And send you the Superman audio.
On audacity, I can send that over to to after this.
That's almost done. Editing. With what?
With. Oh.
Yeah. It's right. There's a sound. Okay.
It does sound good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, if it sounds really bad, I'll remind you.
But generally, like, I got to get, I got to get the editing going,
so I generally will go a little bit sooner than that.
Okay.
Check my audio levels and just.
But yeah, if it's bad, I will make sure you know, but it's it's fine.
Okay. Cool. How do how do I sound?
All right.
You sound good. I you're going to record your side, right?
Yep, yep. I got go going on audacity.
We'll do two different intros.
One for channel accepted. One for the gig for combo.
And then I always I try to cut the interviews like
it sounds like we're mid-conversation.
I'm working on that type of editing.
So for the other one, okay,
cool.
All right. Let's go ahead and get started.
So do the charges.
Have the intro first
stop, take a breather and then do it again for graphics and just go okay for them.
Sounds good.
And 54321 hey I we're going to charge said that the podcast
recharged each other to a new movie or TV show every week.
But this is a very special episode.
I am joined by Thomas.
Well, everybody.
Yeah, this one is, this is a weird one.
We're gonna be discussing the next project for Thomas
and what you guys can do to go support Thomas and learn so much more.
Okay. Stop there.
Okay.
Five. Four. Three. Two.
One. Hey, all geek freaks.
I am Frank, and I'm joined by Thomas.
Hello, everybody.
Thomas is a pretty familiar voice.
You guys should definitely hear him from other things.
But today's a very special interview.
We're gonna be discussing Thomas's brand new podcast, The Sick Burning podcast.
Thomas, can you just give us a quick rundown of what this podcast is?
Yeah, absolutely.
So for all of you out there, again, you probably have heard me
maybe somewhere in some Geek Freaks podcast over the last few years.
And yeah, what really got me into podcasting was
I got out of the hospital because,
maybe a lot of you don't know this, but I was actually in a plane crash.
I was pretty badly burned over somewhere between 60 and 70% of my body.
You know, I was trying to heal.
Got out of the hospital, Covid hit.
And so also not only to reengage with my friends, but as a way to heal, too.
You know, we started online gaming and conversing, and I'm like,
let's record this. This is awesome.
And that kind of kicked off the podcasting journey.
And I love it because I get to do stuff with you,
Franken, and a bunch of other awesome geeks out there
and talk about things I love like Marvel, DC, Star Wars, that kind of thing.
But I think there's always been a part of me that also is really drawn
to mental health and trying to recover both physically,
but also mentally, emotionally, spiritually, all that kind of stuff too.
And Sick Burn is kind of a foyer into that.
Yeah.
Now with Sick Burn, you're trying to incorporate the beginning of
like a tragedy, some chaotic event in someone's life.
And then you're transitioning into humor and recovery.
How is how is that possible?
To me, it seems like it's such a hard concept to brace.
And you're you're finding so many people who share that journey.
Yeah.
And, so the tagline is exploring the bright side to life's darkest moments.
Yeah.
And I mean, if that doesn't describe what life's been for me the last five.
Years, I don't know what else could, you know?
Like, yeah, yeah.
Out of all of this, kind of craziness, you know, I know it is,
probably a wild story to people, but there has been a lot of moments
that I've seen pop up because of how tough things are
when you're so low, when you feel like you have nothing.
I mean, for me, my whole life changed in literally like a blink of an eye,
you know, lost career and,
identity and ways that my body worked
and all these different things that just instantly kind of got taken away from me.
And I really just didn't know where to go from there.
I'm like, how am I ever going to keep living or find a new way into life?
And, you know, it took little by little, but, you know, only recently, I'd say
in the last few years that I was able to kind of find some good things.
And it also reminded me of things I could reflect
on when I was at my lowest, that I'm like, you know what?
That kind of was funny or that kind of was awesome, you know?
And which sounds wild to say, but I think, you know, it is this place where I think
out of the darkest, toughest moments, there are things we can take away from it.
There are good things that are there and there are cool, just,
things that present themselves to you
that never would have because of this low moment.
Right.
And I think the, the guest that I've had on recently, they're also different.
There's other survivors of of accidents, a paragliding accident,
a tsunami survivor.
But then there's also people who just think,
how am I going to carry on with my life?
Like, I might have to,
you know, move back in with my parents after I had this crazy, insane career.
And then I lose everything, right?
And there's comedians and chefs who change their life around
because they were doing one job, and it basically just got clipped
and they had to figure out what their next life was about.
So I think there's so many people out there
who experienced tragedies and loss and, and pain.
But you have to carry on.
And so for me, it's finding where that wisdom is.
It's finding the mindset they used to kind of carry on and it's finding
where was the bright spots that you were also
just telling yourself when life felt like it was crumbling around you.
So yeah.
In in what you call the darkest and toughest moments,
what are some of the commonalities you're finding amongst all your guest
and including your own story?
Oh, man.
So I think there is this belief,
you know, is really it's this is kind of interesting
because I don't know if I had it for a long time, you know, doing
seriously, like, doing podcasts like this, being a guest on your show on Geek
Freaks, gave me so much confidence in the more people
I met in podcasting, the more I was like, maybe there's something here.
Maybe I'm still useful.
And I think that was a giant fear that I had, was like,
I'm never going to be, like, useful again.
I'm never going to be able to do anything of value again.
And I think in my guests
there is this belief that I got to keep going.
And then there's other ones where I'm like,
I can make it to whatever the other side of this is, right?
So, you know, the yeah, you're there, you're in this dark tunnel
and you know, you're like, hey, I can't go backwards or I can do,
you know, there's just no room. I can't turn around.
So all you can do is keep moving forward.
And now having I think we've recorded 5 or 6 episodes now it's
there's just this belief that we're going to make it on the other side.
That's something you're funny with everybody.
They all have that belief in the end.
I think so, yeah.
Yeah, it's so different.
There's so many different things and yet they merge.
I think that's a really good question, but if I could just summarize it
briefly without thinking about it too deeply.
Right.
It's that they do believe that there's, there's light at the end of the tunnel.
Okay. I got to just keep walking towards that.
I'm just going to keep moving towards it.
And yeah, I think that's the thing that I'm,
I'm finding the most yeah.
Maybe connectivity out of everybody.
One of the things you mentioned was, you having a fear of whether,
you know, the self-confidence problem.
I will tell you, as a personal friend of yours,
we, you know, we reference you when you go to conventions
as, like, shameless Thomas will really mean is fearless.
You have this confidence about you when you go to, approach
somebody that I don't know.
I know none of us have it, and we admire it a lot in you.
So you may have had fear before, but you don't show it.
Well. I talk he's that.
I'm telling you it's there, though.
It's definitely there.
But I also now know what the alternative is.
Right? And you, you know, I, I,
I thought I was in good shape, you know, I,
I felt happy about the way I looked and the way I was able to do things in life.
And after flight school and graduating, getting my pilot's license,
I'm like, I finally proved myself that I was smart enough, right?
Yeah. And so I felt like I was on cloud nine.
You know, I had kind of all these wonderful things going for me.
And then, you know, this accident happens.
It all gets stripped away. Right?
And I just really was like, how am I going to do this?
And then when we first started
interacting together, man, and just kind of chit chatting,
that first LA Comic-Con I was talking to you about,
it was like, man, I got a hey, this events coming up, should I go check this out?
You're like, yes, you want tickets?
I'm like, sure.
I was so freaked and nervous, like so nervous.
I around that. Being. And I'm, like, writing questions. Yeah.
I was like, I was afraid, you know, and, but there was this moment
where I was sitting there and I was thinking like, what's the alternative?
Right? But you've sat in a hospital bed.
You sat in a hospital just locked in a room where you couldn't leave.
I was hooked up to IVs, and I had a track, and I had all these tubes
and everything coming out of me, and I literally couldn't.
Even the most I could move was just kind of sit up a little bit out of bed.
And, I mean, that was months and months and months and months.
And so I think about that.
I think about not being able to just go out and do anything.
And so you get this opportunity now to go do something you love and,
and talk to fellow nerds and talk to things that, you know, like Marvel movies
and Marvel comics, like, really helped me get back into a better mental headspace.
And I'm like, Holy crap, I'm going to get to see people who love this stuff.
Just as much as I do
and you, and get to meet people who are making it like, that was crazy.
And I thought, you know what?
I'm so nervous, but I'm just going to go and ask me, hey, will you talk
five minutes about the comic you're doing or why, you know,
this, this cosplay so awesome, you know, do you mind if I take a picture or.
I love this comic you created?
Why did you create it?
What were you thinking when you're making it, like all of that
stuff, it just, I think the the goal and the opportunity
to talk to these people supersedes my fear of, am I going to look stupid?
You know, I'm going to say the wrong things.
Like, we're inevitably, yeah, I can't tell you how many wrong things.
I've said on. Podcast over the years. Right.
It's just natural. We're human.
And I think, you know, I think it supersedes that fear.
For me, it's just like, you got to do it. You have one life to live.
I truly do believe that.
And I just want to live a life that I'm proud of and that I'm excited about.
And I think those things align.
Before we leave the dark air and go into a more of the lighter side.
I do want to touch on one of the things
I'm hearing out of you a lot right now, and something that I think personally
I fear too, with a little bit of what you're dealing with.
Very lightly in comparison.
But, the loss of independence, I think that that would be
one of the greatest fears in that early stages.
And now seeing you today, you're starting essentially a new business.
You continue to start and thrive in podcasting.
You have a wonderful, supportive family, wife and group of friends.
Do you feel like that fear of loss of independence
is warranted for a lot of people, or do they have to find their
own version of independence?
That's an interesting question.
So in terms of like losing the independence, or are you talking
more about like in the hospital when I couldn't do things when.
Yeah, we were sitting on that bed.
And you're not sure if you'll be able to do what you used to be able to do?
Like that's what you're talking about beforehand.
And now finding a new way of doing things like I, I feel from what
I understand too, is you kind of embrace more of your culture to afterwords.
You found a way to talk to these kind of creators
when you should just be a quick reader, that type of thing.
Yeah, yeah.
I think again, you know,
you know, what the alternative is of not being able to do something.
Yeah.
And again, you know, I had this fear of I'm
just not going to be able to do anything of value in life again.
And I know that maybe sounds ridiculous to people, but when you're at that low,
you know, I mean, just my body was so messed up and, you know,
not being able to communicate with people like I literally couldn't speak.
I couldn't even use my hands.
They were all bandaged up,
literally, like I was, you know, strapped to a bed for months and months
and so much of it, I think, is probably why I talk too much now,
because I know what it's like to not be able to talk.
And I think that just there was this compulsion of
I need to say something
and you start looking at things again when you're, you know,
not like I'm a monk or anything,
but I have heard this reference where, you know, like
the monks will be in the monastery and they're looking at the wall. Right.
And the wall
maybe has all this scripture carvings in it,
and they just stare at it for hours and hours.
And what your mind does while you look at it, it changes.
It goes through all these things. You have it.
You contemplate every decision you've ever made in your life
and what you can do and what you couldn't do and
and how your life's going to change.
But it while all of that is valid,
it becomes completely different when you are able to leave there, right?
Right. And you're right.
I wouldn't have been able to even leave or have healed up as well as I did
if it wasn't for family, friends, yeah.
Support, you know, but I think it just this opportunity comes along and,
and I started just leaning
into the things that I really loved and I really cared about, you know, I did
I suppressed my geek side for so long, you know, I grew up,
I loved all the action figures and X-Men.
The animated series got me hooked on, you know, comics.
And I was a Power Rangers kid,
and,
all of that stuff went away because I wanted to
be cool in high school, and I played football.
Yeah. And I, like, wanted.
A girlfriend and, you know, or in college and all these things.
And then my job out of college, like, nobody was really like that.
So I kind of just stuffed that down, right.
And well, you worked at ugly too,
which I would have to say is pretty sports brandy, you know.
Yeah, yeah, there's a picture. Totally.
There was like a few people who kind of.
But you had to pick and choose who you could talk about that stuff with.
Right. And you and I.
And for me, I didn't want to like,
shout it from the rooftops about any of this stuff. And
again, I got out
of the hospital and it's it's
yeah, I think this is what saved me truthfully, mentally, I was so broken
and and talk about depression and just not knowing if I wanted to.
I mean, this is going to sound dark, but truthfully,
I didn't know if I wanted to be here.
And the things that kind of kept me in the game, along with friends
and family support, was like, I got to lean into things I care about.
Yeah. And this became podcasting.
This became I listen, I've always loved Marvel.
Like, I want to talk about that more.
Or, you know, I've always loved video games
and I really haven't had a space or an opportunity
to ever really talk about this one.
I just do that
or comedy bringing my friends to do improv with and like, we would just laugh.
All of these things became part of the healing
and showed me that maybe there was still a way that I could
contribute to this world, or I still had something to give.
Yeah.
And that allowed me to kind of see maybe there is some type of independence
there too, you know, for people who feel like you lost it,
I think it's just taking one little step in a direction you care about.
You know, we we hold ourselves back so much,
and the thing between our ears can be our biggest ally.
It can also be our biggest enemy.
You know, we're so nervous about how the people are going to judge us
or what our parents are going to think,
or what our friends are going to think,
or what our, you know, significant other is going to think.
And all of that can be valid.
But if you are stuffing down a part of you
that you really feel strongly about or connected to,
or want to share with the world, that's a tough place to be.
Not being able to share it.
I think again, you know, this it's sound, this is probably heavy
or a little crazy maybe to say, but, you know, you you gain more of yourself.
You get to live more freely as you are able to express yourself more.
And I'm not saying that road is going to be easy.
I'm not saying it's going to be a walk in the park.
You know, there are aspects of society now that that, you know, pushes
against you being yourself.
But I also feel like there's no other way to live, truthfully, you know,
I mean, again,
you got to be careful with it, but I think it's better to lean into that
and just taking those steps, gaining a little bit of that and independence
for who you are and owning it is so freeing.
It's almost a better independence because it's more you.
Yeah. What you're trying to play by before.
Right.
Let's talk about where that uneasy road leads to.
We have your new podcast, the second podcast link in the description.
Make sure you're clicking around.
Guys, this is you've developed podcasts in the past obviously
challenge accepted joysticks show probably more in the future.
But this one was very unique.
You have, a studio for this one.
Can you describe what it's like to set up that studio for this podcast?
Man, let me tell you
that this is way easier than I thought it was going to be.
Right?
Yes. So for the five year anniversary of my accident,
I put out a video kind of describing it is on the burn page.
It's on my personal page.
But I really did not want to announce that I was going to do this podcast.
I again talk about fear and just thinking like, this is crazy.
Who's going to come and listen to me talk about positive mental health
and digging your way out of a terrible situation?
Or that kind of stuff.
You know, it's like, I'm not an expert.
I know I'm not a mental health expert.
I just, you know, been in a lot of therapy.
So, yeah.
But regardless, I put out that video and in, in it,
I wasn't even going to say this.
I was like,
you know,
I actually said to my wife, I was like, I don't know
if this is something I want to stay, which is I,
I've been thinking about this podcast.
I kind of want to do it, but I don't know if I want to announce it here.
And she said, if you don't announce it in this video, you shouldn't do.
It because, Yeah, she's but I loved, you know,
some people be like, oh, that was kind of rough.
But I really appreciate that push.
You know what?
Yeah. Why not?
Let's announce it. Let's do this. Right.
And then, from that video, the the outpouring was, was so incredible
and it was so overwhelming and it was so wonderful.
I really didn't expect it.
But somebody who I didn't even realize was kind of follow me said, hey, I'm
working with the studio actually here in San Diego where I live,
and it wasn't too far from where I was actually living at the time.
And he was like, hey, you know, you said you mentioned
you wanted to do this podcast.
Maybe you should check out this studio.
And so I'm like, all right, you know, and I started going
through all this list of different places.
And yeah, I really wanted to just try to take this podcast to a different level.
And I go there, meet everybody.
They're all wonderful.
It's called Voice and Video.
In San Diego,
if you have any type of video producing things
that you want to do anywhere in Southern California,
they have all this kind of crazy, amazing, like movie quality equipment.
But we met with them.
I kind of told them what I wanted to do and just through us kind of chit chatting,
work it out.
So yeah, we were able to kind of land on something.
And yeah, so far all six episodes have been recorded there
and they're just been wonderful to work with.
But it has been a slow process
of building out the set and figuring out how we're going to film it.
And the audio, a lot of what, you know,
as an audio expert, but yeah, it has been a slow process.
It's been a labor of love, and it's been a lot of fun.
As you've had these interviews.
I'm sure it's tweaked and or and evolved over time as natural for any podcast.
How have you felt the transition going
from the tragic beginning to the humorous ending?
How has that changed over time? Because it feels like it's
a very tough transition in the middle of a conversation.
Yeah.
You know, I think what's good about it, based on what we've both done for so long,
I mean, you a lot more than me, but it's like we
a lot of preparation goes into this, right?
It's like the, the funniest thing is, have you heard
somebody who was like, I just want to start a podcast.
Oh, like, oh, okay.
You know, like I'm in a I'm down. I think that's awesome.
You should do it.
But also like, do you know about this?
Is it. Right.
And then you've like A to Z on all the things that you think they need to set up.
Right. Oh yeah. Right.
So part of that all of my guests I usually speak to them
kind of pretty in-depth before we ever record.
So they know what it's about,
not just for me and not just for what the show is going to be, but for them to
to understand what the expectation is for the show.
Because that's the idea, is
we're starting from a place of, hey, this was really hard thing in your life.
This was, you know, there was trauma there.
There was pain, there was this crazy accident, whatever. Right.
But the goal of the show is not to stay there.
The goal of the show is to talk about how you got out of that,
how you moved on, how you found peace, how you found success,
how you work towards a happier life.
And so that is kind of the thing, you know, it's
not just to dwell on people's trauma or pain or sadness.
It's that's the jumping off point.
And I think that's so kind of true to who I am to,
you know, like, I there's so many people out there
who are hurting
or have things in their life that are just really tough
and they don't know how to move through it. Right?
But we have to find a way,
if you've been through those things, to move through it too.
Otherwise you're going to, you know, you're going to be bitter.
You're going to be sad, you're going to
your mental health is not going to be a good place.
You you won't be able to thrive, I think, and I,
I do not feel like I'm fully healed or anything by any means.
Right.
But I have heard from a lot of people like, hey, how did you get this mindset
from where you were at to where you are now?
And I thought, man, if I can do this, there's so many other people
who are going to be better share their stories who have also moved from things.
And I don't compare trauma like, I know mine's a plane crash, but like,
you could have skinned your knee on a bike when you were eight years old
and that could have been the roughest thing you've ever gone through.
It could have affected you your whole life.
But how did you move past it?
How did you go on to bigger and better and better things?
Right.
So that became the thing that I got fascinated by.
And how do I how do I translate that?
And I thought there was no better way than to talk to people who had been
through all different types of situations and what they learned from it,
and how they talk to themselves, and the mental health
tips that they use to kind of allow them to move on.
Mental health has got to be a big part of this process.
Is there anything you've learned
that you personally have implemented in your own life from your guests?
Oh, man. Yeah.
You know, I mean, we're still so early on, you know,
it's just like we've literally just recorded recorded episode six.
I haven't even had time to really process too much of what we had talked about.
But I feel like every episode so far, somebody says something
and a light bulb goes off.
It has been this crazy, crazy experience.
You know, I, I was telling my wife, after these are done, like, I'm so fired
up, I'm like so pumped out there at the end of these
at the end of recording these episodes.
But I'm so drained too.
And I think it's actually wonderful because I'm I'm so amazed by it.
There's so many smart, intelligent, wonderful, creative,
inspiring people out there.
And you just if you show them,
you give them the opportunity, they want to take you through that path.
You know, they want to take you through that journey.
There's so much I've learned from everybody, you know, appreciating life,
learning how we move on from our trauma.
Like, also how we how we handle things, kind of in a self-destructive way.
You know, there was, a guest on our show who survived a tsunami,
and that alone was traumatic.
Her describing was like, holy shit, like that is insane.
But then she got addicted to drugs and alcohol down the road,
and didn't see how those two things were connected, but then later on
did see it when she went to school for it, and talking about how
they both had intersected in the in her life and made things hard.
But also she needed
both of these things in her life to take her to where she is now.
And she's thriving and like helping so many people.
And she's a coach and an author
and a podcaster and, you know, it's it's been pretty amazing.
So I think every guest has shown me something different about their trauma,
their pain, their their tough thing in life.
And they all approach it differently.
But there are common threads which I think I again,
I need to really dissect more of what that is.
Yeah.
You're still processing this, this journey as a whole already.
I mean, it's gonna be hard to one of the things I'm picking up
just from even this conversation and she's a great example,
you know, again, you're like, are you gonna lose that independence?
And you could go one of two ways and you can go to where you're so
independent, become isolationist.
It sounds like drugs and stuff like that.
That could be lead, that could be that path.
But then she finds recovery humor through community.
And that's getting yourself out there,
accepting your situation and finding a new way forward.
And now she has a community.
She does a lot of community work.
And it's also kind of what you're doing with psych burn.
You're kind of creating this community of people who found
hope and a better mental health in the future.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think that's the thing.
It is for anybody that wants some inspiration
or who
wants to improve their mental health or just their their whole emotional demeanor
or like just feeling like, man, okay, everything's going to be okay, right?
Right.
There's some people I think there's a lot of people right now
who just feel like I this things are not nothing's gonna get better.
And like, they look at the world in the news and we think, man, this sucks.
And how is anything going to improve?
But one thing I learned from this terrible situation where, you know, they
they said I had a less than 10% chance of surviving,
is that even at that lowest moment, even with all the pain and the pain medicine
I was on and everything, it's like, no, there are still good things there.
The people that showed up for me and the people that just wanted
to be there because, you know, I had connected with them at some point in
life is an amazing thing, even though I couldn't even see it
when I was in the muck. Right.
And, and, and I think there's so many people who are talented
and creative and smart and capable, but they just see the bad.
Yeah.
And I just wanted to show that there's, another side to it.
So even if you don't think you need any of this,
you know, there's there's just so many things you can learn.
And I truly do believe you can learn something from everybody.
And, yeah, these lessons, I think, are just going to keep presenting themselves.
And yeah, I just want to help really everybody
I mean, truthfully, you know, and whoever can take something away
that helps better than their lives is is a win for me.
Well, and leading up to the release of six Burn,
which is out today, as you guys listen here, this, on the 28th,
you've been putting out a lot of videos, a lot of content
talking about some of the mental health struggles that you're dealing with
and some improvements over what you're learning.
Has there any has there been any feedback from the community you're building
over there, that you've seen, like some impact from what you're sharing?
Yeah, yeah,
yeah, surprisingly there was yeah, I've done a video on anger
or anxiety or loss and some of some of the feedback has.
Yeah. Really blown me away.
You know, again, talking about fear.
Throwing something out on the internet like it was scary enough to talk.
About like a marvel movie.
Yeah.
Let alone like your depression. Right. So,
it was, it was a.
Definitely a scary process, but I think the feedback, you know, I don't know,
maybe there is an added benefit to saying, like, I was a plane crash survivor.
You know, it's like hard to argue.
You wouldn't be depressed in that situation. Of course.
So to to move out of that, you know, you have to learn something.
And the tricks that used to work for me before my accident didn't work anymore.
I used to just beat myself up, just say like, hey, you're not strong enough.
You're not smart enough, you're not fast.
Whatever. It was.
Right?
And I used to I listen to David Goggins book all through Flight School
to try to power me through this, and it was up into my
that point in my life was the hardest thing I'd ever done.
And those tricks, though, once I was in the hospital, didn't work for me anymore.
I couldn't, like, beat myself self up enough to like, heal.
You know, it was like, I can, like, force myself to heal faster.
I'm not Wolverine. So like even he can't really control it.
So yeah, it's just like you had to learn
new tricks on how to move through life and how to move on,
and to stop looking at things
that were, you know, like a destination and more just like a direction.
But yes, I think the feedback from other people to to digress,
it has been wonderful and it's been surprising and,
I just hope that it really does help other people as much as possible.
And like, I just kind of want to be a resource, you know?
Yeah.
And I think that's something that you're, you're definitely doing.
You're again, you're creating a community.
People are seeing a lot of really great inspiration from you looking at sick burn.
And I know you're early in your journey,
but the journey hopefully will last a long time.
Where do you want to see this journey go for sick burn?
Yeah. That's funny. So.
You know,
I think when it comes to podcasting, we get so stuck on the numbers, right?
Like, yeah, yeah this download this listener.
And you know we we've made X amount of episodes or what.
Right.
Like it becomes
very much like a all life for me with sales it became about the numbers.
Like am I hitting this goal by hitting this percentage.
And you know, I was very successful, I feel like in my old life.
But I was miserable, you know, I, I was making more money
than I ever made in my life, but I just kind of hated what I had to do.
And I, and I, just the people I was around were
everybody was so angry or like, mad and just they just didn't seem happy.
And that's ultimately what made me move out of aviation.
And so, you know, I think that's still there,
but also keeping in mind what I couldn't do, you talking about independence,
like I wouldn't have even had the opportunity to do this podcast.
So truthfully, the goal is just to keep making more
is there's a author I really like and a speaker is Simon Sinek, he said.
He calls it the infinite game.
So I just want to stay in the infinite game, and I want
my episodes to be as good as I can possibly make them.
Every episode hopefully take nuggets of wisdom from other people
and what they've overcome and share that with others.
You know, just be a resource out there that other people can kind
of lift up their lives and start seeing more positivity out there.
Yeah.
You know, I if if there is so much negativity in the world
and if you only focus on that, there will be all that you see.
But the the other side must also be true.
There must be positive things that if we are neglecting that also exist.
So now how do we focus on that?
And I think that is something that I want to put more out in the world
and just build a community of people that are just more open about talking
about these things, support each other, and then let's all just find this
like positive, healthy space to just, I don't know, support one another.
I don't know. Yeah, I can't think beyond that.
And as long as I get to keep making these I think that'll be a win.
Yeah.
It reminds me so much of E.B.
white. He's the writer for Stuart Little.
And if you guys have ever read the actual book, not just the movie, which is good,
but if you ever read the book
at the end of the first book, it really doesn't have an ending.
It's you're reading basically the first chapter of a long saga.
And when E.B.
white was asked about that, you know, like, why does it have an ending?
He says, you know, it's not about an ending.
It's that Stuart Little has a good car
and he's pointed in the right direction, and that's what matters.
And it sounds like you've got a good car and you're pointed in the right direction,
like E.B. white wanted.
So I think that's really pretty impressive.
That's amazing.
Metaphor to connect this with.
Its I praise like I feel like Stuart.
Little still like inspires and teaches people today.
You know. It never does. Yeah.
It's awesome.
So we have sick burnout today.
You guys can be following it up as we're talking about it right now.
Just recapping what we're going over here again.
It's a place
where you can hear about tragedy, but most importantly, growth and where
where people are today through humor, through good storytelling and sharing.
And I think that's so important is that you, again, don't become isolationist.
You you build these communities.
I think it's really good work.
And I wish you the very best luck with burn.
Thank you man. Thank you.
What one thing you kept saying was independence.
I want to ask you, like, what does the independence mean to you?
And how do you think that showing up in your life over the course of this podcast.
I think it I think independence
also is, purpose in a way, like to have a purpose that's not aimless.
Otherwise you're a ship in the water at a drift
and podcast is giving me a motor for that ship,
and without it, I don't know where I'd be, but it'd be adrift still.
So, yeah, I am independent because I have something to do with my time.
Yeah, I, I'm not the professional Marvel rival player.
Like, I really wish I was.
But yeah, you know, this is you and me both. Dad.
Goodness.
All right, guys, thank you very much for joining us on this one.
And, Thomas, thank you very much for
I know this is so weird, I that we're talking in interview.
Thank you for joining me on challenge accepted. Thomas.
Yeah, yeah.
No, but I. Think this was cool.
And, I really appreciate it, too.
You know, this has been near and dear to my heart.
It's been something I've been thinking about for years.
And, you know, it's like I'm just anybody out there
who's wanted to start something and you're like, I don't know.
You've been tiptoeing around it just.
Yeah, just take a step, you know, like, just try to look up something
on the internet, you know, call somebody who maybe knows a little bit about that.
Look up.
I have some books that exist. I don't know, Yelp it.
Who knows.
You better. Yeah. There you go.
Does exist. Who knows?
Yeah.
But it's just take little steps in this. Yeah.
This life, you never know what the opportunities
are going to show up
and what you're going to be able to do and where you're going to go, you know,
getting to meet you and starting challenge accepted and joining geek freaks and,
you know, going to different conventions and hanging out with you in person.
It's like none of that would have existed if I didn't if we didn't just take steps
and make a podcast and then take steps to, like, start a new podcast.
And, you know, it's just amazing where these roads have taken me far
beyond what I'd ever thought I'd be able to do again.
Because never thought I'd be able to do anything again at one point in my life.
And then here we are.
So to all of you listening, like, just take one step.
It's just, yeah, this life is amazing.
There are amazing people out there. Sure.
You know, there's things to be afraid of and skeptical about.
And there I'm not saying there's not bad things in the world, but but maybe
just focus a little bit on the next step and a little bit of positivity.
It's just a little thing that could brighten your day,
because I guarantee you, the more you start looking for it, the more you see it.
There we go again guys.
Much more on the second podcast out today.
Links in the description. Make sure you follow up on that.
All right guys we'll see you on the next one.
Bye. Aloha.