Episode 62 Transcript
Guest Barry Mack 3 of 3
Adrian Schermer 00:0
Hello future millionaires and welcome back to the get rich slow podcast. We’re your hosts Adrian Schermer, Robert Delavan, and Lance Johnson. Good morning, gentlemen.
Robert Delavan 00:10
Good morning.
Lance Johnson 00:11
Good morning, everybody.
Adrian Schermer 00:12
You can find us online at Apple podcasts, Spotify, audible Amazon music, YouTube, and Stitcher. Today we have our special guests. This is part three in a three-part series, talking to Barry Mack with Barry Mack Art.
Lance Johnson 00:27
Yeah, and I just want to take a moment. It’s been fun. We’ve been having a blast. It just seems like we just connect in we got.
Barry Mack 00:36
Yup, I’ve enjoyed it a lot. Good morning.
Lance Johnson 00:38
Dials on wardrobe. It’s been awesome.
Barry Mack 00:42
Really excited about it.
Robert Delavan 00:44
Enjoy the visuals.
Adrian Schermer 00:46
The amount of chance definitely listen to episodes one and two. This is a three-part series I highly encourage you to Yeah, Barry. It’s been a blast getting to know Yeah. How are you enjoying this so far?
Barry Mack 00:56
Oh, I’m loving it. Absolutely love it. Yeah, the synergy here has been amazing and yeah, the exploration the topics has been really cool. Really fun. Thank you.
Adrian Schermer 01:05
You brought such a cool shirt last time. I didn’t know if you’re gonna be able to outdo yourself. But yeah, have that’s fantastic. Keep it creative. Today, we’re looking ahead at what is to come for Barry and Barry Mack art as a in its entirety. So, let’s kick it off, guys.
Robert Delavan 01:25
Yeah, we’re looking forward to this.
Barry Mack 01:26
I’m looking forward to it too. Let’s get into it.
Lance Johnson 01:31
Well, I think I’ll kick it off, then. When you think about our future. Here’s ours, Rob’s, everybody’s, your family’s, what gets you the most exciting?
Barry Mack 01:42
Thing that gets me the most excited, of course, remember, I’m an artist and kind of a dreamer. I like to think of the world becoming a little more unified, you know, little less divisiveness, you know, people coming together more. That’s, that’s my vision for us and I think we can all relate to that, right? It’s been pretty intense last few years. When I think about that, that gets me excited. I believe it’s possible and you know, I want to contribute to that and on a personal note, that’s what gets me the most excited about my own work is somehow contributing to that, you know, producing work that somehow creates a common language brings people together in some way. You know, I want to feel like I’m making a difference, and I’m contributing.
Robert Delavan 02:26
What’s interesting is, for our viewing audience, again, is you said that dreamer concept and Lance was, you know, pointing the straight up over his right shoulder, what we see is his left shoulder, I guess and that dream concept. That’s huge. I mean, future. That’s what our future is made of and then there’s the, you know, how do you turn those dreams into realities through goal setting, and, you know, all of the different pieces, which isn’t necessarily our core topic today, but you’re pushing for something. So, I guess my follow up question to that Barry, is what, like, is there that vision? You said, you know, pulling people together different things, like, you know, there’s a vision there, there’s a reason for that. So, you know, can you extract or share some more there?
Barry Mack 03:17
Well, it’s really my inherent optimism and again, this is debatable, but I actually believe in spite of how everything looks, that people are communicating more. There’s more empathy. You know, there’s more communication going on with online news and stuff like that. Whether it’s fake or not, who knows? But, you know, I think we are coming together, and I do you know, I do see a future where things get better for us, you know, that there’s less divisiveness. It’s a vision.
Lance Johnson 03:49
That would be a really good poll to see if our audience sees that a better or worse future. It’s an interesting topic, like someday we should have kind of like nine people on this podcast on and we have topics like that.
Barry Mack 04:06
Yeah. Well, just for fun. Where do you guys weigh in? Tell me what you think. Are things getting better or worse?
Robert Delavan 04:15
That’s an interesting one. I think my caveat to that is it depends on the topic.
Lance Johnson 04:20
Yeah. I agree with that.
Robert Delavan 04:22
You know, like…
Lance Johnson 04:23
I don’t think not to get political. I don’t think the way the election went down and the repercussions of everything that happened. There’s some obvious processes that need to be fixed in order to create a fairness in you know, and then when you think about people’s wealth and financial wealth, you know, compared to OA, you know, people have higher values of net worth and less debt and, you know, their incomes are higher. So, I agree with Rob. I think there’s a lot of topics that you can apply that question to.
Barry Mack 04:58
I agree.
Robert Delavan 04:59
Yeah, and of the piece of that is, there’s a lot of things you could say, yeah, they’re getting better a lot of things. You know, maybe not. The one thing that I think most people can agree on is like, especially like the technology and I mean, there’s an evolution happening. The fact that we can do a podcast today we touched on actually on the last episode is, you know, my kids can watch sheep being sheared, instead of, you know, a stupid cartoon with, you know, run over a, you know, on a freeway. So, like, you know, there’s definitely an evolution happening, the question becomes is, where’s the opportunity for better, right? And then you got to define better and I don’t know, I don’t want to go down too much of a rabbit hole.
Barry Mack 05:51
We’re digressing a little bit. But let me reframe the question. Are you guys optimistic about the future?
Adrian Schermer 05:58
I am. I’m a hardcore optimist. I think the pros outweigh the cons. I think the world is moving in a better direction. It’s a safer place. It’s a cleaner place, in some respects and even the people who are upset with a lot of people are upset for the right reasons. We’re upset about things that matter and these things existed before we had the world of the internet to, to bring them into the light and maybe that’s a good thing, maybe some of these conversations. I think a lot of people think that people arguing online never gets to anything. It definitely does. I’ve definitely read disagreements online and a few days later, maybe it finally clicked for me, you know, you’re not necessarily going to see the change in the comment section on a Facebook argument. But I think that the dialogue, I’ve had people come up to me after I’ve had a conversation like that. Remember, when you argue with that person a year ago, and really made me think about, you know, this subject or another and…
Barry Mack 06:45
Yeah, totally agreed everything you said, Adrian.
Adrian Schermer 06:48
It’s an honest discourse. I appreciate.
Lance Johnson 06:50
And you know, me, I’m always the anti. I also think there’s a lot of respect issues that people have in dialogue, and I think it has deteriorated people getting along.
Barry Mack 07:09
Lance, let me ask you directly, are you optimistic about the future?
Lance Johnson 07:13
I’m more of a realist. I think there’s some half full things that I like, where we’re going and I think there’s some things that we just as a society, we just, we don’t really handle very well and as a result of that is deteriorate the humanity of, of our world and so I see, I kind of put them in those two camps. You know, and, again, not to get political. But if you truly are a politician that believes in democracy, you got to have a fair election process, to get to where both sides can believe that it was done correctly. I think the last election was just awful the way it was and so that makes me sad that somebody that wouldn’t, you know, whoever would win it, they can come back and say, as a politician, I believe that everything was done fairly. I don’t know. There’s just too many weird coincidences that makes that that if we don’t fix it by future elections, you’re gonna divide this country on a very, very fixable easy way.
Barry Mack 08:33
Yeah. Robert, what do you think you optimistic about the future?
Robert Delavan 08:37
Yes. Generally, I think the optimism somewhat slightly outweighs the negative. Lance touched on it. There’s a respect issue with the technology is incredible and the ability is incredible. But like the fact that people can there’s a little bit of a bigger voice for folks who have maybe a cowardly streak, and that they want to, like we’ve talked about this before with your art various, you know, they’ll have like, you know, scathing review, but unless you actually engage, you know, back in the day, if you told somebody, they were a jerk to their face, then there was a repercussion of you might get smacked, right? And now it’s, you know, I’m just hiding behind, you know, my username and my keyboard and that’s the negative. I think that’s what’s dragging it down that lack of respect of actually engaging.
Lance Johnson 09:41
You look at your art, right, and you had that review, and the person never got to know you and then you became friends after they got to know you.
Barry Mack 09:48
Yeah, became friends who’s a part I didn’t….
Lance Johnson 09:51
So, why did you become friends after he gave his schema review and would have given you a scathing review if you got to really know you? So, yeah, we really respect you or did his due diligence and then after he did, it was a different reveal. So, the respect issue is that he really did his due diligence on getting to know where you were coming from and as you talked about connecting with the artists, he never did.
Barry Mack 10:21
Well, he actually did. He eventually got to know me an answer.
Lance Johnson 10:25
No, that’s not what I’m saying. After the review, he didn’t connect with you. So, he gave you a review. Yeah, connecting with you and you just in previous episode just talked about how important it is to connect your art is connecting with the artist. So, again, the guy gave you a review, basically, not even knowing you and not even knowing the purpose of you art, that there isn’t a respect issue. You know, everybody has a voice now. But with that voice, there’s a responsibility and a powerness to it and they’re, you know, I think there’s back in the day, there’s just some, you know, just a culture issue of having respect for other individuals and how you approach things and voice your opinion. Yeah, I think we’ve lost that through technology.
Barry Mack 11:22
Yeah, totally agree. Well, let me ask another question quickly with you guys. Are you optimistic? Are you excited about contributing about making a difference?
Adrian Schermer 11:33
Absolutely.
Robert Delavan 11:35
That’s the piece that gets me going, Barry is when you build stuff, especially when you bring in others? I mean, there’s been some collaboration, you know, between Adrian, Lance, and I, and I think you’ve, you know, seen a little bit of that, as we’ve gotten to know you, that man, like, it’s incredible. The possibilities and that’s the piece that oh, the optimism is through the roof. You know, we can do better and, frankly, you know, we are within everything that we’re trying to do, you know, with the little pinpricks that we are in the universe. But it’s amazing what you can do with when you start bringing a whole bunch of those people together. You know, there’s enough shovels and you can move a mountain, right?
Barry Mack 12:27
Yeah, and that is exciting.
Robert Delavan 12:28
Yeah, it’s fun stuff.
Adrian Schermer 12:34
All right. Let’s shift gears a little bit. Barry, I love this question. I really do. What would you do if you knew you would not fail?
Barry Mack 12:42
Yeah, such a great question. I’ve thought about it a lot, guys and I’ve actually taken an interesting spin on my own mind. In a way, let me break it down. It’s actually asking what are you afraid of doing, right? That’s kind of a trick question. In that sense. It’s asking what are you afraid of doing, okay? So, I’ve thought about this and in a way, if you’re, if you’re doing what you love, if you’re really enjoying it, you’re not afraid of it. I mean, to be honest, failure is not part of my vocabulary. I don’t think of failure because I’m doing what I love. I enjoy it. Failure never enters into it. So, kind of a weird way of looking at this question is, if you’re afraid of doing something, do you really enjoy it? Because I think if you enjoy it, failure is irrelevant. You know that if you stick to it, you’re going to succeed, or something more awesome is going to come up. Would you guys agree with that?
Robert Delavan 13:38
Yeah. So, this may go a little bit left field. When I saw this question, you know, in our show prep here, you know, what I would do actually is with, it would take an incredible amount of resources to do this. I would actually fix our healthcare system.
Adrian Schermer 14:00
Oh, dear.
Lance Johnson 14:01
Oh, my goodness.
Adrian Schermer 14:05
I was thinking like learn guitar, and he’s like, I’m gonna fix healthcare.
Robert Delavan 14:11
So, anyway, I think I actually talked to a really smart doc one time and he was imprinting on me this concept of with enough resources, you could actually do it.
Barry Mack 14:21
Yeah, would you enjoy doing that, Rob? Would you love doing that?
Robert Delavan 14:27
Oh, man, that would be such a blunt like, that would be so much fun.
Barry Mack 14:31
All right, it wouldn’t be afraid of failing.
Robert Delavan 14:34
Right. It’s just resources.
Lance Johnson 14:37
I mean, if you created healthcare in a democratic society where the people are using the resources, can yelp and choose who they go to, right? So, you made it a massive Obamacare but then with Obamacare, you can actually choose whether you go to providence or a manual or whatever and then based on that supply and demand where you get into bedside manner and cost of doing things, and you reported all those numbers to the people that are using it, you wouldn’t fix healthcare. It wouldn’t be, but it wouldn’t be as profitable for the healthcare system. It would be driven by supply and demand. The users would pay more for the services that you’re getting that are better and you don’t have to wait in lines and some of that, but you got to get a system, a healthcare system that is a democracy basically, or a democratic way. Not a democratic way but a…
Robert Delavan 15:43
A free market,
Lance Johnson 15:44
A free market society, where the people get to choose, and all that data gets reported.
Barry Mack 15:51
Yeah. So, Rob, you’re not actually afraid of failing at that. I think it’s more a case of in the time that we have, what are we going to do with that.
Robert Delavan 16:01
Exactly and it’s just it’s an interesting, and it’s probably very abstract for me. It’s probably nothing that I’ll ever do. But man, it would be fun to tackle.
Barry Mack 16:09
No, it’s a great question. It brings up a lot of interesting things.
Lance Johnson 16:12
So, I like this one if we know you will never fail. So, I often talk about it is at some point in time in your life and you look back at the most the events that made you most proud of yourself, it doesn’t matter what other people think at the end of the day, where are you proud of yourself? It’s tackling your demons, tackling the things you’re afraid of that challenges you and that you face Darth Vader, you know, face to face, like in what was the episode two where he went back, and he had to go in that tunnel and then he saw Darth Vader for the first time and then he hit it and it was his face. He’s tackling his demons. When you look back at those things, that you have to face those demons, you have to overcome, you have to change and when you do and you look back in your life, that’s when you’re most proud.
Barry Mack 17:12
Yeah, I think if you really look at it, you do that because you enjoy doing.
Robert Delavan 17:15
Yeah, that’s true. Well, it’s the reward is, the personal piece is that reward is you try you try you try, you know, what, what do we say? I never lose, I either win or I learn, right? I do a lot of learning, right? Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, finally get a result and then it’s like, sweet, I got it. But if something isn’t hard to do, you know, and if you don’t experience, you know, not hitting the mark. You know, it’s not as satisfying, right? So, I don’t know there’s an element of that this is we could…
Adrian Schermer 17:52
You’re flipping our interview process Barry. You just you just like, what about us, your interview is a very beautiful product, my answer will be everything I would just do absolutely everything sometimes I feel like that. There’s a Sylvia Plath story about that, that we’re so spoiled for choice, you know, this about a fig tree and all the figs dropped to the ground, and they rot because you couldn’t choose which fig to grab off. That’s how I feel all the time. There’s just so much, you know, especially in the modern world where, you know, look at us, I can buy a camera, you know, used to take an entire crew to shoot something and now we can do this together, which is awesome. The amount of content that you can produce, someone can watch someone shearing sheep in another country or you know, all the I love that the technology has made it so that we can have television shows about everything. I’m watching these guys build a Mini Cooper in New Zealand right now, that would have never been a television show. They would have never been syndicated. But it’s great because they can produce hours and hours of content and I can watch it because you no longer have to fit in a box. So, what a fantastic world to be in.
Barry Mack 18:55
Yes, indeed.
Robert Delavan 19:00
Okay, so Barry, how are the arts helping create a better world for everyone?
Barry Mack 19:07
Yeah, another great question.
Robert Delavan 19:11
Somehow, I feel like you’re gonna flip it around on us.
Lance Johnson 19:15
I will wait for us to come up with a crappy question.
Robert Delavan 19:22
Yeah. So, and for everyone. I mean, there’s some unpacking here.
Barry Mack 19:27
Yeah, there is a lot of unpacking and we could riff on this stuff for a long time. So, let me give you an example. This kind of a mind blowing. This is a true story. Well, I’m gonna lay on you, okay and this gets back to this question. How does it create a better world? Okay, one of my collectors was redoing their office, okay? And they hired a contractor. The contractor came into the office to start to work. He saw one of my paintings on the wall, and you’re gonna think I’m making this up? I’m not. She called me and told me the story. It stopped him in his tracks and he said that he had an out of body experience, believe it or not, and he was gone. He experienced some kind of cosmic thing, and he came back changed his life and he had to leave for the day to think about it to integrate it. Okay, how does that relate to helping create a better world? I think art can do amazing things for people. Okay, it creates things that we can anticipate and again, I think sports if you read the rise of Superman, it’s back to that the arts, including sports, Lance, or helping create a better universe universal, okay? Transcends the key here is it transcends political and religious boundaries. That’s how it creates a better world.
Robert Delavan 20:45
So, you’re tying that back into, you know, the optimistic, the future, believe it a better place than we found it, you know? Okay. How does, like, so that’s a pretty incredible story and that was a obviously very, very real for you, you know, transformational experience for that one person. Is there an element of this for where you can affect it at the macro level? I mean, there’s only what, seven some billions of us here.
Adrian Schermer 21:20
Now, we just crossed the eighth line.
Robert Delavan 21:24
So, you know, like, I mean, that’s a lot. What’s is there an application for that?
Barry Mack 21:34
Well, you know, as each of us become really good at what we do, we’re contributing in our own way, contributing some ration contributing some motivation, creating some, you know, some togetherness, that’s my answer to that.
Robert Delavan 21:50
And so then what’s like, what’s next? Let’s pull it back in from, I might have rabbit hold you out to 8 billion people, right? So, what’s that look like for you? What’s the next piece of creativity or the next step and this might be very, you know, general because we don’t always know exactly, or it looks like?
Barry Mack 22:11
No, this podcast is actually a part of the answer to your question was getting my work out to as many people as possible. I mean, wouldn’t you guys agree that you’d like to get your work out to as many people as possible, right?
Adrian Schermer 22:23
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Robert Delavan 22:26
So, podcast, obviously, I know you’re growing in the social media marketing area. I know that you’re working with some different professionals in the art world that are, you know, influential, so to speak, and they’re spreading the word, you know, Barry Mack Art, that sort of things.
Barry Mack 22:50
The guy, David Evans. He’s really good at helping artists in particular. I mean, he works with a lot of different businesses, but he’s really good at advertising online. He’s got that master to his science, where if you get your website, right, he knows how to pump it up and reach literally millions of people every day for not that much.
Robert Delavan 23:15
So, is that the direction is taking what inspires you and what you’re creating and then basically, evangelizing and across the universe?
Barry Mack 23:26
Look at it that way. Yeah, I mean, we all want to do that really. We want to get it out to as many people as possible, we want to feel like we’re making a difference. Why get up?
Robert Delavan 23:37
Right.
Adrian Schermer 23:37
I think there’s that mistake, right? People make of the percentage based, you know, bearer, you got how many how many followers you got on your socially. So, it’s like, 80,000, something?
Barry Mack 23:45
80,000,Meah.
Adrian Schermer 23:47
You know, 1660, that’s the population of the United States was 75,000 people. So, you have literally more people than the ones population of the entire country that we live in. You know, I think there’s that mistake we make where we go, there’s 8 billion people. If I reach 10,000, that’s nothing. No, that’s 10,000 people, you know, that’s still 10,000 people and that regardless of how many humans exist out there, so I think it’s great that your art as has touched so many people, and I think for me, the answer this question is just breaking the paradigm and pushing the boundaries, you know, further out, I think of like comedy, you know, things that you weren’t supposed to joke about change every year, and then we look back on the stuff that was like, oh, you know, Richard Pryor was so offensive. Now, it just seems like it’s like daytime TV at this point, you know, and that’s the cool thing that was now it opens it up for the rest of us, you know, to be a little weirder. There’s things that about the way that I look, I know that you know, I probably would have gotten my butt kicked 100 years ago, trying to walk down the street or maybe people would think, yeah, he’s got some piercings in his lip. He’s probably a criminal. He’s got tattoos, you know, and now is like everybody’s got tattoos, you know?
Barry Mack 24:59
No, I totally agree. I think you’re right on and you know, the opposite of that is if we change one life, that’s cool, too.
Robert Delavan 25:07
Yeah. That’s very cool.
Adrian Schermer 25:13
Powerful stuff. I wish we had more time, Barry. Barry Mack, Barry Mack Art. Tell us where we can find you, Barry?
Barry Mack 25:20
Yeah, you can find me at sea gallery in Bridgeport area. My website BarryMackart.com. You can email me BarryMackart@gmail, and my phone number 971-348-1890.
Adrian Schermer 25:40
Awesome. I know you’re on Instagram, on Facebook. Barry, again, thank you so much for your time. I know it’s valuable and you have expressed that value very well, in this period of time. So, thanks for making. Hey, thanks for making some art with us.
Barry Mack 25:57
It’s been a real pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me. Awesome.
Adrian Schermer 26:02
We’re the get rich slow podcast crew. You can catch what we’re doing next locally at ROI-FA.com/events. We’ve got learning grows sipping mingles a summer bash coming up and soon I can stop saying this, but some photos with Santa on November 12. So, check out that website. You’ll see what’s coming up next. Come connect with us and reach out to us. Let us know what you like about our show and what you’d like to hear next.
Robert Delavan 26:29
Yep. Thank you so much, Barry. Thanks, Adrian. I enjoyed this series. Looking forward to a follow up in the next 6 to 12. months, right?
Adrian Schermer 26:38
Absolutely.
Robert Delavan 26:39
All right. Thank you all for listening.
Adrian Schermer 26:40
I’ll catch you next time folks.
Guest Barry Mack 3 of 3
Adrian Schermer 00:02
Hello future millionaires and welcome back to the get rich slow podcast. We’re your hosts Adrian Schermer, Robert Delavan, and Lance Johnson. Good morning, gentlemen.
Robert Delavan 00:10
Good morning.
Lance Johnson 00:11
Good morning, everybody.
Adrian Schermer 00:12
You can find us online at Apple podcasts, Spotify, audible Amazon music, YouTube, and Stitcher. Today we have our special guests. This is part three in a three-part series, talking to Barry Mack with Barry Mack Art.
Lance Johnson 00:27
Yeah, and I just want to take a moment. It’s been fun. We’ve been having a blast. It just seems like we just connect in we got.
Barry Mack 00:36
Yup, I’ve enjoyed it a lot. Good morning.
Lance Johnson 00:38
Dials on wardrobe. It’s been awesome.
Barry Mack 00:42
Really excited about it.
Robert Delavan 00:44
Enjoy the visuals.
Adrian Schermer 00:46
The amount of chance definitely listen to episodes one and two. This is a three-part series I highly encourage you to Yeah, Barry. It’s been a blast getting to know Yeah. How are you enjoying this so far?
Barry Mack 00:56
Oh, I’m loving it. Absolutely love it. Yeah, the synergy here has been amazing and yeah, the exploration the topics has been really cool. Really fun. Thank you.
Adrian Schermer 01:05
You brought such a cool shirt last time. I didn’t know if you’re gonna be able to outdo yourself. But yeah, have that’s fantastic. Keep it creative. Today, we’re looking ahead at what is to come for Barry and Barry Mack art as a in its entirety. So, let’s kick it off, guys.
Robert Delavan 01:25
Yeah, we’re looking forward to this.
Barry Mack 01:26
I’m looking forward to it too. Let’s get into it.
Lance Johnson 01:31
Well, I think I’ll kick it off, then. When you think about our future. Here’s ours, Rob’s, everybody’s, your family’s, what gets you the most exciting?
Barry Mack 01:42
Thing that gets me the most excited, of course, remember, I’m an artist and kind of a dreamer. I like to think of the world becoming a little more unified, you know, little less divisiveness, you know, people coming together more. That’s, that’s my vision for us and I think we can all relate to that, right? It’s been pretty intense last few years. When I think about that, that gets me excited. I believe it’s possible and you know, I want to contribute to that and on a personal note, that’s what gets me the most excited about my own work is somehow contributing to that, you know, producing work that somehow creates a common language brings people together in some way. You know, I want to feel like I’m making a difference, and I’m contributing.
Robert Delavan 02:26
What’s interesting is, for our viewing audience, again, is you said that dreamer concept and Lance was, you know, pointing the straight up over his right shoulder, what we see is his left shoulder, I guess and that dream concept. That’s huge. I mean, future. That’s what our future is made of and then there’s the, you know, how do you turn those dreams into realities through goal setting, and, you know, all of the different pieces, which isn’t necessarily our core topic today, but you’re pushing for something. So, I guess my follow up question to that Barry, is what, like, is there that vision? You said, you know, pulling people together different things, like, you know, there’s a vision there, there’s a reason for that. So, you know, can you extract or share some more there?
Barry Mack 03:17
Well, it’s really my inherent optimism and again, this is debatable, but I actually believe in spite of how everything looks, that people are communicating more. There’s more empathy. You know, there’s more communication going on with online news and stuff like that. Whether it’s fake or not, who knows? But, you know, I think we are coming together, and I do you know, I do see a future where things get better for us, you know, that there’s less divisiveness. It’s a vision.
Lance Johnson 03:49
That would be a really good poll to see if our audience sees that a better or worse future. It’s an interesting topic, like someday we should have kind of like nine people on this podcast on and we have topics like that.
Barry Mack 04:06
Yeah. Well, just for fun. Where do you guys weigh in? Tell me what you think. Are things getting better or worse?
Robert Delavan 04:15
That’s an interesting one. I think my caveat to that is it depends on the topic.
Lance Johnson 04:20
Yeah. I agree with that.
Robert Delavan 04:22
You know, like…
Lance Johnson 04:23
I don’t think not to get political. I don’t think the way the election went down and the repercussions of everything that happened. There’s some obvious processes that need to be fixed in order to create a fairness in you know, and then when you think about people’s wealth and financial wealth, you know, compared to OA, you know, people have higher values of net worth and less debt and, you know, their incomes are higher. So, I agree with Rob. I think there’s a lot of topics that you can apply that question to.
Barry Mack 04:58
I agree.
Robert Delavan 04:59
Yeah, and of the piece of that is, there’s a lot of things you could say, yeah, they’re getting better a lot of things. You know, maybe not. The one thing that I think most people can agree on is like, especially like the technology and I mean, there’s an evolution happening. The fact that we can do a podcast today we touched on actually on the last episode is, you know, my kids can watch sheep being sheared, instead of, you know, a stupid cartoon with, you know, run over a, you know, on a freeway. So, like, you know, there’s definitely an evolution happening, the question becomes is, where’s the opportunity for better, right? And then you got to define better and I don’t know, I don’t want to go down too much of a rabbit hole.
Barry Mack 05:51
We’re digressing a little bit. But let me reframe the question. Are you guys optimistic about the future?
Adrian Schermer 05:58
I am. I’m a hardcore optimist. I think the pros outweigh the cons. I think the world is moving in a better direction. It’s a safer place. It’s a cleaner place, in some respects and even the people who are upset with a lot of people are upset for the right reasons. We’re upset about things that matter and these things existed before we had the world of the internet to, to bring them into the light and maybe that’s a good thing, maybe some of these conversations. I think a lot of people think that people arguing online never gets to anything. It definitely does. I’ve definitely read disagreements online and a few days later, maybe it finally clicked for me, you know, you’re not necessarily going to see the change in the comment section on a Facebook argument. But I think that the dialogue, I’ve had people come up to me after I’ve had a conversation like that. Remember, when you argue with that person a year ago, and really made me think about, you know, this subject or another and…
Barry Mack 06:45
Yeah, totally agreed everything you said, Adrian.
Adrian Schermer 06:48
It’s an honest discourse. I appreciate.
Lance Johnson 06:50
And you know, me, I’m always the anti. I also think there’s a lot of respect issues that people have in dialogue, and I think it has deteriorated people getting along.
Barry Mack 07:09
Lance, let me ask you directly, are you optimistic about the future?
Lance Johnson 07:13
I’m more of a realist. I think there’s some half full things that I like, where we’re going and I think there’s some things that we just as a society, we just, we don’t really handle very well and as a result of that is deteriorate the humanity of, of our world and so I see, I kind of put them in those two camps. You know, and, again, not to get political. But if you truly are a politician that believes in democracy, you got to have a fair election process, to get to where both sides can believe that it was done correctly. I think the last election was just awful the way it was and so that makes me sad that somebody that wouldn’t, you know, whoever would win it, they can come back and say, as a politician, I believe that everything was done fairly. I don’t know. There’s just too many weird coincidences that makes that that if we don’t fix it by future elections, you’re gonna divide this country on a very, very fixable easy way.
Barry Mack 08:33
Yeah. Robert, what do you think you optimistic about the future?
Robert Delavan 08:37
Yes. Generally, I think the optimism somewhat slightly outweighs the negative. Lance touched on it. There’s a respect issue with the technology is incredible and the ability is incredible. But like the fact that people can there’s a little bit of a bigger voice for folks who have maybe a cowardly streak, and that they want to, like we’ve talked about this before with your art various, you know, they’ll have like, you know, scathing review, but unless you actually engage, you know, back in the day, if you told somebody, they were a jerk to their face, then there was a repercussion of you might get smacked, right? And now it’s, you know, I’m just hiding behind, you know, my username and my keyboard and that’s the negative. I think that’s what’s dragging it down that lack of respect of actually engaging.
Lance Johnson 09:41
You look at your art, right, and you had that review, and the person never got to know you and then you became friends after they got to know you.
Barry Mack 09:48
Yeah, became friends who’s a part I didn’t….
Lance Johnson 09:51
So, why did you become friends after he gave his schema review and would have given you a scathing review if you got to really know you? So, yeah, we really respect you or did his due diligence and then after he did, it was a different reveal. So, the respect issue is that he really did his due diligence on getting to know where you were coming from and as you talked about connecting with the artists, he never did.
Barry Mack 10:21
Well, he actually did. He eventually got to know me an answer.
Lance Johnson 10:25
No, that’s not what I’m saying. After the review, he didn’t connect with you. So, he gave you a review. Yeah, connecting with you and you just in previous episode just talked about how important it is to connect your art is connecting with the artist. So, again, the guy gave you a review, basically, not even knowing you and not even knowing the purpose of you art, that there isn’t a respect issue. You know, everybody has a voice now. But with that voice, there’s a responsibility and a powerness to it and they’re, you know, I think there’s back in the day, there’s just some, you know, just a culture issue of having respect for other individuals and how you approach things and voice your opinion. Yeah, I think we’ve lost that through technology.
Barry Mack 11:22
Yeah, totally agree. Well, let me ask another question quickly with you guys. Are you optimistic? Are you excited about contributing about making a difference?
Adrian Schermer 11:33
Absolutely.
Robert Delavan 11:35
That’s the piece that gets me going, Barry is when you build stuff, especially when you bring in others? I mean, there’s been some collaboration, you know, between Adrian, Lance, and I, and I think you’ve, you know, seen a little bit of that, as we’ve gotten to know you, that man, like, it’s incredible. The possibilities and that’s the piece that oh, the optimism is through the roof. You know, we can do better and, frankly, you know, we are within everything that we’re trying to do, you know, with the little pinpricks that we are in the universe. But it’s amazing what you can do with when you start bringing a whole bunch of those people together. You know, there’s enough shovels and you can move a mountain, right?
Barry Mack 12:27
Yeah, and that is exciting.
Robert Delavan 12:28
Yeah, it’s fun stuff.
Adrian Schermer 12:34
All right. Let’s shift gears a little bit. Barry, I love this question. I really do. What would you do if you knew you would not fail?
Barry Mack 12:42
Yeah, such a great question. I’ve thought about it a lot, guys and I’ve actually taken an interesting spin on my own mind. In a way, let me break it down. It’s actually asking what are you afraid of doing, right? That’s kind of a trick question. In that sense. It’s asking what are you afraid of doing, okay? So, I’ve thought about this and in a way, if you’re, if you’re doing what you love, if you’re really enjoying it, you’re not afraid of it. I mean, to be honest, failure is not part of my vocabulary. I don’t think of failure because I’m doing what I love. I enjoy it. Failure never enters into it. So, kind of a weird way of looking at this question is, if you’re afraid of doing something, do you really enjoy it? Because I think if you enjoy it, failure is irrelevant. You know that if you stick to it, you’re going to succeed, or something more awesome is going to come up. Would you guys agree with that?
Robert Delavan 13:38
Yeah. So, this may go a little bit left field. When I saw this question, you know, in our show prep here, you know, what I would do actually is with, it would take an incredible amount of resources to do this. I would actually fix our healthcare system.
Adrian Schermer 14:00
Oh, dear.
Lance Johnson 14:01
Oh, my goodness.
Adrian Schermer 14:05
I was thinking like learn guitar, and he’s like, I’m gonna fix healthcare.
Robert Delavan 14:11
So, anyway, I think I actually talked to a really smart doc one time and he was imprinting on me this concept of with enough resources, you could actually do it.
Barry Mack 14:21
Yeah, would you enjoy doing that, Rob? Would you love doing that?
Robert Delavan 14:27
Oh, man, that would be such a blunt like, that would be so much fun.
Barry Mack 14:31
All right, it wouldn’t be afraid of failing.
Robert Delavan 14:34
Right. It’s just resources.
Lance Johnson 14:37
I mean, if you created healthcare in a democratic society where the people are using the resources, can yelp and choose who they go to, right? So, you made it a massive Obamacare but then with Obamacare, you can actually choose whether you go to providence or a manual or whatever and then based on that supply and demand where you get into bedside manner and cost of doing things, and you reported all those numbers to the people that are using it, you wouldn’t fix healthcare. It wouldn’t be, but it wouldn’t be as profitable for the healthcare system. It would be driven by supply and demand. The users would pay more for the services that you’re getting that are better and you don’t have to wait in lines and some of that, but you got to get a system, a healthcare system that is a democracy basically, or a democratic way. Not a democratic way but a…
Robert Delavan 15:43
A free market,
Lance Johnson 15:44
A free market society, where the people get to choose, and all that data gets reported.
Barry Mack 15:51
Yeah. So, Rob, you’re not actually afraid of failing at that. I think it’s more a case of in the time that we have, what are we going to do with that.
Robert Delavan 16:01
Exactly and it’s just it’s an interesting, and it’s probably very abstract for me. It’s probably nothing that I’ll ever do. But man, it would be fun to tackle.
Barry Mack 16:09
No, it’s a great question. It brings up a lot of interesting things.
Lance Johnson 16:12
So, I like this one if we know you will never fail. So, I often talk about it is at some point in time in your life and you look back at the most the events that made you most proud of yourself, it doesn’t matter what other people think at the end of the day, where are you proud of yourself? It’s tackling your demons, tackling the things you’re afraid of that challenges you and that you face Darth Vader, you know, face to face, like in what was the episode two where he went back, and he had to go in that tunnel and then he saw Darth Vader for the first time and then he hit it and it was his face. He’s tackling his demons. When you look back at those things, that you have to face those demons, you have to overcome, you have to change and when you do and you look back in your life, that’s when you’re most proud.
Barry Mack 17:12
Yeah, I think if you really look at it, you do that because you enjoy doing.
Robert Delavan 17:15
Yeah, that’s true. Well, it’s the reward is, the personal piece is that reward is you try you try you try, you know, what, what do we say? I never lose, I either win or I learn, right? I do a lot of learning, right? Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, finally get a result and then it’s like, sweet, I got it. But if something isn’t hard to do, you know, and if you don’t experience, you know, not hitting the mark. You know, it’s not as satisfying, right? So, I don’t know there’s an element of that this is we could…
Adrian Schermer 17:52
You’re flipping our interview process Barry. You just you just like, what about us, your interview is a very beautiful product, my answer will be everything I would just do absolutely everything sometimes I feel like that. There’s a Sylvia Plath story about that, that we’re so spoiled for choice, you know, this about a fig tree and all the figs dropped to the ground, and they rot because you couldn’t choose which fig to grab off. That’s how I feel all the time. There’s just so much, you know, especially in the modern world where, you know, look at us, I can buy a camera, you know, used to take an entire crew to shoot something and now we can do this together, which is awesome. The amount of content that you can produce, someone can watch someone shearing sheep in another country or you know, all the I love that the technology has made it so that we can have television shows about everything. I’m watching these guys build a Mini Cooper in New Zealand right now, that would have never been a television show. They would have never been syndicated. But it’s great because they can produce hours and hours of content and I can watch it because you no longer have to fit in a box. So, what a fantastic world to be in.
Barry Mack 18:55
Yes, indeed.
Robert Delavan 19:00
Okay, so Barry, how are the arts helping create a better world for everyone?
Barry Mack 19:07
Yeah, another great question.
Robert Delavan 19:11
Somehow, I feel like you’re gonna flip it around on us.
Lance Johnson 19:15
I will wait for us to come up with a crappy question.
Robert Delavan 19:22
Yeah. So, and for everyone. I mean, there’s some unpacking here.
Barry Mack 19:27
Yeah, there is a lot of unpacking and we could riff on this stuff for a long time. So, let me give you an example. This kind of a mind blowing. This is a true story. Well, I’m gonna lay on you, okay and this gets back to this question. How does it create a better world? Okay, one of my collectors was redoing their office, okay? And they hired a contractor. The contractor came into the office to start to work. He saw one of my paintings on the wall, and you’re gonna think I’m making this up? I’m not. She called me and told me the story. It stopped him in his tracks and he said that he had an out of body experience, believe it or not, and he was gone. He experienced some kind of cosmic thing, and he came back changed his life and he had to leave for the day to think about it to integrate it. Okay, how does that relate to helping create a better world? I think art can do amazing things for people. Okay, it creates things that we can anticipate and again, I think sports if you read the rise of Superman, it’s back to that the arts, including sports, Lance, or helping create a better universe universal, okay? Transcends the key here is it transcends political and religious boundaries. That’s how it creates a better world.
Robert Delavan 20:45
So, you’re tying that back into, you know, the optimistic, the future, believe it a better place than we found it, you know? Okay. How does, like, so that’s a pretty incredible story and that was a obviously very, very real for you, you know, transformational experience for that one person. Is there an element of this for where you can affect it at the macro level? I mean, there’s only what, seven some billions of us here.
Adrian Schermer 21:20
Now, we just crossed the eighth line.
Robert Delavan 21:24
So, you know, like, I mean, that’s a lot. What’s is there an application for that?
Barry Mack 21:34
Well, you know, as each of us become really good at what we do, we’re contributing in our own way, contributing some ration contributing some motivation, creating some, you know, some togetherness, that’s my answer to that.
Robert Delavan 21:50
And so then what’s like, what’s next? Let’s pull it back in from, I might have rabbit hold you out to 8 billion people, right? So, what’s that look like for you? What’s the next piece of creativity or the next step and this might be very, you know, general because we don’t always know exactly, or it looks like?
Barry Mack 22:11
No, this podcast is actually a part of the answer to your question was getting my work out to as many people as possible. I mean, wouldn’t you guys agree that you’d like to get your work out to as many people as possible, right?
Adrian Schermer 22:23
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Robert Delavan 22:26
So, podcast, obviously, I know you’re growing in the social media marketing area. I know that you’re working with some different professionals in the art world that are, you know, influential, so to speak, and they’re spreading the word, you know, Barry Mack Art, that sort of things.
Barry Mack 22:50
The guy, David Evans. He’s really good at helping artists in particular. I mean, he works with a lot of different businesses, but he’s really good at advertising online. He’s got that master to his science, where if you get your website, right, he knows how to pump it up and reach literally millions of people every day for not that much.
Robert Delavan 23:15
So, is that the direction is taking what inspires you and what you’re creating and then basically, evangelizing and across the universe?
Barry Mack 23:26
Look at it that way. Yeah, I mean, we all want to do that really. We want to get it out to as many people as possible, we want to feel like we’re making a difference. Why get up?
Robert Delavan 23:37
Right.
Adrian Schermer 23:37
I think there’s that mistake, right? People make of the percentage based, you know, bearer, you got how many how many followers you got on your socially. So, it’s like, 80,000, something?
Barry Mack 23:45
80,000,Meah.
Adrian Schermer 23:47
You know, 1660, that’s the population of the United States was 75,000 people. So, you have literally more people than the ones population of the entire country that we live in. You know, I think there’s that mistake we make where we go, there’s 8 billion people. If I reach 10,000, that’s nothing. No, that’s 10,000 people, you know, that’s still 10,000 people and that regardless of how many humans exist out there, so I think it’s great that your art as has touched so many people, and I think for me, the answer this question is just breaking the paradigm and pushing the boundaries, you know, further out, I think of like comedy, you know, things that you weren’t supposed to joke about change every year, and then we look back on the stuff that was like, oh, you know, Richard Pryor was so offensive. Now, it just seems like it’s like daytime TV at this point, you know, and that’s the cool thing that was now it opens it up for the rest of us, you know, to be a little weirder. There’s things that about the way that I look, I know that you know, I probably would have gotten my butt kicked 100 years ago, trying to walk down the street or maybe people would think, yeah, he’s got some piercings in his lip. He’s probably a criminal. He’s got tattoos, you know, and now is like everybody’s got tattoos, you know?
Barry Mack 24:59
No, I totally agree. I think you’re right on and you know, the opposite of that is if we change one life, that’s cool, too.
Robert Delavan 25:07
Yeah. That’s very cool.
Adrian Schermer 25:13
Powerful stuff. I wish we had more time, Barry. Barry Mack, Barry Mack Art. Tell us where we can find you, Barry?
Barry Mack 25:20
Yeah, you can find me at sea gallery in Bridgeport area. My website BarryMackart.com. You can email me BarryMackart@gmail, and my phone number 971-348-1890.
Adrian Schermer 25:40
Awesome. I know you’re on Instagram, on Facebook. Barry, again, thank you so much for your time. I know it’s valuable and you have expressed that value very well, in this period of time. So, thanks for making. Hey, thanks for making some art with us.
Barry Mack 25:57
It’s been a real pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me. Awesome.
Adrian Schermer 26:02
We’re the get rich slow podcast crew. You can catch what we’re doing next locally at ROI-FA.com/events. We’ve got learning grows sipping mingles a summer bash coming up and soon I can stop saying this, but some photos with Santa on November 12. So, check out that website. You’ll see what’s coming up next. Come connect with us and reach out to us. Let us know what you like about our show and what you’d like to hear next.
Robert Delavan 26:29
Yep. Thank you so much, Barry. Thanks, Adrian. I enjoyed this series. Looking forward to a follow up in the next 6 to 12. months, right?
Adrian Schermer 26:38
Absolutely.
Robert Delavan 26:39
All right. Thank you all for listening.
Adrian Schermer 26:40
I’ll catch you next time folks.
