Trump Threat, Kanye Fallout, Brain Health Wake-Up Call | Filtered

Ultimize. The President of the United States just threatened to destroy another country's infrastructure and did it in a way that reads less like diplomacy and more like a late-night rant from someone who just discovered the caps lock button. Let me read this slowly, edited for family discretion, because every word matters. Here's what the President of the United States put out on social media. Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the effing strait. And I cleaned that up for family listening and viewing, but yeah, the president of the United States using the F-word in official communication to the world. You crazy. Now he uses another obscenity to question the parentage of people. He is criticizing. Or you'll be living in hell. Just watch. All caps. Praise be to Allah. That's from the President of the United States. It's not a parody account. This was from the President of the United States. Now, most coverage is focusing on whether this sounds unhinged. Well, that's the easy take. That's the headline. But the more serious argument And this is where it gets uncomfortable. It's coming from people who are not comedians, not partisans screaming on cable news, but serious thinkers. One of them is Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, points out something that should make you stop in your tracks. He starts with the definition from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That's right, ICE. Terrorism, according to ICE, is, quote, violence or the threat of violence against people or property to further a particular ideology. Then Krugman recommends read the post again. Threatening to destroy power plants, bridges, civilian infrastructure— that's not aggressive rhetoric. By definition, that is a threat of violence against people and property to achieve a political goal. And here's the part people don't want to say out loud. Once you accept the definition, the argument comes very hard to dismiss. Now, I'm not saying that lightly. It's a heavy word. It should be used carefully. But terrorism, yeah, the United States has become a rogue nation headed by a terrorist. I realize that's not polite to say. That makes someone seem like they are partisan, but it's just objective fact if you believe in things like international law and centrist, middle-of-the-road political analysis from people around the world. That's exactly why this is so serious, because this is someone throwing the word around casually. I'm not throwing it around. Krugman isn't throwing it around. It's an argument built on the government's own definition. Larger point is more chilling. This isn't framed as hitting military targets. This is about civilian infrastructure, the systems that keep ordinary people alive— electricity, transportation, daily life. You take those things out, you're not just sending a message, you're creating suffering. And that's where the argument shifts from tough talk to something far more dangerous: war crimes. Or at the very least, language that sounds like someone who doesn't even recognize the distinction anymore. Now let's talk about something that almost no one is focusing on but might be the most reckless, stupid part of the entire message: "Praise be to Allah." That's what the president put mockingly in his social media post. That line's doing a lot of damage because what is that? It's not diplomacy, it's not respect, it's not even coherent. It reads like mockery, like sarcasm, like someone trying to be clever about religion in the middle of threatening mass destruction. And here's the problem: religion is not a throwaway punchline in global politics. People have gone to war over religion. For thousands of years. Empires have risen and fallen over it. Entire regions are defined by it. And when the president of the United States appears to casually mock a religious phrase associated with over a billion people while simultaneously threatening violence, that's not just offensive, it's incendiary. That's the kind of thing that doesn't just create a bad news cycle, that creates generational resentment. You don't get to walk that back with a clarification tweet. You don't get to fix that with a press secretary saying, oh, what he really meant was all religions are fine. No, because in communication, perception is reality, and the perception here is that the most powerful leader in the world is casually mixing threats of destruction with what sounds like a mocking reference to religion. That's not strength, that's gasoline. Because this is where Americans often miss the story. We think this is about Democrats versus Republicans, cable news versus cable news, left versus right. The rest of the world is not watching it that way. They're watching it as, what is the United States becoming? And increasingly, the answer is not comforting. You see it in international coverage, in diplomatic language, and the subtle shifts of tone. Countries don't come out and say, quote, "The US is acting like a rogue state." They don't say that out loud, but they start acting like it. They hedge, they distance, they prepare. Because if you're an ally and you see this message, you're not thinking, "Oh yes, strategic brilliance." You're thinking, "Are we tied to someone who might escalate unpredictability?" Are we tied to a crazy man? If you're an adversary, you're thinking something even more dangerous. Is this real, or is this someone bluffing? Because instability cuts both ways. It can scare people, or it can invite miscalculation. And miscalculation is how wars start. Now let's talk about the tone of this message. Power plant day, bridge day. What is that? This sounds like a bad promotion at a theme park. Come on down, it's infrastructure destruction weekend. Kids eat free. This is not how serious leaders talk about military action. There's no gravity. There's no precision. There's no sense that the person writing this understands the weight of what they're describing. This is not the language of someone managing risk. This is the language of someone performing outrage. And that distinction matters because real power doesn't need to shout. Real power doesn't need profanity or obscenity. Real power doesn't need three exclamation points to convince anyone it's serious. When you have actual power, your words get quieter, not louder. More precise, not more chaotic. This is the opposite of that. And here's the final communication breakdown. When a leader communicates in a way that makes people question their stability, everything else collapses. All policy debates become secondary. All alliances become conditional. All trust becomes fragile. Because influence, the ability to get other people to do what you want, depends on one core belief. That you're rational, that you are predictable, that you understand consequences. The moment that belief cracks, you lose leverage. Not slowly, immediately. And right now, you don't just have political opponents questioning that. You have serious analysts, you have international observers, and you have arguments based on definitions, not opinions, that place this kind of rhetoric in extremely dangerous category. This should not be normal. This should not be routine. And the most alarming part of all is that we're starting to treat it like it is. Okay, troubling news. I was about to say out of the Middle East. It's really out of Washington, frankly. And people underestimate how big a problem this is. When I talk to people I know in the international community, having worked for decades with United Nations officials— again, they're reluctant to say it publicly, but privately they're all saying the same thing: the United States is now a rogue nation. You don't have a president, you have a terrorist who's taken over the head of your government. Granted, he was elected, but he's acting and behaving just like a terrorist, and it's scary times. You know, there's one thing I always find interesting. People will listen to a podcast like this, get ideas, maybe even feel a little motivated, and then just move on with their day. Nothing actually changes. And I get it. Information alone doesn't do it. Repetition does. That's actually why we built Ultimize. So if you're getting any value from this, just go to ultimize.com. That's spelled ultimize.com. There's a free course waiting for you there. You can start with communication skills, you can start with building better habits, but the whole idea is simple: don't just hear something once, actually build it into your life. Again, it's free. Go to ultimize.com. Okay, a major international music festival is facing backlash over booking Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, as a headliner, prompting corporate sponsors to withdraw and the British Prime Minister to publicly condemn the decision of hiring Ye in the first place. According to reporting from The Guardian and Reuters, Ye has made a series of widely documented antisemitic statements in recent years, and it's been reported every place else, including saying things like, "I love Hitler," and, "I'm a Nazi," along with releasing content and merchandise tied to Nazi imagery and rhetoric. In response to the festival lineup, companies including PepsiCo pulled sponsorship support, while UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the booking as, quote, deeply concerning given the broader social climate. Now let's step back and set something straight. This is not about demanding that every performer be perfect and politically correct at all times. No serious person expects artists to be angels. No one's asking for that. Some of the greatest performers in history have been controversial, difficult, offensive, politically incorrect, or just plain weird. That's part of art. That's part of the package. That's part of culture. That's part of free expression. But— big but here— civilized societies still have lines, and those lines matter most not at the fringes but at the center. Because when you're talking about a massive music festival backed by big global brands, mega corporations, covered by mainstream media, and operating with the implicit approval of institutions, you're no longer in the realm of underground provocation. You're in the realm of cultural endorsement. And there are certain things that simply should not be endorsed. Let's not sanitize what Kanye West actually said. "I love Hitler." "I'm a Nazi." These are not ambiguous phrases. Those are not taken out of context. Those are not ironic performance art statements that require a podcast to decode. Those are direct expressions of admiration for one of the most universally recognized symbols of evil in human history. And that is the line. That's not a gray line. That's not culture war debate. That's not cancel culture. That's a basic test of whether society still recognizes the difference between controversy and endorsement of genocide. Because once you blur that line, everything else becomes negotiable. Now, give credit where it's due. PepsiCo pulled out. That's the right move. Way to go, PepsiCo. We don't want to be associated with well-known anti-Semites who endorse Holocaust. Good move, PepsiCo. That's not censorship, that's judgment. Corporations spend billions trying to associate their brands with positive energy, aspiration, and cultural relevance. That's the whole point of sponsorship. When an event chooses to platform someone with this track record, The company has a choice: stay and implicitly validate it, or leave and draw a line. Pepsi left. That deserves recognition and approval. More companies should follow that exact playbook because too often corporate courage only appears after the backlash becomes overwhelming. In this case, stepping away signals something important: there are still some standards that matter more than market share. And Carrie Starmer deserves credit as well. When a sitting prime minister says a booking like this is deeply concerning, that's not about policing art. That's about acknowledging reality. Because leaders understand something that festival organizers apparently forgot. Words have consequences far beyond the stage. When you normalize rhetoric like this, you don't create headlines. You create permission structures. You make it easier for people on the margins, people already flirting with extremist ideas, to feel validated. You take something that should be universally condemned and turn it into just another talking point, and that is how societies drift, not all at once, but gradually. Now let's talk about the organizers, because this is where the real failure is. This didn't just happen. This wasn't a surprise. This wasn't, oh wow, we had no idea he said those things. Everybody knew. The quotes were public. The controversies were global. The backlash was predictable. And yet someone still said, yes, this is our headliner. That's not bold programming. That's not artistic risk-taking. That's a calculated decision to trade standards for attention. And here's the most absurd part of all. Are we Seriously supposed to believe that in the entire global music industry there's no one else who could headline a festival without praising Hitler? Really? That's the talent pool now? We've reached a point where the choice is either book this guy or cancel music altogether? Of course not. That's an absurdity. There are countless artists, brilliant, innovative, provocative artists, people who say things I don't agree with. Who can electrify a crowd without dragging Nazi admiration into the spotlight. This was not a necessity, this was a choice, and it's a choice that deserves scrutiny. Because culture isn't just what we tolerate, it's what we elevate. And when institutions elevate someone who has openly said, I love Hitler, they're not just presenting art, they're sending a message, whether they intend to or not, that this behavior still qualifies for the biggest stages in the world. That's the real issue, not whether someone is offensive, but whether there are still boundaries. Because if I'm a Nazi doesn't disqualify you from headlining a globally sponsored event, then what exactly does? That's the question this story forces us to confront. And now we answer it— we answer it— excuse me, how we answer it Says a lot more about our society than it does about any one performer. Now, Kanye West has been upfront in the past that he suffers from certain mental illness. Bipolar has been mentioned about whether that's official, an official diagnosis, I don't know. But he has, by all accounts, had various mental illness problems. Okay, I don't want to seem unsympathetic to mental illness, but that can't be a get-out-of-jail card, free to say whatever you want, no matter how harmful it is, no matter how much it emboldens racist and other genocidal fans to do what they want. It can't be a get-out-of-free card that you can trumpet anytime you want. It just can't be that simple. Now let me be clear. Now this happened in Great Britain. They don't have America's First Amendment. America has a First Amendment. I am not saying that Kanye West shouldn't be allowed to perform. If he wants to book a theater somewhere or a concert hall, sell tickets, and his fans want to come and they say, "We don't care about your record, we like you," I got no problem with that. But when major corporations that have stockholders from every mutual fund in the world and every retired teacher's pension are asked to essentially endorse it as they were in a music festival like that. That's when I think there's a real problem. And serious people who are not just prudes can say, no, that does not deserve the stamp of approval. By the way, quick question for you. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to consume content and how hard it is to actually do anything with it? I mean, you can listen to 100 episodes, read 10 books, and your habits are exactly the same. That's the gap most people never close. So if you're listening to this and thinking, yeah, I want to actually improve, go to ultimize.com. We've got free courses there for you, either on communication skills or building better habits. And it's designed to get you to actually use what you're learning, not just hear it once. No cost. No catch. Just go to ultimize.com and start. A massive new study analyzing— whoops, I forgot to switch my graphics today. Apologies. Getting the correct— and those of you listening on the podcast, what is TJ talking about? We do have a video version of this show on YouTube. So if you ever want to watch, you can watch on YouTube, and it does play on most other social media platforms as well. Those of you listening, to the podcast on podcast platforms, thank you for doing so. We very much appreciate that. But we, we do run a simple, lean show, and I actually push a button to put the graphics up. So that's why you saw the wrong graphic there at the start of this segment. Okay, let's, let's dive in with our third and final segment of the day. A massive new study analyzing more than 380,000 people is reshaping how we think about dementia risk. And the takeaway is surprisingly simple. What you do for a living every day may matter as much as or more than how long you stayed in school. Researchers found that people in more mentally demanding jobs, roles involving decision-making, creativity, and problem-solving, had significantly lower risk of developing dementia later in life. In fact, occupational complexity explained more than 70% of the connection between education and reduced dementia risk. Now, let me translate this into simple English because this is where it gets real and a little uncomfortable. It's not just that school makes you smarter, it's that school often leads you into work that forces you to keep thinking. And thinking, actual difficult, uncomfortable thinking is what protects your brain over time. One researcher put it bluntly: we spend about a third of our lives working. That's not just time, that's brain conditioning. So if your job is constantly asking you to solve problems, make decisions, communicate, adapt, learn new things, you're essentially putting your brain through a deep daily workout. If your job is repetitive, passive or requires very little mental engagement, you're not. And over decades, that difference compounds. Now, here's where I want to push this further, because this is not just a health story. This is a personal development wake-up call, because most people hear something like this and they immediately think, well, I guess I'm doomed. I don't have a fancy job. No, that's the lazy interpretation. The real takeaway is this. Your brain does not care about your job title. Your brain cares about whether you use it. Yes, the data shows that managers, teachers, doctors, and lawyers tend to have more cognitively complex jobs. They also make more money than the average person. But the mechanism is not the job, it's the stimulation. Reading, learning, problem-solving, social interaction, trying new things, even something as simple as playing strategy games or learning a new skill can build what researchers call cognitive reserve, your brain's ability to keep functioning even as it ages. Think of it like this: two people can have the same level of physical damage in the brain later in life. One functions fine, the other doesn't. Why? Because one built more backup pathways. That's what cognitive reserve is. It's redundancy. It's resilience. It's mental insurance. And you don't build it at age 75, you build it every single day of your life. Now, here's the part nobody likes to talk about. A huge percentage of modern work is the exact opposite of this. It's passive, it's repetitive, it's click, scroll, copy, paste, meetings where nobody thinks, emails that could have been sentences. Days where your brain is technically on but functionally asleep. And then people go home and do more of the same. Scroll, watch, consume, repeat. And then we act surprised when cognitive decline shows up later. This is not mysterious. This is behavioral. This is cumulative. We built a world where it's easier than ever to avoid thinking, and then we're shocked when thinking becomes harder. Now, the good news, and this is important, is that researchers are very clear. You're not stuck. If your job isn't mentally demanding, you can compensate. You can read real books, not just TMZ headlines. You can learn new skills. You can take classes online or in real life. You can engage socially. You can volunteer. You can deliberately put your brain in situations where it has to work. But here is where I'm going to be blunt. Most people won't. Not because they can't, because they won't choose to. Because passive entertainment is easier, and it's never in the history of humanity been easier than right now. Because thinking is effort, because growth is uncomfortable, and because nobody's forcing them to do it. This is where the personal responsibility piece comes in. You don't get to outsource your brain health. You don't get to say, well, my job doesn't challenge me, so I guess that's it. No, you either challenge your brain or time will, and time is undefeated. Now, one more interesting and slightly controversial point from the research. There's some evidence that retiring later, if you enjoy your work, may actually help preserve cognitive function longer. Think about it. We've been sold this idea that the goal is to stop working as early as possible. Why? But if working is one of the main ways your brain stays active, then what exactly are you retiring into? Golf? More television? More scrolling? That might feel like freedom in the short term, but cognitively, it could be decline disguised as relaxation. Again, not for everyone, But it's a question worth asking. So here's the bottom line. This is not just about dementia. This is about how you live your life today. Are you using your brain or are you slowly letting it go unused? Because the habits you build now are the brain you will have later, and no app, no supplement, no shortcut is going to replace that. Your brain is either being trained or it's being neglected. And the difference, according to this research, could be years, if not decades, of how well you function at the end of your life. Okay, this is obviously not surprising data. You've heard me talk about it. You've heard other health people talk about this issue, staying active. There's always the, but, but, but, TJ, that's not fair. You're talking about, you know, lawyers and doctors, people who make a lot more money. That's why they're living longer. Well, you can live to 90 and be active and engaged and playing tennis that day and die in your sleep, or you can die at 90 and the last 15 years of your life, you're numbed, have no memory, you're with dementia, and you're in a retirement home watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Two very, very different outcomes for the last 15 years of your life? I know which one I want. So I plan on number one, being here with you every day. So this is a part of what keeps me feeling active and engaged. I plan on continuing making online courses and more and more podcasts. Currently, the plan for the Ultimize Network is to have more personal development podcasts, than any media company, podcast company in the world. And we're on track to do that. So I'm planning on being active. You don't have to be me, obviously, and you don't have to do anything for money. But I do want you to keep in mind, you know, really two numbers. One of them is 166. That's how many hours you have, I have. That's how many hours Picasso had every week of his life. What's the worst thing could happen if you spent 20 of those hours doing something to solve a problem for someone else? It could be something where you're doing it for money. It could be something where you are volunteering at your local homeless shelter. But 20 hours out of 166 hours is really not that much. And you could do that just, you know, Monday through Friday. Noon to 1, 8 to noon. And that alone might add years, maybe even a decade or more, to your ability to think, remember, and live life. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing. No obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. Okay, that's the show. Thanks so much.