The Art of Manliness - Lessons in Action, Agency, and Purpose From Buying a Ghost Town

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:11.200 in the 19th century cerro gordo which sits above death valley was the largest silver

00:00:16.000 mine in america a place where dreamers came to strike it rich in the 21st century brent

00:00:21.500 underwood used his life savings to buy what had become an abandoned ghost town and ended

00:00:25.960 up finding a very different kind of wealth there brent has spent four years living in cerro gordo

00:00:30.500 and has documented the details of the mines he's explored the artifacts he's found and how he's

00:00:35.100 restoring the town on his popular youtube channel ghost town living now in a book by the same name

00:00:40.200 he takes a wider view lens on his adventures there and shares the big lessons he's learned

00:00:44.200 from his experiences from the original residents of cerro gordo we get into some of those lessons

00:00:48.680 on today's show we first talk about how and why brent bought a ghost town as a way of escaping a

00:00:53.400 typical nine-to-five life and finding a deeper longer-term purpose we then discuss what

00:00:58.100 restoring cerro gordo has taught him about the necessity of getting started and taking real

00:01:01.460 action how learning the context of what you do can add greater meaning to it the importance of

00:01:06.040 understanding the long-term consequences of short-term thinking the satisfactions that come

00:01:10.260 with being a high agency person and more after the show's over check out our show notes at

00:01:14.380 aom.is slash ghost town all right brent underwood welcome to the show oh man thank you for having

00:01:30.820 me so you are the owner of a ghost town that was once a thriving mining town at the edge of death

00:01:38.680 valley how does a guy like you end up owning an abandoned mining town yes that is a question i i

00:01:48.000 seem to ask myself a lot but i think it was about the right project at the right time for me you know

00:01:54.200 i have a background in hospitality and marketing and storytelling and for me i had just hit that age

00:02:01.980 of 30 where i had a comfortable job you know a comfortable apartment i was living in austin texas working

00:02:07.420 in mostly digital marketing i just felt like there was something kind of missing you know that there

00:02:12.580 must be more out there that there was this untapped potential that i wasn't fulfilling and i just

00:02:17.600 wanted to do something real in the real world you know i think that's kind of the driving force behind

00:02:22.180 it to provide a little more context but the practical of how you get it i got a hard money loan

00:02:27.960 which is basically like as close to a loan shark as you can get these days that fronted a lot of the

00:02:32.280 money called up some friends to get the rest of the money and bought it in 2018 and how did you

00:02:37.960 even know that this was on the market i mean that's kind of weird you never really see towns

00:02:41.500 entire towns going on the market how did you figure this out yeah a buddy of mine was living in los

00:02:47.120 angeles and he saw this link that said buy your own town for under a million dollars you know just

00:02:51.940 an amazing headline for an article and he texted it to me in the middle of the night and i was living in

00:02:56.760 austin texas at the time and i was running a bed and breakfast basically down there and he said hey

00:03:01.700 this might be your next project you know lol he kind of sent it over as a joke and for me it was

00:03:06.200 again just like it struck me at the right moment i was just you know enthralled it was just everything

00:03:12.040 that i could have ever wanted i thought and the more i read about it you know i learned about the

00:03:15.680 town i learned that you know once upon a time it was the largest silver mine in california that there

00:03:20.680 used to be 4 000 residents here and there used to just be like a real life it felt like a real life

00:03:26.940 western kind of playing out in front of me and so i just fell in love so when you saw it when you saw

00:03:31.420 the link you went to the the listing what did you think you're going to do with this like i'm going

00:03:35.620 to buy this thing what were you hoping to do with it yeah i think the initial thought was hospitality

00:03:40.540 you know some type of overnight accommodation that was kind of what i had been doing a little bit kind

00:03:44.460 of on the side in austin so i thought hey this is a beautiful property to set the context a little bit

00:03:48.780 more there's about 400 acres here there's about 22 buildings the town was most prevalent in the 1860s

00:03:55.640 and it's about three and a half hours outside of los angeles three and a half hours outside of las

00:04:00.360 vegas up in the mountains and so i thought man this could be like an amazing place to throw up some

00:04:05.080 cabins you know maybe have a little airbnb half people could come they could learn about the history

00:04:09.300 and they could take in the natural beauty all around so that was the initial plans and that was

00:04:13.960 what six years ago now and things have changed a little bit yeah we'll talk about how it's changed

00:04:17.720 so the town is cerro gordo that's that's how do you that's how do you say the american version is

00:04:23.400 it just cerro gordo yeah cerro gordo uh it's usually how i say it which is fat hill in spanish so what's

00:04:29.360 the story what's the story behind cerro gordo what's its history yeah the the town was established in

00:04:34.440 1860s as a as a mining town and originally they were mining galena here and galena is a silver and lead

00:04:40.700 ore and so in about 1865 it was set up as a mining camp by the 1870s it was the boom town it

00:04:47.680 was the place you wanted to be if you're in california looking to mine silver you know this

00:04:51.860 is just after the gold rush and so a lot of miners were kind of looking for the next thing and

00:04:56.700 cerro gordo was it for a lot of them and they started mining the galena originally and that lasted

00:05:02.960 for about 20 years probably until the mid 1880s i would say and then as these mining camps do the vein

00:05:11.240 was lost and so a lot of these miners packed it up and left you know the town went from a peak of

00:05:15.960 having almost 4 000 residents down to just maybe a skeleton crew of 20 or so and then in around 1910

00:05:23.380 there was a guy that came up named ld gordon and he realized that while everybody was paying attention

00:05:27.180 to all the silver nobody was paying attention to zinc and so he in 1912 reinvigorated the town as a zinc

00:05:33.860 mining town and they mined zinc all the way into the 1940s and so as a mining camp it had an active life

00:05:39.480 from the 1860s to the 1940s which is really long you know a lot of these camps were set up to be

00:05:44.480 you know five six years was a good timeline for him so as far as like mining towns go cerro gordo

00:05:49.660 had a really long history so but at its peak had 4 000 people that's a lot of people yeah it's a lot

00:05:55.320 of people there's 4 000 people a couple hundred buildings up here across the 400 acres and you

00:05:59.460 know if you if you adjust it for inflation they pull something like 500 million dollars with the

00:06:04.040 minerals out of here and at the time the closest port city was los angeles and so a fun fact i like to

00:06:09.600 think about is when cerro gordo had 4 000 residents los angeles only had about 6 500 residents so they're

00:06:16.160 almost like equal trading partners more than you know los angeles being the behemoth and cerro gordo

00:06:21.560 kind of being something behind it but like the demand of cerro gordo and all the people living here and

00:06:26.320 mining here and doing everything necessitated like a port city to get all their supplies because they

00:06:30.580 weren't growing much up here and so i think it's interesting that you know cerro gordo is one of the

00:06:35.920 reasons that los angeles is what it is today and these days almost everybody knows los angeles but

00:06:40.020 almost nobody knows cerro gordo so i feel kind of like one of my goals up here is is changing that a

00:06:45.040 little bit so you pulled together and it's like over a million dollars in a loan to buy this thing

00:06:50.560 got some friends to help you out and kind of become investment partners on this what did your family and

00:06:55.760 friends think when you told them hey i just bought an abandoned mining town i mean my family is kind of

00:07:02.740 used to it i they both my parents are teachers and so they kind of wanted me to go into one of those

00:07:07.560 traditional paths and they realized pretty quickly after college that that wasn't happening and so

00:07:11.940 they kind of had gotten used to my different adventures most of my friends are very supportive

00:07:15.980 too they knew that i just loved doing stuff like this and you know a couple friends were like why don't

00:07:20.640 you stay with the more traditional path i had a very comfortable life in austin you know i had a guy

00:07:24.660 come visit the other day too that was still kind of griping that i should have stuck with kind of what i was

00:07:29.180 doing before but i don't know i think that a lot of them resonated with it and they were pretty

00:07:33.500 supportive okay so you bought cerro gordo in 2018 but then you waited like two years to actually start

00:07:41.760 doing things to restore it and kind of bring to life this idea you have of turning into this

00:07:46.440 place that people can go to sort of a hospitality place why did you wait so long what was the hold up

00:07:51.940 yeah originally it kind of seemed like one of those projects that maybe you could do as a side

00:07:56.240 business that maybe hey i could restore this entire town while still living in austin texas

00:08:01.200 and we did a lot of things that were just i mean i would call them like playing business which you

00:08:05.520 know setting up the perfect pitch deck creating the perfect spreadsheet whining and dining all these

00:08:10.180 different people that could help with the hospitality with these different things but it's really just

00:08:13.920 kind of delaying any real action and so when the pandemic hit in 2020 you know march of 2020

00:08:19.940 my business that was in austin got shut down because of the pandemic and so we were all figuring

00:08:25.000 out where we're going to socially distance and what better place than an abandoned town in the

00:08:28.920 middle of nowhere and so i packed it up came out here and really gave it a shot you know i think for

00:08:33.560 the first time it went from a back burner project to kind of the main project and it just consumed me

00:08:39.660 in a lot of ways and i thought maybe hey i was gonna come up here for a week two weeks something like

00:08:44.140 that and it's now four years later and i'm still here and i you know i no longer have my place in

00:08:50.200 austin i no longer have a business here or there and so it's just all in at cerro gordo at this point

00:08:55.380 all right so the pandemic kind of helped nudge you along to go all in on this thing and you talk

00:08:59.920 about this there's there's a former resident of cerro gordo who inspired you to you know sometimes

00:09:05.880 you just got to get started on something even if you don't know exactly where it's going to go

00:09:10.000 it's this guy named bro schmidt tell us about bro schmidt and what did he teach you about

00:09:14.440 just getting started with something yeah there's there's a guy named bro schmidt and essentially he

00:09:19.720 grew up in rhode island and a few of his siblings had died from tuberculosis and so doctors as they

00:09:25.060 did back then they're like you know you need to really get to a dry climate and so he moved out

00:09:28.780 here and he was a gold miner and he was prospecting all the time and he basically every day he'd have

00:09:34.340 to take his oar around this mountain that he was working to get it to town to sell it and so one day

00:09:39.320 he decided you know i'm not going to take my oar around this mountain anymore i'm going to go

00:09:42.700 straight through it and so he started chipping away every day with his pickaxe you know in a

00:09:48.260 wheelbarrow and he wanted to burrow a tunnel directly through this mountain and about 19 years

00:09:55.000 into this process which is just incredible to think about like in today's timelines of which we think

00:10:00.680 about businesses 19 years into trying to chip through this mountain they built a road around

00:10:05.400 his mountain and so basically his tunnel wasn't good anymore it was for nothing and what i kind of

00:10:09.720 love about the stories is he kept going you know he kept going he got to the other side he finished

00:10:14.520 burrowing through something like a half a mile of solid granite and then after he was done he packed

00:10:19.880 it up and left i think for me kind of what that taught me is that you know the idea if you from the

00:10:24.840 outset you're like hey you know you need to burrow this tunnel through this mountain by hand it would

00:10:29.560 just be overwhelming but i think that like for him he kind of found his rhythm he found his thing that

00:10:33.500 like brought him purpose day in and day out and he did it and i think that one it was just

00:10:38.160 you know start somewhere start something you know stop planning stop like i said playing business

00:10:43.260 and setting up different twitter accounts and just doing all these different things that weren't

00:10:46.300 actually making a difference and just start doing something and then two i mean he's just like a

00:10:51.080 testament to finishing what you started and i think that again in today's day and age like especially in

00:10:55.660 the job that was working before it's very rare i guess is the best way to think about that when i think

00:11:00.400 about somebody like sticking with a project for decades even i think that today it's very popular to think

00:11:07.820 about you know what app can you make to then sell to instagram and have your exit and like what is your exit

00:11:13.020 plan going into businesses but like the idea of sticking with something for nearly 40 years was very it

00:11:20.540 resonated with me and i think that like when i got here i was like you know if i chip away a little bit

00:11:25.200 to use an analogy to what he was doing every day in 40 years what could sarah gore will become

00:11:30.100 and i think that like pretty quickly after starting there was more progress that had been done here

00:11:34.080 in the two years that we had just been sitting around waiting for something to happen yeah

00:11:37.980 burrow schmidt he could have played tunnel maker by coming up some elaborate blueprint and thinking

00:11:43.140 about all the available technology he had at the time to carve this tunnel out instead he just he

00:11:47.880 became a tunnel maker i'm just gonna start digging that's all he did i love that and i just love that

00:11:51.740 he finished it and then he just packed up he's like all right did what i wanted to do

00:11:55.900 i'm moving on yeah i think i think it's cool i just think that you know a lot of people look at that

00:12:01.280 and they just dismiss it as oh this is a crazy guy that did something crazy and like there's that

00:12:05.000 term folly that gets thrown around of like a very impressive feat that had kind of served no purpose

00:12:10.440 but i think that like for the people it resonates with it it resonates deeply like you know i go to

00:12:16.020 his tunnel occasionally and there's hundreds of tourists that visit it every week and it's just

00:12:20.480 something that resonates in today's day and age and so like a lot of serious people that did a lot more

00:12:24.900 quote-unquote serious things beforehand like nobody's visiting them or drawing inspiration from what they are

00:12:30.520 able to leave behind and so i just took away from it that yeah i think that like he found his purpose

00:12:36.240 he found what gave his day's rhythm and he just stuck with it which was really important yeah i think

00:12:41.180 the other thing you learned from him and i think you picked up on is that a task of you know carving a

00:12:46.580 tunnel through a half mile of granite can be so overwhelming that you just don't do anything

00:12:51.660 the idea of restoring an abandoned mining town can be so overwhelming that you don't do anything

00:12:57.500 sometimes all you gotta do is you gotta pick up a hammer in your case and just start start fixing

00:13:02.520 stuff yeah exactly i think that there's also once you get into it a little bit even a couple days

00:13:08.100 there's there's a comfort in that commitment or there's a comfort in that you know laying out what's

00:13:13.100 out there like for me before i would think about what's project is next what project is next even

00:13:17.960 when you're in the middle of one project you're always thinking about what's coming next but like

00:13:21.160 with burrow schmidt he didn't have to think about that you know every day he knew exactly what he was

00:13:24.480 doing and for me i feel like now four years in i feel very relaxed not thinking about you know when

00:13:30.140 this project is done what am i going to do next to bring some purpose or bring some meaning like

00:13:33.680 i hope that cerro gordo is the project that i get to work on for the rest of my life and i think that

00:13:38.140 there's a lot of like relief in that as well did you have any construction or restoration background

00:13:44.160 before you started this thing not a ton you know i had owned a bed and breakfast in austin so i did

00:13:49.040 like minor tasks you know plumbing this and things like that but it was more just out of necessity

00:13:53.260 you know where the town sits at the end of an eight mile dirt road so it's not like i'm running

00:13:57.180 to home depot two or three times a day four or five times a day like there has to be a lot of planning

00:14:01.340 and you just can't get people up here and so it's kind of uh learning as i went kind of okay but you

00:14:06.880 didn't let that deter you because i think that would deter a lot of people no i think that like pretty

00:14:11.420 early on i realized that it was going to be a necessity and so you kind of just start figuring out

00:14:15.760 things to do and i think that i kind of like tapped into one of my original desires to come out here

00:14:20.080 you know i wanted to like do real things in the real world my whole life before that was

00:14:25.600 working on all of these digital projects which are rewarding in some way but i think that

00:14:29.920 there is this feeling that probably a lot of people can resonate with of wanting to like

00:14:34.100 build something with your hands you know something that you can touch something that

00:14:37.260 you could work on for the rest of your life and i think that that desire was being fulfilled here

00:14:41.920 and i figured out the magic of that pretty early on and i think it was just like a reason to keep going

00:14:46.860 and the other thing that you do great in this book is you share your story but you also share

00:14:52.520 these stories of former residents like burrow schmidt of how the town shaped them or how the

00:14:57.400 landscape shaped them and a common theme you see through all these people is that they show up here

00:15:03.040 and they really don't know what how to do the thing they want to do and they just figure i'll figure

00:15:08.440 it out as i start taking action start moving then i'll be able to figure it out yeah i think that

00:15:13.620 like a lot of people sero gordo kind of cast a spell onto people i think you know everybody comes

00:15:18.760 here wanting something a little bit more and everybody comes here seeing the town for having

00:15:24.460 a little bit more than anybody else is seeing and when they all came here for their different reasons

00:15:28.380 but they all came here ostensibly to kind of live out a dream or to like have a little bit of a

00:15:32.940 better life and i think that's what brought the original prospectors here you know they're walking up

00:15:37.300 the wash looking for float which is ore that's left in the wash and they set up shop thinking

00:15:42.240 hey you know maybe this mountain can bring things to me you know that i don't have in my current life

00:15:47.860 and i think that when i showed up here in 2018 i was looking for something as well i wasn't looking for

00:15:53.600 silver in the way maybe they were 150 years ago but i was definitely looking for a change in my life

00:15:59.600 i thought that there was that untapped potential both in me and in the property and then if i were just

00:16:06.380 to stick with it that the skills would come and it would lead me to the life that i was looking for

00:16:11.560 at least that's the hope obviously the history book here is full of stories of people you know

00:16:17.440 being ground into dust by this mountain as well and so um that hope and a dream is what most people

00:16:22.940 come to this town with and uh a few of them are able to see it through to the other side yeah this

00:16:28.040 reminds me of a story from my family on my dad's side one of my great great whatever grandpas was

00:16:35.080 from switzerland when he's a young man he heard all these stories of these pamphlets in switzerland or

00:16:40.340 newspaper ads about all this great farming land in new mexico and if you go out there they're just

00:16:45.820 pretty much giving it away and you'll have this lush verdant farming land so he's like all right

00:16:50.540 i'm going and so he packs up from switzerland comes to new mexico and then he's like oh my gosh it's a

00:16:57.180 freaking desert uh like it's i'm not gonna be able to be a farmer and so he had to adapt and he became

00:17:03.020 you started up a mercantile shop and married a nice spanish american gal and uh my family

00:17:09.860 has roots in new mexico now yeah that's awesome i think there's like i mean it reminds me of stories

00:17:15.440 a lot of times when the the news of the gold rush you know hit europe a lot of people in europe would

00:17:19.940 get on the boats come out west and by the time they got here the gold rush was done and so in a

00:17:24.440 similar way they had to figure out you know what's next what am i going to do and i think that that

00:17:29.080 adaptability led a lot of them to cerro gordo you know to be honest and then to the comstock load

00:17:33.080 after that if they're thinking about mining specifically but then a lot became you know

00:17:36.760 same thing like merchants like levi strauss you know strauss blue jeans as we know them

00:17:40.160 came out of you know a merchant who came here and wanted to build better working pants for the miner

00:17:45.380 and now we have all those different brands so yeah that western that that allure of the american west

00:17:50.460 is strong i think it's been bringing people out here for a really long time yeah i think what the

00:17:54.160 desert does too and you talk about this the desert is pretty unforgiving and so it forces you

00:17:58.520 to adapt yourself to it yeah absolutely i mean nobody's coming to save you in the desert is kind

00:18:03.700 of what i always think about and i think that's another reason again that i started developing some

00:18:07.360 of these skills is just that out here there has to be kind of that a little bit of not a little bit

00:18:12.140 it has to be a lot of self-sufficiency because this place can like chew you out and spit you out

00:18:15.400 completely and then i think once you're up here you know you start taking ownerships over situations

00:18:20.680 maybe that you weren't before and you kind of start developing that sense of purpose and that

00:18:24.880 confidence that hey i can kind of figure out whatever this place is going to throw me

00:18:28.260 so you started living in surrogordo and then while you were there you met your obi-wan kenobi

00:18:34.260 this mentor who would help you in your quest to restore the town this guy named tip tell us about

00:18:39.900 this guy yeah tip is great tip somebody who you know i've probably made hundreds of videos about

00:18:45.060 my time being up here and i've actually never shown tip in any of the videos he wasn't one

00:18:48.860 that wanted the limelight you know his kind of guiding light and all these were was pretty pure when i

00:18:54.340 think about it but he was a guy that had been wandering around these hills for for just decades

00:18:59.640 and he knew it like the back of his hand and i think that in me he kind of saw somebody to pass

00:19:05.260 along that knowledge and i was green you know i was up here i didn't know like we talked about already i

00:19:10.220 didn't know how to build much i didn't know what i was doing and i felt really fortunate i feel like

00:19:14.060 i came up here and with tip and others i feel like i was adopted or i adopted just a dozen

00:19:20.280 grandfathers you know in the in the first couple years that i was here people just wanting to pass

00:19:24.740 along their knowledge and tip was just a mentor in every sense of the word you know he would have

00:19:29.840 hated that term he was not very sentimental but he was one that wanted to like teach me and he kind

00:19:34.680 of showed me that appreciation for figuring things out you know for understanding what was around me for

00:19:41.520 taking ownership over the situation and going forward with it and i feel that like because of

00:19:46.880 him this whole project has been possible i think it's early on in some of these projects you need

00:19:51.100 somebody like that and you need to be able to like accept somebody like that when they come into your

00:19:55.020 life and tip kind of changed the whole game for me at saragordo yeah one thing he taught you that

00:19:59.940 helped you learn more about the history of the town in the area is this idea of walking the wash what is that

00:20:05.920 yeah so the the wash is basically you call it a canyon you can call basically where the water goes

00:20:12.180 on a mountain when it's flowing naturally you know like when the snow melts where how does it get to

00:20:16.000 the bottom of the mountain and i remember one of my early days on here tip was like hey you know what

00:20:20.520 are you doing tomorrow and i said i'm not doing much lying even though i had a bunch to do he goes

00:20:24.820 all right i'm gonna take you on a hike and so we went on a hike and he brought me into the wash

00:20:28.380 and basically you know his point to me is like we went there looking for different artifacts because

00:20:33.880 as the snow melts and everything kind of goes into the wash you can find stuff from the different

00:20:37.400 mining camps that give you a little piece of what life might have been like back in the day here

00:20:41.820 and that was kind of his main thing he was like listen whenever you need an adventure just kind

00:20:47.180 of walk the wash it's the place of the path of least resistance it's kind of where you're going to

00:20:51.820 find a lot of these adventures it's where you know originally they would have found the ore that led

00:20:55.860 them to the discovery of different mining camps like saragordo was in the wash and i just think that

00:21:00.860 from there many of my best adventures have sprung and so it was just like i don't know it kind of

00:21:06.180 accelerated my appreciation for the town a couple years by him telling me that and something else he

00:21:11.820 was vital in helping you understand were all the mines so not only is this a ghost town there's all

00:21:18.160 these buildings a hotel for example there's tons of mine shafts on this thing and tip he knew the

00:21:24.060 stuff like the back of his hand almost yeah he was so the town the town's about 400 acres like i said

00:21:29.560 but underneath the town there's about 30 miles of mines and the main mine here goes 900 feet straight

00:21:34.040 down and off of it there's branches every 100 feet or so and so i like to think about it that there's

00:21:38.760 almost a city underneath the town here you know people come to the town and look around the buildings

00:21:43.500 that's where the history is but none of the buildings would exist unless the things that

00:21:47.640 happen underneath the town happen and so kind of all the history all of the origin of this place is

00:21:52.380 under the ground and when i came up here tip was one of the only ones that i'd ever

00:21:56.840 found that actually understood that and had been down there before and so he kind of sent me on this

00:22:02.420 quest to better understand the mines you know i think that whenever you can kind of get that extra

00:22:08.680 context of your setting whether that's you know if you live in a town and you walk by a park a dozen

00:22:14.520 times the day that you choose to then look up the history of that park the next time you walk by that

00:22:19.880 park it's going to mean that much more to you and tip showed that to me he said listen if you go down to

00:22:24.620 the 86 level it's going to come alive it's no longer just you know black and white words on a

00:22:28.960 page it's going to suddenly come alive you're going to understand the history here and by understanding

00:22:32.760 the history you're going to understand your place within it and it's just going to become that much

00:22:36.120 more purposeful that much more meaningful to you and tip very early on and said i want you to go and

00:22:41.500 explore i want you to discover i want you to live that life of adventure that brought you up here

00:22:46.260 and by doing so you're going to feel so much deeper connection to this town and i think that that was a

00:22:51.300 really important lesson to learn early on yeah you talk about how learning about the history of the

00:22:56.160 town it really was fuel to drive your effort to restore the town yeah i just think that context

00:23:02.760 is everything especially it just brings the world to light especially your place within it and again

00:23:08.900 to use that example walking by the park i just think that a fun example when i i lived in manhattan

00:23:13.520 for a while i was going to school and i remember pinning up my wall a map of manhattan and every day

00:23:19.080 that i had some free time i would try to go walk a new street in manhattan and i would kind of like

00:23:22.520 highlight in that street when i would get home at night and i think that for me it just made my

00:23:28.080 experience much richer you know how many times do people just go to work go home live in their little

00:23:34.100 bubble go home to turn on netflix and kind of like allow that to be that and i think that for me

00:23:39.180 the history here is very rich it's very interesting it makes me think about the place

00:23:44.340 in a longer term perspective instead of just thinking about it as my next project i think that

00:23:49.440 like hey in a hundred years this decision that i'm making right now is going to impact what people

00:23:54.820 think of this place what people read about this place and it's just like impossible to ignore in

00:23:59.080 a historic place like this but i think it's possible to do anywhere you know like i said in

00:24:02.440 manhattan the day i decided to walk every street suddenly like my experience of living in new york was

00:24:07.580 a lot better yeah i mean you can do this any in any profession you're in so if you're in i don't

00:24:13.520 know let's think like insurance like learn about the history of insurance in america i'm sure you'll

00:24:18.740 be able to find some fascinating characters that'll give you a deeper appreciation of what you're doing

00:24:23.820 something i try to do with my work with podcasting and writing i love reading about you know great

00:24:30.960 broadcasters or great publishers and seeing how they dealt with the issues that they faced when in

00:24:36.960 their profession at varying times in history and when you look at it it's often the same stuff

00:24:42.720 same problems they're just things are slightly different yeah you kind of feel part of a lineage

00:24:47.920 then you know you feel like oh i'm like part of something here like you're you're like something

00:24:51.520 larger than just yourself and that's why i felt like when i dove into the history here i learned

00:24:55.220 about the different owners over the day years from you know mortemir belshaw that guy originally

00:24:59.920 created the town you know the problems that he ran into or the road for instance or similar

00:25:04.220 problems i ran into the road or ld gordon who came up the guy that discovered zinc you know

00:25:08.680 his problems with access in and out of the mine are problems that i still kind of have problems with

00:25:13.640 and i just feel like once you feel that you're part of something you know and you can to your point like

00:25:18.640 you're part of the lineage of broadcasters in a larger sense you know and so like once you feel

00:25:22.700 part of that i just think that like enriches your experience day in and day out we're gonna take a

00:25:27.880 quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:25:29.300 and now back to the show so another character you write about in the book that was a former resident

00:25:39.900 of cerro gordo is a guy named william mulholland who was this guy and what did he teach you about

00:25:45.720 the long-term consequences of short-term thinking yeah mulholland was actually he was from la and he's

00:25:52.100 a civil engineer who brought water to the city when the city was running out of water back in the early

00:25:57.880 1900s he was the head of what was then called los angeles waterworks which eventually became the

00:26:03.320 department of water and power and if you've ever seen the movie chinatown with jack nicholson that

00:26:07.800 movie is kind of about the origins of la's department of water and power and so basically la was outgrowing

00:26:13.060 its water supply the town was growing too fast they had nowhere to get water william mulholland went out

00:26:17.820 into the desert and he landed right below cerro gordo in the owens valley where there used to play a

00:26:23.520 place called owens lake and owens lake used to just be this massive lake imagine like this about

00:26:28.440 seven miles across 70 feet deep as weather comes off of the ocean it hits the sierra nevada it kind

00:26:34.940 of dumps all its weather on mount whitney and all that place all that melts and goes into owens river

00:26:39.840 which then turns into owens lake and when mulholland saw owens lake he thought you know there it is the

00:26:46.760 future to this city's growth and so mulholland through a variety of sketchy back door deals

00:26:53.880 eventually bought up most of the valley so he bought the water rights from these different cattle

00:26:58.160 ranchers that were living here you know he even did things like would see to the newspapers that there

00:27:02.720 was a huge drought coming so these farmers were a little bit more you know encouraged to sell their

00:27:07.660 property and then once he had all the water rights he actually redirected the entire river

00:27:12.280 to los angeles he built what's known as the la aqueduct and by about 1918 or so by redirecting

00:27:19.900 the river he left owens lake which again once was this seven mile across 70 feet deep lake dry and a few

00:27:28.260 decades later he created that turned into the largest producer of dust for the united states and so me

00:27:34.480 living above owens lake or the shadow of owens lake i kind of see the dust bowl every single day you

00:27:39.720 see the end result of mulholland's wild dream and i think that it's impossible to ignore when you're

00:27:47.780 up here and so for me it's kind of like a constant reminder that you know these things that i am doing

00:27:52.140 in town they are going to have long-term consequences outside of my life lifetime and so it's an interesting

00:27:58.040 story and it's a place that i look to a lot you talk about in your experience in marketing you worked

00:28:04.360 with a lot of entrepreneurs where you saw a lot of that just short-term thinking and it ended up 0.98

00:28:09.740 biting them in the butt and other people in the butt in the long run yeah i just think that like 0.90

00:28:15.120 that's kind of been the mentality for the last few decades i think that like you know get in get out get 0.99

00:28:20.180 your money and kind of like move on and i think that you know when i look at a lot of my friends

00:28:24.120 we kind of grew up in the era when you saw mark zuckerberg start facebook you know what i mean and then

00:28:29.800 cash out for or create a company that's worth whatever it's created today and so that became

00:28:34.120 almost the model for entrepreneurship but again kind of like the premise there is always going in

00:28:41.460 with the exit in mind i think which is a kind of a backwards way of thinking about business at least to

00:28:46.480 me you know i think that what i found in sarah gordo kind of speaking at what i talked about before

00:28:51.500 about commitment is a project that i want to stick with forever you know i think that it's very

00:28:55.760 backwards to go into a company thinking from that origin how you're going to sell or who you're

00:29:00.280 going to sell it to i think that there's kind of like a lack of permanence there there's a lack of

00:29:04.080 pride almost to it and it leads kind of this deep feeling of dissatisfaction so i think that like

00:29:09.420 if you can find that thing that you like care about enough to care about the future that want to work

00:29:14.480 on it for a very long time it's just a lot more rewarding yeah i've had that question pop to me

00:29:19.580 a couple times throughout my career doing aom like what's your exit and i'm like um i don't know

00:29:25.740 like when i don't have anything else to write about um when i die like that's that's the exit

00:29:30.440 yeah i think like you know one of my buddies told me this once he goes you know does the owner of the

00:29:36.020 yankees have an exit plan and like i don't know if they do or not but like i understand what he was

00:29:39.180 saying you know like if you're building something that you think is like world class that you really

00:29:42.480 care about why would you be thinking about the exit plan like then you have to figure out what to

00:29:46.960 do next you know like i would love to build something that sticks around you know that we are proud of

00:29:50.940 that we are talking about a century from now or something so you admit in the book while you

00:29:55.340 begrudge mulholland for draining owens lake you kind of have a bit of admiration for him why is that

00:30:00.820 i mean what he pulled off was just amazing in a word he was able to redirect a river 200 miles

00:30:08.260 into los angeles and allowed los angeles to become what it did today and that takes a certain type of

00:30:12.620 vision that takes a certain type of person that takes a certain type of problem solver that after

00:30:17.100 spending a lot of time out in the desert i have to have some admiration for i think that the end result

00:30:22.360 wasn't ideal i think it caused a lot of problems for a long time but i think the scale of the project

00:30:28.040 that he pulled off is admirable you know and if only for the scale yeah well we're gonna talk about

00:30:34.180 this more but he had high agency he saw something and he made it happen absolutely i think that like

00:30:40.200 you know he was able to go out there he set a goal for himself and he achieved it you know he wasn't

00:30:44.800 waiting for something to happen in la to be better you know he brought that sense of control into his

00:30:50.080 own life he wasn't leaving things up to fate or luck and i think to your point that's kind of what

00:30:54.560 high agency means it's somebody that has that belief in their own ability to succeed at whatever

00:31:00.820 they're setting out to do you know even if something is crazy as i'm gonna redirect a river 200 miles

00:31:06.060 which is just it's crazy to think about but he was able to you know figure it out who are some other

00:31:11.160 high agency people who lived in cerro gordo i think from the very beginning it was everybody here

00:31:18.360 you know the original owner of the town mortemir belshaw had to figure out a way to get a road up

00:31:23.040 here and again like right now i'm sitting at 8 500 feet in elevation and the valley floor below me is

00:31:28.960 about 3 500 feet in elevation so you figure there's a mile of elevation gain to go here and when he came

00:31:35.300 it was just a mule trail but if this town is going to pull out 500 million dollars of the silver they

00:31:40.660 obviously were going to have to have a lot better infrastructure than that and so he just believed that

00:31:45.220 he could make it happen and he didn't make it happen you know and because of that it became

00:31:49.120 the boom town that i was going to become and i think that you know when i think about the different

00:31:54.400 high agency people here they all had that you know sense of control over their lives that they could

00:31:59.400 make things happen and during my time here i remember my first year we had a big tragedy here

00:32:05.480 where we lost one of our main buildings and when we were in the rebuilding process the biggest hurdle

00:32:10.080 that we had was to get concrete up to the town and again concrete might not seem like that big a hurdle

00:32:14.600 but when you're living up an eight mile dirt road that's very far from everything else the idea of

00:32:19.880 having to get 10 truckloads full of concrete up here were very difficult i called around and i asked

00:32:24.920 all the local companies like hey can you bring concrete up here and everybody's like no road is

00:32:28.580 too dangerous no road is too dangerous you know a variety of reasons and so i kind of felt stuck you know

00:32:33.560 i called a helicopter company they wanted some crazy amount to do it and then through some of the

00:32:38.140 youtube videos i was making at the time i got connected with this guy named heavy d who's a guy

00:32:41.980 named dave sparks in utah i remember the very first call with dave he was just like i don't know we'll

00:32:46.020 figure that out there was no like even sympathy for like the the routes i had gone down so far

00:32:52.080 almost more of like a come on man you know like we're gonna figure this out and yeah a couple

00:32:57.020 months later dave purchased a concrete truck that we brought up here without any concrete in it

00:33:03.660 we bought a lot of dry concrete that we were able to bring up the road and we mixed and poured

00:33:09.280 essentially about 10 truckloads worth of concrete in a single day to pour the foundation of the hotel

00:33:14.920 that we're building right now and it just kind of like unlocked that feeling within me that hey

00:33:19.240 these things are figureoutable you know i i think that's a term that i think about a lot up here is

00:33:23.600 that the skill of figuring things out is a muscle almost and it grows the more you use it and i think

00:33:29.740 that like when i first got up here maybe it's hey can i figure out how to build a little porch

00:33:33.920 on one of the cabins and after i did that i was like oh maybe i can fix the roof and after day

00:33:37.960 came i was like oh like i just poured 10 truckloads of concrete on the top of a mountain in the middle

00:33:42.760 of nowhere like there's almost nothing that i can't do then and i think that the confidence grows

00:33:47.880 within that you know like each time you figure out something a little bit harder and a little bit

00:33:51.580 harder and a little bit harder that sense of agency that we talked about shines through more

00:33:56.380 and it almost changes your belief about yourself you know now i feel like i am somebody that is

00:34:01.380 going to figure out whatever several girls throws at me and i don't think that i felt that you know

00:34:05.000 four years ago before i moved here yeah this idea of having a sense of agency as a dad that's the big

00:34:11.480 thing i'm trying to inculcate in my kids like i want them to have that idea or that sense that any

00:34:16.680 problem they have it's figureoutable you can figure it out like you don't have to be passive

00:34:20.820 you can do something about it yeah i think that that term passive is almost what i was trying to

00:34:26.620 fight against coming up here i think that that feeling of helplessness is one that nobody likes

00:34:30.100 to feel and i think that the answer out of that is trying to figure out different little problems

00:34:34.560 and again kind of like developing that muscle as you go figure that figureoutable sense and i think

00:34:39.660 that sarah gordo is kind of like trial by fire i had to figure that out time and time again but now i feel

00:34:44.980 that like because the agency grew again like your confidence grows and you can see it when you know

00:34:49.520 people you know i have i'm sure everybody out there has like encountered somebody where no matter

00:34:53.980 what problem you tell to them they're very calm they're very usually very pretty quiet and they're

00:34:59.300 like all right we'll figure it out it's almost that feeling you get if you've ever been around like

00:35:03.180 special forces people and for me i think about people that i've encountered in the desert you know

00:35:08.820 a lot of them have that kind of calm coolness to them and when i first moved up here i was very

00:35:13.680 envious of that you know i came from the online marketing world where everything was almost like

00:35:18.660 you know a crisis to solve that everything was very you know here now how could we possibly do

00:35:23.960 this and like up here i just find that everybody that chooses to live in the desert you know chooses

00:35:29.300 to live pretty far away from a traditional support system has a very high sense of agency and i feel

00:35:35.600 that living up here that's one of the most important things i would say that it developed over the past

00:35:40.600 four years so you experienced a lot of setbacks in your pursuit to restore sarah gordo you mentioned a

00:35:45.500 big one the biggest one probably is the hotel burned down this is gonna be at the crown jewel

00:35:49.500 of the town what were the emotions you went through when you saw this hotel on fire yeah it was

00:35:56.840 it was the main crux of all the plans here you know it was this beautiful hotel from 1871 that was

00:36:03.020 kind of going to be the gathering point for the cabins we were going to put up this is where everybody's

00:36:06.740 going to experience take photos enjoy the place and the day it burned down it just felt

00:36:11.780 every feeling all at once almost it was a it was seeing your hopes your dreams and like the majority

00:36:19.440 of your life savings go up in flames all at once and it was difficult you know i remember after it i

00:36:25.200 didn't really want to be here but i didn't want to be anywhere else i felt very like sad i felt

00:36:29.240 disappointed i felt like i let history down because at that point i was very deep in the history here like

00:36:33.860 we talked about the lineage of things that had happened and this had happened on my watch and i remember

00:36:38.520 the first day just sitting on the porch still in pretty bad shape when the old owner of cerro gordo

00:36:44.840 the guy that had actually sold it to us came up because he had heard about the fire i remember when

00:36:49.220 i saw him i thought he was gonna just lay into me for a bunch of different reasons and i remember

00:36:53.500 at the moment he kind of put his hand on my shoulder and he said listen this is bound to happen

00:36:58.360 you can't change what happens but what happens from here is up to you and i remember in those moments

00:37:04.440 you kind of look for something to grab onto and that was kind of a phrase that i grabbed onto for

00:37:08.500 a long time you know like what happens from here is up to you because i think it's true you know it

00:37:12.640 seems very basic when you say it out loud but no matter what the circumstance you're in what happens

00:37:17.140 next is up to you and so for me i could have gone back to austin with the tail between my legs i could

00:37:22.040 have thrown in the towel it probably would have been the better move financially everything like that

00:37:26.560 but then i think about the guys like burrow schmidt you know like finishing what you started

00:37:29.580 you know like leaving something behind and we're here you know i'm looking at my window right now

00:37:34.300 and i'm looking at the hotel and it's it's back there's a roof on it you know we're doing some of

00:37:38.960 the plumbing right now inside of it and it'll be open soon and i think that's again one of those agency

00:37:43.060 things where when i look at that i think of all the difficulty that went into rebuilding it but that

00:37:48.360 we finished it i kind of think back to earlier in my life of like when didn't i push myself and like

00:37:53.900 what things didn't i finish that maybe i could have and how could have those changed the direction of my

00:37:58.300 life earlier on and so what originally was by far the biggest tragedy here it kind of turned into the

00:38:03.980 the battle cry you know the the marching orders for a long time and now now that this thing is

00:38:09.540 standing again i i feel like you know what could sarah gordo possibly throw at me that i couldn't handle

00:38:14.000 so you got the you started rebuilding the hotel and that's on its on its way and again you you had to

00:38:19.860 exercise some agency to do that you also talk about in the book you reached a point with this project so

00:38:25.200 you started working on it in gusto in 2020 you're up there non-stop working all the time and you

00:38:33.040 started experiencing some burnout what did working on this town teach you about burnout and how to

00:38:38.600 manage it yeah i think that you know once you find that project that grabs your attention doesn't let go

00:38:44.140 that thing that just you know captures all of you it can consume you in some ways for me i don't think

00:38:50.260 i left the town for more than a day for two or three years and it was just like every day working

00:38:56.320 as hard as we could rebuild this hotel rebuild this hotel what happens is next up to you what happens

00:39:00.360 next up to you and i lost like 30 pounds i wasn't a guy that could probably lose any weight to begin

00:39:04.980 with i just got really bad place mentally it was just every day kind of waking up and just being

00:39:11.000 consumed by this project to the point where a lot of my friends are calling and like dude like

00:39:14.740 you need to relax this is not going to work and i just kind of got to the point where i realized that

00:39:20.800 if i were to like flame out burn out completely then it would kind of suffer the project in total

00:39:26.020 you know then i look back again to the lineage of guys that were here before and when i dug deeper

00:39:30.520 into the history of the mortemir belshaw or the ld gordons that lived and managed this town back in the

00:39:36.140 day you know they all had a time away you know they were able to go away kind of reflect on what

00:39:40.840 they're doing and come back to it and so i think for me i try to develop a little bit of a rotation

00:39:45.540 these days you know where i am here probably a month straight and then i try to take at least

00:39:49.960 you know three or four days off the mountain every couple of times because it also provides

00:39:54.080 that perspective where you're not so stuck in it and it originally i felt guilt for that i thought

00:39:58.360 you know every day that i'm not at cerro gordo is a day that progress isn't getting me done but

00:40:01.960 eventually you get to the point where if you're so burned down burned out there's not progress

00:40:06.100 happening even when you're there and so i think that like some healthy retreat is almost

00:40:10.460 necessary when you get into one of these giant projects yeah you talk about you found a book

00:40:14.560 in the belshaw house in the town it was about world war ii and you flipped through it and you

00:40:20.680 found this section about how they rotated soldiers on the front line so they could avoid battle fatigue

00:40:25.940 yeah it was a requisite you know it was prescribed to them that there was going to be a set number of

00:40:30.660 days you could be on the front line then there's a set number of days you had to be in the very back

00:40:33.580 then a set number of days you're kind of in the middle and this is the way they're able to like

00:40:36.640 prevent this horrible burnout of these soldiers in war and like i don't think that any of us are

00:40:41.560 in a situation akin to being soldiers in war especially me you know rebuilding a town that

00:40:46.100 i live in but i do think that there was lessons to pull away from that to where you know them even

00:40:51.220 the kind of the most experienced soldiers out there needed that little break and that was

00:40:54.300 comforting in its own way for me to take a little bit of time away yeah so if you're working on a big

00:40:58.560 project make sure you rotate yourself off the front line regularly you also talk about how

00:41:03.360 this town taught you a lot about humility and developing a sense of awe tell us more about that

00:41:09.700 yeah the town's set in just one of the most beautiful settings i can imagine you know if i

00:41:14.560 look out my window right now i see mount whitney which is the tallest point in the lower 48 i see

00:41:19.260 the sierra nevada i see owens lake and if i turn my head the other way i see all death valley beyond me

00:41:24.460 like the the desert just as far as i could possibly see and it's just awe-inspiring you know i think

00:41:29.520 awe is one of those terms that's thrown around far too often these days you know not everything is

00:41:33.600 awesome even though we we say that kind of is almost the knee-jerk response to when somebody

00:41:38.220 texts us something like oh that's awesome but like true off to me is something that just you know

00:41:42.540 stops you in your tracks and like instinctually tilts your head up you know it is that giant mountain

00:41:48.260 that makes you feel small it's that desert for as far as you can see it's even being in you know a

00:41:52.960 concert with musicians that are just amazing you know you can get that sense and for me out here at least

00:41:58.180 in the mountains it just reminds me of your place in the world you know there's a stoic term called

00:42:03.040 sympathia which is basically talking about the interconnectedness of it all and there's a marcus

00:42:07.840 really's quote that says you know what hurts the hive hurts the bee basically like what's bad for the

00:42:12.260 world is bad for you individually as well and so i think that like taking that time and zooming out

00:42:16.780 and understanding like how your life your project or whatever fits into the world allows you to put your

00:42:23.180 problems into perspective that kind of allows you a little break from that oh man my problems are

00:42:29.360 everything this this and that and for me being out here in the nature just it brings me to that place

00:42:34.640 of mind that i haven't found anywhere else you know living in austin i never found those places where

00:42:39.580 it was truly awe-inspiring and it brought that sense of peace to me and i think that like it was just a

00:42:45.060 constant reminder to get out in nature as often as i could yeah i love going to the desert that's my place

00:42:49.620 where i go when i need to restore myself i just love the emptiness of it i love seeing big mountains

00:42:56.380 in the in the distance i love seeing the mesas there's a solace in such a desolate place i don't

00:43:03.000 know it just recharges me i love i'm actually planning a trip out to get out the desert now and

00:43:08.060 i'm looking forward to it yeah it's just it's also like for me when i think about the desert i just feel

00:43:12.260 like there's nowhere to hide it feels very honest to me is the word i look about when i think the desert

00:43:16.940 just because like everything's kind of laid out in front of you and it just goes and goes and it

00:43:21.200 just leaves you that time to think there's not a lot of distractions not even as much color as you're

00:43:25.300 used to when you look at like a hillside or something and so it just like i don't know it's

00:43:29.060 amazing what's the future of sero grotto like where where can people learn more about it what you're

00:43:34.180 doing yeah we're so i'm hoping that this year we finish up the hotel you know that's been a big

00:43:38.240 project over the last few years we're going to add some cabins over the coming years maybe

00:43:41.560 some campsites as well but we're open to the public every day if people want to come up

00:43:45.260 and check out the town we're open from nine to five there's no charge for people to come up i've

00:43:49.600 i've made a little museum of different artifacts that i found on my hikes or down in the mines

00:43:53.740 people can check out so hopefully this year we introduce long-term accommodation or overnight

00:43:57.920 accommodation and then long-term who knows you know i would love to see this place stick around for a

00:44:02.780 few more generations so people can keep you know being inspired by the history and the beauty here

00:44:07.280 and i i kind of document all of it on my youtube channel which just called ghost town living which is the

00:44:12.020 same name as the book ghost town living which chronicles the past four years here

00:44:15.120 so that'd probably be the best place to check out fantastic well brent underwood thanks for your

00:44:18.660 time it's been a pleasure of course thank you my guest today was brent underwood he's the author

00:44:23.880 of the book ghost town living it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find

00:44:28.060 more information about his work at his youtube channel ghost town living check that out also check

00:44:32.100 out our show notes at aom.is ghost town we find links to resources we delve deeper into this topic

00:44:36.880 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

00:44:48.380 artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles that

00:44:52.360 we've written over the years about pretty much anything you think of and if you haven't done

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00:45:07.960 and until next time it's brent mckay reminding you to listen to aom podcast but put what you've heard

00:45:12.500 into action

The Art of Manliness - March 25, 2024

Lessons in Action, Agency, and Purpose From Buying a Ghost Town

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