode one.
So this is coming around to theseminal moment, which really
excited to have you, you backfor Brad.
So you're

Brad (02:48):
on

Preston (02:48):
our official one year anniversary podcast there, bud.
Love it.

Brad (02:51):
Love it.
Love it.

Michael (02:53):
Yeah.
So yeah, really excited to justcheck in with you and see a
little bit like, I don't know,it doesn't have to be
particularly guided atreclaiming freedom, but I think
there's a lot in your life thatyou could say you have been.
On that journey of reclaimingfreedom, whether it's in the
past from addiction or in thecurrent state with the dreams of

(03:16):
what you want to do musicallyand professionally

Brad (03:18):
I definitely have reclaimed my freedom because I
have no warrants currently andI'm not.

Preston (03:25):
Did you have warrants last episode?

Brad (03:30):
I did not.
But progress.
There was a time, there was atime where I had, things looming
over my head.
A physical consequence if,through my behavior.
But you can be in your ownprison.
And be free, so to speak.

Preston (03:44):
Oh yeah.
I heard wrote a great song aboutthat, yeah.
My own prison.
Just kidding.
It's Friday night, buddy.
Sorry.
Yeah.
No, you're good, man.
I know you're trying to

Brad (03:53):
go deep here.
Creed is my, my generation,right?
That was happening full swing.
We, to this day, any chance weget to play Creed songs
downtown, we do it.
And they're like, they're like,like Nickelback, where it's
like, They don't hate on Creedthough Creed gets a pass for
some reason Nobody hates onCreed really, they all just only
a few people Oh my god, theselike dudes come up and they bro

(04:13):
out on the Creed song.
Do you

Preston (04:15):
think it's because they broke up before they could You
know what I mean?
If Creed had not broken up andkept going, would they have
been, like, right there withNickelback battling out to who's
hated the most?
I

Brad (04:25):
just think Nickelback got more famous.
I think they were more popular.
They had more hits.
I think Creed was a little moreunder the radar.
Yeah, I could see that.
Everybody knows of them, butit's just Yeah.
They're certainly easy to aneasy target, just like
Nickelback.
Exactly.
Exactly.
But, it's just one of thosethings, but yeah, like the song,

(04:45):
my own prison was a great songand I think you can be in your
own prison, out walking free andmaybe not even know it.
Right.
Yeah, like maybe not even knowthat you're like the victim of
your own closed mindedness orblindness.
And there's a lot of these guysthat, guys that get arrested and
become institutionalized andthey actually do better in

(05:05):
there.
They're actually more free

Michael (05:07):
there than they are.
Interesting way to look at it.
I think you're right.
But, because of this,

Brad (05:13):
because of the structure.
And what they really need.
They can't, they don't have thewill or where they're at in
their life.
They aren't able to createstructure in their lives.

Michael (05:22):
And yeah, and they're like the outliers, that it's
like having too much freedom, soto speak, creates lack of
freedom, or they get, trapped inthe certain behavior, like just.
Poor decisions, basically, butI'll been there.
I think we've all been there forvarious reasons, but there's a
different level that sometimesit.

(05:43):
They require that much structurethere, otherwise they just can't
make the decision themselves.
Yeah.

Preston (05:49):
I would say even in just the way people choose their
careers like an entrepreneurversus someone maybe like me who
works like at a corporate job,like I'm trying to get out of
that, but it's just to, to be anextremely successful
entrepreneur, it's very hardbecause you just have no
boundaries.
You have to like really haveyour stuff dialed in and put
together where it's really easyto just go work for a corporate

(06:11):
company.
It's like I show up at 9am orwhatever time do my stuff for
eight hours and then I'm done.
It's I see that parallels withyou mentioning the prison guys,
where it's just yeah, thestructure of a prison, it's just
they function in that, it's justtell me what to do, I do it, and
we're fucking good.
But when I'm left to my ownvices, it's just they can't

Brad (06:28):
handle it almost.
Yeah, it's oh my gosh, I'm inprison, all I want to do is get
out.
And then they go get out, andthen they catch a charge, and
they're right back in.
It's I thought you want it out.
Yeah, that's a whole notherconversation, which could be
another episode there was aspeaking on that real quick
though.
There was a Joe Rogan episoderecently of this guy that did 25
years or something.
I don't know if you guys sawheard that.

(06:49):
That was appealing to me.
So I clicked on it and

Preston (06:52):
it's that one.
The guy who's with him, likeRogan has him on every quarter
because he's like a, what isthat?
Program that he's affiliatedwith.
He's a lawyer, the innocenceproject.
It's with the innocence project.

Brad (07:04):
And so I was listening to that.
And yeah, he just talked aboutthat whole way of life.
I have a lot of respect forsomebody that can get out and
change their life because it's,it's a tough thing.
And it really shouldn't bebecause life is, and what we
talk about and you guys talkabout on your podcast and all
the stuff that I've, beensharing and trying to live and
these principles are so Simple.
They're simple.

(07:25):
They're not easy, but they'resimple.
And then you think why are theynot easy?
Because we have this humancondition.
Okay why is this humancondition?
Why do we have this humancondition where we're in
constant battle with ourselvesover what to do next?
And so then boom, we come backto this massive imperfect
action.
We come back to taking action,so I don't know what you guys

(07:47):
had talked about reclaimingfreedom.
What I can gather from just thatstatement is when you claim
something or you reclaim itreclaim claiming means it's
yours.
You own it.
You've said, this is mine.
You reclaim it means you lost itat some point.
Now you're having to do itagain.
But claiming is an action,right?

(08:08):
It's insinuating.
It's a commitment.
Like it's a verbal commitment.
It's a decision, right?
So you're making a decision to,which isn't really any action
yet.
But it's a decision.
They always say in AA, Imight've said this last time,
cause I say a lot of the sameshit over and over, but.
As do we all.
There's three frogs on a log.

(08:28):
Okay?
One decides to jump off the log.
How many frogs are left?
Three.
On the log.
See, you guys are with it, see?
Everybody goes two.
And I'm like, all he did wasmake a decision, he didn't jump.

Preston (08:45):
That's like me deciding I want to go play down in
Nashville on Broadway.
It's I haven't done it yet.
I've played a few games, butit's I'm working on it, but it's
I'm like in that phase whereit's that resonates with me so
much because it's just I thinkabout it and talk about it, but
it's go fucking do it, Preston.

Brad (08:58):
So listen to your buddy's frog story.
So I was, I wanna, I was takingsome notes'cause before I do
anything like this or I go to ameeting or I share or not a
meeting, but if I speak or I'mon a podcast or anything like
that, I try to pray a little bitbefore and I try to gather some
thoughts and I came up with thisquote.
Maybe somebody has said it and Istole it and didn't know it, but
I think it came from the ether,but it's our brains are our

(09:22):
brains so easily identify withwhat's right.
And we'll even claim that, butwe struggle to see the
difference when it'sinconvenient.

Michael (09:32):
Yeah, I'm with you on that.
I'm interested to hear what youhave to say about it.
So face value.

Brad (09:38):
So like we're a lot of talk and especially if we got,
if we're, somewhat intelligent.
I am guilty of this to a Tbecause I happen to be a bit
gifted with Gab and I have somecharisma and I've known that
these are some of my qualitiesthat I possess and I've really
used them to my benefit in life,but it's also my biggest

(10:01):
downfall because I know that Ican just skate by and in most of
the time I can just wing it andthen, but I know when I get home
at night, I'm like, yeah.
Damn, I didn't really give itall I had.
I had more, I could have put inmore work I could have done
more.
Yeah, I might have fooledeverybody, but I didn't fool
myself And so we're a lot oftalk man like and I wanted to

(10:25):
talk about that today was one ofthe points that I just was like
what are we gonna talk about andIt's this there's so many people
now with podcasts.
There's so many Self help books.
My pastor is just launchedanother one.
Craig Rochelle with life churchlife dot Church It's got a lot
of bestselling books and, Ioften lean over and I look at

(10:47):
Abby and I go, man, he, we'retalking about the problem.
A lot.
We just don't talk about thesolution a whole lot.
We will talk about the solution,but there's rarely, we skip over
that.
It's oh, we'll just pray, orthere's just never clear cut
instructions of what are yougoing to do?
And I just go what do I do?
Okay, I guess I have thisproblem.

(11:07):
What do I do?
And so, taking action is whatyou do, but that's so much
harder for whatever reason.
But then once you do it, likeyou always feel great about it.
And so that past experience I'vebuilt on.
So when you're that guy thatjust got out of prison and
you're trying to do the rightthing, like doing the right
thing is really hard for you,right?

(11:29):
You do it one time and you maynot see a result.
See, that's the other thing isyou don't always see a result
right away, and you do a coupleof good things and you're like,
Oh, I did this couple of goodthings.
And look, my life's still crap,and I'm just going to go back to
selling drugs or whatever.
And it's you gotta commit, yougotta stick to it.
And I haven't figured this thingout by any stretch of the

(11:49):
imagination.
And dang it guys, my phone islike 20 percent battery.
I didn't notice that.
Do you got a charger?
You want to go?
I should be good for a littlebit.
I might have to take a pause ina minute to go grab

Michael (12:00):
a truck.
Yeah, no worries.
Keep on rolling.
But

Brad (12:02):
so I think where this starts and is accountability,
right?
And.
I think a lot of people justreally struggle with
accountability and it's not somuch accountability as it is the
humility that it takes to beaccountable because we're all in

(12:23):
fear that we're going to bejudged off of that.
And at some point.
I was beaten down so much in mywhole image and everything was
already destroyed that I justdidn't really have any shame.
Like it was like, it was justlike, that's why it was so great
for me.
Cause it was like a bunch ofother drunks and drug addicts in
a room.
And it was like, no judgmenthere.

(12:43):
We're all pieces of shit, so tospeak.
And it's Oh, cool.
So it's we can all just be.

Michael (12:49):
The interesting thing about that, just to interject on
it, it's like what you're afraidof the most is actually, what
sets you free, which is thetruth.
As soon as you tell somebodyyour truth, whether that's
something that is, morally orsocially reprehensible or not,
as soon as you're telling thetruth to other people and
they're not Connecting with youas a result of it.

(13:12):
It's that's the thing, which isso counterintuitive.
I feel like about, about AAwhere you're there and they're
like, Oh, you're judgment free.
It's well, you're judgment freebecause you're all just being
honest about the fact that, yeahwe're all.
Pretty flawed.
We're all pretty much victim tothe same circumstance in a
slightly different role.

Brad (13:30):
But in life, it's like you're in with all these people
that you don't really know.
And here, yeah, here you are.
Yeah.
You're making a mistake.
I'll refer it back to.
Playing on Broadway, likePreston's going to get there.
And there's this inherent fearof making this huge mistake.
So that's probably the mainthing that's just like getting
in the way of him, like takingthis gig.
And I'm pushing him.
We're at the point now wherelike Preston's going to take a

(13:50):
guitar.
The next one he sees, I'm not solame gig finder that he can do.
He's taken it.
Like I've told him, I'm like,dude, you're taking a gig.
Like you better, I better seeyou posting on there that I'm
available when I see they'relooking for a guitar player on
there.
I better see your message underthere.
I'm available.
But like his big fear oranybody's big fear is I'm going
to make this tremendous mistake.
They're all going to figure outthat I'm not good enough and I'm

(14:15):
going to be, I'm going to lookbad and I'll never be hired
again.
And it's all this, it's all thisimaginary shit, right?
It's it's not, what's going tohappen.
What's the worst thing that canhappen?
You get train wreck a song for afew bars.
Like you're going to figure outthe chord eventually.
Yeah.
If anything, just stop playing,like it's just, my

Michael (14:31):
point is, yeah, stop planning and grab a drink,

Brad (14:35):
stop playing, get thirsty man about you, get your senses
about you.
Gee, okay, fuck.
And then you just jump back inthere.
But like the point is not thatit's like our perception.
Of what we think this is goingto happen, and we just have this
and then that's where fear comesin and then fear paralyzes us

(14:56):
from taking any action at all.
So I love, man, I just, I'llnever forget the massive
imperfect action.
I just keep saying it becauseit's so good.
It's like imperfect is theoperative word here.
Action is the operative word butwe want it to be perfect action,
right?
You're never ready.
I was just watching the combineon TV, right?

(15:17):
I was watching the NFL guysYeah, and I watched him make a
bunch of mistakes like a coupleguys drop balls right there.
This is their Opportunity tomake it to the NFL did anyone's
balls

Preston (15:29):
fly out while they were running the 440 or whatever
Yeah, remember that dude thatone?
Yeah.
Yeah, that was hilarious.
No, that was his whole dick.
I think sorry I'm getting it

Brad (15:39):
must be nice.
It might it must be nice I don'tknow that to have some, just be
blessed enough or it couldactually fall

Preston (15:48):
out.
I think back to our pre recordbutton, I think you're talking
about like having the Red Bullcan size is about optimal.
It's like having it be so bigthat it.
It falls out and you trip overit.
It's I don't know if that's agood anyway.
Sorry.
Oh,

Brad (16:03):
I can't unsee it.
Cause I went and looked at thevideo.
I did go look at the video.
I, yeah.

Preston (16:09):
And it's funny.
He gets up and it's just gothe's blushing on the field.
And

Brad (16:13):
yeah, you shouldn't wear those shorts, bro.
Whoops.
But yeah.
Whoops.
But yeah, these guys are onnational TV and they're in front
of all these NFL scouts.
Just trying to do their best.
And some of them are likerunning slow forties.
And I watch football and I'mreally into it.
And I can tell like these guysare faster than this.
This guy's got better hands thanthat.
But they all know, but see,here's the thing.

(16:35):
They, if you go into that, let'stake zoom out real quick.
If I'm a scout.
I'm wanting to see them makemistakes.
I know they're going to makemistakes.
They're under the spotlightright now.
And it's like, that's actually,it's not going to disqualify
you.
They talk about that all thetime.
Oh, I had a, they'll talk to NFLplayers.
I had a really poor showing atthe combine.

(16:58):
So anyway, your perception isout of whack.
Now you don't go in there andjust be like, okay, it's all
right.
I can make mistakes.
But you got to understand, Ithink the, on this, I listened
to the last little bit of thepodcast and Jordan Peterson,
with his order and chaos andthat it's not just order and
chaos.
It's just balance.
It's like the world is hung inthis balance.

(17:19):
And when I start to understand,

Michael (17:20):
that's what that yin yang thing.
I was like, I wasn't even awareof that.
He's Oh, the line in betweenthese is it's basically this
illustration of straddling bothorder and chaos.
And.
Yeah, an acceptable amount ofchaos that helps you basically
prevent your world becoming, thesort of tyrannical dictatorship

(17:42):
where everything is so dogmaticand black and white.
There's too much order that youcan definitely have in your life
and it was super fascinating.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You mentioned

Brad (17:51):
that.
If we just remember that.
In every situation.
First of all, we're not thatimportant.
Like in a sense I don't like tosay like a lot of times I think
that it's just I'm going to havesuch a profound impact on
whatever situation it is.
And I'm just not that important.
I'm not putting myself down.
It's just, I don't have that bigof an effect on the universe
that this is going to be a wholeimplosion of everything because

(18:12):
I dropped the football at thecombine.
You know what I'm saying?
So we just have to understandthat.
And if you look at it that way,you go, Oh.
Oh, if I dropped this pass, thenthat means I'm going to catch
one very soon because that's howthe universe works.
Yep.
Oh, totally.
So it's like, order and chaos,it's just like balance.
It's you can't really have onewithout the other.

(18:35):
So this idea that we're justtrying to eliminate all the
chaos or all the negative or allthe bad feelings or all the bad
situations.
Is really first of all, it'simpossible and you have to
accept, and I have to acceptthat I have to accept that
there's failure, but failure isnot inherently bad because it
goes back to what we talkedabout on my podcast before is

(18:56):
like these failures are whatproduce.
And build character because it'sall about how I deal with it.
But I just think we just aretaught maybe somewhere or we're
just you know the bible talks alot about this innate nature Of
like in romans, it just talks alot about like we have this
inner struggle, you know it'sit's what's part of what makes

(19:16):
life so beautiful though It'sbecause we have this decision
this power of choice this willyou know this will to choose
Between what we want to do nextand I think a lot of society
today just influences it's justmakes it very confusing.
It'll tell you one minute thatyou know You're not good enough

(19:38):
when you look at Instagram andyou know, you're watching the
drummer That's way better thanyou and you're like, he's 12,
And you're like, I'm gonna quitand then on the other hand
you've got society Lifting upcriminals, or any other
situation, that you may or maynot agree with gender or
whatever, it's like we're.
Parading around some things thatmay or may not be right.

(20:01):
And then we're putting downother people because they aren't
good enough.
So there's just, we're getting alot of mixed messages that
aren't really what life isabout.
And yeah man, so the other thingI was going to talk about was
I've been watching, I've gotteninto F1.
Formula one racing.
Is anybody, either of you atall?
No, I'm not.

Michael (20:19):
I was going to say not, I hadn't really been into it.
And then I did watch documentaryslash a movie or two recently
about racing.
First I watched Gran Turismo,which isn't formula one.
And then I watched a formulaone, but either way have quite a
bit of respect, more respect forthe sport than I.

(20:40):
That I did historically afterwatching a couple different
films recently.

Brad (20:44):
Yeah they're building it up and there's a big push to
make this a bigger spectacle anda lot of the like it has its
real British hoity toity roots,right?
And so a lot of those guys justdon't really I think like that.
It's getting to be blown up intothis big thing I

Michael (20:58):
wanted it more exclusive.

Brad (21:00):
Yeah, they did and but anyway, so they're building it
up into this big thing But sofucking British

Preston (21:05):
of them

Brad (21:07):
But it all started because we Wes who plays with Michael
Austin, Preston.
Yo, you guys were in

Preston (21:12):
Vegas when that whole thing was going on, watching it,
weren't ya?
Yeah

Brad (21:16):
Wes loves Formula One.
Of course, it's such a Westhing.
Oh, yeah, totally, yes.
Wes was like, he's just such anodd kid in the sense that He
never drank alcohol.
And when he started drinkingscotch.
I know.
Yeah.
Like he didn't start with lightbeer or like wine coolers, like
it was straight to Lafraigscotch.

Michael (21:36):
Kindred spirit.
That was totally me.
Actually.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was just like, you know what?
I'm going to bet it was McAllenfor me.
I was like, Oh, he's just likegallon.
I'm gonna drink some classyshit.

Brad (21:43):
Yeah.
He's like an old soul, and thenand he's into Formula One, and
so he would always be watchingit, I don't get it.
But I came from a racing familyin Indiana, and we were into
IndyCar.
And IndyCar to me was just somuch better than Formula One.
It always was.
But now it's shifting, andIndy's car's struggling, and
Formula One's kind of got thestage now.
And then we went to Vegas andplayed a couple of months ago

(22:06):
where last year, I don't evenremember last year.
Yeah.
And it was the Vegas, we werethere during the Vegas formula
one race.
And I like heard the cars again.
It was like when I was a kidgoing to Indy and I had been,
and then I watched thedocumentary and I was like, I'm
freaking hooked.
And what I wanted to link thisback to was like, first of all,
it takes a lot of mentaltoughness.
And these guys are likecompeting with the, the most

(22:26):
money in the world, the higheststakes.
Lewis Hampton is the highestpaid athlete in the world.
By the way, if you, it's notfreaking Patrick Mahomes it was,
I don't know if that's the casenow, but Lewis Hamilton was the
highest paid athlete in theworld.
And I wanted to tie this intowas it's because they're not
American, most of them, it's aninsight into like how other
cultures operate and they werejust, and they're just, there's

(22:48):
just a lot more class to in likethe way that they just don't get
but hurt.
When things don't go their way,right?
It's like they're really good atjust taking at his face value.
Some of the Americans couldprobably just be like, Oh my
gosh, they're so tight.

Preston (23:03):
Are you talking about like British, like the way the
British handle it?

Brad (23:06):
Just the international, because there's all these
different cultures in that.
Yeah.
There's some Australians,there's some French, there's
some Spanish, but there's a lotof British.
And yeah, you can say, Hey,they're uptight.
They don't cry.
They're just not very emotional.

Preston (23:18):
I know what you mean.
Cause I always hear aboutstories like with like British
bands where like, when theywould fight, like you hear about
Pink Floyd fighting,

Brad (23:24):
but yeah, man, I don't know, Formula 1 is it's just
cool, man, and these guys are,the pressure, man the pressure
is so intense, and it's just,I've been into it lately, and I
feel like there's a lot to learnfrom it.
There's a just something withBeing, being accountable and why

(23:48):
that's tough for us to do.
I don't know.
It's in our nature to

Michael (23:52):
I think you're right.
Honestly, that's a big part ofthe reason when I think about
this podcast and why I feel socompelled to continue it is the
more that I.
Put something out there, even ifit's a very limited audience,
it's still out there and it'sdocumented and it's this record
of us saying, Hey, this is whatwe're doing and it adds a little

(24:14):
bit more weight to what you say.
And then I have people thatgenuinely are asking me about
it.
Had a guy shoot me a textmessage this morning and.
It was just, a pretty goodformat for that.
Yes.
Lots of people out there in theworld that are making these
types of podcasts with varyingobjectives.
I don't know that everybody'sreally trying to monetize it.
I think most people aren't, Ithink most of them are using it

(24:38):
as this opportunity to, to shareyour thoughts and truly take
advantage of the freedom.
So that's a good piece of,

Brad (24:46):
and everybody's there's a lot of different motives you
could have, but I think there'sonly a couple places you can go
to have.
These conversations that arereally appropriate in society.
And one of them is church.
And that one can be toughbecause you can be limited to
whatever your denomination isand whatever they're talking
about.

(25:06):
And it's always them talking.
It's, you don't get a chance toreally say anything.
Or you do, if it's a, it's inprivate, but you're confined to
their ideas, right?
So you're not that you can'tgrow.
And benefit from it, but, orthat anybody's wrong, you're
limited.
And then with AlcoholicsAnonymous, that's another place
you can go.

(25:26):
And I discovered, I'm like, man,if people could just experience
what we get to experience inAlcoholics Anonymous, but have
it not be confined to ourproblem as it pertains to
alcohol, because that's what'salso said their traditions.
And, but he also, but Bill Walso said in his preface to the
12 and 12, which is a book thathe wrote later.

(25:48):
That he hoped that this, thatthese steps would eventually
help the non alcoholic and Ifound that so interesting
because I keep on encounteringpeople and you guys are a
perfect example.
You guys aren't alcoholics.
My, my guys at my I was.
Or you were, but that's right.

Preston (26:04):
I'm probably borderline one, one.
I'm sure some people

Brad (26:08):
would consider me one.
But what's crazy is that it'slike, being an alcoholic doesn't
actually have to do with howmuch you drank.
It's what happens to you whenyou put alcohol in your body or
how selfish and self centeredyou are.
So ultimately you're alcoholicbefore you even put a drink in
your mouth.
You're selfish and selfcentered.

(26:28):
You drive yourself absolutelycrazy.
Your life falls apart.
You can't deal with it on yourown.
So you have to use a substance.
So now that's the solution.
So then drinking becomes thesolution to your problems and it
works for a while.
You have, get some release, youhave fun, whatever.
And some people can manage thatand still have a good life.
But the real alcoholic personthat it like takes, gets the

(26:48):
best of them.
And then the solution actuallybecomes worse than the problem.

Michael (26:52):
Yeah.
And I think the alcoholic is,it's just a child category of
addict like, in comfort crisis,Michael used to.
Defined addiction just asanything that you can't stop
doing that has an adverse impacton your life, literally
anything, whether it's, you workout so hard that you have a
heart attack and you die in yourforties, because you've, there's

(27:12):
these talk of these guys who arejust like, they're in peak
physical shape, but theyliterally cannot stop pushing
themselves until their bodiesgive out.
And it's something in there.
It's like you everything fromthe healthiest foods is like,
Oh, you do a plant diet.
Oh, this is going to be healthyfor you.
Maybe for.
A minute to cleanse your body,but longterm, if you just keep
it up, it's going to, you'regoing to deprive yourself of

(27:34):
things that you need.
It's just, there's so many ofthose things that, I think the
alcohol and like the AA and the12 steps that, it's something
that's good that came out ofsomething that's terrible.
Sure.
The 12 steps are, maybeoriginally intended from Bill's
perspective for the alcoholicand for the addict.

(27:55):
But at the end of the day,there's I think very few of us
who aren't addicted tosomething, whether it's our
phones, whether it's socialmedia, whether it's porn,
whether it's drugs, whether it'slying, whether it's the don't
know.
There's so many different thingsthat you can be addicted to.
That's just the reality.
And so that's why I think whatyou were just saying there in

(28:17):
the preface of the 12 by 12,just absolutely.
These are.
Just steps in your life wheretake out, take away the alcohol
and it's just like everybodyshould take a look at these 12
steps at some point in theirlife.
Sooner the better.
And we're

Brad (28:32):
at this time where we're like, everybody wants to jump on
this get better, right?
Okay.
Yeah.
Build character.
I love that.
I love that.
Everybody wants it's like a.
It's like a hot topic now, likeself help and building
character, but when you get intobuilding what a great movement.
Yeah.
But I think a lot of people are,they're missing a big point
here.
And it's like, they're Hey.

(28:54):
It's to me, it's like a meme,right?
Are you a meme person?
Are you one of those people thatposts all these really awesome
memes all the time, and, but youdon't do anything?
They're very attractive.
Cliches are really awesome,right?
Oh my gosh! And that was, like,goes back to what I said.
Our brains are, they easilyidentify with what's right.
So you put a meme up.
And that attracts attentionbecause oh, my gosh, that's so

(29:15):
good.
And then you go back to yourlife.
The meme can't really help you.
It might open your mind a littlebit.
Hopefully it is a segue to somemassive change that you're going
to make in your life, butprobably not.
Definitely not.
Probably not going to changeyour life.
And so it's okay, we want tochange and we want to build
character.
So what does that actually take?
Okay.

(29:35):
So it takes some kind of action,take some sort of program, some
kind of plan.
The only one I found.
Like church doesn't reallyoutline any real plan for you,
which I get frustrated with.
It's like just coming to

Michael (29:46):
bed.
Do you think and this isn'tmeant as by any means like a
negative thought, but I just doyou think you've spent enough
time from a biblical knowledgeperspective to say that
definitively?
No,

Brad (29:58):
and I probably haven't, but I think that's part of the
problem without getting deeperon Sundays is like, you got to
get into Bible study and you gotto like, Get around the right
people that are seeking becauseeverything is in there.
I think the answers are all butreading them and, it could be
laid out in a way, maybe alittle easier with a Bible plan
or something,

Michael (30:15):
it's interesting because I think there's a lot of
stuff in there, but it's like,it requires this persistence of
and habit of spending time.
Studying it.
I think that's my personalexperience and, so much farther
to go on that journey.
But if you're at the pointwhere, you're looking for some

(30:36):
of the plan, I think it's waymore simple than we think it is.
And it's much more universalthan.
We'd like to think it is it'sless about the differences and
more about what we all have incommon.
But I think it's, I don't know,definitely there's some
conversation there.
But one of the things that I wasthinking of when you were

(30:56):
talking about this was like, asfar as the plan or the plays or,
just like the steps, right?
You have the 12 step program.
What's the steps for once you'redone with the 12 step program,
they'll say, Oh, do it again.
But but Tony Robbins I'm notsure how much you've ever
listened to any of his stuff,but he's got His five to thrive
his principles that, there'sthese things that you have to

(31:18):
change.
If you want to like truly changeyour state, it's like you have
to change your physiology, likeyour body.
If you physically have tochange, maybe it's where you are
or the amount of energy, likesitting down and you're pretty
low energy state.
A lot of times, when you're onyour phone, you're generally
just like laying down or sittingdown.

(31:39):
It's so you watch something oryou read something, but you're
not really inclined to dosomething.
Like you said, you're thinkingabout it.
Oh, we're trying to do I jumpoff this?
Yeah, I think I'm going to jumpoff this lily pad or jump off
this log, whatever it is, butyou're thinking about it.
You haven't done anything.
And like the next piece that hehad was like where you focus,
like where your focus goes iswhere your energy goes.
So if you're focusing on likenegative things in your life and
focusing on the past, which alot of us tend to do, then we're

(32:02):
going to continue to repeatthose types of experiences
because we're familiar andcomfortable with those types of
things to your point about likeconvenience.
Like it's just, it's notconvenient to, to make the
change or to do anything.
And then he has like bigcomponent into the language that
we use.
So how we describe ourselves andhow he's really careful never to
say I'm a, I'm an anxious personor I'm a depressed person

(32:25):
because as soon as you start tolabel yourself, even I think in
the case of AA, I think that'sone thing I disagree.
I very rarely will say, Hey, I'mMichael.
I'm an alcoholic.
I say, I'm Michael, I was analcoholic.
yeah.
'cause I don't wanna, and that'strue.
Find myself that way.

Brad (32:41):
And that's why I was like saying about how being an
alcoholic has nothing to do withhow much you drink.
The term alcoholic.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
That's actually means I'm human

Michael (32:51):
Yeah.
But then the plan, so you just,I know it took me a little bit
to get here, but like the planthe steps he says you have to
create a compelling future.
He's like the key to change iscreating a compelling future,
something that's different fromwhere you are currently.
And then once you have thatcompelling future, so it's okay.
Preston on Broadway, me, I wantto be a day trader, but I also

(33:13):
want to be a musician and I wantto do them both.
At my leisure, whenever I wantto, without having to worry
about money creating acompelling future.
And so that's basically that'sthe reason to build skills to,
bridge the gap and put in thetime and the effort and work on
mastery, but that's you knowlike ultimately what he says is
the key to changing youridentity and as soon as you
identify as You know somebodywho's a Broadway musician.

(33:37):
It means oh, I'm doing itconsistently or And in my case,
I don't say I'm a day trader Isay I'm a category manager and
people are like, what's that?
I'm like exactly yeah, it's a Soit's just really interesting to
think about a lot of times, likeyou said, the church is a great
place, but I think there arepeople who have walked the path
before us, and there's justdifferent things that we have to

(33:59):
do to either find mentors or seesomeone who's mastered what we
want to do and start to learnfrom people who have mastered it
and then, emulate people when wedon't know exactly how to do
something.
We're just like I'm gonna try toimitate it.
The people who have successfullydone it and in the music world,
it's crazy because there's sucha different, like you said,

(34:19):
there's a different level ofpressure when you're in
Nashville because everybody'sskill level is at the mastery
level, generally differentlevels of it, I would say
arguably they're putting in thetime.
Yeah.
It's

Brad (34:33):
funny.
I was going to tie this back toF1 because yeah, they.
You think, okay, they're all attheir highest level.
No.
Sometimes there's these rookiekids that come from F2, and they
just get put in the car.
And it's so hard to believe me,these kids, they're literally
kids, man.
They look like that one kid, inthis season, looks like he's 12,

(34:54):
and he just gets

Preston (34:55):
called in.
Are they coming off go

Brad (34:56):
kart training and stuff like that?
Go kart, and then they get intoF2.
To F3 and F2, but you got to bereally good in F2 or whatever in
F3 to get there but all of asudden they're just called up
And they're put in this new carand it's like they don't get a
whole lot of time to really Imean I'm sure there's practicing
and stuff that we don't see buthonestly for the gist that I get

(35:16):
is that they're not doing a lotof that.
They don't want to use thatcar's 50 million dollars or
whatever.
They don't want to like Thesecars are seriously 50 million
dollars of research anddevelopment and people put into
it.
And then they just put this kidin there and he's racing against
Fernando Alonso, who's been likeracing for 30 years, and he's
like bringing Aston Martin upright now.
That's like the new guy onBroadway.

(35:37):
It's sure everyone's at a highlevel, but Not really it's like
you're going to rise to thatlevel quicker than you think,
you're going

Michael (35:44):
to yeah.
And being surrounded by thosepeople, that was what I was
going to get at is once you'resurrounding yourself with people
who are hungry for the samethings, like there's two
outcomes is either going to helpyou.
Keep on pushing to findpotential that you didn't
realize you had because yourecognize oh This place that I
thought was like a high level ofaccomplishment or skill for

(36:04):
myself now I see is okay There'speople that are way better than
me there's people that I'mbetter than because everything
has a hierarchy Sure, there'salways a hierarchy to some
extent but like I feel like wehave more potential to change
our status than we think we do.
Most of those are like selfimposed limitations.
And the mistake thing is it's soliberating to be able to make

(36:27):
mistakes because that is, frommy perspective, musically, how
you make music, like how youmake true, spontaneous, like
soul driven music.
It's not by being concernedabout playing the wrong note.
It's about knowing that.
It just can take you someplaceelse.

Brad (36:44):
And I keep going back to Formula 1 Yeah.
How many of those guys have notput one of those cars into the
wall?
Oh

Michael (36:50):
my gosh, the same thing.
Yeah, you're going to, if you'repushing yourself, you're going
to make mistakes.
And if you're not makingmistakes, and you're not pushing
yourself, Then you're

Brad (36:56):
not pushing yourself.
And they will, honestly I feellike they should be more pissed
off at them when they crash.
Yeah.
But they're like, Are you okay,mate?
Are you okay?
And then he's he's a little lessfortunate, but we'll try again
next week, and it's he justdestroyed like a 20 million
dollar car.
And it's let's just do it againnext week.
Yeah, they might lose their job.
That's

Michael (37:15):
it, man.
That's the playbook.
If it keeps happening, maybeyou're trying to find it, find a
new career.

Brad (37:20):
But what I wanted to get into and segue to this is, So
we're doing all this because wewant to build character.
At some point when I was sittingin an AA meeting, I was like,
Oh, dang, like the light bulbwent off.
And I was like, Oh, I'm not hereto just get sober.
I'm here to build character.
Because if I don't buildcharacter, then I can't stay
sober.
Because I'm going to feel likeshit about myself all the time,

(37:43):
and I'm going to be back to,coping with it however I know
how, which is usually with drugsand alcohol.
So it's okay, I'm building mycharacter, how do I do that?
It's not just a meme, it's notjust reading about it, it's not
just talking about it, it's notjust listening to a podcast.
That's where you take But it'swhat action do I take?
When I started thinking aboutthis before the podcast, I was
like, man, this just sounds likethe same stuff I always say, and

(38:05):
it's not going to change muchbecause the solution is the
solution.
I started thinking about howconscious and aware are you of
building your character whenyou're.
When you get off of the podcast,when you get out of the meeting,
like when you go out into thestreet, when you go out into the

(38:26):
world, when you interact withyour wife, when you play on your
gigs and you interact withpeople there, when you work,
when you're at work, how awareare you of building character in
those situations?
Are you just reacting as youalways do?
And so then I was like, okay,there's this.
mental toughness that comes inwhere I think there's some

(38:48):
prayer and stuff that can help,talking about it, listening to
things, yes, can help, but howaware are you?
And I started going, man,that's, I think my problem is
I'm, I forget that I'm buildingcharacter when I'm out on the
gig.
I just forget that I need to bein.
That mode, right?
Of treating those around me ofwatching my tone, of watching my

(39:10):
selfishness and my fear insituations.
When it comes to songs or whenit comes to another person in
the industry who is saying someshit about you.
Like, how do I not reactnegatively and do what my
instinct instincts tell me todo, which is fight this guy or
whatever.
Yeah.

(39:31):
Like how tough are you mentally?
And where does that, I'd like tobe interested in hear from you
guys.
Like, where do you get thatpower from when you're trying to
change your life and you'retrying to reclaim your freedom
or anything, and you're tryingto grow and build character,
where does that power come fromto make?

(39:51):
To make a different decision ina situation that you've been in
multiple times, that you've madethe wrong one before, like you
were sensitive and you feltthreatened.
Somebody might have saidsomething outta line, they might
be wrong.
Where do you get the power tonot snap on them to let it go?

(40:11):
Where do you get that powerfrom?
Like I, or how do you do that?
Like what do you guys, what areyour comments on that?
Because I think I have an answerto it, but I'm not a hundred
percent there.
I think what I'm going to sayfirst is that I think it just
comes from practice that yougot,

Preston (40:29):
I would, yeah, I would say it would, I would say it
comes from a lot of failure to,you mentioned that earlier, so
much of how we learn is byfailing and.
And just getting older andbecoming less less high strung
as men, I've never really been alike a sort of a, I guess you

(40:51):
would call it like a hightestosterone, like just fucking
mad man, like out to want tofight and stuff on a Friday
night.
That was just never Mycharacter, I don't know why, I
couldn't give you an answer, butI think just as we, as men as we
age, we just we mellow out more.
That doesn't mean to say youjust got to wait it out, because
it's if some you got a 21 yearold listening to this podcast,

(41:13):
you're like fuck man I gottawait another 20 years before I
can handle this, so it's

Brad (41:17):
they also have energy and real quick I just don't have the
energy anymore from myexperience.
I don't have the energy toparticipate in this anymore
because I realize it gets menowhere,

Preston (41:28):
I think that comes from, it's like you, you don't
have the energy probably becauseyou have done it enough times
and it's got a Before when youdid have the energy and it maybe
it got, where it was a failureand you're like yeah, why am I
going to put in the energy againto just have a negative outcome
with this aspect where it'slike, I think learning to just
walk away from situations as youget older.

Brad (41:51):
It's just knowing the difference between, because
there's time you need to dosomething and you've got to take
action.
And I'd struggle with thatsometimes still, I'll be honest
I'm back on the vape, I'm overhere vaping, and it's

Michael (42:02):
the Serenity Prayer, it talks about what we can control
versus what we can't control.
And I think that's the, one ofthe first pieces to the answer,
which I think ultimately leadsto wisdom.
You're just what leads towisdom?
Generally, it's not justexperiencing your own failures,
but it's also seeing otherpeople make mistakes and

(42:22):
learning from their mistakes aswell.
And so when you see somebodymaking a mistake, first of all,
it's understanding that they areprobably in the exact same boat
that you are or have been,whether it's a, something that's
coming at you because they'redefensive about some inadequacy
that they feel or all sorts ofdifferent things, look at it
psychologically, but I thinkjust purely from like its most

(42:44):
basic form, it's experiencegoing through those types of
situations that really get yourblood to boil and recognizing
that there are certain pieces ofit that you do control and you
can't control.
Sure.
Sure.
In, in proverbs, I'm not goingto get it exactly right, but
effectively it's, wisdom shouldlead to understanding and what's
understanding understands likediscernment and having the

(43:10):
Capability of knowing what's theright decision, beyond your
thoughts, because those are lesseasy to control in the moment,
you still.
We hopefully develop, like yousaid, through practice, the
ability to hold our tongue,because that I think is purely
through practice, but theneventually it says through that
understanding, we, if we holdonto that, it should lead to

(43:32):
peace where we're at peace withthe fact that other people are
going to say stuff that.
Makes us want to punch him inthe face and by rising above it,
you actually, there's this muchbetter sense of, I hopefully
they're not going to punch youin the face.
And then how do you, I'm notgoing to say you don't protect
yourself.
And yeah, that's not

Brad (43:53):
what I'm saying at all.
But the accountability part ofthat is then going what's my
part?
I got to slow down.
If someone reacts towards me, Orbecause ultimately I do think
they're reacting to something.
Yeah, it could be something youdid.
It could be something withinthem.
And so a lot of times the hardpart for, anybody means, as well
as seeing my part in it.

(44:14):
So some I've learned now that Itake a step back and I go, wow,
did I do something that I couldpossibly not be aware of right
now?
And that's why I was asking youguys earlier about what.
We can talk about a situationsgoing on in my life and there's
just this guy downtown and I didhis podcast and Preston listens

(44:34):
to it.
I got really excited to be on itand got on the podcast.
We have a great one.
I think it was doing reallywell.
And then they pulled

Preston (44:43):
it.
It was a killer episode.
It was like, a really neatpodcast that talk, it's these
two guys that work downtown,one's a drummer, one's a bass
player, and they're just, theyinterview guys that work
downtown, and it's what do youdo downtown?
What's your journey?
What's your story?
And it's just like everyone,every guest they've had on is
very interesting.
And, I'm biased, like Brad'sepisode was like really cool to

(45:04):
me.
Cause I was like, Oh, that's mybuddy.
Like on there, like I'm hearing,I know most of Brad's story, but
it's just, Sorry to interrupt.
I'm just you're good.

Brad (45:11):
You're good.
Backstory in that.
I was so excited for this man.
And it was so good and it workedout.
I got to meet these guys and itwas like a goal.
I was like, I got to try to geton their podcast and I got on
it.
Worked it in the right way andcommunicated with them and they
put the, plus I had a bookingjob and stuff.
So anyway, I get on the podcastand it's a great episode.
And a couple of days later, I'mlike promoting it.
And all of a sudden it's pulled.

(45:31):
And I'm like, why is my episodenot?
Oh, maybe it's a first thoughtis something negative.
And I go hold on.
Maybe they're editing it.
They were trying to put video onit.
I said, first of all, just.
I was already like, spinningout, right?
Yeah, I'm like, oh just we'llsee what happens.
Shoot him a message, shoot him amessage.
Nothing for a day.
And then I get this long messagefrom him saying that, the most

(45:54):
ridiculous kind of accusation.
It's like, some females had comeforward saying that I had made.
Some like, sexual advancestowards them, and that when I
did, when they didn't respond, Iproceeded to try to blacklist
them from playing downtown.
And I was just like, whoa, dude.

(46:16):
These, this is serious stuff.
I was taking it reallyseriously.
Fast forward, we kept startthinking that maybe this dude
has some issues.
I had to go first.
I got really mad and I wanted togo like tracking down, and I'm
like, okay, get these thoughtsout of your head and I

Preston (46:32):
want to share about anything.
It's not going to solveanything.
And I want to

Brad (46:34):
share about this as somebody like, mind you I am
definitely somebody that wentthrough a lot of stuff and was
On the other side of living agood life before, and it's not
always permanently eradicated.
It's that's really what I wantedto share on this podcast.
And this story too helps it islike how to identify how the
people can listen to the podcastand identify with us as men who

(46:56):
have been through stuff and arestill going through it.
And I never want to seem likethis holier than thou person
that like has it all figuredout.
I really want them to know that.
Turning 40 next week and having10 years of sobriety, huge stuff
coming up for me.
Like I still, it's a work inprogress and it's not getting
down on myself.
It's just always keeping my footon the gas, right?

(47:17):
Or the break, I guess I shouldsay most likely, like I need to
have my foot like ready to just,because it's stuff can creep up,
you can grow and change andbuild your character, but you
can always go back to your oldbehavior.
In a heartbeat.
You can give in.

Preston (47:32):
It's the ego.
It's just, it's

Brad (47:33):
the ego and it's it helps us and it hurts us.
So I don't want anybody at allto think that I have it like
easy or something, and I wantthem to know, and I want to
share this story because itmight help somebody and help
them realize oh my gosh, likethis dude can stay sober and he
could still do it in spite ofthis, like extreme claim.
So this guy makes these claims.

(47:54):
I'm livid and I'm startthinking, I go, okay I've been.
I've been a kind of guy to hiton girls and stuff before, and I
haven't been the best man in mymarriage and we've talked about
that.
Preston knows about that.
Me and my wife know, have talkedabout that.
It's really, that's our personalstuff right there.
But I started thinking aboutthat, and I go, have I done
something?
Have I?

(48:15):
I start racking my brain.
I'm like, told Preston about it.
I was really upset about it.
I just didn't know what to do.
I had all these messages typedout to him and I ended up
reaching out to a few of thegirls that I'm real close to and
I said, Hey, I just wanted toask if you would ever just
directly and I'm like, have youever felt uncomfortable with me
on stage?
I really want to make sure with,cause there's a lot of talk
online about women beingmistreated downtown.

(48:37):
And so I just, in this kind ofreclaiming, man, it's like we
have to be careful as men in aworld.
There's these things that canhappen where there can be claims
made.
We can commit things.
Accusations can be made.
It's part of being a man.
It shouldn't be.
But I think it is unfortunatelyin society now.
And I started reaching out tothese girls and every, I really

(48:58):
hoped that one of them wouldhave said yes.
Because that would have madesense, or no, that would have
helped make this whole thingmake sense and all of them

Michael (49:07):
like some degree of credibility to what this guy is
saying.
Instead of yeah.

Brad (49:10):
And he won't tell me who he won't tell me the
accusations.
He won't tell me anything.
And I'm just going and everysingle girl, every single one's
what Brad no there's a lot ofdouchebags down there But you're
not one of them and justeveryone kept confirming I even
to some of them I even was likeoffering them a gig because I
had a gig that I needed a singerfor so I was like you know What
I'm gonna offer some of thesegirls that I think could be the

(49:32):
ones to make these claims Youknow offer them the gig and try
to open up a dialogue and sayhey, you know all of them were
like Oh, I'm busy.
Call me anytime like nobodyghosted me every single person
replied.
So now I'm even more confusedand I'm just like Yeah, I'm
talking to Preston about this,through, through this whole
thing.
And he's been a lot of help,man.
I appreciate you for hearing it,being there for me and just

(49:53):
giving me an idea.
And we've come to the decisionthat I might write him one more
message and just tell him I tookthis really seriously.
Because my whole thing inbuilding characters, if I hurt
somebody, I really want to knowhow I can make that right.
And maybe I am unaware that Idid or said something.
But the more I think about thisman.
Yeah.
The more I think about this, Ithink this dude, I think he,

(50:14):
yeah.
Something might have gotten saidand he took it as an opportunity
to white knight the situationand he I would like instead of

Preston (50:21):
saying like something like accusatory of that.
I would like the whole situationjust seems there's a bizarre
aspect to it and.
When you mention, because thereare, not that music is like a
man's world in a sense.
It's there are like so many likebadass chicks down on Broadway
that are just absolutely killingit.

(50:41):
But you have to understand, likethere's, you're working these
late night shifts, like girlsare going to their cars at
night, like there's just anelement where women just.
Women, it's not that they livein a different world than we do.
It's just that they do, yeah,they do.
It's like they, like I can walkto my car at night.
It's like after one in themorning or 2 a.
m.
And it's like zero.

(51:02):
No, I don't have zero thoughtsbecause it's I've got 3, 000 of
equipment I'm carrying.
And it's I definitely thinkabout that, but it's I don't
think I'm going to get raped.
You know what I mean?
That never crosses my mind.
I do think I might, maybe mygear will get stolen, but I can
get that back.
And it's but women, they justhave a different, a different
world that they live in.
So it's yeah, that definitelyplays a part downtown.

(51:24):
And there are, we've all heardthe stories.
I got guys just take advantageof that where it's we're in a
band and it's it's that doesexist to some extent and I'm not
accusing Brad or saying hedidn't do anything.
It's I don't know, but it'slike, there is just a weird
element of this whole situationto where it's just if we're
going to do this, if we're goingto accuse people of this, that,
and the other, it's like thenlet's really solve this problem

(51:46):
and figure it out, so to speak.

Brad (51:47):
Yeah, because when he posted about it, he didn't use
my name or anything.
I'm glad he didn't.
And I

Preston (51:53):
think that was good on his part, too, because it's
Again, it's a weird elementbecause it's just yeah,

Brad (51:58):
if you're this advocate for women's rights, it's then
let's fight for women and weneed to really, we're not, he's
not doing anything to protect orchange that situation.

Michael (52:10):
It's just seems

Brad (52:10):
off.
Yeah, it's very it's so off.
And I, and so anyway, I wantedto get vulnerable and share this
so that people know that I'm

Michael (52:16):
glad that you did because it's the, those types of
things, like those are the, sooutside of our control and yeah.

Brad (52:25):
And I know easily, I could have easily, the way that the,
that you spin out in your headover it, especially a guy like
me, who's trying to be a goodhusband and who's trying to grow
and build my character.
And it's nothing has happenedlike this in a long time, to me,
things like this don't have,I've never had this happen to me
ever, but,

Michael (52:41):
but it's those types of things where you think about.
Okay.
Yeah.
Building your character.
It's this laborious process islike, I don't even know how else
to describe it.
It's, day after day, discipline,obedience, humility, all these
different things that talkedabout that we learn about that
we read about to your point thatare easy to say hard to do, but
it seems like one of thoselittle things, which is a big

(53:04):
thing.
But if it's an allegation,that's not true.
It has this this big alarm thatgoes off like everything that
I've been working for is justall at risk, right?
And

Brad (53:13):
so it's just, yeah, but going back to I'm trying, like
what I said earlier about tryingto build character and where am
I?
Where is my awareness?
In that moment, right?
So in that moment, am I going tomake the right decision and let
it go?
Am I going to react?
Yes.
What am I going to do?

(53:33):
Because I feel justified.
I feel justified in reactinghowever I feel in that moment in
anger or whatever, next stupiddecision I'm going to make.
Thinking that I'm going to fixthis and add to the problem, add
to the problem and comment andthen make myself impressed and
was a big help to say, Hey,anything, it sucks because

(53:53):
anything you say

Michael (53:55):
openly about this is just going to make

Brad (53:58):
you look bad, because it's just going to seem like you're
trying to, and so we decided I'mnot going to say anything.
And it just led back to thisWhere you get the power from
question now all leading up tothis I've had no nothing really

(54:18):
bad going on in my life so theprayer and the meditation the
going to church the buildingcharacter.
I call it my spiritual bankaccount, right?
So like I've been making allthese deposits in my like
spiritual bank account.
Oh, yeah, like the big shoefalls Or whatever, let's, the
yang, the chaos, when the

Preston (54:37):
yang comes out,

Brad (54:38):
you know, yeah, is my account, is there substantial
funds in the account to make awithdraw to deal with this

Michael (54:49):
and it's such a good analogy because it's, you're
paying the price, you're payingthe price of.
You know what?
I am going to remove my ego fromthis.
I'm going to remove my negativeemotions from this and you're
going to pay the price of, inthis case, it's just like the
potential is okay.
Who else is this guy spreadingthis misinformation and lie and

(55:10):
rumor and gossip, andtheoretically ruining reputation
and then saying okay.
But my character, I'm buildingmy character and therefore, the
evidence is who I am, not whatthis guy says about me.
And coming back to the truth,which is, it's hard, but when
you're talking like reclaimingfreedom and one of those
thoughts, it's immediately tryto spot the lie.

(55:31):
What's the lie here?
And what's the truth?
And the truth is what you knowabout yourself.
And you went back and you did amoral inventory.
You said, I'm going to, you knowwhat, I'm going to take this.
Seriously, I'm going to usesomething that I learned with 12
step program, I'm going to lookback at myself and

Brad (55:48):
so reclaiming freedom, what it takes to reclaim freedom
is letting go of the lie.
Yeah,

Preston (55:55):
because And who knows, Oh, go ahead.
And that's exactly

Michael (55:57):
what the show is about, because, we The tagline
originally that we admittedlyused I borrowed from, some guru
from India I heard on Ed Myletwas, like we need to awaken our
next generation's mind fromtheir sleepwalk toward
extinction.
And, but that's the truth isthere's so many lies that we've

(56:17):
been fed.
That's where it's we'rereclaiming man and reclaiming
freedom because we're misledinto believing that the right
response, or it's okay to Inmany cases, it's okay to just
Lash out or respond back orsocial media blast somebody and
just, make those types of thingsmuch worse.

(56:37):
And

Preston (56:38):
I almost I almost wondered too, about this sort of
situation that Brad's in, ifthere was this girl that reached
out to this other guy about thissituation I wonder if they're
like, I almost wondered too, ifthere was just like a
misunderstanding of a situation.
Oh,

Brad (56:56):
totally.
I'm sure it was.
That's what I mean.
And I was a booker down there.
And so to get in the details,which it doesn't really matter
because I saw the point, butlike the details are like, I
could have fired somebody forreasons of their own doing.
And that, and they're stillhanging on to that.
My past career working in theadult and film industry, if we
hadn't talked about that, Iworked in the adult film

(57:17):
industry.
There could be, there's rumorsgoing around about that.
Maybe there's some, maybethere's someone that industry is
discrimination, it'sdiscriminatory towards.
It's discriminating towardswomen and they have a resentment
there.
There could be a lot of reasons,but like the letting go of it,
I'm starting to become okay andproud of because Preston helped

(57:38):
me with this a little bit too.
It was like, that spiritual bankaccount is going to take care of
this.
I have to do nothing good foryou, man.
I actually have to do nothingright doing.
Yeah, that's sometimes thehardest thing.
And I remember someone told methat name 1 time.
It's if you don't know what todon't do anything.
Because if you don't know whatto do, you're probably not going
to make the right decision andyou're going to make it out of

(57:59):
haste.
You make it out of emotion.
You're going to make it out ofwhatever.
Yeah.
And what's really cool aboutthis?
And you just said, Michael, thatmy character is my character.
It doesn't matter what peoplesay.
It's so true.
Because downtown, I started torealize when I started poking
around at people and what theyknew or what they'd heard about
this post.
Nobody drew a conclusion to it.

(58:20):
It hasn't affected my work atall.
That's right.
I've gotten some more gigs.
All the girls said we have greatrelationships.
A couple of them fell for me.
They're going to keep their earsand, ears open for if they hear
anything in the female worldbecause they have their own I
figured out press and they alsohave their own face a girl, like
a girl, Chad, right?
And I said, girl, I actuallyreally support women down there.

(58:40):
And I, I always think aboutprotecting them in situation.
We've had to, I've had to getsecurity to remove.
Patriots.
Yeah.
From, doing things towards thegirls and stuff.
And so it just gets me though,because it's here I am an
advocate for women in thisindustry.
And one in particular who shealways rants about, it's almost
uncomfortable.
And she'll rant about how Ihelped her in her career.

(59:02):
And she felt that she wasdiscriminated against as a
woman.
And I really pushed hard for herto get booked at tin roof when I
was working there.
And there's just, I have this,the facts, and then I have the
lie and It just becomes hard tolet it go and I actually just
felt like it wasn't that hard.
Once I thought it through and Italked with friends and I like,

(59:24):
just took the steps that Ineeded to take.
Yeah, it's just blown over.
It's just like already blownover.
And a couple people, mostpeople's reactions were a few of
them said, Hey, this guy's beeninappropriate to me.
They said negative things abouthim.
A couple of them were like, Oh,he's just upset because he
doesn't get a lot of work andblah, blah, blah, blah.
And I'm not here to shoot himdown, but it's he's struggling

(59:46):
with something.

Michael (59:47):
What's happened now and I'm

Brad (59:49):
I actually, yeah.
Genuinely feel for this

Michael (59:51):
dude.
I was like,

Brad (59:54):
not in on, I'm putting him down.
I'm going to go pray for you.
Bless your heart.
That's not yeah.
This like genuine

Michael (01:00:00):
dang, what's going on in it.
Yeah.
What's

Brad (01:00:01):
going on for the grace of God there.
Go I like.
I've, I haven't been in thatsituation per se, but I've been
in a situation, I was that typeof person where I needed to do
things like that.
I might have torn other peopledown to build up my image or
whatever.
And here I am, like, I learned,my ex taught me a lot about this
because she was so troubledthrough her addiction and I

(01:00:24):
learned to pray for her.
If I could hate somebody, shewould be the one to hate.
And I had just learned that itgot so exhausting.
Oh, I fought her for years.
I went through a court battleand I won and winning wasn't
enough.
So I would just want to say thatlike in that battle where I felt

(01:00:45):
justified and I ended up winningcustody of my son, guess what?
I didn't feel better.
I wasn't like, yes, I won.
And now everything is solved.
I actually ended up feeling badthat maybe I mean

Michael (01:01:00):
what, yeah, what you're getting on is the.
The freedom of forgiveness,because it's not just for the
other person.
It's for yourself, like to beletting go.
Like you said that you're ableto do

Brad (01:01:11):
and I got to be an ultimate, I got to be careful
with the holier than now.
I can't be like, Oh, bless yourheart.
Oh, he, I can't be there either.
I can't be like, I'm above you,

Michael (01:01:19):
but it's not, it's forgiveness also for your sake.
It's like perhaps a little bitselfish way to look at
forgiveness because forgivenessgenerally Oh, I'm.
Letting go somebody else's past,mistake or direct harm against
me, I'm letting that go.
So that's for them.
It's actually for you.
So emotionally, you don't feelcompelled to do what you used to

(01:01:41):
do to take the next step towardsgrabbing a drink or whatever it
is.
So now that

Brad (01:01:47):
now I'm praying for him.
I'm praying for him, because Ithink he's got something going
on, and it's really blown over,but

Michael (01:01:54):
Not good for you.
Yeah, a cool story, and I'm gladthat you shared it, and I think
it, it fits in so well with whatwe've, we haven't talked
directly about praying forpeople, which we should, but
it's a, That's certainly theother side of, you are in a
situation where I feel like mostpeople say, Hey, you defend
yourself, you protect yourself,you stand up and you make sure

(01:02:14):
that you're not like mislabeledor misunderstood, getting back
to just.
I think what I said earlier, butit's just knowing that, hey, who
you are stands for itself.
If you want to

Brad (01:02:25):
treat people.
Yeah.
And if you want freedom, stopinjecting yourself into these
situations, right?
Yeah.
If you want freedom, let it

Michael (01:02:37):
go, man.
That's a great, I think that's agreat place to wrap it up.

Brad (01:02:42):
If you want freedom, you got to let it go because you're
going to end up carrying itaround.
You're going to pay the price.
It's like drinking the Kool Aidand hoping that they

Michael (01:02:53):
die.
Yeah, whether it's, yeah,letting go, yeah, what, no,
what, but whether it's lettinggo your fear of failure and the
massive imperfect action piecethat you talked about, or
letting go of somebody else'soffense against you and moving
on past it in my case it'sletting go of the.
The fear and uncertainty of,diverging away from corporate

(01:03:14):
America and what society says Ishould do same thing with
Preston and man, it sounds likeyou're a little bit farther
along the journey in someregards than we are, but, I just
really appreciate theperspective that you bring.
And I think it's a greatepisode.
Preston, anything you got inthe, in closing here or
anything, Brad, you want to sayin closing?
I, yeah, I

Preston (01:03:33):
would just say what you mentioned, like just as far as
Brad being further along in thejourney, it's who knows where
we're all at, but it's Idefinitely, my favorite thing
about both you guys and likeScott as well is just I love
being inspired by what you guysall do in your sort of different
avenues.
I'm trying to go down a similarroad with music as Brad.

(01:03:54):
So it's there's a little bit ofa different inspiration there,
but it's just just watching youguys all struggle, grow, succeed
overcome things.
It's just, every time we talk orpolo or text, it's just alright,
they're getting it I gotta goget some more.
It's just really, I appreciateyou all, because you just make
me want to be a better man,husband, buddy, and all that

(01:04:18):
stuff, so.

Brad (01:04:19):
Man, right back at you, and I'll say this, it's, we have
to go out there and do it.
We have to take chances, becausethe smooth seas don't make good
sailors, right?
We've gotta go put ourselves inthe mix.
Yeah.
We've gotta jump off thefreaking log.
We have to go put ourselvesright in the middle of it.

(01:04:43):
How are you gonna know, how areyou gonna win if you don't play?

Preston (01:04:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Brad (01:04:48):
You play the lotto a lot before you win it.
I guess if you ever do, I don'tknow, but you're gonna run

Michael (01:04:53):
outta money.

Brad (01:04:54):
You you make 0% of, or you, you miss a hundred percent
of the shots.
You don't take, you don't takeYes.
It's we just have to go shootour shot, like you have to go,
that's probably not the rightterm to use in this situation,
but

Preston (01:05:06):
you've definitely shot your shot.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Brad (01:05:08):
But it's you gotta go do it, you gotta go do it.
And I love that.
I love going out there and justseeing where I measure up and
you'll learn real quick whatwork you need to do.
Yep.
You'll get it.
Your ass handed to you and then,but I always, it's always a
pleasure me and Preston, I wantto make a couple little plugs.
We got a gig.
Redneck Rodeo's playing secondfloor tomorrow at 9.
30.
Tell

Preston (01:05:29):
If you are listening to this and have a time machine,
definitely go back to March 2nd,because that was the fucking
awesome

Brad (01:05:35):
show.
Yeah,

Preston (01:05:37):
we've got a couple of days.
We've got our regular front man.
Brendan is he's got some out oftown stuff for our next couple
of gigs.
So we got this guy, RyanMichaels filling in and he.
We've never played with him.
So I've actually never met himin real life, but he seems like
a really fricking bad ass dude.
I'm like the rodeo

Brad (01:05:52):
is evolving and it's doing its Nashville thing and I've
been working on it and I'vemanaged to land us a wedding.
We landed it cause somebody wasat the new year's eve gig and we
landed.
Awesome.
We got the contract back.
I don't know if I told you, buthe signed it.
Yeah.
Oh, hell yeah, he did.

(01:06:13):
And put all that together and wegot it all figured out and and
then we've got the, we've gotthe 4th of July gig out there,
Riverbend Ranch, June 29th.
And so it's moving.
The other thing I wanted tothrow out there was and I wanted
to talk about more, but I'llhurry and wrap it up is that I,
and this is just another gift,man.
It's another gift of doingpeople.
It doesn't have anything to dowith how skilled I am as a

(01:06:34):
drummer, honestly, because I'min a lineup of guys that are
probably far better than me.
And I don't say that to talkdown on myself.
But I just know that I'm beingbrought into this circle to, to
learn.
And so I met Tom Hurst, greatguy.
He played for Tracy Lawrence,big country artist, played for
Sister Hazel.
I treated him well when I was atin roof guy and I booked him a
gig and I was just doing my job.

(01:06:55):
I wasn't really thinking that Iwas.
Doing anything right by him.
I just, thought he deserved itand booked him and he really
appreciated that and he's gotthis event called loud jams And
loud jams is on held maybethey're starting to do a couple
a year it'll be on march 4th indowntown nashville at the
woolworth theater.
I'm trying to get pressing to gobut it's a celebrity lineup just

(01:07:18):
celebrity, they're just morelike Live players that play with
a lot of big names.

Preston (01:07:22):
Yeah, they're like the hot the a lister hired gun guys
Exactly.

Brad (01:07:27):
So they're just a laundry list of just incredible players
and it's a there's gonna be ahundred and nine different
musicians playing like 20Something songs.
Oh, that's cool.

Michael (01:07:36):
Yeah, that's gonna be

Brad (01:07:37):
rad.
I'm going up to play one songAnd if you caught it on my post,
it's a, I put that song freeyour mind.
It's a invoke.
It's an old 90 song.
So we play like all these reallyoff the wall tunes that nobody
ever plays.
So it's going to be really cool.
There's going to be Steely Dansongs, Jefferson Starship, just
like ran tears for fears.

(01:08:00):
Invo.
Yes.
And it's these, all these killerplayers just jumping on stage.
No rehearsal.
All we know is that we know whatsong we're going to play and we
just get in there and do it.
And so it's going to be reallycool.
I'm stoked for that.
My, it's my birthday week.
I'm going to be 40 years old,which I'm

Michael (01:08:18):
making me wish I was making me wish I were in
Nashville,

Brad (01:08:21):
dude.
I just wish I'm starting to comearound to this being 40 thing.
And I wish you were here, man.
You got to come down here.
Great

Preston (01:08:28):
age, dude.
Like I remember turning 30 andthinking Oh, all right.
We're 30.
But now like turning 40 is onceyou do it, it's it's so
liberating.
Cause it's just especially sinceyou're a musician and you play
yeah.
It keeps you youthful in a waythat most people don't

Michael (01:08:44):
quite understand.
We also have to remember thatour life expectancy keeps on
increasing.
And they say in the next 15years that we're going to reach
the, escape velocity on thelongevity equation.
So what used to be halfwaythrough your life is nowhere,
anywhere close.
And yeah.
That's a, I think somethingwhere I'm like do I want to live
longer or not?
But I'm planning on a hundred.

(01:09:04):
So I feel like you should planon a hundred as well, Brad.
Yeah.
Testosterone,

Brad (01:09:08):
TRT treatment.
I was going to, some guys havebeen asking me about that lately
and then we could get into that,but we're running out of time
and next episode we'll bring youback.
I wanted to talk about some ofwhat I do to stay young.
I'm lucky to be.
Just gifted with a baby face,but I also do things that help
keep me young and I didn'trealize that my regimen is

(01:09:31):
crazy.
I started looking at it theother day and I was like, man, I
should probably share this withpeople.
Like what I do, cause I do takea bunch of different supplements
and I have this really coolroutine and,

Michael (01:09:42):
all right, we're definitely going to bring it,
bring bring it back on for theroutine and regimen because
that's fits right in withexactly what we like on like the
reclaiming body stuff.

Brad (01:09:50):
Yeah.
On the body line.
I want to share some stuff thatpeople have some missed, some
stigma around, testosterone andTRT and a lot of people are
interested in it, but they justdon't understand it.
They don't know I've beenthrough the whole trip and now
have established like a reallysolid routine and a good solid
mentor and supplier that'scompletely legal.

(01:10:13):
And there's nothing, shady aboutit and I'm doing it in a healthy
way.
And so it just gets a lot ofstigma.
around the bodybuilding industryand stuff too is just, being
unhealthy for you.
So yeah, if we want to talkabout that, I'd love to chat
about that.
And man, love you guys.
And I'm always anytime, man,anytime we'll

Preston (01:10:31):
make it happen.
And

Michael (01:10:32):
Dude, this was a blast.
I appreciate you doing itbecause I have a couple other
guys that are slated tointerview in the month of March.
So the interview rotation isgoing to be real.
So again in June or something,whenever you feel like you want
to do it again.
But I think, having your on theshow regularly.
Relatively, I don't know, once aquarter or whatever.

(01:10:53):
It's you got a lot of good stuffto care.
So thanks so much for joiningus.
And it's a Friday night andwe're recording.
So I love it.

Brad (01:11:01):
I'm going to go get crazy on Friday night and sit on my
couch and watch the rest of thisoff F one.
I'm probably going to goupstairs and play Fortnite with
my son.
There

Michael (01:11:09):
you go.
All right.
Hey, check out grand Turismo.
You'd like that.
I watched it.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
Dude, I cried.
Me too.
Dude, that

Brad (01:11:17):
was a good movie.
That was a really good movie.

Preston (01:11:19):
Was that the one with Eastwood?

Michael (01:11:21):
No.
Okay.
That's Gran Torino.
Go Turismo.
Just much, much more recent.
Just making

Preston (01:11:26):
sure you guys knew who you were talking about.
Yeah.

Michael (01:11:28):
Sure.
All right, guys.
Have a good night.
All right.