Menfolk Journeys
This podcast explores how different men from all walks of life wear the beautiful and confusing mantle of manhood.
Men can be knuckleheads in public life. But in private, if given the right questions and if they feel comfortable, men can also be thoughtful, reflective, and have deep conversations about their lives, big questions, and meaningful ideas.
We have great conversations with men just like us and from all walks of life, so we can learn from their personal stories and all get better together.
Menfolk Journeys
46. Brad and Clearing out the Baggage
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Laying down a foundation for your life - something upon which to build an ethical, moral, and livable framework - might be one of the most important things we do.
How will I treat others? What do I value? What's important to me? How do I see myself? How can I become a better person?
These are all the best questions to ask. And without a foundation, these questions get more difficult to answer.
Brad and I chat about how Scientology became his foundation, and its benefits to how Brad lives his life might surprise some listeners & viewers.
His journey has taught him how to overcome obstacles, construct a fulfilling life, and craft a repeatable approach to clear negative thoughts and their imprints from his mind.
Have you been able to do that?
We can all learn from the foundation that Brad has built.
Every time I do a Scientology course or I do Scientology processing, I feel an unburdening of imprints and an improvement in my overall happiness and satisfaction of this life. And why? Because doing these things, you isolate the source of what may be misemotion or imprints. And you just by confronting these things, they cease to have power on them. That's the core here.
SPEAKER_00Welcome in to Menfolk Journeys, the podcast of Great Conversations with Men. I'm your host, Chris Foster, and we're going to explore how we wear this beautiful and confusing mantle of manhood in the 21st century. Look, I get it. In public life, a lot of men are knuckleheads. But in private life, we can be thoughtful and we can be reflective if we have the right conversation, if we feel comfortable talking about our story. And we all have a great story to tell. And we can all learn from those stories. We can learn about who we've been, who we are, and who we want to be. That's why we're going to have this conversation. So we can learn from other men just like us. And in this episode, we're going to talk with my friend Brad. As you heard from the intro, Brad's a Scientologist. I'd never spoken with someone about this so openly before. It's marvelous what I learned about how he uses Scientology as a foundation for living so he can overcome obstacles, prepare a way and a perspective of life, and become the best version of himself. We touch on parenting, we touch on meaning and purpose, and a whole lot more. He's an incredible man, and this is a marvelous conversation. I hope you enjoy. Welcome in to Menfolk Journeys. Well, all right. Well, Brad Kugler, welcome in.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much, Chris. I am glad to be here.
SPEAKER_00So tell us a bit about yourself.
SPEAKER_02Uh my name is Brad Kugler. I was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1967. It makes me a Gen Xer. I currently am the CEO and co-founder of uh technology, I guess we're not a startup anymore, called Direct Mail 2.0, which uh is involved with improving the effectiveness of direct mail through different types of marketing technology. Uh I've been with my wife for 29 years. I have three children who I'm very proud of. My daughter's 29, my middle son is 26, and my youngest baby, baby, is 23. Um that's the the overall in a nutshell, but a nutshell, but I'm sure we'll peel back some layers on what's beneath all that.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Well, congratulations on 29 years. That's marvelous. And and for having young adult children that are, you know, into their orbits. Um it's it was interesting. In the uh in the conversation guide, you mentioned that you had a pretty happy childhood and and that you're having a happy family life now. There's a a very famous quote by Tolstoy and Anna Karenina that says, All him happy families are alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. And so, you know, it's a it's an interesting thing because you've had the blessing of a happy family life that you grew up in. And I'm wondering, Brad, did that create just a positive outlook for the whole of your life? Did you, as you grew up in a happy, safe environment, um did that change or influence how you looked at the whole world?
SPEAKER_02I would say probably. And I want to qualify that. Now, I I didn't grow up in some Brady Bunch or Disney movie. You know, I grew up with four other siblings, and um my my biological mom and dad divorced when I was nine, and um it was kind of a hers and and his type situation moved together, but it was it was stable. So my my father and mother instilled values, mainly stemming from you know what they use the word exchange. What you gave, you get back. If you were here just to and my my mom would make mention of this, if this is just a hotel or a way station and you think you're gonna kind of skate through life, you got another thing coming. My parents always instilled hard work and exchange. We worked, we we had chores, so we had things expected of us, and when it wasn't done, there was no beatings or terrible punishments, but the disappointment of the parents was enough to usually motivate us in most cases.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. Disappointment of parents is a huge motivator, right? If you let mom or dad down, you're like, oh man.
SPEAKER_02Especially if it gets to a point where they raise their voice, you know. I don't know. I mean, it was very traditional family values. We did live, we grew up in the suburbs of northern Chicago, the ones where all the John Hughes movies were shot.
SPEAKER_00Which one? Was it Crystal Lake or was it um? It was Highland Park in Lake Forest.
SPEAKER_02Okay, Lake Forest, yeah, sure. So I grew up in Lake Forest. Um if you've seen movies, you've heard the name, it is definitely an upper middle class sort of suburb, very homogeneous, you know, but values were instilled and expectations were that nobody got a free ride. So it was good middle Midwest values. Yeah, I would say it definitely instilled something. You know, for my 17 or 18 years, nothing was ever given to me. I mean, sure I had the clothes on my back and I always had a warm meal, but there was no free car at 16 or Ivy League schools. I worked summer jobs, I was expected to maintain uh at least a B average. And, you know, I I carried that out and my parents made life easy, but not too easy, you know?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Well, you know, I think it's an interesting um turn of phrase when you talk about exchange and energy, you know, there's um in relationships, there are energy exchanges, right? You you want relationships where you give but are also given to you, right? If you keep giving in a relationship and there's no energy exchange back, that's that's a draining relationship. Whereas if you keep taking from people and that's a selfish relationship, right? And and I think that in relationships, it also means that there's some, like you said, some kind of exchange of responsibility or expectation. Uh, you know, and I think that with parents and children, you know, I think the I shouldn't say the more recent trends, but it seems like there's less of an exchange where less is asked of children nowadays versus maybe quote unquote when we were kids, which I hate using that phrase, but but there's there's something that you know you you pass on to your kids to know that everyone's in this house together and it's a collective, right? And everyone has a responsibility to pitch into the collective. Um, I'm assuming that that's something that you passed on to your kids who are now in their young adulthood.
SPEAKER_02I I I'll tell you, I tried. Now my kids are very good. Let me let me just paraphrase this. My daughter is 29, full-time job, has two, blessed me with two grandchildren already.
SPEAKER_00Oh, congratulations. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_02Five and five and two. My middle son, my boys were were state athletic champs in swimming in Florida. They were both, one graduated salutatory, and the other one was, I think, number seven in in high school. Um, both went to University of Florida. My older son got a uh a master's in biomedical engineering and works for Boston Scientific in Miami. Great, covering his own, pulling his own weight. And my youngest son was a bit more of a prodigy. He he got into medical school before he was 20 years old, and uh he's 23 and a fourth year med student. Oh wow, published three or four times as a leading uh author on on in three of the major medical journals. So he's he's an outlier kid, but we didn't push the exchange as much. They were phenoms in the academic and sports world. So that was their they had a an innate talent. Whereas when I grew up with my siblings, none of us were athletes, none of us were outstanding 4.0 plus students, none of us had aspirations to be engineers or doctors or lawyers. So um I saw that my kids were more driven and I didn't distract them from their path of athletics and uh high achieving academics. So I didn't instill quite the exchange as my parents did.
SPEAKER_00Did you tr uh with when when parenting those kinds of uh self-motivated high achievers, did you just kind of try to stay out of their way and put some guardrails up just to make sure that they exactly is that it?
SPEAKER_02I I just wanted to reinforce what their dreams were and get out of their way. And yeah, so they might not have been down for you know scrubbing the house on a Saturday afternoon because they have sports, should they go?
SPEAKER_00Right. They had other things to do it. Yeah, exactly. No, I I get it. You know, it's a it's a thing where sometimes um the best parenting skill is to actually not really actively parent. It's just to step back and and let the kid act you know let the children actually figure out their own path and just literally just stay out of their way and facilitate.
SPEAKER_02I and I agree with that a hundred percent. As long as they're not drifting too far off their given path or a righteous path, I stayed out of their way. And I'll I'll give an example where my wife and I stepped in. It was in the early days of either Instagram or Facebook. We were at work, it was a day off, and they were posting live videos of them jumping off the second floor balcony into the pool, which was a good five or six feet today.
SPEAKER_01Awesome.
SPEAKER_02We got out of our chairs, calling the phones, drove home, and just laid into them. So that was an example of where they had drifted too far, and we took immediate action.
SPEAKER_00That was right, that was the right call to make, though. You and your wife looked at each other and we were like, not happening.
SPEAKER_02Yep, you know. But um, you know, so we let that leash long until there was some real danger, you know?
SPEAKER_00Of course. Yeah, that makes sense. And so, and so it's interesting now that you kind of reflect, you are you're no longer an active parent, right? You're you're an involved grandparent, which is great, but you're not actively parenting your kids.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00How have you um thought about your life now in this chapter, right? Beyond the the the business um as a successful business, you know, carried through during raising children. So the business has always been there, but now the kids aren't around. And now you and your wife have some more freedom. What does that feel like to you now?
SPEAKER_02Honestly, and I and I don't say this with with trying to blow something up. I I have to say at 58 years old, I am now the happiest I've been in that my entire life, other than maybe some of those carefree days when you're seven or eight years old running around in a park with exuberance all day for no necessary reason, other than you're alive. Um I have completed major tasks. I have raised three successful children. I have built more than one successful business. I'm not saying I can retire tomorrow, but there is some financial stability for my sunsetting years. Um and again, not that I would be happy if I passed away tomorrow, but I I feel at this point in my life I've actually achieved a majority of what I want to make me happy. Now, does that make me complacent? Sometimes I feel it does, actually. You know, maybe I should be complacent to it.
SPEAKER_00Well, a question, you know, it's a good it's a good question to ask at this stage, right? So I'm gonna reference one of you know my favorite people, although I've never met him. His name is Mike Tomlin. He's the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he's been there forever. And he says a lot of the times that he seeks discomfort, right? He doesn't want to be wallow in comfort and waddle, you know, and he's he seeks out discomfort, but he's got an um a competitive energy about him. Um, I guess the question that ask for you, Brad, is is there a difference between complacency and contentment? Do you confuse those things?
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, I I might, because then I I think, you know, if I wasn't having an aversion to risk and discomfort at this point in my life, maybe it would drive me to achieve something that I didn't feel was possible or I would still be reaching for something. And if you know, there there's a there's the comfort one has to be able to introspect at some point and be able to see one's own flaws to ever improve. I've I've always felt that there are people that I'm sure we've met that think they are perfect and always right, and they're they're afflicted with the with the disease that they can really never improve if they know everything and they're perfect as they are. And to me, I worry if I drift too close to that line, then I'm doing myself and those around me a disservice. Okay. So I don't want to get too comfortable, and I completely understand what the coach of the Steelers is talking about. And sometimes I I I chide myself for being too content or too comfortable and not seeking more discomfort or more challenge, adversity, or risk at this point in my life.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's a hard thing, though. I think that um at this stage, it's completely understandable where you know you'd already done the risk in terms of co-founding multiple businesses. That's a risky endeavor. Um, hiring people, building a business, you don't know if it's going to succeed. A lot of people are looking to you to make payroll, and you've got to make decisions that are correct, and that's a weight that you carry and a burden that you have. So there's not a lot of room for you know too much risk. There's a there's a normal amount of healthy business risk that you take, but um, you can't be careless, right? In that in that in that responsible role. Um, but now you're at a point.
SPEAKER_02Well, maybe I can at this point. I'm no longer raising children. I don't have to provide for my wife has a decent income. I could risk it. You know, I and this is what I struggle with. I could risk it. I have I have some savings. I I why don't I go for it and start another company or buy the one out I'm in now and own it myself? And you know, why don't I really go for it in these last five or ten years of my mental acumen and physical proudness, you know, because obviously it I'm coming up on 60. There's going to be a decline in both of those things. And I've seen it in my parents and people my age. And and sometimes I've even noticed it slightly occurring in myself, you know. I'm not getting any stronger in the gym anymore, despite what I did. So why not go for it? And and that if there's a struggle, that's my struggle.
SPEAKER_00That's an interesting struggle to have, though. That's um, that's actually, you know, I don't want to make light of it. It's a first world struggle, but it's actually a really but it which is a which is a blessing, but it's also actually a very existential struggle. I mean, for you, do you want to pull up those reserves of energy and risk something where in reality you don't have to? So the good question is if you don't have to risk, maybe you won't, but then what will you be losing? And what won't you be able to gain and learn if you don't?
SPEAKER_02That's that's that's a struggle. Like I say, you brought up the point. It's a first-world struggle. There are millions upon millions of people that would give anything to be in a position I'm in. And again, I don't want to state I am not a DECA or or hundred millionaire here at all, you know.
SPEAKER_00Sure. But but I think but I think that there it's it's an interesting thing. I mean, Maslow's hierarchy of needs persists throughout cultures, right? And there's certain cultures and stations, and there are certain people that have different needs, right? I mean, just because you struggle with um wanting or wondering if you're going to be more aggressive right now, that doesn't mean that it's a that doesn't mean that it's not an insignificant struggle for you. I mean, I think that there's a a really strong draw to people who have the chance to be introspective to think about purpose and to think about meaning and to think about active years and what I can contribute or what I might want to contribute versus do I want to retreat, right? Do I want to go on Walden Pond and just look at the ducks and and write and that's awesome? Or do I want to be in the middle at that point?
SPEAKER_02I'm definitely seeing that there's more runway behind me at this point than ahead of me. Sure. Anyone statistically that's in their late 30s that's male is really in the same boat. I mean, statistically, by the time you're you're you're tw 39 years old, that's the middle. That's statistically, that's the halfway point. Sure. Well, and and you know, it's but I'm guessing that you're not too much beyond that midway point yourself.
SPEAKER_00I just turned uh 84 last week. So but it's interesting because you talk about achievement um and the things that you you know it is a funny thing as men, you know, raising great kids. Is that really an achievement? Like, do we consider that or is that it is that an expectation? I think I think of it as an achievement. I do. I I I do as well. That's why I mention it because achievement of success of business or successfully raising kids, because that's that's the primary goal, right? Is to raise the next generation so they're better than the one before. Um 100%.
SPEAKER_02And and seeing them contribute to society and and you know, discover things in their life that they love and are able to build and create things. And, you know, I I'm probably one of my more proud moments. Building a company, you know, seeing that you know, my beloved wife who I've been with for 29 years is still happy with me, I guess for the most part.
SPEAKER_00She's still that's an accomplishment. Sure it is. Of course it is. It's an achievement, without a doubt. And so now the question that I would ask you is you know, why would you want to seek yet another achievement? Or is there a different kind of achievement that can be met with uh contentment that can be met with um uh uh embracing and enjoying this stage of life, right? Because for the restless mind and for the restless spirit, the idea of contentment and enjoyment sometimes is a challenge.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And I've always felt uh, you know, one of the greatest things that a human being can offer is to help and serve others, not as a slave, but as someone who can impart experience, wisdom, and knowledge, teach the things that he has done to the next generation or maybe even older people, it's fine. So I like to help people, whether it's through communication, through efforts, through mentoring, through sheer donations, through giving things. I I like to do that, you know. So if I can spend my life just helping others in need in some fashion, to me that's that's gift enough, you know, where I didn't have to worry about satisfying myself and I could just literally help others 24-7, that would be great, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, and I think that to me that's a mindset of, you know, when I was I really struck home when we had our first children, when I realized that my life really isn't about me. And I've been thinking recently where, you know, does life happen to you or does life happen for you? Right? Does life kind of unfold itself so that it it it it allows you to move forward and create your own journey and be with other people and and contribute to other people and get that information? Exchange, like we talked about this energy exchange with people. Um, I've been thinking a lot more about that and wondering, you know, if I pay attention more to these exchanges and to the relationships, maybe my life is less about the things that I need to achieve. And maybe my life is more about how can I be a part of a bigger achievement collectively, collaboratively, cooperatively with other people around me in my family and in my social circle and my work circle and my professional circle.
SPEAKER_02Does that make sense? Absolutely. I mean, getting back to your philosophy on life happening to you, or you sort of directing or creating your own life, I'm definitely on the side of creating your own life. I'm a big believer in one eventually gets what they manifest most. So, and you've, I'm sure you've seen there's very negative people that seem to have problem after problem after problem. And did something happen to them to make them that way, or are they natively that energy level to where they bring these things on themselves? Whereas you see very successful people that necessarily aren't happy, but they manifest that success through actions of exerting their own energy on the physical universe that surrounds us. Some people, we've all known people that just sort of make things happen with sometimes little effort. Or seemingly little effort. Sometimes I've seen it more than they, it is little effort. It's usually more than they let on, or it's only what you see, but you don't see the years of struggles. I mean, I I can tell you, I mean, there's a friend of mine that started selling e-commerce. We started at the same time in 2015. We went to a little e-commerce uh mastermind, you know, and I was selling CDs online, and that obviously didn't work out. And um, he was selling bed sheets. All right. This guy is selling literally nine low nine figures a year of bed sheets. So 10, 11 years later.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02To build a hundred million plus dollar business yourself in 10 years with no investors, no partners, just you driving that train. Now, sure, there's some luck involved, right place, right time, right product, right platform, but it it's it's a it's probably a one in a million event, you know? Sure, sure it is. How did that happen? You know, yeah. Is it all luck? I don't know.
SPEAKER_00You know, I it's it's funny. I think that I think that people somehow make their own luck, and and uh the older that I get, the more I am a believer in serendipity, where if you have your antenna up and you're looking for the right opportunities, the opportunities are always around you. It's just being a question of aware to them and figuring out what to do with the opportunity that's been given to you. Um, you know, it's and it goes beyond that.
SPEAKER_02You can spot the opportunity, but you must act. And you must persist through the barriers that are inevitable to come up. So people will will trip over, as they say, penny, pick over dollars to pick up pennies, you know? And it's it's a choice, and it's the execution of that choice despite obstacles. Right? Everyone has obstacles. Who's gonna go around the mountain, who's gonna go over the mountain, who's gonna go through the mountain, who's gonna just turn and run the other way? Right? That that's a differentiator there.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Absolutely. And and I think that there's a um, you know, and getting back to kind of the this idea of life happening to you, I I've been thinking a lot lately, Brad, about um paying attention to the universe, uh, you know, God logos, the universe, whatever you want to call it, and kind of saying, okay, what is what is the design for me that's planned out that I just need to follow if I pay attention? And if I follow the path that's planned out for me, me alone, me alone in the universe, um, I'm gonna find enjoyment, I'm gonna find contentment, I'm gonna find the the journey that's best for me. Uh rather than trying to force uh someone else's script or journey on me that I have to follow. I'm gonna try to follow, I think, what path is being laid out for me. Um, does that make sense? Does that land?
SPEAKER_02Uh it does land, except I I believe that I don't know that there's a path laid out for me that someone else put and I'm to find it. Whereas, hey, there is an infinite number of paths, and you choose which one you want to take and what you want to make out of it. It's it's a it's a much more to me causative operation than hoping that I find something that someone laid out for me. Now you can say, well, the supreme being or God, and and now we're getting into some really deep things, and I don't discount uh anyone that feels that way. And I would never put that down, but I feel I'm ultimately in charge of my own destiny, and and I can tell you this was something instilled. I am a second generation Scientologist, I don't know how much you know about that, but it centered around centers around the belief in oneself as a spiritual being that can that is ultimately created this universe. We are all immortal spiritual beings at different stages of our evolution or awareness.
SPEAKER_00So I want to I want to dig into that because A, this is you're the first Scientologist I've met, and and I and I have a lot to learn from you about that. But you just said something that one of my guests said. Um we just launched this episode a couple weeks ago, and I said, So, Jonathan, tell us about yourself. And he goes, Well, I'm a spiritual being having a human experience. And I was like, Oh, let's go, let's do this, like let's jump in. So, so so if you would be so kind, Brad, tell me a little bit about Scientology.
SPEAKER_02Sure. So, so I my parents got into Scientology in, I think it was 1970. I was three years old, four years old. And um Scientology was founded, as most people know, by L. Ron Hubbard, who was a science fiction writer through the 40s. And he, through his own introspection and those around him during the war and after the war, um he traveled much during his younger years. His his father was an admiral or highly ranked in the U.S. Navy. So every year he lived in a different part of the world, spending a lot of time in the Far East in the in the 20s, 30s, and early 40s. And he wrote a book called Dianetics, which explored the workings of the mind. You know, at this point he hadn't crossed into the spiritual realm of Scientology, spiritual being the immortal human soul that resides within the body, or the body is stuck to the human soul, whichever way you want to look at it. But in terms of the early explorations of Dianetics, the mind was explored as why do people have issues, you know, emotional, reactionary? What is, you know, are we animals or are we spiritual beings? And through this investigation into the mind, he discovered that all periods of pain and unconsciousness had been imprinted on the mind and were carried from the point of conception until death. And he learned through his diagnetic processes that you can relieve some of this burden of these harmful emotions, pain and unconsciousness, and sort of help the mind free itself of things that hold it back. You do enough of this, you attain the state of clear, whereas you're no longer controlled by your own past uh imprints.
SPEAKER_00Right. You know, and what's interesting, I've got a couple of things about that. First, I'm curious if um that was informed by the trauma of World War II, right? Of the global trauma of World War II. Yes.
SPEAKER_02This is actually what brought it out. He he had some PTSD. It was you know, not any war wounds. He ended up in a in a kind of a PTSD hospital after the war for a few months, and he dealt with all sorts of characters who had everything from physical wounds to mental wounds, and this is where it actually spurred, you know, what and he kind of took it down even before that. What drives man? What is the impetus of all living creatures, spiritual or even cellular, to continue to live? It's the urge to survive, okay? Whether you're a plant searching sunlight and trying to get your leaves into the sun, or you're a rodent living in a sewer trying to find water or food, very similar to humans. We have to survive. Every cell in our body has an urge to survive. Now, that survival can be tainted, again, for the for the human complex human organism through these imprints as we sure that we get.
SPEAKER_00You know, and also, too, I can imagine him, and I didn't know, I don't know much about this, so I really appreciate this conversation, but I could imagine someone who's that introspective and thinking about the mind and thinking about the impetus of human decision, why we act in certain ways, to really come to the fore after World War II, especially after the Holocaust, especially after dropping an atomic bomb, where millions of people in a moment perished, millions of people over a handful of years perish, and the scale was so much more than World War I. We know World War I was psychologically traumatic to generations. World War II amped that up even more at a global scale. So for someone who is sensitive to that and really trying to explore, you know, how the f did we do this to ourselves? How did we get to the place where we would actually had do this to ourselves again, right? Exactly.
SPEAKER_02And and and it was it was different because in World War II, I mean, World War I, it was bullets and and grenades or whatever, machine guns were the worst thing and mustard gas. But in World War II, it was the atomic weapon that had the potential to eliminate the entire race. That's right. That was a big change.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was. And so the you know, and and I love it that you know you ask the question of how did we get to this place? What is it about mankind? What is it about people that we could actually do this to ourselves? Right? And and what are and then going into those imprints and figuring out the the traumas that you know block us and hold us back. It's so fascinating that you said that because I didn't know this about Scientology. And I just had a conversation recently with this guy um who's just wonderful. His name is Mike Turner. Um, and and he actually realized this himself. He went to a really dark place, and in the episode, he talks about how he actually wrote down all of these negative imprints that he had in his life when he was younger. He wrote them down. He said, I wrote down 178 negative imprints and figured out how to you know think about those imprints and move them in a different place so that they stopped bothering me and they basically it freed his freed his mind. And you you mentioned the phrase clear. What he was doing when he was writing down his negative imprints, Brad, he was clearing his mind. That's exactly what he was doing. He was unhe was just unburdening and clearing his mind from those negative imprints.
SPEAKER_02I mean, and that's exactly what Scientology processing does. And and for many dozens and dozens of hours, you do it with a a trained professional auditor who looks like a coach. As you move in up the levels in Scientology, you do like he said, you end up doing it with yourself. Right. Just like this gentleman Turner did. So you know, great minds think alike. He's definitely onto something. And and the the major difference is L. Ron Hubbard wrote it down in his books and his lectures, and you know, ended up building a religion around it through the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
SPEAKER_00Right. So it's interesting to me because you know, there's a big difference between um well, and and maybe some nuanced differences between faith and philosophy, right? So the Buddhists would say, well, Buddhism really isn't a religion. It's more of a philosophy of life, right? There's certain ideas that they have that the Buddhists might have about either reincarnation or multiple lives, or, you know, uh, but in the end of the days is fundamentally it's about this eightfold path, right? Right, right action, right thoughts, right intention. This is kind of how you work. And it's a philosophy of living. Um, whereas there are certain faiths that are clearly faiths, right? There's a Roman Catholic faith, which is different than a philosophy. There are philosophies within the Roman Catholic faith structure, but it's predominantly a faith that anchors it. Um, for Scientology, it seemed like it started as a philosophy of living and then morphed, migrated, evolved into a faith of some kind. Is that fair or is that off track?
SPEAKER_02No, I I think it's fair because it is based in a philosophy, and it wasn't until 1954, which was, I guess, four years after the publishing of Dynetics, that the Church of Scientology was created around the, I guess you could say, the faith that man is at its core, a spiritual being in more of immortality. Sure.
SPEAKER_00And which actually isn't new. I mean, especially if L. Ron Hubbard traveled in the East, that's a ancient, ancient idea.
SPEAKER_02You know, 90% of the core beliefs have come up in other philosophies and religions over the years. There's sure and one of the things that sort of continues to hold me and attract me to Scientology, and this might go against the faith thing, is one thing Hubbard always said if it's not true for you, then it's not true. There is no dogma that must be accepted and believed because it's in some scripture. Sure. So it it gives it puts some real wide guardrails on what one must accept, because one must one doesn't have to accept anything within Scientology.
SPEAKER_00Right. No, I know I I get I I completely understand that.
SPEAKER_02So I um I that's why I think we're such a diverse group, because politically, socially, economically, because there is no dogma that keeps everyone sort of within a path. We'll be right back.
SPEAKER_00Um, and I said, you know, to me, I think about uh I think about there's there's faith and there's church, or there's there's religion, there's church, and there's faith, right? So religion is the big one, right? It's you're Muslim or you're Christian or you're Hindu, you're Buddhist, or you're Jewish, right? That's kind of a big religion, and you've got a diaspora, people all over the world. But then you have church, which is your local church, right?
SPEAKER_02You know, um Stella Maris, a lot of people are afraid of, you know, the organized religion where you must come in and you must follow our rules. Right. Right. You know, I I won't lie and say, I mean, there's an expectation of a certain level of morality and ethics that are expected of church members, you know. And and I understand the reason behind that is if if everybody's just left to their own devices without any guardrails or controls, and and there's no I don't want to say consequences, or accountability. Yeah, there has to be some accountability. You know, show me a great religion that is not organized, that really is withstand the test of time. Now, people could point to the Judaism, they don't have a central church, every single temple is independent. There is no senior Jewish pope who resides over all of the Jewish religion, and it's been around for 5,300 years. You know, just full disclosure, I mean, our family is is Jewish going back many, many generations. Um it is a of the major religions, it's probably the least organized.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. And so, and so to me, to your point, there's the religion, then there's church, and right, and Bethshalam, you know, the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, is very different than Beth Shalom, you know, here in San Diego, right? It's it's a different synagogue, right? Different culture. There one might be more moderate, one might be more conservative, there's a different feel, there's a different, you know, way about those things. And the same is true in the Catholic Church, right? The Stella Maris of the Sea in La Jolla is very different than you know, Tierra Santa, you know, yeah you know Catholic, you know, diocese up here, right? Um and so and then after you know, the big broad thing is religion, the smaller thing is church, which is more local, and then there's faith, which is personal. Um, and I think a faith journey is one's own, right? And the end of the, in the end, when we pass from this life that we're experiencing now, you don't do it, you you do it by yourself. That's a uniquely singular experience that you have. And so what's interesting about Scientology and what you said is that it seems that it's really focused less on religion, less on church, and more on faith, the individual's faith. Is that is that true?
SPEAKER_02I mean, there there must be some faith to follow or maintain your adherence to any group. You have to believe that this is the path, or there has to be enough that you feel is true within that group for you to maintain an adherence to it. So as I've gone through life and I've practiced Scientology for most of my life, I feel I have improved. You know, every time I I do a Scientology course or I do Scientology processing, I feel uh an unburdening of imprints and an improvement in my overall happiness and satisfaction of this life. And why? Because doing these things, you isolate the source of what may be misemotion or imprints, and you just by confronting these things, they cease to have power on you. That's the core here. Sure. So I uh having this experience and seeing that it's worked, and my life has been pretty happy and on the upbeat, you grow an affinity and attachment. You say, hey, this is working for me. I'm gonna do it. Just like going to the gym. You start seeing the results, you feel yourself getting stronger. You're like, you know, this isn't necessarily fun every time I go in there, but you know what? I'm getting results that I see, and it makes me a better body.
SPEAKER_00You feel, yeah, you feel, you feel, you feel better, you feel stronger, you improve. So that is actually to me a really interesting exercise psychologically with your mind that you can have a practice or a structure to help you improve your mind, improve the way that you live. Um A, I believe that's really I think that's really interesting and really good for people to be able to do that. B, I think without some kind of guidance, it's really hard to do. Right. Um, so so my buddy, my new buddy Mike.
SPEAKER_02I've seen people do it. They read the self-help books, they become a better person, they have some epiphany in life and decide to operate beyond just themselves or satisfying their own personal needs. But it's helped give me a path of spiritual and philosophical stability that I think permeates my entire life.
SPEAKER_00You know, I think that is, and that's brilliant, and that's actually what everybody wants. Everyone, I think, is benefit benefits from some kind of foundation, right? Some type of foundation that you can build upon to say this is what helps my life be a better life for me. And if I can be have this better life for me, I'm gonna be a better person to other people, right? I'm gonna have more energy, more positive thoughts to serve others in a way that's healthy too. That's not self serving, but it's actually truly serving, contribute, and contributing to. Those folks.
SPEAKER_02Right. And I can go so far, you know, I'm I don't do drugs, I barely drink, but you know, if somebody believes really that they're gonna achieve a better life through some use of marijuana every day and they're not harming anyone else, you know, oh am I to judge? If that's what you if that's your thing, fine. Now, if you're laying out in the street and you're harming your family and other people through your journey of whatever type of self-meditation you're doing, well, maybe it might make you feel good, but how is it working on those around you?
SPEAKER_00You know, right. No, totally. So I I have to, I have to believe, Brad, that as you go through this to you know to clear your mind and you go through the you know, the unpacking and the you know, the tidying up, right? The clearing the plaque, whatever, whatever that is. Um, I I I have to believe your kids watched you do this. I have to believe that they saw that this was kind of the family culture. Were they raised as also in a Scientology environment? They practice this as well.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And two out of three of them are are self-admitted Scientologists and practicing Scientologists. My youngest, he's chosen a life of a medical professional, which, you know, I don't know if you've known anyone that's gone through medical school and residency, but you know, that is a dedication that requires all one's time. Sure. Um he hasn't rejected it per se, but he's like, listen, my path is this way, and I I want to become a he wants to become a cardiac thoracic surgeon. You know, that that's a dedication of at least a dozen years, and it's tough. So again, no shame, blame, or regret or or disappointment. Sure, I would love it if he was a Scientologist, but this is a kid who is extremely driven on a path to help others, and he's doing what he loves to do. He was watching surgical videos on YouTube from the time he was six years old.
SPEAKER_01I knew that's he knew what he was doing, right? This is where he's going. Right. Of course.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense. And again, you're gonna stay out of his way and let him do his thing. Um, you know, it's interesting too because you know, the as you start thinking about this next stage, right? Um the and we get and we all get you know get closer to death, um, you start thinking about it a little bit more, I I believe. I I don't think that any human being goes through this life without thinking about what's gonna happen next. Um and so the question that be, you know, it's uh the question that becomes, all right, well, despite what happens next, what am I doing now? How am I getting better now? If today's this last day, am I am I living this day full of purpose, full of meaning, you know, being the best person that I can be? Um, I think that that is uh something that a lot of men don't ask themselves. I think that a lot of men especially um have a hard time being as reflective as they could be um in terms of how they act and treat other people. Uh right. And so I I think I guess the question is, you know, especially for young men, your youngest son seems to be an outlier. A lot of young men are struggling right now. Um, and the the general trend seems to be that they're underperforming in terms of what they could be doing with either life skills, job skills, relationship skills, love skills, right? It seems like there's a cadre or a cohort of young men that aren't happ aren't moving the way we might we might hope. A question for you is why do you think that is? And what do you think can can help those that generation? All right. I mean, it's a great question.
SPEAKER_02I've thought about this a lot too. One, there's a lot of focus on this lost generation, as they're sort of called. You know, why are they lost? You if you listen to the media, you know, they they they came of age during the COVID, um, the the the the lockdowns, the whatever, you know, they they also came of age during during the explosion of social media, this instant gratification that kids see every day where they see others having these amazing things, you know, bands of hundred dollar bills and driving half million dollar cars at 19 and having beautiful women uh, you know, they see this uh almost uh unattainable imaginary life of people that are their age that are achieving these things. Most of it's probably not even true. Sure, there are some that have been successful, so you have this instant gratification life, and if people cannot achieve what they're seeing, hundreds of people, thousands of people doing every time they flick the phone, why do I bother to do anything? It's putting a lot of people into despair. Now, I don't want to blame social media. Everybody, I believe, is responsible for their own condition and mapping their own future, as we've stated. But the social media coupled with the COVID and the diversiveness, I think, in this country has created this lost generation. And again, it's not everybody, but those who do not feel they can stake a claim or achieve what they see others achieving just give up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's the giving up, I think that that's to me that is um is surprising. Where I also think too that the young minds um did get influenced by this by social media, by what they see. I mean, the the mind is so malleable. Um and for some reason, as we move along, adolescence seems to stretch a little bit more, right? Where folks are asked to be adults later in life, right? Um, where in the Wayback Machine, if you were 22, 23 as a young man, you are expected to be a young man, a young man, right? Not a young man, a young man, right?
SPEAKER_02You're an adult charge earning money, paying your own way. Now kids are living at home until they're 30, you know, right, and contributing and being a part of it.
SPEAKER_00And so, you know, part of me thinks that, you know, and I'm wondering about what can what are some answers for this. And and and part of it, I think that I've been thinking about, Brad, are these foundational things like we just talked about, whether you choose to call it or follow Scientology, whether you choose to do something else or or or or have another type of philosophy or religion that grounds you, a foundation, I think, is so critical to young people as they grow up to have a base of ethics, a base of morality, a base of action, um, a base of what is productive versus unproductive. And of course, we're all going to go through our own mess, but to figure out what to do with the mess that we've got, right? How you deal with mess that either you create or that's thrown on you, um, and to have the tools to be able to handle that. I think that the um I think we've lost a lot of that, right? You know, they I think that the one interesting article my wife pointed out to me is that a lot of young, younger men now are moving back to religion in in higher numbers and even going to maybe even like Greek Orthodox or Roman Catholic, right? Something with more structure. To me, it seems like Scientology actually has a lot of structure. It seems like that structurally it offers a process by which someone can kind of go through and, like you said, purge and unpack some of those negative imprints.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And and because there's a step-by-step, I want to call it technology, okay, there's a philosophy behind it, but the technology is you do A, B, C, and D, and you should arrive at E, which should be a somewhat of an unburdening. And then you continue at different levels to so so it and that is one of the reasons for the more organized religion. Because if if one church is saying, yeah, well, we go A, B, D, F, and another church is like, well, we go C D and just jump to G, and then you have this sort of muddled process from our founder delivered in 25 different ways. Do you really have Scientology anymore? You know, and yeah, and and this has been the reason, you know, where and Scientology gets beat up a lot in the media because of this, because it is it is a rigid system, and they have copyrighted and trademarked everything so that it can't be perverted. And it it it when you read something from Hubbard, many times it's in his own hand or in his own voice, and you listen to a lecture or watch a film. Yeah, it's 50 years old at this point, but you know that it's from the source of the one, and it hasn't been perverted or changed by some guy in Kansas City or in Auckland, Australia, or New Zealand, you know, right. It is the same everywhere. Sure.
SPEAKER_00But but that creates the consistency, you know. And the one thing that I find so fascinating about Christianity is, you know, it was put into text, um, the the Hebrew tradition of of write of writing things down carried into the Christian theology. And of course, it came about during the Roman era where everything was written down, right? The Romans wrote things down because they realized that's how you could organize a society. And the the writing of laws and the writing of thoughts and philosophies, you know, it was a Greek tradition, Roman tradition. And so where I'm going with this is that you know, the King James Bible was written in English by men, by people, right? That was translated by this other language, translated by this other language thousands of years after the after after the event. I know, I know. Thousands in the first, the first, you know, the first writing of uh the scripture, I believe, was in the maybe in the two or three hundreds. So it's it was after the event. But anyway, where I'm going with this is written by people by a variety of different people, and humans naturally interpret the Bible in a variety of different ways. Right? There's going to be a Baptist preacher who interprets the Bible very differently than Saint Aquinas, St. Thomas Aquinas, right? Very different. Um, so what's interesting to me about Scientology is that by putting the boundaries around it, there's no um uh misunderstanding, right? There's there's no um distortion or diffusion of what the message or what the process is. Is that I imagine that's really helpful.
SPEAKER_02It's 100%. I I can tell you that there's an arm of the Church of Scientology that has ensured that for a million years they've etched the words and recordings of Hubbard into titanium plates and buried them in a mountain so that even if humanity is can you know, and this is what religions do. Imagine if if Jesus had written down and it was etched in titanium plates or stone a thousand years ago, would it look the same as the Bibles that we read now? Probably not. Of course not. Of course not. So, you know, I guess you could say that that the the management group of Scientology is put in place guardrails to ensure that doesn't happen in 500 or 1,000 or maybe even 100,000 years.
SPEAKER_00Well, and also, too, what's interesting to me about it is that you know, creating or morphing from a philosophy to a religion in the 1940s and 50s, the technology and the perspective is very different. Yes, yeah, than 2000 BCE or you know 200 B AD, right? I mean, I mean it's just the it's just different in terms of okay, now there's a sense of preservation, there's a sense of organization, we can capture the actual quote-unquote true word, right? Um do um do folks in Scientology think of L. Ron Hubbard as more of a prophet that's revealing an innate truth, or the founder of the faith?
SPEAKER_02The founder of the faith. In fact, he he said numerous times that I am not a prophet or a god. I am simply you know taking down these tools that I found work for myself and others.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you know, and that's what I and I guess, you know, and I don't mean mean to misphrase it, but that's what I I thought what I meant when I was saying the word prophet. The prophet is the messenger, right? He's kind of saying, Hey, I revealed this thing, I understand this thing, I'm just the messenger telling you what this thing is.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And he didn't want to be revered as as a god or anything. And he he said it many times, I'm just a man. And he says, we don't even need to speculate why I was able to come to these conclusions when others hadn't. You know, it doesn't matter. Sure.
SPEAKER_00And um, you know, and it doesn't, and in the end, in the end, you know what's interesting, Brad, from my perspective, it doesn't matter. Right? What matters is that the work is there. And what the matters is that the work is there for other people to pick up if they choose, and to follow if they choose, and to help their lives down if they choose. And to put it down in the if they choose and and detach from it, but and to um but to use what's there to help their lives become better and to help the help them be better to the lives around them.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And and I I will make a a point to crystallize your other point is that the quote-unquote organized religions of Judaism, Islam, Catholicism, Christianity, I do believe that those are stabilizing force in people's lives, especially when they don't have moral grounding or they don't have two-parent families. And we can even go so far as to say, you know, when I grew up, most mothers didn't work, they stayed home with the children. You had a parent home all day. That changed as I was becoming a teenager in the 80s, where it was a two-parent working family. That changed the core of raising children, yeah. You know, at the tail end of Gen X. And then, of course, it changed even more with the with the 24-hour news cycle, 24-7 CNN with wars all over the world, 24-7 being exposed to anybody. And then, of course, the internet and social media and the prevalent pornography that you almost could never even find when I was a teenager. I know, right?
SPEAKER_01That was as far as it went. Okay. Now it's anything.
SPEAKER_00It's so funny you said that. I remember watching this short film as you know, as you know, maybe eight, nine, ten, and it was called A Real Naked Woman. And of course, I was like, oh my god, and it ended up being a short film about an art class where they were sketching. Right? And and and and it was and it was one of these things where uh I remember it's so funny that you say that because I remember this movie now where it, you know, and the story was about these three kids, they were sneaking in, they were so excited because they'd never seen a naked lady before. And the teacher sees him and he says, You come here. And they were like, uh, really? And they were like, Yeah. And he puts these kids, he puts his kid down in front of this naked woman, puts a piece of paper and hands him a charcoal, and he says, draw. And the kid was like, Oh, okay, that's now this actually is a as a is a is it as a body, right? This is what I'm drawing, right? And it it and it took the you know, the the unsavory part of it completely out. And I think that everything you mentioned about the impact of society now, I think is spot on. I think that um, you know, divorce rates, I don't think, help families. I don't think they do. I think that my folks split when I was five. I had multiple marriages uh and divorces after that. So I had a lot of stepfamily come in and out. Um and so my counter to that in my adult life was instead of the the mix and match and the chaos and the variety of homes that I lived in in my adult life. I have one spouse, one house, right? A sense of stability that I needed to create.
SPEAKER_02It's amazing that you were able to go from that unstability into something that has been stable in your life. Well, I had to create it.
SPEAKER_00Right? Well, I had and I and my wife and I were like You did that, obviously. You know, yeah, we're in it. Like we're we're in it, and you're either in or out, we're totally in, and this is what we're creating family forward, right? That's that's the mantra. And so um the the concept though of that instability and that volatility and the idea where young people get exposed to the world, where uh you know, I was telling a buddy of mine I said, look, if we had Facebook in the 1500s, people would be pulling their eyeballs out of their head. It was the world was a mess. Well, the world's always been a mess. It always will be a mess.
SPEAKER_02We have too many people and and barbarism is always accepted. In fact, it might be worse then than it is now. But this is correct.
SPEAKER_00Correct, right? I mean, that's the thing. I mean, in the if you if you if you go back to 1502, the Pope was having kids in Italy, Black Plague was ravaging Europe, uh, the Spanish were decimating cultures in South America, enslavement was not only uh rampant but encouraged of entire countries. Uh I mean it was a mass genocide everywhere. Uh uh it was it was a mess, right? Um, and so the world's always going to be a mess. It's nine billion people. You can't help but be messy at that point. So it comes back, I think, to the place where how do families help raise kids in a in a foundational structure that's you know, provides safety, but also gives them the tools so that they have to work, but they know how to work. They know how to build an ethical framework, a morality within their own lives. They know how to choose their own actions wisely, they know how to reflect on the behaviors that they've done and that's built into the family. Um, without that, I think that it's really challenging for young kids to uh as a whole group to to move up and be as productive as they could be.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. And and I mean it touches on a lot of points. The the hyper stimulization, whether it's whether it's porn or the fight videos. And I can relate a little story. When I was in ninth grade, I was on a school bus, and two of the seniors had words with each other, and I've never seen anything like they stood up and they threw punches and fades, and one got not. I was I was traumatized. Okay, I'd seen this, it's the only time I'd seen anything like that in my life. I was what, 13 or 14 at the time. And it I remember being traumatized by that incident, the sounds of fists clacking into faces and a guy literally going unconscious. Now you watch boxing matches once a month or something, and they had pillowy gloves on. I know it still hurt, but now you go on any uh uh X or Twitter or Facebook, and you've got kids sucker punching each other in the bathrooms. I mean, this thing that uh hyper stimulated me that I saw once, you see 20 times a day if you're spending much time online. Okay, it damages it. So everything in your life is desensitized. So you need that hyper stimulate stimulation to even feel like you're alive now. So, how do we achieve that? Drug use, outrageous emotional actions and outbursts, complete apathy if you aren't getting that stimulation. And again, I'm not blaming social media because I look at the same stuff and I'm obviously at a point where I don't think it's affecting me, but I'm not a 14-year-old looking at it six hours a day. You know, sure that leaves an imprint. Of course it does. People are saying what Australia passed this week, you know, where they banned social media for people under 16. How is that? Oh my God. I'm like, let them go for it. I'm very curious about it.
SPEAKER_00I'm very curious.
SPEAKER_01We'll never get that passed here, but I wish we would too.
SPEAKER_00You know, I I'm also very curious about it as well. And I think that um the that kind of negative stimulation can't help but damage minds and damage, you know, people. I I remember actually being.
SPEAKER_02Unless you have some balance, okay? And most of these kids don't have balance. And and again, I go back to the organized religion where they're going to church every Sunday or they're participating in in church groups or doing something to help themselves or help others in a spiritual or emotional sense. It's just feeding the poison without any sort of color balance. That's right.
SPEAKER_00You know, or they're not even there. Right, or they're emotionally wailing on each other, and there's no anecdote. So, yeah, it's a curious thing, and I think that that's a a a puzzle that we absolutely have. To solve. Maybe that's part of it.
SPEAKER_02I have the hope that we will evolve through it. And it will not be the end of mankind, but we will get to a point where, okay, that's too much, or we got to take this down or we've got to add some balance.
SPEAKER_00And the pendulum shifts, right? And the pendulum shifts. And who knows, maybe Australia will teach us a lesson.
SPEAKER_02You know, maybe they have a solution. Maybe they don't. Maybe you know, I'd like to think that we continue to evolve as as beings and as a species to a higher level. I mean, we are not really enslaving people to the degree that it was happening 500 years ago. Right. We are not doing public executions and public torturing to the degree that it was happening. You know, people are not scrounging through uh excrement and and waste bins to feed themselves in the most cases. So I feel there is an evolution of humanity on this planet that is happening. We're getting over time. That's another thing we're gonna have to get through.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I agree with you 100%. We're getting better, right? I mean, most people think and and I think that you know, we get better over generations. It's just that it we have to live through these generations to see ourselves get better over time.
SPEAKER_02And we're gonna go about to go through another one. This this whole AI thing is gonna be something else. You know, what happens with you know universal base uh basic income? With uh what happens with jobs and people's productivity if we have robots and AI that basically are our brains and our muscle for us. How do we get through that? You know, I do believe we are not the first society of beings that have crossed these evolutionary boundaries, right? But for whatever reason, we don't have contact or connection. Maybe some of us do, but how how do we get through this? I think it's on us to figure it out.
SPEAKER_00I agree with you. It is on us to figure it out. That's a wonderful question. And I think that I'd love to have you back to think about the next stage of evolution and what that looks like.
SPEAKER_02I'd love to. I I I I love to think about this. I love going down the internet rabbit holes of interdimensional beings and UFOs and AI and you know, it's it's fun for me. I'm not saying I'm a believer in some of these things, but I do like exploring it.
SPEAKER_00Well, you like exploring it, and I think that you know the mind is so powerful and infinite. Um the human brain is uh is limitless uh in terms of in terms of what we're what we can think about and what we can experience and what we can put ourselves into. So what I'm curious about is what happens if you don't think about the limits that that we have on ourselves, right? Right. Um and uh with that, I'd love to have that conversation.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Anytime, Chris, this was this was fantastic. I really enjoyed the conversation and uh it was fun exchanging views.
SPEAKER_00Oh, you're wonderful. So I have one final question for you, Brad. Um, who is someone that you know that I don't know, but that I should know?
SPEAKER_02Wow, I mean I wouldn't want to give you an imprint of someone like myself. But there are there are people that I don't want to say impress me as a person, but they have done things. So, for example, this this gentleman who created this nine-figure sheet business in other 10 years in dead sheets of my I mean it's it's amazing, you know? This was a guy hawking sheets on a on a street corner on the weekends, you know.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. That's awesome. I'd love to meet him.
SPEAKER_02I I I let me let me think deeper in that. You you know, because I've met to me, I've met so many people in my life and find people interesting in general. I like people, you know, and I I like to have these chats, and it's so much more entertaining than sitting and scrolling. Although I must say I do spend some time doing that and I enjoy that too.
SPEAKER_03I don't want to knock the whole thing and say I don't do it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's where you're a consumer of the media. That's awesome. All right, well, well, Brad, I'll let you go because it's uh it's almost 9 p.m. It's almost bedtime for you, so you got to hit it. Thank you so much again for being a part of this. Anytime, Chris. Anytime. Have a great evening.
SPEAKER_01Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_00Well oh my gosh, Brad Googler. What a fantastic conversation. I think that he was extremely brave and honest and open, and you know, we dove right into his um perspective and how Scientology has really informed his whole approach to living. Um, in another episode with our friend Mark, Mark talked about a foundation, and everyone needs a foundation in their life. For Mark, it was the Hebrew Bible, right? And uh the Christian Bible as a foundation. For Brad, it's Scientology and the perspectives of unpacking your own imprints, of looking at the baggage of your life, of looking at the sources of emotional distress, identifying them and pulling them out, clearing them out of your mind. It's very psychology-based. And you can understand how after the destruction of World War II, the question was, well, why did we get here? How do we do these? Why do we do these things to each other, right? To create this damage, not only for ourselves, but also the world. And wouldn't it be a better place if we can clear out some of that internal damage, right? So, what did I learn from Brad? Man, I learned that I can confront my own imprints, I can confront my own baggage, and I can figure out why I have those thoughts that are unhelpful, that pull me down, that are destructive internally, so I can be more clear in my life, have greater visibility of what's possible, maybe have greater confidence that I can move my life forward. Yeah, so I learned a lot. I think it's marvelous. I think it's marvelous that he was able to talk about all the things that he's done to make his life as successful as it is. And I hope you enjoy this conversation. I hope you join the conversation. Visit menfolkjourneys.com and book a call. I'd love to have a ki yik yak with you. Thank you for listening. Wordbit Falaret.
