--:-- Host: Guys, quick trigger warning on this episode. If you are offended easily or do not like curse words, then you may just want to skip this episode. But if you're feeling froggy, let's get it.
--:-- Host: I had a conversation with a friend one day. And we were talking about family and life. And I asked him, how do you see your kid's future? And he said to me, my grandfather walked 10 miles to work every day. My father walked five. I'm driving a Cadillac. My son is in a Mercedes. He said my grandson will be in a Ferrari. But he said my great-grandson will be walking again. So I asked him, well, why is that? And he said to me, Tough times create strong men. Strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men. Weak men create tough times. He said to me, Many will not understand, but you have to raise worries.
--:-- Host: Last night at the Oscars, Will Smith stood up and bitch-slapped Chris Rock for making fun of his wife. Today I want to discuss my feelings and what we can learn from his actions. Let's get it.
--:-- Host: In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. I'm operating under the assumption today that many of you listening to this will not agree with me or my take on this particular topic. I'm okay with that. I've never given a shit about what anyone thinks about my thoughts or feelings on particular topics, mostly because they're mine. And that means I need to allow you to have yours, and I do.
--:-- Host: So that being said, there's something that I just have to share. It'll drive me crazy if I don't get this out of my face. And while many of you may, you know, maybe this will change your view on me or this show or whatever, that's fine. That's your prerogative. What I hope is if this is a message that you think is worth sharing, whether for the purposes of saying this is a wrong take or this is a right take, that you do in an effort to continue the conversation around this particular topic because I think it's one of the most important topics. It's a topic that no one wants to touch because, because of the exact reason that it needs to happen, the conversation needs to happen.
--:-- Host: We are living in the tough times created by weak men and women. And those tough times, and depending on where you fall, you may think we're in the beginning of those tough times, feels like we're at the beginning and that there are many more to come. They're created by a sense of entitlement, a lack of touch with reality, and I feel like it's worth having a conversation, it's worth bringing to the forefront the idea that we need hard men and women. We need tough, strong men and women in our country.
--:-- Host: Life is not easy. The universe will shit on you and does not care. You are a speck. Your life is nothing in the grander scheme. But that doesn't mean it's not important. It is certainly important to you and to the people that care about you and that need you in their lives. And for that reason, understanding that the universe doesn't care about you and will knock you down and take you out without a blink. You need to be tough and hard and you need to stand up for yourself and be strong and not take shit just because you feel like you should because it's the civilized or gentleman or gentlewoman thing to do. I think that that's bullshit.
--:-- Host: So this stems from what happened at the Oscars. And if you haven't seen it, Google Will Smith bitch slaps Chris Rock. And you'll see a clip. I watched it on TMZ. I'm sure it's other places too. Where Chris Rock has a joke at the beginning of the Oscars. He's hosting the Oscars and he makes a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, who is Will Smith's wife. And Will Smith and Jada Pinkett have not had the most traditional marriage. You know, I think for any of us who've been married for a long period of time, you start to realize that, quote unquote, the traditional or standard marriage, there's no such thing. Everyone's journey is different and unique. And as much as we all pretend to be happy all the time, we're not. And you work through those things and you do the best you can, right? And you have to live your life. And Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith for the most part seem to be doing what all of us are doing, trying to get by the best we can.
--:-- Host: And they both seem like decent people, and whatever, and Chris Rock makes jokes for a living. He's a comedian, that's what he does. And when you're a celebrity like Will Smith and Jada Pinkett, you're putting yourself out there to be fodder for things such as comedian jokes. So no one should feel sorry for them, that's not what I'm saying. But Chris Rock has over the course of his career taken many shots at Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith for the, you know, whatever he sees as oddities of their marriage and relationship and the different things that they do. And look, when you're megastars like those guys, I mean, what the heck is regular? I don't know. And like I said, when you put yourself on stage and get paid for being a celebrity, you're gonna, you know, you take those shots. You know, to the very small extent that I have any kind of celebrity in our space, I've done the same. I know Cass has done the same. I know I was just talking to James Jenkins the other day about some shots people were taking at him now that he has a podcast and is sharing his thoughts. And, you know, it just comes with the territory.
--:-- Host: That being said, Jada Pinkett has a condition where she's losing her hair. And I'm sure that that is something that is raw and something that she doesn't feel comfortable about or happy about. And Chris Rock at the Oscars took a shot at her. Where that shot falls in the grander scheme of offensiveness or bullying or whatever you want to say, I'm not really one to make that call. That being said, Will Smith didn't particularly care for that joke and stood up and walked on stage and smacked the shit out of Chris Rock in front of the entire audience. I'm laughing because I just think it's funny. I mean, it is funny whether you agree with it or not. And uh, Chris Rock was stunned and at first, you kind of thought that it was like a setup, right? You're like, uh, you know, this must be a bit or whatever. And then Will Smith walks back to his seat calmly, sits down, and yells, "Keep my wife's name out of your bleeping mouth!" I don't know why I believe that I curse all the time. Doesn't seem right. Will Smith said it. He said the full F word. And uh, Chris Rock kind of was shocked and said something mumbled something I can't remember. And then Will Smith said again, "Keep my wife's name out of your effing mouth." And then Chris Rock was just kind of stunned and looked off camera and didn't really know what to do and said something about a moment in Oscars history or whatever, and then the clip kind of ends, and you can watch more of it. But that was basically it.
--:-- Host: And I watched a clip, watched it two or three times. And then I tweeted because this is what I believe, whether I should have tweeted or not or kept it to myself is a different argument, but I did. And I just said, "I believe Chris Rock has every right to make that joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, and I believe Will Smith has every right to walk up on stage and smack the shit out of Chris Rock." And that was the tweet, something to that effect. That's basically it. And I got a bunch of replies, "Violence is never the answer," and "What about the kids?" And it's like, "Jesus, I want to show my kids that clip. I want to show my kids that when a bully takes aim at you, you have a couple decisions to make. You can take it, which is what I would say you should try to do at first, right? Someone says something about you, you shouldn't turn right to violence, absolutely not. Violence should be a last resort. If you're in school or whatever, and maybe mentioning something to a teacher or to a friend who can stand next to you would be better, right? Teacher should be a second. People go right to the teacher. And what you're teaching your kids when you teach them, 'Go tell the teacher,' is you don't take responsibility for it. Anytime you have a problem, anytime someone's picking on you, don't take responsibility for it. Someone else will save you. You're training your children to be betas, right? We're training our kids to not stand up for themselves."
--:-- Host: And again, I'm not advocating violence. I'm standing, I'm advocating someone says something about you. You stand there and you look at them, and you don't have to say a word. You walk away. They come at you again, go grab a friend, have that friend stand next to you. Doesn't mean you turn to violence, but there's strength in numbers. People support you. People don't want to mess with people who have friends. They want to mess with loners because they're bullies. Maybe you can tell a teacher, maybe if it gets bad at that point. But at a certain point, when that person won't let up, when they're still coming at you, at a certain point, you got to handle your business. You got to stand up for yourself. That's what a strong man or woman does. I'm not advocating violence, and there are going to be repercussions for that violence. In school, it may be detention. It may be losing a week of school. You may be expelled for a week. You may have to do community service. There may be issues, right? But at a certain point, you have to stand up for yourself in life.
--:-- Host: And I feel like what we've gotten away from as a society is standing up for yourself, right? It's words or violence. That's what you hear. Words or violence. But then when someone says something and you stand up for yourself, well, then, but violence is violence. So is violence violence, or are words violence? What's violence, right? There are bad people in the world.
--:-- Host: What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode, but as you know, we do not run ads on this show. In exchange for that, I need your help. If you're loving this episode, if you enjoy this podcast, whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, I would love for you to subscribe, share, comment if you're on YouTube, leave a rating review if you're on Spotify or Apple iTunes, etc. This helps the show grow. It helps me bring more guests in. We have a tremendous lineup of people coming in, men and women who've done incredible things, sharing their stories around peak performance, leadership, growth, sales, the things that are going to help you grow as a person and grow your business. But they all check out comments, ratings, reviews. They check out all this information before they come on. So as I reach out to more and more people and want to bring them in and share their stories with you, I need your help. Share the show. Subscribe if you're not subscribed. And I'd love for you to leave a comment about the show because I read all the comments. Or if you're on Apple or Spotify, leave a rating review of this show. I love you for listening to this show. And I hope you enjoy it listening as much as I do creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here. Peace. Let's get back to the episode.
--:-- Host: There are bad people who will do bad things. There are selfish people. There are greedy people. I had a former employer let me go and then sue me for something they knew I didn't do, just to fuck with me, just to grind me, just to shove my face into the ground because they could, because they were bigger and they were stronger than me. And what am I going to do? I'm going to tell somebody. I'm going to tattle on them. What am I going to do? I'm going to get a lawyer? I'm going to get a lawyer and I'm going to poke and prod them and play that game? No. I'm going to stand up for myself. I'm going to build something. And down the line, if I get a chance, I'm going to step on those motherfuckers' throats because hard men and women create good times. Good times create soft men and women. That's where we are today. And soft men and women create the tough times that we're living through right now, where no one wants to step up and stop a freaking dictator like Vladimir Putin from destroying an entire country and taking over, where we allow the raping and pillaging of villages and entire societies in the Middle East and Africa, where we don't take control of our own country and we allow criminals to commit violence on our streets. And instead of taking care of that, we chant "defund the police" at the top of our voice because that makes us feel good. This is the nonsense that gets us into these places.
--:-- Host: Now, guys, there are repercussions to every action, and I am in no way advocating for violence. That's not what I'm advocating for. It is an absolute last resort. But what I am advocating for is that we start to stand up for ourselves, is that we start to have confidence and faith in who we are, in our opinions, and in our actions, and we don't let people fuck with us because they will. It is easy to sit in your gated community 20 miles away from the downtown area or the trailer park or wherever violence and crime and sadness and pain happen and say, "I don't want my kids to see violence." And then those are the kids that are going to be taken advantage of because someday, someone is going to press their will upon them. And what are they going to do? What are you going to do? It's a tough topic. It's a tough topic. But I look out over the world. I look at my own life. I look at the life of my kids. I look at the life of my friends, the people I care about. And it's just hard for me to believe that this beta-driven, you know, everything's fluffy and nerfy and padded and everything's going to be fine and if we all just sing songs and hold hands, all of the world's pain and problems and fears are going to go away. It's just not life because the people who hold that belief live far away in big houses and they have police. They defund downtown, you know, urban area police, but man, make sure they're patrolling my streets. I don't want anyone vandalizing my G-Wagon. It's bullshit.
--:-- Host: We as people, as adults, need to stand up for each other and be strong and advocate for each other and don't allow bullies to push us around. But that doesn't mean that we get to be weak and docile. It doesn't mean that because no one is coming to save us. There are bad people who will do bad things in business every day in life, and guys, it's hard, and I know this is a heady topic, and most of you have probably turned it off if you're still listening, and I don't know why this bothers me so much, but I just—I don't know—life is not easy. It's difficult, and anyone who pretends to the contrary is either selling you something or kidding themselves. No one is coming to rescue you, but you. And that doesn't mean fighting someone. It means taking control of your diet and your physical fitness and being stronger physically. It means challenging yourself mentally at work, becoming better, developing skills, honing your network, building your network, expanding your resources, expanding your territory, empowering your people, building a world that can't be fucked with or that people don't want to fuck with. That, that's what I want for you. That's what I want for me. That's what I want for me. If you don't want it for you, that's fine. But guys, no one is coming to save you. No one is coming to save me. We have to fight for what we want. We have to build and grow and develop and strengthen and harden ourselves against the world because it will knock you down. And I don't want that for you. You listen to this show because for some reason you appreciate my vantage point. I don't know why. Because half the time I'm just trying to figure this shit out as I go. And I just—I hate that we live in a world of nerfy and padded and it's too safe. Our world is too safe. And I don't want my kids to get hurt. I don't want my kids to get in fights. I don't want my kids to think through a filter of violence. That's in no way. I think kids are amazing and beautiful and fun and they're innocent and naive and it's wonderful. And I want them to be that way as long as they can. But at the same time, if we never allow our children to experience the risk and danger and excitement and energy of this life, if we don't allow ourselves to do those things, then we're going to get knocked down, pushed aside, and we're going to bitch about it and act like it's someone else's fault when really it's our own.
--:-- Host: Guys, harden yourself. Whatever that looks like, it doesn't mean you can't be caring and giving and compassionate and empathetic and all those things. We need to be both. We need to be the warrior who can control the aggression, right? Jordan Peterson, be a monster and then learn how to control it. That's what we need in our world today is people who are strong and confident and at the same time caring and compassionate for those who are either incapable or haven't yet achieved that state of self-reliance. That is the world we need to build. Not this high garden walled, nerfy, padded thing where everything's safe and words are violence and violence is violence and everything is violence. As long as you do what I say, then I'm going to be fine. That is not reality.
--:-- Host: And I think through bad decisions in our choice to elect Biden, who's a fucking moron and is absolutely destroying the United States and the limp leftist nature that the EU has taken has allowed maniacs like Vladimir Putin to feel confident just reclaiming an entire territory and bombing civilians. That's the fucking real world. And I hate that. I hate that. But if we were strong men and women in the West, this crap would not be happening. If we were strong men and women in our community, violence and anger would not happen. We would be confident giving back to our communities and supporting those in need and helping lift them up in a positive way, but through strength and compassion, not through weakness and deprivation.
--:-- Host: My friends, harden yourself. Tough times are coming. We can do this together. None of us are alone, but we must make the choice to grow. I wish nothing but the best for you always. I hope that this rattled your cage. If you disagree, come at me—publicly, privately, happy to have the discussion. All I want for you is everything that you can have. Now go kill it. I'm out, peace.
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