[Transcript starts at 1:51]
Howdy, howdy, howdy my podcast people and welcome back to another episode of my favorite podcast. So maybe you notice if you're watching on the video, watching on YouTube, something's a little different with the outfit today. We kept the sweatshirt cause I didn't wanna go too far, but we wore the hat.
Why? Because I love this hat and also today's episode is all about or 100% inspired by the Garth Brooks documentary on Netflix that I recently watched. So a little backstory about this hat, uh, I think I've spoken about it in some of the past episodes, but I got this hat recently at the Raise the Bar Conference.
Uh, they gave all of the speakers a hat and I freaking love cowboy hats. I love country music. And you may not notice this about me, but I have a peanut head. We'll talk about the fact that I like country music cuz maybe you didn't know that either. But I have like one of the smallest heads ever. Uh, and it's really hard to actually find hats that fit.
Um, and every time I get a hat, I have like, you know, the little back thing, the little clip on the back it's like all the way looped over because my head is just so incredibly small. Uh, but when to Raise the Bar, they had hats already for us, which is, you know, a bold move because you don't know if it's gonna fit, and it fit. This thing fit my head and I feels like it's meant to be. Cuz I have the smallest head. Uh, and they had a size there, you know, that would fit. So I do have another hat. I have a Stetson back in, well in Pennsylvania now, my mom's house that I got when I was in Texas. I love country music. I love cowboy hats.
It is just something that it's in my blood. Right? Blame it all on my roots. That's the name of the episode. Uh, I was first introduced to country music by my mom and, uh, she grew up listening to country music and I actually asked her when I was writing this, the outline for this episode. I had an idea about her introduction to country music, but I was like, let me ask her and, and make sure that I'm like not making all of this up.
So she was introduced to country music by my grandfather and my mom's side is a hundred percent Puerto Rican. My grandfather and my mom, my grandfather and my mom, my grandfather and my grandmother, a hundred percent Puerto Rican. Um, and he loved Westerns and so he introduced them to that. And actually, this is this, this part I didn't know about.
So my grandmother came to the United States not being able to speak English, which blows my mind because this chick, she texts me now, like that's how we communicate. She texts me, she's on Instagram, she's on Facebook. She sends me Reels all the time. She, she hops into my Instagram Lives and watches, like, and she came here not knowing any English. And part of the way that she learned English was from Gene Autry and watching those old Western movies, which I was just blown away. She also learned it from watching the Yankees and I Love Lucy, which is just like, I love my grandmother so much and this that, just hearing this, I was like, oh, oh my goodness.
So when I was asking my mom about, you know, her introduction to country music she was like, I was probably the only Puerto Rican, you know, in New Jersey growing up there, that actually listened to country. And she's like, but it's just, it's what grandpa always played and listened to. And my grandpa like, liked older country cuz you know, this was many years ago. And so he was into like the Willie Nelson kinda Johnny Cash.
Um, and she was like, he would use them by first names, like he knew them. And I do the same thing, right? I be like talking about Garth like he's my best friend. Uh, but she would be like, yeah, let's go listen to some Johnny, and she just kind of continued with that, and that was my introduction to country music.
My first concert was actually a Garth Brooks concert that she took me to. Uh, I remember I sang a, “sang”, like, you know, lip syncing a, uh, Garth Brooks song in elementary school. Uh, I'm pretty sure it was Rodeo actually. Um, and I went again to Garth, I went to see Garth again in 2017 at the Kia Forum when I moved to to California.
Just, he is the ultimate to me. I think if someone was like, you can only listen to one artist for the rest of forever, it would be Garth. And to be at a concert, you know, I remember growing up I always wanted to go to a Michael Jackson concert and I never went. And you know, I was very young. And then, being older and getting to go, cause I don't, I don't remember much of going to see Garth when I was really young, but when I went in 2017, I was not very young. And I remember that. And the way this man ran that room, but not like I have a power trip. I'm on a power trip. I'm power hungry. The way that he gave to that room, the, the room, the audience, that stadium gave back to him, it was like nothing I've ever experienced.
Literally a roar of the crowd. And he would, he has a thing that he does and he points to this side and they go crazy and he points to this side and they go crazy. And he's, the conference, or the concert's so long he holds up a, people in the, in the crowd hold up signs and the signs are song names. And at the end of his like normal set, he'll play parts from those songs based on what, you know, he'll be like, okay, I, I see that sign there, I'm gonna play, we're gonna play the first, the first verse of it.
And it's just unlike anything I have ever experienced. So I am not sure how I missed this documentary. Uh, it came out in 2019 and it's funny cuz I, after I watched, I dunno, last week, two weeks ago, I texted my, I have a group thread for my mom, my sister, my two brothers are on it. And I was like, yo, you gotta check out the Garth Brooks' documentary. It's so good.
And my mom, my mom could be like a kind of a boomer sometimes and I love her for it. She like messaged us afterwards and she was like, uh, I've been looking, this must be the old one. I saw one before, before Covid, and I was like, why would you not tell us that you saw this when you saw it?!?
Like, how you gonna see it and it's so good and not say anything to us? Like what? So my mom already, my mom had already seen it, uh, and I had missed it somehow. Um, but Lex was in town and we were looking, this is like probably one of the best, like I'm searching for something on Netflix kind of moments, and it came up somehow and I was like, how about this?
And my God, it was so so good. Like, I was just so moved by this documentary. I've been sitting, you know, trying to think about what I, how I wanted to make this episode, and I've been wearing this cowboy hat basically anytime I'm at, I'm at this desk doing work, I wear the cowboy hat now. It's like my thinking hat.
Just so moved. If you follow me on Instagram, you know my pension for country music, my, uh, carpool, country carpool karaoke, uh, on my Instagram Stories, they're one of my favorite things to do. But it was just, the documentary was just so good. It, it's called, actually let me look on here on my little outline, the documentary is called The Road I'm On.
I actually don't know why that's the name of it. I didn't catch that in the documentary, nor did I care to look it up afterwards. But that's the name of it. We will link that in the show notes if you wanna go and watch. It's on Netflix, so you have to have Netflix, um, but we'll link it so you don't have to go find it, um, or anything like that. Thank you Courtney.
Uh, but the documentary is, it's two parts. It's split into two parts, and it chronicles his rise to the top. Like it's kind of, it shows him in the studio, it talks about kinda the behind the scenes stuff. It talks about his divorce, it talks about him marrying Trisha Yearwood. It talks about, uh, when he retired.
It just takes you through everything and it's amazing. I will say, He talks like this for most of the episode. Uh, for most of the documentary, he has a very, um, you know, he talks like this and he's just telling a story and he's really just feeling it, which I don't know why he talks like that. It's like not quite like the Batman voice, but if you watch, um, not if you watch, if you had Sirius xm, he his channel is gone now channel, what was it 55?
Something like that. It's gone now, but he had the Garth channel and that's how he spoke cuz they would interview him a bunch for it and he would like, you know, hop in between the songs, or the recordings would hop in between the songs, and he would always be like this. And he'd be telling a story and he'd be talking about hamburgers or hotdogs and he would speak like this and it would be soft.
And I was like, are you saving your voice or like, what's happening? I don't know, but that's the only thing. It was kind of funny. Um, but it was just so good. Like I just was immediately transported back to like, just looking at the CD covers and he'd always wear these fun shirts for his concerts. If you know Garth, you know Garth, right?
Uh, and I'm watching this and I'm transported and I actually spread it out. I, I didn't wanna like watch it all at once cuz it was, it's two episodes but it obviously came out in 2019 so like you can watch this and binge it. It's only two of them. But I was like, I'm gonna spread it out. I'm gonna make this last. Cuz it was just so, so, so good.
And actually one of the things I noticed, and I know that this little intro part of this episode is long. I know. We're gonna take our time and have fun. One of the things I noticed that I'm trying to work on right now is that he wears his hat- if you're watching this on YouTube, you see what I'm doing.
He wears his hat kind of like this. You see the difference there? Where it's kind of leaned back so you can always see his face. And I'm kind of like, this is really great for performers so they can always see your eyes. I prefer to wear my hats kind of like this, which when I was setting up to record this episode, I was like, I think I have to move the camera a little bit and really make a concerted effort to not like drop my head down because you can't see my eyes and that's gonna be weird, right?
So, a little bit of a learning experience, learning curve here and yeah.
But either way, today's episode is about the top seven takeaways from watching this documentary. Um, I sat with it, I wrote some stuff down, and I wanna share with you what were the most salient points for me.
Number one, share your passion.
Garth Brooks, this man, he loves music. He loves the audience. He loves. He's just like a very emotional kind of guy. He loves being on stage. He loves performing, and you can feel it. And it's magnetic, right? People are drawn to it. People are attracted to it. You just, I'm sitting there watching this documentary and I'm just like, I wanna be back in that audience again.
Right? I want that feeling again. So to you, I say whatever the thing is for you that you're passionate about, lead with it. Share with it. Share with it. Share it, lead with it, share it. I'm just like in it right now. Just words are just coming out. Even if everyone might not like it. And this is gonna kind of, but not really contradict a point that's coming up later on, but you may not know, Garth Brooks put out an album as a character known as Chris Gaines. This was a character that he created for a movie. I think the movie was called The Lamb. The movie never came out. And this was when Garth was at, you know, peak Garth, and he put the album out first thinking, okay, we'll get a lot of buzz around this, and then people will wanna go see the movie because they'll be like, oh, I love the album.
But again, he put this out as Chris Gaines. It was Garth, but he had like a, I think it was a wig, honestly. And he had, he looked like, kinda like the guy from, uh, the guy, the runner up, I believe. What is his name? Adam something from, uh, the, the singing show. I am like losing my words right now, but there was a singing show, the one that Kelly, uh, Clarkson won.
One of the years there was like more of a goth guy. He kind of looked like that. He had like a soul patch. Chris Gaines had like a soul patch. He had a whole nother character, and he got backlash for that. People were like, Has Garth left country? Like what is this? In the documentary, they talk about it and Trisha Yearwood speaks about it and she's like one, she like loves that album, but two, she speaks about how he's an artist, right?
Garth Brooks, through and through, he's a performer, he's an artist and and it really showed with this, he's able to create this entire character. Wasn't just like, oh, I'm gonna sing in like a little bit of a different voice, like an entire character around this. I think that speaks to this idea of sharing your passion, even if everyone may not like it, right.
Taking a little bit of a risk on that. To wrap up this point of sharing your passion, something that I always say, it's in my, it's in my, uh, bio when people ask for it for speaking gigs- speaking gigs, is be relentless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.
All right, take away number two: own your decisions.
That was hard to say. That was hard to say. Own your decisions and view them as choices, not sacrifices. So this is actually something that I first spoke about or heard about, I don't know, in this kind of like, you know, parlance from Alex and Alex I said, almost said Alex Root, Alex Parker and Meredith Root.
And this might have been on like the first or the second time I brought them on. I think they've been on like five or six times onto this podcast. Um, but in one of the earlier episodes, we spoke about this and how when you want something, you've made a decision that you're gonna go after something you're subsequent, subsequently your choices, right, they are choices. They're not sacrifices. It's not like, oh, I'm sacrificing this opportunity so that I can do this thing. It's, we don't worry about that cuz that has such a negative connotation and you kind of hold onto that thing and you may become resentful. When you are just like, this is the choice that I've made, it's a decision that I've made because I want this outcome. You know, in the context of that episode, it was talking about, you know, nutrition and um, you know, them going to The Games and it was never, they never viewed things as sacrifices cuz it was like, this is what I'm choosing to do. I wanna do this thing so I have this outcome.
In the documentary, Garth talks about a moment in which he was talking to one of his daughters. So he has three daughters and he was speaking with one of them. I dunno if it was, which one it was, I don't remember. And she said the word both, but she said it kind- in my mind, it kind of sounded like a Midwest kind of accent.
Midwestern accent. And she said like both like that. And he was like, what? It's both, not both. We don't, we don't say. And it was in that moment that he realized that somebody else was raising his kids. Not meaning his wife at the time was having an affair or anything like that, but like he was on the road.
This is not, this is like the peak of his career. He's on the road. He's, he's changing the face of country music, but he's like, somebody else is raising my kids. This is the most important thing in my life. These, these three girls. And he retired. If you know anything about the Garth Brooks, you know history, like you remember he retired and he came outta retirement and ya know, spoiler alert, he came outta retirement.
But he retired and it was a choice and a conscious choice. It was a decision. It wasn't a sacrifice. He never, he never uses that word in the documentary. It was a choice of like, I'm gonna go raise these girls. Uh, and they go, go and talk about how, and him and his, his, his wife, first wife got divorced, what they did for their living situation so the girls always felt like they had both parents. And they did it for 14 years. They talk about how they, every morning like the, the three girls would see both parents and they kind of did this trade off, which sounded like a little bit wild to me. But the point being that I thought he was gonna say they did it for a few years, two, three years, 14 years.
And I was like, what? That's a long ass time. Choices. Choices. These were all choices. They were not sacrifices or something that, you know, lends itself to becoming bitter about or resentful about. He owned these decisions. And so point number two, own your decisions and make them, and, excuse me, and view them as choices, not sacrifices.
My wish is that, you know, may we all make decisions with this level of conviction and view them as choices, not sacrifices.
All right, number three: Be intentional with the power you've been given.
So I, I dunno if it was on Instagram or somewhere, but I've spoken about the, these two Hank Green books that I've read.
Um, and we can link them in the show notes. I listen to them on, on Audible actually. And at the end of the second book, Hank Green writes, power concentrates naturally and the most powerful thing you can do with power is almost always to give it away. I love this. I immediately thought of this quote. I've been thinking about this quote actually a lot, that quote a lot actually.
But I immediately thought of this quote when watching the, uh, the documentary and they're talking about some of the things that Garth books did with his music. Like I've just kind of always, always accepted his music as phenomenal. And some of the songs that really resonate with me, um, We Shall Be Free. That's a big one. 1992 that came out. I was just like, this is amazing. And I never really thought about, cause I was also, so I'm born in 1985, so 1992, I was seven years old and I've obviously heard this, you know, growing up and later on in life. But I never really thought about how profound of a message it was for that time or for the genre.
Right? Not, I love country music and I'm not here to be say anything bad about it or, you know, be like, oh, it's backwards, or anything like that. Like I, I kind of never just really put two and two together that a song like We Shall Be Free was actually quite a big deal to put, be put out by a country music artist.
Right. So from the documentary I'm taking away that Garth Brooks used his power and gave it away by speaking up and creating more music. Kind of daring to not be like, and may- might not be liked. And you know, some folks may be like, oh, but he's already, he was already past the point of like, you know, he was too big to not be liked, but I would offer that there are plenty of people out there that you know, think about every single sale, and they're like, they will not do anything to tarnish that reputation quote unquote even if it means doing the right thing, right? They're like, oh no, but my sales will dip. Or like, not the, mainstream will not like it. And it really felt like with this documentary, you know, whether it's storytelling or not, it really felt like Garth Brooks was like, I have the opportunity to use this platform and I'm gonna use it.
So two songs that they speak about in the documentary that were, were a perfect example of Garth really being intentional with the power that he was, that he was given is the first one: The Night will only know. And this song's actually about domestic violence and they, it had a music video with it. And they actually, they, the powers that be actually pulled the music video because they said it was too graphic, it was depicted too much violence.
And you know, one, that's a big deal but then that what happened afterwards, he started getting all these women writing in and calling in and you know, whatever kind of communication was available at the time and saying, this is real. This is accurate. That's a big fucking deal, right? That's a big fucking deal.
The second one is the song that I was just speaking about a little bit earlier. We Shall Be Free, which came out in 1992. And the lyrics that they're all notable, but the ones that I wanna share here, I think most encapsulate this idea of like how ahead of its time this song was, and like also how like relevant to right now, so that was 1992. It's, it's 2023 right now, and the song is still relevant.
So the lines that I wanna share. When we're free to love anyone we choose, when this world's big enough for all different views. When we all can worship from our own kind of pew, then we shall be free. I get chills just saying it. I like wanna sing it, but I don't have the voice for it.
1992. And it wasn't just putting out that song, that wasn't it. It wasn't just putting out that song. So he was actually asked to sing the national, the National Anthem that year, next year, one of the years right around then. And he agreed to sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl, I should say where. He, he was asked to sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl, which is, we understand from a marketing perspective, that's just like the most coveted spots of like if, as it relates to, not the anthem, but as it relates to the, the media around it. Right. And the advertising around it.
So he was asked to sing the National Anthem and he agreed, but only if they, the station would play the music video for We Shall Be Free. That was the exchange. And he was like, I will not sing unless you play the music video. So it comes time for, uh, him to sing. Cause you know, the Super Bowl is starting and they haven't played it.
And the station is going back and forth and they're giving him the runaround. And he is like, I won't go out. I'm not gonna sing it. I'm not gonna go and sing the national anthem until you play this video. And if you see the video, it's like, wow. , it has a very, um, what does it like, kind of Heal the World, the Michael Jackson song, has a very feel like that. And we think about it, it's 1992. It's the Super Bowl. 1993 maybe. It's the Super Bowl. It's a country music artist. And this is the video he's asking to be played. That he's, I don't wanna say demanding be played, but he said, Hey, this for that. You asked me to sing the National Anthem, I'll do it. But only if you play this. That's fucking huge. Talk about being intentional with the power you've been given and ultimately giving that power away, right?
Like Hank Green said, power concentrates naturally. We see it, right? And the most powerful thing you can do with that power is almost always to give it away.
And we watched, we watched him do it. Amazing to me. Clearly this documentary really got to me like in a good way. I just, amazing to me.
So we're actually gonna cut this episode here. I know I said my top seven takeaways from the documentary, but I wanted to make this very meta to the documentary, which was two parts, so we're gonna make this episode two parts. The second part will drop on this Thursday, so you don't have to wait that long. It'll drop this Thursday, April 6th, and you'll be able to listen to the remaining four takeaways from The Road I'm On.
Today is call to action, I kind of really just strongly want to try to urge you it's like, push you over there, go watch the documentary if you haven't already. It's a little bit longer. It's not like you know hours upon hours. I think the first half was like, you know, an hour and a half and second one, same, same, something like that. Uh, but if you haven't already, man, go watch that
thing. I I, I don't care what your music, you know, background is and what you prefer, your musical preferences are. Just go watch that, that movie, that documentary, I should say, and then circle back on Thursday for part two of Blame It All On My Roots.
All right, that's all I got for you today. As always, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
Watch this episode on YouTube!
Check out the Documentary here
Read some Hank Green books:
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor
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