Podcast appearances and mentions of joe josh

On todays episode of "Sea Stories" we are joined by 12 year veteran and former Fire Controlman, Grey Baker. Before he tells us about his experience in the worlds greatest Navy, the crew discusses a recent Admirals visit to the USS Carney. Plan of the Day is as follows: Intro [with beers] Admirals Visit - 00:05:53 Grey's Intro - 00:14:09 Pre-Navy to 'A' School - 00:17:50 Fleet Life - 00:53:46 Beer Reviews - 01:44:37 Fireside Chat - 01:56:00 Check out: Official Spotify Playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2b7bNFHEDWCX3Yw7ZrLriW?si=75d92274cc124fbe Seamen on Film [Movie Reviews] https://www.youtube.com/@seastoriespod Spectacular Ink Comics, LLC [From Andy] https://www.youtube.com/@spectacularinkcomicsllc7498

The Plan of the Day is a follows: Intros [with beers] - 00:01:05 Ranking DDG Crests - 00:08:15 Chads Career: Pre-Bootcamp - 00:26:50 Bootcamp-Training - 00:33:05 Fleet Life - 00:50:30 Deployment - 01:11:36 Beer Reviews - 01:53:45 Chad's 3 songs - 02:06:35 Fireside Chat - 02:08:21   Remember to like, subscribe and share

As we hit the midyear, the crew decided to take a break and have a fun summer episode with the drink of choice being malt liquor, just like the old days. The topic of the episode: rating Navy uniforms. The Plan of the Day is as follow: Intros (with beer) Navy Coverall 00:15:10 Navy Utilities 00:24:40 Navy PT Uniform 00:37:15 Navy Dress Blues 00:47:30 Navy Dress Whites 00:59:50 Black and Tan 01:05:40 Navy Dungarees 01:11:40 Johnny Cash's 01:15:20 Navy Working Whites 01:20:10 Navy NWU I 01:25:00 Navy NWU II, III 01:34:25 Navy Dinner Dress Blues 01:39:35 Beer Reviews 01:47:08 Fireside Chat 01:55:00 Thanks for listening. Like, share and comment!

In this week's market report for the w/c 15th May 2023, the team give a shoutout to a very prominent member of the grain trade, James Maw. A massive thank you for sending us over 30 beers to try from The Wriggly Monkey Brewery, everyone must be sure to try these out as we thoroughly enjoyed them! Andrew discusses issues with farmers not being able to spray due to a very wet week. The Dewing Grain podcast walk will be taking place on Friday 26th May at 11am in Bressingham. What3words location is “scored.quirky.music” & we look forward to seeing all of your there as always. In the farmchat, the team follow on to try out a second beer each, whilst discussing their plans for next week. Andrew is off to London as he has become part of the Corn Exchange Benevolent Society…come back for the next episode to find out what he gets up to. Ben & Webby are off to The Bourse, which Webby is very excited about… A quick well done to Andrew's son, Henry, who played superbly at Twickenham last weekend & tune in to find out the big announcement…disclosing where this year's Norfolk Dinner will be held. As always, thanks to our listeners, old and new, and remember to keep in touch by heading over to @dewinggrain on Twitter and Instagram. Alternatively, head over to our website on www.dewinggrain.co.uk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In todays episode we speak with USMC Veteran Tommy M. Tommy tells us about his experiences in the Marines and gives us the scoop on what life is like for a Marine living aboard a U.S. Warship. Sea Stories are generally tall tales told amongst Sailors, usually with drinks in hand. We recorded this episode on MLB opening day, and to celebrate we told our own sea stories while drinking our favorite ballpark brews. Like, Subscribe and share!

This week on Chasin' The Racin', Dom and Joe are down at the McAms 2023 Team Launch for a catch up with riders Jason O'Halloran and Tim Neave to review their past seasons, talk through crashes and subsequent injuries and the question on everyones minds... Snog, Marry, Avoid: Dom, Joe & Josh (thanks Jesse the Patreon for asking that one!). Enjoy - CTR x   Want to become a Patreon? Click the link below to read more & sign up : www.patreon.com/motorbikepod Powered by The Global Moto Group CLICK BUY DELIVER In need of a new or used bike? Check out the 4 dealers in the Global Moto Group below: Colchester Kawasaki: https://www.colchesterkawasaki.co.uk Global Moto Coventry: https://www.globalmotocoventry.co.uk Clay Cross Kawasaki: https://www.claycrosskawasaki.co.uk Motorcycles Direct: https://www.motorcyclesdirect.co.uk —————— Billy Arts prints of Chrissy and Dom can be found here: http://www.billyart.co.uk Chrissy merchandise available here: https://www.edgeclothing.co.uk —————— SOCIALS Facebook: Chasin' The Racin' Podcast - www.facebook.com/motorbikepod Twitter: @motorbikepod - www.twitter.com/motorbikepod Instagram: @motorbikepod - www.instagram.com/motorbikepod   

Mike, Joe & Josh discuss the return of Dave. The win over Gillingham and look forward to the visit of AFC Wimbledon with Ben

We are joined by Lopez from the "On The Gunline" Podcast to tell some sea stories. The boys discuss the first time going home after bootcamp. Awards and Medals. Safety Stand Downs and review their Cider Beers. Enjoy. Be sure to catch the On The Gunline Podcast on your preferred streaming service and visit onthegunline.com

Andrew Schlecht and Michele Berra discuss Isaiah Joe's play, JDub against the Grizz, Kenrich, Giddey's emergence, and when the Thunder will be good again.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just to piggy back off the previous episode of "Sea Stories", the boys are back telling some fun tales about working overseas, from their unique perspective. Drew takes the ship's wheel and hosts the episode. Adam returns, joining in from his hotel room...... because of FOMO. And Josh returns with a lingering symptom of real-world buffering. Enjoy!. Sea Stories are tall tales generally told amongst sailors and fisherman. Often told over a cold pint or a flagon of rum. Enjoy our stories of our time in the US Navy and stay for the beer reviews at the end.

On this cool episode I sit down and chat w/ Joe, Josh, and Matt - members of the Columbus, OH area pop punk band The Plan Bs. We bullshit about the band forming, the Columbus / Dayton scenes overall, and us joining forces to put out their debut EP “Catch a Break” (out now on CD and digital through This is Just a Record Label.) We also chat about the origin of their name, influences, rotating drummers like Spinal Tap, and so much more. So sit back and relax with this episode of TIJAP. *** (songs from The Plan Bs included in this episode are: “Everyday Thing,” “Off the Edge, “Scrapbook of Scars,” and “Parachutes.” Used w/ permission by the band.)*** --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Joe and Josh discuss their father-son hobby dynamic now separated by 2000 miles - but I expect to see them both together at the National this year - here's their story.

Andrew kicks off this week's podcast with the market report for the week commencing 21st March 2022.This week, Andrew is joined by Ian, Joe and Josh at Dewing Gran HQ for a good old grumpy episode of the Farmchat.The four discuss the latest from Ukraine and the refugee situation with the UK, as well as Donald Trump and using WhatsApp for trading, all whilst drinking Corona Extra beer – cheers!The DG beer fridge is looking pretty sad this week, hence the rather unexciting beer tasting – hint, hint…! As always, thanks to our listeners, old and new, and remember to keep in touch – we are @dewinggrain on Twitter. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As the boys get ready for season 2 we begin the year with casual conversations to get us into rhythm. The Plan of the Day is as follows: Intros (with Beers!). 2021 Recap (00:03:42). US Port Visits (00:22:35). Army Talk (00:34:48). No Shave Chits (00:48:34). Uniform Standards (00:51:43). Military Highway (00:59:30). Military Tattoos (01:01:50). 2021 Beer Recaps (01:22:47). Todays Beer Reviews (01:33:02). Fireside Chat (01:43:56)

Welcome to the very last episode of 2021. Andy, Joe and Josh return with special guests Nick and first timer, Trish. The Plan of the Day is as follow: Intros (with beers). We give cheers to a couple of special sailors. We get to know, first time on the podcast, guest Trish. We speak a little about Colonel Donald Cook, who our first ship (USS Donald Cook DDG-75) was named after. We revisit bootcamp and talk about steel beach picnics. We ponder what we would do if we had the powers of a CO. Lastly, we give our very last of the year beer reviews and we have a little fireside chat about what's on our minds. Happy Holidays and We Wish You A New Year From Everyone Here At Average G.I. Joes Podcast!

We get off topic so we can enjoy the holidays and get ourselves ready to bring in 2022 with a bang. In this episode we bring you more traditional sea stories, with special guest, Scott Hennesay. Plan of the Day: Intros (With Beers) Introduce 1st timer to the podcast, Scott. Sensory Memories with Scott, Drew and Josh. We discuss Veterans Day. We discuss military life and navigating the holiday season Beer Reviews Scuttlebutt talk: 2 minutes of free talk. Happy Holidays and hope you enjoy. Follow us on FB (Average G.I. Joe Podcast), IG and Twitter (@averagegijoepod) hit us with comments or suggestions.

Matthew & Rizzle spoke with Joe & Josh, co-creators of the pre-launch NFT PFP project Society of the Hourglass. The boys dove into what led Joe & Josh down the NFT rabbit hole, the genesis of Society of the Hourglass, pre-launch plans and ambitions and more. They also had a fun chat about what NFTs everyone (including Matthew & Rizzle) is collecting and why. _______________________ The Matthew & Rizzle Show is proudly sponsored by Proof of Beauty Studios, a lab that has been running a series of beautiful and thought-provoking generative art projects on the Ethereum blockchain. Follow Proof of Beauty Studios on Twitter to stay on the bleeding edge of tokenized digital experiences. _______________________ On November 20th, CryptoMotors, the world's first Digital Automaker powered by Ethereum, will launch its first collection of Design Legends NFT cars in collaboration with world-famous automotive designer Scott Robertson. With this drop, CryptoMotors is introducing a new model to its lineup of NFT cars: the Retro Rocket Razer, which is inspired by the American classic ‘Hot Rod.' The CryptoMotors + Scott Robertson drop will include 51 NFT Retro Rocket cars with four rarity levels, each one featuring custom designs, colors, stats, and NFT traits. Fans of CryptoMotors play-to-earn racing games will be pleased to know that the Retro Rocket is part of the racer family (the same as GEN1 cars and the GEN0 Sport Coupé). Players will have the opportunity to acquire a high-speed, versatile vehicle to compete in tournaments and earn rewards. The NFT Retro Rocket cars will be sold in two batches and three different currencies on OpenSea here. Batch #1 launches on November 20th at 11:30 am EST and Batch #2 launches on November 25th at 11:30 am EST featuring the remaining 50 cars. You can find all the details about the drop, available units, colors, and prices on the CryptoMotors' Medium page. You can also follow the drop and join the CryptoMotors community via Discord. Cryptomotors Website: https://www.cryptomotors.io/event-drop Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CryptoMotors/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/cryptomotors_io Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CryptoMotors Scott Robertson Website: http://scottrobertsonworkshops.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scoro5 Twitter: https://twitter.com/scoro5 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrJhSmz4zo9t-Z2GdHECW7A

Rob and Josh are each co-founders of BanyanGlobal Family Business Advisors which advises family owners on business, finance, ownership, philanthropy, and a wide range of other issues.  They are each leaders in the field of family-owned business.  They recently co-authored the Harvard Business School publication: “Family Business Handbook: How to Build and Sustain a Successful, Enduring Enterprise.” Thanks for listening! We love our listeners! Drop us a line or give us guest suggestions here. Links Why the 21st Century Will Belong To Family Businesses Build a Family Business that Lasts Order the HBR Family Business Handbook Quotes   Family Business Myths/Facts   Myth: Family businesses don't really matter.   Fact: “About 90% of all businesses in the United States are family owned and they account for about 50% of all employment.”   Myth: Family businesses don't last, after three generations, they're doomed to fail.   Fact: “Family businesses last longer on average than other forms of ownership. Some of the longest lasting and most successful businesses in the world are family businesses. Why don't Americans know that?”   Joe: Josh, why do you think that the myth that family businesses are less successful, that they never get beyond the third generation, why does that persist?   Josh: It's a great scare tactic, I think you keep hearing it is because people want to tell you, "You're doomed to fail and therefore you need my help to be able to overcome it."   Myth: Family businesses are rife with conflicts - family members are fighting and suing each other and just can't possibly get along   Fact:  “Most family businesses struggle not from having too much conflict, but from too little conflict, because it's really hard to raise some of these issues about fairness and compensation and all the things that come in as being part of a family business.”   Rob: It's strange, but the celebrity or the business celebrities, when I went to business school, Jack Welch, and he was making a brand for himself. Now, it's Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook or Elon Musk at Tesla. They seek the publicity. I would say most all of the family business that we know the owners, they shy away from publicity. They don't want to be the face of their family business. They actually know the downside that can come with that. Josh: Most family businesses are private companies and the word "private" is there for a reason, that they don't want to be public. They see advantages in being below the radar. I was visiting a family business recently in a state out west and I drive up to the headquarters and I was like, "That can't be it. We must have the address wrong. That can't possibly be the headquarters of a billion dollar company." And of course, it was. “One of the amazing things about family businesses is that they can break the rules in a way and practice business in a way that is fundamentally different than other companies.”   “Family business owners can, if they choose, own it for their whole lifetime and maybe set it up for their next generation. It's the difference between maybe renting an apartment or even being in an Airbnb overnight - you're day trading versus owning a home that you're hoping to bequeath to your children.”   Unlike other companies,  family businesses actually talk about longevity. How often do you hear companies outside of the world of family businesses talking about how many generations do you last? Do we put like a second or third generation as if that's just a low number, but then you have to multiply it by 20 or 30 years and you realize that a third-generation family business has probably been around for a hundred years. Josh:  People say: "Oh, most family businesses don't make it for a hundred years and therefore they're doomed to fail." I'm like, "No, no, most businesses last for under a year, maybe five years." Joe: Their success is actually used as a way of talking about their failure when it's not really a failure at all.   What we find in family businesses is that core decisions are really made at the owner level in family businesses, not like publicly-traded companies. If you don't like what's going on at GM, you sell GM and you're out and it wasn't really hard to sell. With a family business you're in. So, you're going to work really hard to make the owner decisions the right decisions.   The rights that come with that ownership are profound, the ability to influence the company in ways that are positive and negative are fundamental and learning how to effectively step into that role as owners is essence of the work that we do and the essence of the book that we set out to write.   If you're working in a family business or if you're on the board of a family business and you don't understand the owner strategy, like what trade-offs they're making, you're going to be very surprised by the decisions that are coming your way.   Leadership Transition If you've been in this position of leading a family business for decades, maybe your entire adult life, you're not just going to quit that and play golf. In most cases, you need some place to land, some place to go to…. to give that up, it's super scary.  It's psychologically very challenging for some people.   Joe: One of the things we talked about earlier … for the person that's been running the family business it is not just a job. It is his or her identity because they're really living their job. I think that provides a perspective of why it's so hard to let go.   Rob: That's a great point.  It is their narrative and maybe it's been their narrative since they were five years old, is that they wanted to be the controlling owner or CEO of their family business, and their narrative probably never got to that final few chapters about how they're going to relinquish control over time.   Some do it, and some do it with such aplomb, it's really quite amazing. We're trying to learn from those people about what it is that gets them to the other side of that transition.   Getting to the next generation, the hardest thing often is the current generation! It's like letting go of the reins and really talking. We have some clients who it's fairly easy for, but they're the exception.     “One of the hardest things to get right in a family business is family employment. One of the things that causes the most conflict in a family businesses is who gets a job, who gets paid how much, who gets promoted, who gets the CEO spot. And it's really hard to navigate those issues.”   “Once your (family) business gets to a certain size, the value you get from the right independent directors is almost always going to be worth the time and investment that you make into them.”     Big Ideas/Thoughts   The kinds of things that family businesses are able to do in terms of investing in their employees, investing in their communities that they believe and see paying off in their company, they would never be able to do them if they had to focus on quarterly earnings.   It's so interesting, when CFOs come into family businesses from public companies or from private equity, they have to be retrained, just retrained about what the priorities of the family owners are.     Managing Expectations Another one of the things that people say about family businesses is that families grow faster than businesses, so therefore a family business is doomed to fail because at some point the size of the family will outstrip the ability of the business to support it. That's where expectations come into play because that's a choice.  Should family members actually expect to live off the business or do you expect them to find other ways and treat the dividends they get as a nice bonus to buy something, to buy a new car, or maybe if it's a great year, to get a new house, but not to treat it as sort of like the foundation of the family living on.   The Wall Street Journal is a great example of expectation driving decisions. The family (that owned the WSJ) lived off of a very profitable business, a growing family over time. And then as the digital age came in and disrupted newspapers, it was no longer as profitable anymore. And so the family was in a position where they either had to drastically cut their lifestyle or drastically cut the reinvestment in the business, putting them almost in a no-win position that Rupert Murdoch took advantage of and made an offer that they really felt like they didn't have a choice, but to accept.   Dividend policy and debt are two of the things that families have to grapple with, and that often leads to their demise.   Regarding debt: You go to business school, and they'd say, "Oh, look at all of the great benefits of leverage. You can get a much higher return on equity. Interest payments are tax deductible." So,  you come out of business school saying, "Lever up, baby." and there are also these LBOs going on.   You go into the world of family business, and it's so, so different. Many of our large clients effectively have zero debt. And in fact, we had one client, it was in the agricultural business, and they had zero debt and they had two full years of operating expenses on their balance sheet. And we're like, "This is not what we learned at business school."       Family Business Goals   From an ownership perspective, there are three main things you might want. You could want to grow the value of the business - let's go from a million to ten million to a billion and so on. You might want to do that just because you want to be richer, or maybe you want to influence the world and you see your business as a platform to do that.   The second thing you might want as an owner is liquidity, and here we mean taking money out of the business. So, you might want to do that because you want to lead a nice lifestyle, or you want to give it away to charity. Or you want to have something that is yours and not belonging to your entire family.   And the third thing you might want is control, and control is sort of like you have it until you give it up. So, if you take on an equity partner, you are giving up some level of control. If you take on outside debt, you're giving up control because now someone else is in the room with you and has some influence over your decisions.   The most common path to building a successful family business is the mixture of growth and control. If you look at the largest family businesses in the world, most of them have been built in exactly the same way, which is that they make a dollar, and they reinvest 99 cents. They give themselves enough money to pay the bills and they put 99 cents right back into the business. They do that over and over and over again until they've built something very significant.   The growth and control is at the expense of liquidity.     Owners Room/Importance of Owner Decisions In family businesses on top of the boardroom sits the “owner room” and here there are very few decisions, but this is about the longevity of the firm.  What's being traded in this room isn't the competency that's traded in a management room or the wisdom in a boardroom. It's actually power and influence. It's the power that if 51% of the voting shareholders do it this way, that's where it's going to go. But it's also the influence that if you stick it to your sister and she goes to her dad, oh, it may come back to haunt you somewhere else.   So what part of what we say is the owner room needs to have both the vote, the 51% we talked about, but really important to have the voice. Sometimes it's okay to be out voted if you had a voice in the matter and people have taken seriously what you have to say.

We started off this week's show by chatting with Robert R. Andreas & Sons' Sara Andreas about the benefits of concrete driveways. Next, president of Builder Supply Outlet's Tom Jahnke joined the show to talk about the growing demand for materials and how it impacts the time in-home projects last. Then, BMO Harris' Business Banking […]

Cade discusses the Rockies new rookie, the NL Player of the Week and former Rockie Bryan Shaw

Sean Swarner Interesting Facts - Learn how Sean not only beat cancer twice but went on to summit Mt. Everest and the remaining 6 summits and the north and south poles. He now brings hope to all who have cancer and those who have survived cancer with his organization CancerClimber.org. I loved, loved, loved this conversation with Sean and my hope is next July 2022, I will join him to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and add the names of my own loved ones, who have had to deal with cancer and either survived or lost their battle with this awful disease. Thanks so much for listening! Joe Sean Swarner Speaker | Author | Performance Coach Adventurer | World Record Holder Author of: Keep Climbing: How I Beat Cancer and Reached the Top of the World Website: https://www.seanswarner.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanswarner/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sean.swarner LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanswarner/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/seanswarner Podcast Music By: Andy Galore, Album: "Out and About", Song: "Chicken & Scotch" 2014 Andy's Links: http://andygalore.com/ https://www.facebook.com/andygalorebass If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit: https://joecostelloglobal.libsyn.com Subscribe, Rate & Review: I would love if you could subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest rating & review. This will encourage other people to listen and allow us to grow as a community. The bigger we get as a community, the bigger the impact we can have on the world. Sign up for Joe's email newsletter at: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#signup For transcripts of episodes, go to: https://joecostelloglobal.lybsyn.com Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joecostello Transcript Joe: Ok, today, my guest is Shawn Swarner. Sean is an incredible human being, you're not going to believe the things that he has done already in his life. And I am so excited for this interview. As I was talking to Sean offline, I was explaining how the whole thought of summiting Everest is just in itself amazing. And then the way that it's been accomplished by Shaun and the adversity that he had to deal with growing up and just to to be this person that he is. So this is exciting, not just at a sports level or at a level of just doing all these amazing feats, but just just the human drive that this person has. So, Shawn, welcome to the show. Man, I am so excited to have.   Sean: I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to do the.   Joe: So I like to start and people that listen to my podcast hear me say this one hundred times that I like to start from the beginning. And I know you probably told the story a million times already, but I like to set a foundation of pollution is where you came from, how you grew up, the main health factors that happen early on, how you got over that and then become who you are today. So if you don't mind, if you could at least give us as much of the back on the floor is yours so as much of the back story that you want to give? I welcome it all.   Sean: I appreciate that and I'm going through my mind, and one of the things that got me through was a sense of humor, which we'll get to, but I'm assuming you probably don't want to go back. Forty six years with my mom and dad got together, then nine months later.   Joe: Yeah, that's got no so that we could start right there. That's what.   Sean: So I came into the world crying and screaming and kicking. And   Joe: There we go,   Sean: I remember it like it was yesterday.   Joe: Right.   Sean: No, I. Well, I guess my I was born and raised in Ohio, just a normal Midwest kid. I remember back in the day before toilet paper was hard to find. We would TPE the coach's house and across country in the house. And then he installed a motion sensor lights. So we had to be a little bit more careful. And I just I learned to. Do things I wasn't supposed to, but I never got caught because I learned how to not get caught. So I was a kind of a studious growing up. But everything was it was completely normal until I was in eighth grade. And I was actually I was going up for a layup and basketball things and I came down and something snapped my neck and it sounded like like, say, for Thanksgiving, you grab the chicken bone and you're pulling on the leg like the ripping the tendons in the ligaments and everything. That's that's kind of what my knee sounded like when I was hobbling over to the stage that to sit down my whole body the next day swallowed up so much. My my mom and dad couldn't even recognize their own son. So they stuck in the local hospital. Willard, Ohio, population was five thousand, I think is maybe five thousand three now. So it's not much just change. Maybe eight stoplights or something like that, but they stuck in the hospital, they started treating me for pneumonia and it's very it's very difficult to cure cancer by sucking on a nebulizer. So I wasn't getting any better. But at 13, I was thinking, well, you know, I'm going to soak up all this attention. I got the cheerleaders coming in. I got my friends coming out of balloons all over my room.   Joe: The.   Sean: It was fantastic. But I didn't know what was going on in my body, which was advanced stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma. And I remember my parents didn't tell me that I had cancer. They told me that I had Hodgkin's. And I can only imagine what they were going through when the doctor told them that I had three months to live. The doctors approach to my my parents said your first born son now has an expiration date. And no one wants to hear that, and I've heard that one of the greatest pains, pains that you can have is outliving your your son or your daughter. So I didn't want that to ever happen to my mom and dad. And I remember very vividly where I was on the bottom of the on my hands and knees in the shower three or four months into treatment. And because of the treatment, I was bald from head to toe. I was on my hands and knees sobbing, just absolutely weeping, pulling chunks of hair out of the drain so the water could go down. And I was also thinking because I was getting ready for school that day, and that's when my hair came up all in that one time in the shower. And I was thinking about what my friends may have been doing at the same time, getting ready for school the same time I was.   Sean: And they were probably worried about the latest hairstyles being popular. If things that in my mind, looking back at it now, were trivial, it meant nothing because there were nights I went to bed not knowing if I was going to wake up the next morning. I mean, can you imagine what it feels like being terrified to close your eyes and fall asleep because you don't know if you're going to wake up. And that's that's what I had to deal with as the 13 year old. So I grew up with a completely different perspective. And thanks to the miracle of modern medicine, family support, prayer just in a will to move forward. I guess if I walked out of the hospital, a hairless, happy, bloated young man and I, I went back into being a quote unquote normal teenager, I guess if there is anything that's that you can say normal for a teenager. But the remission was short lived because I was going in for a checkup for the first cancer when they found a second cancer completely unrelated to the first one. And in fact, on the apparently I'm the only person to ever had Hodgkin's and ask start. And the chances of surviving both of those illnesses is roughly the same as winning the lottery four times in a row with the same numbers.   Joe: Radical Krutch.   Sean: So I think I'm a living, breathing, walking miracle, without a doubt, and. I remember going in for a check for that first cancer in one day, they found a tumor on an X-ray. They did a needle biopsy. They removed a lymph node, put in a hip and catheter. They cracked open my ribs, took out the tumor, are put in danger and started chemotherapy less and less than one day. And they diagnosed me with a type of cancer called ASCAN sarcoma. And that's basically they gave me 14 days to live.   Joe: And this is at age 60.   Sean: 16, so 13, the first cancer, 60   Joe: Yeah.   Sean: Percent cancer, cancer, my my whole teenage years were just they were taken from me, from the cancer.   Joe: He's trying to just picture this in my brain of what happens during those years of like those prom, there's sports and it sound like you were active before 13 when you were first diagnosed. So you are definitely you look like someone that would be athletic. So you're missing all of that.   Sean: It's a green, it just makes me look like I'm.   Joe: No,   Sean: I   Joe: But.   Sean: Was I was I was incredibly athletic, and I, I think I because I was a swimmer, I started competitive swimming at maybe five or six years old. And I think I still have some records from the 11, 12 age group.   Joe: Still hold it.   Sean: Still   Joe: Wow, that is so cool.   Sean: Undefeated in the summer league, went to Nationals numerous times. I loved it, but I also think that's one of the reasons why I'm still alive, is because I looked at things differently from a competitive angle, and I pushed myself not to be the best, but I always pushed myself to be my best. And that's what I did, was going through the treatments, I I knew that when I was going through the cancer that I was going to have bad days. And I also knew I was going to have good days. So if today was a bad day, then I just I focused on tomorrow or the next day when I was going to have a good day. And I when I had those good days, I was I was truly living and learning how to be in the present moment.   Joe: Yeah, that's definitely one of the gifts that would come out of what you went through, which people struggle their whole life to eliminate the noise around them and to be present. Right. Because you literally only have this moment right now. So many people worry about what's on the schedule for tomorrow or the future or all of that. And some people even and I'm totally guilty dwell on the past. So I should have done that different. Where would I be today if I had gone left instead of right? So it's it's really hard to bring that in to be present and figure out how to do that. And I would assume that's a that's at least a good outcome of what you went through, is that it forced you to live every day the most that you could, knowing that this just this who knows what tomorrow will bring, if anything. Right.   Sean: Absolutely. I mean, one of the things that I do every morning before I even get out of bed, the instant I open my eyes in the morning, I don't I don't I never hit the snooze, because if you constantly hit the snooze over and over and over again, you're telling yourself subconsciously, I'm excited about the day. The day can wait. But if you turn it off and I actually have a smartwatch and just vibrate so it doesn't wake up my wife. So I turn I turn the alarm off and I lay there and I tell myself the past is done. There's nothing I can do about it. Tomorrow may never come, so no matter what happens today, today is the best day ever. And I have a choice, we all have a choice to make that day turn out however we want it to, and it starts with that morning intention.   Joe: Also, I don't want to get too far because I had so many questions. This is exciting. Like I said, I'm not going to let you go. So 16. So you're you were diagnosed and you're going through all of these treatments. When do you become and for lack of a better term, quote, normal where they say, OK, we've we've clobbered this thing, you're you're in remission and your hair is growing back. You're starting to feel like average every day. 16 year old, our seventh year, however long it took for you to become being normal.   Sean: That's a great question, and I was I was thinking, while you're talking and I honestly want to say that the answer is never.   Joe: Ok.   Sean: Because no one's ever had these cancers before. No one no one knows what's going to happen to me.   Joe: Yeah.   Sean: I go in once a year for a checkup and they obviously for the past 20, 30 years now, it's come back clean. So I literally see every time I go into to get my blood work done at my annual checkup, I see it as I have another year left. And I try to accomplish as much as I can in that year, so I don't think because of the way I'm looking at it, I don't think I'll ever have a normal life.   Joe: Yeah.   Sean: This is my new normal. And I've just adapted to I think because of everything I've been through, I'm comfortable with being uncomfortable. So when when things are going well for me, I'm like, oh, something's going to happen.   Joe: Yeah, so that was I was going to ask you that I just turned fifty nine and I don't envy having that fact for lack of a better term, that cloud hanging over my head, knowing that I went through something, I beat it.   Sean: The.   Joe: But there's always the chance that it'll rear its ugly head. And so people that have to live with that   Sean: And.   Joe: Sort of pressure on them, that has to take its toll. I would I would assume it has to take its toll depending on how you deal with it. Right. And with everything. When you wake up, you have the choice of saying this is going to be a great day. It's going to be a bad day. And for some reason and you can help me with this and hopefully the listeners will really heed your advice on this is why do we always choose the negative part? Like everyone, people just love to complain about how their job sucks so they don't have enough money or whatever the case might be. And if they and I listen, I've gone through my whole life having sort of this always this negative thing, like, why didn't I ever reach this goal or that goal or this accomplishment? And I'm hard on myself about it. And I also know I didn't do the work to potentially get to some of those goals. So I'm starting at this ripe old age admitting to myself, OK, you just didn't put in the time. But now I'm only in the past few months I've really shifted my frame of mind to say I literally have everything that I need know. I love my life. I I love the person that I live with. Joellen, my life partner I love. I have everything that I need. And why would I just complain all the time of all the things that I don't have? And our mutual friend David Meltzer says you literally have to get out of your own way and let the universe deliver to you the abundance that's there. And we actually get in the way of making that happen. So why don't people choose the negative? That's what I want to know.   Sean: Absolutely, and I honestly, I was thinking of a couple of things, one. We do have we have we do have a choice, and when people start to get anxious, when people start to worry about things, it's because of of two words. What if. What if this happens, what if that happens? What if this happens? What if I get cancer again? But you learn to to realize that for me, it was a it was a house of letters. It was a six letter word that that I was allowed to have power over me. So. And recently, it's funny you mention that recently you were thinking of this, that with because I'm doing the same thing recently, I'm realizing that this word cancer. Had so much control and power over me because I allowed that to happen. And then I realized, why am I freaking out over a word? I mean, don't get me wrong, I completely respect cancer and it can be deadly and it oftentimes is. But it's the word that's making me freak out when I go in for my annual checkups. It used to be smelling sailin that would make me think of all these traumatic things that happened in my past. But it doesn't mean it's going to happen again. So when I realize I'm asking myself, what if. I'm projecting into the future and I'm giving my brain permission to go crazy, to come up with any any cockamamie imaginary thing that I can come up with. So when I when I think of my my treatments or what I think of my annual checkup and I constantly, constantly ask myself, what if I realized, well, what if I get cancer, but what if I don't?   Joe: Yeah.   Sean: Perfect example.   Joe: Yep.   Sean: So I realized that the word itself means nothing. It's what I'm actually placing on that word and how I react to it. So when people hear cancer, they're like, oh, wow. But if this is what I did, I spared myself in the mirror and I said cancer about 50 times over and over and over again. And slowly it lost its power over me. And around thirty five or forty times I looked at myself laughing, what the hell this is? This is crazy. But it's lessened its power over and over and over. You just can't cancel. The more you hear about it, the more you get rid of it, you know, the less power it has over you.   Joe: Yeah.   Sean: And then why people are focused on on the negative so much. I think it's because unconsciously, people are allowing their brains to be programmed by outside sources. If you look at it, most people probably I would say 80 to 90 percent of the world, the first thing they do when they wake up, they grab their phone, they check their emails, they go on social media, whatever it might be. Either they do it before they go to the bathroom or while they're going to the bathroom. It's one of the. And what happens is if you're not paying attention to what you're consuming, because there's that old saying of you are what you eat, but in all honesty, it is you are what you consume.   Joe: Yeah.   Sean: So if people are constantly consuming this, this this false information from the media and with the media, let me turn on the news. You don't have to watch it for more than 30 seconds to realize it's going to be depressing   Joe: Yeah.   Sean: Because it's the same stuff all over and over and over again. You have to wait through, what, 60 different stories to see one positive story that takes a point zero five percent of the hour long program. So what people are doing is they're allowing their brains to be programmed by outsiders, outside sources. That outside source is just constantly bombarding their brain with negativity. However you can you have a choice to, like, wake up in the morning and have a positive affirmation, today is the best day ever. I write down my, my, my daily affirmation and I write down three things that I'm going to do and three things I'm going to try to do or and then at the end of the day, as opposed to turning on the news, I get my journal and write down five things I'm grateful for. So I'm essentially bookending my day on a positive note as opposed to, I would say, most of the world they book in their day on the negative note.   Joe: Yep.   Sean: So if you're constantly being bombarded in allowing negative thoughts into your brain, how do you think it's even possible to be positive?   Joe: Yeah, it's I don't know if you hit it on the head and it's just it's it's letting all of that stuff come in from the outside. You have a different perspective for what you went through. And and I think people just take for granted that they're alive and healthy and have a roof over their head and all of the simple things that we just don't we don't think about. And it's important to take a step back and look at that. And instead you take what if and you say, what if all of this stuff went away?   Sean: Now.   Joe: Where would I be right? Or what if all of this stuff tripled and double that? I had even more abundance because of this, this and this. But it seems like what you wish for, what you think about when people concentrate on the negative things, more of that stuff, it's just   Sean: Mike.   Joe: It's just naturally happens. And I was doing it for so long. And now that I've shifted, it's just completely changed. And it's I don't know if it's because it's so hard to understand that you can do that with your own brain and your own inner power to shift your mindset. And people, though, that's all that fufu stuff. And it's not. It's and I think that's why it's so hard to explain. It's so hard to get people to just give it a try. Just 30 days. Just think towards the most positive thing you can think of. And every day just try to eliminate as much negativity in your life will change. And   Sean: Right.   Joe: It's just really hard for people to understand, I think.   Sean: And I think that I mean, there are some there are a large percent of the population who think they're still positive when they're actually being negative to the brain and they don't even realize it. So a perfect example. You're walking down the street and you're telling yourself, don't trip, don't trip. You're going to fall on your face, but if you turn it around it from a different perspective and you tell yourself, stand tall, stand tall, walk strong. When entrepreneurs when people go into the stock market, whatever it might be, I guarantee you they don't think, oh, I don't want to lose money. No, that's state. That's that. People are thinking, I'm being positive. No, they want to make money to focus on what they want. And that's exactly what happened when I was in the hospital. The story of that 13 year old who was 60 pounds overweight in the bottom of the shower floor. Like I mentioned before, I didn't I didn't focus on not dying. I focused on living. I mean, can you imagine how it would have turned out if I kept telling myself, oh, don't die, don't die, don't die or climbing Everest. Hey, don't fall, don't fall, don't fall, don't don't stop. And same thing for runners and people doing anything athletic. I guarantee you people who are so don't stop, don't stop as opposed to make it to that spot. And then when you make it there, make it to the next spot. Same thing in life. People are saying never quit, don't quit your brain, just quit   Joe: Yeah.   Sean: As opposed to make it to that milestone, make it to the next milestone, make it to the next day. Make it to the next day. Keep pushing forward.   Joe: Yeah, that's a great point, and that's what I think really people should take away from this section of what we're talking about is that even when they talk about visualization, right, it's like you're you your body, your brain does not know whether or not you've accomplished something or not. Right. So why not tell it the best story you can write? Why not say that? I, I, I'm like, visualize you're on top of Everest. Like just visualize it until it happens. Right. It's just so you have to tell your own, your own body the best story possible. And I think that's this portion of what we're talking about should be a lesson to say your your body, your brain and your body is listening. So make sure you tell the right story. So can you take us back to your 16? You're going through all this. What's the next phase in your life?   Sean: A wild and crazy college life   Joe: Ok, where was that?   Sean: That was in Westminster College, and I think looking back at it, because my my teen years and my high school years were taken from me, have   Joe: You're going   Sean: You   Joe: To make up for   Sean: Have you ever seen a movie Animal   Joe: The   Sean: House?   Joe: Absolute.   Sean: There you go. And I was Bellucci. I had a wonderful time   Joe: Nice.   Sean: And I wouldn't change a thing. And I started off molecular bio thinking I was going to cure cancer by splicing genes. And I took organic chemistry and immunology. And it's it's pretty difficult to pass those classes when you don't open a book and study. So. So I actually switched to psychology because I was taking a an introductory psych course while I was going through the immunology class. And I really found it fascinating. And I started thinking, oh, well, maybe there's something here where I can help cancer patients and cancer survivors move on with their lives because it's not an individual disease. It affects everybody in the family thinking, OK, well, I have this great insight. Took the GRE, went to Jacksonville, Florida, to go to work on my master's and my doctorate. And then some things happen. I was working for different jobs, trying to go through my doctorate, which is just ridiculous. I mean, just to focus on education. Wow. So at some point I decided that I hadn't dealt with my own issues. Because of what I went through, I never even considered what cancer did to me and how I wanted to quit on the other end, because in college I just I left it behind. I didn't even bring it up. I mean, there I dated some girls and I was thinking, OK, well, how do I bring up that? I'm a survivor. It's not like, you know, dinner conversation. Oh, you know, how how how's your wife and how is your dinner? Oh, I had cancer. You know, he just   Joe: Yeah,   Sean: Can't do that.   Joe: Yeah.   Sean: So I was so worried about I didn't know what to do. I just I just I forgot about it. So then in grad school is thousands of miles away from Ohio. And it was the first time I actually stopped and looked myself in the mirror and ask myself those deep questions, you know, who are you? What do you want from life? What's your purpose? So I just did some deep, deep understanding of who I was, and then I realized, OK, I had been given a tremendous gift of the mind body connection, and I wanted to help and give back to cancer patients in the cancer world. And that's what I did, more research and more research and kept getting bigger and bigger and thinking higher and higher and like, OK, well, how about we use the biggest platform of the highest platform in the world to scream? Hope the guy. Great. Let's let's go climb Everest. Moved to Colorado just because, like the highest point in Florida is the top of the for the Four Seasons Hotel in Miami.   Joe: And   Sean: So I moved to Colorado, Rocky Mountains   Joe: I love.   Sean: Because I know I don't know too many mountaineers who live in Florida.   Joe: No, no, but it's also.   Sean: So I moved to Colorado and I trained in and literally nine months later flew over to Kathmandu, Nepal, and headed up Everest as the first cancer survivor to some of the highest mountain in the world.   Joe: So what year was this and how old were you?   Sean: Well, that was that was 2002, I actually submitted May 16th at nine thirty two in the morning. So night again almost 20 years ago, 19 years ago. I was twenty seven at the time. That's right.   Joe: And   Sean: Twenty   Joe: You   Sean: Seven.   Joe: Did this with nine months of training.   Sean: Nine months of training and when I first. Well, when I first moved to Colorado, I didn't even have any support. My brother came with me. We lived out the back of my Honda Civic and we camped in Estes Park for two months before we even got a sponsorship.   Joe: Oh, my gosh.   Sean: So we were I remember one morning we woke up, we were going to go climb, I think it's one of the Twin Peaks in Estes Park and we got about two feet of snow in August. And I was thinking to myself, because we're living in the car, that camping, it's like, the hell am I doing here?   Joe: Josh.   Sean: What did I get myself into? My my office was the library and a pay phone bank. So I was calling corporations like Ghatak and Karvelas in the Northeast saying, hey, I'm a two time cancer survivor with one lung and I'm going to go climb Mount Everest in 10 months and I need your help. Ninety nine doors closed in my face.   Joe: Really, that's   Sean: At.   Joe: So surprising that your story is so unique that that one that triggered people to say yes more often.   Sean: But they didn't think it was even possible.   Joe: I guess,   Sean: They thought   Joe: Wow.   Sean: It was physiologically impossible to do that with half your lung capacity, so they like, like I said, nine out of 10 people. I mean, hey, you know, this is my story. Click And I thought it was a joke. So   Joe: What?   Sean: I. I actually have both lungs, but there's so much scar tissue from the radiation treatment, there's really no oxygen transfer. Yeah. So   Joe: So   Sean: It's   Joe: There wasn't removed, it was just   Sean: Like.   Joe: It's just collapsed or   Sean: Now.   Joe: If that's the right term, but   Sean: That's   Joe: The scar tissue,   Sean: A perfect term,   Joe: Ok.   Sean: Yeah.   Joe: Ok, and this that was from the age 16 to one. A lot of the chemo and radiation was done. That's when it happened.   Sean: Exactly.   Joe: Did you have it? Did you also have chemo and radiation at 13?   Sean: I had chemo the first time and chemo radiation the second time.   Joe: Ok, and so it just affected the one long in the sense that it just created just the scar tissue over   Sean: Correct,   Joe: It where it wasn't. So   Sean: Correct.   Joe: It doesn't really work at all.   Sean: Not not really. In fact, in January, I had a little scare, they think it's a long term side effect from the radiation where I had some spots in my back removed and now I have another another starless by about six inches long where they had to go remove that. But if that's all I have to do, the first cancer, the second cancer is 16, 17, and the now 46 year old. Cut it out. I'm good.   Joe: Yeah,   Sean: Yeah.   Joe: Ok, so we are. You said what was the date again,   Sean: May 16th.   Joe: May 16th of two thousand and two,   Sean: Yeah.   Joe: And you were twenty seven years old, OK? And so you trained nine months before you decided you said, I'm going to go do this. So you you set aside nine months to get ready for this.   Sean: Correct.   Joe: Ok, so does the training. Is the training the stuff that I saw in some of the videos where you're you're pulling a sheet behind you and and whatever, your pull tire's up a hill and like, how did you figure out how to train for such as that?   Sean: So that was actually when I when I went to the North Pole a couple of years ago, but for training going up to up Everest, there's lungs Long's peak, which is 18 miles round trip, and it's it's fourteen thousand two hundred and fifty six feet. And I eventually worked my way up to climbing that peak once a week with 100 pounds of rocks in my backpack. So I would train myself and I'll go up onto that peak and into the Rocky Mountain National Park in a bad day, thinking that a bad day on Long's peak was probably better than a good day on Everest. And what I do a training for, for anything like the North Pole, the Hawaii Ironman, I did that. I train harder than I think the event actually event is going to be for two reasons. I get my body in shape, my mind in shape, but also I'm thankful I don't have to train more and I'm more excited about the actual event.   Joe: Right. That's crazy. So what is a normal when you're when you're training for something like that? What what would be a normal day in Sean's life? What time do you get up? What kind of stuff do you like? I can't even fathom something like this. I just   Sean: Well.   Joe: Got done skiing and snowboarding in Utah. I got home last night. I went with the old my oldest friend. We went from elementary and junior high and high school. And   Sean: Now.   Joe: Our families were friends and his father was my dentist. And so he said, I'm going to snowboard spring skiing. I haven't been skiing in twenty five plus years.   Sean: Now.   Joe: Like, come on, let's go. And I was a good skier a long time ago and yeah, I just can't imagine what it would take. My legs were shot. So what does it take. What's Seans the day in the life of of what you do.   Sean: Well, I'm going to challenge you again, then, what are you doing July twenty, Fourth to August seven?   Joe: I saw that and I was like, God, I want to do that. So   Sean: So.   Joe: Explain. So since you're talking about. Explain what that is before we talk about your daily routine. So   Sean: Well,   Joe: Explain.   Sean: Yeah, that would lead into it, because I everybody every year I take a group of Kilimanjaro as   Joe: That's.   Sean: A fundraiser for cancer charity, and what we do is we actually we pay for a survivors trip. And then it's the responsibility of that survivor to raise funds for next year's survivor, kind   Joe: Oh,   Sean: Of   Joe: Wow.   Sean: Paying it forward. Anyone can go. We just fund the survivors trip. And this year we actually have enough funds to send to survivors. So I'm hoping with those two survivors, there isn't. They raise enough funds to take three and twenty twenty two and then maybe five and twenty, twenty three and so forth up to. I'd love to take 15 people, 15 survivors for free every year at   Joe: Wow, that's   Sean: All   Joe: Incredible.   Sean: Costs. But for Kilimanjaro, let's say I would, I would wake up and about four miles from here we have a set of stairs that are pretty steep and there are two hundred and I live at I want to say sixty, sixty four, sixty five hundred feet. So I'm already an altitude which helps a lot.   Joe: Is   Sean: I   Joe: It?   Sean: Wake up in the morning before sunrise and eventually I will do that. That set of stairs 10 to 15 times with about 70 or 80 pounds of rocks in my backpack. So you're talking what, two thousand, maybe, maybe three, four thousand steps up and down in how many stairs are there? The Empire State Building. I think there's one thousand something so   Joe: Yeah,   Sean: Less than I did.   Joe: Right. Wow.   Sean: Then come back, wake my wife up, will do some yoga, eat breakfast, come here to do some work on my laptop, and then I'll probably either do it depending on the day, either rowing, lifting or running, and then on the weekends go out and do a 14 or something like that and a 14 year, a fourteen thousand foot peak. But I also have a sponsorship through a company called Hypoxic Go   Joe: Check.   Sean: Where there's this machine. I call it Arcudi to like R-2 because it's tiny and it actually filters out oxygen to simulate altitude. So I'll I'll do the yoga, I'll do the rowing machine or and I'm doing this because it's a mask of   Joe: For those of you who are listening, he's putting his hand over his face.   Sean: Just randomly. That's that's what I do. And I work out, I,   Joe: That's right.   Sean: I, I'll do those workouts at home on a mask that's connected to this machine and I'll end up doing these workouts at nineteen thousand feet. So what I'm doing is I'm pretty acclimatizing my body because I have to make up for the lack of my right lung because when you get into altitude there's less oxygen, you know, it's spread out, spread out further. And when you get to like if we left, if we went from here to the top of Everest, we'd be dead in five minutes just because of the lack of oxygen. So I treat it and I try to pre acclimatize myself. And when we go to Kilimanjaro, I tell people my training schedule and like, I could never do that. Well, remember, you're training for yourself. I'm training for me and ten other people.   Joe: Right.   Sean: So   Joe: Right.   Sean: This if you're interested, this would be my 21st summit of Kilimanjaro.   Joe: That's incredible in regards to what you eat, are you like a very strict like is everything that you do? Very strict and regimented.   Sean: Not not everything, I mean, I give myself some leniency sugar during the week, I don't do on the weekends   Joe: Ok.   Sean: On Easter. Yeah, I have those little malt balls, you know, the Easter Mother's Day. But for the most part, I mean, no sugar. See, what did I have just for lunch? My wife made a salad. We had some chick like a chicken, homemade chicken salad. We're very conscious of what we eat. We stay away from the sugars. No. And that means no white pasta, no white bread. I love I've always loved broccoli. I just eat healthy.   Joe: Right.   Sean: Every once in a while I'll have a burger or steak, but, you know, maybe once a month.   Joe: Beer, a glass of wine, no.   Sean: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I   Joe: Ok,   Sean: Like I actually I brew beer at home too.   Joe: Ok, OK,   Sean: Yeah.   Joe: Ok.   Sean: It's great because when I travel you know, I make the beer, I come back two weeks later I'm like, oh beer.   Joe: There you go. OK, cool.   Sean: Oh.   Joe: So were you afraid going Tavaris like, I can't I can't even imagine I'm telling you to sit here and talk with you about this. I I've watched like we've talked about before, we actually started recording, watched the shows, the different movies or documentaries about it and the getting frostbite and people getting pneumonia and their sister, their body shutting down. And they're having to have the tip of like my nose is red right now from being sunburned and windburn from Snover. And I'm like, I don't I can't even fathom all the things that must go through your brain. And then watching where you cross over on that, I don't even know what it's called. You think I know after   Sean: Remasters   Joe: Watching.   Sean: Have.   Joe: Yeah. The with the ones with the ladders. Right. I don't know how many of those you have to cross and I just I don't know. And then the spots where I don't even know if this is something people point out on the way up or on the way down. But that's where we had to leave so and so like at the all those things go into your brain and you don't want to be the weak link in the chain. Something happens to you and then all of a sudden other people have to descend, like, I don't even know how that works. So, I mean, arriving at base camp must have been just like incredible and scary as hell. I've been like, oh, my gosh, there's no turning back here. It is base camp. And I'm and I said, I'm going to do this.   Sean: I think for me, I obviously was focused on the summit, I wanted to get to the top like everybody else who goes over there, but I think I was more focused on enjoying the whole process because literally when I got to base camp, every step outside of base camp was my personal record for altitude. I had never been any higher than base camp. But so every step was higher than I'd ever been, so   Joe: What   Sean: I   Joe: Is   Sean: Am.   Joe: What is base camp at?   Sean: Seventeen thousand six hundred feet.   Joe: Ok, and you and you're saying this machine you use change you at nineteen thousand.   Sean: But I didn't I didn't have that machine before   Joe: Oh,   Sean: I.   Joe: Wow.   Sean: So the highest I have ever been was just around just below fourteen thousand five hundred feet, which is the highest mountain here in Colorado.   Joe: That's correct.   Sean: Albert.   Joe: Wow.   Sean: And when I got to the summit of Everest, I mean, it was double the whatever, the highest point I'd ever been. But I knew that I was so focused on, you know, you asked me about being afraid, there were times that those little. Negative seeds got planted in my brain, but I didn't want them. I didn't let them grow and I was very mindful and very aware of when those thoughts came in my brain, because looking back at the same analogy of that young boy on the shower floor, I focused on living as opposed to not dying. And when I when I was crossing the ladders on on the glass across the crevasses, I wasn't focused on, hey, don't fall in the crevasse. I was focused on making it to the next side. And when we passed the dead bodies, I stepped over a number of dead bodies. I just I tried to not ask myself the question, I did this when I got back down. Why did he die? Why would nine? And what's the difference, like, why would I why would I be worthy and he wouldn't be. But it's it's like anything in life where you just don't know sometimes. Why did I get cancer? I don't know. It's a whole question. Why me? Why me? Well, the fact of the matter is, it was me. So deal with it. Why not me?   Joe: Yeah, I've had this conversation with other people on the podcast who have gone through some adversity. I you know, I feel like that adversity has been given, fortunately or unfortunately, however you want to look at it, because the outcomes of things that you've learned through what you've gone through have created this person, this mental strength, and someone who is very happy day to day or other people, just no matter, they could be having the most amazing life and they still complain. But I feel like, you know, the adversity has been given to people with strength, and I'm not sure if that's true. It's something I made up of my own brain because I think I'm such a wimp that I cut my finger. I start like I don't know how I would deal with what you've gone through, what other people around me have gone through. So that's what's my own little story, I tell myself. So you just didn't choose me because he knew I couldn't handle it, so.   Sean: But but you never know what you can handle until you're put in that situation.   Joe: Right.   Sean: And people always say say things like that all the time, I don't. My God, I have no idea what I would do if I was ever in your situation. You don't know.   Joe: Yeah.   Sean: And you'd be amazed at how much you can actually handle when you are in that situation.   Joe: Yeah, that's incredible. OK, so you're at base camp and how many are you in? I don't know how you travel if there's 12 or 15 or whatever the number is. How many are there with you going up?   Sean: So, as you probably know, a normal Everest expedition could I mean, it could be 20, 30 people.   Joe: Ok.   Sean: A number of sardars Sherpas, you name it, and clients. I had my brother at base camp, a cook at base camp, two Sherpas and me, and that was it. We were I say I was we were on a shoestring budget, but we didn't even have shoelaces. So we.   Joe: Did   Sean: It   Joe: You end   Sean: Was.   Joe: Up ever getting sponsorship before you left?   Sean: I did in   Joe: Ok,   Sean: One of   Joe: Good.   Sean: Them was Ghatak, one was Capello's, and   Joe: Ok.   Sean: Believe it or not, I didn't even have a summit suit a week before I was supposed to go up for the top. And just my crazy luck. And I know it's not like it was by the big guy upstairs, but the north face came in with my my summit suit and it actually said Shantz Warner Everest base camp on the box. And it got to.   Joe: Wow, that's crazy.   Sean: It's like two or three days before I was supposed to go up in the sun at my summit suit came in.   Joe: That is nuts. Wow. All right, so when you start out, how long does it. How long should it take you or how long is like the most that you can spend up that high? Like, is there a period of time that you have the summit? And I know it's due to weather, too, right. You have to sometimes   Sean: At.   Joe: Just go. We can't make the attempt today. The weather is just not good enough. So what did it end up taking you from base camp to summoning Everest?   Sean: So a lot of people don't understand that when you get there, you don't go from base camp and go up to Camp One, spend a couple of days there, go up to camp to spend a couple of days there, three, four. Same thing from the south side. We actually there are four camps and then with base camp there.   Joe: Ok.   Sean: So we arrived at base camp April 8th and I summited May 16. So almost a month and a half. The whole time we're going from base camp up higher, establishing different camps and then coming back down so that that does two things, we go up with a full back, a pack drop off stuff and then go back with an empty backpack, go back up with a full pack your stuff and go back down. So, like I said, does two things. It actually transports the gear and material that we need to each camp, food, gear, whatever. But it also is getting our body adjusted to the altitude.   Joe: Ok.   Sean: So then we would go up and down, up and down, up and down after we established three and then four when when you get to camp for your before you get to Camp four, you pay attention to the weather. And there's a weather window because everybody has seen that that quintessential picture of Everest with the snow plume   Joe: Yep,   Sean: Blowing off the top.   Joe: Yep.   Sean: That's because that's because the sun is puncturing the jetstream, the just   Joe: Uh.   Sean: Tunnels, the summit, two   Joe: Huh?   Sean: Hundred three hundred miles an hour. So it's impossible to climb on that. So what happens is pre monsoon season, there's a high pressure system that pushes the jet stream north. And that's when people sneak up on top of Everest and come back down. So you see on I guess you don't look on a map, but meteorologists know and they give you a weather window like it's usually mid-May. For us, it was supposed to be May 15th where the weather window was good. But for whatever reason, that may on May 14th, we were supposed to move to May 15th and go up for the summit. I was at camp three and I was suffering a mild form of cerebral edema, which is altitude induced swelling of the brain. And I couldn't move. So every single other expedition who was on the same schedules, us went from Camp three, moved to Camp four and went to the summit that night. The next morning, the winds were howling. They came down the aisle retreat, and they lost their opportunity to climb. I slept on an oxygen that day. The next morning we went up to camp for summited on May 16th, a day later, and there was just a slight breeze in the top. We spent about 30 minutes up there to forty five minutes, which is unheard of.   Joe: Who's medically trained to tell you what's wrong with you or do you just have to know, like there's no one is like in your own little group, it's you just have to know what's right or wrong with you and how to fix it.   Sean: In my group, yeah, I mean, in other expeditions are expedition doctors, you know, everybody there were we made friends with some people from Brown University who were doing a study up there. And it was it's actually really funny. They're doing a study on how the altitude affects the brain. And they gave me this book and I became a volunteer to help with the study. And I was at Camp three when I was acclimatizing and not going up for the summit, but just sleeping at Camp three is going to come back down the mountain like a little Rolodex thing. It's like the size of an index card and you flip it back and on the front of it, you're supposed to pick out which object was was different, which which one didn't belong. And it was like a small triangle, a large triangle, a medium sized triangle and a Pentagon or something like that. Right.   Joe: So.   Sean: And so and each each are different. So big, medium, small square in a circle you pick out the circle. But it was funny. So I get up to camp three and I'm radioing down to them. All right. You guys ready to go? Yeah, we're good. So I flip it over and I'm thinking I'm going to have some fun with this.   Joe: All right.   Sean: So I go page one, the Penguin Page to the House, page three, the dog. And keep in mind, they're all geometric shapes. So   Joe: All   Sean: I think.   Joe: Right, to the naming of animals, as they say, oh, for.   Sean: It's like I take my thumb off the microphone and there's a long silence.   Joe: It's not.   Sean: And all of a sudden, Sean, are you feeling OK?   Joe: Right.   Sean: Like, yeah, why, what's going on? There are no animals.   Joe: That is so funny. Oh, my gosh, they were probably like, oh, we got to get a helicopter up there.   Sean: They were thinking, we need to get emergency up there and get him down off the mountain.   Joe: That is so funny. Oh, my gosh. So is it true that it gets backed up up there when people are trying to summit during a certain season?   Sean: It is now when I was there, it wasn't as bad   Joe: Check.   Sean: And also. A few years ago, there was a big earthquake and there used to be a section called the Hillary Step,   Joe: Yep, I   Sean: And   Joe: Remember hearing.   Sean: So it used to be a chunk of rock that used to hang out. And literally, if you took six inches off to your left side, you would plummet a mile and a half straight down. And there was that section where only one person could go up or one person could go down at a time, and that's where the bottleneck usually was. So with the earthquake, what I've heard is that there's no longer a Hillary step. It's more like a Hillary slope now because that giant rock has been dislodged. But from the obviously you saw a picture from a couple of years ago that just that long queue of people, apparently it's getting a little out of control.   Joe: And that's crazy. Would you ever do it again? Do you ever care about doing it again?   Sean: Well, as is my family or my wife going to hear this this time, I don't know if it calms down and it becomes less popular, I honestly would I would like to attempt it again without oxygen to see if it's possible to climb Everest with one lung and no no supplemental oxygen.   Joe: Who was the guy that did it with no, nothing.   Sean: Reinhold Messner, he's climbed, yeah, and then there's also a guy named Viscose who climbed the 8000 meter peaks. So it's been it's been done numerous times, but the first person who did it was Mesner. I believe.   Joe: No oxygen, it just all right. Yeah, I don't want to get you in trouble with your wife, so we'll just, well, not talk about it anymore, OK? I'm telling you, I can sit here and talk to you forever, and I want to respect your time. I don't want to run too far over. So besides everything you've done every day, the tallest peak on every continent at this point, is that true?   Sean: Correct. Still the seven summits,   Joe: Yeah,   Sean: Yep.   Joe: Ok, and then along with that, you have this series of books that you're doing. Can you explain what that's about, what people find when they give each one of those books?   Sean: Oh, sure, yeah, it's actually it's in the infant stages right now, but it's called the Seven Summits to Success. And I just signed an agreement with a publishing company. We're producing we're publishing the first one which is conquering your Everest, where it helps people bring them kind of into my life and understand how I've done what I've done, not just what I've done, what I've done, not what I've done I've done, not what I've done, but how I've done what I've done.   Joe: Yeah.   Sean: And it's also it's very similar to what I just I put together called the Summit Challenge, which is an online series of individual modules, seven different modules walking people through. Utilizing their own personal core values to accomplish things like self actualization, and at the end they essentially find their purpose and it came from the concept and the idea where after a keynote presentation, so many people would come up and say, that's a great story, but a handful would say, that's a great story. And then followed up with a question, but how did you do it? And then looking at Kilimanjaro again, the average success rate on the mountain is roughly forty eight percent, meaning fifty two people out of 100 don't even make it to the top. And like I said, this this July with my twenty first summit with groups and our groups are at 98 percent success rate, double that of the average. So I was thinking, OK, well what's what's the difference? And the difference is I've been subconsciously imparting what I've learned going through the cancer because my first goal was to crawl eight feet from a hospital bed to the bathroom, and then I ended up climbing twenty nine thousand feet to the top of the world. So all those little things, those little insights that I've learned, I've been imparting on people in my groups. So we do something every day that's different to help people get up there. In the main, the main understanding that they get is understanding what their personal core values are. Because once you hold fast to your personal core values and you have an understanding of a deeper purpose, nothing is going to get in your way.   Joe: So in that kind of brings us back to when you left college and you decided that you're you're camping with your brother and then you decide you're going to do this thing to Everest. Right. Was that the beginning of this this portion of Shawn's life where you're going to do these things? But now there's an underlying what's the word I'm looking for this an underlying mission, which is you're you're doing this, I guess, because you like to challenge yourself. Obviously, you just want to you're so happy with the fact that you have been given this chats with   Sean: Right.   Joe: With what happened to you. You're going to make the most of it. So here I am, Sean Zwirner. I am so grateful that I went through two different types of cancer that easily either one of them could have killed me. One of them ruined one of my lungs. I'm still living. Not only that, but I'm going to make the most of every day. So you go to Everest, you do this, you accomplish that, and then you say, OK, that that's that's it. You went for the biggest thing on your first run. You would start out small. You just like, screw it, I'm going to Everest. And then after that, all these other things would be cakewalks, and I'm sure they're not. But then you did all seven summits. And now, though, is it the underlying mission is that you are you are the voice of cancer survivors and and what you do and I don't want to put any words in your mouth, so stop me at any moment. But is it like you're doing this to to to provide hope for them to say, listen, I not only did it twice, but I am living at the highest level of accomplishment and and I don't know what there's so many words I can think of that you just you want them to all think the same way, just keep pushing forward, get the most out of life. And I'm here to support you. And look at me. I've done it. I'm not just spewing words from a stage. I've literally gone out and done this. So I want you to be on this journey with me, both mentally, physically, if you can. Does that make sense or that I just destroy it?   Sean: No, absolutely, I I wouldn't I wouldn't personally profess that I am the voice of survivors if others want to think that that that's great. But I wouldn't I wouldn't declare myself that. But I have found a deeper purpose. And it did start with Everest, because when I made it to the summit, I had a flag that had names that people touched by cancer on it.   Joe: Yeah, I saw that, yep.   Sean: And that was always folded up in my chest pocket, close to my heart as a constant reminder of my goals in my inspiration, and I planted a flag on the top of Everest. I planted a flag on the seven summits, the highest on every continent. And I also planted a flag at the South Pole and most recently at the North Pole. And I think it initially started. With the concept of I don't want to say infiltrating the cancer community, but getting there and showing them exactly what you said, you know, being up on stage and saying, hey, I'm not just talking the talk, I'm walking it as well. I know what it's like being in your situation. I know what it's like to have no hope. But I also know what it's like on the other side. And I also know what it's like to scream from the rooftops that there's there's a tremendous life after after cancer and it can be a beautiful life. So a lot of people who and like I said, it started off with cancer, but now it's it's reached out to anybody who's going through anything traumatic, which is with the state of the world, is it's everybody now. So with with any uncertainty, you can use that, especially with my cancer. It wasn't the end. It was the beginning. So what the world is going through right now, it's not necessarily the end. It's not uncertainty. How we come out of this on the other side is entirely up to us. And it's our choice. And we can use all the trials and tribulations and turn that into triumph of success if we want. It is all based on our own perspectives.   Joe: So you come off of Everest and then there's your life now become this person who is going to continue to push themselves for because you obviously want to live this amazing life and you don't you just do love the adventure. You love the thrill of the accomplishment. I'm sure all of that stuff that any of us would love, like I went skiing for three days of twenty five years. I'm glad I'm still alive. Sit and talk   Sean: They.   Joe: Because trust me, I wasn't the guy you were talking about walking down the sidewalk and say, don't trip down. I was like, you're fifty nine. You break a bone now you're screwed, you're breakable. And I'm going over. These moguls go, oh my gosh, why am I here? How did you survive? How does someone like that survive financially? How do you survive financially that you now did that? Does that start to bring in sponsorships and endorsements and book deals and speaking deals, or is it just the snowball that happens? And how do you decide that this is the path your life is going to take?   Sean: You would think so, and I've been approached by numerous corporations where the conversation went, something like me telling them, well, I really can't use your product up in the mountains and doing what I do. They say, OK, we'll just take the money we're going to give you by which you really use but endorse our product. So if I went if I went down that path, absolutely, I would be living the high life.   Joe: Right.   Sean: But because I'm a moral and ethical person, I think.   Joe: So.   Sean: It's not nearly what you probably think it is, I don't have people banging down my door for a movie. I don't have people banging down my door for a book. And I think it's because most of the media that we see on television is is paid for media. And every time I reach out to a production company or a marketing company or a PR company, they're usually the first question is what? What's your budget? OK, well, how about the story? How about helping people? Because like I said, every morning I write an affirmation down, in fact, or was it just yesterday was I will give more than I receive. I will create more than I consume. And I think most people who don't understand that think that you're living in a state of lack. And maybe I am. But I'm also incredibly grateful for everything we have. And do I want my story out there? Absolutely. But I don't need to make millions and millions of dollars on it. And what I what I want to do is take those millions and millions of dollars and take cancer survivors up Kilimanjaro every year. I'd love to do that three or four times a year. So I'm always looking for people who can who can jump in here and help me out and share my story with others to give back to help people and help them believe in themselves and help them find their purpose, their their inner drive, their inner.   Joe: Is this is going to sound so stupid, so forgive me, so when you do this, this trek up Kilimanjaro, you do it in July, right?   Sean: Yeah, yeah,   Joe: It.   Sean: People should arrive at Kilimanjaro International Airport July 20 for.   Joe: Ok, is it cold up there?   Sean: It depends. That's a it's not a stupid question,   Joe: Really,   Sean: But   Joe: I   Sean: That's   Joe: Thought   Sean: Like   Joe: You were going to   Sean: Asking.   Joe: Be like, yeah, it's it's it's however many thousand   Sean: Oh.   Joe: Feet. What do you think, Joe?   Sean: But that would be like me asking you, hey, what's it like in snowboarding? What's it going to be like in snowboarding? July? Twenty Fourth. Twenty twenty three. I mean, you have a rough estimate.   Joe: I.   Sean: So in going up Kilimanjaro, it's one of the most beautiful mountains I've been on because you go through so many different climactic zones getting up that you start off in an African rainforest where it can be a torrential downpour. It's always green, but it could be a torrential downpour or it can be sunny and the sun kind of filters through the canopy and you'll see these little streams of light coming to the camp, which is beautiful. And then the next day, it's it could be sunny or rainy, but it goes through so many different zones. You just have to be prepared for each one summit night. However, yes, it's tremendously cold. It can be zero degrees or maybe even minus 10. But with the right gear, you're going to be fine. I mean, there's there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad year.   Joe: Well, here's a good question, and if someone was to go on this is how do they get that gear that they have to buy all that stuff?   Sean: You can you can purchase it or you can rent it over there. I've used the same group of people for the past 18 months, and if you're if you're never going to use a zero degree sleeping bag again in your life, just rent it for 30 bucks. You don't spend three hundred four hundred dollars to buy one. Or if you do buy one and you're never going to use again, give it to my friends, the Sherpas of who use it all the time.   Joe: Right, so basically somebody's going on this could, when they arrive there, get everything they need to make it happen.   Sean: Well, except for your boots and your underwear, you probably don't want to rent me underwear.   Joe: The point well taken. OK, go. So I want to ask you about the Big Hill challenge.   Sean: So great, the big Hill challenge is actually an abridged version of the summit challenge, so some challenges this really in-depth twenty one week program where you take micro challenges and utilize something that you learn and just incorporate into your daily life. The Big Hill challenge is going to be a three week challenge where I take a group of one hundred people at a time and work them through three weeks of little micro challenges to help them along.   Joe: Ok.   Sean: And they're both based on understanding and utilizing your personal core values.   Joe: Perfect. And these can be found on your website.   Sean: Yeah, you can go to the summit challenge dotcom event eventually, you can go to the Big Hill challenge dotcom,   Joe: Ok,   Sean: But every   Joe: Ok,   Sean: One or dotcom.   Joe: Ok, great, because I'll put all of this in the show, notes and everything else, I wrote this question down because I wanted to make it clear that besides your website, Shawn   Sean: Like.   Joe: Swane or Dotcom, you have the cancer Climategate.   Sean: Correct.   Joe: Can you explain can you explain that site to me and what the goal of that site is?   Sean: So cancer climber, cancer climate Doug is actually the organization my brother and I founded that funds trips for cancer survivors to kill javu.   Joe: Ok.   Sean: And actually, if we raise, my goal is to raise about two million dollars to have a mobile camp for kids with cancer.   Joe: Wow. That's   Sean: Because   Joe: Incredible.   Sean: You there are camps all over the country, all over the world, but oftentimes you can't get the survive or you can't get the patient to the camp because of the compromised immune system. So I thought, well, what if there's a semi truck that brings the camp to the kids?   Joe: Hmm, that's interesting. That's a really cool. And the reason I ask about coming on being cold is because Joel in my my better half of 20 some years survived breast cancer. It was lymph node sort of stuff. So taken out and be like God. But she hates the cold like she I would be so cold to do something like this with her. She just literally I mean, I don't know if she would go the last section to the summit because her cold do not mix. She's so happy here in Arizona and she never complains about the heat. So   Sean: My.   Joe: That's the only reason I ask that. So.   Sean: My wife was born and raised in Puerto Rico,   Joe: Ok.   Sean: Forty forty years of her life, and she went with me.   Joe: She.   Sean: She did. She hated the last night, but she's so happy she didn't.   Joe: So it's really just the one night that's the   Sean: Yeah.   Joe: Coldest. So it's one night out. How long does it take to get from where you started out in the rainforest to the.   Sean: So the whole trip itself is a seven day trip up and down the mountain summit on the morning of the 6th, we leave the evening of the 6th, and then after we come off the mountain, we actually go we fly into the Serengeti and do a four day safari to the Serengeti.   Joe: And when you're staying on the way up to the summit, or is it just like caps right   Sean: But   Joe: There? Oh, so that's it. There it is.   Sean: The.   Joe: That's right. So the people that are listening to this on the podcast, you'll have to look at the YouTube video later. But he's showing me the actual   Sean: The.   Joe: Tents and. And is everybody carrying their own tent?   Sean: No, I actually, because I've been there so many times, we pay two porters per person to haul your gear up and all you have to worry about is your day pack some water, snacks, showers, your camera, sunscreen, hat, stuff like that. I don't want anybody carrying anything more than, say, twenty five thirty pounds up the mountain, but the sort of porters will actually give them the leave. After we leave camp, they'll pass us on the way.

Watson Watch continues on Inside HustleTown. What do the Texans do next? How did it get here? Joe & Josh try and answer those questions.

The Texans drama is at an all time high after Andre Johnson takes his shot at Jack Easterby on twitter and Joe & Josh have so many thoughts on what this means for the Texans and the snowball affect it could actually have.

Joe & Josh talk about the latest rumors around Harden and it appears the era is ending. Plus they get into a heated debate about sitting Watson the rest of the season.

Joe & Josh recap the days game vs the Texans, the positives of Keke and wondering who Chad Hansen is. Plus why the game final play doesn't fall on Watson.

Joe & Josh discuss the suspensions for Fuller & Roby and what they believe should happen with Fuller next. Plus they discuss the Rockets trading Westbrook for John Wall & what it means for the team.

Joe & Josh talk about the Texans W over the Pats, how great Watson looked & some of the Rockets news that's been all over the place.

Joe & Josh recap the Texans Win and talk about JJ's place in history now that he has 100 sacks in his career.

Joe & Josh discuss the future of George Springer and what destinations he could be headed for and their expectations for the Texans post bye week.

Joe & Josh talk about the Texans loss, how it's just miserable to watch them, the inconstancy of the offense and the disappearance of Reid & Cunnigham. Plus lots of Game Of Thrones references

Correa walks it off, Daryl Morey is gone and the Texans play the Titans this Sunday. Joe & Josh cover it all on EP 11 of Inside HustleTown.

Joe & Josh talk about the Texans win, what it really means, how the team played different & the injury of Dak Prescott

Joe & Josh talk about the Astros battling and advancing to the ALCS for the 4th consecutive year & they finally get a chance to react to the firing of Bill O'Brien.

Joe & Josh vent about what took place in the Texans loss to the Vikings. It's pretty clear that the Texans are not a good team. What now? Come vent with us.

Joe & Josh get you ready for the Texans & Vikings matchup, plus the Astros sweep the Twins and are lined up to face the A's.

Joe & Josh recap the Texans loss to the Steelers. Seriously, what is happening to this team and is it fixable at all? On a scale to safe to fired tomorrow, how hot is Bill's seat?

In ep 5 of Inside HustleTown, Joe & Josh look towards week 3 vs the Steelers, how Watson has played through the first two games and the typical postgame O'Brien stuff.

Joe & Josh recap another embarrassing loss for the Texans. Bill O'Brien says the team needs to be better, the guys say DUHHHHHH. But how do they actually get better or can they get better? That's the question going into week 3. Follow the guys on twitter @JoeGeorgeRadio & @JoshBeardRadio

In EP 4 of Inside HustleTown, Joe & Josh talk about Mike D'Antoni being out as the Rockets HC, they preview the game vs the Ravens & pick characters from The Office and assign them to the local teams

Joe & Josh give you a full preview of what to expect from the 2020 Texans season. From the new coordinators to the new WR core. Plus how it think they will play out in the division and who is headed to the Super Bowl

Sneaky Joe is joined by Josh Hyman from Locked On Blues. Joe & Josh discuss Ryan O'Reilly's time in St. Louis, looking back on the trade that sent him there, and how about those All-Star jerseys? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mixed Martial Artist and UFC Champion Keith Jardine, known as the Dean of Mean talks about his relentless spirit in fighting his way to infamy in and out of the ring. Famous for some legendary takedowns, a reality tv show and now a successful paleo business venture- learn what it takes to be a heavyweight in business and battle. LESSONS Find your purpose Be relentless in achieving your goals Know when to pivot LINKS https://cavemancoffeeco.com/ TIME STAMPS 0:00 Intro with Joe, the Colonel & Guest Host World Champion rower Josh Crosby 2:40 Interview begins drinking Caveman coffee & the “Dean of Mean” 4:25 Growing up playing football & wrestling in Oregon / California 6:25 The strange man nobody wanted to mess with 7:30 Training for sports as a way of life 9:00 Outlets for testosterone & proving yourself nonverbally 10:00 showing up “unattached” to world class wrestling tournaments 11:00 Starting MMA training & the drive to be a boxer 14:00 The joy of the fight 14:15 Burpee Break 15:35 Fighting internationally 18:30 Overcoming the struggle 20:45 Reality T.V. & the UFC 23:00 Training regiment 24:30 Getting in control of food 27:00 Col Nye, Joe & Josh discuss lessons learned SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpShow YouTube: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpYT Google Play: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpPlay FOLLOW SPARTAN UP: Spartan Up on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spartanuppodcast/ Spartan Up on Twitter https://twitter.com/SpartanUpPod CREDITS: Producer – Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc. Hosts: Joe De Sena, Tim Nye & Guest Host Josh Crosby Synopsis – Sefra Alexandra | Seed Huntress Production Assistant - Andrea Hagarty © 2019 Spartan

In this little wrap-up of Season 2, Joe & Josh discuss Dorothy Thompson's famous 1941 Harper's essay "Who Goes Nazi?" In it, Thompson asked readers to look around the room at their next dinner party and guess who would collaborate with a fascist government in the United States. This piece, and the grim parlor game it describes, made the rounds on social media immediately before and after Donald Trump's election, and it has a lot to say about the personality types that are attracted to far-right movements, and maps pretty well on to the profiles we've read this season of major Alt-Right figures. We also tease our topic for Season 3, which hopefully will get to record before the world actually ends."Who Goes Nazi?" by Dorothy Thompson, Harper's, 1941https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/Let us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

In this little wrap-up of Season 2, Joe & Josh discuss Dorothy Thompson's famous 1941 Harper's essay "Who Goes Nazi?" In it, Thompson asked readers to look around the room at their next dinner party and guess who would collaborate with a fascist government in the United States. This piece, and the grim parlor game it describes, made the rounds on social media immediately before and after Donald Trump's election, and it has a lot to say about the personality types that are attracted to far-right movements, and maps pretty well on to the profiles we've read this season of major Alt-Right figures. We also tease our topic for Season 3, which hopefully will get to record before the world actually ends."Who Goes Nazi?" by Dorothy Thompson, Harper's, 1941https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/Let us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

Mark Fisher (1968-2017), aka k-punk, was one of the most sensitive and original Leftist writers the internet age has yet produced. In both his major work, Capitalist Realism, and his many essays and blog posts, Fisher expounded on literature, technology, and pop culture from a class-conscious but undogmatic perspective. For his gentle but firm critique of the pseudo-progressive call-out culture that still dominates online spaces, "Exiting the Vampire Castle," he was viciously - but predictably - attacked by petulant children obsessed by a bourgeois sense of proprietary, disguised as liberal political sentiment. In this episode, Joe & Josh discuss his legacy and ask how his thought and writing offer an alternative to both the toxicity of the Alt-Right and the narcissism of the fake Left.“Exiting the Vampire Castle” by Mark Fisher, The North Star, 2013http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=11299 “Mark Fisher, 1968-2017” by Alex Niven, Jacobin, 2017https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/mark-fisher-capitalist-realism-vampire-castle/ “The Safety Pin and The Swastika” by Shuja Haider, Viewpoint, 2017https://www.viewpointmag.com/2017/01/04/the-safety-pin-and-the-swastika/Let us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

Mark Fisher (1968-2017), aka k-punk, was one of the most sensitive and original Leftist writers the internet age has yet produced. In both his major work, Capitalist Realism, and his many essays and blog posts, Fisher expounded on literature, technology, and pop culture from a class-conscious but undogmatic perspective. For his gentle but firm critique of the pseudo-progressive call-out culture that still dominates online spaces, "Exiting the Vampire Castle," he was viciously - but predictably - attacked by petulant children obsessed by a bourgeois sense of proprietary, disguised as liberal political sentiment. In this episode, Joe & Josh discuss his legacy and ask how his thought and writing offer an alternative to both the toxicity of the Alt-Right and the narcissism of the fake Left.“Exiting the Vampire Castle” by Mark Fisher, The North Star, 2013http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=11299 “Mark Fisher, 1968-2017” by Alex Niven, Jacobin, 2017https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/mark-fisher-capitalist-realism-vampire-castle/ “The Safety Pin and The Swastika” by Shuja Haider, Viewpoint, 2017https://www.viewpointmag.com/2017/01/04/the-safety-pin-and-the-swastika/Let us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

Dylann Roof's murder of nine people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC shocked the nation in 2015, the most appalling act of right-wing terrorism in the U.S. since the Oklahoma City bombing - and the first inspired by the proliferation of racist, neo-fascist, and Alt-Right ideas online. Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah's masterful 2017 essay for GQ captures the heroism of Roof's victims, the rage of their survivors, and the world of Roof himself, who emerges as both mentally unstable and also utterly earnest in his racist ideology. He was also clearly infatuated with a certain mythologized version of American history, which is what Joe & Josh spend most of this episode talking about. They also ask if the word "terrorism" has any value, discuss American gun culture, and return to the Confederate monuments debate.“A Most American Terrorist” by Rachel Khaadzi Ghansah, GQ, 2017https://www.gq.com/story/dylann-roof-making-of-an-american-terrorist“Racism, Medievalism, and the White Supremacists of Charlottesville” by Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, 2017https://newrepublic.com/article/144320/racism-medievalism-white-supremacists-charlottesville“The War on White Heritage,” by Samuel Francis, American Renaissance, 2000https://www.amren.com/news/2015/06/the-war-on-white-heritage/Let us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

Dylann Roof's murder of nine people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC shocked the nation in 2015, the most appalling act of right-wing terrorism in the U.S. since the Oklahoma City bombing - and the first inspired by the proliferation of racist, neo-fascist, and Alt-Right ideas online. Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah's masterful 2017 essay for GQ captures the heroism of Roof's victims, the rage of their survivors, and the world of Roof himself, who emerges as both mentally unstable and also utterly earnest in his racist ideology. He was also clearly infatuated with a certain mythologized version of American history, which is what Joe & Josh spend most of this episode talking about. They also ask if the word "terrorism" has any value, discuss American gun culture, and return to the Confederate monuments debate.“A Most American Terrorist” by Rachel Khaadzi Ghansah, GQ, 2017https://www.gq.com/story/dylann-roof-making-of-an-american-terrorist“Racism, Medievalism, and the White Supremacists of Charlottesville” by Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, 2017https://newrepublic.com/article/144320/racism-medievalism-white-supremacists-charlottesville“The War on White Heritage,” by Samuel Francis, American Renaissance, 2000https://www.amren.com/news/2015/06/the-war-on-white-heritage/Let us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

As this season's readings have already made clear, male grievance and organized misogyny are a crucial feeder into the fevered swamps of the Alt-Right. So why would an otherwise sane, smart, independent woman want to make common cause with the Nazi contingent of the #gamergate and MGTOW crowd? In this episode, Joe & Josh discuss what motivates right-wing women, starting with the portrait of Lana Lokteff and her fascist sorority sisters in "Rise of the Valkyries" by Seyward Darby, from the September 2017 issue of Harper's. They also examine conservative sexism, the link between biology and gender roles, mis-pronounce "Hindutva," and ask once again how much attention to the Alt-Right is too much.“Rise of the Valkyries” by Seyward Darby, Harper’s, 2017https://harpers.org/archive/2017/09/the-rise-of-the-valkyries/Optional:“The Alt-Right Doesn’t Know What to Do With White Women” by Hannah Gais, The New Republic, 2017https://newrepublic.com/article/145325/alt-right-doesnt-know-white-women“This book in the marriage bible for alt-right women” by Laura Smith, Timeline, 2017https://timeline.com/fascinating-womanhood-andelin-feminism-509dfe538de7Let us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

As this season's readings have already made clear, male grievance and organized misogyny are a crucial feeder into the fevered swamps of the Alt-Right. So why would an otherwise sane, smart, independent woman want to make common cause with the Nazi contingent of the #gamergate and MGTOW crowd? In this episode, Joe & Josh discuss what motivates right-wing women, starting with the portrait of Lana Lokteff and her fascist sorority sisters in "Rise of the Valkyries" by Seyward Darby, from the September 2017 issue of Harper's. They also examine conservative sexism, the link between biology and gender roles, mis-pronounce "Hindutva," and ask once again how much attention to the Alt-Right is too much.“Rise of the Valkyries” by Seyward Darby, Harper’s, 2017https://harpers.org/archive/2017/09/the-rise-of-the-valkyries/Optional:“The Alt-Right Doesn’t Know What to Do With White Women” by Hannah Gais, The New Republic, 2017https://newrepublic.com/article/145325/alt-right-doesnt-know-white-women“This book in the marriage bible for alt-right women” by Laura Smith, Timeline, 2017https://timeline.com/fascinating-womanhood-andelin-feminism-509dfe538de7Let us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

The road from paranoid conspiracy theorist to out-and-out Nazi is a well-trod one, but no one has followed that road further than Andrew Anglin, the 5'4" American Goebbels of internet fascism. Founder of The Daily Stormer, perpetuator of long-discredited anti-Semitic canards, Filipino child bride-seeker, and man who is maybe 5'7" in his skinhead boots, Anglin is the big (but not tall) fish of the Alt-Right. In this episode, Joe & Josh break down why anti-Semitism has such staying power, whether or not no-platforming works, and how media outlets can best report on the likes of well-under-average-height hatemonger Anglin. Our discussion ranges from Luke O'Brien's December 2017 cover story in The Atlantic to Anglin's own short (get it?) Alt-Right explainer for normies.“The Making of an American Nazi” by Luke O’Brien, The Atlantic, 2017https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/the-making-of-an-american-nazi/544119/Optional:“My Journey to the Center of the Alt-Right” by Luke O’Brien, Highline, 2016http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/alt-right/“A Normie’s Guide to the Alt-Right” by Andrew Anglin, The Daily Stormer, 2016Let us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

The road from paranoid conspiracy theorist to out-and-out Nazi is a well-trod one, but no one has followed that road further than Andrew Anglin, the 5'4" American Goebbels of internet fascism. Founder of The Daily Stormer, perpetuator of long-discredited anti-Semitic canards, Filipino child bride-seeker, and man who is maybe 5'7" in his skinhead boots, Anglin is the big (but not tall) fish of the Alt-Right. In this episode, Joe & Josh break down why anti-Semitism has such staying power, whether or not no-platforming works, and how media outlets can best report on the likes of well-under-average-height hatemonger Anglin. Our discussion ranges from Luke O'Brien's December 2017 cover story in The Atlantic to Anglin's own short (get it?) Alt-Right explainer for normies.“The Making of an American Nazi” by Luke O’Brien, The Atlantic, 2017https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/the-making-of-an-american-nazi/544119/Optional:“My Journey to the Center of the Alt-Right” by Luke O’Brien, Highline, 2016http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/alt-right/“A Normie’s Guide to the Alt-Right” by Andrew Anglin, The Daily Stormer, 2016Let us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

It seems like "traditionalist" neo-Nazi organizer Matt Heimbach has reached the end of his ignoble career, facing accusations of vicious assault in the wake of a sordid affair with the wife of his top deputy, who is also Heimbach's wife's stepfather. (Good work on keeping the family sacred, Heimbach clan.) That story is bonkers, but in this episode, Joe & Josh catch Matt at the inauspicious start of his white nationalist campaign, as the founder of a "White Student Union" on his college campus in 2013. Wes Enzinna's profile captures a group of dough-faced youths more silly than sinister, though the days of streetfighting with AntiFa were just around the corner. Also discussed: Is the free speech crisis on college campuses real? How should journalists write about Nazis? Are there any Jews in Ohio? Read all about it - (and look, the essays are short this time! You damn slackers...):“Here Comes the White Power Safety Patrol” by Wes Enzinna, Vice, 2013https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5gw75k/here-comes-the-white-power-safety-patrol-000985-v20n5Optional:“The Coddling of the American Mind” by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Atlantic, 2015https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/“A Voice for Hate in America’s Heartland” by Richard Fausset, The New York Times, 2017https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/us/ohio-hovater-white-nationalist.htmlLet us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

Did you hear the one about the Jewish gal who was married to a Nazi? How about the sorrowful dad who disowned his Nazi son after Charlottesville? Or the one about "edgy" podcasters who went from making dark Holocaust jokes to humorlessly advocating for a second Holocaust? Pure comedy. In this episode, (((Joe))) & Josh examine Andrew Marantz's oddly moving New Yorker profile of white nationalist podcaster Mike Enoch - and of his grieving father - and talk social media cocoons, anti-semitic parentheses, and the limits of sympathy. They also begin a conversation, to be continued through the next few episodes, about the origins and persistence of anti-Semitism.“Birth of a White Supremacist” by Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker, 2017https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/16/birth-of-a-white-supremacistOptional:“Threatening Jewish Prosperity” by Steve Sailer, Taki’s, 2017http://takimag.com/article/threatening_jewish_prosperity_steve_sailer/print#axzz50zOK3Qyj“Enemies of My Enemy” by Kevin Macdonald, The Occidental Quarterly, 2004http://www.kevinmacdonald.net/benderskyrev.htmLet us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

Once a prominent figure only in the wilderness of right-wing internet culture, Richard Spencer has become the smug public face of the so-called Alt-Right. He can lay at least a partial claim to originating the phrase "alternative right" itself, and he has been the subject of numerous profiles since Trump's election, some of which have been criticized for glamorizing him as "dapper," even dashing. How did this seemingly generic frat-kid type from the Texas suburbs become the public face of American fascism? Graeme Wood's de-mystifying account is especially helpful in providing some answers, given Wood's minor but nonetheless significant personal history with Spencer. In this episode, Joe & Josh delve into that backstory, along with the inevitable question of whether or not we should punch Nazis. “His Kampf” by Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 2017https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/his-kampf/524505/Optional:“The Alt-Right’s Jewish Godfather” by Jacob Siegel, Tablet, 2016http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/218712/spencer-gottfried-alt-right“The Flight 93 Election” by Michael Anton, The Claremont Review, 2016http://www.claremont.org/crb/basicpage/the-flight-93-election/Let us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

Liberals and leftists hated Andrew Breitbart in life and cursed him in death. "F*ck him," wrote Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone immediately after Breitbart's death was announced in March 2012. "I couldn’t be happier that he’s dead." But even Taibbi had to concede that Breitbart's public humiliation of then-Senator, not-yet-pariah Anthony Weiner was a triumph of crass showmanship and perverse humor. But how to separate Breitbart the brand from Breitbart the man? Did his rage-fueled drive to build new, online conservative media help open the sewers for the Alt-Right? What would he think, were he still alive, about the site that still bears his name and the ugly trajectory it's followed in the past few years? Joe & Josh explore these questions by looking back at Rebecca Mead's 2010 profile of Breitbart, in which he's revealed as a petty visionary who screams a lot.“Rage Machine” by Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, 2010https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/05/24/rage-machineOptional:“Finding Your Inner Gorilla” by Brianna Rennix and Nathan J. Robinson, Current Affairs, 2017https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/01/finding-your-inner-gorilla“Alt-White” by Joseph Bernstein, BuzzFeed, 2017https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart-and-milo-smuggled-white-nationalismLet us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

While hardly a counter-cultural figure himself, the late Samuel Francis was enormously influential in fringe right-wing movements at the turn of the century, helping to popularize with his writing both an explicitly racialist view of civilization and a "Gramscian" strategy - after the theories of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci -  of cultural warfare. Without Francis, the Alt-Right and "white nationalism" as we (unfortunately) know it today would almost certainly not exist, at least not in the U.S. "Angry White Male," a vivid and prescient 1996 profile of Francis by D.C. journalist John Cloud, looks at the internecine battles within conservatism during the 1990s that led to Francis being fired from The Washington Times. In this episode, Joe & Josh examine how a dour Southern traditionalist - whose thought was, at heart, simply a defense of the white supremacist society in which he was raised - paved the way for sh*tlords, edgelords, and racist trolls to take the struggle for cultural hegemony online.“Angry White Male” by John Cloud, The Washington City Paper, 1996https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/article/13010023/angry-white-maleOptional:“Why Race Matters,” by Samuel Francis, American Renaissance, 1994http://www.unz.org/Pub/AmRenaissance-1994sep-0000“Unpatriotic Conservatives” by David Frum, National Review, 2003http://www.nationalreview.com/article/391772/unpatriotic-conservatives-david-frumLet us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

In this full-length introduction to Season Two, Joe & Josh explain why they've devoted this next batch of episodes to discussing the Alt-Right, that tangle of ugly political and cultural phenomena that has been explained, attacked, and analyzed to death by all quarters of the media in the past two years. What else is there to say by now? Starting with their reactions to Angela Nagle's widely (and rightly) praised book Kill All Normies, your hosts try to defend their choice of theme and their selection of essays and ask what, if anything, this toxic counter-culture can tell us about American life in the 21st century.

BONUS! Joe & Josh do a newly-recorded season wrap up. We talk about what we did well, what we could have done better, and what's on tap for next season. Thanks for listening!

The normalization of mass shootings is perhaps the most horrifying aspect of modern American life - which is saying something. In this episode, Joe & Josh delve into the minds of of the men and boys who commit such crimes, with the help of Andrew O'Hagan's masterful synthesis of their self-serious, self-pitying manifestos, "Who's the Alpha Male Now, Bitches?" O'Hagan manages an admirable literary analysis of these beta male killers and their violent alpha fantasies without either glamorizing or dehumanizing the miserable bastards. Writing in 2015, O'Hagan refuses to harp on the usual suspects of violent media or American gun culture, seeking instead the common denominators in the killers' inner lives and examining cases outside the U.S. that got less attention in the American press. This episode was recorded well before the tragedies in Las Vegas or Sutherland Springs, but sadly, O'Hagan's essay only seems more spot-on now. Read it here, and also subscribe to the LRB already: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n20/andrew-ohagan/whos-the-alpha-male-now-bitchesLet us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

Populist anger. Viral conspiracy theories. "Fake news." Anti-immigrant fear and loathing. Belief that an alien religion threatens to destroy our way of life. To say that "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" by Richard Hofstadter is just as relevant today as when first published in 1964 is a painfully obvious truth. As low-level minions of the Illuminati, sinister Hebrew/Papist conspirators Joe & Josh do what they can to undermine American liberties and the Protestant values that underpin them by convincing you it's all in your head. Sort of. Join them as they walk through Hofstadter's history of a fear-mongering racket that will seemingly never die, discuss how the paranoid style has changed - and remained the same - since the 1960s, and explain why the conspiracy theories THEY believe are the exceptions that are actually true. Get the original essay here, sheeple: https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/Let us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

What is art? It's a perennial, impossible question, one made even more difficult to answer by the fact that so many people tend to bristle - in America especially - at the idea of making quality distinctions between serious art and mere entertainment in the first place. In this episode, Joe & Josh sorta try to provide a defense of whatever "art" is, with help from Clement Greenberg's seminal essay "Avant-Garde and Kitsch." Join them as they lament the middling taste of their friends and acquaintances, take gratuitous potshots at beloved pop culture franchises, and struggle to describe what makes a work truly original. But it's not just about good aesthetics; as Greenberg argues, kitsch is not just tacky, it's politically toxic. And while it's hard for the future to look much bleaker than it must have in 1939, when Greenberg penned this attack on consumerism's dumbing down of culture, your hosts are... not optimistic. Read the original here: http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.htmlLet us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

Most of us remember exactly where we were when President Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed, bringing an end to the War on Terror and restoring peace to the Middle East. But ever since that fateful night, when all Americans celebrated our unmitigated victory in the most tasteful and least bloodthirsty way possible, some skeptics have questioned the official account. Is it possible that the United States government would lie to its own citizens? The possibility seems unthinkable, but who can you trust? In this episode, Joe & Josh read Seymour M. Hersh's famous - or infamous, depending on your point of view - account of "The Killing of Osama bin Laden." Is Hersh's version of events plausible? Sort of. Does it raise troubling questions about an act of state violence still cloaked in secrecy? Absolutely. Zero Dark Essay or something:https://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-ladenLet us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

Dig this and don't goof, hepcats and hepkittens: Joe & Josh are going to school you in cool by reading Norman Mailer's 1957 essay "The White Negro." This seminal examination of the mid-50s zeitgeist - the work that popularized the term "hipster" - is 9,000 words of streamed consciousness that your hosts genuinely struggled to comprehend. In trying to make sense of the whole thing, they discuss the connections between race, American pop culture, bohemian affectations, and the appropriation of countercultures by commercial power. Along the way, they discuss the great 1994 film Quiz Show, why every black teenager in America should probably be rich, how the creators of Superman got f****d over, why so many great comedians are Jewish, and the nature and origin of depression. This is your trip, daddio:  https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-white-negro-fall-1957As always, let us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

On this episode of the "Old Time Gospel Program," Joe & Josh search the scriptures for answers to the most hotly contested questions of our day. They also have a look at the most famous essay from skeptic, cynic, and so-called "sage of Baltimore" H.L Mencken, "The Hills of Zion." Mencken's report from the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, TN paints a picture of American religion at its most carnivalesque. And while it's a fascinating time capsule of rural, evangelical America just beginning to grapple with scientific modernity, its significance has not only endured but increased in the century since its first publication. This early glimpse of the culture war exposes the country's social and spiritual divide - one that's just as wide today as in 1925. It will be a glorifying hour of witness, sinner friend. But read the essay first: http://bactra.org/Mencken/the-hills-of-zion/Let us know what you think: essayquestionspodcast@gmail.com

German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno is a key figure in the post-war Frankfurt School of critical theory and one of the top writers every graduate student in North America pretends to have read more extensively than they actually have. Well, we should all stop pretending and hit the books, because Adorno's work on the culture industry, especially the ways in which manufactured "entertainment" actually poison the true experience of leisure, is more relevant now than it was in Adorno's lifetime. In this episode, Joe & Josh serve as temporarily reliable guides to Adorno's prophetic analysis, before being derailed by complaints about their own laziness and their culture-industry-induced preoccupation with conspiracy theories. Capitalism wins again! Still, if you listen carefully, they're clearly on the cusp of Mündigkeit, which might just transform the free time they waste podcasting into freedom proper.Either way, read the damn essay and make up your own mind: http://xenopraxis.net/readings/adorno_freetime.pdf

Eric Blair, aka George Orwell, is a strong candidate for greatest English essayist of the twentieth century, and "Politics and the English Language" is his final and most famous statement on propaganda, obfuscation, and how linguistic degeneration as a sign of civilizational decline. You probably got assigned this essay in college and don't remember because you never did the readings. Well, now's your second chance. Follow along with Junior Anti-Sex League enforcers Joe & Josh as they hash out the connection between language and thought, try to figure out when it's OK to change our words to suit modern political sensitivities, and rehearse the same complaints against Fox News and media consolidation that they've been making since 2002. Oh, and inevitably fall through the Trump trapdoor. Orwell would have surely found this episode, um... not ungood at least.As always, be sure to read the original essay before listening: https://faculty.washington.edu/rsoder/EDLPS579/HonorsOrwellPoliticsEnglishLanguage.pdf

In their first episode, Joe & Josh read America's least controversial writer, Sam Harris, on how science can help us answer moral questions. And they're more than a little skeptical. Along the way, they talk about the meaning of life, moral relativism, and the origins of good and evil. As first episodes go, this one is perhaps the greatest in the history of podcasting. (Prove that statement is wrong. Scientifically.) Get ready for earnest ruminations on the death camps and the atom bomb, a shout-out to Emile Cioran, and many declarations of your hosts' own total lack of intellectual confidence.Before you listen, be sure to check out the Season One introduction, Episode Zero, and of course read the essay itself: https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/thinking-about-go

In this inaugural mini-episode, Joe & Josh give their defense of the Essay Questions podcast and explain what made them want to do it in the first place. They give an overview of some of the authors and topics that this season will cover, argue that long-form essays are of vital importance in an age of social media and short attention spans, and explain how their decade-plus friendship gave them an excuse to bring yet another podcast into the world. Please be sure to listen to this episode before you jump into the main content. Enjoy!

January 27, 2012