Who?
Alright. Fucking how do we end the show?
Narrator:In a time where echo chambers are the norm and polarization feels inevitable, isn't it time a podcast take a different path? Going beyond the noise, beyond the headlines, into the ideas, values, and perspectives that shape our lives? Welcome to Middle Outcast. Real conversations for a fractured world. From the social to the political, the philosophical to the personal, Middle Out podcast is about bridging divides and finding common ground.
Narrator:It's not about combat. It's about connection. Not about sound bites. It's about substance. So whether you're here to challenge your assumptions, hear new stories, or simply search for that elusive middle ground, you've come to the right place.
Narrator:This is Middle Outcast. Now here are your hosts, Mike Bates and Tom
Tom:Rankin. Welcome to Middle Outcast. I'm Tom, joined by my co host, Mike. We're all about having real and honest conversations in a fractured world. Last time, we talked a little bit about what we want to do, but we got some feedback asking us expand a little bit on on who we are.
Tom:Mhmm. I don't think it gave a picture of who we are, and you are quite the character.
Myke:So He's a real character.
Tom:He is a real character. So let's start off with,
Myke:who's Mike? Who am I? I am a software developer. That's where I always start. Right?
Myke:I don't know. It's always largely been my identity at least. But, yeah, that's me. I grew up in the Midwest, liked tinkering hard on things, and here I am. Is South Dakota the Midwest?
Tom:It feels so northern, but is that
Myke:We called it the Midwest. I don't know. Were we wrong?
Tom:I don't know. It could be Midwest. Okay.
Myke:I I grew up north, don't you know? Yeah. There you go. Is that better? I don't know.
Myke:Am I in the Midwest now? Missouri is Midwest. Right? Is
Tom:that South? Midwest yet. It's Midwest.
Myke:Alright. Cool. What what else is there to know? I it's pretty typical why
Tom:I'm so much more. I mean, look at your tats. Look at your music background. I mean, where'd you come from? What are your passions?
Myke:Yeah. Okay. Passion was always music. Always. From super young age to, yeah, middle school, high school.
Myke:Did the band thing. Got out of high school. Thought maybe need a little bit more than just the band thing and was always into technology, installed CD burners and stuff.
Tom:Okay. I don't know.
Myke:Always had a knack for that as kids that generation tend tend to have. So, yeah, I was in certainly in in that lump. So So I decided to check into the tech thing, ended up going to a tech school for 2 years. That's my only formal education post high school, c minus student at best.
Tom:Blows my mind. Isn't that weird? Because you're so good. You're so fast. You're so quick to pick things up that yeah.
Tom:It blows my mind.
Myke:School was yeah. I don't know. It's a weird thing. It just I notice a lot of analyzing, as one does as we get older. I notice that a lot of those same traits, like, back in high school, like, I still have.
Myke:There's no way I could just sit down and study this quick set of rules and apply it to a test. It's weird. I don't know. Like, I still couldn't do that. But, yeah.
Myke:I don't know. That's, knowledge is weird, I think. That way, intelligence is weird that way. It
Tom:is weird. Yeah.
Myke:It's it comes in many different forms and test taking, to this day, I still just really suck at it, taking tests. I hate it.
Tom:Yeah. But you're so good at digging deep on something. Right? So you're the kind of person who you'll pick up a piece of technology, you'll see some interest in something, and you'll dig into it, and about an hour later, You know all the ins and outs. You know all the things that you can do with it and how to leverage it, and you start generating ideas.
Tom:That's powerful. It is. I agree. Yeah. Does it maybe the fact that it you see practicality in it that makes it more interesting to engage?
Myke:Oh, I think certainly. I think anytime you can actually engage with it, like, whether it's your hands or recently getting into woodworking and Hands. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Myke:There's certainly, I think, an engineering aspect that that is just exists outside of what you need to do well in tests and get a good report card in school. Yeah. Right. So I think that kind of is a launching point for, I don't know, much of the future, right, moving ahead in my journey, but it follows that same pattern of just doing the nonintuitive things and it just working out. And that was my whole kind of trajectory into software.
Myke:I didn't mean to necessarily get into it. Took a job out of the tech school thing doing hardware, like IT stuff. That was really cool. I loved all my freaking jobs. So that was cool.
Myke:Before that, pizza delivery. That was really cool. But yeah. No. That started the tech journey, inadvertently got into the web development side of things.
Tom:Yeah. Slightly before you came to us. Right? To
Myke:Yes. Yeah. Almost, like, just a year before coming to the Alconmedia project. And so what that looked like is at that hardware job, I was doing some web work out of necessity. We needed basically a database that you could access not just through Microsoft Access or Excel or something.
Myke:And so that led me to dotnet, which led me to the framework dotnetnuke, which was the thing that, like, sparked so much joy when I was talking to you at the job interview that I would have several months later.
Tom:We had just started doing some dotnetnuke stuff too. Yeah. What a
Myke:dump of a platform it used to. But it was cool at the time.
Tom:Wasn't Braco around at that time?
Myke:Hard I think it was, but, like, we didn't know about it.
Tom:Yeah. I wish. Yeah. I wish I'd found it first.
Myke:I know. Yeah. But that's about where yeah. I guess the real adult journey of mine picks up about the time you and I meet. Mhmm.
Myke:I don't know if you want to know more or jump in at that segue point.
Tom:Well, let me jump in a little bit. So Mike came to me working at the Alkamedia project. So I was the tech director over at the Alkamedia project for a long time, but you came to me early in my career there, little snot nosed hotshot, but obviously was super impressed with you because you were passionate about the work, you were self driven, and you had a lot of legitimate experience already having not been formally trained, and you were the bet that paid off, I mean, tenfold. Yeah. Right?
Tom:So it wasn't long before you were running projects, you were leading clients, and you were setting direction for our technology and our platforms. Yeah. You were fantastic, but then you left me.
Myke:I did. I didn't wanna leave. But then you came back. Yep.
Tom:But then you left me again.
Myke:True. But then you I finally got you to come with.
Tom:Yep. But you continued to mature so that drive that brought you into tech continued to to thrive because not only were you honing your skills, you were also getting engaged in community building.
Myke:Right?
Tom:So I can you touch on that just a little bit? Because I don't know that everybody knows some of the great things that you've done in the community for the technology.
Myke:Hell yeah. So the yeah. The community stuff was born out of one experience here that was already happening. So there were early groups, software developer groups that were meeting here in town and our community size, for those listening outside of Springfield, Missouri. Not a big city by any means, but not a small one.
Myke:So that one that's right in the middle sort of thing. And it's it can be hard to arrange common interests when you don't have a large city, but there's just enough. Right? There's just enough of a pocket that may be great if there was some formality here, and we could get these like minded folks together. And so there there was some of that happening, but fortunately, I got to experience a different side of living outside of the Midwest, which took us to Miami, my wife and I.
Myke:And that's where we've found out how cool these interest groups are that meet up. And so brought that passion back to Springfield when we finally joined back up.
Tom:Got tired of dodging mosquitoes and alligators.
Myke:Mosquitoes. Yes. But, yeah, wanted that here. Right? That's my thing.
Myke:If it doesn't exist, I'll make it. Makes it happen. Yeah. Just piggybacked on the ideas and stuff that we're rocking here. You could see other people trying to start the same groups, and eventually, that kind of morphed into a bigger vision.
Myke:But ran that for it's going on 10 years now that it's in existence and now is off into the hands of the greater community, which eventually became the ultimate goal of that. At first, it was just, did you just wanna start a group?
Tom:The SGF webdevs when the dot net user group was big here. I mean, it wasn't long after starting webdevs that really rolled all the other tech groups into that and created SGFdevs, I think. Yes. Springfield Devs.
Myke:Yep.
Tom:And it's continued to thrive, but you also set up Method Conference. You have our first kind of technology conference, web focused technology conference here in town.
Myke:It's on its 2nd year now. Post COVID.
Tom:Which is amazing. Oh, that's right. The very first session was right when COVID was starting.
Myke:Right as
Tom:We thought that it might not happen.
Myke:In fact, our keynote speaker, she was just above Washington state, which is where the first COVID outbreaks were confirmed in the country. So we weren't even sure if we were gonna get our keynote in. Luckily, she made it unscathed and so did to the entire conference. It was a success.
Tom:So so you've been crushing it since you came to me, and we have formed a tight relationship. I would I would say that you're my best friend.
Myke:I would say the same.
Tom:Yeah. I mean, whenever there's anything that I wanna talk about, you're always the guy, be it professional, be it personal, any of that kind of stuff. We've had a good adventure together. It's been fun, and I'm really looking forward to where we're going.
Myke:We are doing some cool shit. Yeah. Even outside this podcast, there's there's tons of cool shit going on.
Tom:This is amazing. Yeah?
Myke:This is awesome. I wanna know about you, Tom.
Tom:Yeah. I well, I'm so amazing.
Myke:So let's let's rewind back the clock with, with young Thomas.
Tom:Nothing nothing really to tell. I mean, I grew up in a small town, little country kid, living on the farm, playing in the fields, playing in the pond, taking my bike to places that I shouldn't be going, hiding from the bus, playing hooky. Yes. I went to the First Baptist Church of this small town. I there was not a Second Baptist Church.
Tom:I never quite understood that. It it it always threw me off. Right?
Myke:Took me a second there now. Okay. Yes.
Tom:Yeah. Maybe it's a thing. Maybe it's the first thing that that people do when they come to a small town instead of
Myke:Yeah. We're the second. Ring it.
Tom:Right. But really pretty uneventful. You know, I was a kid, you know, probably maybe a little rambunctious, maybe a little bit of a I wouldn't say a troublemaker, but
Myke:A hellion.
Tom:Not a hellion. But I was out there. I was doing things I wasn't supposed to do and, you know, whatever. Yeah. Middle school was pretty quiet.
Tom:My parents kinda split early in there, so I was jumping back and forth between spending time with my dad and then my mom. So I kinda went to California for a little while, went to Virginia for school for a little while, so I kinda hopped back and forth a little bit. Came back here for high school, largely uneventful. I was drinking too much, partying too much. Hellion.
Tom:That's when I had some more of my hellion years, but I was really fortunate to have some extremely supportive people in my lives, even outside of my family, that allowed me to make it through that. I probably would not have made it through high school if I'd not had some of those supports, if you know what I mean. I was in a kind of a bad place. We were drinking a little bit, had a couple of friends die Damn. In high school.
Tom:And, yeah, without that support, I'd be more of a mess than I am. Went to college. I loved computer information systems. I went to MSU, got my degree, and shortly after that, started working at the Alchemedia project. Right?
Tom:So I worked with HealthMedics for a while. Great experience. And then kicked off to do our own thing and then went to the Alchemedia project, which we were doing really fun web application work for some bigger companies. It blew my mind that I was working for people like Procter and Gamble and Starbucks Foodservice. Right?
Tom:Yep. Very proud of the work. Some of that work is still alive today and still very active.
Myke:Yes. You know,
Tom:to to think that I've got 15 year old code that's still running, a little bit terrifying.
Myke:It's a feather in the cap. Yeah. Big time.
Tom:Yeah. I'm pretty proud of it. But, yeah, I mean, that was nearly a 20 year portion of the career. Decided, know, when Marlon went through their changes, they joined Advantage. Just the organization felt different, and I was ready for something new.
Tom:I was looking for that spark again where we were just creative. I like to create. I mean, I'm a maker. I really am satisfied to make something, so So I was looking for a little bit of a spark there where I could have a little bit more control over those things. Took a few gigs coming out of Marlin, then you hired me.
Tom:Right? Mike had this really cool thing going with remote supports for individuals with disabilities using these smart home technologies, and it's just damned exciting. So we've been doing that for the past few years and it's still very exciting, very rewarding.
Myke:You had mentioned that you spent time in California there for
Tom:a little bit. What were you doing? What age were you? I was just transitioning from middle school to high school at that point. In fact, that summer before I went there was when one of my friends died in a car accident.
Tom:Yep. Had a friend die in a car accident, packed up, flew out to California, and had to process all of this stuff remotely with none of my friends or anything like that.
Myke:Oh, was it because of that that you went out there?
Tom:My parents were split, so I was spending the summer with my dad. Gotcha. He had been stationed at the the Marine Corps base there in Camp Pendleton. Got it.
Myke:And so did you move around much more after that, like, through high school? Did you move around too many more times?
Tom:No. Most of the moving around was younger. So my they got split when I was 1st grade, 2nd grade, but they had moved around. I lived in South Carolina, Pensacola, Florida, lived in Panama City, Panama for a little while. Then by the time I went to grade school, largely we had settled in a small town south of here.
Myke:Nice. Okay. And then what did you do then just after high school? Did you go straight into college?
Tom:No. Not exactly. So I joined the Marine Corps Reserves, did some of my training there, became a Mortimer. That was a lot of fun. Still got some good buddies there.
Tom:But then I got the GI bill from there and that helped pay for my college and computer information systems was just well aligned with me.
Myke:Yeah. You similarly had tech savviness going into that. Yes.
Tom:Yeah. I'm very logical. I'm very practical. I'm very, very focused on reasoning, so it really aligned with the way I think. I'm very black and white, though I'm I'm working very hard to not be so black and white.
Myke:That's a hard one to work through. What were you into so aside from your crazy escapades, what were you into growing up? What hobbies aren't at all or
Tom:No. For me, I mean, it was mostly nature. So we were actually pretty poor. So most of the things that I did to entertain myself were outdoors Yes. With what I could find and what I could make and what I could build.
Tom:A slingshot was my best friend.
Myke:Damn. Yes.
Tom:I got pretty damn good with a slingshot, but, I mean, that that was a lot of my childhood was just farting around outside, building things with sticks, and breaking things with rocks and
Myke:You don't get much more of that. No. What about you're a family man. I am not. Let's it has been even yeah.
Myke:I feel like a old fogey. These kids these days. My childhood was the same as yours. It was bikes everywhere, just exploring anything and everything.
Tom:I think a big difference for you though is that you so so when did you have your first smartphone?
Myke:Okay. Smartphone?
Tom:Well, or phone, I guess, was the technology that joined you were going through school at the time that technology was starting to connect. Yes.
Myke:We would have been, like, the first cohort to have phones in school or at least anything practical. Certainly, like, our graduating class or whatever would have been one of the first with cameras on their phone. I I distinctly remember this because then the phone first, the phone started with color. You get a little bit of color on your screen. Sprint had one of those first early ones with color on it, and then cameras came.
Myke:Real shitty. But then it was like Windows Mobile or whatever, and then they went palm and everything
Tom:else there. The palm, aren't you, when we met?
Myke:The palm pre. Palm pre? It was but anyways yeah. So no. I had communications.
Myke:Right? The phone was definitely for the texting, which you do with the 3 button press to get to see whatever. So there was that, but the earlier child that was still foreign entirely got it in the coming of age years, but not so much prior to that.
Tom:You shared a lot of similar experiences. Yes. Yeah.
Myke:Yeah. But your kids then, as parents coming up in this age, did you them out in their bike all over Springfield without you knowing a damn thing?
Tom:Yeah. My kids have had a very different experience. No. They would not have been in a case to take their bikes and take it 15 miles down the road Right. River.
Tom:I mean, we knew where they were Yeah. Almost all the time. Yep. Ben and Kate would go down to the creek sometimes in the area of our site catching crawdads and things like that, but no. Not nearly the type of freedom.
Tom:Yeah.
Myke:I suspect we'll talk about this because that is a concept even you and I have been reading the book of the 4th turning.
Tom:Oh, the 4th turning.
Myke:And so they talk about this in their head, like you've got another generation, that is one of protection and then that kind of stuff. So anyways, we're off in the weeds, but what I wanted to get at here though is you're a family man. So you've got a whole different trajectory of life where you were slowing down and really had to you were a parent first, I imagine, more so than than anything, where I got to the same years that we were to get come to know each other, I got to keep focusing on craft, unimpeded by anything else. Sure. Yeah.
Myke:Right? And so, it's just interesting that we came to know each other at just pivotal points. You're raising 2 very intelligent, wonderful kids that are doing huge things in the world right now. And I don't know. So we've got interesting story to tell, I think, and and this is just the the preface to it, getting the audience to know us a little bit better.
Tom:Yeah. Well, hey, let's talk a little bit about some of our dynamics. Yes. I think that's interesting. You and I have talked a bit in the past and I think this might tell people a little bit about where I'm coming from, but maybe everybody experienced this.
Tom:You know, one of the things that I note about my childhood, you know, being the kid at school on the playground, desperately interested in justice, right and wrong, were very critical to my to my being. I was the kind of kid that any fight on the playground, I was the one to step in and kind of line everybody out.
Myke:I can see this. Right.
Tom:So and I think that still drives me today, but the last couple of years have been different, and I think largely as well, admittedly as for me, let's talk a little bit about, yeah, what were what were some of your kind of guiding principles? Because you actually shaped me in this journey quite a bit. Fascinating.
Myke:Yeah. And you me.
Tom:Yeah.
Myke:So the the cyclical effect is noted at the very least.
Tom:Yeah.
Myke:For me, this whole kind of interest in society and philosophy and politics and religion all started at the same time it did for the rest of the world, I'm certain, which was Donald Trump's election in 2016. And that, I think, sent me on a much different path than it sent nearly everybody else in the world. It sent me on a highly introspective path, and I I don't think it was it certainly wasn't that event alone. It was that event amidst the perfect recipe of everything else going on in my life, like my wife's career and her education. She's a psychologist.
Myke:I obviously learn a lot from her, not only professionally, but just as my life partner as well. And, certainly, I think a lot of her knowledge has a lot of it. Enough of it for a simpleton like me to start absorbing some of the ideas in psychology, but also in other ways, Started getting involved in just physical activity Mhmm. Which for us came out with yoga. She is a teacher.
Myke:I would go to classes, and I really got into it. So it was just this perfect time introspection and self reflection met with the world going insane that led to a just different path. And so I I feel like while everyone was going insane, I was on my own little journey, that I shared a lot with you.
Tom:And to be super clear, you and I don't actually agree on where we think things are gonna go a lot of times. I'm pretty pessimistic.
Myke:Yes. Yeah. You are.
Tom:Not not in a really nihilistic way, but in a way that I mean, I expect human nature to be less altruistic. Right? I expect a lot more struggles. Mhmm. I expect things to be not the choices that I would prefer, but you're very optimistic from that perspective.
Tom:So even with the election with Joe Biden coming up the first time, right, I don't think that you had any interest in him being president at the time. No. But I I was convinced that he was the right person to at least be able to be elected Ugh. Even though I didn't really want Joe Biden, if that makes sense. I mean, I wasn't a big Joe Biden fan.
Myke:Nobody wanted Joe Biden.
Tom:Nobody actually wanted Joe Biden, I think. Yeah.
Myke:Nobody did. Yeah. And, yeah, you what I'm sure we'll spend many episodes talking about
Tom:Yeah. Sure. All of
Myke:that junk, optimism and pessimism.
Tom:Yeah. Just the I wanted to kinda illustrate to people that we're not on the same page exactly about what we think is going to happen or what we might think the approach is. We actually discuss things quite a bit and disagree. Yeah. We do.
Tom:But honestly come to, common agreement usually.
Myke:So that then that that's just it. I think so much of what is considered disagreement or at least not agreeing, because I hear you say that And I know what you're talking about because we talk endlessly about ideas and so much of them are vibrating back and forth on each other on, like, the the parts that seem incompatible. Yeah.
Tom:But they're also the very nuanced parts typically. Right?
Myke:Right. And so much of it comes down to simply framing and labeling. And so, like, when you say you are very pessimistic Yeah. I know what you're trying to illustrate,
Tom:but Oh, hold on. I think I can frame this. You got into stoicism. I've been talking about stoicism for a long time. Yeah.
Tom:But I never really got into it, but you did. So you you kinda found it at one point too. I was like, Tom, why didn't you ever tell me about stoicism?
Myke:Yes. That yep.
Tom:But one of the things that I found really telling about Marcus Aurelius' Meditations was basically the idea that you are the one in control of how you respond to what happens, that instead of going into the world and expecting everything to work exactly like you planned your day out, expect that it's not going to go that way at all, that you're gonna have interruptions, you're gonna have problems that pop up, and I think the way that you and I probably see this differently, and I'm coming around at this, is that you very much see those as exciting challenges and opportunities.
Myke:Oh, yeah.
Tom:You look forward to those
Myke:I'm gonna punch that thing in the fucking face.
Tom:Yeah. And and while I still get frustrated about it, I'm seeing that I can look at the world differently. I I think I'm coming around and I think that's what you're getting to.
Myke:Yeah. Yeah. Because that shit's inevitable. Yeah. It it you can almost say it too casually when you explain, like, Aurelius' take on it, which is you're going to encounter you may encounter this.
Myke:No. You will, and it'll be more than you think as long as that's where you're starting and you treat it as more than just a nice Instagram post, you truly embody it, and it takes practice, a ton of practice. But then I think it really starts to change things. I just it'll it gives you permission to fail. It gives you permission to not understand things.
Myke:And ultimately, you get to the point of slowing down Yeah. And just being able to know how to react to things better. Not that it's easy and not that it works all the time, but I think as a whole, it certainly can be pretty powerful.
Tom:Fantastic. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. I think this will segue a little bit because one of the things that I learned from you is a lot more humility, In fact, you introduced me to some philosophy, dug in hardcore with the Sam Harris stuff, and I've had a significant change in my mindset from that and it certainly has given me a lot more humility.
Tom:I feel that there's less black and white in the world and a whole lot of gray. I think that's why we are where we are today because we can have honest conversations where we don't have to manipulate people into believing what we believe. We don't have to have agreement on the things that we believe, but we also can be honest about why we think the things we do. Yeah. So we're gonna have real conversations with people, but we need to frame those conversations with people because you know as well as I do that this can potentially contentious Yep.
Tom:That the very first thing that people will do is become, defensive and want to have a debate, wanna win Yep. An argument. Yeah. And I think we need to set up right off the gate. What are the rules of engagement?
Tom:So what are your kinda foundational rules that you want to have in these conversations that we're having with people?
Myke:In general, without thinking of here's rule number 1, here's rule number 2. Yeah. In general, I had brought up somewhat recently that I had come to the conclusion that with most problems in the world, this is like a theory I'm working on. Right? Okay.
Myke:Do you remember this one? With most problems to the world, you can basically run it through 2 tests. And my theory here is that there are so few people, almost nobody is interested in objective truth. Yeah. And I will exclude, like, religion and and stuff from this.
Myke:That's a whole other talk.
Tom:That is a whole other topic.
Myke:Yes. But I'm talking, like, just objective truth and an interest in honest conversation. Yeah. Those two things, if you apply those rigorously and honestly, I think you can really take just about any freaking topic and have multiple viewpoints and take it from the standpoint of what is the problem in the world with this. Mhmm.
Myke:And you can really start to find ways to solve it, but you've gotta be willing to do those two things. Commit to seeking out truth and clarity Yeah. And commit to having honest conversation Yeah. And and and real conversation.
Tom:And Yeah. I think that I boil it down to, right, honesty at the top is is number 1. You have to be willing to actually be honest. Yep. You have to demonstrate that by answering directly, not being dodgy, not being Not
Myke:being a politician.
Tom:Not being a politician. Right? Let's just use plain language, simple language, and and get to the core of what we're trying to say without trying to hedge our bets to, you know, cover our weak spots or something like that. Right? Lay it all on the table Yep.
Tom:And let's go from there. Yeah. And then listen deeply. Right? So Holy hell.
Tom:I need to practice this, but I think that's the key. Right? In order to give somebody else the answer they need, you have to actually understand the question they're asking. Right? Some people, and myself included, don't always phrase the question in a way that demonstrates the answer I'm looking for.
Myke:And to take it even further, you had said to give them the answer they need. And to take that even to even further understand it's really an understanding, so it's not even giving them the answer they need. It's seeking clarity that we understand each other.
Tom:Yeah. Oh, I love that.
Myke:Yeah. That's huge. And when you're throwing out vagaries That's then you quickly just make too many assumptions and nobody's on the same page, and then it's, what the fuck are we doing?
Tom:We adopt the languages of our tribes Yep. And the problem is that when we come together, we're using the same words, but they have different meanings to us, and we don't know that at all. Right? So we have to uncover Exactly. You gotta move
Myke:you gotta move slow. That's the thing.
Tom:Like That's tough for me. I wanna get strict to point.
Myke:Hey. You're lucky I've been practicing. So, like, I mean, the audience doesn't know this too much. We we didn't even get into the fact that, like, I spent a good chunk of 8 years, intimately studying by way of watching, engaging in in media.
Tom:Yeah.
Myke:Conservative, liberal, all of it. Like, I've studied it. I understand it.
Tom:You listened to conservative talk radio for 4 years straight.
Myke:Yeah. And as a serious vocation too, not just a means of wanting to get punished or because I know, as the show name suggests, I know that we have so much more in common than we don't. It's the simple reality everyone forgets. And they just became obsessed with trying to understand what are the forces out there that are working against this and came to discover it's all wildly simple. And we are all just bamboozled by life and this machine that is unbeatable.
Myke:Yeah. But it's so simple. More people just need to understand. So we have to slow the fuck down, chill out, have some real conversation with a liberal lefty and some right wing loony. We can talk together and actually Lefties and loonies.
Myke:We can understand that well, all of us are getting screwed here. Let's figure this out. Yeah. Let's zoom out.
Tom:Uh-uh. Zooming out. This is always zooming out. Zoom out.
Myke:Yep. That's my that's my go to and and and just settle down and talk.
Tom:Yeah. Yeah. You're very much about reframing. That's key. Let's wrap it up.
Tom:So we've added the form to our website. Yes. We've already got our first sign up. Yep. Anymore?
Myke:Nope. Just the just the one so far. Middleoutcast.com. There's a link at the top, be our guest. The form is structured in a way that should allow you to provide information about yourself, topics you're interested in, and that alone should be more than enough to just come on the show and have a conversation.
Myke:And we are so much looking forward to this. Can't freaking wait.
Tom:Yeah. Can't wait to have these conversations. Absolutely. Sign up. Let's talk.
Tom:Sign them up. Sign them up. Hey. That's a wrap. I'm Tom.
Tom:And I'm Mike. Be good to yourself.
Myke:And remember, zoom out. I love it. It's an abrupt wrap.
Tom:It's gonna work. Alright.
Myke:Fuck it. Here you go.
Tom:It's hot.
Narrator:This has been a little loud cast. Real conversations for a fractured world. With echo chambers being the norm and polarization being inevitable, we go beyond the noise, beyond the headlines. We have real, raw conversations that matter. We hope you've enjoyed the show.
Narrator:If you did, make sure to like, rate, and review. We'll be back soon. Remember, you can find the show on all the major podcasting platforms. Plus, find even more at our website at middleoutcastdot com. Remember, there's a lot more than what's on the surface, and that's why we're here.
Narrator:See you next time on the muddled out podcast.
Creators and Guests
