Asatru Folk Assembly - 4⧸23⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 146 - Fulfilling Obligations： Time Management and Productivity

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00:02:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:03:00.000 hello again and welcome to another edition of victory never sleeps i believe this is the

00:03:14.400 third third edition of uh or is it the fourth of adulting with alan fourth all right here we go um

00:03:25.360 tonight law speaker is going to talk to us about uh time management and productivity

00:03:34.560 and that's certainly something that is near and dear to my heart and i think that if we

00:03:42.720 harnessed the power of making the best use of our time we would see exponential results before we

00:03:49.040 get into it tonight, you all may have been noticing that I've been plugging our Neurtoff

00:03:57.320 fundraiser a lot lately. I'm going to continue to do that every week because it's working out

00:04:02.620 pretty good. You guys have been amazingly generous as you typically are. You got $43,781 still left

00:04:14.060 on that loan that was on a massive 245 000 loan and we have paid off 82.1 of that in

00:04:25.820 a very short amount of time um considering so

00:04:34.620 under three years we've paid off a tremendous sum you guys have been great and since we've been

00:04:40.220 asking on here and that's you know something that is not always comfortable but is a truism in life

00:04:45.740 you don't get what you don't ask for and so asking for y'all's help on here has moved that needle

00:04:51.900 over the past couple of weeks thousands of dollars so we appreciate you you guys are amazing um

00:05:00.300 And as we sit now, $60 even from every AFA member would pay the Hoff off instantly.

00:05:13.340 We appreciate all of the donations you guys have done.

00:05:16.620 You guys are amazing.

00:05:18.080 Thank you all so much.

00:05:19.820 And as is typical, the generosity of GW Farnsworth starts out our broadcast with a $30 donation to the V&S Fund.

00:05:28.680 Thank you so much.

00:05:30.300 you are amazing and you are very very much appreciated sir um that said stuff uh dates

00:05:38.300 to be thinking about kind of the the apex of our 30th anniversary celebration is at midsummer

00:05:49.020 at odenshof this year that is again in the tiniest possible lettering so i can't read

00:05:55.100 those dates for you june 27th 29th june 27th through the 29th uh be there or be square we'd

00:06:04.220 rather have you be there um got a number of people coming out for it it's going to be a big one this

00:06:09.980 year i'm looking forward to it and we would love to show off the first hop the house to folk assembly

00:06:16.540 to all of our amazing members and any guests that are listening to this show them i want to come

00:06:20.460 check it out we have had odenshoff now for almost 10 years wow this will be a couple months shy of

00:06:32.460 it uh at midsummer but it's kind of a point of interest for some folks we actually scouted that

00:06:40.400 out 10 years ago at midsummer um directly after our midsummer the mcdallens and myself my wife

00:06:48.820 mandy and some friends of ours along with uh gothe thorgrin went and checked out the property

00:06:55.380 that would become odenshof uh did the walkthrough and it's hard to encapsulate because doing that

00:07:05.540 on that very first one um i've said this a lot on here the the distance between the couch and

00:07:11.300 the door that's the biggest distance breaking that breaking that surface tension of having

00:07:17.380 nothing to having something everything else is gravy after that once you get the momentum going

00:07:23.220 but going from not having any hoffs to taking that first step on getting the first one is a

00:07:28.900 really powerful thing and i was very blessed to be in the right place at the right time to be a part

00:07:33.940 of um also in july we will have the third annual sigger bloat at siggerhane in jackson county

00:07:47.140 tennessee that is the property that we purchased a little bit over two years ago

00:07:56.900 about two and a half years ago it is what will be the capital of the austral folk assembly where we

00:08:05.780 are going to be operating from it is where a number of us are moving to that county myself

00:08:13.460 and my family included to establish ourselves in the community so it's the property that tears

00:08:20.900 off will one day be on and we're very excited to have you guys there and to see the truly

00:08:26.420 amazing place that it is it's absolutely beautiful it's a place we're really proud of and we'd love

00:08:32.900 to have you guys join us for um that's coming up live 25th through the 27th and like i said

00:08:43.060 love to see you guys there uh law speaker will you be joining us there this week

00:08:47.460 definitely maybe all right and so far so you you might see our law speaker alan turn is there you

00:08:58.340 will definitely i say that unless so last year i got i got skunked out of getting to go because it

00:09:07.540 was that one day a year that all the airlines had all their computer stuff go down and i was

00:09:12.900 very frustrated turned out it was a great event regardless sad i wasn't going to be able to be

00:09:17.620 there i'm so looking forward to be there for this one and to meet all you folks there if you're

00:09:22.420 interested in going to any of these events please reach out to your local folk builder to our

00:09:28.500 producer nick to myself uh anybody you can get your hands on an afa leadership can get you set

00:09:35.140 up and ready to attend we'd love to see you at either or both of those events and uh yeah so

00:09:42.260 be there and be part of this that we've got going on.

00:09:46.600 And I think that leads into the other thing.

00:09:50.760 If you are listening to this, if you watch the show,

00:09:54.080 if you hear the show, if you share our views,

00:09:58.000 if you are a heterosexual white person,

00:10:01.020 come home to the Ostrou Folk Assembly.

00:10:03.400 We are doing some really spectacular things.

00:10:05.760 We would love to be doing those as a team with you,

00:10:10.180 If you're on the team, with you in the AFA family, it's, we use the term coming home a lot, but time and again, it's very heartening to hear that from people that join, that that's really what it feels like.

00:10:25.960 A lot of people may have questions or, you know, concerns pursuing a new, a new religious path in their life.

00:10:35.080 and I get that, but one of the things that is the most special, I think, about Ausitru,

00:10:41.380 at least for our folk, is it is a coming back to what is natural to the blood and bone of our

00:10:49.620 people. I felt that overwhelmingly when I came home to Ausitru, and I would wish every one of

00:10:56.620 you guys has that feeling. So runestone.org, check it out, think about joining. It's no better time

00:11:04.860 them now i felt the exact same thing and i've said it many times and um it is your birthright

00:11:12.300 to worship your gods in your uh in your own temple and so um we welcome you to

00:11:22.380 share that experience this is a a tribal group

00:11:29.980 um i'm reading the book the difference between tribalism and individualism

00:11:34.860 But it's definitely your right and your privilege to be able to come and worship with us in the modern version of Owls of Truth.

00:11:50.080 And, you know, something else I want to add on that, and I've said this on the show many times, but I don't think it can be overstated.

00:11:56.280 the more you move your life and the things in your life to synchronize and to harmonize

00:12:06.000 and be in alignment with who you are the better everything works and the better everything fits

00:12:14.000 together in the modern world we've you know sometimes by necessity other times by convenience

00:12:20.220 had to learn to bifurcate or not even bifurcate but well there's that if it was just split between

00:12:29.680 two but it's not we've compartmentalized what the life we have with our friends with our co-workers

00:12:37.000 with our families and what we do at home and maybe what we really think

00:12:42.300 into all these different categories, the more you build your family within your faith and your

00:12:51.360 values, the more you express your faith and your values in your friend group, in your, you know,

00:13:01.200 work relationships, in the other ways that you interface with the world, the more you're able

00:13:06.500 to do that the better life works and i mean that in just about every way that can manifest the

00:13:13.140 better thing it brings your whole self into harmony and that's so much of the mental problem

00:13:20.340 that we have everywhere else is that we're you know we practice one religion and a different

00:13:27.620 philosophy and a different kind of uh politic and you know then a different kind of economic

00:13:34.500 and the more you can harmonize all those pieces of your soul which the you know in our faith we

00:13:40.740 realize that the soul is many facets it's you know the nine part soul complex and the more that you

00:13:46.980 can make those pieces work together in harmony um the more you are aligned with the will of the

00:13:52.820 universe um i recently heard um and of course the greeks wrote a lot more stuff down i think

00:14:00.740 we probably said the exact same things in just as much profundity. But I believe it was Seneca who

00:14:07.060 said, become such as you are, once you figure out what that is. And the longer I have practiced

00:14:14.820 also true, the more I have realized that that's where that's really what I was all along.

00:14:24.420 Yeah, it brings up another thing. And I promise we'll get to the topic of the show here in a

00:14:28.580 second but a lot of these things up front i think are really important and worth worth leading on

00:14:32.900 well i have another distraction too later on oh well okay so what i was going to say real quick is

00:14:39.300 um i really meant that earlier when i talked about a synergy it's not just that all the parts

00:14:45.700 don't conflict and so there's an inherent harmony when they're all clicking together

00:14:52.180 it becomes worth more than the sum of its individual parts they build upon one another

00:14:58.580 Your religious practice should enhance your life as a husband or a father.

00:15:04.440 That should enhance your, you know, who you are at work.

00:15:09.200 That should enhance what kind of a friend you are, what kind of a person you are in the other aspects of your life.

00:15:15.300 All of those things should work together in a way that propels you forward at a faster clip than you normally would if you're doing them all piece by piece.

00:15:25.740 They're working together.

00:15:26.780 There's power within that.

00:15:27.800 And it's similar to the power that we get when we do things in ritual, doing things as a group.

00:15:34.880 We're building upon the momentum of each other.

00:15:38.440 And there's there's a there's truly a magic at play.

00:15:41.960 And the other thing I wanted to mention is the idea of wholeness.

00:15:45.080 We talk on here a lot about how our folks suffer from a soul sickness.

00:15:48.780 the key malignancy of that is this separation an alienation of us from our gods and our folk from

00:16:00.180 what is the natural way of our people the more we heal that the more we become whole that's the

00:16:06.540 entire concept of health to our ancestors was the idea of being whole we are sick to the degree that

00:16:13.980 we are compartmentalized. So keep that in mind. And Alan, for your other distraction.

00:16:24.180 Yes. A couple of things. First, you know, a reminder that I do like to, I think of these

00:16:31.400 shows, although separated apart, I'm always happy to entertain questions about, you know,

00:16:40.200 So the previous shows, if you have a question about credit, health, or, you know, those sorts of things, that was the top of the first show. And that's my profession, bankruptcy law. So if you have questions about any of that or health or any of those, I'll, I also want to give a, speaking of which, in that, in that mean, I want to give a shout out to Cliff Erickson, who

00:17:07.660 ramped up my intermittent fasting practice. I was kind of lazily doing 18-6 and not really

00:17:20.920 being very disciplined about it. But then when he came down for Charming of the Plow,

00:17:24.280 we talked about it. He's doing 24, meaning eating four hours of the day and fasting 20 hours a day.

00:17:33.260 so um i started doing that um and i've lost two inches off my waist

00:17:42.320 um a whole lot of weight um and feel a whole lot better so thanks cliff um thanks all you guys

00:17:51.960 doctor whoever it is that did that research about five or six years ago that showed the

00:17:56.780 benefits of intermittent fasting and autophagy and all the benefits of that for your body

00:18:02.860 And thank you to my lovely girlfriend, Ann, who cooks such delicious food that even though right after I eat it, I'm starving still, it is fantastic and healthy.

00:18:14.900 um so everybody out there who's single or if you are in a position where you can

00:18:23.060 affect the attitudes of your of your life mate um

00:18:28.140 that is a game changer as somebody who's been in relationships with people who are

00:18:34.960 not like-minded to us and luckily settling down with mandy who is very much on the team and didn't

00:18:43.040 come here as a plus one, but was doing this with, you know, before she met me, having

00:18:49.420 partners in your life that help you synergize with your goals are really important.

00:18:55.340 Whatever your fitness goal is that you want to achieve, having a partner that helps you

00:19:01.980 is a huge key to success because it's really hard to be in a relationship where you're trying to be

00:19:07.560 on a diet and they're trying to not be, or you're trying to, you know, eat a certain way or live a

00:19:13.580 certain lifestyle. And they're like, no, we need to go out. No, we need to eat this. It works really

00:19:19.300 well when you have somebody who wants to help either engage in the same goals as you are at

00:19:26.160 the very least is supportive of facilitating that lifestyle. I've seen that with wives and

00:19:31.500 girlfriends, or, you know, I think I see it less often, but conversely with boyfriends or husbands

00:19:38.020 who actively help support and facilitate those positive life changes. I've seen couples that

00:19:45.980 mutually provide each other excuses to wallow in mediocrity or descend into obesity and ill health.

00:19:57.240 And it's really easy when you have somebody else there, you know, kind of giving you permission to be less.

00:20:05.220 But it's awesome when you have somebody that, you know, helps push you forward and helps, you know, make those things work out.

00:20:12.060 So that's that's awesome that you have that with your with your fasting.

00:20:15.860 And I'm glad it's working out for you. Before we get in the meat and taters here, you guys, you guys are awesome.

00:20:23.240 i appreciate you all so much uh kyle in tennessee donated 200 to help us pay off mjordshoff

00:20:32.360 thank you um angela in new hampshire and this is by no means her first donation towards it she is

00:20:39.240 stacking up helping us out on this 25 to help us pay off mjordshoff much appreciated and an

00:20:45.960 additional 25 to help get the steeple repaired at baldershoff which is project they're working on

00:20:52.680 yep and then yet another 25 to the vns fund so thank you angelo we really appreciate it it means

00:21:00.040 a lot and bill in tennessee donated sixty dollars to the new york's hall fund doing his part we

00:21:07.400 appreciate it that is thank you you know within a matter of minutes getting us you know the better

00:21:15.720 part of 300 towards the goal is is really remarkable thank you guys we appreciate you

00:21:22.360 right it's a great honor to see how much help we can get from folk and this is what

00:21:28.600 i know this is what you do it for and i will say that's what i do it for to you know to

00:21:33.480 see the great joy that we can bring to people um who come with us um down this journey that we are

00:21:42.680 uh, you know, um, where we're re-clearing this path to, uh, to, to our own gods. It's beautiful.

00:21:53.680 Well, all right. Without further ado, Alan.

00:21:56.720 Well, there is actually more ado because I have another question.

00:21:59.600 All right. Continue with the ado.

00:22:02.580 Uh, I, I'm starting with multiple distractions this morning. It's not for this evening,

00:22:08.600 not because I'm unfocused, really. But I had a question, and it came up in contemplating some

00:22:15.660 of the other stuff. And so the question, and I hope I'm not out of order asking you this.

00:22:23.240 We'll see.

00:22:24.820 I know, right? But so when did you quit proclaiming to be perfect?

00:22:31.160 um my claim to perfection is ongoing don't believe the hype so it's it's funny you say that because

00:22:44.840 i believe that there's probably a certain segment of detractors that think that both

00:22:50.760 i have claimed that i am at some point and secondly that i think that claim to be true

00:22:55.800 neither of those are the case i would like to think that i am moving

00:23:01.960 closer towards perfection than i am drifting away from it that's certainly my endeavor each

00:23:06.920 and every day but i have a long long way to go before i get anywhere close to that right and

00:23:14.120 as you know the question was facetious and you know and i would certainly say the same about

00:23:18.520 myself that i am you know that i am i do the best i can with uh the resources that i have um i will

00:23:27.400 say i i think it to be true about myself and i know it to be true about you that that we operate

00:23:34.280 in good faith in our best efforts um to further the cause of the gods and our folk and um and so

00:23:43.000 i appreciate the efforts that you make and the efforts that all of us make um toward making uh

00:23:50.520 a little better as we regain our place in the modern world. And if you will indulge me in this quote from Theodore Roosevelt that I have come to think a lot of, a reminder to all of us,

00:24:12.560 It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

00:24:20.300 The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, but who does actually strive to do the deeds, who stumbles, who comes short, who errs again and again.

00:24:34.840 for there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do

00:24:39.800 the deeds, who knows the great exhortations, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy

00:24:45.580 cause, and who, at the best, in the end, knows the triumph of high achievement. And if at the worst,

00:24:53.580 if he should fail, he at least fails while daring greatly, for his place shall never be among the

00:24:58.980 cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

00:25:04.620 And that's one of Roosevelt's most famous quotes from the man in the,

00:25:10.380 it's called the man in the arena. And, you know,

00:25:13.720 so I think that those of us who do recognize that we make mistakes.

00:25:21.380 I think one of the great prideful things about also true,

00:25:26.540 Certainly one of the points of my practice is that I own my mistakes, that the things I've done wrong, I admit that I've done wrong and I try to make amends to those who I've wronged.

00:25:42.360 And, you know, I tried always in furtherance and in service of the folk.

00:25:46.440 Um, but, uh, to those quitters and splitters and other bed shitters, um, I want to, uh, paraphrase a quote from Samuel Adams that was also one of my favorites.

00:26:04.440 If you love respite more than duty, the tranquility of anonymity more than the animated contest of rebuilding our folk, go home from us in peace.

00:26:17.380 We ask not your counsel or arms.

00:26:20.260 Crouch down and lick the hands that oppress you.

00:26:23.240 May your chains sit lightly upon you and may posterity forget that we ever called you kinsmen.

00:26:34.440 And that Teddy Roosevelt quote has always been extremely inspirational to me. I read a three-part biography series. I don't know, probably getting old, probably 20 years ago now.

00:26:55.820 That was one of the best biographies that I've read.

00:27:01.140 It was a three-part biography, and it really impressed upon me what a spectacular man he was in the sense that he was always a man of action.

00:27:12.700 And he didn't come with good health or the natural ability to.

00:27:18.140 He built that himself through consistent effort.

00:27:22.880 Willpower.

00:27:23.520 it shows how much determination can can change your physical and mental life absolutely absolutely

00:27:34.800 and uh yeah that's that's always been a great inspiration to me and and just to

00:27:40.040 tag along on you know your your comical question about my own perfection

00:27:45.680 um that reinforces another theme on here that i think it's good to reiterate

00:27:53.180 none of us are perfect that doesn't mean we shouldn't be out there trying the moment is

00:28:01.080 never perfect if we wait around for the perfect time to do the perfect thing in the perfect way

00:28:07.700 we will never do anything and take that most difficult step that i started the show talking

00:28:13.160 about from the couch to the door because we can spend the rest of our life planning for

00:28:18.600 theoretical perfect getting out there and making stuff happen while we're pursuing that perfection

00:28:24.720 that's that's and i think it's certainly a fear of a lot of the folk who might step into um

00:28:31.160 leadership as a folk builder or you know take the next step in and become a gothy um

00:28:37.740 you know that you're afraid you're going to mess it up but you know the only the worst mistake is

00:28:45.020 not to do anything. And yeah, you're going to make mistakes. You're going to have moots where

00:28:48.920 you do the wrong thing, you say the wrong thing, you show up at the wrong time, you

00:28:54.500 ruffle a couple of feathers. You know what? Life goes on. Things are going to continue and it's

00:29:02.040 going to be better for your effort. You'll get better as you get practice at it. And the more

00:29:10.220 you tilt at these windmills the the more assailable it becomes you know that has certainly been my

00:29:17.580 story involved in the house of true folk assembly um i didn't start out anybody special i didn't

00:29:26.460 get to where i am through any you know i i don't know through anything that you'd see on paper as

00:29:33.420 some kind of built-in, I don't know, built-in momentum towards leadership or success.

00:29:44.860 It's come through just trying and trying hard and trying to find ways to devote myself

00:29:51.520 as fully as I could to this that we're doing.

00:29:55.840 And I think that showing that effort, if it's done with piety, I think you've got a lot

00:30:02.640 of advocates on the other side of the veil that help push you forward a little bit when that

00:30:06.720 happens, be it your ancestors, be it our heroes, and be it ultimately, if we're lucky, our gods

00:30:13.740 themselves. So I also want to say this to start off. I know we keep finding other things, but we

00:30:20.420 will get to the time management bit here in a second. But I want to say that something that

00:30:28.080 have seen well-intentioned people make a mistake on religion isn't a science it's an art

00:30:40.720 if you're trying to find the perfect secret code to unlock the you know the mysteries of the universe

00:30:48.880 it doesn't work like that in real life if we believe that our gods are sentient gods

00:30:58.900 that are wise and that are good and you know honorable

00:31:04.800 then our gods can surely tell the difference between good intention and poor and between

00:31:12.480 action and inaction a lot of people and they mean this extremely well but out of piety

00:31:20.640 they don't want to take some of those first steps because they don't want to accidentally do it

00:31:24.000 wrong they don't want to mess up this is too important to mess up and i get that i get that

00:31:28.480 a thousand percent but sometimes you have to take a little bit of faith that our gods are going to

00:31:35.600 judge you fairly, because our gods are noble, and give it your best effort. Every experience I've

00:31:45.040 had in my life tells me that that's in keeping with their will, and that's appreciated by them.

00:31:51.880 So I'd urge everybody, today's the day, go out there and make the effort. And sure, down the

00:31:59.200 road, you may have a cooler altar, or you may have refined your practice, or you may have,

00:32:04.600 you know found infinite ways to do it better and by all means i encourage you to do so

00:32:09.360 but in the meantime get out there and worship our gods get out there and come home to

00:32:16.180 the faith that you were born to be a part of

00:32:19.580 i think that's all i've got for beginning of the show distractions

00:32:25.160 uh now that the introduction is up um so uh like like with a lot of

00:32:34.220 uh topics in adulting first of all you know youtube is rife with time management tools

00:32:42.380 um so my approach to these things time management in particular for tonight but my approach to

00:32:49.020 these things is more about getting the mindset um and because the rest sort of falls into place

00:32:56.860 once you adjust your internal cognition to that sort of alignment, I think.

00:33:10.880 So, and there are lots of tips and tricks out there, and I'll talk about a couple of them,

00:33:15.960 but part of it to me, and I'll tell you hopefully not too boring story about one of the ways I adjusted my own attitude,

00:33:26.860 A lot of it is mindset and it's approaching life.

00:33:35.380 It's approaching your obligations with joy.

00:33:39.280 And that's one of the things, you know, we and Matt, I think you're largely responsible for it.

00:33:43.340 We talk about love, the love we have for each other and for the gods and for our folk.

00:33:49.160 But I think joy is a big part of it, too.

00:33:52.180 This life for us is not a veil of tears.

00:33:55.200 This is the chance that we have to make these connections, to meet and love and be kind and be angry and do all the things that we do as human beings here.

00:34:10.880 But this life is a life of joy.

00:34:13.740 And your responsibilities are responsibilities of joy.

00:34:17.660 um and the way that i hit that spot in my head is um years and years ago back in the day when

00:34:28.060 i had a swimming pool i you know go schlumping out to the pool and i pick up the net and i'm

00:34:34.540 you know grouching at myself you know i gotta take care of this stupid swimming pool

00:34:39.980 and it was that like right at that moment i had that thing it's like hey i have a swimming pool

00:34:46.620 i get to take care of and so you know it's just one of those light bulb moments where it it pivoted

00:34:54.460 my whole understanding internally about um the you know the about the approach to these sorts of

00:35:01.420 things yes it was a distraction but it was you know at that point and from then on it was a it

00:35:06.460 was a thing of joy you the the place that we have now it's not you know i gotta get out and mow the

00:35:12.380 of grass, you know, it's, wow, I have this field that I have to go and mow and, you know, take care

00:35:19.020 of the grapevines and the, and the pecan trees that I've got out here. So, you know, life is,

00:35:28.140 life is joy. Responsibility is happiness. And share another one of my favorite quotes.

00:35:36.820 cowards want men owe. And, you know, and, and so we owe each other this duty of joyfulness and,

00:35:49.900 and, and bounty to each other. And managing our time more efficiently is just a way of,

00:35:57.760 you know, it's just a tool to be able to use that. And so from, for myself, and I realize

00:36:04.220 I'm a couple of years older than everybody else in the AFA put together.

00:36:09.300 So I grew up in an era when there weren't cell phones and that sort of stuff to set these sorts of reminders.

00:36:16.380 I had to write stuff down on a piece of paper.

00:36:19.620 I know this is primitive technology.

00:36:22.820 But one of the things that I personally would urge people to do,

00:36:31.720 if you're if you're having trouble with getting through your stuff every day is try to rely less

00:36:39.160 on your cell phone because i find that the clients that i talk to especially who you know have

00:36:45.960 everything now on their cell phone if it's not in there it doesn't exist so it's you know write a

00:36:53.240 list or even better don't have a list you know think i've got these four you know when you're

00:36:59.080 you're going to bed i've got these four things i have to do tomorrow and those are uh you know and

00:37:05.800 and then when you wake up you don't you don't need a list you don't need a phone you don't need a

00:37:09.880 reminder you don't need microsoft telling you to uh you know how to live your life you can do it

00:37:17.560 for yourself um and then you know for the time management and for the procrastination um to get

00:37:25.400 over that sort of thing um i think one important aspect of that is to get up and make up and make

00:37:31.960 your bed and that you know again that sounds like it has no relationship with this topic

00:37:37.480 but if you can start the day being productive and turning your bed from disorder into order

00:37:45.640 you can get that sense of accomplishment you know my life is better my life is more ordered because

00:37:52.040 Because I took three minutes out of my not-too-very-busy day and, you know, and knocked out this one small chore.

00:38:02.960 When I do think through my day, and I do sometimes make lists, I have more than four things to get through.

00:38:10.940 But I like to knock out a couple of small things like that first thing in the morning.

00:38:15.340 You know, whether it's something simple, taking out the trash, watering the plants, doing a couple of small things like that.

00:38:26.400 And again, it reinforces that idea that you can do everything that you need to do.

00:38:33.360 So you knock down a couple of small things, and I tend to put the one big thing, whatever that's going to be, I put it in the middle of my morning.

00:38:42.620 And the reason is that after I've done a couple of small things, you know, I can sort of take a deep breath, gather myself and then call that client that I've been putting on, you know, and have a difficult conversation with them or, you know, do some of the other more difficult, more time consuming, more gut wrenching.

00:39:07.900 Because I think that's the biggest impediment that most of us face to doing any of these sorts of things.

00:39:12.900 It's not actually doing the task most of the time.

00:39:16.480 It's screwing up the courage to get in there and, you know, crank the mower or pick up the phone and make the call.

00:39:24.160 And if you do, you know, if you do that again, the middle of the morning, then you got some time to recuperate by the end of the day.

00:39:30.940 And you will have knocked out one of those more difficult chores and gotten over it.

00:39:36.880 I know another famous saying from the old days is, if you want something done, ask a busy man.

00:39:45.400 And that's because people like, and I find, and I'm certainly the same way.

00:39:48.820 If I have 20 things to do, I get it all done.

00:39:52.260 If I have two things to do, nothing happens.

00:39:57.720 You know, it always just seems like there's more time to, you know, to put off until tomorrow.

00:40:04.700 But then when do you do tomorrow's work?

00:40:06.880 So, you know, it's I think if you think of all of it as joyful and important as parts of your life that that that need to be done, that can be done, that that those are things that we can.

00:40:23.460 That we can be and think of ourselves as helping the folk, helping your family, whatever it takes.

00:40:30.820 And again, it seems to me that the mindset is the most important thing.

00:40:35.100 You know, going shopping will help my family eat better.

00:40:40.980 Mowing the grass will help my family have a better life because the ticks won't be as bad everywhere.

00:40:46.800 So there's always a way to frame the chore in a way that makes it seem happy and important.

00:40:55.220 And I think those are, you know, the rest of the stuff, I've got a list that, you know, of other stuff that I gleaned from several different sources.

00:41:03.520 But if you can turn the thing so that you're aligned with having these chores and responsibilities be what you want to do, not as a way, something that you have to do, then the rest just happens.

00:41:20.660 Well said. And I think that what a lot of folks need to realize and internalize, like most of the things that get brought up when we're doing episodes or when we're discussing adulting or any kind of self-improvement in your life,

00:41:44.080 habits are tricky things to form it's not like you can just get up one day and do these things

00:41:52.540 and your whole life changes you have to consistently make it a routine to where

00:41:58.720 you're doing these things even when you don't want to it takes effort most things that are

00:42:04.520 worth having in life do um but the more you can build a routine in your life to where it's

00:42:13.860 just what you do, the easier that becomes. And don't beat yourself up when you slip a little

00:42:23.020 bit, you know, because that too is an easy habit to get into. You know, I should have done all

00:42:29.820 this and, you know, I'm a terrible person. I'm just a slug. Don't let perfect be the enemy of

00:42:35.700 good. You know, man, I shouldn't have had those French fries. Well, that's it. Screwed up my

00:42:40.580 whole diet i might as well eat you know a tub of ice cream every day for the next week and that

00:42:46.440 sounds really stupid to say there's a whole lot of fat people out there that's a large part of

00:42:52.300 how they got that way um see what you did there a large part of how they i see i didn't see what i

00:43:00.260 what i did there but i will i will take it i will own it and retroactively i'll pretend it was on

00:43:05.040 purpose um while i'm on it uh not related alexander thank you alexander casto our spectacular uh folk

00:43:15.760 builder in northern florida bought us coffee we appreciate that we appreciate all you guys

00:43:21.840 and your awesome donations you guys are amazing um i think that what alan said about starting off

00:43:30.240 your day doing something productive to where you can build on that even if it seems small i mean

00:43:38.080 you're not necessarily trying to impress anybody else if you can demonstrate to yourself your

00:43:44.800 capacity to accomplish something that's huge and it's way bigger than most people think um

00:43:52.720 i think everybody is looking for that one huge victory that's that's worth the time in doing

00:43:58.720 man if i do this thing then we'll conquer the world that's awesome keep your eye open for that

00:44:04.160 by all means if that presents itself to you jump on it but more often than not victory and anything

00:44:11.280 you're trying to do in life is one you know it's an inch at a time until you get there and

00:44:18.800 as i mentioned earlier the couch to the front door is the hardest step to take

00:44:24.160 um and if you don't have that habit of stepping into the breach at every opportunity then when

00:44:32.400 that big door does open wide you're not even going to see it you know when you're waiting

00:44:37.840 when you're waiting for the one big strike well okay so that's games that is a really good point

00:44:48.160 you have to put yourself in the places where things happen to realize opportunity

00:44:55.000 I've mentioned before on this show,

00:44:57.360 when we veered a bit more overtly esoteric topics,

00:45:01.120 one of the big keys of magic

00:45:04.280 is drawing synchronicity towards you

00:45:07.380 and being able to recognize synchronicity when you see it.

00:45:12.980 It's really hard to see that

00:45:15.220 when you're not where anything happens.

00:45:17.740 You know, we have a whole lot of

00:45:20.560 a whole lot of young men, I don't know if this is the case with ladies or not, but a whole lot

00:45:28.160 of young men that really wish they had a partner in their life. And, you know, they'll at some

00:45:33.940 point resign themselves like, well, you know, one day, one day, the right woman will find me.

00:45:38.940 It'll all just work out. I mean, how many of those right women are walking through grandma's

00:45:46.380 basement. I don't think grandma counts. I think she's taken. You got to be where people are at

00:45:56.660 to find success. Good things don't just come to you. But what does happen is when you go out and

00:46:02.800 you put forth the effort consistently, that does draw things towards you. If you're out there

00:46:09.560 trying, you're primed to draw those things towards you through your successful habits

00:46:15.980 and through consistently being in the right place. And you're primed to recognize when those

00:46:22.440 opportunities present themselves. But all of that has to do with, you know, getting out and getting

00:46:28.120 in the game. You lose 100% of the games you don't play. And speaking of morning routine, I'm going

00:46:34.600 put in another plug for cold shower um i know you're not a fan but you know that too is one

00:46:42.520 of those tests of will you know when you can stand there in front of that shower head and

00:46:47.320 know it's gonna suck for like 30 seconds till you get used to it um but you're stronger than

00:46:53.800 you're stronger than that cold water and so you know with a couple of chores and some willpower

00:47:00.360 the rest of the stuff's easy so i am not an advocate of the cold shower thing personally

00:47:06.520 um i think that is needless flagellation in my circumstance it may not be in another person's

00:47:14.800 but joking aside that's that's a good point and it's something that joe rogan talks about

00:47:22.900 on his podcast too he likes to start his day doing a cold plunge in like an absurd absurdly

00:47:30.220 cold plunge and for you know trying to push the amount of time he's in the plunge because it's

00:47:36.440 like if you start your day doing something really unpleasant and really difficult then the rest is

00:47:43.140 easy it's downhill from there you know if you start with big wind you're like last i am warm

00:47:49.220 i am cozy in my bed i'm gonna just lay here and look at my phone and leisurely whatever that's

00:47:56.820 very seductive if you can if the last thing in the world you want to do is get up and turn cold

00:48:01.880 water on yourself and you are able to muster up the cojones to go do that that really does position

00:48:09.800 you in a good way for the rest of the day i don't i don't like it i'm not telling you that's what

00:48:14.140 i'm going to do tomorrow but truth is one of our virtues and i do have to say that's there is

00:48:21.260 merit in that and don't get hung up cold shower could be something really different

00:48:26.280 wherever you're at, but whatever that difficult thing is to do, there's value in doing it,

00:48:33.180 especially if it has some positive result, especially if it's something productive.

00:48:40.200 But, you know, in this life, don't miss opportunities for wins. We need to stack

00:48:47.520 all the wins we can get. There's value to it. And starting your day with something is a really,

00:48:53.700 a really good way to do that. Big time. And I think about some of the more embarrassing times

00:49:02.620 that I've had, you know, and again, one of the ways that I will phrase it as have and will again,

00:49:10.140 you know, once you've had a judge yell at you in front of your client, you know, being a little

00:49:16.720 bit embarrassed about, you know, stumbling in a conversation or, you know, saying not the exact

00:49:22.660 right thing to somebody that's, it's, you know, it's small potatoes. And, um, I think that's true

00:49:28.820 for, for all of us. And we're, and we're, we're always afraid of, you know, stumbling awkwardly

00:49:36.940 through whatever it is, but you know, it, it's going to be okay. You know, the other,

00:49:41.620 because the other person feels the exact same thing. And, you know, if you're making an effort,

00:49:47.860 You're making a genuine effort to reach out to them and be a good person.

00:49:53.780 They will detect that at that gut level, and you'll get through it, and it'll be okay.

00:50:04.060 Something I've found in my life and my experience that's true time and again, the scariest thing is the unknown.

00:50:13.560 we put things off and we avoid things that scare us because we are worried about what will happen

00:50:26.640 and we build that unknown in our head to be worst case scenario it's even scarier if we can't put a

00:50:35.320 you know a definite image of what that might be because then our mind just goes to you know

00:50:41.280 ridiculous things very seldom have i had the experience in my life where i just man up and

00:50:47.200 do something i don't want to do that i don't feel better on the other side of it and i've

00:50:51.280 used this analogy before but i think it's like puking you you can spend a whole day trying to

00:51:01.040 hold it back and not people can sit there and breathe and okay i'm gonna be really still and

00:51:06.800 And I'm going to you can battle that for a whole day or you can just go puke and get over puke and rally and go on to the next thing.

00:51:14.860 And it's one of those reflexes that I think we all struggle with.

00:51:19.620 And, you know, the things that you imagine the worse on or psych yourself out of doing are probably really different than the things that I do in my head, probably different than things Alan does.

00:51:32.980 but we all have those things getting on the other side of them is really important and the other

00:51:37.860 thing i was going to say is by doing things that are uncomfortable and putting yourself

00:51:45.060 in spots that are outside of your comfort zone you build a certain amount of self-confidence

00:51:49.560 and just like alan was mentioning people smell that on you they smell good intention

00:51:54.880 it's one of the reasons that you know dogs are good judge as a character

00:52:00.060 is they can kind of read a lot of subtle things that we aren't used to looking for when we're

00:52:07.640 analyzing speech. And they can tell, you know, is this guy a decent guy or not? That dog doesn't

00:52:12.520 speak English, but he can kind of tell if something's a threat, if, you know, you can

00:52:18.320 pick up on those things. People do that with self-confidence too. If you go in and you try

00:52:22.640 something and you have some self-confidence and you're able to roll with it, even if it doesn't

00:52:26.380 get perfect you will go a long way the more you are taking it till you make it is definitely a

00:52:33.440 real thing in that sort of in that scenario and dress for the job you want not the job you have

00:52:39.120 right you know doing those things to project who you want to be even if you're not quite there yet

00:52:47.040 that will eventually get you there get you along a long ways towards it so and again it's really

00:52:55.540 easy to twist that. There's ways to do that dishonestly, and then there's ways to do it

00:52:59.840 aspirational. And the dishonest peels, you know, people can sense that too. You know, the guy who

00:53:07.660 is full of hubris and self-importance, you know, and he's doing the, he can say pretty much the

00:53:14.020 same thing and pretty much the same way, but you can, you can just, you know, you can just smell

00:53:18.960 insurance salesmen all over him. We have a way of smelling authenticity. So I'll tell you this,

00:53:23.460 And this may speak to a number of things, but so I revert to bouncing stories every now and again.

00:53:31.460 And this isn't as fun of a one, but it's something interesting, especially if you work at a club that's really high volume of the amount of IDs you look through.

00:53:42.980 You always, you know, wonder and you can try to perfect the things you think you look for on the IDs and all this stuff.

00:53:50.300 But when we'd have a little bit of a slow night when I was running security, I would go out every now and again with a handful of confiscated, confiscated IDs.

00:53:59.080 I would randomly hand them to people in the line and tell those people to test my security and see if they catch them.

00:54:06.480 My security failed 100 percent of the time.

00:54:12.900 Well, and here's what it is, which is stupid.

00:54:16.700 We have a way of sensing when somebody's up to no good.

00:54:20.300 And the first thing you pick up on, because that's when I say they failed 100 percent of the tests, each of them would pocket, you know, a handful of IDs every night.

00:54:29.240 They would stop underage people all the time. But the way you're doing it, it's not by data.

00:54:36.420 That's how you confirm it. The way you do it is something tingles in your in your medulla oblongata and you're like, OK, something's something's not right.

00:54:44.640 Now, let me look closer. As long as somebody is going in, they're confident they're not doing anything wrong.

00:54:50.300 it doesn't trigger that. And that's, you know, that's a magic that I don't think we harness

00:54:56.220 enough for all kinds of things. If you're confident in what you're doing, stuff just

00:55:02.200 tends to work out. If you're acting shady and acting suspicious and, you know, you reek like

00:55:09.640 there's something you should be worried about, then you draw suspicion from everyone around you

00:55:13.540 and it makes everything in life harder. So do the hard things, rise to the challenges

00:55:18.860 and develop confidence in yourself that will take you so far and it'll develop a thicker skin on

00:55:26.280 you too um you know because you'll meet those failures you'll fail some sometimes you you know

00:55:32.820 you you rough yourself up but but you know sun comes up the next day um you still have a delicious

00:55:42.580 meal at night i mean you can you can mess up pretty bad and still be pretty okay so one of

00:55:49.060 the best things ever happened to me was getting punched in the face that's that's the thing is if

00:55:54.900 you don't know what it's like and you're scared of it i got punched in the face really hard by a

00:56:01.620 giant samoan man and i was able to get back up and it was all right and i lived and i was able to go

00:56:09.380 One, being able to recover and realize it's not so bad is a very liberating experience.

00:56:20.800 You know, don't intentionally lose so you get hit.

00:56:25.060 You learn a lot more from the times you get knocked down and the times you sail through.

00:56:30.660 So by not getting in the game, you lose the opportunities to win and you also lose the opportunities to learn.

00:56:39.380 So, do you have more for us at this juncture on time management?

00:56:50.160 Oh, there actually is one other.

00:56:52.960 And again, you know, I am all about some old school technology.

00:57:00.520 And one of the tips that I did read that resonated with me because I had to stop doing it is about multitasking.

00:57:07.740 because what evaluations have shown is that you don't multitask.

00:57:16.040 You're not doing three things.

00:57:17.620 You're doing one thing at a time in three different spheres,

00:57:21.020 and it takes extra time to change tasks.

00:57:26.700 You know, so multitasking is not a thing.

00:57:29.320 You're not doing two things.

00:57:30.820 You're doing one thing and then one thing and then one thing and then another thing.

00:57:35.300 And it just, and you might think you're being more productive, but you're almost certainly being less productive.

00:57:42.820 And the other thing that was not on any of the lists that I found, but to me ties in with that idea of not multitasking is, again, I know I'm going to draw a position here, but it's to learn to operate in silence.

00:58:01.820 like even back like background music because i've because i've gotten myself now in this

00:58:09.480 mindset where i like to work in the quiet and um and music has its place like i know a lot of guys

00:58:19.460 like to lift um with music or you know work out with music um but for me if you're do if you're

00:58:28.420 working if you if you have a task that you are trying to accomplish i'm not talking about the

00:58:36.020 simple simple stuff that you can do while you're of course i've listened to books instead of music

00:58:40.900 but the but you know if you're cleaning the house or those sorts of things but if you got you if you

00:58:46.980 have something that you really need to focus on if you the fewer distractions you have out there

00:58:53.220 and so that you're only doing that one thing that, um, you know, that I think will help you

00:58:59.180 get through that one hard thing. I remember working with a guy and I thought it was the

00:59:04.220 oddest thing at the time, but his desk was always completely clear and, you know, he would get one

00:59:11.440 piece of paper, whatever he was working on, he had that one thing on his desk and he would do it

00:59:18.440 and then he'd put that away and get the next thing.

00:59:21.820 My desk is a little more chaotic than that

00:59:23.660 because I have projects in various stages of completion,

00:59:27.320 but I've come to sort of admire the single-binded focus

00:59:32.680 that the guy was able to bring to a multi-person office

00:59:40.000 where it's like all these open desks

00:59:41.680 and there's all this stuff going on

00:59:43.180 and he would just sit and work his thing.

00:59:46.020 And, you know, so I now understand why he did it. And I know that comes out of that single hand, single handling rule that with mails, I know for, for us now it's email, you know, the, the goal always is to get this correspondence, reply to it, and, and then it's behind you.

01:00:08.380 And, you know, there are some few that you have to be a little more circumspect about and take a little more considered response.

01:00:16.740 But most of the stuff that we do, we can, it's just easier to get it done than to stew on it.

01:00:24.060 Well, I think some of that's really well said.

01:00:26.500 The other thing that's like diet and exercise, there's a lot of right ways to do it.

01:00:34.120 But intention is really important.

01:00:36.300 whatever you do do it on purpose to achieve a result and then evaluate did you get closer to

01:00:45.400 your purpose or not there's probably a lot of different ways to help people focus in different

01:00:50.120 scenarios and maybe what works for alan or maybe what works for me isn't what works for you

01:00:54.680 but find what works for you and be striving towards that try stuff until you find what does

01:01:01.780 work. The other thing I'll say is getting one thing done and accomplished is much better than

01:01:07.460 halfway doing 20 different things that never get accomplished.

01:01:15.200 But before we venture too far, Tyler White has a question, and I think I would like to answer it

01:01:20.620 before, you know, while he's still with us. I don't know if he's going to listen to the whole

01:01:24.400 program tonight or not. Y'all should open a church here in Kentucky so that I can join.

01:01:31.780 tyler you should join so that we can open a half in kentucky and i say that not to not to be uh

01:01:37.700 comical we have members all across the united states and in 12 different countries around the

01:01:43.300 world we only have four halves because where we get our next half is determined largely by where

01:01:52.100 we have a stable group of people that get together and worship together to sustain off but we have

01:01:59.940 people we have members in kentucky absolutely we mentioned at the top of the show we have a property

01:02:05.860 that is going to be the afa's capital in coming years as we develop it and that's in jackson

01:02:12.580 county tennessee where a great number well i say great number where a number of our leadership are

01:02:16.820 going to move to hopefully membership as well and really become part of that community and that is

01:02:22.260 in north central tennessee it's fairly close to the kentucky border but you know depending on

01:02:30.340 where you are in the state of kentucky we have some amazing things going on in southern indiana

01:02:36.260 in southern ohio we have things going on all the way around your state and we do have members in

01:02:43.700 your state so you should absolutely join and see what you can get going where you're at

01:02:49.780 anybody who's interested the place to do that is runestone.org that's where you join that's

01:02:56.260 where you can find out contact information our core documents we have a library there that you can

01:03:02.580 read past publications and things of interest that way it's an important tool

01:03:09.380 so i'd encourage you to check that out and yeah we need the way it works though is we need folks

01:03:16.820 to join and be stable somewhere, being active for us to invest in a Hoff in that area.

01:03:25.220 And he's really close to Sigurheim, so he could come to the event that's coming up when?

01:03:30.180 You should come check it out, Sigurbloat, July the 25th through the 27th. That's at Sigurheim

01:03:38.260 in Jackson County, Tennessee. That's just one county south of the Kentucky border.

01:03:43.620 um absolutely should come check that out i'm going to be there uh law speaker might be there

01:03:50.040 producer nick will definitely be there and uh got a number of other afa luminaries that would

01:03:55.600 love to meet you if you come so and you know this is this is again you know we're sort of victims of

01:04:00.280 our own success here um you know when i started practicing that also true lo these many years ago

01:04:07.080 So we had, there was one regional gathering in the state of Florida and Georgia per year.

01:04:14.920 And when I joined the AFA as a folk builder, I was the folk builder in four states.

01:04:22.540 So, you know, and then, I mean, it took us 10 years after that to get our first half, which was in California.

01:04:32.540 It was a long way from Florida.

01:04:33.700 But, you know, yes, we would love to have, you know, the goal is to have a Hoff within a short driving distance of everyone.

01:04:47.900 And we're getting there, you know, and the sooner we're getting Yard's Hoff paid off, the quicker we can get Frey's Hoff.

01:04:54.900 And that will be maybe a little closer to you there in Kentucky.

01:04:59.780 So, you know, but we're getting there.

01:05:02.700 a little bit at a time, but in the meantime, you know, there are Tennessee folk that you can

01:05:11.660 meet with or Kentucky folk that you can meet with and get together and have a couple of beers and

01:05:19.540 a pizza at a local pub and realize just exactly how much we all have in common having found our

01:05:26.660 way to uh this path absolutely absolutely for anybody who's curious as alan mentioned paying

01:05:36.420 off new york's off gets us to start looking for phrase off and that's the plan and we're always

01:05:42.380 you know chomping at the bit to try to make that happen when we're able to and getting that

01:05:49.380 obligation paid off first is the first step towards that the plan as it stands now is to

01:05:55.960 get Frazehoff in Eastern Ohio or Western Pennsylvania. That's the sweet spot that

01:06:02.840 we're looking for. And Tearshoff, as I mentioned before, is going to be on that property I mentioned

01:06:08.420 in Jackson County, Tennessee. So that's pretty close to you. We're going to build an amazing

01:06:14.100 hoff there. We've got plans that a lot of folks are very excited about, but we've got to get

01:06:19.260 Njordshoff paid off and we got to get Frazehoff before we can get cracking on that. So these are

01:06:25.520 things keep in mind but we've got all these plans alan mentioned when he joined you know what it

01:06:30.160 was like um so many people don't realize just how special it is that we're in a time where there

01:06:38.400 where there is hoss for the longest time i mean i remember reading uh our founder steve mcdallon

01:06:45.760 came home to house true in 1968 and in the early 70s he published something called the runestone

01:06:51.840 and it was um it started out as a really humble publication but it was you know the kind of the

01:06:57.920 voice of ousted true at the time and i remember reading you know additions from the 1970s that

01:07:05.360 any day now we're gonna have a hoff took us all the way till 2015 in order to make that happen

01:07:12.080 and now 10 years later 10 years later we have four hoffs we're working you know we've got

01:07:19.360 solid plans for the next two so we have been greatly blessed uh both by the benevolence of

01:07:27.680 our gods and by the generosity of our folk to be able to make that stuff happen so we're excited

01:07:34.000 and i know it's pain in the neck to think about driving man you know i'd love to go down there

01:07:38.720 just three hours or whatever and you know if you i mean up until 100 years ago three hours of travel

01:07:48.400 would be you know two hours of hitching up the team and loading the wagon and you know clomping

01:07:54.880 your way six or eight or ten miles you know to to go to the nearest temple so getting in your car

01:08:02.480 and putting the you know cranking the car and putting gas in it and getting an extra cup of

01:08:07.360 coffee and driving for three or four six hours is not that big of a burden for you to uh to overcome

01:08:14.640 to come and meet with your folk it is worth it every every time it it absolutely is we have

01:08:21.680 somebody in the chat room that you know he's recently moved to missouri and was wondering

01:08:25.680 where the closest half to him is uh chances are that the closest half to you is going to be

01:08:31.440 balder's off all the way up in murdoch minnesota uh moving to missouri you're a you're a fur piece

01:08:39.440 from any of our extant Hoffs,

01:08:43.060 but hang in there

01:08:47.660 because Tears Hoff

01:08:49.100 is going to be the closest one to you.

01:08:52.680 Any day now.

01:08:54.920 Any day now,

01:08:56.400 hopefully within the next few years

01:08:58.680 if we can make it happen.

01:09:01.320 And again,

01:09:02.620 get together with some of your friends

01:09:06.460 and raise a horn to the gods.

01:09:09.440 So at roomstone.org where I mentioned going earlier, there's a calendar there and you can look at the calendar and see just how just how many small FA gatherings happen every single week and just how broad the geographic scope of where those are at are.

01:09:33.560 i think a lot of people would be very surprised that we may have stuff occurring relatively close

01:09:38.280 to them and we'd love you guys to attend those and be part of things and get out there and

01:09:43.080 fellowship with your folk so absolutely please check out that calendar and it's a great thing

01:09:49.720 to come to a hoff and i'm you know i even though i grouse about having to do food pantry i know it

01:09:56.360 It is a rare privilege to be able to be an hour and a half from Newark's temple.

01:10:04.780 And so that is a great and wonderful thing that we have done and are doing.

01:10:12.480 But that does not take away from a few guys in Missouri or Kentucky getting together and honoring the gods

01:10:21.940 and building bonds of friendship and frith between each other in a less formal way.

01:10:32.980 That is absolutely part of getting this thing done.

01:10:37.560 I was going to say, not only is it part of it, that's an essential step to getting off.

01:10:43.300 A lot of people come in, I want to say midstream, but not really.

01:10:48.380 they come in after so much has been established and they see that and they don't realize all of

01:10:54.060 the effort that's gone in to make it happen a lot of people it doesn't occur to them that in order

01:11:00.460 to have a hof somewhere what needs to happen is first some folks in that area need to join

01:11:06.700 and they need to join they need to start getting together with one another ideally one of them or

01:11:11.740 somebody close to them, somebody in that small seed group steps up and says, hey, I'd like to

01:11:18.820 be a folk builder and work towards making it happen. And that's how stuff grows, develops,

01:11:25.440 and becomes an area that we look very seriously at putting the Hoff in. And that takes consistency

01:11:31.900 and it takes dedication and it takes years. But that's how all of our previous Hoffs have happened.

01:11:38.120 That's how our future hops will happen. And, you know, again, the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today. Right.

01:11:48.660 And I'll say this, too, in another shameless plug for our, your careful stewardship here, you know, is there are certainly a model out there that has been exemplified by.

01:12:05.020 I don't know, the worst capitalist element, if that's the way you want to say it,

01:12:14.060 you know, of borrowing lots and lots of money and, you know, growing too fast. And, you know,

01:12:21.180 theoretically, we could do that and spread ourselves too thin. But we are being careful

01:12:27.980 and growing judiciously in order to keep from doing what so many young enterprises do and

01:12:35.600 collapsing of our own weight. Yeah, I appreciate you mentioning that because it's very important

01:12:44.260 and we want to secure not only that we have the money to get a HOF. For a long time,

01:12:49.960 raising enough funds to to get a hof seemed an insurmountable goal we've got that part figured

01:12:59.580 out that's not the hard part the hard part is doing that in a way that we can make sure that

01:13:06.600 we're able to maintain it to care for it and to have it in perpetuity once we dedicate a hof to

01:13:14.280 one of our gods, we are obliged to be good stewards of it and to care for it. We don't want to give

01:13:21.660 one of our gods a hof, their first hof in, you know, a thousand years and then have to sell it

01:13:29.920 off or get rid of it or something because we didn't do our job fiscally and planning for it and in our

01:13:36.520 commitment level of taking care of it. We never want to do that. So it takes a little bit longer

01:13:42.780 than perhaps it could but you know the fastest way is not always the best way naysayers notwithstanding

01:13:56.460 i would be happy to hear how they're able to acquire their hoffs and conduct the finances of

01:14:03.020 their of their hoffs they couldn't conduct the finances of the morning shift at the mcdonald's

01:14:08.620 and thus the inside joke that they don't have hoffs so let's get to a couple of questions here

01:14:17.520 we got some some folks asking stuff uh early on in the next one real quick though i actually did

01:14:23.960 want to mention to tyler your initial uh the initial person who asked the question we are

01:14:30.040 actually currently planning a hike moot outside of louisville in kentucky for may reach out to

01:14:38.500 folk builder heather young or get you heather young my apologies uh h young.org uh we got a

01:14:46.500 member out there who wanted to get together with some folks so we're doing it and to anybody else

01:14:51.460 as we said if you want to do something if there's not something on the calendar in your area reach

01:14:56.500 out to us we'll get something going absolutely and thank you for interjecting on that uh nick

01:15:02.580 is probably again kentucky is in an interesting spot because we've got activity on kind of all

01:15:09.620 sides of it so if you're in the very center of kentucky you're probably the farthest you are

01:15:14.580 from afa activity but you're still not but a couple hours right and if you find yourself on

01:15:19.460 the edges of kentucky chances are we've got some really cool things for you um if you're on that

01:15:24.180 southern edge i've talked about sigerheim a number of times on here nick is the folk builder for that

01:15:29.540 area he is the first to answer the call and pack up and move out there and and work towards making

01:15:36.420 that happen and establishing the beachhead there so he is eager to meet with you and do things with

01:15:41.700 you if you find yourself in that part of the world again lots of good things and i hope that you reach

01:15:46.820 out tyler so question i was going to get to was asked early in the show uh what is your opinion

01:15:53.700 and i'll let alan hit this first what is your opinion on the new age saying

01:15:59.540 spiritual but not religious do you think religion has become a dirty word because of abrahamic

01:16:05.780 religions i wouldn't say that it's it's certainly become tainted or associated with the idea

01:16:17.620 of the Abrahamic religions, and for so many people in the West,

01:16:23.560 you know, their only association becomes a lot more,

01:16:29.480 because we do like to think in terms of binomial choices, right?

01:16:34.400 You're either a Christian, Jew, Islam, or you are an atheist.

01:16:42.600 So it's, and the shades of gray in between in there are really the shades of the rainbow that are in the, you know, that are in our faith and the other dharmic faiths to use Acharya G's word.

01:17:01.140 those are um so much more varied than than the mainstream gives us gives them credit for

01:17:14.100 and i think that we are in this point in in the development of civilization where those people

01:17:24.280 are just sort of unmoored you know they've fallen out of faith with the you know the christian

01:17:32.360 ideology for all the reasons that we could talk about but they haven't found their way to

01:17:38.840 um to their own natural organic faith um and so and frankly i think that's what that means when

01:17:49.640 they say spiritual but not religious you know that they have this they have that underlying

01:17:56.600 yearning um for something more but they don't really know how to find it um

01:18:05.240 so they think of themselves as spiritual but they haven't found the right religion then that would

01:18:10.440 be how like if i was having that conversation with them that's what i'd tell them you know the

01:18:15.080 You know, you just have to find the right religion because spirituality without religion is like an analogy without a conclusion.

01:18:31.200 You know, I can't think of the right exact parallel there, but if you're a spiritual person, you should find a religion because just having some vague thought like the earth is groovy and I love people, you know, that's just not enough to satisfy that hunger, it seems to me.

01:18:57.200 so that is a that is a generous middle ground that you took on that alan and i think that

01:19:06.400 i was gonna say there's two instances of people who would say something like that

01:19:13.080 and i will allow for three now so alan's position and i think i think there was a time

01:19:21.660 certainly in like the 60s and 70s in this country my uncle was kind of that guy that there was

01:19:30.240 a real break from traditional quote-unquote American religions and a search for spiritual

01:19:39.660 meaning somewhere else and I think that led a lot of people to a lot of diverse places I think that

01:19:47.680 led people to the far east be it hinduism or buddhism or another ism of of asia i think

01:19:57.460 that it also led a lot of people to pursue native american fetishism um again i don't think always

01:20:07.280 wrong-headedly but with an idea okay we know this thing isn't right so we need to find what is and

01:20:14.560 we're not aware of our options. We don't know what that is. And I think that that's a legitimate

01:20:20.740 thing is people genuinely don't know what to call it, but they know it's not the things that

01:20:28.840 they're used to being called religion. I think there's another group of people that are very

01:20:35.180 much to your question that have been traumatized by Abrahamic faiths. And again, it's probably

01:20:43.360 different different parts of the world but i think that in the united states people who are traumatized

01:20:47.680 by their experience in the christian church um to where they become very disillusioned perhaps

01:20:54.720 disgusted and in some cases perhaps literally abused and so they tend to throw the baby out

01:21:04.320 with the bath water and anything that says religion or quote-unquote organized religion

01:21:10.480 you know is anathema to to them or at least they think it is because of the really bad experiences

01:21:17.180 they've had in the past and we often define the words there it's funny because in that instance

01:21:24.420 it's so much about the nomenclature and not about the substance of a thing it's if they recognize a

01:21:31.200 term from their christian upbringing it immediately triggers them not to use the word

01:21:37.720 as lightly as some do these days, but it has a lot of bad associations for them. And I think

01:21:44.160 those people do that, that you just said, but I think what's more and more common that we see

01:21:49.460 very, very often is people that want to have the benefit of religion without the commitment

01:21:57.980 that don't want anybody to tell them what to do, but still want to cling to a higher power.

01:22:05.900 so I'm spiritual I'm not religious so I can kind of do whatever I want and make up whatever mental

01:22:12.460 gymnastics and I've known a lot of people that way and you see people like that of all different

01:22:17.700 stripes you see that with you know the the goth chicks you see that with various dreadlock

01:22:26.760 Indian restaurant barefoot sitar playing guys um you see that with a whole variety of well-meaning

01:22:35.640 people in between you see that with the you know the the crystal wine moms i say that as i'm

01:22:43.160 enjoying my vino here but a lot of different people fall into that category some more well

01:22:50.040 meaning than others but a lot of the time it really is about a deep distrust for wanting to

01:22:55.320 be part of something because as soon as you sign on and you're part of a structure then you're

01:23:01.160 accountable you're accountable to others you're accountable to a structured conception of god or

01:23:08.280 gods you all of a sudden establish a standard that you have to live up to and be judged by

01:23:17.000 and that's really scary to a lot of people and i think that's what you see a lot

01:23:23.480 that's one reason that i try to shy away from that as much as i can i know that um when i became

01:23:29.640 heavily involved in also true you know using words like religion or proselytizing or church

01:23:38.200 or those things were very off-putting to a lot of people and i'm sure they still are

01:23:43.720 but i've really leaned into those heavily because that's what we're doing in a lot of ways and i

01:23:49.960 don't think that we live up to our value of truth to pretend it's something other than that i think

01:23:55.800 to face the concepts and realize that we were a pious and religious people

01:24:02.840 before the coming of, you know, Middle Eastern Christianity to Europe.

01:24:08.200 And it's our birthright and what we ought to do to be part of an ordered and structured religiosity.

01:24:15.020 Our gods are the gods of order, not the gods of chaos.

01:24:18.440 So religion is absolutely appropriate, but it scares a lot of people for a variety of reasons.

01:24:23.560 And, you know, again, like one of the several things that come to mind while you're talking about that, you know, what these, I can't remember who it was where I first read about it.

01:24:41.900 They talk about the New Age buffet, you know, where you can go do a little bit of Indian religion and then do some Buddhism and, you know, throw in some crystal healing and do all of that.

01:24:54.660 But what they don't understand, refuse to understand, is that Hinduism, you know, is at heart is a deeply religious, is a deeply, it's not a spiritual practice.

01:25:10.840 It's a religion with millions of gods.

01:25:14.640 um buddhism the and it's actually one of the things that they were mocking in this context

01:25:21.120 you know the kind of buddhism that caught on in the united states is zen buddhism which is

01:25:27.060 essentially there's a long explanation about whether buddhism even believes in god or in

01:25:33.940 zen whether whether there's a god of in zen or not but the but every other place where buddhism

01:25:42.640 is practiced is practiced in a deeply integrated way with hundreds and hundreds of of local gods

01:25:49.920 so the um so to you know so some north american to pick up you know just a little bit of the

01:25:59.440 the thing out of the out of the buffet and think that they are practicing buddhism or

01:26:04.800 vishnahism is way off base um and

01:26:12.240 and for so many of the the wiccans and you know in a lot of ways they've opened the door to

01:26:20.960 more

01:26:23.840 i don't want to say nature based practice but just you know to um they i guess because they

01:26:30.320 had a hundred year head start on us um you know they're they seem to be out there a little bit

01:26:35.360 more but one of the books that years and years ago helped me define my practice of also true

01:26:43.920 um talked about that so many people who come to paganism just look at whatever christianity

01:26:51.680 is and try to do the opposite um and they've literally thrown the baby out with the bath water

01:26:58.640 because because religion organized religion christian religion for all of its esoteric

01:27:09.440 problems which we could spend a long time dissecting the things that it does well and

01:27:14.000 should do and that we are trying to do is to establish community and to be faithful to each

01:27:20.560 other and to be, um, you know, and to, and to build bonds of, uh, stewardship and camaraderie

01:27:28.400 and brotherhood and all that sort of thing, you know, and a lot of that's been lost and it's not

01:27:35.620 all religion's fault. It's, you know, it's our civilization is too mobile. Um, we're too atomized.

01:27:43.420 blah blah blah you've heard this lecture before no one of the things that's

01:27:54.980 nice on here is we get to contextualize our uh tendency to be old men repeating stories or

01:28:03.960 saying the same thing over and over again is we got a different audience all the time

01:28:07.700 we have a core audience we have a lot of people that you know every week we've got an audience

01:28:11.380 this is the first time they've heard so uh appreciate the grace that that provides a little

01:28:17.220 bit uh some of the people over in the chat are also you know recognizing that's one of the things

01:28:23.620 when hinduism and buddhism have been exported to north america very often it is you know a lightly

01:28:34.740 an exotic spice to put on whatever your mundane existence is and it's very far from

01:28:42.000 the very serious very pious actual practice of some of these things that are extremely organized

01:28:48.060 extremely disciplined very often involve deification and absolute obedience to uh to

01:28:58.240 to whoever your guru is, to whoever the head of your school or your practice is in Buddhism.

01:29:08.080 It is much more strict than I think the, I don't know, Southern Baptist Christianity that they're emerging from is in practice in its true sense.

01:29:20.220 But oftentimes I think there is a convenience in not looking too deep at it.

01:29:27.100 you know, pick something that looks fun and pretend. And I, so I, okay. As a, as a little

01:29:32.520 aside, I had a friend like this. He wanted, he wanted something spiritual in his life,

01:29:42.260 but he didn't want to actually have any rules or anything that governed his code of conduct.

01:29:47.340 So I think he's done what a lot of Americans have done. And he created in his mind, like a pretend

01:29:53.680 buddy jesus that's just cool with everything jesus understands me jesus is jesus is my homie

01:30:01.220 like jesus gets it never having read anything about jesus never having read the bible never

01:30:08.340 having read any of the gospel accounts he just made up a fictional jesus that

01:30:13.840 rubber stamps everything he does is being okay and making him feel better at night

01:30:18.880 and not only do i think it's really wrong-headed and ultimately unfulfilling because he knows it's

01:30:25.900 not true but it's also grossly disrespectful to jesus and the millions of followers that

01:30:33.400 actually believe in that um and that's one of the i don't think i emphasize this enough when

01:30:39.420 people ask when i came to ouster true one of the things was a genuine i don't know if this jehovah

01:30:45.900 exists or doesn't. But if he does, I'm not going to be insincere and disrespectful in my worship.

01:30:52.520 I don't believe in these things. And I believe that he is bad and what he wants us to do is bad

01:31:01.200 and ignoble. And so I'm going to be upfront and noble in my expression of parting ways with that.

01:31:10.540 And I think that facing truth is something that it's uncomfortable for a lot of folks,

01:31:15.160 especially when it involves taking a hard look at your, you know, deeply held spiritual values.

01:31:21.760 Mary Mitchell asks, when one uses a credit card, they are promising to pay back the debt as this

01:31:28.800 is an oath. However, how does Ausatrub deal with the interest in addition to the original amount

01:31:34.800 owed? Alan, what are your thoughts? Well, I don't think using a credit card rises to the level of

01:31:43.520 an oath. I do, I mean, I understand that it is a contract. I mean, so in the broadest possible

01:31:53.640 scope of the word oath, it is, you know, you are making a promise to pay in accord with the terms

01:31:59.300 of the contract. And the contract that you sign with the credit card company says, I will pay

01:32:06.440 this debt in full at the end of the month. And if I don't pay it in full at the end of the month,

01:32:12.000 then you, credit card company, will charge interest on that amount that remains unpaid.

01:32:20.260 And so that interest is certainly a component of the debt that you have created with that credit card company,

01:32:28.920 which says a couple of things.

01:32:31.100 Number one, don't use credit cards except as a billing convenience.

01:32:36.480 Pay your credit cards off at the end of the month, every month in full.

01:32:39.640 If you're using your credit cards to float living expenses, you've got to live lower on the hog until you get all that debt paid off.

01:32:50.120 Secondly, I conceptually, like in my original iteration as an attorney, I practiced creditor bankruptcy law.

01:33:05.200 I thought I was going to go in there and single-handedly make all these deadbeat debtors pay the bills that they rightfully owed.

01:33:12.320 I have evolved in a lot of ways since that day, mainly to know that that sort of interest-based banking operates to the spiritual detriment of our people.

01:33:40.160 um i have no qualms at all um in case you didn't hear me the first six times i said it in this show

01:33:50.820 i practice bankruptcy law i file bankruptcies for people i have helped people file bankruptcies on

01:33:56.880 their own um these banks will steal you blind and come back for more um and you know but that's how

01:34:07.240 they make money. I have very strong spiritual reservations about doing that. That's why I don't

01:34:14.660 practice that side of the law anymore. So all that being said, now to finally answer the question,

01:34:23.720 I don't think that Asatru as a religion has anything specific to say about should you pay

01:34:31.640 the interest on your credit card debt or not. Should you honor your obligations? Absolutely.

01:34:36.580 To the maximum extent possible, you know, that doesn't involve putting you or your family into penury.

01:34:47.320 So, yes, pay your bills, live frugally, and you will sleep better at night.

01:34:57.000 and yeah what and if any of the big banks are listening go pal sand that's so

01:35:09.100 i think and i get it there's a degree of ambiguity um if you borrow from a fellow

01:35:21.740 outsider or if you borrow from anybody that you know on a handshake and you promise to pay them

01:35:26.420 certain amount of interest do right by your word on that absolutely we live in a system to where

01:35:32.500 you are often coerced into really unfavorable situations due to people that do not have your

01:35:45.300 best interests at heart don't be a dirt bag you should pay your obligations that's fine as a

01:35:51.380 a general rule. But there are a lot of people who take advantage of the way the system is set up

01:35:58.560 to put you in a perpetual state of indentured servitude. And that's to be avoided if possible.

01:36:07.900 And especially where the law allows for the possibility of casting that yoke off,

01:36:13.140 that's a really good thing to do. And the people, the lending institutions of credit cards

01:36:21.600 function under that system, are in league with that system, that system works to their benefit

01:36:26.300 every day. We should be very wise to trying to make the best use of the system provided for us

01:36:33.980 to, you know, win the game. There's a lot of rules that successful people do that

01:36:41.320 we feel uncomfortable with, but we didn't make the rules of the game. We have the hand that we're

01:36:47.760 dealt. Figuring out the way to do those things judiciously is an advisable thing. And I think

01:36:54.560 that goes with accepting, you know, government handouts or whatever else. It comes out of your

01:37:00.760 tax money that is involuntarily taken from you. It's going to go to someone. I think you are the

01:37:09.260 most judicious in using that to the benefit of yourself or your folk, as opposed to, you know,

01:37:15.920 abdicating your entitlement to any of that and having it go somewhere else. That's something

01:37:21.220 to keep in mind. We're not making the rules. When you're in a spot to vote or contribute to

01:37:28.900 legislation to make the rules, then yeah, by all means, try to do that in a way that's in keeping

01:37:34.700 with our values. But once the rules have been laid out, you got to play to win too.

01:37:41.320 And I will say again, if you are struggling to pay your bills, and I don't mean like any

01:37:48.640 individual of you, but people who are struggling to pay their bills, if you've got more than

01:37:53.380 $10,000 of credit card debt, email me through runestone.org. I will spend a couple of minutes

01:38:01.320 with you giving you the thumbnail evaluation and because bankruptcy is like any other business

01:38:08.700 decision it can help you it can hurt you um but you know in many situations it's worth thinking

01:38:16.520 about and it's also in many situations worth considering just stop and paying your bills

01:38:22.220 you know for some people um uh some people are judgment proof if you don't have anything you

01:38:28.000 don't have any income that they can attach and you don't have any property they can attach

01:38:31.960 let them call you you know you can talk to randy from india and entertain him and give yourself

01:38:42.240 something to do but you know don't don't break your own back and and certainly don't feel guilt

01:38:49.200 or shame about not being able to um meet your obligations these crooks because i don't

01:38:56.880 I no longer have any love for that system

01:39:06.960 that games us more than we game them, that's for sure.

01:39:13.060 Well said.

01:39:15.740 Question for Alan.

01:39:18.540 This last Sunday, Pope died at 88.

01:39:22.020 some say our enemies are doing Romulus rituals to turn our next leader against us what is your

01:39:31.820 insight into 88 constellations and King Arthur and Barbarossa sleeping until they must awaken

01:39:39.840 to defend their land be reborn could this be a form could this be from a tradition

01:39:47.460 of a Siegfried figure who will be reborn to defend us.

01:39:55.360 Well, if it is, I hope somebody found the cord to the alarm clock

01:40:01.660 and plugged it back in because it's long overdue.

01:40:05.540 I do think that if that sort of thing is going on,

01:40:09.460 and I was aware that Pope Francis, and he's the one who resigned, right?

01:40:16.700 He wasn't the queen.

01:40:17.520 No, no, no.

01:40:17.940 That was Benedict.

01:40:18.780 No, Francis is the commie pope.

01:40:21.440 Oh, so this is the current pope is the one who just died.

01:40:25.140 Last week, he was the current pope.

01:40:26.820 There is no current pope.

01:40:30.980 Well, sorry.

01:40:32.260 See, that shows how much I know.

01:40:33.660 So, yes, it would certainly be well in keeping with

01:40:43.660 um the christian tradition to uh pilfer another of our legends and rituals um you know just like

01:40:55.500 well what did we just celebrate easter just like jesus did with bunnies and eggs um so um it would

01:41:06.220 you know

01:41:06.540 i'd like to have a long talk with those sorts of people i mean i i think their belief is sincere

01:41:14.940 i i think they feel the same sort of um

01:41:23.180 woe may be the right word uh they they feel the same sense of dread about how far

01:41:30.300 um into chaos and disorder our civilization has descended

01:41:35.020 um posit whether they're mostly the cause of that or not or you know maybe the you know the agents

01:41:44.780 who are working actively to undermine western civilization are taking apart the church as just

01:41:50.460 a byproduct of that um you know i i do think that it is um a wonderful hopeful type of legend that

01:42:03.980 arthur or barbarossa i'm less familiar with um will one day awaken and you know start smiting

01:42:12.300 some of the miscreants um and setting things back all right um until then i think it's our job

01:42:23.260 does that answer the question right i'm close um there's some stuff about constellations and

01:42:29.500 a lot of stuff that um i'm not really necessarily familiar with his his reference but something i

01:42:36.220 wanted to kind of i don't know reiterate or say on it there can't be constant you know

01:42:47.420 the the earth is the center of the universe you know so well one of the

01:42:59.500 there is and I don't I'm trying to be careful in how I word this because I don't mean to squash

01:43:09.280 anybody's you know if you sincerely believe that's the case you know there might be something to it

01:43:16.180 but something I'd like to say the idea of let's sit around and wait until somebody else comes

01:43:26.260 and fixes stuff for us is anathema to our soul and what it means to live heroically

01:43:37.540 if that is the case and everything you're saying is accurate then go out there and spend your life

01:43:45.780 trying to make this world the best it can be rally your fellows to do so get part of the team help

01:43:52.260 the afa to do that and then if arthur or barbarossa or holder danska appears and is ready to resume

01:44:06.580 imperium of our folk and lead us into a golden age then cool we are we are best suited at that

01:44:14.500 point to be able to serve that regime and make that work by all means get in position for it

01:44:20.180 that's what you want but we do that best by living heroically if the sleeping king were to awaken

01:44:26.660 certainly he wants to be surrounded by knights and heroes not by a bunch of people that sat around

01:44:32.740 waiting for him to reveal himself but secondly that's not really

01:44:41.540 the idea of people stepping up heroically and shaping the world according to their will

01:44:50.180 is the ideal for our folk. We don't want to wait on someone else to do it. That abdication of

01:44:56.180 responsibility isn't a noble use of our time. So even were that the case, going out there and

01:45:03.460 making the best of our current situation is the best way that we can show allegiance to

01:45:08.940 the sleeping king if that's what's going to happen. And on the much more likely chance that

01:45:15.260 we don't see that or that we don't see that in our lifetime, we will still be more successful

01:45:20.100 we will have lived heroically we will have accomplished things for our folk so going

01:45:25.860 out there and living a life of heroism and accomplishment wins in both of those scenarios

01:45:30.500 even were that the case but i don't see any connection to the age at which the commie pope

01:45:38.340 died having any you know necessary implication to any of the prophecies about the sleeping king

01:45:44.020 Alan, law speaker. I need your recommendation. Oh, no, I read your recommendation. Gates of Fire

01:45:56.020 by Pressfield. I couldn't tell you how impressive of a recommendation that was given the topic of

01:46:02.080 discussion a few episodes back. Right on. It always heartens when someone reads something

01:46:12.080 that I recommend and enjoys it, so thank you for, thank you for rotating that back to me.

01:46:21.920 Gates of Fire, I will now recommend to everyone else who has an hour free every night to get

01:46:31.180 through this excellent book. It is a, it is a historical fiction book, an account of the Greeks

01:46:40.340 at Thermopylae. And the word Thermopylae means gates of fire. That's the title of the book. And

01:46:49.300 for those of you who don't know, that's the, you know, that's where the 300, the 300 Spartans held

01:46:55.520 back the 200,000 Persians. And, but the, but the book goes into a great deal of detail about Spartan

01:47:07.080 culture and talks a lot about the nobility that the Spartan warrior felt and why a man would be

01:47:22.480 willing to go to certain death to defend his family and his folk. And the narration of the

01:47:33.380 battle itself is gripping and certainly is well worth the time invested in the read.

01:47:42.700 But to me, it's more the fact that it puts it into a historical context in a way that a movie

01:47:50.720 cannot do. I mean, certainly there's a little bit of that in the movie, The 300, and, you know,

01:47:59.540 good for them. They portrayed a little bit of that, but that book and a couple of more,

01:48:05.560 and actually Pressfield wrote another one, very, I can't quite think of the title, but

01:48:11.520 another account of the Greeks at war and super, super, super good.

01:48:21.580 I think a personification of, in a lot of ways, what we're trying to reconstitute,

01:48:26.900 you know, a folk that we are willing to step into the breach for.

01:48:35.960 All right. Sarah donated $41 to help us pay off Njortzhoff. Appreciate you. Thank you so much,

01:48:44.220 Sarah. Thank you guys all for your generosity this evening. Then, you know, just a couple of

01:48:50.160 short hours, we have raised hundreds of dollars to get us towards that goal. And that's quite

01:48:56.400 an accomplishment and very much appreciated. So that is all of the questions that we have

01:49:06.820 lined up at present. Alan, do you have more you would like to say on the topic this evening

01:49:13.260 or anything you would like to impart to our audience? I could wax on and on and often do,

01:49:22.300 But I want to say again, you know, thanks to all of those who have donated to us.

01:49:34.320 Thanks to all of our folk builders who worked so hard to bring us all together.

01:49:37.700 Thank you, Matt, for being such a pest when I'm ignoring my responsibilities.

01:49:47.720 I know it's frustrating for you and it's not intentional on my part.

01:49:52.040 I do try to get everything done that I have to get done in a day.

01:49:57.960 And I am going to the bank tomorrow to get that little chore taken care of.

01:50:03.200 And, you know, we all work really hard to get this stuff happening.

01:50:08.800 And, you know, for all of you guys who are looking in and you're thinking that this is the place for you, it really is.

01:50:18.460 It really is the place for you.

01:50:19.980 So there's nothing like it to come in and to see how far we've come.

01:50:29.920 We've got a long way to go, but we have made a lot of progress in the last 20 years,

01:50:34.760 and I'm proud to be a part of it.

01:50:41.960 So, guys, next week we have a very special episode.

01:50:46.800 On those months that fall with five Wednesdays, we get special treat of having a fifth of Brandy.

01:50:55.680 So the fifth Wednesday of months with those many Wednesdays in them, have Witten Brandy Fassett hosting a show.

01:51:07.100 And usually she'll bring on an assortment of Githjord to impart their wisdom to you guys and to talk about our true topics through a female perspective.

01:51:21.880 So I invite you guys to take part in that and join her with your enthusiastic questions and eager listening and participation.

01:51:35.040 It's going to be a great episode.

01:51:37.220 Her and the ladies do a great job.

01:51:41.500 Yeah.

01:51:42.220 We should also say, I apologize for interrupting you again.

01:51:46.720 We should also say congratulations, Trent and Madison.

01:51:51.340 We should absolutely say that.

01:51:53.180 So, Goethe Trent East and his lovely wife, Madison, welcome to baby boy into the world today.

01:51:58.260 he is a big he is a big boy and uh we are all very excited for him and for the family he's born

01:52:08.400 into they are some of our very best people and people who I personally love dearly so

01:52:13.620 congratulations guys big time all right folks we'll appreciate you as always I look forward

01:52:21.840 again I don't get to talk to you next week perhaps I'll join you in the audience

01:52:25.520 and i will talk to you the first wednesday of uh next month thank you guys so much for all that you

01:52:32.540 do this show is a very much a listener supported program with your guys questions certainly with

01:52:38.480 you guys generous donations and your guys faithful just showing up and taking a look and listening

01:52:44.920 to us and spending the evening with us so thank you guys please if you haven't already check us

01:52:50.080 out runestone.org. We would love to have you on the team as we move forward and do great things

01:52:57.120 together. Until next time, hail the Iser, hail the folk, hail the AFA. Remember, victory never sleeps.

01:53:20.080 Transcription by CastingWords

01:53:50.080 We'll be right back.

01:54:20.080 Thank you.

01:54:50.080 Thank you.

01:55:20.080 We'll be right back.

01:55:50.080 We'll see you next time.

01:56:20.080 You

Asatru Folk Assembly - April 24, 2025

4⧸23⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 146 - Fulfilling Obligations： Time Management and Productivity

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