How Not to Stress Out Over Politics

Pressure, pushing down on me pushing down on you, no man is full. Under pressure that brings the building down splits a family and to put people on the streets. Under Pressure. We’re all feeling pressure, we’re all feeling stress, constantly, we’re feeling anxious about things. And this is something that I’ve been, we’ve been having lots of conversations about having lots of conversations about anxiety and stress on the show as of late and been thinking a lot about helping myself, take better care of my mental state, but just fundamentally what I’m paying attention to and what I’m not, because the things that we’re paying attention to, and leading into our heads are having an impact on us whether we are aware of it or not, and negative impact. So I don’t want that I don’t want I want everybody to be happy and healthy. That’s fundamentally up. And so if I can help manage stress and and help people to better understand help myself to better understand how it works, and how it’s impacting me, and how I can be a better consumer of information and politics and sports and culture, whatever, whatever I’m paying attention to. Is this harming me? Is it? Is it making my life better? How can I again, just get better at it? So when you think about your favorite team, your favorite political party, your favorite candidate, because there’s obviously a lot of that going on these days? What happens when they win? What happens when they lose? How do you feel about it? How does it How does it make you feel it’s a visceral, visceral response and experience in your brain, but in your entire body, maybe it makes you extremely sad when your team loses, if it makes you just elated. When your team wins, it’s been 50 years since they’ve won a championship since they’ve hung the banner, whatever. Or maybe you feel like it’s an existential threat to the country. If the other guy or gal wins, or if your guy or gal wins, it’s going to be things are going to be different. Well, we’re putting a lot on that. And when we are so invested, emotionally and intellectually, whatever, when we’re putting ourselves into these things that we have no control over. That is with stress. That is really what stress is, it’s the body’s response to any demand or challenge doesn’t matter if it’s a physical demand or emotional or psychological. And it can be triggered by any of those things. It is a natural part of life. You think about stress response. Way, way back in the day when we were cave, people, cave man, cave women wandering the plains looking for food and a pterodactyl, attacked us. I know that that never happened that human beings were not on earth around the same time as the dinosaurs. I get it. I think I think that that’s true. Somebody fact check me on that one. But you understand that stress response is that it’s letting us know that we’re in danger. You’re in a building, you smell smoke, you have a stress response. You hear you’re walking down the street at night and you hear a sound you hear footsteps behind you stress response, fight or flight. So acute stress is the immediate response that I’ve just been talking about. It’s an accident, you’re you’re getting ready to pitch, you’ve got a big meeting coming up a big sales pitch or something like that, or you’re late for work. Chronic stress is going on for an extended period of time. If you are broke, and you’re living paycheck to paycheck and buried in debt, that is a source of chronic stress. Or if you’re in a bad relationship, chronically stressed, and this can have a terrible impact on our long term health. But anything, life changes, you move, you get married, you have a baby, you’re trying to get a new job, you’re stressed out about stuff, you’re sick, you’re in a noisy, crowded environment. So these are all causes of stress. And what happens to our body is our heart rate goes up our blood Pressure increases, we get tense, I get a headache, I’m tired, I get an upset stomach over it, I can get irritable, I get depressed. And I just have a hard time concentrating. So all of these things are true. What is actually happening is the hypothalamus in our brain tells our adrenal glands to release hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. And these position us in this heightened state, to be able to respond appropriately. Once the threat passes, and we realize that there’s not a threat, we calm ourselves down. Perfectly natural, that is a good thing. But what happens when cortisol is, is high is that’s known as the stress hormone. And I know that I’ve covered this recently, but it does good things. But having too much can be a really, really bad thing that does result in extended periods of high blood pressure, it causes us to gain weight, and it weakens our immune system. So chronic stress, medical conditions, these are all reasons why it happens. So even happens if we’re not sleeping enough, it’s like a chicken or the egg kind of thing. If I’m stressed out, caused me to over over eat that I become overweight, then I don’t sleep as well. It’s this vicious cycle, that’s that’s happening, then I don’t exercise as much I get less sleep, I start taking medication. And I’m sort of stuck in this rut, trapped. And nothing but a really, really terrible thing. So cortisol is a really, really, really, really dangerous thing. I guess, bottom line is that stress can and will kill you if we do not manage it or pay close attention to it. So why are we talking about this, because we are in what really seemed to be unprecedented times. from a political standpoint. I know that Donald Trump was a lot of things, but he was Ana is a game show host. He was a reality show host, great show, The Apprentice, and then the Celebrity Apprentice and the new seasons and everything else. And there’s, it’s been well documented that, that there’s a lot of parallels and jokes between the drama of reality show and what’s been going on in our politics. And it’s none of it is a laughing matter, because the stakes are a lot higher than just getting ratings on a television show. So if we’re not a little bit stressed out over it, it’s probably a strange thing. But it is a very, very understandable cause of stress. Because, again, national politics are without question beyond our control. There’s very little that I can do to to protect our, our, our nominated candidates for office, from assassination attempts, there’s very little I can do so many things that are out of my control. And these cause stress. So what can you do? I think that the first step is to figure out what we actually do have control over what our biggest priorities are. And then we figure out what we can do to have actual influence over those things. And we do them. And then from there, you have to let the chips fall where they may. So I think that a good first step from a political standpoint is to figure out what issues or what, what just what your priorities and your major concerns are. Because like everything else, not everything can be your top priority. So, for me, I think that having safe communities, safe streets, having safe schools, having programs for at risk people, families, food, shelter, clothing, those are really important. I’m not a fan of, of these Infinity Wars that we seem to be engaged in all over the world. I’m bothered by the national debt.

So those are but just safety and having safe streets so that my kids can go outside. Those are really my top priorities. But whatever yours are, if it’s abortion, if that’s a big priority for you, great. It’s not my place to to put you my values on you. And I may want to change your mind on things which we talked about last week. But this is all about figuring out what is most important to you. And then make a hierarchy of these things. So write down, this is the list, this is the most important thing to me. Second, third, fourth. Okay, figure out what that is. And then you figure out, okay, what can I do to have an influence over clean streets, clean parks? Well, there’s lots of things. Tip O’Neill famously said that all politics are local. So and all things, you have the most influence over things that are local. So reach out, talk to your elected officials, your city council people, the mayor of your city, your state representatives, then you could certainly reach out to your congressmen and women and your Senators at at the national level, you can donate money to campaigns, you can actually volunteer for a campaign, you can go knock on doors, you can make phone calls, you can obviously get out and just clean up a park on your own. I’ve taken to bring in a pair of gloves every time that my family and I go to a park and bring gloves and a garbage bag. And we clean up garbage for a couple of minutes. And if everybody did that, obviously, and we just wrote garbage away, we would all have clean parks. So that’s something we have direct control over. But work with your local law enforcement, if that’s something that’s important to you, there are opportunities for you to work with local law enforcement, know that I live in Phoenix, Arizona. And I try and put my money where my mouth is or my time where my mouth is and figure out what is most important to me. And one was I went did, I went through the police academy over 10 years ago at this point. But it was a really important thing. There was a lot of police violence, there’s always a lot of police violence. So I thought, Okay, let me see how I can get involved, and figure out what’s really going on here, if there’s a way for me to do that. So I went to the police academy, and was a wonderful experience, I advocate encourage anybody to do such a thing. And eventually sat on the citizens review board, which anytime there was conflict with with with an officer, there was an officer involved shooting, or just any kind of of negative violent interaction between a member of the public and police officer, there was an internal, obviously, there would be a criminal hearing, if that was necessary. But then there was always, always an internal investigation, and then a hearing. And there would be at the hearing the people that would adjudicate it and make decisions would be to civilian members. So that was me, and then one other person and then two members of the actual Phoenix Police Department. And I did that for many years. So there are so many different opportunities for you to get involved. When it comes to the political process. I think that there are so many ways to do to be involved and to be active in it without actually running for office, although Why not run for office, if that’s something that you are into. But I think that number one is decide what’s most important to you, but then we have to get educated. So having a good understanding of what’s really going on with your local, state and local with with with your city. What are the major issues? Who are the key players? What are the policy debates that are going on? And then have a hard time with it? It’s harder than maybe, you know, was it easier when there were three TV channels ABC, NBC and CBS and then PBS into that that’s how I grew up. So there were four. But I don’t think I really spent a lot of time on PBS because they didn’t have cartoons when I was a kid. But maybe that wasn’t good today, we have, obviously an infinite amount of information. And it’s easy to fall into echo chambers and easy to fall into confirmation bias, which is just you seek out the new sources that simply reinforce your existing viewpoint. But work to find unbiased sources. Or if you are a fox news consumer, go over to MSNBC also and see what they’re saying. Be like, wow, these two new stations are talking about the same event but in totally different ways. So just educated yourself. And we don’t want to fall into that trap of just spewing talking points that somebody else was talking about. I want you to make up your own mind. And it takes work and effort. Which is why most of us don’t do it. But in a perfect world. I think that that would be the trick We have to vote, we have to vote. So if you’re not voting, I submit that you have no place to talk about anything when it comes to politics, gotta get out and vote. You can potentially join your preferred political party organization, Republican, Democrat, green, Libertarian, socialist, whatever you’re into. That’s a good way to get educated on what they that organization or the party’s real priorities are and values. And that’ll help you to figure out is this for me, or it’s not advocate for a cause. Just been talking about if it’s abortion, or if it’s the national debt, educate yourself on that. I want you to be an advocate, I don’t want you to be an activist, think that there’s time and a place for activism. But too often we become zealots. And we come we’ve come over the top with these issues, and we just go too far. And that’s when we start throwing bricks through windows and setting fires to stores. And ain’t nobody got time for that. These days, the temperature is a little too high. For us to be out there. Being activists, we can be advocates that advocate for the things that are important to us. In fact, I think it’s essential that we all do that. But do it in a measured way that is going to be influential to those that are observing you think about the people that that you respect most in the world politics, is it some idiot that’s run around with a ski mask on throwing rocks, or somebody who could stand up and clearly and succinctly articulate their position. Now, for me, it’s the person that can clearly and succinctly articulate their position and their vision for the future and what we can do to actually get there, versus the moron who is setting things on fire. That’s just me, though. So I think that the more we can also engage with our elected officials, like I talked about, ask them questions. Anybody at the state level, or the city level of wherever you live? You are without question, able to call their office and schedule a meeting with them, and to go and sit in their office and speak with them or grab a coffee with them. And ask them questions. Ask them why it is that they think certain things, ask them why they vote in certain ways. And it’s not that you’re holding their feet to the fire, it’s just you’re trying to better understand their thinking and their decision making. And you’ll discover whether or not you feel like this person has your best interest as a constituent that just means that that they are that you’re in the district that there are that they’re supposed to be representing. So that makes you a constituent of that elected official. You start asking them questions, you will quickly discover from my experience, whether or not this person knows what they’re talking about, or they’re full of shit, for lack of a better term. So do that. Engage with them, ask them questions. And just getting involved I talked about, I talked about cleaning up a park, that’s just one of the best things that we can do is clean up our neighborhood clean up garbage. Nobody else is going to do it except for you. And when you do it, other people will start doing it as well. Oh, wow, that’s great. We I can do that, too. So, so many different opportunities to do this. So many different opportunities. I think that engaged in the political process without running for office. There’s so many ways to do that. Certainly running for office could be a really good thing. But when we when we do that. I know that the whole idea here is how do I feel like I have a little bit of control in a very, very chaotic world right now. Because that’s where we are. We’re in a very, very chaotic time in a very, very chaotic world with so many different uncertainties swirling around.

And what can we do, the more we can do to feel like I have some influence and some control over some parts of my life. That’s going to help reduce your levels of stress and anxiety, which will help you to be a healthier, more well adjusted human being, which will then create a more virtuous cycle versus a vicious cycle. And that’s what we’re looking for. So I wanted to lay out these different ways that we can get involved in the political process. Proactively feel like we’re doing something which you would be if you did, some of the things that I’ve been talking about, you will be doing something you will be influencing, you will be gaining a little bit of control. And then again, at that point, you need to let the chips fall where they may, you cleaned up your park, you had conversations with your local elected officials, you brushed up on the issues, you can articulate and succinctly communicate the things that you believe to be most important in a way that is not aggressive or divisive. You’re an advocate, you’re not an activist. And, and then again, just got to let things go. So it’s just I think that that’s, it’s a wonderful example of doing your part by doing your best. you position yourself for success. If everybody did that, well, then we would all be positioned for success. Why else? Well, because you also don’t want to be an asshole. And being an uninformed, asshole is really, really unattractive and a surefire way to get people turned off to your point of view. So we don’t want to do that. You also don’t want to become bitter, angry and resentful. And this is true if you are a sports fan whose team never wins and you’re super bummed out or your political fan and your candidate didn’t win or whatever. We don’t want people to become disillusioned. We don’t want people to become disenfranchised. Because that’s just nothing but a terrible thing to you don’t want an entire group of Americans to feel like they’re getting screwed over at all, but are part of that. He’s just doing what we can do. We tend to the parts of our garden that we can reach. One more time. Do your part by doing your best

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.