December 31, 2025 • 32 mins
A candid dive into accountability, purpose, and why chasing “happiness” keeps failing us. Michael breaks down the lost art of civil conversation—especially around politics, religion, and race—and challenges listeners to find real meaning in their day beyond the noise.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time time time luck and load. The Michael
darry Show is on the air. I've had joys since
(00:41):
the day that I was bossing this summer. Ever voice
carefully but told me right from wrong. If I have listen, no,
I wouldn't be here.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
The joy, loving and died with the choices I've made.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I was tinted by an early age. I found I
like drink or and I never turned it down. Every
loved one, but I turned them all on. Loveving and
(01:31):
die with the choices I've made. I've had choices since
the day that I was born. There revoiced but told
me right from long if I had listen, no.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I wouldn't need here to diees.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
It's interesting to be in the course of my life
different things that are happening that I notice how we
deal with the concept of accountability and consequences and how
they are extolled or forgotten in common conversation and in
(02:26):
popular cultures. It's really interesting phenomenon to me because we
have a tendency to ignore the idea. Do whatever you want,
damn the consequence. Do what makes you feel good, Do
what gives you gratification. I think gratification is a better
(02:47):
word than happiness, because happiness is a silly word.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Nobody's walking around and happy. We're all happy all the time,
just happy. You'd get bored being happy, you would. Jordan
Peterson has really done some important work on this subject.
He's not the first, he's the first to take it
to such a big audience, and the idea that he
(03:15):
has that he has really popularized is that the pursuit
of happiness per se is a fool's errand you never
actually achieve happiness. Many people are watching pop culture and
they think the Kardashians are happy, or Diddy Epstein is happy,
(03:38):
or Lizzo or whoever else, and then they're shocked to
find out that person isn't happy in the sense that
they believe they would be happy. This euphoria overcoming you
at all times warm sensation and believe it or not,
even though that person is their hero, that person is
(04:00):
they would sell off their kidney to get to go
to a concert, to just be part of a screaming,
teeming mass of people cheering that that person is singing
the song they've already heard of them but in the
same zip code as them. They're also delighted to learn
that those people are usually miserable because they have been
(04:23):
on a journey to the destination of happiness, and as
it turns out, happiness is not never land. So that
makes him feel good because I may not be happy,
but it turns out that person is supposed to be happy.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
He's supposed to be happy, and he's not happy. So
that makes me feel better because I thought he was
just sitting over here just being happy all the time.
But what Jordan Peterson has done, I think groundbreaking work
in terms of taking it to the masses. As I say,
it's not the first to come up with this, I
understand this. The idea that happiness is not the pursuit
(04:57):
of man should not be shoot of man. It's a
it's a throwaway term. It's it's a simplistic term that
has become a catch all. In economics, we use the
term utility. It gives some people utility to do this
or that. Doesn't mean they're smiling necessarily. If you hate
(05:20):
pedophiles and you get to be the executioner of pedophiles,
doesn't make you happy to be the executioner, but it
gives you utility. And Rick Warren in twenty twelve. I
think it was wrote The Purpose Driven Life, which I
(05:41):
actually think it was an important book at the time.
The idea of finding purpose in your life and what
you do, living purposefully, intentionally, knowing why you're here and
what you're doing. And I've come to learn but this
is why some people, I'm going to use that term,
(06:05):
are very happy doing a job when they don't need
to work anymore. You know. The Walmart reader kind of
went away. I loved the Walmart reader. I loved the
Walmart reader because so many of the Walmart readers didn't
need to work. They didn't turn the money down because
that's what they used to buy a cup of coffee
while they were there. They arrived early, they stayed late,
(06:29):
they stayed afterwards. They took their penny off and hung around,
or kept their penny on. They loved to greet people.
What a brilliant idea. You take this cold, soulless warehouse
full of junk that people are coming into to grab,
(06:49):
most of which they could do without, and you put
a human face on it, a real human face, not
a kid on a phone, not somebody disinterested, not somebody
checking sports scores or texting their buddies or taking Peter picks,
a real human being in comfortable shoes, welcoming people into
(07:15):
your cold, soulless warehouse. It was a brilliant a strike,
a stroke of brilliance. It was a brilliant move. I
love everything about it. But what it spoke to in
me with I understand many years later, was the idea
of having purpose. I have known so many people over
the years who cannot wait to retire, and the moment
(07:37):
they retire, they have the world out of tail and
within a couple of days they realized they've lost their purpose,
even if work was not their purpose, because they're pulling
a paycheck, punching a clock. They they they've lost their routine,
and in that routine was comfort. You may not like
(07:59):
your job, per se, the actual job, but we put
some We put some dressing on it. Right. We put
a On the way to your job, you may stop
and get a kalacchi, and you really like talking to
the people there at lunch. You might enjoy walking across
the street and talking on the way home. You might
Kamar L. Harris was just officially endorsed by IRS Agency.
(08:23):
Believe the Michael Berry Show. I'd rather not have that endorsement.
I received a meme and it's two stick figures. They're
both sitting on stools and one is gesturing like he's talking,
the other one is sitting kind of resigned like he
(08:44):
is listening. And the title of it is being taught
to avoid talking about politics and religion has led to
a lack of understanding of politics and religion. What we
(09:09):
should have been taught was how to have a civil
conversation about a difficult topic. I'll read that again, being
taught to avoid talking about politics and religion. Think about
(09:29):
how many times in your life you've been told I
don't two things. You don't talk about politics and religion.
Why the two of the most important things related to
the human condition? What else is there? Being taught to
(09:53):
avoid talking about politics and religion has led to a
lab lack of understanding of politics and religion. If we're
uncomfortable talking about those things, talking is how we express ourselves,
(10:17):
which forces us to structure our arguments. When people are
uncomfortable talking about something, it often means that they can't
quite process it. They can't figure out where to put it,
they can't figure out what they feel about it. They
(10:40):
can't begin to explain what their problem with it is,
what their opposition to it is, why it gives them
such discomfort. You should be able to explain those things,
and if you cannot explain those things, there's a good
(11:03):
reason for it. If a conversation about that subject makes
you uncomfortable, that's a sign. Being taught to avoid talking
about politics and religion has led to a lack of
understanding of politics and religion. What we should have been
(11:26):
taught was how to have a civil conversation about a
difficult topic. When we don't talk about things, we drive
them underground. You could put under politics and religion. You
could put race, because people are very uncomfortable talking about race.
(11:52):
And my belief is that you should be able to
talk about race the way you talk about everything else.
And that is the reason you should have picked up
on this already. That is the reason why I inject
race into things in a very whimsical way, because it's
not taboo. It shouldn't scare you, it shouldn't frighten you.
(12:15):
It shouldn't be something that when you hear you immediately
look around both ways and who's going to lose their job,
Who's going to get in trouble. Who's going to be boycotted?
And that's what people do. If I some of you
do that, I've actually witnessed it with my own eyes.
(12:36):
In the middle of a conversation, I will say, for
no good reason when they're just saying, so, this guy
walks into the restaurant, was he black? Why would you
ask that? Why does that upset you? If I had
said is he tall? You wouldn't have panicked. If I'd
said is he right handed? You wouldn't have panicked. If
(13:00):
I'd said, was he wearing a coat? I'm asking you
to give me details about the person in the story.
That's how we tell a story. We set the time,
the place, the who, what where, We describe the person
to paint a picture. If you read Himmingway talking about
(13:28):
the guy in the bar, as your narrator is walking
into the bar, he will describe not just that the
man is wearing glasses, but that they're pinz knaze or
however you pronounce it glasses, and he may give you
the color. He'll tell you whether they create an oval
(13:50):
effect on the eye. He doesn't just tell you the
guy's wearing a hat. He'll tell you how the hat's
sitting on his head. He doesn't just tell you that
the guy white. He'll tell you whether he's sunburned or
whether he looks like he's worked on a Marina doc
his entire life. He doesn't just tell you what kind
(14:11):
of clothes. He tells you how those clothes are hanging.
Do they look like thrift store clothes or designer clothes?
Are they well worn from that day or did he
pick them up off the floor. So why is race
a subject that is simply a descriptor that makes people
so uncomfortable? Well, there are people who have taught you
(14:35):
or scared you into believing that that's a thing you
have to pretend doesn't exist, which is really stupid. If
I walk into a group of black guys and they say,
Mike be was up, and then I leave and somebody
who doesn't know me comes out of the bathroom and
(14:57):
they go, who were you all talking to? They wouldn't say,
O human being. Okay, well I saw four people walk
in which one were y'all talking to uh person who
was wearing a shirt? Okay, there were four people wearing
a shirt. They would say, you know that white boy,
you saw him? That's not a bad thing. That doesn't
(15:21):
offend me because it's true. And that's how they separate
me from the Asian guy, the Hispanic guy, and the
cave man that walked with him with me who might
have also been a white man, but we're really not
sure because some of those early civilizations you kiss it,
(15:44):
you know. I want to ask you to do yourself
a favor right now and rock somebody's world, you know.
In conversation with people, I find that we devote a
(16:07):
lot of energy to consuming content, and we devote a
lot of energy to the internal conversation within our own
head of where we stand on issues and who we're
going to support and who we're against and how much
we're against them. Important, no doubt important should be done,
(16:30):
and sadly a lot of people don't do it. But
we are getting diminishing returns at some point because we
are consuming what would appear to be the same swirl
of information from the same echo chamber day in and
day out, which leads to a sense of frustration that
(16:51):
nothing's being done, which just not. But part of that
becomes if it's what I talk about, sixteen hours a day,
all day, every day, and all I ever think about.
Then even one day of talking about it is interminable
because it's all I'm talking about. You have to have
(17:11):
some level of balance to make it. Soldiers in war
don't fight the war in the minute the battle is over,
repaired to their tents and talk about the war. They
make music, They write letters home, they compose poetry. They
look at a picture of their girl and pine for
her in the town they lived in. They send a
(17:34):
letter to their mom and tell her how much they
loved her. They might play cards and drink some whiskey.
It's not because the battle's not real and people aren't dying.
It must be won or we will lose. No, it's
because of the understanding that that is so all consuming
that it has to be turned off and recharged. And
you have to have a diversion from that engagement and
(17:58):
a lot of our And you know why you don't
have diversion, because the radio and the website and the
TV station can't afford for you to have a diversion.
They need to keep you plugged in the whole time.
They need to keep you so plugged in that you're
worn down. This trickle battery is catching on fire and
(18:20):
not good. It's overheating, burning everything down. So what do
you do? What do you do to find meaning in
your day? What do you do that at the end
of it you say I did that? Ah yeah, Because
watching television news, reading the websites of the headlines, that
(18:44):
does not leave you with a feeling of fulfillment, satisfaction, completion,
and accomplishment. It may be necessary, but it does not
do that. So let me challenge you to find and
one thing today that will leave you with that feeling. Example,
(19:06):
there's a business that you support, maybe a restaurant, may not.
Maybe a little distribution company, maybe a tire company or
an oil change company, or a muffler shop. But it's
locally owned and the owner is there on site and
you like the service they provide or the product they
build for the few who still do Or maybe it's
(19:30):
dun fence company, or maybe it's the people who cut
your grass, or maybe it's the people who painted your
home or the guy who takes care of your car.
But it could be a burger joint, could be a
beer joint, It could be most any small business you
can imagine. The point is not the product of the service.
(19:52):
The point is that their biggest challenge is getting enough
people in to serve a enough good employees to keep
the business afloat, and it's so much harder than you think.
You would be shocked what a difference you could make
if you go in and spend a dollar. Secondly, if
(20:13):
you ask the owners, hey, what can I do to
help you? Guys? I want to spread the word. You
guys are wonderful. I wish more people knew about you.
You got a Facebook page, put up a post, simple
quick post. I had a great experience at this restaurant.
I encourage you to try it out. Now, go the
(20:35):
extra mile and you'll get a lot more bang for
your buck. Give the address, the cross street, the phone number,
and who to ask for because if somebody has, the
more layers you put into getting someone to do what
you want them to do, the less likely you will
accomplish getting them to do what you wanted them to do.
(20:57):
If someone sends me, hey, you ought to watch this movie.
If when I'm flipping through movie ideas, that movie comes
up on the screen and I can hit play, then
I will. But I'm not going to go do the
research on all the movies that are just the name
of a movie. Why would I? But if you tell
what the movie's about might catch my interest. If you
(21:20):
tell what the movie is about and put a link
to it, you're increasing the chances. I see salesmen do this.
I see people do this all day every day. Hey,
would you this is a great one. Hey, would you
mind calling my dad in having him on the show
because this is his interesting thing that he did in
(21:42):
his life, and I think you would be fascinated by it.
Why not include his phone number and his name so
I can go look it up? Because people are lazy
or thoughtless. If your life depended on that business that
you you've decided to show favor to today, then you would do
(22:04):
more than just post or tell one person a so
and so Bob's down the corner is pretty good. You
would drive them there yourself, just like we do for elections.
That's how candidates win election. I tell you this, if
you've ever been involved with a campaign, it ain't going
to war, not even one one millionth of it. But
(22:25):
there is after the election a certain serotonin drop. There
is almost a sadness, a sense of loss. Because campaigns
are all consuming. They're exciting, you're engaged, in a battle.
Can't tell you how many warriors have told me that
(22:45):
they come back when a campaign is over, people who've
been in it, Especially if you win. There's a sense
of exhaustion because now the race is run. But there's
almost a sadness because when you're in the middle of
a campaign, you wake up thinking about it and go
to sleep thinking about it. Your mind doesn't stray. You
(23:06):
are so locked in, you feel so alive. What if
you were to take that mentality today and say, you
know what I'm gonna do. I've got a grandson. I'm
eighty two years old. I might not be here in
a year or five. When my grandson is older, I
want him to know how much his papa loved him,
(23:27):
or his mamma loved him. I'm gonna sit down right
now while he's in school. I'm gonna write him a
letter that i'm gonna present to him, and I'm gonna
ask his mom if I can pick him up at three,
and I'm gonna take him fishing, and I'm gonna have
the food ready and the whole deal. Or I'm gonna
take him to the arcade, or I'm gonna take him
to the BMX fit whatever he would love, and go
(23:51):
make a memory. You will never regret that you did.
That time.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
When he says, my lady, his art this not art imitating.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Rustiate him a cool million to perform at Rush's wedding
like a house concert. Then they questioned and criticized Elton John.
Why would you play Elton? Why would you play Russian
Limbaugh's wedding. This was when he married Catherine, not too
(24:37):
many years ago, and they were afraid that, well, I'd
like to see the tax rate lowered, the borders closed.
I'm against abortion, and I think a vermative action is
out of control, and global warming is a bunch of bunk.
They thought, maybe, you know, he shared some political views,
(25:01):
and he says, pay me a million dollars. Nobody paying
you a million dollars. You think you might get passed
some minor disagreements over politics. And when Rush was criticized
or questioned, said, I love Elton John. It's a dream
come true. Are you kidding me? You don't need to
(25:22):
come to the wedding. You're not invited anyway, as only
Rush could do. All right, Nine presidents never graduated from college,
the last one and the only one of the twentieth century.
Can you guess it was? You can guess think of
(25:43):
the most common president, by which I mean breeding schooling.
He was a clerk. In fact, he was a very
very corrupt clerk in Missouri who I think was a
Pendergas family who ran a machine there, and he was
(26:03):
the cog in the wheel that made it happen. Harry S.
Truman S stands for nothing. Yeah, it's like in the
word T, like iced T. The E and the A
are silent, same things, no middle name. So you're nine
presidents who never graduated from college in George Washington, Andrew Jackson,
(26:30):
Martin van Buren, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Abraham Lincoln you
could practice law without a college degree at the time,
Andrew Johnson, the accidental president when Lincoln was assassinated, and
(26:54):
last but not least, Grover Cleveland, and then, of course
Harry S. Truman. All right, very quick ramon to make
a point. There are a handful of first ladies in
American history that are extremely well known, and the rest
are not partially known. I don't know much about him.
(27:15):
You either know the first lady and something about her,
or you don't know her. Name at all. I looked
this up this weekend, so I'm kind of interested to share,
like a little nerd. All right, so here we go.
I'll give you the president, and very quickly you spout
the first lady's name. Are you ready? We'll go in order.
George Washington, Martha Washington is correct, John Adams, Abigail Adams
(27:38):
is correct. Thomas Jefferson, Martha, you wouldn't know. James Madison,
Dolly Madison, that's correct. James Monroe, Elizabeth, you wouldn't know that,
John Quincy Adams, Louisa. You wouldn't know. Andrew Jackson. A
(28:02):
lot of people know this one because they were married,
well that they were both separately married, and it became
a huge scandal and they smeared him with that. Rachel
Emily Jackson. Oh, you're just guessing old names. Martin van
(28:23):
Buren Hannah. But her full name, just so you know,
was Hannah Hoose h o E s Hannah Hoose van Buren.
Those Hose girls, you know, that's what they were known as.
William Henry Harrison, Anna Tutthill, Simms Harrison, John Tyler, Letitia
(28:45):
James K. Polk, Sarah Zachary Taylor, Margaret Millard Fillmore, another
Abigail Franklin, Pierce Jane James Buchanan never married. You know
what that means if you're president from eighteen fifty seven
(29:06):
eighteen sixty one and you never married. Abraham Lincoln, Mary
Todd Lincoln is correct? Andrew Johnson, Elizah. You wouldn't know that.
Ulysses s. Grant, Julia Rutherford b. Hayes Be's Birchard by
(29:26):
the way, Lucretia, Oh no, sorry, not Lucretia, Lucy Lucy.
James Garfield's been shot down. His widow was Lucretia. His
successor Chester, Arthur Ellen Groover Cleveland, Francis Benjamin Harrison, Caroline
(29:49):
Groover Cleveland. I like old name, Francis. William McKinley, Ida.
Don't name women Ida anymore? Teddy Roosevelt. Do you know
Teddy Rose? Else West name Edith Kermit Caro Roosevelt, William H. Path,
(30:10):
Helen Woodrow Wilson Ellen, not Helen Ellen. Calvin Coolidge, what
a perfect name for his wife, Grace, because he was
a Methodist minister, Grace good Hugh Coolidge. And did that
sound like a minister's wife, Grace? It's only an English novel,
(30:34):
Herbert Hoover. His wife's name was Lou Lou Franklin D. Roosevelt. See,
there's one of those that you know. The wife's name
Eleanor is correct. Harry S. Truman. I think not as many,
but a lot of people will know Harry Truman's wife's name,
Bess B. E Ss. Dwight D. Eisenhower. From here people
(30:57):
will know, I think most. Maybe you know what state
Dwight Eisenealer was born in Texas. John F. Kennedy, The
Lovely Jacquelyn Bouvier Kennedy and then she goes and ruin
it by Maryonnette Lyndon B. Johnson, particularly known in Texas.
(31:20):
What a great cause. Flowers on the Highway that might
seem silly, but that's lasting to this day, and I
love it. By the Lady Bird, Dick Nixon, Pat Gerald
Ford Betty famous for Jimmy Carter, rosalind Ronald Reagan, of course,
(31:44):
Nancy Barbara Bush, Oh sorry, George Bush. Barbara Bush most
noted for what was Her Cause? Literacy? Bill Clinton, Oh Back,
Taste of My Mouth? George W. Bush, Laura Bush, Barack Obama,
Michelle Obama, Donald J. Trump, The most beautiful, The first
days Millennia and Joe Biden, Doctor Joe Biden,
It's that time time time luck and load. The Michael
darry Show is on the air. I've had joys since
(00:41):
the day that I was bossing this summer. Ever voice
carefully but told me right from wrong. If I have listen, no,
I wouldn't be here.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
The joy, loving and died with the choices I've made.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I was tinted by an early age. I found I
like drink or and I never turned it down. Every
loved one, but I turned them all on. Loveving and
(01:31):
die with the choices I've made. I've had choices since
the day that I was born. There revoiced but told
me right from long if I had listen, no.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I wouldn't need here to diees.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
It's interesting to be in the course of my life
different things that are happening that I notice how we
deal with the concept of accountability and consequences and how
they are extolled or forgotten in common conversation and in
(02:26):
popular cultures. It's really interesting phenomenon to me because we
have a tendency to ignore the idea. Do whatever you want,
damn the consequence. Do what makes you feel good, Do
what gives you gratification. I think gratification is a better
(02:47):
word than happiness, because happiness is a silly word.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Nobody's walking around and happy. We're all happy all the time,
just happy. You'd get bored being happy, you would. Jordan
Peterson has really done some important work on this subject.
He's not the first, he's the first to take it
to such a big audience, and the idea that he
(03:15):
has that he has really popularized is that the pursuit
of happiness per se is a fool's errand you never
actually achieve happiness. Many people are watching pop culture and
they think the Kardashians are happy, or Diddy Epstein is happy,
(03:38):
or Lizzo or whoever else, and then they're shocked to
find out that person isn't happy in the sense that
they believe they would be happy. This euphoria overcoming you
at all times warm sensation and believe it or not,
even though that person is their hero, that person is
(04:00):
they would sell off their kidney to get to go
to a concert, to just be part of a screaming,
teeming mass of people cheering that that person is singing
the song they've already heard of them but in the
same zip code as them. They're also delighted to learn
that those people are usually miserable because they have been
(04:23):
on a journey to the destination of happiness, and as
it turns out, happiness is not never land. So that
makes him feel good because I may not be happy,
but it turns out that person is supposed to be happy.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
He's supposed to be happy, and he's not happy. So
that makes me feel better because I thought he was
just sitting over here just being happy all the time.
But what Jordan Peterson has done, I think groundbreaking work
in terms of taking it to the masses. As I say,
it's not the first to come up with this, I
understand this. The idea that happiness is not the pursuit
(04:57):
of man should not be shoot of man. It's a
it's a throwaway term. It's it's a simplistic term that
has become a catch all. In economics, we use the
term utility. It gives some people utility to do this
or that. Doesn't mean they're smiling necessarily. If you hate
(05:20):
pedophiles and you get to be the executioner of pedophiles,
doesn't make you happy to be the executioner, but it
gives you utility. And Rick Warren in twenty twelve. I
think it was wrote The Purpose Driven Life, which I
(05:41):
actually think it was an important book at the time.
The idea of finding purpose in your life and what
you do, living purposefully, intentionally, knowing why you're here and
what you're doing. And I've come to learn but this
is why some people, I'm going to use that term,
(06:05):
are very happy doing a job when they don't need
to work anymore. You know. The Walmart reader kind of
went away. I loved the Walmart reader. I loved the
Walmart reader because so many of the Walmart readers didn't
need to work. They didn't turn the money down because
that's what they used to buy a cup of coffee
while they were there. They arrived early, they stayed late,
(06:29):
they stayed afterwards. They took their penny off and hung around,
or kept their penny on. They loved to greet people.
What a brilliant idea. You take this cold, soulless warehouse
full of junk that people are coming into to grab,
(06:49):
most of which they could do without, and you put
a human face on it, a real human face, not
a kid on a phone, not somebody disinterested, not somebody
checking sports scores or texting their buddies or taking Peter picks,
a real human being in comfortable shoes, welcoming people into
(07:15):
your cold, soulless warehouse. It was a brilliant a strike,
a stroke of brilliance. It was a brilliant move. I
love everything about it. But what it spoke to in
me with I understand many years later, was the idea
of having purpose. I have known so many people over
the years who cannot wait to retire, and the moment
(07:37):
they retire, they have the world out of tail and
within a couple of days they realized they've lost their purpose,
even if work was not their purpose, because they're pulling
a paycheck, punching a clock. They they they've lost their routine,
and in that routine was comfort. You may not like
(07:59):
your job, per se, the actual job, but we put
some We put some dressing on it. Right. We put
a On the way to your job, you may stop
and get a kalacchi, and you really like talking to
the people there at lunch. You might enjoy walking across
the street and talking on the way home. You might
Kamar L. Harris was just officially endorsed by IRS Agency.
(08:23):
Believe the Michael Berry Show. I'd rather not have that endorsement.
I received a meme and it's two stick figures. They're
both sitting on stools and one is gesturing like he's talking,
the other one is sitting kind of resigned like he
(08:44):
is listening. And the title of it is being taught
to avoid talking about politics and religion has led to
a lack of understanding of politics and religion. What we
(09:09):
should have been taught was how to have a civil
conversation about a difficult topic. I'll read that again, being
taught to avoid talking about politics and religion. Think about
(09:29):
how many times in your life you've been told I
don't two things. You don't talk about politics and religion.
Why the two of the most important things related to
the human condition? What else is there? Being taught to
(09:53):
avoid talking about politics and religion has led to a
lab lack of understanding of politics and religion. If we're
uncomfortable talking about those things, talking is how we express ourselves,
(10:17):
which forces us to structure our arguments. When people are
uncomfortable talking about something, it often means that they can't
quite process it. They can't figure out where to put it,
they can't figure out what they feel about it. They
(10:40):
can't begin to explain what their problem with it is,
what their opposition to it is, why it gives them
such discomfort. You should be able to explain those things,
and if you cannot explain those things, there's a good
(11:03):
reason for it. If a conversation about that subject makes
you uncomfortable, that's a sign. Being taught to avoid talking
about politics and religion has led to a lack of
understanding of politics and religion. What we should have been
(11:26):
taught was how to have a civil conversation about a
difficult topic. When we don't talk about things, we drive
them underground. You could put under politics and religion. You
could put race, because people are very uncomfortable talking about race.
(11:52):
And my belief is that you should be able to
talk about race the way you talk about everything else.
And that is the reason you should have picked up
on this already. That is the reason why I inject
race into things in a very whimsical way, because it's
not taboo. It shouldn't scare you, it shouldn't frighten you.
(12:15):
It shouldn't be something that when you hear you immediately
look around both ways and who's going to lose their job,
Who's going to get in trouble. Who's going to be boycotted?
And that's what people do. If I some of you
do that, I've actually witnessed it with my own eyes.
(12:36):
In the middle of a conversation, I will say, for
no good reason when they're just saying, so, this guy
walks into the restaurant, was he black? Why would you
ask that? Why does that upset you? If I had
said is he tall? You wouldn't have panicked. If I'd
said is he right handed? You wouldn't have panicked. If
(13:00):
I'd said, was he wearing a coat? I'm asking you
to give me details about the person in the story.
That's how we tell a story. We set the time,
the place, the who, what where, We describe the person
to paint a picture. If you read Himmingway talking about
(13:28):
the guy in the bar, as your narrator is walking
into the bar, he will describe not just that the
man is wearing glasses, but that they're pinz knaze or
however you pronounce it glasses, and he may give you
the color. He'll tell you whether they create an oval
(13:50):
effect on the eye. He doesn't just tell you the
guy's wearing a hat. He'll tell you how the hat's
sitting on his head. He doesn't just tell you that
the guy white. He'll tell you whether he's sunburned or
whether he looks like he's worked on a Marina doc
his entire life. He doesn't just tell you what kind
(14:11):
of clothes. He tells you how those clothes are hanging.
Do they look like thrift store clothes or designer clothes?
Are they well worn from that day or did he
pick them up off the floor. So why is race
a subject that is simply a descriptor that makes people
so uncomfortable? Well, there are people who have taught you
(14:35):
or scared you into believing that that's a thing you
have to pretend doesn't exist, which is really stupid. If
I walk into a group of black guys and they say,
Mike be was up, and then I leave and somebody
who doesn't know me comes out of the bathroom and
(14:57):
they go, who were you all talking to? They wouldn't say,
O human being. Okay, well I saw four people walk
in which one were y'all talking to uh person who
was wearing a shirt? Okay, there were four people wearing
a shirt. They would say, you know that white boy,
you saw him? That's not a bad thing. That doesn't
(15:21):
offend me because it's true. And that's how they separate
me from the Asian guy, the Hispanic guy, and the
cave man that walked with him with me who might
have also been a white man, but we're really not
sure because some of those early civilizations you kiss it,
(15:44):
you know. I want to ask you to do yourself
a favor right now and rock somebody's world, you know.
In conversation with people, I find that we devote a
(16:07):
lot of energy to consuming content, and we devote a
lot of energy to the internal conversation within our own
head of where we stand on issues and who we're
going to support and who we're against and how much
we're against them. Important, no doubt important should be done,
(16:30):
and sadly a lot of people don't do it. But
we are getting diminishing returns at some point because we
are consuming what would appear to be the same swirl
of information from the same echo chamber day in and
day out, which leads to a sense of frustration that
(16:51):
nothing's being done, which just not. But part of that
becomes if it's what I talk about, sixteen hours a day,
all day, every day, and all I ever think about.
Then even one day of talking about it is interminable
because it's all I'm talking about. You have to have
(17:11):
some level of balance to make it. Soldiers in war
don't fight the war in the minute the battle is over,
repaired to their tents and talk about the war. They
make music, They write letters home, they compose poetry. They
look at a picture of their girl and pine for
her in the town they lived in. They send a
(17:34):
letter to their mom and tell her how much they
loved her. They might play cards and drink some whiskey.
It's not because the battle's not real and people aren't dying.
It must be won or we will lose. No, it's
because of the understanding that that is so all consuming
that it has to be turned off and recharged. And
you have to have a diversion from that engagement and
(17:58):
a lot of our And you know why you don't
have diversion, because the radio and the website and the
TV station can't afford for you to have a diversion.
They need to keep you plugged in the whole time.
They need to keep you so plugged in that you're
worn down. This trickle battery is catching on fire and
(18:20):
not good. It's overheating, burning everything down. So what do
you do? What do you do to find meaning in
your day? What do you do that at the end
of it you say I did that? Ah yeah, Because
watching television news, reading the websites of the headlines, that
(18:44):
does not leave you with a feeling of fulfillment, satisfaction, completion,
and accomplishment. It may be necessary, but it does not
do that. So let me challenge you to find and
one thing today that will leave you with that feeling. Example,
(19:06):
there's a business that you support, maybe a restaurant, may not.
Maybe a little distribution company, maybe a tire company or
an oil change company, or a muffler shop. But it's
locally owned and the owner is there on site and
you like the service they provide or the product they
build for the few who still do Or maybe it's
(19:30):
dun fence company, or maybe it's the people who cut
your grass, or maybe it's the people who painted your
home or the guy who takes care of your car.
But it could be a burger joint, could be a
beer joint, It could be most any small business you
can imagine. The point is not the product of the service.
(19:52):
The point is that their biggest challenge is getting enough
people in to serve a enough good employees to keep
the business afloat, and it's so much harder than you think.
You would be shocked what a difference you could make
if you go in and spend a dollar. Secondly, if
(20:13):
you ask the owners, hey, what can I do to
help you? Guys? I want to spread the word. You
guys are wonderful. I wish more people knew about you.
You got a Facebook page, put up a post, simple
quick post. I had a great experience at this restaurant.
I encourage you to try it out. Now, go the
(20:35):
extra mile and you'll get a lot more bang for
your buck. Give the address, the cross street, the phone number,
and who to ask for because if somebody has, the
more layers you put into getting someone to do what
you want them to do, the less likely you will
accomplish getting them to do what you wanted them to do.
(20:57):
If someone sends me, hey, you ought to watch this movie.
If when I'm flipping through movie ideas, that movie comes
up on the screen and I can hit play, then
I will. But I'm not going to go do the
research on all the movies that are just the name
of a movie. Why would I? But if you tell
what the movie's about might catch my interest. If you
(21:20):
tell what the movie is about and put a link
to it, you're increasing the chances. I see salesmen do this.
I see people do this all day every day. Hey,
would you this is a great one. Hey, would you
mind calling my dad in having him on the show
because this is his interesting thing that he did in
(21:42):
his life, and I think you would be fascinated by it.
Why not include his phone number and his name so
I can go look it up? Because people are lazy
or thoughtless. If your life depended on that business that
you you've decided to show favor to today, then you would do
(22:04):
more than just post or tell one person a so
and so Bob's down the corner is pretty good. You
would drive them there yourself, just like we do for elections.
That's how candidates win election. I tell you this, if
you've ever been involved with a campaign, it ain't going
to war, not even one one millionth of it. But
(22:25):
there is after the election a certain serotonin drop. There
is almost a sadness, a sense of loss. Because campaigns
are all consuming. They're exciting, you're engaged, in a battle.
Can't tell you how many warriors have told me that
(22:45):
they come back when a campaign is over, people who've
been in it, Especially if you win. There's a sense
of exhaustion because now the race is run. But there's
almost a sadness because when you're in the middle of
a campaign, you wake up thinking about it and go
to sleep thinking about it. Your mind doesn't stray. You
(23:06):
are so locked in, you feel so alive. What if
you were to take that mentality today and say, you
know what I'm gonna do. I've got a grandson. I'm
eighty two years old. I might not be here in
a year or five. When my grandson is older, I
want him to know how much his papa loved him,
(23:27):
or his mamma loved him. I'm gonna sit down right
now while he's in school. I'm gonna write him a
letter that i'm gonna present to him, and I'm gonna
ask his mom if I can pick him up at three,
and I'm gonna take him fishing, and I'm gonna have
the food ready and the whole deal. Or I'm gonna
take him to the arcade, or I'm gonna take him
to the BMX fit whatever he would love, and go
(23:51):
make a memory. You will never regret that you did.
That time.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
When he says, my lady, his art this not art imitating.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Rustiate him a cool million to perform at Rush's wedding
like a house concert. Then they questioned and criticized Elton John.
Why would you play Elton? Why would you play Russian
Limbaugh's wedding. This was when he married Catherine, not too
(24:37):
many years ago, and they were afraid that, well, I'd
like to see the tax rate lowered, the borders closed.
I'm against abortion, and I think a vermative action is
out of control, and global warming is a bunch of bunk.
They thought, maybe, you know, he shared some political views,
(25:01):
and he says, pay me a million dollars. Nobody paying
you a million dollars. You think you might get passed
some minor disagreements over politics. And when Rush was criticized
or questioned, said, I love Elton John. It's a dream
come true. Are you kidding me? You don't need to
(25:22):
come to the wedding. You're not invited anyway, as only
Rush could do. All right, Nine presidents never graduated from college,
the last one and the only one of the twentieth century.
Can you guess it was? You can guess think of
(25:43):
the most common president, by which I mean breeding schooling.
He was a clerk. In fact, he was a very
very corrupt clerk in Missouri who I think was a
Pendergas family who ran a machine there, and he was
(26:03):
the cog in the wheel that made it happen. Harry S.
Truman S stands for nothing. Yeah, it's like in the
word T, like iced T. The E and the A
are silent, same things, no middle name. So you're nine
presidents who never graduated from college in George Washington, Andrew Jackson,
(26:30):
Martin van Buren, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Abraham Lincoln you
could practice law without a college degree at the time,
Andrew Johnson, the accidental president when Lincoln was assassinated, and
(26:54):
last but not least, Grover Cleveland, and then, of course
Harry S. Truman. All right, very quick ramon to make
a point. There are a handful of first ladies in
American history that are extremely well known, and the rest
are not partially known. I don't know much about him.
(27:15):
You either know the first lady and something about her,
or you don't know her. Name at all. I looked
this up this weekend, so I'm kind of interested to share,
like a little nerd. All right, so here we go.
I'll give you the president, and very quickly you spout
the first lady's name. Are you ready? We'll go in order.
George Washington, Martha Washington is correct, John Adams, Abigail Adams
(27:38):
is correct. Thomas Jefferson, Martha, you wouldn't know. James Madison,
Dolly Madison, that's correct. James Monroe, Elizabeth, you wouldn't know that,
John Quincy Adams, Louisa. You wouldn't know. Andrew Jackson. A
(28:02):
lot of people know this one because they were married,
well that they were both separately married, and it became
a huge scandal and they smeared him with that. Rachel
Emily Jackson. Oh, you're just guessing old names. Martin van
(28:23):
Buren Hannah. But her full name, just so you know,
was Hannah Hoose h o E s Hannah Hoose van Buren.
Those Hose girls, you know, that's what they were known as.
William Henry Harrison, Anna Tutthill, Simms Harrison, John Tyler, Letitia
(28:45):
James K. Polk, Sarah Zachary Taylor, Margaret Millard Fillmore, another
Abigail Franklin, Pierce Jane James Buchanan never married. You know
what that means if you're president from eighteen fifty seven
(29:06):
eighteen sixty one and you never married. Abraham Lincoln, Mary
Todd Lincoln is correct? Andrew Johnson, Elizah. You wouldn't know that.
Ulysses s. Grant, Julia Rutherford b. Hayes Be's Birchard by
(29:26):
the way, Lucretia, Oh no, sorry, not Lucretia, Lucy Lucy.
James Garfield's been shot down. His widow was Lucretia. His
successor Chester, Arthur Ellen Groover Cleveland, Francis Benjamin Harrison, Caroline
(29:49):
Groover Cleveland. I like old name, Francis. William McKinley, Ida.
Don't name women Ida anymore? Teddy Roosevelt. Do you know
Teddy Rose? Else West name Edith Kermit Caro Roosevelt, William H. Path,
(30:10):
Helen Woodrow Wilson Ellen, not Helen Ellen. Calvin Coolidge, what
a perfect name for his wife, Grace, because he was
a Methodist minister, Grace good Hugh Coolidge. And did that
sound like a minister's wife, Grace? It's only an English novel,
(30:34):
Herbert Hoover. His wife's name was Lou Lou Franklin D. Roosevelt. See,
there's one of those that you know. The wife's name
Eleanor is correct. Harry S. Truman. I think not as many,
but a lot of people will know Harry Truman's wife's name,
Bess B. E Ss. Dwight D. Eisenhower. From here people
(30:57):
will know, I think most. Maybe you know what state
Dwight Eisenealer was born in Texas. John F. Kennedy, The
Lovely Jacquelyn Bouvier Kennedy and then she goes and ruin
it by Maryonnette Lyndon B. Johnson, particularly known in Texas.
(31:20):
What a great cause. Flowers on the Highway that might
seem silly, but that's lasting to this day, and I
love it. By the Lady Bird, Dick Nixon, Pat Gerald
Ford Betty famous for Jimmy Carter, rosalind Ronald Reagan, of course,
(31:44):
Nancy Barbara Bush, Oh sorry, George Bush. Barbara Bush most
noted for what was Her Cause? Literacy? Bill Clinton, Oh Back,
Taste of My Mouth? George W. Bush, Laura Bush, Barack Obama,
Michelle Obama, Donald J. Trump, The most beautiful, The first
days Millennia and Joe Biden, Doctor Joe Biden,
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