427: Carlos Whittaker—How Fast is Godspeed?

Carlos spent seven weeks without any screens—no phone, no computer, no TV. His newest book, Reconnected https://www.amazon.com/Reconnected-Screen-Free-Farmers-Helped-Recover/dp/1400246466/ref=sr_1_2?crid=PW7ZAENHL4JR&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.lfn-dk5SpmmpxMpD1kXSGYVKdGA7dzunm2faU5XgNh1wyRJDcyRp-hVFJ02eNYc-qccbJIZnuJuZkmnN4qhnJxRvxPXGN6Q1T7pzgcv8UEBgWdoGlWdyqND0PvmjG6XYBlYX6b4n8gtXHZINUd8ZWmy7YRv3hK6EBkBFAQkDS3Uz_M0CsKKEAedcGNnY_gdm5ZMoPmi4dJhzr8pkhLXNvswp-HENzSrRlrPIT9lgRsA. M84k5fjR5569K79FacGadNds_eXZJSj50xZ9QUp4wY8&dib_tag=se&keywords=carlos+whittaker+books&qid=1740453192&sprefix=carlos+whi%2Caps%2C171&sr=8-2, documents that journey filled with monks, Amish, a bobcat, and lots of self-discovery.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Mike Rowe?

  Quick question Chuck.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 0:05Mike Rowe?

  How fast is Godspeed?

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Hmm, I have a sec, I mean, do you want the real answer?

• 0:09Mike Rowe?

  No, it was rhetorical, I know you know the answer because we just learned it from our fantastic guest, Carlos Whittaker, who just left the studio. Man, you guys are gonna like this guy. Congratulations on finding another winner and thank you.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  Woo-hoo, man, that's what I live for, Mike.

• 0:26Mike Rowe?

  How'd you find him?

• 0:27Speaker 01

  I just got an email, you know, from a publicist saying, hey, this guy wrote this book.

• 0:32Mike Rowe?

  Never mind. You didn't do anything at all. Basically, you opened your email.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  I did, I did open my email, but then I investigated it and once I found out what his book was about, I was like, oh, I think Mike is gonna like this.

• 0:42Mike Rowe?

  You investigated it. Isn't that today, like, saying, oh, let me do some research on that and Googling the thing? Like, an investigation used to imply a certain level of diligence.

• 0:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:55Mike Rowe?

  And, you know, deliberateness.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Oh, it was pretty deliberate. I mean, I had to type in letters and then I had to hit enter and, you know, so.

• 1:03Mike Rowe?

  This actually is somewhat relevant to the conversation you're about to hear because, Carlos Whittaker, what this guy did, first of all, as best I can understand it, he kind of runs a company that requires him to give lots of speeches and write many different books and, and help people, influence other people, but he's a, he's kind of a fixer slash communicator slash consultant slash coach. He just occupies that kind of real estate.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  I think he's an author and a podcaster, is what I think. And he, he talks a lot and I think what he's trying to do is, is help people. I think he's all about, you know, giving people interesting things to think about.

• 1:47Mike Rowe?

  Well, the world is full of those well-intended people and I wish them all every success. I'm not that interested in most of them, to be honest. But this guy really interests me because he's written a book called Reconnected. And I just love the fact that his business is based on his relationship with hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  That's right. He uses his phone all the time. And what's the book about, Mike?

• 2:14Mike Rowe?

  It's about putting your phone down for a long time and what happens to your brain if you share his level of, addiction is probably the right word. Look.

• 2:27Mike Rowe?

  If you, if you know this feeling when you've got 50 unanswered emails, if you know the feeling of misplacing your phone, possibly losing it, and going on that panicked search for it. If, if you've become addicted in any way, shape or form, or overly reliant to any screen in your life, you, you're gonna love this conversation. Because this guy was spending seven and a half hours a day

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:56Mike Rowe?

  on the screens, which he-

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Just on his phone.

• 2:58Mike Rowe?

  Just on the phone.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm sure there were other screens, I'm sure, but you know how the, every week it gives you like, you've spent this much screen time staring at this thing.

• 3:05Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Well, for him, it was like 49 hours a week.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09Mike Rowe?

  Which is ultimately-

• 3:10Speaker 01

  It's a full-time job with overtime.

• 3:12Mike Rowe?

  He'll do the math for you. Uh, and spoiler alert, you know, it's like 10 years of your life spent doing this.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  You just spoiled it, yeah.

• 3:20Mike Rowe?

  Spoiler alert. Alright, well, thanks everybody for listening to this episode. I hope you liked it. No, it's terrific because he basically identifies the most important tool in his life to his business.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:34Mike Rowe?

  And then gets rid of it.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:36Mike Rowe?

  And not only does he put it down, he has to break himself of this thing and, and so he lives with monks and Amish-

• 3:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:47Mike Rowe?

  For nearly two months. And, uh, now his brain literally looks different in x-rays or CAT scans or whatever that thing was.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:57Mike Rowe?

  And, um, he's got a new lease on life. And he's just so much fun to talk to and listen to. And somewhat tragically, you know, he, he's out here. You know what, I'm not gonna tell you why he's out here. Because you're about to hear it for yourself.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:13Mike Rowe?

  And a whole lot of other great stuff. Including an answer to a question I had never bothered to pose before, until meeting Carlos Whittaker. How fast is Godspeed? You're about to find out, right after this.

• 4:33Mike Rowe?

  Here's a crazy idea. What if there was an academy out there that paid students to learn instead of the other way around? Specifically, men and women who want to work in the skilled trades. And what if this academy not only paid for your training, but also covered all the expenses associated with your training, like travel and food and lodging? And finally, what if this academy guaranteed you a job at the end of the training period? Well, that's exactly what's happening at America's Workforce Academy by Meta. This is a five-week, highly immersive pre-apprenticeship program that gets you all the necessary certifications you'll need to start a career in the skilled trades immediately.

• 5:15Mike Rowe?

  I'm talking about AI-proof, six-figure jobs, helping to build out the new infrastructure that our economy is depending on. Electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs, welders, fiber optic technicians, these jobs, they are all in demand like never before. And again, every graduate of America's Workforce Academy is guaranteed a job on a Meta website. I first announced this program a few months ago, and I have been watching the response ever since. It's extraordinary. This is a nationwide, unprecedented fast track to a long-term career in a skilled trade. If you, or your spouse, or your kid, or your grandkid are looking for a straight path

• 5:58Mike Rowe?

  into a career with no cost at all, check out the opportunities for yourself at meta.com/america'sworkforceacademy. That's meta.com/america'sworkforceacademy.

• 6:16Mike Rowe?

  You walked in.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:18Mike Rowe?

  I said, "Thanks for your time. Thanks for coming."

• 6:20Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 6:21Mike Rowe?

  And you said, "I was here anyway, you know, been here for the last week." I said, "Oh, what brought you to Southern California?" And I can't get, I can't get the sentence out of my head.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:28Mike Rowe?

  My grandmom's house burned down.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Grandma's house burned down. Yep.

• 6:32Mike Rowe?

  It's such a simple sentence, filled with words I've heard all my life, but grouped up in the wake of this conflagration. That really hits home, man, when your nana's house goes up in flames.

• 6:43Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 6:44Mike Rowe?

  Is everyone okay?

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Well, you know, I, I mean, you've been living in it for the last, you know, how long it's been. I've been only viewing it from across the country.

• 6:55Mike Rowe?

  You're in Nashville.

• 6:56Speaker 02

  I'm in Nashville. And so it's my wife's grandma, Nani. And...

• 7:02Speaker 02

  You know, I, we hung out today and um, she's like, I, I think Mike, this is the most potent statement I've heard. She said, people said that, um, well, at least you saved your life.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  And she's like, but I, we lost our lives. And literally, she's 90 years old, has lived in this little red house at the top of Altadena on Mendocino Street for 45 years. Her entire world was her bed, that bathroom, all her wigs, and the little walk to the kitchen, and it's gone. And so like, how at 90 years old, do you, do you process that? And do you go there? And she just is one day at a time. And so, yeah, she's alive. She's in the hospital because it was really stressful to her body. So a couple of days after she got out of the hospital, they were in the hotel with her son and his husband and um, that, you know, Noni needs to go to the hospital. She's not waking up. And so

• 8:02Mike Rowe?

  Smoke inhalation?

• 8:03Speaker 02

  Uh, I, I think it was stress. I honestly think it was her body and the trauma of it all just was like, what the heck is happening? And so um, she was really confused for a few days and she's, she's back. Um, and so we're just kind of trying to get her strong enough to go home.

• 8:18Mike Rowe?

  So while this is happening, you're, you're, you're monitoring from Nashville?

• 8:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:23Mike Rowe?

  And you came out a week ago. So that was really, the fires were still burning.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Yep, yep, yep. So I mean, not to start off on a real somber note, here's the kicker. Ready? This is just kind of a season that my family's in right now. Um, my wife's mother gets diagnosed with cancer six weeks ago.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  My wife decides to fly out here a week and a half ago to be with grandma, whose house may burn down. Um, house burns down, then my wife loses her mother. Four days ago. So I'm sitting here letting you know that like, it's funny, my wife and I were just talking right now, just kind of like, you know, everyone has seasons of life and there's like some seasons that feel like unrelenting, just like blow after blow after blow after blow.

• 9:10Mike Rowe?

  This is the danger of asking questions like, how's it going? Nice to meet you. How's it going?

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Our first conversation, I'm like, it is therapy. It's like fourth session of therapy. I'm only, but listen, I just, I want to let people know, this isn't even what we're going to talk about. But it's like, it's like, okay, your mom passes away, Bridget passes away a week ago Monday, Bridget's mom's house burns down two weeks ago Monday. And what my wife and I talked about all day long is all the little miracles that we've seen throughout the last two weeks.

• 9:40Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  It's like, we could be like, God, where are you? But it's like, oh, I was here, I was here, I was here.

• 9:45Mike Rowe?

  Where are you?

• 9:46Speaker 02

  Yes, that's really the question. And so, man, I don't know, I sit in front of you grateful for, to celebrate a life well-lived of my mother-in-law, grateful that Nani is kicking in the hospital, and grateful that we have an opportunity to share hopefully some hope with people.

• 10:03Mike Rowe?

  You know, and your dad. And your dad.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Again, a right hook, you know, my dad's got dementia.

• 10:10Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Lives across the street from me. My wife and I, after the, what's the name of your podcast?

• 10:18Mike Rowe?

  Oh, whatever.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  Whatever you want.

• 10:19Mike Rowe?

  What do you call it, Chuck? The way I heard it.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. After the way I heard it.

• 10:23Mike Rowe?

  Right up there to your left.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  I, yeah, right there. Look, if I look to my left, it's there.

• 10:28Mike Rowe?

  You know, put his book up, because I don't know what that's called.

• 10:33Mike Rowe?

  There you go.

• 10:35Mike Rowe?

  Reconnected.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  Yes, reconnected. Listen, my wife and I were flying, we're literally going to finish the way I heard it, get on a flight and fly to Auckland, New Zealand tonight. And I had a week of fly fishing that I was going to go to. But my dad, who lives in Nashville, who with my mom across the street from me, has dementia and he's just been going south. And so we made a decision last night to go back home. So we're not, we're not going.

• 10:58Mike Rowe?

  So I, not to just make this thing a complete squirrel free associative thing, but I, I listened to a pod.

• 11:08Mike Rowe?

  It was the last conversation you had with your pop.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  Oh, you did.

• 11:11Mike Rowe?

  Before he turned the corner.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 11:13Mike Rowe?

  And I thought it was one of the sweetest, um, most decent things, not to do.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 11:19Mike Rowe?

  That's your business.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:21Mike Rowe?

  To share.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:22Mike Rowe?

  And, uh, listeners of this podcast know that I, I have my mom on at least once a

• 11:27Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:28Mike Rowe?

  Once a month.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:30Mike Rowe?

  Um, because selfishly, you know, um, I try to be a good son and I I gotta stay connected to her.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:36Mike Rowe?

  Um, uh, I also need content.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally. Thanks, Mom.

• 11:41Mike Rowe?

  But I also know for a fact that she's, every time she opens her mouth, she says something that lands.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  Boom.

• 11:49Mike Rowe?

  To somebody and I hear from them.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:51Mike Rowe?

  Right?

• 11:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:52Mike Rowe?

  So, look, by way of preamble, um, it, it is fortuitous that you're here

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:57Mike Rowe?

  in the wake of all these calamities.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 11:59Mike Rowe?

  Your book is terrific. Chuck sent me a copy. I have it home. I didn't bring it down. Otherwise I'd be waving it around and pointing at it and making yummy sounds and whatnot. But it is such a rumination on our times.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:12Mike Rowe?

  And when I think about, you know, what, what you had to do to connect to your, to your grandma.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:19Mike Rowe?

  Right? And I mean, it's, it's also basic. It's also primal, much like fire.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 12:24Mike Rowe?

  Right?

• 12:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:25Mike Rowe?

  And so here we are, so many people, we're surrounded by people now who are grieving because they've lost a kind of connection to a gajillion different things.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 12:38Mike Rowe?

  And they're being forced to ponder the connections that matter most.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:41Mike Rowe?

  And into the midst of this comes this guy, Carlos Whittaker, who has written a book. And you're a big Instagrammer.

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, I like to talk on my phone.

• 12:51Mike Rowe?

  The fact that you went dark for, what was it, seven weeks?

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, almost, almost two months.

• 12:56Mike Rowe?

  Right. So you went, you totally disconnected.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  Completely.

• 13:00Mike Rowe?

  Then you totally reconnected.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 13:02Mike Rowe?

  And now, uh, just when you thought your book was done.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:06Mike Rowe?

  You're having to practice everything you preached.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Every single thing I preached. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, uh, if, if you think about it, I, I did, I had to like on purpose, go dark in order to really reconnect with the humanity that I feel like a lot of us have lost by no fault of our own. Listen, we're, we've been thrown around by society and culture the last feels like freaking tsunamis left and right. Um, so I, so I unplugged and I go and I live with the monks and I live with Amish and I, you know, have my own micro dirty jobs moment, you know, sharing sheep and trying to figure all this out. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like I feel so alive. Like, why do I feel so alive, um, without my screen, without, you know, the, the phone, without all these things. And so initially I thought that this was going to be an experiment about screens and about our phones and why

• 13:52Speaker 02

  they're bad. Like, that's what I was, I was like, let me get my brain scanned by neuroscientists before and after, go live with monks and the Amish. Um, and then I could talk about how, why phones are bad. But instead, it ended up being why it's beautiful on the other side of the phone. And that's, I'm telling you, that's where I want people that either read the book or follow me on Instagram and all the things to be like, oh no, Carlos is reminding me even now in Altadena and then, you know, Southern California and with Heather's grandma, like, how can we reconnect with those that we need to be connected with? Um, and how can we make sure that these screens aren't the things that are tearing us apart and pulling culture apart and making everybody hate each other?

• 14:31Mike Rowe?

  How can we use the screens to make it better?

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Yes, totally. That's it.

• 14:35Mike Rowe?

  Not worse?

• 14:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 14:36Mike Rowe?

  Or not as a surrogate?

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I, I, I raised in 24 hours, a hundred and $10,000 for Heather's grandma to start rebuilding. How, how did I do that?

• 14:48Mike Rowe?

  With your screen?

• 14:48Speaker 02

  With my screen. So, screens aren't bad. Screens aren't good. Screens, I tell people, um, the screen, you're not addicted to your screen. The screen is a needle. Okay? A heroin addict is not addicted to the needle. They're addicted to the drug that's going through the needle. Are you either injecting goodness into your soul or evil into your soul?

• 15:10Mike Rowe?

  Where are you pointing that gun?

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 15:12Mike Rowe?

  You know, in the hands of the wrong person?

• 15:15Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 15:16Mike Rowe?

  There's never been a tool capable of greater mischief.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:19Mike Rowe?

  In the hands of the right one, never a tool capable of ensuring greater justice.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:24Mike Rowe?

  So, yeah, it's a tool. I, I want to talk about all that, but I, I'm reminded, I went about four months without eating any sugar.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 15:34Mike Rowe?

  And then one day I had a strawberry. And my eyes crossed.

• 15:41Mike Rowe?

  It was so frickin delicious. It was so and and right. So you like you realize there's sweetness in a lot of things.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:50Mike Rowe?

  But you've had so much of it.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  Gosh.

• 15:53Mike Rowe?

  Over here that you can't taste it.

• 15:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:55Mike Rowe?

  Anymore where where you're supposed to find it or where it might occur naturally.

• 15:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 16:00Mike Rowe?

  This thing did not occur naturally, but it but it has occurred and studies show you can't put the poop back in the goose. So let's let's start with you.

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 16:11Mike Rowe?

  How addicted.

• 16:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:12Mike Rowe?

  Were you?

• 16:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:14Mike Rowe?

  And why did you decide to go cult?

• 16:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know, whether you have an iPhone or a Google phone, every Sunday, we all get these notifications that come across our screen that say it. Mike, you have averaged so many hours and minutes a day on your phone. Now, what I used to do is I just swipe it away because I didn't want to look at it, right? It'd make you nauseous. And one Sunday, about two years ago, I saw it and it said, Carlos, you spend seven hours and 23 minutes a day on your screen. And I was like, my God, that is awful. Like awful.

• 16:46Mike Rowe?

  Is there like an explanation point or a thumbs up? Or do they just deliver it? Because I do the same thing. I'm like, I I don't want to know this.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  You want to know this. You don't want to know this. Yeah. So no, it just slides across. It just tells you it slides across. And again, I swipe it away. I never look at it. But one Sunday, I was like, you know what? I'm going to do the math. Let me just do the math. So pulled out my little calculator, entered in seven hours, 23 minutes a day. And I was like, oh, my gosh, that's 49 hours a week. That's two entire cycles of the sun around this planet as we're spinning. That's that's two days of the week. Okay.

• 17:23Mike Rowe?

  That's a job at a quarter.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:25Mike Rowe?

  Full time.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Then I'm staring at my phone. Then I was like, well, let me keep doing the math. Forty nine hours a week equals about 100 days a year. So 100 days a year, I'm looking at my phone. Then I kept doing the math and I was like, okay, how old's my dad? He's 85 years old. If I live to be 85 years old. I will spend over 10 years of my life looking at this phone. And I thought to myself in that moment, I've got to do something like, like I have to figure out what to do. So that was the, that was kind of the, the moment, the phoenix moment, the me going like, I've got to figure out what to do. So I had an idea. I was like, well, what if I, I don't know, go away to a cabin for a week or two and see how it feels. That was the beginning of it. But then I've got a neuroscientist friend of mine, as we all do.

• 18:08Mike Rowe?

  Sure.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  Of course. And he told me, you're going to have to do this longer than two weeks to feel the effects of it. So we ended up with about seven weeks. And that was the beginning of it. So I got my brain scanned before, got a spec scan on my brain, did a bunch of cognitive testing, and then lived with monks, lived with the Amish first, never looked at the screen again. Then I got my brain scanned at, at the end, got cognitive testing done again. Again, with a father with dementia, that's a big like, big brain thing for me, right? I'm really interested in that stuff. And so in the middle, you know, did this living, but I'm telling you, Mike, it was, it was 48 hours. And then this experiment was no longer about a phone, right? It was all about humanity and connection and all these incredible things that I think we've forgotten how to do

• 18:55Speaker 02

  because of these screens.

• 18:56Mike Rowe?

  Now, do you think the fact that you knew there was a date certain when this experiment would come to an end, impacted the way you processed your feelings throughout the experience?

• 19:10Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, the, the first process was 24 hours in, knowing I had seven weeks left, I was terrified. I, I can't do this.

• 19:24Mike Rowe?

  Talk about the first 24, like, how, how does the uncertainty or the anxiety manifest?

• 19:30Speaker 02

  So, so it is, there are, there were physical manifestations of anxiety that were culminating in my body. When I say physical manifestations, I'm talking about heart palpitations. My heart never palpitated, but it was like skipping beats. Like, what's happening? Like, why is my heart? Night sweats. I felt like I had the flu. My, you know, bones were aching, joints were aching. And I, I literally thought I was sick, but it took about, about 48 hours. And then probably morning three at the monastery, I woke up and it felt like an elephant had stepped off my chest. Like, I was like, The only way I can explain it is I'm like, I developed asthma as an adult. The first time I took an inhaler and like shook it up and took a hit out of it.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  And I went from like not being able to breathe to being able to breathe. If you've ever had an asthma attack, that's what it felt like on that third day. So it was, there was a lot of, um, again, night sweats, you know, heart palpitations, heavy chest. I was literally coming off of a drug.

• 20:30Mike Rowe?

  Was it, so like, I think I know what FOMO feels like.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:35Mike Rowe?

  Right? I mean, I, it's like if you're used to checking the markets or if you're used to checking your news feed or all that stuff, I get it. But, but there's something else that happens. Like I, I remember leaving my phone on a plane once.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Right.

• 20:51Mike Rowe?

  And I mean, I went through the five stages of grief for about 10 minutes.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 20:56Mike Rowe?

  But I went back again and again and again and again.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:58Mike Rowe?

  And, and you know, I think the most relatable thing, very few people listening to this, no matter how persuasive you are, are going to go off their screens for seven weeks.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 21:09Mike Rowe?

  But everybody listening has lost their phones.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 21:12Mike Rowe?

  What is going on physiologically?

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:16Mike Rowe?

  In my brain?

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:18Mike Rowe?

  When I go from normal to like, like it, that level of panic?

• 21:24Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 21:24Mike Rowe?

  Doesn't translate to any other item.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Anything else besides your phone?

• 21:29Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  Right. Not even your wallet?

• 21:31Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:32Mike Rowe?

  If I had a thousand dollars in my wallet and I lost my wallet, I would go about the business of grieving for a missing thousand bucks.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 21:39Mike Rowe?

  And, and my ID. That's a pain in the ass. But if I lose my thousand dollar phone?

• 21:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:44Mike Rowe?

  I, I, I don't even know what to compare that to.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. I, I think so many of us have literally built our identities on either what people think about us because of what we're displaying on our phones. Or the FOMO that you're talking about, missing out on, right.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  A lot of parents have trackers for their kids on their phone. Life360, right? We've got, we've got these things and suddenly I didn't know where my kids were. I didn't know how fast my kids were going. Did they make it to where, did Sohaila make it to work? Are, are we, and suddenly it was actually, I think, again, this, I'm still processing a year and a half later. But I think for me, what I was missing was this sense, a false sense of control that my phone gave me. So suddenly I realized the phone isn't the drug. Control is the drug and that's what I lost. And suddenly we feel out of control when we don't have these control devices.

• 22:46Mike Rowe?

  Man, that's a lot.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:50Mike Rowe?

  Okay, so, but again, do you get over the, like, the worry for your kids? You're isolated too. So you're not in touch with your family.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  I would, I would call my wife every other day from the payphone on the monastery grounds. So that's how I would communicate for about five minutes a day, just to kind of check in.

• 23:11Mike Rowe?

  All right.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:12Mike Rowe?

  All right. I want to know about the monastery and I definitely want to talk to you about the monks, but this thing, I don't want to just breeze over it because part of growing up for me, and I didn't realize it at the time, but you know, my parents see at nine.

• 23:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:31Mike Rowe?

  Be home at nine.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  Bro.

• 23:32Mike Rowe?

  Okay. What you do between, you know, 11 a.m. and 9 p.m.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 23:37Mike Rowe?

  On a lazy Saturday in the middle of the summer, that's between you, your buddies and your God. Okay? Try not to get arrested, try not to humiliate the family, but we'll see at nine.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 23:48Mike Rowe?

  And that, and, and they were okay with that.

• 23:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:51Mike Rowe?

  I don't know of any parent today who can do that.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  I don't either.

• 23:59Mike Rowe?

  Couple of weeks ago, on this very podcast, I talked with Brooke Rollins, our Secretary of Agriculture, about the incredibly complicated business of delivering affordable beef to our citizens without disadvantaging American ranchers. We also discussed the very controversial decision to import 300,000 metric tons of ground beef from various foreign countries and the maddening policy that allows meat packers to label imported meat as a product of the USA. Well, shortly after that conversation, one of my sponsors, Good Ranchers, reported an unusually high level of interest in their product. And this is not surprising.

• 24:40Mike Rowe?

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• 25:25Mike Rowe?

  And that's guaranteed. Support your local ranchers by insisting on American meat delivered at GoodRanchers.com/row.

• 25:34Speaker 03

  If you could eat a steer, if you could eat a cow, don't take a chance on a foreign ranch, get Good Ranchers now.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Hey, ho!

• 25:45Speaker 02

  This is what you'll hear from parents. You may have heard this. It's a different world, Mike. It's just a different world than it was. It's like, oh, is it really?

• 25:54Speaker 02

  I, so I've taken all the tracking stuff off, off my phone since I've been back. And I've talked to my mom, so my mom's 72. And she is, she's like, God, Litos, I am so grateful. I am so grateful that I did not know how fast you were driving when you were a teenager. I am so grateful, I did not know that you were at Sine's house at 10:00 PM instead of Peter Kim's house. I am so grateful because she was, Mike, I, I think that our souls and our psyche were not created with the capacity to know what we know. I, I think we just know too much now. Like if you think about it, like, we weren't supposed to know everything that we know. And I,

• 26:37Mike Rowe?

  It's not even knowledge.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:39Mike Rowe?

  It's information.

• 26:39Speaker 02

  Information. There, there it is. There's too much information out there. And so why do we need to know every little thing? So trust is now decaying in the fabric of relationships, in the fabric of families. Suddenly, now there's no trust. You know, we, I mean, we want to like, go to 40,000 feet and just look at like, the family in general and like the problems with it in America. It's like, well, let's, let's go all the way down to just trust in general, you know? Let's, let's see how much our kids feel trusted by their parents. Here's the other kicker. When I took my Life 360 off my phone, do you know that it wasn't my wife and myself that were more stressed out? It was my 17-year-old daughter. But Dad, how am I gonna know where you're at?

• 27:20Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  So suddenly, see, there's, there's this-

• 27:22Mike Rowe?

  Because she doesn't know any other thing. She can't remember a time.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  No, she can't remember a time. So she's like, well, but if I, okay, so you're trusting me, but like, I'd like to know, Dad, like, when you landed in Nashville from a business trip, like, this makes me feel, and I'm like, man, Mike, we know too much. We know too much. And so, so I, I do think, I, I think there's got to be an undoing somehow of, of this. And I mean, it's hard. It, it may even be impossible. But when I was living with the Amish and, you know, Farmer Willis would tell me to go to the feed store to pick up a part for his tractor and he'd shoe me off on his e-bike and I'd, you know, it's supposed to be a 15-minute e-bike trip away, but I'd get lost because I didn't have a map or GPS and I'd have to ask these Amish, you know, farmers, hey,

• 28:10Speaker 02

  which way do I get to? And I was lost and I'd come back three hours later. I was like, were you worried about me? He's like, no. Why would I be worried about you? You'd make it back home. And I, you know, so anyway.

• 28:21Mike Rowe?

  How would we fight a war today? In the, like, when you think about the power of a letter?

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:28Mike Rowe?

  Right? In the Second World War?

• 28:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 28:31Mike Rowe?

  And you think about the, the way that patience was just, it's just required.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:36Mike Rowe?

  You, you, you must be this patient to live.

• 28:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:40Mike Rowe?

  Well, today, I don't know how, I don't know that there's any requirement for patience at all. There's certainly not a requirement of, for solitude.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:49Mike Rowe?

  Right? And so like, what, when those things start to evaporate?

• 28:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:54Mike Rowe?

  I mean, how, I don't know how soldiers can soldier. I don't know how explorers can explore.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:01Mike Rowe?

  I don't, I mean, like, to, to, to really go off the map into, you know, Hic sunt draconis, here be dragons, you know? No, you can't go there. You're, as long, or, or go ahead as long as I can track.

• 29:14Speaker 02

  Yes, totally.

• 29:16Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. Man, I, it just, that is the, that's the most horrifying thing. If, if your seventeen year old

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:23Mike Rowe?

  has a panic attack, because she doesn't know where you are. I hadn't even thought of it that way. I'm always thinking of the parents.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:30Mike Rowe?

  Trying to let go, but we're raising a whole generation of kids.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  That are addicted to, um, I don't know, like, a lack of a, um, just, again, just of always knowing.

• 29:44Mike Rowe?

  Constantly informed.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  Constantly informed and, uh.

• 29:47Mike Rowe?

  What's your heartbeat? How many steps you take today?

• 29:50Speaker 02

  Everything. I got my whip on my wrist, right? I, I, I mean, this thing, this, this thing judges me every single morning I wake up, right? Every single morning, I'm like, oh, I wonder what my sleep score was last night? How I sleep last, oh, I'm only seventy-nine percent. I was, I was eighty-four percent yesterday. That's why I feel horrible, because I wasn't, come on, Carlos. You know, like, all of these things, we, I just think, uh, it's information, information, information. And, uh, you know, you're, you're talking about solitude a second ago. We are literally, as human beings, walking, Homo sapiens, walking planet Earth. The first, almost all of us, right? The first group of generations to ever have solitude be extinct from our lives.

• 30:34Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Until the car radio was put into a car. You would have to travel from point A to point B if you're by yourself and you always had solitude. It's gone. And so, nobody even has the need for anymore. And one of the things I learned on my, on this experiment was how valuable solitude was, how valuable it was for me to not be informed, not gathering more information, not listening to all these incredible podcasts, but just being still and silent. And we're so scared of that these days.

• 31:04Mike Rowe?

  God, it's so true. And we're becoming increasingly terrified. There's, there's something exponential. It's like, like imagine picking up a book and, and suddenly seeing the spaces between the words vanish, right? Cause we don't have time for spaces. There's no time to rest. But then, all you're left with is, is gobbledygook.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it's true.

• 31:27Mike Rowe?

  You know, I hadn't thought about it, but you're right. The, the radio going into the car.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  That was it.

• 31:34Mike Rowe?

  That was a game changer.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  That was a game changer. It was the moment we stopped being required to be in solitude.

• 31:40Mike Rowe?

  Yeah. I saw something on my screen the other day.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Of course, we're fine.

• 31:45Mike Rowe?

  Said, uh, they're talking about the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

• 31:50Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 31:51Mike Rowe?

  And it was real, it was real, I, I think it went like this. Knowledge is the understanding that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  That's true. So good. Yeah.

• 32:10Mike Rowe?

  But the fact that that little truth bomb came through the very device that we're sitting here bemoaning.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:15Mike Rowe?

  I mean, obviously you're up to your neck in irony every day with this.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  Well, every day. And, and again, I think the way that I push back against the irony is reminding people once again, cause I'm, I'm making YouTube videos, I'm podcasting, I'm making all these videos that are helping people, right? I have a whole documentary. I took a little camera with me on this journey. So I took a little Sony camera with me on this journey and I think we've got a little clip here. And, and so I, I self filmed myself. Doing this, this whole thing. And so people can now watch a documentary about me living without screens on their screen, right? So there is-

• 32:47Mike Rowe?

  So that's your brain?

• 32:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was my brain. Uh, this was, this was the monastery up in Valiermo, California, the high desert of Southern California. Um, this is me living with them, you know, with Willis-

• 32:57Mike Rowe?

  That you freaking out, that you lying on your bed?

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Saying goodbye to my family. And I, and so like, it is, it is 90 minutes of watching this man in his late 40s go through it, man. And, and learn a lot, you know, learn, learn a lot of valuable lessons from the monks, from the Amish. Um, and, and talk about how this wasn't going to be an experiment of lack of technology, it was going to be an experiment about purpose and all these things that I found.

• 33:22Mike Rowe?

  But did you know that before the experiment started?

• 33:24Speaker 02

  Did I know what?

• 33:25Mike Rowe?

  Did you know what it was really going to be?

• 33:28Speaker 02

  No, no, no. It was 100%. I was going to write a book about why phones are bad. And I-

• 33:34Mike Rowe?

  And you were going to be the lab rat?

• 33:35Speaker 02

  I was going to be the lab rat. I'm the perfect lab rat on my phone, seven and a half hours a day. Uh, and it ended up being all these beautiful things like, uh, wondering and noticing and savoring and getting lost and finding our way and all these things that we no longer use our intuition. Like Yelp is like the intuition destroyer, right? It's like, you know, you want to go to a Chinese restaurant? Just drive by one. And if it feels like, go, go in. But no, instead we like, open up Yelp. There's a guy named Bob from Minneapolis. I gave it two stars.

• 34:02Mike Rowe?

  He's not pleased.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  And suddenly Bob is in charge of my dinner tonight. And I'm like, come on. Like, like we've literally lost the ability, you know, the subtitle is how seven screen free weeks with monks and Amish farmers helped me recover the lost art of being human. And I just think that there's all these arts that we've lost, again, savoring, noticing, wondering, uh, that I'm hoping I can help people get back.

• 34:23Mike Rowe?

  But they're all, probably not all, but rooted to some extent in patience and solitude.

• 34:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 34:30Mike Rowe?

  Have you read The Comfort Crisis, by the way?

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Not yet, not yet. You're the third person this week to tell me about that.

• 34:34Mike Rowe?

  Okay, yeah. Cause you guys are singing out of the same hymn book, you know? Mike Easter talks about being dropped off essentially on a glacier.

• 34:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:42Mike Rowe?

  And waiting for the rest of his party to be ferried to him on a small bush plane. And he's just there for the first time alone. No, no service, no nothing.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:51Mike Rowe?

  And just between the totality of the environment, 360 degrees, vast, nothing but horizon.

• 34:58Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 34:58Mike Rowe?

  And not, and, and he talks about the, the speed with which, uh, boredom.

• 35:06Mike Rowe?

  Settled in.

• 35:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:08Mike Rowe?

  And then this, this real discomfort with being bored and alone and not, not like an apathetic kind of, gosh, this is, but like an agitated.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 35:20Mike Rowe?

  Pain that comes from, that makes you pace.

• 35:23Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:23Mike Rowe?

  And claw at the hair you no longer have, but, right? So I mean, that is, that's new.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  Oh, it was, and it was so new for me. I mean, I just kept reaching in my pocket for the first four days. I, I knew it wasn't in there, but I would reach in to pull it out so I could scroll TikTok. It just wasn't there and I had to be bored. Like, do you know what it's like to six times a day go into the chapel with these monks that walk at freaking three miles an hour, so slow, walk into this thing, they're chanting in Latin. I don't know what they're saying. I was so bored those first few days and I was fighting, just like he says, I was fighting this, I can't be bored. I gotta find something to not be bored. And it's like, well, wait a second, why not? Why, why can't we just be bored?

• 36:09Mike Rowe?

  Or, or why aren't you curious enough to ask yourself, what is it that these cats are getting out of this ritual that I'm not?

• 36:16Speaker 02

  Yes, totally.

• 36:17Mike Rowe?

  What was the monastery and why'd you start with monks?

• 36:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, so St. Andrew's Abbey, up by Palmdale, Lancaster, up in the high desert. The monks, 20 Benedictine monks, they're Catholic monks. My wife's father, before he passed away in like the late nineties, was a high capacity volunteer at this monastery. So when I was looking for a place, place to go, I was trying to find subcultures in America that weren't reliant on screens like I was. So I thought, well, what about the monks? The monks don't have phones, right? Like, let's, let's call them. So my wife calls, I'll never forget, she had on speakerphone, calls the abbot, Abbot Francis, that was in charge of the monastery when she was a little girl and would go up there with her dad. Hey, Abbot Francis, this is Heather Barquum, Whittaker now, but I don't know if you remember my dad? And he's like, oh, I remember Bill, your little Heather.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  Oh, how are you doing? Right? And so I'm like, oh, it's a monk, a live monk on the phone. This is so cool. And then, and then he was like, hey, listen, call me on my cellphone. So, you know, Heather hangs up and then I was like, wait. He's got a cellphone, like, everything's already, like, failing in my head. I'm like, so she calls him and he's like, my hus- she's like, my husband wants to stay at the monastery. Can he do it? Absolutely. He can stay for two weeks.

• 37:28Mike Rowe?

  Let's zoom first.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's zoom first. So, so, you know, it's, it's, again, it's, it's a beautiful oasis up in the high desert. It, it's gorgeous. I, I get there. I stay at a little hermitage at the top of the hill overlooking the abbey. The monks, there's 20 of them. Many of them have been there 40-plus years. They're all, you know, in their brown robes with their black belts, walking very slowly and

• 37:51Mike Rowe?

  Average age?

• 37:52Speaker 02

  They're all pretty old. So I, I'd say that, that the young monk was like 53.

• 37:58Mike Rowe?

  Uh huh.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  And I, and he literally was like, hey, he didn't know who I was. And he's like, you've been here for four days. Like,

• 38:06Speaker 02

  are you, are you, like, he was recruiting me. Are you, are you, are you thinking, are you, are you thinking of joining? I was like, no, like, I'm married. And he's like, we're looking for young monks, but people, there's a whole generation that doesn't understand the beauty of the practices that we observe, right? And so, yeah, monks are having a marketing problem right now.

• 38:22Mike Rowe?

  I'll tell you, and clearly I'm part of it, because it just occurred to me. I, I have no idea what the, what the stepping stones are to get to monkdom.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  Totally. What do you gotta do, right?

• 38:32Mike Rowe?

  Where do you apply?

• 38:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. There, if you, hey, listen, Google St. Andrew's Abbey. They're looking for monks right now. So if you're listening to this podcast-

• 38:38Mike Rowe?

  We got some openings?

• 38:39Speaker 02

  We got some openings. We got some openings for the monks. But look, they're getting old, bro. Like, like, as they disappear, you know, we, we want this monastic life to continue, but the Benedictines are very purposeful in hospitality. So they host a lot of retreats. They were, it was great. I mean, I, I ate with them, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Silent breakfast, silent lunch. You can only speak during, during, excuse me, silent breakfast, silent dinner. You can only speak during lunch. So I am, I'm actually naturally an introvert, but

• 39:07Mike Rowe?

  Yeah, right.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  when, when, at least I think, maybe you can help with that. But, but during lunch, man, I was talking like a mile a minute. I was just like

• 39:17Speaker 02

  These monks were like, yo, chill. Um, so, you know, I'm, I'm with them eating, but, but it's, it's quiet most of the day. It was a lot, man. It was a lot, a lot to process, but I'm glad that I started with the monks. Because I think had I started with the Amish and then gotten to the monks, it would have been harder. I think going full force, 20 hours a day of silence with the monks, that was the hardest part of this whole journey. Once I got to the Amish, it was like moving from a cave to Manhattan.

• 39:43Mike Rowe?

  Cause I would think, I would think the monk experience, and tell me if I'm wrong, but that, that's very internal.

• 39:51Speaker 02

  Yes, you got it. The, the entire, this entire part of the experiment was everything that was happening inside of me.

• 39:57Mike Rowe?

  Right. Because my experience with the Amish and with the Mennonites.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:03Mike Rowe?

  Them's with the folksy ways.

• 40:05Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 40:05Mike Rowe?

  As we like to say, um, it's very physical.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  Very, and, and, and very conversational and very, they visit and it was a, you know, every meal was two hours long. They, they talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Where the monks was very internal, very reflective.

• 40:18Mike Rowe?

  Wow. So how long with the monks?

• 40:21Speaker 02

  Uh, 14 days.

• 40:22Mike Rowe?

  Okay. And so the real pain points were in the first three or four?

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Pain points, first three, and then day four, I got it. Day four, I was like, I get why these dudes are doing this. Like they, everything's taken care of. They live in a brotherhood. They, all their meals are taken, they, they, they sing praises to God six times a day. It's just, it's a beautiful way of life.

• 40:45Mike Rowe?

  Did you make friends?

• 40:46Speaker 02

  I made a lot of friends and my best friend I made there was Father Carlos, believe it or not. And so he, he was the youngest monk. Uh, so me and Father Carlos, we've become really good friends. We text all the time. Monks.

• 40:56Mike Rowe?

  Wait, what?

• 40:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We, we text all the time. Little did I know that monks have phone problems. So I, as I'm sitting there, okay, Mike, listen to this. So you're, you're, uh, Father Francis. Okay. You're the abbot. You're sitting there. I come in day five, I'm like, you know, everything in my, I'm, I'm all in my head, right? Because like, I'm at a monastery and I'm like pouring my heart out. I'm having, it's crisis of faith and I'm, and he's like, tell me Carlos. He's got all these books behind him and I'm pouring my heart out and he's looking me deep in the eyes. And then halfway through my little monologue to him where I'm crying, his phone goes.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  And he reaches over and he goes, oh, excuse me, son.

• 41:33Mike Rowe?

  I've got to take this.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And he, and he looks for a second, about two seconds, and he puts it back down, he goes, just like, he's like, anyway, continue. And I was like, did this monk?

• 41:41Mike Rowe?

  Are you messing with me, Father?

• 41:43Speaker 02

  Did this monk, did this father just do that to me? Then he starts laughing, oh, maybe I need to read your book. You know, but, but like, I, I don't know, it was, it was so, it was so sad to me that it's even getting to the monks, you know, like even the monks have problems with this stuff, with, with not being, I, I think what I learned there about that moment was I, at that point, had been spent, I'd spent six days, there'd never been a buzz or a ding on my person to remove me from the conversation I was in with the person in front of me. So I'd never been like, taken away to an alternate universe like he did, he was.

• 42:18Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 42:18Speaker 02

  So he literally left where we were, left me all alone, went somewhere, even if it was only for a moment, came back, but I'm like, I, I, I've never left anybody yet. And so that was one of the beautiful things about this whole thing is I was fully present in every single conversation, even if I didn't reach into my pocket to look at something that buzzed. When it buzzes on your person, your brain goes, I wonder who that is, what time is it? No, is it my kids? You know, I, I never had that happen. And so, yeah, it was, it was beautiful.

• 42:46Mike Rowe?

  It is one of the many unintended consequences of this tech, but it has turned us all into multitaskers.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:53Mike Rowe?

  By design.

• 42:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:54Mike Rowe?

  Our minds can't help.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 42:57Mike Rowe?

  Because before we reach for it and before we look at it, we must have posed a question to ourselves.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 43:04Mike Rowe?

  Right? We must be wondering, and we've trained ourselves to know that

• 43:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:09Mike Rowe?

  the answer.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:11Mike Rowe?

  The answer is there because 98% of the known information in the world

• 43:15Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 43:15Mike Rowe?

  is available to us.

• 43:17Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Oh, my gosh.

• 43:18Mike Rowe?

  What a torture.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  I mean, let, let me, let me tell you when my first lesson at the monastery was about wondering. And how shocking it was when I had a question, I think the monks were walking in and out, and I was like, I wonder why they go side by side. So I reached in my pocket and I was like, oh. And I started the sentence by saying, I wonder why.

• 43:37Mike Rowe?

  They walk side by side.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  And and wondering, literally, I realized is being killed by Google. Like, we no longer wonder anymore.

• 43:46Mike Rowe?

  You weren't really wondering. You just wanted to know.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. So wondering actually happens after you say, I wonder. And this is what I try to tell people. It's like, no, wondering isn't saying, I wonder. Wondering is is what happens when you don't find the answer. And so I had to spend seven weeks in wondering. It was like I was living in 1985 again. Like, I remember walking in Turtles Records and Music when I was a senior in high school and seeing like a cut out of Mariah Carey. And not knowing.

• 44:13Mike Rowe?

  I wondered about that, too.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And not knowing who she was. And I was like, oh, my God. This woman is smoking.

• 44:19Mike Rowe?

  I wonder if she'd call me.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. And then I remember walking up going like, who is she? And my friend Peter Kim was with me and and I I picked up and I was like, oh, Mariah Carey. And then I like, I put the little demo CD. Remember you have to put the demo CDs in the thing, put headphones on? And I listened for like, I don't know, 20 minutes. I'm like, man, I wonder who she is. And then I went to the front and I asked the person at the front, do you know that? Oh, no, we just got the CD in. And I was like, so I bought it. I went home, listened to it and just I wondered for weeks who Mariah Carey was before I saw her on an MTV interview. And that's, again, once again, extinct.

• 44:57Mike Rowe?

  Ever since Chapter started advertising on this podcast, I've been getting letters and emails from satisfied customers all over the country. Last week, I got one from Joseph, a retired veterinarian in Texas, who just learned his Medicare plan was shutting down. I can't tell you Joseph's last name because his medical history is complicated and personal, but his situation is not uncommon at all. Given his medical history, Joseph was unable to find a local provider that would include the doctors he'd come to rely on. Happily, Joseph listens to this podcast. And Joseph heard me talking about Chapter just last week. And Chapter exists for one reason, to help people on Medicare find the plan that's right for them.

• 45:43Mike Rowe?

  It's a free service. Anyhow, Joseph called Chapter. He connected with an advisor named Heidi. And Heidi caught something that most people miss. Because his current plan was about to close. Joseph had a limited window to continue with his current coverage through a new plan, without any additional medical underwriting. In other words, Heidi found a way to get Joseph the coverage he needed with the doctors he preferred. Then she found great coverage for his wife, too. Moral of the story? Medicare plans are constantly evolving. You are too. Call Chapter. Make sure you're on the best plan for you.

• 46:22Mike Rowe?

  Also, people who switch plans after calling Chapter save an average of $1,100 a year. 804-Chapter. That's the number. Call it today, it's free. Whole thing takes about 20 minutes. 804-Chapter. It's also a form of what I was saying before, an exploration.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:44Mike Rowe?

  If you want to be an explorer, if you want to go on a journey, then you have to lose sight of the shore you left.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:50Mike Rowe?

  And that's what we can't.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 46:52Mike Rowe?

  We just can't do it anymore.

• 46:53Speaker 02

  That's so good. Losing sight of the shore you left. People are too scared to do that.

• 46:58Mike Rowe?

  Right.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  These days.

• 47:00Mike Rowe?

  Remember the old song? Because you just liken wandering to walking. Which I think is something, there's something about movement. It's, oh, I wander as I wander. Out under the sky.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  There it is.

• 47:13Mike Rowe?

  How Jesus the Savior did come for to die. For poor lonely creatures like you and like I.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  Come on.

• 47:18Mike Rowe?

  I wander as I wander.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:21Mike Rowe?

  That's it.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  That's so good.

• 47:23Mike Rowe?

  But, I mean, I talked to Chuck about this a lot because during the lockdowns, he and I, we were 500 miles apart, but doing these long walks every morning. We'd catch up, talk about the podcast and so forth. But when you're wondering, thinking, contemplating.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:40Mike Rowe?

  And moving at the same time.

• 47:42Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 47:43Mike Rowe?

  You know.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 47:44Mike Rowe?

  Uh, there's something there.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  There is.

• 47:47Mike Rowe?

  I don't know what it is, but that's symbiotic.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I, I mean, I, I believe it. I, I think that, um, if I look at the monks again, they walked everywhere they went. They, they always walk. They would have meetings walking.

• 47:57Mike Rowe?

  By the way, why, why do they walk side by side?

• 47:59Speaker 02

  Actually, I never looked. I still wonder.

• 48:02Mike Rowe?

  Can Chuck Google that, would you, real quick?

• 48:03Speaker 02

  Can you Google?

• 48:05Mike Rowe?

  Why monks walk side by side?

• 48:07Speaker 02

  Down the aisle, yeah.

• 48:08Mike Rowe?

  Because, okay, first, so you can't Google the answer.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:11Mike Rowe?

  And you can't ask them because you're not allowed to talk.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Right, it's green silence. So I was literally stuck wondering.

• 48:16Mike Rowe?

  How many times with the monks are you just walking around, just biting your tongue? Do you just want to, I mean, you can't, you literally, you, you can't ask Siri, which is bad enough. But now you can't even ask the only other human that you can see.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  I know, I know. Listen, the, one of the times that I needed to talk to a monk was when I was walking down from my cabin to the chapel. And I was face, I came face to face with a bobcat. And I just remember, listen, I live in Nashville, Tennessee. There's not bobcats, you know, hopping around. So I'm thinking this thing's gonna eat me, I'm gonna. And I was scared to death and I remember, you know, I threw a traffic cone at that bobcat. And I go sprinting down after the bobcat runs, runs off, sprinting down to the, uh, the monk, I don't know, dorms or whatever they live in. And I see a monk and I go running up to him and I was like, dude, there's a bobcat. And I realized he can't talk to me. And so like, I spill my guts and I'm like, and he's just looking at me and he just kind of shrugs his shoulders and I'm like, I'm just gonna have to wonder. You know, a lot of wondering, a lot of walking.

• 49:12Mike Rowe?

  This is very confused. Like, are you allowed to communicate without talking to the monks?

• 49:18Speaker 02

  Oh, like maybe like, like, could we?

• 49:21Mike Rowe?

  I don't know. I mean, I lost my, I lost my voice a week ago.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  You did?

• 49:26Mike Rowe?

  And, oh yeah, totally. For the first time in many years. So I'm mute, which is bad if you're me.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 49:31Mike Rowe?

  But I'm like in this endless game of charades. Like, so are you able to do that or is it?

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, at that point, I'm just embarrassed, right? Like, like, I'm like, are the monks talking about me behind my back? So, you know, you're trying to like, I screwed up communion. There's all kinds of things I was like doing Catholic wrong. So like, I, I was definitely trying to not like in, intrude on them, on the monks, like vibes constantly, you know?

• 49:52Mike Rowe?

  Did you feel like a guest there? I, I'm sure you did at first, but did that?

• 49:56Speaker 02

  It went away. Yeah, it went away because here's the thing, the monks, they have guests six days a week, one day a week. They are alone without guests on the property and they let me hang out with them that one day, bro. The beer that they brought out was way better than the beer that when the guests are there.

• 50:11Mike Rowe?

  That strawberry I was telling you about.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  I'm telling you, it just tastes, you're right. It's like I got to taste true monk community. Uh, so two days I was there. I got to taste that, um, during the two weeks and, uh, it was awesome. I became really close with a lot of them.

• 50:26Mike Rowe?

  So when did you leave them and what was that like? And, and did you go straight to the Amish afterwards?

• 50:31Speaker 02

  Yep. So my wife comes and, uh, picks me up, uh, 14 days in and, uh, you know, I need a little wife time. It was, it was, you know, very beneficial for me and her, but me mostly, um, of course.

• 50:43Mike Rowe?

  I don't want to pry.

• 50:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it was great. It needed that. So it's like two, two weeks, you know, with the, with the monks. She, um, drives me to LAX, drops me off at LAX. And I have a, all my suitcases and a paper boarding pass. I don't know when the last time you traveled without your phone was.

• 51:01Mike Rowe?

  Oh.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  But, but, but I like, I had to have a, I was like, will they still take this like as a form of getting on the airplane? So yeah, paper boarding pass, all the way I land in Cleveland, Ohio. My friend, Leanne, who hooked me up with the Amish picks me up, but I don't have a way of like calling her when I land.

• 51:19Mike Rowe?

  Every, every single thing, hold on a second. Chuck's actually found something.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  I really haven't found anything. I can't find the side by side thing at all.

• 51:28Speaker 02

  I do have a question. Can I use the restroom?

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 51:30Speaker 02

  Can I pee?

• 51:31Speaker 01

  I don't see why not.

• 51:32Speaker 02

  Is it, can we?

• 51:33Mike Rowe?

  I'm wearing a stadium, pal. I'm going right now.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  I should have asked you that to begin with, but I didn't.

• 51:37Mike Rowe?

  It's right around the corner.

• 51:41Mike Rowe?

  You go, Jim, take your time, man. Take your time.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  All right. I'm looking for a side by side. The closest thing I can find is why do they walk in circles?

• 51:49Mike Rowe?

  It's called, there it is, right there. Circum. Ambulation, the act of walking in a circle around an object of veneration, is common to many of the world's religious traditions. Buddhists circumambulate to show devotion, pay tribute, cultivate their minds and accumulate merit. Although the practice predates Buddhism, the Buddha mentioned it several times over his teaching career and said it purified negative karma and ensured a favorable rebirth. Now, this is probably sacrilegious because we're talking about a Catholic order in a monastic situation. Here I am quoting Buddha. So see if you can stay in the uh...

• 52:27Speaker 02

  Catholic.

• 52:28Mike Rowe?

  Yeah.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  Catholic monks is what I'm looking for.

• 52:30Mike Rowe?

  Not Buddhist monks.

• 52:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I wasn't specific.

• 52:33Mike Rowe?

  But look, while we're waiting for Carlos to pee, folks, at least you learned something about why the Buddhist monks walk in a circle. Why do Catholic monks walk side by side?

• 52:42Speaker 02

  I spelled Catholic wrong.

• 52:45Mike Rowe?

  Aren't you Catholic technically?

• 52:48Speaker 02

  No, uh, I was, uh, I was raised Catholic, but I'm no longer Catholic technically.

• 52:53Mike Rowe?

  Well, according to AI, Catholic monks often walk side by side as a symbol of community and equality, signifying that all members of the monastic order are considered equal in their shared life of prayer and service, walking together on the same path towards spiritual growth. It also reflects a sense of unity and shared purpose with the monastery. There it is. I can't believe we, we not only have an excellent answer to your question.

• 53:22Speaker 02

  Oh, great.

• 53:23Mike Rowe?

  It was provided by AI.

• 53:25Speaker 02

  You, you know what?

• 53:26Mike Rowe?

  And accessed on a screen.

• 53:27Speaker 02

  Of course. Thank you, AI. Thank you, screens. What's, what's the answer?

• 53:31Mike Rowe?

  Well, the highlight is highlighted. It's a symbol of community and equality. That's why they walk side by side.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  There it is. And I believe that. That feels right.

• 53:39Mike Rowe?

  That feels right to me.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:42Mike Rowe?

  And it's a good transition because it's the community component. What I took from the book really lives in the, in the Amish more than anything.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 53:52Mike Rowe?

  So to sum up, monks, very quiet, lot of solitude, but they still are on their screens.

• 53:58Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:59Mike Rowe?

  You're not, they are.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  They are, yep.

• 54:01Mike Rowe?

  And then on the way to the Amish, you go to the airport, but you can't call an Uber. You can't coordinate with your pickup. You're walking around like a schmuck with a paper ticket. It's 1977.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  It was. And then, and then I'm just standing there going like, well... My wife told me before she dropped me off at LAX that Leanne was gonna be here.

• 54:20Mike Rowe?

  I wonder if she'll be here.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  And then next thing you knew, I see this white convertible Beetle with Taylor Swift blaring through the speakers and out jumps Leanne and she's like, ah, and I was like, the relief of just seeing her. I was like, I didn't know if I was gonna like die in the airport, live here for the rest of my life, like who knew? And, and she picks me up and, and we hop in her car and we drive to Amish land is what I called it, Mount Hope, Ohio.

• 54:44Mike Rowe?

  Oh, so you're in Ohio? So what, what airport were you in?

• 54:48Speaker 02

  I went from Cleveland, I went later in Cleveland and then she drove me to Mount Hope, Ohio. And so, yeah.

• 54:52Mike Rowe?

  Lot of Amish in Ohio.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  Lot of, the largest population of new, of, uh, yeah, the new order Amish. And then there's the low order, the higher order, they live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, but then in, in Holmes County, Ohio is the largest population of Amish in the country. And that's where, that's where I lived, right there. It was a four way stop, Mount Hope, Ohio. They've got the, the horse auction there, the post office, couple of things, and then just a lot of, a lot of farms. It was, bro, I'm, I'm just, I'm a city boy. And to have, first of all, to have like a half-black, half-Mexican shaved head tattoo dude dropped in Mount Hope, Ohio.

• 55:34Mike Rowe?

  One of these things is not like the other.

• 55:36Speaker 02

  Totally. And I'm like, oh my God, I just, I'm just already feeling, you know, and I walk in and Willis, Willis sees me, she drops me off and, and I mean, literally, I mean, this was just, it was, there's like, like there's horse and buggies everywhere and she leaves and I'm standing there and, and no one's coming up to me. And then I see there's, there's a guy like, um, on his, uh, plow behind four horses, like big Budweiser looking horses. Obviously, like all the terms, yeah, all the terms I'm using show that I'm not Amish, okay? And, and right, the, the horses show up, he hops off, I'm just standing there with my luggage and he just walks straight up to me. He's like, you must be Carlos. He's like, yes, sir.

• 56:14Mike Rowe?

  How'd you put that together there, Columbo?

• 56:16Speaker 02

  And he goes, uh, uh, you're, you're, you're gonna need to put some farm clothes on. And so I was, yes, sir. So immediately I go and I put on my, you know, my farm clothes and, uh, bro, I spent the first. Day just watching this man farm, I went to bed exhausted. I was like, just watching a farmer farm was more exhausting ever. Slowly but surely, he folded me in to, and by the end of it, I'm like, I mean, listen, I, I was walking around with like some sheep farming swagger. By the end of these two weeks, but uh. Tell me about the family first. Yeah. What are they called? So, uh, the Millers. The Millers. The Millers. Yeah. So you got Willis, um, and Kathy and they are, you know, the heads of the farm of the Miller sheep farm. Then they've got, uh, Krista, their daughter who lives there who's Mennonite. So again, right away, I'm learning.

• 57:01Speaker 02

  I'm like, okay, wait, what's the difference between Mennonite and, and Amish? And, uh, Mennonites, basically they, they're like, I don't know. I don't want to say liberal Amish, you know, but, but they, they have. They've been known to play a game of cards. Yeah. You know, like they drive cars, like they're, you know, they're a, a little open, a little bit more open. So, um. Uh, Crystal is there with them. They've got Diane who's still Amish, another daughter and, and her husband. So like what I quickly learned, I was like, wow, there's a lot of like, where's this shunning? Where, where's this shunning happening? Like I'm, I'm waiting for like, well, you're not supposed to talk to her because she left the Amish church. No, it's like. Where's the barn raising? Yeah, yeah. Where's Kelly Mcguillicet? Yeah, totally. All of the things. I'm waiting for all the things to happen. Kelly Mcguillicet?

• 57:44Speaker 02

  And so, so I'm waiting and I, I'm just quickly, they're unraveling all of these beliefs I had about the Amish really quickly. They're like, Carlos, like we're sure there could be probably some shunning on some reality show you've seen on TV, but no, like we love each other. We're here. You know, here for each other. And so I just started learning. I just started learning, at least with the, uh, with the monks, there was a little bit of, you know, I'm. I'm living on the evangelical train. I'm not like Catholic, right? And so like there was a, but I just had more in common with the monks than I had with the Amish. And so I didn't know a thing about the Amish and the family was amazing. Um, they, they run a sheep farm. And so, uh, they've got about 200 acres and they run the whole thing, uh, with their horses and plows.

• 58:29Speaker 02

  And I spent the first seven days just waiting to cut the hay. Like I, I didn't realize that cutting the hay was such a big, you know, I'm like. It's a thing. Let's cut the hay. Like, like, bro, it's time to cut the hay. But no, it's like, you wait and you wait and you gotta wait for it to dry. And you know, oh, I don't want to leave out, um, their Dottie, their grandpa who lives in the home. Twenty feet from their home, right? And all of a sudden, again, American subculture and society, I'm falling in love with just the intergenerational living that's happening with the Amish. I'm like, we, we don't do this anymore in America. Like, like, we, we don't live near our family and all of these things for, again, no fault of our own, but maybe a little bit. And so like, I just fell in love with kind of how they did things, which is one of the

• 59:12Speaker 02

  reasons I moved my mother and father across the street from me in Nashville, because I was like, I, I want some of this. I, I want a little bit of this.

• 59:20Mike Rowe?

  And conversely, I mean, just to make it a callback for a minute, if Dottie's house catches on fire, they run right across the lawn.

• 59:29Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 59:29Mike Rowe?

  Standing by.

• 59:30Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 59:31Mike Rowe?

  If Nuna's?

• 59:32Speaker 02

  Nani.

• 59:33Mike Rowe?

  Nani's house catches on fire.

• 59:34Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 59:35Mike Rowe?

  You gotta get on a plane, you gotta fly from Nashville, and next thing you know, you're in Southern California.

• 59:39Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 59:40Mike Rowe?

  For a week.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:41Mike Rowe?

  So.

• 59:42Speaker 02

  It's, it, it's, it's a different way of living. I'm sure there's a lot of things, if I would have, you know, lived there for a month instead of two weeks, I probably would have found more things I maybe disagreed with, because there, I'm sure there's a lot. But I really loved the Amish. I loved the way they did community. I loved the way they did family. They taught me a lot of lessons. They were really open with me. Believe it or not, Willis and I don't see eye to eye on a lot of things. He's Amish and I'm not. And we were able to talk about like, really, what, what you would see on X or on Facebook, polarizing topics over a meal.

• 1:00:21Mike Rowe?

  Hmm.

• 1:00:23Speaker 02

  And we would, we would agree that we're probably not going to see this thing eye to eye, but man, I really enjoyed the meal with him and I really enjoyed talking to him and learning and being curious. I think that curiosity is one of the things that I've, I've learned since I've left the monks and the Amish is really missing in America. You know, people just aren't curious about each other's thoughts anymore, curious about each other's beliefs. And I, the way that Willis and his whole family were so curious about me, made me think, I should probably be more curious about other people, too. So.

• 1:00:57Mike Rowe?

  I mean, look, this, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to think of the downsides of curiosity.

• 1:01:04Mike Rowe?

  I mean, I know it killed the cat.

• 1:01:05Speaker 02

  Right, right, besides the cat.

• 1:01:07Mike Rowe?

  Besides the cat, right. I mean, look, the whole Discovery brand was rooted on, you know, one mantra, satisfy curiosity.

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:01:14Mike Rowe?

  That's what that was.

• 1:01:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:15Mike Rowe?

  But, maybe there's a lesson here, too. You, you use the word mission once or twice, you know. Missions, notions, endeavors, they, they need constant care and feeding.

• 1:01:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:31Mike Rowe?

  They, and, and, they need recalibrating.

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:34Mike Rowe?

  And you gotta, you gotta check yourself a lot.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  So good.

• 1:01:38Mike Rowe?

  Everything around you is always changing.

• 1:01:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:41Mike Rowe?

  Including you.

• 1:01:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:42Mike Rowe?

  And so, the next thing you know, and I'm not, I don't want to put words in my friend's mouth, but John Hendrix, the guy who created the Discovery Channel.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:51Mike Rowe?

  And started with that mandate, you know, satisfy curiosity. He's still alive, which means he was around to see

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:02:00Mike Rowe?

  a version of his notion pop up in a show called The Amish Mafia.

• 1:02:05Speaker 02

  Huh.

• 1:02:06Mike Rowe?

  Which was an absolute turd, and everybody knows it.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 1:02:10Mike Rowe?

  So it's like, you know, the, it, it's like, the way a great idea can slowly become corrupted.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  This is good.

• 1:02:20Mike Rowe?

  You know, I just like, like the frog in the boiling water. There's so much inherently good about this infernal thing.

• 1:02:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:28Mike Rowe?

  And, um, I'll let you riff in a sec on all, all of this, but I, I think the point I, I want to try and make is that geography matters in this a lot, too.

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 1:02:39Mike Rowe?

  And when you talk about that community in Ohio, and then you talk about your own life and your own grandmom, you know, 2,000 miles away from you and your wife.

• 1:02:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:48Mike Rowe?

  Part of what these screens try to do for people is shrink their world so they can have a community like the Amish have as a default.

• 1:03:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:01Mike Rowe?

  By nature of their geography.

• 1:03:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:03Mike Rowe?

  And I think that's a, you know, a good and, and, and noble endeavor. But, you know.

• 1:03:12Speaker 02

  It's.

• 1:03:13Mike Rowe?

  It's hard.

• 1:03:14Speaker 02

  It's, it's not happening. These screens, as much as we want to say, and as much as it is a noble endeavor, to say, whatever app you develop is just going to bring us closer together, I, I just.

• 1:03:27Speaker 02

  Bro, for two months, I'm the only person I know, at least in my circle, that has not looked at a single screen for two months, right? Like, I didn't look, watch, look at the TV, and Apple Watch, and iPad, laptop, nothing. And I became, I think, the purest version of me I've ever been. So pure. The friend I was to the Amish, the friend I was to the monks,

• 1:03:52Speaker 02

  was night and day compared to the friend I am to my friends that I text every once in a while. I do believe that these screens can be an asset to community, but that, you're right, like, the Amish, their geography matters. The fact that they're together matters. When Miss Smith's barn burns down, the reason they don't have cars is because they believe, they don't believe cars are evil, they just think that, if we have cars, we'll be too far away from each other if something happens, to help each other. So cars will take us too far away. So horse and buggies will keep us close enough to where when the barn burns down, in three days, we'll have it back up. So, one of the questions that they ask, with any piece of technology they invite in,

• 1:04:36Speaker 02

  is will this piece of technology bring us closer together? Or will it tear us farther apart? Everything, from a TV to a... Some of them have flip phones now, okay? Amish have flip phones. So they made a very conscious decision, okay, if you own a business, it looks like the businesses are failing because you can't communicate to your customers like you normally would, and farming's not working anymore. So, we're gonna allow a flip phone to come in because we don't believe that the flip phone is gonna bring us farther apart from each other. So, those are questions that I think we need to be asking ourselves. When we add things into our lives, when we install a new app on our phone, is this going to bring me closer to the community I'm in? Or tear me farther apart? There's a book called The Lonely Century.

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  It came out maybe three or four years ago. And it talks about how we are the most connected as humanity that we've ever been.

• 1:05:28Mike Rowe?

  Never been more connected.

• 1:05:29Speaker 02

  Never been more connected, but lonelier than we've ever been. And so, it's like, you just, you gotta chew on that, and you have to think about it. Why is that?

• 1:05:42Mike Rowe?

  Can't believe it's been 15 years since that headline first appeared in Slate Magazine, the one that said "The Greatest Hoodie Ever Made." That's the headline that put American Giant on the map. And that's the same year their CEO sent me one of these hoodies unsolicited in the mail. I didn't know Byrd Winthrop back then, but he was a fan of Dirty Jobs. He and his kids watched it, and he wanted me to have one of his sweatshirts, so I beat the hell out of it. I mean, I wore it, I don't know, on dozens of different Dirty Jobs. I just saw an old episode last week of me castrating lambs wearing this hoodie. No garment in the history of the world, in my opinion, has ever been bespectacled with

• 1:06:25Mike Rowe?

  a more curious array of unholy fluids than my American Giant sweatshirt, and it's still standing. Honestly, at this point, I'm less concerned about replacing it than I am deciding who gets it when I'm gone. But what made American Giant famous, of course, was not just a sweatshirt that refused to die, it was making that sweatshirt right here in America with skilled people doing good work. That's something I'm happy to support, especially when I can support it while wearing something comfortable. If you're looking for a gift that might outlast your relationship with the recipient, consider the hoodie that started it all. Go to American-Giant.com/mike. You'll save 20% when you drop my name at American-Giant.com/mike.

• 1:07:09Speaker 03

  American Giant, American-made. American Giant, American-made.

• 1:07:18Mike Rowe?

  So, how then do you think about the reality for a lot of people today? They are isolated, and they're alone. And if through their screens, their phones, they can find community, albeit a prophylactic version of, a virtual version of a community, but those communities feel awfully real. And you can be shunned from those as well, and that hurts, you know? I don't know, I mean, is there such a thing for a lonely person as a community that's facilitated entirely by the screen?

• 1:08:00Speaker 02

  I think it's a good first step to finding community. I, I, I just would challenge anybody...

• 1:08:08Speaker 02

  Listen, I'm not very dogmatic with a lot of things I think. I feel like I'm a pretty open and curious person. But I just can't fathom that whoever you are that's listening to this that's lonely, can't take one step farther past whatever community you've created on your phone to have breath to breath conversation and community with people around you. Again, maybe there's someone in an article that's listening to this right now that we, okay, there's gonna be cases where this isn't the point. I just think that we've all got to try our hardest to find breath to breath, face to face community. The fact that I get to do this with you, like, face to face and not on Riverside or not on Zoom.

• 1:08:50Mike Rowe?

  That matters.

• 1:08:51Speaker 02

  The conversation would have been completely different. It absolutely matters. And I just think we, I've got to keep reminding people that it matters.

• 1:09:00Mike Rowe?

  What if, in my alternative universe, the conversation would have been precisely the same, the feeling would not have been. Like, a conversation, at least in hindsight, is a transcript.

• 1:09:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:15Mike Rowe?

  So.

• 1:09:16Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:09:16Mike Rowe?

  We could say the same things and we could make the same points.

• 1:09:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:22Mike Rowe?

  But the intangible thing.

• 1:09:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:24Mike Rowe?

  This podcast was born out of the lockdowns.

• 1:09:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:28Mike Rowe?

  At least this format was. And it lived on Riverside.

• 1:09:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:09:32Mike Rowe?

  Out of necessity. And then, you know, if a funny thing happened, man, once, once we realized we, we weren't locked down.

• 1:09:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:41Mike Rowe?

  Now, it's a pain in the ass to get on the plane and come down here.

• 1:09:44Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:09:44Mike Rowe?

  To do this. But, man, I, I know when I feel like I'm cheating.

• 1:09:54Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 1:09:54Mike Rowe?

  I know when I feel like I took a shortcut.

• 1:09:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:09:58Mike Rowe?

  And even though it's more efficient, those shortcuts do lead to long delays.

• 1:10:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:02Mike Rowe?

  And you give up something in the bargain.

• 1:10:04Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:10:05Mike Rowe?

  Right? This is probably a hassle for you too. I mean, actually, you were here anyway.

• 1:10:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:08Mike Rowe?

  You had the great, you had the great good fortune of having your nana's house burned down.

• 1:10:12Speaker 02

  Right, right. So I'm here.

• 1:10:13Mike Rowe?

  But, right?

• 1:10:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:15Mike Rowe?

  If a thing takes effort.

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:10:19Mike Rowe?

  Then you have a basis for something in common.

• 1:10:22Speaker 02

  And, and we, we don't want effort anymore. People, I mean, Amazon, I've got a new app that I have on my phone called Amazon Prime Now. Okay, so now there's three words. Okay? Three words. Three words, Amazon Prime Now. So first there was Amazon, oh, I can get the thing in five days. Then there's Amazon Prime, oh, I can get the thing in two days. Now there's Amazon Prime Now that tells me I can get the thing in three hours.

• 1:10:47Mike Rowe?

  You can get it yesterday.

• 1:10:48Speaker 02

  I can get it yesterday.

• 1:10:50Mike Rowe?

  Amazon yesterday.

• 1:10:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So I think people want community like that. I think, I think people want, um, and I just don't think we can get it.

• 1:10:57Mike Rowe?

  Dude, we're swiping left.

• 1:10:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:58Mike Rowe?

  And we're swiping right.

• 1:10:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:00Mike Rowe?

  We're scrolling up. Yes, her, maybe her. Go ahead. I'll do that.

• 1:11:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:03Mike Rowe?

  What is it? The grinder this?

• 1:11:08Mike Rowe?

  Tinder that? Tinder that. That's what I meant to say. Not grinder, folks. Not grinder. Never been a grinder.

• 1:11:15Speaker 02

  Firsthand knowledge. I don't know what's happening here. But no, yes, you're right. I mean, it's, it's, and, and I mean, I even think to myself, so like my Instagram audience, like we do a lot of good, right? My community. I call them a community on Instagram. Uh, we've raised over 1.1 million dollars to help people in need over the last few years. Strangers.

• 1:11:35Mike Rowe?

  I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This is so stupid. I'm an hour into this thing. What do you do for money?

• 1:11:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:43Mike Rowe?

  What do you, what do you do?

• 1:11:45Speaker 02

  I, um, I, I speak full time. So like, like I, I speak on corporate stages or faith stages.

• 1:11:51Mike Rowe?

  What the hell do you talk about? I mean, before you wrote this book, what were you talking about?

• 1:11:54Speaker 02

  This is my fifth book. So, so I talk about a lot of my books. I got a book called Kill the Spider, uh, How to Get Rid of What's Holding You Back. That's a whole other podcast I'd love to come and talk about.

• 1:12:02Mike Rowe?

  Fine.

• 1:12:02Speaker 02

  Uh, you know, just stop cleaning the cobwebs, kill the spider. Um, I got a book called How to Human, Three Ways to Share Life Beyond What Distracts, Divides, and Disconnects Us. So a lot of speaking I do. I got some courses online, uh, that people, uh, I got one called Human School, uh, that's coming out. And, uh, yeah, you know, I write books, you know, so I write books. So if people buy my books, helps feed my family, you know, so.

• 1:12:22Mike Rowe?

  Nah, bull crap. There's more. There's more. Like, why do you, what, what's the? Like, why do you give a damn?

• 1:12:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I think I grew up, I mean, we're going there. Where I didn't have a lot of people that gave a damn about me. And I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, in the eighties, in a predominantly white neighborhood, that I was trying my hardest to fit in with my Gary Coleman Afro parted down the side, left and right. And I was trying, you know, all my friends would put their hand on my Afro and would like make their handprint and go, oh my gosh, this is so cool. Look at your hair. You know, and what you're talking about Willis and the whole thing. And I just, Mike,

• 1:13:12Speaker 02

  I've tried for so long to like, I tried for so long to be included, tried my hardest to be included, that like, there's something in me that just wants everyone to feel seen around me. And I know, as I travel, like I just said, we've raised 1.1 million dollars for Strangers in Need. It's because I, people just feel invisible. And I want people to feel seen. And ultimately, you know, I think the funnel's really wide at the top, at the top part of, everybody's kind of like, hey, everyone come on into Carlos's world, you know, but I definitely think, you know, as the funnel gets closer to the bottom, I really truly want everyone to feel seen. And because I didn't feel seen for a long time. So.

• 1:13:56Mike Rowe?

  How odd that in this same time, where we are undoubtedly more connected than we've ever been, we're also probably more invisible than we've ever been.

• 1:14:08Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:14:09Mike Rowe?

  What a trick. What a terrible bargain we've made. If in fact, being seen and feeling validated is the goal. What a terrible.

• 1:14:21Speaker 02

  Terrible.

• 1:14:22Mike Rowe?

  Terrible trip we're on, man.

• 1:14:24Speaker 02

  When I showed up at this monastery with my 300,000 Instagram followers going like, hey, I'll see you guys later. Like, like, I see you. Like, I know you're gonna miss me. I'll see, I mean, I know we're, we hang out every day. I hit posts, everyone's like hearting me, like, oh my gosh, where are you going? Da, da, da, da, da. And then when I hopped back on eight weeks later, and I realized.

• 1:14:47Speaker 02

  Not a single person knew I was gone. Like, there is someone to slide right in to, to take over someone's attention. What a terrible trick we played on ourselves.

• 1:14:58Mike Rowe?

  Jesus. It's like a hyper version of, of life. I mean, what really happens after our funeral?

• 1:15:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:08Mike Rowe?

  I mean, like, what, what really happens? The people who loved us most are sad. And they walk around and they're sad for a while and people make the food. And they eat the food and they, they, they say some nice things about you. And then there's a whole nother layer of people, your coworkers, your acquaintances. They come and they're like, ah, that was, man, he was something.

• 1:15:27Speaker 02

  He was something else.

• 1:15:28Mike Rowe?

  And then, man, you know, they go home and they're watching the Wheel of Fortune.

• 1:15:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:32Mike Rowe?

  Or, or whatever. And then the next day and the next day.

• 1:15:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:35Mike Rowe?

  And pretty soon. You know, you, you, you, life truly goes on.

• 1:15:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:43Mike Rowe?

  And, and it goes on so much faster in this hyper real.

• 1:15:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:49Mike Rowe?

  Place that we've created.

• 1:15:51Speaker 02

  So much faster.

• 1:15:52Mike Rowe?

  I, I feel like such a, look, I, I, I've had a really uneasy relationship with social and I.

• 1:15:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:58Mike Rowe?

  I want to ask you about this too. I got, I don't know, nine, 10 million people on various channels. And I, I take it seriously too. I don't, I mean, honestly, between us.

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:10Mike Rowe?

  And, you know.

• 1:16:10Speaker 02

  And, and.

• 1:16:11Mike Rowe?

  Everyone. Uh, I think of, I think of them as my, my personal focus group.

• 1:16:18Speaker 02

  Huh.

• 1:16:19Mike Rowe?

  My boss, really.

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:21Mike Rowe?

  It's like, I'll, I'll tell you guys what I'm thinking. Like, they chose the name for my show, for my book. They, I do that.

• 1:16:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:28Mike Rowe?

  But, but beyond that, it is, it is true. If I don't post something on Facebook or Instagram for a few days, I.

• 1:16:37Mike Rowe?

  I, I, I start to feel like I'm cheating and like. Like, there's a dog in the backyard and it won't stop barking.

• 1:16:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's true.

• 1:16:45Mike Rowe?

  So, okay, so they didn't miss you.

• 1:16:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:48Mike Rowe?

  Did you miss them? And what did it feel like to reconnect?

• 1:16:51Speaker 02

  I missed them.

• 1:16:56Speaker 02

  I miss the idea of them missing me.

• 1:17:01Mike Rowe?

  That's great. I miss the idea of them missing me.

• 1:17:05Speaker 02

  That's what I missed. And so, you know, seven and a half weeks later, brain re-scanned, tons of healing in my brain. I don't even want my phone, when my best friend Brian, he'd had it the whole time. He lives in Laguna and I'll never forget, I fly out to get my brain scanned and he hands me my phone and it felt like it weighed two tons. Like, I just remember being like,

• 1:17:30Mike Rowe?

  I've been carrying this around?

• 1:17:31Speaker 02

  Is this how much my phone? This thing weighs a lot, like, this is crazy.

• 1:17:35Mike Rowe?

  And I put this next to my testicles.

• 1:17:38Speaker 02

  And right now, it's underneath both my testicles.

• 1:17:40Mike Rowe?

  I'm literally sitting, I'm gonna take this battery, this throbbing hot thing.

• 1:17:46Speaker 02

  And it's just buzzing under my testicles right now, you know, you know, yeah.

• 1:17:49Mike Rowe?

  Nestle it in the paint, perfect.

• 1:17:52Speaker 02

  And I just, you know, I didn't want to turn it on. I didn't want to turn it back on. I was at such peace. I didn't even need to see my brain results. Like, I knew it was different. I knew that my memory, I knew all these things had improved and, but my life was just like, it felt pure, like I said, just pure. And, bro, I didn't want it turned on and I sat there for three days with this thing just black. And my wife's like, hey, we gotta pay the bills, you need to get some. I know, you know, like, you gotta turn it on, the space bills.

• 1:18:25Mike Rowe?

  Hey, Walden.

• 1:18:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I turned it on and it just, bro, it was like,

• 1:18:31Speaker 02

  I mean, imagine two months of notifications that were just like waiting, ding ding ding ding ding ding ding. And so, this is what I did.

• 1:18:39Speaker 02

  I handed it to my wife and I said, I need you to hit select all, delete. And I literally deleted every single message and started from scratch. And I said, if anyone really wants to get ahold of me, they'll call me back. So, I deleted all my messages and started clean, started fresh.

• 1:18:56Mike Rowe?

  Wow.

• 1:18:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. It felt awesome.

• 1:18:59Mike Rowe?

  Do you know what I like to do from time to time? I like to put that thing on do not disturb and sometimes maybe forget to take it off do not disturb.

• 1:19:08Speaker 02

  Can I tell you? I've had my phone on do not disturb for two years.

• 1:19:13Mike Rowe?

  Really?

• 1:19:14Speaker 02

  I have not had a single, a single notification. My family knows, now, now, I tell people, this is how you can tweak it. I tell my family, I've set it up to where if you call me, this is my wife, my kids and my mom. If any of you call me, if you need me and you need to talk to me, call me, it will buzz. But if you just, if you don't need me, don't call me. Can I tell you in the last two years, how many times anyone has called me? I don't, maybe three times, maybe three phone calls, one for my son, he got a flat tire, another for, but besides that, I've never gotten a buzz or a ding on my person. So suddenly I'm in charge of my phone, my phone's not in charge of me. And so I tell people all the time to do what you, you said you love to do. Put it on do not disturb.

• 1:19:58Speaker 02

  The notifications will still be there when you open, when you turn your, you know, flip your phone over. It's all there, but it's not ever going to interrupt you and remove you into an alternate universe that you weren't in in the first place.

• 1:20:11Mike Rowe?

  How do we get here, man? I mean, how do we, I, I, I just, I just think of the times, I mean, I wanted this out for this because we're talking about this.

• 1:20:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:20:22Mike Rowe?

  Uh, but the truth is, I just interviewed somebody else earlier and it was out.

• 1:20:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:26Mike Rowe?

  And I walk into restaurants.

• 1:20:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:28Mike Rowe?

  And then the whole group of people, it's like we're taking our guns out in a saloon. And like turning them in before we sit out. Take out our phones and we set them down, we do the thing. And then.

• 1:20:39Speaker 02

  Totally is.

• 1:20:40Mike Rowe?

  And we're just, we're all just wraiths, we're vapors, we're not really.

• 1:20:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:46Mike Rowe?

  Present.

• 1:20:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:47Mike Rowe?

  Ever anymore.

• 1:20:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:48Mike Rowe?

  My partner, Mary, runs my company. She's got some time, I've, I've seen her with the phone in each hand.

• 1:20:54Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:20:54Mike Rowe?

  Literally texting two different people at the same time with two different thumbs.

• 1:20:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:59Mike Rowe?

  You know?

• 1:20:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:00Mike Rowe?

  And I think of my dad, who's 92 now.

• 1:21:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:04Mike Rowe?

  And for as long as I've known him, he's got the paper delivered to him, right? When the, when the paper lands out there, whether it was on the porch in the house I grew up in, or in the hallway in the condo of the retirement home he lives in now. I was just home like two months ago, boom, the paper lands and he looks up and he goes, ah crap, there it is. There it is again.

• 1:21:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:29Mike Rowe?

  And I'm like, what are you doing, man? Why, why, when, when is this gonna stop? And he goes out and he takes a paper and he opens up, he's like, oh, look at this, look at this. And there's like three other papers stacked up.

• 1:21:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:41Mike Rowe?

  The paper to him is an obligation to read and it's homework and they stack up. And it always made me laugh to think about that, but

• 1:21:50Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:21:50Mike Rowe?

  But now, thank God, he's not on email.

• 1:21:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:54Mike Rowe?

  Because it's that same feeling, right?

• 1:21:56Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:21:56Mike Rowe?

  Like, what do you, like, Mary literally just said to me, "I've got 400 unanswered emails. I can't talk to you right now."

• 1:22:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:06Mike Rowe?

  That's where we are.

• 1:22:07Speaker 02

  It is. And so, what do we do then? To be able to step away, we're not all gonna be able to go live with the Amish and monks. So, how can we do, how can we be purposeful?

• 1:22:18Mike Rowe?

  Tell us, Carlos.

• 1:22:19Speaker 02

  Let me tell you.

• 1:22:19Mike Rowe?

  Tell us, Carlos Whittaker.

• 1:22:21Speaker 02

  I'm gonna tell you right now.

• 1:22:22Mike Rowe?

  All right.

• 1:22:23Speaker 02

  And the full name is Carlos Enrique Whitaker Guzman, first of all.

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  And there's gonna be a test.

• 1:22:28Speaker 02

  And there's gonna be a test, okay, so.

• 1:22:30Mike Rowe?

  Did any of the monks get it right?

• 1:22:31Speaker 02

  No, no, but they would call me Carlos. So, this is what we do. You do the next right thing. That's, with every situation, I'm starting to tell all my kids, "What's the next right thing you can do to reclaim the lost art of humaning?" Whatever that might be for whatever listeners listening. Well, I love that you brought up the paper with your dad. Because I think for me, and for a lot of people, the news apps on my phone were what were consuming all of my attention. I mean, whether that be X, whatever, whatever it is, just news, news, news, news, news. So, what I did, the next right thing for me, when I got back, is I deleted all the news apps off my phone. I deleted X off my phone. And I subscribed to this thing that they throw in my front yard every single day,

• 1:23:16Speaker 02

  called the newspaper. And I walk out and there's The Tennessean, every single morning. It's the craziest thing. I don't know if it's a dude named Bubba in a Trans Am at 6:00 AM that's throwing it out his window. But I walk out and it's there. And, and I love it. I pick it up, I drink my coffee out of a ceramic mug, right? And I'm, I'm reading the paper just like my old man. And I read it, and I get done in about 20 minutes. And if anything else happens on planet Earth that I need to know about, I'll find out tomorrow morning when I go pick up the paper again. So what the paper has done for me is it's still allows me to be in the current cultural climate, understanding what's happening in the world. I'm a big news guy. I love to know. But that's what, that's where I'm going to find my news out is in the paper.

• 1:23:59Speaker 02

  And that's one thing that I've done. Another thing I've done is I went to Target and I bought this really cool thing that you plug in next to your bed called an alarm clock. I don't know if you've ever heard of it before. It's craziest thing ever. It's this invention that like it wakes you up in the morning and you don't pick it up and start like rubbing its face and like, like, like touching it and like, it just, it just wakes you up.

• 1:24:24Mike Rowe?

  That's it.

• 1:24:25Speaker 02

  My phone is in the kitchen and for the first hour of my day, I don't even look at it. And so I read my paper, I drink my coffee and I savor my coffee. My coffee tastes so much better when I'm not scrolling on email and things like that. And so I just learned to what the monks called Godspeed, to have my mornings at Godspeed. And so these are tiny little tweaks, tiny little things that I've added to my life. There, the book has like 25 of them, but tiny little things that I've rediscovered to start adding into my life that make me feel truly human again. Give me that breath again in my lungs and it's a, okay. So I no longer use maps, Apple Maps or Google Maps to get anywhere. So like on the way.

• 1:25:07Mike Rowe?

  How the hell did you get here?

• 1:25:08Speaker 02

  I looked it up on my phone before and I wrote it on a piece of paper. And then so that, that was yesterday to get to the hotel. Now I just, I just got dropped off by, by my wife here on the way here. But everywhere I go, I think to myself, I don't, I, I can remember directions. Like why, why, why are we no longer remembering directions anymore? And so like I'm writing, I'm writing the directions down. So here I am, this part of my brain is waking up. There was a study done, London cab drivers and most London cab drivers have to know how to get around the city without GPS before they pass their cab, cab driving test.

• 1:25:40Mike Rowe?

  That's a confusing town.

• 1:25:42Speaker 02

  Yes, a confusing town and they scan their brains and the Uber driver's brains versus the London. Cab driver's brain that have to memorize night and day difference. And so like, that's something that I no longer do is use it. You know what? If I have to sit in traffic an extra 10 minutes on my way to a meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, because, uh, I don't know, Waze didn't tell me to get off and go a faster way, then it's 10 more minutes I get to sit in solitude and maybe be bored and sit in traffic. And it's okay. So, you know, what else that does is I get lost and I have to like ask people, "Hey, do you know, do you know how to get to?" And I'll, and I make some friends at gas stations I've never stopped at before, face to face. Those are things I've done. I've stopped using Yelp. No lo- no longer Yelping, you know, restaurants.

• 1:26:26Speaker 02

  Like I just, I feel it in my gut, uh, intuition. What are ways that we can grab back a hold of intuition? One story I'd love to tell you really quickly. Sure. That, that really hooked me when I was there with the, with the Amish is Farmer Willis. We're making it, we're, we're trying to cut the hay, right? And I'm like, "Bro, why does it take seven days to cut the hay? Let's just get on the..." He's like, "The hay's gotta be dry." So we're checking the hay every day. I finally get out in the morning and I feel the hay, because now I'm feeling the hay every morning. Because it's just a new habit. It's what I do. So I feel the hay, I was like, "Oh, it's crunchy. I think it's time to cut the hay." But then I look and there's like thunder clouds. And I'm like, "It's gonna rain, we can't cut the hay." So I walk over to Willis and I was like, "Willis, bro, the, the, the grass feels right.

• 1:27:08Speaker 02

  Like, we should be able to cut it, but obviously we can't cut the hay because it's gonna rain." Like, you could see the rain. And he goes, "Carlos, I want you to look at your boots." And I was like, "What's this Amish trick that he's done?" So I looked down at my boots, he's like, "What do you see?" I was like, "I don't know, dirt?" He's like, "No, look, look closer." I'm like, "They're wet?" He goes, "Exactly. We're gonna cut the hay." And I was like, "We can't cut the hay, it's gonna rain." He's like, "My daddy always told me, if there's dew on your boots, it's not gonna rain." And I said, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Because there's thunder clouds, right? So, he's like, "I'm gonna cut the hay." So I get in the horse and buggy with Kathy. We take off to the feed mill or somewhere. We're there, I don't know, we're two miles away. It's dumping rain.

• 1:27:52Speaker 02

  Dumping rain on us all day long. I'm gone. And I'm looking at Kathy like, he ruined the whole crop. Like, he rolled it up, it's gonna get mildewy. All the things he told me is gonna be wrong. We start driving back to his house. We get about, I don't know, half a mile from that farm. And it is dry. There's not been a raindrop that has landed. And she's kinda smiling at me. I hop out of that vehicle. I walk up to him, he's standing there with his arms crossed, and he goes, "There was dew on your boots." And so I just think to myself, Mike, there's all these things that we no longer do. But there's dew on my boots. So every morning I walk out in Nashville now, and I'll check my boots to see if there's dew on my boots, is it gonna rain or not? But intuition, what are ways that we can get back in touch

• 1:28:34Speaker 02

  with all of these beautiful lost art forms in our humanity?

• 1:28:38Mike Rowe?

  And what if the, I mean, what if the real horror of this thing is kind of a tacit assault on our intuitions? On all fronts? Every front? What if this is? We talk about this all the time, man. I'm like, when I moved, when you moved out here, Chuck?

• 1:28:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:28:58Mike Rowe?

  It's like, you didn't get in your car without a Thomas guide.

• 1:29:02Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 1:29:03Mike Rowe?

  And this thing?

• 1:29:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.

• 1:29:06Mike Rowe?

  I mean, a lot of people have never seen the like of it. But LA is so sprawling that you couldn't, you can't have a fold-out map.

• 1:29:12Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:29:12Mike Rowe?

  It would be the size of LA.

• 1:29:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29:14Mike Rowe?

  It's just...

• 1:29:15Speaker 02

  Totally, totally.

• 1:29:16Mike Rowe?

  So it's this book with these grids, and like, page 34 might be attached to page 209.

• 1:29:21Speaker 02

  Yes, they're holding you in a corner, and then you could...

• 1:29:23Mike Rowe?

  Right. So you need sort of a basic understanding of cryptography.

• 1:29:27Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:29:28Mike Rowe?

  But it really helped make your brain understand north and south and east and west. And like, that's just over now, man. And when I think of like, there's this yacht club that I belong to. I don't have a boat, but I know a lot of people who do.

• 1:29:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, there you go, that's a way to be a part of that club.

• 1:29:49Mike Rowe?

  And it's the only way. And there's this conversation among my sailing buddies I hear all the time, which is, you know, we can be anywhere in the world and know within two feet of where we are. And the magic and the mystery of sailing at a time before we knew what longitude was. And the search for longitude. And the reliance on dead reckoning. We were smarter. We were better.

• 1:30:20Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 1:30:21Mike Rowe?

  We were not faster.

• 1:30:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, but.

• 1:30:23Mike Rowe?

  But we were different.

• 1:30:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, and who says faster is better? You know, um, three miles an hour. That is the pace that a human being walks. And that's the only thing we do anymore. That's three miles an hour. So like I, I'm just trying to get my life back to three miles an hour. What's anything else in my life that I can do at three miles an hour? And I promise you that it may feel like, uh, you, you can't multitask. Uh, you can't do all these things. No, I think multitasking is one of the worst things we've ever learned to do. Single task well, you know, walk three miles an hour, you know, increase your intuition. Um, move at godspeed, you know, get lost, find your way, wonder about things for days.

• 1:31:06Mike Rowe?

  As you wander.

• 1:31:07Speaker 02

  As you, as you, as you wander.

• 1:31:09Mike Rowe?

  You know, final thought, godspeed.

• 1:31:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:31:13Mike Rowe?

  It's funny. I've heard that expression my whole life. And I don't know why I always associated it with alacrity.

• 1:31:23Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:31:23Mike Rowe?

  Godspeed.

• 1:31:24Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:31:24Mike Rowe?

  Let's get a move on.

• 1:31:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:31:25Mike Rowe?

  You know, speed.

• 1:31:27Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:31:28Mike Rowe?

  It's actually a cry to slow down.

• 1:31:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:32Mike Rowe?

  Godspeed is slow.

• 1:31:33Speaker 02

  It's slow. It's slow. It's, it's slow. I tell people all the time, if you look in the Bible and you look at the speed that Jesus and his homeboys walked around. He moved at three miles an hour. And if we're moving at a hundred and he's moving at three, then who's following who?

• 1:31:52Mike Rowe?

  Uh, the book is called Reconnected. I know that because Chuck has put it right up there. Carlos.

• 1:31:57Speaker 02

  Carlos, you got it.

• 1:31:58Mike Rowe?

  Carlos Whittaker. It's, um, I mean, I hate to say this word, but it's, it's important. Cause this, this thing.

• 1:32:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:32:06Mike Rowe?

  I mean, for better or worse, think of it however you want, but it is pregnant with unintended consequence.

• 1:32:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:32:14Mike Rowe?

  And as perverse as it sounds, if I. If I were to tell people where to go to get a copy, are they going to have to get on a screen?

• 1:32:22Speaker 02

  Not necessarily. If you're traveling through any airport in America, it'll be at any Hudson bookseller. So you can just fly around, just go pick it up at the airport, but you can go on Amazon.

• 1:32:30Mike Rowe?

  Don't Google it. Don't do that. Don't go to Amazon. Just if you find yourself walking side by side with a monk, perhaps through the terminal at speeds approaching three miles an hour, and there's a Hudson's, go get yourself a copy.

• 1:32:42Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:32:43Mike Rowe?

  What a pleasure to meet you, man.

• 1:32:44Speaker 02

  Oh, man, it was so good. Thanks for having me.

• 1:32:46Mike Rowe?

  Anytime.

• 1:32:47Speaker 02

  This is awesome.

• 1:32:47Mike Rowe?

  Appreciate it.

• 1:32:48Speaker 03

  When you leave a review, only five stars will do. Not just one or just two or just three. We were hoping four more. As in, one more than the four. Oh, please, one more than four. Just a quick review with five stars, too. From you, five stars will do.

• 1:33:31Speaker 04

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• 1:34:00Speaker 05

  What's that? My fresh detector. Uh, your what? There it is. What is it detecting? Fresh produce, fresh meat. Okay, what happens if it detects something really fresh?

• 1:34:14Speaker 05

  Apparently, we celebrate.

• 1:34:16Speaker 06

  At Food Lion, you can count on fresh food at fresher prices. When your fresh detector is going off, head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com.