Podcasts about thanks george

Following a disagreement with their mentors Insane Clown Posse, Twiztid started Majik Ninja Entertainment, a move that led to an acrimonious split and years of public feuding. George Vlahakis got his start working with ICP and booking the Gathering of the Juggalo, later helping Twiztid start their own label and launch Astronomicon, their annual pop culture convention in Michigan. This week on the podcast, Vlahakis talks about his philosophies on branding. business and what it takes to grow an underground horrrocore label in the shadow of a pop culture institution like Insane Clown Posse. Thanks George! An awesome interview. Special Guest: George Vlahakis.

This week we check in with George Huxford from Apidura makers of cycling bags for every gravel cycling adventure. We learn the various types of bags from tip to tail of the bicycle and get some practical advice on packing and load distribution. Episode Sponsor:  PNW Components (15% off with code 'thegravelride') Apidura online Apidura Instagram Support the Podcast Automated Transcription (please excuse the typos) Apidura: George Huxford - Bags for every cycling adventure 00:00:05 - 00:05:12 Hello and welcome to The Gravel Ride podcast I'm your host Craig Dalton. This week's podcast is brought to you by our friends at P. N. W. Components. I've been riding the coast handlebar at four hundred and eighty millimeters and the coast dropper post for maybe almost three months now, and after tell you I'm really sold particularly with my recent move down to two Panga California. I've really started to own my appreciation for the suspended dropper post. So, let's make an important distinction. there. I'm a big fan of the dropper post the ability to drop your saddle down via technical sections the Costa Dropper Post is actually a suspended dropper post. So it's air actuated meaning. You can tune it to your body weight and preference, but the post will actually dipped down when I hit a rather aggressive hit with the back end of my bike. So I'm using the dropper component. When I know I'm going to get into some rough stuff and the suspended component when I don't. The net result of this is I'm always protected when I get into the rough stuff saddle up saddle down I've got a little secret weapon. This dropper post combined with the wide handlebars has left me as comfortable as I've ever been getting into the technical terrain. So if you're looking for something to up your technical elements, definitely give pm w components look at pm w components, dot com, and for the gravel ride podcast listeners, you can get fifteen percent off coupon for your first order using the code the gravel ride. So onto this week's guest, really excited to welcome George Houck's furred from the bag company Applera based in London England. Abdur has a full range of bags for gravel cycling bike packing excetera. You guys know I love bags. So as exciting to talk to George and take bags from every different angle on the bike and talk about mixing and matching different bags to meet your gravel cycling needs so I. Hope You enjoy this interview and with that said, let's dive right in George Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you. It's great to be here Yeah. It's a real honor you listen to podcasts for. Rages now. Yes. Fantastic guests and yeah. So It's going to be amongst them I appreciate that. Well, let's start off by learning a little bit about you and your cycling background, and then about epidurals and how it came about and I'm excited really everybody on the WHO listened to the podcast knows I'm a big bag geek. So I'm excited to kind of just go from tip to tail and talk about the full range of bags that grovel cyclists can be using to satisfy. Their their gear capacity heeds. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. That sounds great. I'm Yeah. I'm a massive Geek on as well. So we're GONNA need someone to stop too much into the details to a perfect house zips work and all that kind of thing. But yeah, we'll try and keep interesting right on. So how did you? How did you get into cycling and how did you find your way to aperture and how did the company get started? Well, I've I like a lot of your guests start off in white shops. Growing up at always been into bike since anything really racing mountain bikes riding Banamex is all kinds of stuff. Are Not led me working in bike shops Off the. Ships bit moved up to the what can brand and. I ended up driving a big van for the demo bikes round the UK, for a number of years to events, setting people up full suspension bikes setting up in talks and trial sentences, which was which was great and that sort of led me down a kind of marketing within the cycle industry Yeah and then I I came across the aperture once they've been what's been going for little bit to kind of help them with the with the growth than. Themselves in the in the kind of wide cycling market. So. Yeah. At this point, I've been here. Account even think maybe it's three is Yes go relatively young company and. Yeah I'm not spend time with them now and when the company was first founded, they've was it founded around us certain specific product or opportunity. yet to ascend extent. So the company was actually founded in two thousand thirteen, but it was it was about a year and for products came out. So a found a tour had been been writing for a great number of years and had really gotten into the side riding coming mugged on a long distance cross country background, and then moving into longer longer events. I'm basically found that the kind of the on offer at that time to kind of backpacking gear wasn't the same kind of experience maybe wasn't the same kind of technical stand as she used to in kind of clothing and in the bikes and suspension electron stuff and I wanted to kind of. 00:05:13 - 00:10:02 Add a bit more technology and make a little bit if people actually get the stuff on their bikes. So having done toward abide, she decided to kind of. Out in south accompanied. By, two thousand fourteen. I packs were on the market. And since then I think we've really entered the golden age of bags on bikes. The innovation has been. Super staggering the last few years. Likes, and we now see bags attached almost everywhere across the bike and I needed. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a good point I mean when? When bought packing I died it was really. It was more about what it wasn't. It wasn't racks and Patios and that meant people can put bags on the kind of bikes that particular surface they weren't to right. Instead of starting with a bike, the luggage you start with the ride bike for the kind of writing once. said, he wanted to ride for a week on a mountain bike of two weeks on a road bike you went. Held back trying to find something that could run a rack Sarah it comes style that way the the archetype. Like packing ranges probably the saddle pack then quite quickly. So handlebar pox name frame packs. And those kind of like there's three pieces make what most people think the covered. By packing south. You're quite right and plenty of of places on the bike where you can squeeze and space if you want to. Yeah I think you know one of the big takeaways I wanted to have the listener? Arrive at from this conversation was just they already have a bike that's capable of doing massive amounts of adventure from. Multi Week, multi-month touring to just being more comfortable on a long big day ride. So if we talk about the different types of packs I thought, it'd be a good way to start just a start at the front of the bike and let's go through all the different modalities because you've referenced handlebar bags frame bags and saddlebags which will drill into but there's also additional mounting points from top to mounts to folk mounts two. Different I know you've got different accessory packs that velcro onto the bike anywhere you want who? Let's start at the front of the bike and maybe down at the fork and just talk about what's possible. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a really good way of going I'm semi when I look at a kind of applied this I'm always trying to balance out is. Accessibility, that's it's the the white and the white balance on the bike So as you get kind of. Away from where you are a writer, that's the kind of stuff way you've got limited accessibility it's so stop worrying to go into maybe just the beginning of the ride or at the end of the ride. So on the full quayle talking about this there's loads of companies now, really getting into the idea of helping white pack is out wiping more mounts on their bikes. On the foot mounts really good spot for that image you can carry around comfortably zero solid mountain place. what it lacks is that kind of accessibility from the Saddle Sipho may be in stuff that. That was like kind camping out maybe or needed for the the at the end of the Roy robinsons want to be getting into as far as weight distribution George. So I don't have any experience with extra weight on the forks like that on the side how to how does one think about that does the imagine it slows the steering down quite a bit. So is there you packing your most lightweight? Non, every moment needed items down there. Yeah that that would certainly be my suggestion. Packs on the four care of some of the last packs I would add to pretty full sets up. So it's the kind of thing if we. Sang out for. To a three week trip and you needed some extra stuff worth it got really cold Planning Mountain Pastas awebber changeable. It's real good spot for an extra thick sleeping bag or another layer sleeping system as well as a a down jacket or something like that generally that yeah. January the principal we wanna think about is the heavy of the item the closer to the bottom bracket we want to put it. That just keeps the handling as you'd expect on your bunk and the key thing about the packing set is that we can use a whole system of smallpox to kind of to achieve that objective robin putting everything just in one spot mobike. Yeah. That makes a ton of sense and when you look at the a line up, you can see a lot of these different small areas and accessory packs that are possible and as you said, it's it's really about kind of taking the the big areas which might be the the seat pack, the frame pack and handlebar role, and augmenting them as necessary depending on the duration of your trip. Yet you caught right there and you know. 00:10:02 - 00:15:13 A mixture of smaller packs, a larger number of smaller. One Big One it also helps to organize if you've just getting into one, they kind of a really large pack trying to find that one small thing you need it, it can be a bit difficult having things more organized into lots of small places can sometimes help you up. Yeah, absolutely. So going up a little bit onto the handlebar now, there's a couple of different style bags that you guys offer. I had previous experience with kind of a role side bag. which until I went to a larger handlebar, my gravel bike, it actually wouldn't fit on my gravel bike with a kind of forty four centimeter bar and to your point earlier, I would sort of focus a lot of stuff that I wasn't going to need during the day. So I might put my sleeping bag in there because I was always a bit conscious of the weight on the front end of the handlebar just in terms of the effects of the steering. Yeah I completely agree with that often myself this is exactly what goes that my sleeping bag up a baby bag or Top shelter in here. It's a thin you WANNA be getting into the beginning and end of the rod of getting ended derailing. It because of the shape that you've got that you're quite right their offspring restrictions based on how you've likes out. So Away Hood saw. How Wide Jabbar is sometimes, you'll find different shifts with a different amount of fro on that Liba when you shifting can affect this as well. So it's always best to to really check those before what when setting a backup you'll find most people's packs similar to ours have kind of that role feature on that allows you to just the the. Width of what you're putting it on most things are going to put American principal. So you can really shaped up to how you want it. I do think I do think that the size restrictions on these bikes is actually super positive thing because I. Think new bike packers have a tendency to try to bring everything in the kitchen sink with them and. Being forced to edit is so crucial I found in getting a bike that still writable and just getting the minimal amount of gear that you need to have to be safe. Yeah you're entirely right. I mean we say here Super Light. It is we spend a Lotta time trying to make as light as we can, but some of the biggest weight savings just the up in there. So the the biggest savings on the stuff that gets left home when send your bike things, you don't really need. Yeah and I think when we talk about handlebar bags, there's definitely arranged right there's obviously like the sort of the expedition style pack which is trying to carry as much gear as possible but there's also smaller packs which I've talked about on the podcast before and You know in the wintertime just having a small handlebar bag can be super super useful location for your extra Jackie, your gloves and a little bit of food. Yeah Yeah I agree with that. Kind of the maximum space that we can really use a areas something probably in the twenty liter range and that's on a ball. You know it's really wide like a real flat drop. Well, maybe even a flatbed depending on your up and then yeah, we can go right down to something a lot smaller. Those kind of the smaller Bob it's opening. Really, good for grapple as you suggest that kind of. Semi accessible I call it kind of one on clipped accessibility where you could just put that one Riyobi's from the bike and grab a jacket or bar something is, is it really useful spun? You can still. Get that benefit even when you go into a full packing south by using an accessory pocket or another Pao Chung from of that. Any brands that have a similar approach Abbott. Let Lil extra. Accessibility is important things you might want to grab on the road. So I think it's a great time to be having this conversation as a lot of parts of the world they're going into winter time and just the idea having a a little bit extra storage capacity somewhere on your bike for an extra jacket or vaster gloves can really adds to the comfort level is slipping back a little bit on the bike. Another popular area is that top tube pack for. Kind of power bars, maybe holding your phone little bit small amounts of food for those of you who have stared down at the two bolts on your top tube and scratched her head as to what the heck. Therefore they're really for these top two packs that can add just a little bit to the to the bike. Yeah. This is a this is a fantastic was any ride to be honest And it's great. We're seeing so many more people. Deciding to to carry hit. This Israeli for the things that you normally putting your jazzy pockets. But maybe if you're riding gravel with a little bit more room, you don't want to be reaching behind and riding one hand trying to dig out own or never energy bars a this is a much basketball. You can instantly grab it. You can see what you're carrying multiple different sizes options out there depending on whether he'll balancing lightweight or you once it's fully waterproof all like mentioned, you want some of the used bolts on the top of your bike extra ability that was actually one of my first piff unease of bags on the bike for gravel and I. 00:15:14 - 00:20:03 What You said is spot on when you're off road reaching back to your pocket becomes more difficult. So having something in front of you while you're on a sort of a bumpy climb that you can unzip or flip flop over and just grab some food or any item, you need quick access to as really been a game changer for me really enjoy that I've stopped using it a little bit in as I've moved to the next bag I wanted to talk about, which is sort of the the quarter or half frame bag. Can you talk about that type of bag how it attach is and maybe the storage capacity those bags offer. Yes sure Yeah. Experience that she very similar deals. Sa-, this kind of pack occupies the Front space of your frame triangle I refer to Lisa's of like a wedge. The key thing with this kind of packing there's it's not size Pacific your bike. It still allows you to run water bottles have access just normal typically in this space on the bike, we can give you somewhere between two full elitist spending. What kind of a self you've them what kind of patchy get that's about double. What you get from atop cheap pack the cool thing about the easiest that really really stable typically be connecting to your down tribute talk to you potentially around your head chief as well which means that just lock in there that really out the way. Completely clear of your knees. However, you writing doing Yeah I'm for me I quite honestly mainstay time. Now this there's no downside to it. It works equally well, completely full or empty So yeah. If you put on that sped up and eat snacks then left with. Any Yeah I already skipped over that one. I'm glad you brought that up because that's one one that I haven't used personally kind of the smaller right up to the front bag I jumped right to the quarter frame bag going all the way to the seat tube Yeah. Yeah. So I think I think that's a great point because. And that's that's the takeaway I think for the listener is kind of look at the range of bags. Your favorite supplier has if you go to the APP Adora site, you'll see all these different things and you'll start it'll start to click in your mind. Oh, that would be a good combination maybe it's a atop to to bag and this little bag or a different seat bag or handlebar bag, and you start to piece together the storage capacity that you need for your style of writing. Yeah, that's quite right and if you find pox that really worked fuel kind of epic on a day rights and then you want to take up something a bit further and it's just a matter of. adding. Something small you. If you beginning packs with the idea, feel one weeklong trip year you'll you wouldn't have as much use some time. Yeah I'm I'm frankly probably guilty of carrying too much stuff on the daily just because I have that full of length of the top tube quarter frame bag on my bike but I, just love the convenience I don't really have to think about editing too much my gear I just have a full repair kit in their plus jacket an extra gloves almost every ride yeah. Yeah this is a great. It's a great kind of pop going all the way back to that a seat cheap the the other benefits you know when you are the longer trips is that things tent Poles that they can start working in that when she using the full length, your top cheap. Depending on how big your bike is. You have to stop thinking about how you're going to carry Walter this point if you're in a smaller bike, you may have to use kind of bowl cage relocated or consider using a small all even side entry cages just to make sure that you still access But yeah, for most people, this kind of offering packed like that. Isn't again, the Weber much is going to give you storage capacity up to about about five liters depending frame size. Yeah. Let's point actually I did move to those kind of side mounted or side accessed bottle cages to just accommodate two water bottles on my medium size frame and not style bag. The other thing I want to point out is I've sort of eliminated for my daily rides, any other type of bag on the bike so I'm no longer using a seat bag. Or handle bag when I have that what I call the quarter frame bag I think you're referring to it at the half frame bag when I put that on I just kind of consolidate everything into it and I do enjoy the kind of clean aesthetic look to it, and also the knowledge that with some smaller bags whether it's reattaching seat bag or handlebar bag I sort of dramatically open up from a percentage perspective what I can carry. Yeah. Yeah. That's quite right and. You know moving away from storing stuff under the saddle does not more options. 00:20:03 - 00:25:02 The drop opposed spoke essentially lot mud gods. Just, nodding your hands in their way, you often get Plus. Lots more, snacks. Exactly, now let's move onto the big guy something I've never personally owned the full frame pack. So that's that's something that's occupying almost the entirety of the area and the main triangle of your frame. But as you alluded to earlier from kind of a weight distribution perspective, getting a lot of your geared down in that area is super important in terms of ride quality. So can you talk about full frame packs and how you see them being used? Yeah. Full frame pack is is actually one of those packs a often people on. If. They end up using one and kind of take the plunge. It becomes when the favourite packs the me this is the kind of gear that you'd be thinking Abou- If you're doing a multiday right the the main advantage chairs that you're really maximizing all space in that triangle if you think about it autism bowl cage, pretty inefficient way of filling that kind of triangle shape if if given a triangle using two cylinders the best. Way To use it a lot. So completely filling that that frame shape with pack and then being able to carry water in there should way something like a bladder. Just pulled out you camelback still down low means that you get so much more storage device and you carrying on this to really close the bump bracket, which is gonNA mean you're handling it. Some isn't an impenetrable load and I noticed on your pack you've got to Zipper access points are actually a divider in there somehow Yay on on our pipe steroids, such a removable dividers. So depending on how you'll get up You can have that kind of shelf in that. It's something all us us used lower-half. Eva For yeah. For Water. Glad. Like I said, will temporarily the tools down this heavy spats. If it didn't along trip and you may be expanding that repack role kind of situations that repressed oats and ten polls and stuff then took it can quickly grow and having it can of low and stable down there a good spot for it, and then the shelf Bisi means that you have that that frame packed the Joe using on the top. So you can just use that achy normally. Would you also have? cable ports there. So if you are running a bladder, you can run a hose out if you're using it to store batteries to power lights or your GPS, then you can run cables in and out. Okay. So if you're if you're running a bladder, the the hose of the bladder can actually run interior until the top where there's a port to kind of it to come out. Yeah. That's that's quite right. So you know it's moving onto a pretty pretty full like packing up at this point that if you re looking to maximize the space blog than the full impact snakes where to go, I was playing around with a bladder in my quarter frame bag and it got stuck on kind of what to do with the tube as it was kind of dangling around and how to make that kind of you know most efficient and and safe. Frankly can you talk about how people deal with the tubes once they're coming out of those packs? Yeah. Yeah. It's. It's actually something that's really developing a lot. We didn't see even a couple of years ago. So often sing it more and more start lining racist now. At tends to be people using magnetic solutions to manage that cheap. So the quasi companies that will make it kind of hose management, kind of little clip that would normally on a rucksack with something like that and we seen people taping it to that Baas or using it. I'm for the straps of their other like packing setup settlers a mind on I, run a small clip through one of abstracts. Around, my stem holding a food pouch or something and then yeah, the hose just flips amount of grab it when I need, you see a lot of people will he'll use a era extensions really long already false ride search with the up was it allows them to just rest on their elbows drink power and along. Yeah. That makes sense now. Thanks for. Clarifying that a little bit I was kind of scratching my head and I knew there's Probably. Someone had a solution out there, but I eventually just gave up and. Put the put the cages back on. Yeah. Well, it's. Like. Backing you have to kind of adapt and overcome. You get these kind of strange problems. Come up you have to kind of think of it sideways. Yeah the yeah. So shifting back towards the back of the bike, we now have the the saddle pack and I remember my first proper bike packing saddle pack. It was I opening to me how much stuff you could get in there, and also how well these bikes can still ride fully loaded. So let's talk about the big saddle packs offer. 00:25:03 - 00:30:01 Yeah. Yeah. I mean the saddle pack Israeli the kind of the. Piece of packing luggage. Again. It's can workers any bill bikes Being held by having to a rackl nothing about the space that we'll saddle packs old away from five years up to seventeen leads depending on what kind of riding doing. And this space is really flexible the best advice is again to try and get the heavy stuff to bracket. So tools knows that settled pack bring it was the center. The bike is going to result in a more stable Jack I'm handling and then software up in there as also conform better. So I'll look at clothes. In the I'll have my kind of wash kit maybe in the nose and then potentially. Mother Lot clothing leads I might want to grapple whilst on the ride still easy to access this One phone clipped inside the road. It's not stuff that's necessarily locked away the whole world everybody. I had purchased one of these bags and then a buddy of mine at work had asked to borrow it. So I gave it to him and he gave it back to me at work one day and I had been in a routine of carrying everything on a backpack in a backpack. With my sort of. Ten Mile Commuter Fourteen Mile Commute into San Francisco, but I happen to have this bag at the office one day. So I shoved everything in it and it was like a light bulb went off and. Kicking myself for having this thing in the garage, most of the year and not using it for my commuting because it's it's I mean, it's very clear when you think about it but it was quite easy to to have a full set of spare clothing whatever I needed and just kind of roll the back down more tightly than I would sort of having a bike packing setup, but then I. had. All the convenience of having nothing on my back and having the bike ride well in the commute. So I you know after the quarter frame bag I highly recommend getting one of these saddlebags into your stable just because it can have utility much beyond you know a big back bike packing trip. Yeah. Yeah. You'll. You're exactly right that and generally with these pat stat adjustability is is a real bonus. Typically you can rollaway about half the capacity of the park. So no big biggest pack of some seventeen leaf is you can easily get rid of off that Vice and sin good compressive rolling and make it kind of flexible place stuff. Yeah I'm the the handling impact isn't isn't as great as you might imagine, you know the the bike is designed to have a lot of white in the saddle already. So just putting a little bit more behind that. Doesn't really affect it too much to. Especially if balance still allow just sets up with a few. around the bike. You can really have a very neutral handling. Still carry carry. The I really like what happened in your lineup because a lot of us might think of a saddle pack. That's where you have a spare tube and your repair kit etc, and it's it's quite small, and then we started to have this vision of a we've seen these bike packing bags but with your racing saddle pack, it's kind of the best of both worlds where it's got, you know certainly a lot more capacity than a basic tool bag it's got the rolltop functionality but. It's not this massive thing. So if you're looking for something to just pack like a puffy jacket on for a winter, ride the descent I think that racing south pack size looks super useful. Yeah. You're quite right again, the the racing series really came from a lot of a fast the kind of support friends who really you know really rolling away all the capacity even of our smaller packs while other series, they really wanted something smaller lighters they were using really minimal setups. So that's where the development came from but it's ended up being more useful for the rest of us even even derides in similar having just five Lee is behind the saddle really isn't going to impact you much until. It's really lightweight pack talks right out the way not gonNa have any impact on your peddling position up just like you said, you can. You can really increase the of the Kinda gave the occurring and be ready for for more things and take them challenging writes. Yes. If you're not jazzed perhaps on the visuals of how a quarter frame pack looks or maybe as you mentioned earlier, you're riding a small frame that would necessitate you not having bottles on the bike going with that kind of racing style rear repack I think is a super useful alternative. Absolutely and you know it's not. It's not one of the really massive ones. You've maybe seen on full packing. It's not going to hold you back in Sam's white or nothing like that. Yeah. Exactly and I have to say for for those you unfamiliar with APP Adora over to Adora Dot, com, and not only peruse the sort of various bags that they have to offer because I think it will again spark your imagination as to what's right for you. But check out the ambassadors page. 00:30:02 - 00:35:04 You may recall that I interviewed Jenny tough a few months back and she was talking about her use of the dirt bags on her all her expeditions including that. Spectacular. Story of the Atlas Mountain Race. Zero. You know for me I. Love. Geeking, out I may never do something like the Atlas Mountain Race but I love reading these stories and again, it will just shed light on how people are using these packs and how durable they are, and frankly how capable the bike you have in your garage is for this type of expedition. Yeah. Absolutely. You you just a couple of packs away from having the really ride ride anywhere and say that is embassador on our over friends. So important in developing the scare you know we designed pox here in London and it's it's not like we can kind of. Cross mountains in our lunch breaks contest out the function. So we really rely on the Community of friends embassador to be putting up protesting, and that means sending them to. All over the world where people are going to take on the next big challenge we really need all our fool it ends up on our website to. been doing multiple multi week trips to to make sure it's up to standard and an friends are absolutely crucial in that. Yeah. It's a Lotta Fun, is a couple other things. One thing that you guys came out with I, think just this year was that expedition down to pack and I think this falls in the category obviously of like if you've exhausted every other location, this is a neat way to carry things but I just thought it was cool that you've created kind of durable role sack that can essentially attach anywhere on the bike. Yeah. I mean, we didn't realize that could attach anywhere until people started doing it. And then it turns out that people have a lot better ideas than us. Yet this is this kind of came around in response to what we've been doing for while anyway that that space onto the bump brock is a great space to carry something heavy. You don't need very often been strapping. A stove or an extra wool, a bottle using duct tape and. Wire and stuff to make another bowl catch down there for a number of years. So the jumps don't you make some things specific. There was some was really good. It means you can get that kind of. The benefit of having a third wall cage down that what you look box now coming with a on any bike, and you can use that space something that isn't just won't This is a perfect spot. Kind of mole will see toolkit for for an expedition or long ride and it gets it right out the way. Olek areas fully Walker's expedition series I will accept packing get on the market. So even though into the spot where it's GonNa have a pretty hard time with elements everything that's going to be driving you. Yet I think the thoughtful part of the design here is that the cylinder shape is edited down. So it's not going to become to Bulbous to affect you know pedaling with your cranks or get in the way retire there, and that's that's important. You know obviously, there's a lot of great hacky ways of attaching things to your bike, and certainly if you're unable to to purchase any of these things hack away, that's the beauty of gravel and the beauty of adventure cycling but. When you do work with a company that sort of thoughtful in sort of the proportions you do get these really nifty pieces. Yeah. I thought I'd got away from. Boston bracket dramas when I left pikes behind where we get open all the spreadsheets and trump will bracket tops down to make sure that the pack wouldn't get in the way of anyone. Anyone's cranks will ever come a south they were. Using so yeah. Different types. But yeah, we were there get I'm sure the other funny thing we were talking about offline line that you you had shared with me. We talked about how you know when you're gearing up for your bike packing expedition particularly sort of in my case when I've only done a handful of these, I pack everything very precisely and I try to Max out every nook and cranny of my bag capacity. But then at the end of the day I roll up to talk correa and I wanna get a Burrito and a coke and I've got absolutely nowhere to hold it what what would have you guys done to solve that problem Yet yet you describe the problem exactly and it's one. It's one the we had on the better. We got a packing on gear the worse it came we were always telling people to pack seems best base just for this This year, we decided to actually try to design some packs would with allow people to to solve this problem. So yet palpable series of a Mazzetti backpack up is designed for this that Suka palpable miniature packs. You can have one scrunched up in Jersey pocket or in any other space in your bike got straps attached to any spat hog frame and then when you get. Yeah and when you want that big feet up or you can get food and take take it to the campsite. 00:35:04 - 00:40:03 All you know you decide maybe a trip is. For it might be in the beginning maybe a couple of days in that's going to be will be involved in. You've maybe planned to the beginning. You've got extra buy stuff yet to pick up supplies souvenirs anything fancy really, and then when you've eaten drunk fill, you can pack it down to get get out the way your reminds me of the kind of reusable grocery bags that we have in the US that sorta down to less than the size of your fist. It's a similar material I imagine to that but just kind of formulated in a in A. A backpack style so you can carry it easily on the bike. Yeah Yeah, they would definitely an influence. The key one of these is that we were on make more to prove all is proved. So we spent a lot time trying to work out how we can make them fully waterproof and then adapting the fit and size. So they would actually work when you're on the bike. So this this mole structure to the to the shoulder straps to be used to Kinda grocery bags. It's a bit more comfortable carrying. Along the way yeah it's nice. I mean I. Think as an industry kind of moved away from big. Backpacks carrying heavy gear because we've all experienced, how awful that can be to your posterior and your back and say like with all these great bags, you've moved it onto the bike. But certainly, for trip to the grocery store, a six pack of beer and some Burritos, it's great to kind of just be able to throw something that you can safely ride after a long day. Oh definitely. You know we've we've had people send US messages that really enjoying these packs toting coming from kind of a bike packing background. It's all that this little package strapped with about cage or like I said maybe in the Jersey Oak and at the end of a appeal to our road drive with friends like Pasta bursary store not take stuff home robin the. Plastic carrier bag hanging from the draw swinging dangerously to spokes you make your way home exactly now, I think you know I think that's a common thread in our conversation just this idea like once you get one of these bags whatever it is and who's ever at from it really Oh, just opens up a world of possibilities because they're so versatile and the bikes are capable of carrying so much when you need them to. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely and people shouldn't be afraid to go dry stuff out Lots of cool developments of happened in cycling in general grabble most specifically have been when people have kind of left those rules will Rhode Ride ten years ago behind embraced wider ties, smaller wheels likes the can do more things. And I think you know using PACs boxes is part of that. Some people might not like the way. It looks once you've got one of these smaller talk she paco the small frame Paco small saddle pack on there you'd find it so useful. And it's really liberating allowed to do so much more we go riding. That's funny. Match the look of it, and maybe this is sort of something you experience in spades we in the UK in just in terms of the road culture and the aesthetic that's been pushed down our throat for the last thirty years. It is hard to make that shift away from it but to your point once you do. In my case, I was happy to take the flak from my Rhody Buddies because I knew that I had so much more comfort with me in terms of an extra jacket or what have you on my bike? Yeah Yeah you're absolutely right and the unite if fosters your thing then Yeah I a challenge you ticket a jail Lava Jersey pocket as quick as you can get out of the top G. Pack where it's right in front of you and you can still be have your hands in the right list. So true. So true. George I appreciate you geeking out with me on the bags and just kind of giving the listener rundown of all the different things that are possible these days. I'm I'm always super excited to talk bags and I always encourage everybody to just take a look at what's out there and sort of put it on your longer term wishlist because it can be really game changing for your Gravel Comfort. Yeah Yeah yeah absolutely. Great Song to you as well and yeah I mean the main thing here is I, have spoken about you can. Pull it any of your list bugs as well. You know the we're not encouraging people to buy never bike here everyone who's listening to this already has packing bike. So you know with the right combination of Fox from wherever they decide to get them they can. They can have a block that could take a two days weeks months whatever they WANNA do right on. Thanks George. Big thanks George for joining the podcast this week. I, hope you took a lot away from that conversation definitely check out their website to understand everything we've been talking about because I know it can be a little bit hard to visualize how some of these different bags attached to your bike and what they look like but suffice it to say you can find any and every combination of bags you need for just enhancing your daily rides your winter rides, we have to carry a little bit of extra gear to those huge bike packing expeditions. 00:40:04 - 00:40:45 It is all possible with the bike you have I love how? George ended the conversation just reminding us that the bike in our garage is an adventure bike and it can do much more than we think it can. So that's it for this week's pod. Thank you so much for joining us and big thanks to everybody who's been joining the membership program at by me a coffee dot com slash the gravel ride. The support means a ton to me as do your ratings and reviews love reading what you have to say. So please visit me at by me a coffee dot com slash the gravel ride or ratings and reviews can happen on any of your favorite podcasts platforms. Until next time here's the finding some dirt under your wheels.  

GEORGE:   I have a secret. Did you know that shitty marketing can make you sick? Well, not really, or it can, but wholesome connected human marketing can absolutely invigorate your business relationships with your customers and ultimately your own happiness and fulfillment in life. Frankly, human marketing should just be called marketing, but so few marketers actually give a shit about the person on the other side.Which means you've listening to this episode, have a massive opportunity to go one step deeper and optimize your marketing to develop and fortify relationships with your customers and potential customers. Why? So you can drastically stand out from your competition and in the world in general, because out carrying your competition will always win and relationships will always beat algorithms.So today on today's episode, On today. As I said today, four times, I sit down with somebody who exemplifies exactly what it means to be a heart centered marketer who puts relationships before algorithms. Our guest, my friend Juergen is here today to share his multi-decade experience as a leader and business owner. And he's going to tell us how to put the human back into marketing. This episode is pure gold, and I can't wait to hear your thoughts at the end.  

GEORGE:   All right, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the did George show, where I make up intros off the top of my head, because people are amazing and I'm stoked to have them. And today's guest is somebody that I've wanted to interview for probably five years, except I didn't have a podcast nor reason to talk to him.And then we became best friends overnight. And so I'm excited beyond belief to have somebody that I look up to. I've considered a mentor through his teachings and what he's done. He stands for absolutely everything that is ethical entrepreneurship, caring about human beings, making a difference, building legacy businesses, and tolerance absolute zero bullshit will doing any of it. Well, Also leading by example, you know, that magic thing that we don't see a lot of on the internet where it's do, as I say, not as I do, because I don't want you to see what I do. Well, Alex Charfen is here today, CEO Charfen. He has built massively successful companies, navigated some of the biggest downturns of our world and my lifetime, and always come out on top with a smile on his face, grounded in the values that are important to him, his family, and leads by example.And so without further ado, Alex, welcome to the show. ALEX:   Thanks George. That was one of the best intros I've ever gotten. And that was awesome. GEORGE:   I feel like M and M and eight mile on Sunday mornings at 8:00 AM before I have my coffeeALEX:  I want that on my phone so I can play it each morning. Before I start workingGEORGE:   We'll send you the audio clip and then we can do it like the rock used to do as alarm codes, right? Like get up. And he yells at you. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm super, super excited to have you, man. I'm honored. This has been a long time coming and before we get into the deep, deep, deep stuff for the show, whatever, you know, navigating turns, we're going to end up in today. The first question that I always ask everybody to set context, the humanizes, and you have a lot of these, so feel free to take creative freedom with this one.What is the biggest mistake that you've ever made in business? And what was the lesson that you took away from  it?ALEX: That's like trying to like walk into an Amazon warehouse and say, which is the best box. Cause there's so many options. You know, George when I consider mistakes in business, so many of them, I don't look at them as mistakes anymore because. I've learned from them to find where I am now.I feel like almost every mistake, every huge challenge that I created has, has actually taught me something and moved me forward. And I think the one place where I would say that. That there were actual mistakes that I regret. And, and, and here's why I regret them. I don't regret the learning from them, but the mistakes that I made were with people when I was younger, especially there was a tremendous amount of collateral damage and the businesses that I ran. I was one of those people, not any more or not at all anymore, but I was one of those people that if I was going to separate with somebody, I actually had to break them, break the relations.I had to make it okay with me.  I had to make it so that it was so horrible that like we can never talk again. And when I look back at some of the separations that I had where people were either terminated or left, the companies that I ran, I feel like those are some of the biggest, the mistakes I made.And, and, you know, if I could go back and do it over again? I would, I would, you know, I would tell my younger self that you don't have to completely destroy a relationship to put it on pause. And you don't know, I have to completely demonize somebody to have them leave your company. Like those are all natural things that happened in the world.And  today with contrast,when somebody leaves our organization now, or when somebody decides to go to another opportunity, doesn't happen often anymore. But when it does. It's totally different. You know, I've actually, I've, I've led several several employess because of COVID and some other reasons we've actually let a few people go.And it's interesting cause I've remained connected with them. We connect every once in a while, you know, we talk. And so having that experience of being able to work with somebody and then continue the relationship, even though it's no longer a working relationship, it has been extraordinary. And when I was young, I did not even allow space for that. And I think that was, this longterm mistake, honestly, that comes from a childhood of trauma and a childhood of bullying and a childhood of really challenging relationships where I didn't understand how to navigate them. And I brought that forward into my business career. That's the biggest reason.GEORGE: And there's so much gold in there. This is why we get along. So for some context guys, when Alex and I reconnected, we got on zoom for a half an hour and then were like, we need an hour that we need three hours. Now let's just keep talking all day every day because I was like, I was like, sorry, Katie, you can have them back now. I'm like, I'm getting my very much dopamine hit and I'm not gonna deny this, that I wanted this. Like, this was very much my drug today. And I'm okay with this one, right? This is one of those, like, I can go seek it as I need, you know, Alex, one of the things that I think is so imperative and we talked about this, but you and I have so many similarities in this.Is that in the beginning, right? Is this collateral damage? Right? I got feedback that there were trails of dead bodies behind every success. And there were two sides of it for me that were tough. Number one is I never celebrated, right. There was no space because it was never good enough. Right. And so that took from everybody and made it.And then really, I think, as an entrepreneur and a self-aware entrepreneur, and you talk about this as like evolutionary hunters and the way that you do this, I think it was your EPT, your entrepreneurial personality types. You know, one of the things that I think is so amazing as entrepreneurs is that  we're driven for change.We want things to be better, but I think what the razors edges or the tight rope that we like to ride a unicycle down from is to come from when we go down the middle. And there's that part of us as entrepreneurs we're down there, the middle, all the one side was insecurity ego. It doesn't matter.It's never enough I'll sacrifice anything and then we've spent our life at this point, working towards self-awareness. You love, compassion, empathy, relationship, even you just said.I didn't think this was possible a couple of years ago. Like, wait, somebody can leave my organization and be better than when they got there.And we still have a relationship, like can still text. We can talk, right? Like this isn't, you know, purgatory exile, like we're going back in Mayan culture. So, what are some of the things? Cause you have like five core values at your company. You guys stand for humans. Like you stand for change, you stand for being, but I know that this is prevalent everywhere.And I had one of my mentors at a very young age Allen out.  Alex told me that and I learned this as a Marine, too. Like my job wasn't to keep people underneath me. My job was to get myself fired and get them better than me. And there's a point where. You know, they have to leave the coop and they have to grow.But I think the biggest distinction is it was talked about in there world, but really it's our, our growth as a human, like on our side, like the self-awareness side. So what are some of the things that you do that you focus on? Like you help companies with operations, with culture, with flow, with team and people like, how do you go about that?And what are some of the things that you keep to keep your keel in the water as you navigate that? ALEX: Oh, man. There's that question, George.GEORGE: So that's the point. Now I can drink my coffee over here and go to town. Yeah. Where did you go? ALEX: George, I think in order to answer that question, I kind of have to take a step back and, and talk about where, where, like, I've come from.If you want to know how things are kept in motion now, I think we have to first draw, contrast as to how things were before. Yes, sir. When I look at when I was younger and well into my twenties I experienced a tremendous amount of trauma and I had the same, like this is, this came up in our, we just had a three day event with 200 companies around the world and it came up this week.I started, I taught, I talk openly about trauma and how it drives us in the present. And I often tell our clients until you are ready to work through your trauma, you are destined to create, or, and you will only continue to create trauma. Cause it's a pattern for people, hurt people. And that's really how it works.You know, when I look at somebody who's causing havoc in the world, what I see as somebody who's severely traumatizedand acting through those things. And so for me, when I was 26 years old, I went through a really severe breakup. I'm 47 now and at the time to do okay. I actually was, um, I was uncomfortable enough that the only time I felt comfortable in it was when I was drinking.The only time I really fell asleep and stayed asleep was when I was. Kind of loaded and I wasn't used to having those feelings like I had when I was younger. I had definitely I,  was no lack of time in bars or drinking and entertaining and doing those things. But I hit this period where it almost became a necessity and not almost it became a necessity and it was severely challenging to go through that.And. My mom was a therapist in California and I was talking to her about it. I had tried cognitive behavioral therapy. I don't know if you've tried this too. You go in like, I don't, I don't want to demonize all cognitive behavioral therapy, but for me, CBT was so hard because you go in, you spill your guts and the person across the room.I see. How does that make you feel? And then you spill your guts more and then they say, I see, how does that make you feel? And then you spend more. And by the third time they say, I see you, how does that make you feel? I actually responded one time to a therapist. It makes me feel like I want to get up, knock you out because you're not helping me.I feel like you're just, this is frustrating. , I feel agitated and yeah. Triggered and all that stuff. And so I stopped doing that. And I remember calling my mom and she said, there'd be called EMDR. And, it's eye movement, desensitization and reprogramming. It'sa very weird sounding therapy, but it's actually amazing.I, you know, George, it's interesting that you were in the military and we, we talked so much about trauma because even back then, when I was 26, I had some friends that had been in the teams. And, they were VR for Navy seals. Yep. It was actually this huge experiment in the military to see if EMDR would help with the offloading of  trauma and return to service.And they were getting incredible results with it. So for me that growth process has been understanding my trauma. Understanding where so much of my reactivity and almost automatic behaviors came from. And, and so much of a processing, what had happened to me has now allowed me to become more present and aware and you know, it's interesting, George.I used to think that I was so present and so aware when I was in my twenties and now I look back and it's like the funniest thing in the world because I was so detached and , not even feeling my feelings and understanding what was going on. I didn't even know how to interpret what was happening.And then I thought I did so much better in my thirties and I'm like, you know, nailed it. And then I look back and I'm like, no, I just had a better understanding, but I was still working through so much of it. And finally, I feel like in about the past 10 years in years, I've gone into another year of really being able to release things and process things and, and work through things.And that's been a combination of a ton of breath  work. Breath work, I think has been one of the most effective things that I've done a tremendous amount of EMDR therapy and, and going back to then as needed, not like just when it's acute, but when I feel stuck or when I feel like I have writing blocks or anything like that.And then, really a lot of self exploration and a lot of and if you wanted to put a layer on all of that, It's process, structure and routine. And it's you say that this is what a day is like the process structure and routine that allows you to grow a business, grow your life, have what you want in your life.But for most of my life, I fought process, structure and routine more than anything else. Oh yeah. I had that, that, that impression that like, as an entrepreneur, What makes you successful is being whatever you want, anytime that you want. And so I held onto that myth, that illusion, that totally illusory place, it does not exist where you can be a successful entrepreneur and just wake up and do whatever the heck you want every day.It doesn't really work. I mean, you might be able to be a yeah, no, , there's not a situation where it works. And so. Um, I think the biggest shift for me has been committing to process, structure and routine, like up to and including even on a Sunday this morning, I got up, did my morning planning, went through my morning routine.Like I do every other day, sat down in a line with my family. It's like now it's an edict. It's not an option anymore. Cause I know that's where my strength. And really that's where my be present and productive and persuasive and influential. That's what it comes from.GEORGE: Totally. There's so much in that And I want to, I want to nail some, so people have heard me talk about EMDR before. Um, but I glance over it.  Cause very rarely am I across from somebody who I'm like, Oh, you too. Right. Like, Oh, I, I remember, like I remember we did CBT and my wife actually walked us out. She was with me cause I was trying to process childhood trauma stacked on military trauma, stacked on battle entrepreneurial trauma.And she's like, this is not going to help you this like ALEX: 70 creative relationshipGEORGE: Oh yeah. Oh you, Oh, you, you re like, I mean, it's like a trauma definition, right? Like you open the book and the generic and it was a picture of every instance of my life. How they all exacerbated each other in different scenes.Yeah, right. Like, yeah. It was like, it was like almost like a storyboard for a movie at this point. AndI remember one EMDR appointment and I came out my wife's like, you're a different person, like one appointment, one appointment. And I think you nailed something too. And I think what's so important, Alex.And this is like the undertone of what you're talking about. And if anybody hasn't caught this yet, this success as an entrepreneur on the outside, comes from the commitment to the work on the inside. A hundred percent and it is a daily and I mean, daily committed practice to come in. And like EMDR for me was two years of, I think once or twice a week.And then it was like a once a year if needed. And now I just texted him and like just texting him, like gets me back into like where I need to go but I think, I think it's so important, like to reach the levels. When we talk about this, the two things that being number one is this commitment to self.Right. And like, it's what you teach now. It's the discipline, the intentionality, the process, the structure, everything that you're doing, but also the awareness of what it really means to be an entrepreneur and what we're doing.  And you hit this and we live in a world right now where it's like, Oh, laptop, lifestyle, and boom, boom, boom.And yeah, you do whatever you want. I'm like, that's not what it's like. That Instagram life is not real. And entrepreneurship is amazing. It is the most freeing, powerful job, you know, whatever business opportunity on the planet. But within that, we also have to create our own containers and structure to make it that efficient.If not, it's just a new form of addiction to hide from the traumas and the pain that we've never worked on. no question. And I think, I think, and for you, like you say, yo, you're in your forties, I'm like, I became aware yesterday of things I was doing that I wasn't aware of. , I think it's this process and awareness, but I think it was like last year, maybe after the birth of my son, where I was like looking at it and I was like, Oh, you mean that?Like my name can't carry everything. And I say something and magically a million dollars appears like, why? Like, I don't understand, like, why didn't my launch crush? Like why don't my Facebook ads work? And nobody else's does, like, why don't they just work? Cause I deserve them to work. Right? Like there was this.There was this thing that like I had to be aware of and process through and eat some humble pie. And so there's so many golden nuggets that you said. Um, and, and the first question I asked you was like, how do you know, operate forward and this point, and you nailed it. But I think one more thing I want to unpack before we even get there is in the very beginning, when I asked you what was the biggest mistake or lesson, you said something so subtle, but so empowering statement to where you are. And you said the challenges I created. Not the challenges that happen to me, not the challenges that somehow magically fell on my plate, like the challenges I created and there's this level of ownership that we do in breath, in work, in life, in modalities that puts us in this situation of awareness and the ability to shift something.But I see a whole lot of time and we both coach entrepreneurs a whole lot of like, I don't know why this happened and this happened and they did this to me and they did this to me and it's like an advocation of responsibility and it was so subtle when you said it, but it's so powerful to hear you talk about it.Can you unpack that a little bit of like the difference between, you know, my business partner failed and walked away versus like I created this challenge.ALEX:   Yeah, no question George. So. Years ago. I read this book. I think I can't remember who it was by, but I think it might've been Mark Victor Hansen. I think it was called the millionaire messenger.And it was a book that you read in two directions. So very interesting book where it had kind of a nonfiction and a fiction book together. I don't remember a ton about that book. I remember on one page, they had this graphic and it was the word responsibility with a line and underneath it blame and then underneath it said live above the line.And I remember that I actually have that on my well now with a couple of other equations that we've created as a company. But that responsibility over blame. I remember when I read it, I saw it and it was so 19. I'm like, no, you can blame. You can still like, yeah, you don't have to take responsibility for everything.And that was a journey that was probably a few years of like really working through that and understanding it. And then I remember one day it just clicked, you know, as honorable the faster we realized that we are for everything and we can take responsibility for everything. The faster we start to actually control our lives, create our destiny and be able to go in the direction that we want.I used to be the same as most people when I was younger and I had my business. You know, 911 happened for about eight weeks before. One of our biggest events when I owned a huge events company in Latin America. And I remember it happening and having the feelings of like, how could this happen to us?How insanely selfish and egotistical was the statement. 911 happened to us. Like, as I say it right now, I actually get kind of sick feeling in my stomach that I ever thought that way. But I remember actually saying it out loud and not even feeling like not feeling the. Body reactions and negative feelings, you should feel of making a statement that egotistical, which in retrospect shows me just how separated I was from my true self, just how detached I was.And as entrepreneurs what we work with our members on is responsibility over blame. Like how do you live in a world where you take responsibility for everything that's going on? And I have people, especially in today's timeframe, say things like, Oh, well, you can't be responsible for COVID.Sure you can be responsible for your reactions. You can be responsible for how you show up. You can be responsible for what you're going to allow and not allow into your mind. You can be responsible for how you lived through this situation. And, you know, I always tell people the bigger, the crisis, the bigger, the opportunity there's going to be more self billionaires made in this timeframe that at any other timeframe in the human history, And anyone who wants to argue that?Just go look, it's all ready. Oh, ready? We're all. We're only six or seven months in and look at the hundreds of billions of dollars of company value that has been added to the companies that we're well positioned and ready to go forward. And I think for us that's one of the things that are not for us, for me.That's one of the things that's really shifted for me is that now, regardless of what it is, I take responsibility and I put this on Facebook the other day. One of the observations that finally got through I've learned so much of what I understand in business and so much of what I know about relationships and how to create momentum as an entrepreneur has been observational.And one of the observations that has become crystal clear over time is that the more successful and entrepreneur. The more quickly, they turn every obstacle into an opportunity. The more quickly they turn every crisis into an opportunity. I've been around people that regardless of what's going on, they're just constantly shifting to housing and opportunity.How is this an opportunity? Most negative thing in their entire life. How can I create something better out of this? How do I grow from this? How do I move from this and that? You know, not that I'm a hundred percent there. I don't think, I don't know that I ever will be, but I'm so much closer to seeing everything as an opportunity.Than I ever was before. And so when Covid hit, I actually had somebody text me after one of my lives. And they're like, Hey man, it sounds like you're hearing the crisis sign. I'm like, Oh dude, that is not the impression I want to give. I'm not sharing it on. But I am fully conscious that this is the biggest opportunity a lot of us have had, and we should admit that to ourselves and get ready for it and go out and change the world because the world needs us now more than it ever  has.GEORGE:   totally.I think too, and you nailed this and, Oh man, there's so much here and you, and I think we might've been separated at birth at this point, which is so. Yeah, no, no, it was, it was like, and for those of you wondering like only like 32 people or so have my phone number and Alex doesn't give his out connected years ago.Never really talked to him. We both realized we both had our numbers in our phones,  totally.I think too, and you nailed this and, Oh man, there's so much here and you, and I think we might've been separated at birth at this point, which is so. Yeah, no, no, it was, it was like, and for those of you wondering like only like 32 people or so have my phone number and Alex doesn't give his out connected years ago.and we were like, okay, there's a reason. And the timing and everything. And what you said, Alex, Uh, it's about the pursuit of turning things into opportunities, not the perfection of what it looks like.And I think as an entrepreneur for me, you know, cause my ego needs some love at this point in this moment. So I'm going to make a statement, you know, because I'm learning so much in this time. But when I think about it, for me, one of the things that I really fell in love with after processing the belief around it was that there is no finish line, but it's what I choose to do every day about it.And. You know, there were parts of COVID like I lost over a million dollars under contract. I lost two companies and 70 grand a month in MRR in basically like 60 days. And I'm like still on paper. I'm in financially. One of the hardest places I've ever been in. And I'm the happiest and clearest I've ever been.And it wasn't an overnight, it was a, I feel like, crap, what am I going to do today? I feel like crap, what am I going to focus on today? And instead of it taking six months or three years, eight years of depression, it took like a week and it was, I feel this way. I acknowledge how I feel. That's not going to change.What am I going to do about it then that created the opportunity for opportunity. Like it created the ability to see the opportunity. Yes. It's like when we sit in these rooms as entrepreneurs, consider it a virtual room of made of Rome, a metaphorical room, whatever you want to call it. I say this all the time, you know, from breath work and the therapy trauma that I've done in the work that I've done in personal defense.And it's like the worst thing you can stay as stock. We are evolutionary creatures. We are supposed to evolve. We are supposed to move forward. And you know, I heard this the other day and it's like, you want to know what anxiety is? It's unused energy move. Yeah. And I was like, Whoa, like I've been doing it for years, but it was this simple thing.But then when I think about the compartment of entrepreneurship, what is anxiety, I'm like it's stagnation in our biggest enemy, which is our brain. It knows our fears. It knows our insecurities. It knows our habits. It knows our addictions. And yet we think we can out convince it that somehow we're going to feel better about it.Where, what you talk about this is how I feel. I'm aware. This is how I feel. Breath gets you there. Cold therapy gets you there. Movement gets you there. Okay. If this is how I feel, I have two choices. I can either succumb to this feeling and surrender and die, or I can acknowledge it, which that this feeling is here.And I can take a step in a different direction. And it's something that like I've been obsessing about, like on a different level of obsession. And it's probably had one of the most profound effects on everything in my life. And, you know, financially to gain will come and it has already, but even outside of that, like the happiness, the joy, and go back to deployments.Like I remember like I'll never forget. I hit some, all I'm about to cry. I hit Somalia. When I was 19 years old, I just turned 20 and I spent 13 months in my life and probably one of the worst places on this planet. And I'll never forget, like, seeing people wrapped in carpets on the side of the road, cause they couldn't afford to throw them out of them, burning dead by.And I was like, I was like, I'm not a tough guy. I want to go home. I didn't have a home to go to, like I left trauma to get there. And like I remember for 13 months I was like, get me out of here. Like I can't be here. I don't know habit. I didn't have that choice. So luckily I found a few people that mentored me and I found waits and I found, you know, certain therapies and things that I could do, but I'm just, I just remembered, like if I say came to any of that, I would have died.Like I would have just died. I would have just stopped moving the whole world crashed and crushed on me and it wouldn't have gotten me anywhere. And it took me a long time to be able to talk about it, some of these things and to process them in for me, what I struggle with sometimes is that like, what I saw is like 1% of what some of my friends saw.Like 1% and I can't even imagine, you know, what that was there, but I think the biggest thing that I always took away from everything, and I thank the Marine Corps for this is like, I wasn't given the chance to stop. I wasn't. It was like, Hey, and like we say this, like, Oh, they don't want you to feel, no, they do.They don't really totally do, but they don't want you to stop. And it's this thing of like this pursuit for full word and growth and movement as we go. And so, you know, with what you're saying, The one thing that I wanted to hit and this is a really big one and this is so subtle, but when I did personal film, I was getting coached and they were teaching the distinction versus responsibility.Victim versus responsible victim versus responsible, right. They really push the boundary on the belief of this, right? Like a hundred percent responsible, a hundred percent of the time. And it was this interesting thing because we would get in trouble for saying, I take responsibility. And I was like, I don't get it.I'm taking they're like, you can't take it. You never didn't eat. There was no point in which you never had it. ALEX:   There's no point in what you gave it up. And so you can't take it backGEORGE: You just feel like it did. And this distinction, like, it probably took me 10 years to understand, because there's so many times in business, right.Or as a consultant or with a student, or even in my own business, I like, Oh, I'll take it. And then I have to be like, Oh wait, no way. That was mine. The whole time. Yeah. And it's like this embodiment of it that is powerful. Like when we think about it. And so I didn't, I've never, I've never talked about a lot of the stuff that I, I experienced, like from a mindset perspective, they don't think I've ever been in the point to like really, um, process us.But you know what I love about you, Alex, and what I, you, you have this childlike curiosity and excitement mast with this tight container of structure that basically guaranteed success. ALEX: Thank you, but I appreciate thatGEORGE: Like, um, yeah, like I'm surprised I'm not walking around in diapers is my son's out of them. Like at that level of management. Cause there's times I feel like that, but you know, with that, I think what's so important and so powerful from like what I noticed with you. It's like when you get self-aware right.So you were talking about basically being, self-aware identifying what's here, understanding that we're responsible understanding that, you know, results equals opportunity depending on how we choose to see it. What I also love about that is that as you do this work on yourself, that awareness gives you a tool to see possibility versus resistance, right?And again, gives you the ability to react or not to react, to respond on a diamond pivot. Because there's no insecurity ridden. And I think about the times as an entrepreneur or where I was stuck and it was stocked because I had a belief that I was supposed to look a certain way, or it was supposed to be a certain way.And here's the news, flash entrepreneurship is basically a guaranteed. It's not going to look like you think it is every day of every moment for the rest of your life. Right. It's a commitment to chaos and it, and it's navigating that. And so in your, in your journey, and, and you've been in this game a long time, I mean, you, I don't even remember this specific you got, but like single-handedly denting the real estate crash market recovery and, you know, building like half a billion dollar businesses and I'm over here doing it for everybody else, but myself.And I'm a self jab on that one, but Oh, well, George, I've done some of that  myself too.ALEX:  I've you know, and, and I just, I don't want to, I don't want to like leave you on the hook there as a coach, as a consultant. One of the things that I'm now dealing with at 47 is that I've helped hundreds of entrepreneurs build businesses bigger than I have.And, and I, you know, I really like year before last, I sat down with Katie and I'm like, you know, Katie. I've done this too many times for other people this time, the business plan has to include us doing it for  ourself.and this is, this is like my realization really in just like the past 24 to 30 months.And when the reason we restarted this company from scratch was energetic, not legal or anything else. It was, we wanted to shut everything down and start over. Cause this is going to be different. Yeah. And so July of 2017, Katie and I hit the reset button, shut everything down, went down to no team members started from zero, and this is the business that we're going to create the success out of that. just like, we help other peopleGEORGE:  I'm  for those of you listening, if you can't tell, like I've been an Alex fan boy for a long time, but like out of, out of respect, like out of like genuine, pure. Respect because there's these things like we, Alex, and I joke a lot.We talk about the state of the industry that we're in. We're probably going to unpack that in a little while, but yeah. You know, like people don't even pretend to be like snakes in the grass anymore. They're like, no, no, no, no. I don't care if the grass is there not, I want you to see me. And like, there's these people that walk it and they talk it and they believe it and they do it.And it's congruency. And Alex is one of those people, which I hide, we admire and respect. And I think it's an important point. Alex is an entrepreneur. I don't know about you, but you know, for me, I needed to build it for other people. To get those lessons, to have the awareness and understand why I was doing it to then be able to come in and be like, Oh, I still get to do it.And I think healed that part of me that didn't think I was good enough that I could only do it for other people. And also give myself a back door out of those daily routines and commitments and structure that would prove my core trauma wrong as a child. That I'm not good enough because that's really what it is like for me.If for me, it was like, Oh, it's so easy. I'll go, I'll diagnose your problems. I'll give you the things. I'll help you do it. I'll pour all my energy into you. Then you'll like me, and then I'll be good enough. And then at the same time I'm living on that dopamine and validation will also deny my own sovereignty of that.I can do this and I know this. And then the belief system there, and the pain that I had to experience was you do deserve this. You can have a bigger impact this way, but you're good enough. And, and that had to happen in silence. Yeah. You're worth it. Right. Like for me, my core wound is I'm not good enough.ALEX:  I'm having like so many different, like first, I just want you to know this is a very validating conversation. And when you operate at the level that you and I operate as entrepreneurs, they're not maybe not the level, but when you operate at the level of awareness that we operate up.You often become, you often get invalidated because the other people around you don't even understand the conversation. Right. You know, I think what you just said, that is so true for so much of my career. Now, in retrospect, it's only, you see this in retrospect, I was not in the pursuit of success for myself, cause I didn't feel worthy.And I actually felt like the people around me were so much better than I was. That I put all my energy into helping those people all my time in it.  Other people get become far more successful than I was because in so many ways I still felt like I was, you know, the, the short, you know, Mex, lat, Latin American accent, chubby kid in school.Cool. That everybody made fun of it. And I really, you know, when I was at, I did not have a lot of friends. I had a really challenging childhood. I wasn't good at relationships and all of that carried forward to the business world to the point where. But, it made me an incredible consultant because I wanted to help everybody so bad so that I would get validation and be okay and be worthy and not be that kid that I was running away from.And dude, Oh man, now I'm going to get emotional. And, um,as time went on, what I realized was, and what I am realizing is that I could honor that kid. And that I could actually love that child,and be okay with who I used to be and understand why I was the way I was and understand everything that I went through. And the more that I was able to process it and be aware of it.And the more I was able to let go of the common entrepreneurial belief that  other people had it worse than I was. You kind of said it earlier. It's like a habit for us. As soon as we claim any type of trauma, we almost, I have to let out this relief valve. Oh well, but it wasn't as bad for me. You know, there was other people who had them and it wasn't that bad for me and it, but I I'm just going to claim a little bit of it.Yep. And the reality is every entrepreneur I've ever worked with has trauma that needs to be explored and validated and understood so that they can show up in the world the way that they want to, and the excessive reactivity that we carry around with us and the feelings we carry around with us, you know, George's, it's, it's one of the things that drives us into pursuit because.Here. Here's where I am today in my career. I understand that the goal is not the goal. The goal is the journey. Yes, it really is. It's the process it's going through it because here's what I know as an entrepreneur, as I have this analogy or theory that we are evolutionary hunters and I call it an analogy.But to me, I really do think this is evolutionary fact. We are that small percentage of the population that gets up every morning. Can't turn the motor off. It's always running we can't relax. We don't sit right. And we have this innate motivation to go into the future, create a new reality, come back to the present and then demand.It becomes real, no matter what we put up with. But the reality is, is no matter what goal or outcome or whatever it is that we put out there, as we are crossing the finish line, it loses all importance to us. As we're approaching the finish line, we start going, does this really matter? And it's because if you think about, if we're evolutionary hunters, The goal was never  the hunt just keeps the tribe alive.The goal is you go back on the hunt. Yeah. The goal is you stay hunting. The goal is keep doing it over and over again. And there's food for everybody for the whole time that we needed. And so, you know, I look at it, I, I feel like we are programmed to be in pursuit, but not really finished. And so the whole goal is entrepreneurs is how do you keep.How do you keep creating that future? That is compelling enough and bright enough and exciting enough and engaging enough that you do what it takes to put yourself through the crucible. GEORGE: Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. When you said, and by the way, thank you for the accountability on the, uh, I had it way worse or they had it.ALEX: it twice this week in my own event. I said, and then, and I even pointed out like, Hey, I just use the release valve. I want everyone to know that that's like an unhealthy behavior of invalidating yourselfGEORGE: And it's basically saying, I don't believe in myself enough, or I'm not in my space or power enough to own the fact that this was my truth.Yeah. And, and what I'm looking for. And quite frankly, as everybody wants to get into the monitor, George, what I'm looking for is for you too, without realizing and liked me a little bit  more because I experienced that while also add vacating it and doing it in a very subtle manipulative way and not in a bad manipulative way at heart bins in our subconscious all the time.Um, but this is why I love having friends like Alex, we get to talk about these things. Um, And the real, the real stuff. Well, I think what's so important about the real stuff. Alex is like, we talk about this, right? And we were talking about like, why we did what we did and why we consult them, why we still consult.And what I love is looking back. Cause I love my process through all of it. Like I had to do that. I had to learn that I had to be there. I had to not get that check. They had to not pay me that million dollars. Like I had to have all that happen. And now looking at it too the other side of it for me is I never understood the consequences of doing it for everybody else.The amount of sacrifices and collateral damage I caused because I wanted everybody else to like me versus everybody else respect me. And it was like, I'll go to a dinner. I didn't need to be at that dinner. I'll go to an event. I didn't need to be at that event. I'll go to that meeting. That was not a meeting.Like there were all these like ego fests that were. You know, validation collection, dopamine collection causing collateral damage and the ones I think that we swore as entrepreneurs, that we were doing it  "right". Like I'm doing it for my family. I'm like, well now pretty sure. My three year old son, isn't going to be like, daddy, don't go to them zoo with me, or don't see me for three days because you go to this meeting because you want these people to like you versus do the work that it's there.And I think, you know, if I could give a gift to any entrepreneur, uh, it's the gift of awareness of the. The impact and the consequences, both positive and negative. That happened when we do advocate that sovereignty as entrepreneurs. And we, and we get into that because it took me a long time. And I think it's still a practice, but it's a practice that I've, I love at this point.Like I kind of love saying no at this point. Sure. Can you do now? Why we don't need to, like, we have a dinner meeting. I'm like, no, we can have a zoom meeting. I'm not leaving. Right. ALEX: Well, you get to the point where it's saying no, actually becomes the dopamine hit because you have, I mean, and this takes a while, so I don't want anyone listening, not to think that it's going to happen by Monday, but what happens is.When you stop abdicating the responsibility, you have to create the life you want. And you start actually, cause man, George, when you were just talking about going to the meeting and doing this and doing that you just described like most of my thirties,  if there's, if there was an attention, getting the opportunity, I was in that attention, getting an opportunity with a whole line of justification for it.If there was a time and I got tons of opportunities, if I could get up on it. Really important stage with famous people. Like I was there no matter what. And a lot of the time it was for nothing else than the ego hit. Like really, it didn't even really build our business and build notoriety, but it was just building an ego hit. And I, when I look back at so much of that need for approval that need for validation that need for confirmation as an entrepreneur, when you finally realized that is so much of the, almost the automatic programming that's running, the decisions you're making, when you can start backing out of that and rising to a level of intention, everything changes.I had this really confronting Meaning with a coach of mine. I had this coach a while ago named Kirk Dando, super talented two guy and, um, Kirk and I became friends. That's why he was working with me. Most of the work that he did was with privately funded companies where he took a percentage and he was like a non named board member in dozens of companies.And we became friends. So he, he started working with me and we did a few, one days and he did a 360 for me and came in and interviewed my team. And he was doing the delivery of the 360. And we were in the middle of like, what about my team and what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. And he said, you know what, Alex.You don't have investors behind you. Let's just cut the BS, man. What's the most important thing in your world. And the reason he said you didn't have investors behind you is cause I had options. Most of his CEOs didn't have options. He said that he was like, you have options. Let's talk about this. I said, well, George, that's not George.I said, Kirk, that's easy. The most important thing in my world is Katie and my kids. And he goes, great. Let's take five minutes, get your calendar out and get your bank account out. And let's look at your spending time and spending money on Katie and your kids. And that way we can see if you're growing and you're the most important thing in your world.And I know he could see the blood drain out of my face. Cause at that point it was like getting called to the principal's office. I remember immediately thinking, Oh, there's no way my calendar or my bank account are going to show any type  of like allegiance or affiliation to my family. Because up to, and including in the time I was with Kirk, I had been pushing them aside to get all this stuff done.And here's, what's interesting that meaning changed things. I actually went back to my room and sat down with Katie and I'm like, Katie, Kirk asked me this question that kind of knocked me backwards and I shared it with her and we talked about it for a long time. And from that point forward, I started shifting and I started saying, I need to assign responsibility to the things that are important to me.I needed to put more time to things that are important to me. You know, and, and I, I started building process, structure and routine around what was important to me. It's structured have spend time with family structure to make sure I was connected with my daughters structure to make sure that Katie and I had the time that we needed, otherwise, everything else just competes and wins.And here's, what's interesting, George by demand. Yeah. Ending the space and time for myselfby making that the most important thing. Suddenly my decision making in business got infinitely better. And almost overnight, we started moving in the right direction rather than spinning our wheels and not having things happen.And this is the thing that always like for most people feels like an oxymoron. When you first started doing this, I was putting less time in, but getting more results because when you start throwing up the constraints that are important, you look at time differently and you spend it differently. When you start allocating time to where you should be, not what you know to where you actually, when I say should be when you started actually allocating time around.What you want your life to look like your business will shift in a way that it actually gets to be the business that you want. You start building an organization that you really want. You start doing the things that you want. And it's interesting today at 47, you know, we, we, like I said, we reset a few years ago.We're around a little, little over 2.1 or 2.2 million in recurring revenue, right? Yeah. Now we're building this company completely differently. I'm, I'm absolutely not responsible for delivering. I built myself out of a lot of the responsibilities. And today I have a  business that I love working with people that are like incredibly fun people to work with.And I'm more focused on people development than anything else right now. Cause that's where we're going to grow the nexttime in our business. But what's most important is I wake up every morning. I align with my kids. They hang out with me, they know what we do. We talk openly. There's a completely different dialogue in our house.And all of that, I think makes me not think all of that I know. Makes me the entrepreneur I actually want to be, and it actually allows me to start making decisions for the person I'm becoming instead of the person I'm running away from. Yeah. And I think for entrepreneurs, you know, I think that the same, I've heard the same, say, you know, make the decisions for the person you're becoming, not the person you are.And I'm like, that's not how it works for entrepreneurs. We either make decisions for the person we're becoming or the person we're running away from. We don't make decisions for the person. We never get to the place where you're making decisions in the moment because we don't live in the present. Nope.What that small percentage of the population that doesn't really even deal well with the no.GEORGE: That's why we have to practice breathALEX: That's what I, you know, what was I did it this morning. I did like, like three huge empty breath holds this morning and just like feeling the experience of whether my body was calling for oxygen or my mind.And where was it coming from and how does this make me react during the day? And, you know, I get up from breathwork sessions now I laid down on my floor and do a breathwork session. I actually feel like I'm in the present moment for a period of time. Yeah. It's interesting. You like get up and you're like, Whoa, the world is really intense if you're here, you know?GEORGE: Yeah. That's why I get up so early in the morning, like I used to get up at four 30 for my ego to show everybody I got up at four 30. Now I get up at three 30 now I get up at three 30, so nobody knows. And like, people think I'm nuts, but I was like, I wake up with my kids at six and when I was getting before 35, like my, I would get home, my son will be awake. My wife wanted to sleep in, but she'll be up. And I was like, am I doing this? And I was like, I'm doing this for the wrong reasons. Like if I get up at three 30, I get. Two and a half hours of alone time I'm home before my son wakes up, I'm done with my writing. I'm completely present for the day. I'm supporting my wife with what she wants based on her job and like her responsibilities.And I was like, yeah, that feels better. Like, and that's like, and like, by the way, I don't listen to music. I don't listen to podcasts. I work out in silence and I'd say five out of six times a week, I'm crying, I'm yelling, I'm looking at myself in the mirror. Like I'm a silver back gorilla and patting my chest and then crying two minutes later.Like I'm processing whatever's coming up in that moment you know, one of the things, yeah, ALEX:   Let's not run past that because that, what you just said is so crucial. So let me, let me tell you how I used to work out. Yeah. So what I would do is, and this is during my four 30 in the morning taking a picture, so I could prove to everybody that I did it.So when I was doing the four 30 in the morning, prove to everybody that you did it, it was get up at four 30 in the morning, drink coffee, then wait about 20 or 30 minutes, drink a pre-workout because the coffee wasn't enough. You need to back it up with a pre-workout. Then go into the gym, close the doors.And we had a gym in our home. We close the doors, put towels under the doors. And then put on like limp biscuit or something ridiculous where it's just screaming and raging and yelling, and then get myself into a state where I could lift weights and not feel it. So I would get myself into fight or flight and then fight for an hour and a half with my gym.And it was like going, you know, and, and I don't mean to use this term in a way that indicates that I don't understand what it is really like to go to war because I don't want to minimize anything. Guys. What guys like you and the people that you were around, did George. But I feel like I went to my own little private one in the gym every morning.Totally. And, and it was cause it was instead of feeling the feelings and moving through them, it was creating so much noise and so much pain that I could push the feelings away. Yep. And, you know, I, I remember at my biggest, I looked back, it was probably like seven or eight years ago. I was about 240 pounds and going on Fox news.And I remember like seeing myself in the suit, my shoulders didn't fit in the screen. I looked completely inflamed. My neck and my head were kind of one thing. And recently a person on my team found an old Wistia video on me on Fox. And she's like, man, I saw Alex on Fox news from a while ago. I'm so glad I worked for this Alex and not that guy. Just watching the videos. He could tell, like how, how accelerated and how angry and , how detached I was. And I think, yeah. So many entrepreneurs think that they're, they're doing this incredible thing, working out and getting themselves in shape. And then I watched the workouts on not online and I'm like, man, why that might not be going in the right direction.GEORGE: Workouts for me are a tool like breath and they didn't use to be, they used to be an escapism for me. Right. And trust me, I was doing three days. I taught a world record for standing box shop. I was a competitive CrossFit athlete. Like my numbers are stupid. Stupid right. I'm five, seven. I can dunk. There's like, it's not mind blowing.And I was also dead lifting like six, 15 squatting, like five 85. I weighed 170 pounds. Like it was gnarly. Nowhere does that help me be a better human to my family? Right. But my ego loved it. ALEX: Standing there practicing the jump box jumper.Oh yeah. At one point I went not being a runner to actually going out and winning races in Austin, winning five Ks, 10 Ks, like going out and getting first, second or third place. And if there was a Clydesdale division, I always wanted it. 7,000 person race. I was first placed in Clydesdale. I was 240 pounds and I was the first place in Clydesdale.Because I was willing to do whatever it took. I finished that race and threw up about seven or eight times. Cause I pushed my body so hard. I still got first place. That was all I cared about. But I look back now and I'm like, dude not only will you, not in your body, you weren't in Austin during that?GEORGE:  and then given more trauma and then came out without doing any of the work.And I remember my wife's like, you know, you should do personal development. Like I read books. That was my answer. Yeah. That didn't go well fast forward, eight years. And there we go. And now we're here we are now. Um, but yeah, I was, and then I had this like really big shift after my son was born where I realized like, wow, I can be in shape if I want, I can look, however I want, I can function however I want, but it's also a tool like it's an hour and a half a day or two hours a day that if I utilize it correctly, I can do it.I'll never forget. I was in the jungle with a shaman and, you know, lots of wise wisdom come from shamans to me.  You know, one of them was like talking about relationships happening for a reason season or lifetime. And then you know, then a personal development teacher looked at me one day scrolling, and I said, what are you pretending not to know?Which hit me like a ton of bricksand then somebody else is like, what are you trying to avoid feeling? And that was the one that got me and it was the feeling part. Right. And so then I like looked at my day and I was challenged by Shaman said, I want you to eliminate. Any music with lyrics for 30 days, just get rid of it, get rid of it.Okay, cool. And I would listen to like music, like upbeat music, like I wasn't into like bitches and hoes, like all that stuff. And you know, but I would listen to music, but I would listen to music that allowed me to be romantic about who I used to be, or pretend that something was going to shift for me by doing nothing.And it was programming my brain into like the stagnation. And I was like, okay, cool. And I remember it was one of the hardest things ever to not have the radio on, in the car because what did I have to be present? I had to be with whatever was coming up and then going to the gym. I was like, okay. Right.And I'm like, don't lift. And all of a sudden I lost a hundred pounds on lift because I didn't have anything to like put me into that sympathetic state. And it was crazy, crazy what happened. And then for a wild, like this adoption period, I started to fall in love with it. And then I realized that. When I was there, the days that I was present and grounded, I felt like in my body and like emotionally good, I was lifting like crazy.And then there were days that like, It hurt to do a warmup and then I would scream or I would cry or I would laugh or I be like, I don't want to be here today. And then I could never walk out the door, but I was literally in the moment experiencing my experience and my feelings and it kind of became therapy for me.I rank it out? Can I yank it out? And then, or where can I go plug into somebody else's world to avoid mine? Right. Right.And then it was like, I have more work to do. I have more work to do. I have more work to enlist and entrepreneurs, your list will never end. And that's why it's so important. Like when you talk about structure, Alex structure gives us the container because no matter what we do, we're going to fill it. So if you give yourself a 24 hour container, you're going to find ways to fill it.But if you give yourself a two hour container, you'll fill it, but you also have to fill it with the stuff that moves the needles, move the levers and eliminates the bullshit. And that's been one of those things for me that I think in what you do and there's this belief like this paradigm around entrepreneurship, right?Like I can do whatever I want. I can do whatever I want. And I was like, yes. And you have to realize that the moment you start being that is you lose the thing that built it and you end up right back where you started. ALEX: Yeah. Yeah. I love Maxwell's. You know, John, there's a lot of stuff that John Maxwell's put out that I just, that is so true.It's just truth. And he has this chart of  the more leadership responsibility you have, the less freedom you have. And it's this very confronting belief system that the more responsibility I take on as a leader the less freedom that you actually have. And what you're doing is you're exchanging that freedom for making a massive contribution.And I think that. People want to argue. I have entrepreneurs all the time. Like one argue that and debate it. Yeah. And I always like at the end of the day, if you'd want to debate it, you can. But the fact is right only going to slow you down over time. And man George, that was intense. What you just shared because I think it's probably seven or eight years ago.It's definitely living in this house. I know, because in my gym here, I have a huge sound system and I built it so that I could go down into the gym. So I didn't hear anything in the world. I didn't even hear the weights clanking together because that sound was so high. I probably haven't turned that on in six or seven years, because now I look at my workouts, totally different.My workouts used to be an escape. It used to be like, go in, check out, get all this stuff done, working out with your body and then come out. But really not a lot of recall or recollection of what happened. And I, and a lot of like feeling here, like I did something, but not really connecting to everything that happened in the gym.Yeah. Yeah. I love Maxwell's. You know, John, there's a lot of stuff that John Maxwell's put out that I just, that is so true.It's just truth. And he has this chart of  the more leadership responsibility you have, the less freedom you have. And it's this very confronting belief system that the more responsibility I take on as a leader the less freedom that you actually have. And what you're doing is you're exchanging that freedom for making a massive contribution.And I think that. People want to argue. I have entrepreneurs all the time. Like one argue that and debate it. Yeah. And I always like at the end of the day, if you'd want to debate it, you can. But the fact is right only going to slow you down over time. And man George, that was intense. What you just shared because I think it's probably seven or eight years ago.It's definitely living in this house. I know, because in my gym here, I have a huge sound system and I built it so that I could go down into the gym. So I didn't hear anything in the world. I didn't even hear the weights clanking together because that sound was so high. I probably haven't turned that on in six or seven years, because now I look at my workouts, totally different.My workouts used to be an escape. It used to be like, go in, check out, get all this stuff done, working out with your body and then come out. But really not a lot of recall or recollection of what happened. And I, and a lot of like feeling here, like I did something, but not really connecting to everything that happened in the gym.GEORGE: Like the guy over here covered in tattoos that had a blue Mohawk. When you met him, Right. Like that guyALEX:  Something like that. You know, it was like, I'm never going to be in a place of being traumatized again by a room I'm gonna walk in and have everyone back at, you know, take a step back and.Now, you know, when I go work out, one of the, I have for a workout is a dry erase pen. My whole gym is surrounded in mirrors and there are so often I will be in the middle of a set. And this is like the Cardinal sin of working out. You're like almost to the place where you're done and I'll just drop the weight it's and go write down everything that just came to me.Yeah. Because yeah. Now it's more important. The realization is more important than finishing this app. And the belief system, you know, the beliefs that I can work through and the processing that I do is so much more important than the weight that I'm lifting. And I remember there was a point in my life where if I had a workout where the next workout, I didn't do more. I couldn't deal. It was demoralized thousand percent out. I don't even feel it. I'm like, wow, that was a great workout. I lifted half the weights, but look at the whiteboardGEORGE:  Well, even, even the point of like stopping a set, like way to diminish seven reps of progress. RightALEX: It's like, man, I just threw it all away. Yeah. And you know, the, the, like the beliefs that we built when we're in the gym, the last set is where you earn over the last rep is where you earn it. So you're always chasing the last rep. Now I'm like, man, I don't want to lose this thought. GEORGE: Well, and then like really looking at what sets us apart as leaders.Right? Cause we're, we're when we say entrepreneurial, we're talking about leaders, we're talking about the small percentage of the world, right. That's willing to stand in a new belief system and I love the way that you described, like going into the future, but really. You know, when I wrote my personal mission statement for my life it's to stand with structure in the face of resistance to create possibility.Like, that's it. That's, that's what we do. And it's like, it's actually, the wind was when you made a commitment and you kept your word with integrity to get to the gym. You've already won. Everything at that point is bonus. Right? It's strengthening it's fortification it's reflection. It's you know, and like, yeah, if you have 30 pounds to lose and you do one wrap, like don't expect a result, but be aware of like, what's there, but it's really the intention that we put behind everything.And when you say it, right, you got up, yes. You create the structure and you commit to the routine and that's, it's the combination of those things. That is the wind. And you, I mean, I'm the same way, except for me right now, I realized. You know, in the last couple of years, I fell out of love with myself again, like at a deep, deep, deep level.And I was looking at it and I was working out crazy before lockdown. And I was like, okay, cool. And I was like, I'm posting videos every day. And I was like, looking back when it locked down and I didn't have a gym, we went up to the mountains and I was like, man, I really don't want to do anything. I don't want to do anything.I don't want to do anything. And I literally was like, why. And I was like, because I can't, because I don't like why I'm doing it. And I don't know why I want to. And I gained a lot of weight again, and I fell in love with my dad bod, but I gained a dad bought first.  And then I looked at it and then I was playing with my son and I'm up here and I'm like, You know, this isn't what I want.And I was like, why? And I was like, I somehow fell out of love with myself, or this was an opportunity where I hadn't fully loved myself yet. Like, I hadn't loved where I was versus the guy with the big muscles or the tattoos, or could do this. Wait. So it was really interest because I started working out again and it feels different.It feels different. And then all of a sudden I wanted to get up here and it felt different and my workouts are very different. It felt different and I'm not humble, bragging. Like I just enjoy the process, but what's really interesting, Alex is I went through this point and I always wear like cutoff shirts.I won't take my shirt off. I still was struggling with self-consciousness and everything else. And then this, then I'm going to cry. But like 35 days ago, I went to the gym one morning and I was like, I'm not working out with a shirt on. I get to look at myself. Every moment of every rep every day. And every time I look in the mirror, I just get to tell myself I love myself.And it's a really interesting, because I started this challenge with my, with my business partner to lose weight, right. Like I was like, okay, I'm two 10, my fighting weights, like one 75. I want to be back there. 55 days of eating ma

In this episode we chat with George Hayes-Walsh from Remax Advanced Bribie Island. George shares with us how the market is travelling, what are the entry level price-points and two of his best listings. He also answers the big question. Socks or no socks? Thanks George!

George owner of Georges Tech repairs has recently moved his business into Darwin CBD.  He tells us his story to date, from bedroom business to taking on staff and the reasoning for his move to Darwin CBD.  Thanks George, your work ethic and positive attitude is contagious. 

George has over 20 years of experience procuring IP protection for inventors, small businesses, universities and corporate clients, including many Fortune 500 companies. But, he also has a warmth and sense of humor that brings legalese into an understandable story allowing us all to come to our own ah-ha moments, then get it patented! After-all, if your idea is not patented then you don't have a business. Thanks George, for getting us Winged & Ready! If you have an idea that you would like to patent, feel free to contact George:https://www.carterdeluca.com/our-team/likourezos-george/DisclosureNote to All Readers: The information presented and opinions expressed are solely the views of the podcast host commentator and their guest speaker(s). AllianceBernstein L.P. or its affiliates makes no representations or warranties concerning the accuracy of any data. There is no guarantee that any projection, forecast or opinion in this material will be realized. Past performance does not guarantee future results. The views expressed here may change at any timeafter the date of this podcast. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. AllianceBernstein L.P. does not provide tax, legal or accounting advice. It does not take an investor’s personal investment objectives or financial situation into account; investors should discuss their individual circumstances with appropriate professionals before making any decisions. This information should not be construed as sales or marketing material or an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument, product or service sponsored by AllianceBernstein or its affiliates.The [A/B] logo is a registered service mark of AllianceBernstein, and AllianceBernstein® is a registered service mark, used by permission of the owner, AllianceBernstein L.P.© 2019 AllianceBernstein L.P.

In this episode, Fredtastic and Tau talk about Kanye West’s ‘Sprained Brain’ analogy, who gets food first, Prom-blems and more. Tune in! Thanks George for the awesome logo. https://instagram.com/gmanygoats_design?igshid=17lthgnuwck7s instagram: @gmanygoats_design Follow Us: Facebook: www.facebook.com/cleaningdishes Twitter: twitter.com/Cleaning_Dishes Instagram: www.instagram.com/cleaningdishes/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/cleaningdishes19/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cleaningdishes19/support

Thrilled to have our first MC’s in the house in the form of Mantra and Omar Musa. These two gentleman are not only extremely talented at everything they do, they’re also freaking hilarious. Have never laughed so much in the Castaway Studios! For the first time ever for More Than A Whelan we have two guests in the studio simultaneously. Things get loose and wild in the round! In tribute to having two hip hop MC’s in the house Sean opens up the show by performing a poem he wrote called ‘Black Hearted Tagger: The Oldest Living Graffiti Writer in Melbourne’. Mantra rises to the More Than A Whelan challenge and performs a piece he wrote based on the prompt Eulogies for Great Meals supplied by George Dunford. Thanks George! Sean reads a poem he wrote based on the creative prompts Maiden Hair Fern (Jenny O’Keefe) Inaccessible Voicemail (Penny Waller) and Underpants Exchanges (George Dunford). Thank you SO much to our muses of the week, George, Jenny and Penny! . Recorded by Derek Myers at Castaway Studios, Collingwood, Australia. insta: @castaway_studios

Episode 228 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast. Download MP3 -  Subscribe via iTunes, Google Play, email or RSS! Featured: Whirling Tripod's George Krieger In This Episode If you subscribe to the PetaPixel Photography Podcast in iTunes, please take a moment to rate and review us and help us move up in the rankings so others interested in photography may find us. Show Opener: Whirling Tripod's George Krieger opens the show. Thanks George! Sponsors: - Get FreshBooks cloud accounting FREE for 30 DAYS by entering PetaPixel in the "How Did You Hear About Us?" section at FreshBooks.com/PetaPixel - Get 20% off your order at ElinchromUS.com using code PetaPixel20.  More at LensShark.com/deals. Stories: Shooting commercially in this village could be costly. (#) A website to help photographers track the value of gear and save. (#) Pete Souza releases a massive book covering 8 years in the White House. (#) A battery explodes at an airport and may change airline policy. (#) A future Instagram feature may prove useful to photographers especially. (#) AI won't replace all photographers, but could replace the need for some models. (#) Outtakes My other podcast with Brian Matiash, the No Name Photo Show. Connect With Us Thank you for listening to the PetaPixel Photography Podcast! Connect with me, Sharky James on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook (all @LensShark) as we build this community. We’d love to answer your question on the show. Leave us an audio question through our voicemail widget, comment below or via social media. But audio questions are awesome! You can also cut a show opener for us to play on the show! As an example: “Hi, this is Matt Smith with Double Heart Photography in Chicago, Illinois, and you’re listening to the PetaPixel Photography Podcast with Sharky James!”

George Friedman and Jacob L. Shapiro talk about playing an old Avalon Hill board game of D-Day and what these types of games teach us about the nature of war in general. Get a free weekly email from George Friedman here: goo.gl/GxbSu8 TRANSCRIPT: Jacob L. Shapiro: Hello everyone and welcome to another Geopolitical Futures podcast, I am Jacob Shapiro. George Friedman is joining us this week. Thanks for making the time George. George Friedman: My pleasure. JLS: And we're broadcasting live from George's dining room table where George just kicked my butt in a war game. We played a board version of D-Day made by the Avalon Hill game company. It's copyrighted 1961 but we used some newfangled rules from 1977, which were a little different than you remembered them, weren't they George? GF: Well I spent my youth instead of doing drugs being totally stoned in war games and in those days, they used to have these wonderful war games that were historically real and realistic I should say and they came in boxes and I would play them endlessly. And the one I played incessantly was called D-Day. It was a recreation of the invasion of France and the war in France and I just played it over and over again. And the young Jedi next to me tried to take me on for the first time and I played the Germans and I must say that I kicked his butt deservedly. JLS: Yes, I don't think I can claim to be a Jedi. I am still in the Padawan stage based on how I did and even that I might not be worthy of the title. So the way you start the game is the Germans of course deploy first so why don't you go through a little bit about what you did when you were deploying before you went off and left me to my own devices to try and figure out how to break through. GF: Well the German problem is strategically they don't have enough troops by 1944. They're fighting the Soviets, they're fighting in Italy, they've been defeated in North Africa, now they have to defend France. They have enough troops defending part of the front, not all of it because the way they really have to defend the front is to smother the Allied landing as early as humanly possible. Because the one thing that can't afford is a battle of attrition. They can't trade man for man or even two to one on the battlefield. So in order to do this, they have to ideally from their point of view create a layer defense, which they didn't do because Hitler decided the attack was coming from Pas-de-Calais and he concentrated troops there and Rommel really wanted to engage them on the beaches which was a bad idea because what this game showed was they needed to have a broad defense. Now that defense ends, they can't keep that kind of depth going and somewhere around Normandy, as history showed, they get thin enough. Jacob chose for reasons of his own not to attack at Normandy but to attack at Pas-de-Calais, which meant that his air drop was completely annihilated. Most of the forces that landed were knocked out and he was stuck inside of two fortress cities where he was safe but he wasn't going to launch an attack. The reason why you don't want to attack at Normandy is it's so far from where you want to go, which is to Germany. It's hundreds of miles farther away and yet, as Eisenhower understood, that was the place to go. But not only because it was a place where they can still get to France but it was the place they could force the Germans into a battle of attrition. Many people talk about the hedgerows of Normandy and how it caught the Americans up and not only laid them up and imposed heavy casualties. What they forget was it really wrecked the German armies. It caused tremendous casualties until finally they were so weak that Patton could break out with the third army and rescue Germany. Now that's kind of too much information. It's the kind of information you get out of careful modeling, and modeling is a critical part of geopolitics. Military modeling is one kind, economic modeling and so on. But you have to build a model of the world. And when you do that, you lose your friends, your wife considers leaving you and so on. Because you keep mumbling about battles and things that I think never happened, happened long ago or are supposed to happen, and at that point you don't really become the most friendly and pleasant person. JLS: Or you're lucky enough to find somebody who likes playing these things with you and will go to Normandy with you and walk around, yeah? GF: Well it is true that Meredith did stand here in the dining room watching this happen and enjoyed watching my rare victories. JLS: Well just to justify my position a little bit. One of the things you had pointed out as we were going is that you had played this game literally hundreds of times and this was my first time. And even though I visited Normandy myself a couple months ago and even though I've thought about this battle a fair amount and I've had the opportunity to study the rules for the past couple months, it was very different actually sitting there trying to figure out what odds were best for me. And I was looking at every single possible situation that I could go with and I honestly threw up my hands and said, “You know what? I'm just going to be very American about this and I am going to punch through with as much force as I can right in the center of things and see how it goes.” And at first, I thought I was kind of doing okay because I had some lucky roles of the dice and as you said I got to my fortresses. But you were very easily able to surround me afterwards. GF: Well the whole point of modeling is it allows you to test out various strategies and various theories, to think things through. And you do that over and over and over again. And a good general, after he's done these games in all sorts of circumstances, it becomes intuitive for him. I just was reading a book that I mentioned today in the booklist where I talk about what is intuition. Intuition is not what it appears to be some – sort of great subconscious leap. Intuition is the human accumulated experience. And how do you gain accumulated experience? If you're a general and there aren't wars, the answer is to model it. To build a false image of what that looks like and get it better and better and better until you understand it, and amazingly I won't tell you how many years later, I haven't played this game in a long time and my son gave it to me for a Father's Day present and I am just having the chance to use it. And it's amazing; it all comes back. So what is this intuition? What is this knowledge? What is expertise? It is the constant repetition and re-examination of events. JLS: Well one thing you might even want to talk about with people because I know that this has been important for you is the fact that for those of you who don't have this board, I mean imagine a map of France and imagine that France has been divided up into a bunch of different tiny hexagons and you're having to position your forces around different cities and different rivers and stuff like that, that everything is moving on the hexagon level and you have to move across these hexagons to move across the terrain. I know for you, the hexagon is a big thing, right? GF: Well I was involved in developing an early computerized war game for DOD. It was called IDA Hex and it was developed by the Institute for Defense Analysis. I played a minor role but I will claim to have suggested to the designers that we ought to use a hexagonal mapping system, you know divide the country into hexes because you need some sort of polygon for the computer to be able to model it. And I pointed to the Avalon Hill games as the example to be used. Now there are many other people who will claim responsibility for that and will deny that I had anything to do with it. But I can assure you they're wrong; that was mine. JLS: Well I guess one of the other things to point out though is you set up the German side of the board and then went into the living room to read your iPad for a while. And I got to try and plan my attack knowing exactly where all the German forces were. So Eisenhower when he was sitting there trying to figure out what he was doing – I failed miserably even knowing every single piece of information I would have needed to know to successfully plan a battle, right? Like Eisenhower didn't really have a sense really of all the intelligence that he needed to make his decisions, right? GF: Well he had a pretty good sense. He didn't have a perfect sense but because of the intercepts, Enigma intercepts, they had a pretty a good idea of where the Germans were and the Americans had air superiority over France and they had reconnaissance flights. Even so, I mean there were important tactical mistakes made. We assumed that there were guns at Pas-de-Calais; they weren't there. We assumed that a German division that showed up at Omaha Beach wasn't there. But in war, mistakes are inevitable. You're constantly adjusting for errors in intelligence and judgement and so on. War is the ultimate imperfection. And what Eisenhower was able to do is trust his subordinate commanders to deal with the tactical imperfections, trust that the plan that had been laid out and war gamed and analyzed over and over again for a year was not just going to work but there was no other choice. You couldn't really freelance this and if you're going to freelance it, it had to be at a much more junior level. So one of the ways to look at it was that the lesser generals really won the battle. I'll say the sergeants did, the sergeants that held together their units or regrouped their units and who were able to think through the tactical situation protecting their men as much as possible, fighting the enemy. For me, the power of the American military is never rested in the staffs or the generals; it is always rested in the sergeants who from the Civil War and before were the ones who held it together. There's a story about Normandy about not being able to break through the Hedgerows. These Hedgerows where hedges that grew taller than a human being in the ground underneath them. And a sergeant took a look at this and he apparently had been a plumber at home and he took two pipes, stuck them in the front of the tank and they were able to plow through. Now this is an amazing story and I think one of the great virtues of the American military. Not merely sergeants but the fact that at any level you can innovate. Sometimes the U.S. military has lost that. They've created such a complex process for everything that innovation is lost within it. Process is great until it strangles you. But in World War II at least, that process – and Eisenhower is partly responsible for that. That sergeant, his good idea went viral so to speak. It became the way we broke through. And there are some militaries in which that was the case. The German military during World War II, whatever else you say about them, they had that innovative capability. The Russians didn't. They supplemented it with overwhelming manpower to fight their battles. Each country has its own military culture but it's interesting to bear in mind that military culture always spins over into civilian life. The guys at Pas-de-Calais, at Omaha, at Utah, the Americans – came home, took the G.I. bill, became the first professional middle class and transformed America. It was a period in the 1950s and '60s with magnificent transformation of the United States from the depression that had been before the war to what it was after. And one of the things that you have to understand about what was called the Silent Generation is these were the guys who'd been to war. They weren't silent; they just wanted to live their lives. But the definition of living their lives was constant innovation and constant change. And we owe a tremendous amount to the military. There is an unpleasant paradox I think for human beings which I've written about, which is that war is an opportunity for tremendous innovation. And many of the things that we have today had their origins in the military and warfare. But certainly, it was the mindset of these things that in retrospect I was totally amazed by. I am not sure we still have that. I'm not sure we have in the way they had it. We think today that we're very innovative because we come up with Tinder or some insane application. These guys changed the face of America. They transformed it and they didn't make speeches about it. These are the sergeants. JLS: How much of that has to do with the fact that they were faced with what they were faced with, right? I mean certainly not me and I don't think you have ever been faced with the task that the men who were charged with taking Omaha Beach and Utah Beach and all those things, we've never faced anything like that in our lives. GF: I think you're absolutely right and the thing that I am trying to point out is we see war as pathological and it's a horrible thing. Yet it's ubiquitous. For something pathological, it is so commonplace that after earning a living, it seems to be the second most common thing and forges things out of it. You know, the Roman War had forged not just an empire but a road system that exists today. It's extraordinary. Whether we like it or not, being for or against war is kind of a meaningless thing. It is. And we have to understand what it does. It creates a level of discipline in those who survive it, both civilian and military, that when translated to everyday life can – not always is, but can – be transformative. JLS: When you think about the land at Normandy in particular, I mean you've written a little bit, you've been writing these weeklies lately about different battles in World War II and I am sure you will have turned your attention to this one at some point, but the last one you wrote was about the Battle of Midway and about how it sort of all hung in the balance in there and there was a certain amount of fate and chance. And yet the board that we're looking at right now and the game we just played, you were making the point to me that at the same time, it's really mathematical. This was a mathematical problem and you had to figure out the mathematical problem and it only left you with one real choice if you were the American commander. So how do you think about Normandy in terms of predictability and things like fate. I mean, if they had gotten the weather forecast wrong for instance, it might've been completely different. GF: Geopolitics suffers from a basic disease. It can forecast and forecast well. And somehow embedded in the forecast is something it didn't understand. It was easy to predict the Japanese were going to be defeated by the Americans. In a Midway, it wasn't obvious. Some reader sent in saying that it really was, but from my point of view, it's not clear that the war in the Pacific would've been won if we'd lost our three carriers in that battle. When I look at D-Day, the answer is the Germans are spread so thin that even if the invasion at Normandy would've failed, the Soviets would've been able to break the Wehrmacht's back and that may be true. But the heart of war is an eccentric resistance to mathematics. Much of the way I approached war was mathematical. Some of the math was good, some was questionable but in all the ways that I did it, there always turned out, in the battle I looked at, to be a moment where it could've gone either way, where the outcome was unpredictable, and that makes me very uncomfortable because I like predictability. You just wrote something on the Civil War where you spoke about Pickett's Charge. See to me, that battle was lost well before Pickett's Charge. Because it wasn't a battle that should have been fought. This was the opportunity to go east to swing between Baltimore and Washington to isolate Washington and bring it down. Now from an analytic point of view, I think I'm right. The key to this was Washington. The Army of Virginia was in a position to isolate Washington. Lee discarded that chance in favor of an engagement of unfavorable circumstances with the Union. Now the question in that battle is to me, from my point of view, is Lee simply didn't listen to Longstreet, which he should have. And he didn't listen to Longstreet because he was caught up in a Napoleonic vision of war, of grand attacks, of open ground and didn't understand the strategic foundation. Okay, if Lee had listened to Longstreet and had swung to the east, would the Union have been dissolved? Would the North American geopolitical situation have been wildly different? Would all of history been changed? I hate those moments, I hate those moments that depend on judgement. And on the other hand, reconciling the geopolitical concept of necessity with the strangest events. And then saying well don't worry about the strange, this will happen anyway. It's one of the things that at this point in my life, I am struggling with. There is too much eccentricity to the world. And yet there's an order and I don't understand how these two fit together. JLS: Yeah the one thing I would respond with is that you're right that by the time it's Pickett's Charge, the battle is over and that was the wrong mistake. And for some, that's one of the reasons I think Pickett's Charge is interesting because I rate Lee's ability as a strategic thinker rather high and it was obviously the wrong decision. I mean it was, you could almost compare it to me trying to punch a hole through your German defense here on the board right where you were strongest rather than thinking about it for a second and trying to do something. But you know the point at which you're saying that Longstreet told Lee to move towards Washington, there were two main problems there or at least two main reasons that I can think of that Lee was thinking. The first was that he had come so close on the first day and it really was within his grasp. But the second and more important thing was that he still didn't have his cavalry; he still didn't have Jeb Stewart there to tell him how big the Union force was and how far they extended. And if he had wanted to take Longstreet's advice, he wasn't sure exactly where the disposition of Union forces were. And that entire campaign was cursed from the beginning because Stewart went on his ride around the Union to try and make up for getting caught on the way up to the north and in so doing, Lee really lost all of his intelligence and Lee proved to not be flexible enough to shift his plans once he lost his access to what he thought was his perfect intelligence. So I would say that in some ways, he was boxed in because he had to command the entire force and he looked at Longstreet and said, “Yeah that would all be well and good but I have no idea where they are and I am not going to try and make that kind of move if I don't have the cavalry to skirmish along that side so we're going to try and whip them here.” For me the bigger question is why not after you fail on day two, why don't you pull back and why don't you check about the fact that you're low on ammunition now and that you can't actually stand against the battle in the Union and they've reinforced themselves and that now is the time to get defensive and to crouch into your own defensive position rather than to make that attack. GF: Because people have a tendency to double down. After they lost, if you ever sat with a bad poker player and just taken him apart and he doesn't understand why, he's going to go big. And that's what Lee did. But I would put it this way. The South was at a strategic disadvantage. The North had all the advantages. Lee's move into Pennsylvania was a Hail Mary. He desperately had to win the war.  Now the question they should ask is, if he'd won at Gettysburg, would the Union have collapsed? And I would argue that the Army would've dispersed, it would've regrouped and the North had resources. However, if he threatened Washington from the North, if Washington can no longer communicate effectively with the rest of the country, that would've mattered. So the Hail Mary was called for, he was throwing one but he didn't go for the jugular. Now, there's a way to explain this, which is that Lee was trained at West Point in Napoleonic tactics. Grant later was also trained in Napoleonic tactics, he just didn't buy it. Grant understood that the North's advantage was resources and he was going to stand on that line all summer if he had to, grinding the enemy down. Kind of like we were talking about how Eisenhower did in the hedge country. So partly, it's the training that you receive and partly it's your ability to overcome that training. To learn from it. And it's interesting because I've never been able to find that explanation of how Grant learned what he did. And in some ways, Grant is more interesting than Lee. Lee's a gentleman. He's very much someone that you want an officer to be. Grant isn't. He's an alcoholic, he's nasty, he's brutal. Yet Grant managed out of the same school to leave with an understanding of contemporary warfare, where Lee never grasped it. So for me, I keep coming lately back to the question of learning because if I am going to understand the role of accident in history, then I have to understand how people deal with accidents and in dealing with accidents, I keep coming back to learning and unlearning and it gets very complicated. So what I want is an elegant vision of how the world works. And it keeps becoming disorderly so I want to explain Lee's mistake, and in trying to explain Lee's mistake I have to reach back into his training at West Point but then I've got Grant, same training and not making the same mistake. JLS: Almost all the officers in World War II on both sides were West Point graduates and stuff like that. And I mean Grant also had a superior advantage, right? I mean he had the numbers. You were talking about whether if the South had won at Gettysburg, would that have meant that the Union was going to fall apart. No, I don't think so. You might've been able to get a pro-peace candidate in there in the next round of elections and stuff like that. But I mean, remember that you know if the South would've won Gettysburg, it would've won on July 4, 1863. They lost Gettysburg but they also lost Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, and you've written before about how important the Mississippi River was and you couldn't lose both of those things and even have a chance. You probably couldn't even lose Vicksburg by itself; like you said it was a Hail Mary and probably the South was already done at that point. GF: I think that if he had gone east to Taneytown and blocked the roads to Washington further east, it might have had a different end. Maybe not and that really is what I am talking about. But it's interesting, you know we talk about Grant understanding it's all mass. And really from the Civil War, which was in the world of military history the first modern war in which industrialism and mass played a critical role. Right down to World War II, the mass was everything and therefore destroying the means of producing, of mass production. Bombing cities, crushing the enemy in various ways. We seem to be back almost to an older time sort of warfare where the age of industrial warfare, of vast armies facing vast armies isn't there. This is a war of sparse global forces arrayed against pretty sparse global forces. When you compare what is going on in the jihadist wars, both sides are actually fighting a minimalist war. And also as terrible as terrorism is, it's not the casualties of World War II but the stakes are just as high. For the jihadist, it is creating a caliphate. For the U.S. and Europe, it is preventing the rise of a radical Jihadist state entity. Everything's at stake and yet given modern weaponry, drones and so on which people dislike, it's actually vastly reduced the amount of casualties. Not the mistakes – the mistakes are still there – but I think one of the things that in watching and playing these war games, I am not sure I am ever going to see a war this massive where the math overrides everything. In the kinds of wars we see today, it is much more small forces against small forces, much more intelligence orientated, much less mathematical therefore. JLS: The obvious question to you though then is to talk about what you've been writing a lot about recently, which is North Korea. Do you think that North Korea is also that kind of minimalist war or does North Korea look more like something that you'd have to model on a board like this with huge numbers of ground troops even. GF: Well on the surface, this should be the ideal sort of war for the United States. We're not very good at counterinsurgency. I don't care how many manuals are written. We just don't do it well. Occupying a country that's hostile to you is very tough. What we are good at is technology on technology, and overmatching them. In this case we are facing the danger of a potential ICBM, nuclear tipped, coming to the United States. Secretary Mattis has said that can't be permitted. So you have a problem. One, locating the nuclear sites. Two, eliminating the artillery deployment north of Seoul, knocking out the nuclear facilities. All this should be done from the air. And yet how will you make certain that you've knocked out a hole in the ground? How do you know what was in it? And how do you avoid the air defense systems that the North Koreans have around their artillery. While you're suppressing that air defense system, they're shelling Seoul. So again, somewhat unlike World War II, it has a tremendous complexity. Now part of that is the North Koreans created that complexity over the past 15 years. While they have been looking to develop nuclear weapons, they've also clearly gamed out the crisis point over and over again to create a situation where, when there's sufficient uncertainty, potential casualties, the Americans grow shy of it. I've spoken to several extremely intelligent and experienced military officers who make the case we're just going to have to accept North Korean nuclear weapons because we don't have the means of eliminating them without devastation to Seoul. Now the counterargument is, if we don't have devastation of Seoul, we may wind up with the devastation of other cities. So you pay now or pay later. But I understand the argument. But it still doesn't have the feel of mass warfare. We're talking about small quantities, small uncertainties, great predictabilities. It's not like the German invasion of Russia, the Soviet Union, that was planned with meticulousness based on industrial-strength forces facing industrial-strength forces. This is highly technical but it also has so many unknowns built into it, that even people who normally would be vigorously in favor of an attack are shying away from it. So I think we've reached a new kind of warfare among the jihadists but another new type of warfare in which the technology on both sides has become so complex that this vast range of uncertainty that political leaders really don't want to engage in if they don't have to. The counterargument to what I just said is every war has been uncertain and in every war the certainty of success has been followed by uncertainty, possibly failure. So war is something that we'd always imagine and is always imagined to be easier than it is. But certainly the North Korean thing is turning from, okay this is what we know how to do and we're going to do it well to, I don't know if we can do this. And there's no question but the president is going to have to make some decisions and it's going to be important to bear in mind that whoever he listens to, only the president can make this decision. JLS: And as you said no matter what he does, that in the end he won't be able to be sure about exactly what's going to go on because once you've make these decisions, everything is actually completely unpredictable as uncomfortable as that makes you feel. GF: Well it depends what kind of bracket you put on it. Would World War II have been won without a Normandy invasion? I think yes. Would post-war Europe look the same? No. But the war itself I think on a broad bracket was predictable. I don't know that a jihadist war is predictable. And although a couple months ago, I was pretty certain how that war would look, I now – I shouldn't listen to people because they confuse me – I now reached a point where if these guys are nervous about it, why am I so confident? Naturally my son who's in the Air Force would be very happy to say that the Air Force can take care of this entire matter without any help. The Air Force has said that in every war we had since World War II. It's never been the case. I hope he's listening. JLS: I am sure he is and on that note, I think we'll sign off here but thank you everyone for listening. As always you can send in comments to comments@geopoliticalfutures.com. I am Jacob Shapiro, again this was George Friedman and if you guys enjoyed this episode, we might do this a little bit more, these types of war-gaming things and thinking about historical battles so we always welcome your feedback. Thanks George. GF: Thank you. Thank you for listening.

This week The Firefighter Training Podcast looks at the quote, "If You Love Your Job, You Never Work A Day In Your Life". This podcast episode is in response to a listener email. Thanks George!  

On this episode of Mayhem at the Matinee, we watch and heavily criticize the 1986 Classic Top Gun. Thanks George for this pick! We discuss reckless pilots, being the best of the best of the best, shirtless volleyball, awesome beach houses, Val Kilmer's hair, and how short is Tom Cruise. We also discuss new upcoming movie trailers, CHiP's, movie prices, Leo's Oscar worthiness, putting ketchup on a hotdog, and much more! Thanks again for joining us!   Happy New Year!   Rate and subscribe on Itunes!   Follow us on instagram at:   mayhematthematinee   Twitter:   M_atthematinee   Email us:   mayhematthematinee@gmail.com   Recorded in the San Fernando Valley!

George has served in several countries on different assignments. He has refined his skills and loves sharing them from Zanzibar, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia. Thanks George you have made a real difference sharing your skills. For more information about CUSO-VSO please go to www.cuso-vso.orgPlease leave a comment . We are getting ready to celebrate our 50th anniversary in 2011. If you know anyone that served with CUSO or VSO please ask them to contact us.Over 12,000 volunteers and almost 25 million hours of service. Thank you Alumni and current serving volunteers! CUSO-VSOVolunteer for a better world! Share Skills volunteers in 43 Countries-Bangladesh,Bolivia,Burkina Faso,Cambodia,Cameroon,China,El Salvador,Eritrea,Ethiopia,Gambia,Guatemala ,Ghana,Guyana,Honduras,India,Jamaica,Indonesia,Kenya,Laos,Malawi,Maldives,Mongolia,Mozambique,Namibia,Nepal ,Nigeria,Pakistan,Papua New Guinea,Peru,Philippines,Rwanda,Sierra, Leone,South Africa,Sri Lanka,Tajikistan,Tanzania,Thailand,Togo, ,Uganda,Vanuatu,Vietnam,Zambia and Zimbabwe.Support our workwww.cuso-vso.org

George has served in several countries on different assignments. He has refined his skills and loves sharing them from Zanzibar, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia. Thanks George you have made a real difference sharing your skills.

Here's to the man who paved the way for potty mouth little bastards like us to have an outlet with which to pour our filth out into the world. Thanks George.