Alright, well welcome back everyone to another episode.
On today's episode I got a very special guest, she's actually the first returning guest
that I've ever had in my podcasting career, so that's kind of neat.
And we'll be discussing her new journal.
So those of you that do any type of journaling understand the benefits of journaling for
your mental health, your spiritual health, it's a fantastic practice to get into.
So without further ado, Soad, why don't you kind of introduce yourself to the audience
today.
Hi, Johnny.
And I kind of feel honored that I'm one of your first returned guests.
Yes.
Thank you.
So I am Soad Tabrizzi.
I am a licensed marriage and family therapist.
I have a private practice.
It's 100% telehealth.
I'm licensed in about eight states.
I blissed them, but I forget which ones.
So forgive me.
I think it's California, Nevada, Montana, West Virginia, Virginia, Utah, Florida, and
I may be missing something in there and I'm not quite sure.
I don't know how many that was.
But so eight states.
But I also like yourself.
I also do counseling, code slash coaching for people that are outside of the states,
because a lot of times you get people who are kind of just desperate for a conservative
therapist and there's not many of us spread across the United States that are willing
to say they're conservative.
And so they'll beg and say, I don't care.
I don't care about insurance.
I don't care if you're licensed.
And so I've decided to go ahead and offer counseling and just change the name to counseling
because as therapists, as you know, we have lots of laws and that we have to follow.
So I do that.
And then on top of that, I also do a little aromatherapy.
I integrate holistic health in my approach.
And now I guess I can kind of call myself an author, which is kind of cool.
I decided to write a journal.
And so here we are.
And I love what I do.
It's so much fun.
I love helping people.
I've been doing this since I've been licensed since 2014, but I've been working in mental
health since 2009.
So it's been about almost 15 years, not quite.
Awesome.
And I know there's so much that we're probably going to get into.
And I will tell the guest that or the audience that have not listened to this was back under
my previous podcast title of the Truth and Grace Counseling Podcast.
I'll have that older episode listed down below in the show notes.
So you can check that out.
So Ed and I covered all sorts of different fun topics and that one, particularly of being
conservative counselors, which as she mentioned, there's not a lot of us out there.
So definitely check that out if you've not already listened to that.
But for today, like you said, kind of into that author space, creating a journal, which
is wonderful.
So let's just start with kind of an overview.
What is your journal?
What's in it?
What kind of makes it stand out a little bit?
So let me back up a little more if that's okay with you, Johnny.
That's fine.
So when I work with some of my clients, one of the main tools that I use for homework
assignments is journaling.
So they'll talk about some issue that's going on, whether it's trauma, situation, just a
circumstance, anything.
We only have 15 minutes to talk about it and kind of break it apart.
And so I'll ask them, could you journal and kind of piggyback off of our session and talk
about and process what it is that you've kind of learned from our session?
And most times I get a blank stare saying, how do I journal?
What do I even journal about?
And so I kind of have to coach them with some questions.
And then they kind of look at me like, well, who do I journal to?
Like what do I write to?
And I was like, okay, then I have to kind of coach them through like how you journal.
And then finally, after so many years of doing this, I've recognized like, you know, people
aren't seasoned journalists like I am.
I don't know if it's called journalists, journalists, excuse me.
Because I've been journaling since I was in eighth grade.
So for me, it's just, you know, it's my best friend.
I wouldn't know how to do life without it.
But for many people, it's a foreign concept.
And that's kind of how the idea got birthed for me was like, you know, I really should
have some tool of my own where when these questions pop up, because they always do, I can say,
you know what, grab my journal.
And what this journal is, is it's a 30 day, every day has a prompt, and you go through
it and the hope is that you go through it consecutively.
It's okay if you don't, there's no rules.
No one's going to come and give you a grade for it.
But it's preferred that you do.
And the reason why is because I'm trying to help you create a new habit.
And so many times there's the number one, I wouldn't say number one, the top five feelings
that I get from people is that they feel lonely.
And what this journal also does is it provides a space where you don't feel lonely.
You feel like you actually are talking to someone.
For many Christians, I always tell them, talk to God, that's who your journal is, you're
speaking to him, you're sharing with him.
And that's who I basically write to as well.
And it's this best friend of yours.
And I'm trying to create this habit so that you learn to rely on this kind of best friend.
And what's so perfect about this best friend is that all it does is listen.
It never talks back and never tells you what to do.
It just listens to you.
And it takes about 28 to 29 days to develop a new habit.
It creates a new pathway in your brain for you.
Once you've created that pathway, you've now created a memory in your brain.
And so even if you fall off and forget to journal for a little while, once you get back
into it, your brain remembers, oh, I remember this pathway.
I remember this is what we do.
And it's not as hard to get into the rhythm of it.
It just immediately goes back.
It's a muscle.
It's already been developed.
So that's why I picked 30 days.
And like I said, each day there's a prompt.
And in the beginning, it may seem kind of kindergartenish.
Why am I being asked something like this?
And again, it's strategic.
It's to get you to just write.
I don't want you to get into deep thought right away because that turns people away.
What it does is it says, oh, if I have to journal tonight, I'm going to have to answer
those heavy questions.
And I'm just so not in the mood for that.
So in the beginning, it's really just to get, hey, easy questions, two minutes of your time.
That's it.
So they kind of get encouraged to do it.
Then it gets a little heavier.
And it does ask a lot more about your values and your beliefs.
And if you're walking in contradiction of those values and beliefs, and why is that?
And who's in your inner circle?
What does that look like for you?
And what were your biggest fears and so forth and so on?
And then towards the end, the hope is that you've developed a really good understanding
of who you are as a human being and whether or not you've liked this person.
If this person is really who you want to represent as yourself.
And if not, should we change it?
With that said, I do have other journals coming up.
And it's kind of in continuation of this.
I'm working on them still.
No release date.
But they're coming because as I was writing this journal, I recognized, wow, there's something
about learning about yourself that makes you want to learn more.
It's almost, it's very addicting.
It's like, okay, I discovered this, but what about this?
And what about this part of my life?
What about that part of my life?
And so there'll be continuations of that in other journals as well.
But that's the gist of what this journal is.
You just answered a question that I was going to ask there of if there would be more in
the future.
And I think that's wonderful.
This sounds, it's almost like this is the journaling 101 type of type of book here.
And then maybe we kind of graduate in some of these, these ones that are in the works
right now.
Absolutely.
And that's exactly what it is.
It's really geared towards people who haven't journaled.
And I could honestly say I have a friend of mine who has a daughter who's, I believe now
almost six, six years old.
And she's very intelligent, but I would hand this journal to her because she would be able
to do it too.
But I would also give it to the 60 year old that has never journaled, who's also very
intelligent obviously and lived life and has experienced things and they would be able to
very much enjoy this journal as just as much.
So any age, as long as you can think for yourself, you can kind of sit down and look within.
I know I talked about my friend, six year old.
Yes, she can actually do this.
It's incredibly brilliant child.
Not every six year old could obviously, but she could.
And so anyone that can step back and kind of just look inside can absolutely use this
journal to help them kind of learn more about who they are.
The way you're describing that really reminds me of something that I talked to, to my own
clients fairly often about.
And I'll tell them that most of what we talk about in counseling isn't that complex.
Like it's fairly simple.
Like you think that you're dumb.
Well, you're not dumb.
You know, it's not, it's not like rocket science.
But just because it's simple doesn't mean that it's really easy to be able to put into
practice.
It takes that discipline.
And that's what we talk a lot about is recognizing where those thoughts are or whatever it may
be and going into it.
Those coping skills, you know what to do.
We got to go do it.
And that's what I like about kind of your idea, your vision with this journal is a six
year old can do it.
This is not super psychobabally difficult language.
It's fairly simple, but you got to do it.
You got to do it all 30 days.
You got to form this new habit.
And it sounds like it really walks through people without insulting their intelligence.
Exactly.
I mean, there's no shaming in this journal whatsoever.
It's like really teeny.
It's not that big.
You can even use it as a stocking stuffer or a gift or anything.
It's really teeny.
And inside, I mean, I'll give you one of the questions.
It's something very simple.
What are you grateful for today?
Very simple.
That's the first question.
And then I ask a little deeper stuff if you want to get into it, like really, really deep.
But the first question is just, Hey, what are you grateful for today?
Very, very simple.
And then you're given a few pages just to write into it.
There's more pages in the back if you need to write more because I've given each day
has a certain amount of pages, blank pages for you to write.
But there's plenty more in the back if you need to continue with that question because
you're feeling like, wow, I've got a really good rhythm going here.
But very, fairly simple.
You think it's simple, just like you said.
But then it's like when you start writing, it's kind of profound.
You're like, I just realized I am not a grateful person.
I am not grateful for anything.
I am a pessimist.
All I do is walk around hating people.
I mean, you just, this is an example.
It's just what you discover from one simple question.
You're right.
During our treatment sessions, we don't, I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't
talk cycle babble in my treatment sessions.
It's really just questions like this where I'm like, what was that about?
What did you mean by saying this?
What were you thinking when you said this?
How did you feel when you said that?
And the biggest question that I always ask is, well, how did that align with your values?
Because you talked about some of your values before and that kind of contradicts it.
So what's going on there?
And that is the premise of this journal is figuring out why are you walking in contradiction
to what you actually believe?
And believe it or not, without having to label, but I just can't help myself here, many of
my more progressive liberal clients walk more in contradiction than my conservative clients
do.
And it really is interesting to me to see that there is actually a line like I can see
it.
I have a lot of clients that love the trends, whatever kind of trends that are going on
that believe in them, fight for them.
But then when I hear them talk about their own home and their inner feelings and beliefs,
they're in complete contradiction to what they're quote unquote fighting for externally.
And so I note that and we dive deeper into that.
What is that about?
Why?
And it's not about changing them.
There's no agenda for me to convert any liberal into a conservative whatsoever.
But I do have a job to play and that job is to make sure you're walking in health.
And if you're walking in contradiction, that doesn't scream health to me.
And so if you do believe some kind of social trend that's happening, then okay, let's change
your value so that it aligns with that.
And most times it's not that they want to change their values.
Most times it's, oh, well, maybe I can step back a little bit from that and maybe walk
a little more alignment with my values.
Yeah.
I think that's a huge point there.
That's something kind of reminds me too of how when I treat couples that our first step
is not to agree with one another, not one to be right or wrong.
Do we understand each other?
Do we have what she said and what he said?
Do we agree with that?
Then we can get somewhere.
Then we can start solving.
But if we don't understand each other, we can't really get anywhere.
And that works on the couples in it, but it's also with yourself.
Like, yeah, I say I value all these things.
My family's the most important to me, but then I don't ever talk to them and see them.
That doesn't make sense.
And I love that what you're doing here.
And this is kind of a big thing that I've been thinking of just as a counselor that
so many counselors, and I don't intend to put ill will on them.
I don't think this is necessarily their goal, but they put so much emphasis on counseling
itself that it becomes this dependence on the counselor that they have to go to them
for everything.
The client can't do anything on their own.
And that's not our job.
Our job is to try to help them understand themselves, like you said, to be healthier people.
And that's another thing I love about just this whole journal in and of itself is it's
teaching you how to do it.
It's not just coming to me and figuring out all of your problems.
No, this is a tool to help you learn more about yourself and to make those values, those
thoughts and values and actions all aligned with one another.
Absolutely.
And again, just like with myself in therapy, this journal has no agenda except to get you
to love who you are and appreciate who you are and discover who you are, whoever that
may be.
Progressive, conservative, centrist, doesn't matter.
It's about making sure that if you have a belief system that you can stand firmly on
that belief system, that you have a strong foundation in what it is you want to represent.
And I want that for everyone.
And like you said, you're absolutely right.
There is no animosity or ill will towards our liberal counterparts.
It's nothing like that.
They have a place and their place is to help more progressive liberal individuals.
I'm happy that they're there.
What I have issues with is it seems like they have an agenda, whereas we don't.
And a lot of their agenda from what we're both on Facebook and we see all the therapist
groups and a lot of times we see their comments say, I get my conservative clients in here
and I hear their MAGA rhetoric and I work towards changing that and getting them to
believe something else.
And I'm just like, why?
Let them be the MAGA, whatever they are and push them back a little bit.
Just go, why?
I have a way to defend that.
Do you know why you feel that way?
Describe that to me.
How would you defend yourself for it?
Are you walking in alignment with your MAGA beliefs?
Whatever MAGA beliefs are, I'm really close to that.
But you get the point.
It's like their idea is I'm going to convert them, whereas my belief is I don't want to
convert anyone.
I just want you to be proud of who you are and I want your walk to be aligned with your
talk and whatever that talk is that you're proud of it, you exhumate somehow.
And also you appreciate that there's differences too, that not everyone's going to believe
the way you do.
I love the differences in people.
And I was thinking about this the other day.
I remember, I don't know if it was like this for you in grad school.
I remember being in grad school and a lot of the questions that we had about what type
of modality is best for the person that I am and what I like and how I want to use it
in my sessions.
And there was always this debate of this modality is better than that.
Do CBT over DBT.
Just the back and forth.
And most teachers always said, well, pick one and let it be different because the people
that you're going to serve may not like yours, but need the other person because they connect
with them better.
It'd be horrible if we all collectively decided this is what we're going to use because the
audience is not going to fit in that box.
There's going to be a huge array of differences that are going to be looking for a therapist
that kind of fits in the lines with their way of dealing with life.
And what essentially has happened is we have done the opposite of that.
We have now in grad schools, we are teaching them that you can't be a conservative.
It's not allowed.
And if you are, you're ethically going against what we believe.
So then what they're saying is that every conservative that's out there will not be
able to find a conservative therapist that matches and aligns with their beliefs because
we're all trained to be more progressive liberal.
And that's just so unfair.
I feel horrible for the people who are seeking therapy that want the more conservative person
because really we've been indoctrinated to believe there can't be a conservative therapist.
That's a no, no, that's not allowed.
So we've totally put us in a box.
And again, my agenda isn't to put you in my conservative box.
It's to say, hey, let's figure out what you are and celebrate wherever you fall.
I don't care, but just be proud of it.
You know, what you were saying there, it's pretty astounding to me that I've had some
accusations, which mostly are just online warriors that feel like making a name for themselves
behind a keyboard.
So I don't take too much stock into it.
But accusals of that fact of, oh, you're just trying to convert people and blah, blah, blah.
And I find that quite humorous in a lot of ways because on my website on Truth and Grace
Counseling that my beliefs are pretty much out there.
I'm pretty much an open book.
And I have explicitly in my informed consent since I am branded as more of a Christian
counselor, I have my statement of faith in there.
And I even more mentioned on there like, hey, tell me what you disagree with, you don't
have to agree with it.
But I just want you to read it.
And I do ask you to be okay with me having those beliefs because I'm putting that out
there.
And if you don't, great, I'll get you a referral.
We can go elsewhere.
That's not conversion.
That is not conversion therapy at all.
That is being upfront with this value system, allowing them to make an informed consent
and then we go our distance.
And but on the flip side, the people I do work with, I've had people, I've had someone
in Canada, I've had people all throughout the country, New York state that like, I can't
find a counselor that's not going to try to transition my kid or a counselor that isn't
just going to talk bad about my beliefs.
There's a reason why some of us are trying to be a little bit more open on the conservative
type of values.
And it's not to change clients minds.
It's because there's a market for it of clients that aren't going to get help that won't see
a counselor at all.
They'll just suffer in silence because they don't trust the counseling profession.
And that's sad that that's not what we're supposed to be about at all.
I wish that I didn't really feel this need to have to showcase my values out there.
But again, there's a reason for it because people have been burned time and time again
of I just don't trust anything.
I don't trust any counselor.
I just need to get over it and not deal with my problems.
And that's again, that's just really, really sad that that's where we're at sometimes.
You are absolutely right.
And I have done the same exact thing on my websites.
I mean, there's it's just out there that says, these are my beliefs.
And I list them bullet points of what my beliefs are.
And again, it's not about converting.
I'm not trying to convert anyone.
It's because just like you said, it's like, there are people out here that believe the
same thing you do.
I won't hurt you.
I won't harm you.
I won't shame you.
I won't roll my eyes when you talk about certain things.
I won't abandon you in therapy because you bring up a certain belief that's more conservative.
I won't do any of those things.
I'll listen to them.
And if you're liberal, I wouldn't do those things as well.
Unfortunately, like you said, we're in a time where that kind of has to be stated.
We are our society has made it known that if you're conservative, you're bad.
You're wrong.
It's in our media all day long.
There is not a mainstream media outlet that leans conservative.
This is not conservative.
That is not something that I wish people understood that it is not a conservative station.
They do have more conservative guests on, but they're very left-leaning.
The owners are proudly progressive liberals.
And so it's everywhere that we're told being conservative or Uber conservative, it's quote
unquote wrong.
So putting that stuff on our website is just to say, hey, you guys are not wrong.
You're welcome here.
This is a welcome space.
Just like people of the LGBTQ plus community do it, just like Christians and Catholics
do it.
Just like Satanists do it.
We're also doing it too.
Hey, this is who we are.
You're welcome here.
At this point, I didn't believe this before, but you change your beliefs often.
I at this point now feel like it's just as important when a person comes into consultations
and they ask, well, what kind of tools do you have that you're going to give me?
They're asking me questions.
And what kind of modalities do you use in treatment?
And I'll say this and that or whatever.
And I think it's fair that they even ask, what side of the spectrum of policies do
you lean on?
Because I get it.
I get it now.
Five years ago, no, we didn't need to ask those things.
It was almost a no-no to ask that.
But today, because they're constantly bombarded with hate them, hate them, hate them, hate
them, hate them, I can understand why the first question would be, are you going to
hate me because I'm a conservative?
No, of course not.
I'm not going to hate you.
Go check out my website.
You'll see that I won't hate you.
Yeah.
Like I said, it's unfortunately very common.
I first started putting myself out there.
And I've learned a lot of ways to communicate it in more effective ways than others.
But if you do it, and maybe you're not even a counselor, but just in general, if you do
that, you will receive backlash.
Yes, that much is true.
But you will have people reach out.
I've had so many people reach out that I've referred.
I've actually referred some to SOA that have been in states that I'm not licensed in to
other colleagues that I've been able to refer to.
And sometimes they know that going in, and they just want to send their gratitude.
Thank you for saying something.
It takes courage sometimes to do that.
But there are people, there are many, many, many clients out there that, again, the alternative
is not they'll find a different counselor.
They won't.
They won't get any help.
And ethically, when you get kind of things thrown at you ethically, oh, you shouldn't
put your political beliefs out there.
Well, ethically, this person's not going to get help.
I don't care what the licensing board says or the ethics of that says.
My ethics go beyond just a few initials after my name.
And I think that's something that more conservatives are, thankfully, are waking up a little bit
about and just cultural in general, that just because this licensing board says that just
because the president says this or that we're little by little starting to gain more power
of just within our own little communities and standing up a little bit.
And that's something that is really encouraging that I've seen in both kind of conservative
counseling circles and just culture in general, by no means are we perfect.
We got so many other battles to fight, but you see more people in the battle, more people
that are fighting.
I think you saw that that in this last, I mean, it's just turned the page over and getting
done with June.
And obviously, June's a very politically charged month with different gay pride festivals
and things like that.
And this year, more than any in the past decade, more pushback and people are just kind of
tired of the same old stuff.
And that's encouraging that people are not just sitting there and taking everything any
longer than they're starting to fight back a little bit.
And you're right.
It's so encouraging to watch conservative therapists fight back and push back a little
bit because in the beginning, I mean, all this really started around right after Trump
became president and then a few years into it.
So maybe about 2018, 2019, it got really bad for us therapists.
And so, you know, since then, it's we've been scared.
We've kind of went in hiding.
We had so many threats about our licenses taken away and people losing their jobs.
Now, people have lost their jobs because of their political beliefs.
I haven't yet heard of anyone lose their license.
And the reason why it's harder to lose your license because a client actually has to be
harmed.
And so the client actually has to be the one to do the complaining to the board.
And that's usually not the case.
Usually it's a therapist that hates another therapist for their values and beliefs and
they call a board and complain.
Board's job is always to investigate no matter what.
But ultimately just comes down to well, what harm have they done to a client and there
is none.
So just within our own group, I'm pretty positive and certain that I can say no one has lost
their license.
People have definitely been threatened.
People have definitely had gone to the lengths of getting lawyers to defend their license.
That's for sure.
But because of those things, it freaks you out.
And it freaks you out to a point you feel paralyzed because this is your livelihood.
This is not only for us, our livelihood, but what we went to school for, paid so much money
for, spent hours and internships for.
Basically hours of internships with like little to no pay.
And then to kind of sit back and go, I have to throw that all away because of my beliefs.
It freaks you out.
And they're winning when we do that because that's their whole point is to make us submissive
and quiet and push us into a corner.
But we are pushing back.
And I think people like you and I within our group and the group I'm talking about is a
Facebook group that we have.
It's a secret Facebook group.
It's pretty private and for obvious reasons we get constantly attacked and people try
to sneak in and attack us and screenshot us and turn things into the board and yada yada
yada.
But this group, we have a good about 700 members that are conservative therapists.
Both social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, anybody that
works in the mental health field.
So this group of us, since people like you and I are going to our group and saying, hey
guys, we can do this still and we can even do this outside of our licenses.
We can get creative and still be therapists, but give ourselves a different name.
Give us a different title.
It doesn't, we still have our education.
We still have our years of experience.
We still have our current clients that love us obviously because they're not running away.
They're not going to the board.
They're not complaining about us.
If anything, we've gotten more and more clients because of this, the temperature in the room
that's going on.
The people are actually coming to us more.
And it's great that there are people like you and I and many others that are encouraging
the more quieter, scared conservative therapists to say, yeah, I guess I could do this.
Our practices have not suffered because of this.
Our practices, like I said, if anything, and you've said it, you've gotten so much busier.
And all because we finally said, enough is enough.
I'm going to share my values and beliefs.
And you hit it on the nail and you said, you know what?
My ethics are more important than what the board tells me.
And I 100% believe that that board, I can almost guarantee, doesn't have a single conservative
on it.
And so when they're sitting around creating the ethics, no one's pushing back and saying,
hey, this doesn't sound right.
They're all just agreeing with what those ethics are, which means people like you and
I are not thought about at all.
Our beliefs are forgotten.
They're not even brought to the table.
So I don't really care about their ethics.
They can put that on paper.
I will follow it.
That's fine.
That's an oath I took and I'll do it.
But if it comes down to saying, if you don't actually practice these ethics to the T, you're
going to lose your license, I will gladly turn it over.
Take it.
Because there are millions, and I believe it when I say 80 million because that's how
many people voted for the other president.
Millions of people that need my help.
And I don't need a board to tell me I can help them or not.
I'll help them.
However I can, I will help them.
Yeah.
100%.
And we've had some good discussions and I know you've done a lot with group members
just in general that, except broadening your horizons, that's what you're doing in part
with this journal, which is wonderful.
And they can help anybody.
Everybody can benefit from learning how to journal more effectively.
I've recently wrote, and this was one of the coolest just individual recognitions accomplishments
whatever that I've had, because it was completely out of the blue was not something I had in
mind, but I had been writing some articles for this awesome sub-stack, which if any of
you listening have not checked it out, it's called WrongSpeak.
It's wonderful.
It's a bunch of people that have values and thoughts and feelings that are not the majority
opinion in media circles.
And you don't have to be a journalist, have a degree.
I don't tell you I don't, but anybody can submit to them.
It's awesome.
So definitely check it out.
But I submitted an article and it was kind of what you were talking about.
I titled it, conservatives need to be producers, not just consumers.
We're so used to, oh, well, the board said this, gosh, they're terrible, but I got to
keep my job.
What am I going to do?
And just that real defeatist attitude, instead of making something, like, I understand there's
bad stuff that happens in the world.
I'm not saying to cover your eyes and act like everything's good.
No, it's not.
But just sitting and complaining about it doesn't do us a whole lot of good.
Go and produce, go make something.
And what was awesome is getting that published on WrongSpeak, that's awesome on its own.
Again, I couldn't commend them highly enough.
I actually have an episode with Rebecca Velo that is one of the editors there.
That was actually my first faithfully engaged episode.
So I speak incredibly highly of WrongSpeak publishing.
That's amazing.
Good job.
But unbeknownst to me, there was a reader that was an editor for The Federalist and
picked up my article and then republished it on The Federalist, which was awesome.
Amazing.
No idea that that was going to be the case.
But all it took, writing that article, which WrongSpeak articles are pretty short, they're
like 800 words or something.
Yeah, I went back and did some brainstorming and did some editing, although Rebecca did
a wonderful job doing the editing.
That's part of what I like about them because I'm not that professional writer.
But it didn't take me that long to write it.
It wasn't like that took years of my life.
It was an idea I had and like, oh, I think conservatives can really think about that
and that way.
And then all of a sudden it's on The Federalist.
Now, I don't know, I would love to have another article on The Federalist, but I may not ever
have another one.
That's not the point.
The point is, you're never going, oh, it would never be on The Federalist again if I don't
write anything.
You're never going to make a journal.
You're not going to have a journal that's out there for sale.
If you don't write it, you got to do it.
And I'm imagining, and I would love to hear more, so out of just your process of doing
it.
I imagine you went through many drafts and times like, oh, nope, that doesn't work.
It's not perfect off the get go.
But you did it.
You stuck through it and you did it.
So don't just sit there and wait for the world around you to change.
It's not.
Do something.
Do something with your life and make the world better, even if it's just in your family.
Go be a better dad, a better mom.
Just do something.
Don't sit around and complain all the time.
Oh, yes.
Oh, my gosh.
You know, when I wanted to do this journal, make the idea a real thing, the first thing,
and I think this is what stops everyone, the first thing that pops up is fear.
The fear of what if it's stupid?
What if no one buys it?
What if I do it and I hate it?
But it was just this constant like what ifs, this fear just pops up.
But I have developed such a muscle of pushing back against those what ifs from years and
years and years of just starting businesses or creating content or whatever it is I'm
doing.
It's years of pushing back that my muscle in that area is pretty strong.
It just goes, shut up.
I'm not listening to you.
I got to get this done.
Some people don't have that muscle and so that what if takes over, it's stronger than
them and they kind of step back and go, okay, they win.
My what if wins.
A lot of times in therapy, that's what we're working on is the what ifs and pushing back
on those what ifs.
Once that muscle's developed, then you can silence that what if and move on to the next
step, which is how, how do I publish?
I don't know how to publish anything.
I've never published anything before.
Where do you even start?
It was, I asked friends who've written books, like how did you get your book published?
Where did you go?
Got answers and I asked specific, no, I need to know the website and don't just give me
the name.
What is the website and where do I, how do I do this?
Can I self publish?
Should I go with a publisher?
What are the pros and cons?
I mean, I researched the how to first a lot before I actually sat down and wrote this.
And then when I felt like, oh, that's all I have to do.
Well, good Lord, that's the easiest, that's the easy part that and really all it was,
and I'll share this with everyone.
It's a simple Amazon, they have their own publishing where you can self publish.
They have a great website.
I think it's called, I remember it because I want to be as specific as I was when I was
at KDP.
And it's AmazonKDP.com, I believe it is.
And literally you just go there after you've completed your book, you've got to complete
it first and you upload it, you tell them how much you want it.
They'll tell you like what profits you'd make if it's this price or that price and they'll
tell you what they can do and can't do as far as soft copies, hard copies, sizes.
Very simple, very simple.
So once I was like, okay, this is actually easy.
So now I've got to actually write it.
And I have to say, the writing wasn't hard.
And again, because it was years of my experience of just doing this already.
So writing the questions was fairly easy for me.
Sure I went back and kind of like, I want this question here instead of that question
there, maybe I'll bump this here.
And then some wordings here and there, sure, I'll change that, that's fine.
But then it was like, okay, now, because I designed it as well.
So then I was like, okay, well, now I got to design it.
I just don't want words on paper.
So then I used Canva.
Easy.
Again, process.
Put all my questions in Canva, created sheets.
Canva has lines even.
They have templates for lines for the journal.
Put it in there.
Create a PDF because everything wants a PDF when you go and upload it into the system
for Amazon, you need a PDF.
Did that.
Amazon was great as far as saying like, hey, you know, this is the preview.
So I can look at it and go, oh, this is kind of off and this is a little off.
And then I just go back to canvas, make the changes, upload it again.
Easy process.
And believe it or not, because I'm my own editor, I'm my own author, I'm my own designer,
all of it's me.
I don't have a partner in any which way.
I copied and pasted all of the content into AI.
And I said, make sure my grammar is okay.
And it did.
I mean, there, we talk badly about AI and trust me, I have my reservations about AI
as well.
But for now, I'm going to use that to my benefit.
And that's how I used it.
I was like, you know, I don't have someone.
I don't want to really pay somebody to edit this for me.
Make sure all my words in the right place, the commas are in the right place, the question
marks are in the right place.
So AI did it and it came back and said, hey, you know, you should put this here and you
should maybe put the comma there and this is a fragment.
Are you sure you want it or fragment?
You want to change it maybe to this.
And it gives you suggestions.
Maybe rewrite this sentence.
So it looks like this.
I was like, oh my God, this is heaven.
And that took all of two seconds because it quickly populates for you.
So I few edits, it wasn't that much, few edits of here and there wording and fragments, maybe
some fragments are intentional because it's the way I talk.
And so once that was done, you make the changes again in Canva downloaded again in the PDF
uploaded again into a PDF into Amazon and click publish within a day.
The book was published.
That's it.
Simple as that.
But the beginning stage of it is I am not going to let fear take over.
I am going to fight back the what ifs.
I don't care if no one buys this book.
That wasn't the purpose.
I am not making a huge profit off of this book.
I'll tell you that right now.
Amazon, one of the searches I did was finding out who is the best as far as your return
goes and Amazon was the best.
They give you a good chunk of it.
However, they take a big chunk of it to produce it and to ship it.
So you really don't make much.
So again, that wasn't the purpose.
It's cute.
It's nice.
I mean, trust me, it's there.
Sure.
But the purpose is to help.
And if that's my goal.
I was tired of spending too much time in helping someone answer certain questions outside of
the therapy room because that was wasting time in the therapy room.
So instead it was like, oh, you don't know how to journal?
Grab my journal.
Grab it on my website, click the link, get it.
Now I don't have to spend time teaching them how to journal in session.
I can talk about what you're going to go journal after session.
Let's get into the process and the deep stuff.
Now go journal about it.
Yeah.
That's kind of how the book happened.
And because I saw it while this was simple, it's like, well, let's start the next one.
It just, I mean, Nike has it right.
Just do it.
Even if quote unquote, you fail.
I mean, I don't know how you can fail.
It didn't cost me a penny.
Not Johnny, I'm not kidding you.
Not one penny to make this book.
All it did was take some of my time.
And if I put that time together at eight hours of work, one full day of work, that's all
it was.
And now I've got this book out there and if people need it, they can use it.
And it's like, it got me excited to want to do more.
And it's amazing what it does for your self-esteem.
And with self-esteem, I'm caveating.
So forgive me.
I'm just going all over the place, Johnny.
You can tell me to shut up when you do.
You're good.
No, you're good.
And with self-esteem, it's one of, I think it's a big misconception that we have with
self-esteem and motivation.
We think it's one of those things we're born with.
And that's so not true.
We're not someone who's just motivated.
Well, that person's just motivated.
Well, that person just has good self-esteem.
No.
They're both developed.
And how self-esteem is developed is when you actually put into action some certain thing,
whatever that project is.
You have an idea and you put it into action.
And you actually come back with something, whether good or bad, doesn't matter.
Maybe you failed at it.
Maybe you got good at it.
But you put into motion something that develops self-esteem.
You can step back and go, oh, I actually did that.
Maybe it didn't come out the way I wanted it to, but I did it.
So I know I can do that.
Now I can do it differently.
That's how self-esteem is developed.
And that's what this does for you, doing things like, I'm going to push back the
what if.
And I'm going to go and I'm actually going to do this.
And then you step back and you're like holding the thing in your hand and you're like, wow,
I freaking did that.
That's amazing.
I'm going to do it again.
And that's what keeps you going and going and going.
And that's what motivates you.
Motivation's the same thing.
You develop it through discipline.
You don't wake up one day and just have it.
No.
You have to work at it like you do with your self-esteem.
So thanks for letting me talk about that for a second.
Absolutely.
And I'm hoping that people that are listening to this, some of them might be counselors.
I have some psychology background, but most listeners don't.
But you have something.
You have a dream that maybe you've not pursued or an avenue of maybe you're wanting to write
a book or something or goodness, asking a girl out that you haven't had the confidence
to do.
But everybody has something that they want to accomplish.
And I think that should be very encouraging here in SoHut's story that, yeah, it took
work.
It took different things.
She had to ask the right questions, find everything.
But the most difficult part in that journey is getting it done, doing it, realizing that
I can do this.
And then when you're actually at that point, when you started, oh, well, that's not that
bad.
And for you, you even figured out you're using these tools, which we were kind of talking
off camera a little bit about kind of the more of the conservative type of view towards
AI, which I'm with SoHut.
I understand some of the apprehensions.
I always think of a movie like, oh goodness.
So I do not have to help you.
No, not iRobot.
It's the Disney one.
The Pixar.
Oh, Avatar.
No, I don't know.
No, I'm thinking of I know it.
There's the one where they like that they all have to go up into this like spaceship thing
because the earth got too trashy and stuff.
Oh, God.
Anyways, I'll put it in the show.
Is it a cartoon?
It's yeah.
So it's Pixar.
So it's one of the animated ones.
I have no idea.
You know what?
It's bothering me.
I don't have kids.
I don't really watch a lot of the cartoon stuff.
This is great podcast in here.
Because I'm thinking iRobot.
I'm thinking of Minority Report.
I'm thinking of what's spaceship?
My goodness.
Even my look up is bad.
I inside out.
Not inside out, although that's a good one.
Yeah.
That was a really good one.
Actually, I really liked inside out.
And I watched that from a referral of a client.
A client of mine was like, you've got to see that.
That explains everything about me.
I'm like, okay.
That was a good one.
It's Wally.
Wally is what I was thinking.
Yes, I have seen that one.
I think another client referred that movie to me too.
Yes.
I think that was for the wonderful podcast.
I was like, I like some of the natural things.
So I do that all the time.
I need to know it.
Good.
I'm glad you did.
So Wally, in that movie, basically the earth got way too trashy and all this bad stuff.
They lost all this vegetation.
So they go up into this big spacecraft.
All of the humans are super fat.
And literally, they don't even walk because they have all this technology.
And basically, everything is given to them at the press of a button.
And I know that's what a lot of conservatives kind of have in mind if we let robots, AI
stuff overtake.
And that is a legitimate concern.
I'm not trying to say that we need to just act like everything's fine and just have technology
for every little thing.
My wife and I were actually talking about that today with our kiddos.
It's not like we don't ever let them watch TV or anything like that.
But we actually don't really allow them to spend much, particularly like cell phone time
or iPads, things like that.
Because we do have concerns.
We want them to be able to go out and run outside, which we did this morning.
And they were super muddy and all the fun, just getting your hands and feet dirty.
I think that's important, especially for little ones.
So I say all that to say, I am sympathetic to some of the arguments against some of the
AI and things like that.
But that being said, just like anything else in this world, it can be used for bad means,
but it can be used for good means too.
I've heard some people, I've got some friends that have been able to use chat GPT for all
sorts of brilliant things.
Like this one guy, he's able to do this stuff with looking for houses for sale.
He's done this little algorithm and it pops up when these certain things and this certain
parameter, I mean, it's really cool what you can do with some of that.
So don't demonize technology, just making it into a big box.
It's all bad.
No.
But you need to have something a little bit deeper underneath there.
When it goes back to your value system, what's guiding some of that technology?
What's the end goal here?
Is it to better things?
Because I'll tell you, this is very residual, but what SOA did there with some of the tools
she had through Canva and through the self publishing, the AI editing, that's actually
impacting me and some of my clients because I'm going to recommend this journal because
I've had similar experiences like, eh, journaling, especially with some of my mail clients, like
I don't want to diary.
I don't want to do that.
And this is a fabulous resource.
And yeah, AI didn't just print that out to me directly, but indirectly, I was positively
and my clients positively impacted by that.
You're going to have a hard time convincing me that's a bad thing.
So try to temper that a little bit.
How can AI be used in a positive way?
In the negative ways?
Okay, speak up about it.
Maybe we need to have a deeper conversation when it comes to self-driving vehicles and
things of that nature.
Fine, let's have those conversations.
But just because something says AI doesn't mean it's all bad.
And honestly, if you look at yourself, you know that you use technology that people would
have thought was witchcraft not that long ago.
So what I am talking to each other on a computer screen, that's crazy talk.
So just don't demonize all AI things.
Use it for productivity.
I've had people to say, AI can actually be really cool about finding creative ways to
share the gospel.
Like it's pretty cool what you can do with it.
So anyways, that's my two cents out there.
Use AI for good, not for evil.
You know, so this is how I like to compare it.
We have our Second Amendment right to have guns to protect ourselves.
It's our right and still people use it for bad.
People still use guns and harm and hurt other people.
I feel AI can be used the same way.
It's not AI that's bad.
It's the people that use AI that make it bad.
And AI is a tool that's there and the person's intention on how to use that is what matters
and how they use it is what matters.
Because sure, it's going to, for you and I who have integrity and hold some morals and
have some Christian values, we will probably use AI for good.
But people who maybe hate the world and want to have some destruction with the world and
want to spew poison to people and mislead them will probably use AI for that purpose,
to harm and hurt others.
So I don't necessarily think AI is bad, but I think that yes, it can be used for bad
and that's determinant on the person that's using it or the government that's using it.
So for now, I'm using it with good intentions to help me produce things to give out to people
so that I don't sound like a two-year-old trying to write something.
And it's been wonderful.
Even when I write my posts, again, I write lengthy posts on Instagram and I really want
someone to just double check my grammar and I throw it into chat GPT and it comes back
and says, yeah, looks great or change this.
And I love that.
I love being able to use it that way.
Now, I don't get too sophisticated because I really don't know how to get sophisticated
on it.
I'm not doing algorithms and trying to figure out how to write code.
But for the purposes that I need it for, it's a wonderful tool.
It's a wonderful tool.
I know the day will come where it's going to change and bad people are going to get a
hold of it and bad people are going to have bad intentions and do some bad things and
we're all going to have to really be careful with it at that point.
But until then, I'm going to use it as much as I can for the benefit of others, like you
said, definitely.
And some of this is some of that strategy, kind of like we're talking about before with
just conservatives in general.
And again, to put a little caveat on it, I always say with conservatives, there's a
reason why we're a little bit slower on some things and it's not all bad.
Conservatives, like even just in the name, you're conserving something.
I want there to be some type of values that we stick to.
So some of that inherently, we're a little bit slower on some things for good reason.
But again, that being said, we can be purest all we want and say, nope, no AI in this house.
You can do that.
But you think everybody else isn't.
You think the liberal next door is not using that to get a leg up.
Of course they are.
So we can be a stick in the mud all we want, but that's not going to do you much good.
So like you're saying, how can we use it for good?
And even if you are saying like, oh, these are really bad ways, what if it gets into
these hands or those hands?
Again, I get it.
Take some time.
Like how can you express that in appropriate ways and show the real dangers?
Who are people you can talk to, city governments or whatever, to be able to express those concerns?
Do something about it.
And then just type into the void of the internet and scream at people and not really do anything.
Again, that's just complaining.
It's not really helping anybody.
And truth be told, I was one of those people when AI first came out, I was like, uh-oh,
I don't think I like this.
And instead of just sitting on that thought and belief with no backing, it was just this
idea of like, uh-oh, where's, but I questioned like, well, where is this coming from?
Where's this hesitation coming from?
Why do I feel this way?
Someone must have told me to feel this way.
Maybe it's my instinct.
I don't know.
So what did I do?
I went to chat GBT and I checked it out myself.
I was like, well, let me see what this hype is about.
I had no idea how to use it.
I just went to the website and it's a click here to log in.
You don't have an account.
Create one.
Okay.
Created one.
And then all of a sudden you're on a page that says, tell me how I can help you.
Huh?
It's like, uh, I don't know.
So I just asked it a simple question.
I think if you go down, you could, it keeps the memory of all of your past conversations.
I don't know what my first question was, maybe something with mental health, I'm sure, just
a random question, like tell me about CBT or something.
And it popped up this whole thing about what CBT is and the history of it, where it came
from.
I was like, what?
I was blown.
Like this is, you can do this?
Like amazing.
It's basically Google 5.0.
That's really what it is.
It's like, okay, it's going to really give you information, but it's not going to give
you the search results.
It's actually going to take the results and put it into a big thing.
As an intellectual person, I'd like to think of myself as one.
You then read it and then you look at it and go, oh, this sits well with me or oh, this
doesn't sit well with me.
Some of the questions I've asked it in the past are about naturopathic holistic healing.
And as we know, the more mainstream doesn't like that approach to health.
And so I wanted to test it and see, like, is it going to come back and tell me you shouldn't
search this because it's bad and you need to go to pharmaceuticals.
I'm obviously generalizing.
But it didn't.
It did pull from websites that promote this.
But at the end, there was a paragraph you should always check with your doctor if you
ever want to pursue these kinds of things.
I know, again, as an intellectual person, to look at that and go, they have to say that.
That's something that they must say.
But everything above that was great information.
I was like, yeah, this sounds right to me.
I know this stuff.
I'm pretty well versed in this stuff so I can see whether it might be something like,
you know, this doesn't sound right.
There was no alarms.
I didn't find anything wrong.
Very generalized, but still it was still good information.
And then the other thing you just have to know about chat GPT is that it only gives you information
up until 2022.
So anything 2023 or 2024 and on it, it doesn't have anything for you on that.
And it can't, from what I understand, it can't, at least because I don't know how to use
it, it can't use, it make graphs and diagrams.
I've tried to ask it to and it just hasn't.
I think it's just text based stuff.
I'm by no means an expert on it myself, but I'm pretty sure it just does text related.
Yeah.
I think you have to get like a widget to add to it.
And I'm like, okay, that's way beyond my brain.
Just check my spelling, please.
That's all.
Yeah.
Again, using it for, use it for production.
Use it for, for good means.
And I think another great thing about it is it lowers the bar for some things that were
completely unimaginable.
This is a little bit of a side topic here, but it's part of what I, I, I despise news,
especially your prototypical like local news.
And there's some stuff in it that's better than like national news because it's going
to cover local things that aren't, aren't covered in the national news.
So I get that.
And so it's not so much the content that's set in the local news.
It's the whole stick of it.
It feels so inauthentic to me.
It's like, it's stuck in a lost era that just doesn't make much sense to me anymore.
And it's so dramatic.
So it's like, burky news.
Like the, basically the only time I see news like that is when I'm at my, at my granny's
house and she, she loves, loves news.
That's too cute.
It just, I don't like that genre at all.
And part of it is, you know, you think back into my granny's days, she didn't have the
ability to go find that information.
Like no way.
Even in her own hometown, like you're so busy with your stuff, taking care of your family,
doing your job, cooking and all that.
And they didn't have the technology.
The thing that's in our pockets every day is way more powerful than what she had when,
when she's in her thirties, like not even close.
So they needed that technology to be able to have that type of format because they had
that, those only way you're going to get that information was by turning into the news read
in the newspaper.
And they still serve somewhat of a point today, but not nearly as much.
I don't need to go, I don't need to turn on my local news to find out that we just had
a new tea place that opened here in town.
I didn't need to turn the news on to find that out.
I could find that out very quickly.
So they're, they had their Facebook up, this place is open today.
Great.
Let's go get some tea.
Again, that barrier to entry is so much lower just in general that that's why we're seeing
a lot of cable news, things like that, they're really dying out because people don't need
them anymore.
And with some of these AI type of things now so add is able to publish a journal.
Like that barrier to entry to things that you never had access to or to get access, you
had to pay boo-cues of money.
Now that's really lowering down.
Now a potential pitfall is that means that maybe you need to, to screen things a little
bit better.
And there might be some things that get through that normally wouldn't like, oh, well, that's
just nonsense.
So we can't just lose all thinking ability.
We always need to use our brains, but that's, that's a good thing though.
We are made and this is definitely in my Christian worldview.
We are created by the creator.
We're made in his image.
And when it talks about being fruitful and multiply, obviously that applies and, and
childbirth, birth and things like that, but it goes beyond that.
That, that was the reason why that was such an important thing is they, they were creating,
they were creating new humans, which is incredible.
My wife is pregnant with, with our third child.
That's incredible.
What an incredible creation, but it goes beyond that.
We create art, we create music, we create journals, create these books.
We are made to create.
It's in our DNA.
And these are tools, like so it said, to use to create.
So go and use them.
Tools are not the problem.
Again, in the Christian worldview, it's our sin.
Sin will infect AI absolutely as it infects guns.
Like so I'd mentioned, it infects cars, people in England kill with knives, you know, like
people are, we do evil things.
So, but don't, don't maim the, the tool.
Sin, sin is the problem, not the tool.
And we just really need to understand that.
Amen.
Absolutely.
I, I, enough with the regulations, enough with more laws to prevent this law, to prevent
that, like enough with that.
Let's, let's hold ourselves accountable.
Let's have some discipline for ourselves.
You know, let's, let's look at us and say why, what is wrong with us that we believe that
we need to be constrained in a certain way.
Well, if you feel like you need to be constrained, it's because we're doing maybe something wrong
or something evil.
If that's the case, stop doing it.
Stop doing it or encourage others to stop doing it.
I don't want another law or regulation telling me what I can and cannot do when it never
even affected me.
When I was someone that was doing it right.
Someone who actually, again, I go back to the gun laws, someone who carries with responsibility.
Someone who is not going to murder someone just for the heck of it.
Stop hurting and punishing those who are actually doing good.
I'm using AI you guys.
I love it.
Please don't screw that up for me.
Please don't take AI and use it for bad and evil.
I'm really enjoying it.
I want to make more books and I need AI to help me edit these books.
I don't want to have to hire someone to do it for me.
So this, this is a great free tool.
Please don't mess that up.
If you do, go to church and ask Jesus to forgive you.
Thank you.
I love it.
I hadn't thought about this in that way of with the gun laws.
Makes sense, especially in conservative circles.
Obviously, second amendment rights are one of the, if not the biggest concerns and conservative
movements.
I've thought of that.
So I've mentioned before, in fact, I mentioned on the episode I had with you last time that
my wife and I, we've bought some land, got about 13 acres and we have enough land that
we're able, we're planning on making a little shooting range out there and just kind of,
just for fun.
If you've never shot a gun, I know self protection, all the serious stuff.
I get that.
You need to be super safe.
It's kind of fun.
Like when you do it in safe ways and you've got a little shooting range set up.
It's a fun thing.
But anyways, all that being said, with regulations.
So I went out and trigger warning to anybody that's this far in and is super concerned
about gun stuff, I guess.
But I bought an AR-15 a few years back.
I've not shot it.
It's actually underneath my bed, which you can't see this, but it's like two feet from
me and I don't even have any ammo in the house.
I solely bought it because Biden told me not to.
So then I bought it.
This is kind of in my nature.
I love it.
Good for you.
But since we have this land, I'm like, well, I had always wanted to get it ready to shoot
anyways.
It was like, we got enough land.
I need to make sure to set it up safely, but that's a good place to kind of go out and
play around.
Well, I've not shot it yet.
I've not shot one in general, but I know enough that they're like stupid loud.
Like if you shoot one indoors without ear protection, it could be deaf the rest of your life loud,
like really, really loud.
And you can buy silencers for them, but for one that costs a decent chunk of money and
then you have to be on this whole federal blah, blah, blah list where they it's not
just like going and getting a background check for a normal firearm.
It's quite a bit more extensive.
And essentially what that does, and I still may get it eventually, but what that does
is that stops me from potentially going and getting that.
So now if I do go out there and do it, now I just get to bother all of my neighbors around
me when I could have just gotten that and no big problem.
And it would have been far less of a nuisance.
And they have those laws because they don't want people going in there and shooting people
up and blah, blah, blah.
But clearly they're not doing a very good job of that, right?
Like even if you are liberal, you would say that people are using these guns in appropriate
ways.
Absolutely they are.
So you're preventing me from not making a nuisance.
It's doing no good.
It makes you feel good, I guess.
But at least, by no means am I advocating for this by any means, at least I could somewhat
understand where you might be coming from on a, we just need to get rid of all of them.
Get rid of all guns.
That's bad.
Don't do that.
But you stopping that kind of metal there on my gun to make it quieter, you're not doing
anything.
You're just annoying me and trying to put me on some federal, whatever, and basically
give the government more money.
That's just dumb.
And we have, that's just one instance of so many, not just in guns, but in tax law and
just everything, all these silly little things that you're not helping anybody.
You're just making more bureaucracy.
And I think that's their goal is to create more nuisance after nuisance after nuisance
so that we get so annoyed that we just give up.
Say forget it, then I just won't get one.
And gun enthusiasts, newsflash, they're enthusiasts.
They will still get them.
They will work around it.
They will find loopholes where they can and they will just purchase what they can.
We have guns and we abide by the law and I'm in California.
There is every law under the sun to prevent me from having a gun.
There is every, everything is thrown at me so that I don't get a concealed carry license.
I still have a gun and I have my concealed carry license.
I will still do it.
You are not going to, I'm annoyed by it.
That's for Dank, sure.
It's a process, takes forever, so many classes, all these hours, my gun has to be right, it
has to look right, it's a certain magazine, it can't be that magazine.
It just nuance stuff.
But I will still do it.
I will still do it because it's my right and I should and I'm a female and I'm in California.
It's not a safe place out here.
It's my God.
If you want to see hell, come on over.
It's not pretty.
It is especially in LA and now where I'm even from is the Bay Area where I grew up.
We escaped it.
It was horrible.
It just has gotten so bad.
San Francisco, forget about it.
I went to college up there and I would, I don't think I'll ever step foot there knowing
everything that I know about what's happened to San Francisco.
So it's my right and I will do it.
You're absolutely right.
They'll create all these regulations and make us be annoyed but we will still do it.
You're doing nothing.
You're making it just more difficult for me to get it but I'll still get it and so will
the criminal.
So will the person who will buy it from the streets and behind a back alley from someone's
truck.
They will still do that.
You're not, these laws are not hurting them.
They're hurting me.
The good person that wants to just protect herself.
The criminal will still be a criminal.
We'll still be a criminal.
You can throw at them whatever you want.
It will not make it harder for them to get a gun and they know this.
They just want this law.
They hate the Second Amendment.
They know that once that's gone, they have full control and that's what they're hoping
for and they, I usually don't mean the deep state when I say they, I fully believe in
the deep state.
So yes.
Yeah.
Well, again, bureaucracy.
There's a ton of that and it is local too.
Now it's certainly on the federal scale, it's a lot deeper but there's things locally,
even in your city hall, there's bureaucracy there too.
It's just they're a little bit more limited in what they can do than some of the federal
bureaucracy.
That's what's interesting.
We talked about this last episode too that I'm in pretty red area of a very red state
so we're very conservative here and compared to what So What has had to go through, I'm
super grateful for that.
So don't get me wrong.
I love where I'm at.
Literally I could live anywhere in the world right now for my occupation and I don't want
to be any walls.
So don't get me wrong.
I rail on conservative Oklahoma because I love it so much.
But even here, so it's been about three-ish years, something like that since we've had
open carry here in Oklahoma.
And when it first started coming out, we're like, oh my gosh, we're going to be Wild Wild
West.
You're going to go to Walmart and have all these draws happen and it's just going to
be nuts.
And since then, and I'm sure somebody might listen to this and like, oh, well actually
the stats blah, blah, blah have gone up so much.
I don't know.
Maybe that's true.
I'm not really taking the time to look that up.
What I will say is public sentiment.
Nobody talks about it.
Nobody.
It's just everyday life.
Now I've seen maybe, and I'm sure it's been more than that.
I just haven't noticed it and that's part of it is it's just kind of everyday life now.
I've noticed it maybe a handful of times in like public type of settings where I didn't
know the person.
And most of it's like, oh, well that's a really pretty 1911 he's got there.
Like that's kind of the extent of it.
Nobody's pulling it out or anything like that.
And me personally, honestly, if I'm carrying a firearm, I don't care about the legalities
of it.
I care more of the tacticality of it.
I don't actually want to open carry.
I'd rather it be a little bit more concealed because then the baddies aren't going to take
me out first because they see that there.
So I don't even want to open carry, but I don't think the government should be telling
me what I can't do.
But anyways, I say all that to say that in the few years time period public sentiment,
it's just not really there because it's happened and people aren't dying left and right.
We're not having fire fights left and right.
People have realized, oh, it's Oklahoma.
We've always been conservative.
They already had their guns.
Now they just don't need the paperwork to show it.
Okay.
Let's just keep going on with our life.
And that would happen in California.
Now granted, you're going to have the Antifa fights and all the crazy things that California
has, but that's part of why too, a place like California won't do what we do here is you're
not going to give the public sentiment a chance to change.
Because if you had open carry and life went on as normal, that's bad for business.
Now people aren't as scared and we can't pass all these insane rules.
So they just don't want you to do that.
No, they don't.
Keep us in fear.
You can keep us in control.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Well, so I love talking to you for many reasons, but I love getting into some of all of these
side conversations, little behind the scenes, usually for guests.
And for so its first time, I have just sample questions.
And I always tell my guests that I never go one by one.
I like natural conversation, but I didn't even do it this time with Soad because I knew
how the dynamics would go.
And I love kind of the free flowing conversation.
But I want everybody listening to this to check out Soad's journal.
It's a wonderful idea because I about guarantee that either you could benefit or if you are
a journaling expert, I bet you there's somebody you know that could benefit.
Maybe it's that niece or nephew or your son or daughter or whoever it may be.
I think that you could really benefit from checking it out.
So Soad, for those that want to get the journal or want to stay in contact with you, how can
they find those things from you?
Thank you for those awesome words, Johnny.
I appreciate that.
And first, I just want you to know, I love talking to you too.
It's so nice.
I've done a lot of natural conversation.
I've done a couple of podcasts now and I not to knock the other ones, they're great.
But I just feel comfortable with you.
I think it's because you and I have the group in common and we chit chat there as well.
And we just see things eye to eye.
And it's just a natural way of talking.
I love that.
So thank you for inviting me back.
If you want to get the journal, the best place to go is just my website.
There's a link right there that takes you to Amazon.
You purchase it from Amazon.
So add to Breezy, my first and last name, S-O-A-D-T-A-B-R-I-Z-I dot com.
It'll be right there on that front page for you.
It says journals launched.
Click on that.
And it takes you to Amazon and you can purchase it from your own account.
It takes a couple of days to get to you and that's it.
So that's the best way to do it.
Spread the word and you're right.
If you already journal and you have your millions of journals like I do, buy it and give it
to someone who doesn't.
And you know, buy it and give it to someone who you're like always talking about journaling
too and they're looking at you like you're weird.
Get those for them and be like, hey, here, try this, start, start this way.
That's a great tool and I can't wait to start the other ones and get those out to you guys
as well.
So thank you for having me and letting me share this.
Absolutely.
So yeah, I'll include all of that information down in the show notes.
So thanks again so much for being here.
And you know, let me know whenever these new journals launch and we'll probably do this
again and have another conversation about deep state and gun rights and all that fun
stuff too.
My favorite.
Thank you, Johnny.
Absolutely.
And thank you to everyone else that tuned in today.
I really appreciate your support and listening to another episode of Faithfully Engaged.
You guys take care.