Youth, Boredom & The Guilt We're Handing Down

Tim · 0:02
Reggie, what was your favorite part of today's episode?

Reggie · 0:06
Tim, I love it when you talk about creepypasta. It just, it gets me every time. I think it's so charming. I'm not sure.

Jordan · 0:14
I loved watching the dynamic of the conversation because I feel like right now it's— you have such short bits of conversation and short attention. So to be able to watch the dynamic of, you know, somebody said something and then it takes us here and then we go here and just watching the float was fun.

Tim · 0:28
What was your favorite part?

Reggie · 0:30
I think my favorite part was a little creepy, but it was learning about the sleep paralysis demon monster. Sorry. Yikes.

Tim · 0:39
I'm not even sure that's the right name.

Mary · 0:40
I love when we're trying to get serious and Tim just gets real earnest. That's my favorite flavor of Tim.

Tim · 0:47
That's my fatal flaw. My favorite part was what Jordan said about guilt, and it really like Meant something to me. It's at the very end, so.

Mary · 0:54
Thanks, Jordan.

Jordan · 0:57
Happy to help.

Tim · 1:04
We're off to the races.

Reggie · 1:07
Hey. Fucking hey. I was just thinking, he didn't say ever since 16. I was like, there's a He feels unresolved. I know. I was like, something didn't happen.

Tim · 1:20
Now we're set.

Reggie · 1:21
Yes. Feels good now.

Mary · 1:22
She had no idea where he was for the first several seconds.

Reggie · 1:25
Welcome to H. We are a goofy bunch of friends and, and our friends that come and sit as guests on the show. We all are here to just talk about one topic at a time and how it impacts us and What comes to mind? It's, it's unscripted. It's really just a conversation with friends. And you're our friend. So thanks for being here. I'm gonna go ahead. Oh, yeah. Before I do this, I'm gonna do this. This is our friend Jordan Duvall. She's a marketing and branding professional as well. So she's in the same industry. And she has a very strong brand. And I want to hear a little bit about it from her perspective.

Jordan · 2:09
Yeah, absolutely. Well, my business is called Ignite Your Soul Brand, and I work with online entrepreneurs and personal brands to really figure out who they are as a person. How do they show up, lead, communicate, generate wealth, and then use the energetics of color to create a color palette that really infuses the energy of who they are and what makes them look the most flattering and how to convey the energy of, you know, what their business is all about and who they're attracting. and then create a beautiful, you know, magnetic brand around who they are so they bring in the kind of opportunities and clients that they want.

Reggie · 2:41
I love that. And speaking of color coordination, you are rocking it. I love that.

Jordan · 2:45
Hey, you gotta be the billboard for what you do.

Reggie · 2:47
There you go.

Jordan · 2:47
Practice what you preach.

Reggie · 2:49
That's right. You gotta talk the talk and walk the walk.

Mary · 2:52
Exactly.

Reggie · 2:53
I love it.

Tim · 2:53
Is it a hard soundbite when you get to the color part? Do people get it?

Jordan · 2:57
Some people do. They see it like when I show it to them because It's interesting 'cause like I can spend hours perfecting a color palette and it's like you just put in one color, you know, 'cause I use like the seasonality of color and just like, you know, making sure that the colors are calibrated to one another. And just, so I usually do a style palette because I do a lot of art direction for photo shoots and then a brand palette, which is based off of that. But as you know from design, you usually need like lighter colors, you need like a hero color.

Reggie · 3:27
Accent colors, yeah.

Jordan · 3:28
You see, you have to just think about color a little differently 'cause you're conveying information versus like, popping as a person from networking and podcasts, videos and stuff like that.

Tim · 3:37
What do you think about black and white brands, like agencies? Um, with no color?

Reggie · 3:42
Because there's a lot of them.

Tim · 3:43
I'm asking this for Mary.

Reggie · 3:44
Yeah.

Jordan · 3:45
Are you guys doing a rebrand?

Reggie · 3:46
We are kind of.

Tim · 3:47
She's always like, more color.

Mary · 3:49
We're always doing a rebrand.

Reggie · 3:50
We're kind of a black and white brand.

Mary · 3:52
We're like a slow jam.

Tim · 3:53
Everyone's always doing a rebrand.

Mary · 3:54
Yeah, we're always doing a rebrand.

Tim · 3:55
We're all inconsistent rebrands.

Mary · 3:56
My question has, well, You may have noticed I'm in a warm seasonal palette personally, and sometimes I— this is like one of the things that I never get to talk about because nobody knows about it. I type myself sometimes in the winter. I come out a little bright springy, but in the fall I tend to be more of an autumn.

Jordan · 4:15
Are you an autumn?

Tim · 4:16
Yeah.

Mary · 4:16
Yeah. Most of the year I'm sure. Well, I like a bright spring palette and I can't do like springy spring.

Jordan · 4:23
I don't know. I'd have to test you because you do have red hair. So usually redheads are automatically But you have round features, so you could be a spring.

Mary · 4:31
Thank you so much, George.

Jordan · 4:33
You're not almost round enough.

Mary · 4:34
So you see me.

Jordan · 4:35
Yeah.

Mary · 4:35
But it's warm. The aura is warm.

Reggie · 4:38
It's definitely warm.

Jordan · 4:38
The spring is cool and autumn is warm.

Tim · 4:41
She says warm, we see hot.

Mary · 4:43
Is spring cool? I thought spring was warm and summer was cool.

Jordan · 4:46
Oh, am I wrong? Maybe.

Mary · 4:48
Oh, no, no, no. It doesn't matter. Point being, black and white are not my colors, nor my top today.

Jordan · 4:53
Yeah.

Reggie · 4:54
Don't look at us, Gemini.

Tim · 4:55
Do not look at 40 cards.

Mary · 4:56
So this is all just very like, I feel very confined within this brand. I feel very restricted within this brand.

Tim · 5:02
Like she's in a modern prison.

Jordan · 5:04
Well, but I think it's— I think it's how you—

Tim · 5:06
Prison of black and white chains.

Jordan · 5:07
Yeah. But it's how you look at it. It's depending on what it is, right? 'Cause I brand people. So it's really about like, how do you make the person pop and look attractive and magnetic? But when you're an agency, you're selling the work. And so you don't want the colors to overpower the work. Like I was just talking to a photographer yesterday that has like kind of a salmon and a teal color. And, you know, she was just like, I got some negative feedback around the colors of my brand. It's always the superstars.

Mary · 5:32
And I'm just like, yeah, because the colors are competing with your work.

Jordan · 5:35
And so it's really about what are you selling and what is the message you're talking about.

Tim · 5:38
When we started 40 Hearts, Reggie and I, I was like, what better color palette than black and white?

Jordan · 5:43
Oh, right. We're unique.

Reggie · 5:47
We are. We're definitely—

Jordan · 5:49
We're the fun part about the world.

Tim · 5:51
Now we need a warm reddish color.

Mary · 5:54
Or actually a beige.

Jordan · 5:55
Like a tan or a khaki.

Mary · 5:59
or something. I don't know.

Reggie · 6:00
Part of that yin and yang was that Tim has white hair on top and I have white hair down here. So our faces were like yin and yang.

Mary · 6:07
You guys should do a portrait series.

Reggie · 6:09
You should totally do a portrait series. We should totally do a portrait series.

Mary · 6:13
Oh, what if we as an agency did one of those like cheugy JCPenney shoots? Have you seen these online?

Tim · 6:18
Oh my God, I love the sound of that.

Reggie · 6:20
Yes.

Tim · 6:22
Oh yeah.

Mary · 6:22
But the old school—

Jordan · 6:23
Ugly sweaters though.

Reggie · 6:24
Oh, we have to wear ugly sweaters or like bib overalls with like plaid shirts underneath.

Mary · 6:29
Could we do one of those here in the studio and invite people? Be like, everybody come with your sweater vests and we'll all do crazy poses.

Jordan · 6:35
I know stylists. You could have stylists come with a rack and be like, okay, you wear this.

Tim · 6:40
A JCPenney rack.

Reggie · 6:40
Since I want to be in it, I'll have to invite some of my kick-ass photographer friends to come and do it.

Mary · 6:48
There were a lot of things like that in Korea where it was just a weird little pop-up experience that gave you some social media asset to then go post.

Tim · 6:57
So if you were going to brand—

Jordan · 6:58
Do we need to pull up the hunchback?

Tim · 7:00
That'll happen.

Mary · 7:01
Show on the road.

Tim · 7:01
There's no real— but if you were to brand a party of 3, is that harder in your work?

Reggie · 7:06
Oh yeah.

Jordan · 7:07
That's a great question.

Reggie · 7:09
Great question.

Jordan · 7:09
So I would do the colors for each person and then figure out what's the crossover.

Reggie · 7:14
Harmonize them.

Mary · 7:15
Figure it out.

Tim · 7:16
I can wipe.

Jordan · 7:17
I can wipe. Yes.

Tim · 7:18
Yeah.

Jordan · 7:18
Yes.

Reggie · 7:18
That's great. All right, maybe we should pick a topic.

Tim · 7:21
I could go on and on.

Reggie · 7:22
Where's that electric blue in our palette?

Tim · 7:25
D?

Reggie · 7:25
What? Yeah.

Mary · 7:26
Oh no, that was Dylan. But Dylan said that it came from you.

Tim · 7:29
It came from me, but he's just giving you the third color.

Jordan · 7:32
Oh.

Reggie · 7:32
That is you.

Mary · 7:33
I'm the electric blue.

Reggie · 7:34
That's the splash of blue.

Jordan · 7:35
She should be an electric teal.

Reggie · 7:36
She's the splash of blue.

Jordan · 7:38
Or like an emerald green. That would be really nice on you.

Mary · 7:40
So just think about like— So just think about that.

Reggie · 7:42
Think about it.

Mary · 7:43
Just weigh that up. You know, it's not just me.

Reggie · 7:45
It's not just you.

Tim · 7:46
All right, I'm feeling it. All right.

Reggie · 7:47
We're gonna have to abandon the black and white palette.

Tim · 7:50
No, I will not let go.

Jordan · 7:51
You're enhancing it. You're enhancing it. You're not abandoning it.

Reggie · 7:54
You're just giving options.

Mary · 7:55
You just need a little escape hatch for Mary, I can stay in the black and white most of the time, but every so often—

Reggie · 8:01
You need to pop.

Mary · 8:01
I want to do something fun.

Tim · 8:02
Oh, just wait. We're going to pop soon.

Reggie · 8:04
We're definitely going to pop.

Tim · 8:05
We're going to bring out all the colors.

Mary · 8:06
One of these days, any day now.

Jordan · 8:07
It's going to be like neon orange.

Tim · 8:09
You know me, I go from black and white to all the colors.

Mary · 8:12
That's true.

Jordan · 8:13
Oh yeah, totally.

Reggie · 8:13
I do the same.

Mary · 8:13
That's what we're here for.

Reggie · 8:15
It's crazy. I'm the same. It's like I have this, like my baseline is the black and white, the clean minimalist, and then I need a pop.

Tim · 8:23
Boom.

Reggie · 8:24
And then boom.

Jordan · 8:25
But are you pure black or is it like a dark charcoal gray? Because it's a different vibe.

Reggie · 8:31
I do actually like that obsidian, like black. Just, yeah. All my cars are black. Yeah, I always love having black cars. It's just a thing. It's just a thing.

Mary · 8:43
Isn't that on Uber? Your— the black car is like a luxury setting.

Reggie · 8:47
Uber Black.

Tim · 8:48
You like dark chocolate?

Reggie · 8:50
I actually have an Uber Black car. Who is it? Somebody jumped into my car and that's the first thing they said. They didn't hire you for Uber?

Mary · 8:58
No, they were just like—

Reggie · 8:59
We take care of our drivers. I feel like I'm— no, it was a friend. But when I got in there, I'm like, I feel like I'm in an Uber Black. I was like, what are you doing in my car? I think that's a compliment, maybe.

Jordan · 9:11
I don't know.

Tim · 9:11
We're glad to have you on the show, Jordan.

Mary · 9:13
Yes.

Reggie · 9:14
Jordan, nice to meet you.

Tim · 9:15
And I love hearing about your work.

Jordan · 9:16
Excellent. Well, I'm glad to bring some color. Technicolor.

Reggie · 9:19
You want to reach in here and get a topic and hand it to me?

Jordan · 9:22
Let's do it.

Tim · 9:22
Reggie's holding the basket, so it's got that magic power he brings.

Mary · 9:26
Sometimes we don't reveal it to each other and we go show it to the—

Jordan · 9:30
I don't know.

Mary · 9:30
I want to give you the opportunity. I have a surprise if you would like to. Should I throw it to you?

Reggie · 9:35
Don't show us, but you can just walk it right up to the camera.

Tim · 9:38
You're making her do it and you didn't even run her through this.

Jordan · 9:39
Don't embarrass me.

Reggie · 9:40
No, no, no, you can do it.

Mary · 9:43
Oh, so you don't have to do it.

Tim · 9:45
Will's gonna do it from behind the camera.

Reggie · 9:47
Will's never done it.

Jordan · 9:49
So I show it to everyone.

Mary · 9:50
Let's make Will do it.

Reggie · 9:51
We gotta make Will do it.

Mary · 9:52
In the future, we're just gonna keep throwing them at Will.

Jordan · 9:54
Wait, now I tell you?

Mary · 9:55
Yeah.

Jordan · 9:55
Sure.

Tim · 9:56
Don't you like being thrown in the deep end?

Mary · 9:57
I was like, I don't know.

Reggie · 9:58
Is it color palettes?

Mary · 9:59
I'll hand you the prop.

Reggie · 10:00
'Cause if it's color palettes, that would be amazing.

Mary · 10:02
Youth.

Reggie · 10:02
Which is like color palette.

Jordan · 10:04
Youth.

Tim · 10:04
I just said age 16. This is episode 16. So youth, the epitome of youth.

Mary · 10:09
We're in our prime.

Reggie · 10:10
Oh, youth. That's such a good topic.

Jordan · 10:12
Yeah.

Reggie · 10:12
I mean, the first thing that comes to mind for me is just, I try to cling on to it through my kids. Like, my kids are my portal into youth and still like being able to touch those those adolescent parts of myself that are still in there, you know, like they're the key to the younger me.

Mary · 10:36
So then they're key to the younger me because you're the key to the younger Mary. I feel like you bring out a more youthful side of me.

Reggie · 10:44
Because I'm like 20 years older, I'm like so much younger than you.

Mary · 10:48
This has been the case all my life.

Reggie · 10:50
I am the child of our group.

Tim · 10:52
You're at least 10 years younger than she actually is. She's 65 inside.

Mary · 10:56
Honestly, maybe.

Jordan · 10:58
They have like biological age So, and then like real age, they need like personality age or something.

Tim · 11:03
Yeah, they do. And music you listen to age.

Jordan · 11:06
Yeah, exactly.

Reggie · 11:07
Oh my gosh.

Mary · 11:08
Well, Spotify is starting that one, right?

Reggie · 11:10
Love it. Is it?

Jordan · 11:10
I don't want to know.

Mary · 11:12
It was bad.

Jordan · 11:13
I'll tell you now, it was like you're a 16-year-old girl and an 85-year-old man. And I'm like, okay, that sounds good.

Mary · 11:19
Same, same. Absolutely. What, what do you think of when you think of youth? What comes to mind?

Jordan · 11:26
Well, I think as a woman, it's very interesting because, you know, I've been seeing a lot of women talk about Botox and things like that. And just like how, like, we don't understand the importance of youth when we're like, when we're young, you know, you're kind of like young and dumb. No offense.

Tim · 11:42
Yeah.

Mary · 11:43
Well, they're synonyms. Like, they do go together weirdly.

Jordan · 11:46
You just don't know, right? And like, looking back, I think back to when I was a kid and I was like, wow, you know, I didn't, I didn't have any idea. If I knew then what I know now, I would have made different decisions. And also just appreciating age. I think we really value youth, which is amazing, but also I don't think we appreciate age. As we age, we're wiser.

Reggie · 12:09
Mm-hmm.

Jordan · 12:10
I mean, I think people grow into themselves, they grow into their personality, they have more confidence and security with who they are. And I think we need to value both sides of the coin as opposed to just always chasing after youth.

Reggie · 12:23
I agree.

Tim · 12:23
So true.

Reggie · 12:25
I think, you know, it's interesting because to your point, we always, you know, as we get older, we look back and we're like, man, if I had known these things then, I would have been so much more confident, so much more this, so much more that. But what's interesting is that we know these things, and I try to impart that onto my kids, like, oh no, don't do that, because I've already learned this lesson and I know that that's not the way to go.

Mary · 12:50
Right.

Reggie · 12:50
But the kids don't listen. It's like they just have to— and I'm sure every parent has had this exact same obstacle, is that kids have to find their own way. You can't just give them your secret book of all the things you figured out, and then they're all of a sudden geniuses and navigating the world with ease. Yeah, it doesn't work that way. No, they have to find their own way.

Tim · 13:13
I think that's what scares me most about AI. AI doesn't start over. It doesn't have to figure it out through experience. It literally, like, piggybacks on everything else.

Reggie · 13:22
Yeah.

Tim · 13:23
And I've always thought the superpower of humanity is that we have resets.

Jordan · 13:27
Yeah.

Tim · 13:27
No one can actually carry the entire body of work ahead. We all have to share it.

Reggie · 13:32
Yeah.

Tim · 13:32
Some will forget, some will restart, some will be given a mantle from someone else. They'll be given some kind of a body of work that they can carry forward, but they never can push it the exact same way. So it's evolved and it's moved through time. And I think it actually makes it more beautiful and longer lasting versus just always— computers and AI never forget. So they're constantly outpacing us in its— and it's not wisdom, it's just knowledge.

Reggie · 14:02
It's just data.

Jordan · 14:03
Right.

Mary · 14:03
We're an organism and that's like structured.

Tim · 14:06
We learn through experience.

Reggie · 14:07
We learn through making mistakes.

Jordan · 14:08
Yeah.

Tim · 14:09
And kids, they don't listen to you because they have their own way.

Reggie · 14:12
Yeah.

Tim · 14:13
That they must find.

Reggie · 14:14
They have to make those mistakes.

Tim · 14:15
Right. And they can't just trust your word and say, all right, my dad did this, so I'm not going to do it. They're like, maybe if I do it, it'll be different.

Reggie · 14:21
Yeah.

Tim · 14:22
And that's what we all think.

Reggie · 14:23
Maybe if I do it differently, it'll be better.

Tim · 14:24
And sometimes it works out. There are people who try it and it does something different than the last person that tried it. And so there's something very fascinating to me about that level of bullheadedness that humans have. Like, I just got to try it myself. I got to fail myself. And I fear that.

Jordan · 14:39
Especially if you have a 3-year-old.

Tim · 14:40
Yeah, I have a 4-year-old. I do it myself. Yeah, there's so—

Reggie · 14:43
Do you have kids?

Jordan · 14:44
I do, but my son's almost 13, so.

Reggie · 14:46
Okay.

Jordan · 14:47
But I remember those days, I was like, oh, I'll do it. I do it myself.

Reggie · 14:50
I do it myself. Oh my God.

Tim · 14:51
But isn't it worse at 13? I do it myself.

Reggie · 14:53
My son is like that. My son has always been like that. No, no, no, let me do it. No, no, I know, I know, I know how to do it. I'm like, dude, you're like 6.

Jordan · 15:02
How do you— I know.

Reggie · 15:03
You don't know.

Tim · 15:04
Yeah.

Reggie · 15:05
But I'm like, okay. Go ahead, buddy. He's 11 now.

Jordan · 15:07
Yeah.

Reggie · 15:08
And he's so bright. So yeah, but he definitely— we— it's funny, last night we had this whole like little period of like, it wasn't really a power struggle. But we have an air fryer. And the air fryer, when it's done, it says off and hot, and then off goes away. And then the unit eventually goes off on its own. And he was like, you left it on. I was like, no, no, it'll go off. He's like, nah, Dad, you left it on. I'm like, no. And so I was like, so I actually won this one because—

Tim · 15:43
You're like my wife. She has to win these things.

Jordan · 15:46
I'm like, just let them have it.

Tim · 15:47
It's not going to affect anything.

Reggie · 15:48
I literally put it on like 1 minute. I'm like, now watch. And I showed him the thing. Sorry, Dad, you proved your point. But then he seemed so defeated, like he didn't get to win. And I was like, Was that even worth it?

Jordan · 16:00
Was it worth it?

Reggie · 16:00
No, it was not worth it. I should have been like, all right, bud, maybe you are right, and just left it at that.

Jordan · 16:05
Yes, exactly. Wisdom for later.

Reggie · 16:08
Yes, wisdom for later. Because then he will discover, it is like, actually, you were right. I just found out, blah, blah, blah.

Tim · 16:13
Yes. The first thing that came to my mind was crazy because I was just showing my kids POD, which is a band I grew up with when I was young, youth.

Reggie · 16:21
What does POD stand for?

Tim · 16:24
I actually can't remember. It does stand for something, but it was a band out of South Florida, and they had this song called Youth of the Nation, and it was about the gun— the school shootings.

Reggie · 16:33
Oh, okay.

Tim · 16:33
And it's about a kid who goes to school. He didn't realize it was his last day, and his parents didn't realize it. And then the chorus goes, we are, we are youth of the nation. And it was like this really powerful song.

Reggie · 16:45
I know that song.

Tim · 16:46
And I'm listening to it, and I'm forgetting the whole school shooting thing we went through. I'm not sure if it's still happening.

Reggie · 16:53
I mean, it's like, that's the problem. It hasn't stopped.

Jordan · 16:57
We don't even talk about it.

Reggie · 16:58
We've desensitized ourselves because it's like every other week there's like, there's another school shooting.

Jordan · 17:03
Now they have practice drills in school.

Reggie · 17:05
Yeah.

Tim · 17:06
And it's so, it's in, in, um, we watch The Boys with, we have a little, we have like a TV show. Yeah. And we have an accountability group so that we can binge it successfully through a shorter amount of time. So, So in The Boys, there is this scene where, you know, it's, it's a— they're teaching what you do when a supervillain comes into school. They're teaching the kids like the steps you go through. And it's such a metaphor to this school shooting thing that we went through. But I feel like it was such a forward part of the news. Like we were all experiencing this trauma with the parents who've lost their children.

Reggie · 17:42
Oh yeah, absolutely.

Tim · 17:43
And the trauma of parents whose children became the shooters. And I, we just don't hear about it. Yeah.

Reggie · 17:49
And you watch Bowling for Columbine? Like, no, I did not. That was the Michael Moore piece on school shootings. And it was about the one up in Colorado. And it really just gave this insight to like what these kids, like they follow these boys and like what even radicalized them to do this thing. And it was just such an eye-opening thing because that could be any kid. Any kid could be like bullied or not getting what they needed at home, not getting what they needed at school, being the outcast. And all of a sudden you don't realize that this stereotype, this archetype is all too common because of just how youth works.

Tim · 18:35
Right. And I think when you grow up, you realize certain things aren't real, or you can do things that don't influence you, or you can see things that don't influence you. But when you're— when you're a youth, everything influences you as a, like, a really hardcore reality.

Reggie · 18:51
Very impressionable.

Tim · 18:52
And so media tilts their minds.

Jordan · 18:55
They manipulate everything.

Tim · 18:56
Right. Much stronger than they'll— I mean, I'm not going to say that I'm not tilted by what I see, but I take it in and I act on it differently because I'm just— there's so much more filter there that kind of distributes what's real and what's not. But for them, it's when you start to say something and you— and this is true throughout history. Most of the rebels, most of the people that overthrew governments were young people. It's like after you get through your 30s, your revolutionary instinct dies down.

Jordan · 19:25
Well, you have a mortgage.

Tim · 19:25
Yeah, yeah. I think it's that. I think people do say it's like the weight of the world, but I also think that there is a deeper wisdom as to what real change is. Because you can overthrow the English government to create the American government, and did we make any ground? You know, like, it can be argued we're not in a better human place than we were when we were under the king. You know, like, I don't—

Jordan · 19:48
We may have gone backwards. Maybe.

Tim · 19:49
There are points where maybe we didn't make— I'm not saying that there's not good that comes out of all these things, but sometimes when you're young, you're like, if I just kill this person and do this thing differently, everything will change.

Mary · 20:00
But that's why we call it the American experiment. You know, I agree with you. Well, you didn't state this as your stance, but like, I can see the point you're making about are we any better off. We didn't overthrow the British government because we were certain this was going to be better. I think a lot of people were, but I'm sure there were skeptics. But we had to try something else.

Tim · 20:21
Yeah, it wasn't working.

Mary · 20:22
It's that generational thing you were talking about where each generation is going to kind of take it their own way and have you heard this? I think most people have this theory that like human history goes in cycles. And so when you look at the decades past or the different—

Reggie · 20:37
We've seen this before.

Mary · 20:38
Yeah, like the greatest generation is coming back around. And I think in some ways we think about that as, oh, those people were just tougher, those people were just cut from a different cloth. And I'm like, I think the environment became untenable. And so something had to happen. And it doesn't matter if you're Whether they're 32 or 16, or these days activism is going way younger. You got middle school students walking out.

Jordan · 21:03
Yeah.

Tim · 21:04
Protests.

Jordan · 21:04
Right.

Mary · 21:05
Because who else is gonna look out for them if we're not figuring out the school shootings?

Tim · 21:10
That's crazy to me. I can't believe they're still happening. And like, no one's covering them like it's normal.

Reggie · 21:14
I think that's the problem. I think it's become so frequent that it's— Just desensitized to it. Yeah, it's like the news is like, well, this isn't news anymore.

Tim · 21:23
It's not gonna get the clicks.

Reggie · 21:23
This is like, you know, it's like saying the sun came up.

Mary · 21:26
Which I find very telling that we've been lulled into this sense of, yeah, this is what is acceptable. This is reality. That, you know, your government isn't responsible for protecting you in that way.

Reggie · 21:37
I mean, as a parent, I'm obviously still very well aware of them and very concerned because you just never know. That was the episode of The Pit where, remember the one, the woman's kid kind of went missing and he had this like list of girls that he wanted.

Mary · 21:55
Sorry, spoilers if you're done with it.

Tim · 21:56
Yeah, if you're not done with it.

Reggie · 21:58
the first season.

Mary · 22:00
But you're way behind.

Reggie · 22:02
And it's not really a spoiler because it's just something that happened. But there's a kid who has a— and there was a concern, everybody was concerned that this was going to be the outcome, that he was going to go do this thing. And I'm not going to say whether he did or didn't. But it's, you know, you feel that, you think about it.

Jordan · 22:19
On a lighter note.

Reggie · 22:21
Yes. Let's bring us into something more colorful. Yes.

Mary · 22:24
A lighter—

Reggie · 22:24
on a lighter palette.

Jordan · 22:26
I think one thing that is hard to really wrap your brain around is that each generation grows up in such a different environment. Like the other day, my son had a sleepover, and I went to check on them, and they were streaming a video on YouTube. And I was like, wow, you know, to have streaming at your fingertips, like you never have to have a down moment and be bored. I mean, I remember when I had sleepovers, like, I don't know, should we cut out pictures from that magazine? My daughter loves doing that.

Reggie · 22:52
I was gonna say.

Jordan · 22:53
Like, I remember just like going to the kitchen, be like, I'm gonna make a cake. And I just like put random things together. Amazing.

Tim · 23:00
I love it.

Jordan · 23:01
I remember eating it and being like, no, no, no, we're not going to put that in the cookbook. But, you know, so it's, I think, you know, we have different things like even music, right? Style, fashion, news.

Mary · 23:13
What you consume all the time.

Jordan · 23:15
And I mean, think about AI. Growing up with AI is a normal thing.

Tim · 23:19
Do you let your kids use AI?

Jordan · 23:20
I mean, he uses it a little bit, but like even, you know, I was looking, I was curious like what happened with the Taylor Swift wedding? And I was like looking up photos and there was lots of different dresses. And I'm like, maybe she had 2 or 3, but not 5. I'm like, some of these are AI.

Tim · 23:36
Yeah.

Jordan · 23:36
And we were just, we were watching some videos and my son was like, that's AI. And I'm like, I can't imagine growing up in a world where you, you know, media always is, you know, tilting the story, right, to get the clicks, but there's truth behind it. But with AI, you can just completely fabricate things. And especially now with image generation, I was like, that's not really Taylor Swift.

Reggie · 23:58
Yeah, the deepfakes are crazy.

Mary · 24:00
The level of discernment that we're asking young people to exhibit and quickly develop is just, I don't know, unrealistic. I think at any age, that can be a difficult skill to build.

Tim · 24:13
Wasn't it supposed to be so fun? Like, create new images, create new things. That sounds fun, right?

Reggie · 24:17
Sounds fun.

Tim · 24:18
Why does it turn into this dark, twisted, manipulative thing?

Jordan · 24:22
Because there's light and dark in everything.

Reggie · 24:24
Yeah.

Tim · 24:24
I mean, true. But what about Is there something in our build that is incentivizing the darkness, that is incentivizing the manipulation? You know, like if everyone wants to be seen, or everyone wants to be famous, then doing something that will make you famous is kind of the purpose of your life.

Jordan · 24:43
Right.

Tim · 24:44
You know, like there are kids now, and my kids maybe have said this, I am not sure if they will still say this, but they do not really have a goal or a career. other than just to be famous.

Jordan · 24:54
Yeah.

Tim · 24:54
And I'm like, I don't even know. It's like the— it's like when I was growing up, Paris Hilton was the first one to kind of be like, I'm just famous. Like, yeah, exactly.

Reggie · 25:02
You know, like socialite.

Tim · 25:03
I don't do anything and I just— I'm just famous. I'm known for being famous.

Reggie · 25:07
Yeah.

Tim · 25:07
And so it's like, what— when you like— so when you were bored as a kid, you would do things.

Jordan · 25:13
I created stuff.

Tim · 25:13
Right.

Reggie · 25:14
Yeah.

Tim · 25:15
Other kids watch other kids watch other kids stream. Yeah. You know, like, let's watch them play this game.

Reggie · 25:21
Right. Which is the wildest concept to me.

Tim · 25:24
It's crazy. It's so meta, but we've created a meta culture. You know, like everything's meta. You're reading something and then you're seeing something and then you're seeing this. It's all layered on top of each other. And so there's this— they're native to it.

Jordan · 25:35
It becomes very passive. You know, like people even— like I was— I went to get some dinner the other day and I walked into the restaurant and there was a family sitting down and the mom was on her phone and the 2 kids were on iPads. And I was just like, I feel like I'm in Like dystopian nightmare. Yeah.

Reggie · 25:50
It's like the Twilight Zone. Like, why don't you guys talk to each other? Right.

Tim · 25:54
There's— yeah.

Reggie · 25:54
That's a little sad to me when I see that.

Jordan · 25:56
That's really sad.

Reggie · 25:57
I see that too often too. All the time. I see people on dates.

Mary · 26:00
Yeah.

Reggie · 26:00
And they're literally across from each other and they're on a—

Mary · 26:02
Yeah.

Jordan · 26:02
I know.

Reggie · 26:03
On a two-top on their phones.

Mary · 26:04
Alright.

Tim · 26:04
Before you villainize it, I've looked at my family and we're all on our phones checking something. And I'm like, maybe people saw this 2-minute stint where we were all deciding to check something.

Reggie · 26:13
Oh.

Tim · 26:13
And then judged that we were one of those families. So I don't know. Like, I've— when I watch—

Reggie · 26:17
I think it is a stamina issue.

Mary · 26:17
When I see it happening, even if it's just for a blip, I'm like, oh, we couldn't sustain an hour's worth of conversation and eye contact.

Jordan · 26:26
Yeah.

Reggie · 26:27
What are you looking up as a family?

Mary · 26:28
Like, well, everyone Googled the characters of Guardians of the Galaxy.

Tim · 26:34
Everyone's got their lines of communication. This is one of my biggest issues with our current culture is there's so many lines of communication trying to get to you.

Reggie · 26:41
I want to scream.

Tim · 26:42
Tell me about it.

Reggie · 26:43
I'm with you. I'm like, this is what drives me crazy about with youth because they have to be so connected all the time. We didn't have that.

Jordan · 26:50
But it's not— No, we had none of that. It's not true connection though.

Tim · 26:53
It's not.

Reggie · 26:54
Yeah, it's—

Tim · 26:55
well, I mean— But it feeds the feeling of connection.

Reggie · 26:58
I will argue that it is on some level their form of connection because there's this little— there is another person on the other line. They're reaching out to a friend who's saying, hey, blah, blah, blah. And so they're getting that oxytocin because they're getting their connection points with their friend. But it's not the same as like deeply connecting with the people that are in front of you at the table in real life.

Jordan · 27:24
Yeah.

Tim · 27:24
But how many years has it been since kids would get on the phone and talk to their friends for hours?

Reggie · 27:29
I used to do that when I was a kid.

Tim · 27:31
I did too.

Reggie · 27:31
I remember we had this basement phone. It was a red phone with the long coil, and it was the— it was an actual dial.

Mary · 27:39
Rotary dial.

Reggie · 27:40
Rotary phone. And I would sit on the stairs because the cable was just long enough for me to get up to like the 3rd stair, you know? And I was sitting talking to my buddy Richard. I talked to, you know, a girl that I knew. And—

Mary · 27:52
Can I just point out though—

Reggie · 27:53
It was so cool.

Mary · 27:54
The examples that you both just gave, like when you imagine this other time where kids have always been, since the technology existed, we wanted to be on the phone talking to our friends. When I was 5 years old, I asked for a laptop for Christmas, which was just like a wildly, like, I would never get that. I think I wasn't 5, I was probably 7. But I think—

Reggie · 28:14
You were like, uh, no.

Mary · 28:16
But think about that. Think about the difference between when you were 7, what was in the media and telling you.

Jordan · 28:21
Oh, yeah.

Mary · 28:21
So I am just saying that, do you not think on some level kids were always susceptible to this? You just had the constraints of technology not being there yet.

Reggie · 28:29
Exactly. Yeah. No, I think that is exactly right.

Mary · 28:31
And so I feel like I am going to stick up for the youth, which is just the youngest person in the room. Yeah. As the most youthful among us. I think they're just doing what they can to get a need met. Like, the concept of epigenetics, and if your great-great-grandmother wasn't well enough fed, then your great-grandmother didn't feel well enough fed. And now we've got obesity disorders and things that make you feel like you need to binge because there's a scarcity there. I wonder if we're living in scarcity of attention for our children.

Jordan · 29:04
Yeah.

Mary · 29:04
And all of us suffer from it, not just the youngest generation. But we're seeing it take its toll in a different way.

Tim · 29:10
Right. Like, like you said, Jordan, they're, they're growing up in a different world, a world where we were on our technology.

Jordan · 29:16
Right.

Mary · 29:17
Yeah.

Tim · 29:17
You know, and I don't even know if we consciously know how much we're on our technology when other eyes are watching. I mean, I'm trying to stay conscious of it. And I have always tried to stay conscious of it. But still, to work, to stay connected to you guys, and the work we're doing.

Mary · 29:31
That's a challenge sometimes.

Tim · 29:32
You have to look at your phone.

Reggie · 29:33
You have to look at your phone.

Tim · 29:35
There's like a lot.

Jordan · 29:36
Your whole life is entwined with your phone.

Tim · 29:37
Yeah.

Mary · 29:39
Sorry, I'll— I'm gonna pass it back. I swear. Alex was a camp counselor for many years. But he, he's just an incredible connector with kids. And he told me one time, there's some crazy statistic that they taught them when everybody was going through training to become a camp counselor at this camp. They said, children on average receive like 5 minutes of sustained eye contact from adults.

Jordan · 30:03
Wow.

Reggie · 30:03
Wow.

Mary · 30:03
Like, the idea of them not getting face-to-face, I'm focused on you time, that blew my mind for a second. And then I started thinking about my own childhood, and I grew up well-loved, but the amount of like, let me focus on you and see how you're doing and like check in emotionally, that went away very quickly.

Reggie · 30:23
I remember my dad playing video games, and I'm like trying to get his attention, and he's like looking at the game. He's like, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh.

Tim · 30:33
I mean, even like the things that were put in front of his face, he's like, get out of my way.

Mary · 30:39
Even the necessities of life, even the things that your parents probably were doing for your sake. I think that's a lot of the things that I think about. They were trying to give me a better life, so they had to be focused on capitalism and not focused on me.

Tim · 30:54
Work, cooking, laundry, connecting with friends.

Jordan · 30:58
Can we make the robots do the laundry? Like, I want that.

Reggie · 31:02
Pain of my existence. Free dinner and That is the bane of my existence. I don't mind washing and drying the laundry. But the folding and putting away because I'm so anal about folding everything perfectly. And it just is so tedious. So yeah, if we have robots that did that, sign me up.

Mary · 31:20
Yeah.

Reggie · 31:21
I will say this. I did see a study the other day that said teenage kids with a certain level of screen time They were studying brain patterns. And they were finding that kids that had an excessive amount of screen time in between like 14 and like 18 or so were having similar brain patterns to elderly people with not dementia, the other one, Alzheimer's. They were saying the patterns were the same in their brains.

Tim · 31:55
That's serious.

Reggie · 31:57
That's it. Yeah. Which is basically saying that their ability— they're losing their ability to recall to remember things, to— yeah, and that's a very— that was an eye-opener for me. And I immediately went and told my kids, take a break. We actually make our kids take a break. They all have iPads, and they'll play games. My son and my twin daughters will play games together with each other on iPad, like Roblox or whatever.

Jordan · 32:25
Right.

Reggie · 32:26
But it is really hard for me to see them just devouring it so much. So I'm always like, like, you guys have to go do something else. I don't care what it is, go outside. And I do try, to your point, I try to give them that face time. Like, I just remember being a young kid and trying to like, just see the face of an adult knowing that they, that they were being attentive, that I had their full attention. And knowing what that felt like to not get it.

Tim · 32:56
Yeah.

Reggie · 32:56
So when my kids ask me questions, I make it a point to try to stop what I'm doing and like say, yeah, like, what's going on?

Tim · 33:06
Really engage.

Reggie · 33:06
I feel like that's really important. And it makes me think they feel more loved. And we're— my kids are very, very close.

Mary · 33:13
It's one of those things that you will never, ever, ever get credit for. But I think it's just a systemic neglect.

Reggie · 33:20
It's a necessary thing to do.

Mary · 33:21
That we've kind of built in because we're so worried about making ends meet.

Tim · 33:25
Yeah. Yeah.

Mary · 33:26
That's my take on it.

Reggie · 33:27
We're always so busy. We're always— so there's always something going on. Yeah.

Jordan · 33:31
But well, there's always at least multiple factions being pitted at war with each other.

Reggie · 33:35
Oh yeah.

Jordan · 33:36
So to distract.

Mary · 33:36
Just a little light entertainment.

Tim · 33:39
Before I die, I'm gonna watch this video. Take a little break.

Jordan · 33:43
But I just started reading The 5 Love Languages. Like, I took the test years ago, and I went to the library, and they were doing a book sale. And I was like, let's just—

Reggie · 33:51
let's just do it.

Jordan · 33:52
Yeah. So I started reading it. And the, you know, I'm just in the very beginning, and he's talking about how everyone has like a love bucket. And everyone has their own love language. And when you communicate with someone through your own love language, it's like you're speaking, you know, Chinese to someone who speaks Spanish. When you can understand what someone else's love language is and speak to them in their love language, you're filling up their love bucket. And so that just reminds me of what we're talking about with the kids is like, are we— and they were saying too, we notice it in children, but really, like, one of the reasons there's so much struggle in like long sustainable marriages is because people aren't speaking each other's language, and they're not filling up their love bucket. And so we don't realize that, yes, that's happening with children. But really, if as adults, we learn how to speak each other's love languages in relationships, or friendships, or, you know, parents and children, we would just have such a different world and connection.

Mary · 34:41
I take that a step further and say, I think, in a— that type of thinking is opening our brains societally to different types of neurodivergence, and just generally people's Brains are wired differently, and the way they receive the world and stimulus overall is different. I think that's opening the door for new thinking around how we accommodate people.

Tim · 35:03
Never thought about it that way.

Mary · 35:04
Make space and include everybody in this world.

Reggie · 35:07
When my 22-year-old was, I guess, maybe 3 to 5, she would— maybe even younger— she would act out a little bit, and it was hard to kind of navigate.

Mary · 35:20
Did you say it was your eldest that did this?

Reggie · 35:21
Yeah. And so as a new parent, it was hard to navigate and trying to figure out, like, what was going on and how to respond. And similar to the 5 Love Languages, there was something we came across. I don't know if it was like the school counselor or a therapist, but whoever it was said that kids have— they used a similar metaphor. They had this bucket, and they needed to get a certain amount of stimulation, like activity challenge. They needed to get a certain amount of play, rest. And if you weren't getting enough of any one of those things, they act out. Like, that is why they act out, because their bucket's not full. They're not getting all the combination of those things that they need. They don't know how to ask for it. And they don't know how to ask for it. And so they act out. They're basically saying, hey, my bucket's not full, which is them drawing on the wall or them cutting up your favorite whatever.

Mary · 36:21
Or like, I'm not getting enough play. Where can I get play? Let me find somewhere.

Tim · 36:25
I was taught if you acted out, you were just rebellious and you got spanked.

Reggie · 36:28
Yeah, same.

Jordan · 36:30
When we were growing up, you don't spank children now.

Tim · 36:33
No, I mean, I spanked my first son and I'm hoping it doesn't ruin our relationship for like 4 years.

Reggie · 36:39
Okay. And he brought it up again.

Mary · 36:41
Well, it's been a while.

Tim · 36:43
Yeah, he's 17 now.

Reggie · 36:44
We've talked about it.

Tim · 36:45
And he sometimes wants me to He wants me to discipline our youngest. He's like, you're not hard enough on him.

Reggie · 36:50
Anyway, at first— Oh, he says that?

Tim · 36:51
Yeah.

Reggie · 36:51
He's like, I got spanked.

Tim · 36:53
Why don't you spank me?

Jordan · 36:53
Exactly.

Mary · 36:54
The plight of the eldest.

Tim · 36:55
But the first time I spanked my daughter, I said, nope, this isn't happening. And I quit spanking him, her, and never spanked. And so it's like the experience of it, it's like I knew it was wrong. But I grew up getting spanked pretty much on a daily basis.

Reggie · 37:11
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim · 37:12
Usually, and maybe even it would fill in, like, I know you did something today, so I'm just gonna get one in.

Mary · 37:16
Is that it?

Jordan · 37:17
It was like— Or I don't know you did something.

Mary · 37:19
I know you did something. At the junior— what am I trying to say? It was condoned in kindergarten. Like, you would go to kindergarten.

Tim · 37:25
I know. My dad—

Reggie · 37:26
kindergarten, we got the— we had a ruler and we got the whack on the hand.

Tim · 37:30
Yeah. My dad told me if they spank you at school, you're gonna come home and get a spanking from me too.

Reggie · 37:34
Oh, wow.

Mary · 37:34
Yeah. I think my dad said the same thing.

Tim · 37:37
I never tried to fill any buckets. I literally just tried not to appear that I had a bucket. Yeah.

Reggie · 37:44
There ain't no bucket over here.

Jordan · 37:45
That's it.

Mary · 37:46
Well, that's what we're taught, right? By, by the consequence of life, and by the examples that people show you of how they treat you, you are asked to act as if you have no needs, and no one else needs to have any role in filling those, and there's no expectation on you, and I'll just figure it out.

Tim · 38:03
Yeah.

Mary · 38:03
And we also don't build self-care practices, so. Yeah.

Tim · 38:06
And so I think we— I wonder if we fall back on this screen thing with youth in conversation as a form of our obsession with spanking, metaphorically. So we're like, Saying spanking will fix this. No screens will fix this. My kids say to me, they're like, Dad, I wish I could be as good at connecting something, some negative impact that I'm dealing with to screens. I wish I could be as consistent as you are. Because like literally everything they go through, I'm like, it's probably because you're on screens.

Reggie · 38:32
It's probably because you're on screens too much.

Tim · 38:33
And they're like, Dad, it's not always because I'm on screens. It's because I'm starting to notice.

Mary · 38:37
What great-grandpa Tim always used to say was, actually true, but you can't see it in the moment.

Tim · 38:43
And so I'm like, I'm challenging us. Could we talk about youth without talking about screens? Is it possible? Like, is— like, our minds literally go to it. That is the news headline, like, screens are bad. And I am a full believer in screens are bad and boredom is good because it brings these beautiful things up. But I'm like, how does the conversation progress? Because I don't think the youth's hearing it. I literally think as soon as you say screens, as a person our age, gray hair in my case, they're like, they call him off.

Reggie · 39:11
Yeah, no, totally. Absolutely. It's the same thing.

Jordan · 39:14
It's like, it doesn't—

Reggie · 39:15
whatever we— when we were young, it's like, your music's too loud or whatever. We turn it off. We hear too much. And it's like, I will say this though, I do think that the youth may have a slight advantage industry-wide because they are growing up in the world of tech in a way that they live it, breathe it. I mean, kids like like, did something the other day on his iPad that I was like, man, I like— I was in my 20s before I like do anything remotely that remarkable.

Jordan · 39:48
No way.

Reggie · 39:48
And I do think the industry benefits from having these kids. I do think there needs to be a balance, but I do think our industry benefits from having kids that are so comfortable with tech in a way when we have an industry that's led by tech? Yeah. What do you guys think about that?

Tim · 40:06
What do you think about that, Jordan?

Jordan · 40:08
Great question. Well, it was interesting. I just was actually talking to this woman I have a sales call with coming up. And I was asking her like, what is it that you struggle with your brand? And she was saying like, I'm young, and I used to be an influencer. And I, you know, and I was like, to grow up where that's just normal, you know, like, I feel like I'm still learning like how to show up on camera, right? You know, you have to do this, right? Like, this is normal, right? But when you're young, it's like, you know, if you're like, and she was like, I started doing this when I was young, right? So people are starting at like, you know, my son likes some YouTuber, YouTubers, and we've seen kids that like at 11, they have a YouTube channel, and then you just watch them grow up in front of the camera. And it's just, it's just a different way. Again, it's just different constraints that we're growing up with now. And it's just more normal to start a YouTube channel when you're 11 or 14 or 16 or 21.

Mary · 41:01
Right.

Jordan · 41:02
And I think also just people, they can monetize who they are in a way that— and I think that's maybe tied into the famous piece is you can just be yourself and have charisma or sorry, as the kids say, rizz.

Mary · 41:18
Yeah.

Reggie · 41:19
Rizz.

Tim · 41:19
Nice.

Jordan · 41:20
That sounds like cringe.

Reggie · 41:21
Got rizz.

Tim · 41:23
Yeah, exactly.

Jordan · 41:25
So you can monetize who you are as a person. And that's just, we grew up with create a product, create a service, or have a model.

Mary · 41:34
That is not a new thing.

Jordan · 41:34
It's not just about you saying, I use this face cream, and you're like, look, I just sold out of my face cream because I recommended the face cream. I think it's just a different way. And then I was reading this article that was talking about the job market and young kids, and it was saying a lot of people are blaming AI as to why the job market's challenging for young kids. And it said, actually, what's really going on is the remote work.

Mary · 41:58
work.

Jordan · 41:58
That's what's really affecting the youth because, you know, and I know I remember when I was a kid, you know, I mean, I worked in agencies where, you know, like they make you cry, right? Like you're working late, you're like, I'm doing all the dirty work, I'm doing all the unsexy stuff.

Reggie · 42:13
Yeah.

Jordan · 42:13
And you just, you really learn work ethic, you learn how to communicate, you find mentors, people teach you things. And, you know, I don't think I would be where I am in my career if I hadn't had people right in front of me that I was like, hey, can I just sit behind you and watch you use Photoshop and ask questions in real time. And now, you know, there's such a— and I think that also feeds into the whole disconnection. And don't get me wrong, like, I love being able to work from home and do my laundry on a Thursday. But I think there's something really nice to being around people and communicating with people.

Reggie · 42:41
Yeah.

Jordan · 42:41
And especially being younger and like, you know, watching— like, I see people that I hire in my business that are younger, and it's like, you don't understand how to communicate. You don't understand how to tell me what you need or you don't understand what a deadline means. Like, I come from agency world. Like, you take deadlines seriously.

Reggie · 42:59
You need— yeah, deadlines are there.

Jordan · 43:00
You're not going to bed tonight.

Mary · 43:01
Yeah, yeah.

Jordan · 43:01
Like, you're up till 2 in the morning.

Reggie · 43:02
You can have 3 coffees. You gotta finish this. You can't just—

Jordan · 43:05
Because this is due. This isn't like, I don't feel like it, I'll do it tomorrow. It's like, no, what? No.

Reggie · 43:09
And I think that brings up a good point. I think when we were young and, you know, through our whole career, we learned to work through pain. We learned to work through discomfort.

Jordan · 43:19
Exactly.

Reggie · 43:20
And I do think that is one thing about the younger generation is that they can't stand being bored or uncomfortable for long. If they're in a moment where they don't know what to do, or they're not comfortable, or they can't figure out, they seem kind of helpless. My kids will be like, sometimes when you take the screens away, there is—

Tim · 43:42
Melt.

Reggie · 43:42
Yeah, they melt. They're just like, well, I don't know what to do. And I'm like, well, you weren't born with a screen. Like, what, what could you do? Like, I want to I don't want to hear, I don't know what to do. I want you to come to me with some ideas of things you can do.

Tim · 43:55
Yeah, but I feel the same thing. My dad told me one time, he's like, I said I was bored and you never say that in my family.

Jordan · 44:01
That's the recipe for disaster.

Tim · 44:02
Did he date you?

Reggie · 44:04
No.

Jordan · 44:04
Like, you can do the laundry and the dishes.

Tim · 44:07
He says, go sit on the couch for an hour, do nothing. And I was like, what? That's terrible. And he was like, you'll know what bored really feels like. And I sat there for like an hour and I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm miserable. And everything looked interesting after that experience.

Reggie · 44:20
Of course.

Tim · 44:20
I always was drawn Well, everyone's not you, Reggie.

Reggie · 44:24
Well, I know, but like— But I do feel like—

Tim · 44:27
I was bored all the time.

Jordan · 44:29
Really?

Tim · 44:29
Yeah.

Reggie · 44:30
No.

Tim · 44:30
Yeah, because when you— when you desire adventure and you're not getting adventure, you're like walking around your house like, oh my God, I've seen this room 20 million times.

Reggie · 44:40
I think it's the difference between growing up with siblings versus me, who— I mean, I was mostly an only child.

Tim · 44:46
My cousin was an only child and he loved coming to our house because he was so bored.

Reggie · 44:49
Oh, really?

Mary · 44:49
I was an only child until I was 5, and I got so bored. I was hella bored. You— I could occupy myself if you gave me something that was stimulating to me. I could occupy myself for a long period of time, or like, I started reading and then it was over. I could just disappear.

Tim · 45:05
Never bored again.

Mary · 45:05
But I was constantly bored. I was like, Mom, can you take me somewhere? I just wanted to see something new always.

Tim · 45:11
I think youth and boredom are like—

Jordan · 45:13
Yeah.

Reggie · 45:14
Hand in hand.

Tim · 45:15
It should. But the thing about uncomfort is—

Reggie · 45:17
I feel lucky then.

Tim · 45:18
Yeah. I feel lucky.

Jordan · 45:19
Were you bored? I mean, I created projects. Like, my dad has videos of me like creating a castle with my My Little Ponies and getting the steamer and like having smoke come in and being like, and then the princess comes in and does this.

Mary · 45:32
And boredom gave you the canvas.

Tim · 45:34
And you sound like a big star.

Reggie · 45:35
If I was bored, things would happen. Like, I would look at my room and realize that it wasn't like everything wasn't in order. And so I would literally organize my whole room because I was—

Tim · 45:45
Is this like last week or is this when you were a kid?

Reggie · 45:47
That's when I was a kid.

Tim · 45:47
I don't even know.

Reggie · 45:48
You've been OCD. I think I maybe still am. But I do, I do stand by the statement that I do find the younger generation has a harder time living through discomfort, like, like a deadline. Like, I could see a kid saying like, oh my God, someone in their— no offense— late 20s, early 30s saying, hey, we have a deadline tomorrow. Yeah, get married.

Tim · 46:16
Late 20s.

Mary · 46:17
One very offended on all of our behalf, but go on.

Reggie · 46:20
I could just see them like in a situation where we've got a deadline and we're backed up against it and them saying, oh well, I can't work anymore, I gotta do this tomorrow.

Tim · 46:30
But isn't that work-life balance?

Reggie · 46:31
It should be, yes.

Mary · 46:32
I wanna fight back just for a minute. I wanna give you ground and say yes, absolutely, there are young people and it— the problem, problem compounds the younger they get.

Reggie · 46:43
Like, Yeah.

Mary · 46:45
Having just substitute taught for a mere few months at like the middle school level, it's like a very different— but I do think there are those young people who are in victim mode who are like, oh, well, why are you making me do this hard thing?

Reggie · 46:59
Right, right, right.

Mary · 47:00
I would never do this hard thing. And they're like the privileged sort of— we have an archetype for that.

Reggie · 47:05
Those are the people I'm talking about.

Mary · 47:06
But I'm thinking there's another side of this archetype, and I've seen it happen, Where the empowered youth isn't saying, I don't wanna do that. They're saying, well, why would I do that? You've done that your whole life and it led to this outcome. So I want to do it differently and no, I'm not gonna compromise my sleep schedule because of your deadline.

Reggie · 47:25
That's what I'd like to hear is that there has to be a better way.

Tim · 47:28
But what if it's a revolution of this mistreatment of people? Like, what if you would've been better off had you not been verbally abused in your youth? What if?

Jordan · 47:38
What if?

Tim · 47:38
Who would you be if you had a loud scrap of I hope you had good bosses that respected your, your, your health and your, and your life and your balance.

Mary · 47:47
And your naivete. You know, like, you're allowed to be soft and squishy.

Reggie · 47:51
Yeah.

Mary · 47:52
But nowhere in the world.

Tim · 47:54
Right. I grew up in suffering. Like, I, and I, and Mary will still say I'm addicted to it, but I got spanked as a child. Physical pain was inflicted upon me multiple times a week.

Reggie · 48:06
Is that what you told people when you go to I mean, I grew up with it as normal.

Mary · 48:11
I mean, but it was.

Tim · 48:11
No, I literally bent over something and got beat in the butt.

Jordan · 48:16
Yeah.

Tim · 48:17
So I took pain.

Mary · 48:19
He was laying it to the butt though.

Tim · 48:20
I wasn't abused.

Reggie · 48:22
I got backhanded sometimes. And that is the worst.

Mary · 48:25
No, look at this.

Tim · 48:26
10 years.

Reggie · 48:26
I wouldn't even sit within arm's length of my dad or my grandma. I'm like, yeah, maybe I'm just gonna sit over here.

Mary · 48:33
So that's 10 years prior to Tim's experience. My experience 10 years later was I got spanked, but not for very long because my parents had the experience you had with your middle child. I think it took a minute to like get past it, but I was never hurt. I don't remember ever experiencing physical pain at my parents' hands. There was the symbol of getting hurt. There was the humiliation of getting spanked, which is still— I said to somebody this morning, humiliation is still a key part of my process creatively.

Jordan · 49:05
Well, what's interesting is my son showed me this YouTube video of like 10 things parents say that like are detrimental to youth. And I was like, whatever. So he shows it to me and one of them was, because I said so.

Mary · 49:16
Oh, totally.

Reggie · 49:18
And I was like, my parents say that all the time.

Mary · 49:20
He's like, well, that's really bad. Or do as I say and not as I do.

Tim · 49:24
Is that what he said?

Mary · 49:25
Oh yeah.

Reggie · 49:26
He said what? What'd he say?

Jordan · 49:27
He's like, that's just really bad for me mentally.

Mary · 49:29
And I was watching this and I was like, what?

Jordan · 49:32
I was just like, because I said so. And so it made me think and I was like, there was definitely a time, and I don't know exactly when it was, where like kids got soft, right? It was like when I was a kid, you had the winners, you had the losers, you had to work hard, you got the trophy. Like it was very clear not everyone was the best. And then there was some sort of shift in society where now it was like everyone gets a trophy.

Reggie · 49:52
You get a participation award.

Mary · 49:54
Everybody's equal.

Reggie · 49:55
Because you shouldn't.

Jordan · 49:56
I was like, okay, I see the benefits of that. But also if you're telling people that, then, you know, Who's gonna work hard? Who's gonna try, right? Who's gonna put— who's gonna work hard?

Mary · 50:05
Do you think— genuine question— what percentage of this dynamic do you think had to do with racial justice in this, like, civil rights movement in America? Because I do think a lot of the people who got left behind were those who were not as privileged financially and socioeconomically. So I think there has been this great calibrating moment where we're like, we can't just people are behind by generations, not just a couple grades.

Tim · 50:33
Yeah.

Mary · 50:34
You know?

Tim · 50:34
Way behind. Right.

Reggie · 50:36
Yeah. Right.

Tim · 50:36
Yeah. I guess, I guess there's something, you know, this, the statement, youth is wasted on the young, is, is you, you grow to know how true that is. And what I'm questioning is, what is wrong with waste? What is wrong with wasting your youth? Like, I think we get into such a— capitalism creates such a productivity-minded value.

Reggie · 50:57
Everything has to be worth something.

Tim · 50:58
Your value is based on your productivity and your Yeah. And nothing is given to the mystery of life, and that you can just go walk in a field. There has to be no monetary value in it. You don't have to film it. You don't have to optimize it. You don't have to do anything to make that moment productive. You can just waste a few minutes walking through a field.

Reggie · 51:21
And I think there's some value in that. Right.

Tim · 51:24
There's value in that.

Reggie · 51:25
It's developing a part of yourself that that you have a hard time being able to do in later stages of life because you're so busy and life happens and yada, yada, yada. But in your youth, gosh, man, it's good to be bored. It's good to be able to like go sit out in the backyard and just bask in the sun that's like, you know, filtering through the sheets on the clothing line.

Tim · 51:47
Yeah.

Reggie · 51:47
But like, which is amazing.

Tim · 51:48
But imagine if we didn't wake up feeling guilty. Like, if I woke up too late, I got— oh yeah, I got reamed out. Like, you're wasting your life, you're sleeping your life away. Imagine being to wake up, not feel guilty, binge a show, not feel guilty. Like, what does life feel like without shame and guilt?

Jordan · 52:06
I don't know. I don't want to do that till 7 so I can be working by 9.

Reggie · 52:10
That's such a downbringer. I did have those. I— the experience I just mentioned is something I used to do.

Tim · 52:15
I used to go—

Reggie · 52:16
I had a dog, and I would go sit out in the yard with my dog and just, like, find a sunspot and just hang out because I was an only child.

Tim · 52:23
Well, no, but you were raised by your grandma, though.

Reggie · 52:25
I was raised by my grandma, but I had a different perspective. I already did the chores. I already washed dishes. I am the one that hung those clothes on the clothesline. And then you deserved— I earned the time to sit and listen.

Tim · 52:35
But then that's the earning.

Reggie · 52:36
Yeah.

Tim · 52:37
The earning of time. Like, so now you're like, I've earned a show.

Reggie · 52:42
Right, right.

Tim · 52:42
I've done enough work to have earned a show.

Reggie · 52:45
Right.

Tim · 52:45
So that is part of the programming. That's part of the loop we're in.

Reggie · 52:48
It was just silent programming, but it was probably there.

Tim · 52:51
And we think we're making them better for making them Kind of guilt them into working harder. Like, you didn't suffer as much as I've suffered. You need to learn how to suffer.

Reggie · 53:01
I do feel a little bit of that.

Tim · 53:03
I know, I do too.

Reggie · 53:04
You need to wash more dishes.

Tim · 53:05
That's what I'm saying.

Reggie · 53:06
You need to sweep the floor.

Tim · 53:06
You learn responsibility. And I wonder, like, was there a child that was like— we learned from a child that's like, I want no responsibility, and their life went horrible. And we're like, from then on out, everyone's got to learn responsibility this way. Or is it like an oppressive over—

Reggie · 53:23
You have to do this.

Tim · 53:25
A look forward to structure that controls the public.

Reggie · 53:27
Which is why a lot of people grow up hating authority.

Tim · 53:30
Right.

Reggie · 53:30
Because it feels like that.

Mary · 53:32
Do you have, Jordan, do you have any fear— we won't let your son listen to this, by the way. Do you have any fear—

Tim · 53:39
Market not safe for kids.

Mary · 53:40
Of your child not, like, failing to launch? Do you have any fear that he's gonna be like stuck in the house, not have a job, not—

Reggie · 53:49
No.

Tim · 53:49
I keep my fingers crossed that my son stays in the house because sometimes Yeah.

Reggie · 53:52
I feel like—

Jordan · 53:54
It is nice, but, you know, I want him to go and live his life and to have experiences.

Mary · 53:58
And I wonder if part of that— I'll speak for myself— factored into my base programming was there was this sort of like, you will need to survive on your own one day. That was a lot of the, you need to suffer because the world is suffering.

Tim · 54:12
Survival instincts.

Mary · 54:13
Right.

Tim · 54:13
That's deeper. That's more primal.

Mary · 54:15
But I think there is a lot of Sadism, a little something that it's like, I suffered and therefore you must suffer. I need your suffering to somehow—

Reggie · 54:27
I don't pair it like that. But I do feel like my dad—

Tim · 54:30
You need to suffer.

Reggie · 54:30
Like that. And I always had my— anytime I was with my dad, there was like, there was something about seeing a kid just sitting around enjoying themselves.

Mary · 54:41
It reminded him that he didn't get to be that kid.

Reggie · 54:44
So he's like, kids shouldn't do that.

Tim · 54:45
He was mad at you for having them over.

Reggie · 54:47
Yeah, like I am in trouble because I didn't— yeah, it's like there's floors that need to be swept, dishes need to be washed, there's grout in between the brick walls that need to be cleaned. I'm like, what? There's cans that need to be stomped.

Mary · 54:58
And I think that's for most people pretty far from the norm today, but I still see a little sprinkle of like, I felt that last week. You are soft, child. And I'm like, children are soft?

Reggie · 55:09
That's the point. I resent my kids sometimes. times because they are so privileged.

Mary · 55:14
Like, when I don't even know it, right?

Reggie · 55:16
When I think about all the things that they like, for instance, I'm gonna, I'm gonna actually rat my kids out a little bit.

Mary · 55:24
Like, we won't let them listen either.

Tim · 55:25
Yeah.

Reggie · 55:26
Cook dinner. Like, when I grew up, you ate whatever was made.

Tim · 55:30
And that's what happened. You didn't say anything about it.

Reggie · 55:32
You didn't say anything about it. You ate the food. And that was it. And even if you didn't like it, you You just suffer— speaking of suffrage, you suffered through it.

Tim · 55:39
Yeah, yeah.

Reggie · 55:40
My kids are like, no, I'm not gonna eat that.

Jordan · 55:43
And all—

Reggie · 55:44
we're like cooking 4 or 5 different things. I'm like, I'm not doing this every night, guys. This is crazy.

Mary · 55:49
This is coming from the gluten-free vegetarian.

Reggie · 55:51
I know, I know. Come on.

Tim · 55:55
I think they might have a model for this.

Reggie · 55:59
No shade. However, they have I got no food allergies.

Tim · 56:03
In Reggie's defense, my kids do this too. They're like, Mom, this is gross. I'm like, you say that again, you will go to bed hungry.

Mary · 56:08
All these kids are jowly as hell.

Tim · 56:11
All that gluten stacking on you.

Reggie · 56:15
You have to watch another episode to know what that reference is from.

Mary · 56:18
Reggie told us a story about gluten and jowls.

Reggie · 56:21
But no, they—

Tim · 56:22
Where's the thankfulness?

Reggie · 56:24
My son no longer likes mushrooms, and so when I do stir fry, I have to like Like, not put mushrooms after, cook them on the side to put them in later. And then one key— one of my daughters doesn't like this thing. And so it's like navigating all that is a nightmare.

Jordan · 56:40
I think it's almost the flip side. It's like now we're afraid to watch our children suffer.

Reggie · 56:44
Yes.

Tim · 56:45
I think it's our fault.

Reggie · 56:46
Yeah.

Tim · 56:46
Like, I don't want to watch my children suffer either, even though I want them to suffer sometimes and help.

Reggie · 56:51
Yeah.

Tim · 56:51
Like, we're doing all this stuff you don't notice. We're running around all the time trying to do all this stuff. Like, pick up your I want them to learn, but I have trouble watching them suffer.

Reggie · 56:59
Yeah.

Jordan · 57:00
You know what it's like to suffer.

Reggie · 57:01
Yeah.

Tim · 57:02
I want—

Reggie · 57:02
I keep telling my kids, I want to send you to Rwanda. I want to take you to Rwanda for like a month.

Tim · 57:07
That is the most hardest.

Reggie · 57:08
I've been to Rwanda and I've seen what their houses look like and how they are totally happy with so much less.

Mary · 57:16
That's what great-great-grandpa Reggie used to say.

Tim · 57:19
Exactly.

Reggie · 57:21
I'm gonna send you guys to Rwanda.

Tim · 57:23
I mean, didn't you grow up hearing like starving kids in Africa? Yeah.

Reggie · 57:27
No.

Tim · 57:27
Eat your food.

Reggie · 57:28
No, because I ate my food or, you know.

Tim · 57:32
So you suffered.

Reggie · 57:33
Yeah.

Mary · 57:34
They didn't give you a mental consequence.

Reggie · 57:35
There was a physical consequence.

Tim · 57:37
So who's to say what the right answer is? That's what I don't like about— well, I think 5 Love Languages is great. Like, I really think that concept is really wonderful, but I do Do you question whether or not presenting all this stuff about the right way to do everything has ruined our ability to just live? If someone was telling you, you know, the right way to breathe, and this is actually a topic, is you got to breathe from here and you got to do this, and you make it all logical too much, so much so that you can't even breathe anymore with a freedom or a natural cadence because you're like, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

Reggie · 58:12
Yeah.

Mary · 58:13
You hear it in your head.

Jordan · 58:14
You gotta be tummy in, and it's gotta go up the spine.

Tim · 58:16
It's relieving these things in your spine. It's giving oxygen to your brain. It's like giving your blood oxygen, and, and you breathe, and it's so intense. And now breathing is so hard.

Jordan · 58:25
Right.

Tim · 58:26
And it's breathing. Like, it's like your body's known how to— bodies, animals, everything knows how to breathe. It's natural, and we've made it so unnatural. And maybe we're trying to talk ourselves out of generations of unnatural behavior. Maybe that's what all the self-help is about. Like, We've warped ourselves through our governmental and our economic situation where we're trying to survive. Now we're trying to talk ourselves out of it. And I can see an argument for that. But still, life is simple. You know, there doesn't even need to be laundry, really. Like, life didn't exist. The fact that you have laundry is that you bought a lot of clothes. Some brand told you you needed 20 pairs of jeans and 15 shirts.

Mary · 59:05
And that, yes, it creates more things that need to be washed, but having 20 pairs of shirts Pairs of shirts. Pairs of shirts. Pairs of jeans actually means you don't have to do laundry as frequently.

Reggie · 59:15
True.

Tim · 59:16
True.

Mary · 59:16
I think sometimes the consumerism is to try to combat the work. Like, well, I'll just buy new ones.

Tim · 59:20
Right.

Reggie · 59:21
Unless you wear 2 or 3 outfits a day.

Mary · 59:23
Which is my goal.

Reggie · 59:24
Like Taylor Swift.

Tim · 59:25
But still, like, there is so much, um, there's so many layers packed on to what life should be.

Reggie · 59:32
Yeah.

Tim · 59:32
You're not living right unless you know how to fill up all your kids' buckets perfectly.

Jordan · 59:37
Right.

Tim · 59:37
Make all the right food that nourishes them. Like, your kids aren't nourished. That's why they're acting out. They have sugar. You can't give your kids sugar. Every fucking thing has sugar in it. What do you want me to do? Not feed them?

Reggie · 59:49
Everything has sugar.

Tim · 59:50
Wheat Mound and the bag.

Reggie · 59:52
That's not sugar in it.

Mary · 59:53
Right.

Tim · 0:59:54
And so it's like we're put in this— I feel like I've been shoved into a container of guilt. I can't do anything without guilt. Everything I do is wrong.

Reggie · 1:00:04
It's the damn defeatist mindset.

Jordan · 1:00:05
I think it's about figuring out— I had a friend call me the other day and she's going on a date and she was like, I don't know, when do I stop messaging and doing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And what's the right thing to do? And I was like, there's not.

Reggie · 1:00:17
No, it's just you.

Jordan · 1:00:19
I was like, I would take an era of experimentation and try something and you're gonna see what feels good. Does it feel good to talk to someone right up until the date? Does it feel good to stop talking until the date? There's no right answer. You have to figure out what feels good for you. And if you need me to give you permission to do that, go for it. But I think that's true for everything with parenting, with guiding your children, with living your life, with how you work, is experimenting and saying, what feels good to me? And taking everything externally as a grain of salt, and understanding that at the end of the day, you know the source of truth for yourself.

Reggie · 1:00:54
Right.

Tim · 1:00:55
And if you are doing something the way someone else wants you to do it, for someone else, that person will think you are someone that you are not. You know, they will think you are this person, and then when you actually do come into yourself, and you are brave enough to be yourself, they are going to be like, who is this person? So doing what feels right to you actually helps you navigate through others who don't get you. You don't want to end up with someone that doesn't get you. If you're acting this part and you did all the right things, all of a sudden you have to live a life where you're doing all the right things.

Mary · 1:01:23
You're—

Reggie · 1:01:23
it's performative.

Tim · 1:01:24
Yeah.

Reggie · 1:01:24
You're just trying to be someone that you're not. It's like that woman that you guys were talking about on one of the other shows who was an influencer, and it was all about like, your space needs to be neat and tidy and whatever, but she didn't have kids. And then when she had kids, she was like, actually, I'm gonna walk some of that stuff back.

Tim · 1:01:42
She apologized, right? There is some level of empathy there. Yeah, because we're all going through stuff.

Reggie · 1:01:48
Everybody has their own path. You can't judge somebody for not having the same path as you and doing things exactly the way you did them.

Mary · 1:01:55
I would apply your own metaphor back to you, Tim.

Tim · 1:01:57
I know, I'm trying.

Mary · 1:01:58
What are you— who are you trying to go on a date with that you feel like you have to dress up your life and be perfect for?

Tim · 1:02:05
It's true. I don't need this shirt.

Mary · 1:02:07
That's right.

Reggie · 1:02:09
You don't have to be— you don't have have to feel guilty because you're doing things exactly how you are, what feels right to you, if it feels right to you. Now, if you're feeling guilty because you're guilting yourself, like, I'm doing it all wrong, then you have to ask, well, whose bar am I using?

Jordan · 1:02:24
Whose voice is that in your head?

Reggie · 1:02:26
Yeah, whose voice is in your head? Is it your dad's? Is it somebody else's? Is it— yeah.

Tim · 1:02:30
I think there is a process. And what I guess what I am hopeful about with youth is that you You were so experimental. I mean, at least that's what I remember being youthful and what I see in my kids is that you do try so many things.

Jordan · 1:02:44
Yeah.

Tim · 1:02:45
And I think maybe the coming alive, like some people say you act like your younger self. Sometimes you get stuck in those younger years whenever there was some kind of trauma. I wonder if there's some hope in that going back there and acting in that level of experimentation again. And then frees you back into a new kind of momentum in your life.

Reggie · 1:03:08
Yeah.

Tim · 1:03:08
A new ability to kind of see through the things that have coded you with these other voices. You know, these other authority figures told you this thing and all of a sudden you're like, okay, that's a rule. I can't be myself in that situation. I have to be this way because that hurt when I was myself. And all of a sudden we got all these like weird— we're doing these weird moves and then we grow into ourselves and we're like, And we learn from self-help, you're your 8-year-old self.

Jordan · 1:03:33
Right.

Tim · 1:03:33
And you're like, okay. And maybe if we can recall that youth, we get reinvigorated with experimentation. And like, okay, if my whole life's full of voices that aren't mine, I might as well try doing one against that voice. Try to go toward the fear, toward the, don't do this again. Try it.

Mary · 1:03:55
Try it.

Tim · 1:03:56
Experiment with it. So that experimentation, that's, I think, what I'm taking as a hope from this conversation, because I sometimes feel wary for the youth. Like, I'm like, this world and this internet.

Reggie · 1:04:06
I know, same.

Tim · 1:04:07
And I don't know if that's— that might be my own creation. And I wonder if—

Reggie · 1:04:11
I feel that too, though.

Tim · 1:04:12
If that spark of life that they have that's so young, that's so alive, that's so unguarded by what we've— I've become shrouded with. I wonder if that thing is more powerful than we know.

Reggie · 1:04:24
My hope is that kids get the space to be bored so that they can— I really hope that we, I guess, as—

Jordan · 1:04:36
Maybe you create boredom blocks.

Reggie · 1:04:38
Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I'm bored. I'm here with you. We might just sit on the couch until you realize that—

Tim · 1:04:45
You play boredom blocks?

Jordan · 1:04:46
Put yourself in a sensory deprivation tank and see what happens.

Tim · 1:04:49
It's a new app. Exactly. It's just your dad making you sit on the couch. Ordem Space.

Reggie · 1:04:54
Ordem Space. I like it. I like it. I think there's something to that. I think if kids are allowed to have some space between tech and constant stimulation—

Tim · 1:05:05
Consumption. Yeah.

Reggie · 1:05:06
To allow them to be able to just notice their environment.

Tim · 1:05:10
Yeah.

Reggie · 1:05:11
You know, like your dad puts you on the couch and all of a sudden everything around you became interesting. Because it wasn't sitting on the couch. Yeah, yeah. That's my hope. And I'm gonna try to do that with my kids more.

Mary · 1:05:23
I liked how in Tim's reframe, we've been talking this whole time about the youth as a group of people. And I love that you flipped it back into a concept, something that we can all like touch base with. And I do think that's maybe like a marker for my life. That's a signal to myself when I'm in spaces that make me feel youthful and hopeful and exploratory and experimental. If I feel like there's space for all those parts of me, I'm on the right track.

Tim · 1:05:54
That's going downstream.

Mary · 1:05:56
Yeah.

Tim · 1:05:57
I never connected that.

Reggie · 1:05:59
I love that.

Mary · 1:05:59
I feel that way anyway.

Tim · 1:06:00
And you call it sparkly.

Mary · 1:06:01
Oh, I say sparkly all the time.

Tim · 1:06:03
Sparkly.

Mary · 1:06:04
It's like you're chasing a will-o'-the-wisp through the woods or something. You're like, oh, I saw it.

Reggie · 1:06:09
Got I love that, that like childlike wonder of that. Yeah. You just want to go a little further.

Tim · 1:06:17
Waste some time.

Reggie · 1:06:18
Yes. Waste some time.

Tim · 1:06:19
Waste some time.

Mary · 1:06:20
What do you think?

Jordan · 1:06:20
I think it's like having levity and a good sense of humor about things, you know, because it's like we try and control, we try and predict, but at the end of the day, you have no idea about anything. The only thing you can ultimately control is your response to whatever life throws at you.

Reggie · 1:06:35
That is the life lesson right there.

Mary · 1:06:37
Glad we got that on mic so I can play that back later.

Reggie · 1:06:39
The younger you learn that, the more you will succeed in life.

Tim · 1:06:43
Yeah.

Jordan · 1:06:43
Like, I try and teach my son that. Like, he will get upset about something and I'm like, you have the power to change your state. I'm like, you're choosing to feel this way.

Reggie · 1:06:51
I say that to my son too.

Jordan · 1:06:52
There's an immediate moment of, wow, I'm like getting a flood of emotions. But, you know, you can sit here all day and be upset or like go walk around, go listen to music, go call a friend. Like, and I didn't learn that till I was like 36.

Reggie · 1:07:05
Yeah. That's one of those lessons we try to impart on our kids that they just feel like maybe they need to. But yeah, that is such a powerful lesson. Like, you, you have the power to change what your state is.

Tim · 1:07:21
And I'm not gonna be guilty for the youthful part of me either. I'm gonna stop being guilty for that part of me.

Reggie · 1:07:25
No. Yeah, absolutely.

Mary · 1:07:26
He's a sign. Yeah.

Jordan · 1:07:28
I would pay attention to what, what is the story? What is the story track that the guilt is saying? Because the guilt is actually like, because I studied NLP, it's like, it's an entity. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What color is it? What's the shape? What's the voice that it's saying? Because it's not you. And when you can, when you have that moment of guilt, if you can like close your eyes and be like, okay, I can pull the guilt out of me and make it this own thing. It stops becoming you and you can start to separate the voice. So it's not you. It doesn't define you.

Tim · 1:07:56
So you don't identify yourself with that feeling.

Jordan · 1:07:58
So you're not like, I am guilty. You're like, that is guilt. Because when you say I am, that is defining yourself. Whereas if you say that is guilt, it's separate from you.

Reggie · 1:08:08
And then you take that on and you take it away. You continue to take that on and it becomes part of your identity.

Jordan · 1:08:12
Yeah.

Tim · 1:08:13
Love that. You actually envision it as a, as an entity?

Jordan · 1:08:17
Yeah.

Reggie · 1:08:18
I like that.

Tim · 1:08:19
My son always talks about this entity that you can wake up to. There's this thing online where it's called the paralysis demon.

Reggie · 1:08:27
I've heard of this.

Jordan · 1:08:29
No.

Mary · 1:08:30
I was afraid you're about to tell me something about your son like going into QAnon or something. No, no, no. Like, get him out, Tim.

Tim · 1:08:36
He says, whenever you've ever woken up and you feel totally paralyzed and there's like a dark figure on the foot of your bed.

Reggie · 1:08:42
Yeah.

Tim · 1:08:43
Everything's dark.

Reggie · 1:08:44
I've seen a dark figure.

Mary · 1:08:45
No.

Tim · 1:08:45
People have woken up. Many people around the world wake up and have had this experience. There are multiple ones you can have at night. This is just one of them.

Reggie · 1:08:52
Yeah.

Tim · 1:08:53
So it's like this entity of guilt comes and visits us and we don't even recognize it's there. We just think it's Yeah. Oh, that's— thank you for saying that. That'll help as I—

Mary · 1:09:03
what do you want? Will.

Reggie · 1:09:05
What did you say?

Tim · 1:09:08
It's called by my introspection.

Reggie · 1:09:11
Earnest.

Tim · 1:09:16
I'm nothing but earnest. I want to be more fun, but I'm just earnest.

Reggie · 1:09:20
Well, I will say, My biggest takeaway from this whole thing is that youth will find their way. Like, they will be all right.

Tim · 1:09:31
They will.

Reggie · 1:09:32
We need to maybe not fear the outcome of their upbringing as much as we have, and we need to trust that they'll all be as amazing as Mary.

Mary · 1:09:43
I love being the spokesperson for youth on this episode.

Reggie · 1:09:49
Thanks so much for joining us.

Jordan · 1:09:51
Thank you for having me. It was really fun.

Tim · 1:09:53
Yeah, it's really great having you.

Mary · 1:09:55
And I'm serious about that 3-way color blend thing. We're gonna need that.

Reggie · 1:09:59
Let's get you in here for some color consulting.

Jordan · 1:10:01
I'll bring my color swatches and we can hang out.

Mary · 1:10:02
Let's have a swatch party.

Reggie · 1:10:03
I love that.

Jordan · 1:10:04
Let me see your vibe. Swatch party.

Reggie · 1:10:06
Guys, thanks for joining us on Age. We love when you're here. We love when you show up and just listen, and hopefully there's some things you take away from this episode. And we'd love to hear in the comments if there were some things that you found interesting or things you might like to add. Until the next show. See ya.

Mary · 1:10:24
Bye-bye. Maybe this will be the episode that gets us our first comment. Yes.

Reggie · 1:10:30
Thanks for listening. This podcast was created and developed by our hosts, Reggie Tidwell, Tim Scroggs, and Mary Greene. Special thanks to our guests Thanks, Will. Thanks, Jordan. I'm your guest host for today, Jordan Duvall.

Tim · 1:10:44
Produced by Mary Greene.

Will · 1:10:46
Live production and editing by me, Will Canady.

Tim · 1:10:49
Graphic design by Dylan Garcia and set design by Megan Scroggs.

Reggie · 1:10:54
Today's episode is presented lovingly by 40 Hearts, creators of enduring value.