This episode takes you on an intriguing journey through the world of Artificial Intelligence, exploring its potential benefits and pitfalls. We discuss the use of AI in generating texts, providing instructions on various tasks, and even its role in sparking recent controversies, like the one involving Candace Owens and religious jokes.
We also question the potential dangers of relying too heavily on AI in these areas, and the consequences it may have across various industries. And if you're into podcasting and life hacks, we've got you covered with a look at AI's role in mastering complex games, writing, and grammar-checking tools.
Finally, we shift gears and explore the power of flipping a coin for decision making(what????), and how the female brain can bring more factors into decision-making than the male brain. We delve into the challenges of making decisions, particularly when it comes to major life choices, and discuss the benefits of having a spouse to help keep us from making major mistakes. So buckle up and join us for this thought-provoking and insightful conversation that you won't want to miss!
Intro music by Upstate - How Far We Can Go
This episode takes you on an intriguing journey through the world of Artificial Intelligence, exploring its potential benefits and pitfalls. We discuss the use of AI in generating texts, providing instructions on various tasks, and even its role in sparking recent controversies, like the one involving Candace Owens and religious jokes.
We also question the potential dangers of relying too heavily on AI in these areas, and the consequences it may have across various industries. And if you're into podcasting and life hacks, we've got you covered with a look at AI's role in mastering complex games, writing, and grammar-checking tools.
Finally, we shift gears and explore the power of flipping a coin for decision making(what????), and how the female brain can bring more factors into decision-making than the male brain. We delve into the challenges of making decisions, particularly when it comes to major life choices, and discuss the benefits of having a spouse to help keep us from making major mistakes. So buckle up and join us for this thought-provoking and insightful conversation that you won't want to miss!
Intro music by Upstate - How Far We Can Go
I got a fire in me, you're gonna set to burn And we got a world to see. all the time to learn.
Speaker 2:Hi everybody, welcome to the MC squared podcast. This is episode 10. Today, I think we're gonna talk about AI, some of the pros, the cons, and maybe get into some political discussions, like we always do. I'm Andrew McNeil and I'm joined today by my co-host, jimmy McCanna. Alright, fantastic, jimmy. how has life been treating you?
Speaker 3:Life's been great actually. Nice weather outside. My oldest has graduated from high school. Officially have the graduation party at the park this weekend.
Speaker 2:And everyone's invited right. We just put that out there.
Speaker 3:Pretty much everybody's invited already, so I think they'll be walking tacos and a small fruit cup for those who will be attending.
Speaker 2:Alright, right, large checks, okay. So let's talk a little bit about AI, because it's a big deal. It's all over the news. Elon Musk has talked about it to a large extent. He has, in his words, warned that there needed to be regulations last 10, 15 years. So there's a big concern that it's gonna take over the world, that we're not gonna be able to control it, and then eventually the robots are gonna control us. So let's talk about the positives, because I think you're a big fan of it.
Speaker 3:Well, i mean, i would say I'm a big fan, but I'm an optimist.
Speaker 2:I mean I don't even know if you're real here right now. I mean, you're probably Everything that.
Speaker 3:I am saying right now no, it's not intelligent enough to be the artificial intelligence. Oh, don't say that This is called NI, natural intelligence or fan, but I do think it's a really interesting chat. Gtp, right, which is that generative text that comes from, and that's kind of what the main basis of that is, and there's different levels of it And I'm trying to learn a little bit about it where it comes from, how it learns these things How it works.
Speaker 2:So I have seen someone generate the beginning of a newsletter article, or I've heard of a student helping to complete an essay or something to do with their lessons. So explain how that works.
Speaker 3:So I didn't know much about it. For some reason I woke up midnight. Monday was Monday, monday morning 3am And I just couldn't go to sleep for five minutes, which is kind of weird for me. So I had had YouTube. I turned YouTube on which I watch it on, kind of on the TV, watch disc golf and stuff. But I had something on, so I watched it and it was about a. I was like that's interesting. So I went to my phone at 3am, downloaded an app And then the only thing because my brain was like half functioning at that point I'm like, oh, this works. So then I asked it. I said I typed in into the app. I said tell me how to do an incentive thermometer. So that's a device that we use in respiratory therapy, that I have videos on with my YouTube channel.
Speaker 2:I know everything like a lot about. what is that video channel to me?
Speaker 3:It's called RT clinic.
Speaker 2:If you want to follow it, it doesn't have a lot to do with this, but that's okay.
Speaker 3:Anyway, i've done videos on it. It's something that's great to instruct patients on. So I asked it how to do it and it sat there and thought and it gave this essentially said you know, this is done by healthcare provider and gave a 10 step process of exactly how to do it perfectly. And I read that at three o'clock in the morning and I thought, wow, that's really cool And I fell asleep. So then I woke up the next day and I started looking at the app again. I started asking it some just other questions and I thought, wow, this is really cool because if I didn't know, maybe I had this device and it was called.
Speaker 3:I could get in my phone instead of doing a Google search and looking through all this different stuff. It just essentially types it out for me. So it kind of did a little bit of work for me. So I see, in that aspect, i would like people to go and watch a video. I think sometimes videos are a little easier. Somebody can show you how things are done. but I kind of use YouTube a lot to fix cars. I've fixed my furnace, i've fixed like everything in my house with YouTube.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean this is amazing. I wonder if this is something else that you could possibly do to get instructions on fixing things.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I see it from that aspect, The healthcare aspect is really neat. I know that there is some definite negative, because you're like who's behind the scenes controlling this stuff. I did hear some stuff this week that was specifically brought up, that Candace Owens brought up about Okay, Did you see that? No, no, no, Did you see that? So I mean there was something, There was a clip from her, one of her shows that showed they asked AI to tell a joke about Jesus and it actually told a joke about Jesus And then they asked the same AI telling me a joke about Muhammad and it said we don't want to get into religious figures. So anyway, I actually I tried that on my app. I have a free app. I can ask three questions a day. I tried on my app. It wouldn't touch either one of the. It wouldn't touch the Jesus question. It wouldn't touch the Muhammad question.
Speaker 3:So I thought, well, maybe this is slightly better, or maybe it's learned that it does shouldn't go that direction, because there is some on the backside, there are people that are changing this stuff.
Speaker 2:I've heard. I've heard a lot of stories about the bias built in politically. They talk about you know, give me a description. What are some of the great things Donald Trump has done versus some of the great things Joe Biden? and it kind of was handled the same way. It sounds that that religious question was you know, they weren't going to get into it with Donald Trump, which sounded fine, but then they went in glowing terms about Joe Biden. So it was the biases. It seems to be pretty clear. Then they had some some pretty who's putting the information in? because, honestly, it's it's not pure artificial intelligence in the fact that it still has to have had the information, the guidelines, the algorithms programmed by a human. So, and we know humans are flawed, we aren't, we aren't perfect. So what's the mindset, what's the worldview, what's the agenda of the person who's putting that in? And I think that's, i think that's a kind of a serious concern, but but that's not actually the way I would look at the cons of this To me.
Speaker 2:I've heard that a local college and I don't want to, i'm pretty sure this has happened, but I'm not going to name the college because I'm not 100% didn't do. I heard this firsthand from a student. They've they've agreed off year so it'll be coming up that they're going to allow AI to be used for school papers And I already I know there are several professors that don't have an issue with it. A lot of professors will have this again what I'm told some kind of a filter where they can pick up that a, that a paper has used AI so they can kind of weed out. But some of them hate it, some of them love it, whatever, but they see it as a way to help students who have an issue reading and writing.
Speaker 2:I have an issue with that, a problem with that, because isn't college to educate and to help people with? I mean you, you, you should be. It's about reading and writing and it needs you develop your writing skills. To me, if you're using AI to to do an essay, you know whatever, how many word essay on some subject, good lord. First of all, it's doing the research for you, it's doing the writing for you. Just slap your name on the end of it. That is zero learning yeah, zero learning.
Speaker 3:I, i, i, i really think, and I saw some of this. Specifically, i watched a TED talk today that had um, i don't know what's first name, but he's from the Khan Academy. Jimmy came prepared. Well, i, he watched a Ted. I watched I'm, i'm so educated now. I said I watched two of them, but, um, i thought it was really interesting, he was talking about it from the Khan Academy.
Speaker 3:If you're unfamiliar, khan Academy is online learning and I personally know I just met with somebody, uh, one of our friends who, who works at a local college, isu, yeah, and he works as an adjunct and usually gets a lot, quite a few classes. This fall they gave me one class because enrollment's so low at the local college. Well, i think you start resting in this stuff. But if you're as far as the structure side and you take that aspect that you have as a human to be able to to, to be able to teach and have emotion and and just to be a true educator, right, you take that out and you allow, start allowing this stuff. I'm staying at home and doing college and I'll I'll go to someplace else, right, i don't need to go to class.
Speaker 3:So I think what they're doing is they're kind of writing their own ticket with this, because if you say, you know, i don't, i think we could use this, then what good are you other than given the check mark at the end? and I'm just. That's just from my perspective. Well, i think there's a lot of, there's a lot of options for education with this not that I will listen to the gaff the Khan Academy, so he's obviously leading that direction, but there's some AI built in that they have now that can do teaching of students in math right and I and it won't tell them the answer, but it's smart enough to actually see.
Speaker 3:It'll beat around the answer and ask them what they think it is, and then we'll say why didn't you use the distributive property here in this case? sure, i mean smart enough to know that and it's like okay, well, okay.
Speaker 2:So then, well, let let me, let me bring this up to you, because this is this, is this, so this, this is a very pertinent subject because it's happening in real time right now. We're seeing society transformed so quickly with this, yeah, that in a year we may not even recognize some of the things that we're we're used to. As far as some of these industries, or education, i think education specifically yeah, there is a school corporation one county over that has agreed that their guidance counselors for mentally challenged kids dealing with mental illness, okay, okay, can go to an AI chat to talk about it and to get help.
Speaker 2:Now that is so they're encouraging them to yes, oh yeah yes, yes, yes, yes okay, it is, that's lazy it's, it's lazy and it it's actually going to exacerbate the situation. If you ask me. Yeah, because the kids not stupid. They know they're talking to a computer mm-hmm now, if you're already dealing with loneliness or insecurity or some other issue, how's? how is that helped when an adult won't even take the time to talk with you?
Speaker 3:yeah, i mean, that's a problem or take the time to get educated by a conference or whatever it would be, or by reading or by studying, to then be able to help you. No, i'm just gonna let let the computer you know. And you're talking about these, these different AI generators. I actually that took. I took what was said about that in stem spirometer and I put it in another app that is an AI identifier and identified it. This said, said this section right here is highly probable that it's AI. Wow. So it took the, it took the verbiage and said it was probably yeah so if you change a couple words, i didn't try that.
Speaker 3:I should have changed a couple words, especially ones that are repeated?
Speaker 2:yeah, because that's usually how they pick up, because it'll repeat a word over and over again. I guess that's what I've been told, so anyway, well, but see, with the deal with this whole emotional counselor whatever it is, someone dealing with mental illness I mean, you know this. We're married right? yeah, your wife come to you with an issue or a problem. Sometimes, a lot of times, she's not looking for answers she's looking for someone who's gonna listen and have empathy and just listen.
Speaker 2:The the problem we get into is, you know, trying to fix the problem or give her the perfect answer, whatever it is. And it is funny because that's what we, you know, we're trying to fix something fix, and but that's not what they're looking for and I think, even with some of this, they just want another human to hear them and care how in the world, how impersonal.
Speaker 2:I just see nothing but disaster with this. That doesn't sound good at all. So what county is that that's? that's clay county, really, yeah, so okay so let's, let's talk about this a little bit, then take this further, because this reminds me I'm old enough. We're gonna date ourselves a little bit here. I'm old enough to remember when there was no email. I remember when the internet was was like the begin, like it would. People were like what?
Speaker 2:before Al Gore it was, yeah and it. I didn't think Al Gore was anything to do with it, so that was stunned when. When he invented it, i was stunned to hear about that. But, um, so email totally transformed business I mean business and and we saw no ended side in that. Email is just email marketing, email sales, email communications. It's huge at. The internet is not getting smaller, it's getting bigger.
Speaker 2:Um, i think about Facebook, think about the changes that took place when Facebook came out, and it was. I mean, at the time there was MySpace, which was which was a clunky, goofy, buggy version of you know, there was nothing like like what Facebook was. A Facebook has transformed, uh, it's transformed our lives. A lot of it, probably not positive, but it has transformed our lives. I think this is similar to the, to that kind of a technological breakthrough in the fact I mean, even look at our iPhones or our phones um, that's transformed.
Speaker 2:I mean, oh, this, this is here to stay. I guess what I'm trying to say there. There's going to be some really good things that happen. The. The only reason it would be here to stay is because of that is because it's going to enhance our lives. It's going to, it's going to improve some aspect of our life and it's going to become invaluable. However, there's going to be downsides to it and there's going to be things that you're. We're going to hope that somebody is there to to kind of rein things in and maybe have some boundaries or guidelines well, and this is the.
Speaker 3:This is the whole reason why I don't want to totally I'm not not to totally like say this is the worst thing ever, right, because If you say let's limit this and let's do this, it's already built. It's gonna keep growing, right? do you want people that are trustworthy, that are Patriots, that that are good people, to be a part of this absolutely, or do you want them to put their head in the sand? Let the and let everybody else who's got ill intentions take it? and so You know it's.
Speaker 3:It could definitely be used, but I mean we have these big Rectangular objects in our living room, right, that are manipulated beyond belief and we sit in front of them and watch them. We can't even watch jeopardy without being having something shut down our throat. So I mean I'm just saying that there's so much of this all over the place and this comes in. You're like this And you're not saying this, but I mean you know this is the worst thing ever. No, i mean, using it can be used an amazing way. I think we need to be a part of it so that it can be. It definitely has to have guardrails Because it can go off the off the hinges.
Speaker 2:Did you see what happened last week with the fake AI video that they did? No, showed a Fire and bomb something outside the Pentagon. Oh really as a news story and it was picked up by news organizations is real Oh my god, i'm done.
Speaker 2:30 minutes, the stock market had absolutely crashed and then they figured out it was fake And it was able to recover. But a lot of people had lost a lot of money. It was a big, big blip in it. Because of it, it's a problem We there's gonna have to be and there will be. There will be because it's no different than You know, operating systems, when you got the bugs, the viruses, the ability to hack it. So then you know the operating system has to put a patch out or something to change it. They're going to, they're gonna make sure That they can't constantly do You know, they're going to make sure that they can't constantly do fake news and destroy That's it literally destroy the economies over it and and it'd be so, so convincing because it can be in the person's voice. It can, it can, you can do an AI video of somebody and it is literally their mannerisms and looks just like them. Yeah, i mean.
Speaker 3:I think. I think what's gonna happen is maybe initially there's gonna be these little yes, but it's gonna turn in, like you said, to like fake news. We are Made in such an amazing way our brains are that we will probably in the future We will to read something and we'll say that's a I. Yeah, you're probably right. That will be in intuition of our human brain. It's beyond artificial intelligence. We'll say that's a I, just like we watch news. That's fake news.
Speaker 3:That's not real Yeah or that's, that's this or that's that. I mean, i fully believe that when in God's plan He's knew that there was gonna be chat gtp4 coming out in this year, but he said you know what?
Speaker 3:I didn't take up my you know, i Built, i put brains that they're only using what 9% of you know, yeah, to be able to do this. But the one aspect that AI does not have, and I Love the intelligence part right, artificial intelligence part But the human intelligence is so much different because there's the emotional aspect And what is the number one quality that we've been given and I know I always turn this back into like a God-Christ thing but love, yeah, i mean, that's something that you can give somebody exact, you can give a knowledge, you can give me the exact words they can read to gain knowledge. But until they have that love, they'll seek it. They won't, it will not like they're gonna be looking for these other things, but they're gonna seek what they don't have. Yeah, and so that's where God's ultimate plan comes in. It's almost I like to think of it almost like Apologetics. Apologics is cool stuff, right? Yeah, it's. It's it's being able to defend your, your Stances.
Speaker 3:And, andrew, you probably know way more than I do, but young in my, in my Christian walk, i was really in the politics. I was like I would like to know every round around, every aspect of somebody says that you know, jesus was not the Savior. I could give like five different reasons why head knowledge. I was really into the head knowledge but honestly, what most people want is the heart knowledge Absolutely, and you can't get that from this. You have to get that from experience. That's right For experience in the Lord, or have an experience I mean, if you're not a Christian person, have an experience with a human being. Yeah, i mean, there's actually communication that's done through senses that we don't even know about.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's a, that's a, that's a need. That's a human need. We're made that way We need each other, yeah, and we need that human interaction touch, okay. So let's um, okay, a couple of things real quick. First of all, folks, i would love it if you jump in here with this conversation So reach out to us. You can reach out to us on our on the YouTube channel. Send a comment, sure, put a comment in the below the video, or you can send us an email at theMCpodcast at gmailcom Did.
Speaker 3:I get that wrong. The MC Square podcast.
Speaker 2:Gosh, we need a simpler email. They were all taken. They were all taken. So it's the MC squared podcast at gmailcom. And while we were literally recording, i got a notification that we have had a thousand downloads. We're waiting on that last one. Yeah, we were. It was all day. It was 999. Andrew from the sentence confirmed it's computer all day doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah No, i had to sign into eight different It's totally not true Thousand podcasts, and that is of the audio version, so we've had more. That is not counting the folks that have downloaded or viewed our videos, which there hasn't been a lot of news about. That. I mean, we're just started the channel. It's just getting out there doing that, so that's gonna take a little while. But very, very feel very privileged to have been able to do this with my friend Jimmy and give a little bit of outlet to some opinions that very few people care to hear about. But hey, it's been fun to a thousand people.
Speaker 3:I've heard it.
Speaker 2:I don't think care about it, yeah, so following up with this AI. Okay Yeah, you had a little bit you had delved into here.
Speaker 3:You bet Yeah. So I downloaded one of the AI apps on my phone. It only gives me three questions per day, but I did ask a couple questions to it today that I wanted to read because I think this is really interesting stuff. So a couple. The first one is, i said give me an interesting fact about artificial intelligence. So here's the interesting fact Artificial intelligence says. An interesting fact about artificial intelligence is that in 2016, google's DeepMind AI program, go Alpha, defeated the world champion in the ancient Chinese game called Go, which is considered one of the most complex games for machines to master. The AI victory marked a significant milestone. When was this In the development 2016.
Speaker 3:So that's kind of a big deal. And then I also asked, i also asked give me a good. So I kind of feel like you might be able to use AI for a little bit of like writer's block.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that I would use this.
Speaker 3:But I said give me a good question, ask a podcast host. Here's what the question was, andrew what inspired you to start?
Speaker 2:your podcast.
Speaker 3:And what Answer? the second one for me. Okay, what do you enjoy most about producing each episode?
Speaker 2:I don't enjoy producing them. We need a producer. You're a pretty good producer. I'm miserable at at it, but I love recording them. Yeah, i absolutely love doing them. I think my favorite part is that I just It feels like I just get to sit down with Jimmy and have a conversation. We can talk about whatever, and I enjoy the back and forth. I enjoy the different perspective. And then it's a medium. If you've got something on your heart, something that's burning And I don't always have that, but I do from time to time Then you've got some outlet to vent it And then kind of put it out there and people can go that wasn't the greatest. Or they can say I really like that, i agree with that or whatever, and having that freedom to do that And what a great country we live in, by the way.
Speaker 2:If you realize it is only because we live in a free country that this happens, That we can do this without the secret police busting in and shutting us down because, hey, we talked about an election or we talked about vaccines or whatever it is we want to talk about. We have that freedom still. I know it's under pressure And since these are recorded, someone may look back and go gee, those poor saps five years ago thought that they were going to live in a free country. But hopefully we're going to do some things with our voting, with our prayers, with our protesting with our to ensure that we do have a free country.
Speaker 2:All right, i want to bring this up real quick. Did you have another one? Because?
Speaker 3:I wanted to fit. This is crazy. I was going to do the life hack.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's do that. Let's do yours. This is, this is okay. I'm going to read you a headline, oh, and you tell me if they used AI or if they used and I'm sorry, this is going to get me in a lot of trouble You tell me if they used AI or if they used a public school education to write this at this headline.
Speaker 3:And this is a I am in trouble.
Speaker 2:I know I'm in trouble, but I don't care because this is atrocious And this has been on there all day. This hasn't been, this is not. Nobody's changed, nobody's fixed. The headline says tips land Vigo County drug force to accused meth dealer. Okay, does that make any sense?
Speaker 2:Tips land to no, no, not really tips land, vigo County drug force to accused meth dealer. Now here's what I think happened. I think they in their mind the word land, i think they got confused and they were either going to go lands or leads Those are the two words they should have used Gotta be leads Yeah but either way.
Speaker 2:So it should have been tips leads Vigo County drug force to accused meth dealer. leads is a perfect word. leads takes care of good, but if it's not, it the other idea isn't terrible, and it's tips lands Vigo County. No, no, tips lands accused meth dealer in jail or something. Yeah, so I'm not sure what happened here, but this is a word salad that needed to get fixed. Grammarly didn't fix it, so is that AI or is this a public school education, you tell me?
Speaker 3:Well, i think it's. I think it's a Grammarly issue. I use Grammarly a lot. It's spelled correctly, but Grammarly doesn't always pick up.
Speaker 2:So you're telling me this is somewhat AI.
Speaker 3:You're telling me, grammarly is AI Yeah.
Speaker 2:That someone just punched this in and didn't spell check.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, they spelled, they Grammarly, checked it.
Speaker 2:but it doesn't pick up on those right. Yeah, it just makes no sense, yeah.
Speaker 3:It doesn't always pick up on this thing. So, yeah, i mean, people rely on a lot, including myself. I rely on that a lot now and you go through and you don't misspelling the words, but sometimes your sentences are jacked up. Is this the guy that got busted. Yeah, yeah, i vote.
Speaker 2:Did you see? I commented on that, i voted. It's a public school education.
Speaker 3:I commented on that, did you? Yeah, they took weapons from the guy's house. Do you see that?
Speaker 2:No, I didn't read the story. They took his two squirrel rifles. They laid all of his The squirrel rifle.
Speaker 3:They laid all of his weapons, all of his weapons, a couple hundred dollar bills. Yeah, they had three pistols and he had two long rifles. Okay, they were uh uh, looked like 22s for squirrels, so I did comment in to let them know you took the guy's squirrel rifle squirrels. Squirrels will be safer.
Speaker 2:Squirrels will be safer now.
Speaker 3:They'll be safer on the streets because you took the guy's squirrel rifle. Okay, that's great. We're gonna hit more of them with our cars now, because he's not shooting them during season or outside. Of season Anyway.
Speaker 2:Okay, so uh, did you have enough?
Speaker 3:you hit oh yeah, i want to do. we want to kind of do like we really enjoy. I enjoyed doing that thing last time where we talked and I gave we gave you those terms and you know the kid terms and the sassy and whatever. Yeah, i wanted to start like a little section of our podcast where we do something every time. So I was looking through AI and I found, uh, it's, we could talk about life hacks, so let's do a one life hack.
Speaker 3:As soon as and I thought this was really interesting. So this one let's do one life hack every episode. Okay, okay, is that okay? I don't know, comment it. If it sucks, let us know. Well, i'm okay with it.
Speaker 3:Anyway, i asked my AI because I'm really uninventive at all. I'm just asking AI everything these days, three questions a day. Other than that I can't do. You're pretty inventive. So give me a life hack and it says here's a life hack that might come in handy.
Speaker 3:Okay, when, andrew? so when you want to make a decision but you just can't choose between two or more options, try flipping a coin. It may sound simple, but when the coin is in the air and you're wanting to see which side it lands on, you might notice that which option you are actually hoping for. If you feel disappointed by one of the coins decisions the coin made decision. When the coin makes the decision then it might be a sign that you truly want the other option. So when you throw the coin into the air and it lands on tails or whatever you're like I don't really want tails Well, if you're making the decision and they're equally weighted, then maybe you should go with the decision. No, okay? So this is very, very secular. We're only right. Which decision do I want? Not always the decision that feels really, really good inside is the one you should take, but try flipping a coin and it might take you in a direction, because when the coin's flying through the air, maybe this isn't a good life hack.
Speaker 2:No, well, i think it leads to a good question. So I don't, i don't you flip coins. No. And so let me ask you do you have, do you have, issues making decisions? Do you ever have this kind of? I mean, do you, would you face like the scenario you just you just talked about? No, i don't ever. I don't think I've ever come to now, maybe which restaurant to go to. That's it.
Speaker 3:That's, that's the decision. my goodness, That's the hardest one to make. Yeah, yeah So but, i, mean.
Speaker 2:I think. But generally, as a personality, I don't have problems making decisions. Now I am not in any way going to throw my wife under the bus, Jimmy, So don't don't get me to do that. No, But I have known people like my wife who struggle with decisions. In fact, when we first got married, I will say this it was, it was eye-opening how much time it took to purchase baby shoes. There were hundreds of decisions that had to be made for one pair and it was it was.
Speaker 2:It was so important, Yeah, That you got the exact right one.
Speaker 3:You know it helps with our arch at those ages and when they're actually placing weight on their feet. No but, but, andrew, i'm going to look at it from I just because I like to be in the counterpoint to this.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:I sometimes think that the female brain oh, man looks no, I'm just saying, I'm saying they, they bring more factors into a decision.
Speaker 2:The views of the co-host are not necessarily the views of Andrew McNeill.
Speaker 3:No no, I'm saying they bring more factors into the decision than the male brain. I think they have a better understanding of consequences than testosterone filled males.
Speaker 2:Well, they do, i think, I think, i think they're making a more well-rounded decision There's some truth to that and and I'm not just trying to get a little bit out of the doghouse here I, i do think so. so if we're talking about a decision, andrea and I I'll have, and a lot of guys will you know have clear this is why blah, blah, blah. but then when we're discussing it, if we haven't made that decision yet, you're right, she'll bring up things I didn't think about.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Now it's not just that she's another person, because that's good too. When you have two or three people, you're going to see different sides of an issue, but I think that there's there's probably some aspect of that they're going to, they're going to see, and it has been. actually it's been a little bit difficult for me, but one of the best things that she's been able to do in our marriage life, as we've walked, has been to help, keep, keep, keep me from major mistakes. There you go, because she will see hey, two or three steps out, that's this is. this could be a problem where I'm not thinking like that. I'm thinking let's make this decision and go, and she and she sent in and even if we do end up going that direction, in in.
Speaker 2:If we work as partners which also has not been easy because we're both firstborn we should, we should get on here and talk sometime. We're both firstborn.
Speaker 2:Well, my wife and I are too, yeah, so there's a little bit of, there's a little bit of butting heads, especially early on. But but if, if I disregard those concerns, i will find myself in trouble or I will, i will go. Why didn't I? well, actually, actually, i was presented with those, those issues. I were given some cautions that I didn't take, you know, because of pride or you know, whatever it is, but it's, it's a. It's not my personality, but it is so. It's a weakness that I have. I'll see which way I'm going. We're gonna go great. That's fine, that's that's. That's a strength. But a part of that is also, then, not taking into account some of the pitfalls, some of the problems. It could be coming along and I'm not prepared for them, honestly.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if in and that preparation in case something goes sideways is not a bad, it's not a bad thing, and some I don't do well, yeah, and I mean I'm no, i'm by far no marriage counselor by any stretch of imagination, but those I really think Andrew and we've both been married for a while. You know those early years. You don't really know where to go with that, because either you don't make any decisions, yeah, and you just let everything go, and Or you try to take the lead and control everything, and I think I mean honestly if Tell young couples anything is be prepared to talk through these times.
Speaker 3:I don't, i didn't do it. I didn't do it. My wife wanted to talk three times, i and I did, i Battled this whole thing where. But if you can both come into it honestly in the fact and both say, mostly from the man side, i would say to say, okay, we need to make these decisions together. We're gonna make some right, we're gonna make some wrong, but we're in it together And don't and it's don't make it a competition, because that's yeah, I think I first born a competitive person, anybody's competitive at all.
Speaker 3:There's a little bit of like yeah, yeah, i got that one right, you know I mean. so that's to just when it's a great. It's a great one. It's a great test in humility.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which I didn't have any of no mean.
Speaker 2:So it is, it's a challenge and it's it's not right. I mean, i'm being a little bit vulnerable here because it Does not make me look well, and that's, that's probably somewhat accurate. But when your spouse brings up, well, this could go wrong here or this could, what about this? and that's you know, to not take it as a challenge, yeah, and, and not get defensive. That's that's my number, that's probably I.
Speaker 2:I Lot of people don't know this about me, but my wife knows obviously that that's probably my number one weakness is, honestly, i will feel something strongly. This is and and I'm not saying that the decision that I'm we're going to make is is gonna change because we both are on agreement with that. But then, hey, you know, for example, when we decided we were gonna run, run for state representative, yeah, we were, we were together on that. But she would say, well, what if, what if, what if? and I didn't want to hear it because the decision had been made, we were moving, for, you know, full steam ahead, yeah, and, and so that's, that's a, that's a little bit of a pitfall, and it it's. I've had to come to realize what a huge asset that is to have someone who can play through the scenarios.
Speaker 2:I know and I'll give a real quick example. I know we've we're we're gonna close out this episode here, but One of the one of a really fascinating stories is and I'm trying not to Butcher his name, but it's the Norwegian explorer who was first to go to the South Pole. He also went to the North Pole successfully, and I don't know if he did the North Pole first. I don't know he did go there, but I don't think it was first. He did the Northwest Passage, perhaps, okay, but he, he was racing with the British. It's a fascinating story. Mm-hmm, a Monson, i think, is his last name anyway, and I probably butchered that. I hate that, but anyway, because we just off the fly, we didn't have this prepared, yeah, but it was a race to the South.
Speaker 2:If you read his accounts, he went through every possible scenario of what could go wrong in that trip. He went through it for a year or two, preparing. Everything he did in that trip was a preparation of what could go wrong and he would be prepared for it. They had the leadership lessons in this, or incredible. He had a rule of 20 miles a day, no matter what. If we're feeling good and we feel like we could go 25. Nope, we stop at 20 if we're feeling terrible and the weather is awful. We're doing 20. We just got to do our 20 and we'll be done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i mean, everything was about consistency, everything was about the Efficiency of what they were doing. Everything was thought out to the and he just destroyed the competition. His competition Literally died on the way back. And and how discouraging is this they, they were British, they were, they were making a big, proudful, prideful statement of, even though he died in it. You know, he gave it the college try. You know, the British is like we died in the attempt and that was almost more noble than actually doing it for them. It's pretty funny. But but they get there to the north, to the South Pole, and they take pictures of themselves, they get. They recovered this off the bodies. And then he had, of course, they had diaries written. They're, they're already Dying when they get to the South Pole. They are, they are, they. Had he'd beaten them by a month.
Speaker 2:And they have a picture with the Norwegian flag and and a. They had left a like a. He wasn't taunting the marine, but left him a little bit of meat or whatever in a can or something It was. It was pretty discouraging, but anyway, it's a great story.
Speaker 2:We should probably talk about that sometime. Yeah, some really great leadership lessons. Well, anyway, folks, it has been a. It has been a blast talking with you. Hopefully you weren't too bored and This, this entire episode, was recorded by a computer-generated video. No, that's not true. But hopefully that day doesn't come, because I like interacting with people and and so we want to hear from you. You can email us again at the MC squared podcast at gmailcom. You can comment on in on YouTube. You can look me up at Andrew T McNeilcom. Interact with me there. On my blog, we've got a note section. I'm on Twitter, i'm on Facebook, so is Jimmy Instagram, and we'd love to hear from you. We love to have conversations and if there's a subject you want us to cover or there's some more information That you want to give to the show, we'd be we'd be happy to pass that along and maybe even talk about it. So For Jimmy McKenna and this is Andrew McNeil, and we are signing off. Thank you, folks, for listening to MC squared podcast.
Speaker 3:All right, see you next time.
Speaker 1:I got a fire in me. You're gonna set to burn. We got a world to see all the time.