Jason Meadows; Pharmacist, farmer, podcaster on converting to Mormonism and overcoming stress.

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] It appears to me that there are people that are cynically going out and raising money on the idea that we should be talking about our problems all the time. And so that makes me really uncomfortable about the mental health conversation going on in the public today.

Jason Meadows [00:00:17] Yeah, I, I, I agree with that. And, you know, that was a big barrier to me getting started because I didn't want to be one of those people. I didn't want to be someone who, like you say, is profiting off of their own misfortune.

Vance Crowe [00:00:34] I'm Miriam Hoffman, a full-time college student living in Carbondale, Illinois, and you're listening to the Vance Crow podcast. Jason Meadows, welcome to the podcast,

Jason Meadows [00:00:46] Vance. Thanks for having me, man. I am grateful to be here. It's, it's an honor to be here sharing the screen with you.

Vance Crowe [00:00:54] You know, there is not very many ag podcasts I listen to. It's, I, I have a few that either my friends or people that I know, but because I'm not in agriculture, I don't, I don't have the same pull for it. So I, I try and listen to things way far away from agriculture, but every once in a while I'll cruise in on one of yours. And I just heard one you did with Jared McDaniel, and I think you have an interesting way of talking about agriculture. So I thought I'd have you on and talk about issues that are really big inside of the agriculture community. So I'm totally comfortable with this being inside baseball because I feel like, you know, neither of us are farmers per se, but we're in the ag world, or I guess I think you're not a farmer. I know you're a veterinarian. So anyway, why don't you introduce yourself?

Jason Meadows [00:01:42] Actually, I'm a pharmacist. So

Vance Crowe [00:01:44] A pharmacist. That's right.

Jason Meadows [00:01:46] Pharmacist. And, but I also run cattle operation too, so I mean, it's a, I've got a lot of things going on. I've got a lot of different perspectives into it. So, but yeah, my podcast started, it's a little over a year old and I went to, I went to college, I went to St. Louis College of Pharmacy, and I graduated there in 2008 and I came back home, but I wanted, and I always had this love of agriculture. I, my dad ran a cow-calf operation, owned the local livestock market. And so I bought my first set of cows while I was in college. So they helped finance my way through college, helped me pay my rent and, and all those things. It was a really big blessing to my life. But when I was through college and through even the first, gosh, I guess probably 10 years that I was out of pharmacy school, I wanted to find a way where I could combine those two worlds of healthcare and, and agriculture and starting the podcast. It was a way for me to kind of men or combine those two worlds. And it's been a really interesting experience trying to talk. I started out a lot more of a mental health side of things, but it's evolving more into talking about just general health and wellbeing and trying to put that in a box that is easy for folks in agriculture to digest.

Jason Meadows [00:03:26] I think it's, you know, it sounds like it's simple, but it's, it's really easier said than done.

Vance Crowe [00:03:32] So tell me about like pharmacy school, of all the things that you could study in the whole world, why was that the thing that you were drawn to?

Jason Meadows [00:03:42] So my brother-in-law actually owned a pharmacy when I was growing up. I, I worked there, it's funny you say veterinarian, because that is what I was going to do. That's what I was going to do my entire life. I, from the time I was, I think I was third grade until the time I was a junior in high school, I was gonna be a veterinarian, a large animal vet, just because that's, I loved animals, you know, my dad had farms, we, sorry, had cows, we had horses too. And I just loved working with the animals. But there was this one day I was a junior in high school, we had to do a cesarean c-section on a cow with the vet out there. And it was probably six inches of snow, just freezing cold, probably January, middle of January. Just awful weather. You know how Missouri weather is just terrible. And the vet said to me something, and I don't think he said it on purpose as far as to like convince me of anything. 'cause he knew I was gonna go to vet school. He is like, man, what I wouldn't give to be in a warm office today. And I was like, that was it. I was, that was the day I quit going to vet school. And so from that point on, I got to talking to my brother-in-law. I started working with him delivering medicine in town. We lived in a small, or I lived outside small town, Cuban, Missouri, and that's where the pharmacy was. And I worked there delivering medicine, then working the counter, just helping him out and kind of just felt right going into that, going into school like that.

Jason Meadows [00:05:17] And it was, I graduated high school in 2002, and that's when I started, I started the fall of 2002, graduated 2008. It's a really great place to be if you want to help, help somebody in healthcare but not have the demand of school like it would take to be an MD or something. But it's also, but it's also a, a, a prestigious degree too. So it was, it was something I felt like I could make a good living, but not be quite as married to it as I would if I were to be a doctor.

Vance Crowe [00:06:01] And so are you the, the guy that's with like a lab coat and you're in the back of like a CVS or a Walgreens and you're dispensing medication that way?

Jason Meadows [00:06:11] Kind that, I mean, that is, that's basically my job. I do it a little bit differently. I work in a regional hospital. I work in the outpatient pharmacy of a regional hospital, but we are for employees only of the health system, which doesn't sound like a lot, but we have roughly 2000 employees who we service them, the employees and their families. So I manage that. That's my full-time job is I manage that pharmacy and I've been there, gosh, for the past 12 years.

Vance Crowe [00:06:49] So why then, like the connection when you jumped into the, the ag space and you start doing mental health, it's, it's surprising to me that it wasn't pharmaceutical health or something like that.

Jason Meadows [00:07:03] So I think it was because I had struggled myself, and I'll tell a little story here of why the podcast started and it was, it was July of 2019, and I, up until this point, I had struggled mightily with anxiety, just, just not able to get my stress under control, having a lot of stress, just so many things, not really work related, but family issues, farm issues, funny enough, even at times marriage issues. And it was, it really took a toll on me for a long time, but I was able to get a handle on that. I was able to get better with it. And something happened in, in July of 2019, Carrie, my wife and I, were at a conference in Dallas, and I'll back up just here for a second. We had a, there was, we were just, we were still in our hases. My dad still farms a bunch of acres, runs a lot of cattle, and we were helping him out. My son and I were helping, he was 14 at the time, and Carrie and I decided to take this trip to Dallas even though the hay season wasn't done. And I said, we, I told Levi, my oldest son that, you know, it's kind of up to him and and grandpa to kind of get things done while we're, while we're gone. You know, I didn't expect anything like this to happen, but I get a call when I am in Dallas at a hotel room and Levi tells me that the, the hay BA's on fire.

Jason Meadows [00:08:43] He something, a burn a bearing had burnt up the, and it's, it's on fire and a hundred miles away from home. I mean, it's just scary. And I dealt with the situation, I talked to Levi through it, and I, I think normally of the old me would've went back there and like tried to drive back home and just ruined this whole time that Carrie and I had away. And don't get me wrong, it was definitely a big thing that happened, but I kind of was able to talk to him on the phone, realized that everything was okay, and there was no point in me going back and just, I had that kind of moment of self-reflection there and realized that I had helped myself so much and gotten to this point. And if that, if this would've happened even a year or two earlier, then it would've been a total mess and I would've made a e it made a, a bad situation even worse with how I would've reacted to it. And I realized that I've helped myself realized I'd gotten better and I wanted to be able to share that with people like me who are involved in agriculture. I mean, to a certain degree, obviously I'm not as involved as a lot of people are, but I wanted to, I wanted to give back. I wanted to tell people, help people to have some, some faith in themselves to know that they can get better.

Jason Meadows [00:10:17] Right? And I think the podcast was something that just I felt could reach the most amount of people and it just kind of took off from there.

Vance Crowe [00:10:29] What did you learn to be able to make that change from the person that would've driven back in the middle of the night, to the person that was able to say, I've done what I can from here and we're gonna just keep moving forward?

Jason Meadows [00:10:40] I think it was a lot of just self-reflection, self-awareness, not, I, I'm just, I'm such a fixer, people pleasing type person. Are you familiar with the Enneagram Vance?

Vance Crowe [00:10:56] A little bit. I've heard people talking about this, but I don't, I don't know very much about it.

Jason Meadows [00:11:00] You should really try it. You should really take the test because it really helps

Vance Crowe [00:11:03] You. Oh, I've definitely taken the test. I just like the answers. Oh, okay. Don't resonate with me enough. See, for me to remember them. See,

Jason Meadows [00:11:09] Okay, so I'm an Enneagram type three, like if you read the type three, it's like a life story of me how I, and it's the, it's an achiever, but it's also a people pleasing person. So I think the, the people pleaser in me would have wanted to be back there. And if it wasn't only for just appearances sake or to make someone else feel better about me being there and not even people that mattered and people, you know, I'm talking about neighbors, people who are observing the situation from the outside in and becoming really self-aware with myself, understanding like some of my motivations behind these things, the, the, my like instincts, my gut feelings, and being able to push back against those and resist those a little bit, understanding what was really important, I think is the difference of Jason three years ago and Jason now.

Vance Crowe [00:12:15] Wow. I mean that's, that, that level of self-awareness is one that is not only difficult to come to realize of yourself, but then to be able to talk about it as, as openly, because that's a big hurdle to overcome, right? That's the poser motif, that's the, the person that's trying to be something they're not necessarily, and you just, you just laid it out bare there.

Jason Meadows [00:12:42] Yeah, it was,

Vance Crowe [00:12:44] It

Jason Meadows [00:12:44] Was really ugly for me for a couple of, probably about a month of trying to start telling that story. And it, it, it made me feel just, you know, when you, when you grow up and maybe you're wanting to touch on this a little bit when you grow up, and not just in agriculture, but I think in, in the society that we have grown up with rurally Midwest, you have these, this kind of sense of what a man is supposed to be, right? And it's supposed to be someone who doesn't show their feelings and doesn't talk about them and buries them deep down and just deals with them in a way that we know now is unhealthy. And for me it was, it was dealing with it with alcohol and other things that were very unhealthy for me and being able to break that mold a little bit and being like, especially, especially right around here, especially locally here, one of the first people out of the gate talking about that, you know, especially, like I said, especially locally, that's scary and it's, it, it, it, you have to get really comfortable with yourself and really comfortable with your story really fast.

Vance Crowe [00:14:10] Yeah. And it's a weird thing because if, if your mental health is the, the part of your identity, it's like a weird thing to, to be right. Like nobody wants to be labeled the schizophrenic, but at the same time, nobody wants to be labeled as the person that is bringing up their, like their bullshit or their problems as somebody that the, to capitalize off of it, right? We all know those people on Facebook or whatever where their problems are. Yeah. Or just kinda shoved in your face.

Jason Meadows [00:14:45] Yeah. And that, that was probably the part of it I struggled with the most Vance it is not wanting to be someone who is looking to profit off of their own misfortunes. And there's a fine line there, there really is. And because I get scared that it turns into a popularity contest sometimes as far as sharing your story. And I don't, and I, I don't want this to be misinterpreted because I think it's really important for people to share their stories when it in regards to mental health. But we have to be, I, I think we have to be really careful as to, like I said, not make it be a popularity contest and you know, oh, I've struggled this much or someone else has struggled, you know, we don't want it to be a one-up game. We want it to be a community where we share things and it, it can kind of toe that line a little close sometimes.

Vance Crowe [00:15:45] Yeah. I mean, I, I struggle with the, the open conversations about mental health. It, I, because I definitely know what you're talking about, about be wanting to be open with whether there was something that you had traumatic in your life that if you had only known other people went through this too, then that's like helping people. I definitely 100% believe in that. My wife and I couldn't get pregnant for a really long time and we went through hell on that. And I want to tell people about it because all, you know, I do not want other people to experience that without having known, hey, this can happen to you. But the flip side of that is, like you said, it appears to me that there are people that are cynically going out and raising money on the idea that we should be talking about our problems all the time. And so that makes me really uncomfortable about the mental health conversation going on in the public today.

Jason Meadows [00:16:43] Yeah, I I, I agree with that. And you know, that was a big barrier to me getting started because I didn't want to be one of those people. I didn't want to be someone who, like you say, is profiting off of their own misfortune and trying to make a buck off of that. And I, I don't wanna be that. I, that's for sure. And I, and I think the people and I think the people who really are reaching folks and really making a difference, they aren't that,

Vance Crowe [00:17:12] Yeah, I would, I I would say like your conversation with Jared McDaniel was one that, that was very, very interesting to me because it felt like the sharing that you guys talked about, it's what made me really interested in what you're doing is that you were sharing it as like a way to be like, yeah, this is the way that I understand the world. I'm a primate out here with all my vices and, and the things I wanna get better at and you know, this is the way that I've experienced bad things that have gone on. And then the other primate is able to say to him like, yeah, I, I agree with that. That's that also I see the same thing that you do because shared understanding is like the foundation of what it is to be human. So there's, there's definitely a space for people to be talking about. This is the way I dealt with anxiety and the problems in my life. I, I 100% think that you're filling that.

Jason Meadows [00:18:11] Well, thanks. I, I, that's what I try to make it be. I try to make it be real conversations between real people and you know, you get, that's a good thing about agriculture when you're, when you're focusing on agriculture is, you know, there's not a whole lot of room for a whole lot of BS and people, for the most part, if they can, they can smell a bullshit art artist really fast. And I try my hardest to never be one of those because I, I want to be real. I, I take pride in the fact that my podcast, when you hear me talk on my podcast, that's what it's like talking to me in real life. I mean, that is exactly, i I I make it as real and just like a normal conversation I would have with someone, you know, I, I fail at that sometimes, but I, I try my hardest to make it like that.

Vance Crowe [00:19:09] Oh, there's no doubt When you're doing a podcast, one of the biggest challenges is you have to have some level of persona to be able to stand in front of, you know, the black mirror in front of you and talk directly to it. But yet you can do your best to have a conversation that maybe is, is worthwhile to have a snapshot. I'm always trying to think of, you know, what is the, the most interesting thing that we would be glad that we both shared. And there's a subject that a lot of people don't like talking about, but I think from the faith that you have, that probably would be something that'd be really interesting, not only for you to talk about but for people to hear, which is that you're a member of the, the Mormon church, the LDS and Church of Jesus

Jason Meadows [00:19:56] Christ, the Latterday Saints.

Vance Crowe [00:19:57] Yeah.

Jason Meadows [00:19:58] We've kind of shifted away from using the first two terms just because we don't wanna leave, and I'm not trying to

Vance Crowe [00:20:08] Correct you. No, no, this is great. I don't know anything at all about it. Go ahead. So,

Jason Meadows [00:20:11] Okay, so I'm glad you brought this up 'cause I don't talk, I don't get to talk about this very much. And our, we have a president of our church, his name's Russell, Russell and Nelson, and he wanted to not be any doubt what the focus of our church was and that focus being Jesus Christ. And when you use the terms LDS, Latterday, Saint Mormon, those terms were, there was nothing necessarily wrong with them, but they didn't identify what the sole focus of our church was, and that was Jesus Christ. And that's, gosh, when was it? A couple of years ago, we was, it, it doesn't matter, 2018, I think it was, where they really pushed forward trying to change what we call it.

Vance Crowe [00:21:06] And so, and I, so what is the official title then?

Jason Meadows [00:21:09] Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And the biggest problem with that for me is that it's a mouthful. It's a lot to say. And Mormon, LDS, latter day saint, those things are a lot easier to say. But the problem that comes with those is you leave what the sole focus of the church is.

Vance Crowe [00:21:31] So are you offended if somebody refers to it as LDS or,

Jason Meadows [00:21:36] Or no, not at all. No, because for the most part, most people, that's how they know it. And I'm not offended. I vance I'm virtually un offendable, I just am by my nature, but I i I am not offended, but I am also not shy to correct either. So the,

Vance Crowe [00:22:01] I I've been thinking a lot about community and how the, from my perspective, one of the biggest reasons that we're in the amount of social strife that we're in right now, which I think then equates to existential dread, you know, what's gonna happen? Those other guys are out to get me, they're gonna take something from me. I think a huge component of that comes from the fact that people are not in community. They are not finding a group of people that have the same value set that they do, but then coming from different walks of life. Because when you have that, then you have to collide with those people at like church for example. And you have to stand next to somebody that you don't agree with the way he thinks an election should run or the what, what, you know, how your, your neighborhood has some regulation that he likes and you don't like those things you're gonna just encounter. But because you have to see that guy next week, you have to figure out a way to talk to him. And occasionally he's gonna have an idea that you didn't have that's going to influence you for the better. And we don't have that anymore in almost any domain except for churches in this country. You're,

Jason Meadows [00:23:12] You're right. And, you know, I'll take it even to e even a step further and we talk about, you know, a big problem. Now, again, it's a great thing, social, I'm, I'm gonna talk about social media and it's a good thing. Social media is a good thing to have because let's face it, you and I may have never connected if it wasn't for social media. So many people that I've talked to on the podcast, it would've been virtually impossible for us to, not impossible, but much, much harder. But the problem with social media is you can say anything without fear of retribution. Some of the things that you, you used to be, if you would, if you would say the same thing that you, that people are saying online to one another, it would likely end up in a, in an altercation, it would end up with someone getting punched in the mouth. And when you remove that, that fear of retribution, that fear of, of, of, of an altercation, then people will just say whatever. And it's like you said, there's no community anymore. There's no way for people to face that in the long term because they don't, they're not going to go see that person that they, that they lashed out on at the grocery store at church or something like that. And, you know, it's, it, social media is a blessing and a curse, and we have to be very careful with how we use it.

Vance Crowe [00:24:45] I think that, you know, that the fact that there is no retribution, right, that that person can just sit there and pop off, means that you are so much v more vulnerable to bias and self-censorship and all the behaviors that are going to warp the way that you think because it warps what you say. And you know, anytime you're writing down something that you're really thinking hard, like, how's this person gonna interpret it? And that person, and is this gonna score points on this other person are messing around with what the truth actually is? And you're warping your words and you're changing the way that you perceive what it is that you're, what you really think because you're trying to please these other people and then you're surrounding yourself with other people that think similar to you with that warped level of thinking, whether that's what they actually think or that's also what they think the crowd needs to hear or wants to hear. And it's not good.

Jason Meadows [00:25:47] No, it's, it's, we, we put, so you, you just kind of illustrated what it's like to try and navigate that whole landscape there and you put so much energy into all these different aspects of what you're trying to say. When used to it was just an interaction between two human beings and it was just left at that. And it's, it's, I I don't, we, we are, social media technology is advancing and evolving much faster than our human brains are able to, to compute it. I mean, that's the way I feel anyway. I don't think that we are able to keep up with how fast it's moving.

Vance Crowe [00:26:33] Yeah, I mean, I think the amount of information that we are trying to track at any given time is completely overwhelming. And, and that's likely the, the, the reason, the way it's structured, the way that it is. I was just writing a talk and one of the pieces of information I wanted to put in there is that human beings can only hold seven discreet things in their minds, plus or minus two. So some people can hold nine things in their mind, some people can hold five things, but for the most part it's, you can hold seven things in your working memory at any given time. So if you go to make a decision on what house are we gonna buy and you're thinking about three different things the way the tile looks, how great the bathroom is and the red front door, then you only have four more things that you can be thinking about at that, at that time. Because once you go over seven, you have anxiety. And I think we're overloaded with how many things we think we're supposed to know about what the, what's going on. And it's taking up this working memory and it's overloading our anxiety systems.

Jason Meadows [00:27:41] And, and, and I, and I'm as guilty as that, as anyone trying to figure out, because I do, I want to be in the know on things and I want to be caught up in all everything, but it's like, I've never heard that. I'm glad that you shared that with me because that's a really, it kind of puts into perspective how many things you can really have your attention on. And if it's seven things, I mean, gosh, how many things are, how much, you know, it really helps you understand what's important, what you wanna give that space to. You know, is it some, is it what someone who may or may not be a real person said to me on Twitter, is that something you want to put on in the, on one of filling up one of those seven compartments? Or are you trying to, would you rather replace that with something who that has more long lasting and important consequences?

Vance Crowe [00:28:38] Well man, we did this sober October and in the Articulate Ventures network and the thing, one of the things that I gave up was Twitter and I had no idea how hard that was gonna be to do. I, I really did not realize just how much of a, of an electronic addiction I had built. But then on top of that, it also did exactly what you're describing. I was paying attention to having arguments with people that were hundreds of miles away from me, that was a throwaway comment or they, they didn't really take the time to think about what I said, and I am wasting my like, very precious attention on that when I have a brand new baby. And like as soon as I made that realization, I was like, what an expensive thing to waste your attention on Twitter.

Jason Meadows [00:29:27] I, I had an experience on Twitter long ago way before there was an ag state of mind, Twitter, it was just my own personal Twitter. And I had made a comment towards A-E-S-S-P-N personality. I don't remember what it was, man, I don't remember what I said, but I got so much hate coming into me retweets and comments. And I remember how much, like just of my own personal bandwidth that took up and I was, I was like distraught by that. And this was probably six or seven years ago, you know, when Twitter was a lot younger than it is now. And I was a lot younger and I, I remember how that made me feel. And after it was all kind of done, I I I deleted my Twitter account after that. I mean, that was how bad it affected me. And then I rem then I just kind of realized like how big of a waste of time for me to worry about what a complete stranger would think. I, I think something totally not correct about me and that I, I I really was a Twitter, I was really able to learn early on the, the value or or devalue a lot of the interactions I have on there.

Vance Crowe [00:30:49] So going back to the Mormon and the community there. So tell me about the community that you have there. How often do you get together with people from your church? How often do you see people? How does that all that community build out?

Jason Meadows [00:31:03] So it normally, normally, right, we get together with the church obviously once a week and then our kids go to youth activities every Wednesday. And my wife is involved with that. I'm not, I usually, I I am more involved with the, there's, there's a, there's a certain structure within the church where there are people who are in charge of young men, young women. That's our, like 12 to 18 year olds. There's people who are in charge of like the primary, which is everyone younger than 12. And then there's people in, in, in charge of, I don't wanna say in charge, but has stewardship over the adult males and then the adult women too. So there's, there's various activities on a normal time that are always planned throughout the, throughout the year, throughout the month. And we kind of take turns as organizations who's doing what each month. And we'll have like a big get church get together once a month where it's at like, whether it be like a, a hog roast at a brother's house or, you know, we used to always have like a trunk or treat for our ho for the kids to come in. I never see, I didn't grow up in the church advance. I, my wife was a member of the church and when, when we got married, that was something that I, I made the choice to do is join her in that.

Vance Crowe [00:32:41] Whoa, that is

Jason Meadows [00:32:42] A big one. That's a big change. No believe, man, if you would've known me 12 years ago when I graduated college and know me today, it would be like talking, I don't wanna say because I don't think my personality has changed, but my habits and the things that I do, it is totally different. It's a totally different person. So I mean that was a huge challenge for me.

Vance Crowe [00:33:05] So let's talk about the, I mean, one of the things would be being a, a young guy doing what you want and then you join the church and now you have groups that you go to where there's a steward that like guides you. Is that Bible study, what does that look like?

Jason Meadows [00:33:20] You know, it's a lot less formal than you would think. It's, so the, the people in the church are, are the nicest people on earth. They are the, at least where I go to church, they are people who they, they were just, you would just be friends with them. And it was always funny because I didn't know who were, who were members of the church because I worked at the, at the hospital in RAWA for probably almost a year before I started to go into church here. And the, I was very surprised at the people who were members of the church that I knew at the hospital. And that comforting to me, because, so I'll back up a little bit. When I was in youth group in church growing up at my, at the church, I grew up going to, we would have like these, my my youth pastor would be very anti-Mormon. He would talk about things in the Mormon church and like how it was almost akin to devil worship and this sort of thing. And like, so when,

Vance Crowe [00:34:31] That's wild, I mean wild, the reputation that I had when I was growing up and, and it didn't break in my mind until I met a bunch of Mormons. They were nice people, but they were in a cult. That's what we were told. And so it wasn't until I went on my first trip to a Utah farm bureau that I meet a bunch of, I don't remember the full name of the church, but the, the morons, the, sure,

Jason Meadows [00:34:57] That's fine. You can use that. I i i you won't offend me one bit band so you can use that 'cause it's easier.

Vance Crowe [00:35:03] I understand.

Jason Meadows [00:35:03] And

Vance Crowe [00:35:04] They were exceptionally nice and candid to the point of i, I mean like heartwarming. And, and so for me, I was like, this is an interesting group of people. I don't know what what other people accuse you of, but every time I've interacted with your people, they've been very good to me.

Jason Meadows [00:35:22] Yeah. And it, and that was, I mean, so I mean I was, so on our second date, Carrie and I were sitting across from one another eating, and I don't know why she didn't tell me on the first date. Maybe she was scared to, I don't know. But we were sitting across from one, one another eating and we started talking about church and I asked, oh, so do you go to church? You know, we kind of exchanged stories like you would, and I said, oh, what church do you go to? And she said, LDS church. And I, I didn't know what that meant. She and I said, oh, I, what, what's that? And she said, Mormon. And she said, I stopped mid bite with a, with a fork full of food and just like, just aired at

Vance Crowe [00:36:00] Her for

Jason Meadows [00:36:01] A couple of seconds and like, because I'd had such a negative view of that group of people. And it was solely because of a youth pastor that I had. And it just had this really bad left, this really bad taste in my mouth. So I was very skeptical going in. But to, and then, and then when my wife and I, when I started going to church with her, so the church is separated into, it's, it's separated. It has a very, very neat flow chart like organization as to, as to who goes to church where, and it's by geo geography. So my wife lived in Dixon, Missouri, which would've put her in a different church. We call them wards. She went to church in St. Robert, which was a military heavily ward. So that was my first impression were people of the military. Well it was a little bit different, right? It wasn't, you know, how military people can, when you, when you are not a military person, it can almost make you feel like an outsider. So that was like my first impression of the church or well, one BI guess it we'll call it.

Jason Meadows [00:37:32] But then when I came to church, where I go now, which is in Rolla, the, the, the warmth and the greeting that I had, the friends that I made who are still some of my best friends to this day, it was, it, it turned me around really fast.

Vance Crowe [00:37:52] So when you get in there and you start hearing what the Mormons believe, can you see the things that the person that was scaring you about the Mormons, can you see where the kernel of, of the story grew from into something wild and nebulous? Or was it just completely fabricated?

Jason Meadows [00:38:12] No, like I, I don't, I don't see that at all and I have no idea where that would come from. I, I, I have no idea why anyone would talk bad about these people. It, it's, it's, it's incredible to me because to me the church represents everything that is good and pure about, honestly about being an American. I mean, community watch, taking care of your brother, a sense of pride, a sense of hard work. It it, the, the real true meaning and the true foundation of the church is, it's, it's, it's great because it's a uniquely American church. I mean it's, it's, it's spread to all corners of the world now. But it, it was one of the first purely American religions.

Vance Crowe [00:39:05] I, you know, I never really thought about it. The, the Mormon church, like version of the Pope would've, would exist in the United States. Exactly. The center of power would be the United States. I'd never, never even crossed my mind.

Jason Meadows [00:39:19] Yeah, yeah. I mean it's, and it's, there's a hierarchy that passes down much like you would think of with the pope or a a a head of another church. I'm not sure how it is in other religions, but there's a, there's a definite hierarchy there. And it's, so

Vance Crowe [00:39:37] What's difference, the difference between the holy scriptures that, that you were using before and that are now considered holy in this version, in this Catholic church,

Jason Meadows [00:39:47] There's just extra. Okay, so if you went to church,

Vance Crowe [00:39:52] Oh man, revelation says you're not supposed to do that, man.

Jason Meadows [00:39:56] So I know, I know. And that was a big thing for me, Vance. That was a big problem I had. And it's hard for me to explain because I am very new to the church. It relatively, you know, I think it was 2020 2010 when I was baptized. So I mean 10 years, it's just been 10 years. So I'm, I'm still learning. So the way I understand it is there was nothing that was necessarily, so when, when, when Revelation is speaking, revelation is speaking about the Holy Bible and the Holy Bible is the collection of the New Testament and of the Old Testament, and that is closed. There is nothing that can be added to the scriptures of the Old Testament and the New Testament. But the Book of Mormon is something separate. It's something, it's ano and it says that in the title page, in everything that you read or is discussed about the Book of Mormon, it's another testament of Jesus Christ. So it's not ne it's not adding anything to the original scriptures, it's something separate. So what the Book of Mormon is, is the story of Jesus coming to America, to the Americas after his death and resurrection in, in the holy land.

Jason Meadows [00:41:27] So he, he, it was, there was this whole, it starts out with a family who immigrated from Jerusalem to the Americas, made the, made the trek over here and we can, it, you know, you can get, there's someone way more qualified to talk about it than me. But this is my, no, this

Vance Crowe [00:41:48] Is a great primer, man. I know nothing at all about this.

Jason Meadows [00:41:51] Good, good. Because I don't know if I've ever explained it in real detail to anyone who didn't understand it because of how relatively my relative infancy in the church. And so this, it was the family of, of, of le excuse me, Lehigh Lehigh was the father. There was this group of brothers and Nephi was kind of their, their leader, but he had these two older brothers who were kind of jerks to him all the way through the thing. And that was a big tug and pull through the time of them getting over here. And then they finally get over here and then they break off into these two kind of tribes. And they're the ne fights in the Lehi, I'm sorry, knee fights in the Laymanites. Lehman was one of Nephi's kind of jerk face brothers, right? And they, throughout the book of Mormon, there's struggle and strife between the, the knee fights and the Lamanites. And it kind of goes in, that just kind of goes on through almost in forever until, and I honestly bands and I'm, I'm kind of showing what I don't know here. I'm not really sure where it goes from there because I'm still learning, right? I mean, and I, I'm, I'm comfortable admitting that, that, and it's proof that there's room for everyone in that church if you want to be there. Because I, I mean, I learn, I know a lot more now, but I, I still have a lot more to learn.

Jason Meadows [00:43:28] I mean, my wife,

Vance Crowe [00:43:28] Oh, I think if you asked a person, not, not all certainly, but many people that are a part of the Christian faith, if you ask them, tell me any of the, you know, how many people in the Bible can you name, and in that, in what you can name, what all did they do? And if it wasn't turned into a musical or Charlton Heston movie, they have very limited understanding of what that is. And I think that that's, that's part of religion becoming a read only culture or one that is passed down to your families. And that's something I think the Mormons are doing really well in this modern age. They've found a way to perpetuate their ideas to the next generation so that more people have heard about it the next year than less. Right. It's a, it's a growing place where there's people that are learning it, they're having it a part of their everyday life when they eat, when they spend time with their family, the activities that they do. And I think many of the other religions have not done that. And, and I think in a lot of ways the, that's been the thing that keeps you resilient and the thing that makes a lot of other faiths becoming kind of fragile or or brittle right now.

Jason Meadows [00:44:51] Yeah. We do a really, really good job of that. And you know, we, we see the president of our church as, as the, as the prophet, as a prophet who has a direct kind of dialogue with God. And so last year, I'm just making sure I have this right, yes. 2019, we instituted a new program where it was a much more home centered, so we used to go to church for three hours on Sunday. That's one of the biggest things that drives people away, I think is spending three hours on Sunday at church. So we, we lessened that by an hour, but we emphasized, or our church leaders emphasized the importance of having study at home. Ha taking the time as parents to share the lesson. They, they had this whole manual set out and the, the lessons that we were supposed to share with your children each night and share as a family each night. And we, we, we stuck to that. We were very, and I'd like to take more credit for it than, than I, than I actually deserve. Carrie was like so crucial in this and making sure we stuck to this every night. And we really got in this groove of, of home center church really making sure we talk about church things at night for, and it may be for just five or 10 minutes, but we have a conversation about the scriptures, about the lessons.

Jason Meadows [00:46:38] And then in fast forward, 14, 15 months and COVID happened and everything shut down. There was no church to be had.

Vance Crowe [00:46:49] That's some pretty forward thinking stuff. Then

Jason Meadows [00:46:52] I, so I was in, I was, so, I was in a meeting, I was a member of the Sunday school presidency. That's, I mean, a Sunday school is another pers another part of the hierarchy or the, the, the organization of the church. And I was at this meeting with some area leaders and I remember our, the area are called stakes. A stake can be, is so many war, so award, I'm just gonna do a little bit of inside baseball here on that award is a collection of so many people in a geographic area. And that's the people you go to church with every Sunday. So many wards make up a stake. And a stake is like, kind of like your area. Our a stake is so many wards, which are comprised of so many people. And a stake can be, our stake right now goes from Cuba where I live and goes like down to like over to like Lake of the Ozarks. A a fairly good sized area. But if that, if you were talking about a stake in Utah, it's city blocks wide, you know, just because of the concentrate. It depends on the concentration of church members in a given area. So we were at this conference, this state conference is what it was called, and he was speaking to us the the where there's someone call who's the leader of the state called the state president.

Jason Meadows [00:48:30] And he was speaking to us and he said, I, I would like to know because we view the prophet as someone as like the the watchman on the tower. Someone who's looking out ahead and wanting to and seeing what we can't see, right? And he sees what's coming, but he, it's his job to prepare all of us for that. And he, I remember our state president saying, I wish I knew what he saw 'cause it's something big. And I mean obviously this is what he saw. He saw what the world was coming to, what, what the pandemic, what the lockdowns were going to be. And I feel like the church has stayed as strong as everywhere. I don't think you can say that about a lot of faiths, a lot of churches.

Vance Crowe [00:49:23] I mean a hundred percent. You can't say that. I mean, I, I predict, I think there are going to be a lot of people that in the nihilistic present that we're in where it, it things feel like a zero sum game and that they don't have any friends and they don't have any connections and they can't find anybody that thinks like they do. Well, that's going to be because they were so inundated with the idea that their in identity is driven from what, what makes them separate from other people as opposed to a, a significant portion of your identity is about how you interact and how you engage with other people. And I think when that realization comes, we're gonna see different groups pop up and some of them will be oriented towards the good and some of them will be oriented towards, probably towards causing suffering with other people. But that I think a lot of people are gonna try and find church because it'll feel comfortable for them. But right now that's not happening.

Jason Meadows [00:50:22] Yeah. And we, we just started going back to church a couple of weeks ago. Well, as a church we did, I've had two different kids on quarantine from school the last two Sundays, so we haven't been there for that. But hopefully we get to go back for the first time with the church as a whole this Sunday,

Vance Crowe [00:50:49] What are we gonna do with this quarantining thing? Because right now it's like, at least what I've seen people get, get notification and then every person they came in contact with now has to be out for seven days until they don't have symptoms or 14 days. And it's just, it's like, it seems like a matter of mathematics that eventually everyone will get pinged by this. I don't know, it seems like

Jason Meadows [00:51:14] It's, it's, it's a public health nightmare, the answer. It's something that I just, I don't understand where they're coming up with these things and, and I'll share something with you and something someone else shared with me in that all. So take a, my son for example, he sat next to a girl in school, they're in fourth grade. He sat next to a girl who tested positive him and I can't remember, but set the people who were very close to her in class, they were all sent home on quarantine. Not one of those in our school who had been sent home have come back with a positive test, right? I mean, I, I I don't, like, I don't get it, I don't understand the things

Vance Crowe [00:52:17] Well and why, why we're so careful with like children, right? Like we are treating this as though all ages get this and are harmed by this in the exact same way. And that's just not true. Like

Jason Meadows [00:52:31] It's not true at all. I mean the, I don't want to say, I don't wanna speak in absolutes here, but I mean it's virtually unheard of for ch a child to without, you know, comorbidities or complicating factors to die of this even to be, I mean the vast, vast majority of 'em are asymptomatic. I mean, the kids will test positive and they won't have as much as a runny nose. I mean, they'll say that if you feel fine. And it's just, it's incredible that we are, we're putting, we're putting our, we're kind of hijacking our immunity with this stuff. I mean, to me that's how we defeated diseases for, and now I'm, I I believe in vaccines. I think vaccines are something that have made modern medicine and made humanity better. But for, for a long time, that's how we got immune to anything was by being exposed to it. And basically that's what a, that's what a vaccine is just in a watered down way.

Vance Crowe [00:53:46] Yeah. And we were, we had the whole summer to have had people really engage with one another. Like, ah, you know, we know it's gonna be there, but everybody's gonna be full of vitamin D. Summertime, you're gonna get some more sleep. You're not gonna be out and about. We'll get it. We'll have some people get it, it'll spread around. But we didn't do that. We kept everybody indoors. And so now they're gonna go into fall and winter and be way more lax because we've, we've kept it at red alert, at topnotch, you know, fear factor and then, and then, you know, we're inside and, and it's, people are gonna be taking off their masks and spending more time with one another. I don't know, it just seems like we've backed ourselves into a corner here.

Jason Meadows [00:54:32] Right. Carrie and I were talking just this, this evening and we have, you know, we we're two weeks away from Thanksgiving and you know, I, I believe that it's a legitimate concern for folks like my parents, who, my dad is 84, has COPD doesn't, isn't in very good health. My mom's in is 80, but she's in much, she's in better health, but she's still 80. Those are the people who I really am concerned for. I mean I, that this, this virus poses a real threat for them. And I feel like we could have done such a better job kind of spreading it around to people who would not be affected by it and kind of let it pass through. And now like you say, it's, you know, it gets dark at five o'clock, it's getting colder now. We're being indoors way more. I I just feel like there was some real oversight here.

Vance Crowe [00:55:33] So you're around a lot of heavy medications, right? And you were talking about things like anxiety before, what do you think about people using medicine or chemicals to be controlling their mental health issues?

Jason Meadows [00:55:51] So I obviously think that there's a, a place for that. You know, that's part of what pays my mortgage right, is I, I dispense medicine to people. So I I do believe in it. I do believe there's a place for it. My problem is that's the first place people go to. You go to a primary care provider and you talk to 'em, you suck you, you say all this stress. I'm yelling at my wife all the time yelling, I'm, you know, being a jerk to my kids. I just can't, I can't seem to cope anymore. So, okay, well, you know, how about we try some Zoloft here, you know, that, that, I know that's helped a lot of other people, you know, that should try that for about six weeks and see if you show a difference and you go back in six weeks and you're like, ah, it's, I'm probably better. And so, well, we put you only on 50 milligrams, let's try a hundred milligrams. And then you go, it's just this vicious cycle where you don't think it's working anymore. Like, well, okay, well let's try some Effexor instead. And it's just, you get all, it's just, it, it, it approached way to the, the, the, the ease of which we can prescribe medications for these, for these disorders is, is I feel like we're way too trigger happy on it. By we, I meant as, I shouldn't say we, I doctors are, healthcare providers are.

Vance Crowe [00:57:23] And so the, a big one that came up that kind of hit everybody's news radars that was paying attention was the Jordan Peterson, the Canadian psychologist that often talks to people about, you know, cleaning up their room, taking responsibility for themselves, pushing themselves forward. He had some depression issues and took some benzodiazepines and then developed a hardcore addiction to them and said he couldn't get off 'em. So he was like, over in Russia, what are benzodiazepines?

Jason Meadows [00:57:56] They're your, like your Xanax, your Valium Ativan. They're, they're a mild hypnotic and they do, they are a classification for by the DEA as far as addiction potential. So there's a significant level of addiction possibility with them. And addiction can happen with these medications within a few doses. And they, so the place aines are supposed to play in anxiety, depression are, you're supposed to take them for a month and then wean off of them for while, while, let me back up here. The reason that you have that benzodiazepine, excuse me, benzodiazepine taper is a lot of the SSRIs, like your Zoloft, your Prozacs, even your Effexor, they take like six weeks to reach their steady state, their like

Vance Crowe [00:59:06] Enough dose being in there with enough halflife that actually exactly

Jason Meadows [00:59:10] Affects

Vance Crowe [00:59:10] You.

Jason Meadows [00:59:11] Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And they take about six weeks. And so the benzos are used to be prescribed for like four weeks and then gradually tapered off. But people aren't doing that. And like you said, and like I said earlier, I mean there's the, there's the potential for abuse only within, or addiction only within a few doses and they're just, they're way, way overprescribed. And you know, there are people I

Vance Crowe [00:59:42] Are they supposed to be doing, why does somebody get a benzodiazepine prescribed to them?

Jason Meadows [00:59:47] So they're a calming agent. They will, they work on, I can't for the life of me think of the system they work on. You know, my pharmacology teacher's gonna come back and strangle me for this. But they, they, what they do is they, they provide a calming effect to someone who is, people will call them a nerve pill. You know, you hear somebody saw that, you know, a little old lady come to the pharmacy, I need my nerve pill. That's generally a Xanax or a, a Valium or something like that. And they kind of will mellow a person out. They will make them not so irritable, not so really not so anxious,

Vance Crowe [01:00:36] You know, anxious and well, but, but then eventually when they wanna get off of them do is what is the addiction response? What does it feel like?

Jason Meadows [01:00:47] It's like, you know, there's respiratory issues, there's like psychological things. There's, it's almost like a rebound effect. Like it's worse than the anxiety was that you were treating, right? It's, it's just, it's, it, it affects everyone differently. But there's, you know, you can have cardio, you can have tachycardia, you know, increased heart rate, all these things that are just the body needing that, you know, it's, it's like you give your, your car, you know, premium gasoline, this is probably a bad example, but you just, you, you, you, you take that away from it. All of a sudden what's not gonna perform at the level that it's supposed to. And it, it's, you're, you're putting chemicals in your body and you're, you're maintaining a homeostasis. Your body's become used to that, then you take those chemicals away. It is just like, it is, like you are, it's not, doesn't have the right chemicals in it to function properly or how it's been used to functioning,

Vance Crowe [01:01:56] You know, anxiety. I was reading the, that

Jason Meadows [01:01:58] Was kind of, that was kind of muddy. I'm sorry,

Vance Crowe [01:01:59] But No, I mean, I get it. I mean, what it, what it makes me think of is that anxiety is one of those things. If you go read Carl Young and, and what he talks about with anxiety, he says the, the one good thing about anxiety is that it is referring to something going on in the present. You don't have to go dig around in somebody's past about some problems they had with their parents or something they haven't gotten over since they were a child. The, the, that feeling of anxiety is something that their brain is trying to tell them, you need to pay attention to this, or you need to let this go, or you need to move past this. And so the concept of medicating that is like, I mean, I'm sure there are circumstances where they're needed. I, you know, and I'm, I, I am, I've never had to deal with the depths of needing to go in the, in the medical direction, but it also is a nihilistic path because it's just saying like, Hey, I don't know how to figure out what this problem is. And I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take the, the nap for a while and hopefully I wake up from the nap. And I'm not in more pain than I was when I started.

Jason Meadows [01:03:12] So, man, I heard this recently from someone, it was Dr. John Delony. He is, he's actually a, a mental health specialist with, with Dave Ramsey, with Ramsey Solutions. I was listening to him this week, and he made the really great point in that anxiety in itself isn't a bad thing. In fact, it's a good thing. It's a tool because it helps you know that there is something wrong. There is something, there's a negative stim or something you perceive as a negative stimulus. And that's your reaction to that. That it's like a, it's like a, a conditioning thing, an instinctual thing to, you know, you've gotta

Vance Crowe [01:03:58] Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. You,

Jason Meadows [01:04:00] You've got a big test coming up. You've got a big presentation at work. I mean, you're, you're

Vance Crowe [01:04:07] Not dealing with a problem and you're, and you're ignoring it and you're trying to be like, I'm just gonna keep walking past that and hopefully it won't be here when I get back.

Jason Meadows [01:04:15] So there's the problem, Vance. The problem is people want to, the anxiety is there, but we mask it. And the problem is we aren't doing enough to cope with it. We need to get better at actually addressing whatever the problems are coming our way. We need to get better at understanding that this thing isn't going, if we push it away, it's not going to go away. Someone, someone described it to me one time as, like, say you say there's this room in your house and there's a light bulb out, you know, you've gotta change that light bulb and, but you keep ignoring it. You keep ignoring it. And what happens when you keep ignoring it? It keeps nagging at you even more and more and more. What's the only solution to that problem? Go put a new light bulb in, you know, and that's the way we have to treat anxiety. That's the way we have to treat these, these things. We have to, we have to address them. We can't ignore them. And I think so many people just want to ignore them and want to just think that it's going to go away when it's not really going to go away. We just have to find a better way of coping with it.

Vance Crowe [01:05:28] Yeah, I mean, I think that that's the, the challenge that I have with the mantras that seem to go around about empathy with helping somebody get through their problems when the focus is on, you have to really know where they're coming from, because I think you should have compassion for people. I think you should be like, Hey, it would be awful to have those issues, but anything other than helping get them on their feet so that they can move towards the solution that they, that they themselves want to find, that they have chosen, that they're gonna get up and solve. I think anything else is, it's not necessarily helping. I don't, I don't think it's good to go to people and say, you're great the way that you are. Because if they're feeling anxiety, they're like, well, then I feel anxiety. What am I supposed to just stop feeling this?

Jason Meadows [01:06:19] Yeah, no, I mean, you have to, and that's that my, that's been my thing all along is recognize the problems, but don't leave without solutions. There's solutions and there's, there's solutions that, and I think the problem is, is the solution, and it's, it's, it's just like with exercise, it's just with like getting healthier. The, the quick fixes are always a lot faster and seem a lot better than the actual real hard work that it takes to actually get better.

Vance Crowe [01:06:55] What do you, what do you do to choose what area you're working on next? I know you're in the middle of running right now, but how do you choose what your next big thing is?

Jason Meadows [01:07:04] Man, it's, I, I, I do a lot compartmentalization Vance. That's, you know, I give, I was talking to someone on a podcast just this past week about this, and it's all about giving the appropriate thing, the appropriate attention at the appropriate time. And, you know, I've got a lot of things going on. I've got a job, I've got a wife and four kids. I've got, you know, a pretty significant sized farm to take care of. And I've got this podcast thing too. I mean, and I'm trying to do, like you've mentioned, I'm trying to take care of my health and try to take care of the, of my body and exercise and making sure I'm taking care of my own needs too. And my biggest thing is, is writing things out in advance. And we talk about this in the av NA lot about, about how important journaling is. And journaling has been my savior as far as being able to get to the next big thing. That's been what has really elevated my goal status and

Vance Crowe [01:08:15] My how, how do you write your, how do you write in your journal? What do you think about?

Jason Meadows [01:08:19] So I think about, like, my biggest thing is I, I, I really, I really focus, especially early in the morning, I focus on gratitude because I think it's been studied that gratitude, if you start your tape with any sort of gratitude, then you are just setting yourself up for success. And I, I'm living proof of that. I, I, I'll skip a day of journaling where I don't go through my daily gratitudes and I feel like shit because I don't, I I didn't start with that. And it's just, well,

Vance Crowe [01:08:51] And I think people could look that at that cynically and be like, oh, well, you want to do gratitude, so that good things happen to you. But what you don't realize is if you're grateful for what you have, you can feel a sense of satisfaction. And if you don't feel grateful for what you have, you will never be satisfied.

Jason Meadows [01:09:09] Right? Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:09:10] And so, like, if it, it is one of those things that if you can get yourself to sit down and be like, Hey, I'm actually gonna take the time to do this. It's, it's a, it's a conversation with that inner Damon, that inner voice that is good and has a calming effect on everybody.

Jason Meadows [01:09:28] Yeah, no, I mean, I, I totally agree with that. And having the, having that conversation like with yourself and being, being really like intentional with the things that you're grateful for, then you can kind of move on to the things. And my big things is goals and having, just, for example, I am, I'm wanting to, I have a, I have a line of credit with, with, for, for my cattle loan that I'm really focusing on paying down right now. And that's like my, that's my mo in my journal. That's my most effective goal or my most impactful goal. And really right now, that's where all of my attention is, is, is being thrown to at this moment. And, you know, and, and if when that gets done, then it's going to be something else. And just always having something that I'm working towards really keeps me going and keeps the, it keeps me way ahead of my demons.

Vance Crowe [01:10:29] And tell me about your demons. What, what do you mean, which ones?

Jason Meadows [01:10:34] So I am, I am a victim of comparison. I, and I didn't share this with you yet, but, and I think it's, but I think it's significant. I am the youngest of five kids, and I have been like perpetually comparing myself to my older brothers, especially who are very successful. One's a, one's a farm bureau agent one is a, he's a, a civil engineer. He owns his own civil engineering firm. And, you know, try comparing myself with them has been like the, like my ultimate vice for the most of my adult life. Just trying to see how I've stacked up to them at a certain point in my life and really trying to make sure I have my own interest in mind and not comparing myself to them. That is, that that's being, trying, falling into that trap in comparison to them is, is something that I struggle with mightily. And they probably don't even know that about me, but it's, I think it's something that is, is when you're the, when you are the baby of the family, I think it's something that's just natural. And I've really gotta fight that because that's, I think that I

Vance Crowe [01:12:03] Myself, don't think it's just the baby of the family. I think that's everybody, man. I'm, I'm the middle of seven man. And I think that everybody has to look around and be like, you know, you're, I, I've, I've heard it once said that the comparison that most people make to, that determines their self-esteem is how are you doing compared to your brother-in-laws, which I think is an interesting one, right? Because it says, all right, we all married into the same family, so we're at some level, but we're, you know, we came from different angles. How am I doing relative to this other person? And it's, it's an interesting idea because with your siblings, maybe it's not such a terrible thing to do some comparison, particularly if you view them as successful, right? Like, maybe, maybe the idea that like, there are things to admire that are there, and as long as it doesn't become resentful, that's probably okay.

Jason Meadows [01:13:00] Yeah. And that, and I think that's where it's, that's, that's the key there is not being resentful. And I don't think, I don't know if I've ever made it be resentful, but sometimes I find myself chasing after the wrong things. You know, I don't want to get into, because outta respect for my, for my family, I don't wanna get into too many particulars there, but there, there's this, there's this line that, funny enough, Jimmy Buffet said it, and I have used it so much in my life, I probably heard it 20 years ago, where he was talking about comparing himself with Eric Clapton and how he wished, wished, wished he could play the guitar, like Eric Clapton. And he kind of had that, he kind of had that frame of mind for a long time in that he, he, he would never measure up to Eric Clapton as how great of a guitar player he was. But then he kind of hit him one day and it's like, you know, I bet Eric Clapton wishes he could throw of a fishing rod, like Jimmy Buffett can, you know? So I mean, comparison is all relative. We're all great at something, and we all have that thing that, you know, we may not understand how great we may be at that, and somebody may, somebody may wish that they were as great as something as we are. We just don't understand that or realize that sometimes.

Vance Crowe [01:14:24] Yeah, I, I agree with that. I think I, and when you bring it up as a demon, I'm sitting here thinking, well, that's not my direct demon. I can see where it comes from, but my demons are, you know, totally different vices. But it's interesting that that's the one you picked up on. I'm, I'm glad you shared that, that was a good thing to think about.

Jason Meadows [01:14:42] Yeah, it is. It's, it, it, there's, I mean, there's some heavy stuff with that. And I, I guess outta respect to my family, I don't wanna share that, but yeah, it's, it's, it's something that's not on me for a lot of times, but I'm, I'm really, I've really come to peace with it now.

Vance Crowe [01:15:01] And so when we wrap up here, when you think about the direction your podcast is heading in, you know, you've done dozens and dozens and dozens of interviews where, where's it going?

Jason Meadows [01:15:18] It's going to a place, and I, I hit on this a little bit earlier where it's, well, we're still, there's still gonna be a focus on mental health because I think it's important, and it's important to have good, meaningful conversations, not just the woe is me type conversations, you know, the real solutions, what people did to get through them. But I am really interested in foc in focusing on health as a holistic topic and talking more about physical health and as it relates to mental health. So this coming January, I am talking to nothing but dieticians about how the food we eat affects our body and affects our, affects our mood, and how, by changing up how we feed our body, how that feeds our brain. And my, my big thing is also, and I wanna talk to each one of them about how us as livestock producers can help understand that we, that the meat that we provide, the meat that comes from the cattle, I, I'm talking about cattle just because that's what I know, but how that is part of a healthy diet and how that can help people be healthy as well. Because as there's, as you know, there's a misconception about that run abound.

Vance Crowe [01:16:45] I mean, I'm, I'm with you on the, the part about the misconceptions. I, I have my doubts about the value of dieticians, really. I, yeah, I mean, I think there are some out there. I've, I know people that are dieticians that work from like cancer diets for like, Hey, we know this medication interacts with these foods, and so you, you know, or you have to be on this sort of a diet. But I think there's so little known about human nutrition because it's biochemistry built on physics, built on chemistry, built on like all these layers of abstraction that to me, dieticians are, are overvalued in our society.

Jason Meadows [01:17:31] Really. You think so? Okay. That's interesting. Well, we'll see. Right?

Vance Crowe [01:17:37] There you go. There you go.

Jason Meadows [01:17:40] But I mean, and then I think there's a, a definite point where I am going to talk about exercise, because that's been, and I'll tell anybody this, the thing that's helped me the most is making sure I get enough exercise. I, I run or lift weights at least five week times a week. And I mean, man, that's really, that's really made a change. And I, I

Vance Crowe [01:18:09] Was, when did you start running?

Jason Meadows [01:18:11] 2019

Vance Crowe [01:18:12] First 20. And how did it go when you started? It

Jason Meadows [01:18:15] Was freaking terrible for a week or, or a month or so. It was awful. I hated every second of it for a month. And, but my wife wanted me, and this is weird. It's funny because I listened to your, your podcast with the, with the Running coach today and talked about how you should progress. And I was listening to that while I was running this morning and thought, huh, I probably could have used this last, last year because

Vance Crowe [01:18:39] I, I

Jason Meadows [01:18:41] Progressed way too fast. I went from running zero to running a half marathon in the, I I started running in January one, and I ran a half marathon the end of April. Yeah, yeah. It was way too fast. And I had in, you know, foot injuries. It, it was a hard road and I pushed myself probably harder than I should have, but I'm glad I did it. And you know, I've just kept it up since then. I actually ran my second half marathon this past weekend on Halloween. It was, it was just one that my wife and I and my, my nephew ran together. It was just the three of us. And it was really a cool thing that we were able to, you know, we were, we, I know you and I have talked about David Goggins a lot, and we had all kind of read that book right before we, we, we did the half marathon and we talked about it, and that helped push us through those, you know, those last few miles. And when it was really getting tough and, you know, it's, I am, I'm at, my goal for this year was a thousand miles, and I am at 891 right now.

Vance Crowe [01:19:58] Wow, man. Yeah, that is, wow. I've done 500. I've never done a thousand. That's amazing.

Jason Meadows [01:20:05] It's, it's been, there's been some time, like I got, I was doing really well, and then I got sick in March and I didn't run for like two weeks. And I, I thought, oh man, it's not gonna happen. It's not, it's not gonna happen. I'm never gonna catch back up now because I, I calculated that I had to run 2.74 miles each day on average to, to make it to a thousand miles for the year. And I got really behind there for a few, few months really. And I caught back up, I think in October. And now I'm, I'm ahead of schedule now.

Vance Crowe [01:20:40] I mean, that's one of the best parts about having those big goals where you, if you really keep up with it, all that time that you had to do to catch up with the time you'd lost, now all of a sudden becomes a victory. You get to stack on there. So it's even better than where you were before you got sick.

Jason Meadows [01:20:56] And, you know, and, and the thing about big goals are what if I really a try for it? What if I really do my best and I fail and I don't get to a thousand miles? Well, I still ran 995 or 950 or whatever. That's pretty damn good too. That's why we have to make sure that we are always pushing ourself on goals because we never know the really potential that we, we have for ourselves.

Vance Crowe [01:21:25] Yeah. And I think goals, one of the things I've learned about it is writing 'em down is what matters, right? Yeah. Like there were a lot of times when I would say, in my mind, I'm gonna do this thing, and then the next day would roll around and be like, well, I mean, I, I'm really starting it yet. But when you write it down that that's like, I don't know, something far more serious with your psyche, there's, they're going on.

Jason Meadows [01:21:47] Yeah, no, I, I totally agree. Writing 'em down and, and holding yourself accountable. That's, that's the big thing too.

Vance Crowe [01:21:55] Well, speaking of holding accountable, I have got to get to bed because I'll be up at 3:00 AM with the baby, but

Jason Meadows [01:22:01] Man, man,

Vance Crowe [01:22:02] Jason, this has been fantastic.

Jason Meadows [01:22:05] It's been great. I can't believe it's been, gosh, I can't believe it's been this long already. It just, it time flies, man.

Vance Crowe [01:22:12] It was great chatting with you, and it has been a great pleasure to have you in the Articulate Ventures network, man. I'm really glad you joined.

Jason Meadows [01:22:19] Yes, sir. Well, thanks for having me, Vance, and thanks for your podcast. It, it, it's a huge influence on my life.