Top 10 Movies That Made Me a Better Human | Part 2

Last week, we started counting down the top ten movies that made me a better human being. No hyperbole there, right? We got through numbers ten through six. Those films really hit home for me in so many ways. Whether it was learning something new about love, resilience, or just seeing the world differently. This week we're picking up right where we left off, diving right into the top five. These are the ones that really stuck with me, the ones that changed how I think and live my life. So if you're looking for a little inspiration, stay put. These movies might just do the trick. I'm Joe, my pal over there, trying to decide whether it's Netflix or Amazon tonight. That's Kurt. And we are dudes in progress. Well, hello, Kirk.

Hi, Joe.

What's shaking, my friend?

Relaxing. On this holiday weekend, we are finishing.

Our list of the top ten movies, at least my list of the top ten movies. And I know you interjected some of your favorites. It's kind of movies that inspire me, movies that make me feel good, make me want to do better, but stories of people who overcame obstacles, who made their life better, or made other people's lives better through simplicity, through courage, through bravery. But last week, if you remember, my top ten through six were pay it forward with Haley Jo Osment. Remember us talking about that movie Braveheart? Who can forget Braveheart with Mel Gibson? The pursuit of happiness with Will Smith is a fantastic movie and really inspiring. Good will hunting. I love the interaction between Matt Damon and Robin Williams. It's just a beautiful movie about becoming who you should become. And of course it's a wonderful life. Came in at number six and just the classic movie about where your space in life and how life would be different without you. So those were my top ten through six and we'll cover my top five through one today. But you also brought up wizard of Oz.

These are movies, a couple of movies that I think about in my childhood that made an impact on me.

You'd have to shimmy jungle book in any movies list for you, right?

I had to bring something Disney to the little list and I thought it was relevant too because I think of Baloo as the character that I would like to his characteristics and who he is as my spirit animal.

Though you also mentioned Saving Private Ryan.

I love the historical movies. World War two and save a private Ryan and Band of brothers are just amazing in the. I feel they did honor to our greatest generation depicting what they went through more than any films Spielberg can be and Tom Hanks. We can thank those two creators for doing that, for us to really immerse us in the horror that was World War Two. And speaking of the relationships through the band of brothers and what the sacrifices from saving Private Ryan. Yeah.

Truly is the greatest generation.

Right.

They don't get any tougher than these guys. You know, it's just amazing to hear what they went through in both of those. Saving Private Ryan and Band of brothers. You also brought up jaws. Now, if you'll remind me, how is jaws an inspirational movie for you?

Well, I started with, like many people from that generation that was, again, Spielberg, his first real big film. And the shock and horror of that movie. You don't want to go in the ocean especially. I don't even think I wanted to go in my swimming pool after that movie. So that's the kind of impact it had on me. But there's some, we talked about some of the characters and the diversity of those characters. And in their quest to capture jaws or take him out, Captain Quintin and Richard Dreyfus's character, Hooper, and of course, the, the police officer, that's part of it. All those, those personalities and the dialogue between those is just epic. There's lots of great, I talked about the scene when they're showing their scars and they all had some kind of scar, but nothing like Captain Quint, who survived the USS Indianapolis, which I don't know. I'm sure I didn't know anything about that story. And the actor who plays that is just incredible. So, yeah, that scene in the boat when it's very quiet and it gets really quiet when he talks about the sharks surrounding them in the water.

And then you also brought up the Patriot, which is one of my favorite movies. I'm actually surprised it didn't make my list. But of course, I had a Mel Gibson movie on my list, so I felt it was probably, I had to leave. I felt I had to leave one of them off, maybe. But, yeah, the Patriots, an awesome movie. And my favorite quote. I mean, there's lots of quotes from that, from that movie. It's a brutal movie. Not for the faint of heart like many of Mel Gibson's movies are. But I love the quote when he says, why should I trade one tyrant 3000 miles away for 3000 tyrants 1 mile away? And it really gives you a, a perspective of how they were thinking back then. We take the freedoms that we have and the liberties that we have for granted, but they sacrifice their lives for this fight.

Yeah, we forget that. I think that movie brings it back into perspective. Boy, Mel Gibson's nuts. But he sure can produce a good.

Film and a heck of an actor, too, man. Let's finish up my list, five through one, and I think you have a couple other movies here that you want to throw in there, and you've probably thought of some since then. Coming in at number five is Forrest Gump. I love this movie, man. When I saw this movie, Kurt, to me, it was one of the most important movies in decades. And the reason it touched me is what a significant impact a simple person can have. There's a lot of impact he had because of the situations he found himself in and the people he met and all of that other stuff. But he had a simple mindset, of course. He was, he was mentally challenged and had his issues. He had an impact on so many lives, just on his honesty, on his simplicity, his integrity, his commitment to Bubba. When he promised Bubba that he would create this shrimp company, and then he promised Lieutenant Dan that if he ever made this shrimp company, he would be the captain of a shrimp boat, and he kept that commitment. And of course, the relationship between him and Jenny and that story line is very emotional. For me. It's just a beautiful storyline, man.

So many storylines. That's the, how many storylines are in this film and themes, as you're starting to go over some of them, I got more bouncing in my head, I think, because that's the wonderfulness of this movie.

I just love this movie, man. I mean, it's. He remains kind throughout the whole movie. This character remains kinda and optimistic and true to himself despite being betrayed, quite honestly, general complexities of life that actually, his simplicity helps him navigate those complexities of life in a way that we can really learn from. This movie had a dramatic impact on me, and it did make me a better human being. There's no doubt about that.

I related to your, listen, of course, getting an advanced copy, and I was surprised. Some of the films that I've had impact with, I would have put on my list, but you remind me of Forrest Gump's one of them. There's another one coming up here, too. Actually, all these five that you got here, I would put them in my list. I'm just. It's interesting to hear you have them there, too. I wrote down, just like you said, so many themes and emotional themes. I wrote down some of the quotes from this book. Bubba was my best good friend, and even I know that ain't something you can just find around the corner. You know, he talks. He's always sitting on a bench waiting for a bus. And he says, and Bubba died in my arms in that rice field in Vietnam. And that's all I got to say about that.

The simplicity is. Is very impactful because they were both.

A little weird, a little different. Right. That's what I mean. All the themes that are here and, you know, the. I'm just looking at, dear God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far from here. Jenny's, you know, dealing with the dysfunctional family, to say the least, that he's, you know, they've become close friends.

And how committed he was to Jenny.

She accepts him. She was the only one who really accepted him the way he was beside his mother.

Right. And that relationship is very touching. She wasn't the best of friends to Forrest. Right. She turned his back. She turned her back on Forrest a couple times.

Yes.

She was dealing with her own issues, but of course, she came back around, and that whole. Actually, Haley Josman is in that movie as well. Come to think of it, he's. He's, uh. He's four scumps and Jenny's son.

Okay. Yeah, right. He's good little actor.

You know, there's a scene in that movie that really. It almost brings me to tears. Now, Curtin, I'll probably want to move on after this, but when Forrest realized that he had a son and. And Forrest looks over at him, and this is. This speaks to how Forrest knew himself, right? He was positive and optimistic, but he also knew who he was and the challenges that he had and that he was a little different. He knew this about himself, because towards the end of the movie, when he meets his son and Jenny introduces him to his son, Forrest's main concern, he said, is he like me? Meaning, is he. Does he have some. Is he smart, or is he like me? Something like that. Yeah. And that was his main concern.

Yeah.

That he wouldn't face the troubles in life that he had because of the challenges, the mental challenges that Forrest had. Joe, it's a scene that I can't hardly even talk about, dude. It's just a beautiful, beautiful scene. So, Forrest Gump. There we go. We talked a lot about Forrest Gump. How about that?

There's a lot there. We left out a lot. There's.

I know, I know. Forrest Gump is a beautiful movie. Number four is a movie called Hacksaw Ridge. Have you seen Hacksaw Ridge, Kurt?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. It's the true story of Desmond Doss. Now, Desmond Doss, I think he was a Jehovah's Witness. Either Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon. I think it was Jehovah's Witness, but he was a conscientious objector. This was World War Two. And he refused to carry a weapon. But he wanted to serve in the military and he got made fun of and he got ridiculed. And he really had a hard time harassed. Harassed by his fellow soldiers. The leadership, they tried to kick him out, but he refused to carry a weapon. Instead, he became a medic. He became a medic and decided that he wanted to save people and serve that way. His faith is very important to him, to the point where he's willing to buck the entire system for his faith. A conscientious objector. He ends up saving, I think, 75 or 80 men. And there are those scenes where the battle is over and all these wounded men are left on the battleground. And he's the only one up on this ridge. He's the only one up on this plateau. And everybody else is down on the beach below the ridge, Hacksaw Ridge. He's the only one up there that is mobile. And he goes out and seeks out all of these wounded soldiers. Then one by one, they start seeing these wounded soldiers come off of a rope down this ridge. And at first they don't know what's going on and they realize it's Desmond lowering all these people on this rope one at a time, all night long. All night long. Yeah, all night long this goes on and they get another one. And they take them to give them further assistance. But he had one simplistic message in his mind. One simplistic prayer in his mind. God just helped me get one more. Just help me find one more. And he'd find that one more. He would find another one. Bring him down. Find another one. Bring him down. Till he saved 75, 75 or 80 soldiers on that day. It's an amazing story about commitment and inspiration and focusing on your task. And quite honestly, it's an inspiration to lean on your faith. What a great movie. I love this movie.

Not to mention it's. Battle scenes are brutal like nothing you've ever seen before.

Absolutely.

The conditions of that and the sacrifices of people. Yeah, it's. It's crazy. And of course, the lesson. The guy who picked on him the.

Most, he saves in this movie, Desmond Dawson's quoted. With the world so set on tearing itself apart, it doesn't seem like such a bad thing to me to want to put a little bit of it back together. Yeah.

Again, a true story.

It's a true story, dude.

Based on.

And as I understand it, this stayed pretty true to the actual events.

I love this movie. I was, again, you put it number four. So I was. Of all the movies that you could have put. It's interesting to me. It's good, though. I love it. Your next one is. Has always been on my list. I don't. It's. That was this next one. I was surprised.

I don't think we've talked about a movie more than we've talked about this movie on this show. I'm not sure how well it did at the box office initially, but its message, its theme, the drama behind it, the whole movie, the acting is fantastic. Really has stood the test of time and its Shawlshank redemption. Wow. Wow. What a good movie. I love everything about this movie, from the sense of injustice to how he worked the system in the prison, how he had a vision for what he wanted to happen. And one of your favorite quotes, probably of all time, which you mentioned last week, is what?

Get busy living or get busy dying.

That's the movie, right. You think about how he could have just given up because he was falsely accused and he found his way. And while he was living the life that he was forced in, he was also dreaming of the life that will be as he slowly made that life happen. Kind of conniving, right? A little conniving. A little.

Yeah. That's.

But you talk about diligence, justice, and I'm going to give a little bit of. A little bit away here. But the. Tim Robbins played Andy Dufresne, that little rock hammer that he had, that he chiseled away, little by little, a handful a day that he would dump out in the yard. Eventually, he dug a tunnel to escape from prison. What I find inspirational about it, it's not only a tale of hope, but it's also friendship and resilience. His unwavering determination, despite everything against him, continuing to be diligent and focused on his goal.

Yeah, that is probably the biggest theme that impacted me the most. I had to search some of the quotes from this movie, too. And Red, who is his friend, played by Morgan Freeman, right after they discover that the poster hanging in his wall has a big, huge hole in it. He says, in 1966, Andy Dufresne escaped the Shawshank prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap and. And an old rockhammer damn near worn down to the nub. I remember thinking it would take a man 600 years to tunnel through the wall with it. Old Andy did it in less than 20.

He was committed to this task for 20 years.

Just shows you a little, little by little, you can dig through a cement wall if you work at it every.

Day, diligent, every day, unwavering. I like Andy Dufresne's quote in this movie. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. So he made best of his situation that he was in, while continuing with a vision to make his situation better in many ways, I want to be Andy Dufresne.

He sure stuck it to the warden and the lead guard, didn't he? He got them back, too.

Yes, he did. Yes, he did.

I think the friendship's there, especially between Red and Indy. There's another theme right behind the determination that you're talking about. But he said, I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. And then that final scene is just awesome. Yeah. The freedom.

See the movie?

Yeah.

Shawshank redemption. So that's my number three.

Yeah.

I have a tie, kind of, for one and two, Kurt, and it may surprise you that this is my one and two, because I don't think I've talked about it a lot, but I saw it at a very young age, these movies and from the seventies. What it is about these movies that make me want to be a better human being. Just watching this man's life trajectory go from completely down and out to giving a break. He was given a break that was by no means of his own. He got lucky, right. But what he did with that luck and his drive and his determination, what he wanted to do with his life and who he wanted to be. I have a tie for number one and two, and it's Rocky one and two. The movies. Rocky one and two. I love these movies, Kurt. And I remember the first time I saw Rocky one. I was many. I was one of many people, very young at the time that were in the theater cheering out loud like they were actually at the event. Right, right. And now, I like all of the Rocky movies. I don't think any of them are nearly as good as Rocky one and two. Philadelphia has to be so proud of this movie. He gets, you know, of course, the story of Rocky. He gets a shot at the heavyweight title, and huge underdog. He relentlessly trains, and eventually he goes the distance with Apollo Creed. And there's that scene where Apollo Creed cannot believe that this guy's not giving up. And he's Apollo Creed, who is the greatest boxer of the time. The Muhammad Ali of the time. Right. Very flamboyant, very outspoken, but also could back it up. Just could not believe that this guy's coming out one more round. Coming out one more round. Wow. What an inspiring ending.

Yeah. The theme of determination versus talent.

Right.

Very well displayed in this film, which I think is probably the key thing that I've always. Again, I would put, this is on my list. I don't know if I didn't break Rocky, too. Like I said, I think as a series of films, you can enjoy them all. And it's amazing to me that he retold, not really retold the story, but kept it going his entire career. Sylvester Stallone. And you get drawn into that film every time. He's always done a great job of building up the drama for whatever story they were telling in Rocky's life. But the original is. Yeah, the guy who was busted and come from a tough neighborhood and gets that shot and he's scared, but he goes after it.

You can almost make it one long movie, right. Both movies feel very. They feel very similar. They were filmed in a very similar way. These movies just had a grittier feel. Both of them. Rocky one and two. But both of these movies, the whole storyline, from him losing at first to Apollo to. I remember that. Do you remember the scene that when Apollo said, no rematch, no rematch, and Rocky says, I don't want one. You know, Apollo wanted none of that. But the problem was everybody talked about, everybody talked about, and this is where we go into Rocky, too. Everybody talked about how great the italian stallion one is, how, how Apollo got lucky and, and Rocky was really developing this fame for, for going the distance, going the distance with the champ. And it was really getting at Apollo, man. And then, so here comes the rematch, dude. And that, the rematch and the, the training scenes with Rocky and in both those, you can't hear that flying high now music without just. I can't hear it now without getting chills. This is a storyline that we all go through, right? We're all, at one point, we're all underdogs. And I, again, very, very similarly to Andy. I remember being a kid and I wanted to be rocky, but I wanted to be Rocky because of how he, in these two movies, now, that changed a little bit in some of the other storylines, but in these two movies, he really, trait stayed true to himself and he had focus and the relationships were important to him and how important the relationship was with Adrian. These movies, because they had such a large impact on me at such a young age, I had to make them one and two.

Rocky was very inspirational to me in my athletic high school career, because I can remember, like you said, getting inspired by watch. I would watch that movie and then go out for a run with my weight vest at a 45 pound weight vest.

That's awesome.

I've talked about where I wanted to make my high school basketball team and be the fifth starter when I was a sophomore, going from my freshman to sophomore year. This movie was part of that in my training. It's so inspirational and that, you know, I felt that I could, too, beat the odds, and if I worked hard enough, there's a chance that I could do what I wanted to do, which was make the high school team and be a starter in my sophomore year. This movie was part of that success.

I don't remember, was it in Rocky one or Rocky two? But he said, it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. That's almost the secret to life right there. These two movies together had to be my one and two just because of the impact it had on me at a very young age and how universal this theme is of going from nothing and getting a break and making the best of it, then coming back. What surprised me most. Most is how Rocky won ended, because you expect to go through all that, that he would win the fight, right? And he didn't. Yeah, he didn't, right? Uh, so, yeah, I still won, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely.

The fact that people were saying, you know, you went the distance with the champ. No one, very few people did. He knocked out most of the people, and he was extremely talented. But you went the distance. And people were saying in boxing, sometimes when they fight to a draw, you've seen this in real boxing matches. You're like, I don't think that's the guy who won. He was the favorite. But, boy, I don't know how they scored this fight, because I would. It's so close. I would have given it to the other guy. It happens a lot when you watch boxing, Olympic boxing, especially. I can remember I was. When you were talking Joe, one of my high school friends, who ended up being an all state basketball player, he was like this, and I seen him do it a few times. I remember him and his brother got into a fight during practice one time, and, boy, if you knocked my friend John down, you guys are in for it. Now you think, yeah, you done done it now, because now he's going to come firing all cylinders. And I seen him do it in games. We'd be down and, you know, especially playing with some teams that were rough, you know, want to, want to play rough and trash talk and pushing and shoving and that. That is just going to make them matter, and they ain't going to be pretty for you guys.

It's funny, as I look at this list, any of these movies in the top five could have been my number one. I'm not sure Forrest Gump could have jumped up the number one, but I remember just being every single one of these top five impacted emotionally by these movies. And truly, they made me want to be a better human being. So there's my top ten, Kurt, top ten movies that made me want to be a better human being. Just to remind you, number ten, pay it forward. Number nine, Braveheart. Followed by the pursuit of happiness, goodwill, hunting, it's a wonderful life. And then rounding off the top five that we talked about today, Forrest Gump, Hacksaw Ridge, the incredible shawlshank redemption and the inspiring, motivational, emotional rockies. One and two for my one and two. So there's my, there are my top ten movies that make me want to be a better human being.

Great topic, Joe. I really enjoyed coming up with my own that were inspirational to me. It's great when you get into a good movie and you reflect, even all these years, and whenever it comes on, you always get hooked right back into it. That's a sign of a great film that's impacted you.

Yeah, definitely. This was fun. This was fun for me.

Hey, can I mention a couple honorable mentions that.

Oh, sure. Of course.

I was thinking of, and of course, again, historical films or a couple westerns, I wanted to add, because a couple of my favorite actors that I like to watch being Clint Eastwood, and there's this film, I don't know if it was an outlier of all his films because he always gets mentioned for the spaghetti westerns, I suppose, but the outlaw Josie Wales, I really love that film. It starts out with his family being killed. It's starting towards the end of the civil war, and again, brutality and some of the reality that's going on in that war and how the people running around, the renegades, the south is kind of beat. And he joins up with this group of, of people that get betrayed by the Union army and he becomes an outlaw to the Union. And there's just some great lines in this. Like, you know, he gets shot. And he's facing the fellow that betrayed him. At the end of the film, he says, I guess we all died a little in that damn war. And, yeah, you know, again, we don't realize the brutality of the historical things of these moments. And these films really kind of get us to understand a little bit what it might have been like. And there's some comedy in there. The fellow who plays the indian chief that he gets this ragtag of people that he picks up along the way as he's trying to get to Mexico. And the fellow, because he's an amazing gun fighter. And the indian chief guy says, Josie Wells says, when I get to liking someone, they around too long. And the indian chief says, I notice when you get to disliking someone, they ain't around long either.

Great line. That's awesome.

There's a bunch in that film. Have you ever seen that one?

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

Love it. Clint Eastwood movies. Now there's. What the. I've. There's one Clint Eastwood movie I don't think I've seen, and that's the bridges of Madison county.

Yeah.

I'm not sure why I've not seen it, but I think I've seen every Clint Eastwood movie. All the way movies all the way from the old spaghetti westerns, all the way up through dirty hairy movies, through some of the stuff that he's done. The million dollar baby and, uh, the mule. And he's still. He's like 90 something, 91 years old. And I think he's still. He's still active in movies.

Yeah. Amazing. The other one, I don't know if you knew about, but I remember my dad and I always talk about it, but it's the cowboys with John Wayne. I've always loved that movie. And have you seen it?

No, I've not. I'm not a big John Wayne fan, to be honest with you. I know that's almost anti american, but I don't know, I just never really got into him.

Yeah. John Wayne needs to bring some cattle across the country. I'm trying to remember what reason is, but he can't. He's having a hard time hiring, so he ends up hiring all these school kids that are out for the summer. And they call them the cowboys. They're all youngsters, kind of high school and much younger. And the epic of moving this cattle and the wrestlers that come after them. There's some great moments in this movie. There's lots of scenes of the kids dealing with this situation. And one thing. His name is Will Anderson. He says, well, it's not how you're buried, it's how you're remembered, was one of the sayings that came out of this. But it's just a film of overcoming obstacles. No one thought they could do it. And they also defeat this bad bunch of wrestlers. And the way that they end up, they lose the herd to these wrestlers. John Wayne gets killed in this movie, and they still end up getting the herd back by killing the rest of the wrestlers. Wrestlers. So it's a great dramatic ending.

I'll have to check it out. I'm not a big. I'm not a big John Wayne fan, but the cowboys.

This one you might check it out. This one you might like.

Awesome.

Again, I really enjoyed this. It's kind of interesting to me that it ended up being two episodes, because I guess these impacted you and I more than we thought. Getting into it, which I'm glad we did it this way. A lot of fun.

Yeah. Thanks, man. How about your win for the week?

When I was looking at our notes in the Google Docs, I watched you type that. I'm not allowed to say anything about Disney. You were typing it as I was about going in there. Put my notes in to give you.

A little background to that. Before each show, we develop our show notes and what we're going to talk about, and along with that is our win for the week, our resource, and our quote for the week. So I knew what Kurt's win for the week was going to be because he just came back from vacation, and I knew it was going to be. So just as a joke, in big bold letters capitalized, I put, not allowed to say Disney, so I'm really not.

Going to say Disneyland.

Hold on just a second. That's my son in law.

I.

Do I have to take this. Dude, I'm so sorry.

That's all right.

It was my grandson. Okay, so we took a little bit of a pause there. I know it didn't. It didn't happen in real time, but we've been. I've been gone away for about ten minutes because my grandson called me right in the middle of podcast of us recording this podcast. And these kids, no matter what, know that they have the bat line straight to Grandp Joe. And when they call, I answer. It's just the way it is. Kurt, I apologize for the interruption, but my grandkids are selling popcorn and they wanted me to. They wanted to talk about buying popcorn, and it was worth taking this break. So there you go.

You're teaching me a good lesson there. As my grandson, I get videos from him laughing and having a good time. I can't wait for the phone calls one of these days.

Well, they know it. They know that when they call, I'm answering. So there it is.

That's a good value you have there, Joe. No problem.

So, I'm sorry, Kurt. I forgot where we were.

Well, you told me not to say Disney was my win for the week, and I'm glad you said that. I was. We were joking about it a little bit. But, you know, Disney is an amazing. Disney World is an amazing place to go. People from all over the world go there for all the entertainment that's stuffed in there. But what was really important and fun for me was the great friends that I hung out with, all created from my podcast about Disney World. That's what made the Disney vacation awesome. And we were. We have this question we ask in our trip reports that's inspired from my friend Wendy, who was there, and we were sitting down for breakfast, and she went around and said, you know, we have a tradition in my family for everyone to go around in a circle saying, what was the most meaningful or fun time of your trip? And it was interesting to me that the same thing that I was thinking of came up for at least three of us, which was the dinner that we had at Citricos in grand Floridian, one of the best resorts, which was really good, but it was the unscripted part of it where we went into the lounge. We tried to get into one of the lounges that was pretty booked, and we couldn't get in there. And the restaurant had a lounge and really comfortable chairs, but we, Joe, just had fun stories and laughing and carrying on, and then someone else would show up. We had to pull tables together, and the servers were awesome. But I learned some things, some stories I had not known about that were kind of part of my podcast, and they were laughing about something I had said that I didn't know long time ago, but that was. That was the memory that everyone walked. It's the unscripted moment, not the planned moments, that you remember from that vacation. It's not always the place you go to. It's the people that you're with and the memories that come out of those relationships and stories and, yeah, fun times. So that's. So I'm not going to say Disneyland.

Which you just did. So I can't agree with this more because we gotta leave space for unscripted moments.

Yeah, those are. We say that all the time again, through these vacations, you think it's gonna be the trip, but it's not. It never is. It's always something that unexpectedly good happens. We'll say.

My win for the week. Interestingly enough, now, I don't like to bring a lot of stuff into my world. I have this slogan that I say memories are better than stuff, because if you're going to spend your money, spend it on making memories. But that's not even close to my win for the week. I preface it by saying that because I've got a bit of a hoarding problem, Kurt. Even somebody that leans towards minimalism, I've got a bit of a hoarding problem. And it's kind of electronic stuff, podcasting stuff and audio stuff and video stuff, and I have, I know, hundreds of cords in a closet in my office and a bunch of other stuff. So this week, I started the process. I'm not done, but I started the process of decluttering that office closet because does. Does one human being need 25 USB C cords? I'm going to keep a couple of those and just shuck the rest of them. And I do this every once in a while. And there's something about. About cords that make me want to hoard, and I don't know what it is because there's nothing else like that in my life but power cords and things like that, man. I just latch onto them because I think I'm going to need, need it later. My win for the week is this. I start up the process of decluttering and minimizing that part of my life. And it starts with this office closet that I have full of electronic junk.

I like. I like that. I could do that with my closet. I have a whole pile of that, too. And I think the reason for that is every time you buy an electronic device, you get the USB C cord, and that's part of it. The other thing is when I need the cord that I need, I don't have it. So I buy it because I can't find it.

When I go to Amazon to buy a cord, you can never buy just one because they always comes in pack of. They always come in packs of three or five or worse. Yes, you can buy one, but, my gosh, for $0.50 more, you can buy three. And then I'm like, wow, you know, now I'm buy three for $0.50 more. Now I got three cords when I only need it one. Anyway, my win for the week is I really started decluttering this office closet, and it really? When I do that, it gives me. Makes me feel a little lighter, a little freer, a little less encumbered by stuff. So that's my win for the week.

And that should inspire everybody to declutter. I like it.

So I'm sure you have a resource or tip or hack for this week, and I'll bet you it's related to Disney somehow.

It just so happens to be, you know, to go to Disney World in August. It's hot, and they do give you free water at any of the quick service restaurants. I very quickly, in one of the gift shops, noticed in Epcot, this turvus water bottle, and I'm thinking, I don't need another thing carrying water. I probably should have brought something with me, but you really need it. They have water stations that you can fill up the bottle instead of buying, what is it, like $5 a bottle? I ended up buying this with. My discount is probably $32. It's pretty expensive, but it's turvus. Probably no secret that turvis is a great. I have the coffee mugs, but this water bottle has a flip flop top, and it locks so you can. It's really convenient. Had two different choices of openings, one that count as a sipper, and one's kind of a chug the water, and then also had a nice handle. And that came in real handy. So I recommend bring a really good insulated water bottle. This one's made by Turvus, and they have lots of them in the parks. But, like, I like the design, too. I'll put it. It'll be kind of a remembrance. I'll put it up in my office here. Probably something in your minimalist design. I need to take something down if I'm gonna put something new up. But, yeah, the Turvis water bottle came in real handy, and my friend Dan, that was with me, he ended up buying one, too, realizing it's a good thing to have stay hydrated when it's so hot outside.

Turvus is the brand name, right?

Yeah, Turvus is the brand name. Gotcha. I put a, you know, thinking of the podcast, I put a yemenite piece of lemon in there. I probably had it in a couple days, probably shouldn't do that. But even this morning and yesterday, I put some lemon in my water, like we talked about in the podcast, and it works well with that bottle. I like the flavor.

One tip or hack that I'm going to give, I'll wait for maybe several episodes till maybe we've forgotten about this one has to do with water bottles and has to do with coffee mugs, that whole thermal container world, right? I did a comparison between brand a and brand b. I was surprised by the results to find out that the much more expensive brand a did not do a better job than the much less expensive than brand b. Brand B. In fact, one time outperformed brand a. I'll hold that for another episode.

Okay, fantastic. What's your resource?

My resource is a portable monitor for travel. I bought this during Amazon days and gosh, I hope I didn't bring it up already, but it's a portable monitor for travel now. I use two monitors now at my desk. I use two monitors now at my work desk. Many people use three or four monitors at work, but I was probably the last standout to use two monitors. I always used one monitor. I felt that, hey, listen, if I ever need to do work for my laptop versus doing work for my desk, the experience would be exactly the same. And I can only work on one thing at a time anyway. And I still believe that. But one office that I moved into just happened to have two monitors there and I didn't want to go through the trouble of taking it down and all that other stuff. So I went ahead and went to two monitors and quickly got used to it. I don't think, I'm not sure it's more efficient, but now two monitors is definitely part of my workflow and I use two monitors a lot and it's a part of the way that I navigate. I still don't think it's more efficient, but it's there now and it's part of my workflow. So I picked up on Amazon for about dollar 75. It was 60% off a portable monitor for travel and it works great. I set it right next to my laptop. It has its own stand, I plug in the USB C and it's self powered, right? So, and it works great. Bright, clear monitor, compact, light and easy to travel with. I don't have the brand name here, but if you can just go on Amazon and look up any portable monitor for travel, because it's more of a, more of a tip than a thing. If you're travel and you're used to using two monitors when you're at your home station and you find yourself less efficient or less effective because you're working off your laptop, it's very inexpensive and will make your life easier. So a portable monitor for travel.

It's interesting you mentioned that because during the sessions I did at work, when I went to the home office. There was a young lady there who had one of these I didn't recognize. I thought it was another laptop, but that's what it was. She said her boyfriend bought it for her. I was like, that is so cool. Good one. Yeah. They are really inexpensive. I started looking on Amazon for him when you started talking about that, because I was curious. I came across this last week when I was working again.

I was one of the last holdouts, I'm sure, in the world, that didn't go to two monitors as their normal workflow. But once I did. Okay, now I'm. Now I'm kind of all in. I still don't think it makes me more efficient. It's just another place to keep more stuff, digital stuff. But there I am, and if I'm going to use it, I need that. I need a consistent workflow no matter where I'm using it. I'll give you another tip on how to use this monitor, though. I gave a lot of sales presentations, and I go on site and I travel to customers locations, and I give a lot of sales presentations. And I've always had to either bring some kind of projector or depend on their projector and put it up on the board. But if there's only one or two people, I've always kind of had to move them over to my computer and let them look over my shoulder. But now with this travel monitor, I can just turn that monitor around. I can present from my side and they can look from their side. If there's two or three people, they can look at the monitor. Monitor. And it's a very effective sales tool as well. How about your quote?

Had to relate to the movies that we were fond of, and I know this one surprised you, but the Cowboys, there's a very dramatic scene when the wrestlers, they've been following John Wayne and the Cowboys the whole time, and John Wayne knows it and he knows it's going to come down to fight, probably, but he doesn't want the boys to be hurt. And so he challenges the leader of this wrestling to take it out on him, not on the boys, because he's been teasing the boys and being an antagonist. And John Wayne, Will Anderson is his character's name. Says, I'm 30 years older than you are. I had my back broke once and my hip twice, and on my worst day, I could beat the hell out of you. And you know what's great about that? I mean, that's total John. That's total John Wayne in a way.

Absolutely.

But, you know, you can see the years of experience in him. He's a tough son of a gun. He's a big guy. And this young, scrapping career criminal, he's not going to take it from him. And unfortunately, well, the guy cheats fighting John Wayne and pulls a gun on him. He's able to get a gun and shoots John Wayne and kills him. And the kids are in pretty, he leaves the kids alone. So he saves all the kids. They take the herd and go away. But it's a, it's a great scene, so I hope you do watch it.

I will watch it now just for that scene. I'll watch it. I'm not a big John Wayne fan. In fact, I've seen one John Wayne Western and that's the sons of Katie elder.

Yeah.

Which is a pretty good movie.

Yep.

But I've never seen all those classic. I've just never been much of a John Wayne fan. He did try that one.

The other one my dad likes is the shootest. His last film. That one's pretty good.

My quote, staying with the movie theme comes from Denzel Washington. Love this guy as an actor. So good, such a pure actor. I mean, you really feel like what he's going through is what he's going through. And I just love him as an actor. But I love this quote as it relates to us. At the end of the day, it's not about what you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about who you've lifted up and who you've made. Better movies have the power to lift us up and push us to be better. Denzel Washington.

Yeah. I bet he's got a lot of good quotes, but I'm glad you brought him. What's the movie's. I got into it. He's got a couple of equalizer. Equalizer? Yes. You guessed it all.

They're fantastic.

Dude, is there three of them? Because I don't know if I've seen them all.

The third one just recently came out.

Okay. Yeah, that's, those are good. I got hooked into. Yeah. Good actor.

Well, that'll wrap up today. Right? Good show, good conversation. Kurt, I appreciate a lot of fun.

They're a little lighthearted, but not, not really, because a lot of great themes in those films. If there's one that you missed that we missed, definitely let us know.

Oh, yeah, definitely. And you can do that by emailing us at dudes in progress.com, dudesinprogress.com. our website, of course, is dudesinprogress.com. dot our email address is dudesinprogress.com dot. If you want to let us know what would be on your top ten list of movies that inspire you or inspire you to be a better human being, we'd love to hear about it. We'd love to talk to you about it, [email protected]. as remember, no matter if we're watching a movie, if we're going through life, we can't try to make it perfect. Right? Because nothing's perfect. Perfect. Many times, perfect is the enemy of great progress. Progress is better than perfection. We just gotta keep moving forward.

Well, this holiday weekend, Joe, I don't watch a lot of movies. I feel like I think you got me outpaced by that. But these are kind of holiday weekends where I late in the afternoon, I gotta find something good. Like I said, Amazon or Netflix, please come through with something and they'll make me search for a long time and maybe I'll let you know what it is if I found a good one. That's right.

Talk to you soon, Buddha.