Be Willing to Help Your Fellow Human – Kevin Weitzel | Episode 17 (Re-release)

[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another episode of the quest for new inspiration. My name is Katie Maschler and this week I’m actually taking a little bit of a break for those of you who don’t know, I decided to move to Kansas city. 

I am so excited to get to know some new people and meet some new Kansas city podcasters, or if you’re in the area and you have an inspirational story to share, make sure that you DM me or email me@newinspirationpodcastatgmail.com. So with all of that chaos, I decided to republish one of my favorite episodes.

Kevin Weitzel is one of the co-hosts of the home builder, digital marketing podcast. And I have had the honor for almost a year and a half now to be his sound engineer. He is a extremely inspirational guy and quite a character. I hope he inspires you as much as he inspires me. 

Kevin: Hello and [00:01:00] welcome to the quest for new inspiration. My name is Katie Maschler. And this week I will be interviewing Kevin Weitzel from outhouse. He is one of the hosts of the home builder, digital marketing podcast. And if some of you don’t know, that is the other podcasts that I work on. It is also co-hosted by my boss, Greg Bray from blue Tangerine.

And both of these men, not only at have taught me loads about digital marketing and sales, but they have also given me the chance to find my passion for podcasting.

Tell me a little bit about you first off, just for the people who don’t know you. And I don’t really know you that much anyways, you’re just kind of podcast host. And I’m 

KT: your editor? Absolutely. Well, I’m currently 49 years old father of two college students. I’ve kind of got a little bit of a forest Gump background.

I come from extremely poor family. My mother actually was a, I’m a first generation American kid because my, my mother actually came over during world war II. She’s a Holocaust survivor. Um, so. She is definitely some of the motivates me just, you know, [00:02:00] and we’ll kind of go in a little bit more of that here in a little bit, but, uh, you know, she’s a stereotypical woman that is, you know, starts off with, you know, great aspirations and political aspirations and wants to move forward as professional in her own life.

And then falls in love. And then allows the man to do his thing. And that’s kind of how it was in the fifties and sixties is that women would support the men as they were going through college or as they were going through their, uh, professional endeavors and they would stay home and raise the children.

You know, obviously the world has changed, uh, to the better, in my opinion, where that’s not the case as much anymore, but, uh, but in her case she made a lot of bad decisions in life, just based off of a following, you know, Following her desire to be one with the people that she was with. So one of my major motivations in life, although she does motivate me and she, and she’s very highly, that she’s highly intelligent.

She has a degree from Western Michigan university, but she kind of floated from job to job, to job, to job and [00:03:00] concept pathway of the grass is going to be greener. So by the time I was 18 years old, she had moved. Uh, 18 times, you know, so that’s, that’s kinda rough, you know, on a kid. So I’d never really did get to settle down or hunker down anyone at one point or one place for any length of time.

That being said, what it did give me the, the ridiculous ability to do is I can talk with anybody. I can hold on his conversation with anybody. Uh, regardless of the background, I can talk to you. I can have a good time. I can, I can. Welcome and say how to do somebody. So meeting new people has never been an issue in my book and I can thank my mother for that.

The downside is, is that that really did kind of give me a scenario in my life where I didn’t have a lot of very wholesome, really close knit friendships. You know, I do now, you know, my older age, but as I was when I was really young, You know, sub twenties. Uh, I struggled a little bit with having wholesome relationships.

You know, they were very, a lot of superficial relationships, but when I say I’ve lived kind of a Forrest Gump lifestyle, I mean, not only coming from a poor family background and having to do everything on my own, my [00:04:00] mother relocated back to Kansas when I was out here in high school. So I’ve known my illnesses my freshman year in high school.

So I had a full ride scholarship to university of California Davis. I made a couple of little mistakes on implementing. Plan. And then, uh, I went in the Marine Corps and stead, uh, so I did eight years as a Garrison sniper in 85, 41, even, although they don’t call me to five 40 ones anymore as the gears, the sniper in the United States Marine Corps.

So eight years there then after the fact that I was, uh, heavily involved in wheels. So bicycles, motorcycles, automobiles, um, for several, you know, my entire professional life until about the last five years I’ve been in the home building. But there’s a few factors that come into play as well. Is that my parents divorced when I was three years old and I struggled having a relationship with my father.

I was a stereotypical, you know, divorced parents. You only, only live 40 miles away. You know, we lived in Michigan at the time, but you only live 40 miles away. And you know, it starts off where it’s, I’d see him every other weekend and then it would be every couple of months and then it was on special occasions.

And then it was excuse after [00:05:00] excuse after. Excuse. So although my dad. Dynamic human being. Um, he was also a raging alcoholic and alcoholics, even when they’re dry or when they’re clean, you should say fall into patterns. And those patterns are as excuses. Uh, mistruths, if you will lies as another word for it.

And, uh, it was a constant struggle of, of having to, to adjust to his non-truths and that, that kinda kinda messed me up a little bit. Uh, psychologically I still have some data issues, even though he’s been gone and he’s, you know, he died about 15 years ago or so. Um, but he actually inspires me to, he inspires me in a couple of fashions.

Number one is that he. Boisterous. He had this baritone voice that when he walked into a place, they all knew he was there. So I did learn how. Be in the presence, you know, to be known, be it known that I was there. Um, and so, you know, being bold and being willing [00:06:00] to put myself out there, I learned that from my dad.

Uh, I learned how to be variable by my mom. Uh, you know, how to, you know, suit the variations that are out there. So I did learn that from him. You know, we had, uh, basically ways semi-permanently when I was 17 years old. No, actually when I was 16, No 17 years old, I was a professional cyclist for about four, four and a half years.

I went to the Olympic trials in 88 and I was actually Kenny carpenter’s alternate Navy eight for the Korean Olympics. So, well, they’re not the Korean Olympics, but the only thing that we’re held to Seoul, Korea. And when I told them that I’d qualified for that contest, you know, it was, oh, that’s great.

That’s good news. And no, no consequences. How did you do none of those followup calls? Nothing. Uh, so I wrote a pretty heartfelt letter that, uh, basically. You know, I didn’t need them to be part of my life anymore. So I would say that from an inspirational standpoint, I did learn a lot from him from another inspiration.

I learned a lot from my mother, [00:07:00] seeing her struggle as a single mother with three kids, working jobs, jobs, sometimes multiple jobs at time. Battling, whether she can sleep, trying to provide for her kids, you know, and it wasn’t always successful. I mean, there were times when we didn’t get to eat times, when was, uh, we were sleeping in sleeping bags, uh, because you know, in Michigan winters he gets cold and, you know, we couldn’t keep the heat on, you know, so I’ve learned to be humble and to appreciate the things that I do have.

But another thing that I learned from her was a one of these points and that is. You have to not only appreciate what you have, but appreciate that you don’t need it in your life to not be as very material. Okay. So I do appreciate nice things. I have a tendency of not wanting a lot of bottles or things in my life.

I prefer high quality items. I’d rather save up for that heirloom piece of furniture than just a piece of junk that, you know, we’re going to throw away or replace every three or four years. So philosophically, that’s kind of how I. How I subscribe to life when it comes to what makes me walk down the pathway [00:08:00] every day and live a straight life.

I’ve got a couple of philosophies. Number one, don’t be in jail. I make it a daily goal to not do anything that would ever wind me up living in jail, because it just looks miserable. I don’t, I don’t care. Yeah. You get three squares. The temperature is probably appropriate, but, uh, I really don’t want to shower with a bunch of guys and, you know, and to be honest with you, I want to be able to.

I want to be able to leave whenever I want to. I don’t want to be confined into a tiny little room. So yeah, that’s that’s step one is to not be in prison. Step two, is that I I’ve, I’m a firm believer in kind of one of the Buddhist takes, which is to not tread on other people. So enjoy your life, pursue your happiness.

Without treading on others. Uh, you know, when you’re treading on others and, you know, using their shoulders and their head is stepping stones to move up to your next position in a company or to move, uh, in, in society. I think that’s a major, major flaw in someone’s personality. So I’d make that my second tenant, if you will.

Ways to live. What has a moment in my life? That’s, uh, that’s [00:09:00] inspired me to change my life when I was in United States. Marine Corps, obviously snipers are not known for humanitarian efforts were basically assigned. Get rid of a target. Um, however, I spent about a year and a half in Africa and my year and a half in Africa, I learned something very poignant that sticks with me to this day that so many people that had literally nothing.

And this is mostly Eastern Africa. This was during an operation restore hope in Somalia, but so many people there had nothing they lived in, they would stretch a tarp over a Bush and then they would use it. Area as their place to sleep at night. Um, they didn’t have any belongings. Like we have, they don’t have TV, they didn’t have running water, electricity, none of that stuff they have.

So when they had all that, nothing, but what I would keep seeing every day is people walking around with smiles on their face. And why were there smiles on their face? You know why? Because they weren’t beating themselves up to pay a mortgage. They weren’t clocking in clocking out of a job. They hated doing to make sure that they could buy the newest Nike’s.

You know, it all came down to was, it was just [00:10:00] simple family time. So that is definitely a moment when I kind of just, it set in stone in me that you don’t need to have all the stuff you can literally live and just be a happy person just by your experience with your fellow. So that was definitely a moment there.

KT: What else do we got? What are, where are we at here? 

Kevin: So where do you look when you’re like struggling to find inspiration? Just on like a general basis, just some day to day, kind of like bad Monday situation. 

KT: It’s funny that you say bad Monday, so I don’t really have bad Mondays. I am a firm believer [00:11:00] that if you enjoy what you’re doing at work, you will, you’ll you’re living.

So I do enjoy what I do. Uh, And I don’t necessarily dread going to work. There are times when I can get down, but I get down more, just all the crud and the stuff that’s out there. You know, just all the things you see in the news that are just bad that can just drag me down. You know, it’s like, man, how can humanity get like this?

So I’ll tell you what brings me back up. What brings me back up is seeing individuals that go out of their way to be more active. Then what’s even called upon them. So a good example is my friend, Katie was on a podcast with me, where we were talking to homemade and Scott Larson, the CEO of homemade actually said something along the lines of, um, you don’t know what being human is until you plan a shade tree that you’ll never get to enjoy it.

And I truly do believe in that. I think that the actions that we have on a daily basis shouldn’t be about self-serving. They should be [00:12:00] about things that you sure that you can enjoy yourself, but that others will also benefit from. So when you picked up the ball and ran with that, yeah, you don’t have $50,000 to don’t make the homemade, but you know what you did have, you had time, you had 20, 30, 40 bucks or whatever it costs to go get the supplies to put in those bags.

And you went around and you gave not homeless. People are humans that are experiencing homelessness. You gave them their personal care bags, which was fantastic as a bottles of water in their toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, a Tampax, and there’s some other items, 

Kevin: some beef jerky. And I put a little note that said, you got this.

KT: I think that’s fantastic. And you know, when I see stuff like that, it gives me that kind of uplift that I need my day to know that there are people out there that actually do care. You know, we’re not all out there just punching the clock. We’re not out there trying to Rob Peter paid Paul. We’re not out there trying to step on somebody else to elevate ourselves.

I that’s, that’s my motivation. I don’t really get it. I don’t get out of [00:13:00] books. Like most people do. I get it out of action. You know, a lot of people can say, oh, we need to do this. We need to do that. But that’s a neat. The differences is the dues, you know, do this. When I see somebody out there picking up the garbage along the side of a freeway, you know, that counteracts.

Completely counteract, but it counterbalances the people that literally flicked cigarette butts out their car window as if the world is their ashtray. And it’s that, that added human factor that people can be positive and not negative. That’s. Okay. Well, 

Kevin: thank you. I seriously that I don’t, I just had six bags and I just sent as much as I could at dollar general.

And when I went out and delivered, I was actually kind of nervous cause I didn’t want to. Offend them or like annoyed them. So one time I literally just like dropped it by and ran away really fast and he was asleep. And so like, I really hope when he woke up that he just like, it just made his day and I’m sure [00:14:00] it did.

And one time this lady, she was just like, thank you so much. Like, I seriously, haven’t had a tampon in like three, four months and I was like, Ugh. Like, I just take that for granted something so little 

KT: when you hear somebody say something like shouldn’t that person just go get a job. It’s like, do you know what it cost to get a job at cost money to get a job, you have to have a place to shower.

You have to have a place to, you know, Clean your closed. And to be personable, you have to have clothes. You never wear professional looking clothes, at least appropriate for the job you’re looking for, but you have to have a phone so that contact you’d even get the job, but you don’t have a computer, a lot of jobs nowadays, you have to do it on a website.

So it’s not as easy as just go get a job. And then if they have children, you can compound it even more. Childcare costs money. You know, all these things cost money. So it’s not as easy as just go get a job. It really isn’t. So yeah, I think that when we’re willing to help our fellow human, that inspires me more than anything on this planet.

There’s no motivation book out there. There’s no motivational [00:15:00] speaker out there that can motivate me more than the seen somebody else doing a kind act for somebody else. So that’s great. I do have a favorite movie. That favorite movie is heralded. Uh, that that was a movie that came out way before you’re born section of 1971.

It’s a little story about a coming of age kid who was from the family, a very wealthy family who be friends that was his hobby is going to funerals. And one, while he’s at one of these funerals funerals, he meets this elderly gal. And I don’t want to ruin the whole story, but basically falls in love with her.

And he learns about enjoying life. And, and I look at that. Not only for inspiration on just how to be simple and how to love, but how to live, man, you know, just, you know, that Ruth Gordon character, uh, you know, mod, she just lived, you know, she literally lived each day just to breathe, you know, just to take it in and exhale it out.

So yeah, that’s pretty much it. And then from there, The [00:16:00] soundtrack is by cat Stevens. Another artist that predates you, although he’s still around today. I think, I think he’s, uh, he converted to Islam and probably changed his music focus a little tiny bit, but he was a singer song writer in the sixties and seventies.

And he did the soundtrack to that movie. And there’s a song on there called trouble. And it’s about, you know, trouble that sets you free. It’s not about being in trouble. It’s about the happenstance in life that can give you trouble and how you can. Utilize that to set your set your mind for your soul free, whatever you want to set free.

Uh, and that’s a beautiful song. So that is definitely a song that I listened to when I just want to kind of reset trouble by cat Stevens. Okay. I will 

Kevin: definitely check both of those out for sure. I have this long list of shows constantly adding to it, but for sure, thank you so much for all of your inspiration.

Seriously, I look up to you and Greg and I love the opportunity of working with you on the home builder, digital [00:17:00] marketing podcast. Be sure to check that out if you have not. So yeah. Thank you. 

KT: It was my pleasure. I appreciate your time today, Katie.

 And that is it for this week’s episode. Thank you again for listening to my little podcast is seriously means the world to me, that you even press play in the first place. Be sure to follow my inspiring guests on all their social media platforms as well as the quest for new inspiration on instagram of course and we officially have a twitter

so go make sure to follow new inspiration pod on Twitter, as well as leave a review and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. It really does make a world of difference. Thank you so much and be sure to tune in next time.