Old Guys Still ROCK

Blair Armstrong (01:15)
All right All right. All right. All right. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening wherever you may be This is your first time here. You have just found old guys still rock This will be the best podcast that you've never seen before in your life. So strap in Let give this your first time here. I'm blair armstrong of team armstrong cobalt banker

You kind of see behind me. I'm a global luxury specialist in the world of residential real estate here in beautiful beautiful Coachella Valley. We're actually today we're having Oregon weather. It's amazing. And if you don't know what Oregon weather is, it's gray clouds and rain. It's not that way all the time, but it's typically that way anyway. So today we're having that, which is awesome. We have a tropical storm that's on the West coast that we're just catching a tail of that. So

Brent Wright (01:53)
Mmm.

Wow.

Blair Armstrong (02:05)
Why do you care about the weather? Because we're old guys still rocking. That's what we talk about once in a while, man. That's what's up. And then on my left, possibly your right, depending on how this gets edited this week, is a good friend of mine and the other host of this show, Wright of Brent Wright Incorporated. We're going to figure out where he is here in a little bit. But if you don't know who Brent Wright is, Brent Wright has many different hats from detail shops to body shops. He's actually at

one of his other businesses, which is a payroll company. They're at a big conference in Las Vegas. Him and his wife opened up a wellness center. Are we at two years yet?

Brent Wright (02:43)
Two years November, buddy. Two years November.

Blair Armstrong (02:44)
November

so just a couple more weeks two years. They opened a wellness center changing lives of lots of other people He has a another great business. They just started with a contingent of other smart dudes called busted tees calm if you haven't been by their website right now, they got a lot of great novelty t-shirts So if you're a novelty t-shirt guy or you know somebody definitely go to busted tees calm. That is not an ad

I just know a great website, so anyway.

Brent Wright (03:13)
Well, it is an ad because we have some cool new King of the Hill stuff. We got the Cracker Barrel stuff. got all we make fun of just about everything in society of what's going on in the modern mainstream news right now. So.

Blair Armstrong (03:17)
Yeah.

I love it, but it really is one of the most important things that I love about Brent Wright for over 30 years. He has also been a super good friend of mine. Obviously, we were in episode 120 today of our episode, but he is a really, really great coach, not only personal, but business. So if you kind of find yourself in the rut, either personal-wise or business-wise, definitely go back through 119 other episodes.

Brent Wright (03:37)
Weep.

Blair Armstrong (03:55)
really check him out, peel back the onion. Is this guy for you? And if he is a fit for you, it's obviously very easy to find us, Linktree, Brent Wright. I think I finally got that right after 120 episodes. And then it's super easy to find us. DM us through Instagram, Facebook, whatever it is. But anyway, check us out. And if he is a fit for you and you're stuck with your business-wise, I would definitely...

Brent Wright (04:04)
Yep. Hilarious.

Blair Armstrong (04:19)
use him as a resource. But besides that, as I said, you're located in beautiful, beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada. And ⁓ hopefully,

Brent Wright (04:21)
Thank you.

Mm I got

your typical weather. It's like 75 degrees, right? And it's supposed to rain here in a little bit, quite frankly, kind of like what you're doing. ⁓ I just think, what are we, three hours up the canyon from here?

Blair Armstrong (04:31)
Muggy, right?

Yeah.

What about that?

Depends how fast you drive. I mean, it's typically, yeah, it's typically right on three and a half, four hours. so yeah, you know, it's Las Vegas where everything happens. You know, I've been hearing a lot about Las Vegas. They said their economy is really struggling and there's not anybody around. Are you, are you've seen that? Have you been out and enough to kind of feel that what's going on?

Brent Wright (04:54)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so tons of conference stuff. So, but the general vibe is probably half legitimately half people on the street. The casinos are not full on the floor yesterday when we, so we went and set up yesterday at our conference. So here for payroll, we're at an optometrist and ophthalmologist conference and we are the only payroll provider that has a booth.

out of 480 booths.

Blair Armstrong (05:32)
Wow.

Brent Wright (05:33)
Captive audience, right?

Blair Armstrong (05:35)
Wow. So all these guys, all these, all these guys doing I stuff, right? And you're the only payroll company there. good for you too.

Brent Wright (05:37)
So when I saw the opportunity.

14,000 people at the conference roughly, and most of them are decision makers. So back to the coaching, this is kind of the same type of decisions, thoughts, planning and process that I could help your business with.

Blair Armstrong (06:03)
It's outside the box,

Brent Wright (06:03)
strategic.

it's completely outside the box strategic planning outside the box holistic approach to coaching. So looking at it from a CFO perspective, which by the way, I am the director of sales nationally for this company. I do fractional CFO work. do all those things as well. But this is the strategy. I'm putting these people in the room.

with 14,000 decision makers and we're the only payroll provider that's there.

Blair Armstrong (06:32)
How did that

go when you first mentioned that? were they, were they looked as you like, you're some crazy man?

Brent Wright (06:37)
yeah, like I'm crazy, of course, right?

What do we want to do optometry and ophthalmology as a vertical for? Because it's untapped. It's untapped. And the reason why it's untapped is because everybody looks at customers as a commodity. And the the average company only stays with a vendor 2.5 years. Doesn't matter what the, what the genre is.

2.5 years average vendor stay. Our average customer stays with us for 8.1 years.

Blair Armstrong (07:10)
Wow.

Brent Wright (07:12)
And so with those stats, you can take that and say, are you tired of changing vendors every two and a half years?

It's not a sales pitch. It's just a simple, curious question that hopefully triggers something in their brain. So I won't go deep into it. I love to go deep into it, but I won't go deep into it here. But that's the type of opportunities that I can bring to the table for you and your company to get to the next level.

Blair Armstrong (07:22)
Question.

Yeah.

And to piggyback off, there's what you said too. I know that we're not going to really, we'll talk a little bit about business, but touch it, but you know, why old guys still rock? Why are we on this podcast? Why are we 120 episodes deep? And these are the types of things that, you know, we're talking, we're not doing mainstream conversations. It may take a mainstream topic, but we're going to dissect it a little bit more. And that's basically what Brent's saying is like, okay, here's a mainstream topic of optometry. And they're going to a conference instead of stuff. Why, why in the world are we going to go?

Brent Wright (07:55)
now.

Blair Armstrong (08:08)
know, why are going to put a payroll company, which is basically like, in a vision, in a vision wise, that's like trying to stick a, you know, a square in a circle hole, right? It's just, it's not supposed to fit, but realistically it does fit and how many things really do fit, but we just don't think that since they're in certain situations, they go that way. So.

Brent Wright (08:13)
Yeah.

What's a lot to go to these conferences? Like we're going to spend 25K to bring in five people to this conference for three days. So it's a lot of dough. It's a big investment. And so, you know, when you're talking about crazy eyes, when I said, you know, brought this up a year and a half ago, it's a lot of investment, but you know, we've broke even on the investment so far to date.

Blair Armstrong (08:38)
Yeah.

Brent Wright (08:56)
Yeah, we're so in the last year and a half, we're going to try to 10x our investment over the next three days. We have lofty goals. But again, we talk about this on this podcast often, if you don't put it out to the universe, if you don't ask, who's going to bring it? So

Blair Armstrong (09:13)
Right and then

all the lessons you'll learn out of this one, know this You know what however successful or unsuccessful whatever in your eyes what success and unsuccessful is but what you learn from that so if you do come back to that next year or how many people like Holy cow, there's a payroll company. We're gonna go next year, too. So anyway

Brent Wright (09:17)
100 %

So this

is our second one and we plan on going, you know, this is a five year investment. So it's not a, it's not a quick turn. Look, people love quick turns. We're addicted to eight second society. You know, we've talked about this on the podcast. Let me give you the scope of what we're going into today. Yesterday when we were setting up the conference about one third of it.

Blair Armstrong (09:40)
Yeah. Right.

Brent Wright (09:56)
One third of the conference area had 15 semi tractor trailers, tractors and trailers inside of it. And there were room for a hundred more. And that was only the back one third of this conference.

15 tractors and trailers parked. Again, the back one third could have held another hundred tractor trailers.

Blair Armstrong (10:16)
I

Are you at the convention center?

Brent Wright (10:25)
Yeah, for at the Palazzo and the Venetian.

Blair Armstrong (10:28)
Okay, yeah, it's crazy how big those things are,

Brent Wright (10:31)
So this isn't even the big convention center. This isn't even the big convention center that's over on the sands, right? Where they, ironically, they bulldozed all of the old casinos and put up this big, huge convention center that's even 10 times size of the one I'm talking about. But just this huge, it's crazy.

Blair Armstrong (10:33)
Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah.

Heard that they were doing that

It's it's insane I mean that's that's the epicenter of the convention center, but ironically it so anyway, we could just go down that path But it's crazy. crazy. It's crazy how big those are cuz good Chrissy would goes to market to for her apparel and stuff like that You walk in there and it is just mind-blowing that it just goes for it Like how could you have this many type? I mean, she's in a she used a woman's boutique. So women's clothes and

Brent Wright (10:58)
Yeah, but.

It is.

Blair Armstrong (11:14)
Like the massive amount of different lines that are in there and there's always a space for more so packed in the front a little bit light in the back, but Anyway, man, let's I I love talking business. We could talk about this for a little bit, but the big focus today, man, we have had the last Realistically, I think the temperature has risen 150 degrees since last week the unfortunate death of Charlie Kirk

Brent Wright (11:27)
yeah.

Blair Armstrong (11:40)
All of that but realistically if this was your last day, how are you handling it? Right? I mean those are that that's what you wanted to talk about today It's been something that's really turned into me. We talked a little bit about it last Thursday But what you know, I just a dumb some more thoughts really evaluating I Typically don't say a lot for a little bit. I evaluate I just I kind of get a feel the temperature I listen to people

Brent Wright (11:46)
Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (12:03)
people give their comments and doing some different things and then I kind of you know just really watch what's going on and How is it affecting everybody and then how am I going to react to that? Right. I used to be a very

Brent Wright (12:18)
Mm-hmm.

All right.

Blair Armstrong (12:20)
know, really Johnny on the spot like this act now, but now I'm just kind of sitting back. think that's something learning for me. was just evaluate the situation before you react. And that's what I've been doing the last week. And so when you brought up the topic of, know, if today was your last day, I just

This whole thing for this weekend, we're using Charlie Kirk as this platform that it happened. was a very tragic event, but really seeing the temperature on both sides that, know, especially with the people that are celebrating this, and then the people that react to it. And I've talked about this in the past that how media or a certain situation can be, can happen. then,

and the legacy media will use it to pit it against, you know, to pitch you against each other. Like if you had one thought and I had another thought, we should be, we should be enemies.

Brent Wright (13:09)
Yeah, I mean, that's been the temperature for the last five or eight years. You know, we've talked about it at Nausium in this podcast and off off podcast as well. I, I just have to say categorically that if you were one of the people that even had the slightest thought in your head that this was a celebratory event. First off.

Blair Armstrong (13:12)
for sure.

Brent Wright (13:29)
Don't meet me on the street. Okay. Secondly,

Blair Armstrong (13:31)
Yeah.

Brent Wright (13:35)
I would open the opportunity to have a chat with you. I really don't want to take the, I'm going to take a face ball back to you kind of approach. Like a lot of people have, I'm intrigued. I need to understand what it is about you that makes you tick that forces you so quickly to spew hate and discontent.

out of your mouth and you might not consider it hate and discontent. I do, but I'm intrigued by that thought process. I don't know the reason why people do that. And so I'm intrigued to find out. I'm curious. I, as they used to say, since we're old guys that still rock, inquiring minds want to know. ⁓ The old commercial about the inquirer.

Blair Armstrong (14:20)
Yeah, 100%. Right? You know,

here's the thing, but going with, so when you, when you just prop your topic today, I'm like, is this the pedal? So you want to die in? Do you want to have, Hey, can I hear a dog?

Brent Wright (14:36)
Yeah, there's dogs in the background, the neighbors.

Blair Armstrong (14:38)
Okay,

that's, that's fine. that's all right. I got that. I can fix that. That, just shot me for good. Anyway, is this on both sides realistically, is this a pedal? So you want to die it. And I think one of the things, one of our claim to fame to our podcast is we're constantly talk about uniting. You could go ahead and live in your silo. You could pick the right side. You could pick the left side.

Brent Wright (14:41)
Yeah, you can carve that out.

with me.

Blair Armstrong (15:06)
And that's what they want to vision. They want to vision. They want to vision. So you're mad at the people that are celebrating this God awful tragedy. And it could have really been one of your family members. So that's the way that I've been picturing this. If this was my family member.

Brent Wright (15:23)
Well, let's

just talk about the tragedy. So it's not one tragedy, right?

Blair Armstrong (15:26)
Yeah. Let's multiple, right?

It's don't worry about it. We got it. Got it. It's fun, man. It's a live podcast, baby. ⁓ But it but yeah, so it's not just one tragedy is a culmination over and I think I want you to go with it and I'll fill in for them from the spot.

Brent Wright (15:31)
Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, it's, five tragedies, back to back to back. So it was a week long, adventure, you will, into the feelings and the thoughts and, and other reactions of not just one group of people, but everybody, affected everybody in the world in a, in a very similar way, which was intriguing to me. So.

Again, we've, I've talked about my friend Jeremy, who's an atheist and him and I, uh, don't get an off an awful lot of time to talk about this anymore, but I spent an egregious amount of time talking with him about this when we went to Japan, um, at car shows, et cetera, et cetera. So I've been able to like, kind of pick his brain on some of this stuff. He is changing his trajectory. He was actually quoting Bible verses last week and this week and diving in.

To the point, yesterday, one of our friends, don't know who, but somebody that he knows, and by the way, my friend is actually pretty well known, not just in the car community, but in the world. I would tell you he's more infamous than famous, right? Because...

Famous people are like you, you know, like people that you see on TV and all those things. And, know, their name is brought up and people understand and know who it is. This guy is kind of like those one silent, but deadly guys, right? So he builds parts for Jesse James.

Blair Armstrong (17:17)
Wow, that's cool, man.

Brent Wright (17:19)
So

I would tell you he's infamous versus famous. He's built parts for some of the coolest cars in the world that have hit the car show scene. Yeah, just he's he's just a good and he's a good solid dude. He builds the most quality stuff because it's the right thing to do. That's the whole premise of his business. You may not like how long my quality takes, but you're going to love it when you get the quality.

Blair Armstrong (17:22)
Yeah.

Right.

Brent Wright (17:46)
And if you don't like it, here's your money back, pound sand. And he just lives from an integrity aisle. So just want to get that part of it right. I don't hold him in disregard because of his thoughts and beliefs. I'm curious about it. So I asked tons of questions with him. But one of our friends, don't know who, I'd love to know who, be kind of cool, sent him a box to his house, FedEx.

with a copy of a Bible, a big leather bound, beautiful cross Bible on it and sent it to him because he was posting so many Bible verses that he was intrigued with, intrigued because of the alignment of what's happening in the world right now. And he has no way to explain it. Now, remember as an atheist, you don't believe in God, you don't even believe there is a God. You don't know God, not just

Like pagans, they believe there's a thousand gods, know, the one for the sun, one for the stars, one for... He doesn't even believe in one.

And somebody sent him a Bible. I'd be willing to bet you Jeremy's a pretty smart cat. I'd be willing to bet you that he cracked that sucker last night after he got it. After he posted that somebody sent it to him. And I bet he started looking at it, reading it, studying it. It's probably surprised that he didn't burst into flames when he opened it. I joke, I joke, but,

Blair Armstrong (19:09)
I know it's so true though, right?

Brent Wright (19:13)
But to that situation, mean, you know, Jeremy's been an atheist all his life. He's my age. He's 53 years old. And by the way, I'm going to be 53 in a week, buddy. How's that grabby by the canads? ⁓ I know, I know, right? And then it's fleeting. So, but.

Blair Armstrong (19:25)
Get close to me for just a tad.

Brent Wright (19:30)
You know, 53 years and now this little.

I don't want to say little. don't want to push this down. for him, it didn't directly affect him. Didn't directly affect anybody in his family. Didn't directly, like Charlie Kirk, he's not related to him. He wasn't friends with him or anything. Arena or any of the other people that died last week.

But it affected him in such a way that he is now asking questions about his own mortality, about the placement of these certain things, the alignment of these things in the world and the timing of them. Those are the things that he's asking. And I've reached out to him and said, Hey, I'm here to chat whenever you want. He knows, he knows that I know he knows that I also won't judge him and that I'll help him to walk through this.

without being overly biblical, if you will, or overreaching from a Christianity standpoint or any of those types of things. And I think that's more importantly, back to the subject I brought to you, by the way, know most everybody in the world loves and hates Nickelback. They love to dance to it after they've had a couple of beers and love to sing to it after they've had a couple of drinks.

Blair Armstrong (20:40)
Ha

Right?

Brent Wright (20:45)
⁓

But most people will tell you that they don't like Nickelback, but again They'll sing to it dance to it all that stuff. That's a whole nother discussion whole nother podcast but if today was your last day is a great song from a lyric standpoint and You know if today was my last day and my buddy Jeremy called me to ask me questions

How would I handle it?

Would I handle it with open arms? Would I be helpful? Would I be curious? Would I tell him I don't have time because he's an atheist? Just something so simple as that. I mean, it's real easy to say, you know, hug your family, you know, kiss your babies, tell your friends you love them, all those things. That's something you should be doing anyways, regardless if it's your last day. But if it's your last day and you had an opportunity to change the trajectory of one person.

One. We talk about that all this on here all the time. We're not trying to change massive amounts of people's minds. We'd love to. We'd love to. But all we're trying to do is change one and one and one and then it multiplies. Typically, if we can change one person's mind or thought process or way that they think about things or way that they process. Then. That one will multiply.

It's a one to many concept.

Blair Armstrong (22:03)
Using Charlie Kurt to go back to what you just said, and he was a master at having open conversations and debates and allowing people to prove him wrong. But he had conversation, like him or not. Listen, I understand there's people that, and I don't think if you really.

You really ask questions. If we were sitting down and somebody like, I don't like Charlie Kirk because he talked to against LGBQT or, you know, he preached Christianity and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you really go back and look at it, it was his experience. He was sharing his wisdom. He was asking you to debate. Now the good thing about it, he's one of those savants that really knew what he was talking about. Right. It's like talking to you. If you're going to have a conversation with Brent, right.

He's going to be very like, well, okay, you can go back to this. You can go back to this and go back to this. There's a, there's people in that world that really listically all of us, but there's some really good people in this world that can really accomplish that. So you got mad that you couldn't, you didn't have enough information to debate. Even the people that didn't like him and debated him and try to go ahead and do it. It's when he went away is like, this was one of the greatest conversations that I've had with people, but going back to, you know, I,

Going back to the Bible thing is this is where you're die is. So there are going to be people in your life or situations in your life, business, personal, things that are going to upset you. Are you gonna let that run the rest of your life and hold anim, in the rest of your day, are you gonna hold animosity against that person or thing and let it culminate in your body?

Brent Wright (23:33)
or even the rest of your day.

Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (23:42)
And you're going to concentrate it and focus on and stuff like that. If today's your last day, is that how you want to go out? Being upset, angry, confused, whatever. There's just so many different things to it. Now it's so super easy to sit here on this podcast and talk about it. It's super easy. It's very hard to change. But the point that Brent's trying to make and the point I'm trying to make is that

If those are some of the things that are running your life right now, maybe just take a breath and start making those changes to do it. I have stuff that I, you know, I hold onto. I'm sure Brett has some things that just, know, are the, you know, a thorn in his paw. And, but we're trying to work through those to go ahead and be better. Cause this is not where we ultimately want to be when it's all said and done. But today, which you said it was, it's a great part. Is today going to be the greatest day of your whole life?

And is tomorrow going to be the greatest day of your whole life, right?

Brent Wright (24:37)
I think every

day you're alive should be the greatest day of your life.

Blair Armstrong (24:41)
was a day.

So instead of concentrating on all this negativity and like, my God, I can't believe they said about this, about president Trump or this about, or Charlie Kirk and my God, why did they not celebrate this? And now the new bigs, the new big biggest thing is there's going to be the right left thing of a Jimmy Kimmel. He got left let go last night because of the comments he made. And they're like, well, you know, some people say, well, you know,

comments have consequences? Yeah, they do, but and they should. So you can't go up and you can't call it you go up and call somebody a bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep and not expect any consequences with it. You're either going to get punched in the mouth or you're going to find yourself on a desert island and no one wants to talk to you.

Brent Wright (25:12)
And they should. I mean, I can't.

Well, those are the,

those are the people that haven't been punched in the mouth. You don't expect that. Right. And so keyboard keyboard warriors.

Blair Armstrong (25:31)
Yeah. Yeah. And so,

and then they say, well, this person does it too. So why, what's the difference? Like you can keep justifying somebody's negativity or some of the things wrong. That's, that's if that's who you want to be, be that person. You're going to find yourself all by yourself and you're not going to figure it out. And it's going to be the problem. People have enough. Ish in their life that they just want to have a good day.

So, but if you keep force feeding all this negativity to them, they're gonna eventually, I think right now is the pendulum is swinging so far back the other way that we have allowed it for so long that it is very hard for people that were used to it to digest that why are people being held accountable right now? People are getting fired. Not even regular people are getting fired. We're just, there's a lot of people that are sick of the rhetoric of this.

Brent Wright (26:19)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (26:24)
victim mentality of this. am going to hate you even though that I do it really don't know you because of one thing that you said or because somebody made up a meme and people are just done. So the antidote, which you've talked about before, you always, what's the antidote, right? The antidote is, can you just let this all go? And it's like, listen, I don't really understand what you're trying to get with or try to do here. Explain to me.

what your end game is and then maybe I'll better understand. But instead of just hating you because or not liking what you said and just forming my opinion on that, what does that make me? It makes me the asshole, right?

Brent Wright (27:02)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (27:09)
So.

I actually went through that the other, I actually went through it yesterday. It just triggered a spot. There is a concept that some of the people that I work with want to go through. And they said, well, what if we did this, this and this? And I said, it doesn't make sense to me. So no. And I said, but if you guys want to sit down with me and explain to me what you're thinking, might be, it it might give me some clarity.

And I go, right now just financially and business side to where my brain works, your thought doesn't make sense to me. no, but again, I will sit down. I would go, I love to sit down with you guys and try to figure it out. And I want to hear your side and just try to be open to that. Now old Blair was that, yeah, whatever. So I gave them the opportunity. The thought was, well, I'm not here to convince you. I'm like, whatever.

Brent Wright (27:58)
Old Blair would have just ignored it. Truthfully, truthfully, because

yeah. Yeah. So old Brent, old Brent would have just, you know, started a let's, let's put on the boxing gloves and go into the ring, you know, and old Blair would have ignored it two different, two different ways to deal with it. Neither one of them. Going to make a difference really surely. Right. So.

Blair Armstrong (28:05)
So anyway, just said, I said.

Yeah, it's absolutely and and their comment was well, I'm not going to convince you I'm not here to convince you so whatever and walked away Like you came you came to me with an idea I said it doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make sense. I didn't say no I said it doesn't make sense to me. So right now it's a no I'm giving you the opportunity

Brent Wright (28:34)
So, so don't, let's just chat. Let's just figure it out.

Blair Armstrong (28:51)
to share with me your ideas of why you think it's great and your comment is, well, I'm not here to convince you, so I'm walking away. In the meantime, which is totally ironic with this, so I'm very safe about saying this because the person's not gonna watch this, whatever. In the meantime, they spent an ungodly amount of time about spreading negativity on social media

trying to change somebody's opinion on why they should think about somebody or something. But you won't take five minutes to sit down with me and explain to me, I think this would be a good day because this, this, and this.

Brent Wright (29:23)
Mm-hmm.

Well, because it's, it's, it's confrontation in a physical manner, right? Although they probably don't think that you'd reach across the table and punch them psychologically, it's in the back of their head. I'm not going to have a confrontation with somebody face to face because this could go in a way I don't like. I won't have control of the situation. I won't be able to control the narrative. I won't be able to.

put my phone down, turn it off, unfriend them, unfollow them, punish them, punish them. So that's the issue is working with and communicating with people that want to punish you when you don't align with their narrative. And that's our problem in our world nowadays. Again, I talked about this. I've said this 1,000 times. I'll say it 1,000 more. Our society

has gotten to the point where there is no fear of reprisal because you can just turn somebody off.

period. You just can't punch them in the face. They know it and they'll keep on keeping on.

Blair Armstrong (30:42)
So what Brett just said really goes along with the topic. Is that where you want to be if today's your last day? Do you want to be that person to be the keyboard warrior? Do you want to be that person that says something but walks away and won't hear, won't have a debate? Do you want to be that person?

Brent Wright (30:57)
You can't make a damn

difference on social media. promise you, you might be able to influence. might be able to do all that, but truly where the magic happens is in the face to face conversation.

the conjoined ability to have a profitable debate just like Charlie did.

One of the best ones I saw, have you seen this one? The best ones I saw when this gal comes up and he said, hi, what's your name? Because I'm not going to tell you. He's like, well, how do you want to be addressed? She says, I want to be addressed. They then, or no, I'm sorry, not they, them there was, that was another one. I want to be addressed in no way. He's like, well, nice to meet you. No way.

She's like, that's a name and you can't put a name on me. I'm not putting anything on you. I'm repeating what you just said. And the whole debate was about calling this person a name. They didn't even get into the meat and potatoes of really probably why she stepped up to the microphone and wanted to engage in a conversation with this person. They spent 15, 18 minutes just arguing.

arguing, discussing the fact that she didn't want to be called anything. Well, how do you like zero is the only thing that's nothing, but you still can call it nothing. I don't. Again, if today was your last day and you had an opportunity to have a conversation with somebody, would you fight over the fact that they're not calling you the right name? Which, by the way, was

Blair Armstrong (32:36)
or have it.

Brent Wright (32:37)
Equally confusing because if you don't want to be called a name, what am I supposed to address you as? Well, you're not So I can't even how do I get your attention in a crowd like that was part of it like a nothing and Then you're gonna be mad at me because I called you nothing like serious like like what how do we get to an impasse here? That makes any logical sense

Blair Armstrong (32:52)
That's it, nothing.

Well, it's a communication. It's all communication right now. If you have an opinion and someone gives you their opinion, but you won't listen to it, you don't have to agree with it. No one's trying to pigeonhole you into a certain situation, but at least hear their side. do not have to agree. Yeah. Right.

Brent Wright (33:12)
That's an important thing. That's the important thing is that

everybody feels like you're trying to pigeonhole them if you're curious.

Blair Armstrong (33:19)
It's the same thing about religion. Well, you talk about religion, you want to be Christian, blah, blah, blah, the atheist thing with your buddy.

because for some somewhere along the line.

And the more that you reel back to it. There was a word religion got put onto what to Christianity, whatever, Protestant organized religion.

Brent Wright (33:40)
Or organized religion is a is

that is a that's like a four letter word.

Blair Armstrong (33:46)
It's a yeah, it's it's something like that and realistically if you really peel back a Faith aspect no matter what you are. It is relationship with God. That's it If you want to hang something onto that seat, and I think someone put that I I Realistically think Satan put that made that word up to scare people away that they were put into a certain sect and they had to and they didn't like that sect if you really Talk to anybody

that has a relationship, Brett and I, we're like, well, are you religious? I think a couple of years ago, I would say yes. A couple of years ago, mean, in five, six years ago, I probably would have said, yes, I'm religious. Now I would say, well, I have faith, and my faith or my relationship is with Jesus Christ. And that's who I am. Yeah, you don't have to do that, but I'm not going to sit down there and force it through there. These are some of the, well, why,

Brent Wright (34:42)
It's not a

building you go to on Sunday, right? It's not a lunch appointment you go to on Wednesday afternoons and everybody, it could be, it could be, but it's not specifically. It doesn't have to be.

Blair Armstrong (34:45)
not.

Well, people will say, well, do you go to church? say, yes, well, that's a building. Well, no, church is a place that like-minded people that have a relationship with Christ come together to celebrate the life that God has given them. It's not a place that you have to go to. It is a congregation spot. It's like walking into a convention center and talking about optometry.

Brent Wright (35:19)
or two or more gather in my name, you will find me. That's faith.

Blair Armstrong (35:21)
Yeah, if Brett and I

Brett and I literally are in two different buildings, but we're in church right now just what we just talked about Right, so that's but that's the thing is so you have to and again The whole the whole topic is and I know that we're using different examples on here that the whole topic is is is this where you want to be if to today's your last day the point of it is is

Brent Wright (35:30)
Ever been to that? Therapy Thursdays!

Blair Armstrong (35:46)
How long are you going to be so mad at one person or don't agree with one person that you're gonna make your life or one topic, if it's LGBQ2, if it's, I don't even know how to say it, which it doesn't even matter, or transgender or religion or Christianity or whatever it is, if you don't agree with it, are you gonna have your life so upset

Brent Wright (35:53)
or one topic.

Blair Armstrong (36:11)
that you can't have a conversation with somebody or you pigeonhole them to be somebody just because of one post or one thought that they're the most evil person in the world. Or you're to sit down there and talk with them because realistically the only person that it's affecting that you're mad at or you're trying to say that I don't agree with, the only person that is affecting it, especially when you're doing your shit. And I am going to say that. So yeah, it's the first swear word of this podcast.

Brent Wright (36:38)
You

Blair Armstrong (36:40)
The only person that is affecting is you. People may be around you, people may still talk to you and do that stuff, but they're going to have an idea that's like, God, all this person talking about is their hatred, hatred, hatred, hatred, hatred. And that's on both sides. It's a little bit more, yeah.

Brent Wright (36:56)
So we talk about it all the time. What

you have and what you put in here affects every piece of you.

And so stop putting garbage in here.

Blair Armstrong (37:04)
Yeah.

Brent Wright (37:07)
stop spewing it out of here so it doesn't have to affect here.

Blair Armstrong (37:12)
The powers to be, it's exactly what the powers to be are going to, here is the, it's not really even a 10 thought or conspiracy theory anymore. The people that are running this world hate you. Hate you, hate you, hate you. And they're gonna do everything impossible to pit each other, to pit you and me. And since if you're watching this, again, Brett has one idea, I have another idea.

Brent Wright (37:13)
Okay.

Blair Armstrong (37:38)
They're going to do everything possible to pit us against each other. So we'd be in this continual state of anger, distrust, no friendship, no communication, and divide, divide, divide, divide, divide, divide. So until you guys figure that freaking out, not everybody. Now, I know a lot of our listeners and followers are not that way. So if you're watching, if you're one of our listeners and followers, this is your first time here, share this with us.

Brent Wright (37:49)
dysfunction. Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (38:06)
Until you guys figure this out, they're going to keep winning and we're going to keep fighting and we're going to go ahead and this is our pedestal. I stood on my pedestal and this is the way and I'm going out being angry or sad or heartbroken or whatever. Or are you like today's the day again, this is Brett and I pointing the finger at each other, but this is an awakening for you.

If you're if you're struggling with this or if you have a friend that's struggling with this This is today like you know what i'm going to have a conversation with you I may not agree with them at the end of the day, but at least i'm going to have a conversation with them What are you going to do to make the changes you need to make today? To go ahead and and have this be your best day And if today was your last day like you know what I went out on top today Today was my championship day and tomorrow do the same thing tomorrow is my championship day

Brent Wright (38:56)
Thank

Blair Armstrong (39:00)
Are we conscious?

Brent Wright (39:00)
So we always talk

about giving tools in this podcast. And the reason why it's important is because the day after Charlie Kirk, I had a lot of friends reach out to me and they're like,

I don't know how to feel.

I'm pissed, but I don't know where to place that. I hurt and I don't know where to place that. I'm sad and I don't know where to place that. I feel like I'm trapped and can't do anything.

Blair Armstrong (39:27)
What you just said is exactly what they want, right? They want us to feel that I have all these emotions But I don't know how to share it with more because I'm so scared to share my emotions with somebody For fear for fear like well, I don't agree with you. I can't believe you would see me there Why do you even care about that guy? Did I know what did he do for you? But that's the point It's not it's not really about Charlie Kirk at the end of day Charlie Kirk was was I believe

Brent Wright (39:28)
Listen up.

Yeah.

for fear of reprisal.

He's just the

he's just a pry bar to spread you apart and break you apart and keep you from being together with anybody or anything.

Blair Armstrong (40:03)
Yeah, they're using both sides to that. if you're celebrating, think what Brett said, if you're celebrating someone's death because of their beliefs, boy, you better look in your closet deep, boy. You better look in your closet deep because there's a lot of stuff in your closet that I'm sure that you can't look at yourself in the mirror for three minutes and saying, you know what? I did good today. Or I did good about five years ago.

Brent Wright (40:16)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (40:29)
But the point of it is, going back to that, is they want to keep you separated.

and continue to fight.

Brent Wright (40:37)
So

the tool that I gave to everybody that called me, texted me.

was just sit in it.

Just said in it, don't move, don't respond.

Don't react in a positive or a negative way. Don't be overly joyful and don't, you know, don't go to an extreme with your family. Just act normal and sit in it and really try and figure out.

what it is that you're feeling, where you want to place that, how you want to deliver your message and really consider your message. Again, if today was your last day, do you want people to remember you for your hate and your angst and anxiety? Or do you want people to remember you for the love and care that you brought to them and the things that you made an impact on their lives?

I have somebody that I know and you know as well through BNI. Blair and I used to be a BNI together. That's how kind of we got started is he shamed me into going to BNI. And thank you for that, by the way. was, you know, that was, it's been a good ride. It's been a good ride being your friend. I'm grateful for you. so, but they're not even,

in the group. Their daughter is. Their daughter is gay.

They're not, their daughter is. Their daughter doesn't post hateful, spiteful things on social media. fact, I think their daughter posts like three or four times a year. I'm friends with their daughter as well on social. Great, great human being, by the way. Again, I struggle with it because I also know that she grew up in a Christian household.

I know that she has a deep belief in God and spirit and likely she struggles with her own stuff because of that. And I've talked to her about it and told her, you know, she wanted to chat. I'd be here for her and communicate with her. And you can see that she struggles with it based upon her physical attributes or

social cues that she puts off, but she's not being blatantly aggressive about. She's just struggling with her stuff in her own world and not, not bringing anybody else into her garbage. But her mom, her mom, that's a different story. Her mom stands on the podium because her daughter's gay.

She stands on it. She spews hate and discontent and dysfunction into social media aggressively. She's a Trump hater. She's a Republican hater. She's anybody that hates LGBTQ. She posts pride flags on her wall and of all of our social media. She unfriends, unfollows, and then talks about it. I had to unfollow.

friend 18 people today because they're gay, gay haters, gay panders or whatever she calls it. I don't even, it's just, she's got this whole soap box that she's standing on and she's not even that way.

Interesting side note, I'm also a customer at first. And she's a customer of mine. When we engage in business, she tries to bring stuff up.

And I say, ma'am, does this have anything to do with what we're trying to accomplish?

Nope. Leaves it at that. She tries to engage me in conversation to get me to bite onto this hook. And I also similarly tell her, unless you're ready to go down that road.

don't stop. Because this road's a long road with me. And you can't keyboard warrior your way out of this discussion with me. We're face to face. I have to remind her of that. You can't walk away from this conversation once you started. You can't get pissed off and unfriend me and unfollow me when you're standing right in front of me.

Blair Armstrong (44:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brent Wright (44:55)
Of you're a woman, I'm not gonna hit you. But you may wanna hit me before we get done here.

Blair Armstrong (45:00)
Right.

Right.

Brent Wright (45:02)
And she was very aggressive and was one of those people that were really, really not a good human being when it came to her responses to what happened last week. It's funny though. So she got on the whole pun pun intended the whole arena. I think that's how you say her name train again, pun intended. She got on that whole soap box.

But then the next day when, when it happened to Charlie, she got on a bigger soap box in a negative way and was spewing hate and discontent. And then got on another soap box when the kids thing happened in a negative way, in positive way, in one way. So she gets on the soap box about being anti-gun and then, but, you know, talking about the kids as families and all this thing.

Now she's got grandkids who go to public school. She has a son who teaches in public schools. She's promoting a gun-free zone while her kid or grandkids and her son are in that gun-free zone. Guess where most, I would tell you 99%.

I don't have the exact statistic, I'm betting it's a solid 10 out of a 10. Gun violence happens in gun-free zones because criminals can't read or don't read or don't care to read.

Blair Armstrong (46:28)
care.

Brent Wright (46:30)
Right? So my point with this is, like, I just, we're gonna, we're gonna come across all kinds of people, all genres, all makes models, color variations, all those things.

Are you, what kind of impression do you want to leave on people?

Do want them to walk away feeling that they were impacted in such a positive way that now they want to seek you out and find you to have another conversation with you? Or do you want them to feel so negatively impacted that they have to question and ask God, why did you put this person in my path today?

Blair Armstrong (47:10)
All of that what you just said I think is so freaking beautiful because

We have been led to believe or we've been force fed. I will guarantee you now there's going to be bad Christians and bad atheists and all that stuff like this, but there's, there's a lot more good than bad. Unfortunately, good gets a lot of time dried out by the bat.

If you really ask somebody, no one, no one cares that you're gay. No one cares if you believe in the LGBTQ, no one cares that you're a Christian. No one cares that you're an atheist. They just want to know as you're a person, but we have been force fed this. Like if you're the, this, you're a bad person. I have my own ish that I deal with on a daily basis. Brent has his own ish. Everybody has their own ish that they did. We don't care, but don't force feed this shit to us all the time.

That's the problem and we take the bait, all of us, take the bait at one point or another and then they're like, okay, that's it, I'm fighting and that's where they have us now. You've got us to fight, both sides. I can't believe they're talking about this. I can't believe they're celebrating this. I can't believe they don't like this person. I can't believe this person believes in this. They got us fighting. So right now they're winning.

You can go back and look at 119 other episodes, this being 120, and go back. What's our common thread? Freaking talk to each other.

Brent Wright (48:37)
have common communication, not common ground, common communication styles, right? Respectful, purposeful, with the intent to hear and understand the other person.

Blair Armstrong (48:38)
I've come to the ground. I'm not seen yet.

Yeah, right.

Listen, we fail at it. We probably will say things that you guys don't like, some people will love. I can't believe you said that. We have some really good episodes that really hit home with people saying, well, I just don't agree with what you said. Cool. Let us know why you don't agree with it. Let us know why you do agree with it. Get on here and debate with us. It's not too like, no, you're wrong or right. Let's hear each other's thoughts. That's what they don't want. This is what we want.

Brent Wright (48:51)
You may not agree.

Blair Armstrong (49:18)
We want you to figure out if you don't like us, why don't you like us? Do you really know who Bren is? Do you really know who I am?

Brent Wright (49:24)
Well, and you may get to know me and not like me and that's fine. But if you want to have candid, profitable conversations with me, I'm happy, happy to go there. Look, I coach all kinds of people. Black, white, brown, purple, green, don't care, right? Don't care your sexual affiliation. Don't care what you do at night. Don't care what you do during the day. I coach all kinds of people to just try and get better at what they're trying to accomplish to their goals.

Blair Armstrong (49:25)
Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

Brent Wright (49:53)
to their aspirations, it's not my job to judge.

Do not judge lest you be judged. Okay? We all have our own stuff.

Blair Armstrong (50:01)
And when you do come,

yeah, when you do come talk to Brent or you come talk to me.

Know this, when we're trying to help you find your happy spot or to get better spot, you're helping us get better too, because we're learning something that we didn't know before. We didn't know that part about you. We didn't know that part about your life. We didn't know that part about your hurdle. So you're helping us. And so when you help us, then we can go and help others. That's the point that they don't want you to do. They don't want you to have that communication so you help each other get better.

The more separated we are, the easier it is for them to win. The more together we are, we can crush them. And there's a lot more of us than there are them. So put down your swords. I get it. Be mad. Be angry. Someone hurt you. Someone pissed you off. Great. Figure it the F out. And let's try to work together. It's coming from me. I have to work to get better. Brent has to get work for better. All our subscribers, all of our followers, all the people that watch us, we all have to get better. So this is not

calling you out. But sooner or later, the shit's got to stop. It sucks like the guy that the people that came to Brent after the tragedy, I don't know how to react. That sucks, dude. Because I was the same way. I was, essence, catatonic for eight hours that day. And I'm a beautiful Maui. That sucks. I didn't know how to release some emotion. And here I am in 120 episodes deep on this on Therapy Thursdays, which really old guys still rock.

Brent Wright (51:30)
you

Blair Armstrong (51:31)
And you don't know how to release it. just so sad that society has forgot how to communicate. Now, again, I'm coming from a person that is lived in a silo, so I'm not calling it out, but it has been a lot. The catch word right now is this is the turning point. We have to make the change. are the change. Brent says it every day. Go make a freaking damn difference. Be the changes you seek. Brent says that a lot too. So when are we going to live that life? When's Brent really going to live that life? There's some hurdles that he has to get over.

When's Blair going to live that life? There's some hurdles that he has to get over. But if you make that change every single day that Brent preaches about and helps people talk about, then you're just that poor person. And then you can look at yourself in the mirror, you know what? Today was a good day. I accomplished what I needed today, today. I'm ready to go see God.

So anyway, man, I.

Brent Wright (52:21)
Be prepared every day

because you don't know if it's your last. Be prepared.

Blair Armstrong (52:25)
So

yeah, live every day. Today's all you got. Today's all you got.

Brent Wright (52:29)
What else are you going to be embarrassed? Seriously, we're worried about what other people think?

Blair Armstrong (52:31)
Yeah.

Someone's gonna tell you to F off, is that gonna change your world? Is that really gonna change your world?

Brent Wright (52:43)
If you really want to make a damn difference, and I'm calling myself out on this, get outside your box.

and go do a fraction, a fraction of what Charlie Kirk did.

and then tell me where you land.

Put up a pop-up, sit under it, and have open dialogue with people and get them to communicate.

So call out for myself, call out for you, call out for anybody who's listening. What have you done today to make a damn difference?

Blair Armstrong (53:08)
for the freaking world.

Alright dude, I gotta get you out of here man. You got some stuff to do. I got some stuff to do. Guys, thank you so much. If you haven't done yet, hit that subscribe button, hit that notification bell, whatever you watch on. it's Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, whatever it may be, I Heart Radio, we're on all those channels. Do something, share the show. Go make a freaking difference today. We're calling you out because we're calling ourselves out. It's time for a change. Enough of this bullshit.

Brent Wright (53:26)
Hi, Heart Radio.

Blair Armstrong (53:39)
Let's get together and let's come together as a worldwide community and start making the changes that we need to do. But until then, on a happy note, we want you guys to stay safe, but most of all, God bless, guys.