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Getting After It
‘Getting After It' is not just a podcast – it's a journey of growth and self-improvement.
It's a weekly discussion where fun, wisdom, and innovation blends with practical strategies, and stories of personal triumph. Here, learning is a lifelong experience and I firmly believe that while knowledge can be taught, you have to apply and execute to see results.
Our guests vary widely in their careers, hobbies, and pursuits, ranging from entrepreneurs to creatives, adventurers, and beyond. These different perspectives provide listeners with an enlightening view of success and fulfillment from different walks of life.
The aim? To fuel your ambition, stimulate your curiosity, and provide actionable advice to help you to reach the goals you set for yourself.
Welcome to 'Getting After It' - the podcast that aims to help you on your journey of personal growth.
Getting After It
078: Michael Washington – Captain at Allegiant Air
Today, we're sitting down with Michael Washington, a guy who went from navigating gang-ridden streets to navigating the skies. As an Allegiant captain and dedicated foster parent, Michael’s story isn’t just inspirational—it’s a lesson on resilience, humility, and unwavering faith.
Growing up in some of the toughest neighborhoods, he could have easily taken a different path. But with faith as his compass and authenticity as his co-pilot, Michael turned his life into a beacon of hope. We learn how he embraced his own narrative and found positivity even when the odds were stacked against him.
We learn how faith and self-reflection shaped his life. He talks about growing up in a black church in Arkansas. Michael’s take on commandments? They’re not just rules; they’re life’s cheat codes, guiding us toward a higher purpose.
We dive into his involvement in foster care and parenthood, where Michael opens up about the challenges and rewards that come with the territory. Then, we take to the skies, exploring his thrilling adventures in aviation. From close calls to navigating restricted airspaces Mike's done it all.
We wrap up this episode by celebrating the power of community and persistence. Michael’s journey reminds us that life’s most incredible transformations come from faith, service, and a willingness to keep pushing forward. So, whether you’re facing tough times or just need a dose of inspiration, Michael’s story is proof that with the right mindset, you can soar to new heights.
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Remember, this podcast is all about you—the dreamers and the doers. I’m here to give you a platform to be heard, find inspiration, and learn from others who dared to chase their dreams.
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Your dreams are within reach. You just have to decide to Get After It.
Welcome back to Getting After it, everybody. I'm excited for you to sit down today and listen to the conversation I had with Michael Washington, who is a Legion captain, and we talk a lot about our faith and about the rules we live our lives by, and we also discuss things like being your own best version of you, so you can be there to serve other people and hear experiences about Michael growing up in gang-ridden neighborhoods and him being a foster parent and just learning from his experiences. So I hope you take something from this episode. Hope you can learn and enjoy.
Speaker 2:I've never done a podcast until the last time we did a podcast and I'm not even a big person that's a speaker unless it's about something I love, which is airplanes. I love kids. But after the last one I was like that was just a good vibe, and we don't have a lot of good vibes in today's time. Absolutely. Even when you try to have a good vibe, there's always somebody or something that's trying to discourage that. But vibe, it's something that people need to hear. It's not fluff, it's real.
Speaker 1:It's 100% real. That's the thing, too, that I've realized with this podcast. Before we go, I'm just going to introduce you real quick.
Speaker 2:We have.
Speaker 1:Michael Washington on again. I'm very excited we get this opportunity to record another podcast. We tried and I had some technical difficulties, but we're back at it in person, so that can't happen this time. But, um, going back to what you're saying, yeah, it's like everyone has a story to tell and you can learn something from everyone. It could be the person on the side of the street, yes, or it could be, you know, warren buffett or anyone like you.
Speaker 2:Someone has an experience you can learn from and there are so many experiences out there and I think a lot of times they need to be told, but we're shy about being vulnerable to tell your story Because if you open yourself up. It's hard, even if it's relationships or whatever. So your story you have to be careful. And then sometimes, if you wanna tell your story, people get offended.
Speaker 2:Like I don't want to hear that. Are you trying to tell me what to do? It's just positive, but a lot of times people are not ready to hear your story. That's another good one they need to hear, but if you're not in the right mindset it does no good.
Speaker 1:They're not ready you can't convince them to get ready. No, no, and you can't.
Speaker 2:But you, sometimes we can be good friends, good co-workers, yeah, good associates, just by kind of hanging back. It's kind of like following someone, like I'm gonna hang back maybe two, three car lengths because when they need you you're right there. Yeah, you know. So I kind of look at like that too. So just hang loose.
Speaker 1:You know, just sometimes they're not ready yet, and so I fully agree with that, and you never know when someone will reach out and be like, hey, I need some help. There's this, uh, I can't remember who said it in our church, but there's this quote. I think it's, uh, his name's henry b iring and he has this quote where he says if you assume someone's going through they're, they're going through like a hard time, you'll be right. 95% of the time it's like, yeah, everyone's going through something.
Speaker 2:It is, and it's not anything to be ashamed of. That's just life. Talking about your church, nothing. The Bible talks about days being full of flowers and roses. I think that's kind of a misconception about pretty much any religion, and it doesn't have to be a specific one. I hadn't read everybody's book or whatever, but I do know that nobody talks about everything is just perfect. No, that's not the way it is.
Speaker 2:But it does talk about challenges and how iron sharpens iron and makes you tougher, whatever it talks about things like that, but these white picket fences and flowers, it's not real but those things can come, and they do sometimes, but that's not the way it's designed for us. But not thinking too deep in religion, but that's just not the way it's designed.
Speaker 1:It's not going to happen you can go as deep as you want it's just not because we won't.
Speaker 2:The Bible talks about you won't appreciate anything if it's given to you. You know, if I did it, what do I need God for? And that we see it all the time? We're all guilty. I don't care who you are, you have a good week. And on Friday evening, look what I did this week.
Speaker 1:It's like you didn't do that and God's like you didn't do that and God's like okay, we're going to do this again.
Speaker 2:He just had this discussion last week. We're going to do it again. Okay, all right, Wait till tonight. Then 100% Flat tire Right out of the gas, whatever you like.
Speaker 1:So I work here in this building and I do sales here, and so like sometimes I will have the worst month ever and like no one's responding to me, like I can't get anything scheduled, and it's just like so frustrating. But that's those times. I'm always like all right, god, I'm going to do the work, I'm going to put it all forward. I'm just going to need you to help me out here. He always does.
Speaker 2:Every time and the thing about it. I think we should be arrogant about it because you know it's going to happen. Yeah, I mean you really should be arrogant about your walk and your faith. You're like you know what. He's going to take care of me if I'm obedient. It's still some work that has to be done, but for the most part, he's going to take care of you. He's going to take care of you. Now we get confused sometimes. We want to be taken care of a certain way. It's like no, no, no, no, no. That's not what I want for you. When they say our prayers need to be godly prayers, I say I don't think God prayed for hitting the jackpot in a lot of them. I don't think that would have happened.
Speaker 2:That might not be happening. I'm just kind of throwing it out there. I don't think that was a godly prayer, but we just need to be upfront about it. Understand that if we can wake up in the morning and the sun hits our face, it's another day to get it right. It's another day to try. It's another day to help someone out. I think we talked about this last time that sometimes you come into work and somebody in the back of this building that watches you every day. You have a good day, they have a good day. You have a bad day, they have a bad day, they have a bad day. You may not ever meet this person, but because of who you are, they feed off of you. Yeah, and I'm not knocking them for doing it, but this is going to say that when we get up in the morning with our clothes on, ok, let's try to have a good day, because we're still helping people and changing people. We don't even know it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's what's powerful about it.
Speaker 1:I fully agree with that. I just read a book. It's called the Right Thing Right Now. It's by Ryan Holiday and he studies Are you familiar with the Stoics? He's like a modern-day philosopher, so he's taking all these teachings from all these great philosophers. And there's this principle he talks about about being who you are and being true to your character and how. It doesn't matter who you are, people are watching you and so your actions should kind of reciprocate and be the example of like hey, I say I'm this, I act this way in the dark, like what you do in the dark matters, because there are always not meaning to interrupt, but this is real powerful right here, Because there are some people that want to attach to you, but part of them is like you're fake, You're a fraud.
Speaker 2:I know there's something wrong about you. And they're waiting to find that one thing wrong about you. Like I knew it. I knew you can't be happy all the time. It's like you say be who you are in the daylight, be who you are in the dark, because there will come a time where they're like you know what? Yeah, you are the real deal.
Speaker 2:I'm not perfect, but I'm here for you. But sometimes, like you say, it's that vulnerability I want to test myself. But I don't know. You can't be smiling that much, you can't be that happy it's impossible. You can smile even during the trouble times. You totally can.
Speaker 1:I think that helps you get through it.
Speaker 2:Exactly Just like okay, here we go. Also, your conversation. This is just my personal thing. I was always taught that we all have a different conversation with God. My conversation may not be the same as your conversation, cause I know my conversation sometimes but, like Michael, you know better than that. Like, oh yeah, you're right. Oh goodness, we just had this discussion last week. Yeah, we did. And I think I really have these hard conversations Like what am I going to do with you?
Speaker 1:Yeah God, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't even know why I did that and I feel like my conversations are like really, really hard. You know, driving to work, coming home from work, I had my best ones. Like oh yeah, I did do that, didn't I?
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that's important, though, Like that self-evaluating it is.
Speaker 1:Making sure that you read is like always making sure you're staying true to your character, and for me, my faith has been a huge. It's taken a huge role in my life and has guided me into like where I am today, and I like looking back. You know, we have the commandments, we have all these things that some people look at as restrictions, but I think when you understand them, they're protections, like, and you know, know what's keeping you in line. And, I have to say it, a lot of that was like godly fear, like, oh, I know I don't want to mess up, I want to do the best I can, I want to be judged rightfully for my actions, and a lot of that is like you said, sometimes self-evaluating isn't the most fun thing to do, so you've got to have those conversations.
Speaker 2:But no, I mean, I totally agree with that, because we all talk about judgment day. We're going to be judged, whatever.
Speaker 1:This is not a free ride.
Speaker 2:I mean, I know what the Bible says when we talk about give unto you this and that, but you can't have a life of chaos and then show up like, all right, I'm ready. How long do we have? Let's open up this book. A lot comes of that. We're not here for ourselves. We're here to spread the word of whatever you believe. It's just not a free ride. It's not. Like you said, there is a fear of God, there should be a fear of God. It's just not a free ride. You know it's not. And so, like you say, yeah, we, there is a fear of God, there should be a fear of God. Yeah, you know, because he's a jealous guy, I can't make this up. It's in the book, right?
Speaker 1:there, it's true.
Speaker 2:You know, but he will pour onto you like nothing else. Yeah, we just have to do right, that's right.
Speaker 1:And a do-right. That's right, Do-right by others too. There's a I don't know if you've ever read the Book of Moria, but I'm sure you're familiar with it. There's this phrase that it says throughout the entire book. It says if you keep my commandments, you shall prosper in the land. It's that simple.
Speaker 2:It doesn't get any better than that. You're going to tell me this is all I have to do. Yeah, alright, tell me this is all I have to do. Okay, there's no confusion. The blueprint is there. Of course, that doesn't mean it's going to be easy, but he's saying it.
Speaker 1:I mean, while we're on the topic of religion, I always like learning about where you first started learning about faith and when you decided to take it seriously.
Speaker 2:I'm just a good old country boy from Arkansas. I grew up and if you call it a black church, that's what it was. I grew up in an African Methodist Episcopal church and you went to church a lot Sunday morning, sunday school, sunday during the day, main service, go home, come back. Evening service. Saturday you had youth board or something you had choir practice on Tuesday nights. It was one of those things where youth board or something you had choir practice on Tuesday nights.
Speaker 1:I mean it was yeah, that's intense.
Speaker 2:It sounds like ours a little bit so it was one of those things where you're brought up in it but, like I used to teach a Sunday school class but there becomes an age of I call it like, from like 17, 18 to like your mid-30s, where it's I don't want to say it's a lost age, but it's when you start making decisions for yourself. Mom, dad has not forced you anymore. Now it's on you and you have the age because after in their mid-30s, people start coming back to church for whatever reason things happen in life. But for me it was just always going to church, but we I did it so much and you know I believe in the teachings you know and what my parents instilled in me and I truly believe it and so it's always been there. I do remember being in my mid-twenties, going to get baptized on my own, you know, in college, and it was kind of like yeah you know I'm believing, you know what I'm reading, what I'm hearing, I'm like, yeah, it's time for me to do it for myself.
Speaker 2:and ever since then, you know, um, still trying to walk the walk the best I can, yeah, but it's just always been there, you know, it's just always been there and I mean that's kind of my experience too, like from my early age.
Speaker 1:I went to church with my parents and um got to the point to where I was about to graduate high school and in our church it's like as soon you graduate you go and serve a mission, and I was 18 at the time. I don't think I had I had long hair in high school like down to my shoulders? I don't think I did it when I was a senior.
Speaker 2:But, um, I had to start taking it seriously and I was like, all right, well, I've kind of relied on everyone else's testimonies and teachings and now it's time for me to like, take that ownership and find out if it's true, and haven't looked back since and I think not to take away from your question, but I think that's so amazing because I remember or a 17 year old Michael me making a decision like that yeah, okay, no, I'm gonna continue going to trick, I have to go, but I mean, I just wasn't there, mentally I wasn't, it was just there, but I just didn't have that true for myself connection until later on.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and I think that I mean that's. You know we were talking that everyone has something to learn from. You can learn something from everybody. Like maybe you going through different experiences early on in your age was different from like me going on a mission and now we're sitting here learning from you.
Speaker 2:It's full circle because, like you say, if you stay true to your teachings of what you've been hearing and then when you can kind of implement it in life things you've seen you're like oh, wow, yeah that is serious. That is true, and so you have to make a decision. Is it just a fluke or that really the hand of God on me? You know, I've oh my goodness gracious Kind of back to growing up. I mean, I grew up in a gang infested neighborhood, and when I say infest I mean infested in Arkansas.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it was bad Right around 90, 1991. Arkansas oh yeah, it was bad Right around 1991, the latter part up until like 94, it had the up to like 96, had the highest per capita murder rate Really Highest in LA, whatever.
Speaker 1:What part of Arkansas? Little Rock Dead Center? What made it?
Speaker 2:so bad was. You know, it's kind of like you grow up with something Out in LA and California. You grow up with this stuff. We're a bunch of country kids in Arkansas and so when the drugs and the gangs hit, people gravitated to it and it was bad. I mean I went to school with 12, 13-year-old kids with a pocket full of money and guns and everything. That's crazy. We had security searches but they were so random you just never know. But I mean I saw it firsthand and that was just at know. But I mean I saw it firsthand and that was just at school. So now you got to come home and deal with this in the neighborhood, yeah. But I know God is real.
Speaker 2:My mom prayed on, my dad prayed over me. But even the people in my neighborhood, they wouldn't take me along with the stuff they did. Really, could you not? They looked after me. They would do all kind of chaotic stuff, like, oh, I want to go, like no, no, no, mike, you need to stay here, yeah, and so they had that much respect for my family and my mom that they would not take me. So they're part of the reason I'm here, because how is it that I grew up with everybody and I've never been in jail and some of my friends on their second third strike because they were like, no, you don't need to go with us. And looking back, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you how you stayed strong, but it sounds like you had people looking at you the whole time.
Speaker 2:I mean they kept me around just enough to the point where I'm like, yeah, so I don't know what they saw in me. I don't know if it was out of respect for my mom or what it was, but they never let me go. And so I look back now and like my neighborhood is gone. I mean it's desolate now. You know, yeah, they've pretty much deaded it, whatever. But you know, names and faces are still in my head. It's all gone. You know, yeah, but it was bad. It was truly, truly bad. That's crazy man. I mean. Oh, my goodness gracious.
Speaker 1:I mean my dad's told me some stories he lived in la during like the rodney king, uh riots and everything like that, and he was just he would tell me these stories. And I'm like man, it's just, for me it's sad to hear stories like that because you know like how much hate and how much like anger people have. That makes them do terrible acts.
Speaker 2:Well, it starts in here. When we're adults, we hope to have some sort of a conscience, but it's something that's learned, that's taught or whatever. Imagine having so much hate and when you're a kid you don't have that yet. So these kids were dangerous. I mean 12, 13 years old. They didn't have a conscience. I mean they would just shoot you. Nothing told them that that was wrong. They knew it was wrong, but it was just like it's not there yet, and so that was what was scary about it. You know, I knew a kid.
Speaker 2:They used to have these called starter jackets back in the early 90s and they had like NFL teams, nba teams, whatever, and this kid had a starter jacket. A girl hopped out and said, hey, give me your jacket. He gave it to her but he said hey, can I have my brush back? She didn't like the way he said it. No way, he already had the jacket but because he asked for the brush back, killed him. Kid's gone forever, so sad.
Speaker 2:So what's in her head? What does she see at home? Because the basic underline formula of a gang is just acceptance. If you don't get acceptance at home, you'll get acceptance somewhere, and that's what people don't understand. I mean to root out a lot of this stuff. We've got to start at the bottom. We've got to start with the kids as early as possible, and so as parents I'm not knocking, I'm a parent, but we all raise our kids differently but if we don't put those foundations in there, they get older. That's something else. So imagine your streets are flooded with poverty, but somebody over here has a pocket full of money.
Speaker 1:Your stomach is growling.
Speaker 2:You never know. You got to make a decision. Your stomach is growling the right thing to do but I want to eat. You know I go home. My mom was yelling at me. But this guy over here it's show me all kind of love. Ok, he wants me to rob this person or steal, but he's still showing me love. How do you compete with it? We can talk all day about the right thing, but over here is action.
Speaker 1:That's a good point. What do you do? Because I know, like Ali's told me, you are a foster parent.
Speaker 2:How'd you start getting into that? So my little, my little brothers and sisters, they all came from foster care and so when I think I was in college, I started having. I just love those little guys to death. There's something else now, but I love them to death, you know. And just to be able to see that part of society being able to see that part of of my parents to be able to take in someone else, yeah, and so fast forward and I got older and I got married.
Speaker 2:We always talked about it, you know, and it got to a point where in life that if you don't do something, who else is gonna do it. It and I'm not saying I'm all great, I'm not, but at the end of the day, I can't fuss that someone got me at gunpoint and stole my wallet if I don't do something about it. So how about I get some of these kids and start teaching them the right thing? The person I may save might be myself. In 50 years from now, the life I save may be my own, because I took the time to spend time with a child that wasn't mine and try to show them a little bit of love, try to show them the best way possible. We just always just try.
Speaker 2:Kids didn't actually be here, but they're here. What are we going to do? We can talk about it, talk a big game, or we're going to put action to do. We can talk about it, talk a big game, or we're going to put action to it. And so we did foster care in Florida, came out of Utah, did foster care and I'm sure we go back to Florida We'll do foster care again At some point.
Speaker 1:I have to stop because I can't be. You know, I love them too much.
Speaker 2:I never want to stop at some point, but I just love kids. I love them to death and I don't want to see anyone, let alone a child, in pain. Yeah, and some of the stories you hear and you see dealing with foster care, it's like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, you shouldn't have to go through that and so if I can give them a little bit of rest or sleep, come on. I mean, and basically that's what it's all about when you get these kids, sometimes kind of off subject, when you get them their first night they sleep, I mean once they get calmed down.
Speaker 2:Because they're not used to it. Well, they're not used to it and it's peace. There's no yelling, there's nobody knocking on their door trying to come in their room or come in their bed or whatever. If they can get a little bit of trust in you that first night, they'll sleep to noon the next day and get up and just wake up and be like, oh, you're still here, I'm still here.
Speaker 1:Hey, what's up.
Speaker 2:What you guys want to eat or whatever. It's kind of like, wow. And that doesn't always work Because each kid has their own story. But if you could just give them a little bit of a reset, just like, oh goodness, it's been a rough cause it's always a rough day when they get removed. That first day is rough, and so why not try to help out? Yeah, I mean the basic premise of it just be helpful, be helpful.
Speaker 1:You know, we, we, we're here to have a servant attitude you're a servant.
Speaker 1:I mean I love that there's a man. I keep going back to this book. But there's a story in that book the right thing right now where it talks about this like, super wealthy wife, she married this rich guy and she's kind of spent her entire life partying and taking everything on a silver platter and has servants that do, like, all our chores in the house, like, take care of the kids. So she just lives like a party life, yeah, exactly. And then one day she's she realizes she's not happy and so she goes. She's talking to all these doctors and the doctors are like, yeah, we don't know what's wrong with you, you seem fine.
Speaker 1:And then one doctor sits down with her and says, hey, I think what you have to do is realize that the world can't all be glitter and sunshine all the time. Like that's not how it works. And she goes well, that's what I want. Like I just want the glitter and sunshine. And he's like the glitter and sunshine will still be there, but you'll be giving it to someone else else. Like you'll be the person making the fire now. Like it's your turn and I've thought a lot about that. And you bringing up, fostering kids it's like I've learned a lot in my life. I have a lot to be grateful for and there's got to be ways that you know I can give back in my day.
Speaker 1:Maybe you know down the road it could be fostering but, um, I think that's an important thing that we do, because that's how we help the world.
Speaker 2:Exactly If we want to, because we get caught up. We're all human. We get caught up in the world. It's me, me, me. I want my stuff, whatever, and I don't mean to make it sound so bad, but it's just the way it is. I can go in the parking lot right here and I know I saw a a few $80,000 Teslas out there some Benz, whatever, and I'm not knocking.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying that's just the world we live in. But what about if we leave and like, okay, it's Friday. What do I want to do today? You know what? I'm going to go down here to the store Some of that's for money. Here you go, just take what's in my wallet, whatever. How many of us are bold enough to do that? I'm just saying how many of us are bold enough to be vulnerable? Again, a story I had and this happened, and this is nothing, I'm not trying to be great or anything like that Leaving Walmart, I thought you were pretty great.
Speaker 1:No, no, nowhere near it, but this right here.
Speaker 2:it scared me Leaving Walmart and somebody comes to my window knocking and say, hey, you got my family over here, you have the money. I'm like, no, I don't have anything for you, Pull back. And I kid you not. I drove like five feet and it just hit me. I was like, oh, that was a test.
Speaker 2:I spent the next 30 minutes driving up and down every lane of that parking lot looking for them and I found them and I gave them everything in my wallet and said, hey, I, you, whatever. And I saw his wife and his kids over there in the car. Now it's not my job to wonder what they did or whatever, but for whatever reason, I felt like that was a test and that was put on my heart and it scared me to death. I was like I can't believe. I just said that and I'm like I'm not going home until I find these people and give them this money. And sometimes I'm a big proponent of you know, god shows us things. A lot of times we say we don't see it. A lot of times we do see it. It's just not what you thought. And so sometimes we've got to take a deep breath like uh-oh, I think that was a death right there, you know, like uh-oh, you know.
Speaker 1:No, I love that story and it's like I had a similar experience the other day at Smith's. I was just grocery shopping. I grabbed a little basket, didn't have anything in it yet and then this lady comes around the corner and her arms she literally had it all stacked up and I was about to walk past her and then I was like hey, do you want this basket?
Speaker 1:It's a little thing, small, thing, and I was like you know what Allie and I pray every single day to serve. And who am I if I don't act on those opportunities?
Speaker 2:Oh, you said it right the opportunity, opportunities to serve. How awesome is that? I mean, this is what I'm trained to do. I got an opportunity right there. I better do it. And so it's in your face. I can only imagine. I've never done a mission or anything like that. But I can only imagine this when you're locked in, you're on a mission, this is what I'm ready to do, and you've got to sit there and do it the first time. It's kind of like all right, what?
Speaker 1:do I do? You explained it spot on. Actually, what do I do?
Speaker 2:I talked to all my friends here and I looked at the camera and I'm like, oh, there's some kids on missions. Hey, what's going on? I caught them off guard. They were like, uh, and they tried to look down. I don't know if they had a script or whatever. I was like, yeah, man, what's going on? Man, how's the mission going? You got a servant here, you got to need me water, caught him on guard and then my son James was trying to give him a high five and fist bumps. I'm like I can't talk today because the kids are acting wild. I said, but if you come back tomorrow, you can sit down and I'll talk your ear off. And so I talked to some of my other friends that did the mission. They were like dude, you probably made their day.
Speaker 1:They were like anytime someone would say that to us, we're like wait, really Like you want us to come back.
Speaker 2:Okay, no, but no. To be trained to serve and be able to put it in action, this has to be just amazing.
Speaker 1:It is an amazing experience, experience like all my brothers have served missions, my dad did and you go out a boy and you come back a man. Really it's like the biggest thing.
Speaker 2:I've heard that one of my best friends who's here. He said he won a mission. He literally, when they came back, got in the driveway he said, just broke down. Yeah, and mom was like you, okay, it was just like he's like, it was just so much, he had gone through so much. I came back home, they just broke down. It was like so much he had gone through so much and came back home and he just broke down. It was like wow.
Speaker 2:And some of the stories. It seems like every time someone does a mission they have stories. I had a friend of mine and I won't call his name because I'm not sure when he's ever going to tell the story out but they were at a village somewhere I don't know if it's Venezuela or something, but long story short, took the boat over, dropped someone else, came back, the boat capsized, was stuck in the water for two or three hours and he said all right, this is it. He said. I literally told him this is it, this is how it's going to happen, or whatever. And he could hear boats. They were searching for him, couldn't find him. He said out of the blue, this boat was coming towards him, he's waving, and it was like I guess when you're on a mission, you have a leader or someone that's kind of in charge of you for that group.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's like a district leader, a zone leader.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it might have been someone like that and he's like I don't know why I came this way. But they picked him up, whatever. And took him back to the village and all the locals were waiting because they had heard. He said they were just praying, whatever. And he said what made it so powerful? He said I made it back, but you know, they had a little refrigerator and they had water up in there. He said they don't ever use that water. I mean that's like a privilege. And they gave him that water and he was like wow, because they might not see cold water again for months. And so someone brings it over him for months. And so someone brings it over, but he tells that story. He's like man. It was just I had a buddy of mine. He said they were on a mission in Nashville. Someone put a gun on them Shotgun, that's insane.
Speaker 1:He's like what do you do?
Speaker 2:He said brush yourself off. Next thing you get up, keep going.
Speaker 1:And so I hear these stories.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like man going to mission is kind of intense, like man going to mission is kind of intense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my brother, he had a gun pulled on him in, uh, chester, pennsylvania. Uh, my other brother, he served in new york, new york, and so he drunk people would kiss him all the time.
Speaker 1:It's crazy, but I served in minnesota, so it's like I just had really nice people. You're like, hey, all right. Yeah, one time I did eat a frozen hot dog with a bunch of cat hair all over it. This is in a double wide trailer. This lady had 13 cats, four dogs and 12 rabbits in a double wide and while she was cooking dinner for us, the cats were crawling all over the countertop and I was like, all right, this is my challenge.
Speaker 1:Exactly Del's delayed, but it was a good time and I think, yeah, that taught me a lot about just like the world's, about other people. It is, yes, it's important to make money and take care of your family, but when it comes down to it, that's not what brings lasting happiness.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, money is a tool. It's not something that we should celebrate for. Money can bring about things, sometimes can make things easier. It's a tool. It's only worth as much as somebody's willing to accept it. For If I bring you a dollar bill and you say it's worth $100, I guess it's worth $100. If it's worth $0.50, it's worth $0.50.
Speaker 1:It's just whatever we put a value on, like you say at the end of the day being raised in Arkansas, walmart Sam Walton, they say.
Speaker 2:Up until he died he would be downtown Benville in an old beat-up truck. The truck is still up there at the museum. Had a big den in the left side door and he's right there with overall on the front steps twiddling with his friends.
Speaker 1:Richest man in the world.
Speaker 2:Richest man in the world and he's out there with his friends, you know. And so, like you say, when it's done, you can't take that with you. That's true, you can leave your kids all the money, but if you don't leave them any foundation about how to be respectful with this, I'm leaving you. It does no good, you know. Um, I mean that's and the scary part about it, let's be honest. We could pass today. Your tombstone will be visited for maybe one or two generations after that it's true, nobody knows who you are yeah, they don't.
Speaker 1:There's a? Uh, there's a quote. His name is chris williams. Somebody always says you're three people away from being forgotten, or three generations away from being forgotten. Oh, it's done.
Speaker 2:It's done, and I mean we talk about history now because some of our forefathers, they did great things, but we're 2024. Yeah, when we're gone, nobody's going to think about us. That's true. They don't care about a cell phone. A lot of people, yeah, they'll all be gone, they don't care about this stuff. And so, you know, what legacy do we leave? Yeah, you know, what did our kids learn? What did our coworkers learn? What did our spouses learn? What do we put in place that will help two or three generations? I mean, that's what it really boils down to.
Speaker 1:I agree. It's almost like you're planting seeds of knowledge. And I guess one question I would have for you is like what do you think one lesson to teach kids should be like a main focus for parents?
Speaker 2:To be patient and I don't mean to rush my answer, but that kind of puts into a lot of things. Being patient will teach you about money management. Being patient is save for it and not blowing the money you just got on your allowance. Being patient about even if it's a diet, you work out, you run whatever. Be impatient. You know good and well that before you can run 10 miles, you have to run two. You're going to hurt yourself Very much. So Be impatient when things happen at home. Be impatient with your kids when it comes to doing their schoolwork or choosing a school or even choosing what they watch on TV. Yeah, just take a deep breath and everything you know.
Speaker 2:I had a guy used to tell me if you had an emergency in the aircraft, he would always say start to watch the little second hand. There's no rush. Just everything you do being a parent is be patient, because we could be slow and say the right thing or be fast at the wrong thing, and they're going to remember the wrong thing. It's just cute. Every time, goodness gracious, they remember the wrong stuff. But my one thing would be just be patient. Yeah, be patient with them because we were kids. They're kids, right, we did stupid stuff. They're going to do stupid stuff you know, you can't just immediately blow up on this kind of like okay.
Speaker 2:And you're going to say it two or three times. Be patient, like all right, we just talked about this. You know, I fight my daughter now with her diabetes and sometimes when her machine goes out, she's back to her original shots. She told me last night like hey, how long between my dinnertime shot and my nighttime shot, how long can I go? Like will you take a dinner shot? No, I'm like OK time out.
Speaker 2:I was like all right, you need to take your shot. Ok, we talked about this. You know, come on. You got to Because I was telling my kids I'm a two lane highway of not being here. I mean, we kind of got to pick up the pace a little bit faster on being adults. Yeah, it sucks, but it's the truth. That's true, you know. So you're 13, but you're not a 13 from 1980.
Speaker 1:If you're a 13 year old in 2024, yeah, we got to pick these things up because I'm not always going to be here that's true, and I mean that's one thing that's kind of crazy to think about is like how distracted we are now, and so is it like harder to teach kids patience now than it is in your previous.
Speaker 2:It is extremely hard because when you come home, your child comes home, you have two, three hours with them to before they go to bed or whatever, to instill what you can. They have the rest of the day to have social media, to have TV, have friends, have teachers day to have social media to have TV, have friends, have teachers to have billboards. I mean they get so much data. Oh yeah, it's crazy. I mean, one of my favorite movies from the 80s was Short Circuit. He always said the robot would say I need more input, more input, and they are constantly getting stuff. I mean they come back home like trick-or-treating, it's like whoa.
Speaker 1:What you did what?
Speaker 2:And so you just got to compete, yeah, and you just got to keep. Don't give up. Keep putting in the hard work of trying to do the right thing, say the right thing, yeah.
Speaker 1:Got to be honest. That's one thing I'm like. I keep telling Allie. I'm like when we have kids I'm worried about devices and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:That's a big fear of mine. It's rightfully so, because even if you try to take it away to schools and I'm not here to talk about schools or whatever, but it's the truth I don't have Facebook. I miss out on so much because I don't have Facebook. I go downstairs and I go to McDonald's. What do they say on the side? Facebook. Like us on Facebook, I just order pizza. Like us on Facebook. Your kids go to school. They take a picture. It's on the Facebook page of the school. I'm like.
Speaker 1:I don't want.
Speaker 2:Facebook. I don't want my kids to have Facebook. It's weird. It's like you have to be honest. They make you Stand fast in your rules. Everything is a balance. You know they're going to have technology, okay, but they don't have to have it constantly. That's true. Moderation and all things, Exactly. But at the end of the day, we pray over our kids and we do the best we can and just hope that it clicks one day, Because the truth of the matter is they're teenagers. It won't click, but later on down the line it's going to be like oh my dad said that it's like oh, thank you, it finally clicked.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, yeah, I mean it finally clicked, that's awesome, you know. But yeah, I mean we'll get to that point, but I mean life's a journey.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:You got to love it at every level and it's exciting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, think about it. I mean, how many people have the opportunity to raise another human being to be an asset to society? Who you raise is going to be the one that's going to cure cancer or cure this. Who you raise is going to be the one that's going to save someone from something. We don't know that, and that's what's exciting about the world you could literally raise someone that's going to save someone's life. Yeah, neither one of them are born yet. That's true.
Speaker 1:That's cool, I mean it's like wow, that's intense right there, and it's a small world, so you never know.
Speaker 2:You never know and I think it's awesome. And I tell people if you don't want to have kids, that's great, but if you do, it's exciting. Yeah, I mean, I don't even have the words. It's just so awesome, even during some of the crazy times like oh goodness, gracious, but still it's never a dull. You're raising a little attitude, a little.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what you want to say. I mean, that's the common thread that I hear from everyone is you know it's the hardest thing you'll ever do, but it is the most rewarding thing.
Speaker 2:But I think one reason why it's hard is because we care so much. You can go out here and wreck your car Like, oh, it's a car.
Speaker 2:I'm upset but got to ensure it will be. That is a breathing flesh childhood who you love. Yeah, and that's. You know we're emotional creatures. You know we're flesh and blood. That's true, and that's the part. And, like me, I'm a helicopter parent. Every year I do the same thing. We have little ones and they start school the night before. I can't sleep. Yeah, they're fine, they're like I don't want to school with everyone.
Speaker 2:I am so worried they're going to get bullied at school or the teacher's going to treat them with respect. I mean, I just worry. I worry so much. But two days in they're just. Oh, I had a good day at school.
Speaker 1:It's like oh, thank you, you know, it's finally over, I can imagine that I'm going to be a ball of anxiety for the first couple years, I think, until I get used to it.
Speaker 2:But it's so awesome though you get two people there and both of you guys are like what, what? What? Just like the first night. You bring them home, oh my goodness gracious, and you're so tired. You want to go to sleep, but you're paranoid. You're like I'm still breathing.
Speaker 2:You put your hand over their face, whatever You're like they're still breathing or whatever. It's like you know they have all these rules. You got to feed them this and that we brought Lex, my 13-year-old, home. We were so tired, we fell asleep. We woke up the next morning like at 7 am. We were like, oh, she slept through the night, whatever what just happened. But it's like you said that anxiety. It's like, oh my god, these kids, this is uh well.
Speaker 1:I feel like this is probably safe to say, but I feel like you're pretty calm because you are a pilot and you have a bunch of kids and I think you've understood how to like manage your emotions pretty well.
Speaker 2:It's like experience okay I like that um it's experience, because I'm not always like that, uh, I haven't always been like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's funny you say aviation, small things. Like you know, we go to the simulator twice a year. There were the time where I couldn't stay in a simulator. I'm nervous, I can't take it. And now you just kind of like when are we going to leave? Yeah, because after a while, just like it is what it is, you know, and experience has taught me to be calm. The Bible has taught me to be slow to anger. So you start implementing all these things together and life's kind of like okay, michael, sometimes you're going to blow up, but sometimes like, okay, take a deep breath, whatever, but I like being that way. There was a time when I was in training and I got a phone call from the company. They were like hey, we're going to switch your partners during training, no problem, yeah.
Speaker 1:And she said my sim partner and it was awesome.
Speaker 2:She said I'm going to speak to you because we have a person and I think your demeanor will suit them better during training because you're calm. I, your demeanor will suit them better during training because you're calm. I never forget that. She told me that that's a good compliment and I was like, yeah, no problem, and we rolled through training and she was like I appreciate like, ah, it is what it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I've learned that I don't like to be yelled at. So why yell at other people? That's true, I, I, I want to learn, but sometimes I maybe slowly get something. So why treat people mean or get mad when they're not catching something? Because you think, you know? And Allie, I tell you, she's been a cop a lot of times with me and sitting there and I always tell the person next to me I say, hey, no rush, man, it is what it is. You know, let's just take our time, do it right the first time and we're good. You know, and I think that's in all facets of life. You know, whether you back to your kids or your spouse relationship or whatever, just take a deep breath. We never think good when we're angry, you know. That's not the way our brain works, you know. So, just, I've just learned just be calm, just take a deep breath. All right, what's going on? You know, because things will happen. They're going to continue to happen, and that's true.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, you know. I mean this is Now. It's funny you say experience, though, because, like the more that I've had to go through hard times or, you know, I've had things come up at work that you know make me feel like I want to blow my lid or whatever it's.
Speaker 1:The important thing is to really slow down and to okay this is the situation, but how can I make it better? Oh yeah, um, I think there's just a lot of power in that, and with how fast everything moves in the world, it's like it's rare now to have that opportunity to slow down.
Speaker 2:But there's a lot of power in it it is, and I look at, look at my kids, and I think all except one have been in the hospital for whatever reason, and I don't want to say I'm used to it. But they're the time where it's just like, okay, like my daughter, my oldest she started developing seizures as she got older. Holy cow Still don't know why, really. But I remember one time I'm driving her to work, she starts having a seizure. And I kid you not, I'm holding her and I had a phone right here and I'm trying to drive with my knee. It reversed a phone right here and I'm trying to drive with my knee in reverse, coming back to the house, just like, all right, yeah, I'm here, okay, yeah, this is my address, whatever. And I got back and I let her go and I flew her back in the driveway and I come back and I say come downstairs.
Speaker 1:She's having a seizure again, whatever Well, I was scared. Of course I was scared, but it's kind of like all right, it's in motion. And it's not going to help her.
Speaker 2:It's not going to help her. So we just need to take a deep breath Mike, call the paramedics, get her back, make sure she's not hurting herself over there, and it's just like you know. Life, it really is just life. It's life, I mean. I lost an engine in an airplane one time. I would love to say that I was like oh wow, I already lost the engine. I've got to find somewhere to land. I mean, I literally, was just like you should tell that story.
Speaker 1:What happened in that?
Speaker 2:So I had been in the airlines for like two or three years and I knew a mechanic. He was the nicest guy, he always let me borrow his airplane and a mechanic. An aviation mechanic is like a mechanic for a car the stuff that's there is not in the best shape. It runs but it's not in the best shape. Free airplane, all right. I took a friend flying.
Speaker 1:It's like a little Cessna. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm taking a friend flying and he's in the left seat, I'm in the right seat. I'm just looking down and I heard a and I look, I Like okay, and he was like Mike, what was it like? It's just been a little bit. He was like you're playing. I think we just lost the engines, but okay, it's happening. Yeah, we're in the air, there is no rush. We got fields everywhere. But the way we were flying I knew this area. I say it's a crop, that's just. You're right there, Huh, and so like a few second later I see a crop duster strip. I'm like okay, let's go for it. So I plane, I crank it over, I'm like I'm high, but I think we can make the crop duster strip, and so we have no power. So we're kind of gliding, so you're managing your power and we turn, no way.
Speaker 1:Can't land.
Speaker 2:It's the kid. Call it stupid divine intervention. What does Michael do? Let's do a 360. No engine, we do a 360. We're still in the air. I'm like, okay, it's not going to start, we're still in the air. We come back around and I'm high and I'm planted down. I mean we bounced and man, oh man.
Speaker 1:It's an old plane from the 50s. These older planes you had a brake.
Speaker 2:What's your brake? A handbrake. A handbrake no way, mechanics airplane. I'm glad he think he really worked on that. Oh no, no brakes. Really no brakes. This is crude.
Speaker 2:So, I start turning because they were the cutout down. I start turning and the plane just slaps the path and we bump up. I'm just like what just happened and I'm just like shaking. I'm like this is crazy. And this guy comes out. I'm like, oh man, this guy's going to be mad. I tore up his feel or whatever, whatever. And I'll never forget the voice. He was like dang son, that was awesome man, you need a beer. I was like what we got out in the plane and we could see the batteries and stuff clicking around.
Speaker 2:He was like man, you did a good job, he said. I heard you sputtering overhead and I told my son get out of the way. I mean, it was just like, oh my goodness gracious, and we survived, we survived. And you're here to tell a story and I was just like, oh my goodness gracious, what just happened Scared me to death. Man, that's crazy Things. It scared me to death man yeah that's crazy, things happen.
Speaker 2:But it goes back to what you were saying. It's like it's in motion. Yeah, 100%, we can freak out. We'll be just like, okay, let's take a deep breath. But that was experience. Could I have done it at 10 hours? The same thing at the end at 7,000 hours? Experience talks. It's just like in life. It's just. Experience taught me the right thing. Just take a deep breath, mike, let's see what we have going and it worked out. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to work.
Speaker 1:Exactly, you just got to land it, you just go and grab. It's interesting you say that because Allie's going through that right now.
Speaker 2:She's like every time I step on the plane and take controls, I'm kind of nervous you should be, and it nervous you should, and it's like yeah, it's new like you're gonna be nervous for a while.
Speaker 1:Um, but it's like the same thing. Like I told you, I'm in sales here. When I first started in sales, like cold calling people was just terrifying I can't imagine and I was like they're gonna yell at me every time. I know it. And now it's like part of my day just to go in a room and like make calls for an hour or two, like and I'm used to it now.
Speaker 2:It's easy and I would be terrified with that because I'd be worried about what my bosses are saying. Did you make enough phone calls today? What did you do? I'm just like I'm trying to do the best. I can?
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. I mean, my favorite calls are the ones where it's like I'll start talking to people and they'll hang up. They won't like say anything, and then I'll just like call them right back and I'm like, hey, I think we got disconnected.
Speaker 2:I don't know you gotta make fun of me like I've never heard a disconnect like that yeah, kind of sound like a hang-up, but I mean, I'm sure we did anyway so that's what I'm calling about yeah, and it's always like.
Speaker 1:After that, it's like like no, stop calling me. All right, all right, fine, that's all you had to say. Um, I love it. Yeah, it's like come on, I'm a person too.
Speaker 2:Exactly, I'm just trying to make a living yeah. Just just come over.
Speaker 1:But um, I do have to ask you have you ever encountered a UFO while flying? I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you sworn to secrecy?
Speaker 2:I have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:A UFO.
Speaker 2:Really I don't know. I know nothing about UFOs. You ask any pilot, they'll tell you they know nothing about UFOs. Really I don't know. None of us know what you're talking about. Is it a rule? It's a rule. I'm just going to say it's a rule. You ask any pilot, especially one in an airline, everybody's going to say the same thing. I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:I don't know anything about UFOs. See other airplanes. I was hoping you were going to drop it. Open a can of worms.
Speaker 2:I mean. That being said, I mean no matter what people believe in this and that we all have our own opinions. If you fly up to the northwest of Las Vegas, every feet to one is there. You can see it from the sky. It's obvious, it's right there. You just can't fly over it. They let you fly up against the border or whatever At any altitude is it restricted? Oh yes, the government and state can do eminent domain.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They can do eminent domain over airspace. And when I say from the ground, unlimited 100,000 feet, you better not fly across it, that's crazy and they don't play about that too. I mean some things they let go you touch the airspace, they don't play about it. That being said, there are other places out there in the desert that's a lot more secret than that. It's a place to the south of that where it's a dry lake bed. They say planes are taxiing the mountain. It's like hangar, they're just taxiing the mountain. Nobody ever talks about that. They just talk about that right there from the 50s and 60s.
Speaker 1:Is that Area S4? Is that what it's called?
Speaker 2:I don't know, it's some crazy number. I know it's some out there Even at the Vegas airport, the red and white 7-3s. They fly to Area 51. They have smaller planes but nobody knows where they go At the end of the day. Yeah, they got cool stuff out there. You go down to Palmdale. Right there on the Nevada-California border. Skunk Works has been around since the 50s. I mean, they develop all kind of cool stuff out there and some have funky lights.
Speaker 1:I mean stuff we've. I just want UFOs to be so real. So I was hoping a pilot would tell me.
Speaker 2:When I was going to training in Artesia, new Mexico, we passed through Roswell and they showed us the field. They showed us everything Really. I mean even the McDonald's there, the big UFO. You look it up in Roswell, the McDonald's is the big UFO. That's hilarious. It is the coolest city when you drive down.
Speaker 1:It's just UFOs everywhere.
Speaker 2:It is so awesome.
Speaker 2:It is so awesome, but at the end of the day, I don't know. I can't say right now like, oh heck, no, it's not. Can't say that, yeah, that's fair. Can't say that, you know. I can't say that it is, you know. At the end of the day, I mean, we can go back to biblical time. We don't know what was seen and what was not not seen. We live in a life of translation. It's true, there's paperwork out there that people have written. Can we deny it? To each his own, Fair enough. I've just never seen anything.
Speaker 1:Fair enough.
Speaker 2:It happens.
Speaker 1:I hear there's a big hot spot over where Camp Pendleton is Camp Pendleton, camp Pendleton Camp.
Speaker 2:Pendleton, that's south.
Speaker 1:That's California. Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Wait a minute. No, that's north of San Diego, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, I fly up and down the coast a lot. Of course I don't fly over there at night. You flown though Coolest plane I've ever flown. Coolest plane I've ever flown? Oh yeah, 1946 Piper J3 Cub on floats. Really it was a float plane, float plane, no instruments. The gas gauge is a little tube. It's a little bobble up there. You can tell you have gas. You don't know how fast you're going. You can have the RPM kind of guess. You fly from the back seat. That was the most fun I ever had getting my float plane rating and I did it for my birthday one year, a present to myself, and it was the coolest thing, yeah that's awesome.
Speaker 2:You just go from lake to lake to lake. What's cool about it is when you land on a float plane, you're always watching out for other people because you attract boats. You land on a lake boats are just like.
Speaker 1:Like let me see that thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's going on, you know. What's that right there, you know that's the cool thing about everflame that is Fly to one lake swim around a little bit.
Speaker 2:You go up to like a thousand feet your first day for like literally 20 minutes. You go do some maneuvers and everything else is below 500 feet. You go from pond to pond to pond to pond and you learn how to do cool stuff. Like you know tight confined land and confined taking off. You kind of take off in a curve and just come out like you're in Alaska.
Speaker 2:Some of those places in Alaska. You're just in a valley and you got to circle down and land and circle and get out. That's crazy. You would think that a calm day is the best day to land. No, it's not, Because they call it glassy water. You don't have any depth perception. You could really terribly plane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess that makes sense.
Speaker 2:It's slick. So what you do is you could either fly close to the edge, like land, and get some kind of perception, fly close to a home, yeah, and just kind of get in there. That's cool, though If you're taking off you can do like 360 to kind of wake up the water. Yeah, that way it's not sticking, because glass is. It sticks to the floor.
Speaker 1:It's the craziest thing. That's insane. But it's so simple. Holy cow it, but it's so simple.
Speaker 2:It's so simple and it's so much fun. It's just basic. The door of opening up the plane.
Speaker 1:You're sitting right there, you're giving hands see, I would love to do it in Minnesota.
Speaker 2:Minnesota. They have some of the best the land of 10,000 lakes, there's a lot of seaplanes up there and everyone has a lake house. It's crazy that's a dream of mine too.
Speaker 1:That's another story but yeah, we'll, let't talk about that too much. She knows. But yeah, I mean, it's uh, I don't know. It's just, that's cool, learning from everyone's experiences and, like you know well, I'm a nerd.
Speaker 2:I'm an aviation nerd. I love airplanes, but the older I've gotten, the planes that go slower are the ones I love. Yeah, I've never been a guy that wants to go fly a fighter jet and it's like no, you know, I'm more of a Cadillac than I am a Ferrari. Just nice and easy going, no rush, you know, it's just, I don't know. It's opened up a lot of avenues for a little kid. Coming from Arkansas.
Speaker 2:I've seen places in the world I never thought I would see. I met some of the nicest people. I've flown to some of the most challenging airports this world I've ever seen. I mean, my first week I was in Houston working for a company. They called me and said all right, you're in Mexico City. I'm like excuse me, Like what, Really? And like okay. And I see the captain downstairs like hey, man, I'm new. He was like I don't need to hear all that man, we got it done. This is no big deal, we got it and he was just such the calmest captain.
Speaker 2:But it's a challenging airport where a new FO can't even a new first officer can't even land there. Really, Certain airports Sorry, Ali, oh yeah, you couldn't touch that one. There are certain airports. If you're new, you're not even allowed to land or take off there. Keep in mind Provo's in the mountains. We have crazy winters here. There have been some trips where the guy next to me or the girl next to me, they sat there and cruised. They couldn't take off or land. I had to do most of the flying the whole day. They can't do it. You can't do this takeoff. You can't do this landing take off I hope you can't do this landing.
Speaker 2:You can sit here and cruise and do nothing. The US has a lot of challenging airports Mexico I used to go down there four or five times a week. My last company Very challenging down there. Then you have a language barrier, Then you have thunderstorms. It's kind of like I'm from Arizona.
Speaker 1:I know all about the thunderstorms.
Speaker 2:Exactly that stuff comes across the border. I mean it's nuts, but it made me grow up fast. I really enjoyed it. It wasn't my coolest job. My coolest job was definitely flying for the forestry commission in Arkansas. That's pretty good, but it was. It was fun flying and stuff. I do not fun flying, you know so I still enjoy it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's an amazing story. You're going from Arkansas being in a gang-run neighborhood, and then now you're a pilot, you're a captain for Allegiant.
Speaker 2:Somebody was praying for me and the man upstairs had something in store for me. It was up to me to realize that Are you going to follow my lead or are you going to fight me on it? Somewhere along the line, you know, like okay, and I even believe that he allowed me to have a want and not even a need. I've always loved airplanes. Sometimes I want it and he allowed a want, and that's something that's even next level. You know, there's a lot of things we want in society, but there are things that we need and sometimes you won't get your wants. There's a lot of things we want in society, but there are things that we need and sometimes you won't get your wants. That's just life. I was able to get a want. I can't deny it. I don't want to tell anybody. I got a want. That's because you're living it. I'll be blessed.
Speaker 2:I try to do the best I can and I try to let other people experience the happiness and the joy that I have. It doesn't have to be fly If they say what brings you so much joy? What God brings you joy, but what do you do? I'm like, well, I'm doing something I love doing Because I touch so many people. One of the things I talk about with my friend. They always say I said I want to do my mission. They're like, oh, you're going to do a mission, mike. I said, yeah, but I want to do it on a Disney cruise ship.
Speaker 1:They're like what I said go with me.
Speaker 2:I said you do a mission for two years. Think about how many people you touch. I said let me do a summer, I can touch 23,000 people. I said I just bring them into one room on the boat. They were like dang, you might be on to something. I said think about it.
Speaker 1:Even better, you could just wear the Mickey costume and when people come up and be like hey, have you heard of the Church of Jesus Christ? Exactly, and everyone will come to see Mickey.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying. The basic purpose is serving.
Speaker 1:You can't say that's not serving, hey, that's serving.
Speaker 2:I mean if they come on the boat.
Speaker 1:I mean there's actually service missions now in our church. Are you serious? Yeah, so if people don't want to go out and do proselyting missions, they can go and work in our food store system. Oh are you serious. Yeah, there's cool things, see, you didn't even tell me that. So I mean, I think we could do a Disney Cruise one.
Speaker 2:See, they've been hiding everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are like it's usually for like a nonprofit or something like that or the church's services.
Speaker 2:But last thing, I'll ask you if you had someone who was kind of in a similar situation as you were as a kid but had like a big dream, or wants to go and do something. Do you have any advice for that person, or anything like that. It kind of goes back to what we were saying before. I can say be patient, but being patient and not seeing any progress. We're human, michael. I hear you saying being patient but I'm not making any headway. Michael, I don't have any money. Say, if they want to fly, I don't have any money. I don't know this. I don't know that. You're saying being patient, michael, but no, and so patient doesn't always. It's not really what they want to hear. What they need to hear is don't give up, don't give up, don't give up. When you wake up every day, you're dang near cold calling.
Speaker 2:How do I figure out how to get this done? I want to be a doctor. Well, I might need to call a clinic and meet a doctor, because there may be some doctors that want to talk, but you might find that one. It's like you know what. Can you meet me at five o'clock? Yeah, I'll talk to you after I finish my last patient. I want to be a nurse. I want to be a mechanic, I want to be a pilot.
Speaker 2:You have to get aggressive, in a sense of I got to figure out a way to do it and so don't give up, don't? I mean, it doesn't matter what you want to do. If podcast is your thing, like, where do I start? Like, hey, I'm sure some people out there you could text or email or what they call a DM 10 people, one person is going to answer. They're going to be like, yeah, I'll talk to you about it. Discouragement, that's going to happen. You're going to get down. You're going to have a lot of roadblocks in anything, anything. That's what makes it so much sweeter when you finally do it.
Speaker 2:Don't give up. Don't not give up. We've been saying the same thing since we heard it when we were kids. Yeah, our parents heard it, but it's true. It is the truth, because if you give up the person next to you, you didn't, they're going to get your job because you gave up a second too soon. They kept going. So you, just you grind it out, you keep going. You know, sometimes we have to self motivate, which is hard, very hard. It is hard to, but it kind of goes into a lot when we put into our bodies and our minds or things you know, even certain music, you know.
Speaker 1:That's why you know, you work out.
Speaker 2:There are certain things you can listen to and I feel like it pumps you up. Yeah, I can really work out. Music is no joke. So certain things put into our body, put stuff up in there. That's positive. Put stuff up in there that keeps you going. You know, that puts a smile on your face like you know what.
Speaker 2:Okay, I thought about that. I'm going to sleep. Okay, I'm going to get up next morning. Okay, I'm still fired up. What did you put in your body that night that keeps you going? So don't give up. Don't give up, because I have friends that didn't get to the airlines. They were in their 40s, almost 50s. They didn't give up. They didn't give up. That's amazing. They. It's great advice. It's a struggle. It's tough. It's a struggle. We go outside right now and say I want to be an architect. Yeah, and you're just trying to find a way to get the good grades, get into school or do whatever. But you see all these beautiful buildings going up. How are they doing it? You don't know if that person is struggling or not. That's true, that architect that designed this building.
Speaker 2:He may be six or seven years old, but he's been in the game for 50 years. He's fought some battles to get there. You don't give up. That's why it's so important that we surround ourselves with a village of people that's going to support you. That's going to push you when you start leaning because you will lean You're going to fall over. Get back up. You got it. Keep going.
Speaker 1:That's part of that not giving up surrounding yourself with those people.
Speaker 2:Find that bond. What did I say? Find people that's evenly yoked, they used to say growing up, sometimes life is a pyramid. If we get older, our friends become less and less and less, because they were just your friend in that season. Now they really don't need to be. You can, can talk to them, but they really don't need to be close to you because you're out of that season. You need people that's going to support you and keep on. Hey, you got it.
Speaker 1:You got to keep going you know it's true and I, like you, gotta, I, ali and I we always talk about that like I think the reason we love marriage so much is because we support each other and we're there to like cheer each other on and be there in the worst moments and like be there for each other and you're and you're human.
Speaker 2:You know, we all, we all desire that feeling of being wanted. Yeah, we all desire that thing of making someone else proud. What is more powerful than making your spouse proud? Like you know what, I'll keep doing this. And you, I said, hey, here's Alex's first fight. I'm like dude, I got to lock in. I watched it all day and how cool is that. She's happy, you're happy, you're proud, she's proud. You know, I mean that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I mean man that's amazing, but it's like you know she's done so much work and like I've seen that come like to fruition, but it's you don't see the iceberg of work that's all underneath. You just see, like the top part where she's flying planes now, and that's one thing that you were talking about. Like you know, you always don't give up. I think a big piece of that is like don't compare yourself on that journey.
Speaker 2:You can't, like you're on your own path. You can't, and you don't know what other people have gone through. Right, you have no idea. And then, the truth be told, sometimes you don't want to go down that road. It's true, you know, we may have bumpy roads, but they may have had a valley. You're like you know what? Yeah, I want no part of that.
Speaker 1:There's this podcast with to say to those people. And then you know, and Musk kind of gets all solemn and he's like I don't think people really want to be me Like my mind's a storm. I had all these issues like growing up when I was a kid. Yes, I'm the richest man in the world, but I got some issues, can you?
Speaker 2:imagine yeah, don't be careful with that, cause I have a friend of mine who works for a certain family and he deals with the kids and whatever he said, they're all miserable. They have, they want for nothing because everything is there and some of them are nice but they literally have nothing because they put all their values in material things and so when you can have every material things, nothing. There's no love in your marriage, there's no love amongst the family. It's just not there, right, you know, and that's kind of sad very sad because we need to realize people need to realize is that millionaires commit suicide too.
Speaker 1:100 you know happens a lot. You know, I think there's like most interviews I hear of billionaires it's like they're not the happiest people.
Speaker 2:It's like you can tell and they get to a certain point where they just ground because they've always been used like, they're not the happiest people you can tell. And they get to a certain point where they just grind because they've always been used to grinding. They're not going to stop and say have enough money, I'm done. No, that's just what I'm used to doing. And we have to be careful because whether you're a pilot, doctor, minister or whatever, we're all battling the same things, Helping each. We're all felling, I mean, we're all bailing the same things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, you know All helping each other out. Yeah, just.
Speaker 2:You need everyone to make the world go around you better, and I wish we would do a better job of understanding that. But that's OK. You get two and then two turns into four, four turns into eight. Yeah, we're going to figure it out. Yeah, it looks hard because we've got so much social media and so much negativity, but we're going to get there. Yeah, it's going to take a while and it may not be in our generation. We have to accept it. Accept that you may not see it, but in your kids' generation they may see it. They know one thing they're getting a little bit better.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, they are getting better the best version of you can be, and that's all you can do. The world just gets better.
Speaker 2:That's that's how you do. I'll just say it is. You know, I was going through some things one time and a guy asked me. He put me on some scriptures in the book of revelations or whatever, and he was just talking about how you know, when you get to the point you have peace at night, you go to sleep. There you go. Yeah, don't make a difference, you're broke, you have a ton of money. When you lay your head down and you have peaceful rest, it's like there it is.
Speaker 1:That's that's good yeah. Good advice, I mean so it's good to think about, but um, yeah, any anything else you would tell the listeners Um first and foremost, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm glad we're doing these podcasts, doing these podcasts Even when I move.
Speaker 1:I hope we're still doing them.
Speaker 2:We'll figure out the technology, but what I would tell people is something that is really dear to me it's just be there for each other. Doesn't matter what you look like, who you are, what you have, whatever. Be there for each other. That's the only way we're going to fix society. It's just being there for each other and just accept it. You may help someone. They may not even say thank you, they may spit in your face. We have to be tough. I'm like, okay, that's all right, but I help them. We just got to take off that vulnerability and just be there for each other. It's hard, it's not going to happen overnight. It's great advice. Just be there for each other. That's all we have is each other, that's really it.
Speaker 1:Everything else doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. Thank you for coming on, we're for sure going to keep doing these.
Speaker 1:I think you know we'll figure out the technology piece, but we'll get a couple done before you head down to Florida, which is when is the day?
Speaker 2:It's another month. It'll be like the 21st, 22nd, somewhere around.
Speaker 1:Congrats on that I know you have family down there, so I'm sure that's nice Big blessing man.
Speaker 2:I mean, wow, it's amazing to have things stacked up literally like Legos. It's like, wow, this is really happening and real quick. Before I let you go. Like I said, the funniest thing was it's not that I got caught the beer was supposed to come out. The bid lets you know if you got it. The bid was supposed to come out that morning. It was 10 o'clock. I went to bed. I'm like the bid is late, not sure what's going on. I wake up the next morning I have a list of texts from people and it's so awesome when people are happy that you're happy. They want the best for you and I had a list of texts from people saying congratulations and I didn't even see it first.
Speaker 2:I was getting stuff at midnight and it was like you got it. Whatever, it's like it's a good feeling to know that people are actually looking out for you and those are the people you got to surround yourself with yes, yes, the people that get excited when you know good things happen to you in your life.
Speaker 1:Or who are there to reach.
Speaker 2:We're friends before. Friends see excitement when you're excited. They see joy when you have joy. And what a great feeling that it's not about me, it's about someone else, you know, and so I just think it's awesome.
Speaker 1:I think it's awesome too. And hey, when you move down to Florida, you always have a place to stay. You're always a friend, so we'll take care of you. Yeah, appreciate. Yeah, mike, you're the man I got to give you a hug.