The Daily Stoic - Ryan Interviews Brent Underwood, Ghost Town Proprietor

Episode Date: April 22, 2020

On this special bonus episode of the Daily Stoic podcast, Ryan interviews Brent Underwood, a partner in Ryan's marketing endeavors and the owner of an actual ghost town, Cerro Gordo. They discuss the practice of Stoicism when you're the only person around for hundreds of square miles.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Follow @DailyStoic:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow along with Cerro Gordo, the ghost town, on Instagram at:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cerro.gordo.ca/Website: https://cerrogordomines.com/And Brent at:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brentwunderwood/Website: http://brentunderwood.com/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoke. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living good life. insight, wisdom necessary for living good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000 journaled philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Daily Stoke Podcast.

Today we've got a special episode. I'm interviewing someone that you probably haven't heard of. His name is Brent Underwood, but he's someone that I talked to three, four, sometimes five times a day. I actually met Brent in 2011. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wendery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. 2012, before any of my books, it came out, he actually started as my intern. And he worked at Braschek, which is my marketing company for a very long time. And he proved himself to be so talented and capable and creative that he ended up becoming a partner in the company.

And so when brass checks started Daily Stoic, I was writing the book Daily Stoic and I had this idea, hey, what if we built out a website about it in an email list and then maybe there could be products at some point or a podcast. It was natural that Brent would be a big part of that because we were applying for the first time a lot of the advice that we've been giving to clients over the years. It was our turn to do those things internally. Brent has been an integral part of Daily Stoke over the last three plus years. In fact, many of you may have heard of Daily Stoke through something Brent set up, whether

it was an email funnel or an article that he promoted or one of the social media accounts that he put up. Brent is, I do the writing, I make the stuff and Brent is the one who helps me bring it to the world. He helped realize our first products. I remember I was walking through the Austin airport and I'd been thinking about momentum more and I had this idea that I wanted to do like a momentum more a tangible like totem that you could carry around and I called them and I said, Bren, I had this idea. I wanted to do a momentum more like coin, like a challenge coin, something you could carry

in your pocket. I was like, there's got to be like a mint that makes these that you could get to make us something cool. And from that came one of the first products we did for Daily Stoic. And now, you know, tens of thousands of people carry this all over the world. So Brent is just been a great partner and collaborator of mine and a long time fan and follower of the Stoics. Obviously, that's sort of a prerequisite for working with Daily Sturick or with me. And Brent's got a lot of range. You know, we talked about David Epstein's stuff. When Brent was my intern at Brass Check, he also had a backpacker hostel in Brooklyn.

And then he moved to Austin and he set one up here, which I'm one of the investors in. We own some properties together. And then more recently, he took this big swing crazy gamble and he bought a ghost town near Death Valley called Sarogordo, which he's been in the process of speccing out into this sort of resort. And I remember we were talking on the phone a couple of weeks ago as the quarantine had sort of come to Texas and Brent was going stir crazy and his apartment and I said, hey, you know, look Obviously, we can see each other

But you're welcome to come sort of walk around on the farm anytime you want if you need to get some space And it's like, you know what? Would it be crazy if I just got in my car and I drove to Sarah Gordo and I said no I actually think it'd probably be fascinating and he did did it. And so he's been there the last couple of weeks. He's actually just in the New York Post doing a profile on him because, you know, that's a weird place to be locked down. But you know, that's Brent's style. And so we've been doing more interviews. Brent was someone I wanted to talk to as I think you guys will find his story relatable.

I think it's sort of a peek behind the curtain on how Daily Stoic works. And he's just a fascinating guy. So here is my conversation with Brent Underwood. I'm here in Austin and he is out in Cerro Gordo, 8,000 feet above sea level, snowed in, running low on supplies. So I think it'll make for a great interview. on supplies, so I think it'll make for a great interview. All right, hey, Brent. So you are talking to us from Sarah Gordo right now. What's it like? It's hailing right now. I am in our card room, which is the room with a bullet hole and a bloodstain on the floor. I have a small, vornado heater next to me to try to keep you warm and have a small, bonito heater next to me to try to keep you warm and reasonable internet. So here we are.

So I think the question is, so you were in Austin and things were looking bad. And you said, Hey, I'm going to make a move. Let me, let me get away from this. Did you, did you do your pre-meditashi ovalorum that it might actually be worse in a ghost town at, at 8,000 feet above sea level in early spring, or is this catching you by surprise? No, a little bit. So I thought the worst case scenario would be I had the virus and I ended up here without access to adequate medical help, and I think that was the biggest concern for me. Two weeks past and that was kind of out the window, so I was feeling pretty good. But I had not anticipated getting 5 to 6 feet of snow and not being able to

get down our single lane road to get groceries or anything like that. So that was not anticipated. But I guess I am practicing a more faulty and trying to enjoy the time as I can use the time to learn new things and just think the best of it. Well, sort of getting right into it. I think one of the things that would be strange, but also surreal and also maybe a little inspiring about your situation is it's like, you know, Marcus had this line is like, if it's humanly possible, like tell yourself you can do it. Like, people have been surviving in Saragordo in the winter for, you know, well over 100 years. So like, you know, it's possible, right?

Is it weird thinking like, who has been there and what has happened in the buildings that you're in? Well, yeah, definitely. I mean, it's impossible to escape the past year. The buildings are ones that have been up since 1865. You know, the cardinal I'm sitting in right now has been here since 1871. And like you said, guys that, guys have, at one point in time, there was 5,000 residents here.

And they not only survived harder winners, but instead of just doing things like podcasts and emails, they were mining underground for 12 hours a day. So it's certainly possible to put things against perspective. And I think knowing that this town was here, like you said, since the Spanish influenza and it'll be here far after I die, there is a source of strength in that, I think. Yeah, like I was thinking of putting up a sign, as you know, our offices for Daily Stoic are on the main street in Ambassador Texas. And I was thinking about putting a sign up in the window that said something like, you

know, this main street has endured the Civil War, the Spanish American War, the Spanish flu, World War I, World War II, the Cold War, the panic of 1873, the panic of 1907, the Great Depression, the financial crisis, Black Monday, the tech bubble. It's been through all those things like it will get through this as well, but I can imagine, I can feel that every day being in the building, or you can feel that

being in the ghost town, but feel that being in the ghost town. But if you were in your two-year-old apartment building in Austin, Texas, maybe this really does feel like a totally unprecedented, unsurvivable event. Yeah, I mean, if anything, it's been, I think, an incredible experience being up here. Because I think the last years, I met excuses of why I wasn't gay as much John as I wanted or different things. And so I moved into the most brand new apartment

that you could get in Austin. I got new couches, building an apartment like you do. And the things that I thought that might solve didn't necessarily go away. And then coming here, the extreme is, we don't even have running water here It's a place that there's no running water You heat your house by wood, you know, it's very uncomfortable generally and I think for me there was this

Two or three-day hump where I was missing all these comforts that I thought I needed to do the things that I wanted to do But then after those three days you realized that like I didn't need any of the stuff that I had put in this brand new apartment. I kind of felt ridiculous even having them and now. And I was able to get everything done that I wanted to do and possibly even more being up here. And I think it is time back to sitting here, like the men and women who lived here lived a very tough life and they endured

and their kin are still out there. And so thinking about that definitely, yeah, is is a sort of strength in times like this. Do you think being there having worked on the project, having to go through this right now, is it like toughening you up in some way? I feel like like one of the benefits of having the farm for me is it's like, oh, I know how to hunt for my own food. I know how to fix stuff. I have tools. Like, I feel even though it would be really bad if I ever got in a situation where I needed to do any of those things at any serious level, I feel more confident in myself having knowing that I can kind of endure hardship. Yeah, no, 100%.

I think, you know, being up here, there's been lots of things that I don't necessarily know how to do, but you're forced into and you realize they're not maybe as difficult as you imagine them being. Building things is one thing like you mentioned, the other day able to deck. I don't know anything about building a deck, but you build a deck. Yeah, on our little cabin on the backside of the property, you know that little one that has been moved from the town hall. Yeah. I thought that would

be a good place to start. So I took some old wood from the church, brought it over there and built a pretty nice deck that I'm not proud of. And so like you said, now I'm confident to maybe tackle bigger projects back in the town where maybe the stakes were a little higher because the buildings were a little nicer. But if I hadn't have come up here, I wouldn't know how to build a deck. So that's a positive thing. And then I think, as far as the confidence thing goes, we've been snowed in. So I literally have been eating rice and beans for the past seven to ten days.

And I know that's one of the so-and the still exercises that Tim Ferriss likes to do, and different people do, or is like kind of this practicing hardships. But I'm fine. Like I'm talking to you fine. I'm still able to carry out my daily tasks. I still feel good. And so, you know, worst case scenario, I know that seven days in Rice and Beans isn't the end of the world.

So that's, you know, I've drawn strength from that as well, I think. Yeah, I was gonna say, it's, I think that's what Senaiko was doing when he would do this sort of days where he'd practice poverty or, you know, Musone's Rufus is saying like, look, the reason we expose ourselves to cold and hunger and blah, blah, blah, is because, hey, you could get exiled,

you know, things could go south, Rome could burn to the ground. You could be, you know, run afoul south, Rome could burn to the ground, you could be, you know, run afoul of the emperor, all these things that could happen. And what you realize, not that those things are fun, you wouldn't choose them, but I think the idea is getting to a place where you can go like, yeah, I can, I know I can do this. Like, it's like, we just did that for the day.

So challenge one of the days was sleeping on the ground. There's not really any, maybe there's some sort of pseudo health benefits for your back or something like laying on the ground. But the point is it's like, if you are someone who goes out and camps a lot, you now don't need to live in as fancy of house because you know you can be perfectly comfortable like sleeping in the dirt or on the ground. Yeah, and then I mean I'm not necessarily sleeping in the dirt here, but to take it to an extreme like it's very cold in our buildings and it's a bit spooky. This is a town that like not to get into the paranormal one thing, but a lot of murders happened to you know anytime you hear a sound at night, you get a little bit disturbed or kind of freaked out.

So I'll try to lean into that. I even the other night, I very much dislike going into the bunkhouse here. I just think it's creepy. I don't like walking down the hallway at night. And so I like forced myself to go to the bunkhouse at night, walk down the hallway, and sleep in the back room.

And it's a little bit different of kind of like discomfort, but like, a comfort to that kind of like, Marcus has that quote about like a rock standing still looks things crashed around you. Now if I'm back in Austin and I hear like a weird noise in the middle of the night, it's not going to phase me at all. I at least I don't think it would. You know, there's like a conditioning that's happening up here as far as a comfort level that I'm really in a lot of ways grateful for. Well, I want to talk about the ghost thing for a second and maybe I'll tease a little bit because there's a ghost story in lives of the stills, which is the next book we're doing, but

I was curious too, and as far as like deprivations go, there's not running water, right? So how are you showering? Are you just like jumping in the snow? Or are you like, that seems like the cold would sort of, you'd be rudely reminded of the cold just doing like some sort of basic day-to-day functioning. Yeah, I mean, you're the thought of not going with running water for a number of weeks would just be unfathomable for probably most people. For good reason, you know, it's certainly, there's a level of disgustiness there that you grow to ignore, I think, just being up here. Particularly being up here with nobody else really around, so you're not worried about the social norms

of walking out in public, having not showered for a number of days. But like, in practical terms, there's a lot of wipes, you know, let's say like day to day, like hand sanitizer to wash your hands, wipe wipes to wipe down your face or something. We have something say like day to day, like hand sanitizer to wash your hands, white wipes to wipe down your face or something, we have something called like a surf shower and I've ever seen these things,

but they look like a cooler and the cooler has a pump on the top and you can pump the cooler and there's like a spray nozzle to essentially just like get yourself wet. And so when I feel the need for showering or something, the cooler pump surf shower does the trick pretty good.

And I don't think it's a good or a bad thing, but like I feel more comfortable having more days past not showering each day being up here. Again, not sure if that's a great thing, but it's something that I'm going to be more comfortable with as well. Yeah, no, that's hilarious. The ghost story I was going to say is, and we have this in lives of the Stoics, it's either a Thenidoris or arias dendamas. I think it's a Thenidoris, but basically the story is he goes on to be the mentor and the tutor of the emperor Octavian. But before he does that, he's out in this Roman countryside.

And he's rented this big mansion, and he's doing his writing there, and everyone is told in this mansion is haunted. As he tells the story, he's sitting there one night writing, and this ghost comes, and he's dragging these heavy chains, and he's making all these noises. And Athena Doris is sitting there writing. And he looks up at the ghost and he motions like with his fingers like, you know, one minute, excuse me.

And he finishes writing. And then he gets up and he says to the ghost like, show me the way. And the ghost leads him out into the yard and he points to a spot and Athena Doris marks the spot. and then he leaves and in the morning he fetches a work crew who goes and digs up the spot and sure enough there's the bones of the ghost who had been haunting the mansion and so they re-barriate and the ghost is never seen again. And what I take from this story is that it's actually supposed to be sort of not saying,

oh, ghosts are real, it's supposed to be saying that there's a root cause of all ghost stories, you can't be afraid of them, you can't be intimidated by them, you have to get to the bottom of it and then it solves the situation. And so I was someone imagining you doing that as you walk through the bunkhouse where I know you've supposedly

Had some supernatural encounters before Yeah, that's the the creepy so yeah, that is a good point like by forcing myself to go there at night and lean into it Then it's almost that other quote like you suffer more imagination than a reality like whatever was gonna happen by going into that building and going to the back room I was gonna solve that night instead of having months gonna happen by going into that building and going to the back room, I was gonna solve that night. Instead of having months of just worrying about that building, and now at this point, like nothing happened, nothing, you know, I didn't get hurt. I wasn't terrified out of my mind,

and so I was able to like dismiss that as a thing that was like existing in my mind for no real reason. Sure. Sure. The Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean working during the day and partying at night with your best friends and have it be 100% paid for?

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So how are you going through everything you're going through, you know, the sort of life disruptions? I'm curious both as a person and as someone who works with you. How are you keeping a schedule? How is your life just not sort of chaos and weirdness, you know, with all this stuff you have going on? Yeah, I mean in a strange way, it's less chaotic and it's I found it amazing I found a routine that I like Potentially more than I had in Austin where you know a lot of our days are Center around the computer email and being online and doing things and I imagine there's a lot of research days are centered around the computer, our email and being online and doing things.

And I imagine there's a lot of research about the benefits of going out and doing things with your hands. And here, it's pretty difficult to sleep in. I don't know if it's the altitude or just my excitement of being here. But I wake up pretty early and I try to do a little bit of the email stuff in the morning. We have somewhat reliable satellite internet

for at least emails and stuff like that. And then I try to wrap up the day in the maybe like three or four PM and then go out and this property is one that's never a shortage of projects to do. And so I try to go out and like use my hands and build something and do renovation work that needs to be done on the property no matter what. Even if that's just moving wood out of an old building or something that's that effect. And I find at the end of the day what I'm sitting down and reflecting like the combination of the, I guess like mentally taxing stuff up the morning and the physically taxing stuff

with it evening combines in like a very satisfying way. Is there some a lifetime dead time in that for you in the sense of like, okay, obviously ideally someone would have been there doing this for you, ideally, the projects there would have been proceeding on schedule, but they're not. And so one of the outcomes of however long you're there is that the list of projects to complete is however many projects shorter

because you tackled some of them each day. Yeah, I think that ties into it too, because then like the entire day kind of feels like a lifetime for that reason. Like these are tasks that I'm moving the ball forward at least. I might not be moving this quickly as our star contractors would have, but the church property here is now usable to when I was up here before it was not usable.

And so it was changed because during my time up here is when we were putting together that a lot, the a lifetime dead time challenge for daily Stoic and so I was thinking about it with myself is how do I want to leave Sarah Gordo? And so leaving Sarah Gordo like less Projects are still in the to-do list and also I've tried to learn new skills like it's it's a beautiful sky here And I have a rock camera, you know our camera that we use for all the daily so videos matter of fact I have that with us And so I got really into like taking photos of the stars. I don't know, it's not, I have a lot of that light. You're like a legit good photographer now.

Well yeah, and like it was crazy because like the, well I appreciate that first. I won't just agree that I'm a legit awesome photographer, but the first night they're like, they're terrible. You know, they had to throw away, we're not throwing away, you know deleted from the camera But over a matter of even like two or three days. I feel like I got to the point where I'm happy with it I'm very happy with how the photos look. I enjoy sharing them I've kind of discovered this new passion that I'm gonna walk away with Sarah Gordo with at least like a decent understanding of how to take Astro photography photos, you know, which is something that had I been in Austin and what it never existed.

And I think that was directly due to me trying to think through that exact quote, like, is this gonna be a lifetime or dead time? And so maybe part of the reward of being here is that a larger percentage of my day feels like a lifetime, whether no matter what type of a lifetime that is, but I've found that really rewarding. I think that's one of the things I get out of the form is that there's all, like, I work

a lot because as you know, we have a lot of projects in the works and I'm someone who doesn't seem to stop, which is probably exhausting for you as well. But by having other work to do, that's not my work. It's a good outlet for that energy that forces me to step away. So instead of micromanaging or fine tuning or, you know, continuing past the point of diminishing returns on whatever the thing is, I'm also sinking my teeth into other projects. You know, I'm not building decks, but it is, you know, hey, how can we fix this pasture? How can we fix this fence or, you know, I need to go feed the cows today. There's like, and the upside, I'm wondering about this for you, is just getting outside.

Are you taking them like lots of walks, are you watching the sun, right? Are you getting connected with nature a bit more? Big time, I think, you know, it's for our acres here, so I was trying to take different hikes every day. And the outside projects bring me outside and by force of having to walk to a lot of these remote buildings, I'm walking a lot more. And there's a sense of stillness that exists up here that is impossible to replicate in somewhere like Austin, just because we don't have neighbors for turning miles in any direction. So you just feel

a bigger connection, you know, like it's, it's sympathy. It's just everything. You just like at night being outside looking at the stars here, you see every single star in the sky, you just feel so insignificant, but significant at the same time while looking up at it. And I think that was something that it didn't come right away. I think, you know, I came up here thinking

that I was gonna slow down a bit and get back to like my roots and different things. But when I first came up, it was like, oh, I gotta go to archery. Now I gotta go look at this building. Now I gotta go do this. And I was feeling my schedule still while they weren't the same tasks as I filled in Austin. I was still not allowing myself to like reflect, you know, if that makes sense, where I'm still filling it with all these little tasks, even though they weren't real tasks, I didn't need to go to archery right then, but I felt like I needed to be doing something rather than just sitting. And so actually it was like, I have still this up here, still the key to the book. And so I remember I was like going to throw knives or something, because I thought that was important for me to like get to it, throw knives, which makes no sense. And I saw the book and I was like, I could just sit here right now.

That's okay too, that's part of something. And I think remembering that, it's easier in a place like this, I think, to me at least, but remembering stillness and trying to actively put it into my day every day has been something that's really rewarding too. Yeah, I remember when we first got a swimming pool, the farm had a swimming pool in it.

And I remember I was in the pool with my wife just before we had kids, and this is Samantha, obviously you know, but I was like, oh, we should like swim laps or something. And she was like, you know, we can just like be in the pool, right? Like, we don't have to be doing anything. The thought had literally never occurred to me.

That seemed crazy. And I couldn't sort of figure out why that was. And then like, a couple of years later, my months, I don't remember when I was, when my parents came to visit, right? And so my, and we did have kids then, and my dad was in the pool with my son and my mom. And the next thing you know,

my dad's like gotten this mask and he's like swimming around, like inspecting the pool. And he's like, you know, you've got a real algae problem over here. You know, he's like, does that sound, you know, the pump seems like it's making a weird sound. And I realized like,

oh, I picked up for my parents, like the inability to just be in the pool. I must have seen this as a kid. And now I actually do have to go like, no, no, like the activity is just being where I am. I don't have to do anything. Yeah, no, that nails it. I was just saying, I need to go look

if the padlock is the same key as the other building. Like that becomes a task, you know? So it's like, yeah, I don't need to do that. But it's like, I find things to make it. So I guess in a way it could be resistance to do things I don't need to do that. But it's like, I find things to make it. So I guess in a way, it could be resistance to do things that I don't want to do or maybe whatever it could be, but no, I completely understand that.

Well, that's the interesting thing, right? Because there's a tension with a lifetime dead time. On the one hand, a lifetime dead time is saying, don't waste time, always be productive, always focus on what you can do. But that I think, I think at least for the still, they're thinking about that at the larger level, they're not meaning you can never have a second where you're not doing things. They're saying like, you should always be moving towards the larger goal. So whether that's learning how to do something or center in with yourself,

or, you know, they're saying like, don't just sit and watch Netflix and waste, you know, however long this quarantine goes. That's what they're saying. They're not saying, you know, you have to account for every second you've spent. And if it's not spent on projects like your pieces, shit. Yeah. I think that's a good way to do it. When you said Netflix, that's a good way to do it.

When you said Netflix, that's another thing. Up here, a side benefit of having extraordinarily slow internet is that I have no way to stream anything. So maybe that forces me into a little bit more stillness or a lifetime. But that's another part of having to go as close as possible. The upside for me, if I leave my house,

if I go more than like 100 yards from my house in any direction, I no longer get cell signals. And so it's like what that's become is, there's really no reason to take your phone with you when you go on a walk and that sort of thing, which going back to the photo thing, like when I go for the walk each morning with my son, I don't take my phone.

There's often very pretty things that I see, and I go, oh, it would be fun to have a picture of that. And then I can't, but I actually have to experience it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, no. Definitely. Okay, so one other question I thought maybe,

maybe we can sort of wrap up with this, but I was curious knowing that you have your hands in a bunch of different projects, some of which I'm involved with, some of which I'm not, you're sort of a hustler entrepreneurial type of a person. How are you handling what must have been a number of sort of economic setbacks or frustrations or I mean, even Sarah Gordo itself, like you

guys had very ambitious plans, you were about to raise a bunch of money for, I mean, I know you're still in the middle of it, but like, obviously, this can't be good for that. And so how are you thinking about all of that? And maybe is there anything stillisism is you're lying on from stillisism to sort of process it? Yeah, I mean it's tough, it hit all of them. The backpacker hostel in Austin nobody's jumping to stay in a room with a bunch of other people right now, nor the should they. So the hostel has been vacant for a month, it could be vacant for a number of months more. Sarah Goro, we are originally planning to start having Airbnb and overnight accommodation in May.

That's obviously out the window. And both of these have pretty large carrying costs. There's substantial mortgages. There's a lot of financial stress. But I think what I kept going back to is just control what you can control or separate things into what you can and cannot control. And so with Sarogordo, I can't control

that the coronavirus has hit the world in the way it has. I can't control that we can't bring contractors up here right now, or that fundraising might be drying up, and that's difficult to continue doing things like that, or that people don't aren't going to be able to come and stay in May. But I can't control these other little projects. I can be up here, I can be understanding more what we need to be doing. I could be refining our offering even further, so when we are able to actually have people up here, it's just that much better.

So I think just going back to that, like I think guiding principle of stoicism of controlling what I can control has been really, really comforting in a lot of ways. Yeah, is it also, like for me, it's like, okay, so I have these, like I always thought like, okay, so I have these like I always thought like okay, look Writing is unpredictable. It could go away speaking is unpredictable. It could go away I wanted to have other forms of income outside of this that I could sort of depend on that were diverse

Sort of diversified. Well, I guess I just never wrap my head around a global pandemic that would also make it impossible for people to stay in vacation rentals that would screw up the apartment complexes that I've invested in, that would throw my stock market portfolio down, erased years and years of gains in a stock portfolio, and even make it hard, and I'm very sympathetic to this. So it sounds like I'm fighting, but even tenants

and properties that I own are having trouble coming up with the rent because the restaurant that they work at is not able to open or the insurance company they work for is having to furlough their employees. Like, I didn't really conceive of a scenario in which income could essentially go to zero. And these investment things, these things that I had that were supposed to be

sort of like lifelines are now not lifelines. They're like worse than dead weight. Like, you know, as you said, there's carrying cost to these things. But and so that causes me some anxiety. And then I try to remind myself, like, I don't actually, like, you know, this does sort of go like, do you really own this? Like, or is it just sort of yours and trust? Like, I could just cut them loose entirely, right?

And like, I don't actually, I don't actually need them. That's just something in my head. Do you know, like, so do you, do you kind of go like, hey, look, like it would really suck if I lost the hostile or if, you know, this rental property went away or whatever, but like you'd figure it out. Do you think about that at all? Yeah, I think there's a lot of strength there. And then I think the other thing, so a couple of days ago I was cleaning out

the general store and this is a store that was originally built in 1891 and I went behind a counter and there was a blanket or the blanket I pulled out this briefcase and in the briefcase there was just this entire miner's life. He was taking out leasing, he was leasing mining claims, trying to find silver. He was in lawsuits, you know, he was in. There's love letters in there. There was divorce settlements in there. There was just everything in between. And it was basically this entire disguise life and dream. And so like, I don't know, it's momentum or it's impossible to escape death in a place like Cerro Gordo.

And there's like a centering element to that when you're looking at this. And like, this guy had all these dreams and hopes and different things, but like, you know, he's still dead. And so to me, it made me reevaluate what was important a lot of ways. And like you said, like, I do have a lot of projects. And like, this guy had a lot of projects in this briefcase, right? But he's still dead. So it's like, if somebody was opening my briefcase,

let's say I have a briefcase that's tucked away here at Cerro Gordo, and somebody finds that in 100 years, what would I be most proud or most excited to be reflected within that? And I don't know that that's been the other thing. It's been pretty hard recently being up here. Yeah, it's like an entire life only amounts to a briefcase, you know, and that's like very humbling. And even it, even if it was John B. Rockefeller, it only would have been a slightly larger briefcase. Or maybe it's like

a room full of briefcases, but like, that's all that it, that's all that it is in the end. Yeah, and I think that's why when you said, I get so stressed out, so many projects not going good, but in the end, it's maybe a piece of paper in the briefcase to use the analogy, right? And so it kind of calms me down, taking that perspective a little bit, and that's, I think, deeply tied to stoicism. And also, I have a bunch of more points that appear

that are always on my desk, which help as well. No, I'm working on an article about like, I was just, I was like, what were people worried about in December and January and February and March? And like, what are the things we found? Like, I guess there was like some malfunction in like early March or late February on Robinhood and a bunch of people were upset because they missed out on a market rally.

They weren't able to invest in the market as it was going up. It's like how fast things turn. I think one of the things that this last couple year, sorry this last couple weeks puts in perspective is like what did I take really really seriously nine weeks ago or 10 weeks ago and how preposterously insignificant that now seems in light of not only what's happened but what you've taken from what happened which is like a reminder of what truly is important.

Yeah, absolutely. What I'm just curious as someone who's known you a long time, what have you come away feeling is more important to you? Um, I think family has spent something that like it's's easy to, I don't know, not return a call for your mom or dad in different circumstances, but I think that this pandemic is bringing families closer together across the board and it's certainly done that so for me. Less products that are more interested that I'm more passionate about. So like the host is a good example.

The host was something that five years ago I was extraordinarily passionate about and I'm not as passionate now but you can still rationalize why it should stay open for a variety of reasons. I don't think it's getting me closer to maybe what I what I think would be important. And then also just like so you're gonna take you're gonna take that page out of your briefcase. I think so or at least not let that file within the briefcase grow anymore. Does that make sense? Sure.

Yeah, yeah. Let it exist as the chapter it is. Don't try to carry out an article into a book, right? That should just be an article or another analogy. Yeah. So that chapter I think is one that I'd like to close and focus on, you know, the place that I'm sitting, Sarah Vordo,

it's pretty beautiful here. Nice, all right, well, last thing I was thinking while you're there, are you gonna pick out, because when I invested in Sarah Gordo, what I wanted was a spot to put a writing cabin, are you gonna find my lot while you're out there? So this is crazy, so maybe crazy is the best word for it. But yesterday I went on a hike towards Death Valley.

It's five miles from Sarah Gover to Death Valley. And I thought I knew how far the property went. This shows how much research we'd be going into this. I thought I knew how much further the property went. The property goes so much further than I thought it did. We have this beautiful backside of the property that's heavily wooded with this pinion pines that are thousands of years old.

And back there, that's the spot. It's on down when you go to the China town area. Yeah, and like, okay. If you keep going that way, it's much more heavily wooded because the miners chop down all the pinions around Cerro Gordo using the firewood, but over there they still exist. But there's these beautiful bluffs

that overlook Death Valley. And yesterday we found this mine that was just insane. on Saragorod, the seasonal firewood, but over there they still exist. But there's these beautiful, blessed, overlooked death valley. And yesterday we found this mine that was just insane. I've gotten into the like somewhat questionable hobby of just like going into old mines. And yesterday I went into this mine and I had bunch of different floors and it was insane and there was always pickaxes and stuff in it. But coming out of it, you just overlook all of Death Valley.

You see this contrast of like heavily wooded into the lowest peak in the US, to this desert. So that's the spot. That's the inspiration. I feel like if you're gonna have a writer's cabin, that's the spot. Next time you're up here, I will take you on a little hike and we'll check it out.

Awesome. Can I get electricity or no? Solar is progressive, but I think there's some great options that we can make a little off the grid spot for you over there. But I think if the tradeoff is definitely worthwhile for that, the piece that's over there. Is there anything if people are interested in in Saragordo that can check it out?

Are you raising money for it? Is there anything you want to point people towards for what you're doing outside daily still? Yeah, Sarah Gordo, we're, I think, Sarah.Gordo.ca and Instagram right now, trying to change it, but that's where a lot of the updates are put. And once this crisis hopefully dies down a little bit, if anybody wants to visit, maybe caretaker Robert, who's been here for 21 years.

It just gives amazing tours about the history of mine, the history of America. And you really want to get in touch with some stoke, principals, come on up, we'll show you around. Awesome, man. Well, thanks. And give me a call before you have to go full Donner party if you need to hear a drop.

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