Tariffs are currently front and center of the economic world. But what exactly is a tariff and how does it affect you? Tariff and Trade Economist Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande studies the impact of tariffs. We talk the impact of tariffs on consumers, a growing trade war and if we’re headed towards a recession. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Pieces of Life Advice.
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande: 01:14
Pointless: 23:39
Top 5 Pieces of Life Advice: 36:37
Interview with Tariff Economist Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande
Nick VinZant 0:12
Nick, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode understanding the global economy and life lessons,
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 0:23
a tariff will always help someone and harm someone, and it's going to harm people disproportionately, just depending on who they are. So we care a lot about international trade. There's a lot of work that shows that countries that trade more grow more, and the price that I as a domestic consumer pay is going to go
Nick VinZant 0:46
up. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance subscribe, leave us a rating or review. We really appreciate. It really helps us out. So I want to get right to our first guest, because she studies something that is all over the news and has a huge impact on all of our lives. This is trade and tariff economist, Dr Catherine Schmeiser Landy, what drives the economy? Like, I always, you always hear about the economy. This the economy that. But like, if you could point it down to a couple of things, what kind of drives the economy?
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 1:25
So when we're thinking about countries that grow, or economies that grow, we're looking at educated populations, or increasing education innovation. So you want an economy where people are innovating international trade. We care a lot about international trade. There's a lot of work that shows that countries that trade more grow more, and then a big one is going to be stability and trust in government. So when we look around at countries that don't do very well, there's often corruption in the government that can play a big role in that.
Nick VinZant 2:01
How important is the United States to the global economy?
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 2:06
Pretty important for a few reasons. So if we just think about currency, the US dollar is the most traded currency, and the stability of the US dollar helps stabilize a lot of currencies around the world, but when we're thinking about just trade, for example, we are one of the largest trading countries in the world. So oftentimes, when we when economists talk about trade, we don't, we care about total trade, which is imports and exports. And so you can definitely break those down. As an exporter, the US is the second largest exporter in the world, and that's just behind China.
As an importer, we're the largest importer of goods in the world, so we play a very large role in the global economy through trade in terms of services. So we can break services away from goods, and so even with services, we are the largest importer and exporter of services in the world. Tariffs are kind of all the talk. Let's kind of start with the basics, and then expand a little bit. So a tariff is what? Okay, so a tariff, you'll hear people say a tariff is a tax. So I would actually like to start by talking about what a tax is, and then talk about how a tariff differs from a tax. So what I tell my students, is, when you walk into a grocery store and you buy something, the price that you pay as the purchaser is going to be different than the price that the firm gets to take home at the end of the day. So I'm going to pay a higher price, the firm's going to bring home a lower price, and that difference is getting paid to the government. So that's a tax, and that, you know, we tax things domestically all the time, so we're kind of splitting that tax. And I think that's really important, because oftentimes we think about, oh, the government is taxing the firms right where the government is taxing the consumers, or the government is putting a tax on Canada. And it's not exactly how that works, because what tends to happen is that paying that tax gets split between the buyers and the sellers. That's a tax, but not a tariff. That's a tax. So then, if I think about a tariff. How does this look when we're talking about sort of a tax on international imports? A similar thing is going to happen, except so we put a tariff, let's say, on Canadian imports, Chinese imports, Mexican imports, and the price that I.
As a domestic consumer, pay is going to go up now, so I am paying as a US consumer, I'm going to pay some of that tariff that the government is imposing. It is also true that this will harm the foreign, the country that's exporting to us, because they will also be paying part of that tariff, but not all of it. Now, the What happens, though, is, if I'm in the United States and I'm looking at, you know, pens, or, you know, so I'm looking at buying a red pen, and there's a tariff on red pens now, and so the price of imported red pens has gone up. What will also happen is that domestically produced red pens also have this higher price. So when we're thinking about, Well, why would tariffs get put into place? There's a couple reasons. So one would be, we want to raise tax revenue. Maybe I want to punish another country for a variety of reasons. There's a whole bunch of political reasons. One might want to do that. And then the third reason is what we think of as a protectionist policy. So if I want to help my red pen producers in the United States make a higher profit when I impose this tariff, I'm increasing the price that they can sell at domestically. So when we think about steel tariffs, for example, that's helping steel producers in the US, because they also get to charge this higher price,
Nick VinZant 6:41
so it makes them more competitive by raising the price that would otherwise be lower. It doesn't lower the price domestically.
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 6:48
It does not lower the price domestically. No. So if we're thinking about, you know, all of the produce that we import from Mexico, if we put a tariff on these imports, then the price that we pay domestically will go up. So basically what happened is, prior to World War Two, most countries had, or all countries had, very high tariffs. And post World War Two, there was this sort of communal decision made to reduce tariffs in order to increase global trade, and there's a lot of reasons that we like sort of this move towards free trade, free trade meaning that there aren't any tariffs. So the more trade we have, the more access to goods we would have that we couldn't otherwise have. There are some rules put into place about when you're allowed to impose tariffs, or sort of more tariffs, on other countries. And so, for example, in our trade with Canada and Mexico, we are allowed to put higher tariffs in place if there's essentially a state of emergency if we think that there's issues with protection to our country, saying, deciding that we want to reduce, let's say, drugs, the flow of drugs into the country could count As an emergency situation, which could allow the United States to sort of legally put added tariffs on our imports.
Nick VinZant 8:29
So when you heard about the most recent tariffs and recording this on March 10, and use recent, however you want to use recent, what was kind of your reaction to it? So
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 8:40
the recent tariffs, what's been very interesting about it is that depending on the day, we don't know if they're going to happen or not. So there's this sort of stability question that's being called into play in a way that hasn't been before. So it's one thing to say, hey, we're going to impose 10% tariffs and then we're just off and running for a certain reason, but to but to say the tariffs are coming, okay, we'll cancel them for now. Okay, they're coming. It's that sort of on and off again that can actually lead to some of these price increases and stability issues that the tariff, the tariffs themselves might cause. So even though maybe these 25% tariffs aren't in play right now, the on again, off again, nature can create some of the exact same issues that the tariffs themselves would cause.
Nick VinZant 9:30
I could see that. Because even what, what the little I know about business like, if I don't know what something is going to be, I'm going to plan for the highest and then budget accordingly,
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 9:41
or you're going to look for different trading partners. Do you see some
Nick VinZant 9:45
of that kind of already happening? Yeah.
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 9:48
So one thing that's pretty interesting is that, you know, COVID is not in our distant history, and we all remember sort. Of how the different shutdowns led to the lack of access of intermediate goods and foods at certain points in time. And I think that probably one thing that that recent experience incentivized is a sort of more robust network of trading partners so that a country doesn't have to rely on just Iowa to be exporting soybeans to them, they might have a couple different options that they can reach out to in case something happens, and that's just because we did just have this huge disruption in the global economy. You know, maybe less ideal alternatives, but alternatives that you can turn to.
Nick VinZant 10:49
So does that affect mainly the country that puts the tariff on or the countries that are affected by that tariff, like do Mexico and Canada kind of get burned too. So I'm asking
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 11:04
they they will definitely experience consequences, and the reason for that is because the US is their largest trading partners, and so trade with the US ends up being a larger percentage of their trade than our trade with them. So they're a little bit more reliant on us than we are on them. So it will hurt them. It will also hurt us. And also different partners can be made. So you know, it's possible that Mexico finds that China will be their new largest trading buddy, or maybe we'll just sort of make it through a few months and then return to where things were, um, depending on how things play out.
Nick VinZant 11:49
So I guess you know, for me, sitting here right like, this sounds like a bad thing.
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 11:54
For us consumers, yeah, for
Nick VinZant 11:56
me, it sounds like a bad thing. But what's like, what's the reason that could potentially, like, why would this be a good thing for me? Potentially,
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 12:06
I'm not sure that I could tell a good story about why it would be a good thing for a US consumer. It could, in theory, be good for some US producers. So if we're coming back to those protectionist policies and trying to prop up domestic production. I think steel and aluminum could benefit from these tariffs. But even if we think about car manufacturing, for instance, because I think sometimes we have sort of these old fashioned stories that were completely producing cars in the United States. And so if we put a tariff on imported automobiles that that's going to benefit automobile makers in the United States, and unfortunately, even that's not quite so straightforward, which is why they actually got really upset by the tariffs with Mexico and had the initial delay. Most goods that are produced nowadays, and cars are a really great example of this, have a lot of sort of back and forth across the borders. So even a car that's assembled in the United States might have had its engine and its steering wheel come from Mexico, or it could be that a lot of the parts are produced in the United States and the car is assembled in Mexico. But essentially, in the last 30 years, there's been a huge growth in trade in the intermediate inputs. And so as those get more expensive, the manufacturers also get harmed. Even if you're assembling the car in the United States, you're using more expensive intermediate parts. Can
Nick VinZant 13:57
you help me kind of understand like, because like, okay, I get the idea of it. What I don't really understand is how important in the global scale these kind of things are. So to use kind of a ranking scale, again, if one is something that's not super important, and 10 is like the most important thing, where would tariffs be on that scale.
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 14:22
So I can't answer it that way, a tariff will always help someone and harm someone, and it's going to harm people disproportionately, just depending on who they are. So someone who consumes primarily domestic goods won't be as affected as people who consume more imported goods, even though we could expect sort of inflationary pressures across a lot of different goods. But the problem is that there is going to be disproportionate effects on people, and I'm not sure exactly you know, I. Wouldn't be able to pinpoint people in X state harmed more. If we took it to the product level, we might be able to do that a little bit thinking about who's producing what in different states. Would
Nick VinZant 15:12
you say, though, like, there's some of the tariffs that are being discussed that would be particularly harmful or beneficial in certain areas. So I think
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 15:20
if we're thinking about beneficial the steel tariffs are beneficial to producers, I think a lot of farmers are already being hurt in ways that were not anticipated. A lot of our agricultural products are exported, and so we have to remember also that if we impose tariffs there, we enter a trade war, most likely. And so what we're seeing with other countries is that they're then imposing tariffs on us in return, so farmers who might depend on an export market suddenly are receiving less and aren't able to export as much. And one thought might be, well, okay, that's fine, like, we'll just keep all the soybeans in the United States, right? We don't need to export them. We'll just keep them here. The problem with that is that there might not be enough of a market for domestic soybeans, and so then if the prices drop so much that it might not even need to be a big drop, but if domestic farmers aren't able to recoup their costs on the soybeans that they've grown, they're kind of out of luck, unless aid comes in from the government. And so we've had times like this, where the government then gives farm subsidies, which are very expensive as well. Do
Nick VinZant 16:44
tariffs fundamentally change the destination of a country in the sense that like does it fundamentally change it or it just adjusts? I
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 16:54
don't think tariffs alone would fundamentally change anything, unless the tariffs are large enough, and sort of, if there's enough other countries that can kind of fill your your spot in terms of consumption of the goods that you've been consuming, or in terms of supplying the product that you've been supplying, the world market will go to other countries, and they'll import and export to other places. And, you know, things could change in terms of, you know, industries globally that become more or less successful, but I don't think tariffs, in and of themselves, are going to be a huge um driver in this it what
Nick VinZant 17:43
is kind of the world look like if the United States isn't number one in terms of exporting and importing anymore,
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 17:53
that's it gives opportunity for other countries to be the major trading partner for our partners, and whether that's a cost or benefit depends on, I suppose, who you are and what your policy goals are,
Nick VinZant 18:21
is it the kind of thing? Okay, give me some leeway here, right? Like, we're kind of the cool kid at the cool table, right? Like, is there a chance that our current trade policies make it so we're no longer the coolest kid at the coolest table? Sure. What impact would that kind of have on us?
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 18:46
So I think that these are really long term questions, or maybe they're not that long term. I think that they go along with a lot of other policy questions. So it kind of depends on jointly, what we're doing with innovation and, you know, investing in other countries and supporting other governments. So I think it's an administration question and goal. And, you know, I'm not exactly sure what the particular goal of the administration is right now, whether they want to be the cool kid or not be the cool kid, or what the definition is of being the cool kid, yeah,
Nick VinZant 19:33
if you were running the world or the United States, what would your trade policy be? Great
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 19:39
question also not easy to answer. I mean, I think I am a trade economist, I would tend towards freer trade. That said, I think that you do need to look at an industry by industry level. I think that there are reasons that some products we should. Have, you know, some of them are, sometimes you do need to think about national security right when we're importing goods or exporting goods. Sometimes we don't want to be reliant on other countries for supplying us with something that we want to be able to have on hand without any sort of, you know, political relationship. So I think that I, you know, I would just tend towards more free trade. But also, you know, even when we think about environmental impacts, I care a lot about the environment, and that sometimes means that we need some protections, so it's not black and white. So
Nick VinZant 20:51
if there's good and bad to it, though, is it going to be a situation, as it's currently kind of construed, that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 20:59
So if you think about the question, right, what we'd have to look for is, where are the policies to help reallocate the wealth or the distribution gains? And if I don't see the policies to help the people who are being harmed,
Nick VinZant 21:24
then it's a bad it's a net bad thing for them. Do other countries really watch what's happening with other countries in the sense that, okay, Mexico and Canada are going to getting hit? Is Australia getting ready for it? Is India getting ready for it? Like are they all watching and reacting to what the United States is doing? I'm sure
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 21:45
that countries who trade a lot with the US are watching, and they're already making plans for, you know, adjustments,
Nick VinZant 21:57
the big one, right? Are we headed to recession? And if you can't necessarily answer that specifically, are there things in place that would kind of put us where prices are going to go up or prices are going to go down, right?
Dr. Katherine Schmeiser Lande 22:12
So I think that there's a debate over whether we're heading towards a recession, and you know, depends on what you're reading and who you're asking. So what, what I would remind everybody is that the intent behind a tariff or behind these sort of sweeping tariff laws, would definitely not be to put us into a recession. That would never be a goal. So I think what a lot of us consumers are thinking about, generally, is just affordability. So we're kind of worried about groceries and maybe buying a house or building a house and buying a car. A lot of people have been asking me, should I buy a car real quick if I think I need a car in the next couple years? So I think consumers just typically are worried about the prices that they're paying and the their ability to afford things. And right now, there's a lot of things that are going on that lead to higher prices. I
Nick VinZant 23:12
want to thank Dr Landy so much for joining us. If you want to connect with her, we have linked to her on our social media sites. We're Profoundly Pointless on tick tock, Instagram and YouTube, and we've also included her information in the episode description. And if you want to hear more of this interview, the YouTube version will be live on March 13, at 12:30pm Pacific. Okay, now let's bring in John Shaw and get to the pointless part of the show when you give somebody a What's up, head nod. Do you usually go down, or do you go up? Like, are you like, what's up? Are you like, Sup, I'm
John Shull 23:56
probably more of an up guy. I think I'm like,
Nick VinZant 23:59
you're more of an up guy?
John Shull 24:01
Yeah. I feel like the nod down is like, like an understanding nod, or like a yes nod.
Nick VinZant 24:06
I probably do more downhead nods. I feel like the downhead Nod is more of an acknowledgement, and the up head nod is more of like, hey man, up is friendly. Down is acknowledging. I
John Shull 24:20
also don't realize if I do it, I'm gonna try to see if I actually do it from now on.
Nick VinZant 24:25
I would also say that when I do the up versus down head nod movement, the up is a bigger movement, like it's gonna be a wider range, and the down is more just like it's a much smaller movement. I
John Shull 24:42
love how anyone out there, listen, this is thinking to themselves, do I do I do, like an over exhaustive up or down? Or is it slight? That's what I'm wondering. Uh, shout out. Tom, yeah. Leahy, Gillespie, uh, Urza Corvis, area. Al Basham, Brody Gibbs, Ali Herbert, Christina Roque, Shannon O'Sullivan, Ruben, lavario, Megan Corbett, Barrow, William Marquette, Andrea Angelucci and the one that Nick forgots
Nick VinZant 25:18
Oh, Jake kretchmer, I'm pretty sure I'm not pronouncing that right, but if there's a possibility, uh, shout out to Jake kretchmer. Lester, some knife comment, appreciate you. Checking out the
John Shull 25:32
show. Oh, that's thanks. Jake kretchmer, appreciate you. I if
Nick VinZant 25:36
I don't see words for a while, I forget like, how they're spelled, like, I looked at his name and it's clearly J, a, k, e, but I actually thought in my mind for a little while, like, Wait, is that Jack? Like, if you don't see a word for a while, that's what happens. I feel like, as you get older, if there's something that you don't do for a little bit, as you get older, you completely, like, lose the ability to do it, yeah. You've got to really be repetitive with things.
John Shull 26:05
Well, speaking of repetivity, uh, okay, okay. Gene Hackman, okay. We talked about it last week. We're back on. Gene Hackman, okay, well, because I feel like it's one of those things that people want it to be more than it is, and I'm just going to say what it is, because we all know what it is, and I feel like somebody in the world needs to say what it is. Okay. Wife died of Hantavirus. He was so old in in senile that he probably didn't know, and then he died of heart disease. 10 days later, no one fed the dog, and the dog died, that's what, yeah,
Nick VinZant 26:42
I don't think that like, that life isn't really like, it's always the simple answer. I think whatever you're doing, whether that's conspiracy theories, type stuff, trying to solve a problem, type stuff, whatever it is, it's always the simple answer. It's always the simple answer. Like, it's, yeah, almost. I mean, sometimes it's not, but it's almost always the simple answer,
John Shull 27:04
let's see one. I thought this was just kind of funny, because it doesn't really matter, but I do appreciate those that are sticking up and doing this. But Friday or the Friday before was like blackout day, where people were boy and dropping subscriptions and blah, blah, blah, let's be honest, though, none of that truly matters. I hate to say it. You want it to matter, but it doesn't matter. Oh,
Nick VinZant 27:28
way to shoot down that. Which leads me
John Shull 27:30
to this that is actually truly troublesome, as we know, hurricane season and all that kicks up in a couple of months, and the Trump administration, apparently is going to be continuing cutting the NOAA workforce, so pretty soon we won't have anyone to monitor the weather, and no one to tell us tornadoes, hurricanes. So get ready for that. That's all I had to say about that.
Nick VinZant 27:53
Okay, alright, there's your rant for the day. Alright, just bringing that up. Alright, don't
John Shull 27:58
just don't get it, but whatever. Um, What's scarier to you being in the living in hurricane alley, along a hurricane coast, or in like a wildfire zone?
Nick VinZant 28:12
Oh, I've lived in all of them. So living in Kansas, in Florida, in Arizona, in Washington, I've lived in all of those. And by far, I would say the scariest is an Earthquake. Earthquake is the scariest thing because it's the literal ground moving underneath you. And that kind of power is something that nothing else in the world compares to, like that reminds you of your place in the world, and it is a very small place other than that, I would say, probably tornadoes never bothered me that much, but I grew up in Kansas, and tornados were a very regular thing, and I've seen them destroy a whole town. But even then, people would still go outside in Kansas when a tornado was coming, like you'd go try to look at it. Hurricanes are pretty bad. Is the movie Twister real? No, it is not. It's not. It does sound like a freight train, though every I know that's super cliche, and everybody says like it sounds like a freight train, but it really does sound like a huge object coming towards you. Yeah, earthquakes are the scariest. Wildfires is not something to mess with either, though.
John Shull 29:23
I mean, yeah, that's, I think wildfires would be the scariest to me, because you can't, I mean, you can't do anything. You can't board up your house, right? You can't go into the basement. If the fire is gonna gonna destroy your entire world is gonna happen,
Nick VinZant 29:41
yeah? But I wouldn't say that they're all just, I don't think that you can, besides earthquake, you can't, like, put one ahead of the other. Like, I wasn't more afraid of hurricanes than I was of tornados or wildfires. They're all just kind of the same in a different way, in the sense that, like, you. Are about nature is about to do something, and it's gonna crush you, so you better just get out of the way.
John Shull 30:08
See what else we got going on here. People seem to love this, though, to me, I've always just been kind of met on space things, but there's going to be a total lunar eclipse this week.
Nick VinZant 30:20
I can never keep that straight. Which one the lunar eclipse is? What? Which is the which is the one where the sun, which is the one where the sun comes between the Moon and the Earth? Uh,
John Shull 30:29
I'm not. I think that. I think this is that one or the
Nick VinZant 30:33
sun is not, dude, if the sun came between the Moon and the Earth, we would all be dead. Or
John Shull 30:38
the sun or the moon is going to be completely engulfed in a sun, SUN shadow, I think, is what this one is.
Nick VinZant 30:44
I can't keep it straight. I can't keep it straight.
John Shull 30:47
Darkness on the entire world, or wherever you're going to be. I thought 10 years ago, during the total the total eclipse, that was like once in a generational thing.
Nick VinZant 30:58
But I don't understand why you're complaining about it. Like, whether it's once in a generation, or it happens all the time, like, it's still a cool thing, like, oh, this cool thing's happening. No complaint, but they said it wasn't gonna happen. Like, just, you know, people complain about the biggest thing, stupidest things. To me,
John Shull 31:17
I'm not complaining. I'm just making people aware that it's happening. You're the one with the, you know, the cognitive behavioral attitude over there? No lashes me because you're
Nick VinZant 31:29
cognitive behavioral attitude.
John Shull 31:31
I may have called you dumb, but in a smart way. Uh, anyway,
Nick VinZant 31:37
did, but did you say cognitive? Yeah, nice. Okay, I don't even know what that means. Nice. Somebody's been, are you not reading books about submarines anymore, and now you're reading books about psychology?
John Shull 31:48
I actually have not read any books about I have read 14 books since the new year, and not one of them has been about submarines. So
Nick VinZant 31:55
what have you been you've read 14 books since the new year? Yeah, I had
John Shull 32:00
a lot, I think I said on one of our end of the end of the year episodes last year, one of my goals was to read more books this year. So
Nick VinZant 32:09
what's the biggest thing you've learned in those 14 books?
John Shull 32:14
Oh, I mean, I like historical fiction, so I've read a lot of, oh, a lot. I mean, I've learned a lot, a lot of stories about different things so but it's fiction. The one thing I learned, the biggest thing I learned in any of those 14 books, is that actually reading set making sure to set time aside to read is not that big of a deal as I once thought it was. Oh, yeah,
Nick VinZant 32:38
you just I think that whatever the thing that you're trying to do is you just have to make it a habit. And then it's really not that difficult. Once you make it into a habit, it's getting it to be a habit. That's, I think, the really hard part,
John Shull 32:50
yeah, it's like, it's like getting exercising, running, any, anything you just have to do
Nick VinZant 32:55
it. Just gotta do it.
John Shull 32:57
All right, what else do I have here? Man, it was kind of, I mean, it was kind of thin, to be honest with you, in terms of stuff this week. I mean, we're not going to even touch the State of the Union or whatever. He called it joint address to Congress. Yeah, let's steer clear all that. Yeah, we're, we're not getting in on any of that March Madness coming up. That's exciting one time where everyone cares about college basketball during the year, but you're, you're going to say, I don't care about it, of course. Oh,
Nick VinZant 33:26
I'm always kind of interested in who makes it. But to me, in general, sporting events have kind of just lost so much of their luster lately. Like, I'm just not usually that into sporting events anymore, and the fact that I say sporting events instead of sports is kind of like, Oh, wow. Okay, that guy doesn't like, I don't know the language anymore. What's this basketball you're all playing?
John Shull 33:49
Well, this was interesting with sports, of course, apparently, the number four sport in terms of participation in this country is pickleball. Oh yeah,
Nick VinZant 33:59
that's a fun sport, man, it's fun because it's like the perfect combination, combination of activity, inactivity and socialization.
John Shull 34:11
Yeah, I guess I played it a few times. I feel like I'm always too competitive. So wasn't that fun? But, and then lastly, I wanted to give a shout out to somebody that no one probably cares about, except for me, on the RIP section of the show rip Carl Dean, the late, great husband of Dolly Parton. Oh, Dolly
Nick VinZant 34:33
Parton's a national treasure, man who
John Shull 34:37
he They prided themselves on him not ever being a part of the you know her. I don't what you want to call it legend. Legend status. Like he rarely went to events with her. He ran his own business. So good for him. I think they were married for together for 6060, something years. That's
Nick VinZant 34:54
insane, man to just like you and I are both married, but imagine being with somebody for six years. And then one day, if 60 years, and then one day you wake up and they're not there. That Getting old is tough, man, well, that's so hard,
John Shull 35:08
especially being with like, and, you know, let's not share Cody. You're with Dolly Parton, who was a, who was a sex symbol for most of her, you know, or it's still a sex symbol for her career, 80,
Nick VinZant 35:20
bro, yeah, but I know what you mean. But like, if somebody's still out there, like, oh, Dolly, yeah, I'm
John Shull 35:29
dude. I'm not gonna lie. She She said a quote that I'll never forget. Someone was asking her, like, how she looked 30, and she was like, 65 and she's like, because I've gotten everything on my body nipped, tucked or sucked. That was like,
Nick VinZant 35:45
good for you. I think that she's good proof of what can happen to you if you're just kind of a nice and honest person, like you don't have to be a celebrity and be terrible. You could just be kind of nice and be honest about things, and people will like you. Well,
John Shull 35:58
I'm sure I'm completely wrong on this, but I can't think offhand of a single time where she was like, enveloped in a serious controversy.
Nick VinZant 36:06
No, never really. She's always generally been on the right side of things. Everybody likes Dolly Parton. She's kind of like Betty White. There's always the older celebrity that everybody likes. I think Betty White had it. Now, Dolly Parton has it. I don't know who's going to be next.
John Shull 36:22
Yeah, well, probably not anyone that's younger than 40. Uh, probably not. All right, man. Oh, you ready? Let's, let's start. Let's, let's touch our inner selves here and enlighten the listeners.
Nick VinZant 36:36
Okay, so our top five is top five pieces of our personal life advice. So in our years on this planet, these are the top five pieces of life advice that John and I have life advice from people in their 40s or close to it.
John Shull 36:54
Well, okay, my number five is actually something that somebody told me when I was in college that I've I've tried to mold a lot of my way of thinking around and I don't think he listens to this podcast. I actually haven't talked to him in 25 years, but his name is Josh Hart, and we were at a at a party together, and we had just done some shots. He looks over at me, and we're looking back and forth, almost like time had stopped. And he goes, just be easy. Bro, just be easy. So that's my number five is, just be easy. Take life as it comes. You know, there's going to be a lot of waves, lot ups and downs. I'm not going to get too too philosophical, but the end of the day, things usually have a way of working themselves out. So just to be easy, just to be easy. I
Nick VinZant 37:45
This is not my number five, but that reminds me of a quote from the wire that I always thought was a great quote, which is, take it easy but take it. That's fair. That's actually right. Like, that's a great way to live your life. Is, take it easy but take it
John Shull 37:59
Yeah, that's a good one. My
Nick VinZant 38:02
number five is always look for the soft emotion. Like, if somebody's mad at you and you look for the soft emotion in that, I think that you can identify and understand people a lot better. Like, they're not mad at you because you're always going out with your friends. They're mad at you because you're not spending time with them. Like, I think if you look for the soft emotion in your dealings with people, you can understand them a lot better. And I think that your relationship and communication is much better if
John Shull 38:29
you do that, this is going to be one of the more heartfelt top fives we've ever done. Oh yeah. This
Nick VinZant 38:34
is like deep This is Jesus.
John Shull 38:38
My number four is, just understand that it's okay to be selfish sometimes and do something for you. Well, that's, yeah, that's a good one. I feel like it gets lost too much, especially like us, where you have a full time job, other commitments, a family, kids, everything else, you're just living life, and before you know it, you're 60 and you can't do things that you you know naturally when, like how you were in your 30s. Um, so it's okay to put everything aside for even 10 minutes a day and be like, This is my 10 minutes. Nobody say a word to me. Don't take an email, don't take phone calls. It's just your time.
Nick VinZant 39:19
My number four is listen to older people. I think when you're growing up, you think that older people like their advice and their insight doesn't apply to you, like, oh, yeah, okay, but that's not how it is anymore. And then the older you get, the more you realize that, oh, older people are kind of right, like they do have some pretty good life lessons if you're willing to listen to it. Maybe it doesn't apply to you in, like, a very specific thing, but it applies overall, like, oh, older people, it's hard to get old. Like, they do have some good advice for you.
John Shull 39:54
That's a that's a good I wanted, I was gonna put I have something similar, but not really. Really on the list. My number three is the loudest microphone. This is another saying that I that I was told the loudest microphone in the room is the first one to run out of battery. And, oh, essentially what deep, what that is, or what I've always taken that to mean, is, just listen, you know, take in the world around you. Listen. You can engage, obviously, but listen, take everything in and then talk, then speak. You know, formulate thoughts. You don't always have to be the person that's just rushing out or saying something. You know, people you know, think before you talk. But listen, listen to everything around you, and life might make a little more sense from time to time. Oh,
Nick VinZant 40:46
I've always noticed it's the smarter people that I've known in my life, whether they were managers or other just people, they would listen before they said something, they would always be usually the last person to talk.
John Shull 40:58
Well, that's yeah, like you said, that's probably why they're managers or whatever. What's your number three? My number
Nick VinZant 41:02
three is maintenance is important, both with your body, with the things that you own. Like you don't think that you gotta really take care of something as much as you need to. And then as you get older, you really realize that, Oh, you gotta do maintenance. Like you gotta get your foundation checked every few years. You gotta get the water heater serviced, like those kind of things you don't think that you have to do when you're younger. You find out as you're older, like, oh, you really, you really need to do maintenance. It's super important, truly
John Shull 41:32
is. I mean, and I'm not even being funny, but things like the vacuum cleaning out the air filters, you know, furnace filters, like these are things that you take for granted, but if you don't do it or forget to do it, they could lead to way bigger issues that cost hundreds, 1000s of dollars. So you're absolutely right. Oh,
Nick VinZant 41:50
ounce of prevention, pound of care. Wait, yeah, I don't remember what that is I and
John Shull 41:59
also that I assume that that means like for you as well, right? Like,
Nick VinZant 42:04
you know, oh yeah, you got to take care of your body. Man, yeah, yeah,
John Shull 42:07
you don't want to look like me at 25 um, this is more or less a, it's not a saying, but just make sure that in life you ask questions. Don't be afraid to try to understand what you're doing or where you're going or who you're with, or why you're friends with these people, or what you're doing, like ask questions, because nobody is going to care about you. In the end of the day, you have to care for yourself, stand up for yourself, to ask questions. You know you just that's almost goes back to the selfish, the selfish comment, like you have to be there for you. Did you
Nick VinZant 42:46
get a little teary there for a second? I did not. But are you sure you're like,
John Shull 42:50
No, no, I'm not gonna cry, not gonna cry on this podcast. But don't be afraid to be a little selfish. Take care of yourself.
Nick VinZant 42:59
My number two is stop and think, I think that's really easy to tell people, but like, if you actually stop and think about where you are in life and reflect on what's going on, it's actually pretty cool. Like you're doing pretty well. Like you're generally, no matter what your situation is, you're kind of doing pretty well, given the things that you've been given, and if you actually kind of just stop and think about things, I think that you can better understand, like, how awesome life is, like, it's still pretty great to be here.
John Shull 43:32
Which kind of leads me to my number one, which is, you know, life, life isn't always. Life never stands still, like how the moment is right now that you're feeling could be completely different in six hours. Like, so kind of goes back to my number five of being easy, but my number one really is just, you know, we're lucky to be here. We're lucky to be humans. We're lucky to do what we do, blah, blah, blah. Like, you just gotta take it with the ebbs and flows. You create your own decisions. You make your own decisions. You create a lot of things. Just know that you know you're always going to get back up. Nothing truly ever will keep you down, unless you get hit by a truck, of course. But let's hope that doesn't Yeah. It's
Nick VinZant 44:16
like my grandpa used to have a saying, like, if everything's okay, it means you're dead.
John Shull 44:22
Yeah, pretty accurate. Or,
Nick VinZant 44:25
no, wait, he was like, if everything is okay in your life, you're about to get hit by a bus.
John Shull 44:30
You just, just gotta ride, ride the way gotta ride, unless you get hit by a
Nick VinZant 44:34
Mack truck. That's kind of like, my number one is just embrace the struggle, like even the really bad things and difficult times in life, like, it's still an experience, it's still something that you are doing, and you can kind of embrace that. And I think that it does make life that much more worthy and more enjoyable when you're not in those hard times. But even, like, embrace. The suck, I think is a big part of life, because you're still experiencing that. It's still awesome to kind of be alive and going through that,
John Shull 45:08
that should be both of our number ones, just embracing the suck. Embrace the suck. I will mention, uh, don't give up. Never give up by the late great Jimmy Valvano. But I, I've, I've, uh, kept that as kind of a motto, kind of goes along with just, you know, embrace the suck, really. Um, yeah, the other thing is, though the probably the most practical thing is just be, be real. Be practical about situations, about your life, like I feel like it's okay to dream, but you have to dream within reality. I feel that, you know, not to be a Debbie Downer, but like, I'm never gonna be able to drive a Formula One race car, even if I lost 150 pounds, is not happening.
Nick VinZant 45:55
I mean, maybe you could just start your own, yeah. Like, that's there's always a balance between that stuff, like Chase your dreams, but you gotta kind of pick out to be at least in this universe. I mean, gotta have the right dreams to chase,
John Shull 46:07
you know. And the other thing that I will say, and this is probably the most sappiest one, is love the people who love you, friends, family, no, just, just, it's okay to love and hug and be emotional, exactly, and be emotional, it's okay something that I didn't I didn't understand until probably 10 years ago, like, it's okay to be all of those things and do all of those things. Oh,
Nick VinZant 46:31
yeah, I agree. Uh, my honorable mention is, like, you never know what words of encouragement will mean to somebody that's a good one. Yeah, I basically went into news because some random person one time said, Hey, maybe you should do that. Like, I don't think you ever know. I think if you take time to encourage someone or tell somebody that they're doing a good job, I don't think the people realize the full effect that that can have on people. I think that can be a very powerful thing to be like, Hey, that was good. Like, thanks for doing that. You should try this. I don't think people get pointed in the right direction very much. We're always told what not to do, but not really encouraged on what things that we should do.
John Shull 47:12
I mean, I couldn't agree with you more.
Nick VinZant 47:14
I also got what you do today determines the person that you are six months from now, like it's you're never going to see the results of the work that you put in that day. It's always, like, three to six months later that then you kind of reap the rewards. So you always have to be the person you the work you do today determines the person you are tomorrow.
John Shull 47:38
That's a good way. I mean, I think that is kind of situation specific, but I don't disagree with it.
Nick VinZant 47:43
Yeah, my last one is, we're all in this together, like everybody's just trying to get through this, man, like we're all just trying to get through this, and everybody's doing the best that they can. We're all in this together at the end of it,
John Shull 47:57
that's if everyone would just stop and stop think and realize that maybe there'd be some peace, but people don't want to think about that sometimes. But yes, we are all in this together
Nick VinZant 48:10
and smoke them if you got them. Oh, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it. Really helps out the show and let us know, what are some of the life lessons that you've learned. I really do think that more than almost anything else, you can learn a lot from other people, and you don't have to make the same mistakes that they do. It's just so hard to listen to other people sometimes.