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Minecraft movie only in theaters. I'm back.

0:41

Do you want to briefly discuss

0:43

what jail you were in because we

0:45

were back and then we were

0:47

immediately gone again? You

0:57

had a lot of things

1:00

going for you, being as

1:02

good of a situation it

1:04

could be, and it's still

1:06

monumentally, never -endingly tsunami wave of

1:08

stuff every single day. There's

1:15

like a years -long list of

1:17

stuff, and on top of that,

1:19

you know, you're run down

1:21

and destroyed from the process that

1:23

led to all of that. There

1:40

was a war of dollars.

1:43

$900 for a wooden bowl.

1:45

A bowl that sucks. A

1:47

dirty old garbage bowl.

1:50

A dirty old bowl.

1:56

Hey, welcome to the Create Unknown, the

1:59

home of Make Something. Mean Something.

2:01

I am Kevin Lieber and

2:03

wait for it. With me as

2:05

always is Matthew Tabor. As

2:07

always every single episode of

2:10

this podcast as always but it's

2:12

a good Friday it actually is

2:14

good Friday it's great Friday if.

2:17

Yeah if you're a since

2:19

it's Easter weekend if

2:21

you're a Christian type you're

2:23

celebrating he having risen if

2:25

you're not you can celebrate me having

2:27

risen I'm back. I've

2:30

risen from the podcast dead.

2:32

You have re -ascended. You have. Yeah,

2:34

the last several podcasts just don't

2:36

count at this point. We'll just ignore

2:38

that they ever even happened and welcome

2:41

you back. And

2:43

do you want to

2:45

briefly discuss what sort

2:48

of jail you

2:50

were in, some sort of

2:52

deep pit that you needed to escape

2:54

from? Yeah. I don't know. I

2:56

don't really know. Where have you

2:58

been? Help me first. When is the

3:00

last time you and I... together.

3:02

Do you remember? Well, I

3:04

think that we did a We

3:06

Are Back podcast in December and that did

3:08

not go well at all because we

3:10

were back and then we were immediately

3:12

gone again, immediately. Fully

3:15

intended to be back. That's right. It was before I

3:17

went to Moldova, wasn't it? Yeah. and

3:19

then we were really back back. Yeah. Yeah.

3:22

Yeah. Welcome back. Immediately

3:24

goes off the air. And

3:27

in You did a good

3:29

job though. I mean this it was good.

3:31

It was the episodes were

3:33

good. It was a nice

3:36

run Solo Lieber was good. Are you

3:38

telling me you actually listened to some of

3:40

those? God, no. Did you enjoy

3:42

doing it though? Yeah, it

3:44

was difficult. It was it was

3:46

difficult. It was it was much harder

3:48

for a couple of reasons One is

3:51

that just solo talking

3:53

for mmm Right about the

3:55

40 minute mark My

3:57

throat and voice starts to get really

3:59

strained and tired. So that part of

4:01

it, like physically, it was hard. But

4:04

in terms of content, one

4:07

of the things that, well, that

4:09

I noticed really quickly is that

4:11

I can remember the

4:13

gist of almost everything.

4:15

And I can remember the

4:18

details of almost nothing. So

4:20

one of the great things about

4:22

talking to you on this podcast is

4:24

that I am fully capable. of

4:27

summarizing the gist of a concept, and

4:29

then you are usually

4:31

excellent at diving into

4:33

the details of it. And

4:36

having to do that on my

4:38

own was a challenge that,

4:40

you know, I couldn't really handle.

4:43

It really is like sports where you have the play -by

4:45

-play and the color guys, and when

4:47

the same person has to do both.

4:50

Like you can't keep track of it. You

4:52

just say things. You just say things. And

4:54

then after you've said it, you kind of sort

4:56

out what has just come out of your

4:58

mouth. That's what it's like when

5:00

I have to do a solo thing. But

5:03

it seemed very smooth to

5:05

me. I listened to some, not

5:07

all. Couldn't listen to all. But

5:10

it was fluid. You

5:13

did good. Well, thank you. One of

5:15

the things that I couldn't remember

5:17

was the actual thing that the Luddites

5:19

were smashing and complaining about. I

5:21

was like, sewing machines, something

5:24

to do with textiles. Do

5:26

you remember what it was? Looms? Do

5:28

you remember the actual thing

5:30

that the Luddites were upset

5:32

over? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

5:35

No, no, no. It was,

5:37

yeah, it was looms. Looms,

5:39

okay. Or weaving, like weaving

5:41

things, yeah. Let me,

5:43

let me see specifically here, but I

5:45

know it's like the textile union type.

5:49

See, stocking frames,

5:52

mechanical knitting machine is a

5:54

stocking frame. So, yeah,

5:57

I mean, look, he

5:59

started a riot over sewing machines, what it comes

6:02

down to. And

6:04

we're still talking about it. Whatever,

6:08

150 years later. When

6:10

this podcast ends, I go

6:12

to pick up a Singer Featherweight

6:14

221. Of course.

6:17

It's all sewing all the time. Yeah. It's

6:19

all sewing all the time. And

6:21

aficionados of the needle

6:23

and thread understand what a

6:25

big thing this is to grab

6:27

another one. I have

6:29

one. This one is

6:31

a very light restoration project.

6:34

I really think it's just going to be a cleanup.

6:37

And if not, well,

6:39

then I find out then. Wait,

6:41

so we need to find out

6:43

now what you've been doing. I

6:46

mean, you know, I don't know how we

6:48

could, we could do the next two years

6:50

worth of podcasts just about the last four

6:52

months for you. But you know, what is

6:54

the Cliff Notes version? Right.

6:56

So I'm trying to figure out where

6:58

to start. And I do think that

7:00

we, we, yeah, we

7:02

did that episode because then I

7:05

was going to Moldova and we

7:07

were going to record when

7:09

I got back. The

7:11

fall was very busy

7:14

with between you

7:16

and I

7:18

and Ben and

7:20

James' editor

7:23

and me and

7:25

all this stuff.

7:27

It was

7:30

Argentina, Argentina, Jesus

7:32

Christ. Austria,

7:34

Armenia. Albania, Argentina,

7:37

Moldova, and the idea was

7:39

I get back, I spend time

7:41

with my family, I

7:44

relax and get into the good

7:46

groove on work. I'm very excited for this for the

7:48

winter. My mom

7:50

fell very seriously ill

7:52

at Christmas and

7:55

that is what derailed

7:57

me because that

7:59

got more involved and

8:01

more difficult progressively.

8:04

And eventually, you know,

8:06

in March, she

8:08

passed. And so

8:10

because, you

8:12

know, that

8:15

it's, you know, look,

8:17

it's devastating and horrible when

8:19

one parent passes, but

8:21

nothing changes

8:23

substantially there because,

8:26

you know, all the operations

8:30

of a house and

8:32

like. Who's paying the bills

8:34

and all that stuff doesn't change You know

8:36

the spouse just continues to to

8:38

do things and you change the name

8:40

on some bills and in this

8:42

and that change some accounts But it's

8:44

not ultimately a rug pole, right?

8:46

It's manageable But when the

8:49

second one when the second one goes

8:51

then you have to figure out everything

8:53

from scratch and sometimes

8:55

worse than scratch

8:57

It's as simple as and this is a

8:59

process. I didn't know Kevin you have

9:01

somebody's car. If

9:03

a car

9:06

owner dies, it

9:08

has to be registered into like the

9:10

owner of that car is now the

9:12

estate. And so you have to

9:14

go to the DMV and when I say

9:16

you, like it was me, it wasn't,

9:18

my brother is handling this part, which is great. But

9:22

then that has to have like the

9:24

title transferred to the estate. And then

9:26

the estate can process it. And if

9:28

it's, you know, whatever

9:30

somebody's will stipulates

9:32

kids, then it

9:35

gets divided up in

9:37

value. But if it's a car, you can't

9:39

cut that into thirds. And

9:41

so it's like, does

9:43

somebody want to use this in

9:45

which case they buy out the other

9:47

shareholders of the car? Do you

9:49

sell it and then do

9:51

that? So that's one item in

9:53

an estate that is just, Strangely

9:56

complex like Kevin you've been thinking

9:58

about car stuff lately and it's super

10:00

complex to just go and buy

10:02

a car normally, isn't it? Well, well,

10:05

yeah, I mean now I'm

10:07

thinking about you know having to

10:09

Change the I have to change my

10:11

car insurance. I have to change the you

10:13

know the the throughway pass

10:15

and what that's registered to

10:17

and yeah everything becomes a

10:19

bit of a bureaucratic nightmare

10:21

just for yourself without

10:24

any of the complications of other

10:26

people's interests being involved in

10:28

any of that. Right. And

10:30

in the meantime, that

10:32

goes to a

10:34

person legally who doesn't

10:37

exist, which is the mythical estate.

10:39

It's sort of like corporate

10:41

personhood in that way, where the

10:43

estate exists just as a

10:45

person does, but there's no person

10:47

to do it. So you're

10:49

doing things on behalf of a

10:51

fictional entity. Yeah, it's really

10:53

strange. So it's, you

10:55

know, you can imagine that

10:57

there's like a year's long

10:59

list of stuff. And

11:03

on top of that, you

11:05

know, you're run down

11:07

and destroyed from the

11:09

process that led to all

11:11

of that. So I'm talking like I'm obsessing

11:14

now over like nuts and bolts, logistics. And

11:17

not going into the

11:19

obvious like personal tragedy

11:21

side of things But

11:23

yeah, that's oh, I don't I don't

11:25

recommend it and I've said this to

11:27

some you know I know I said

11:29

it to you Kevin like it's probably

11:31

too late for for all of you

11:33

But I can't recommend having parents at

11:35

all It's brutal

11:37

It is horrible well one

11:39

one thing that you you did Have

11:42

in your favor is that there

11:44

were some like end -of -life things that

11:46

were sorted out ahead of time

11:48

that help a lot. And this is like

11:50

a really weird subject to try to

11:52

broach with your parents to be like,

11:54

hey, mom and dad, can you like

11:56

sort of figure out, do

11:59

you want to be cremated? Do you want to

12:01

be buried? Where do you want to be

12:03

buried? Do you have a plot? Do you

12:05

have a headstone? What's on that? Like that's

12:07

its own just insane thing to figure out

12:09

that actually can be determined ahead of time.

12:11

And, you know, they can be involved in

12:13

that. But if it's not, Right. Now all

12:15

of a sudden, that's a huge mystery box

12:17

that you need to fill. It

12:20

is, yeah. And I, you

12:22

know, I'm kind of weirdly

12:24

comfortable talking about all of

12:26

the stuff because I spent

12:28

so much time

12:31

with my mom and

12:33

talking to my mom in

12:35

the last few months

12:37

and before that too. I

12:39

mean, because I, you

12:41

know, I live, you know,

12:43

like three quarters of a mile

12:45

away. So it's not

12:47

like it was difficult to talk to

12:49

my mom whenever. But

12:52

all the important stuff, I mean, when you're in

12:54

a hospital, there's not much to do, right? And

12:57

it was far away, the hospital

12:59

was, you know, three, four hours. So I

13:01

was staying there and not, it's not

13:03

like I was going home to sleep

13:05

at night. You know, I was staying in

13:07

Rochester. But

13:09

yeah, I mean, you go in

13:11

in the morning and You know,

13:14

you're sitting in a hospital room

13:16

with somebody and stuff happens throughout

13:18

the day hospital -wise. But all

13:20

you can do is talk.

13:23

And my mom's vision

13:25

was mostly gone

13:27

at that point. So it's not like

13:29

sitting and watching TV

13:31

is a good time eater. But

13:33

she and I talked just

13:36

a lot anyway. We were

13:38

yappers, as the kids

13:40

would say. We liked yapping

13:42

together. But

13:45

it meant that we just talked

13:47

to the nth degree about all

13:49

the big stuff that, you

13:51

know, what do

13:53

you want? Well, how do you want stuff to play

13:55

out? And

13:57

that is so it makes

13:59

it so much easier

14:01

that I don't have any unturned

14:03

stones. Whereas

14:05

my my. You

14:08

know my dad died

14:10

suddenly and well when somebody

14:12

when it's a bit of a surprise you don't

14:14

have any or I mean you have all these

14:17

unturned stones. I really

14:19

didn't have I don't have any

14:21

unturned stones of significance and it feels

14:23

awesome. Jen says

14:25

one of the weird benefits of having

14:27

a parent who is a hospice

14:29

nurse for several years. Talking

14:31

about death and dying is not an unusual

14:33

conversation. Everybody else thinks you're creepy, but

14:35

I'll take that trade off. Yeah, it

14:37

really wasn't creepy in this because, you

14:40

know, it wasn't bad to talk about too. When

14:43

you have a

14:45

set of parents who

14:47

built something really good

14:49

themselves and then Legitimately

14:52

it was the classic

14:54

try to make The opportunities

14:57

better for your kids

14:59

so they have it easier

15:01

and they have more

15:03

opportunities. That's exactly what happened

15:05

so We're talking about

15:07

very positive things all of

15:09

it was Strangely positive even

15:11

though you know her

15:13

role in the thing was

15:16

winding down it was

15:18

it was Like both

15:20

of us felt really good. It's

15:22

a strangest thing. Yeah,

15:25

Jen says it's actually quite soothing. Yeah,

15:27

yeah. I mean, there's a woman on

15:29

Twitter who pops up because we

15:31

have a lot of mutuals and she's

15:33

like academically purely into death

15:35

and about like the

15:37

notion of dying and all

15:39

that stuff. And that

15:42

I haven't really been able to follow

15:44

her because I'm just not, I

15:46

don't know. It's not for me. Is

15:48

it yeah, yeah, she's like one

15:51

she's like two degrees of separation

15:53

from you because yeah, she

15:55

Knows Michael really well. Oh

15:57

Vsauce Michael. I didn't know that.

15:59

Yeah. Yeah, they've known each other for

16:01

I think before Vsauce and before

16:03

I think they might she might have

16:06

went to you University of Chicago

16:08

or something Yeah, there's oh that makes

16:10

yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's some connection

16:12

there So you you yeah, you're Kevin

16:14

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16:16

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17:13

I wanted to say that All of

17:16

that, you had a lot of

17:18

things going for you as

17:20

far as it being

17:22

as good of a situation it could

17:24

be. And it's still

17:26

like monumentally, never -endingly like

17:28

tsunami wave of stuff every

17:30

single day. And, you

17:32

know, I've talked to a

17:34

lot of people, you

17:36

know, friends of mine, you know,

17:38

who have been through this. I haven't,

17:40

you know, thankfully yet, but. A

17:43

lot of families just

17:45

splinter and fracture and siblings,

17:47

you know, turn into

17:49

enemies in which they

17:51

never talk to each

17:53

other anymore afterwards because of

17:55

all of the infighting that occurs. It's

17:58

horrible. It's

18:00

really, really life

18:03

changing in so

18:05

many ways. It's almost incalculable.

18:08

Yeah, I think about how

18:10

good I've

18:13

got it. We've got

18:15

it, meaning my family, in

18:17

the sense that,

18:19

you know, I talk about this car thing, right?

18:22

For us, it's

18:25

like, who's gonna go to

18:27

the DMV that never has

18:29

a line that is five

18:31

miles away, okay? Because

18:33

all of us live here. None

18:36

of this is hard. Most families, They

18:39

have like Kevin your family is your

18:41

brothers and sisters and stuff are

18:43

spread all over the place. Yeah, almost

18:46

everybody has it that way.

18:48

It's so uncommon

18:50

to have. You

18:53

know, like something like three

18:55

kids, all of whom are

18:57

in the same zip code as

18:59

as the estate in question. What

19:03

do you do with with

19:05

a car? when

19:07

three kids are

19:09

in Nebraska, Montreal,

19:12

and Timbuktu, like what the hell? The

19:16

simplest thing like that

19:18

would be even more difficult to

19:20

deal with. And you can

19:22

imagine the conflicts. And that's what

19:24

I was getting to is

19:26

your point is the difficulties and

19:28

the frustrations and the conflicts

19:30

that arise as that situation gets

19:32

more complicated. And that is

19:34

assuming. that everybody involved is

19:36

a great person you know

19:38

and in this you know den

19:40

latch says a thing

19:42

in the episode chat here that

19:45

family fell apart within a year

19:47

because you know some of the kids

19:49

had some malicious malicious malicious shit

19:51

to make a quick buck as he

19:53

put it and i'm reading that

19:55

verbatim because honestly that's the way some

19:57

of this goes down that's the way

19:59

it should be described. So

20:01

I say, oh, it's so devastating

20:04

and difficult and brutal to sort out.

20:06

And I'm not even dealing with

20:08

bad people. Like,

20:11

I'm not

20:13

dealing with monstrous,

20:16

awful, awful, quick

20:18

buck type ones. Yeah. Jeff

20:22

says, wife's mom, mom's sisters

20:24

don't talk to their brother.

20:26

Because this happened, you

20:28

know, my dad and his brother, I

20:30

had some kind of conflict over whatever

20:32

I think a house when when

20:34

their father died. I mean, I

20:38

remember the house that I'm in

20:40

now that was that was, you

20:42

know, kind of willed to like

20:44

five kids, you know, they had to do

20:46

buyouts. I don't know. But it is

20:48

crazy shit. It is nuts. you

20:52

know, is it better to

20:54

have a complex situation or to

20:56

have nothing to fight over?

20:58

I don't know. But

21:00

it's just not, it's crazy. And

21:02

like it lasts a very

21:04

long time. So like in 2026,

21:07

there will have

21:09

to be a tax return

21:11

for 2025 filed for

21:13

my mom because there was

21:16

like social security payments, whatever,

21:18

retirement stuff. that happened in

21:20

those first few months. Nothing's

21:22

going to be wrapped up with

21:25

a thing like this until deep

21:27

into next year. And

21:29

then you've got all those little things like,

21:31

well, the winter is broken now and grass is

21:33

starting to grow. You've

21:36

got a whole extra set

21:38

of maintenance schedules and all

21:40

this. It's a lot.

21:42

And again, this is on

21:44

top of the utter horror

21:46

and devastation of of

21:48

losing a, not only a

21:51

parent, but a really good one. A

21:53

really good one. It's not a case

21:55

of anybody being like, oh, thank God

21:57

they're gone. Which happens, you

22:00

know? There's no relief in this one. This

22:02

is straight up horror. Totally

22:05

all -consuming though, and as we

22:07

were talking about before we

22:09

hit record, like, my

22:11

beard is noticeably much,

22:13

much whiter. It's like

22:16

80 % white now. And

22:18

in December, it was probably

22:20

like 25 % white. It was

22:22

around, like, chin area. That

22:24

was white and down. But

22:26

now the sides are white.

22:29

Yeah, it's less salt and pepper

22:31

and more salt. I'm straight

22:33

salt. I'm salt and snow. Yeah.

22:37

You know what it is? It's a

22:39

mix of, like, the white stains in

22:41

the salted driveway and the white dog

22:44

poop on the sidewalk from the 80s. That's

22:47

the color that we're dealing

22:49

with. Wait, what was with the

22:52

80s white dog poop? Do

22:54

you know what I'm talking about? Yes, but

22:56

is there a explanation for this?

22:59

Do we understand why dog poop turned

23:01

white in the past and does

23:03

it not now? It doesn't now.

23:05

I read about it once and I

23:07

think part of it had to do with

23:09

what was in the food. There

23:12

was something in the food and

23:14

the sidewalk component didn't matter as

23:16

much calcium in the foot. Yeah,

23:18

it was something like that. Dan

23:20

Lach says calcium. But

23:23

yeah, what a strange thing that

23:25

that like dog poop has changed color

23:27

in our lifetime. The

23:29

most significant change in our

23:31

lifetime is dog poop color. Yeah,

23:34

doing a lot of reminiscing lately and

23:36

all I came up with was like, you

23:38

know, back in 87, dog poop was

23:40

white. Yeah. Yeah. Times have changed. It's

23:42

awful. Well, everything's different. But

23:45

yeah, that And I've

23:47

been feeling, you know, good.

23:49

I've weathered this storm

23:51

well enough. You know, I

23:53

haven't been, you know,

23:55

shaking in the corner, smoking

23:57

four packs a day. And

24:00

I still, and I

24:02

still have, you know,

24:04

you can see the

24:06

effects. Yeah, yeah,

24:08

it's just been abysmal, but

24:10

that meant. seriously

24:12

day -to -day unpredictable schedules. There was that

24:14

period I was gone, whatever, but even

24:17

after my mom passed, you know, how

24:19

many times, Kevin, it's the middle of

24:21

April, how many weeks in a row

24:23

did I say, yeah, I should be

24:25

good for Friday, and then

24:27

Thursday night or Friday morning came around

24:29

and I tell you, you're on your

24:31

own. Okay, so first of all, it

24:33

was never Thursday night. It was always

24:35

Friday morning and... Because still Thursday night

24:38

in Hawaii. But that

24:40

that goes into the fact that

24:42

every morning for you has been

24:44

I have 17 things to do

24:46

and 17 things I don't know

24:48

if I have to do, but

24:50

I might have to do. And

24:52

if I have to do any

24:54

of those, then I can't do

24:56

the podcast. So it's always Friday

24:59

morning because of that reason. And

25:01

to answer your question, it was

25:03

about a month straight. I think

25:05

it was four weeks a row

25:07

where I thought you were coming

25:09

back. I would tell, you

25:11

know, we talk for a

25:13

little bit before and after we actually start recording.

25:15

So if you want to be around for

25:17

that, then join the Discord. But

25:19

I remember telling everyone in the Discord for

25:21

that month straight that, all right, Matt,

25:24

we'll be back next week. This is the

25:26

last solo podcast for me. And look

25:28

forward to that. And we'll get back into

25:30

the swing of things. And then it

25:32

just didn't happen and didn't happen and didn't

25:34

happen. And. I wasn't sure it was

25:36

going to happen today. Oh,

25:39

I don't blame you. When you first sort

25:41

of reacted to me asking you the

25:43

perennial or the weekly morning, Friday morning question

25:45

of what's going on with the podcast. Because

25:48

if you say no, I

25:50

can't do it today, then I have a couple

25:52

of hours to come up with a topic. So

25:54

it's a little bit, ends up being a little

25:56

bit of a scramble for me. No, I knew

25:58

that I put you in a bad spot. What

26:00

am I talking about today? What's

26:02

grinding my gears this week? I

26:04

felt bad about that, but it must

26:07

have been terrible for you, Kevin, that

26:09

you get this promise so many times

26:11

that daddy's finally going to come

26:13

home with that carton of milk. Yeah,

26:15

and then I'm just sitting there with

26:17

a bowl of cornflakes dry. Cornflakes

26:20

dry. You've been staring at

26:22

that bowl since the middle of December, waiting

26:25

for daddy. There's

26:28

an added component to this though

26:30

too, which is that you

26:32

have those 17 things and then the

26:34

17 mites and all of this. And

26:36

as you're navigating the day, your

26:39

abilities to do any of

26:41

those things change based on

26:43

your energy and like mental

26:45

acuity and all of that.

26:48

So I could plan out a

26:50

day with certainty and then

26:53

maybe by 11. maybe by noon,

26:55

I would be in a very

26:57

different position. Never better. Never

27:00

like, ooh, I got this. I'm on

27:02

the top of my game for the afternoon. No,

27:04

no, no, it's always worse. And then

27:06

you have to readjust and push some

27:08

things and, you know, and it makes

27:10

it makes everything impossible. But I want

27:12

to say something. I want to say

27:14

a few things. First,

27:17

I got some really

27:19

excellent messages from podcast

27:22

people, discord people, baby

27:24

gang, all of

27:26

it. Really wonderful messages

27:28

and nods, and thank

27:30

you all for that.

27:34

I have a backlog that is

27:36

insane, so I haven't been able

27:38

to hit everybody, but I will. It

27:41

meant quite a lot. The

27:44

second thing is, Kevin,

27:47

thank you for going to my mother's

27:49

funeral. This was a very, very big

27:51

deal to me. And Ben as well,

27:54

producer Ben was

27:56

there. That

27:59

was extremely meaningful. So

28:01

I would say broadly

28:03

to everybody, go to

28:05

funerals. I know it's grim, but

28:08

it's actually not. It's nice. Go

28:11

to funerals, go to

28:13

your friends' events, the

28:15

things that matter. because

28:19

generally people don't. They

28:21

just don't. You

28:23

know, a lot can't. You can't expect

28:25

every funeral in the world to fit, especially

28:27

at our age when people have families

28:29

and obligations and all that. But

28:32

you know, if you can

28:34

make it all it takes is

28:36

two minutes, you hit something

28:38

like calling hours and just face

28:41

to face, be there

28:43

to validate that the

28:45

experience that's happening matters. Five

28:47

cat says just show

28:49

up in any way, you

28:51

know boss threads did

28:53

this With when both my

28:55

my dad and mom

28:57

passed, you know shot me

28:59

a note That's all

29:01

it takes doesn't take much

29:03

and that is super

29:06

super meaningful So it meant

29:08

a lot to not

29:10

just me but but you

29:12

know my family Kevin

29:14

that you were there That's

29:17

just a bigger deal than

29:19

you'd think and everybody should know

29:21

that. I wish I'd really

29:23

understood how important that was when

29:25

I was like 21. I

29:28

would have gone to a lot more

29:30

funerals in the last 20 years and I

29:32

think a lot of people would have Calling

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30:07

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30:10

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30:12

Verizon Business is so perfect. Now I can

30:14

choose exactly what I want and I only

30:16

pay for what I need. Well,

30:34

I think this is the thing that's

30:36

going to be increasingly rare, just

30:39

in general, is our people leaving the

30:41

house to show up to do

30:43

a thing that, you know, is not

30:45

really super exciting. and

30:47

is actually pretty depressing, but

30:49

at the same time

30:51

is extremely important and meaningful.

30:55

And you and I were actually talking

30:57

about that this morning in regards to

30:59

another event that you and I were

31:01

discussing going to or not. And

31:03

after going back and forth

31:06

for about 10 minutes, it was

31:08

like a lightning bolt in

31:10

the brain to be like, definitely

31:12

go, definitely go because of

31:14

what you said earlier. Because no

31:16

one else will. No

31:18

one else is going.

31:21

So there are like many

31:23

examples of this that

31:25

I think bucket into this

31:27

same sort of overall

31:29

concept that I have about

31:31

success. And we

31:33

talk about that a lot on

31:35

this podcast. And in many ways,

31:37

that's sort of the point of

31:39

it. So I think it's important

31:41

to bring up here, which is

31:43

how would I bumper stick it?

31:45

Bumpers sticker this it's almost like

31:47

almost no one does anything So

31:49

if you do a thing it

31:51

will stand out if you do

31:53

anything then you are all of

31:55

a sudden vaulted to the head

31:57

of the line of any endeavor

31:59

that you wish to be You

32:01

know considered a part of you're

32:03

in the 99 % Just by

32:05

doing something like showing up instantly.

32:07

Yeah or doing the thing that

32:09

you say that you're going to

32:11

do. Oh, I'm going to do

32:13

this thing. Here's

32:16

a very selfish

32:18

example. So bear with

32:20

me with this very selfish example. Five

32:23

or six years ago, I

32:25

made t -shirts for Sleep Warrior.

32:27

When I first had written that

32:29

original manuscript for Sleep Warrior, I

32:32

wanted to make t -shirts for it.

32:36

So I did I hired an artist

32:38

and you know paid him a

32:40

couple hundred bucks or whatever it was

32:42

to do an original design for

32:45

sleep warrior and I did a limited

32:47

run of like 100 shirts that

32:49

they weren't print on demand so I

32:51

had to buy them I had

32:53

to buy all 100 shirts outright and

32:55

store them in my house and

32:58

Ship them individually to anyone who ordered

33:00

one So it wasn't like a

33:02

Teespring sort of thing where I just

33:04

threw a design up and then,

33:06

you know, someone could buy it and

33:08

I would barely even know unless

33:11

I checked my account. No,

33:13

this was like a very pretty intimate way

33:15

of doing it. But I wanted to

33:17

make sure that I was happy with the

33:19

garment and the print and blah, blah,

33:21

blah, because I'm a nerd like that. Anyway,

33:24

the reason that it connects to

33:26

this topic is that I did

33:28

a poll on Twitter before I

33:30

had purchased any shirts because as

33:32

you can imagine, the more shirts

33:34

you order, the cheaper the unit

33:36

cost is on each shirt. So,

33:38

you know, if you order 50

33:40

shirts, their X amount of dollars,

33:42

if you order 100, they're a

33:44

little cheaper. If you order 200,

33:46

they're even cheaper, et cetera, et

33:49

cetera, et cetera. So I did

33:51

a Twitter poll asking people and

33:53

I posted the design and I

33:55

said, if I sold this shirt,

33:57

what do you want to buy

33:59

one? Do you want to buy

34:01

a shirt from me? It's this

34:03

shirt. It's for sleep warrior. You

34:05

know, my novel, my

34:08

ongoing, ever -ending

34:10

working on novel. And

34:12

I think about 150

34:14

people or so said,

34:17

yes. Okay. So

34:19

I did this poll on Twitter about 150

34:21

people said, yes, I want to buy this

34:23

shirt. So I thought, great. If,

34:25

you know, 150 people say,

34:27

yes, I'll get 100 shirts. because

34:30

I figured there's going to be some variance

34:32

and some drop -off. But I'll sell

34:34

the 100 shirts, no problem, out of 150

34:36

people who say yes. I

34:39

think I'm trying to be... This

34:41

was years ago, so I'm trying to

34:43

be a little charitable here, but

34:45

I think maybe 12 of those people,

34:47

like 12 people, bought a shirt.

34:49

It was something around... We'll just say

34:51

10 to make it like a

34:53

round number. Maybe 10 out

34:56

of that 150 people who said,

34:58

yes, I will buy the shirt,

35:00

I actually bought the shirt. So

35:02

obviously it's really easy to

35:04

click yes on a Twitter poll

35:06

and much harder to convert

35:08

on a sale and spend $20

35:11

on the shirt and purchase

35:13

it. But the drop off was

35:15

crazy to me. So like

35:17

I said, I mean, it's a

35:19

similar ratio where it's super

35:21

easy to say you're going to

35:23

do a thing. And then

35:25

the amount of people who actually

35:28

do it. is a tiny

35:30

and memorable pile because I remember

35:32

like the 10 people who

35:34

bought the shirt. I'll remember them

35:36

forever because it was such

35:38

a tiny group of people who

35:40

actually followed through. Yeah. Yeah.

35:43

And that was a high conversion,

35:45

too. It's usually

35:47

like 1%. Because I see

35:50

authors talk about this a

35:52

lot on Twitter, like the

35:54

self -published ones who are tracking

35:56

not only tracking their own

35:58

sales date today like that.

36:00

But they have numbers that

36:02

are smaller. The self

36:04

-published people on Twitter are not

36:06

selling 10 ,000 copies a day. And

36:10

so they'll do a poll where it's

36:12

like, who wants this? Making something up.

36:14

But who wants this in hardcover? They

36:16

have a following. They have fans. They

36:18

have people who know their writing. They

36:20

have people who probably bought e -books

36:22

or whatever it was. And they'll get

36:24

that 100, 150 people are like, yeah,

36:26

of course I want this. And then

36:28

I'll see a follow up tweet that

36:30

they sold to, you know,

36:32

and that the conversion is truly like

36:34

one to 2 % on the stuff

36:37

that you're talking about. So the

36:39

fact that you were like eight to

36:41

10 % is crazy. You have

36:43

the best following in the world and here

36:45

you have the best friends in the world

36:47

complaining about it. And it's

36:49

like a remarkable conversion rate, but

36:51

it's still it's the same. It's

36:53

the same thing. It's like no

36:55

matter what you expect that to

36:58

be, it's going to be low.

37:00

It's going to be low, whether

37:02

you're talking about someone showing up

37:04

to a funeral or buying a

37:06

t -shirt or or a hardcover

37:08

book. the amount of people who

37:10

actually are going to do it

37:12

is to be barely anyone. So

37:15

if you're one of the barely

37:17

anyone, you stand out. You're memorable. You're

37:20

you're in the elite

37:22

club simply by following through

37:24

with the thing that

37:26

you said that you would

37:28

do, which seems like

37:30

not a big ask, but

37:32

it really is. It

37:34

really, really is, obviously. Yeah.

37:38

You know, before, for those of you

37:40

not lucky enough to see us

37:42

on video right now, as Kevin was

37:44

talking about the shirts, I

37:46

ran to the bathroom and I still have

37:48

my headphones on as I'm in the bathroom. I

37:51

always like listening to Kevin's voice

37:53

when my pants are down. It's

37:55

just a soothing

37:58

feeling. But it means that

38:00

I can't respond to anything that I'm hearing and

38:02

I just have to think about it. He's talking about

38:04

the unit price going down and I'm like, you

38:06

know, If that's the case, you could have put an

38:08

order in for 10 million shirts and they would

38:10

have been free. Like it would

38:12

go to zero. And yeah,

38:14

you got hosed. They would pay

38:16

me at 10 million shirts. Buster

38:19

had said in the chat that if they

38:21

were gildens, they start paying you. Yeah.

38:25

Gilden is a good sandpaper

38:27

t -shirt. The

38:29

other thing is, you

38:32

know, you're saying like, how do I distill

38:34

this? Whatever. I think Vibecat did it. in the

38:36

episode chat. Vibecat

38:38

said, in all

38:40

caps, which matters here,

38:43

just show up. And that,

38:45

honestly, is it. Just

38:47

show up. Show up

38:50

for things. Make the

38:52

shirt order when you've said to

38:54

somebody you like or you know

38:56

that you will do that. Just

38:59

show up to the funeral. Just

39:01

show up to you know, the thing

39:03

that Kevin was talking about that

39:05

he and I were discussing, you

39:07

know, we went to a thing

39:09

where there weren't very many people

39:11

at all, and we were probably

39:13

the only people not connected to

39:15

the people putting on the event.

39:19

We showed up.

39:22

Nobody in a capital city of a

39:24

state showed up, but we drove

39:26

an hour to show up. That's a

39:28

nice thing. I

39:30

am a champion show

39:32

or upper. Okay. There

39:34

at least I was in my earlier

39:36

years. Now I don't step off the

39:38

porch unless I need my passport. But

39:41

I so I would do that.

39:43

I remember very distinctly. There was a

39:45

course that I needed in college.

39:47

I needed it to satisfy a certain

39:49

requirement. That wasn't like a one

39:52

on one level. was actually the higher

39:54

level requirement, which meant that you

39:56

can't just show up and be one

39:58

of like 200 people. There were

40:00

like 15 I found out about like

40:02

15 people in this class. So I

40:04

called, I called the registrar. I'd like to sign up

40:06

for this course. We can't do that. That's,

40:08

you know, you, it's, um, it

40:10

needs professor approval for that. Um,

40:13

you know, there's enough time for you

40:15

to get that, whatever it was going to

40:17

be impossible. And so, you know,

40:19

20 minutes before the course met for

40:21

the first time, I just went to it

40:24

and pled my case to the, the

40:26

professor and I said, you know, I really

40:28

like to do this and here I

40:30

am. And it was fine. You

40:32

know, he's like, oh, you know, the

40:34

initiative of that made it obvious that I

40:37

was a serious enough student to be

40:39

approved. And he said, yeah, okay, you know,

40:41

I'll sign the form, whatever, just

40:43

bring that, you know, tomorrow or

40:45

something. That was it. I just

40:47

showed up and it ended up

40:50

very luckily leading to an incredible

40:52

relationship with that professor that pays

40:54

off every day of my life. But

40:56

even if it didn't, I would have satisfied that

40:58

requirement. Other people had

41:00

nightmarish scheduling stuff. They had

41:02

to just throw up their

41:04

hands and take another course

41:06

the following semester Some had

41:08

to do sneak a thing

41:10

in in the summer because

41:12

it wasn't offered some went

41:15

to Other schools in the

41:17

summer that were around their

41:19

hometowns and then had courses

41:21

transfer was all this all

41:23

these things because they they

41:25

went through this, you know

41:27

labyrinth Kafka -esque process with

41:29

Whatever. I showed

41:31

up. I had a decent

41:33

polite conversation. I wasn't a moron.

41:35

I wasn't an idiot about it.

41:37

I wasn't entitled. I didn't say,

41:39

like, you got to let me

41:41

in here. There was no entitlement. Boom.

41:44

Got it done. That pays

41:47

serious, serious dividends.

41:50

Show up to things. How

41:52

many people are so

41:54

resentful and miserable because

41:57

they don't have any

41:59

romantic of any kind.

42:02

And when you talk to them, you realize

42:04

how would they ever meet anybody?

42:07

Nothing in their life would

42:09

lead to meeting another

42:11

human being. You

42:13

gotta show up to some things. You

42:16

gotta do something. And

42:18

the truth is that nobody

42:20

does anything, period. I

42:23

have two things about just

42:25

showing up. One is that Um,

42:27

I so I I read

42:29

the most random stuff just because

42:31

I I don't know what

42:33

it is. Uh, I just I

42:35

just like learning about human

42:37

beings. I guess I'm just like

42:40

perpetually interested in like real

42:42

human beings stories. What if the

42:44

thing so I did a

42:46

whole podcast, maybe like a podcast

42:48

and a half while you

42:50

were gone about how disgusted I

42:52

am with TV shows and

42:54

movies because in my opinion, they're

42:56

they're they're lying They're lying

42:59

all the time about real people

43:01

and real stories and how

43:03

real human beings interact. That's that's

43:05

my base level analysis of

43:07

why I don't like them. Because

43:09

I love real people and

43:11

real stories and real problems that

43:13

people have. So I read

43:15

about this stuff a lot in

43:18

a lot of different avenues.

43:20

One of the things I read

43:22

had to do actually with

43:24

this topic as it relates to.

43:26

college students no longer showing

43:28

up to class. So there was

43:30

this really long article that

43:32

I read from a professor who

43:34

worked, I don't know, I

43:37

don't recall what school he's in.

43:39

Somewhere in America, it doesn't

43:41

matter. Who was

43:43

talking about how, and he's

43:45

been a professor for several decades. So

43:48

this was his kids these

43:50

days rant, but his kids these

43:52

days rant. is based upon

43:54

his tenured experience being a college

43:57

professor and he was saying

43:59

that attendance to class is now

44:01

like just a thought. It's

44:03

just it's not it's not anything

44:05

that anyone adheres to to

44:08

any serious degree and that you

44:10

know kids show up sometimes

44:12

I guess when they feel like

44:14

it they'll leave they'll just

44:16

get up and leave when they're

44:18

over it. I don't know,

44:21

just walk out in the middle

44:23

of class because something shiny

44:25

has appeared, but they

44:27

just show up. So so when

44:29

I say that this is a

44:31

problem that's going to get worse,

44:34

the reason that I say that

44:36

is based upon things that I've

44:38

read like this in which a

44:40

lot of people are not showing

44:42

up even for the things that

44:44

in the past you were required

44:47

to if you didn't want to

44:49

fail a class like. Yeah. Attendance

44:51

is part of your grade when

44:53

I was in school, but it

44:55

sounds like it almost no longer

44:57

even can be because everybody would

45:00

fail. You'd just be failing

45:02

half the class because they barely ever

45:04

show up. I mean, I don't remember. You

45:06

would probably remember better than I

45:08

will what like the unexcused absence total

45:10

was that you were allowed to

45:13

maybe in a semester. I don't think

45:15

it was more than that. It

45:17

was very it was like. I want

45:19

to say two. But

45:21

yeah, I had it one because a

45:23

lot of my courses were three

45:25

hour seminars once a week. Okay. And

45:27

it's like if you miss one of

45:29

those, you miss the equivalent of

45:31

a week of class. Like you can't

45:33

miss a lot of that. Yeah. So

45:35

the other thing that I talked

45:37

about a little bit while you were

45:39

away was when I became the editor

45:42

for the comic section of the

45:44

newspaper at college. And that

45:46

was 100 % a

45:48

just show up

45:50

situation. 100%. It had

45:52

nothing to do with anything other

45:54

than just showing up. And

45:56

in that case, just showing up

45:58

meant write and draw a

46:01

new comic every week and submit

46:03

it to the newspaper. Every

46:05

single week I sat down, the

46:08

deadline was like Saturdays because that's

46:10

when the editor would do the

46:12

layout for the week. So you

46:14

put a new comic in the

46:16

editor's mailbox by Saturday, and then

46:18

it would be published the following

46:20

Tuesday, I think, is when the

46:22

newspaper came out. So

46:24

in a school of

46:26

thousands of students, thousands

46:29

of students, I

46:31

was the only one who

46:33

did that. I was the

46:35

only one who attended this

46:37

entire university who would put

46:40

a new frickin' comic in

46:42

her mailbox every single week.

46:44

without fail. So when she

46:46

was graduating and she's thinking, who am

46:48

I going to, who's going to replace

46:50

me? I need to find someone to

46:52

replace me as editor. Who do

46:54

you think she asked? Just me.

46:57

Yeah. Because I showed up and

46:59

I wouldn't go away. And

47:01

honestly, this is what happened with

47:03

Vsauce. The Vsauce story

47:05

is the same just

47:07

show up story. So

47:10

originally Vsauce was a

47:12

collection of different contributors

47:14

to this channel, the

47:16

comedy, a video game comedy

47:18

channel. And it was Andre,

47:21

the black nerd. It

47:23

was the screen team. It

47:25

was wacky gamer. It was

47:27

a bunch of different people. And I was one

47:29

of them. And then I just didn't

47:31

go away. I kept making

47:33

new videos and sending them to

47:35

Michael until he just. was like,

47:37

do you want to just do

47:39

Vsauce 2? Well, I just do

47:42

Vsauce 1. It's like, OK, so

47:44

now I'm just Vsauce 2. It's

47:46

the same thing.

47:49

The PC gave us computing power at

47:51

home, the internet connected us, and mobile

47:53

let us do it pretty much anywhere.

47:55

Now Generative AI lets us communicate with

47:57

technology in our own language using our

48:00

own senses. But figuring it all

48:02

out when you're living through it is

48:04

a totally different story. Welcome to leading the

48:06

shift. a new podcast for Microsoft Azure.

48:08

I'm your host, Susan Etlinger. In each episode,

48:10

leaders will share what they're learning to

48:12

help you navigate all this change with confidence.

48:15

Please join us. Listen and subscribe wherever

48:17

you get your podcasts. It

48:19

seems to have worked out for you. It's

48:21

gone okay. We've

48:23

talked too. I tried to show

48:26

up for you in the early

48:28

days of stuff where That's literally

48:30

how i got in the fold

48:32

is the same type of story

48:34

as you had with michael is

48:36

what i did. With you

48:39

where it's like you need

48:41

this i will do this as

48:43

as. You know promised

48:45

on time without you know all the

48:47

normal stuff there's nothing special about it

48:49

but you expect this to happen it

48:51

happened. And you do

48:53

that over and over again

48:55

until it grows becomes

48:57

real whatever is literally all

48:59

it takes. is

49:02

that kind of thing. You

49:04

were talking about the college stuff. There was

49:06

a time at which I had, you know, I

49:08

had office hours. And well, when I was

49:10

a student going to office hours, nobody

49:12

goes to office hours. They

49:14

don't. They don't. They have

49:17

this incredible access to who is

49:19

somebody who's hopefully a good

49:21

knowledgeable professor. A lot of them

49:23

stink. But, you know, you've got

49:25

a couple of good ones in the mix.

49:27

And every week you can go in and sit

49:29

across a desk from them and talk to

49:32

them. And almost nobody

49:34

takes that opportunity. When

49:36

I was a teaching fellow, I had,

49:38

you know, my own office hours. I

49:40

remember two people who came

49:43

in because they were just

49:45

like students wanted to talk

49:47

further about the material. The

49:49

others who came in were questioning

49:52

grades or grubbing for grades. That's it.

49:54

That's not cool. That's not cool.

49:56

Spencer said, Spencer Roney in the chat,

49:58

like all the jobs that he

50:00

got were pretty much from showing up

50:02

and talking to people. And I

50:05

pointed out that he's a, for

50:07

those of you who haven't had

50:09

the absolute pleasure of meeting and

50:11

hanging around with Spencer, he's

50:13

good -natured and not weird. Again,

50:17

that's all it takes. So he talked

50:19

to these people, he's a decent guy. He's

50:21

weird in the right ways. in

50:23

the good way. Oh my god! I'm

50:25

sorry, but Spencer showed up. That's

50:27

how we know him. I know, I

50:29

know, I know. I just wanted

50:31

to caveat that, you know, he makes

50:33

videos for, like, toilet companies. Yeah,

50:36

he's weird in the good ways. He

50:38

is, but you don't talk to him for

50:40

five minutes and think like, holy shit, that's a

50:43

weirdo. No, not at all. Yeah,

50:45

so he's a perfect example

50:47

here because he Listen to the

50:49

podcast. He showed up when

50:51

I did street. I did some

50:53

streaming stuff on Twitch He

50:55

popped into the twitch and and

50:57

we talked for a while

50:59

and got to know each other

51:01

and had a great deal

51:03

in common with background and Geography

51:05

and personality all this stuff.

51:07

It was awesome. And so when

51:09

we needed When we needed

51:11

some more things, that's who we

51:13

went to Because he showed

51:15

up. It's I can't believe we

51:17

didn't lead with this that

51:19

that's That's it. Yeah, I

51:22

mean, yeah, the truth is you

51:24

do kind of, you know, the

51:26

best showing up happens after somebody,

51:28

after you've like borderline stalked so

51:30

that you know what you're getting

51:32

into. As long as the

51:34

person doesn't know that you were creepy. You're

51:37

like secretly creepy and then

51:39

you show up and hopefully get

51:41

along. Hopefully that person notices

51:43

you. They don't always. You

51:46

can show up 100 times and it

51:48

just. Isn't happening whatever so what on

51:50

the next one you show up to

51:52

ten things. Maybe one works out. We

51:54

took him to Vienna. He showed up

51:56

so well that we literally took him

51:58

to Vienna to shoot the Polaroid documentary.

52:01

He shot it. Yep. Yep.

52:03

I'm working on a

52:05

documentary from a project in

52:07

Albania. We just showed

52:09

up. I I cold emailed

52:12

a man in Albania.

52:14

and said, we booked this,

52:16

we're gonna be there,

52:18

can you help us? And

52:21

we got along well and we

52:23

ended up spending two weeks with him

52:25

and it led to an incredible

52:27

story that we're putting this video together.

52:30

Jeff Strife, yes, Spenseroni has been

52:32

doing some audio editing, he

52:34

did a great deal of stuff

52:36

last year on our assorted

52:38

projects. And you know, there was

52:40

a thing, there was

52:42

an event in Las Vegas in July

52:45

I think last year. Where

52:48

this organization really needed somebody to

52:50

film film content kind of like

52:52

man on the street interviews. And

52:55

it was like oh my god

52:57

who can we get to do this

52:59

on short notice whatever. I

53:02

said hey I know a guy

53:04

and we got in touch with

53:06

the Spencer Rooney. And

53:08

later that day, he had his tickets booked to

53:10

Vegas. We booked his hotel room. We had a

53:12

hell of a time. We had a really nice

53:14

time there. And

53:16

producer Ben was there too. It

53:18

was good. Ben just showed up

53:20

back in the day. And a lot of

53:22

White Castle. Yeah, Spenceroni and I played, we

53:25

played some poker at the horseshoe

53:27

and then bought a crave case

53:29

at White Castle at three in

53:31

the morning. that? White Castle is

53:33

disgusting. Oh my God. What was

53:35

it? Spencer, it was like 50, Cheeseburgers.

53:39

It was one of

53:41

the briefcases with a handle.

53:43

What is 50 cheeseburgers

53:45

run yet? Why castle 10

53:47

bucks? It was

53:49

like 30 because it was on the middle of

53:51

the strip. But it

53:53

took me most of a week to

53:55

eat those and I still left

53:57

some in the mini fridge when I.

53:59

I left Vegas. There's still some

54:01

in your colon right now. Actually, you

54:03

haven't passed. I forgot

54:05

about that. He said a woman on the street asked

54:07

us if we were going to feed a football team. It

54:11

was a comical amount of White

54:13

Castle, but, you know, we'd had a

54:15

fun poker time and then it

54:17

was White Castle. But look, why

54:19

did this happen? Because Spencer showed

54:21

up and then six, eight months

54:23

later, we're eating

54:25

diaper meat. cheeseburgers

54:28

in Vegas for work. I

54:30

mean, it was a legitimate, like

54:32

we had a, it

54:34

has paid off nicely, like it was

54:36

a very good event to do. Yeah,

54:40

show up. It's

54:42

literally it. I

54:46

struggle with this because it's so

54:48

simple. This is all too simple, isn't

54:51

it? And I feel like the simpler a

54:53

thing is, the harder it is to get

54:55

people to do. Well, the reason that very

54:57

few people do it is because it's hard

54:59

to get people to do. If it were

55:01

easy to people do, for people

55:03

to do, everyone would do it. That's

55:05

why it's rare. Yeah. You know, it's

55:07

way easier to just not do the

55:10

thing, no matter what it is,

55:12

than it is to do it. And

55:14

so, you know, you go through the

55:16

path of least resistance and just say,

55:18

nah, and don't do the

55:20

thing. You don't make that comic every

55:22

week. I got to make another one.

55:24

Nah, I don't want to do that.

55:26

So I'm not gonna, I'll just hang

55:29

out with my friends and drink and

55:31

watch TV and play video games and

55:33

that's more fun than sitting down and

55:35

thinking of a comic and drawing it

55:37

and maybe it sucks and maybe you

55:39

get blowback from it and you're putting

55:41

yourself out there and you don't want

55:44

to handle any of that stress because

55:46

there's stress involved in showing up. There's

55:48

unknown involved in showing up. I

55:50

want to to point out

55:52

a subset of this too.

55:54

That's the stress -free not

55:56

showing up. And this is

55:58

something I've experienced with auctions a

56:00

lot. I love auctions. And

56:03

this is, I've come to

56:05

realize over the last few years

56:07

how difficult this is for

56:09

the world to understand because auctions

56:11

are very, very much a

56:13

Northeast and New England phenomenon at

56:15

this point in time. This

56:17

is in -person estate auctions. And

56:19

I know this now. I really have a

56:21

good sense of it because I'll be talking

56:23

to a friend somewhere about auctions. Oh,

56:26

and before I forget, Spencer said he

56:28

got all his jobs that way. Veterans

56:30

of the create unknown.

56:32

Remember Sean Malone talking about

56:34

exactly this. All of

56:36

his jobs came from showing up, too. And

56:39

he spent a lot of time going into what

56:41

they were. He's like, hey, show up,

56:43

do a thing. Yeah, I'll do it

56:45

for free. You know, he talked about the

56:47

video editing job for the wedding company that he

56:49

he was editing videos on an Amiga. That's

56:52

how low rent the thing

56:54

was. But that got

56:56

him started. And now he

56:58

has a fantastic creative career.

57:02

But anyway, I'll be talking to somebody in

57:04

some other part of the country and just

57:06

be like, you know, they're like, oh, this

57:08

sounds really cool that you can go and

57:10

buy furniture and books and just all the

57:12

stuff that people have in their house. Um,

57:15

and then I'll look up on a

57:17

site called auction zip, which is like

57:19

the database of, of auctions and when

57:21

they are the calendar, I'll put their

57:23

zip code in search for something within

57:25

30, 50 miles. And in a big

57:27

city, there will be like one, you

57:29

know, I am not in a big

57:31

city. I am in nowhere. I'll search.

57:33

And in a week, there will be

57:35

12 or 15 different types. So

57:37

I understand this is difficult. And

57:39

I have no idea if how

57:42

it works outside the US too.

57:46

But anyway, it's all these household possessions.

57:49

If there's something you're interested in, you

57:51

generally have a sense of how much

57:53

it would cost you to get on

57:55

eBay or new at a furniture store

57:57

or whatever it is. You have some

57:59

sense of this. And it's really easy

58:01

to overthink and not quite psych yourself

58:03

out, but overthink it. I know this

58:05

thing is worth $200. There's

58:07

no way I'll be able to

58:10

go to this auction and get a

58:12

really good price because everybody else

58:14

knows this too. It does

58:16

not work that way. It does not

58:18

work that way. Showing up and

58:20

bidding, you would be surprised at how few

58:22

people don't go because they don't think they're going

58:24

to get a price and even don't bid

58:26

in the heat of the moment because they think

58:28

the bid is going to go too hot.

58:30

What's the point in bidding $100 when you know

58:32

it's going to go for two? So

58:34

you drop out. Well, then somebody

58:36

gets the thing for $120 and

58:39

you're sitting there in a puddle of

58:41

regret. This

58:43

has happened so many

58:45

times, even recently for me,

58:49

where you just show up and

58:51

put a bit on something

58:53

and it shocks you that nobody

58:55

else showed up and put

58:57

a higher bit on the thing.

59:00

And you get stuff a

59:02

tremendously good bargain sometimes. But

59:05

it's that simple. So you can

59:07

be really stressed out. You know, there's

59:09

that category of stuff that you

59:11

just went over, Kevin, where the stress

59:14

of it keeps you from showing

59:16

up. And then there's that category of

59:18

stuff where you really decide not

59:20

to show up and you do it

59:22

in a rational way, but it's

59:24

totally wrong. And your rationality is assuming

59:27

everybody else is rational. It's

59:29

a mix of game theory

59:31

and economic stuff some of you

59:33

will appreciate, but on a

59:35

base level, it's really most people

59:37

psyching themselves out. It's that

59:40

simple. You know, and you

59:42

also don't know the key to knowing

59:44

that I'll never know was I

59:46

was bidding on some old milk bottles,

59:48

glass ones, vintage ones. There's

59:50

one from a local dairy in

59:52

the 50s called Meadowlark. And

59:55

I bought these three bottles, two

59:57

were things I didn't want. I

59:59

want this Meadowlark one. And

1:00:01

I was bidding on the whole thing because I

1:00:03

like the local history stuff. And

1:00:06

I was like, oh, God, as the bidding

1:00:08

is happening, I'm thinking, this woman

1:00:10

bidding against me, you know, who

1:00:12

wants the local bottle more? And

1:00:14

I paid, I actually hit my limit

1:00:16

on pricing, which was 35 for

1:00:18

those three bottles. And I was

1:00:20

like, ah, balls. I hope to get

1:00:22

it cheaper. You always hope to spend as little money

1:00:25

as possible. But I was comfortable with that price. A

1:00:27

few minutes later, she came up

1:00:29

to me and said, you bought three

1:00:31

bottles. I really only want one

1:00:33

of them. And it's this Meadowlark Dairy

1:00:35

one. And I was like,

1:00:37

actually, it's the only one I want. I'm

1:00:40

sorry. I can't, you know, I

1:00:42

don't want to sell that one to you. You

1:00:44

want the other two? No, she didn't. She

1:00:46

didn't want them because she had

1:00:48

a friend who had just

1:00:50

gotten a puppy that the woman

1:00:52

had named Meadowlark. And so

1:00:54

she wanted to be a good

1:00:56

friend and buy a gift

1:00:59

with that puppy's name on it

1:01:01

to give to her friend

1:01:03

to celebrate the... the new puppy.

1:01:06

Kevin, are you still with me? Yeah, yeah.

1:01:08

I was going to ask you to

1:01:10

tell this story because I thought it was

1:01:13

funny because you were so excited about

1:01:15

the historical value of this milk bottle. Oh,

1:01:17

yeah. And then meanwhile, the person bidding

1:01:19

against you and driving you into madness over

1:01:21

what you were spending for these milk

1:01:23

bottles just wanted it as a gift for

1:01:25

her friend because the puppy had the

1:01:28

same name. Puppy had the same

1:01:30

name. Yeah, sorry. I asked that. I got

1:01:32

a phone call that nuked my headphones. The

1:01:35

ringer did. I forgot to turn it off.

1:01:37

So I thought I'd killed my connection. But

1:01:39

yeah, that's when that's when I'm like,

1:01:41

okay, you never know what somebody else

1:01:43

is thinking. We were in this bidding

1:01:45

war where I'm trying to get this

1:01:47

historical milk bottle. You know,

1:01:50

I'm pumped about it. And then it's like puppy

1:01:52

gift. And we have

1:01:54

totally different motivations. still

1:01:56

arriving at the same price where

1:01:58

I was comfortable with $35 and

1:02:01

she topped out at $32 .50.

1:02:03

So effectively, we were at the

1:02:05

same value. We were thinking $30 to

1:02:07

$35 for this is cool. She

1:02:09

wants a coincidental puppy gift and

1:02:11

I want what I think is

1:02:13

an important historical bottle. You

1:02:16

never know. We were both being

1:02:18

completely rational, but you have no

1:02:20

idea what somebody else is thinking.

1:02:22

So you show up, you do

1:02:24

your thing, And then process whatever

1:02:26

you encounter. I have lost

1:02:28

many times. Kevin, you've seen me lose. Kevin

1:02:32

and I went to an auction at one

1:02:34

point where this one guy bought like $4

1:02:36

,000 of stuff. You know the guy, I

1:02:38

mean. Yeah. And I will

1:02:40

say quickly that if you ever have

1:02:42

the opportunity, I mean, Matt loves

1:02:44

auctions. This is not something I ever would have

1:02:46

considered going to if it weren't for him

1:02:48

to say, hey, I'm going to this thing. Do

1:02:50

you want to tag along? Yeah. Okay. I

1:02:52

guess so. Just out of sheer curiosity. Wow,

1:02:55

is it really interesting, you

1:02:57

know after the first one

1:02:59

that I went to I

1:03:01

was like this should be

1:03:03

its own reality TV show

1:03:06

because everyone in here is

1:03:08

so bizarre and They come

1:03:10

from God knows where you

1:03:12

know out of what little

1:03:15

hovel they've escaped to gather

1:03:17

here in this place to

1:03:19

bid on any range of

1:03:21

knickknacks or collectibles or junk

1:03:23

of just straight junk. I

1:03:26

mean, it is a whole

1:03:28

gamut of people and items

1:03:30

and and, you know, economic

1:03:32

decisions, what people will pay

1:03:34

for something and what they

1:03:36

won't. If you're if

1:03:38

you're like me and you just

1:03:40

like human endeavor in general,

1:03:42

there really is nothing comparable in

1:03:44

my opinion. to the experience

1:03:46

of going to one of these

1:03:48

auctions. It is unique in

1:03:50

every way. It's fascinating. It's

1:03:52

fascinating. And it's cool

1:03:55

when you know about the items because

1:03:57

you're seeing what's happening. It's actually cooler

1:03:59

when you don't know what's held up

1:04:01

for sale. And I remember distinctly, Kevin,

1:04:03

that they had a lot of what

1:04:05

they call primitives, which I think is

1:04:07

a bit of a denigrating term. But

1:04:10

they were like basic handmade wooden

1:04:12

things, carved things. They had a lot

1:04:14

of wooden bowls. And Kevin,

1:04:16

do you remember the first time they held

1:04:18

up some of this old shitty wooden bowl

1:04:20

and it sold for like $200? Yeah,

1:04:23

I think well, I think

1:04:25

they they sold one of

1:04:27

those bowls for like $900

1:04:29

and my yeah, my head

1:04:32

is exploding. I'm like $900

1:04:34

for a wooden bowl, but

1:04:36

yes. Yeah. Yes, they were

1:04:38

they were fighting over it.

1:04:40

They were there was a

1:04:43

war of dollars over who

1:04:45

could get A bowl. A

1:04:47

bowl. A bowl that sucks. A

1:04:50

bowl that sucks. A

1:04:52

dirty old garbage bowl. A dirty

1:04:54

old bowl. Yeah. It's

1:04:57

so fascinating. But

1:04:59

when I mentioned that guy,

1:05:01

this is a guy who has

1:05:03

an interest in firearm stuff. And

1:05:06

so he's not, I

1:05:09

wouldn't call him a nemesis. An

1:05:12

adversary? He's an

1:05:14

adversary. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm

1:05:16

happy. He bids a

1:05:18

lot more strongly than I do.

1:05:20

I'm extremely disciplined with bidding,

1:05:22

like to a fault where I

1:05:24

don't overpay on anything. And

1:05:26

I do miss out on a lot of

1:05:28

things that I probably should get because I want

1:05:31

them so badly. He's a

1:05:33

lot more flexible on that.

1:05:35

So I'm routinely outbid by the

1:05:37

same guy. And that

1:05:39

I don't know. It's been

1:05:41

a couple of years now. I

1:05:43

have no idea who this

1:05:46

guy is. He bids and buys

1:05:48

things as if he runs

1:05:50

a shop. But I know

1:05:52

that he can't. That can't be the

1:05:54

motivation based on what he's paying for

1:05:56

certain items because he would never be

1:05:58

able to sell them a

1:06:01

good enough margin to make it

1:06:03

worth as well. So he's

1:06:05

probably a collector, which is awesome.

1:06:08

But like Kevin saw, those

1:06:10

thousands of dollars of stuff he bought It

1:06:12

was all over the place in terms of what

1:06:14

he bought. It was

1:06:17

like just old pulleys. Like,

1:06:19

oh, here are some old

1:06:21

barn pulleys. Two

1:06:24

hundred bucks. OK. What

1:06:26

are you doing with those? I

1:06:28

just. Oh, and one guy was pissed

1:06:30

that he lost the police. And

1:06:34

so you look at this, you're

1:06:36

like, why is that man so angry

1:06:38

that he lost a pulley? like

1:06:41

a barn pulley. Why

1:06:43

is this guy buying all of

1:06:45

this stuff when he's probably

1:06:47

not reselling? Is he a hoarder?

1:06:49

Does he really just collect

1:06:52

like a hundred different things? Is

1:06:54

he what is he doing? Do

1:06:57

you never know at all? You

1:06:59

just don't know. But

1:07:01

I show up and when

1:07:03

I see that guy, I

1:07:05

know I'm probably going to

1:07:07

have a hard time with

1:07:09

firearms. Sometimes I show

1:07:11

up and he's not

1:07:13

there. Maybe he has the

1:07:15

worst diarrhea of his

1:07:18

life. Maybe his

1:07:20

twin brother is in

1:07:22

town. Maybe he

1:07:24

wants to stay home and watch Dora.

1:07:27

I don't know. But I know that

1:07:29

when I show up, at least I'm

1:07:31

doing my part. And

1:07:33

I showed up a month ago.

1:07:35

I can't remember now because

1:07:37

of the weird. months and timeline.

1:07:40

Uh, you know, he wasn't there and

1:07:42

I went nuts. I mean, I had

1:07:44

a great time. There's, it was just

1:07:46

a day where there was like no

1:07:48

competition for the stuff that I wanted. Um,

1:07:52

yeah. Yeah. And like, because

1:07:54

I showed up, I got the cheapest stuff ever.

1:07:56

It was like one of the best days that

1:07:58

I've done on an auction. Dan, the latch says

1:08:00

that he went to an auction that had accordions,

1:08:02

but when the Amish were there, he knew he

1:08:04

was cooked. Uh, There

1:08:07

are a lot of Amish at the

1:08:09

auctions that I go to, which is

1:08:11

cool. Not so much Kevin, the one

1:08:13

that you and I went to. But

1:08:15

if it's like a barnish auction or

1:08:17

there's a place with a lot of

1:08:19

tools, hand tools, they're usually

1:08:22

Amish or food. Amish like buying

1:08:24

food and bulk, just like me. It's

1:08:26

fascinating though. It's fascinating. And all

1:08:28

of these people, this is the

1:08:31

whole point of the whole story. It's not that

1:08:33

auctions are cool. It's that all

1:08:35

of these people are showing up.

1:08:37

You can't win if you don't

1:08:39

play and that's the same with

1:08:41

trying to meet a significant other.

1:08:43

It's the same with a funeral.

1:08:45

It's the same with a food

1:08:47

auction. It's the same with a

1:08:49

job. Showing up is

1:08:51

like 95 % of it. If

1:08:53

you show up, you're not

1:08:55

weird and you just do the

1:08:57

thing. Okay. That's like easy

1:08:59

mode life. It truly is. It's

1:09:01

guaranteed success. Yeah, you're you're

1:09:04

a unicorn at that point. I

1:09:06

wanted to say that In

1:09:08

regards to one of the things

1:09:10

I find so interesting with

1:09:12

the auctions is that you'll have

1:09:14

a bowl or like a

1:09:16

cabinet like a shelf like a

1:09:18

rickety Falling apart shelf cabinet

1:09:20

that will sell for like $800

1:09:22

and then you'll have a

1:09:25

jewelry box Literally filled with jewelry

1:09:27

and nobody wants it. It's

1:09:29

like you think jewelry would be

1:09:31

one of the more like

1:09:33

expensive things that would go at

1:09:35

these auctions. No, don't care

1:09:37

about that. That's literally garbage. But,

1:09:39

you know, this bowl, now

1:09:42

I will mortgage the house. I'll

1:09:44

sell my mattress in order to buy

1:09:46

this bowl. Nike

1:09:48

has just do it. So,

1:09:51

you know, just do it is

1:09:53

one of the most successful slogans in

1:09:55

the history of branding and marketing. And

1:09:58

I actually think It's

1:10:00

simpler than that. I

1:10:03

think just show up is

1:10:05

an easier thing to

1:10:07

accomplish, but still just as

1:10:09

valuable and rare to

1:10:11

see through. Just start

1:10:13

there. Start was just showing up. And

1:10:15

then, you know, maybe do it later. That

1:10:18

would be my tack on.

1:10:22

Yeah, just show up. That's

1:10:24

it. All right. Well,

1:10:26

Matt, it's wonderful having you back.

1:10:28

How does it feel? Do you

1:10:30

feel like you were you're rusty? It's

1:10:33

seamless. Okay. Good. Good. See,

1:10:35

absolutely seamless. Like you never left.

1:10:38

Yeah, it is. I've

1:10:40

done more talking in the last

1:10:42

few months to two humans than

1:10:45

I actually last eight months. You

1:10:47

know, we've talked about this on the podcast, actual

1:10:50

like verbal stuff. I

1:10:53

would I didn't even talk to

1:10:55

you much because we didn't need

1:10:57

to, right? But like most of

1:10:59

me. most of me speaking was

1:11:01

doing this podcast and talking to

1:11:03

my mom and then all of

1:11:05

a sudden it was the events

1:11:07

like the one with Spencer, you

1:11:09

know, where I'm around all of

1:11:12

these people all the time is

1:11:14

talking there and then all those

1:11:16

trips talking then all of this

1:11:18

hospital stuff talking. I

1:11:20

feel like I have talked more in

1:11:22

the last eight months than my whole life.

1:11:26

And now it's back. I want to go back

1:11:28

to, I want to do even less. I

1:11:31

want to do less. I want to go

1:11:33

back to a point where I'm speaking as we

1:11:35

record the podcast and then I don't have

1:11:37

to say a word to anybody until the next

1:11:39

episode. That's what I

1:11:41

want. I only want to speak when this record

1:11:43

button is on. Okay. All right. Well, that'll be

1:11:45

your goal for the rest of this year. I

1:11:48

wish you well on that endeavor. All

1:11:51

right. Well, we'll be

1:11:53

back next week. Just show up.

1:11:55

And remember that. So

1:11:58

we'll be back. And until then, we

1:12:00

will see you, Space Cowboys. Thanks for

1:12:02

listening to The Create Unknown. We

1:12:04

make this show with the support

1:12:06

of our patrons. 100 % of that

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1:13:01

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