Silent Retreats Surge as Americans Seek Quiet

Foreign. Retreats are surging in popularity, drawing people of all faiths and people with no faith. A majority new study links cycling to a sharply lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer's. Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro sees his YouTube channel suddenly poof vanish. California becomes the first state to ban most law enforcement officers from wearing masks, and confusion spreads after President Trump imposes a $100,000 visa fee on skilled foreign workers. All that and more welcome to Filtered with TJ Walk. Hi and welcome. So happy you're here with us today on Filtered. This is the show where we filter the news through the lens of communication skills and personal development skills, all with the goal of helping you become more successful. That's my promise to you. If you spend a little time with us each day and we're here seven days a week, you'll not only learn more about the news, but you'll also learn more about communication skills, personal development skills to help you become more successful in your career and in your personal life. First up, stock markets were closed in the US Yesterday, so no change. We do give you the heads up summary each day the markets are open, but what we do here is a little bit different. We also put in perspective how the markets, the Nasdaq S&P 500 do on a 25 year perspective. We always stress long term here because that's what I find the most successful people in the world do. Okay, let's dive right into issue one. Silent Retreats Go Mainstream A Growing Hunger for Quiet According to the Washington Post, Americans are turning to an age old practice to cope with modern life. Silence. That's right. Silent retreats, once largely the domain of monks, nuns and committed spiritual seekers, are now drawing people from all walks of life, many of them with no religious affiliation at all. Father Guerrick Haeckel of Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina said demand surged after the pandemic. Since COVID every available space is booked. These are the silent retreats they have here at the Drolla Mountain center in Colorado, 46% of members surveyed. As for more silent retreats, second only to the Buddhist study classes, and Sister Ann McCarthy of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie described it as a hunger for silence, a hunger for reflection. Participants like Brittle McGlung, a 37 year old mother, called the experience a little rebellion to just sit and be. Retreats vary from monasteries in Texas and Minnesota to Jewish mindfulness centers in Philadelphia, but the clear message is this. The quiet life is making noise. Okay, what's the real message here? There is a surge in People paying money to go to silence retreats. If that's what you need to get, get Silence to put away the cell phones, then by all means do it. But don't forget, there's nothing preventing you from putting your phone in a drawer, turning it off, and going for a walk in the woods, or at least a local park. You can be silent in your own thoughts every single day without driving to some retreat center. Okay, let's go a little deeper here. I think it's a good thing that people are looking for silence. Why is that? Now, I at least partially make my living by getting you to give me your attention. And if you're watching us on YouTube today, thank you. And if you are watching on TikTok, thank you. Or X or Instagram or all the other platforms, we are. If you're listening on a podcast, thank you. But I do recommend, and I'm biting my own hand. That's feeding me. Spend some time today without a cell phone. Spend time without a screen. Go out in nature. And sorry if this sounds like humble bragging, I should do it more often. Yesterday I did not one, but two fairly lengthy hikes. One in nature preserve in my own community, another one about five miles away, just looking at lakes, little streams, palm trees, a few squirrels running by, and I left my phone in the car. Let me say that again. Well, but T.J. what if you want to take a picture? The problem is you pull your phone out on a nature walk and you want to take a picture. Next thing you know, you are saying, oh, I wonder what kind of tree that is, what speed. And you're looking it up. Next thing you know, you're on Wikipedia and you're asking ChatGPT questions and you're back in the office, essentially. So I'm not against learning about new species or trying to discern what the bird is or the sound of that bird. ChatGPT could tell you that. But there's tremendous value in simply spending time alone in your own thoughts, whether that's going to a monastery, an abbey, a spiritual center, flying to the other side of the world. Or you could do it sitting in your own den or living room or bedroom or your one bedroom or your studio apartment and turning off all electronics and turning off the Internet. That can give you silence as well. Now, if you do live with other family members, I realize maybe it's hard getting actual silence. Get some headphones, some noise canceling headphones, turn them on and don't connect them to your cell phone or the Internet. That can give you silence. One of the things I find true of all really successful people is they give themselves time for their thoughts. In order to do that, you need some form of relative silence around you. Now I do understand there are some people who thrive writing in a noisy cafe. Jean Paul Sartre, writing, being in nothingness in noisy French cafes. It seemed to work for him. Although he took a lot of speed throughout his days to be so prolific as well. And I'm not necessarily recommending that a lot of amphetamines for Jean Paul Sartre, but focusing on what I really want to talk about today, giving yourself some time for quiet, some time for your own thought. Warren Buffett thinks the key to his success is he doesn't even have a computer on his desk. He spends his time reading annual reports, doing other research, and he spends his time thinking. And if you look at most really great statesmen, stateswomen, regardless of what democracy they are running, they will often tell you the most important part on their schedule is alone time to think. Great leaders do not program and schedule every second of their day. From the time they get up to the time they sleep. They just don't. They have some time to actually think, reflect, write, talk about silence time. Writers are great at coming up with silence time because it's almost impossible to write original thoughts. If you're hearing other people talking to you and podcast on and radio shows and TV shows and video games on, it's very hard to actually write your own thoughts. Now you can say, well tj, I don't want to be a professional writer. They don't even make much money and professional journalists are all getting canceled because of right wing wokeness. Okay, I'm not asking you to be a full time journalist, but if you want to be a business person, you got to write a great business plan. If you want to take your company public, you've got to write a compelling case as to what the risks and rewards are in your company. Writing is simply thinking. And the most successful people in our modern economy are good at thinking. Do they sometimes cheat, pull strings, get goodies given to them as political favors? Sure. Am I saying all rich people deserve what they got? And poor people? No, that's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is the more you enhance your ability to to think rationally, clearly and creatively and you spend time trying to figure out how to solve other people's problems, you increase the chances, not guarantee the chances of making more money in your own career too. So I do urge you to think about how you can find more silence times. A few more details on this Pew did a survey 1 in 5Americans meditates weekly For a variety of reasons I meditate daily. I happen to use the Wim Hof breathing method of meditation, a little bit different than what I've done for the last 10 years. Can I absolutely prove to you meditation is essential and you'll be happier and richer and wealthier and wiser Meditating? I can't. If you do Google or ask ChatGPT for the research. There is increasingly a lot of research showing that meditation does a lot of good for people. There's also a huge correlation. Notice I did not say causation. There's a huge correlation between wildly successful people and meditation. I just rarely meet someone who isn't wildly successful who doesn't also meditate. Does that prove that it's the Reno? But for me, there's certainly no downside to it. If nothing else, it's a little more quiet time for you to let your own thoughts marinate. So give some thought right now to how you can block out some quiet time, some silent time for yourself today and every day. More in a moment. Filtered is brought to you by the following Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise want to become a better speaker, leader or communicator? Start with the TJ Walker Success Library. It's five of my most practical books, covering everything from public speaking to media interviews and persuasive messaging, all for only $9. I've trained presidents and Fortune 500 CEOs, and now you can get the same wisdom in a fast, affordable format. Go to tjwalker.com books and download your copies instantly. Thanks for listening. If you like today's episode, you'll love my online courses@mediatrainingworldwide.com check them out now and level up your skills. A new study suggests that hopping on a bike could do more than keep you fit. It may also help protect your brain, according to CNN researchers following nearly half a million adults in the UK Biobank study found that people who cycled had a 19% lower risk of developing dementia and a 22% lower risk of Alzheimer's compared to those who traveled by car, bus or train. The study also showed cyclists had larger hippocampal volumes, the part of the brain tied to memory and learning. Dr. Joe Vergese of Stony Brook University said this is the first study to show that cycling is linked, not Only to lower risk of dementia, but also to a larger hippocampus. Experts caution the study was observational and relied on self reported habits. But the findings did decades of research showing exercise benefits the brain. Okay, so what's the real message here? Spend less time sitting on your butt and more time moving. Bike riding is a perfect example. New research shows that bike riding can reduce your chances of developing Alzheimer's. For that reason alone, hop on your bike today. Let's go a little deeper here and look at this. You know, I want to not be a hypocrite because I am one of the first ones to tell you, to warn you against a lot of news that's put out that isn't scientifically grounded, that is merely correlational because it is true that, you know, certain, you know, certain people take medicines and then the next day they die. Well, it's not because of the medicine, it's just a correlation because every single day some people die somewhere. So you can't say just because it's correlated, there's causation. I can jump up and down and do a rain dance and it rains later today. It's correlated, but there's no causal connection. So this was an observational study. Here's what we don't really know is it are the numbers skewed because somebody who's already in bad health and more likely to have Alzheimer's or develop Alzheimer's, they've already self selected away from pedaling their bikes. That can skew the results. The report was this was self reported. So it's a lot of times people like to say they ride their bike. It makes them feel good. It makes them feel like, oh, I'm virtuous, I don't want to admit I don't ride bikes. So this was self reported. Most of the participants were white, so I don't know that it really gave a good sample size. But having said all of that, there, to me there's just countless, countless studies and research that comes out virtually daily that shows human movement is a good thing. When you look at the anecdotal stories, and again, I'm going back to anecdote. When you look at the stories of people 100 years old and still vibrant, it's typically never that they go to the gym every day and lift weights every day. It's typically never that they go to jazzercise class, no offense to jazzercise, it's that they figure out a way of incorporating movement into their daily life. And that's why I love bicycle Now, I have had. I don't know if it's just me because I consider myself fortunate and all the big picture aspects of life, but I've had at least four bicycles stolen. The last one I had had used maybe five times. It was a nice bike. It was stolen. But most recently, as those of you who are regular viewers know, I bought a quadricycle. So I now use a quadra. Yeah, there's four wheels on it, and it looks like a golf cart. It looks like a clown car. But I take that everywhere when I'm in my own community. So I'm going to the swimming pool, pickleball courts, or just out for an evening instead of a walk. Since it's so hot here in Florida, I routinely use my bicycle on a daily basis. Now, does this guarantee I'm going to live to be 100? No. But for me, it's a. It's essential to one of my main mantras in life. It's something I program my brain to hear every single day in my own audio reminders, my own text reminders. And here it is. TJ Move more instead of sitting, stand instead of standing, walk instead of walking, run instead of sitting on a car seat or a golf cart seat, pedal. That's what, to me, that's what's more significant. And the problem in our modern capitalistic system is other than the Schwinn Manufacturing bike company and a few other bike companies, which are pretty small companies, no one has an incentive to bombard you with billions of dollars of advertising to ride your bike more. Unfortunately, the people the money are the pharmaceutical companies that. Not that they're bad people, they're lovely people, but they basically need to wait for you and me to be so lazy, to not exercise, to gorge ourselves with so much fatty, unnutritious food. With the SAD diet, the standard American diet of lots of processed carbohydrates, fat, sugar, salt. They wait for us to become obese and overweight and diabetic, and then they bombard us with reminders to buy their pharmaceuticals. And you may need their pharmaceuticals at that point. But what I need you to think about is how can you program your brain to do the healthy thing on a daily basis? Because you're going to get reminders every day to eat more chips, to drink more colas, to drink more sugary drinks. You get those reminders in the form of 10,000 marketing ads you receive every single day. And you're not going to get 10,000 reminders to ride your bike. So I'm Hoping to change that equation a little right now. With a reminder, let's look at some more facts here. Walking shows some mixed results according to this survey. Some benefit, but not as much as the cycling. What is interesting here is the cycling is tied to the larger hippocampus, which is key for memory and learning. Now, I'm speculating here and let me state very clearly, I'm not a medical doctor, I'm not a biologist, I am speculating here, but I'm thinking most people when they're riding a bike are not staring at gps. I understand you could have your phone mounted and you're looking at it, but that's still one area where I don't see people staring at their GPs. I'm certainly not using it when I'm on my quadricycle. Therefore, you actually have to think about, does this street go here? Does this where I need to turn to get to this restaurant or this store, this grocery store? So you're having to actively think in a way that if you're just in a car these days, it's so easy to just automatically put in GPS and not have to think. I don't know if that's why or not. But again, what they found was Alzheimer's risk was 22% lower among cyclists. But what we don't know is that such a self selected group of people who are already healthier in so many regards that even if they didn't bike, they would be better off. Here's the thing. If you take safety precautions and wear a helmet and you don't get run over, because that is a health risk. With biking, very few, there's very few downsides to biking more. You're getting your blood going, fresh air, a little sunlight, you're getting your heart right up. You're getting, depending on how hard you're pedaling, you're getting aerobic benefit or all of those things have been proven to make you healthier and to decrease the odds of getting chronic disease. So for that reason alone, I think you need to give biking another chance. If you tell yourself, well, you know, I biked as a kid. That's a kid thing. No, it's not. I'm 62 years old. I bike every single day now. And I gotta tell you, I'm loving it. I'm absolutely loving it. Now, lest you think I'm a hypocrite, I want you to hear it from me first. I will confess. With my quadricycle, there is an electric assist because the quadricycle is much heavier than a bicycle and so I do use the electric assist, but I'm pedaling the whole time. So if you ever see me out on a quadricycle, wave and say if I'm not pedaling, say hey, why aren't you pedaling? I need more exercise. You need more exercise and we need reminders to exercise. So figure out some way if your bike is in the garage or you need air in the tire, write yourself a reminder right now to try to bike later today. And I'm recording this on a Sunday morning. This is a perfect day to go bike riding, I hope for you. But don't wait for the perfect day. Just start riding your bike. I think if you take proper safety precautions, you will not regret it. Filtered is brought to you by the following get the deeper takes. I don't post anywhere else. Subscribe now@substack.com jwalkersuccess and stay in the loop. For years, people have asked how they could get one on one coaching from me inexpensively. Well, now you can. Anytime, anywhere with the TJ Walker AI phone. It's like having me in your pocket ready to help you prep for a speech, polish a pitch, or calm your nerves before a big meeting. You talk to it. It responds like I would based on my real world code coaching with thousands of leaders and communicators. Check it out at tjwalker AI. It's not just smart, it's personal. Want to support the show? Skip the ads and buy me a coffee. That's buymeacoffee.com TJ Walker. Hi and welcome back. Thanks for joining me today. This is Filter with TJ Walker. What I do on this program is we typically look at 5 of what I consider to be the most important interesting news stories of the day, and then we filter them through the lens of communication and personal development skills, all with the goal of giving you practical tactical tips on how you can be more successful. Having said that, let's dive right into issue three. According to AF P, Venezuelan President Nicolas Madero's official YouTube channel, with more than 233,000 subscribers, has suddenly, poof. Disappeared. A search now shows only the message this page is unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience. Neither YouTube nor the Venezuelan government has issued an explanation. State run broadcaster Telser suggested the move was politically motivated, calling it part of hybrid warfare operations against Venezuela. The takedown comes as US Naval ships patrol the Caribbean, an action Washington says targets drug trafficking. Moderno has denounced the buildup as a military threat and ordered military drills this is not his first clash with social media platforms in recent years. Facebook, TikTok, and X have all restricted his accounts. Okay, so what's the real message here? If the president of Venezuela can see his TikTok account taken down. Poof. Disappear overnight. It can happen to you, too. Look, I love YouTube. YouTube may love you until they don't. Never put all your eggs in one basket, because your YouTube channel could disappear at a moment's notice as well, even if you're not a dictator of a foreign country that is in war with the United States. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. So this was a scarring experience for me personally. Not this Venezuelan guy losing his. His YouTube channel, but when YouTube had my own channel eliminated, deleted without any explanation whatsoever. So this is something we all have to remember this. I have to remember this. We are just guests renting other people's beachfront property. There are some. Some exceptions, like the substack platform, where I also have my podcast available in video and audio format. But for the most part, when you're on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, any of those, they can just delete you without telling you, without giving you any reason. Now, certainly, if you are the leader of a country and you're essentially at war with the United States, and you know that Google is a US Company, you kind of got to figure out your channel is going to get nixed from time to time or permanently. So I can't imagine this Venezuelan president was really surprised by this, but this was something where he could communicate with a lot of people around the world. So this does show how ultimately, United States tech firms do listen to the United States government and are essentially gatekeepers for global propaganda at some levels. They're also arguably some of the worst offenders at spreading propaganda because they spread the nonsense, the lies, the deceit of the great orange one in Washington, D.C. when he's spewing propaganda, even when it's demonstrably, factually incorrect. But that's a slightly different issue from what we're talking about today. Now, a little more background. US recently sent naval ships to the Caribbean and labeled Moderna Moderna, labeled this a military threat. There's been a lot of back and forth with Venezuela and the United States. I got to tell you, I'm not a fan of this leader of Venezuela. Now, no big surprise, I don't know many Americans who are, but I'm certainly not in favor of this sort of semi war, unofficial war the United States is conducting against it right now. Moderna. As far as I could see has destroyed the economy of Venezuela. And the irony of course is it's richer in natural resources than almost any country in the world. They got a lot of oil. Just personally, I have to tell you, I have had fantastic dealings with Venezuelan oil officials for many years. I did media training and presentation skills training and personal development skills training with a company that was a joint venture with the Venezuelan government. They happen to because they own so much oil, they had joint venture with American oil companies. And there was a refinery in St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. And I would often spend a week or two each year there at this refinery that was half run, half owned by Venezuelans and everyone was totally lovely to me. But doesn't help the president get his YouTube channel back. Here's the other thing I really want you to think about. Whatever your position is in life, whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, I'm glad some of you watch. Whether you are an 18 year old college freshman, you probably don't think of yourself as having as much clout as the president of an entire country, right? Well, here's a guy, president of a country, president of Venezuela. You think he can get any executive from Google on the phone and say, hey, where's my channel? What happened? Will you give it back? No. They can say no to a president of a country, maybe not president of their host country where they are domiciled, but other than that, the executives at Google and YouTube and Facebook are not accountable to anybody other than one dear leader. And I don't mean the one in the sky. All of that means you got to be very careful. Look, I've had the YouTube channel that I'm on right now for 19 years, but this was not my main channel. I hope to have it for another 19 years. But every day I wake up and I look and I think, is it still there? Because for absolutely no reason whatsoever, YouTube can banish you and they are the judge, jury and the executioner. And Facebook is as well, and X is as well and TikTok is as well. Regardless of whether the ownership stays in Chinese hands or US hands or some hybrid, the owners are the ones who are going to decide who gets kicked off. And you can't appeal. There is no appeal in most of these cases. That's why I urge you, be highly selective, be careful and spread your bets. Maybe you don't have to be like me and be on 100 different social media platforms every day. Maybe I'm just scarred by that. But if you're putting all your energy and efforts trying to connect with a community and you're on other people's beachfront property and you're just renting. Remember, they can kick you out in a moment's notice. Want a shortcut to powerful communication skills? Download the TJ Walker Success Library, five of my best selling books for only 9.95. Go to tjwalker.com books instant access big impact. I've had entire YouTube channels wiped out overnight. So if you enjoy this show, don't lose track of me. The safest way is my newsletter. Substack.com J. WalkerSuccess Sign up for free and you'll get exclusive commentary, live session alerts and first access to new tools. Again, that's substack.com just search for TJ Walker or go to substack.com J. WalkerSuccess your direct line to everything I do. Welcome back to filtered with TJ. Issue 4 California has become the first state to ban most law enforcement officers, including federal immigration agents, from wearing masks during official operations. Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill in Los Angeles, calling mask raids, quote, like a dystopian sci fi movie where people quite literally disappear. The Associated Press reports the law was prompted by immigration raids in Los Angeles where masked federal agents made mass arrest. Federal officials quickly pushed back, saying the rule doesn't apply to them. Acting U.S. attorney Bill Esseley wrote, quote, our agents will continue to protect their identities. Homeland Security's Trisha McLaughlin called the law to stop despicable and dangerous. The new law makes exceptions for undercover work and medical masks, but supporters say it's about protecting rights and restoring public trust. Okay, what's the real message here? California lawmakers have put their finger on genuine anger from their citizens. People feel like they're being invaded by by people from another country and I don't mean illegals from Venezuela. When you see mask covered people coming around arresting, dragging people away, it doesn't seem like America any longer. This law banning masks is a good first step, even though our federal government's probably going to ignore it. Let's dig a little bit deeper into this issue. So the the federal government is going to say, you can't tell us what to do. And traditionally, federal government laws do trump state laws. We'll see how this plays out. I do think symbolically this was a good thing for the California Democrats and Newsom to do to just show their utter contempt for the Trump administration and the way it is taking over communities and using the military, covering people with masks and just Sweeping away a lot of innocent people, terrorizing and torturing people, essentially. And it's a way of saying, enough is enough. Let's look at the facts. So California is challenging. It's a direct challenge to federal power. It's probably going to go through the court systems, and the courts ultimately are going to say, dear Leader can do whatever he wants, but at least it's slowing things down. One question that I think is implicit in this legislation, I think it's asking, if you're a member of law enforcement and you're coming in and you have to cover your face with mask, is this not maybe a sign that you're not doing something you should be doing? Maybe you should be embarrassed. If you're ashamed of people, of being people seeing you, is that perhaps proof right there that you're a part of something you shouldn't be doing? Well, I'm a soldier. I'm just taking orders that got people in a lot of trouble last century and a lot of other places. So it may actually be time for civil disobedience among those who are called up from the National Guard and. And some of these other agencies and say, look, we're not going to wear these masks. If we can't do this with pride, maybe we shouldn't do it at all. Certainly we see police officers when they are arresting people in streets or committing crimes. By and large, they're not wearing masks. Now. Supporters say it stops impersonation and restores due process. The law also restricts immigration agents from schools and health facilities. This is important because why in the world would you want to stop kids from going to school? That's what has happened with these federal raids on schools. If someone has an infectious disease and is here, but let's say they're a migrant worker on a farm and picking fruit and vegetables that you and I like to eat, and we're too lazy. I know I'm too lazy to go pick it. So we've got an immigrant here. They perhaps have Covid or some disease. Now they're afraid to go to healthcare facilities because these mass raids are going to healthcare facilities. Yeah, you can maybe catch people, chalk up a win for the day, but you're also spreading more disease that is killing American citizens. And that's nothing to be proud of at all. We're going to take an extremely short break. Back in a moment. Hey, if you're enjoying this kind of take and want to hear more stories filtered through the lens of communication, make sure you're following the show, whether you're watching or listening. New episodes drop every every single day. And that there's a little notification option where you are now. Go ahead and turn it on. It helps you stay in the loop. According to the New York Times, President Trump's new proclamation imposing a $100,000 fee on H1B visas has left Wall street banks, tech giants and startups scrambling to understand what it means for their employees. The White House clarified that a fee will apply only to new applicants, not current visa holders or renewals. Still, companies like Microsoft and JP Morgan had already warned workers abroad to return to the US before the rules took effect. Goldman Sachs called it an uncertain time. As lawyers rushed to interpret the order. Immigration attorneys described chaos, with one saying, quote, we're still flying in somewhat foggy conditions. Critics fear the steep fee will price out smaller companies, slow innovation, and weaken the US in the global competition for top talent. Okay, so what's the real message here? Putting a $100,000 price tag on getting a visa to come work in the United States is despicable. It makes us look like a mob run restaurant from a good movie from the 1970s. This is not what America is about. This is turning capital, cronyism, pay for play, into every aspect of our brand. And it's making us look like garbage. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. You got to feel sorry for a lot of these big tech companies. They are trying to continue fueling our whole economy, which is what they're doing. I mean, you look at the top 10, just 10 companies in the United States now account for about 40% of the stock market. And gigantic swaths of all the gains. If you have any kind of an index fund or a mutual fund or a retirement account, so much of your wealth is tied up into really a handful of big tech companies. And they're not saying, we don't like Americans, we hate Americans. We're not. No. They all have thousands and thousands and thousands of Americans. But sometimes they need to hire somebody who, I don't know, got a PhD from Oxford and is a brilliant genius at AI. And they are perhaps a citizen of England or India, and we need them. This makes it more difficult. It's chaos. It also sends a message to brilliant people around the world and successful people, ambitious people, climbers, a lot of people like you that, you know, the United States is not really the place to go. Maybe you should think about going to Canada. Canada is very inviting to smart, ambitious, educated people like you. Maybe just stay in your own country and bring that wealth back to yourself is another option increasingly these days. So businesses, regardless of whether an individual business person consider themselves a Republican, a Democrat, a libertarian, agreeing, a Constitutionalist, regardless whether they consider themselves liberal, conservative, right wing, the one thing that's consistent is they like stability. They like to know what the rules are. They like to know, okay, if I'm going to compete in this game of capitalism, I want to know what the rules are so I can make plans, plans of what I'm going to do today, tomorrow, six months out, a year out. And it's increasingly difficult for any business person in America to do that because no one knows what sort of whimsical, capricious nonsense is going to spin out tomorrow. What part is just nonsense like, oh, we're going to take over Panama or Greenland, and what part actually takes place like we're going to put 100% tariffs on certain countries we don't like, or we're going to put tariffs on a country that has no human beings living there. Some of these crazy ideas are put into action. Some are just floating out there, never to be seen or touched again. It's creating massive chaos for business people across the political spectrum. Doesn't matter if you live in a so called red state or a blue state, if you don't really know what your tariff is going to be in any one day or not. If you don't really know if an employee that you'd love to hire is going to be able to work in your country very long, the prudent thing to do, the safe thing, is just hold off. Let's hold off on hiring. We don't know if demand is going to slow down because of all this chaos with tariffs. We don't know if our employees can stay. Let's just sit on things and do nothing for a while. And that is increasingly what companies are doing. Are we in a recession right now? No. Am I saying I want one? No. Am I predicting one in the next two months? No. But a lot of prominent economists like Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winner, they are pointing out a lot of economic indicators are showing a slowdown. This current administration inherited one of the most successful, one of the most dynamic, arguably the most successful economy in the world, which is where the United states was on January 20, 2025. And a lot of things have gotten worse since then. So we'll see if this instability, if this chaos continues. So that concludes the main portion of our show. It's Sunday. I'm hoping you're having a good time. I've got a few grab bag segments I want to talk to you about. And we're going to hop into that in just a moment. But before that, I, I do want you to think a minute and perhaps you can even share with me if you're watching live, about what do you do? Sunday is workday for some people, not for a lot of people. Whatever your day off, your day of rest is, what are you doing for fun? Those of you who watch this live every day know it's on a little bit later today than usual. That's because I was playing pickleball for two hours today. I happen to love pickleball. And you could say, isn't that for old boomers? Used to be maybe five years ago, not anymore. It is arguably the fastest growing, certainly one of the fastest growing sports in America, growing popularity around the world, too. And it's just a fun, fun sport and a great way to get exercise, to get movement. What we were talking about in one of the earlier issues, ride your bike more, walk more, run more. Now, I personally don't enjoy running, although I do try to run on the treadmill every day and actually do sprints. But it's so much more enjoyable to do a quick sprint, to get that ball on the pickleball court or you might love the tennis ball or padel or some other sport. So since it is Sunday, I do want you to give some real thought to what are you doing to play a game, to have fun? And if not a game, what are you doing that you did as a kid? I mean, that's part of the beauty of bike riding, is it brings back memories to a lot of us, is this is like being a kid again. This is what I did when I was 8 years old. I don't fool myself into thinking I'm 8 again, and I don't really want to be 8 again. But it does bring back those feelings of having energy, being dynamic, being out there. So I'm hoping you spend some time today playing either your sport of choice, your movement of choice, whether that's running, jogging, biking, or just taking a vigorous walk. Okay, a couple of other issues that I wanted to address. One of them is this is troubling. The Department of Justice shut down an inquiry after undercover agents recorded Trump border czar Tom Holman taking $50,000 in 2024. Officials said evidence didn't meet the bar for crimes. Now, here's the thing. He worked for the Trump administration not, not in 2025, but he did work for the administration in the first term. And he was off telling everyone he was going to be a part of the second term. So when a guy like that is giving people promises and taking bags of cash, it sure smells funny. What's the real message here? I think the message is if you're on Team Trump, if you want to take bags of cash, if you want to cash in, if you want to sell out your office, that's okay. The rules are changed now. Corruption, good, good government service optional. That is clearly the message that this is sending. And look, I'm not the prosecuting attorney here. I didn't do the investigation. Yes, people who are not working currently in the government have a right to make a living. But this didn't seem like lobbying. It's hard to imagine a guy like this was saying, well, yes, I will lobby the Biden administration to help you get the policies you want. So that happened in 2024. It sure seemed like pay to play in advance. It sounded like a layaway plan, oh, you want that couch for Christmas and you can pay now in July, but you don't really expect the couch till Christmas. Okay, go ahead and pay some now. It sure seems like that's what that was and it does stink. Okay, next grab bag issue I want to talk about arrest. After shots fired at Sacramento ABC station, Police arrested a 64 year old man accused of firing at KXTV's newsroom. No one was hurt, but the drive by came a day after protest over ABC suspension of Jimmy Kimmel. The motive remains unclear. We don't know if this was a guy who has a right wing mentality and hates the media or this guy has some left wing mentality and hates the fact that ABC took off Jimmy Kimmel. Nor do we really know is this guy just a crazy insane nutcase who lives in a country where guns are given to any nutcase. A lot of different theories there. So this is obviously not a good idea to be going around shooting up newsrooms. Yet another reason I think that the institution of journalism in America is under attack like it has never been under attack in the history of our nation, certainly from the top down, but this from the bottom up as well. It's a very troubling time. Not to mention the fact that the revenue model for most journalists, most traditional journalism, newspapers, broadcast television, news departments, the whole revenue streams are disintegrating. So even when you don't have political orchestration and would be wannabe dictators trying to destroy freedom of the press, it's kind of being destroyed anyway through the process of creative Destruction in capitalism. And let's be fair, creative destruction allows a lot of new opportunities. I wouldn't be here talking to you right now if broadcast TV station still had a monopoly on every viewpoint that gets out. Because unless I somehow got the slot on ABC's Morning show or this Week, I would be like you are and like most people are just passively consuming other news. But like a lot of things, it's a double edged sword and journalism is under attack on the bottom line in the marketplace, but it's also under attack like this nutcase of this 64 year old man. Now a lot gets talked about with discrimination and bias and stereotyping and we're supposed to always say stereotyping is bad, but wow, it sure looks like there's one class of criminals who get a free pass in our country. And it's about time people started identifying them, calling them out and yes, maybe stereotyping. I'm talking about men. Men seem to be the only ones who love killing people. Has there, has there ever been a female mass murderer? Yeah, at some point, but it's pretty rare, it's pretty uncommon. Are there a lot of radical leftist lesbians out there committing mass shootings, shooting up TV stations? Not that I see. So maybe if you're a police officer, you should start doing more profiling of white men. Now this, this gentleman, being facetious, was 64 years old. That's nobody's definition of a young man. But certainly this Kirk killer. Others, it always seems to be young men. We do have a crisis in America with young men increasingly taking themselves out of the world of employment. They're not unemployed because they're not seeking employment. They're just home watching video games, feeling sorry for themselves, maybe listening to podcasts telling them how, oh, woke culture and liberals and feminists are making you feel bad and they're getting angrier and angrier and then you end up doing really bad things, sometimes to others, sometimes yourself. The rate of suicide among young men is three, sometimes four times higher than women. And it's a huge, huge problem. Once again, men with guns. Now say what you will about liberals and progressives and the radical left. If they're part of the left in the United States, they don't like guns. You remind us that daily at election time because it helps you win votes. But you can't have it both ways. You can't say these, these radical leftists are so awful and liberals and Democrats are so awful because they hate guns that take away my guns. And then someone who was Brought up in a culture where everyone's given guns like candy and park party favors, goes around and shooting people. That's not a product of leftist culture. Unless you happen to grow up in Cuba in the 1950s, maybe then it was. But it's not a part of us or certainly Western European or Scandinavian style democratic socialism. That's not a part of their culture. So we need to get that a little bit clearer. There's been more research that's come out from some reputable sources talking about this Kirk Killer, the assassin. Again, I find it appalling. I condemn anyone committing any acts of violence and assassination. I want to make that very clear. But there's more been more research in journalism for reputable forces showing there is no, I'm going to repeat, no zero evidence that this killer had any contact whatsoever with any left wing organizations. And let me be fair here. Some have said this guy was put up or influenced by radical leftist organizations. Others have said he was influenced by radical left wing ideology. They are different. You could certainly be influenced by ideas circulating, ideas you get from podcasts, books, from YouTube video. You can be influenced without having gone to a meeting or a cell, you know, some cell meeting, some official meeting in a beer hole, for example. There are other. There are lots of ways of being influenced. But before we go into this massive crackdown which the Department of Justice seems to be excited about doing, before we have this massive crackdown and make illegal the ACLU and Americans for the Democratic Way and every organization and charity George Soros has ever given to, and the Democratic Party before we make all of those organizations illegal because we think somehow there's evidence that they influenced and met with and trained this assassin. In this situation, we should look at the facts. Now, I spent 35 minutes yesterday on this program in a fair, unbiased, objective way, analyzing every single possible political, cultural, familial way, you could argue that this Kirk Killer, alleged killer was influenced by organizations, thoughts, ideologies, broadly associated with the liberal left, radical left position. And there were a number of them. I also analyzed the dozen or so things that show that he was influenced in a part of a culture that was right wing and magnet influenced. I also showed you a lot of ways he's influenced by being what a lot of young men are today, completely disassociated, not a part of political culture, not even thinking about politics, not particularly ideological, but just young men not working, isolated, playing video games and driven to madness at some level. So I've been fair on this issue. There's more evidence that's come out that shows there's simply no evidence to contend that this guy was influenced in any kind of organizational way. So this is something where there's going to be a debate by a lot of different people from a lot of sides. I would ask you, if you didn't see it, check out my video yesterday. It's on all social media platforms on my account where I just look at this issue of how he was influenced. Because whatever your perspective is, you've got between eight and a dozen clear cut facts to make your case. The one thing I know with 100% absolute certainty is anyone who claims that it is absolutely clear cut that this killer was motivated and acted upon and did this atrocity because of one set cluster of ideas and ideologies is wrong. They are lying to you. They're partisan actors who are demagoguing, probably trying to make some money and they should not be trusted. Hey, that wraps up our show for the day and I want to thank my friends on TikTok here. I'm about to get signed out of TikTok, so I'm just going to reach here one minute and if I could take just a moment of your time, if you got any value out of today, I would urge you, please leave a comment, talk about what you liked. If you didn't like something, note that as well. We're still only a couple of weeks into this show, haven't even hit our three week mark and we're still learning, we're still improving, experimenting with segments, formats, the intro, music, things like that. So I would love to hear from you if you're listening to this on an audio platform, a podcasting platform, please, please do me a favor, take a moment to follow or subscribe. There's different terminology on different podcasting platforms. Follow the show, do your settings for automatic downloads and subscribe to the show. It doesn't cost anything. And finally, leave a review. You can leave a review on all these podcasting platforms. If you're watching on YouTube, please give us a thumbs up. Please sign up for notifications, leave a comment and subscribe to the channel. I'm T.J. walker. I'm going to get back to enjoying my Sunday and relaxing more. I don't know if I'm going to go on more of a hike. I'm probably going to go do some swimming, hit the gym. I hope you do something where you can learn, have fun, spend time with family and friends and do something for your health as well. Thanks so much. I'll see you live tomorrow and I'll also be seeing you throughout the day as more videos are added constantly to this channel. Thanks.