The Freedom to Choose

Full transcript

Automatic transcript, lightly corrected for names, with profanity masked. Some passages may contain transcription errors.

Welcome to Inner Circle. I'm Mike Brown joined by my dear friend Kevin Dahlstrom, who is a member of my Inner Circle. And that's the whole idea behind this podcast is that we're having the conversations that Kevin and I wax philosophical on anyway. Today's topic is inspired by a trip I recently took. I went to Kentucky for spring break and I got to set the stage here. Last year for spring break, we went to Cabo. We stayed at a five-star resort. We blew it out. It was amazing. And my wife suggested we go visit my parents and my brother in Kentucky for spring break and I. I was kind of bummed. I was like, oh, but I wanted to go to the resort again. and I got there and the cousins mobbed my kid. They started playing. They ran around for,

five days on my brother's property in Kentucky. They fished. They hiked. They caught frogs. They went in the canoe. They had the best trip of their lives and we had an amazing trip with my parents and my brother just slowing down, talking about deep conversation. You know, talking about deep topics. And the insight was a lesson that is obvious. It's almost too obvious to be true, but it's the best things in life for free. And compared to this five-star or Mexico resort epic trip, the basically free other than price of plane tickets to Kentucky trip was equally epic. And I even, you know, I think about this stuff a lot and still get caught

And so whatever you need to do to connect with your kid is going to be a magical experience. I know, you posted again recently about, I think you spent like 20 hours last weekend playing a video game with your son. And you thought maybe you'd get some hate for that. But in a cool way people were like, yeah, that's awesome. And again, if you're connecting with your son, does it get any better than that? Yeah. Well, so that one was actually my daughter and she's eight. And I did, I did sort of try to bait Twitter by saying I spent 20 hours this weekend playing a video game with my daughter. the first thing is she had some teeth pulled. She actually had surgery and like couldn't

go run around and play. So that's why we chose to play a video game all weekend. But I mean, we, we played all weekend and it was this cooperative game. It was her first like real story based game. And we had the absolute best time. Like I think it was one of the deepest connections I've ever had with my daughter. We had such a great time. And you know, the point that I was trying to make is that there's a right way to parent. Like, like if I, people believe there's a right way to parent. If I posted that I went camping or it's actually the same. And that's the point. And what happened restored my faith in humanity,

at least at least X's humanity because all these parents were like, Oh my God, I love gaming with my kids too. And it was just like a really cool moment of like, there's no right way to do it as long as you're connecting with your kid. And outside the context of parenting, connecting with other humans. And so I posted something was completely unrelated, but, but I'm going to tie it in. I said, you know, when I used to be a big executive and these big companies, one of the companies I worked for, we had a suite at Cowboys Stadium for NFL games. And I had unlimited access. I could go whenever I wanted. And I would go sometimes and it was amazing. Like I wrote, you know, leather recliners, prime rib, private bathrooms. But every time I went, I noticed something, which is the people on the other side of the privacy glass were having more fun. And because I think it's something about

this idea of, you can't buy the best experiences, because they're participatory. Right? Like you could have watched your daughter and a friend of hers play that video game. And you bought the set. You maybe, you know, gave them some nice food and whatever created a comfortable environment, but you participated, which took out, you did the hard thing, which is the work, and that made all the difference. Yes. There is absolutely a place for luxury and, and going and blowing it out. And I'm so glad that we had the Mexico trip. And I'm so glad that we had the Kentucky trip. And, and both can be true. And this is, you know, I think we're, where people, get it wrong, is they get trapped in, in being myopic about only one belief, right? If we say the best things in life are free, that means I have to only go on,

on Farm vacations for the rest of my life. No, I'm gonna probably go to the resort again next. Right. I want to have experiences, but I want to be free to choose which one it is. Yeah. I call those contrast vacations. So like my wife and I are big on this and one that I talk about a lot is last September for one of our friends, 50th, birthday, we went and hiked and then we flew to Vegas and had a five-star dinner. We're in the number one spa in the world the next day. That contrast gives you perspective. Like each thing makes the other better. Another example, I got so many examples, but I love, is two years ago, I, so I had this thing

for both of my daughters when they're teenagers, I told them they can pick any location in the world. I'll take them there, just them and I, and I'll pay for for a, they, they they set the itinerary. My younger daughter wanted to do the Orient Express, which I thought was pretty cool. It was, like speck we took this luxury train to, and I asked, the sun was setting and I asked my daughter, I said, what was your favorite memory of this trip? She said said actually right now. So the $30 coffee was her memory from a amazing

trip that cost a lot. To your point, both were great, but I think too often we focused too much on just the,, the stuff you can buy and and forget about the simple pleasures. Yeah, and in this, I mean, obviously it's a cornerstone of your philosophy, right, is getting out. Sure, you've got to spend some money to buy a rack of rock climbing gear, but it's sort of a one time investment. And you get you get a lot of smiles and miles out of that deal. And, you know, at the same same time, like, it's not, it's not, it doesn't have to be one or the other. And as it, like, this is something that is constantly top of mind for, you know, the clients that I work with,

the community that I run is, you know, how do we raise kids where we have both experiences, experiences, right. Like, I want to show my kids the best in the world and some of the amazing exotic vacations that we never took as a kid. And I don't want them to normalize that as a standard. Like I still want to do, you know, camping and, and you know, farm life and all of that. How do you think about showing your kids that contrast in a way that, you know, is, is meaningful for them? Yeah. Well, it ain, it ain't by telling them anything, because we all know like anything you tell kids goes in one ear and out the other. Everything and parenting is about modeling for me. And I joke with my family sometimes that my kids are almost to an alarming degree. My kids

are convinced we're broke. We're not, you know, spoiler, we're not broke. But I think it's because of the way my wife and and this is going to sound, you know, like a Brag, but you know, we live a very simple life we have a really nice house like you do. But beyond that, you know, the way I spend my time, the way my wife spends her time, they know what they've experienced. And Ie I think those incredible indulgences are amazing. It's amazing to be able to show stuff like you said, I didn't get to do that stuff as a kid. But to me. It's like, the 90, 10 rule, like that's maybe 10% at best. The other 90 percent, should be the simple, seemingly mundane

mundane stuff that it turns out are the best experiences like, you know, we live in Colorado. For me, going and climbing a flat iron with my daughter is a peak and she would say the, same thing. That doesn't cost anything except a little bit of skill and a lot of effort. Yeah, I mean and I think it's a lot of fun., right. One of those days is some wild blowout experience. And four of them are to be the

I'm saying this out loud for the first time, but I think that might be the ratio. If we apply it, it's 80-20. 20% blowout experiences are going to make that lasting and 80% being present, being truly there as a parent in the mundane. When you're playing soccer in the yard with your kid can be equally as amazing at some point wealth actually becomes a block to some of the best experiences. I always think about the CEO I worked worked with. He's a friend of mine, super nice guy. He was worth nine well into nine figures, let's just say. But I got I got to a little glimpse into his life and how his family lived their day-to-day and the way they

traveled in particular. And one trip in particular, I went with them to New York because I was with him. We got to fly private. We had a driver at our beck and call the whole time. We stayed at the will. We had backdoor. Access to Michelin star, restaurants, whatever. And it dawned on me during that trip. I actually had to get out of the hotel at some point and go for a walk through the streets because it dawned on me that this guy had experienced New York. And we all know like New York is one and places where like the grittiness is what makes the place people yelling at the noise, the cars, the little bodegas, whatever. And he had never experienced that and he never will because he lives in somewhat of a gilded cage. And so, you know, obviously having money is better than not.

But I do I truly believe at some point it starts to become a block and it's so important for us to go to Kentucky metaphorically and ground ourselves so we don't forget that. Yeah. And this is, you know, it's ironic almost in a certain way like Yeah. And this is, you know, it's ironic almost in a certain way, like, you know, my son right now is obsessed with fishing. He's 13. He loves fishing. It's, you know, he's watching when he's not out fishing, he's watching fishing YouTube videos like he's just he's obsessed. But we can do that because I built a lot of, you know, we all live in this awesome spot that now allows him to connect to nature doing the simple things.

And there is something kind of ironic about that, you know, like having a private But at the same And then, you, you know, it's just like he's not giving a s*** who you are. It's totally indifferent to who you are. And that's one of the things I love about about. It's very humbling, very grounding. And so, so, so, you know, Why does if you're listening out there, why does

Why does any of this matter and I would say the reason this matters is because including moderation, it really changes the economics, like you, you know, the fancy car, the fancy

the You know, 350 plus successful founders at this point. So I've talked to a lot of rich people, people, financial, successful people. Here's what I basically found. Number. Number Number.

And Not even close, right? I mean, and yes, so I always wanted, you know, that is a lot of money, right. 30 you know

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