Transcript

Travis Bader: [00:00:00] I'm Travis Bader, and this is the Silvercore Podcast. Join me as I discuss matters related to hunting, fishing, and outdoor pursuits with the people in businesses that comprise the community. If you're a new to Silvercore, be sure to check out our website, www.silvercore.ca where you can learn more about courses, services and products that we offer as well as how you can join the Silvercore Club, which includes 10 million in north America, wide liability insurance, which ensures you are properly covered during your outdoor adventures.

[00:00:43] One of the unique prospects of the Silvercore Podcast is that it allows me to share my connections within the outdoors and firearms industry with our listeners and provide a unique insight into the inner workings of the industry. Today, I have the pleasure of doing a swap cast with someone who you've likely seen his work, but yet might not know much about him.

[00:01:01] Personally. My guest today is a graduate from France's prestigious Sorbonne university with a master's in philosophy, anthropology, and sociology. He has accreditation from George Brown and security intelligence, counter intelligence and emergency management, and has worked as reporter for Bloomberg the Globe and Mail.

[00:01:21] And is the owner and editor of the gun blog guts. Welcome to the silver court gun blog.ca swap cast, Nicolas Johnson, 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:01:31] Travis. It's a real pleasure to be with you and to be your guest. And it gives me great pleasure also in this swap cast to be interviewing you the founder and owner of Silvercore and getting to know more about you as a, as an individual and as a businessman and so much more, 

Travis Bader: [00:01:49] I guess, you know, to get things rolling here.

[00:01:52] I'm curious about the gun blog.ca and sort of what motivated you to get into such a niche industry. 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:02:04] This is taking me back though. I love the question. It's a simple question. And you know that sometimes the simplest questions are the hardest, because I want to get back into the motivation. I started it.

[00:02:12] I went, I went live on January 4th, 2015, and at the time, what really motivated me was what I felt was, uh, an impact. In the media, I was deep into self-defense and concealed carry and or discrete carry and personal protection in terms of like philosophically, I've never had to do it, but I was interested in those, those concepts and learning the techniques and as a gun owner, and I had recently got my firearm license, my possession and acquisition license in Canada, I'm based in Toronto.

[00:02:46] And I just felt that there was an incredible anti-gun bias in the media, in politics, in policy. And I want it to be a counter narrative, you know, I wanted to start, uh, just basically give an opinion that I felt was not being reflected their perspective of a recreational firearm user, who yeah. I felt that perspective was not being reflected and I wanted to offer, I wanted to offer it 

Travis Bader: [00:03:10] interesting because that's honestly, that's similar to why I started the Silvercore podcast.

[00:03:16] I just look at an industry that has such a social stigma behind it and a negative social stigma. And I want it to be able to provide a voice for the industry and for, uh, firearms owners and outdoor enthusiasts said basically just shared their passion with others, which normalizes the process of loving the outdoors and what it entails and all that entails within the firearms industry.

[00:03:42] So I've, I've never gotten kind of into the political realm or sphere. Uh, not nearly to the degree that you have. With the podcast, because I've always wanted to showcase the positivity, or if we're going to talk about something that somehow has negative connotations, find a positive way to be able to wrap it up or some sort of summation on it.

[00:04:04] But do you find, do you find that you're achieving what you're hoping to get out of the gun blog in the last, what was 2015 you started? Yeah. 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:04:13] So we're coming up to finishing the seventh year. It's a question. Yeah. And that's, that's also the key question. Like, are you, are you achieving the dream that you're asking me or am I achieving the objective?

[00:04:24] Yeah. Yes and no, I guess following that, that was my conscious objective, but I like a lot of projects. There is a lot of other stuff that I realized subsequently, oh, I'm also trying to do this. And I'm also trying to do that. I was also trying to hit play and discover and have fun and, and practice this and learn that the, the, it took me also several years to get to what you just said, which is I want to focus on the positive for a few years there.

[00:04:48] I got really political and, and, um, it almost became a very political, very policy focused and very much focused on stopping the aunties as opposed to promoting the beauty and benefits of our side. And I think there's much more powerful and much more power, much more satisfaction talking about the good stuff that you want to do versus the bad stuff that your, your opponents are doing.

[00:05:11] So have I achieved? I believe I have achieved. I believe I do offer a vocabulary, a way of thinking a position, a stand for personal gun ownership and a stand in the way of people who want to eliminate personal gun ownership. I believe I have advanced, obviously there's still a lot of work to be done that the, the, the fight's not over, but I believe I have from, I believe I have raised some consciousness and changed some minds and gotten people to, to think differently about the issue.

Travis Bader: [00:05:45] Let's say, Hmm. You know, when I look at different firearms forums and they have categories of different topics, the politics section are typically the ones that have the most amount of activity in it. So from a editorial standpoint, writing about things of a political nature for firearms, I would think would be a sure-fire way to ensure that you have maximum interest or engagement, but it can also be an extremely negative arena to be playing in as well.

[00:06:20] So how do you kind of balance that dichotomy between wanting to have the maximum engagement and have those people kind of looking at it and the fact that politics isn't always the, uh, the most fun place to be, to be. 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:06:34] Yeah, I, I, I'm going to, um, I would like, I w everything you're asking me, I want to ask you back, so get ready.

[00:06:39] It's coming. 

Travis Bader: [00:06:40] Oh, 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:06:42] the, the, I think what I believe now is that whatever niche you choose to go into, no matter how micro that niche is, you will attract the other people who are interested in that niche. And I think that, yeah, so if you're, if you're writing a blog focused on firearm politics in Canada, or a video channel or a podcast or whatever it is, if you're focused on gun politics in Canada, you will find other people who were attracted to that.

[00:07:08] And you probably will alienate people who are not interested in that. And I found in my case, I don't know. I think I got interested in the politics. In fact, I've just gotten, I've just gone. I'm just losing interest in the politics. I'm so turned off by, by what's happening now. And that I'm actually losing interest in politics and get trying to move the blog in a different direction, move what I do in a different direction.

[00:07:33] But the politics is also nasty. It gets mean, and people have very strong convictions. And when I would talk about certain topics, whether it was, uh, interviewing the, the, the. Manager of ships or Canada, or doing something about, about hunting or a competitive shooter. There's not, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't get a lot of, um, it doesn't get a lot of views.

[00:07:53] Doesn't get a lot of attraction, but if I write something about what the liberals are up to lately, oh my God, people get really excited and I get lots of emails back. And the risk is, uh, I'm curious to hear also your point of view, the risk is that, oh, that's where I get the feedback. That's where I get the validation.

[00:08:08] So that's, that's kind of an incentive to go in that direction. And that's what that's, what's getting the page views. And if, if you're, you know, we like to get page views or downloads or whatever your metric is that you go in the way of your audience, you go, you follow your audience to some extent, and it's taken a lot of me heart.

[00:08:24] Um, but we can discuss that more, but that's yeah, so it got very political for a while and I'm actually trying to move away from that. And I have a paywall and I'm keeping the political stuff. Like I still care about politics and I still want my, my members to know about what's happening and they still want to know, but I'm putting that behind the paywall.

[00:08:42] So it's not, it's not front and center. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:46] Yeah. That makes sense. 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:08:47] Well, I'd like to ask you, um, tell me about Silvercore. I, I, I'm realizing I'm embarrassed to admit how little I know about this incredible company that you run. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:00] We're a small company out of the lower mainland of BC and it started at around what I in 1994.

[00:09:08] Providing basic firearm safety course training to the general public. And that was when the program first came into play. And I was still in high school and I, I was working for a few different companies. Uh, I was a general manager at an auction house for a short bit. I was working for an armor car company and I've always been entrepreneurial minded.

[00:09:30] You know, uh, first jobs I had was in grade four grade five, I would perform magic and kids birthday parties for other kids' birthday parties. Right. And, or I would mow lawns for real estate agents prior to their showings of their houses or even working for let's say the armored car company. I ended up taking a look at everything outside of what my actual job role was because I tend to get bored quite quickly and find other areas that I can do work.

[00:09:59] And I started with welding up their hand trucks for them. I had never welded a hand truck in my life, right. Nor had I ever welded aluminum that thickness before, but I, uh, talk them into giving me a chance and that proceeded into the next step, which was, well, he got all these guns hanging on your wall.

[00:10:18] You have people that come in and service your vehicles on a regular basis. What kind of maintenance program do you have for your firearm? And that sent me down to Springfield, Massachusetts, and got trained up at the Smith and Western academy and through the armor school and started doing repair and maintenance just for the company that I was working for.

[00:10:40] And they had branches across BC and I started doing more branches and then Alberta and Saskatchewan and Manitoba and Ontario. And then at one point I think almost every single armored car company in BC, I was doing their repair and maintenance for. So I said, maybe I want to be a gunsmith. I started up Silvercore gun works and was doing the teaching on the side and started picking up a work with law enforcement agencies they'll have their own arbors on staff, but if they needed extended work done that their armor didn't have the tooling for, or the, the background into being able to do and land on my table.

[00:11:18] So, uh, around 2003, I, uh, I incorporated Silvercore training. I was doing silver court gun works as a sole proprietorship before that and sort of never looked back. 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:11:33] And today Silvercore is the leader in its field. We are. Yeah. And that's, that's in Canada. That's a pretty big, uh, like just from what your website says, you do everything from training, people who want to get their gun license or their pal.

[00:11:50] So the Canadian firearm safety course training civilians, you also train police and law enforcement and conservation officers. You have the podcast, you have gunsmithing, you have, what am I forgetting? 

Travis Bader: [00:12:02] You know, and we do work with the courts. So I'm a subject matter expert for the courts, both, um, uh, crown counsel and defense counsel.

[00:12:11] And, um, the training is sort of the primary crux of what we do. Uh, and when you say, you know, leader in, in the industry, we are, I, I, I carved out a niche where there, when did not exist before in Canada. Uh, but you know, it's like saying that I'm president of the cracker factory, right? It's a big fish in a small barrel it's I it's nothing that I'd be getting too, uh, uh, too excited over myself about, but it has allowed me to explore new ways to be able to communicate with people because all, all teaching is, is basically conveying an idea to others in a way that they're able to, uh, readily accept it.

[00:12:56] And if it's, doesn't stand up to a challenge and you have to take a look at what your idea is that you're conveying, uh, whether it's, it's a good idea or not. And, uh, Or how you convey that information. So, uh, yes, we are the leader in, in what we do. We do firearms, repair and maintenance. We do training programs for DFO ministry of forests, um, uh, parks, um, armored car company.

[00:13:22] So we do use of force and firearms training. If you're going to be carrying a firearm for the, uh, defense of your life or, or a third party, somebody else, we provide that training, um, mineral exploration industry, uh cartographers and geological survey Canada. I mean, we've got a lot of people that, uh, use firearms for their employment on a daily basis.

[00:13:45] The film industry is a big one. Do a lot of people in the lower mainland required, just basic training and safety within the film. Yeah. 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:13:54] Yeah, that's, it's huge. I got ask. Um, I think I first came across Silvercore when I was a, for myself. I was looking for who does, uh, I don't like the name, but tactical or defensive or protective training for civilians in Canada.

[00:14:09] And there's tons of places in the us, but I couldn't. The list in Canada was very small and you were one of the people who I thought was on that list. That's, that's how I first came across the name. Silvercore. And why is the, why is the market for civilian? I don't know if you have a better name for it, but I'll call it defensive, uh, civilian.

[00:14:29] Well, first of all, there's very few courses after the preliminary pal course, the pal possession acquisition license. After that, there are very few courses that I've been able to find at all. And when you talk about protection or defense, it's like, there's almost nothing I'm curious to. Why is that right?

Travis Bader: [00:14:47] I think there's a few reasons for that. Like in Canada, particularly in the states, firearms ownership is enshrined in their, their right, their constitutional rights, right. Uh, in Canada, it's not considered a right, but rather a privilege and firearms owners are reminded on a routine basis that this is a privilege that can be taken away.

[00:15:08] Right. And if you start talking about, um, you, you say tactical training, well, that's always something, even from the beginning of Silvercore that stuck in the back of my head is something. I didn't like the word or the connotation of tactical. Like it used to be back in the day, if you wanted to sell a rifle, they would put the word varmint.

[00:15:32] This is a varmint rifle. And the connotation behind that was that you can shoot small objects or small game at a far distance. And it was very accurate. I've got to get this environment and gun, and that was a great marketing term and then came tactical and they started just throwing the word tactical behind everything.

[00:15:51] Hey, we painted the black, it's now tactical. Well, tactics got nothing to do with what you purchase. And it's got everything to do with how you apply your mindset to a certain situation. And tactics will change based on the different situation you're going to be in. And so I was always kind of shy about using that marketing term, cause I didn't think it properly relayed what we do that.

[00:16:14] And when we're working with law enforcement agencies, there is an overriding thought that they don't want to be teaching tactics to the general public. They don't want to have the general public knowing something that they do, which can then in turn be used against them. So we've got law enforcement, firearms instructors, or work on staff and some feel very strongly about this.

[00:16:37] And my mindset on that has always been why don't we just teach somebody how to use a firearm proficiently and that can be applied to a sporting situation, which is socially acceptable here in Canada or. Applied to a, um, a workplace situation, which would in turn require somebody to think about tactics.

[00:17:01] If they're going to be using this firearm, my thinking on, and I've, I've never agreed with that mindset. I don't want to teach tactics to the general public because anybody who's got access to the internet and can go onto YouTube, can learn everything. And more that the police are learning right now. I mean, the information is out there.

[00:17:22] And the other thought I always had was if the tactics of a, an agency is going to deploy in order to protect others or protect themselves is such that it would fall apart. If anybody else kind of knew or had an inclination of what they're going to do, maybe it's time to reassess that tactics, those tactics.

[00:17:44] And it's sort of like, um, it's sort of like having a, an argument or a disagreement with somebody. If you've got your position and they've got their position, or even, let's say you want to negotiate to some sort of a, uh, common ground having a whole bunch of tricks in your back pocket doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to be the big winner at the end of the day, especially if that other person learns those tricks.

[00:18:08] And then you're back to it, mind you, if you have a framework that everybody knows about and they're were aware of, and they know if this happens, we're going to do this. They kind of know the process through it. Um, it will allow. Both of the people in the, in the dispute to be able to more quickly come to a common ground.

[00:18:27] I don't know if that's the best, um, analogy, but you know, just talking here off the top of my head, if we were in a tactical situation and you were doing something that, uh, would elicit a response from me, maybe you wouldn't do that. Something knowing full well that the next step is that response. And maybe we can come to some sort of a resolution that's more favorable.

[00:18:50] I don't know, maybe a bit off topic, 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:18:52] but it's interesting as you're saying that I'm thinking of vac. So again, just it's, I'm going to be perfectly upfront here. I make no claims to be gun slinging, whatever I've, uh, internet commando, or armchair armchair, a commander, whatever you want to call it. A few hundred hours of, of what in the, in the industry is called defensive training, unforced on forests and judgment and, um, and, uh, various drills and stuff that, that you'd find in, in a, in a commercial school available to civilians.

[00:19:19] And I know that that for me, it was, it really changed my life. First of all, it opened me to concepts and considerations that I never would've thought of. Cause that whole world was brand new to me. And I find that it was also very humbling and I got a guy who, you know, I've studied, uh, armed and unarmed fighting.

[00:19:37] And as I've gotten older and wiser, what really has happened was I want to avoid the, the principle of avoiding. Has really, once you know, this stuff works, you kind of like, you know, I'd rather do anything at all possible to avoid using the stuff because no one ends up there's no, no one, there's no winner.

[00:19:56] And I find that's part of the, the mindset, I guess, beyond the, we love talking about the gear and the tactics and running and gunning. That's a lot of fun, but actually for me, what's more, most interesting in my own discovery has been how my mindset has shifted and, and yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I've mostly had to do that stuff in the United States because that market, as far as what I've been able to find, when I looked did not exist in Canada and I get it.

Travis Bader: [00:20:22] And you know, in the United States, there's also a, like I've set up before everyone and their grandma owns a gun in the United States, the firearms ownership doesn't hold the level of, um, perceived. I don't, I can't even think of the right word or the, the perceived glory that it seems to do in, in Canada.

[00:20:44] Um, people go through a firearm safety course, they get their firearms license. They have criminal records checks, they have background checks. They, they now have special authorization to go pick up a, a handgun, which they can only use in certain places or a restricted finding that they can use in certain places.

[00:21:00] And each one of these steps is a, it's a barrier to firearms ownership. But when you achieve these things, there's some people who will look at that as look at how special I am, because of all these things that I'm able to achieve. Y you don't tend to see that in the states. Um, not, not when anyone can just go out and purchase a firearm state-by-state dependent, right.

[00:21:24] Um, have the driver's license screen, clean, uh, criminal record check. So I think that leads to a very different sort of mentality. And then you, you couple that with the feeling of always being under attack, whether it's new laws that are coming through, or whether it's part of a political platform, Hey, we're going to ban whatever, uh, that the firearms community in Canada has now worked very hard.

[00:21:52] And the squeaky clean records, daily criminal record background checks, and they've got the proper training and they're very safe yet. They're still feeling attacked. And from my perception, anyways, it seems like perhaps things are falling outside the locus of control of the general firearms community.

[00:22:10] So in turn, people will try and find ways to regain that sense of control and that can come through in your typical range. The they call it range Nazis, right? The people on the range who are, um, just so old vicious and, uh, uh, rule oriented or they'll make all of their own extra rules up, or they will, uh, the community will start putting extra, um, rules on top of WhatsApp's absolutely needed because they're so afraid that if they don't, they don't either a have control or B the general public might turn around and, uh, view them as, uh, not responsible and they'll end up losing more privileges.

[00:22:53] So it's, there is a different lifestyle and mentality to firearms ownership in Canada. That's for 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:23:00] sure. And you're like, EV everything you surfing. Oh my God, we've got our, I want to comment on this. I want to comment on that. And, and I, I, I get what you're saying. And so much of that, that range, Nazi-ism the rules, the, oh, we got to do it this way.

[00:23:14] Are there a lot of tacos for this? Like, that's, that stuff drives me absolutely nuts. And it's one of the reasons I visited a bunch of ranges to, to join and it's difficult. Um, I don't agree with that and I don't really want to be part of that. And, and that mentality just blaming whatever, just personal preference, it's prevalent and it, I disagree with it and it doesn't sit well with me and I'm trying to change it.

[00:23:37] And the idea, for example, of a holster course, you can't, you can't use a holster until you pass our holster course after you've done all these other things. For me, I'm sure that the clubs that do that have a reason to do that as a guy who's not in the industry. I'm speaking kind of speculatively here.

[00:23:52] Maybe C assess the person. Maybe they, maybe they're a SWOT, but you know, maybe they're a SWAT guy who's been on SWAT team for 15 years. Maybe they know how to use a holster. Maybe they don't need to sit in your class for half a day and learn from someone who doesn't actually, and whatever, you know, I hear you.

[00:24:12] I hear you anyway, whatever. 

Travis Bader: [00:24:14] Yeah, no, I hear ya. Yeah, no, I'm all about having, uh, processes in place to ensure that you can show your due diligence and you've done things safely, but they have to be open to reason. Like what you say there, let's say somebody is well accomplished or they're an ERT member here in Canada.

[00:24:35] Um, or there they've got all the qualifications they need, but we live in such a litigious society. And I think that the firearms community in general is so afraid of having another rain shutdown or losing these privileges that they'll start making all of these new courses so that they can meet their, uh, due diligence requirements, their legal due diligence requirements, and hopefully prevent further shutdown.

[00:25:01] But as one firearms officer, uh, was in, uh, actually the area, this is my podcast studio is my old office and all the, all the staff were on the outside there, he, he was doing an inspection and he's talking about something called I believe he mentioned it as normative process and he says, Uh, referring to how normative process is, how laws are created, at least in his opinion.

[00:25:28] And that's, I think a double-edged sword. So from the firearms community side, if they do things in a certain way all the time, then it's easy enough for others to say, well, this is how it's done. And it's now a new requirement on you. And I've seen that come up in legal proceedings. I like in the order in council, uh, firearms, prohibition hearings that are happening, the CFP expert comes up and just essentially on a number of items, this is how it's always been done, or here's how people generally refer to it.

[00:26:00] And in that case specifically, we're talking about, um, variants and, um, he was being pushed to define what a variant is and basically leaning on what he feels the firearms community usually calls it. So it's a bit of a double-edged sword, but in the same process, how that firearms officer used it, and we're totally going on tangents here, but how that firearms officer used it was in regards to, um, some firearms that were I considered deactivated.

[00:26:31] And then they thought, well, maybe, maybe not the activity. Cause we have these new guidelines on what deactivation is, which we're going to treat as if it's a regulation or legislation. Um, so maybe it was just called them disabled. And I, at that time, the member of parliament in our area, and she was a lawyer and she says, um, tell you what, I'm bringing this up with minister.

[00:26:56] He tell the firearms program that this is being discussed at the ministerial level. And we're going to come up with some sort of a, a, a reasonable conclusion on this. So I mentioned that to the firearms officer and the firearms officer says, and I quote, he says, I don't give a fuck about what your member of parliament says.

[00:27:15] I don't give a fuck about what minister Blaney says that they don't make the law. We do. I said, what, please do tell of course the whole place has got video and audio through it, and we're a security business, right? And that's when he got in, he says, if we keep doing things in a certain way, it's called normative process, then the courts will lean on that when there's any and ambiguity between how to handle a case and say, how is it normally handled?

[00:27:41] And then that's how the laws are created. Um, I did get an apology letter shortly thereafter because everything is video and audio recorded, but that was somewhere along the line that firearms officer had picked up that, uh, that terminal. And there 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:27:57] is just so much, you say we're on a tangent, we're down this rabbit hole, but I love this rabbit.

[00:28:04] And what you just said for me, there is, there is so much like it's such a rich, it encapsulates so much about the words that we use and these terms that are invented in Ottawa, that they try to spread it. And so many Canadian gun owners refer to grandfathering. What is not grandfathering or the amnesty that there actually is not an amnesty or a variant.

[00:28:27] Um, the, or even the word phrase. I did an article about this a couple years ago at law abide. Like we should not refer to law abiding, and that's one of the things I'm trying to achieve at the gun log, by changing the way we speak and changing the words that we use, we are changing how we think and how we think about gun ownership.

[00:28:46] And I'm to just pursue this thread a little bit more of the I, if you're talking about, if you're talking about Marie Smith's testimony last year, too, in the federal court cases, Marie Smith was one time was, was in charge of the, the, um, the firearms reference to we invented the firearms, orphan stable at the Canadian farmers program and big force for confiscation and prohibition.

[00:29:07] I read through the transcript and it is mind blowing how the, again, I, as a, as a resident lay person, it just strikes me at is how this is a government official and what he is doing. We are, we've paid a salary all his life. He is not working to clarify and inform. Improve the situation he's working to obfuscate and spread disinformation and hide and be what's that thing where you, you don't give a straight answer.

[00:29:34] You're kind of dancing around and you're shifting and trying obstruction, basically obstructing the pros and people it's it's it's I published this and I recommend anybody if this is, if you care about this and you want to see the workings of the guts of the former head of the, um, the confiscation department in the Canadian virus program, you've got to read that Marie Smith testimony, you can go to the gun blog.ca in Google, Marie Smith.

[00:30:00] And, and, and I think it's available there or through the federal court anyway, or contact me. Um, can we switch 

Travis Bader: [00:30:06] gears for a sec or for, I guess it's really funny how quickly to people who are looking to spread positivity and not talk about politics, just jumped into a politic room. 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:30:16] It is funny, isn't it?

[00:30:17] You know, do, as I say, not as I do, you got, it 

Travis Bader: [00:30:20] takes effort. 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:30:22] We're human man. We're human. Uh, I, um, what is, what are you trying to achieve with Silvercore in general and the podcast in particular? 

Travis Bader: [00:30:32] That is a very good question because it changes, right? It changes over time. It evolves over time. It's like anyone talking about a business plan.

[00:30:41] Well, have you got your business plan together? And a business plan is a fantastic place to start. It gives you parameters. It causes you to think about different things that you may or may not have thought about. But the second. The rubber hits the road business plans change like immediately. So silver quarter is always been something that like, like I said, I started in an area where there was no structured business model doing anything similar to what silver court did.

[00:31:13] And just, can I just ask, when you 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:31:15] say that you mean in, in Southern BC or you mean across Canada? 

Travis Bader: [00:31:18] I mean, across Canada, like, I, I don't know of any other organization that's working with government agencies providing training as well as the general public and firearms repair and maintenance and, um, the, sort of the breadth and idea of what we do.

[00:31:32] There were people across Canada, obviously who are teaching basic fire safety courses, therefore those who would be teaching a use of force courses or hunter education courses, or, uh, but the totality of everything that we're trying to put together. And I mean, taking the firearm safety course out of, out of the basement, out of the community church or the community hall, uh, and putting it into a professional environment, um, I, I haven't seen across Canada at that time.

[00:32:04] Uh, I have seen, I have seen it now. Yeah. Um, it's not like I invented the idea, but I just sort of built on something that was sort of already there and continue to add these different pieces to it and find ways that we can. Bring value to both the end user, the client, the student, the customer, as well as the, uh, interesting part is do all of that while still playing well with all the government agencies and the regulatory bodies, which will have differing views and opinions on how, how any of these things should be conducted.

[00:32:42] So it's been, it's been a very interesting juggling experience, but originally the idea was a Silvercore gun works and providing firearms, repair and maintenance. And I thought, you know, we'll go after the, um, go after everybody. Hey, you know, you want a gun barrel cut and crowned chambered, threaded bluing parkerizing um, any little the trigger jobs done and any little thing that you can kind of think of firearms related.

[00:33:13] And I quickly found that that is not a way that you're ever going to be able to feed a family with it. So with dealing with the general public, they would quite often come in with a $100 firearm that they bought at a gun show that they want to look or function like a $1,000 firearm, but they only want to put another $50 in it to get there.

[00:33:39] And why not take it to the kid who's doing gunsmithing? Cause I was in my early twenties that, that. And I was more than happy to do the work because it gave me experience and like connections and all the rest. Uh, so that was sorta where Silvercore started. And then I thought, you know, I really enjoy training and I really enjoy dealing with people.

[00:34:02] Um, can I turn these courses that I'm doing maybe once a month and a shut down in the summertime doing the courses? Can I turn this into a business? The answer is yes and I have, but like I say, not without the, uh, the challenges along the way. So that was sort of the, the advent of all of that through building a business in a niche industry, you're going to get opposition from all sides.

[00:34:34] So you're going to get opposition from the regulatory, uh, bodies. Cause they're going to say, well, that's not how it's done. And I'd say, why not? I've read through the regulations. I've read through the legislation. Why not? And some people would clue in and they'd say, yeah, you know what? You're right. Let's, let's play ball.

[00:34:54] Uh, other people there's a, would be a little bit more rigid in the thought process. And they say, well, no, maybe that's that whole Nirvana process thing again. Right. This is how it's always been done. So I'd have to push really hard in order to. Progression in those areas. But on the same side, I would also find those within the firearms community.

[00:35:15] Some people were like, hoo, rah, go for it. This is great. Right. Whereas others would push back and they'd say, well, who, who is this kid? Right. He's not a police officer. He's not military. Uh, he's not an if six shooter, right? Because that was sort of the process back then, one of the more formal shooting, uh, disciplines who is this guy to go in there and do this?

[00:35:37] I mean, it should go to somebody else. Who's done all of these things and sure, very well could have, but nobody was pushing. And I was, so it's been a, a learning process, but thing is, as you start building up steam, you start finding more and more people kind of getting behind the idea and the concept. And the end concept has always been to assist the firearms community in Canada to reduce barriers, to lawful firearms ownership.

[00:36:13] And I know you, you're saying before, get away from the whole legal gun owner, but obviously having barriers in place to minimize access to those who are of criminal intent. I, I think is a really good idea. But for those who are, has her stand before law abiding individuals who are looking to use.

[00:36:36] Firearms for an NIC Ukrainians here. And I think I just, don't just on the 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:36:41] word findings. That's all. That's just, that's all. But you, you can say what you want. 

Travis Bader: [00:36:45] Okay. Let me take a guess at why you say law abiding because people who use a word law what's that? 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:36:52] So I don't use the phrase law abiding. 

Travis Bader: [00:36:55] No, no.

[00:36:55] Let me take a guess. So why you don't want to say law abiding because the second the laws are changed. They're no longer law abiding. 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:37:02] Yes, yes. And exactly. So, yes, that's, that's a, that's a big part of it. The other idea. So you focused on the law side. The other side is the abide that abiding implies. I'm going to put it simply a master slave relationship, the slave abides by the masters rules.

[00:37:21] And I want to restore the concept that we don't abide by the law. We make the law, we make the law indirectly by electing politicians who act on our behalf and so forth. But we should, we should not be law abiding. We should be law demanding or law making, or, and then also get us to get a little deeper.

[00:37:39] Why do we want to qualify ourselves at all? The reason we want to qualify gun ownership is because we're trying to appease the aunties and make us an ice would say, just call yourself a good, just stand up and call yourself a gun owner. 

Travis Bader: [00:37:54] Yeah. I mean, if there's any distinction in there, it would be the.

[00:37:58] And that's it because anybody who's a gun owner is obviously law abiding because they've gone through the process or they're a criminal because they've acquired a firearm by some nefarious.

Nicolas Johnson: [00:38:08] Well I would say, and that's also how in this cultural moment that we are experiencing in, in Canada, maybe the world, the debate, like we, the world, I believe this, this, the regulatory world we're down.

[00:38:19] We're going down into the rabbit hole here. Are you running up the regulatory world? In my opinion, things are upside down backwards and inside out, it used to be, in my view, you would, a person would buy a gun in order to protect themselves. And public safety starts with personal safety. If I can protect myself and my family and my own, and we can protect our community and we can protect our region and we can protect our country from internal and external threats.

[00:38:49] Well, then you have public safety. You have personal safety, you have national security, things are upside down. Now in, in this world, we live in where restrictions on the ability to protect yourself is considered public safety. So you disarm the public and you're calling that public safety. What? I like some things.

[00:39:08] So we've flipped that completely upside down and gun owners. The debate has shifted such that we feel instead of just thinking, well, gun ownership is. And there's this fringe element that does bad things with guns and ammo, but we don't like that's so fringe it's so marginal that it needs to be maybe talked about and dealt with, but that's not what gun ownership means to us.

[00:39:31] The debate has so shifted to the paradigm of crime and violence that the hunters, the sport shooters, the collectors, the investors, the craftsman, everybody feels that they have to qualify. Oh, I'm one of the good guys. I'm not a bad guy. And I'm trying to say, stop it. Stop trying to qualify yourself and appease the, the aunties and Regis re reclaim the Greek claim, your ground, reclaim your ground and just call yourself a hunter or a gun owner.

[00:39:58] And you don't, you don't no one would think of calling themselves. Oh, I'm a law abiding driver. Yes. There are people who steal cars and crash cars, or I'm old, I'm a law abiding chainsaw user, or I'm a law abiding computer user. You know, I'm, I'm a law abiding computer. I'm a law abiding phone user. I don't, I don't detonate bombs with my phone.

[00:40:17] Like no one it's absurd. And yet in, when it comes to gun ownership, there's no other domain that I've ever come across where someone uses the word law abiding. Except when they're talking about themselves as a gun owner, what the 

Travis Bader: [00:40:30] heck is up with that? I like that. Well, I think that's got to do with just see the social engineering over the last many decades of firearms and how they're portrayed in the media, which comes full circle to.

[00:40:45] A fellow who worked for Bloomberg and for the globe and mail, and now writes on it. W what do you think about how firearms are current, how they're being portrayed and firearms owners are being portrayed within the media. Do you think that the media is abusing its responsibility in how it reports? Ooh, 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:41:03] that's a, that's a lot of questions.

[00:41:04] That's a loaded question. Yeah. So, so the backhand re original, I love it. I love it. Travis, back to your original question of why I founded, why I started writing about, about gun culture and gun ownership, and because I was responding to what I felt in the policy debate and the political debate in the media discussion was an unfair and a hostile representation of firearm owners and, and what I believe and what a lot of people I believe are wrong and not realizing that journalism is activism, that every modern newspaper TV program, TV channel, uh, what else has radio channel.

[00:41:46] Almost everyone basically was founded by someone who was trying to promote or prevent social change, whether it's the male or the Toronto star or a pick, you pick any TV station, any media was founded by somebody, an activist, pushing someone pushing to prevent or promote social change. Okay. So I'm journalism equals activism.

[00:42:05] Right now we have big media, which is hostile to gun ownership. The way they cover it, it's it's we could get good. You know, what are the, what are the clues of that? Well, the language that they use, the concepts that they use, they'll have entire articles talking about what the prohibitionists want. And they'll talk about the, the activist for this and the Polish politician for that.

[00:42:24] And they will use the terms of the prohibition. They'll exactly. Copy the terms from the press release of the prohibitionist government or the prohibitionist associations. And normally in journalism, one of the principles, one of the principles, core principles is give the opposing view. Yes. If you're writing a story about X, okay.

[00:42:44] Write about X and write about the people who are, who have that point of view, but also show that that's not the only point of view and give the opposing view. It gets get off balance or some type of a contrarian opinion, but they don't, they will not go to, anyone will let, whether it's a hunter, whether it's an association to give the point of view of that opposes prohibition.

[00:43:05] So we have a hostile. And at the moment, a hostile government. And I forget your question. No, 

Travis Bader: [00:43:14] I mean, where you're going with that is interesting because I, I'm not convinced that everybody within the media is approaching it from a hostile situation, but I think that people are predisposed to naturally just go to w w how you speak about firearms is this certain way with, which is where the gun blog.ca and where the Silvercore podcast?

[00:43:43] Uh, it sounds like both of our efforts are aligned in what we're trying to do. My thinking behind the Silvercore podcast is, you know, if we can just talk about openly and honestly about different aspects of firearms, ownership, or hunting or angling or whatever, it might be things that I'm interested in, uh, without even getting into the discussion.

[00:44:05] Like you say, I never actually put two and two together with the whole law abiding portion of trying to defend your position without even getting in that defensive position. Um, maybe S my small efforts and your large efforts, you're the gun blog.ca will, will permeate into the consciousness of others.

[00:44:24] And how we talk about. I don't know. Do you, do you think you think it well, or do we, do we have to hammer people over the head? 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:44:30] Well, it's one of the, one of the questions I wanted to ask you to follow up. What you were saying earlier was what keeps you going with all the challenges, whether it's legal or administrative or regulatory or business or personal, whatever, what keeps you going?

[00:44:44] And I'll answer first is the, like, when I think of everyday, I think of throwing in the towel or almost every day, I think of throwing in the towel because it's not moving fast enough and who cares and it's too small. It's not whatever blah, blah, blah excuses and reasons. And then someone will, will write me an email and say, thank you.

[00:45:02] You've you've, uh, I'm thinking of, um, of Ron, Ron, if you're watching this, he S he said, I want him to try to remember his exact words. Thank you for helping me think freedom again, I get an email like that, and I say, yes, okay. This guy gets it. Maybe I want to reach tens of millions, but okay. Maybe for now, I'm only reaching hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands, but there are people who get it.

[00:45:26] And when you have these anyway, so that's the feedback that, that's what keeps me going when, in terms of permeating. And I would say, even raising consciousness and helping people think differently about this stuff, but I just want to tag a footnote here. If I could. I don't really in terms of the media, I want to, you know, my colleagues in, in, in media, I, as you said, it in the introduction, I worked as a journalist for, for, for more than a decade at Bloomberg.

[00:45:51] And that's where I learned to what, you know, the, the, the trade of journalism. I thought I see now what I was doing in a completely different light. I was not writing about guns. I was writing about a stock, the stock market, basically. And I thought that at the end of the day, when I published my story, I thought that I was telling the truth or some version of the truth.

[00:46:13] And now as, as a journalist, I thought, yeah, I'd covered. I, I told the story and now I real, I think journalists act in good faith. I was acting in good faith, trying to accurately portray the, present the facts and present whatever the issue was to the best of my ability and with quotes and the experts and whoever tell my story in a way in good faith.

[00:46:34] And I believe most journalists are acting in good faith when they publish the story, or, um, so they, I think it's a case of systemic bias over the last couple of years, we've talked a lot about systemic bias as regards to race or sexuality. There is at this moment, a systemic bias in reporting about gun ownership.

[00:46:55] And I'm also, I don't publish this, but I've got a lot of conversations with journalists behind the scenes, into interviewing them and educating them and informing them and, and to, to try to change. And obviously I'm perfectly up front. I have a systemic bias, uh, pro gun bias. That gun ownership is normal.

[00:47:16] And I'm, I think that between, I think you do too. And I think that's what I think that's what you're trying to do with the podcast. We have, we are two little voices and there's a few other, uh, media voices like pro gun voices in Canada. I don't, I think we can get away with having our bias because in front of us going the other way is, is it's an elephant versus a mouse versus a mouse situation.

Travis Bader: [00:47:38] Mm. Yeah. I don't know. I, I've never tried to take the, obviously my you're right. My bias is pro firearm pro firearm for responsible individuals, right. For people who should have firearms, I don't think everyone's got a God-given right to own a firearm. I think there's certain actions that people can make throughout their lifetime.

[00:47:58] They can start putting restrictions on those, uh, those sort of, uh, endeavors, but from a, and I'm kind of, uh, my brain's kind of going off in a couple of different areas at the moment. Good. But I do agree that there is a, uh, a systemic bias within the media, but I've never approached the Silvercore podcast is trying to be pro firearm.

[00:48:27] I simply have approached it as, by trying to be pro positivity, pro passion, 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:48:35] just show is mind blowing cause, okay. Wow. That's that's you. 

Travis Bader: [00:48:40] We'll just try and show people what's out there. And for me, from a very selfish standpoint, for me to be able to enjoy what I do, because when you spend X number of years, that I have trying to build within a, a, a niche industry.

[00:48:58] And I find myself in fights and with government agencies just to try and push the business forward, like some super logical things that would just make sense. And it's a process of, um, I guess being told no over and over again, or same within the firearms community, there are those within the firearms community that would just revel in tearing down others.

[00:49:25] I think any business industry is like that. There's always going to be cutthroat aspects to it, but I would think within the firearms community, there should be an overwhelming, um, thought process that goes towards how does this benefit long-term how does this benefit my business, longterm, which in turn means, how does it benefit the firearms community?

[00:49:48] How does it benefit the general public? If everyone's benefiting long-term, then you've got a, a sustainable viable business plan. And I think some people get caught up in the moment and are looking for the quick buck or how they can. Uh, how they say tear one, person's building down to make their building look, look taller.

[00:50:11] So there's, um, again, I'm trying to piece together a couple of different thoughts on this one, but I realize I'm going a little bit off topic. Um, I guess to back up a little bit to your question about, um, what is it that drives me in the industry? What is it that keeps you going? Um, I, I think some people would say that, uh, I revel in the fight and I would say they're wrong, but I think some people from an outside perspective would say, oh my God, that guy just doesn't give up.

[00:50:47] And he keeps he's in a position and he'll just keep pushing and pushing and pushing. Uh, other people would say that I am a sort of pie in the sky, altruistic in my, in my concepts and ideas. And I'm, I'm not sure if that's entirely true. I enjoy the process for me, the process of creating something and building something is very, very enjoyable.

[00:51:11] Seeing that process through the completion is very enjoyable. And once you come to completion on one thing, how do you regain that process? Like that whole journey? When everyone says it's not the destination, it's a journey. I enjoy the process of building. And I realized that there's going to be a lot of challenges in what I'm trying to build, but that's where the enjoyment also comes.

[00:51:36] So that, that, that I guess, would be how I would describe what keeps me going. It's the process. 

Nicolas Johnson: [00:51:44] Cause I'm just, now my brain is processing is processing. You are, I think entrepreneurs in general. And in particular, we tend to forget all the skills that are required. So you have your, your I'm going to call it a technical skill.

[00:52:01] Uh, in terms of gunsmithing PR I presume we've never met face to face, so I've never, we've never seen each other on a range. As far as I know. Uh, I I'm in Toronto, you're in, you're near Vancouver. Um, I presume you have some technical skill with regards to firearms and, uh, hitting, put it, putting bullets on the target and stuff.

[00:52:19] You also have skill in terms of founding a business and creating a business. You have skill in terms of training people, you have skilled in terms of technical skill related to building a podcast studio and the tech, you know, publishing it and getting it out there and having a tens of thousands. Maybe you want to tell the exact number of, uh, a huge, uh, relative, you know, huge audience for an independent media.

[00:52:40] And I'm thinking what kind of a guy would would, and there's all sorts of you're, you're a parent, you're a dad, you're a husband, you're you, you've got all these areas of, uh, I see a builder, a guy who has you can't achieve that. I don't think without having surmounted some pretty big obstacles and people throwing you some, some pretty slippery banana peels, uh, legally, uh, business wise, personally, that the attacks.

[00:53:04] I'm sure on in chat forums about people who trying to take you down. And it's interesting to hear you say that it's, that you're, you know, it's the process of building that keeps you going. 

Travis Bader: [00:53:16] It is, and it's, I don't know. It's, uh, entrepreneurs tend to have very short memories to the difficulties that they've encountered.

[00:53:28] It's been my experience anyways, and tend to be very, um, optimistic in nature for a glass is half full because if they're always glass is half empty, they probably wouldn't have started the endeavor to begin with and you bring up parenting and there might be a little bit of an analogy or a crossover between all of this.

[00:53:45] You know, I think back to when my first child was born, my daughter was born. My wife was in labor for, I think it was 27 hours and it was a tough pregnancy, um, or a tough birthing. The, we had a midwife, but we opted to have a hospital birth and things bragged on way longer than they really should have probably because the midwife is and wanting to have a very natural process.

[00:54:16] And, um, when you're in the, uh, when you're in the hospital, everyone's calm, cool and collected. Everything's normal. Everything's natural. Even if it isn't, they all say, Hey, this is normal. This is natural. And. When things started to kind of go sideways during the birthing process. And they had to call in some experts to come in.

[00:54:39] And I remember this, um, this woman, the obstetrician comes on in, and she's got a forceps and suction cup, and then they decide, Hey, we're going to, um, I, we think the umbilical cord is wrapped, so we're going to cut the umbilical cord. So they do, and they still can't get my daughter out. And she looks over at her helper.

[00:54:59] And at this time, you know, things aren't right, because it goes from a few people in the room to a whole bunch of people in that room and people are yelling and running around and the, she looks at her helper and she tells her, help her start pushing on her belly and her helper. I guess didn't like the tone that she used, put your hands down at her side.

[00:55:18] And just like, like you don't tell me what to do. And I looked over at her and I looked at the obstetrician, the obstetrician looked at me like, what the hell? Right. And so I just, I jumped in there and I put my forearm on her rib cage, found where the belly is and tried squeezing my daughter out, like a tube of toothpaste or daughter comes out.

[00:55:36] She is not been breathing for some time, no one bill court, no blood. Right. And I remember, I thought, for sure, my daughter was dead and I remember feeling so bad, lying. I thought to my wife and saying, when my daughter came out, said, she's, she's fine. She's fine. It's all good. Right. Um, and then after a long period of time, I heard my daughter make a noise and my first thought was alright, that's awesome.

[00:56:09] She's breathing. And then my second thought was maybe a little bit selfishly. Um, oh no, she's breathing. That was a long time to not have oxygen for, is she going to be okay. Um, despite that ordeal and despite the difficulties and the pain and the issues that my wife had to go through, the midwife looked at my wife afterwards and says, do you think you'd ever want to do that again?

[00:56:40] And my wife's first response was absolutely yes. In a heartbeat. And it's amazing how quickly you will forget all the difficulties and the pain and the issues that you go through in life. If the reward is great enough, my daughter turned out fine. She's getting straight A's. She wants to be a doctor. She dances almost every single day.

[00:57:04] We were very, very fortunate in that whole process. But I look at that and I think to a very small degree in entrepreneurial ship, it's sort of a similar process. If the reward is great enough to the entrepreneur, if you're doing something that you think is worthwhile for yourself, for your family and for others, then you'll continue to push through despite all of those different.

Nicolas Johnson: [00:57:31] Um, I'm, I'm,

[00:57:37] I'm very moved by what you just shared because I had, my son was born this year and he's fine, but it was not an easy birth. And, um, I hope one day I can talk about it as easily as you seem to be. And, um, I just thought, yeah, it's not easy. I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm losing it here. 

Travis Bader: [00:57:58] No, it's not easy is because we care about the things that are important to us and those things like really the business, everything that I do, I do it for an end goal.

[00:58:09] And my end goal is so that I have something that I can be able to provide to my family. And hopefully in the process, I'm able to do something that, that helps the community from a very early age. I've told my children, you could throw a match in our house and burn everything to the ground, not telling them to do that, but the whole house could be burnt down.

[00:58:29] Everything that I've ever worked hard for to own or achieve could be gone. And I really truly, and honestly could care less provided everybody in the family is safe because we can rebuild as an entrepreneur. You've built a business in a heartbeat. You could build this on again. It's been a struggle. I'm sure for you to build it to where it is now, but if your business was torn to the ground right now today, I bet you, it wouldn't take you more than a week to replicate the model that you've already built.

Nicolas Johnson: [00:59:00] I hope I hope I'm. Yeah. I mean, I hope so, but I, again, I think the being apparent, um, has completely reset my priorities and I never, I never thought I'd be a dad. I never expected it. And I never knew I was capable of this much love and vulnerability. And it's funny, like I got to put my son in a totally a and now my family, my woman, my, our, our family in a totally.

[00:59:26] Yeah. Like it's, it just, it just resets, um, all my priorities and I, and I, and I didn't know this about you, Travis. I didn't know any of what you're just discovering. Right. Where, um, and I, um, I'm really thankful that you shared what you said. 

Travis Bader: [00:59:43] Well, how, how do you define success? If I always ask you, what, what is success for you?

[00:59:49] How would you define that?

Nicolas Johnson: [00:59:53] It's something that I used to worry about a lot and kind of something I don't really care about anymore. I think success for me has to do with things like, well, what I would consider failure is let's say I forget that, um, I get all victimy and, oh, this sucks. And that I didn't like the way that happened and this, uh, when I, when I kind of get complainy and blamey, that is I would consider unsuccess.

[01:00:25] So I, I guess I would consider success when I remember. That in any given situation, I have choice personal choice. And that's what I'm also trying to share with, with the, the community of, of gun owners, that we have choice that we are powerful, that we can, you know, the response ability we can choose how we respond to any situation.

[01:00:45] So what is success is when I remember, I guess it has to do with the kind of person I am being and whether it's in the professional domain, whether it's, um,

[01:00:57] when I'm living with my son and my son is doing something that I find annoying, let's say he's a baby and he's acting like a baby. And he's screaming at two o'clock in the morning. And I get frustrated. I consider I'd want to be a better man. And I consider it a success when I, when I stay cool and I can stay loving and kind to this little baby and to my, my fellow citizen, my fellow man, my, my fellow, my neighbors on this planet.

[01:01:19] Um, that's how I consider it, what I define as success. Oh my gosh. And we can, like, I love seeing the, you know, when, when the numbers in my bank account go up, that's great. When I achieve something, when I publish something that, uh, that I didn't think I could publish. That's great. But that's yeah. When you, when, anytime I achieve something or help someone else achieve something that we didn't know, we could do, I consider that a success.

[01:01:42] Yes. It's interesting for me how that kind of comes second to, I don't know if the right word for it is personal or, or the, yeah, I guess the, the, the kind of person I'm being when I like the person I'm being, I would consider that a success. 

Travis Bader: [01:01:55] How about you? I think a fantastic. Uh, I'm going to take the easy way out on that one, but it's something I do believe in it's Earl Nightingale has a definition of success, which is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.

[01:02:09] So it's not the person who's made millions and has achieved the pinnacle of whatever it is in their career, but it's the person who's made millions and they've enjoyed the process doing it. They've achieved the pinnacle and they're doing it because they loved you. Or it's a person who isn't making millions.

[01:02:27] It's the janitor who gets up for work every day and is looking for new ways that they can make the place better and do their job in a better way. If whatever that were the ideal, it's a teacher who just loves communicating and teaching with the kids and seeing them progress. So that progressive realization of a worthy ideal to me is what success is.

[01:02:47] And then you have, I have to always take a look and just sort of check myself for what is my worthy ideal, what were the ideals on my working towards? Because we quite often have numerous worthy ideals that we have out, uh, that we're working towards. Do they all kind of go towards a sort of a guiding light?

[01:03:11] Like if my worthy ideal is in my business to be able to reach X amount of people or make X amount of money or take on a new challenge or whatever it is does I can do that. And I know I will, whatever. Uh, what editor an individual wants to put their mind to, they will be able to achieve. Um, but how much effort is that going to take?

[01:03:33] And when you get to that end objective, and you look around, did the ends justify the means, did you have to give up on other worthy ideals in order to do that? So for me, it's constantly taking a look at what my worthy ideal is. And do I still consider that to be the worthy ideal? 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:03:53] I would like to take that as an invitation to talk about what I think was one of, if not the darkest period of your business, when you were, I'm going to use the word under attack by the lead by, well, I'll let you tell the story.

[01:04:09] Do you want to talk about that? Uh, in any way you want either the situation itself or how 

Travis Bader: [01:04:14] the, what you're talking about? W w O w what are you talking about? Nicholas? I have no idea. If you want to talk about, I'm going to put you on the hot seat. 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:04:22] Yeah, well, I don't I'm okay. I'm going to you, you were, my understanding is that you were, you, you F you were attacked essentially by someone you trusted, who then turned around and attacked you, uh, using the legal industry, using the regulatory industry, using their connections and drag the courts.

[01:04:42] And, and I imagine that was a tough time for you. I'm curious if you want to talk about what happened and get the details, right. That I don't know. And also. Did you, how, what kept you committed to pursuing your worthy ideal to get you through it? 

Travis Bader: [01:04:57] That's, it's an interesting one and I pretty sure I know what you're talking about.

[01:05:02] And unfortunately I'm not a hundred percent sure because I've lived the life where I've been under attack more than once in a fairly big way, by those who I've trusted or those who are within the industry, who I've brought into the industry and trained and set them up and had them, uh, accredited only to have them turn around and try and, uh, hurt my business in order to try and promote theirs or to take from my business in order to promote there.

[01:05:32] So, um, it is unfortunate, but then again, I look at it and I say, it's probably life. I it's probably any industry. At one point, I would say, oh, there's a gun industry. I tell ya. But any industry where you're pushing and making advances, there's going to be the optics of, uh, either real or perceived money and power, money, and power or money or power.

[01:06:01] And those are, tend to be the two major things that cause issues or problems in people's lives that I've observed where if there's no money coming in. To a business. People can do some pretty strange things, right? People can get a little squirrely and sometimes it's a real good test of their, their ethics and their moral character.

[01:06:25] When there's lots of money coming in, watch out, that's where the real test happens. Number one, number two power, whether they're real or perceived. If people have a perception of some loftier, a place that they'd like to be able to get to, that can cause people to do some really squirrely things. So I think what, you're one of the ones that you may be referring to dates back to about May 16th, 2008.

[01:06:49] So that's going back there. There's the nod. I see. So that's, I'm on the right track. Um, so that goes back a little bit. That's, that's a bit of a wormhole that I'm sure at some point I will talk about in totality, I've had reporters, uh, speak to me on portions of it. I've had, uh, publishers asked to be able to publish a story.

[01:07:12] I've actually cuddled. Uh, he, a lawyer who says he'd like to write the book on it, the lawyer who actually dealt with the, uh, uh, the whole instance there, but that was a, a pretty dark day for me and for the, for the industry in general. And I fought back against the man for six years, uh, 6, 7, 8, 8, 8 years.

[01:07:43] Was it eight years and I'll have to do the math, but I fought back for some time. You can't see it, but over the, my right shoulder here, there's a, um, an apology letter that was drafted by the RCMP, a very rare apology letter for what they did. Uh, and there was a undisclosed settlement amount. And it was interesting because I didn't settle until I walked into the courtroom.

[01:08:09] I remember we had after so many years of going through a process of just corruption and malfeasance by government officials that as opposed to turning around and saying, we messed up, we're sorry. We made a mistake. Let's limit the, uh, the costs now and figure out how we can get through this. They took a different approach and they said, let's double down.

[01:08:35] Let's see if we can run this person out of business. They came up, they did an appraisal of my house. They did an appraisal of my business. They did an appraisal of my family's house and they said, here's how much money we think you can get to fight. It'd be much cheaper if you just sign on the dotted line, just this little letter that says, you're sorry, you get everything back.

[01:08:55] We'll drop, everything's gone. And I said, you know, I'll sell everything. I'll live in a cardboard box. My wife and kids might not be too happy with me, but no point in my life. Am I ever going to admit to you any sort of wrongdoing that I never did? If I did something wrong, I'd be in a heartbeat up there saying, Hey, sounds like a good deal.

[01:09:17] So walked into the courtroom. And, uh, it was funny because it's went up to, um, the, the head of the RCMP. And I remember the, it was just an odd, odd negotiation practice, uh, like a couple days before that we're supposed to be going to court and calling them to task. And the department of justice says, how will you just give us a number?

[01:09:40] Just, just tell us what you want. And then we'll throw numbers back and forth and, and we'll figure something out. We don't have to go to court. I'm sorry. This is after what, let me, let me, eight years. It was eight years after eight years. You want to just do this little back and forth number game? Nope.

[01:09:57] Sorry. Right. And I had originally come up with a number which was, um, uh, on the higher end, but I said, guys, tell you what we can bring that number down. How about you provide me with an apology letter for what you did a couple of days before they start this negotiation process. And it was funny cause I remember they said, well, the number we're looking at here, we're going to have to get this approved by Robert Paulson who, uh, always sticks in the back of my neck.

[01:10:30] My commission RCMP at the time. Right. Robert Paulson was the commissioner of the RCMP, but always pretty hard. Anyway, it was, um, yeah, the corruption was high level. Um, the, what was it? Fight club. His name is Robert Paulson. It's a C always a stuck in the back of my head anyways. They said, well, we're going to have to wake them up.

[01:10:55] I said, well, go ahead, wake them up. Right. I don't care. Right. They're playing this goofy game back and forth. And finally I said, forget it. I'm going to see you in court. We'll just go for the high number. Forget the apology letter. Well, as it ended, I got the number and the apology letter I walked into the courtroom department of justice says I've never met anybody with your level of brinkmanship.

[01:11:19] And I said, first off, I didn't even understand what that word meant. I figured it out when he said it, but I'd never heard the word before, but, uh, I said, you have to understand there was no break for me. I was already over, you might've had a break, but I was all in, um, in the end, oh, in the DOJ and the separate people had their own lawyers, their lawyers came up.

[01:11:44] I want to shake your hand. Travis, kind of like no hard feelings when he had over in the corner. He didn't want anything to do with that. Two of them wanted to shake my hand, which I had no interest in, um, that dollar amount that the government came up with really, in hindsight, even though I was holding their feet to the fire on that one, not only could have I got a lot more, I'm sure.

[01:12:08] Um, it means absolutely nothing to me, that apology letter, which I was willing to throw out and just go for, Hey, that's it. I'm going to stick it to you. That apology letter means so much more. You don't have to stand up and say, well, he had good lawyers or is it a technicality or no, it's very clear. They fucked up and they've taken accountability for it.

[01:12:33] And that in a nutshell is the, um, kind of defines me and my character. What means more to me than money is your reputation. And as much as I'd like to say, you know, you should never care what other people think. Uh, I've just come to realize that's part of my personality. I do care. I care about how I'm perceived when I'm out there.

[01:12:58] So, um, yeah, that was a long-winded way of talking about the story without actually saying anything really so that others can, uh, they can Google it. They can look in the newspapers. I was front page of the newspaper in our province and the sun. And, uh, then they can read a boat if they dig down a little bit further, they'll going to see the apology letter and they're going to see criminal charges against the, uh, uh, one of the law enforcement officers.

[01:13:26] And then he was convicted. And I mean, it's a, it's a difficult thing for me to be able to speak to without going down that rabbit hole. So it's something that. I'm sure. At some point we'll be spoken about in greater detail, maybe the audience would be interested in hearing it and they can let me know, but if I'm going to do that, it can't just be for the purposes of complaining or for the purposes of just pointing fingers at the people who did wrongdoing and how the system essentially, rather than looking bad, would prefer to support them and try and push somebody out of the business.

[01:14:04] Um, it's gotta be from a positive perspective and when I can get my head wrapped around a way to do that. Yeah. We'll talk about it. 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:14:13] Well, if I can help in any way I'm here, um, selfishly, I want to know the story, but also I also, I struggled with something I struggle with. Um, it's, it's, it's really easy to complain and blame and point fingers.

[01:14:28] And I, it's fun to do for 10 minutes, but I want to, I want my contribution to be bigger than that. Um, and I think you do too, and that's why I'm I'm I don't think, I don't see you as a guy who, uh, um, who also, who likes to bathes and complaining and finger pointing and blaming others for what happens to them.

[01:14:48] You know, you don't, you don't strike me as someone who, who rebels in the victim mindset. 

Travis Bader: [01:14:53] You can do that and it's easy to do. And it particularly in our industry, it's really easy to adopt that victim mindset. Cause it's just a part of the. Our culture, unfortunately, that just, it stems a big, great back to the language that we use of, Hey, I'm sorry.

[01:15:08] I'm Canadian or law abiding firearms owner. Each one of those with subconsciously is going into that whole victim mindset. But on the other side of that, I might not even be the best person to tell that story, even though I know it in and out, and I know all the different nuances, because there are some parts of that story that are incredibly important to me that just might be boring to others, right.

[01:15:32] And might not be important to others. And there's so many different tangents to it over eight years. I mean, we had people playing silly bugger games of driving by and taking pictures. My wife was in the house in, in a marked vehicle and, um, go to the, uh, police department logic complaint. It was just like harassment tactics.

[01:15:54] And, um, department says, Nope, nobody was ever in that area. No, we don't have a record of that. I said, well, you know, I know the person who installed the radios in your car and you've cars. You have GPS, you can pull it up. Nope, Nope, Nope. So finally, after all of that, I said, okay, in a few, but a month, the process of them doing their investigation and coming back.

[01:16:14] Absolutely. Okay. I didn't mention, I also have cameras on the house and, and here's the vehicle. Oops. Okay. And they had to backtrack and here's pictures of it. He pictures of the officers doing, I mean, there's all these little tangents of areas I go off with your eight years of, um, intimidation and, um, bullying tactics by, uh, by an organization that most Canadians are brought up to believe is there to protect them and has their best interests in mind.

[01:16:46] And by and large, a lot of them do. But when some decide to go rogue, it's interesting how the masses or the, uh, organization will circle its wagons in order to sort of protect themselves again, like I say, bit of a rabbit hole and I'm probably not the best person to tell the full story 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:17:07] w I'm going to, you are the best person to tell it from your point of view, you are the best person to give you how you live through it and pursue it through it.

[01:17:18] Do you, um, do you think that this was, I'm trying to get to the question, um, do you think that this was an action by two rogue slime balls or, and that the system is still good? Or do you think the system is right? 

Travis Bader: [01:17:32] Um, you know, that's a good question. So I, yeah, there is some slime balls. Uh, none of them got what I feel they should have gotten at the end of it.

[01:17:43] Even the one who was criminally charged, didn't get what I felt would be appropriate, but Hey, that's a system that's in place. Um, there's going to be like any occupation. The majority of people are lazy. Really humans are lazy. We're creatures, animals are lazy. It's why we have game trails, right? Because they, they find an easy way to walk and they create a trail and that's, you know, it's easier, right?

[01:18:09] It's easy to go through. So by and large people will take the easy way to get their job done. And there's going to be those small percentage that are just going above and beyond and doing a fantastic job. And there's going to be that small percentage who are on the opposite side of that spectrum. So I don't think, I think it's just a process of human nature for the most part, whether the system is messed up.

[01:18:40] Well, I think the system is human nature. I think people are going to protect if you and I belong to a club and somebody in the club does something that's offside. Uh, we might say, well, but we know that person. And they're a good person. They're just like me. Well, maybe they're not just like you, but you would be, you'd have a cognitive bias towards possibly wishing to protect that individual to protect the good name of the club or whatever it might be.

[01:19:04] Right. And I think that's where, uh, Whole organizations can be pegged as bad. Whereas like this one involved the RCMP, I don't think the RCMP as a full organization is bad. I think they're not without their problems, but I think they got a hell of a lot of really good people there, but it still stems down to man.

[01:19:27] I got a job to do. I do it day in, day out. I want to go home safe to my family. Am I going to go above and beyond it really put my neck out there, whether that be physical risk, whether that be political risk, that job acts. If I step up and say something, uh, or am I just going to find a way to be able to get to this and, and be able to continue helping people?

[01:19:48] Cause I'm a good person. I want to help people and I can find another way to do it. I, I think, um, the process has taught me who, uh, who your friends are. I think it's taught me that. Well, there are some people out there who would, most people would want to cover their own butt and protect themselves. Um, if just keeping their mouth shut was the easy way and they could make sure they're protected most would take that.

[01:20:18] But it also surprised me that there were some that just came out of the woodwork who owed me nothing who I didn't know who stood up and put their careers on the line in order to say what they knew to be true. So that was, um, you know, it's, it goes down to the whole. Is, are people inherently good? Are people inherently bad?

[01:20:38] Um, 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:20:39] you also spoke a couple of months ago as an expert witness in one of the federal court cases, uh, to, to stop the mass criminalization of, of May, 2020. What led you to do that? Like you think don't, you have enough on your plate right now? What, what led you to be allow yourself? It's a pretty grueling process as well to be cross-examined and, um, what led you to say yes to that?

[01:21:01] To have to file a testimony, um, filing an affidavit and agree to be 

Travis Bader: [01:21:05] cross-examined. I was asked even if that's the shorts or in the long answer to that would be, uh, I, I don't find it a grueling process of, of being cross-examined. I've been cross-examined on numerous occasions for, in the consulting work that I do.

[01:21:24] If I know something to be true and I can back that up, I will speak to that. It's easy. And if I want to use liberal speak, you know, you speak your truth. Not that you want to say that, because that would imply that there's another truth. So you speak the truth. You just tell what you know, to be true. And as a subject matter expert, it's my job to be providing the courts with information so they can make the best possible decision.

[01:21:52] I've worked on some cases as a subject matter expert at the provincial level, at the federal level, uh, Where I've gone in, I've provided my information and it was completely contrary to those who had hired me, what they would like to be able to hear. But that's, that's the, the risk, I guess, that they go in, uh, they were hoping to have me say one thing, but that wasn't the truth.

[01:22:17] And if you're going to employ me to provide information, I'll provide exactly what I see to be true and quantify why. Um, I remember another one where I provided all the information and the other side lied and clearly lied and I was astounded and it was just a bit of a, uh, an eye-opener for me. Uh, you know, the individual actually, uh, not personally, but you know, the individual, um, I'm not gonna mention the name on here.

[01:22:46] Um, and I should say, you know of, and, um, it, if you give your testimony in court and you were already done and you've given your information, you can sit in and watch the other side if you want. So I did, if you haven't given your testimony, you got to sit out and while the other side gives her stuff, I gave my testimony.

[01:23:09] I watched the other side, this guy had no idea that everything I said, essentially supported their line of thinking. I didn't say anything, but took a position where they had to misrepresent the truth. Do you use legal speak. Uh, to try and get his point across in the end. It really didn't matter because regardless of what was right or wrong in that particular court case, it was, did the government follow the proper process.

[01:23:39] When coming up with the end conclusion again, eye opening for me, they can come up with a completely erroneous conclusion, but if they can show that they followed the right process, they took step one, step two, step three, as they're supposed to. And they come up to their maybe a predetermined conclusion, which is completely contrary to what all the facts would say.

[01:23:59] It's okay. That conclusion stands because they followed the process and that's how that legal process is designed to approach it. So, um, yeah, it's always a learning experience. Why would I put myself out there because I know something to be true. I'll share that if the courts agree with me, so be it, if they don't agree with me.

[01:24:20] So being really, I've got to try and divest myself emotionally from that whole process, I'm not trying to argue a stance or a position. I'm just providing them with information, which I know to be true.

Nicolas Johnson: [01:24:33] And now I'm, I'm thinking that sounds pretty common sense to me. And I'm thinking of what separates, I view that as sticking your neck out, because I believe there is lots of people who would probably have the same views or very similar views to you, but the reason we know your name and the reason you were called in as a, as an expert witness is because there's something.

[01:24:55] That separates you from all those other people. And I'm thinking any, any of us who stick, I'm going to call, you know, stick our necks out. Uh, as the summary of creative business puts them, it says yes, when he's called to, to step forward and speak publicly. And I'm just wondering what separates people like us from the people who keep quiet and, um, there's people who keep quiet and don't do what they're told.

[01:25:24] I'm thinking of the people who keep quiet and do what they're told. Those are the people who really scare me. 

Travis Bader: [01:25:29] Yeah. That is scary. I agree. And I think, I think people just have to pick their battles. Right. Um, it's probably stuff that you would think of personally from a personal standpoint, uh, that I don't see you reporting on because it's just, where are your efforts best quit.

[01:25:48] Right. Um, so on, on the firearms side, you know, people would refer to me as a gun guy. I've never thought of myself as a gun person. You know, I've been shooting since I've been four years old. I got my first rifle when I was five, a little 22 Stevens took down into two pieces would fit my backpack, custom stock on it to fit my small frame, short barrel and, um, shot competitively, uh, as a preteen and through my teenage years.

[01:26:20] And

[01:26:24] That's just one aspect. It's like, it's like saying, ah, I don't know. Um, I mean, there's so many other aspects to everybody's personality and character and to be a gun guy, I enjoy the process. I enjoy building. I enjoy looking at the, um, the structure that's in place, which I think is beneficial to the courts.

[01:26:47] When I, I look at it perhaps from a different perspective. Um, yeah, but when it comes down to the question about sticking your neck out, maybe it comes, maybe it's the same thing. It's I remember a, um, I crown, uh, counsel in, in one case and I want to shake your hand. I really respect what you've done, blah, blah, blah.

[01:27:10] Right. And, um, it's got nothing to do with respect. It's got nothing to do with brinkmanship. I think when you're in a position, you just act accordingly. I think there are some true heroes out there that do heroic things on a daily basis. And sometimes people are putting extraordinary circumstances and they just react and people are like, oh, that person's a hero.

[01:27:33] The person who says no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not right. I think it basically comes down to, um, some chance and just, um, the, the position that you're in. So I don't think I'm, I don't feel like I'm sticking my neck out there when I'm doing these things. So. But I do know full well that when you're running a business, there are consequences to, uh, alienating the civil servants who, uh, administrate the business, governments will come and go with the civil servants they remain in place.

Nicolas Johnson: [01:28:07] So it's, um, it's interesting. I'm just thinking about this also in the context of the, I don't like the idea of heroes, because I think we all play a role and one person's, you know, you're my hero. I was like, no, I'm just, just doing a job and you don't know whatever I switched it could, we can that there could be another wormhole, but the, um, the people who stand up in, especially in this, in this current socio cultural, political, legislative thing that we have going on in Canada at the moment, it strikes me that out of 2.2 million licensed individuals and a couple of hundred thousand directly targeted by the may 20, 20 mass criminalization and, um, hundreds, maybe thousands of businesses.

[01:28:53] So few people, so few of us, I'm going to call that the community of us. So few of us have said a word to say, hang on a second. This, this, this isn't right. Or, or donated a dollar. Um, it strikes me again that some people do stand up and some people don't. I get pick picking your battles. You also, as something else.

[01:29:20] The concept of gun ownership, I think, and I hesitate saying this because I don't know enough about the shooting community, if there is such a thing, but I think that gun ownership, isn't really a thing that binds that there's something, when you said you're not a gun guy that kind of tick. Oh yeah. Well, because there's gun owners who believe like everybody else in society, we are all over the map in terms of our religious, political, social, cultural, whatever, how we identify that.

[01:29:52] I wonder if one of the reasons we don't see unity is that gun ownership, isn't really a thing that unifies and there are within the shooting community. I don't, I think that I think the big, dirty secret of the shooting community is that there is no shooting community, but that'll be for another day that there are gun owners who want the mass criminalization.

[01:30:13] And there are gun owners who voted for the, for the regime currently in charge because they wanted the suppression of certain types of firearm owners. And of course there's other, I mean there, well, I'll let you play with that for awhile. 

Travis Bader: [01:30:28] Well, that's very interesting about the idea of no community, no firearms community would, would that same hold true for let's say, I dunno, scuba diving or snowboarding.

[01:30:39] Interesting. I, and the reason, the reason I use those two as specific examples, as opposed to let's say baseball or. Hockey, um, because firearms tends to be a fairly individualistic activity. And the shooting of firearms is you pulling the trigger or pressing the trigger on, on a firearm. It says, you, your gun and your fire as a half cock would say he gets into his bubble.

[01:31:08] Right? And I think that in general, it will attract those types of people who are more individual minded and not necessarily community minded, those who wish to hunt. Well, you know, you'll go out in a hunting party or hunting group to increase your successes and your odds, right. But, uh, you're also a type of person who would be able to, um, S self be self-sufficient and sustain yourself.

[01:31:34] There's those in the firearms community who are into first aid and being a prepper and all of these things that are very kind of individualistic in nature. And I remember as teaching I'm one of few master instructors in British Columbia and of the master instructors. I'm the only one that I'm aware of that pushes very hard to make new instructors.

[01:31:59] Quite often, I've caught in flack from other firearms instructors in the province saying, Travis, what are you doing? We've got a closed market. Look at all the money that we can make if they all come to me for whatever reason. And I've always looked at that as short sighted. If you offer a quality product, if you provide a quality service, you're going to have the clients, the students and the customers.

[01:32:24] And if you don't well, that's what competition's good for is good for pushing things forward, making them better and getting rid of the ones who aren't doing a great job as firearms owners. We want to be able to own firearms and be accepted as a firearms owner, as a hunter, as w w whatever it might be, but you're not going to do that.

[01:32:46] If you don't have others that are willing to voice, like you say, um, because we all know that out of a hundred, maybe one or two will be out there really, really doing it. Right. So I British Columbia had a moratorium on making new instructors. They said, that's it. We're not making any new instructors. And so I actually launched, I think it's called a judicial review is the process I went through.

[01:33:12] Um, it might've been something else anyways, uh, went down the process a little bit, and then a lawyer finally turned around and says, you know, it's really odd in this sector. There is no legislative framework to compel the firearms officer to actually do their job in that respect. Um, this is untenable, so backed up and took a different approach on that and was able to successfully.

[01:33:42] Um, compel the firearms program to start making new instructors. So we had a big batch of new instructors come on through the classroom. And I just did a poll out of all these people who are firearms owners who wanted to be instructors. And I said, Hey, what do you guys do for your hobbies? I, one guy who was big into scuba diving, another person who was into skydiving, another person who was great into IPSec, sick and out of the entire class, only one person put their hand up.

[01:34:10] And they said, I like hockey. I play hockey. And that person was a friend of mine who actually owns a, um, uh, a firearms business already. I owned the range Langley here in Langley, but by and large, those who are, I found attracted to firearms from more than just a, I need it for hunting, or I need it for, uh, employment.

[01:34:36] If they're attracted to the idea of firearms, ownership for sport or for the mechanical workings of them, what we're collecting, they're going to be individualistic. So you might be onto something there. When you say your perception is, is that there isn't a community. Cause I could argue the, I could argue the opposite side to that, but it all depends on how we wanted to find what community is interested.

Nicolas Johnson: [01:35:02] Yeah, we liked to. Yeah. And also, I don't want to feed our opponents too much emo here, but 

Travis Bader: [01:35:09] yeah, honestly, again, that just comes down to the point of if we're feeding them ammo and it falls short, then we've got to adjust our approach. We should be able to talk openly and honestly, about anything that we do and you should be able to hold a candle to that 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:35:23] yeah.

[01:35:24] To share. Um, yeah, absolutely. I agree with that. I'm

[01:35:33] I'd like to, uh, I'd like to talk either today or another day, but I'd like, I really love to talk to you about how you produce your podcast and what goes into it and, and everything like how you, you want to do that now or do you want to do that another time? 

Travis Bader: [01:35:49] Hey, we're here, we're talking and you know what?

[01:35:52] I think this sort of information is valuable because other people can take a look at this. Cause I also have questions about you as a journalist of how you approach different situations. This is valuable because the listener might say, you know what? I could do a bot. I could do a podcast. I can write a blog.

[01:36:10] It's really not that difficult. And nothing in life really is difficult. Is all about putting one foot in front of the other and just doing it. Right. Um, I think fear is the biggest thing that tends to hold people back, whether that's fear of failure or fear of rejection or, or, or whatever it might be.

[01:36:26] And the second that you frame that. Sort of network. He, you take a look at it for what it really is. All fear in my opinion, is, is, um, the anticipation of what might happen or what might come. And if you take a look at that and you just anticipate it differently, what if you're successful? What if you do well, right?

[01:36:50] Or if you can approach that fear process, let's say you're jumping out of a plane and you're parachuting. Oh, I'm so scared. I can't do it. Well, are you scared? Are you excited? Right. So some of these little mental mind tricks, I think can help people in, in overcoming the trepidation of putting their name behind an article that they write or getting their voice out there.

[01:37:12] So for me, from the podcast perspective, I looked at it like, who am I to have a podcast? Right? I'm just some guy who has a business and the lower mainland. And he's

[01:37:28] got some interesting things have happened in my background, but you know, interesting things happen to everybody who am I really to have a podcast. And it was actually my friend who, um, who owns the range, who came up one day and he said, Travis, you got to start a podcast. You got to start a, um, immediate company.

[01:37:45] And he got to the end. He had all these different reasons why? And I did what I typically do. Okay. Why not? Let me give it a shot. If I suck at it, I can always do something else. Right. 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:38:00] Who was just on my, on my other computer here. I should have done this research beforehand. Who was your first, um, who, who was episode one?

Travis Bader: [01:38:07] Uh, that would have been Paul Ballard and Nick Bolton. So Paul Ballard and Nick Bolton, they're both very good friends of mine known him for a long time, both retired Vancouver police. And I think it was two hillbillies from Chilliwack is what I named the podcast. No idea where to start with this kind of stuff.

[01:38:25] I was recording it on a single track, which meant every time that one person coughed, he couldn't edit that out. Uh, it was all on, on one track. Now I do most of my recording multitrack and whenever possible, so that you can make sure you can make those cuts and do it in a way that it's, um, uh, not cutting everybody else.

[01:38:46] So when I first started it, I was so concerned about sounding stupid. Now I realize I can sound stupid, but people can have short memories, right? So, uh, uh, within all the stupidity, there's sometimes going to be, uh, areas, right? Don't sound stupid. Uh, I would go in and edit the podcast. I have one individual, um, should I name them?

[01:39:10] Uh, I don't even know if I told him this, but when he talks and he's been on the podcast a few times, so that kind of narrows it down every single time he says something, he goes before he says something, you hear a little, little, little kind of T click and he can see that in the wave form. And so I'd go through and edit every.

[01:39:30] Out as I went on through or someone coughed and edited out now I tend to leave the majority of everything in. I find it reduces the editing process greatly. It adds a sense of realism. It's not a highly, highly polished product. And, uh, unless of course something happens. And afterwards, like I had one individual, he says, you know, that joke I told halfway through, if my wife heard that joke, she'd kill me.

[01:39:58] Can you take that joke out? Sure. Not a problem. So that's, that's about the extent of the editing, but I do now. 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:40:04] Yeah. It's interesting. I, how long have you been doing the podcast? 

Travis Bader: [01:40:09] Uh, started in it's only about two years. Uh, so yeah, two years ago I started it. So I went on and 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:40:17] I slowly pre pre COVID, like, um, so just, just before COVID you started.

[01:40:22] Okay. 

Travis Bader: [01:40:23] Because I wonder I started before COVID 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:40:27] I wonder if also the, like the, the, um, the fashion or the accessibility has shifted between a polished product now with COVID everybody's used to zoom calls and, and seeing record like, uh, live to tape that we put up with coughs and sneezes and what used to be con you know, basically raw we're now more comfortable and more accepting of the audio is not quite right.

[01:40:49] The sound of image of whatever, the bit rate we're like. Okay. It's kind of fashionable to do live and imperfect. 

Travis Bader: [01:40:58] I think live and imperfect. It's been Fastenal for a lot longer. And I think people are just starting to kind of get on the idea that, hold on a second, we start putting out these polished products because everything out there was just polished productions from large organizations and you start to gloss over and people feel that there's a sense of reality when they see that it's not from the same sort of polished background.

[01:41:24] I think that, um, general conversation tends to be lacking in some, a lot of people's lives and podcasts appeal to the idea of being able to sit in and listen to a conversation that's going on, that they might not have thought about having or with people that they didn't have the ability to have the conversation with.

[01:41:42] Um, I think podcasts are, uh, the, the metrics that show that they're still gaining in popularity, but also the, uh, they're getting diluted because more and more people are getting into them. For me, it's a challenge. Uh, I've got ADHD. I've, uh, for me to stay on topic and string together information in a way and, and, and talk through these sort of things like my head's going a mile a minute, and I want to talk about so many different things, um, that I, that I enjoy the challenge of doing this.

[01:42:15] I enjoy spreading the positivity and it's, um, It's a way to be able to reframe some of the negative things and aspects that happened throughout just building your business and life in general, because I think most people are negatively biased, myself included, and you'll tend to go towards the negative and look at the negative.

[01:42:39] And there is negativity in the firearms community. If we call it a community, there is naked Vivity and firearms businesses. There are some really, really slimy stuff that kind of goes on, but in the same breath, there's some great people out there doing some really great things. And it's all about where we decide.

[01:42:57] We want to spend that attention. So for me, the podcast is reaching out to others who have shown. They want to share that attention in the same direction.

Nicolas Johnson: [01:43:10] Are you achieving, are you achieving that same question you asked me a little while ago. Are you achieving your goals? 

Travis Bader: [01:43:16] Uh, well the goal always wants to spread positivity. So from the, from the standpoint of what I'm being able to put out, absolutely. Is there any noticeable change within the community that, that, uh, that I'd see?

[01:43:30] Well, I don't want to, I don't want to say that I'm, uh, I'd like to be a leader for change in the community, but I'd like to be able to offer a different way for people to consume, uh, or maybe just think about. Issues that are happening within, within our industry and maybe without even talking about the negative stuff.

[01:43:54] So I would feel that yes, I'm achieving it. Uh, every week that goes by we're, uh, gaining more subscribers and more listeners, you know, just like with what you're doing. Uh, it's the people, if they like what they're listening to, they're going to share it for me. I, the biggest compliment is if somebody else is going to share it, if they want to share it on Instagram or on Facebook or with their friends to an email and they just say, look it, I listened to this say, you should listen to this part right here.

[01:44:24] Cause I listened to it. The whole thing that, um, that's the biggest compliment. And yeah, I do feel that we are affecting some small change in how things are approached and in the process of me finding my own voice, because I'm still finding my voice on this podcast. I am slowly bringing to light some issues that have happened within the community that are in the firearms world, at the firearms industry or that continue to happen.

[01:44:56] And I think the more people that are aware and start seeing it will stop accepting that and they will in turn, start looking for ways that we can support each other and work together. So I do see that, um, to some degree 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:45:14] and I can say personally, That you have affected me and influenced me and shaped me.

[01:45:21] And now that's going to radiate to the people I communicate with. So if you're wondering about, are you having any influence? Well, I'm going to hear to say yes, at least a plus one over here. 

Travis Bader: [01:45:33] Um, well, I, I really do appreciate that. You know, from a journalistic perspective, I don't have a journalist background.

[01:45:42] I have, I've never wanted the podcast to be, uh, me interviewing somebody else. I've, uh, I remember I did with the Vancouver police a number of years ago, they invited me in to do the, uh, the Reid technique. I did their, uh, beginner, intermediate and advanced interview and interrogation courses with them, which is kind of cool.

[01:46:01] Um, so I've my formal training in interviewing and interrogating would just be through a police interview and interrogation. So through their systems, as well as through a couple of others, that process is not one that I've ever really wanted to apply to this, to the podcast. And I've always wanted, it's more of a, just a back and forth exchange of ideas.

[01:46:27] It's difficult to get there. Uh, some people are more, um, comfortable in front of the camera, in front of the microphone and able to, to do that. And I don't blame them because even myself in front of the mic, in front of the camera, you'll notice, I'll stop. And I'll think like, how will this be perceived if I say it, even when we talked about range Nazis earlier, I'm like, do I want to use the Nazi word?

[01:46:49] Right. Um, but for you, you've clearly done a lot of research in just speaking with you before and how you approach this. What is your process? If you're going to write an article or you're going to speak with somebody, what is your process for, uh, preparing for that? And what do you typically hope the outcome will be?

Nicolas Johnson: [01:47:13] So for a guy who hasn't studied journalism and here in journalistic interviewing techniques, let me tell you you're doing a really good job. No, seriously, seriously. That's that's again, a very, very w what I mean by that is, it's a, it's a simple question. And it's also a deep question. It's very, it's going to be difficult to answer.

[01:47:30] It's going to lead to, uh, uh, it opens a potentially rich response. And the response is that it depends. Sometimes I'm in bed. I remember, gosh, how many times I'm in bed looking through my. Twitter, which I don't do anymore, by the way. But, uh, I'm thinking I grumbled this something angers me and I write a blog post and out of anger.

[01:47:54] And in 30 minutes I write my thoughts are grumble, grumble, grumble, Trudeau verus are the liberals that are grumbled, grumble, grumble, and knock it out. And so anger is the motivator. And I don't, I just want to just kind of, um, I guess more of a gut thing other times, and that's, that's done and dusted in a, in a short period, let's call it an hour and other times it's, it can take months, uh, an article I wrote several years ago about, I think the headline was how statistics, Canada shapes, gun politics and perceptions.

[01:48:24] And that took months to research and I've data analysis and a Q and a was text with statistics, Canada and other experts, uh, across the country and hours and hours and hours and hours of research and fact checking. So, and what do I hope to achieve? Well, sometimes it's, um, I hope to achieve, I'm curious about this topic and it's a personal blog, so I get to write whatever the heck I want.

[01:48:48] And if you like it, read it. If you don't like it, do go, go listen to the Silvercore podcast. Um, but sometimes it's pure. It's, it's always motivated by curiosity is something I'm curious about something. I think my readers or the community would be curious about or want to know or a little bit, sometimes it's a little bit you, you guys should know about.

[01:49:09] And this has flown under the radar. I think this was important. I think you should know. I want to put it on your radar and yeah, so it's a mix of personal read. It's a mix of news. A lot of it is kind of newsy and a lot of it is I do apply the, the standards that I took to the best of my ability that I learned at Bloomberg about factual and links I offer my own analysis of, but I always provide links to my data, to the original document, whether it's a press release, whether it's a, a report.

[01:49:40] So I do try to respect the, the values of transparency and accountability, um, and a mix. And a lot of times it's, it's trying to transparency is a big motivator. Actually, the, I want, I believe a little bit like what you said earlier, you want it, you want it to bring the pal courses, the pal courses out of the basements.

[01:50:02] I want to do that too about genuine owning community. And I remember one kind of example of that when I started the blog in 2015, I wondered how many pal holders pal holders are there in Canada. What's the number. I couldn't find it. Right. And it took months. And when you know where to look, it's, it's, it's in the RCMP annual report.

[01:50:21] When you know where to look, it takes five seconds. Right? But no one was talking about it. No one was mentioning it. And I was the first to the best of my knowledge. I in, I believe it was 2015 released in 2016 that the. Exceeded 2 million for the first time. And I, I wrote an article, um, something about gun license over that, um, exceeds 2 million for first time or reaches record or something like that.

[01:50:43] And so I want transparency. I want people to know about this. I want to bring gun ownership out of the woodwork, out of the basement, out of the, the, um, the dark, not the dark alleys, but I mean, I want to get it out of the door, but also the metaphorically speaking, I want it, I want to shine a light and, you know, be a proud gun owner and talk about it openly.

[01:51:07] And it's not a sin. It doesn't, it's not immoral. It's, it's a good thing. It's we, its values of responsibility and sportsmanship and nature conservation and camaraderie and all these incredible, beautiful values that we, that we are ambassadors for. I hope. And yeah, so it's a desire for transparency and pride and, and getting out of the, get out of the shadows.

[01:51:33] One of my other, I think most important articles was how quiet gun owners become former gun owners. And I, the quiet, the fact that we, we, a lot of people like what you were saying earlier, your we want to be a closed society. Hush, hush don't make any waves. Don't tell anybody what we're up to stay out of.

[01:51:50] The media, I think is the best. If you, if that's your strategy, then your extension extinction is on the way. Keeping quiet in today's world. The best way to go extinct is to keep quiet. 

Travis Bader: [01:52:04] And I think you're on the right track with the, with the gun blog and with these podcasts that you're doing in the video cast.

[01:52:10] And, uh, because in the same breath, if you want to get that message out, anybody who would be maybe contrary or want to, um, attack you, so to say would have a much more difficult time knowing that you have a platform with X amount of people who follow you and watch you on a regular basis. So I, I think, um, if they had to also anyway, 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:52:40] um, like if you look at the study and it feeds twist some Twitter feeds, I mean, yeah, who's the day.

[01:52:44] It depends. The aunties used me as the lightning rod as one of the targets. Oh, look what the gun law. But you're talking about the people, the, the, the, the CFOs or the police or the regulators you're talking about that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So far as far as I know, um, I don't, I'm not aware of any attacks. The worst attacks have come from, from the gun owning the shooting community.

[01:53:07] Those are the nastiest violence, personal attacks have come from the shooting community, the, the aunties 

Travis Bader: [01:53:12] they hurt the most, you know, they, 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:53:14] well, yeah, they're, they're also, they also surprised me the most. And, um, but I'm not aware of anyone in the regulatory or legal or, uh, policing community that is seeking to undermine.

[01:53:27] I am aware of people in the shooting community, what I would call the shooting community, who are working to undermine me. 

Travis Bader: [01:53:32] And I've seen that and I see a time and again, and it's so unfortunate and it, it just comes down to the same in a building down to make their building bigger. I don't know if it's just a deep seated inadequacy or jealousy that somebody would have, because from my perspective, if somebody wants to do the exact same thing I'm doing, I'll help them.

[01:53:51] Yeah. And I have, and I have countless times train people up as instructors, train people up, show them how I conduct my business, show them how we're even on the podcast here. There's numerous people that I've had come in. Some people have taken me up on it. If you want to start your own podcast, I've got all the equipment, I've got a studio, I've got a room.

[01:54:11] Right. Of course that's not an open offer to everybody. Those are people that who have already vetted in our, um, uh, primarily past guests have been all my podcasts. And I find that you tend to, for me, uh, a closer relationship, because you really get to intimately know somebody over, over this period of time.

[01:54:29] But, um, yeah, I think there's always going to be haters. Right. 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:54:34] And I guess what, I've come to you. So you've been in the business, I'm going to, you know, two or three decades at this stage. I mean, I'm a newbie. I've only been around since 2015 doing this. And what I've found though, I'm curious if, if, if like, I feel like I'm coming, I'm getting to where you are, which is that.

[01:54:53] Yeah, it's a big, it's a big, it's a big family. And just like, you can disagree with uncle Harry. You can disagree with this organization or that individual. It doesn't mean we're gonna agree on everything all the time. We can still be respectful and okay, you do your thing over there. I'm going to do my thing over here.

[01:55:11] I don't have to dump on you. You don't have to dump on me. That's um, yeah, I, I tried it. I, I probably have dumped on people in the community and I probably regret it, but I do my done my best not to and stay United. Um, it doesn't mean it doesn't mean we love you all. It doesn't mean we all have to love each other, but we can still be, we can at least avoid dumping on each other.

Travis Bader: [01:55:35] You know, I remember a number of years ago, a, uh, this is going back a fair bit. So he, a fellows wants to be an instructor. There's a group of them. They wanted to come through and do a, uh, instructor level course. And I, um, was teaching a, uh, a course said, okay, we want to come in and you can shadow with it myself and another instructor.

[01:55:57] And, uh, this guy says, well, you know, I, I don't have a vehicle. Can you give me a ride in? Okay, no problem. Where are you at? And, okay, so he takes a bus, comes to a location, pick them up, driving, man, drive him back. Back and forth again, next day, provide them with lesson plans, trailing syllabuses stuff that wasn't being provided by the firearms program.

[01:56:18] Things of how I, how I would put together the, um, uh, the course, basically just a cookie cutter. If you want to get it going, here you go. Afterwards. This fellow says I don't really have any money because I never accepted payment at the get go. And I probably should have, uh, can I just work it off? Can I just keep working with you?

[01:56:37] I'm like, I don't know. I hummed it out a little bit and like, like, no, no, you should pay it. And it was only like, I didn't think I charged them that we're going back 20 years or so. I think it charged them like a hundred bucks or something like nothing and nothing for beat. Right. For setting somebody up for a great success in the industry.

[01:56:57] And then he comes by with his firearm. Can you cut and crown my, uh, my bureau for me. Yeah. Not a problem. Do it for free of charge. Can you help me find some deactivated or disabled firearms yet? Not a problem. We'll get you set up. Cause they had the contract. There's two businesses. One was, um, Murray Charlton.

[01:57:11] It was, uh, who at the time was the owner of MD charletons and myself who had the contract for all seized firearms from the police for disabling, for firearm safety course instruction. Oh, problem gets you set up and I'm in the back of hunter sporting goods, which is no longer. Helped a, uh, a fellow. I know who actually I met him in army cadet camp and lived with me for a while and, uh, helped him out and had a couple of gun stores till a point he took over and owned a hundred sporting goods and I'm in the back.

[01:57:45] And I see this other instructor who had trained up and had my cards out at the front of Hunter's sporting goods. And somebody comes in and they're looking to take a course and they pick up the card and I'm sitting there and I'm watching, he doesn't know I'm there. And this guy says, no, you don't want to go see them.

[01:57:59] Yeah. Travis guy, he's no good. You got to come to me. And he spends the entire time as, as opposed to saying why he's so great, which I think would be fantastic. Have anybody emphasize the points of why you are great. Don't spend the time emphasizing why the other person, in your opinion, isn't great. And I'm sitting there thinking like, holy Crow, like I bent over backwards to set you up only to have you out there bad on me.

[01:58:22] And I see this. And then when the May 16th, 2008 stuff went down, which will probably be a conversation at a later date. Um, I get to read things that he's written. Cause somebody supplied me. Back-end, uh, information they're getting from the, the forums. And it is astonishing what some people will do or say in order to just try and give themselves a leg up at the expense of anybody else out there.

[01:58:50] So I don't think there's ever going to be a lack of haters in our industry or any industry, but I think. Oh for myself personally, I've got to be a lot more diligent about, um, allowing myself to be, um, taken advantage of where my good intentions be used against me by those of intention. So as you're building yourself up and you're probably seeing similar kind of things, um, it's probably changing your approach to how you, how you report and how you put your blogs out.

[01:59:27] I don't know. 

Nicolas Johnson: [01:59:28] Yeah. And I think also what I hear a bit like, um, underneath what you're saying is the it's besides what we do publicly on, on, on air, on microphone, on video in our businesses and so forth is how we change as men, as individuals. And, and I think it, yeah, it's reflect especially now. And that was apparent.

[01:59:49] Uh, what are the kinds of values I want to demonstrate because I I'm learning kids. Don't listen, they copy. Um, what are the values that I want to model for my, for my son? And one of those is that, okay, do you know you can, every cliche in the book that the dogs will bark, but the caravan moves on, or if you stop to throw rocks at every dog that barks, you will never reach your destination.

[02:00:11] I think that one's Winston Churchill, um, that we have to stay focused and stuff will happen. And that's that's noise and stay focused on, on, you know, signal, follow the signal, not the noise.

Travis Bader: [02:00:29] I like that. That's 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:00:30] funny. Follow the sound on that, the noise and be, be also, I think I I'm guessing, uh, that what, uh, w I'm I'm guessing that you've, I'm, I'm guessing that you would share this sentiment, but I should ask the question. I've learned a lot to be my own compass and to trust my own compass and to, and to listen and to hear my own compass.

[02:00:50] And it used to be, oh, what should I do when I look to others a lot more for validation or direction. And now it's a much more trusting of my own inner compass and learning to, uh, to accept that, 

Travis Bader: [02:01:02] you know, real easy hack on all of that for people maybe. So people are raised without a moral compass, right.

[02:01:07] Um, is just lean on the fact that you're a father. So I find when you say that, um, I think people are really ready and willing to be able to disappoint themselves. Right. Hey, did you work out today? Right? Uh, I've got no problem sitting on the couch, maybe playing, playing a video game or sleeping in later, but if you have to disappoint somebody else, right?

[02:01:29] Yeah. Is there somebody who's waiting for you at the gym? You're probably more likely to show up and how I conduct myself is if I do this, whether anybody knows or not, how would my children think about me? If they did find that out? How would my wife think about me? How do I want to be. Regardless of people ever find out or not.

[02:01:51] I want to conduct myself in a way where they would be proud of me. So I find that a very simple life hack for when you're making decisions. And oftentimes if it's a difficult decision, it's probably the right decision. 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:02:06] So I love the, the pride angle and I I'm proud to say it because a while back I would have said, oh, that's, you know, kind of egotistical in vain.

[02:02:13] And what do you care? What other P and L you know, what do you care about? And I said, okay, use it. It's a Jedi mind trick. I'm a proud vain. You get just a gold, whatever. I'm going to use it to my advantage. I care about how I look and I care about what my wife and my kid think about me. And absolutely you got it.

[02:02:29] Okay. I like the life hack. Yeah. I use use the, uh, and also I think, but I think there is something deeper, which is your identity. I'm, I'm the type of guy who am I? The type of guy who misses my appointments and my commitments, or am I, am I the type of guy who respects my appointments and my commitments?

[02:02:49] It can be very powerful. 

Travis Bader: [02:02:52] Very much so. Well, we've, we've talked about a lot of different things here. We never did get into that one rabbit hole that you wanted to get in about the podcast 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:03:00] later. Do you want to 

Travis Bader: [02:03:02] do that? No. No. No. 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:03:04] Okay. How do you,

[02:03:09] how do you, um, decide, walk me through your process for the part for a plus, let's say a podcast episode. 

Travis Bader: [02:03:19] Uh, all depends. All depends on who I'm going to be having on as a guest. I mean, sometimes I will approach it more from a, um, maybe fly by the seat of your pants. I don't, I don't like to say that. Cause I always do research.

[02:03:34] I always have some ideas. I I'll write down different things that I'd like to have if I get stuck in the conversation and I don't quite know where to go, I've got different things like I've in front of me, I've got Alec Baldwin rust. There's one thing that completely off topic. Right. But it's something that is a, uh, a talking point.

[02:03:54] Um, 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:03:56] yeah, I've got 

Travis Bader: [02:03:58] a bit of an interest. There you go. So I'll have the, I'll have an intro. So I know where to start. Cause I find that to be the most difficult thing in the podcast. How do you start the conversation? And I don't listen to podcasts. I, once in a while, I'll hear tidbits from some, but I'm not the type of person to sit down and listen to a full long form podcasts because I don't have the time.

[02:04:21] If I'm in my vehicle, I'm driving to go hunting, let's say or go surfing or I'm going to be gone for awhile. Uh, sure. Not a problem. I'll listen to a book or a podcast, but I, my office is a 10 minute walk from my house. My studio is a 10 minute drive from my house. It doesn't give me a lot of time to listen to a podcast.

[02:04:38] So unless I'm doing some woodworking in the shop or I'm in the middle shop in the back here, maybe I'll put something on in the background to live. Um, I don't I've approached the podcast from a, um, intentionally ignorant standpoint. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I didn't want to be like every other podcast and maybe I ended up like it.

[02:04:57] I don't know. Um, but I wanted to be able to provide something that was unique to me. And I figured the best way to do that would be just without inundating myself to try and be like everybody else. 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:05:09] Do you pick your guests? My guests approach you 

Travis Bader: [02:05:14] both. So we got, we got both sides. I mean, I'm, I'm super flattered when someone approaches me, uh, there have been some podcasts that will never see the light of day and not because they were a bad podcast, but because I've got respect from the guests who came on there and I, I didn't feel that they came across in the best possible way.

[02:05:32] And it didn't, it didn't go in line with the bringing the positivity and the, the core values of what I would like to be able to put through on this Silvercore podcast. Um, I've got one, I'll be recording next week with just a fantastic fellow who is, um, extremely well accomplished. He's been on past podcasts.

[02:05:52] People will hear about them again. So I won't be given that one away, but, uh, uh, gave me a message last night. It says, uh, it's been too long. It really liked to be on the podcast and he's done tons of different podcasts. Very well. And, um, oh, I'll take it for what it is. He says, you know, out of all the podcasts that I've been on, I look forward to yours the most.

[02:06:14] And so that's, um, um, I, I value that highly. Yeah. So, so, uh, I will try and find people who have extraordinary life experiences. Uh, there's been suggestions that have come up for some people who've done some pretty neat things, but I just don't have any idea in my head of how I'll be able to talk with them.

[02:06:34] And until I can get that figured out, I don't, I don't ask them to be a guest. Um, 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:06:39] Hmm. How long does it take you from prep to recording, to editing, to publishing? 

Travis Bader: [02:06:47] Uh, some are really quick, uh, most aren't. So as I go through a podcast, I will, uh, record it. So we've been talking for a while. I think this is my longest podcast yet.

[02:06:58] Um, oh, I'll record it. And then if I'm really on the ball, I will edit it right shortly afterwards, while everything's still fresh in my memory. And if there are long extended pauses, then for the listeners sake, cause I value the listeners time. I figured they're going to be spending their time listening to me.

[02:07:17] I want to provide them with something as educational or entertaining. And I'll, I'll take out some of the long pauses or let's say somebody had to use a washroom halfway everyday. Obviously we edit all that stuff out, but I do my best now not to go over it with a white glove treatment, not taking out all the ums and AHS and ticks and all the rest.

[02:07:35] Um, So I can get through one in a day, but oftentimes it'll be longer. Uh, because now that we have video, I've got to do color grading. I've learned premier pro and Adobe audition, and then you gotta make, um, I, I run it through and to do a complete transcript of everything that we've talked about, um, for SEO and I run it into, uh, YouTube.

[02:08:00] And so you have to make thumbnails and Photoshop and, uh, then do a bit of a writeup and post it up on the, your podcast provider. And then you're constantly looking at different areas where you can pick up feeds and then I'll get on to read it in different forums. If I think it's going to bring value to the people, I don't want to be the guys out there just shamelessly plugging myself.

[02:08:20] But if I can actually add some value to a conversation, then I will submit it on these different places just to try and get some more exposure. So it's, um, uh, it's not a swift endeavor. Mind you I've done a podcast with another fellow he's. Um, first one that I was ever on was his podcast and he will record it and it's up bang it's up, that's it flaws and all, and he says it adds a realism to it.

[02:08:48] Maybe there's something to be said there. I don't know that maybe the guests can let me know 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:08:55] that the listeners maybe. Recording live is, is, is how I've been doing it lately. That's my preferred approach. Yeah. Listeners do tell, tell, tell Travis, uh, um, what you think the, is this, would it be fair to say that this podcast that we're doing now of, of your podcast is the one where you've spoken the most?

Travis Bader: [02:09:13] Uh, probably yes. Yeah. There was one other I did with the, 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:09:18] you do a lot of listening. I noticed 

Travis Bader: [02:09:21] I do. If a person wants to talk, I'm going to let them talk because I can, if I wanted to, I can turn the mic on myself and I don't have to have anybody in the room and I can talk all I want. But if I've asked somebody to come in and they're using their time to share their passion with others, I want to hear what they have to say.

[02:09:39] It's I, it's not an ego thing for me. I don't, I don't particularly enjoy listening to my voice, but I enjoy the process of creating something. And if I can watch that grow, uh, and others get value out of it, then I like that. So that's why I do a 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:10:01] lot of listening. Uh, I'm getting the impression that you like to empower people, is that fair?

Travis Bader: [02:10:10] I tend to, yes. And that can the process of empowering other people. The difficult part is finding the right people to spend your time and energy. Um, In earlier years, I would help everybody else. Everyone. I can just help them out and do what I can because I find value in being of assistance to others.

[02:10:33] And I mean, you can analyze that any which way you want to from the positive to the negative sides, but, um, um, in empowering other people to be able to have their own voice and get the message out there is also a bleed off on that. If they have something that's worthwhile, hopefully others will share it.

[02:10:53] I don't monetize a podcast. I have zero intentions of ever monetizing a podcast. But what it does is it is a another area where people can hear more about what Silvercore is about. It used to be, in my opinion, businesses would talk about the Royal we, oh, we're getting to it shortly. And our team is looking at, and, um, these are our friends of our team or whatever it is that they want to put out on social media or in their messaging.

[02:11:22] When in fact it's one person in their basement typing on their computer, right. Nothing wrong with that. But I think that people, the general public is tired of the we, and they want to know the individual behind it. If they're going to support a business and there's other businesses out there that they could support, why would they choose your business over somebody else's maybe it's price, maybe it's because their values align with your own.

[02:11:46] Maybe the offer a secure superior product, or it's better availability or accessibility or whatever it might be. But by providing this voice, it's got that double-edged sword of the positive of people getting to know what Silvercore is about because Silvercore is my business. So by default, it's going to have, share my, my core attributes, but it's also going to alienate some people too.

[02:12:10] So, you know, I just take the good with the bad. 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:12:13] How did you choose the name? Silvercore.

Travis Bader: [02:12:18] Super easy. Actually, my grandfather was a police officer, detective Vancouver police. His name was silver Armando. My other grandfather was Cornelius Bader. He's an entrepreneur and he, uh, had a very successful, uh, bakery that he had. He re he owned about a city block down by the Croatian cultural center.

[02:12:36] And he used to talk about how they're were bigger than dad's oatmeal cookies. But anyways, I just took silver in core and it just cold core, a little bit different. Did a little port man do, and I got silver car. 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:12:49] Beautiful. Have, have you ever thought of doing them or maybe you do? I haven't seen it. The Travis Bader show where you do get to where you're not interviewing a guest, but you are giving your rent, whatever your view on things, a solo, basically you in front of the camera ever thought of that.

Travis Bader: [02:13:08] Uh, no I haven't. And I don't know if there'd be an appetite for it again. Maybe the listeners can let me know, but I've. Uh, never been the type, despite being the one who's would be in front of a class teaching and at the ego portion of all of that has never been the motivator for me. I would watch people teach and it's, uh, a trick that I will tell my instructors as well that I use.

[02:13:36] And if it works for them, great, maybe they want to borrow it. But so often I find people when they teach will stand up in the front of the class and they will, uh, spew information and they'll throw it out and they'll see what catches, um, they'll go through the PowerPoint. They'll show the different slides we'll have have little breaks, but if you take yourself out of the equation and you know, I know one instructor and he's probably right.

[02:14:02] He says, you know, all good instructors should have ego. And from the standpoint of like, you care enough about whether your classes thinks of you, that you want to put on a pro quality product, I totally agree, but I will, as opposed to, uh, teaching a course, I am, I treat my class like they're an individual, the entire class as if they're one person, one person that has a bunch of different questions that has different personalities, that there's different ways that I have to approach that one person.

[02:14:30] But for me, teaching is a very personable process. And with the end result of them leaving and not needing me, them leaving and being more competent in whatever it was that they had before. And if they're able to be better than me. I take that as a compliment, that I was able to help them on the process to some degree or another where they can do even better.

[02:14:53] So it's never been an ego process for me and for the Travis speeder showed us, give, give your views. Number one, I don't know if I'd have enough to talk about, right. Um, but number two, I'm I do tend to shy away from the camera and the mic. It's weird. When we talk about, I was talking with, uh, Brad Brooks who's, as I say it, I seen it, he sit here yapping for the last couple of hours, right.

[02:15:17] Uh, Brad works, he owns our galley and uh, he says, um, that he's an introvert. And he said, you'd be surprised at how many people in the industry are introverts. Um, and I'm like, well, hold on a second. So he's got an awesome, uh, you go to go check out Brad Brooks, his business, awesome business, go check out his, uh, uh, YouTube channel.

[02:15:39] And he does like fantastic cinematography filmography showing him up in the mountains, doing his thing from a very personal kind of connection. And he says, you know, and he lists off a number of other names in the industry that are well known. Some people through the mediator, cruise someone other crews.

[02:15:56] And he says, you know, all these people, when we talk there were introverts. And I said, well, I don't know. I guess I can't be an introvert because, you know, I got the camera and the mic and all the rest, he says, well, let me ask you this. If you're in a group of people, does that charge you. Or do you leave drained afterwards?

[02:16:16] And I said, huh, interesting way to look at that. Cause it doesn't charge me up. I find, I give a lot of myself when I interact with the class, I'll be drained when I, I enjoy it. I enjoy the process of helping them, but going out to parties or public areas I'm drained and prime example of that is like going to shot show, forget it, not my favorite place to be right.

[02:16:39] Too many people, too much stuff going on. I'll go there if I have to. But uh, uh, I guess maybe by that definition, I'm an introvert. 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:16:48] Interesting. Cause I I'm, I'm back to, I I'm, I would love to, uh, see the Travis theater show if that, uh, if that ever happens, I support it. But also it's the, um, I think that it's, I don't, and I don't view it as a selfish thing.

[02:17:04] It can be, it can be an ego trip. Look at me, look at me, but I don't think that's how the, the YouTube personalities that say that, that I follow. That's not, I don't think their motivator. I think, um, I think it's in line with what you were saying that they have an approach or a view or an angle or, or a skill or an expertise that they're sharing.

[02:17:23] And I know for myself that I. Um, you teach what you need to learn. It's through the sharing and through the expression that I discover. Oh, I don't, I don't know what I think till I hear what I say and it helps me to refine and, and I, sometimes I hear myself stay stuff that I, that surprises me or that I, when it comes out of my head, I was like, I don't actually believe that.

[02:17:45] So it's, uh, I guess you, the, the fact that, yeah, you have a lot to someone like you and you in particular, you have a lot to offer. And, um, and it, I don't see it as actually a selfish or, um, vanity. It doesn't have, it can be a vanity project and maybe that's okay, but it doesn't have 

Travis Bader: [02:18:03] to be a vanity project.

[02:18:05] Well, I might have to rethink my approach or my, my, how I, uh, view that whole thing. I, I guess at this point, I'm at the stage where I don't even know how to take that first step in doing it and as stupid as that sounds, and it was kind of like when I started Silvercore, like what's the first step I'm like, okay, I'm going to be a businessman.

[02:18:27] I guess I need business cards. Right. So go out and get myself some business cards. I'll probably need a logo. So I make that little swirly logo. Right. Um, I, I know others, they got business bank accounts at the Royal bank of Canada. That's what I need. I had no idea how to build a business. I did no background.

[02:18:44] I had nobody to show me the process. And, um, in hindsight, looking at it, what's taken me so many years to build. I could rebuild next week. Cause it, it really is easy once, you know? So when you talk about doing a solo show for somebody who's talking on a podcast anyways, um, I haven't even put my head to what that would look like or how you do it.

[02:19:11] Okay. Cause, 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:19:12] cause for it's interesting. I think, you know, things are easy once you know how to do it and they're impossible or difficult, but it's like, you like, you, you, you got the microphone, you've got the camera, you sit in front of the microphone in front of the camera, you press record. And you, you say what's on your mind is one way to do it is one way to do it.

[02:19:30] Other people write a script that they feed into a teleprompter and like there's a, like a thousand ways, a thousand ways to do it. And I, by the way, I'm, I know I'm not, I'm not, it's not my place to, to pressure you, we're telling you what to do. I'm just expressing curiosity. And uh, and uh, yeah, I would support that project if, uh, if you 

Travis Bader: [02:19:47] ever do it from a, from a standpoint of if, if the industry or people had questions that they wanted answers, I'd be happy to sit down and go through them.

[02:19:58] And, uh, rather than rehearse and look through and try and, uh, come up with the best possible answer. Just give them the oddest answer that I have at that time and be able to touch back on a later base. Yep. And not, I could see that as a very viable way to, uh, to approach it. But for me to actively have to search out, like, what do I want to talk about this week?

[02:20:17] Where do I want to go with this? Um, Might be like at the end of the day, there's only so many hours. So it'd be a reallocation of other duties that I'm, that I'm currently looking at. Um, Hmm. 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:20:32] Interesting. And now it's occurring to me that you get that you get to express your values, your beliefs in the classroom, in the podcast.

[02:20:40] And in other venues, you don't need a separate show to do it. You have other channels where you can get it done in a different way. Maybe, 

Travis Bader: [02:20:49] you know, the, the difficulty with being a business owner. So we've got about a little over, over 20 people. I work with Silvercore and, uh, w admin staff and instructors, and, um, that as you grow your business, despite the fact that you love what it is you do, you tend to do less of what it is that you originally started doing.

[02:21:12] So I'm still in the classroom. I'll still help out and make sure you keep the instructor number. And I'm training the new instructors as a master instructor, but the day to day instruction and teaching, if I were to put myself into that role, which I love doing would be a disservice to my coworkers who require the business to expand and to, to move forward.

[02:21:34] So, uh, who wants to, just to the typical thing that you get bigger and bigger, and he stopped doing the one thing that you originally started doing, have you found that in your, uh, in your realm there as you've been. 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:21:47] No, I have not. And I've tried to as my, like my beacon, uh, do I love, what do I love this?

[02:21:54] And to not do this stuff I don't love doing and to stay focused on this stuff. I do love doing and that's um, yeah, that's partly out of, um, to do as much as possible. I focus on doing this stuff. I love. So it hasn't, uh, it, yeah, it, 

Travis Bader: [02:22:09] so what's to stop you from throwing in the towel the second you don't love it, 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:22:13] that's it?

[02:22:13] Yeah. Um, I'm not sure how to, I'm not sure if there's a single answer a little bit might be, like I said, there was the, the feedback from the, my, the audience, the readers, the viewers, the listeners that say you, you know, thank you for whatever, some kind of validation or feedback or something that tells me that I'm having an impact on them.

[02:22:36] Uh, sometimes it's also, I have to remind myself, like, do a little bit of soul digging. It's all searching. And remember why I'm doing this. I'm not doing this because it's easy. I'm doing it because it's important or at least important to me. Right. Or it goes, it goes beyond me. And I think also, maybe it's about showing up in a PR, you know, uh, someone said, I, I, I can't remember whose quote this is, but, uh, amateurs do it when they feel like it professionals do it because it's their job.

[02:23:05] There's, there's a bit of that going on. It's eight o'clock it's it's this is not my case, but yeah, it's, I'm doing. I'm showing up for, for, to do this, uh, this profession, maybe also a commitment that I'm, that this commitment to, to, to be like, I love comfort. I'm also willing to be uncomfortable. So maybe my commitment to the mission is, uh, stronger than my commitment to be lazy or comfortable.

Travis Bader: [02:23:33] Yeah. See, I don't like comfort. I don't think, I think we, no, I don't. I think we're naturally drawn towards comfort, but the second that you start feeling comfortable, that doesn't feel right with me. I think most 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:23:50] people are like, yeah, well, I see. So it's the thing, like it's, it's I like, I am more looking for.

[02:23:57] That's a really interesting, um, I'm going to kind of play with that for a sec. I love being comfortable. Like if have someone says, do you want a bed of feathers or a bed of nails, I'll go with the bed of feathers. But sometimes there's a higher value, which is learning. Well, I'd like to experience, you know, I've seen these yogis, they lie in a bed of nails.

[02:24:13] Maybe I'd like to try that and just to see what it's like, or, um, I will sleep in, uh, in, in my car instead of going to the hotel because there's some other value that it's, whether it's to be a nature or cause I'm feeling cheap that day, or I want to push onto my destination or whatever. Yes. Comfort is not my main.

Travis Bader: [02:24:33] You know, speaking to the bed thing, it's funny as a teenager, I had a water bed and that was when water beds were all fallen out of Vogue and nobody wanted them anymore. So you got to, I got a free waterbed from somewhere and they have a little heating pad at the bottom of it that keeps up the water inside the bed.

[02:24:49] So it's about body temperature. Otherwise your hot or cold thing is body temperature. If you're a degree higher or a degree lower, you're going to feel really hot or really cold. And a thing was always cold or hot. And it was just, it was never the idea of it as a kid was like, awesome. But the reality wasn't.

[02:25:08] So I drained the whole thing through the whole thing out my window, and then in a burning it. And, uh, I slept on the floor for, for years and I don't sleep on the floor anymore. But, um, the process of the, um, of seeking comfort, like I get that people work jobs because they seek, um, a lifestyle where they'll be able to sustain themselves comfortably.

[02:25:39] And I think that's a little bit different from comfort seeking nature. And if I find myself in a position where I'm kind of comfort seeking, I'll have to assess myself, like, why is that? Is it because I'm in. And I need to actually rest myself so that I can, I can get better. Okay. That's that now seems objective oriented.

[02:25:59] Otherwise I will seek the more difficult path or the more, the less comfortable path because I find otherwise I'm just not, I don't feel like I'm growing. Maybe it's a weird psychological thing, but the, the feeling of growth, uh, requires me to be outside of my comfort zone. 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:26:20] And that's again, an interesting thing.

[02:26:21] Like it's, it's it, there are lots of people don't run marathons. They don't climb mountains. They don't swim across the, they don't do triathlons because it's easy. It's a lot easier to eat potato chips and drink beer and pizza, but some people do it anyway. And I think there's another thing that separates what's separate.

[02:26:40] What separates the people who do from the people who don't. 

Travis Bader: [02:26:45] That's an interesting one. They don't have the answer. Yeah. I honestly, I think it's the people who will actually write it down and think themselves through and take a look at how the next step might be. So when you talk about having a, uh, it's, uh, the Travis Bader, uh, podcast, uh, the doer we'll take that next step and start saying, what does that look like?

[02:27:06] Um, and start trying to path, plot that path out to see if the end result is desired. I mean, there's no shortage of good ideas out there. You go to any bar and sit around and listening to all the great ideas that people have. And I remember that as a teenager and early twenties, and we're sitting in the bar and people say, I want to do this, or I want to do that.

[02:27:26] And at the time I take out my Palm pilot either I'd have a pen and paper around until, um, uh, my girlfriend at the time now wife, uh, her sister gave me a Palm pilot and I'd mark all of these things down and then I'd ask them, are you going to do anything with that? That was a great idea. Are you going to do anything with it?

[02:27:47] Or if I came up with something, I write it on down the next day. When you wake up, you take a look, do they still look like good ideas now that we're not in the dim dark bar drinking? And if so, which one do I want to start working on first? And that was, I think that's kind of what separates most of the doers and the dreamers is.

[02:28:07] Who's going to take that next step. 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:28:10] It's so interesting. It's topical for me personally, I was with my, with my wife, uh, kind of thought thought bubble. Like if you, if you have, if you say you want to do something and you haven't acted on it within timeframe, X, I'm going to say, you know, within say three weeks, you probably don't really want to do it.

[02:28:29] Like, if, if something, if you say it's more of a wish or wouldn't it be nice if, but it's not a deep desire. I I'm playing with that concept because I know for myself, my deep desires, I usually get them done or, or usually start work on them, work, achieving them instantly. And so I'm now using the, if you haven't, if you haven't taken action on this in three weeks, you probably don't really want to do it 

Travis Bader: [02:28:52] that much.

[02:28:54] That's such an easy way to declutter too. Isn't it? 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:28:57] And it's yeah. Yeah. And I like your idea to look and look at it. The light look at your ideas in the light of day. Are they? 

Travis Bader: [02:29:05] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I don't think there are lazy people really, for the most part, I think they're unmotivated people, but I don't really think people are inherently lazy.

[02:29:16] Well, I don't know. You look at some kid who's, uh, not wanting to do, to do their schoolwork, but man, they sure want to play video games all day. Well, maybe they're motivated to play video games, meet. Maybe they're actually doing something they're, they're doing something with their time. So if there's a way to, uh, speak to what motivates an individual and from your, and I perspective, if we take a look at what it is that drives us or what motivates us to, in order to take the next step, um, when we're feeling lazy and I got my, for those that are listening and doing my air brackets here, just find out why is it?

[02:29:52] Because it just doesn't properly motivate you at the time, because the second he light that spark and he finds something that motivates you. Okay. You're on it and you're not, you're not sleeping. He might not be eating, just working on these things. I find anyways, I remember when I was learning the machining and working as a gunsmithing and, uh, she was my fiance at the time now wife, right.

[02:30:16] Girlfriend, fiance, wife, and, uh, would come into the shop and she had bring me lunch. Okay. And I put it on the side and she's a chef by trade. So it was probably something really good, but I'm working on this and okay. I go over and I eat it. And next thing I know there she is. She's bringing me dinner. Oh, okay.

[02:30:33] Still working away. And then she comes in and said, okay, I'm going to bed now. Okay. I'm still working away. And next morning would come around and be like, Jesus, three, four o'clock in the morning. I better get some sleep. But when you're motivated, that's how a person tends to respond. Hopefully people have better boundaries and control over that motivation when they do it.

[02:30:55] But, um, and that's coming from somebody who like I got straight F's in grade seven. I got kicked out of when I went to five different high schools. Um, school never motivated me. It doesn't mean I was a lazy person. So I don't think from that perspective of my life perspective, I don't think that, um, people tend to be on average, lazy, just undermining.

[02:31:25] And I 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:31:26] that's a very, again, so much, you've said so much in that, in that anecdote, in that story, that, that I would love to dive into it. I'm just going to share one thing though, that I took to, to like add to that, that alignment, the word alignment is what's coming is that when we, when that time with your, with your then girlfriend and she's, she's, she's bought into your project, whatever it was, you were doing, you were doing your thing and you know, the law of attraction, she was helping you and supporting you, brought you dinner and didn't have any

[02:31:58] whatever she was, she was fully on board and you were staying up to three and w we have energy. Like the, when we, I believe when we are aligned, the universe helps us. Then we have energy and resources and attract people and good thing, miracles, basically, uh, when we're aligned, getting into the zone, I think what you talked about to me, it's like that flow.

[02:32:19] Yeah, absolutely. A state of flow of, of being in the zone. Amen. Hello. 

Travis Bader: [02:32:24] And people talk about the, the law of attraction, or do we live in the matrix? We create our own kind of destiny and to a degree perhaps, but I think there's a, uh, a natural proclivity of the brain to be able to reform things that have happened so that you can look back and say this happened because, right.

[02:32:44] So, um, I think we will naturally either a find ourselves in situations where we attract certain. Or we ended up writing them off or B um, we will turn around afterwards or the benefit of hindsight and say, see, that's why it happened because ABC and D, because it's always easy to be able to, to reframe these things.

[02:33:08] It's. Um, but that's a totally different tangent 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:33:11] and again, I've yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's one that I always no surprise, totally agree with that we have incredible minds that are able to rebuild our narrative and, and, and, uh, I think it's an important, uh, if we can master that, um, it can be an important skill.

Travis Bader: [02:33:29] Yeah. I definitely think so. Do you work towards mastering that 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:33:35] I'm actually going a little bit, the other way at the moment in, in get to put it simply put taking out because, and, and like, uh, someone did something because, well, I don't know the, because there's no way to actually know that because they might say that their motivation was X, Y, or Z, but there's no way to actually verify that, but we can stick.

[02:33:58] I it's a more factual so-and-so yelled at someone like, let's say dad yells at sign. Okay. Well, there's a man making loud noises with his mouth in the presence of this young, young kid that is yelling at his son because, well, there's a. 1,000,001 potential reasons because of some childhood thing. Cause he had a bad day at work.

[02:34:19] Cause the son did something the father thinks deserves rebuke. You can, you can, you can write a story, basically. We're trying to get what I'm saying, get it. Um, I'm trying to eliminate the story, eliminate the narrative as much as, uh, interest as much as practicable. 

Travis Bader: [02:34:37] So you eliminate the story. Yeah. And that, that will help deal with situations as they come up and help help you reframe the situation to a more action reaction.

[02:34:49] And if I didn't like the reaction, then I just change it. Yeah. 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:34:52] I would say response. 

Travis Bader: [02:34:53] Yeah. Okay. Action response. 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:34:56] So example, when I ran as a political candidate, I thought there was someone who I thought was on my team. I thought they would be on my team and I kept making a story that they were trying to undermine me and oh, they're doing this because I invented reasons.

[02:35:09] And later years later, actually I took away this story and just realized, saw it from a completely different point of view. And if I had remained factual and so-and-so is doing such and trying to essentially, I invented a reason, I invented it because to connect the dots. And I think now in hindsight I was wrong.

[02:35:30] And um, by I think the ability to create a story and create a narrative is, is a very powerful thing, but like power, it can be used. For stuff that makes us happy and stuff that makes us miserable. So you got to, it's got it's the power to wield with, with care. 

Travis Bader: [02:35:48] Hm. Yo I, I, a hundred percent believe we create our own lives.

[02:35:53] We are 100% responsible for everything that happens to us. And that's kinda the key to happiness, right? Like if, if everything that's happening to you is because of that, because, because that person's nasty or because the government did this and it ties into firearms owners, right? Because ABC and D you know, it's completely within anyone's power to be able to make that change for themselves.

[02:36:17] Now, whether that's massive political change. So that now firearms owners are permitted to have all these firearms that were no longer, uh, accepted due to the OIC, or I don't know, move to a country where you can have it. I mean, those are very acceptable options. One's going to be a lot easier than the other, but we 100% control everything that happens to us and what we allow to happen to us.

[02:36:41] And sometimes it's difficult. I find to get your head out of the, what you were saying before, sort of the victim mentality, that things are happening because, and sort of elevate it to, to that. So that's 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:36:55] interesting. And I'm again, no surprise are, I'm agreeing with what you're saying. Like it's, it's my, my soul brother here.

[02:37:01] I'm even looking at the it's the two us also. Uh, the, in the victim mindset in the gun community, nice segue by bringing you back to guns, like Trudeau is doing this to us, or the liberals are doing this to us. And I would say that's where the it's those last two words with a victim. And whether you, where you reveal your mic, where the person, the speaker would reveal their victim mindset, so-and-so said such and such or so-and-so is working towards such and such.

[02:37:28] And the beauty of being a human being on this planet at this time is you get to choose your response. So he's not doing it to you. They're not doing it to you. You, they are, they are doing what they are doing and you get to do whatever the heck you 

[02:37:45] Travis Bader: want. That is the ultimate power. Do you know who Victor Frankel is?

[02:37:50] Nicolas Johnson: So the man's search for meaning 

[02:37:52] Travis Bader: you got it. So what happened to him? He was put in concentration camps, friends, and family, all around them or dying under the, uh, uh, Nazi regime and, uh, viewing atrocities everywhere. Right? And he approached this from an analytical perspective and he says, well, why is this person who's been stripped down naked, starved, and beaten and treated poorly?

[02:38:21] Why is. Smiling at the moment, or why is he actually laughing where this person beside them, they can't even get out of their bed. They're so beside themselves, right. They're experiencing the exact same situation, but how is that person finding joy in this otherwise joyless situation? And of course his famous book man's search for meaning and out of all of this stuff that he went through in a very kind of pragmatic, analytical approach of looking at all of these things, he came out saying, you know, what do we actually have that we can affect in our own life?

[02:38:56] And I think his quote was the one thing that you can't take for me is a way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of life's great freedoms is one's ability to choose our own attitude in any given situation or any given circumstance one or the other there. Um, but really at the end of the day, that is the last thing.

[02:39:17] When you are stripped and everything taken from you, and you've got zero control over what you have around you. And this applies to the firearms community. When they start feeling like things are outside the locus of their control, they have the ability and we all have the ability to affect how we choose to respond.

[02:39:38] And it's, it's rather empowering. And I think that's would be one thing that the community could probably as a whole, uh, ponder and look at ways that they can respond, that would benefit. Personally and the community in general. 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:39:57] Yeah. And it's, I didn't realize, I didn't know that quote from, from Franklin. I read that, uh, I think the F it, the first time it must've been high school.

[02:40:05] Um, but it's a remarried, isn't very powerful book and I, yeah, if we cannot always, we can mostly not control our circumstances. We can certainly control our response or shape our response to our circumstances. And this as a, as a new father, I get this every day. Yeah. I got a screaming kid. I can, and I can still be happy.

[02:40:29] Or I got a, I got a kid who woke me up five times last night. I can be, oh, you know, I'm tired and sleepy, or I can, I can still be kind and loving and energetic, even though I didn't sleep much last night. Yeah, totally. 

Travis Bader: [02:40:42] Yeah. People would wake up in the morning. Well, I'm grumpy. Why? Well, because I'm tired and well, cause it's the morning.

[02:40:48] I'm always grumpy in the mornings. Um, and it's not a way to go through like why. Right. I get it. You got, it's hard to break out of these systems and routines that we, we tend to get into, I guess, you know, again, getting off topic a bit, but we, we choose our reality and then we make our reality. So you choose at the end of the day.

[02:41:10] Do you want to be happy? That's a very simple question. Do you want to be happy? And the answer should be. I think for most people. Yes. Not, yes. And or if this happens, it's a simple one. Yes. I'd like to be happy. Are you happy? And then introspectively take a look at that. If the answer's no. Then what is it in your response that you can change an order to be happy about that?

[02:41:41] I don't know how that ties into the gun world, but, um, 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:41:46] I think it ties, I'm going to try, attempt to link here that it ties into what w something that we believe or choose to believe that we choose to be a force for I'll call it good, positive, joy, happiness. We want to be on that side of the equation rather than on the blaming and complaining and whining and that side of the equation.

[02:42:08] Yeah. I think also it's we were part of it is maybe in response to what we see in the gun world that we see. There's a lot of negativity and nastiness, and I'm including myself in that I've been there, done. That probably will again, but I, I like it better when I'm doing the fun, joyful building up. So I think it relates to the gun world by, by both what we, what we are doing as.

[02:42:34] Leaders or, or forces in the gun world and perhaps what, um, we're calling out a little bit, our, our, our colleagues and peers who aren't. 

Travis Bader: [02:42:42] Yeah, I like that. You know, and as well, I guess when you, when you look at the, because the, you were talking about wow, for those taking the firearms, because he doesn't like me feel they're liberals, uh, they're ABCD.

[02:42:59] Well, maybe it's just because they want to get elected again, and they can use this as sort of a divisive platform, so they can paint their opponent into a certain position. And they just think it would be politically advantageous and they could care less about your firearms if you own them or not, because there's more than enough to be able to look at a statistic sheet is same as URI.

[02:43:18] It 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:43:18] could be, it could be simple electoral, electoral politics. It could be nothing to do with principals or, 

Travis Bader: [02:43:25] uh, maybe. But does that change it for people how they want to approach now? Like if they look at it and just say, well, maybe, maybe all the passion that I have against it against them is misplaced where I would rather, like, if they want more votes, there's other ways they can achieve that.

[02:43:41] Maybe we just approach this from a different angle and show them how they can get garner more, more votes. 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:43:47] And that's a really, again, that also hits close to home because for, for several months, maybe even a couple of years around bill C 71, I would look at my own page and it was very. It was like a liberal, every, every headline had liberal or Trudeau or gun ban or something.

[02:44:04] It was like, wait, am I, am I, I spending so much energy criticizing the other team instead of talking about the joys of my team. And he, so I didn't like didn't like that. And I, I don't actually let me rephrase that. I'm looking for a way to, to be that force for positivity. And we have this reality, this political reality, we have this policy reality at the moment.

[02:44:24] How do we, uh, how do I personalize it? How do I be a force for positivity? What's positive here. And I think, I think the clue might be in the mindset in remembering that we have the power to make or break any policy that politicians and regulators, they can do whatever they want. We have the power to say yes or no, because we're the ones like, if we all just say no, well, we break that.

[02:44:54] We break the firearm program overnight. Like it's, it's that easy. Most people say, yes, it really is. If we choose to say no, it's done it collapses. 

Travis Bader: [02:45:05] Yeah. Very good point. Yeah. Just say, no, I like that a lot. You know, there, there are the things that are on the, on the, uh, back of my head that I figured I could throw it, but it's going to take us down yet another tangent.

[02:45:20] And I'm looking at the time, let's end it there. And. Unless there's anything more that you'd like to be able to get out or say, Travis, 

Nicolas Johnson: [02:45:29] the, what I would like to say is in preparing for this, uh, you lit me up and when you're talking about empowering and enabling, those are the kinds of the keywords that I associate with you.

[02:45:42] You, uh, before this interview and in this conversation, it's a bit, it's a huge all over the place. And I find it, um, you've lit me up and you've inspired me. And, uh, I'm looking for like, I'm now looking forward to doing a whole bunch of other stuff. So it's put an absolute treat and I cannot thank you enough, a huge, huge thank you for having initiated this conversation, 

Travis Bader: [02:46:05] Nicholas.

[02:46:06] Likewise, I really enjoyed the conversation. I'm looking forward to future conversations and for the listeners, anyone who's made it this far, please check out the gun blog.ca tons of great content on there. Thank you very much for being on the Silvercore podcast and the gun blog.ca swamped.

Nicolas Johnson: [02:46:24] Thank you, Travis Bader of Silvercore CA top-notch firearms training and for law enforcement individuals check out Silvercore CA.