I’ve been thinking a lot about flags recently, so here’s a whole #jammingwithjason #podcast episode. Flags are a way to let others know who we are and what we stand for. We might fly a flag of our favorite sports team, our country, etc… as an example (maybe even a pirate flag, arghhh 🙂
Most people are afraid to proudly share with the world who they really are, since others may judge us, but the reality is… we are all a little different, unique, quirky, freaky in our own way. That is what makes us interesting and truly loved by those who really know us.
Listen in as we discuss flags, ice cream, and so much more in this episode.
Transcript
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Jason Mefford: Welcome to another episode of jamming with Jason hey and today i’ve had flags on my mind so we’re going to talk a little bit about.
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Jason Mefford: flags and you might be wondering what that has to do with anything but just listen you’re gonna figure it out.
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Jason Mefford: Because really you know whether you believe it or not everybody has a little bit of freak everybody’s a little bit weird everybody’s a little bit quirky.
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Jason Mefford: depends on what word, you want to use and so today we’re going to talk a little bit about letting your freak flag fly and you’re going to know exactly what that means, when you listen to this episode so let’s get started.
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Jason Mefford: Alright, everybody well today is one of those where I just kind of hit record and i’m going to babble a little bit, but I promise, as you as you hang around with me.
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Jason Mefford: Something that I say today is going to be exactly what you need to hear today so that’s kind of the way that I like to run these episodes there’s a lot of.
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Jason Mefford: different things that you’ll be able to take from what we’re discussing today.
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Jason Mefford: And in fact what you get today is probably going to be something different than you get when you re listen to this episode.
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Jason Mefford: In another month or two and you might be wondering why would I want to do that well because again from the way we learn is actually through repetition.
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Jason Mefford: And every time that you know you read a book again you watch a movie again there’s different things that you get out of it, each time that you do it.
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Jason Mefford: And that’s kind of the way that I try to set up these podcasts as well, so that they can be a resource that you can go back to and listen to over and over again.
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Jason Mefford: Now I told you at the beginning, I wanted to talk a little bit today about flags so let’s let’s just start talking about flags and we’re going to see where this goes okay.
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Jason Mefford: Now flags or something that’s kind of interesting Okay, and so, when you when you think about the history of flags and the flags that we use and yes i’m talking fl ag flags the you know the the.
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Jason Mefford: What are they made out of they’re made out of.
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Jason Mefford: cloth of some sort usually and and kind of you know the history of them where they kind of came from, I mean obviously they’ve been used for.
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Jason Mefford: A long time and things like military campaigns on putting up on the top of ships and other things like that, because.
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Jason Mefford: flags have been a way to be able to show other people kind of what you stand for, who you affiliate with okay so from kind of military campaigns right.
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Jason Mefford: You know, in the old days, people would would they would carry flags with them, so that the opposing.
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Jason Mefford: You know the enemy could actually see who they were people could see who they were when they were coming.
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Jason Mefford: And it was kind of the same way, you know, on ships, you could tell from a long distance away, you know, maybe which country.
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Jason Mefford: Have a flag that was flying on the ship, you would know all that’s a Dutch you know or an English ship because they chose to.
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Jason Mefford: furl of the flag got a lot of alliteration going on today of a particular country Okay, now that that continues on I mean each country typically has their own flag.
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Jason Mefford: But we have flags for other things as well, and you know one thing I noticed is I kind of walk around my neighborhood here when I get up and go out for my morning walk.
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Jason Mefford: A lot of the houses in my neighborhood have flags hanging out in front of it now, I live in I live in America so on some houses, there is an American flag, that is flying in front of that house.
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Jason Mefford: Now that flag tells me a little bit about the person right, so if if somebody’s flying an American flag on their house and we’re living in America so it’s in a surprise folks and people are living in America here.
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Jason Mefford: But the fact that somebody is flying an American flag shows me something about them or tells me something about that person right, the fact that they have an American flag.
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Jason Mefford: You know, in front of their house and let’s say it’s it’s not on a holiday like flag day or Independence Day, but they fly it all year around, I know that that person has a very strong connection or affinity with and is very patriotic very proud of being an American okay and.
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Jason Mefford: Let me, let me just divert there for just a second and talk about the American flag.
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Jason Mefford: For one thing, because here here’s something you may not know about the American flag right is in in in America here, you know, still in a lot of schools and other places like that.
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Jason Mefford: You know, people are very patriotic some people are very patriotic and they they put a lot of emphasis into the American flag, you know you can’t burn the flag you can’t you know disrespect it.
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Jason Mefford: You know, I was taught as a boy scout you know how to fold the flag properly you can’t ever let it touch the ground.
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Jason Mefford: Because a lot of people put a lot of respect into it, and in fact there’s, a thing that you know, is still kind of a hot issue some schools make children get up.
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Jason Mefford: once a week or once at once a day and actually pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay.
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Jason Mefford: I can still remember the hat, because I was one of those kids that was forced to pledge my allegiance to the flag.
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Jason Mefford: Now what’s interesting is you know where the pledge of allegiance actually came from it didn’t come from the government could actually came from a flag manufacturing company.
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Jason Mefford: So they it was a brilliant marketing idea Okay, and the whole idea that they would you know get school children.
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Jason Mefford: to sign these petitions and try to get their schools to have these flags so every day, they would pledge allegiance to the flag.
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Jason Mefford: The whole reason for it actually was it was a marketing campaign to sell more flags okay interesting thing to the the part in there about under God.
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Jason Mefford: That actually was added in the 50s with the whole McCarthy Soviet you know Cold War kind of issue and other stuff like that.
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Jason Mefford: That actually didn’t exist in the original one so interesting little myth buster again, you might believe, believe me, don’t, believe me, I don’t care go do your own research but it’s pretty well documented on the Internet that that’s where it actually comes from okay so.
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Jason Mefford: You never knew, you were going to learn that today right so anyway back to flags right so.
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Jason Mefford: Like I said, sometimes I see American flags flying in front of people’s homes, in fact, you know, one of one of the houses in our neighborhood here, I noticed that they they done some renovation on it, they repainted the outside.
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Jason Mefford: And then they put up flags they put up an American flag, and they also put up another flag that I didn’t actually know what that what what this other flag was.
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Jason Mefford: But I noticed, you know I could tell from the the cars that were in the driveway there’s usually a maybach which, if you know about that that’s a pretty expensive car.
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Jason Mefford: range Rover BMW Mercedes, so they have literally like half a million dollars worth of cars sitting on their driveway.
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Jason Mefford: So I was curious what that other flag was, and so I because it was one that I didn’t recognize, you know i’ve been all over the world, I know you know my geography, I.
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Jason Mefford: am one of those nerdy people as well, it actually kind of you know, used to memorize the the country capitals and everything like that too.
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Jason Mefford: But it, but it was a flag, that I wasn’t familiar with you know you know if it was Germany or Italy or Ireland or some of these other ones right.
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Jason Mefford: i’m very familiar with those flags, but this one I didn’t I didn’t know what it was, but I was curious right because again if somebody is willing to or puts a flag like that in front of their house, it must mean something to them and so.
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Jason Mefford: You know the beautiful thing today with the Internet is.
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Jason Mefford: We never have to just wonder if we’re curious, we can just do some research and we can figure it out right so so I went to a website that showed the.
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Jason Mefford: It shows you a little bit of the freaky and weirdness about me okay that’s coming out today and that’s kind of the topic we’re discussing.
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Jason Mefford: So I went to this website to look up flags of the world and scroll through you know there’s about 200 different countries in the world, so it took me a while to kind of scroll through.
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Jason Mefford: Because I was curious to find out where this flag was from because i’ve never seen the people that live in the House all i’ve ever seen is that is the cars.
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Jason Mefford: I actually haven’t ever seen him come and go and found out it’s actually it’s the flag from Sri Lanka, which is a country kind of you know, south of India off the African coast that’s kind of out there by itself, I flew through short shrift Sri Lanka one time.
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Jason Mefford: But but wasn’t familiar with the flag so Now I know a little bit more about those people right there, probably, you know again immigrants that have come to the United States.
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Jason Mefford: they’re they’re probably very proud of the fact that they live in America now because they’re they’re flying the American flag.
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Jason Mefford: But they’re also proud of their heritage that they actually come from Sri Lanka right and that’s probably where they were born, or at least the parents were born and then immigrated to the United States.
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Jason Mefford: So, because of the flag, that they are flying in front of their house I learned a little bit about them.
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Jason Mefford: And it shows that they’re proud that they open their mouth they’re they’re willing to share who they are right, because a lot of times we’re not willing to share who we are, and so this is, you know, one of the things that I wanted to talk about today, you know when you think about it.
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Jason Mefford: Everybody in the world is a little bit different right, we all have had different life experiences.
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Jason Mefford: We all like you know some of us, like some of the same things, some of us like different things right so even you know let’s take sports as an example right.
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Jason Mefford: I happen to like American football now a lot of people in America and all over the world like American football.
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Jason Mefford: But some people don’t some people prefer, but the rest of the world college football, or we call soccer some people like tennis some people like golf some people like curling.
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Jason Mefford: Okay, if you don’t know what curling is go look it up it’s actually the second most popular sport in Canada behind hockey So if you don’t know what curling is go look that up.
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Jason Mefford: Some people like everything some people don’t even like sports at all right they they they don’t understand it, they don’t like it, they don’t want to watch it.
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Jason Mefford: And that’s cool right it’s Okay, regardless of what you like you know you may be a little different than somebody else but that’s perfectly fine as well right.
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Jason Mefford: Now kind of getting back to flags so some of the other flags that I happen to see around my neighborhood is you know, during the election time.
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Jason Mefford: You know, for our presidential election few years ago between trump and Biden.
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Jason Mefford: Our country was very divided, in fact, I mean you could tell there were certain lawn signs that went up and some people, especially.
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Jason Mefford: You know the trump supporters sold a lot of flags, so a lot of those American flags that I would see came down and trump.
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Jason Mefford: Flags came up instead so you know again they were proud that that’s who they supported they wanted to fly that flag and let everybody know that they were a trump supporter.
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Jason Mefford: cool right, I might not agree with them politically but that’s fine that’s cool if that’s what they want to do if that’s who they want to be then i’m fine with it right, and at least they had the courage to actually say what they thought or what they believe right.
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Jason Mefford: I also see you know, again, as I said, you know now is kind of football time in America, and you know we’re getting down close to the super bowl so you know there’s only a few teams left in it.
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Jason Mefford: In fact super bowl might be over by the time this airs I don’t know right so record them in advance, but.
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Jason Mefford: But you know in our neighborhood again on game day or different things like that sometimes I will see other flags that are flowing.
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Jason Mefford: So you know oakland well they’re not in oakland anymore, but lot Las Vegas raiders it’s hard for me to say that now, because they just moved.
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Jason Mefford: You know somebody right down the road is also an la rams supporter, because I saw a flag out in front of their house state because we’re still in the playoffs, and so they have a whose house rams house flag flying in front of them.
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Jason Mefford: One of the a couple of the other houses in the neighborhood which is interesting.
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Jason Mefford: That are side by side, one of the houses had an Ohio State flag, the other one had a university of Michigan flag.
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Jason Mefford: out front of it so it’s interesting because again if you’re if you’re in America or you know the University of Michigan and Ohio State University Those are two universities big universities here in the United States, those are rival.
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Jason Mefford: colleges right so so it’s interesting that, again, you know here you have an Ohio State buckeye and you’ve got a Michigan wolverine living right next to each other, and they want each.
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Jason Mefford: know that hey I root for the other team right, but you know so so i’ve been talking about flags right and what is this have to do with.
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Jason Mefford: With what we usually talk about is you know what the fact is, and, as I told you before we’re all a little different and it’s Okay, it is cool that we are all different.
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Jason Mefford: Because imagine if we were all exactly the same how boring would life actually be that’d be like you know going into get an ice cream Cone.
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Jason Mefford: And the only option is vanilla or maybe you only have vanilla and chocolate as the options how boring would life be.
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Jason Mefford: If all you had was vanilla or all you had was chocolate or all you had was vanilla or chocolate.
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Jason Mefford: Right, some of us, like other flavors like mint chocolate chip or rocky road or chunky monkey or you know, whatever the list goes on and on about all of the different kinds of ice cream that you could get.
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Jason Mefford: And we enjoy that and it’s Okay, you know if I happen to like you know I like cookies and cream, which is a flavor as well if I happen to like cookies and cream.
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Jason Mefford: You happen to like strawberry or chocolate is it cool can we still be friends, even if, maybe I prefer cookies and cream and you prefer chocolate.
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Jason Mefford: Well, I hope so right, I hope that we can all be different, and yet still get along with like and love each other, knowing that we all have differences right.
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Jason Mefford: Just because I happen to root for the Los Angeles rams and maybe you like the New York giants, can we still be friends, I hope we can be right.
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Jason Mefford: Just because we’re different doesn’t mean that we have to hate on each other.
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Jason Mefford: We can still like we can still love each other and have our differences, because honestly how fun, would it be you know going to a sporting event, if you couldn’t give your friend grief.
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Jason Mefford: You know, because they, like the other team right because there’s always a little a little rivalry and some fun, you know kind of going in there as well.
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Jason Mefford: And again it’s all done in fine it’s not done in hate sort of a thing, but life is much more it’s much richer it’s it’s it’s it’s much more full.
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Jason Mefford: When we are all allowed to be yourself to be who we are different, as well now one of the reasons why I was thinking about this whole idea of flags is one of the one of the shows that my wife and I had been watching.
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Jason Mefford: In it there’s been a couple of episodes where they have shown depictions of what’s called pride pride week.
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Jason Mefford: Especially in the San Francisco area so so pride week if you’re not familiar with it and there’s usually a Pride parade.
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Jason Mefford: Is you know, there are a lot of people that are you know homosexual lesbian bisexual.
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Jason Mefford: queer i’m trying to remember LGBT Q, you know what everything stands for, but it’s effectively people right that that are maybe not heterosexual.
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Jason Mefford: And it is, it is a celebration of being different and of having those sexual preferences and an ability for people to come out.
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Jason Mefford: And usually they are hosting flag right there are Gay Pride flags that are kind of rainbow color.
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Jason Mefford: Because they want to celebrate who they are, and share with the world and express themselves as who they are, and I think it’s fabulous you know in fact i’ve seen some depictions of it, maybe someday.
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Jason Mefford: You know, this would actually be really fun, for me, is go up to San Francisco during pride week and actually march with them, I mean it looks like it would be one hell of a party and a lot of fun now.
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Jason Mefford: I don’t happen to be that way sexually doesn’t matter right, I still love and like people who were not like me that’s okay that’s cool, we are all different right.
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Jason Mefford: And so the fact if somebody is hosting a gay pride flag if they’re hosting an American flag if they’re hoisting you know.
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Jason Mefford: A Russian flag, whatever it happens to be we can still like and love each other, even though we are different okay now.
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Jason Mefford: that’s kind of the one thing that I wanted to talk about the other is the fact that I see so many people that are afraid to be who they are.
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Jason Mefford: because they are afraid that if other people knew who they really were or what they really liked that other people wouldn’t like them.
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Jason Mefford: Now that’s a very lonely and a sad place to be in life, in fact, you know, again, one of the reasons why things like the Pride parades come out is.
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Jason Mefford: You know, for so long and even still unfortunately in certain parts of the world.
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Jason Mefford: It can be very dangerous to admit that you’re not heterosexual right or that you’re you’re in a relationship with someone of the same sex or other things like that.
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Jason Mefford: It can literally some places in the world, people still kill people who are different than them now, I think that’s horrible porn I don’t understand it at all.
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Jason Mefford: But you know because of that again it’s it’s an opportunity for people to express themselves to come out of the closet that’s a term that we have in here in the US that’s coming out of the closet right of actually expressing who you are.
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Jason Mefford: and letting the world know who you really are so again, you know the problem is, in our world right now is you know people get divided.
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Jason Mefford: And, and they try to put people into teams hey i’m on the vanilla side i’m on the chocolate side which one, are you on are you on the vanilla or the chocolate ice cream side well.
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Jason Mefford: Does it matter does it matter, do we have to be divisive do we have to pick teams, do we have to fight against each other.
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Jason Mefford: Or is it alright to love people regardless of what team they might play on or which team they might root for okay now where i’m coming back to is because a lot of people are spewing that bullshit out there in the world.
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Jason Mefford: People who like cookies and cream.
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Jason Mefford: are worried to say they like cookies and cream.
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Jason Mefford: Because they’re afraid if I say I like cookies and cream better than vanilla chocolate.
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Jason Mefford: That people aren’t gonna like me.
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Jason Mefford: And so there’s a lot of people in the world who don’t admit or don’t let other people know who they are, because they’re afraid people won’t like them they’ll be cast out if people actually knew who they were.
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Jason Mefford: Now what i’m here to tell you is everyone in the world, feels that way, so if you are feeling that way you are not alone everyone feels that way, let me say that again.
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Jason Mefford: everyone feels that way, everyone in the world has something that they’re a little embarrassed to let other people know about everyone.
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Jason Mefford: So what I will tell you is a lot of times, the people who they look like they have all their shit together they look like they’re, just like the perfect they got the perfect life.
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Jason Mefford: They don’t have the perfect life okay half the time they’re pretending to be something that they are not right because they’re afraid if people find out, they will not be liked okay So in fact back to the show that I was talking about before it’s interesting.
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Jason Mefford: One of the characters in there is like this really macho.
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Jason Mefford: actor okay heartthrob the person that all the women are like hobbies so gorgeous right and so he’s like an action tough macho kind of guy.
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Jason Mefford: And, and so again right all the women go to see his movies, because they think you’re so beautiful so handsome right.
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Jason Mefford: And the fact is he’s actually gay Okay, he but he has to hide the fact that he’s gay and living with his partner who he loves.
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Jason Mefford: right because he’s afraid that if he comes out and people find out that he’s actually gay he’ll get fired as an actor he won’t get to do these jobs anymore right and again.
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Jason Mefford: that’s a fictional TV show, but this has happened so many times actually in in the acting world right, in fact, for so long, people who were gay had to hide the fact that they were gay, because if people found out that they were they would literally get kicked out of Hollywood at the time.
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Jason Mefford: Now it’s not that way now but it used to be that way right, and so you know again what i’m telling you is if you’re sitting here and you’re and you’re afraid.
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Jason Mefford: That you aren’t being who you are, and you want to be a little different maybe you want to color your hair maybe you want to get a tattoo or a nose ring.
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Jason Mefford: I don’t know right maybe you like underwater basket weaving and you’re afraid that everybody’s going to make fun of you for that.
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Jason Mefford: Maybe you like cookies and cream ice cream instead right or maybe you like I don’t know rum raisin or pray lean or whatever right.
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Jason Mefford: But you’re afraid that that’s not what your friends actually like and that they will judge you if you if you let them know that well here’s something else that you should probably should know.
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Jason Mefford: Regardless of what you do there are going to be people in this world who do not like you.
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Jason Mefford: Regardless of what you do in this world there are going to be people who do not like you okay there’s going to be people who judge you.
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Jason Mefford: Regardless of what you do so, why spend your life pretending you’re somebody that you’re not when people still aren’t going to like you for pretending.
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Jason Mefford: Why not instead just be who you actually are okay now in fact I was, I was kind of messaging or you know going doing comments back and forth with one of the people that I know who is somebody that I respect and admire.
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Jason Mefford: because she is someone who is just herself, you know she wears neon colors she’s always doing kind of crazy stuff has loud clothes on that she’s doing but she’s always having a great time.
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Jason Mefford: And I love her I love her for who she is I love for how happy she is I love for the example that she is showing to me.
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Jason Mefford: That it’s okay to be me right, and we were kind of going back and forth and and I said I made some comment about you know, I appreciate your example and she she she kind of messaged back and said Oh well, thanks I had no idea right i’m just being me.
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Jason Mefford: You know, and in the in the point kind of came up in it is how freeing is it when you don’t give a damn what anybody else thinks.
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Jason Mefford: How freeing is it just to be yourself and to not care what anybody else thinks right until you actually get to that point you can’t really feel.
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Jason Mefford: The true joy and freedom that that comes from now she said that to me it reminded me right, my my mind always goes different places, when I when I have things like this come up.
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Jason Mefford: And I remember you know, many years ago, I had a business meeting up at Microsoft, and so I had to go up to Seattle fly up to Seattle.
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Jason Mefford: And because it was a meeting on the Microsoft campus they literally have like a whole taxi service that’s just.
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Jason Mefford: Cars for Microsoft, so you come into a meeting and a car from Microsoft will pick you up and take you to your meeting.
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Jason Mefford: That you have on their campus or at least that’s what happened to me, and so I remember, I was, I was in the car.
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Jason Mefford: And you know I always love talking to you know uber lyft drivers taxi drivers kind of finding out their stories because I find that.
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Jason Mefford: So much of the time they are just fascinating people you know you might think that they have kind of an ordinary job, but they have an amazing job.
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Jason Mefford: Because imagine all the people they get to talk to all the people who write in their cars at different points, and so I remember this lady who picked me up.
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Jason Mefford: And she was a little older and you know, in fact, she was in her 60s she’d retired from whatever she was doing before I can’t remember what.
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Jason Mefford: What she was a few as a teacher or something else before, and she retired and then went to work just driving you know people around for Microsoft is kind of a retirement job.
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Jason Mefford: And I remember her telling me, you know I love being over 60 now which you said that okay again here’s a here’s a woman who says, I love being over 60 to me publicly right because I was always taught right a woman is always 29.
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Jason Mefford: or 39 right there never older than that right, you know you never asked a woman her age that was what my mother taught me was polite right you never asked a woman or age so here, I was in the back of this car.
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Jason Mefford: And this woman volunteers to me, she says, I love being over 60 and I said why, why do you why do you love being over 60 and she said, you know what because as old as quote unquote old people okay now 6065 that isn’t that old, but again on a high tech company.
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Jason Mefford: You know campus like Microsoft or most average age was probably 20 something you know she probably seemed ancient to these 20 year old try she wasn’t ancient to me she’s younger than my dad at the time.
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Jason Mefford: But you know she said, you know I love being over 60 I love being considered old why, because I can say whatever I want to say, and even if I say something crazy people give me the benefit of the doubt and say oh she’s just old.
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Jason Mefford: And I thought that is just beautiful right.
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Jason Mefford: because she was so happy, she was so free she didn’t care what people said she was just honest and said, whatever she wanted to say.
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Jason Mefford: That maybe when she was in her 30s she wouldn’t feel comfortable saying, but she’s lived enough of life.
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Jason Mefford: And she knew that you know what i’m going to kind of get a hall pass and i’m going to get to say whatever I want to say.
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Jason Mefford: And if people don’t like it they’re just going to kind of discount it and go oh she’s just an old crazy woman right.
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Jason Mefford: Well, what if we could all be old crazy women and just say what would.
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Jason Mefford: Be who we are, say what we want to say, and if people think we’re crazy and that’s just fine with us because, as I told you before regardless of what you’re trying to do, or who you’re trying to be.
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Jason Mefford: There will be some people in the world who will judge you there will be some people in the world who don’t like what you do that’s okay.
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Jason Mefford: But if you are yourself what you’re going to find is the people who really like you, who really love you are going to love you even more.
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Jason Mefford: And you don’t have any of the guilt and shame that goes along with trying to pretend that you’re somebody who you’re not.
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Jason Mefford: So you might as well get rid of all that guilt and shame and just let your freak flag fly, whatever that happens to be right, you know again i’m different than a lot of people I like to play the guitar some people don’t like that right, I I get online and research crazy stuff like.
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Jason Mefford: You know the different flags that I shared with you right one of my favorite things to do is we watch a lot of movies, that are based on.
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Jason Mefford: On true stories and so we’ll watch the movie we get entertained from it, I learned something and then I hop online and I actually do research and find out well okay what was actually true in the movie and what was not right, because I just love learning things, some people don’t right.
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Jason Mefford: You know I like I like to wear hats, some people don’t right, in fact I like I told once from this lady That said, you know I don’t trust men that wear hats.
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Jason Mefford: I don’t trust men that wear hats okay that goes to another episode where we’ve talked about before she has some probably trauma with a man, the word wore a hat.
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Jason Mefford: At some point in her life and she’s taking it out on all men that wear hats, but anyway, I think i’m a nice guy I like to wear hats I wear hats, you know in fact there you go take it off, but I still have a head of hair up there and it’s funny that.
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Jason Mefford: Many years ago, one of my bosses said, you know what Jason if you just let your hair grow out you wouldn’t have to wear those hats.
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Jason Mefford: I like wearing hats I keep my hair short right that’s something that’s different about me now maybe you know, maybe you like it, maybe you don’t it doesn’t matter right.
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Jason Mefford: Because, as I said before, can’t we all just get along can’t we all still like and love other people, even though they’re different.
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Jason Mefford: So you know if you’re somebody that’s into underwater basket weaving.
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Jason Mefford: If you’d like to play video games if you’re you know I met a guy once who collected IBM punch cards Okay, most of you probably have no clue what the hell and IBM punch card is.
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Jason Mefford: But that was his thing that was his hobby that’s what he did right if you collect stamps or coins, or you know you’re a live action role playing alarp or you know somebody that does that or does Renaissance fairs or whatever.
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Jason Mefford: Just be you just be happy, do the things that you love to do and again, even if you’re embarrassed to maybe share it.
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Jason Mefford: Because I know, sometimes you know we live through trauma, we have some things that maybe make us who we are.
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Jason Mefford: We have some experiences that maybe we’re we’re embarrassed to let people know about you know i’ve seen this a lot with people, maybe, who were molested as children either physically or sexually.
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Jason Mefford: they’re embarrassed to share that they don’t want to share that or people who maybe had addictive behaviors to drug or alcohol, you know they don’t want people to know about that.
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Jason Mefford: But here’s What I do know, and this was another kind of impetus for me doing this, this podcast today, I was talking to somebody yesterday we were actually recording another episode that you’ll hear in a little bit, and we were talking about how you know we each have our own voice.
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Jason Mefford: I was born in Boise Idaho to the parents that I was born to I grew up and lived in the family that I did i’ve had different experiences live certain places in the world had certain jobs that i’ve had have certain hobbies or likes or dislikes I am the only person in the world.
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Jason Mefford: Who was like me.
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Jason Mefford: You are the only person in the world who is like you right it’s like there’s 7 billion different flavors of ice cream in this world, I mean again how cool is that right, instead of just having chocolate and vanilla we have 7 billion.
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Jason Mefford: Different flags, we have 7 billion different kinds of ice cream.
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Jason Mefford: How cool is that right, but here’s the kicker.
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Jason Mefford: Most of us are afraid to share our story, most of us are afraid to open our mouth, we feel like we’re just ordinary people that nobody cares about well what I will tell you in my world travels and my years of living, some of the most fascinating people that I have ever met in the world.
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Jason Mefford: Some of the people that are the most fascinating people I have ever met in the world, some of the people who are having the biggest impact.
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Jason Mefford: In the world to the people around them, are those ordinary people that don’t think they have anything to share.
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Jason Mefford: And what I will tell you is only you can share your story only you can say things in the way that you say them and here’s the real big responsibility that comes with this only you can actually touch people in certain ways.
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Jason Mefford: So why not share it, why not be that example to other people, let your freak flag fly be who you are speak your truth and be that example to other people.
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Jason Mefford: Because what I will guarantee you is there is someone in the world that is looking up to you, there is someone in the world who only you can help, I might say the exact same words that you do.
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Jason Mefford: But it’s you that makes the difference, they listen to me and go that’s just some crazy dude I don’t get it right, you say exactly the same thing, and they go oh my gosh where have you been my whole life okay so don’t be afraid to be who you are.
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Jason Mefford: don’t be afraid to share that with other people, yes, some people might not like you some people that you know you thought like you may not like you when they find out who you really are it’s okay.
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Jason Mefford: Because other people will come into your life, who do love you and, like you, more than those other people.
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Jason Mefford: And you’re going to be feeling a lot more happy you’re going to be feeling a lot more joy, the more authentic you actually are.
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Jason Mefford: So with that that’s what I want to share with you today, let your freak flag fly say that fast fast a few times right sorry it’s a poet in me that comes out yeah there’s another thing you probably didn’t know about me right is actually i’m a poet as well, so.
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Jason Mefford: I love alliteration and some of those things like that so with that have a great week let your freak flag fly and just be you be uniquely you with that i’ll catch you on the next episode have a great week.
