Hopefully Somebody Knows

Hi everyone! Just a quick one for you today to tell you about God Girls Podcast, a new show by my daughter Sadie (11) and my niece Rachel (12). They wanted to make a show about their faith and other things on the minds of young women. They did it all on their own (OK, I'm helping with the boring button-pushing stuff but the content is all theirs). I'm excited to share a little chat I did with them about the show.

You can find them on your favorite podcast platform by searching "God Girls Podcast" or you can click one of the links below:

Spotify

Anchor

Apple

Google

Amazon

iHeartRadio 

Also, I mentioned Simple Ideas Apparel, my new clothing company. We help small organizations create and sell merchandise to help them raise funds and build fans. You can find God Girls merchandise there along with gear from other organizations and companies. Including a nice Hopefully Somebody Knows long-sleeve logo shirt! 

Finally, more to come here at Hopefully Somebody Knows, we have some ideas brewing for next year. Have a great rest of 2022, we'll talk to you soon!

Today we dig into Parkour. I started training nearly 7 years ago with Parkour Visions, an organization here in Seattle. Since then PKV (as we abbreviate their name) has shifted from running a gym to focusing on bringing parkour to new communities, particularly undeserved schools in the Seattle area. I'm joined today by their outgoing Executive Director, Caitlin Pontrella. Caitlin talks about how she defines parkour, how it differs from other athletic pursuits and the current state of organized kids' sports in America and how parkour stands apart. We spend a lot of time talking about privilege and how it relates to movement/athletics as well as we're both on our own journeys learning about that topic.

This is a good intro discussion if you're looking to learn more about parkour. Here are some other resources and items we talked about during our chat:

Parkour Visions' online classes and YouTube channel.

Breaking the Jump by Julie Angel - a book about parkour's founding and history.

A study by the Aspen Institute called "State of Play", looking at the current state of childrens' organized sports.

I've been meaning to bring on a group of dads I respect for a roundtable discussion for quite some time. The dads in our neighborhood have been weighing what to do about school in the fall (All week in-person? Hybrid? Virtual?) so we thought a fun, honest and respectful discussion on the topic could be helpful to other parents. All 4 of us come at this question from different perspectives and (spoiler alert!) we don't answer the question of "what's the best choice for education during a plague?" but...we took a swing at it. 

I hope all of you are doing OK (physically and mentally). If you ever want to talk (not for the podcast, just about what you're going through) please hit me up at [email protected]. I'd love to catch up and hear what's on your mind. It's good to get this stuff out guys and I'd love to talk with you about it. 

I'm honored to be joined on this episode by Julie Metzger, founder of Great Conversations (https://www.greatconversations.com/ & https://www.facebook.com/GreatConversations). Her organization helps both parents and kids understand what puberty will look like and face it head on armed with information and a sense of humor. She's been doing these talks for over 30 years around Seattle and the Bay Area and was kind enough to give me some time to pick her brain. What I expected to be a talk about the physical aspects of puberty turned into something far richer: a discussion about emotions, empathy, modeling strong and loving relationships and how you sometimes just have to shut up and let your kid talk. I won't spoil any more of this but I will say that I personally learned far more in this episode than I could have ever anticipated and I guarantee you'll learn something too.

Season 2 is a go! Let's talk about Stoicism and let's give away some free books! Today's episode is just me talking (first time I've done that). I spend some time on a quick overview of the philosophy of Stoicism, something that has been truly world-changing for me. I use an overview written by Ryan Holiday on his site, DailyStoic.com, as the structure for this overview. You can see that post here. I'm also giving away a few copies of Ryan's newest book, Stillness Is the Key, to my listening friends. Here's how you can win: Go to the show's Instagram or Facebook page and find the post about this giveaway (it's a picture of the book). Reply to the post and tag a friend that is not a current listener of the podcast but that you think could dig it. I'll pick two "pairs" (poster and the person they tagged) and send them each a copy of the book. Lots of fun stuff coming for you soon! I have a lot of extra time at home right now (as, I'm sure, do you) so that’s resulting in some new content! Wash your hands! PS - Here's that link to bio of Admiral Stockdale I mentioned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale

Continuing our recent theme of "fandom" I'm excited to welcome Wes Jones to the show! Wes and I have been friends via our shared love of professional wrestling. In fact, we recorded this episode in my car on the way to and from a show (apologies for the audio quality, it was my first swing at a fully "mobile" recording). Wes tells a great story about his fandom: how he discovered pro wrestling, how it became a passion for him and how he chased his dream. We touch a bit on parenting in this show (mostly how wrestling fits into his household) but really it's a story of a guy going after something he loves, even when no one else understands.  If you liked Wes and you're looking to buy or sell a home in Washington you should check out his site SellWithWes.com. We spend some time on it in the show so I won't spend too much time here but Wes is great at his job and the real estate market in the northwest has never been hotter. I hope you enjoy this chat with Wes Jones!

Fun one with my best buddy, Steve Strange. We had to do a do-over of our original discussion due to a tech snafu (which we discuss in our chat) but I think this came out better than that one. Ostensibly the idea here is fandom: is it OK to force what you like on your kids? How do you know if the resulting fandom is authentic or are they just liking something because "daddy likes it"? And does it matter?

In reality this is really more about Star Wars. Steve and I bonded of Star Wars (among other things) in our 20s and it's always been part of our friendship. In fact we're strongly considering starting a separate show where they two of us just talk about Star Wars and other stuff we're enjoying and we'll let you know when that comes out.

Fun (and much-delayed) discussion with Bryan Tomlinson today. We discuss what he's learned from many rounds of coaching kids (including coaching his own kids), how to be a better parent of a little athlete, etc.  Speaking of, I wanted to plug BT's charity that we didn't have time to get to on the show. Football for Sinaola is an organization focused on providing funds to help the kids of this underprivileged area of Mexico learn about and play flag and tackle football. Here's their Facebook page if you'd like to learn more:  https://www.facebook.com/FootballForSinaloa  BT runs a podcast focused on University of Washington football, The Dawg Pod. You can search for it by name wherever you get your podcasts or check their site here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dawgpod/. It's a great show if you're a fan of the Huskies or really any Pac 12 team. We spend a bit of time at the end of the show covering his thoughts on the Dawgs this season, hope you enjoy that. BT was good enough to record this chat on his gear in his garage and put it up on his podcast as well so if you follow both of us you may have already heard this chat. Please enjoy this chat with Bryan Tomlinson!

Billy Christensen joins us today.  Billy is another one of my fraternity brothers from the SMU Lambda Chi Alpha house. Billy now lives in Atlanta and works in consulting. He reached out via email to propose a discussion about meaning and purpose. This is really cool conversation as it's less about interviewing Billy and more about a back-and-forth discussion of some of the root causes of mid-life crises. Billy is really open and shares a lot about the struggles he feels even while he has all the traditional markers of success - great job, great wife, great kids, etc. He has a really intriguing take about bottling up emotions and looking for those big emotional releases, big highs and lows, and if that could be part of what causes guys to seek out flashy cars or other mid life crises cliches. We also talk a bit about philanthropy as a path to fulfillment and immortality as well embracing of different cultures including spending WAY too much time talking about K-Pop. We end with a talk about therapy and feeling that you are enough. 

We spend a bit of time talking about Stoicsm as well. If you're unfamiliar with Stoicism it's an ancient philosophy that's gained new prominence. Here are a good site to get you started, the Daily Stoic.

Billy also mentioned Brené Brown's TED talk on the "Power of Vulnerability". If you haven't seen it I strongly recommended it, check it out here.

We also joked a bit about K-Pop and Billy's experiences with karaoke in Korea. He suggested a band called BIGBANG...here's a video for you to peruse. 

As always if you'd like to support us please visit our sponsors or the sites and businesses mentioned during our shows. Or the easiest way to support us is to visit our Amazon affiliate link where you can shop as you always do with no product price increase but Amazon will kick a little bit back to us which helps cover our production and marketing costs. Here it is and thanks! "Hopefully Somebody Knows" Amazon Affiliate link.

Tannya Bernadette, founder of The Closet Edit joins us today for a fun episode discussing clothes. We spent most of our time talking about mens clothes: what to wear, common mistakes, tailoring, what to remove from your closet, etc. We also talk a bit about how to shop for the lady in your life and for your kids. Hope you enjoy this fun chat with Tannya! Oh, and remember to listen till the end for a special offer that Tannya is extending to all HSK listeners! The Closet Edit https://myclosetedit.com/ Their Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecloset.edit/ Tannya's personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tannyabstyle/ Seattle Gents: http://seattlegents.com/ Reddit's "Male Fashion Advice" community: https://www.reddit.com/r/malefashionadvice/