Nate Pontious: Afghanistan to LA, Starting a Ranch, & Fitness for Life | MMP #189
Nate, thanks for taking the trip in Austin.
Speaker 2:Appreciate it. I'm excited to be here to talk with y'all.
Speaker 3:That's what happens. Sometimes you gotta just slide into the DMs on Instagram, and good things will happen.
Speaker 2:I know. I know.
Speaker 3:But it's funny. You've been on Harry and I's list to have on the show for a while, actually. And I was telling you a little bit before we recorded, but, I first came around to to your content and club home bodies in 2020. I was living in New York, and then the city got shut down. So I moved back to New Jersey with my parents, and there really weren't any gyms that were open.
Speaker 3:And the girl that I was dating at the time was doing home bodies and a big fan of Ramey's, and she was like, look. I think you should really try this workout program. It's really minimalist. Only requires, like, a dumbbell, and the workouts just smoke you. And I was like, yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay. I was kinda doing more, like, bodybuilder style stuff at the time, and then I did the first workout and and just absolutely got crushed. I was in my parents' basement just sweating all over the carpet, and I was like, this is incredible. But, really, that's how I got introduced to your content and did home bodies probably for about six months and just had such a great experience and then just started doing more digging on you. And one of the things that I think I'm learning about as I get older is I think I just have an affinity towards people that have a lot of intention and purpose behind their life, and I really feel that with you in terms of the way that you approach nutrition, your workouts, just kind of the way you approach your life.
Speaker 3:So we're just excited to to dig into it, but I just wanted to say thank you for the impact that you've had on me.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir. It's it's real. You know? It it it's great for me because it gives me some sort of purpose behind what I do other than, you know, just exercising for, you know, my work, I guess.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. What was, what was sort of the origin of HomeBodies? Where did that get born out of?
Speaker 2:Well, it was it was legitimately born out of, you know, the COVID lockdowns in in the city. I at the time, I was working in executive protection in the city, and so I was wearing a suit and tie and, you know, garden, you know, high net worth individuals and celebrities and whatnot at events and all that, you know, came to a standstill, and so I wasn't working no more. And I'm still still exercising every day, and so was Ramey with me. And so we figured, you know, what the hell? Why not share this with people and do it with people?
Speaker 2:And, you know, just like anything, it it started out just going going live, and we did it for free for probably six or eight months, just free every single day, every single day for free. You When I started out, the first one, maybe, like, you know, 20 or 30 people showed up and got on, you know, but every single day, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more showed up. And then we started implementing these deck of cards workouts, which is kind of a a big staple for us, which was my like, in the military, that was a big thing for us. Like, we're floating around on a boat or in a combat zone. We'd use a deck of cards and get creative with our with our workouts.
Speaker 2:It's old school. And so I started doing deck of cards workouts, and that's when it really kind of exploded. People started getting into our workouts with us, and we had a pretty good following from there, and we decided might as well, you know, establish this as a a full on fitness program.
Speaker 3:What's really cool about that too is I know that you're an Illinois guy. You were in the marines, in the military, and then you were a super high level CrossFit competitor. Right? I think you were, like, one of the fittest men in the West when you were competing in the regionals.
Speaker 2:I was a nobody. I've I'm I was the I would say I was probably the lowest tier of the elite competitive athletes. I was, like, at the very bottom of the barrel, but I I'm barely made the cutoff.
Speaker 3:But still elite, though, right, nonetheless. And and your body was real. You you had a lot of issues after CrossFit. Right? So I'm just curious.
Speaker 3:How did you kinda, like, stumble into the style of training that you do with homebodies? Because I would imagine you're going from all these barbells, all these complex lifts to, like, hey. I'm just doing stuff with a, you know, body weight and maybe, like, a fifteen, twenty five pound dumbbell, and I get an amazing workout from it.
Speaker 2:Like, anything trial and error? Yeah. Trial and error. It was like I I I push my body to the absolute limit. I found out, you know, what it was, what I was capable of, what what the limits were, and, you know, what it feels like to function as a high performing individual, I guess.
Speaker 2:And, you know, how unrewarding and unfulfilling that is in in day to day life. Like, a a five fifty pound deadlift is is really no different than a 200 pound deadlift when it comes to things that I need to accomplish in my day to day life. Only one leaves me not feeling totally jacked up where I can put my boots on in the morning and do work, and then the other one makes me wake up the next day and feel like I got hit by a freaking train. You know, it might be impressive for the the highlight reel on Instagram or competitions or whatever. It really doesn't, it doesn't benefit your performance in life, and so that's what I, you know, that's the methodology I take into HomeBodies is that, you know, we're we're all athletes in in a sport of life, really.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter if you're a a single mom taking care of kids and or, you know, you got multiple side hustles, whatever. And maybe you never even played sports in your entire life, but your your sport is life. You need to be able to perform in in day to day life, and so your training needs to to support that and not and and and make you better for your life, not worse off, not messed up. If you're going to the gym and training so hard that you're completely depleted of all your energy and your muscles are exhausted and you you're just tired all day for work, then it's kind of counterproductive. Right?
Speaker 2:Your exercise program should make you feel better.
Speaker 1:Yeah. When did you make that mental shift? Was it towards the end of CrossFit or you're just like, man, I can probably feel better if I just dialed it back and focused on simplifying the program and feeling actually feeling good?
Speaker 2:Yeah. It was after it was after I completely broke myself down, like, mentally, physically, spiritually broke myself down that I decided I needed to find a more sustainable approach to my fitness, one
Speaker 1:that was, you know,
Speaker 2:one that left me fulfilled really. I mean, it wasn't until I reached that breaking point. And, I think it all kind of stemmed from doing it for the wrong reasons, really. I was training at such a high capacity, and fitness was such a big part of my life, not because, not not for any other reason, but I was, like, a very pissed off, vengeful dude after the military. I had no purpose, no direction, no idea what I was really doing, but I knew I had a lot of doubters in that space.
Speaker 2:And my sole, you know, reason for getting out there and getting after it was really more or less so I could just say, fuck you. I made it. And it was terrible. It was awful. So I needed I needed to do that to figure out, hey.
Speaker 2:Fitness can fitness can be done in a way that it's fulfilling to me and doesn't matter to anybody else. You know, it's not for superficial results.
Speaker 3:Is it true that, like, when you got out of the military, you kinda just felt this calling to go to LA because there were a lot of, like, fit people out there and you just took your car, drove out there, and just basically lived on the beach and started just experimenting with all these different classes like TRX, rowing, CrossFit. You were just very curious and tinkering.
Speaker 2:It's exactly what happened. I mean, my particular situation getting out of the marine corps was it's kind of abrupt, in a sense that I didn't really have much of a what's it called? Like a transitional phase.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:It was like a I had like a ten day period to, like, get rid of all of my gear, turn it in, get all my paperwork signed out, and, like, all my medical procedures, whatever. And then one day, they're just like, here's your here's your your papers. You're a civilian. Get get out of here. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Like, okay. Tossed my sea bags in
Speaker 1:my
Speaker 2:car, and, you know, towards the tail end of my enlistment, I was, excuse me, I was kinda getting into I was getting into fitness and, you know, it was at the it was in my my last deployment in Afghanistan, I really started getting some eye opening experiences with, like, how important fitness was to my ability to show up and perform in patrols and, you know, execute all the tasks demanded of you as an infantryman. And so, fitness was kind of where my head was at at that time. It was whenever I got out, I was like, what the hell? I'll keep going with fitness. Didn't have a place to live.
Speaker 2:I knew, like you said, LA's got people with money. It's got fit people. Well, might as well go there and and and see what happens. That that iconic image of Arnold Schwarzenegger out on Muscle Beach. Like, well, that's the place to be.
Speaker 2:And, you know, nothing really prepares you for homelessness like the Marine Corps infantry. You spend all your time sleeping in dirt holes, living in the field, and so it was there was nothing really, you know, foreign to me going out to the beach. And, in fact, it was probably nicer than most of the field ops. There was free showers right there on the boardwalk and, you know, really good quality food that I can walk to all the time. I sold my car immediately because parking, traffic, everything in LA was just made having a car a real pain in the ass, so I got rid of it, and I was just slumming it out there on Muscle Beach, figuring it out, just, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm just an observational character. I was watching what everybody else was doing, and then, you know, from there, I got I got enrolled in in college. That was a very, very brief stint. I thought, you know, heck, if I wanna be a a trainer somewhere, if I wanna do anything reputable in the in the fitness world, I need to have some paper that says I'm a smart guy.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So I signed up for college, used my GI bill. Academia was not really for me. I wasn't really wasn't really learning a whole lot, and I was, you know, gathering a little bit of clients here and there with training, and, you know, I was getting I was getting exposure to different jobs. Like you said, I was just I was tinkering. I was curious with with where I could go.
Speaker 2:I was more interested in actually developing skills in the craft and then reading from a textbook, if that makes sense. Mhmm. So that's essentially where I got all of my, I guess, knowledge in fitness was just exposing myself and doing it in a in a very unorthodox manner. So, like, for example, if I wanted to learn, you know, gymnastics or something, I would learn gymnastics from a breakdancer. And and, you know, I would go about it like that.
Speaker 1:How would you go about doing that? Would you just go go up to people, on the street and just start looking for information, or were people open to that?
Speaker 2:I mean, once I got into a once I got into a cutthroat CrossFit gym, there's a very diverse background of of athletes as CrossFit kind of attracts that diversity of fitness where you have, like, rowers and swimmers and
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Dancers and gymnasts and all of this. I I saw all of these people as, like, you know, experts in their craft. And I was like, that guy rode crew at an Ivy League school? I wanna go learn how to row from him. Like, I'm gonna pick his brain, I'm gonna see if he'll coach me, train me.
Speaker 2:That, like, I I qualified for a a CrossFit competition that was gonna involve swimming. I sucked at swimming. Someone's like, oh, that that dude swam in college. I'm like, yo. Show me.
Speaker 2:Show me how to swim. And then, I actually
Speaker 1:Which is a terrible process.
Speaker 2:Right. Swimming sucks. And, I actually joined a children's swimming club out of West Hollywood, and I was out there swimming with, like, 13 12, 13 year old kids, and they were, like, swimming over the top of me, like, drowning me in the deep end. So, that's kind of where my fitness came from, I guess.
Speaker 3:The tough thing about swimming is it's not like lifting weights or running where or even cycling. Like, the more you grind, you can actually get faster. Swimming is the opposite where it's like if you keep just grinding the pool without the right technique, you're gonna just get slower and slower. That's what's so hard. It's that technique.
Speaker 3:Oh, sure. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So much of it comes down to being able to control your breath and actually utilizing, like, every ounce of your body to get leverage in the water, which is such a foreign concept to people who, you know, don't get in the pool that often.
Speaker 2:Right. They just wanna and, actually, this this kinda goes back into the to the marine corps too where I I I failed out of the I failed out of, the recon indoctrination because I sucked in the pool. Mhmm. Or, like, I could not swim good enough, and I just it's because naturally, you just have this inclination to wanna muscle the water and just do whatever you can, whereas you need to be more calm in the
Speaker 3:water, control. One of the, one of the earlier videos that I think I watched of you that really struck a chord with me I think it was a video maybe, like, two or three years ago, and you were still living in LA and you had a trip to Austin. And so the whole video was you talking about how you prep your meals for for a few days of travel. And one of the things that you said that really struck a chord with me was you said, even when I was homeless, I would still make the priority to to eat really good quality food, which I I it just resonated a lot with me because you hear so many excuses about from people talking about how, you know, food, nutrition is too expensive, and they opt for the cheaper shit in the inner aisles of the grocery store. But I was like, here's a guy even when he was had no money or restart you know, just getting out of the military, he was so intentional about the food he was eating.
Speaker 3:He, you know, he just made that his number one priority. And I feel like that, in some ways, embodies your ethos of, like, putting health and wellness first before everything else. So I'd love to just talk to you a little bit more about that too and your mindset around that.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's a couple things. I mean, to just go right off of, you know, eating healthy while homeless, whenever I was, like, pension pennies, didn't have a whole lot of money, a lot of what we pay for in terms of food is is convenience. Like you said, the inner aisles of the grocery store. That's where all the fast, easy, convenient shit is. Stick to the outside.
Speaker 2:I mean, go into the vegetable aisle and, you know, get that really unappealing, carrot with all the leaves and shit all over it, it's like a dollar 49. You're gonna get a whole bunch of carrots. You're gonna have to manipulate it a little bit, get a knife and go through it, but you're not paying for the convenience of your food already being prepared. Even just going through a drive through and getting fast food, you're still paying some level of convenience for your little hamburger on a bun and cheese and everything being prepared for you. Prepare your own damn food.
Speaker 2:That's the real simple aspect for me, but also it don't quite take a rocket scientist to understand that everything in your entire life is downstream from how you're feeling, and how you're feeling is kind of indicative of how you're fueling your body. We eat, most of us eat two, three, four, maybe, hell, five times a day. So, all of that has a lot of impact on our day to day life, even far more than just exercise in and of itself. And so, even if I was to say I didn't have a whole lot of money or resources or time or anything, I always prioritize how I'm fueling myself first. So, say, like a day that I'm totally crammed, I have way too much shit going on, I don't even have time to exercise.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna try to fit in and exercise and skip over what I'm gonna eat. What I'm gonna eat for that day is my number one priority, period. I prioritize how I'm gonna eat, and then I let the rest of my day roll out from there.
Speaker 1:What do those meals usually look like?
Speaker 2:My meals are Rami would call them incredibly boring. They're simple. I can pretty I've I've gotten to the point where I can pretty much list all my ingredients, literally the ingredients of what I eat on, like, both hands. So, like, morning, I'll do I'll do eggs, sweet potatoes, and an organ blend, and cottage cheese. I have cottage cheese with without fail with every single meal, period.
Speaker 3:You are the cottage cheese king. Every meal he he slaps it on.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But you'll be so happy. My younger brother loves cottage cheese.
Speaker 2:Well, in the in this this the thing is several months like, it's probably been about a month ago, I was telling Ramey, I was like, there's something going on. There's something weird going on. All of the grocery stores I'm going to right now, they don't have cottage cheese. They're, like, super low on stock. And I'm like, there's something weird going on.
Speaker 2:And sure enough, it's because, like, TikTok is trending with freaking cottage cheese right now. All these influencers are doing, like, cottage cheese ice cream desserts, and so everybody's buying up all the freaking cottage cheese. It's driving me crazy.
Speaker 3:You're years ahead of this trend, and you're like, damn, I just wanna get the good stuff for myself.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 3:But so simple meals, cottage cheese on everything. Yeah. Organ blend in the morning with some eggs.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, all of my every single meal is built around an an animal based protein. Since so I've kind of come to terms with the fact that, like, eating, like, eating within the seasons, but also eating within your environment is a big thing. So, like, for example, I'm not eating much fish here at all.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Like, whenever I was living in California, I was able to get fresh fish from the farmers markets weekly. But and but I was also not eating a whole lot of red meat there. Here, I eat a crapload of red meat now and not so much fish, but I also eat a lot of chicken as well. So, yeah, every single meal is built around my protein, and then I throw whatever simple veggies I have on hand, mostly seasonable or season seasonable? Season In season.
Speaker 2:In season. Yeah. Yeah. A lot I I eat a lot of sweet potatoes, broccoli, beets, asparagus, cauliflower, berries. I eat a lot of berries.
Speaker 1:A lot
Speaker 3:of berries.
Speaker 2:Yep. Yep. Like, if I find myself in a crunch where I I just need to slam some food really quick, I'm getting busy on the farm, just handful of berries and, like, Brazil nuts, and that, you know, does the trick for me.
Speaker 3:Nate, I remember you I remember a couple years ago. I remember you saying that you didn't eat a lot of red meat when you're in LA, and I'm curious. Do you think that did you think that red meat maybe didn't sit well with you, or is it more so the fish was just so good in California? You were just prioritizing that?
Speaker 2:It was a little bit it was a little bit of both. I I really liked the fresh fish, and I liked how light it made me feel. I felt lighter, I'll say. I felt lighter whenever I ate the the lean, you know, chickens and turkey and and fish as opposed to, like, really heavy red meat. And, I mean, I wasn't just getting, you know, bottom of the barrel low quality red meat.
Speaker 2:I would go I would seek out the the the good butchers in the area and try to get, you know, good quality beef, but I don't know. It just didn't it's a it's a Texas thing. And it's and especially now that I'm that I'm raising my own beef, I'm eating a whole lot more of it and just just really appreciating it more than buying it somewhere else, I guess. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So I
Speaker 2:don't think yeah. I I in a roundabout way, I didn't really answer your question. There was really no sole reason why I wasn't going real crazy on on red meat in LA, not health related, I guess.
Speaker 1:We had the founder of the Carnivore Bar on our podcast. His name's Philip Meese, and he served overseas and talked all about how the food when you're serving is just terrible. And I'm curious how you deal with just the your principle of everything is downstream from how you feel, and how you feel is predicated on what you do to fuel your body. And and being overseas, not really having access to that high quality nutrition, like, how do you deal with that?
Speaker 2:I mean, my my mindset around all this has changed and shifted a lot. I mean, we have to look at it from in in that in that regard. So you're in Afghanistan. It it don't matter if you're a vegan, a vegetarian, you don't eat this meat, you don't eat that, you have allergies to this or that. You're either gonna eat it or you're gonna freaking starve.
Speaker 2:You gotta eat to perform. You gotta eat to have calories and keep your body moving, period. There's no there is no choice selection. Now, kinda where I got whenever I became a civilian and started competing in CrossFit was, you know, how I how I fueled myself was gonna directly impact how I performed on the the competition floor, and I had that choice. I had the ability to make those choices.
Speaker 2:In the military, you don't have that, and you don't really think about it. You're just you're just eating to give you fuel to keep going. It's like you, Maslow's hierarchy of needs is the of the only importance to you. Just food, water, sleep, and maybe not even all of that. You just need you just need the bare minimum just to to keep performing.
Speaker 2:But I I totally understand, you know, where he's coming from. But, you know, something cool about that is, like, whenever you're out, you know, operating for weeks and weeks on end, eating MREs, this meal ready to eat spaceman food, just totally, I mean, that stuff's packaged up in a manner that it can just sit in a box for years and years and years and years. And you literally have to, a lot of people don't know this, but you literally have to chew the gum. There's gum that comes in those little MREs, and that's a laxative. You literally have to chew that gum in order to poop it all out because it just like sits inside your belly because it's so highly processed.
Speaker 2:But like, whenever we would go to those to the big established bases, whenever we'd, like, get a shower or we're on our way out, we did have that, like, hot meal, the chicken or steak or whatever. So good. So incredible.
Speaker 3:I mean, you you going to LA after that experience, you must have had such an appreciation for just good quality food after eating those meals for so long. And the I know food waste is something that you're really passionate about. It must have driven you crazy. Just I think you there was a blog that you had sent me, and you were going somewhere, like, a breakfast spot, and these models would, like, load up on these huge plates, and they would eat, like, a sixth of it and just, like, throw it in the trash. And for you, you're like, what the fuck?
Speaker 3:Like, I literally would have killed for this overseas, something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Like I said, just it was observational. And there's this restaurant called Panini Cafe, and I would always see right at, like, 10AM when it would open up, they had huge, huge breakfast portions, and it was right next to this fashion school. And so all, like, skinny, pretty fashion girls would start coming in and ordering up the breakfast platters just loaded with eggs and greens and potatoes and everything. And, I would go in there and I would pay, like, 75¢ for a cup of coffee.
Speaker 2:I would sit at the bar and I would just watch them come in and eat. They have just a couple bites, and then I would walk over to them. And, I mean, there there were times that people might have thought I was homeless, but I I made sure to clean up and have proper manners and everything. And most of the time, they'd be like, oh, yeah. You can take my food, whatever it's from.
Speaker 2:So I'd take all their food, and I'd pack it up in a big, big Tupperware and keep it in my backpack, and I have food to eat all day. Unfortunately, eventually, the the the management there, they they caught on to what I
Speaker 1:was caught on.
Speaker 2:And They told me to to get out. But, I mean, they just throw all that stuff away. So, yeah, it it drove me it drove me crazy, but I was just trying to do what I need to to get by. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Nate, I oh,
Speaker 1:go ahead. No. Go for
Speaker 3:it. I was gonna just say, Harry, just, we we were watching your video on your your morning routine, your 3AM morning routine, and I know that your philosophy for that is, like, you basically guard that morning routine with your life. And for the listener, I would just love for you to be able to talk through, you know, just what that routine means to you and just some of the things that you try to incorporate every single morning to just set yourself
Speaker 2:up for, like, the perfect day for Nate. The perfect day for Nate. Well, I mean, once that sun comes up, now the perfect day for Nate, once that sun comes up, it's like I'm responding to all the needs of all the animals on the farm, whether goats head stuck in the fence, whether I lost a chicken overnight, whether, you know, whether some of my sheep were out or got bull jumped the fence, whatever. There's always something that's gonna demand your immediate attention. And, really, that could that could relate to to anybody no matter what what you're doing in life.
Speaker 2:As as soon as the sun comes up and the the hustle of the day starts, your your workday starts, you're gonna be responding to everything, like,
Speaker 1:on
Speaker 2:the dot. And so that's why I think that a good morning routine and the timing of it, like, I didn't wake up at I didn't start waking up at, you know, three, 03:30 in the morning because I'm disciplined, and you have to wake up at exactly this time. It just started waking up that time when I lived in the city and it was loud and chaotic. And so, at that time, it's quiet. It's dark.
Speaker 2:There's nothing going on. It allows time to just sit and think and work through all the problems you might have in your head, have some coffee, and not be multitasking. So I never ever ever touch my phone ever until, heck, nine, ten, maybe even noon. Mhmm. I don't touch my phone.
Speaker 2:I use that time. I like to read. Love to read at that time. And, generally, I'll just read until I have some sort of, like, creative spark that, you know, leaves me kind of inspired, and then I like to use that time to to get my own physical fitness in, which I Ramey really adopted that methodology as well, and she absolutely loved it where, you know, she used to she used to find herself slipping down this this, like, this slippery slope of, I'm just gonna check an email really quick, and then before she knows it, she's like three hours deep editing videos and just getting drug into work, whereas it's like, leave the phone out of it. And so now she'll meditate, she'll move her body, she'll get her meals prepared, and she's just better set up for the day.
Speaker 2:And what we call it is putting the putting the horse before the cart. That's what the morning routine is all about, putting the horse before the cart. Because a lot of us, what we do is we put the cart before the horse. And if you put the cart before the horse, which the cart is represents all of your life's responsibilities, it doesn't matter if you're you're a mom or an entrepreneur or whatever. If you start putting all of your your responsibilities and tasks and chores and your children and everything first, well, you're the horse.
Speaker 2:If you don't feed yourself, you don't take care of yourself, you can't pull that cart.
Speaker 3:You
Speaker 2:can't do anything with that cart. You have to take care of yourself first so that you're in better shape to take care of your cart, all of your life's responsibilities. So I guess that's the gist of my morning routine. It kind of sets the tone for my day. So, I mean, even just, we started recording at 09:30.
Speaker 2:Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I met you guys at nine. I'm, like, ninety minutes out of here. We back plan a little bit. And so my morning routine started at about 03:30 this morning, give or take. I don't use an alarm clock anymore, but I got about one hour worth of time for me to, like, drink my coffee, just, like, stare at the wall, think think deeply, read read a little bit, and then I had to take care of all my animals, get get them all set up.
Speaker 2:It's gonna be, like, ninety five today, so I'd make sure they all had water and they're set good before I come to town. But but now I can just focus on being here present with you guys because I know all that stuff is taken care of.
Speaker 1:How much of that morning routine starts the night before for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I would I would almost say dang near my entire day is setting me up for my morning routine now. As as strange as that sounds like, for example, like, whenever I'm doing my evening chores now, I have a so, I have a barrel sauna out at the ranch. And so, when I'm doing my evening chores, I'm gathering up some sticks and whatnot, and I start a fire. And I get my barrel sauna heating up really good while I'm doing my evening chores. That's probably around about five.
Speaker 2:And so my barrel sauna will be really good and hot by the time I'm done taking care of all the animals. And then so Rami and I will pop into the sauna, get a really good sweat, and then we'll jump into the ice bath. Really calms you down, sets the tone to, like, start winding down for the evening, have a nice light dinner, and we're ready to go to bed when the sun's going down.
Speaker 3:It's this sounds stupid, but it's actually insane how big of an impact just not touching your phone for the first few hours of the day actually is. And fully self admittedly, like, our a lot of our business is on social media, and I keep my I use my phone alarm, which is probably the biggest issue. I keep the the phone right by the bed, and there's so many days where I wake up and I'm like, oh, let me check on this thing or that thing. And then twenty minutes of scrolling later, that dopamine hit. It's it sets you up not to have the best possible day.
Speaker 3:So just doing that one thing of, like, keeping your phone out of the room and doing all your shit before you actually get on your phone, it's like I mean, you just inspired us to be able to start doing that.
Speaker 2:I I like acronyms, and I think I'd that that that write up I did, I used a silly acronym based out of the out of the marine corps, which it's like a weapons weapon safety rule acronym where it's treat, never keep, keep. It's treat every weapon as if it were loaded, never point your weapon at anything, you do not intend to shoot, keep your weapon on safe till you intend to fire, and whatever. In terms of the morning routine, I was like, treat oh, treat yourself. Your morning routine is like you're treating yourself. It's important for you.
Speaker 2:Keep gosh darn it. I wish I could remember that. And, like, never busy your thoughts with your your tasks of the day while the the morning dew is still wet. There was some really goofy shit that I was reading at that time that I was inspired by. But, yeah, definitely farming and ranching too.
Speaker 2:I've I've totally minimized the amount of, like, technology that I'm using, but I'll tell you this. Whenever I do use my whenever I do use technology, I find myself in my little bits and spurts far more productive. Mhmm. So, like, you know, back in in LA when we're grinding and hustling like crazy on the computer all the time, we'd spend eight to ten hours on a computer. How much of that was really all that productive?
Speaker 2:I I don't freaking know. But now, I might get on the computer maybe an hour every three days. But that one hour that I'm on the computer, it's like, like, focused and, like, in the zone, not distracted at all.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Targeted. Yep. Did you ever struggle with having your phone, like, interrupting your morning routine? Because I I heard you say something about a mental trick that you would play with yourself in the sauna.
Speaker 1:You would play, like, a little game with yourself to make you stay in the sauna longer. And something that I've had experience with with the phone, in particular, a mental trick, is just not even ever letting it enter the bedroom. And, of course, I've not been perfect with that, but recently I've been trying to do it more and more. And And I think that's, like, a good place to start when it comes to just, like, not touching it in the morning because then it's just out of your way. It's not within arm's reach.
Speaker 1:So curious, did you ever ever have an issue with it?
Speaker 2:You know, it's it's interesting because, like you just said, your alarm goes off first thing in the morning. Like, how many of us have to use our phones for an alarm? Like, basically, all of us. I think my my my my get around of it is that I don't use an alarm. I just I I simply have not had to use an alarm in so long that I don't even need my phone there.
Speaker 2:I just my eyes wake up and, like, I just stand up and get out of bed because I'm I'm excited to get up every day. Most most of the time, like, it's you can't keep me in bed. Like, when my eyes open up, I'm ready to go. Like, I'm excited to start up my espresso machine, make some make some espresso, and just and start my day. So I don't need an alarm.
Speaker 2:So, I've never had that problem with, like, reaching for my phone to even, like, stop my alarm or anything because as soon as you touch it, like you said, it's like you're slipping down that rabbit hole. You snooze your alarm and then, oh, you you got a text message from someone. Oh, I'm gonna check that text message really quick. Hey, can you send me that email? Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll do that email really quick. Go into your emails. Oh, you got this
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Special offer promo. Oh, I'm gonna click on that. Oh, oh, I got a an Instagram notification. Oh, DMs. Woah.
Speaker 2:What's going on here? Oh, my god. Did you see they posted that? And it's like
Speaker 3:Forty five minutes later. Right. Right. Yeah. You're
Speaker 2:oh, is that my phone? Please tell me.
Speaker 1:Oh, no. That's oh my god.
Speaker 3:That's actually classic. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Throw that thing out.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So you also, you you referenced it before. You don't have a normal style of reading like most people. You don't it seems like you don't read cover to cover. I've heard you say you pick something up, and then you just kinda read until something pops.
Speaker 3:So maybe we could talk about that too because I love that.
Speaker 2:Well and, actually, it it started in school too. I was a terrible, terrible student. I I basically struggled just to make these. You know, if a teacher was reading in chapter one or two, I was reading in chapter nine or 10. It was not because I was on, like, an accelerated learning program by any means whatsoever.
Speaker 2:It was just the fact that I was not interested in what they were talking about. I was gonna flip until I found something interesting that I was gonna read about, or I was gonna draw pictures. Either way. So, the same goes with reading. I would say a lot of us a lot of us read.
Speaker 2:Why? Why do most people read books nowadays? Just to
Speaker 1:tell their friends that they read a book. Well, there's that,
Speaker 2:but just about every damn book on the market now is about how to be successful, how to make more money, and, like, how to be happy. And, like, every single like, all the books are self help books these days, and they're all exactly they all sound exactly the same to me. So I like to pick up old philosophy books. Ramey always makes fun of me. Like, right now, I'm reading Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Speaker 2:And sometimes, like, it's a lot of fun to read, but most of it is not written, like you said, in a cover to cover format. Their thoughts were so sporadic and all over the place. It was just written down. Or like Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, like, they did not write a cover to cover story to be read in that fashion. So, I just flip open a book, and I'll just like page, page, page.
Speaker 2:And, you know, some days I'm really interested in learning or reading about love. Some days I'm interested in reading about nature or death or ego. And, you know, if I see something that speaks to me right then and there, I stop and I just start reading, and I toss a little dog ear in the page, and I save it for later. And my my desk is kind of a it it kinda shows that because I I just got stacks of books all over the place that really don't correspond with one another.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:You gotta send Nate some Wendell Berry. He'd probably
Speaker 1:I mean, he's he's read on settling of marital
Speaker 2:Go go look in my bag.
Speaker 3:Is that what you're asking?
Speaker 1:I was gonna ask.
Speaker 3:Because that's your you love him.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I I was gonna ask if there's any author that stands out to you in terms of just a mind that you resonate with. It's so cool to be able to tap back into history and see and try to understand where people are are and were and what they were living through. And and I think, us three probably appreciate it, just being able to take their experience and try to apply it to modern life.
Speaker 2:Wendell Wendell Berry. Yeah. Like you said, Wendell Berry is he's incredible. And, I mean, I think that we're we're kind of seeing it firsthand. I think that farming, agriculture, slow down life, I think that it's kind of making a comeback.
Speaker 2:It's starting to become the cool thing. I think that hustle culture is not hustle city culture is not that cool anymore. I mean, the people who really, really make it and go and go and go and go, what they really, the end goal for them is like settling down, quieting down, slowing down, like, you know, becoming more connected to something, growing spiritually because a lot of people get burnt out and, you know, you can progress and progress and progress and progress as a society so far until you you gotta, like, swing back to the to the baseline. You know? That's why I I think I like Wendell Berry a lot.
Speaker 2:He was a very, like, controversial thinker in that whole, in that whole area.
Speaker 1:Is there anyone that you've read that you wish you could have a conversation with? Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Yeah. Why him? Again, he was just a very controversial individual, and his writing style was like very, like connecting with nature and self reliance, and right now that's kind of where I'm at. It's like I'm connecting with nature, not just in all the good things that nature has to offer, but nature is also a cruel little bitch, and self reliance is awesome, and freedom is awesome, but all of the responsibilities that come with that can sometimes be really heavy and and and wear you down.
Speaker 2:You just gotta, like, you gotta you gotta know why you're doing it, and I think that he really dug into that. Dostoevsky as well. I think he was a very good example of that. He was more on the forefront of noticing all of the issues that could come from abundance and too much progression. He was, like, kind of sounding the flat back in the freaking, like, early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 2:It's insane. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you
Speaker 3:you've touched on nature and animals a few times. And and for the listener, they could probably allude to this, but the last two years, you've thrown yourself head first into ranching. You and Rami moved out to LA. You're now in Dripping Springs, Texas, at Pontius Ranches. What was that feeling like maybe doing some of this reading or realizing that you connected really well with nature?
Speaker 3:You're kind of in this concrete jungle of LA, and there's a lot of materialism and stuff like that. Did you kinda just feel like you were a square peg in a round hole out there?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I spent all of my time in the city. You put it perfectly. I spent all of my time in the city trying to fucking jam that square peg into a round hole by any means necessary. And, you know, I grinded and I hustled.
Speaker 2:I had every every job you could literally every ever imagine. But, you know, you can only hustle so long, and, you know, Rami and I got to a point where I wanna start a family and and slow it down. And, like, I guess that's where the farming comes in. I wanted to be wanna be able to provide for the family and not, like, living in this city, you don't even realize how much of your freedoms that you sacrifice for the luxuries of, you know, fitting yourself into this nicely packaged society, like a very comfortable living society. You know, we we have a lot of hardships and a lot of, you know, tough stuff, like, struggles that we gotta overcome out in the country, especially her coming from the city her entire life, like, whenever we had no power and no running water, and we're using a five gallon bucket to dump water down the toilet to to flush the toilet and everything, like, that was really eye opening for her.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, we have all of the the greatest freedoms. So I guess, you know, tying back into what I was saying earlier, with all the freedoms comes a whole whole heck of a lot of responsibilities. So it's a good it's a much more it's a it's a healthier balancing act than living in the city, I think. I mean, even just like this morning, driving in, it just it seems like everybody's in this rat race driving as fast as they can into this city to crowd into, like, one tiny little block. It's just like a very congested area.
Speaker 1:You mentioned before we started hitting or before we hit record that you were raising chickens in LA in your front yard. And there are two groups of people in your neighborhood, those that love getting the eggs and those that hated getting them. And I'm sure it's been an interesting transition for you being here where, you know, everyone around you is probably doing a similar thing to you. But I'd be interested in learn learning more about that time period of your life where you were having these thoughts about maybe wanting to grow your own food more and getting more connected with that. Like, what was the impetus for really trying to take that step and and do more of that food raising process yourself?
Speaker 2:I guess the whole thing is just taking matters into my own hands to getting the the most high quality food that I possibly can. I mean, I heck. I remember the very like, of our very first several dates with Ramey, like, our big thing, our big passion together was was cooking really good meals, and we ate a lot of vegetables. And she had a tiny little yard, and to this day, I still can't figure out why I did it. But, like, on our first several dates, I was just like, can I go dig a hole out in your yard?
Speaker 2:She's like, yeah. Sure. And I took all the I took all the leftover compost, like, vegetable scraps and stuff, and I just, like, buried it in the dirt and used a hoe and, like, broke it all down. I created, like, a little compost pile, you know, months and months go by later, and we we went and bought some, like, strawberries and what some tomatoes and whatnot, and I planted them right in that compost. They popped popped right up, and we started eating those.
Speaker 2:And, you know, one thing led to another, and we're, like, living in a in a subdivision right in right in LA. Talk like talk about Beverly Hillbillies. That was me. I constructed a little coop. I did all my research.
Speaker 2:I'm like, as long as I don't have a rooster, I should be able to have some chickens. I have to have the chickens so far away from the sidewalk. I, like, got a tape measure out, and I measure from the sidewalk. It's gotta be so far away from the house. They, like, their coop's gotta be clean, so it's not like there's no odor or anything.
Speaker 2:So, I'm gonna get four hens. I went and got four hens. And, you know, no problems. I I wasn't bothering anybody. They're very quiet.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't even know that they existed. And then, like you said, I was I was giving eggs to my neighbors. They were very appreciative. They loved it. They, like, they named the chickens, and so I had it planned out where before the sun would go down, I would I would let the chickens out of their coop for about thirty minutes right before the sun went down because when that sun goes down, the chickens, they know to go back to roost.
Speaker 2:So I'd open up the coop. The chickens would just run the whole yard and graze and peck and just run around and free roam before they went in to roost, but somebody in the neighborhood was was just not thrilled about us having chickens. You're not supposed to have chickens in the city. You're not allowed to. And so she started calling all the authorities.
Speaker 2:They sent freaking everybody from the LAPD to animal control. They sent everybody. And, finally, the only thing that they could get me on was was, like, un unpermitted construction in a historic zoning preservation code where I'd I'd construction of a chicken coop, essentially, and they fined me several thousands of dollars. So then I had to get rid of my chickens, and I was just kind of over the whole city thing.
Speaker 3:So that was part of the impetus to just get to Texas?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, that and, like I said, Rami and I were we're ready to, you know, start that further journey of our relationship and everything. And, I mean, maybe this is not okay to say, but I don't think that the cities are the greatest place to raise a kid. I mean, I think about the way that I was raised in the country, and I wasn't the smartest kid, but I learned a decent deal about work ethic and, you know, what, you know, what a hard day's work is like and how to earn something. And so I think that's what living in the country is all about, and kids should be able to climb trees, scratch up their knees, and get outside in nature, and not not be, like, in a in a box or so to speak.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I remember, when I lived in New York for a couple years, I I worked right downtown, like, near Tribeca, and I would walk back from work to my to take the subway back home. And I would pass these little fields for the kids that were living in the city, and there was no dirt. There was no grass. It was just astroturf, and you just think about the existence of a lot of these kids that are in the city. And, like, there are a lot of amazing parts of the city.
Speaker 3:Don't get me wrong. There's energy. There's excitement. But I'm like, these kids don't even have, like they're not even gonna grow up with dirt or grass or, like, any of the stuff that we did, like, being from the suburbs of Illinois or, you know, Virginia or New Jersey. It's just really interesting to think that think about that.
Speaker 3:And, obviously, you'd want that for your kids too.
Speaker 1:Was there a reason why you guys chose Texas?
Speaker 2:Well, we actually we actually visited Tennessee first. Mhmm. You know, we just we wanted we wanted land. We wanted a farm and a ranch. And Texas fit Ramey better than Tennessee.
Speaker 2:Tennessee was very, is very green and lush, and she wanted honestly, where we live now is kinda like the perfect balance for her because she's close enough to Austin where she can get her, like, city fix. Although, you know, whenever we first started, you know, she would come to the city more, but now she's coming to the city less and less and less. She's, like, really embracing the farm and ranch more and more the more time we're here. So the the the setup of of where we're at in Dripping Springs was was kinda perfect because we're just far and away from the city where we have a good a good piece of land where I can raise a substantial amount of animals and, you know, have some peace and quiet, but she's still within touching distance of the city. So that kinda worked out and just, I guess, where we wound up.
Speaker 2:I mean, we found the perfect, I mean, we found the perfect property. It was an an old, Longhorn working ranch, but the the house so the house was the old ranch home that got completely, you know, redone by this just incredible craftsman of a just a single a single man and his wife. They built that, and they redid the entire home all by themselves. It wasn't like a turnover or anything, so just everything was just so, so well done on on this home, and it has all the existing infrastructure from this old working ranch from the 1960s, so everything is all beaten down and worked and used, but I can use it all, which that's one of the biggest struggles that a lot of people get with if you were to you know, it's becoming really appealing to get out of the city and into a farm. So this is this is one great advantage that I had was I already had a lot of the infrastructure in place ready to go, whereas it takes a lot of capital to start farming.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Really, really does. It's not easy.
Speaker 3:Nate, as a as a first gen rancher, what what do you even do to, like, try and learn some of this stuff? Are there are there courses? Are there people as a part of it? I'm sure trial and error, like you said, is probably part of it too, but how did you really get started?
Speaker 2:It's a lot of it's trial and error. I mean, I so I grew up farming a ranch in in Illinois. We did mostly a lot of row crops. You know, we grew our own hay. We raised we rose cows, horses, goats, pigs.
Speaker 2:I mean, just we we I wanna say my my family, honestly, from the outlook is is kind of like an Amish family, kind of. We and we actually we actually do a lot of a lot of business with the Amish at the sale barns where I'm from.
Speaker 1:We're very pro Amish on this podcast, by the way. That's really funny. I mean They're they're awesome. I yeah.
Speaker 2:It's funny because I used to spend a lot of time at the sale barns as a kid, and I would look at them, and I'd be like, man, they're they're kinda strange. But now I'm like, they got it figured out. Yeah. They're they're healthy. Just they're healthy in every single regard, and they're happy.
Speaker 2:They're incredibly happy. They got something figured out.
Speaker 3:Raw milk, riding horse bareback. Good life. No cell phones
Speaker 1:in the morning. No
Speaker 3:cell phones in the morning.
Speaker 2:And and the funny thing is, actually, a couple a couple of them kids where I was raised, they were incredible athletes. Mhmm. But the funny thing is they didn't play sports. Like and that's gotta be such an incredible, you know, I guess I guess feeling knowing that you could walk out on any football field, soccer field, baseball field, walk out on the track and just and and they would do it in their boots too. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they'd smoke a quarter mile in their boots and then and just not be on the competitive team just because you've got more important things to tend to on the farm. Anyways, I got a little sidetracked there. So I I grew up farming a ranch in Illinois, but a lot of what I'm starting to learn is context. A lot of what we did in Illinois does not work here. A lot of the animal species do not work here.
Speaker 2:A lot of the methods do not work. And we did a lot more of, like, conventional farming up there, whereas now I'm I'm doing a little bit more of, like, a regenerative approach. And so I'm learning a lot every single day. You know, I I, obviously, I read a lot, but a lot of what I use just comes from patience and just observation, watching all my animals, figuring out what's going good and what's not working, what failed miserably. I'm just I'm gonna try to not replicate that.
Speaker 1:A lot of people that we've had on the podcast who are getting into this sort of creating your own food, just going down the path of creating their own food, they'll go to seminars and be around a lot of other people who are trying to do the same thing. Was that similar for your case, or did you kinda just dive in and start experimenting and tinkering?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say I went to seminars, but I I immediately jumped right into the farmers markets, and I started getting connected with I started getting connected with the people that I was gonna be getting my food from and picking their brains week after week after week after week and seeing what was going on. And, you know, first first coming out of out of, out of the city and getting out here, obviously, what what does every what does everybody wanna get right away whenever they start a farm? They start raising livestock. You wanna first thing you wanna be is you wanna be a cattleman. You wanna get cows, and that's what I wanted.
Speaker 2:I wanted to get cows. I had I had 20 acres. I had 20 acres to start. I was like, I'm gonna stock six cows. Now this was at the very front end of this drought that we were just in.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And, so I immediately got six cows. I put them on my 20 acres, and I got to talk to my one buddy that was down in South Texas, and he's like he's like, you don't wanna get cows. Do not get cows. He's like, you do not have enough land for cows. I'm like, 20 acres is
Speaker 1:a
Speaker 2:lot of land. Sure enough, I kid you not, probably not three weeks later, all six of them cows had ate down all 20 acres of my pasture. Now Oh my god. So remember what I said was that property that we bought was an old working cattle ranch. So all of those pastures around me had, since the sixties, had just been trampled by cows, cows, cows, cows, cows year after year after year after year.
Speaker 2:And so the soil quality on my ranch is just piss poor to say the least. It's terrible. I have invasive well, so that so what the worst thing that happened about it was for all those years, all those decades, all those cows ran those pastures, and then it just sat dormant for, like, ten years and just totally grew over with invasive plant species because the soil was in such bad quality. So when I got in, the soil is in bad quality. I had nothing but brush, and, you know, cows ain't gonna thrive on that crummy grass.
Speaker 2:They need they need good grass. So I immediately got out of my cows, and I had to, you know, switch my approach really quickly. What eats all the brush and invasive plant species? Goats. So then I bought a bunch of goats, and I started using goats to, you know, eat all the brush and whatnot.
Speaker 2:Goats are a real pain in the butt. Get to that later, but, but they did the job. And so it was at that point that I was starting to observe and look around, like, okay, this is what works, that's what did not work. And, I guess, this approach that I'm taking now is, I guess, regenerative in a sense. I'm not gonna be out there spraying fertilizers and insecticides and chemicals and a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 2:Like, I wanna make my animals work for me and create a resilient system here on the ranch and raise my own food, and it's gonna take a lot of patience to do that and a lot of observation. And so, you know, starting with them goats. Then from there, I started branching out and meeting some of the ranchers around me, and, of course, they're all 60, 60 five, some of them about 70. That's, like, the common thing around here. There's not a whole lot of younger generations doing this.
Speaker 2:And so now I'm like a little wandering, pestering dog to some of these guys. Like, I'm following them around, trying to help them as much as I can, like, picking their brain, trying to learn as much as I can from them. You know, you can pick up a textbook all you want, but they're the ones who have that real, real knowledge. They've seen the things that happen whenever you do things right and wrong. So that's where I'm trying to learn as much as I can is, like, hanging out with the old old ranchers around me.
Speaker 3:It's almost like with CrossFit, you would go seek out, like, a swimmer or a rower and just pester them. It's kinda like the same thing. It's pretty interesting, those parallels. Yes. How do the, how do those 60 and 70 year old older multigenerational Texans, how do they feel about, like, a LA Transplant First gen guy getting into ranching?
Speaker 2:Well, it's it's actually funny because so one of the old one of the older guys there, he he owns about several thousand acres right around me. Like, he runs cows all around me. He's like he's a big deal where I'm at. He's like he's like the guy. He's real grumpy old guy.
Speaker 2:Like, don't don't mess around with this. He's like old school cowboy, and he's like the perfect type of person that would hate someone like me. Like, they just hear, oh, there's some people from LA that just moved into this, to the old Longhorn Ranch over there, and they're probably gonna mess everything up. But very early on so his his stockyard is right next to my pasture. And so that's where all his cows come in and get they go to the barn to the sorting pens and they they that's where their water and minerals and everything are.
Speaker 2:Anyway, very early on, I seen a couple of his bulls getting into it and a little bit later on, I saw some hooves poking up out of the out of the water trough. And so in water troughs, they got these big metal fences splitting them in half and so that one of them bulls had gotten bull calves had gotten wedged down in that water trough and he was drowning. He was like he had those prongs, like, stuck through him. He's bleeding, and he, like, barely had his head out of the water, and he was drowning. Now as every everybody in Texas knows, you you don't go on to somebody else's property ever out here.
Speaker 1:It's a
Speaker 2:good way to get shot. Yeah. And so this old man, he's got this I'll say he's like a old school proper, like, Arkansas hillbilly that lives in his barn, and he's supposed to be tending them animals. He's the type of guy who wears, like, the the the bib overalls with no shirt on. He's got his boots tucked in his or his pants tucked in his boots.
Speaker 2:He's always carrying shotgun around. He's got a beer in his hand. So I know he lives in that barn, and I'd see that cow drowning, and I'm, like, hollering for him trying to, like, help that cow. And he's not coming out, so I'm just like, screw it. I know it ain't right.
Speaker 2:But I jumped the fence, and I went into that cow pan, and I started cutting the cutting the wires and getting that cow out. Sure enough, here he came, the the old hillbilly, cocked his gun and had a gun pretty much to my head. And I was just like, I mean, this ain't the first time I've had guns pointed at me. Just chill out. I'm just trying to help this cow.
Speaker 2:One thing leads to another. He he's he hates me, obviously, because I'm the neighbor, and he just tells me to get out of there. But that is my segue into meeting the old rancher whose cows it actually was. He called me personally on the phone. He's like, you know, what are you what are you thinking going on to my my cow pasture like that?
Speaker 2:And, you know, I was like, oh, I was just trying to save I was just trying to help that help that bull out. I know it ain't right. You know, I apologize. And, you know, he he kinda took me in. He was like, I I kinda like what you're doing around here.
Speaker 2:He's like, you got you got sheep and goats. You're raising cows, and you don't give a, like, you don't give a damn about hopping people's fences to to save a cow? Oh, oh, okay. You're you're alright. So that was kind of I guess, you know, I got tattoos on my hand, up my neck, and everything.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm not exactly the the role model for for that type of person, I guess, but he he's let me stick around, and he's been a real I've learned a whole lot from him since.
Speaker 1:Have you gotten any new tattoos since you've been out in Dripping Springs?
Speaker 2:I ain't had I ain't had time to hardly pick my nose with how much work the ranch gives me, so now I haven't gotten any more tattoos.
Speaker 1:I heard you talking about the tattoos, and I I was interested in learning a little bit more about them. So you you've done some of the the actual drawing for some of them. Is that, like, a long thing that you've done, the drawing and and creative, creative process of just, you know, putting art together. I I think that's, like, a a very interesting, thing to do, like, be able to have art that you've created that gets put on your body. I don't think a whole lot of people can say that.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll tell you. For a long time, I like I said earlier, I was a real real pissed off idiot. I didn't really know how to express feelings or or even write or anything, and I wasn't really reading much. So drawing was like drawing was my means of of communication, I guess. And and so a lot of my tattoos at some point in my life were were more or less, like, red flags, like, keep your distant like, I mean, I have I have literally I have heartthrob tattooed across my neck.
Speaker 2:It's kinda like most girls that look at that, like, you know, stay away from him. And I was like, yes. You should stay away from me. Like so drawing was a big way for me to, I guess, express my feelings after the marine corps. And then, I don't know, I guess after I I think after I met Ramey, I I got more away from drawing and more into writing.
Speaker 2:So now I I write a lot more, I guess. And that that goes perfectly in line with why I haven't gotten any more tattoos because I'm not really drawing. And I really that was like a creative process for me in the city. I had, I guess, a little bit more spare time. Now every ounce of my creativity is spent now solving problems on on the farm because, like, every single intricate problem on the farm requires creativity.
Speaker 2:Industrial farming, everything is just like animal, pen, water, food. Animal, pen, water, food. When you start mixing all of these different species the way that I do, like, every single problem that arises, like, it's like a big, like, like, a big math equation or, like, art in a way. Like, I have to creatively solve these problems. So I guess I don't really draw anymore.
Speaker 3:You You have other outlets for it.
Speaker 2:Exactly. It's interesting
Speaker 1:how I can move from one thing to the next. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's amazing too how when you fill your day with really difficult things that you love, which clearly you love it, it's like your mind almost doesn't have time to race or have, like, negative thoughts the way that it normally would because you're just constantly busy just doing the shit that you love. That's gotta be real a really cool feeling for you to be like, damn, I've arrived. I really I really love what I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's it is. And I get I get to kind of experience it too with some of my my good my good friends coming to visit from the city, like, that I used to do CrossFit with. They're they totally get it. We'll just, like, throw a backpack on with, you know, with all the tools, and we'll just walk the fence line and, like, fix the fence.
Speaker 2:And it's like that one task in front of you, just like the wire, your hands, the pliers, you're just, like, sitting on the ground. This one task just fully consumes you in this moment right now. There's no outside noise. It's it's it's very it's it's very therapeutic in a way, farming. You know?
Speaker 2:Obviously, it comes with a lot of a lot of stress. It's it's demanding. There's a lot of responsibilities, but at the same time, it is very, very therapeutic.
Speaker 1:Does it excite you to think about raising your family out there when that time comes? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean, it it is coming. It has I mean, it is coming. And, yeah, that's I I look forward to that. I think that they're I think it's a good it's a good environment to teach good lessons, I guess. And I we got to experience a little bit of that with with one of Ramey's, you know, good friends brought her little boys out.
Speaker 2:And, man, just what a treat to just it's just so fun to just, like, sit back and watch kids be kids because they don't know they don't know what what is valuable and and what is not valuable by by our standards. You put a kid out, and they'll just be, like, playing in a dirt pile or something. You're like, well, that's something that's truly valuable. Look at them occupy themselves with that. So, you can learn.
Speaker 2:Heck, we can learn a lot from kids about putting them in an environment like that. It's cool and watching them, like, interact with animals. And some of the questions that they asked, like, whenever they're in these environments with the animals, like, heck, it makes me use my brain. It's like, why do those cows have saggy necks? Or why does your pig have those, those waddles on their chin?
Speaker 2:Why do these eggs or why do your chickens lay different color eggs? I'm like, man, like, I need to start thinking how to answer questions like this. It's fun.
Speaker 3:It probably also helps you appreciate how much you've learned in just a short two year period too. Definitely.
Speaker 2:%.
Speaker 3:What's the what is the feeling like, you know, being confronted with the death of animals on, like, a semiregular basis, I
Speaker 2:would imagine? Well, actually, just just yesterday just yesterday was one of the worst days that I'd had in a long time.
Speaker 1:I
Speaker 2:lost I lost three lambs in in one day, and it's tough because you're you're you're holding your failure, and your failures are death. So in in one regard, you you tend to learn things really quickly when the stakes are so damn high. You wanna prevent that from happening. But at the same time, like I like I was saying a little bit earlier, you you have to get I'm I'm having to start to get to a point where I have to learn what is in my control and what is not in my control in in terms of nature. Nature comes in cycles.
Speaker 2:Cycles comes with life and death. There is no there is no life without death, and, it does happen. The the hardest parts for me to grapple with are that death, is it my fault? Is there more that I could have done? Is there more that I should be doing?
Speaker 2:If I'm trying to create resilient animals, healthy animals, healthy, thriving ecosystems, I can't be out there babying and nurturing these animals like crazy. But at the same time, it does not feel good to have a dead animal and know that you could have done more or wonder if you should have done more, if that makes sense. I don't think I answered your question at all, but it's Oh, you did. It it it certainly makes you appreciate life a whole lot more. I I'll say that.
Speaker 2:It makes you appreciate the the really good days. It makes you appreciate the the little moments a whole lot more whenever you whenever you have stuff like that happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah. The phases of your life are so interesting where, you know, you're overseas, and then you come back, you go to LA, which is probably a pretty sterile place for you in contrast to what you saw overseas. And then you come back here, and it's it's probably maybe I don't know, like, put words in your mouth, but maybe feels like home because you're, like, more in touch with this natural part of who you actually are?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, I think that I mean, I struggled a whole lot living in the city. I think you actually used a perfect word that's sterile. A sterile environment of a city, and that's the city is probably the worst possible place that a veteran I guess, with my with my experience a combat veteran coming coming straight coming fresh out of a combat deployment, going straight into a city is probably the absolute worst place that you could put that individual because it's just such a it's it's sterile, but at the same time, it's chaotic, and at the same time, you're you're you're battling with this meaningless meaninglessness of your now life in this sterile, chaotic condition, like, congested condition. Farming a ranching, it's it's it's much more peaceful.
Speaker 2:Your your your purpose, your responsibilities are are the animals tending to the farm, and you have a very tangible result to go off of. It's it's life or death, I guess, kinda just like just like war. So it is it is very familiar in a way.
Speaker 3:Do you feel like either, you know, Rami or any of your close friends or family has, like, noticed any differences or changes in your personality over the last two years since being out in Texas?
Speaker 2:I'd I'd reckon so. Yeah. I mean, like, my my my my two good buddies, from the from the city there that I used to CrossFit with, Actually, a couple of them. They've they've all said, you know, the same thing. I was just a I was a raging prick.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I was always just stressed and overwhelmed and pissed off and disgruntled. I was a very vengeful asshole in the city. I was very focused and determined, but I was just not a very pleasant individual to be around. That was, like, that was just kinda my personality.
Speaker 2:I was very cutthroat and, like, in your face, but I I think now I've I've been able to just calm down my thoughts. My memories are far more clear. It's like those little moments of solitude that you used to really grasp for in a chaotic city. They're kind of they kinda last forever
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:In in the city or in the in the country. Excuse me. It's it's a great way to really be able to think more clearly. I guess slow it down.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Well, Nate, it's been a amazing conversation. I feel like we've touched on a lot of different things, and our audience is gonna love this. Just diving into food production, regenerative agriculture, but your backstory itself is just incredibly powerful. And and, I know our our audience is gonna love it.
Speaker 1:So thanks for coming in today, and just appreciate you taking the time out of your day to come join us in Austin.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Y'all have to come out and see the ranch sometime soon. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3:If you need us to put us to work, let us know. Always around. Shoot. Might regret that. No.
Speaker 3:Kidding. Thanks, Nate. Appreciate it, man.
Speaker 1:Thanks, man.
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