Speaker 1: Hi, Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: When I started this show about a year plus ago,
Speaker 1: I would talk a lot about the importance of marriage.
Speaker 1: I really wanted that to be one of the topics
Speaker 1: that I delved into on this program, and it mattered
Speaker 1: to me that marriage rates were in such steep decline.
Speaker 1: It was something that I was very concerned about. I'm
Speaker 1: still very concerned about. I think marriage is important for
Speaker 1: society and very beneficial to individuals. You've likely heard all
Speaker 1: of the arguments here.
Speaker 2: Or maybe elsewhere. I've made them extensively. That married people
Speaker 2: are happier, they're wealthier, they're more stable, all of the
Speaker 2: good things, healthier, they have more sex. What's not to like.
Speaker 2: But as I talked about marriage, I kept looking at
Speaker 2: the data, and what I started to see is not
Speaker 2: that people were coupling and just not getting married. It's
Speaker 2: that they weren't coupling at all either. That was in
Speaker 2: sharp decline as well. There are a lot of explanations
Speaker 2: for why this is happening. Women are overachieving but want
Speaker 2: men who are a higher status than they are, a
Speaker 2: pool that is continually shrinking. And I'm not blaming just
Speaker 2: men here for the decline of relationships. Obviously, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of data that women all want to date the
Speaker 2: same few guys. There's a lot of blame to go around.
Speaker 2: I think it comes down to something even more basic.
Speaker 2: People aren't even making friends. And that's something I've talked
Speaker 2: about on the show a lot, because there's been this
Speaker 2: great migration over the last few years, and it's very
Speaker 2: hard to start your life again and make friends as
Speaker 2: you already have reached an age where people just really
Speaker 2: don't do that. But the thing is, I saw a
Speaker 2: recent study that broke this down by education level, and
Speaker 2: that was very interesting to me. The study found owned
Speaker 2: that twenty four percent of people with an education of
Speaker 2: high school or below reported that they had no close
Speaker 2: friends at all. The numbers a little better for someone
Speaker 2: college educated. Only ten percent of college grads say they
Speaker 2: have no close friends. But it's important to realize that
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety the number was two percent for college
Speaker 2: grads and three percent for high school graduates to say
Speaker 2: that they had no close friends.
Speaker 3: It was a tiny.
Speaker 2: Number, so this is a serious, serious jump. Also, in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety, forty five percent of college grads had at
Speaker 2: least six close friends, which makes sense, right Like when
Speaker 2: I think about college for my kids, I mostly think
Speaker 2: of it as a social exercise at this point. Who
Speaker 2: they'll meet along the way, what kind of people, and
Speaker 2: who they'll stay friends with. I want that for them.
Speaker 2: Do kids learn in college or anymore? Who knows. I
Speaker 2: don't even think about that, but hopefully they come out
Speaker 2: of school with a few close friends. That number has
Speaker 2: fallen from forty five percent in nineteen ninety. Again that
Speaker 2: college grads who had at least six close friends to
Speaker 2: thirty three percent now, and again it's a much worse
Speaker 2: decline for high school grads. In nineteen ninety, forty nine
Speaker 2: percent of high school graduates had at least six close friends.
Speaker 2: Now that number is seventeen percent. We should be worried
Speaker 2: about fertility rates, marriage rates, but the fact is that
Speaker 2: all relationships are in collapse, and that should really be
Speaker 2: our first concern. I've had a couple of emails from
Speaker 2: listeners asking how to help their kids make friends. Something
Speaker 2: has happened, something has broken where it's not just something
Speaker 2: natural that happens, it's something difficult that people find that
Speaker 2: they need a way to get over it, and they
Speaker 2: need to seek out advice for how it works and
Speaker 2: how it happens. My own take is that it's, of
Speaker 2: course the fault. We don't have to make friends. We
Speaker 2: carry around a world of entertainment everywhere we go. I
Speaker 2: don't know how we break that, but we're heading into
Speaker 2: a very bad direction. A few years ago I wrote
Speaker 2: for Spectator magazine an article called the End of Sex.
Speaker 2: I wrote, quote, men don't really know who they're supposed
Speaker 2: to be anymore, and women don't either. Is it anti
Speaker 2: feminists to enjoy male attention? Is it okay to ask
Speaker 2: out a colleague? Everything is so fraud and challenging that
Speaker 2: it's no wonder people are opting out of sex. Who
Speaker 2: needs the hassle. They'll get their dopamine hits from the
Speaker 2: likes they get on their posts and all the internet
Speaker 2: porn they can handle. Why bother with human interaction? When
Speaker 2: life is un sexy, you get on sexy sex or
Speaker 2: no sex at all. End quote. The truth is that
Speaker 2: friendship making is very similar. People are getting the happiness
Speaker 2: from their phone, so who needs that awkward small talk
Speaker 2: of the initial stages of friendship. It's a problem. I'm
Speaker 2: just not sure that anyone will listen to the solution
Speaker 2: if it means giving up their phone. I'd love to
Speaker 2: hear thoughts on this from listeners. How do you help
Speaker 2: your kids make friends? How do you make friends yourself?
Speaker 2: Drop me a line, Carol Markowitz Show at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: It's Ka R O L M A R. Kowicz Show
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com. Thank you for listening. Coming up
Speaker 2: my interview with James David Dixon. But first, after more
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Speaker 2: there is still a great demand for basic humanitarian aid.
Speaker 2: The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has supported and
Speaker 2: continues to support those in the Holy Land still facing
Speaker 2: the lingering horrors of war, and those who are in
Speaker 2: desperate need right now. Your ongoing monthly gift of forty
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Speaker 2: the North and South devastated by the ongoing war. Your
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Speaker 2: That's one word, SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. Or call eight eight
Speaker 2: eight four eight eight IFCJ. That's eight eight eight four
Speaker 2: eight eight IFCJ eight eight eight four eight eight four
Speaker 2: three two five.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
Speaker 4: guest today is James David Dixon, host of the Enjoyer Podcast.
Speaker 3: Hi James, so nice to have you on.
Speaker 5: How are you, Carol?
Speaker 3: Good? So what is the Enjoyer podcast? What do you
Speaker 3: particularly enjoy?
Speaker 6: What I enjoy, Carol, is to like when I have
Speaker 6: people on, the first question I always ask is what
Speaker 6: do you enjoy about Michigan? And so you could be,
Speaker 6: you know, someone in Washington State who's never been here.
Speaker 6: Perhaps they admire the Michigan football team, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean? So whatever it is, perhaps they admire me.
Speaker 6: Whatever it is. We start, we start from that basis,
Speaker 6: uh And and then that's that's kind of the sugar,
Speaker 6: because the pill I give is that reality. So so
Speaker 6: we enjoy Michigan and we appreciate Michigan. But we also
Speaker 6: realized that there's some pretty serious threats and that's what
Speaker 6: I spend the bulk of my time talking about, is
Speaker 6: the threats and what we should do about.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: I quite love Michigan.
Speaker 4: I spent some time at Hillsdale, so I really love
Speaker 4: that whole area. I've also given a speech I should
Speaker 4: have had that I should have had that that town
Speaker 4: name cued, but it.
Speaker 3: Was a little north of Flint.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 3: I really really liked it.
Speaker 5: Such a gay city, Midlands.
Speaker 3: This isn't gonna work.
Speaker 4: I gave a thousand speeches last year.
Speaker 3: But I really like your state.
Speaker 4: I like the whole palm thing. I like that you
Speaker 4: guys show, you know, on the palm where you are.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm like right down here, you know, under
Speaker 3: the thumb.
Speaker 4: Okay, people listening on audio. He pointed to the fleshy
Speaker 4: area below the thumb.
Speaker 6: Not quite on the water, but yeah, east easterly in Michigan,
Speaker 6: Southeast Michigan.
Speaker 4: So are you a Michigander your whole life? And did
Speaker 4: I nail them?
Speaker 5: Am? You did? You did? So?
Speaker 6: You know, it's funny because we have Michigander, which I
Speaker 6: started off I believe as a slur Abraham Lincoln and
Speaker 6: then a letter h. And then we also have Michiganian,
Speaker 6: and anyone who uses Michiganian, you know you're dealing with
Speaker 6: the Detroit News reader. Because these papers do things to,
Speaker 6: you know, to to separate each other. We have two
Speaker 6: papers in Detroit, the News, which is allegedly conservative, and
Speaker 6: then the Free Press, which is liberal, flamingly so right,
Speaker 6: and so the politics separate them, but also little things
Speaker 6: like michigany and versus Michigander. And so when the News
Speaker 6: gives their annual award, they give it to like a
Speaker 6: dozen people a year, it's Michiganian of the Year.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's so interesting because I you know, Michigan
Speaker 4: is a swing state.
Speaker 3: It's a it's kind of you know, a little bit
Speaker 3: of both.
Speaker 4: It wasn't always a swing state, obviously. I remember it
Speaker 4: being solidly blue and never you know, going.
Speaker 3: Red really or rarely.
Speaker 4: But it's become quite the swing state in the last
Speaker 4: few years. And it's so funny that it's so divided
Speaker 4: even among like what to call themselves.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, absolutely, it's just is that is that.
Speaker 3: Is that like the flavor of the state.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean, whether it's you know, blue and red for
Speaker 6: political for politics, whether it's blue and green for Michigan
Speaker 6: versus Michigan State. We we love these little these little
Speaker 6: things that you know, the city suburb divide, the suburban
Speaker 6: versus is you know, out state divide.
Speaker 5: We call them out state.
Speaker 6: If you don't live in kind of the main like
Speaker 6: three to seven counties of southeast Michigan, you live out state.
Speaker 6: People from Michigan might be learning that today. Yes, they
Speaker 6: don't know what conversations happened about them when they're not
Speaker 6: in the room. They're learning something today. So right, But yeah,
Speaker 6: one of my goals in twenty twenty five is I'm
Speaker 6: a Southeast Michigan guy. I love Oakland County, I love Detroit,
Speaker 6: I love Ann Arbor, but I want to venture to
Speaker 6: other parts of Michigan too, well outside my box.
Speaker 5: So we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 4: I mean, I again, I really enjoyed the whole area
Speaker 4: around Hillsdale. I thought it was really beautiful and calm
Speaker 4: and peaceful, arm and the food was really good, So
Speaker 4: you know, I recommend it highly. So how did you
Speaker 4: get into being a local podcaster?
Speaker 3: What was the draw to you.
Speaker 4: I mean, so many people love talking about national stuff
Speaker 4: and it's it's tough to kind of focus on, you
Speaker 4: know something. I don't want to say smaller because it's
Speaker 4: not really smaller, just more precise or.
Speaker 5: You know, we're concentrated, more concentrated.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much for the word sist.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I think so.
Speaker 6: Before I did the Enjoyer, I was with the Macinaw
Speaker 6: Center and we had a small news outlet called Michigan
Speaker 6: Capitol Confidential.
Speaker 5: They still have it.
Speaker 6: They got rid of me because I wanted to do this,
Speaker 6: and then they saw I had other aspirations, and just
Speaker 6: as a quick aside, I think it's a great example
Speaker 6: of how God can take you places that you wouldn't
Speaker 6: even think to ask. Right, So, if I had what
Speaker 6: I wanted, I'd be doing the Enjoyer podcast, and I'd
Speaker 6: still be at the Macinaw Center and we'd be making
Speaker 6: it work and going up to Midland every other Monday
Speaker 6: and all that juggling the two jobs. But instead of that,
Speaker 6: God said, no, we're going to get you out of there,
Speaker 6: even if it was painful at the time and inconvenient
Speaker 6: and all those things. And then what happened A short
Speaker 6: time later, I end up the second the severance ends.
Speaker 6: I start with the New York Post on their Swing
Speaker 6: state team. So I go from working for an obscure
Speaker 6: policy newsletter in Michigan to one of the biggest news
Speaker 6: outlets in the world covering the twenty twenty four election.
Speaker 6: Only God, I would have never thought to ask for
Speaker 6: that myself. I'm not a greedy guy. I don't ask
Speaker 6: for much, and so he just delivered so much more
Speaker 6: than I could have ever wanted. But what I learned
Speaker 6: at the Mackinaw Center is that limitation breeds creativity. We
Speaker 6: could only talk about certain topics, and we had to
Speaker 6: cover it as policy and not politics. So you're denied
Speaker 6: a lot of the red meat and the lures that
Speaker 6: we would normally use, and so you have to And
Speaker 6: so I developed that. I realized, if I'm going to
Speaker 6: get people reading about boring ass policy, I need to
Speaker 6: give them something first, and so I look for the
Speaker 6: angle of absurdity in stories like, for instance, Ford Motor
Speaker 6: Company took one hundred million dollars from state lawmakers in
Speaker 6: let's say June twenty twenty two August, So they're going
Speaker 6: to use one hundred million to hire three thousand factory
Speaker 6: workers in August. Two months later, they fire three thousand
Speaker 6: white collar workers. They pulled the Oki dock of all time. Yeah,
Speaker 6: that's one hundred million dollar Oaki dough. And so when
Speaker 6: you connect those dots and show that angle of absurdity,
Speaker 6: and what you want to look for is the fact
Speaker 6: that is so absurd it can't possibly be real except.
Speaker 5: It is right. And then you draw that, then you can.
Speaker 6: Tell them about your boring at you know, policy, But
Speaker 6: first you have to give them what they want.
Speaker 4: So was that Ford's story did it go Did it
Speaker 4: end up going national because that seems like a big story.
Speaker 5: No, because of the nature of it. But it did
Speaker 5: what it needed to do in Michigan.
Speaker 6: And then at the Enjoyer, I ended up just doing
Speaker 6: a nice video calling out for and saying, Hey, this
Speaker 6: company is not as good a citizen as you might think.
Speaker 6: It's the most important company in Michigan. It's the reason
Speaker 6: there are Dixons in Michigan and there are black people
Speaker 6: in Michigan. But when you look at how they use
Speaker 6: HB one, when you look at the one hundred million
Speaker 6: dollar Oki dook, when you look at partnering with the
Speaker 6: Chinese military company to build EV batteries. Harry Ford would
Speaker 6: be disgraced by what he sees right now, and we
Speaker 6: need better from a company that important. So it's not
Speaker 6: super popular stuff. I don't think I'm gonna be invited
Speaker 6: to get there.
Speaker 5: Huh, No, there's not. I've not been asked. I might
Speaker 5: have missed it.
Speaker 6: I don't check my mail every single day, but I
Speaker 6: might have missed it. But I don't think I'm going
Speaker 6: to be invited to give the keynote addressed at Ford's
Speaker 6: you know, a company banquet anytime soon. But what would
Speaker 6: you rather do? Speak for your neighbors or speak to
Speaker 6: a small group of elites?
Speaker 3: So what do you love about Michigan the most? What
Speaker 3: do you enjoy about it? You know?
Speaker 6: One thing I do need to combat this year is
Speaker 6: this myth? And everyone I asked this question, Oh, we
Speaker 6: have four seasons.
Speaker 5: No we don't. No, we don't.
Speaker 6: We don't have spring. It goes straight from winter to summer.
Speaker 6: There's no spring. Spring's a myth. It typically never comes
Speaker 6: and if it does, it'll be maybe two three weeks.
Speaker 6: So it's not the four seasons. And I don't think
Speaker 6: for most people it's the four seasons. I think for
Speaker 6: all of us, it's the people. Yeah, it's the people,
Speaker 6: and specifically it's family. Michigan is family. And so when
Speaker 6: you have a state like this that has they call
Speaker 6: it a brain drain problem where our college grads leave,
Speaker 6: that's because we're taking in so many h one beast.
Speaker 5: You can't find entry level work. And so that's what
Speaker 5: makes it especially tragic.
Speaker 6: You know, this isn't you know people in Tennessee who
Speaker 6: might want to go to New York and be a
Speaker 6: big star someday. These are people, if they had it
Speaker 6: their way, they would stay with their family and live
Speaker 6: in their neighborhood all their life. And they don't, and
Speaker 6: they're leaving by not their choice. And that's what said,
Speaker 6: that's the tragedy of Michigan, because what happens is so
Speaker 6: many people end up being denied a relationship with their grandkids.
Speaker 6: Now there are people you see once twice a year,
Speaker 6: your kid moves to New York or San Francisco. You
Speaker 6: can't afford to move there, right, Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: I actually heard that a lot in Michigan.
Speaker 4: I heard that a lot when I was there, that
Speaker 4: that was the main concern that people were leaving. I
Speaker 4: was on a very Florida high I had just moved
Speaker 4: to Florida.
Speaker 3: I mean not just it's it's been three years now.
Speaker 4: It was like a little over two at that time.
Speaker 5: But I was very It was hotter than fire back.
Speaker 3: It was super hot.
Speaker 4: It was super super I mean it still is in
Speaker 4: a lot of ways, but we saw lot of people
Speaker 4: moving in all the time. But yes, it was completely
Speaker 4: on fire then. And I was very big on if
Speaker 4: you don't like where you live.
Speaker 3: Change your you know, change you know, I do something.
Speaker 4: It's hard to move. I can suge that my families
Speaker 4: are all still in New York. But in Michigan. You know,
Speaker 4: I heard from people that said, I don't.
Speaker 3: Want to leave. It's not like you.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like I got tired of of of where
Speaker 4: I live and I want to I want to change.
Speaker 3: I actually want to stay, but I can't. And that's
Speaker 3: real difference. That's not the same thing as what I did.
Speaker 3: It's very tough to combat any ideas well.
Speaker 6: In the tragedy of it, Carol, is that we lose
Speaker 6: two groups who are really valuable. You lose your recent
Speaker 6: college grads who could be your future and they carry
Speaker 6: your family's legacy with them, and then we lose retireeves
Speaker 6: who stacked up cash and might have something to pass down,
Speaker 6: some wealth. And so the retirees, some of those people
Speaker 6: always want to move to a warmer place or split
Speaker 6: time or whatever, but to lose the future. So what
Speaker 6: I think we need Michigan needs to build a wall,
Speaker 6: not to keep anyone out.
Speaker 5: Keep Mulley, to keep our kids in. Yeah, we need
Speaker 5: to have some kind of problem.
Speaker 6: A company like Ford should be part of the solution,
Speaker 6: one of the most iconic companies on the planet. Kids
Speaker 6: who grew up here do dream and should dream about
Speaker 6: working at Ford someday, and every effort should be made that, hey,
Speaker 6: you go get that engineering degree, you go do whatever
Speaker 6: you need to do to add value, and we have
Speaker 6: a spot for you. So we need a nativism. When
Speaker 6: when I hear a street that at our a congressman
Speaker 6: here in Detroit, or if Ivey Kramaswami talk about h
Speaker 6: one B's, what I hear is Indians viewing the world
Speaker 6: as Indians and being extremely comfortable with nativism. In that context,
Speaker 6: they have no problem saying I want to do for
Speaker 6: me and mind right. So nativism does not bother shre
Speaker 6: does your conscience bother you?
Speaker 5: I know the reference, So I love that reference. And
Speaker 5: that's what we we have to get.
Speaker 6: Comfortable, very comfortable choosing our own people, our own country,
Speaker 6: even the citizens of the States. We live over this idea,
Speaker 6: this kind of that there's special knowledge that could only
Speaker 6: be conferred by foreigners, or there's moral authority that could
Speaker 6: only be conferred by diversity. What if we thought of
Speaker 6: ourselves as image bearers of God?
Speaker 5: And enough?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you worry about?
Speaker 5: I worry about the twenty twenty sixth election in Michigan. Okay,
Speaker 5: I liken.
Speaker 6: You know this inauguration week, you know, watching everything, it's
Speaker 6: kind of like when your friend gets the toy they like,
Speaker 6: or or they get, you know, the new video game unit,
Speaker 6: and they got all like five new games for Christmas.
Speaker 6: They call you over afternoon and you're sitting there hot chocolate, cookies,
Speaker 6: games warm. It's great, but then you got to go
Speaker 6: home eventually and you don't have that game. And so
Speaker 6: we watched everyone celebrate America and it's great. It's great,
Speaker 6: and we hope some of it trickles down to Michigan,
Speaker 6: no doubt some of it will, but then you go
Speaker 6: home and you don't have the game. And so what
Speaker 6: I'm trying to get everyone excited about is Project twenty
Speaker 6: twenty seven. Imagine this week two years from now, except
Speaker 6: we've saved our state from a world where in twenty
Speaker 6: forty we're going to be running on solar panels and windmills.
Speaker 6: Project twenty twenty seven bad news, guys, you won't be
Speaker 6: able to vote for Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: Only for your kids, only for your future. I hope
Speaker 5: that's enough.
Speaker 6: And so that's what we're going to be trying to do,
Speaker 6: is make sure it is enough and make sure people
Speaker 6: understand the stakes. We won, but we didn't win enough
Speaker 6: to just to rest on Laurels, right, So I hope
Speaker 6: everyone had fun, but there's a future to win.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and be right
Speaker 1: back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 4: Do you have a particular candidate that you want to
Speaker 4: see in twenty seven?
Speaker 6: No, So twenty twenty six, it's the ultimate Battle of Michigan.
Speaker 6: Free seat in the House. So we got one hundred
Speaker 6: and ten House seats, thirty eight Senate seats, Governor, Lieutenant
Speaker 6: Attorney General, Secretary of State, also the Gary Peters Senate seat.
Speaker 5: A lot of big jobs, a lot of opportunities.
Speaker 6: When I look across at the Democrats, I see Jocelyn Benson,
Speaker 6: who is like, she's like if a Barbie doll was
Speaker 6: made out of wood instead of plastic, kind of a
Speaker 6: wooden Barbie doll. Dana Nessel, who is just so singularly unlikable.
Speaker 6: All I have to do is say her name. You're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: that Dana Nessl's gonna have sometime. Then you have Pete
Speaker 6: boodage Edge, who's a midget who doesn't even know when
Speaker 6: the Lions play right.
Speaker 5: That's an unexceptionable also a Notre Dame fan.
Speaker 6: So that's not going to do you any favors, Pete.
Speaker 6: And then you have Mike Duggan, who is such a
Speaker 6: coward that, after being a Democrat all of his life,
Speaker 6: the mayor of Detroit says, I'm not a Democrat anymore.
Speaker 5: Sorry, Mike.
Speaker 6: I must have missed all the times when before the
Speaker 6: Titanic hit the Iceberg, you were telling them Iceberg right ahead.
Speaker 6: I must have missed all that, right, must have missed
Speaker 6: your leadership in that moment. And so he waits until
Speaker 6: the ship crashes to abandon, never led and didn't say
Speaker 6: he didn't do what Donald Trump did, which is saying
Speaker 6: the Republican Party sucks, I'm gonna take it over.
Speaker 5: That's what a leader would do.
Speaker 6: But a guy who's in it for himself says, oh,
Speaker 6: those people make me look bad, so I'll go my
Speaker 6: own way.
Speaker 5: It's not going to work.
Speaker 6: So I look over at the left and I see clowns.
Speaker 5: You see opportunity.
Speaker 6: We got a guy, Eric Nesbittt he's the Senate Minority leader. Uh.
Speaker 6: Kind of this, this big strapping guy. Uh, it's not unusual.
Speaker 6: John Engler was a senator in Michigan. Gretchen Whitmer was
Speaker 6: a senator in Michigan. So it's not an unusual path.
Speaker 6: And so where Jocelyn Benson might have name recognition right now,
Speaker 6: Eric nessbitt has the advantage of if people don't know
Speaker 6: who you are, then what they know about you is
Speaker 6: what you tell them.
Speaker 3: You can define yourself.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you can define yourself and you can be known
Speaker 6: for the first time. And so he has that same
Speaker 6: opportunity that Gretchen Whitmer had, which is to define himself.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 6: Then you have Mike Cox, he formed an exploratory committee.
Speaker 6: This guy used to be Attorney General of Michigan. He's
Speaker 6: held state wide office in Michigan. He needs to get
Speaker 6: serious about social media. His social media president reads like
Speaker 6: his grandkids told him about it but didn't show him
Speaker 6: how to use it, right, So he's just kind of
Speaker 6: winging it based on what he's seen and heard about it. Uh,
Speaker 6: he's gonna need to get serious about that, because Eric
Speaker 6: Nestlitt is serious as a heart attack. So even if
Speaker 6: it was just those two versus those four Democrats, I'd
Speaker 6: like that race.
Speaker 3: You like your chances?
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, we're gonna wait and see, and you're
Speaker 4: gonna keep us posted because I feel like you, you know,
Speaker 4: you're you're really representing local Michigan and telling us what's
Speaker 4: going on over there.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, we're gonna get you in one of these shirts, Carol.
Speaker 6: We're gonna get you making news local again.
Speaker 4: Yes, So what advice would you give yourself at sixteen
Speaker 4: years old?
Speaker 3: Did you always plan to be here?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 6: But there was always signs, you know, from the earliest pictures.
Speaker 6: My mom and her mom used to argue all the
Speaker 6: time because I always had a pen in my hand
Speaker 6: as a baby, and so I'd be running around. He's
Speaker 6: gonna he's gonna poke his eye out. Now, if I
Speaker 6: write some story and the cartel gets pissed and they
Speaker 6: pluck my eye out, I guess Grandma will have been
Speaker 6: right in the end.
Speaker 3: Right they don't want, you know.
Speaker 6: So there was always a sign that I was gonna
Speaker 6: be speaking out or something. My mom wanted to name
Speaker 6: me David because she had a dream where she saw
Speaker 6: me giving a speech and my name was David.
Speaker 5: So that's why I used the David. To this day.
Speaker 6: Mom's not with us anymore, and it's a damn shame too,
Speaker 6: because she saw just it was like Moses. It was,
Speaker 6: I mean literally the forty year journey to get here
Speaker 6: and gets right to the promised land where you see
Speaker 6: evidence of it. You can see the olive trees. Man,
Speaker 6: even with old eyes, you don't make it.
Speaker 5: So I'm carrying on her name and all that.
Speaker 6: But my advice to that young person, I would say,
Speaker 6: be nicer, Be a little bit nicer along the way.
Speaker 5: My whole thing is built around telling the truth. You
Speaker 5: seem pretty nice, and that can come off, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean.
Speaker 6: I think if people follow me on Twitter, who don't
Speaker 6: know me personally, they might imagine that I'm more confrontational
Speaker 6: than I am.
Speaker 3: That's who among us.
Speaker 5: Right, right, But I think if you were.
Speaker 6: But that's also because I'm talking about stuff that pisses
Speaker 6: me off, and oftentimes I'm talking to people who piss
Speaker 6: me off. So if I'm sitting here with a friend,
Speaker 6: if I'm strategizing with the fellow traveler, you know, I'm
Speaker 6: sure I could be charming and things like that. So
Speaker 6: the other thing is I consider who you're spending your
Speaker 6: time with. You know, when you It's the same advice
Speaker 6: I gave my stepkid, which is any career field, there's
Speaker 6: a type of person who gets in that career field.
Speaker 6: Is that the type of person you want to be with.
Speaker 6: I don't know. I went through this like misanthroat phase
Speaker 6: where journalism was not a great fit, and then I
Speaker 6: was a breaking news reporter in Detroit at that exact
Speaker 6: same moment. So I've had to come through a lot
Speaker 6: of that, fought through anxiety, seasonal depression, all kinds of things.
Speaker 6: And so my advice is put one foot in front
Speaker 6: of the other, and also God helps those who help themselves.
Speaker 6: There's something you could do right now to improve your situation,
Speaker 6: however bad it is, in fact the worst it is.
Speaker 6: Probably anything you would do would be an improvement over
Speaker 6: what you have. Yeah, so what can you do? Everyone
Speaker 6: in this world has reasons why not? What can you
Speaker 6: do today, here and now? Any plan you're serious about
Speaker 6: does not start with the word tomorrow. So you can. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you can tilt the playing field in your favor. And
Speaker 6: as a man, it's your job to do it. The
Speaker 6: second woman is born, she has everything she will need
Speaker 6: to be a success in you think. So, men are made,
Speaker 6: not born, And so the good news is if you
Speaker 6: ask God to order your steps, then you have help
Speaker 6: on that path going it alone. You know, if you
Speaker 6: look at where the Israelite started and where they ended up,
Speaker 6: that wasn't a forty year walk. It becomes forty years
Speaker 6: when you're hard headed, when you're stiff necked, And so
Speaker 6: ask for help, ask God for help, ask friends for help.
Speaker 6: And if you're going to be a journalist, you better
Speaker 6: get real comfortable asking for help. I'm now addicted to
Speaker 6: asking for help. I seek out reasons, I seek out problems.
Speaker 6: So I have to seek out a source who can
Speaker 6: help me.
Speaker 3: I love that, so.
Speaker 4: And here with your best tip for my listeners on
Speaker 4: how they can improve their lives, and maybe you've already
Speaker 4: given it to us.
Speaker 6: The best thing you could do to improve your life
Speaker 6: is get in the gym regularly, work out, regularly, bring
Speaker 6: your body to a sweat. God gives you one and
Speaker 6: only one body, so everything else you're going to run
Speaker 6: through cars. You're going to live in several homes in
Speaker 6: your life. You may even there's people who get married
Speaker 6: multiple times in life, but you're given one body. That's
Speaker 6: the first gift you were given. Your spouse was the
Speaker 6: second gift you were given. What are you doing for
Speaker 6: that body and for that spouse? So preserve your ability
Speaker 6: to be there for that person. Preserve your ability to
Speaker 6: be there with that person.
Speaker 3: Love it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: His name is James David Dixon, host of the Enjoyer
Speaker 4: podcast check it out.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, James.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Carol, thanks so much for joining us on
Speaker 2: the Carol Marko which show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.