Sam Finney: Welcome to Closing Thoughts, a podcast about how to live life well. Inspired by tragedy, each episode captures lessons, reflections, and hard-earned wisdom meant to be passed on to my kids and anyone else who wants to listen. Each guest is asked, if you only had five minutes to pass along how to live life well, what would you say? From there, the discussion flows. Believe it.
Kevin Epp: Dave, we're live.
Sam Finney: We are live. All right. Here we go. So I titled this Lessons from a Fool to My Children. It's an impossible task that I attempt here and most assuredly will fail miserably, but at least there may be some laughs, especially from the man upstairs, if from no one else. While these are my thoughts, most are stolen from others, and for them I am thankful. I will approach today with abounding enthusiasm, realizing everything I have is a gift. Most mornings, those are the first words I read and say out loud. Some days I succeed, Others I fail, but despite all that, I wake and I read it again. I've come to see life as a battlefield over the last few decades on this earth. Every day is a war to either see the gifts or the curses, to contribute or take away, to be a radiator or a drain, to be a source for hope or reason for others to despair. At the end of the day, I found this thing called life simple, but don't make the mistake but do not mistake simple for easy. It's always been beautiful even in the suffering. It's always been worthwhile even in the failure. And there's always something to laugh about even half-starved and sleep deprived in the swamps of Florida. There have been seasons of joy and despair, happiness and pain, passion and dreariness. It has never made complete sense, but if it did, what would be the fun of eternal salvation? Don't try and make sense of everything in this life. Make the choice to enjoy it and be thankful for it. Logic and science have their place, but if you try and make sense of this wonderful world of paradoxes, then you'll probably miss out on the best parts. This battle, I believe, is fought and won in the mind each day, and below are some lessons learned from failures, successes, and the paradox of my life. Unhappiness. You can't pursue happiness just as you can't pursue freedom. It's not a thing to be held but a byproduct of a life worth living. If happiness is lacking, don't pursue it. Instead, try and help others, set a goal and begin working towards it. And most simply, but most difficult to do, be present and be thankful. On hard things, force yourself to do at least one difficult thing per day or shatter one limitation you placed on who you are. The world begins to lose its wonders and miracles when you place yourself in a box. Have a growth mindset, take action and learn about anything and everything. Be the man in the arena, as Theodore Roosevelt said, and avoid inaction whenever possible. If you find yourself thinking about a conversation, action or activity that scares you to your core, just go do it and then it will cease to have power over you. On marriage, first and foremost, find someone you're not even close to good enough for yet. Someone... who will take a lifetime of work to deserve and who feels the same way about you. Second, find someone who knows that love is a choice made day after day, not a feeling that comes and goes, and is willing to make that choice forever. And third, find someone who sees the best in you even when you're at your worst, whether it is days, months, or years. On goals, they're incredibly important to have, but I think less important to achieve. They should change often. The most powerful part of goals in my opinion is not getting there but have the direction to take action towards. It's the most powerful weapon against apathy. On the past, you do it a disservice to shut the door completely but also if you walk some midst it and allow you to distract you from today. There will be pain, happiness, love, loss and all that will wear on your soul as a badge of pride or a scar. But the present is for living. On love, it can, and more than likely will, cause unimaginable pain, but it's worth it many times over. On gratitude, make it a habit. Even the mundane and ordinary can be seen as miracles. Make the choice to find each new day and be present in that moment with God. On success, create your own definition of what it is and revisit it often. Since society We'll slowly corrupt that over time. On tragedy, time doesn't heal wounds. Hard work and pain does. Go through the work or it will weigh you down for years. On alcohol, at its best it's okay. At its worst, it can hide a lot of demons and cause immense harm. On character, every choice matters and makes a mark on who you are, no matter how small. Make sure that the good choices outweigh the bad every day. Above everything else, I've mentioned choose each day to be a little better than before, to learn a little more, to laugh, to give thanks, and to appreciate the gift life is. And if your head ever gets too big, just remember that we're all fools trying to make our way through this crazy world.
Kevin Epp: Lord Almighty. I think you actually did it right at five minutes. Which is good. And when we first thought we'd do this, we thought it'd just come off like a eulogy, which it didn't. This is good. Dude, I got a bunch of questions for you. ⁓ First and foremost, the most important one is how much of chat GPT did you use to build that whole thing?
Sam Finney: Well, there we go. Hit me, Kev. Actually none. I sat down on Tybee, got a nasty sunburn in about three and a half hours and hammered it out,
Kevin Epp: ⁓ Yeah, get a good bass char for the summer while you think. I mean, actually though, how long did it take for this to kind of for you to think through it? Did it just come to you and you spoke it on the paper or did it take a couple days and all that?
Sam Finney: I would say for me it took a long time. So I've had this idea for a while. I wasn't in a great headspace for a hot minute after getting out of the Army. ⁓ So I mean I would say probably years in the making ⁓ where I think about it on and off. And I think it started actually a couple years ago. I just decided I was going to start writing letters to my kids. ⁓ Kind of went in and out of that. I think I ended up with like five or six of them. But then this idea from a book I read, I can't remember what book it was. Seemed like a good option and also a good option to like capture the wisdom of other folks and different thoughts on it. yeah, I would say years in the making, actually getting it onto paper was, you know, three or four hours sitting on the beach getting burnt.
Kevin Epp: I mean, yeah, I was actually while you're talking, I was thinking, I guess it's true. You can't just have it come to you. mean, really the whole, the whole basis of this, like the whole final five minutes, you you give your wisdom or whatever you want to, you know, give to society or whoever you want your audience to be. ⁓ And that takes pretty much all your experience in your life. So people are just kind of saying how they see the world through their eyes. You know what mean? What experiences they've been through. So it makes sense. wouldn't just It's kind of like an iterative thing that's happened throughout your life. Why, you you titled it, Lessons from a Fool to My Children. ⁓ Why do your kids, you know, when it's as open-ended as it could be to all of society, to just your wife, like why specifically do your kids?
Sam Finney: well, I think this comes back to kind of the whole, the whole origination of the, the idea and actually doing this podcast. ⁓ so my youngest brother, Max passed away a number of years ago. ⁓ and since then, I don't know, I guess, you know, I don't know if you've heard the term memento mori, right? It's in a lot of art from the middle, middle ages and stuff, right? It's a reminder of death. ⁓ And I would say that that was like a momentum worry slap across the face Where it's like hey, you're gonna be gone one day and you have no idea when that day is right? ⁓ So I think that led to a lot of Maybe irrational, but maybe just realistic fear about passing away right about dying or You know my kids dying or even Kate dying ⁓ And so I think that That was a whole kind of impetus for doing this was to try and teach them what I'd learned in case I wasn't here to teach them or talk to them when they're 20 or 30 or 40, right? So that they'd have, you know, a small part of me to carry on with them and hopefully a lot of other folks that we interview on here to kind of glean some wisdom from them as well. So that's why it's to my kids. I would say the lessons from a fool. know, Kev, I think you know I majored in philosophy at school, right? So the good old philosopher Socrates, ⁓ you know, and I'm probably gonna butcher it a little bit, right? But the oracle at Delphi said he was the wisest man in the world. And he said, there's no way that I'm the wisest man in the world. And so he took a trip. and he went to go see all these wise men who thought they knew everything there was to know. And at the end of it, he realized that maybe the oracle was right because he knew that he didn't know everything, right? That he still had an incredible amount to learn and that, you know, in a way he was still a fool, right? So I think that's just... I think from the philosophy background, that's kind of the mindset I try and bring, not in a confidence sense, but in a curiosity and ⁓ continuing to learn sense. All those words that I just wrote that are super near and dear to my heart, ⁓ I hope a lot of them change over the next few years. and if they don't change if some of it doesn't change that i'm not doing the right thing in my opinion i'm not learning
Kevin Epp: Yeah, mean, know we that's cool, man. And what you just finished on is something I know we've talked about, 33 year old Kev, you know what I mean? What I would give right now as my wisdom or whatever, whatever I would say in this five minutes, I fully expect it to be different in 10 years. I mean, do you see it the same way or do you think what you're saying now might kind of hold true?
Sam Finney: Yeah, I think some things, right? I don't know. I think it be interesting to see what stands the test of time, right? Like I think the man in the arena by Theodore Roosevelt, like I say that every morning when I jump in the ice plunge and miserable, right?
Kevin Epp: Dude, hold on, pause, pause. You do ice plunges, dude? Let's go, dude, hold on. Give us the whole rig. Like, what do you got? What is the ice plunge? There's many different variations. What do you got?
Sam Finney: Yeah. I got a made at home one with a Rubbermaid stock tank and like an aquarium chiller that gets it down to like 38 degrees. So yeah, when I get in there my whole body's yelling at me. I say the man in the arena quote. So I think things like that man, I don't think they'll ever change. I think that will always be near and dear to my heart and very, very true.
Kevin Epp: God, I love it!
Sam Finney: But I don't know, I think like one of my points in the speech, you know, about love and like, man, the most painful moments of my life have been because of love, right? And I actually, after Max died, right? I had to kind of take a step back and like honestly ask myself, like, is it worth it to love somebody so much? ⁓ And I think I mentioned, you know, the letters to my kids and I started writing those, I think partially for my kids, ⁓ but honestly, probably partially for myself to help me, help me kind of like work through a lot of these emotions. ⁓ And the answer that came to was, it's absolutely worth it, but it will cause more pain than you could probably imagine, right? ⁓ And I think, I think that that's... I don't know, that's slowly becoming my realization. know, like I mentioned, life's a battle and it's a fight. And I think that if you don't see it that way, right, you're probably losing that battle. You're losing the daily battle or the yearly battle. You're not challenging yourself and failing enough. ⁓ You're not getting outside your comfort zone and learning some things, so.
Kevin Epp: Dude, you actually, on that note, you said, let me see, something along the lines of like, you gotta do hard things, essentially. Essentially how I could translate it is, hard things are the spice of life and it's what makes you better. mean, right now, today, what is it? June 24th, 2025, I mean, what are the hard things that you think 10 years from now you're gonna be like, yeah, I'm glad I did that.
Sam Finney: Yep.
Kevin Epp: in June of 2025 or what have you. Do you purposely do them or are you, I guess I'll pause and say I think they happen both ways. think hard things occur to us, which I think are the hardest things in life because you can't prepare and you don't get to choose the difficulty. You know what I mean? But anyway, mean, what hard things right now you got going on in your life, both voluntary and involuntary, whatever you'd like to share.
Sam Finney: Yeah. No, I I think I think number one, and honestly, the reason I do a cold plunge every day and part of me thought it would get better like you get used to it. ⁓ You don't, which is great and terrible. Right. ⁓ So starting off the morning with a cold plunge, one, you save a little bit of money on coffee because you don't really need coffee after being in 38 degree water for three minutes. ⁓ But two, right, it's just it is something that I don't like. Kev, when I roll out of bed at 530, I am not thinking a 38 degree water cold plunge sounds good. Like, not a single morning. Right? So it's just like, and that's part of the reason why I like it, because the whole rest of the day gets easier. It's like, ⁓ I got to pay this bill or, you know, I got to do this, pre-approve this client for work or, you know, take the kiddo somewhere. It's like, all that's, all that's easy. ⁓
Kevin Epp: Yeah, not a one is. Yeah, I love it, dude. Yeah.
Sam Finney: And so I think that's one reason why I've started doing it and really enjoyed and not enjoyed it. ⁓ But then two, ⁓ and kind of, I guess, the origin of the doing hard things, right? So we're both in the Army together on the lacrosse team. were a lot of, pretty much every day of practice, right, was a fest of suffering, right? There's snow and whatever else is cold as shit. ⁓ And so I realized like after getting out of the army and having some success with real estate while I was in, right, I just got, I got soft. I think that's the best way to put it, which is honestly the most insulting thing somebody could say to me is, you know, you're soft. Those would be, those would be fighting words over just about anything else. ⁓ And so, yeah, man, was last summer, I was at a buddy's wedding.
Kevin Epp: Yeah.
Sam Finney: And I was talking to him and right, I was still dealing with a lot of this stuff that I hadn't dealt with in the army and some other personal stuff. ⁓ I was just like, dude, I just feel like I'm soft. And so we signed up, signed up for the JFK 50 miler. So I think honestly, you know, in answer to your question, probably like ultra marathons in the future are going to be, you know, what I'm doing every year or just some, some crazy races, adventure races, whatever else, just something. that is difficult, ⁓ so I don't get soft, right? And then I think, kind of in the day-to-day, ⁓ is just doing things that need to be done right away, right? So when I was in my soft period, right, after getting out of the Army, not having a decent amount of income from the real estate, not having to work hard, right, it was easy to sleep in, it was easy to drink a lot more than I should. And I just found myself just pushing off things that were annoying. And then they just hang over my head for like weeks and months, right? And I, like a specific example of this, right? It would be like short-term rental applications that I've got to take into Chatham County. Okay. And you never have it right. They always change it. Right. So you end up going in there like three or four times and I hated it, man. And I would just, you know, you can file them in May. And the deadline is like June or July, no, June 30th, right? And I'll put it off until like June 28th. And for two months, it'd just be hanging over my head. ⁓ And so just stupid things like that, just doing it because you know it needs to be done, right? And not letting it be hanging over you or sitting on your shoulder distracting you. So I think that's kind of where it translates to in daily life is just. doing what needs to be done, because it needs to be done.
Kevin Epp: Dude, I have so much on this. just everything you're saying speaking to me. I wrote a couple notes here so I don't lose my train of thought. mean, first off, cold plunges. for those who don't know, so rewind, when was this? 2022 when we went up to Wyoming and Elk on it, right? And for the record, I missed, but we got it, all right? On the rebound shot, we got it. Okay, so we're good. Successful hunt, good to go. Sam was there the whole time, it was a special moment. But what's important here is on that trip, Sam was like, hey, I'm doing cold plunges. So first off, you've been doing this years, which we're gonna touch on in a second. But to how weak-sauce I am, so you're like, yeah, I do cold plunges. If you don't have a big cold plunger, you can just take a cold shower. So I had a whoop band, and for a year, I took cold showers. every time I took a cold, a shower. And at the end of that year, my whoop band was like, hey, actually these cold showers do not help you. Now many different ways to examine the data, but my weak sauce brain, dude, I used that as a reason to not do them. ⁓ But here's the thing, I got a rooftop up here where I live and there's a couple of psychos in my neighborhood, love it, you know what mean? We all hang out and talk about psycho things and... ⁓ We're talking about dudes buying horse troughs from Costco and filling them up with water and just leaving them there for the winter. Cause it won't necessarily get like too many days below freezing out here. But, um, I think it's interesting how our eight brain get staying on this, uh, cold plunge thing. We'll just use it as a metaphor. I think our eight brain will betray us because no matter how many times you step out of that cold plunge or cold shower or what have you, you just do something uncomfortable. You know, it feels good. You know it's right for you, but when it, right before you do it, your ape brain is always like, ooh, I don't wanna do it, I should quit. Even though literally, the front part of your brain knows that you probably should be doing it. If not for just feeling better and doing hard things, because it makes you a better person, you know what saying?
Sam Finney: Yeah, no, absolutely. No, it's kind of like to stick on that topic a little bit longer, right? And I think it was like a stupid ⁓ show called What We Do in the Shadows, right? It's like a comedy about vampires. But one of the vampires was asleep since the 1700s and he comes out of like the casket or whatever and he's looking around at modern society and basically says something to the extent of You know, every single person today lives better than a king lived back in the day. ⁓ You know, you got AC, you got weeks of food in your pantry and in your fridge. ⁓ You know, you don't have to walk anywhere. You can drive everywhere, right? All these things to make life super easy. And yet, right, you look at, you know, veteran suicide or anxiousness or all these other things. Granted, I'm not a historian or a scientist, right? But pretty big issues today, ⁓ despite life being so quote unquote easy.
Kevin Epp: Do you think we have it hard or easy?
Sam Finney: I think our minds will make anything harder, easy. ⁓ So like a great, one of my favorite books, Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, he talks about the concentration camps, right? ⁓ And I honestly, Kev, I think that was like the biggest thing about Ranger School. that I took away, you know, it wasn't leadership lessons, wasn't whatever else, it was just like a new, a new benchmark for when things are hard. Right? When you only get a couple hours of sleep, you don't get much to eat and you're just walking with 80 pounds on your back for days at a time. It's like, okay, like that's hard. Now is today hard? Nope. I don't have a rock anymore, dude. I don't do that stuff. Right? But I think And again, no scientific evidence per se to back this up, but I think our brain will make whatever circumstance we're in, you know, that will become normal. And then the smallest inconvenience of, know, ⁓ I got to go get the oil changed on my car so I can drive halfway across the country in a day. ⁓ Then I think those things start becoming hard. right, or the stupid paperwork stuff, whatever else. So I think difficulty will find you no matter how many technological advances we have or how quote unquote easy life gets. ⁓ And I think that's why it's important to make it voluntarily hard rather than accepting the ease of life. And then when the hard moments come along, they just seem overwhelming. Because you haven't trained yourself to deal with anything hard. You haven't trained yourself to do things you don't want to do.
Kevin Epp: I agree, mean, it has been said that the hardest thing that has ever happened to you is just that, the hardest thing that has ever happened to you. I think our brains have a, I don't know, maybe somebody did a study on this, I'm not no doctor, but ⁓ I bet, know, how I think of it is, I think our brains only go to like a 10 out of 10 on the pain scale, and if you have only ever experienced, you know, whatever. everything's relative to your brain, if you will, right? So as an example, you're maxed out, absolute, ⁓ whatever experience you could think of that is pegged out on the stress scale to you. My assumption is to other people, they could feel that exact same emotion, it's just as painful to them, but it's for just things that have become mundane for you. Have you ever heard of the frame of the veteran? You reminded me of this as you were talking. You ever heard of that, the frame of the veteran?
Sam Finney: No, I don't think so.
Kevin Epp: So it has nothing to do, though we were in the military, has nothing to do with the military, but essentially, ⁓ as if we have it all figured out, but one thing that we do agree on is life is a lot of mental framing, right? You could look at the same thing and somebody could look at they could look at it completely different, right? And you could be staring at the same situation. And it's all mental framing, or rather, not all of it, but a lot of it can come down to mental framing, just how you see things. if you have a positive attitude versus a negative attitude. But what's important there is ⁓ the frame of the veteran essentially goes as this, which is imagine an event that has occurred to you today, right? And I'm talking about, you mentioned short-term rental applications. Let's talk about the mundane, right? ⁓ That pegs a little bit on the stress-rector scale, sure. What happens day 365? when that event happens every single day for the next year. You know what mean? How are you gonna feel? Is it really gonna matter to you? Or are you just gonna be like, yeah, this is life? You know what I mean? It's gonna feel a little bit different when this stressful event has happened to you now for every single day for the next year. And so essentially the frame of the veteran is a way in which if you're experiencing an acutely stressful event, something that whatever is just weighing on you for maybe a day or a week at a time. It's a way in which to mentally frame out of that and just say, you know, what happens if this same event happens every single week for the next five years? How would I feel on that, you know, fifth year, whatever that'd be, know, 20, 250th week of this event occurring. And then you probably now most often times the mental frame is essentially they're saying, yeah, by that time I'd expect it. I'd probably. not have it bother me as much because it's happened so many times prior and then it can take the edge off in the moment. Anyway, I heard that a little while back and I have used it. Again, our lives are so easy relative to people, but I've used it.
Sam Finney: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and another kind of tangential point to that too, I was, I was reading something the other day or listening to something, but it talked about how, you know, like 80 % of our thoughts are kind of subconscious from the previous day. ⁓ and this is something I've started doing more recently. It was, it's just like doing affirmations and visualizations. ⁓ and it's made a big difference. And I think I don't know. think the way I kind of think about it, Kev, because I thought it was the stupidest thing for a long, long time. Right. But I think the way I think about it now, right, is you're just forcing, you're forcing these thoughts into your brain day after day after day about, you know, about being thankful, about being excited for the day, no matter what it holds. Right. About like trying to pick out the best parts, making sure that you're present, right, laughing, and whatever else you want to throw in there, right, but it's basically just feeding your subconscious brain the man that you want to be over and over and over. and all of a sudden, know, kind of like you talked about that framing, right? All of a sudden, the smaller decisions you start making are more in line with that person. And over time, you build your character through, you know, hundreds of thousands of smaller decisions, like not hitting the snooze button every morning five times, or doing cold plunges, or, you know, just doing what needs to be done rather than putting things off, letting them hang over you. ⁓ becoming a better person every day that I think, you know, short term, right, there's not much difference at all. ⁓ When you start looking in year, five years or 10 years, I think that's where all the difference is made, right? It's just how you're thinking about things and how you're reinforcing the kind of person that you wanna be, regardless of who that is.
Kevin Epp: It's small steps every day, right? ⁓ I mean, we learned that, right? So we played lacrosse together, sure. You know, replace lacrosse with just any other physical event. think physical suffering and physical exertion is just a means through which to make yourself mentally tougher. And it's, I mean, it's fun. But, you know, we played lacrosse together. So Mikey Stadium is this frigid place. during like a weekday evening practice and our coach would, I mean, this man understands the value of everything we're talking about, you know what mean? And we would do these evening practices out there when there is a perfectly warm covered stadium, I mean, a la 200 yards away, right? You know I mean? But that you would literally run past, right?
Sam Finney: So we'd run past on the way to Mikey.
Kevin Epp: But it doesn't take much and especially if you're playing a Division I athletics, you understand it. mean, I don't think there's very many people who didn't understand the purpose of it. But ⁓ I think you touched on it and ⁓ I think it's important to be said, the success is in the mundane. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know about you, being in high school, all I wanted to play was Division I lacrosse, right? And so much can be said for just a high school or just being like, or anything in life. You're just chasing, like, I don't care where I go, right? I just want to play the highest level. I want to play lacrosse. On the backside, best decision we ever made. I think a good coach and a good program can change your life, which it did for me. But it's funny because like year three, you know, practice 1,100 or whatever, you know what I mean? Like. Are you thinking about, these gloves are so, I don't know about you, but I forgot, like, I remember I would be reminded when we would finish games, like kids being like, hey, can I have your gloves? Or like, hey, wow, you guys got all this new swag, right? And I remember like, wow, I remember sitting in your shoes caring about that. But here I am, the, know, we're the players of which we wanted to be. And I couldn't even tell you what type of cleats we had or anything, it just like. stopped mattering, right? Cause like we were in it at that point. Like it was the mundane. I don't know if you know what I'm saying. Like that's just one like ⁓ related experience we had, but I was thinking about it as you were talking. It's like so true. Like national championships, it's not one on the field. know, all those quotes that have been said again and again in different ways. I mean, it's so true when you experience it and look back on it, you know?
Sam Finney: Yeah, I agree.
Kevin Epp: You said a quote here, I will approach today with a bounding enthusiasm realizing everything I have is a gift. And you said you look at that every morning or most mornings. I mean, do you have that physically in your home? Or do you remind yourself of it? Yeah, it's speaking.
Sam Finney: Yeah, yeah, so that's actually kind of going back to that affirmations piece, right? So that's like the first the first affirmation or the first kind of thought that I I force into my head, so to speak. ⁓ And I guess it's got a couple of a couple of different sections and, know, like we mentioned earlier, hopefully in five, ten years, I got something better, something more refined or, you know, whatever else. But ⁓ yeah, I think. I think just getting excited about the day, right? ⁓ There was another quote, and I'm not going to do it justice, right? But it's talking about how, you know, today, basically you're trading in a day of your life for today, right? And so you have the decision to make it a good day or a bad day, to be excited about it or to be mopey about it, right? Your mindset on how you approach it. ⁓ And so I think that's just a daily morning reminder to myself that I have today that I'm trading in I don't know how many more days I'm gonna have to trade in and It's too valuable to waste right ⁓ And I think the gift part and this kind of comes back to you know, a little bit of the philosophy and maybe even religion. And I don't want to dive too, far down that rabbit hole. But I think one thing that I hold, you know, as one of the more utmost truths is that I did not deserve this life that I have. I didn't deserve life, period. Right. So everything, everything that I know that I've learned. ⁓ You know all of my experiences have involved other people and a lot of times right have involved conversations just like this ⁓ Or reading about things or just learning from from other folks So one, you know, I think I think this life is a gift and honestly kev that's That was kind of you know, as far as rationally speaking ⁓ The only way that I could really cope with Max's death, right? He died when he was 14 years old. ⁓ You know, he didn't, he lived a good life while he was here. ⁓ But, you a lot of people would say it was cut way too short. ⁓ For more than a little bit of time, right, I was pissed off. Like how could this happen? ⁓ And I realized, and kind of the way I think about it today is that you know, did I do anything to deserve him? Did any of my actions necessitate him being here or being able to have the great times that I had with him? And rather than looking at his life as something that was cut short, that he never got the chance to go to college, to really even go to high school, To meet and... have all these experiences rather than think about what he was, you know, denied as some people would say. The way that I've come to think about it, right, is that the good Lord put him on here for 14 years. That we got 14 years with him rather than nothing. And that's 14 more than I deserved. And in a similar way, right, ⁓ I don't know, I think that's the way That's the way that I strive to look at life. And that's not to say that I'm perfect about it. ⁓ But, you know, waking up every, every morning with Kate and realizing what a great gift she is in my life. And what a great companion and best friend and sounding board. You know, when the kiddos run in here before their green light turns on and I'm trying to do some morning reading or journaling, right? Realizing how, how much of a gift it is that that I've got Dom and Eli sprinting into the room in their pajamas just wanting to snuggle. ⁓ And so, yeah, I think just framing life as being able to see the positive in it.
Kevin Epp: Yeah. I mean, brass tacks when you're stressed out on any given set of circumstances during the day, mean, is your first thought to try and, you know, chill out or mentally frame out of it. I mean, it's your first thought like about your brother. Do you think about religion? Do you think about whatever or do you just kind of naturally let it flow out? Or I'm talking about like tactical level of just how do you, we speak all these things like, ⁓ Don't be stressed out about things you can't control. All the BS, I mean, brass tacks level, the reptilian part of our brain cannot help but get stressed out about the day to day or get bored on things. So I'm just wondering, do you think about your brother? Yeah, man, what am I stressing out about? If you will, I'm just curious.
Sam Finney: Yeah, no, I don't. I think honestly, the first step, which I've started doing, you know, after going and and getting talking to some some folks about Max's death and some other things that were weighing on me pretty heavy. Right. One of the things that I was getting soft in ⁓ was just running away from my emotions. ⁓ And again, alcohol was like a great, a great thing. Right. Because I didn't have to face it if I drank enough. ⁓ You know, I didn't have those images just popping into my head randomly if I was drunk enough. And so I think step one was actually confronting a lot of those things, which was very, very painful, ⁓ but was very eye-opening. think kind of step two and what I'm working on more so over the last year has been just realizing that I am getting stressed out about it. I mean, a great example, and for anybody listening to this who has kids, right? You know, when we're trying to do something and all of a sudden I got Eli just literally dumping his water cup out on the floor, Dom's hitting Zave in the head with something random or stealing his pacifier, right? All of those things, it's like the frustration, like just realizing that I am getting frustrated. and then trying to reframe it. So I think the affirmations in the morning help, right? Cause you're just, you're putting that in your mind. ⁓ And honestly, Kev, like as stupid as this sounds, dude, I have visualized my kids just doing some dumb stuff, right? And like how I'm going to react to it. ⁓ And I mean, it's the same way with Doc Z back at West Point where you go and you sit in the egg chair and you think about, you know, how this clear is gonna go or how this person dodges on you. Whether they coming up doing the question mark move, what are you gonna be doing in that moment? And like getting a mental rep at it before it even happened. So I think concretely, like that's what I do beforehand. And then I think, you know, while it's happening, ⁓ I mean, I'll still lose it on them sometimes, don't get me wrong. But I think just realizing
Kevin Epp: Dude, it's almost...
Sam Finney: and like accepting the fact that I'm pissed right now. Right. And then when I realized that and again it kind of comes to like doing the easy thing or doing the hard thing. Right. The easy thing is just to like yell at them telling them to go in their room and sit down and ask them what they're doing. Right. The harder thing is to take a couple seconds. Right. Understand that I'm
Kevin Epp: Yeah.
Sam Finney: not very happy right now about whatever just went down and then just go talk to them about it because the majority of the time, right, they're either hungry or they're tired or they just want your attention. Right. And so if you just sit down and talk to them, it's like, all right, well, maybe that was on me, right? Maybe I didn't get snacks out early enough. Maybe maybe I'll let somebody skip a nap or wait too long to put them down. ⁓ Or maybe I was just being a dingus and getting distracted on my phone with work or you know stupid other stuff that doesn't matter as much as my kids ⁓ when I should have just been focused on them and put my phone in the other room.
Kevin Epp: I feel you. Well, I don't have kids but I can hear you. I feel, I feel, you know what I'm saying? I can hear you. ⁓ Hey, so you have a portion here on past. What does legacy mean to you when you hear that word? Legacy. What does that mean to you?
Sam Finney: ⁓ I think... think it just be like the kind of impact you make on others. And how they, you know, like I mentioned earlier, how everything I have is a gift. ⁓ And I'm a pretty firm believer that the man I am today is due to the multitude of great people that I've had in my life who have taught me, you know, what's right and wrong from my parents to my siblings to my coaches. to my friends and especially Kate, I would say is probably up near the top, if not the top. ⁓ But I think the legacy is being that gift to somebody else. And I think there's a lot of different ways to do it, don't think it's, sometimes it might come in the form of solving problems, helping people out. I think sometimes it might just come in the form of of sitting with people in their pain. I think legacy is showing up every day, ⁓ day after day after day, and doing your best, and becoming somebody that you're proud of, that you're proud to be. think it's all of the little things stacked on top of each other. You know, all of the times that the kids freak out and react in the right way rather than the wrong way. Yeah, I think it just comes down to having a positive impact on others and making the world a better place.
Kevin Epp: I feel. Yeah. Had you ever heard of cosmic irrelevance? You ever heard of this?
Sam Finney: I don't think so.
Kevin Epp: So it's a different thing and we'll touch on legacy. I mean, I just, I hear everything you're saying. But, and I believe it. I believe everything you're saying as well. Because all you can do, all we can do is affect the thoughts and you we can't even affect if we intend to whatever, make someone feel good or do what we perceive to be the right thing. We can't even affect how that is received by other people. I'm saying so we can attempt to attempt to affect some sort of legacy or you know use legacy it could be put into any other term but essentially propagate what we feel to be the right thing but at a high level cosmic irrelevance is a kind of another mental framing which is essentially here I am a human being among seven billion currently alive ⁓ spinning on a planet of which exists in a solar system. You know, you just keep going out and out and out and out and out. I mean, at the lowest level, the things I'm doing right now, ⁓ people whom I would expect that hundreds of years ago were like, I'm developing a legacy for whoever, my grandchildren or my fellow countrymen or my brothers, what have you. They may not even agree with what I'm doing, right? They may attest. detest everything in which the way I am living my own life. And I'm only just a couple few generations separated from them, you know, entire epochs of time. ⁓ I think all we got, I mean, I'm, I agree with everything you're saying, which is, hey man, all you got are the actions you make and the words you speak. But sometimes it takes the stress off because it'll help take the stress off of, man, I tried so hard to affect whatever thing in my life. For right now, it's easy. For us, it's like, to simplify it, it's like business, kids, family, and maybe a couple other things. We're not running a country or something like that. But even then, it's like, man, is anything I'm doing ⁓ beyond the actions I can make, is it really ⁓ relevant? It takes the edge off when things don't happen, I guess, the way in which you intend. You know what I'm saying?
Sam Finney: Yeah, no idea. That actually reminds me of, ⁓ and I actually listened to Jordan Peterson talk about this a little bit, ⁓ but just talking about like living life as if everything matters or nothing matters, right? And those are kind of the two extremes, I think. ⁓ But I think that it kind of does have to be one or the other. And I don't know.
Kevin Epp: Yeah.
Sam Finney: Yeah.
Kevin Epp: I mean, you mentioned paradoxes, right? That is one of these great paradoxes, which is, hey, you have one life. is exceptionally precious. Do not waste it. Everything you do is of the utmost importance. Also, nothing of what you're doing matters at a grand scale. And you're like, what? And then they're like, all right, have a good day. And you're like, wait, wait, come back. And they're like, thank you for listening to my TED talk, right?
Sam Finney: Yeah. You ⁓
Kevin Epp: I mean you say it in your thing, in this life of paradoxes, I mean you hit it right on the head. You say it many different ways at the start of this, is effectively like, listen there's a lot of things that you can try and be sure about, but at the end of the day, just do your best. I mean I'm not summarizing your five minutes up into that, but there's a lot of themes that touch on that. And that's just one paradox sometimes I grapple with, right? I mean we are told time and again, one single life, make it count, you know.
Sam Finney: We need some different instructions. Yeah.
Kevin Epp: Don't wait on any of your goals. Have that conversation you wanna have, whatever. Continue down that and then in the same breath, that's like pause. Also, nothing of what you're doing matters at a grand scale. Remember that like, as an example, you talk about your kids a lot. You could put your heart and soul into your kids and they could end up 180 degrees different from the life in which you may have intended or not intended, but you know what I'm saying? Like a life of which, okay, I think that would be, you know. ⁓ Good for my kids like they could flip 180 degrees and decide their lived a life completely different. It's like alright cool You know what mean? Like how did that happen?
Sam Finney: ⁓ yeah. No, that's actually, mean, Kate and I have talked a bit about that too, cause that's been something on parenthood that, you know, cause with, with both of us having gone to West Point, it's like inevitably, right? They're going to feel, they're going to be around it. They're probably going to be drawn to it. I mean, Dom's five years old and he's telling me he's going to go play lacrosse at Army. And so it's like, you know, obviously I want to support him, but at the same time, kind like you're saying, they turn out 180 degrees, if he's, you know, decides he's going to be some composer in Europe or something, you know, something crazy that I'd know nothing about and would never really even foresee. It's like trying to build ⁓ up the ability to just support him through whatever it is, right? Whatever he loves, whatever he can do well and enjoy. doing and make the world better. Yeah, we'll see how I do. I don't know.
Kevin Epp: Yeah, bro, we'll revisit that. Amen. We'll revisit this fast forward when both of us are bald and we'll revisit this conversation. Nah, hey, ⁓ a wise man once said we are the sum of the books we read and the people we meet. So don't, you know, again, just how your final five minutes is 10 years from now, five years from now, it'll change a little bit. I'm sure these books and people may change, but you know, while I got you here,
Sam Finney: You
Kevin Epp: top of your head, know, tell me about a book. We'll start with a book, you know, something that affected you and maybe you might want to share with others, like a book that you think, you know, had a wrong impact.
Sam Finney: Yeah, so I think actually probably GK Chesterton's orthodoxy is number one and I think it, you he talks a lot about paradoxes ⁓ in there. ⁓ He also talks a decent amount about religion, know, Christianity and Buddhism and all kinds of stuff. and know fairy tales all all over the place mad men ⁓ but I think I think that was very very impactful to me one it's just I think it's enjoyable to read and two I think it's a reminder in today's you know technology savvy world where everybody's wearing whoops and everybody's got all the all the different you know analytics on what what specifically to do to make your body better, what specifically to do and in whatever cases, right? All this science that life does not just boil down to rationality, right? Life doesn't boil down to just science that there's so many intangibles and Kev, like you touched on, right? Like the paradoxes that we just can't understand, that we're never gonna understand, ⁓ but how much beauty that adds to life. ⁓ and I think, you know, being a, being a philosophy major, right. was all about logic and, and all this stuff and reasoning. And I think that's got its place, but I think ultimately, and this is a point that he makes in the book ultimately, right. You know, it's gotta be something beyond logic and reasoning. It's gotta be something beyond science. ⁓ and to be honest, right. That's kinda, that's kind of one of the big reasons for this podcast was kind of a subjective from people that have lived great lives, ⁓ you know, what their lessons learned are rather than, you know, an objective sort of study of, hey, you you do this thing and you're going to gain this much muscle or whatever else, right? ⁓ So yeah, I would say orthodoxy ⁓ just kind of changed the way I thought. And I've gone back, reread it quite a few times. He's also very witty, so it's pretty funny to read as well, in my opinion.
Kevin Epp: That's good, man. ⁓ Man, I mean, there's a lot to be said there. I think we could just have an entire thing just on orthodoxy itself. I'll say just what you were talking about. The hubris of man knows no bounds. And just how you're saying logic and things, the whole world cannot just be solved through logic. Some things are unexplainable. and why I say the hubris of man knows no bounds. mean, everything is just a data point in time. And I just sometimes, this is gonna kind of take a left turn here, but like something as simple as like we didn't even know what germs were. You know what I mean? Like people didn't know what bacteria was. And they're like, right? It's like, bro, I mean, really? You know what I'm saying? And it could be said many different ways of how ignorant the human race was. Well, let's just use that as an example of just how modern medicine has developed, right?
Sam Finney: ⁓ yeah.
Kevin Epp: And in the same way, when I say modern medicine, right, even that term in 2025, I mean, we won't be here for it, but hundreds of years from now, they're gonna look at 2025. I don't even know, like, they'll be like, dude, these guys put cell phones next to their head. You know what I mean? And they talk or whatever, dude, you know, I'm gonna, they like, you know, whatever it is, and they're gonna be like, no, you're kidding me. It's like, bro, they put cell phones next to their head or whatever. You could replace it with anything we're eating. or even cars with exhaust, they'll be like, dude, for like 200 years, they burned gas. And then it'll be like, wait, what? Anyway, to the point, it's like, think anybody who's so sure about logic or so sure about where science is right now, it'll only continue to develop. You started with a lot of this, a lot of themes like this and what you said, but it's like, just stay in humble in how little we know. The more you learn. more you know that we know so little, dude. Well, cool. We'll finish the next one then with the people you meet. So let's hit it. mean, again, this isn't a popularity contest, you know, but for real, tell me about somebody that had an effect on you and really who ⁓ maybe had an effect on your final five minute speech here.
Sam Finney: Yeah, That's actually a good question and one that didn't give too too much thought to before. So one, you know, I would say definitely Kate ⁓ gave a lot. think we've been through some some interesting times, man, in our marriage ⁓ and experienced a lot more than I thought we would. And I was a lot worse of a person than I ever hoped I would be. ⁓ And so I think just her her resolve and her ability to see the best in me, ⁓ even when I could not see it at all, ⁓ is still very inspiring. You know, I kind of like joke with her. Well, not it's not a joke to me, but I say it jokingly because it's pretty serious. But I say that she's my miracle. ⁓ And so, yeah, I think I think I would have her as far as like historical figures. ⁓ I would say ⁓ Jesus would probably make it on the list. He had a lot of paradoxes. A lot of them were still unpacking. ⁓ And then Theodore Roosevelt is one of my favorites. Just talk about doing hard things and choosing to do hard things every day. I think he's a great example of that.
Kevin Epp: Yeah man, if the hardest thing you ever experience is voluntary, I'd say that's a good life. You know what mean? That's a good life. Well shit, you got anything else Sam?
Sam Finney: I think that's it Kev. We'll wrap it up and then yeah, we'll see where this thing goes.
Kevin Epp: Cool dude, good first crack here.
Sam Finney: Awesome. I appreciate you, Kev.
Kevin Epp: My man, you're the man, Sam.
Sam Finney: See you buddy.
Kevin Epp: there.
Kevin Epp: Dave, we're live.
Sam Finney: We are live. All right. Here we go. So I titled this Lessons from a Fool to My Children. It's an impossible task that I attempt here and most assuredly will fail miserably, but at least there may be some laughs, especially from the man upstairs, if from no one else. While these are my thoughts, most are stolen from others, and for them I am thankful. I will approach today with abounding enthusiasm, realizing everything I have is a gift. Most mornings, those are the first words I read and say out loud. Some days I succeed, Others I fail, but despite all that, I wake and I read it again. I've come to see life as a battlefield over the last few decades on this earth. Every day is a war to either see the gifts or the curses, to contribute or take away, to be a radiator or a drain, to be a source for hope or reason for others to despair. At the end of the day, I found this thing called life simple, but don't make the mistake but do not mistake simple for easy. It's always been beautiful even in the suffering. It's always been worthwhile even in the failure. And there's always something to laugh about even half-starved and sleep deprived in the swamps of Florida. There have been seasons of joy and despair, happiness and pain, passion and dreariness. It has never made complete sense, but if it did, what would be the fun of eternal salvation? Don't try and make sense of everything in this life. Make the choice to enjoy it and be thankful for it. Logic and science have their place, but if you try and make sense of this wonderful world of paradoxes, then you'll probably miss out on the best parts. This battle, I believe, is fought and won in the mind each day, and below are some lessons learned from failures, successes, and the paradox of my life. Unhappiness. You can't pursue happiness just as you can't pursue freedom. It's not a thing to be held but a byproduct of a life worth living. If happiness is lacking, don't pursue it. Instead, try and help others, set a goal and begin working towards it. And most simply, but most difficult to do, be present and be thankful. On hard things, force yourself to do at least one difficult thing per day or shatter one limitation you placed on who you are. The world begins to lose its wonders and miracles when you place yourself in a box. Have a growth mindset, take action and learn about anything and everything. Be the man in the arena, as Theodore Roosevelt said, and avoid inaction whenever possible. If you find yourself thinking about a conversation, action or activity that scares you to your core, just go do it and then it will cease to have power over you. On marriage, first and foremost, find someone you're not even close to good enough for yet. Someone... who will take a lifetime of work to deserve and who feels the same way about you. Second, find someone who knows that love is a choice made day after day, not a feeling that comes and goes, and is willing to make that choice forever. And third, find someone who sees the best in you even when you're at your worst, whether it is days, months, or years. On goals, they're incredibly important to have, but I think less important to achieve. They should change often. The most powerful part of goals in my opinion is not getting there but have the direction to take action towards. It's the most powerful weapon against apathy. On the past, you do it a disservice to shut the door completely but also if you walk some midst it and allow you to distract you from today. There will be pain, happiness, love, loss and all that will wear on your soul as a badge of pride or a scar. But the present is for living. On love, it can, and more than likely will, cause unimaginable pain, but it's worth it many times over. On gratitude, make it a habit. Even the mundane and ordinary can be seen as miracles. Make the choice to find each new day and be present in that moment with God. On success, create your own definition of what it is and revisit it often. Since society We'll slowly corrupt that over time. On tragedy, time doesn't heal wounds. Hard work and pain does. Go through the work or it will weigh you down for years. On alcohol, at its best it's okay. At its worst, it can hide a lot of demons and cause immense harm. On character, every choice matters and makes a mark on who you are, no matter how small. Make sure that the good choices outweigh the bad every day. Above everything else, I've mentioned choose each day to be a little better than before, to learn a little more, to laugh, to give thanks, and to appreciate the gift life is. And if your head ever gets too big, just remember that we're all fools trying to make our way through this crazy world.
Kevin Epp: Lord Almighty. I think you actually did it right at five minutes. Which is good. And when we first thought we'd do this, we thought it'd just come off like a eulogy, which it didn't. This is good. Dude, I got a bunch of questions for you. ⁓ First and foremost, the most important one is how much of chat GPT did you use to build that whole thing?
Sam Finney: Well, there we go. Hit me, Kev. Actually none. I sat down on Tybee, got a nasty sunburn in about three and a half hours and hammered it out,
Kevin Epp: ⁓ Yeah, get a good bass char for the summer while you think. I mean, actually though, how long did it take for this to kind of for you to think through it? Did it just come to you and you spoke it on the paper or did it take a couple days and all that?
Sam Finney: I would say for me it took a long time. So I've had this idea for a while. I wasn't in a great headspace for a hot minute after getting out of the Army. ⁓ So I mean I would say probably years in the making ⁓ where I think about it on and off. And I think it started actually a couple years ago. I just decided I was going to start writing letters to my kids. ⁓ Kind of went in and out of that. I think I ended up with like five or six of them. But then this idea from a book I read, I can't remember what book it was. Seemed like a good option and also a good option to like capture the wisdom of other folks and different thoughts on it. yeah, I would say years in the making, actually getting it onto paper was, you know, three or four hours sitting on the beach getting burnt.
Kevin Epp: I mean, yeah, I was actually while you're talking, I was thinking, I guess it's true. You can't just have it come to you. mean, really the whole, the whole basis of this, like the whole final five minutes, you you give your wisdom or whatever you want to, you know, give to society or whoever you want your audience to be. ⁓ And that takes pretty much all your experience in your life. So people are just kind of saying how they see the world through their eyes. You know what mean? What experiences they've been through. So it makes sense. wouldn't just It's kind of like an iterative thing that's happened throughout your life. Why, you you titled it, Lessons from a Fool to My Children. ⁓ Why do your kids, you know, when it's as open-ended as it could be to all of society, to just your wife, like why specifically do your kids?
Sam Finney: well, I think this comes back to kind of the whole, the whole origination of the, the idea and actually doing this podcast. ⁓ so my youngest brother, Max passed away a number of years ago. ⁓ and since then, I don't know, I guess, you know, I don't know if you've heard the term memento mori, right? It's in a lot of art from the middle, middle ages and stuff, right? It's a reminder of death. ⁓ And I would say that that was like a momentum worry slap across the face Where it's like hey, you're gonna be gone one day and you have no idea when that day is right? ⁓ So I think that led to a lot of Maybe irrational, but maybe just realistic fear about passing away right about dying or You know my kids dying or even Kate dying ⁓ And so I think that That was a whole kind of impetus for doing this was to try and teach them what I'd learned in case I wasn't here to teach them or talk to them when they're 20 or 30 or 40, right? So that they'd have, you know, a small part of me to carry on with them and hopefully a lot of other folks that we interview on here to kind of glean some wisdom from them as well. So that's why it's to my kids. I would say the lessons from a fool. know, Kev, I think you know I majored in philosophy at school, right? So the good old philosopher Socrates, ⁓ you know, and I'm probably gonna butcher it a little bit, right? But the oracle at Delphi said he was the wisest man in the world. And he said, there's no way that I'm the wisest man in the world. And so he took a trip. and he went to go see all these wise men who thought they knew everything there was to know. And at the end of it, he realized that maybe the oracle was right because he knew that he didn't know everything, right? That he still had an incredible amount to learn and that, you know, in a way he was still a fool, right? So I think that's just... I think from the philosophy background, that's kind of the mindset I try and bring, not in a confidence sense, but in a curiosity and ⁓ continuing to learn sense. All those words that I just wrote that are super near and dear to my heart, ⁓ I hope a lot of them change over the next few years. and if they don't change if some of it doesn't change that i'm not doing the right thing in my opinion i'm not learning
Kevin Epp: Yeah, mean, know we that's cool, man. And what you just finished on is something I know we've talked about, 33 year old Kev, you know what I mean? What I would give right now as my wisdom or whatever, whatever I would say in this five minutes, I fully expect it to be different in 10 years. I mean, do you see it the same way or do you think what you're saying now might kind of hold true?
Sam Finney: Yeah, I think some things, right? I don't know. I think it be interesting to see what stands the test of time, right? Like I think the man in the arena by Theodore Roosevelt, like I say that every morning when I jump in the ice plunge and miserable, right?
Kevin Epp: Dude, hold on, pause, pause. You do ice plunges, dude? Let's go, dude, hold on. Give us the whole rig. Like, what do you got? What is the ice plunge? There's many different variations. What do you got?
Sam Finney: Yeah. I got a made at home one with a Rubbermaid stock tank and like an aquarium chiller that gets it down to like 38 degrees. So yeah, when I get in there my whole body's yelling at me. I say the man in the arena quote. So I think things like that man, I don't think they'll ever change. I think that will always be near and dear to my heart and very, very true.
Kevin Epp: God, I love it!
Sam Finney: But I don't know, I think like one of my points in the speech, you know, about love and like, man, the most painful moments of my life have been because of love, right? And I actually, after Max died, right? I had to kind of take a step back and like honestly ask myself, like, is it worth it to love somebody so much? ⁓ And I think I mentioned, you know, the letters to my kids and I started writing those, I think partially for my kids, ⁓ but honestly, probably partially for myself to help me, help me kind of like work through a lot of these emotions. ⁓ And the answer that came to was, it's absolutely worth it, but it will cause more pain than you could probably imagine, right? ⁓ And I think, I think that that's... I don't know, that's slowly becoming my realization. know, like I mentioned, life's a battle and it's a fight. And I think that if you don't see it that way, right, you're probably losing that battle. You're losing the daily battle or the yearly battle. You're not challenging yourself and failing enough. ⁓ You're not getting outside your comfort zone and learning some things, so.
Kevin Epp: Dude, you actually, on that note, you said, let me see, something along the lines of like, you gotta do hard things, essentially. Essentially how I could translate it is, hard things are the spice of life and it's what makes you better. mean, right now, today, what is it? June 24th, 2025, I mean, what are the hard things that you think 10 years from now you're gonna be like, yeah, I'm glad I did that.
Sam Finney: Yep.
Kevin Epp: in June of 2025 or what have you. Do you purposely do them or are you, I guess I'll pause and say I think they happen both ways. think hard things occur to us, which I think are the hardest things in life because you can't prepare and you don't get to choose the difficulty. You know what I mean? But anyway, mean, what hard things right now you got going on in your life, both voluntary and involuntary, whatever you'd like to share.
Sam Finney: Yeah. No, I I think I think number one, and honestly, the reason I do a cold plunge every day and part of me thought it would get better like you get used to it. ⁓ You don't, which is great and terrible. Right. ⁓ So starting off the morning with a cold plunge, one, you save a little bit of money on coffee because you don't really need coffee after being in 38 degree water for three minutes. ⁓ But two, right, it's just it is something that I don't like. Kev, when I roll out of bed at 530, I am not thinking a 38 degree water cold plunge sounds good. Like, not a single morning. Right? So it's just like, and that's part of the reason why I like it, because the whole rest of the day gets easier. It's like, ⁓ I got to pay this bill or, you know, I got to do this, pre-approve this client for work or, you know, take the kiddo somewhere. It's like, all that's, all that's easy. ⁓
Kevin Epp: Yeah, not a one is. Yeah, I love it, dude. Yeah.
Sam Finney: And so I think that's one reason why I've started doing it and really enjoyed and not enjoyed it. ⁓ But then two, ⁓ and kind of, I guess, the origin of the doing hard things, right? So we're both in the Army together on the lacrosse team. were a lot of, pretty much every day of practice, right, was a fest of suffering, right? There's snow and whatever else is cold as shit. ⁓ And so I realized like after getting out of the army and having some success with real estate while I was in, right, I just got, I got soft. I think that's the best way to put it, which is honestly the most insulting thing somebody could say to me is, you know, you're soft. Those would be, those would be fighting words over just about anything else. ⁓ And so, yeah, man, was last summer, I was at a buddy's wedding.
Kevin Epp: Yeah.
Sam Finney: And I was talking to him and right, I was still dealing with a lot of this stuff that I hadn't dealt with in the army and some other personal stuff. ⁓ I was just like, dude, I just feel like I'm soft. And so we signed up, signed up for the JFK 50 miler. So I think honestly, you know, in answer to your question, probably like ultra marathons in the future are going to be, you know, what I'm doing every year or just some, some crazy races, adventure races, whatever else, just something. that is difficult, ⁓ so I don't get soft, right? And then I think, kind of in the day-to-day, ⁓ is just doing things that need to be done right away, right? So when I was in my soft period, right, after getting out of the Army, not having a decent amount of income from the real estate, not having to work hard, right, it was easy to sleep in, it was easy to drink a lot more than I should. And I just found myself just pushing off things that were annoying. And then they just hang over my head for like weeks and months, right? And I, like a specific example of this, right? It would be like short-term rental applications that I've got to take into Chatham County. Okay. And you never have it right. They always change it. Right. So you end up going in there like three or four times and I hated it, man. And I would just, you know, you can file them in May. And the deadline is like June or July, no, June 30th, right? And I'll put it off until like June 28th. And for two months, it'd just be hanging over my head. ⁓ And so just stupid things like that, just doing it because you know it needs to be done, right? And not letting it be hanging over you or sitting on your shoulder distracting you. So I think that's kind of where it translates to in daily life is just. doing what needs to be done, because it needs to be done.
Kevin Epp: Dude, I have so much on this. just everything you're saying speaking to me. I wrote a couple notes here so I don't lose my train of thought. mean, first off, cold plunges. for those who don't know, so rewind, when was this? 2022 when we went up to Wyoming and Elk on it, right? And for the record, I missed, but we got it, all right? On the rebound shot, we got it. Okay, so we're good. Successful hunt, good to go. Sam was there the whole time, it was a special moment. But what's important here is on that trip, Sam was like, hey, I'm doing cold plunges. So first off, you've been doing this years, which we're gonna touch on in a second. But to how weak-sauce I am, so you're like, yeah, I do cold plunges. If you don't have a big cold plunger, you can just take a cold shower. So I had a whoop band, and for a year, I took cold showers. every time I took a cold, a shower. And at the end of that year, my whoop band was like, hey, actually these cold showers do not help you. Now many different ways to examine the data, but my weak sauce brain, dude, I used that as a reason to not do them. ⁓ But here's the thing, I got a rooftop up here where I live and there's a couple of psychos in my neighborhood, love it, you know what mean? We all hang out and talk about psycho things and... ⁓ We're talking about dudes buying horse troughs from Costco and filling them up with water and just leaving them there for the winter. Cause it won't necessarily get like too many days below freezing out here. But, um, I think it's interesting how our eight brain get staying on this, uh, cold plunge thing. We'll just use it as a metaphor. I think our eight brain will betray us because no matter how many times you step out of that cold plunge or cold shower or what have you, you just do something uncomfortable. You know, it feels good. You know it's right for you, but when it, right before you do it, your ape brain is always like, ooh, I don't wanna do it, I should quit. Even though literally, the front part of your brain knows that you probably should be doing it. If not for just feeling better and doing hard things, because it makes you a better person, you know what saying?
Sam Finney: Yeah, no, absolutely. No, it's kind of like to stick on that topic a little bit longer, right? And I think it was like a stupid ⁓ show called What We Do in the Shadows, right? It's like a comedy about vampires. But one of the vampires was asleep since the 1700s and he comes out of like the casket or whatever and he's looking around at modern society and basically says something to the extent of You know, every single person today lives better than a king lived back in the day. ⁓ You know, you got AC, you got weeks of food in your pantry and in your fridge. ⁓ You know, you don't have to walk anywhere. You can drive everywhere, right? All these things to make life super easy. And yet, right, you look at, you know, veteran suicide or anxiousness or all these other things. Granted, I'm not a historian or a scientist, right? But pretty big issues today, ⁓ despite life being so quote unquote easy.
Kevin Epp: Do you think we have it hard or easy?
Sam Finney: I think our minds will make anything harder, easy. ⁓ So like a great, one of my favorite books, Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, he talks about the concentration camps, right? ⁓ And I honestly, Kev, I think that was like the biggest thing about Ranger School. that I took away, you know, it wasn't leadership lessons, wasn't whatever else, it was just like a new, a new benchmark for when things are hard. Right? When you only get a couple hours of sleep, you don't get much to eat and you're just walking with 80 pounds on your back for days at a time. It's like, okay, like that's hard. Now is today hard? Nope. I don't have a rock anymore, dude. I don't do that stuff. Right? But I think And again, no scientific evidence per se to back this up, but I think our brain will make whatever circumstance we're in, you know, that will become normal. And then the smallest inconvenience of, know, ⁓ I got to go get the oil changed on my car so I can drive halfway across the country in a day. ⁓ Then I think those things start becoming hard. right, or the stupid paperwork stuff, whatever else. So I think difficulty will find you no matter how many technological advances we have or how quote unquote easy life gets. ⁓ And I think that's why it's important to make it voluntarily hard rather than accepting the ease of life. And then when the hard moments come along, they just seem overwhelming. Because you haven't trained yourself to deal with anything hard. You haven't trained yourself to do things you don't want to do.
Kevin Epp: I agree, mean, it has been said that the hardest thing that has ever happened to you is just that, the hardest thing that has ever happened to you. I think our brains have a, I don't know, maybe somebody did a study on this, I'm not no doctor, but ⁓ I bet, know, how I think of it is, I think our brains only go to like a 10 out of 10 on the pain scale, and if you have only ever experienced, you know, whatever. everything's relative to your brain, if you will, right? So as an example, you're maxed out, absolute, ⁓ whatever experience you could think of that is pegged out on the stress scale to you. My assumption is to other people, they could feel that exact same emotion, it's just as painful to them, but it's for just things that have become mundane for you. Have you ever heard of the frame of the veteran? You reminded me of this as you were talking. You ever heard of that, the frame of the veteran?
Sam Finney: No, I don't think so.
Kevin Epp: So it has nothing to do, though we were in the military, has nothing to do with the military, but essentially, ⁓ as if we have it all figured out, but one thing that we do agree on is life is a lot of mental framing, right? You could look at the same thing and somebody could look at they could look at it completely different, right? And you could be staring at the same situation. And it's all mental framing, or rather, not all of it, but a lot of it can come down to mental framing, just how you see things. if you have a positive attitude versus a negative attitude. But what's important there is ⁓ the frame of the veteran essentially goes as this, which is imagine an event that has occurred to you today, right? And I'm talking about, you mentioned short-term rental applications. Let's talk about the mundane, right? ⁓ That pegs a little bit on the stress-rector scale, sure. What happens day 365? when that event happens every single day for the next year. You know what mean? How are you gonna feel? Is it really gonna matter to you? Or are you just gonna be like, yeah, this is life? You know what I mean? It's gonna feel a little bit different when this stressful event has happened to you now for every single day for the next year. And so essentially the frame of the veteran is a way in which if you're experiencing an acutely stressful event, something that whatever is just weighing on you for maybe a day or a week at a time. It's a way in which to mentally frame out of that and just say, you know, what happens if this same event happens every single week for the next five years? How would I feel on that, you know, fifth year, whatever that'd be, know, 20, 250th week of this event occurring. And then you probably now most often times the mental frame is essentially they're saying, yeah, by that time I'd expect it. I'd probably. not have it bother me as much because it's happened so many times prior and then it can take the edge off in the moment. Anyway, I heard that a little while back and I have used it. Again, our lives are so easy relative to people, but I've used it.
Sam Finney: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and another kind of tangential point to that too, I was, I was reading something the other day or listening to something, but it talked about how, you know, like 80 % of our thoughts are kind of subconscious from the previous day. ⁓ and this is something I've started doing more recently. It was, it's just like doing affirmations and visualizations. ⁓ and it's made a big difference. And I think I don't know. think the way I kind of think about it, Kev, because I thought it was the stupidest thing for a long, long time. Right. But I think the way I think about it now, right, is you're just forcing, you're forcing these thoughts into your brain day after day after day about, you know, about being thankful, about being excited for the day, no matter what it holds. Right. About like trying to pick out the best parts, making sure that you're present, right, laughing, and whatever else you want to throw in there, right, but it's basically just feeding your subconscious brain the man that you want to be over and over and over. and all of a sudden, know, kind of like you talked about that framing, right? All of a sudden, the smaller decisions you start making are more in line with that person. And over time, you build your character through, you know, hundreds of thousands of smaller decisions, like not hitting the snooze button every morning five times, or doing cold plunges, or, you know, just doing what needs to be done rather than putting things off, letting them hang over you. ⁓ becoming a better person every day that I think, you know, short term, right, there's not much difference at all. ⁓ When you start looking in year, five years or 10 years, I think that's where all the difference is made, right? It's just how you're thinking about things and how you're reinforcing the kind of person that you wanna be, regardless of who that is.
Kevin Epp: It's small steps every day, right? ⁓ I mean, we learned that, right? So we played lacrosse together, sure. You know, replace lacrosse with just any other physical event. think physical suffering and physical exertion is just a means through which to make yourself mentally tougher. And it's, I mean, it's fun. But, you know, we played lacrosse together. So Mikey Stadium is this frigid place. during like a weekday evening practice and our coach would, I mean, this man understands the value of everything we're talking about, you know what mean? And we would do these evening practices out there when there is a perfectly warm covered stadium, I mean, a la 200 yards away, right? You know I mean? But that you would literally run past, right?
Sam Finney: So we'd run past on the way to Mikey.
Kevin Epp: But it doesn't take much and especially if you're playing a Division I athletics, you understand it. mean, I don't think there's very many people who didn't understand the purpose of it. But ⁓ I think you touched on it and ⁓ I think it's important to be said, the success is in the mundane. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know about you, being in high school, all I wanted to play was Division I lacrosse, right? And so much can be said for just a high school or just being like, or anything in life. You're just chasing, like, I don't care where I go, right? I just want to play the highest level. I want to play lacrosse. On the backside, best decision we ever made. I think a good coach and a good program can change your life, which it did for me. But it's funny because like year three, you know, practice 1,100 or whatever, you know what I mean? Like. Are you thinking about, these gloves are so, I don't know about you, but I forgot, like, I remember I would be reminded when we would finish games, like kids being like, hey, can I have your gloves? Or like, hey, wow, you guys got all this new swag, right? And I remember like, wow, I remember sitting in your shoes caring about that. But here I am, the, know, we're the players of which we wanted to be. And I couldn't even tell you what type of cleats we had or anything, it just like. stopped mattering, right? Cause like we were in it at that point. Like it was the mundane. I don't know if you know what I'm saying. Like that's just one like ⁓ related experience we had, but I was thinking about it as you were talking. It's like so true. Like national championships, it's not one on the field. know, all those quotes that have been said again and again in different ways. I mean, it's so true when you experience it and look back on it, you know?
Sam Finney: Yeah, I agree.
Kevin Epp: You said a quote here, I will approach today with a bounding enthusiasm realizing everything I have is a gift. And you said you look at that every morning or most mornings. I mean, do you have that physically in your home? Or do you remind yourself of it? Yeah, it's speaking.
Sam Finney: Yeah, yeah, so that's actually kind of going back to that affirmations piece, right? So that's like the first the first affirmation or the first kind of thought that I I force into my head, so to speak. ⁓ And I guess it's got a couple of a couple of different sections and, know, like we mentioned earlier, hopefully in five, ten years, I got something better, something more refined or, you know, whatever else. But ⁓ yeah, I think. I think just getting excited about the day, right? ⁓ There was another quote, and I'm not going to do it justice, right? But it's talking about how, you know, today, basically you're trading in a day of your life for today, right? And so you have the decision to make it a good day or a bad day, to be excited about it or to be mopey about it, right? Your mindset on how you approach it. ⁓ And so I think that's just a daily morning reminder to myself that I have today that I'm trading in I don't know how many more days I'm gonna have to trade in and It's too valuable to waste right ⁓ And I think the gift part and this kind of comes back to you know, a little bit of the philosophy and maybe even religion. And I don't want to dive too, far down that rabbit hole. But I think one thing that I hold, you know, as one of the more utmost truths is that I did not deserve this life that I have. I didn't deserve life, period. Right. So everything, everything that I know that I've learned. ⁓ You know all of my experiences have involved other people and a lot of times right have involved conversations just like this ⁓ Or reading about things or just learning from from other folks So one, you know, I think I think this life is a gift and honestly kev that's That was kind of you know, as far as rationally speaking ⁓ The only way that I could really cope with Max's death, right? He died when he was 14 years old. ⁓ You know, he didn't, he lived a good life while he was here. ⁓ But, you a lot of people would say it was cut way too short. ⁓ For more than a little bit of time, right, I was pissed off. Like how could this happen? ⁓ And I realized, and kind of the way I think about it today is that you know, did I do anything to deserve him? Did any of my actions necessitate him being here or being able to have the great times that I had with him? And rather than looking at his life as something that was cut short, that he never got the chance to go to college, to really even go to high school, To meet and... have all these experiences rather than think about what he was, you know, denied as some people would say. The way that I've come to think about it, right, is that the good Lord put him on here for 14 years. That we got 14 years with him rather than nothing. And that's 14 more than I deserved. And in a similar way, right, ⁓ I don't know, I think that's the way That's the way that I strive to look at life. And that's not to say that I'm perfect about it. ⁓ But, you know, waking up every, every morning with Kate and realizing what a great gift she is in my life. And what a great companion and best friend and sounding board. You know, when the kiddos run in here before their green light turns on and I'm trying to do some morning reading or journaling, right? Realizing how, how much of a gift it is that that I've got Dom and Eli sprinting into the room in their pajamas just wanting to snuggle. ⁓ And so, yeah, I think just framing life as being able to see the positive in it.
Kevin Epp: Yeah. I mean, brass tacks when you're stressed out on any given set of circumstances during the day, mean, is your first thought to try and, you know, chill out or mentally frame out of it. I mean, it's your first thought like about your brother. Do you think about religion? Do you think about whatever or do you just kind of naturally let it flow out? Or I'm talking about like tactical level of just how do you, we speak all these things like, ⁓ Don't be stressed out about things you can't control. All the BS, I mean, brass tacks level, the reptilian part of our brain cannot help but get stressed out about the day to day or get bored on things. So I'm just wondering, do you think about your brother? Yeah, man, what am I stressing out about? If you will, I'm just curious.
Sam Finney: Yeah, no, I don't. I think honestly, the first step, which I've started doing, you know, after going and and getting talking to some some folks about Max's death and some other things that were weighing on me pretty heavy. Right. One of the things that I was getting soft in ⁓ was just running away from my emotions. ⁓ And again, alcohol was like a great, a great thing. Right. Because I didn't have to face it if I drank enough. ⁓ You know, I didn't have those images just popping into my head randomly if I was drunk enough. And so I think step one was actually confronting a lot of those things, which was very, very painful, ⁓ but was very eye-opening. think kind of step two and what I'm working on more so over the last year has been just realizing that I am getting stressed out about it. I mean, a great example, and for anybody listening to this who has kids, right? You know, when we're trying to do something and all of a sudden I got Eli just literally dumping his water cup out on the floor, Dom's hitting Zave in the head with something random or stealing his pacifier, right? All of those things, it's like the frustration, like just realizing that I am getting frustrated. and then trying to reframe it. So I think the affirmations in the morning help, right? Cause you're just, you're putting that in your mind. ⁓ And honestly, Kev, like as stupid as this sounds, dude, I have visualized my kids just doing some dumb stuff, right? And like how I'm going to react to it. ⁓ And I mean, it's the same way with Doc Z back at West Point where you go and you sit in the egg chair and you think about, you know, how this clear is gonna go or how this person dodges on you. Whether they coming up doing the question mark move, what are you gonna be doing in that moment? And like getting a mental rep at it before it even happened. So I think concretely, like that's what I do beforehand. And then I think, you know, while it's happening, ⁓ I mean, I'll still lose it on them sometimes, don't get me wrong. But I think just realizing
Kevin Epp: Dude, it's almost...
Sam Finney: and like accepting the fact that I'm pissed right now. Right. And then when I realized that and again it kind of comes to like doing the easy thing or doing the hard thing. Right. The easy thing is just to like yell at them telling them to go in their room and sit down and ask them what they're doing. Right. The harder thing is to take a couple seconds. Right. Understand that I'm
Kevin Epp: Yeah.
Sam Finney: not very happy right now about whatever just went down and then just go talk to them about it because the majority of the time, right, they're either hungry or they're tired or they just want your attention. Right. And so if you just sit down and talk to them, it's like, all right, well, maybe that was on me, right? Maybe I didn't get snacks out early enough. Maybe maybe I'll let somebody skip a nap or wait too long to put them down. ⁓ Or maybe I was just being a dingus and getting distracted on my phone with work or you know stupid other stuff that doesn't matter as much as my kids ⁓ when I should have just been focused on them and put my phone in the other room.
Kevin Epp: I feel you. Well, I don't have kids but I can hear you. I feel, I feel, you know what I'm saying? I can hear you. ⁓ Hey, so you have a portion here on past. What does legacy mean to you when you hear that word? Legacy. What does that mean to you?
Sam Finney: ⁓ I think... think it just be like the kind of impact you make on others. And how they, you know, like I mentioned earlier, how everything I have is a gift. ⁓ And I'm a pretty firm believer that the man I am today is due to the multitude of great people that I've had in my life who have taught me, you know, what's right and wrong from my parents to my siblings to my coaches. to my friends and especially Kate, I would say is probably up near the top, if not the top. ⁓ But I think the legacy is being that gift to somebody else. And I think there's a lot of different ways to do it, don't think it's, sometimes it might come in the form of solving problems, helping people out. I think sometimes it might just come in the form of of sitting with people in their pain. I think legacy is showing up every day, ⁓ day after day after day, and doing your best, and becoming somebody that you're proud of, that you're proud to be. think it's all of the little things stacked on top of each other. You know, all of the times that the kids freak out and react in the right way rather than the wrong way. Yeah, I think it just comes down to having a positive impact on others and making the world a better place.
Kevin Epp: I feel. Yeah. Had you ever heard of cosmic irrelevance? You ever heard of this?
Sam Finney: I don't think so.
Kevin Epp: So it's a different thing and we'll touch on legacy. I mean, I just, I hear everything you're saying. But, and I believe it. I believe everything you're saying as well. Because all you can do, all we can do is affect the thoughts and you we can't even affect if we intend to whatever, make someone feel good or do what we perceive to be the right thing. We can't even affect how that is received by other people. I'm saying so we can attempt to attempt to affect some sort of legacy or you know use legacy it could be put into any other term but essentially propagate what we feel to be the right thing but at a high level cosmic irrelevance is a kind of another mental framing which is essentially here I am a human being among seven billion currently alive ⁓ spinning on a planet of which exists in a solar system. You know, you just keep going out and out and out and out and out. I mean, at the lowest level, the things I'm doing right now, ⁓ people whom I would expect that hundreds of years ago were like, I'm developing a legacy for whoever, my grandchildren or my fellow countrymen or my brothers, what have you. They may not even agree with what I'm doing, right? They may attest. detest everything in which the way I am living my own life. And I'm only just a couple few generations separated from them, you know, entire epochs of time. ⁓ I think all we got, I mean, I'm, I agree with everything you're saying, which is, hey man, all you got are the actions you make and the words you speak. But sometimes it takes the stress off because it'll help take the stress off of, man, I tried so hard to affect whatever thing in my life. For right now, it's easy. For us, it's like, to simplify it, it's like business, kids, family, and maybe a couple other things. We're not running a country or something like that. But even then, it's like, man, is anything I'm doing ⁓ beyond the actions I can make, is it really ⁓ relevant? It takes the edge off when things don't happen, I guess, the way in which you intend. You know what I'm saying?
Sam Finney: Yeah, no idea. That actually reminds me of, ⁓ and I actually listened to Jordan Peterson talk about this a little bit, ⁓ but just talking about like living life as if everything matters or nothing matters, right? And those are kind of the two extremes, I think. ⁓ But I think that it kind of does have to be one or the other. And I don't know.
Kevin Epp: Yeah.
Sam Finney: Yeah.
Kevin Epp: I mean, you mentioned paradoxes, right? That is one of these great paradoxes, which is, hey, you have one life. is exceptionally precious. Do not waste it. Everything you do is of the utmost importance. Also, nothing of what you're doing matters at a grand scale. And you're like, what? And then they're like, all right, have a good day. And you're like, wait, wait, come back. And they're like, thank you for listening to my TED talk, right?
Sam Finney: Yeah. You ⁓
Kevin Epp: I mean you say it in your thing, in this life of paradoxes, I mean you hit it right on the head. You say it many different ways at the start of this, is effectively like, listen there's a lot of things that you can try and be sure about, but at the end of the day, just do your best. I mean I'm not summarizing your five minutes up into that, but there's a lot of themes that touch on that. And that's just one paradox sometimes I grapple with, right? I mean we are told time and again, one single life, make it count, you know.
Sam Finney: We need some different instructions. Yeah.
Kevin Epp: Don't wait on any of your goals. Have that conversation you wanna have, whatever. Continue down that and then in the same breath, that's like pause. Also, nothing of what you're doing matters at a grand scale. Remember that like, as an example, you talk about your kids a lot. You could put your heart and soul into your kids and they could end up 180 degrees different from the life in which you may have intended or not intended, but you know what I'm saying? Like a life of which, okay, I think that would be, you know. ⁓ Good for my kids like they could flip 180 degrees and decide their lived a life completely different. It's like alright cool You know what mean? Like how did that happen?
Sam Finney: ⁓ yeah. No, that's actually, mean, Kate and I have talked a bit about that too, cause that's been something on parenthood that, you know, cause with, with both of us having gone to West Point, it's like inevitably, right? They're going to feel, they're going to be around it. They're probably going to be drawn to it. I mean, Dom's five years old and he's telling me he's going to go play lacrosse at Army. And so it's like, you know, obviously I want to support him, but at the same time, kind like you're saying, they turn out 180 degrees, if he's, you know, decides he's going to be some composer in Europe or something, you know, something crazy that I'd know nothing about and would never really even foresee. It's like trying to build ⁓ up the ability to just support him through whatever it is, right? Whatever he loves, whatever he can do well and enjoy. doing and make the world better. Yeah, we'll see how I do. I don't know.
Kevin Epp: Yeah, bro, we'll revisit that. Amen. We'll revisit this fast forward when both of us are bald and we'll revisit this conversation. Nah, hey, ⁓ a wise man once said we are the sum of the books we read and the people we meet. So don't, you know, again, just how your final five minutes is 10 years from now, five years from now, it'll change a little bit. I'm sure these books and people may change, but you know, while I got you here,
Sam Finney: You
Kevin Epp: top of your head, know, tell me about a book. We'll start with a book, you know, something that affected you and maybe you might want to share with others, like a book that you think, you know, had a wrong impact.
Sam Finney: Yeah, so I think actually probably GK Chesterton's orthodoxy is number one and I think it, you he talks a lot about paradoxes ⁓ in there. ⁓ He also talks a decent amount about religion, know, Christianity and Buddhism and all kinds of stuff. and know fairy tales all all over the place mad men ⁓ but I think I think that was very very impactful to me one it's just I think it's enjoyable to read and two I think it's a reminder in today's you know technology savvy world where everybody's wearing whoops and everybody's got all the all the different you know analytics on what what specifically to do to make your body better, what specifically to do and in whatever cases, right? All this science that life does not just boil down to rationality, right? Life doesn't boil down to just science that there's so many intangibles and Kev, like you touched on, right? Like the paradoxes that we just can't understand, that we're never gonna understand, ⁓ but how much beauty that adds to life. ⁓ and I think, you know, being a, being a philosophy major, right. was all about logic and, and all this stuff and reasoning. And I think that's got its place, but I think ultimately, and this is a point that he makes in the book ultimately, right. You know, it's gotta be something beyond logic and reasoning. It's gotta be something beyond science. ⁓ and to be honest, right. That's kinda, that's kind of one of the big reasons for this podcast was kind of a subjective from people that have lived great lives, ⁓ you know, what their lessons learned are rather than, you know, an objective sort of study of, hey, you you do this thing and you're going to gain this much muscle or whatever else, right? ⁓ So yeah, I would say orthodoxy ⁓ just kind of changed the way I thought. And I've gone back, reread it quite a few times. He's also very witty, so it's pretty funny to read as well, in my opinion.
Kevin Epp: That's good, man. ⁓ Man, I mean, there's a lot to be said there. I think we could just have an entire thing just on orthodoxy itself. I'll say just what you were talking about. The hubris of man knows no bounds. And just how you're saying logic and things, the whole world cannot just be solved through logic. Some things are unexplainable. and why I say the hubris of man knows no bounds. mean, everything is just a data point in time. And I just sometimes, this is gonna kind of take a left turn here, but like something as simple as like we didn't even know what germs were. You know what I mean? Like people didn't know what bacteria was. And they're like, right? It's like, bro, I mean, really? You know what I'm saying? And it could be said many different ways of how ignorant the human race was. Well, let's just use that as an example of just how modern medicine has developed, right?
Sam Finney: ⁓ yeah.
Kevin Epp: And in the same way, when I say modern medicine, right, even that term in 2025, I mean, we won't be here for it, but hundreds of years from now, they're gonna look at 2025. I don't even know, like, they'll be like, dude, these guys put cell phones next to their head. You know what I mean? And they talk or whatever, dude, you know, I'm gonna, they like, you know, whatever it is, and they're gonna be like, no, you're kidding me. It's like, bro, they put cell phones next to their head or whatever. You could replace it with anything we're eating. or even cars with exhaust, they'll be like, dude, for like 200 years, they burned gas. And then it'll be like, wait, what? Anyway, to the point, it's like, think anybody who's so sure about logic or so sure about where science is right now, it'll only continue to develop. You started with a lot of this, a lot of themes like this and what you said, but it's like, just stay in humble in how little we know. The more you learn. more you know that we know so little, dude. Well, cool. We'll finish the next one then with the people you meet. So let's hit it. mean, again, this isn't a popularity contest, you know, but for real, tell me about somebody that had an effect on you and really who ⁓ maybe had an effect on your final five minute speech here.
Sam Finney: Yeah, That's actually a good question and one that didn't give too too much thought to before. So one, you know, I would say definitely Kate ⁓ gave a lot. think we've been through some some interesting times, man, in our marriage ⁓ and experienced a lot more than I thought we would. And I was a lot worse of a person than I ever hoped I would be. ⁓ And so I think just her her resolve and her ability to see the best in me, ⁓ even when I could not see it at all, ⁓ is still very inspiring. You know, I kind of like joke with her. Well, not it's not a joke to me, but I say it jokingly because it's pretty serious. But I say that she's my miracle. ⁓ And so, yeah, I think I think I would have her as far as like historical figures. ⁓ I would say ⁓ Jesus would probably make it on the list. He had a lot of paradoxes. A lot of them were still unpacking. ⁓ And then Theodore Roosevelt is one of my favorites. Just talk about doing hard things and choosing to do hard things every day. I think he's a great example of that.
Kevin Epp: Yeah man, if the hardest thing you ever experience is voluntary, I'd say that's a good life. You know what mean? That's a good life. Well shit, you got anything else Sam?
Sam Finney: I think that's it Kev. We'll wrap it up and then yeah, we'll see where this thing goes.
Kevin Epp: Cool dude, good first crack here.
Sam Finney: Awesome. I appreciate you, Kev.
Kevin Epp: My man, you're the man, Sam.
Sam Finney: See you buddy.
Kevin Epp: there.
