The Bender Continues
Everyday bros talking about how life goes!
The Bender Continues
The Passion Project Kickoff
Ever wondered how to create a truly balanced and fulfilling life? Join us on The Bender Continues podcast as we embark on our transformative Passion Project series, where we promise to unlock actionable insights across six fundamental areas: physical health, mental health, relationships, work, money, and spirituality. This episode marks a pivotal moment for us as we reflect on our journey, express deep gratitude to our unwavering supporters, and introduce a new direction inspired by John Krasinski's "Some Good News." Together, we celebrate friendship, personal growth, and resilience through life's challenges, starting with meaningful conversations that bring positivity into every aspect of our lives.
In this milestone episode celebrating over 40 episodes, we dive into the heart of the Passion Project, emphasizing the importance of actionable strategies in areas like nutrition, money management, and spiritual growth. We acknowledge our evolution and commitment to learning alongside our audience, even when it means tackling uncomfortable topics. As we aim to foster deeper connections and promote a culture of appreciation, we invite you to join us on this journey of self-awareness, self-development, and spreading positivity. Let’s create a ripple effect of positive change together, ensuring every listener walks away with practical advice and a renewed sense of purpose.
Welcome to the Bender Continues podcast. Today marks a significant day with much excitement and optimism as we announce the inflection point in the podcast direction. We are pivoting for a good reason. A year ago, four co-hosts here ventured into creating a storage unit, which quickly pivoted to the Bender Continues podcast. During this journey we realized our vision, our structure and ultimate goal for this podcast lacks significant clarity.
Ryan Selimos:Nonetheless, one significant aspect remained Our shared desire to craft a podcast centered around our friendship. Our personal growth, overcoming adversity and spreading good vibes has remained, but the journey has demanded immense sacrifice from all of our perspectives in effort, and yet we wouldn't trade it for a thing. We extend our gratitude to our friends, family, followers, subscribers and weekly listeners for joining us on this ride. You've been an integral part of our journey and we promise that this is just the beginning for what we have.
James LaGamma:The Bender Continues stems from an ongoing struggle or journey through the highs and the lows of life. It suggests that, despite facing challenges or setbacks, individuals persist in their pursuits of personal growth, fulfillment and purpose. Just as a bender involves a continuous series of indulgences or challenges, life presents a constant stream of experiences, both positive and negative.
Kenny Massa:TBC the Bender continues. It encapsulates the resilience and determination to navigate through these experiences, to learn from them and to continue striving towards a meaningful and fulfilling life, despite the obstacles encountered along the way. A special shout out to our biggest supporters, our wives Lydia, patty, brea, go Canes and Morgan. Your unwavering support and encouragement has been invaluable. Your unwavering support and encouragement has been invaluable. Thank you so much for allowing us to embark on this adventure and for being our rocks throughout.
Jonny Strahl:So how did we get here and what are we doing? We're excited to announce our newest series called the Passion Project. Hey, so what exactly is the Passion Project? Very quickly, in each installment, we will sit down for insightful conversations with expert doctors and professionals who specialize in specific areas we're looking to explore.
Kenny Massa:Crafting the framework for our Passion Project series involved a deep dive into what truly matters in our lives. We wanted to create a holistic approach that encompasses the key pillars of the human experience. During this collaboration, we identified six fundamental areas that touch upon every aspect of our existence.
James LaGamma:So the first one that we have is physical health. This one's actually one of my most passionate. However, I do want to dive in deeper into all the others, because I feel like this is one of focus for me. That's been like this for a while sleep, dealing with stress. These are the kind of things that we're going to uncover and kind of peel back the layers on and see what we can get from this moving forward. Next is mental health. This is probably one that I've been looking into more recently. I think we all have a passion for mental health, but there's a lot of unknowns, so I think this is a big one. We're going to learn a lot from Cultivating awareness on your feelings, your emotions, reactions to certain situations, your skills, meditation, affirmations a lot of different factors where we're going to dive way deep into these two areas physical health and mental health.
Kenny Massa:Relationships, man of the people, it's my favorite. You know, we're in a time now where the human interactions, they're almost a struggle. You know, communication it's harder than ever. We're so into ourselves technology that we lose you know that human experience and we're really going to touch on human connection, family, friends, relationships, romantic relationships, just the overall nurturing of that and how vital it is for happiness, for fulfillment, but also for our future existence. And then also work. I mean this one. We all, we've talked about it.
Kenny Massa:It affects every single person out there. You know, for a lot of us, work it's a paycheck right. It's a place where we spend 40 hours paycheck right. It's a place where we spend 40 hours, eight hours a day, 40 hours a week. We spend time at work when we could be with families, friends. It's a central aspect of our lives. It provides not just financial stability but a sense of purpose. It provides a sense of achievement. And we're going to look into work-life balance and right, it's going to tie into. We've talked about stress. We're going to look into work-life balance and right, it's going to tie into. We've talked about stress.
Ryan Selimos:We're going to look at all these things and and really dive into what that environment is like today and stemming off of work and what the result is from work, is money, and often seen as a taboo topic. Money, wealth, finances are all of these topics that we have to understand more thoroughly as a human being, because it's an important aspect of our lives, of how we affect others, of how we implement finances into our families. So, wealth management and financial management practices, how money is generated and accumulated over a lifetime these are things that we're going to dive deeper into to make it more of a topic that is easier to talk about, is easier to understand and can be more simple for the everyday person, and I think that that's a very important topic for us to cover. On top of that, and opposed to the tangible aspects, is the sixth topic, which is spiritual, and this is a really hard topic to talk about for many people because it's often missed.
Ryan Selimos:And even though it's often missed, it's crucial in order to have a connection with your inner self, to help you understand why you do things, who you are, where you go when you do things, and to have this deeper value for life as a whole, and it's often seen that spiritual is connected towards a later portion of your life, but if we shed more light on it and share more experiences from experts, then it will allow us to create a higher level of understanding and a more of a deeper value for spiritual life and the spiritual elements that go into your everyday actions.
Ryan Selimos:The key thing here is, by focusing on these six key areas that create a unified circle for life, we feel that it's going to help create a deeper meaning and purpose for everything that you do as a human being, and it's more relative to everyone, everywhere, no matter where you live in the world, and one of the important things that we wanted to really discuss and to help you find is a deeper inspiration, guidance and empowerment to thriving in every aspect of your journey and as a human being. It's difficult to understand the six pieces of life, focus on them thoroughly, place enough attention on each piece of life's aspects and to thrive in them. But when we understand them more, it may be more relevant for you to concentrate on particular portions of those six buckets or those six aspects of life, which will then allow you to create more seamless balance.
James LaGamma:So, to recap, our ultimate goal here is to facilitate learning, growth and ultimately, to empower you, the listener, to lead a more fulfilling and the key word here balanced life. We understand that life can be challenging, but through the process, reflection, learning to control what we can, what we believe, we can all move towards a brighter future together, all move towards a brighter future together. So stay tuned for discussions, insights and journeys towards development like never before. Welcome to the Passion Project, where life's possibilities are limitless.
Jonny Strahl:Ooh, I love that. Wow, that's good stuff. I just got the tingles, guys. Woo, fire me up. Okay.
Jonny Strahl:So I think, for those who have actually tuned in for the 40 plus episodes we have pushed out, one thing you've seen in various episodes is something we have called the hot take. Episodes is something we have called the hot take, where we've battled, have had differences and expressed our opinion on specific takes out there in the world, whether it be fitness, whether it be mental health, whether it be money, career, work, spiritual, etc. One thing we want to do, moving forward, is incorporate something called, which is very simple, the good take. Where did the good take come from? Well, as four gentlemen who aren't on social media as much or as we are now.
Jonny Strahl:Currently, one thing you see is a lot of negativity, and our good friend Ryan here was surfacing the web and his first thing was why is there so much conflict? Where is the positive in the world that we see each and every day, that we should be hearing about? And for that we will be moving to Good Takes, which essentially is creating awareness and visibility of good actions and good deeds that people regular, just like you and I do, throughout the day, throughout the world. This will be a pivot in a way, but it will highlight certain areas where we support these six key buckets or cycles as we call them. Buckets or cycles as we call them, our aim is to create an atmosphere where you feel appreciated you see positivity and you see great deeds.
Kenny Massa:If you remember, during the pandemic, john Krasinski came out with some good news. We want to replicate that. Like Johnny said, we're in a world where we're social media, where negativity it, just it breeds clicks. It's just wrong, like, why are we focusing our efforts into things that bring us down, things that tear our fellow man down, our fellow woman down, you know, and we say no, we say we've had enough. So we, like Johnny said, we're pivoting. We're going to go against that and we're going to bring positive positivity. We're going to bring good vibes only, and we invite you to join us on that journey of good takes and things you can expect to see People that should be receiving recognition, that maybe aren't, stories that should be receiving publicity, should be receiving clicks and aren't. We want to push out something different, because everyone just seems to want to fall into negativity and it's just. There's enough of that out there.
Ryan Selimos:We want to be the change and I think one of the most important things that we see, that we want to embody is and again to where we see a little bit of lacking in the world is executable strategies or the ability to implement the things that we talk about and the conversations that we have with guests, that we have on the podcast. So if someone comes on to discuss any type of valuable process, whether it be nutrition or money management or any type of way of connecting with your deeper self spiritually, we want you to leave with something that you could actually take away and implement into your daily life, and I think that is, in and of itself, more powerful than a lot of content that we've seen in the environment today, because you can actually watch, learn, implement and change, which is a very powerful thing to do, no matter what the time period of our discussion is with the guest. It is impactful and that's one thing that we want to be sure of by producing content in this fashion.
Jonny Strahl:Love that.
James LaGamma:Are we excited?
Kenny Massa:I am yeah. Are we excited? I am yeah because, you know, we, we set out on this journey, like johnny said. At the beginning, we had prep calls, we wanted to figure out what we wanted to do. We talked about storage units, we talked about a lot of different things. We landed on a thing that we we don't all do often, which is social media, like that's where we landed, though, and here we started this podcast and an episode about nothing, right? We just kind of jumped into it and we've Johnny, you said, 40 plus episodes.
Kenny Massa:I mean, that's awesome, that's fantastic, but I think we all knew and I think even those who are watching individuals we've talked to they know this too that it's it's been missing. You know the why it's been missing. Structure it's just right now, four guys talking about different topics, and now I think we found that why it's something we've run from, but we, we found that that reason, when we found you know those six different categories, those pillars, that that we found you know those six different categories, those pillars that that we're really going to lean into some of them we're familiar with, some of them we're not, and we're going to learn and grow on this journey, just like anyone following along and listening with us, so I'm pumped yeah, you're probably going to see us stumble a little bit.
Ryan Selimos:When we learn things right, we're going to have experts that come in to talk about things that we're not aware of or that we don't implement, like for our own good, too, and then when they, when they share those things, we can implement them ourselves, or we might be completely unaware. So the questions we have are just like everybody else's, like they're from left field, because we we're not, in subject matter matter, experts about these topics either. So that's the point, though, and I think that's the important aspect of this.
Kenny Massa:We're stumbling at the beginning of this, trying to get through this. I mean, it's different for us, yeah.
James LaGamma:Yeah, it's a little bit more serious. Like we generally like to joke around and have fun which we still will have fun joking around and at the same time we're going to be growing, we're going to be learning. Like Kenny said, we're not subject matter experts at all. The one that I probably am most scared but also excited to go down the path of is going to be spirituality. You know, like you have to face the facts. It's kind of going into your inner self and learning about what your alignment is with your core values, your beliefs, finding purpose in life.
James LaGamma:I wouldn't say that's something I've kind of shied away from. Essentially, we've gravitated towards sports, we've gravitated towards work. These are things that take up so much time in our life that our scale is tipped, and so there's just things that kind of went to the wayside and we have to try to find that balance and bring us back to where the scales are perfectly balanced, even, and we feel whole. Essentially, it's not that we don't feel whole at all right now. We do. There's a lot of fulfillment in our lives, but there's other things we can be doing that get that full feeling of fulfillment and, to tee off, that it's going to be uncomfortable.
Ryan Selimos:but that's the point, right, like adding that level of uncomfortability and talking about the things that we're not familiar with, one we shy away from because we're currently not comfortable about the topic, because we just don't know it, or, simply put, we're just not. It's not that we don't have an interest towards it, but we're just not invested into it because we don't concentrate on it. And because of our lack of concentration on that matter, which is most likely because it's uncomfortable, we don't offer value there, which now we will be able to, because bringing the people in that are experts about those topics'll be able to learn, become educated on it and and do something about it in our own lives to create synergy, balance and unity yeah, that's, that's well said, and you, you both, I think all of us have mentioned the word uncomfortable yeah I think being uncomfortable comes true.
Jonny Strahl:Growth, um, and that's a journey I think we're all excited for. I'm curious if there is a specific area. If you look now and maybe as we reflect, after the next, however many months we go on this journey, or years, is there a focal point? I know you mentioned spirituality, where you feel like you're going to grow the most. It could change, but right now, where would that be for you two?
Ryan Selimos:You know it's hard to say because I think I have placed um, I would say I have placed a very serious amount of time on understanding and attempting to develop myself within all six of these categories. I have focused on all of these areas specifically, whether it's in within myself or it's within finding someone who's good at understanding that topic, who is an expert, and bringing them into my life. I have done things that are uncomfortable. I still do things that are uncomfortable, but I I place attention on the six elements and trying to enhance them in my own life. I think that I don't think that I lack completely where it's just like completely obsolete, but I also think that there is particular aspects within the six areas that you could be so much better at.
Ryan Selimos:For instance, relationships like I don't even know where the end is with being good at relationships, like there's just an inevitable element of like you needing to be good to talk to people and having this interpersonal communication ability where, like understanding people, that I think there's no like ceiling to it. Right, I think you can continue to just expand upon it. Relationships is definitely something that's important in all aspects of life work, relationships at home, relationships with your family, with your friends. You can't get away from it unless you just don't talk to anybody, which is just not realistic as a human being. So I think that's something where it's just like under the human physiology and and psychology and sociology and all of these aspects. I mean it's just so deep and there's so much there that I think there's just a lot of content around and a lot of understanding, a lot of uncomfortability. So that's an aspect where I like to know more and learn more.
Kenny Massa:Yeah, I'll tag on to that. I opened up relationships saying man of the people, right, but I think I still have a more and learn more. Yeah, I'll tag onto that. I opened up relationships saying man of the people, Right, but I think I still have a lot to learn there. One area is is mastering a stranger right. I struggle in that area with when I don't, when I don't have that initial rapport with someone. Once I get that rapport, I'm great, but I'd love to improve in that area and that's something I'm comfortable with. And you talk about something I'm not comfortable with. I agree with you on spiritual jams. I'm going to go mental, though, and I say that because I I unfortunately know that, uh, that my view on that is probably unpopular um, maybe old school. So I'm very intrigued to to go on that journey and see, and maybe be proven right, proven wrong, um, and see what I can learn from it.
Jonny Strahl:Love that.
Kenny Massa:What about you, john, teeing up the questions? What's yours?
Jonny Strahl:We're in for a ride. Fellas, I would say spiritual.
James LaGamma:That is an area that it's interesting how we have commonality there, though, yeah.
Jonny Strahl:But sorry to cut you off. Cut you, no, no, you're good. I think spirituality is an area where I think I've taken much more serious and a better approach to trying to identify and understand how to be more spiritual and what it really actually means when you say the word spiritual, because I believe there's just so many different factors that are involved in that word spiritual. So being able to speak with a professional and an expert to break that down and to give insight into those things is going to be very informative. And I think it all stems from is we've talked about the why in our lives, and I think our why in our lives consistently and always will change as you grow, but it's always bettering a purpose in life and understanding that purpose and building more clarity.
Kenny Massa:That's something I'm really much more looking forward to I think that why is also going to drive us and drive this journey? Because we've kind of talked about it, We've been very lucky, we have fulfillment, right. We've enjoyed our journeys thus far individually, together with our friends, with our family. But we all, I think, have a competitive fire that, no matter how good we are, we can be better. We want to be better and we want to push ourselves. We want to stay uncomfortable, right. We don't want to settle and this is like Johnny said buckle up. So we're going to push each other.
James LaGamma:I think there's going to be a lot of eye-opening moments that we're going to all endure. Whether you, like you said Ryan, relationships something you feel comfortable with, there's probably going to be something else outside of talking to a stranger that you might find. Or you think you're good and then you vastly realize or quickly realize, oh, maybe I'm not as good as I thought I was, I got some work to do here, um, and, and hopefully we can. You know, as we go through this process and learn, we break things down so that way it there can be a meaningful step-by-step process and approach and understanding how to handle each one of these areas in your own lives. Takeaways that you'll get, that maybe we didn't get. So, as Johnny put it, it's going to be a wild ride.
Jonny Strahl:Before closing out, I know you have a few words to say. On a less serious note, I think we forgot to mention and say thank you to a very influential person who sits here with us, who puts in a lot of the hours, who doesn't get enough credit Ty, ty Ty, the Ty Breaker.
James LaGamma:Oh man, what is he going to do? Where does he fit into the good takes? Oh, he fits in.
Jonny Strahl:He's going to have a place.
James LaGamma:We'll have something for him.
Jonny Strahl:But, on a serious note, we appreciate you and sacrificing a lot of time and never really getting the face time, although you're going to get more face time when things start to cook, so don't worry.
Ryan Selimos:We're not ready for the reveal yet. Yeah, not ready.
Jonny Strahl:But we do appreciate you and just all the effort and work you put in. I'm curious. We've been having these conversations for a couple of months now. Not many people really know, and I don't think you were aware of, really where this conversation was going for this particular episode. So I'm just curious to hear your thoughts, not to put you on the spot.
Ryan Selimos:It's been a great 40 plus episodes.
James LaGamma:Yeah, yeah.
Ryan Selimos:Yeah, no, I'm excited for y'all's next chapter. It'll be fun.
Kenny Massa:Yeah, whatever it is, you guys will make it great Love that I told you it's not y'all's, it's ours, it's ours, it's ours Well, it's ours, it's ours Well. In closing, just you know it's been a long time coming, so I'm happy that we finally got to just communicate to anyone who watches this, who follows, what TBC is. So I guess, in that sense, welcome, welcome to TBC, welcome to the Bender Continues, welcome to the Passion Project. And we say that because now we need your help, we want your involvement, we want you to share your path in life, where you want to go, in the areas of self-improvement, self-awareness, self-development, that that you want to work on and maybe you don't even know what those areas are and you want to try and find that out. And, most importantly, we not want we need your help with passing along positivity. If you take anything away from this, we need more of that in this world, so help us.
James LaGamma:And until then.
Ryan Selimos:Well, it's not going to be until then. I think it's going to you're. I think it's going to change now, and what it's going to change to is and together, the Bender continues.
