Episode 1
· 29:15
Well, good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to all of you. My name
William Hocking:is Bill Hocking, and welcome to the one, the only Bill Hocking Podcast. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, avid fans. Welcome again to the wild world of the William Hocking Podcast brought to you each week by podcaststhatmatter.org and podcastmatter.com. Today's podcast is going to focus on a key tenet in our ongoing series that focuses on what does it mean to live a life worth living? And today's tenet is friendship.
William Hocking:Our guest is someone I've known for fifty two years. Think about it, fifty two years. Yeah, that makes me a little old. And his name is David Stutzman, you can call him Dave. And we'll be talking about some of the things that we've done during those fifty two years that have kept our friendship vibrant, alive and well.
William Hocking:Yes, we've had our ups and we certainly had our downs, but one key thing that's kept us going is our mutual respect for one another and what matters to friendships anywhere, and that is love for each other and just the whole notion of having fun. So let's please give a warm welcome to Dave. Here he is. I know you've all been looking forward to this first session ever with great eagerness. And for this very first session, I thought we would expose you and submit to you a little bit about our thoughts about friendship.
William Hocking:So, appropriately, I have as our guest here for this very first podcast an old old friend, a very dear old friend of fifty two plus years, Dave Stutzman. And we're gonna talk a little bit and just have a conversation. So the rules of these podcasts are the same no matter who's on board or who's being interviewed or who's talking, and that is one, to be authentic. Just be yourself. And two, rule number two is see rule number one.
William Hocking:So, Dave, welcome to the podcast. Appreciate you making some time this morning. Why don't you share with our audience here a little
Dave Stutzman:bit about yourself and what friendship means to you? Well, good morning, Bill. Thank you for having me on the initial podcast. As Bill mentioned, I've known Bill for going over fifty years now. We met in college and we have retained that friendship over fifty years.
Dave Stutzman:So that says something in itself. Our paths have diverged from time to time, but we've always have remained friends. We have our fair share of escapades No doubt. That all friends do over time and which will not be talked about here.
William Hocking:But Those are HR violations, ladies and gentlemen. So continue, please.
Dave Stutzman:Yes. So we've known each other for some time. And now in our senior years, we are now both retired somewhat and we still visit each other, but we talk on daily basis almost. It's a friendship that's gonna, it's gonna last for the ages.
William Hocking:There you go. So Dave is from the Washington DC area, the greater Washington DC area. For those of you who did not skip geography class that day, you may know of Laurel, Maryland, the infamous Laurel, Maryland. So Dave hails from Laurel, went to University of Maryland, as did myself, and I happen to hail from Silver Spring, Maryland. And as he so eloquently said, we met fifty two years plus ago on a very fateful day in late August nineteen seventy three at the University of Maryland's world infamous student union building.
William Hocking:And the rest, as they say, is infamous or history or something like that.
Dave Stutzman:Yes. And that and that day is etched in our brains ever since that day. Well, we both we both remember that day quite well. Let's just say, I think I remember a little bit more than you do because of other activities that happened
William Hocking:during the day. So given that this is a friendship and not an antagonistic relationship, do I have your permission to give a rated g version of that first infamous meeting?
Dave Stutzman:Yes. Why not? It may, may provide, some humor. People may enjoy that if we see that they actually see this podcast, but it's probably no different than other stories of people meeting for the first time. And and those memories live in our brain cells, the ones we still have left.
William Hocking:That's a good point. The ones we still have left. And I, you know, I submit, and I think brother Dave here would agree, avid fans, that the more we revisit these memories, the more we relish and giggle at these memories, the better our brain cells are because we're on a continuous basis pulling them out of the ether so to speak and giving them the light of proverbial day. So on that particular fateful day, day one of my college career was a Monday, I can't remember the exact date in August, but it was the first Monday of a new school year. Student Union Building, for those of you not familiar with University of Maryland, is a basic gathering place for people.
William Hocking:One of many buildings there on campus in College Park, Maryland. So in to that building at roughly 08:00 in the morning walks this young freshman excited about the world ahead of him as a freshman at the University of Maryland after twelve years of the Catholic prison system, abuse and everything that goes with it from nuns to priests to brothers, etcetera. And now he's in a world where there are actually public school, first time ever public school, 1973 after twelve years of Catholic School. Walk in the Student Union Building, immediately start looking like many of you would, probably did, for people that he knows. Student Union Building is packed.
William Hocking:It's day one of the new school year, filled with long haired hippie radicals and other people of the day, because back then we were still wearing our hair long, weren't we? And happened to walk in that particular morning, saw some familiar faces and sat down, kind of a gathering place, having coffee, breakfast, whatever before our classes were to start. So I'm sitting there with a gentleman named Tommy, won't mention his last name, and a couple other people from high school, a guy named Jeff, won't mention his last name, and in walks this guy and talk about images burned in your memory banks. Now keep in mind this is University of Maryland College Park and it's late summer. It's hot.
William Hocking:It was already hot, you know, that particular morning, probably mid seventies, humid, typical August weather. So most of us were wearing shorts, t shirts, whatever. Certainly weren't dressed to kill. Right? And looks at her at this table, having coffee, chatting, and in walks this guy.
William Hocking:And it's one of these things where you just never forget certain images in your life. So this guy walks in. He has a tie dyed shirt. For those of you who not familiar with that, they used to call them Grateful Dead shirts, just a shirt with a whole bunch of colors on it. Have no clue where he got it.
William Hocking:He's got a pair of shorts that probably had seen better days, like most of our shorts, pair of sandals, so called stubby legs like most of us, and long hair down past his shoulders, dark hair, Fu Manchu mustache like this. Definitely not like this. I mean full dark Fu Manchu mustache. This is a little bit of shaved. Again, long hair down to the shoulders, no glasses, and he's got one, two books, and a Frisbee.
William Hocking:And looking at this guy going and I look over Tommy over here to my right and go, check out this wild man. First day of school when he's got a couple of books. In the meantime, I've got a stack of books. What do I know? I'm just a lowly freshman.
William Hocking:He's got two books and a Frisbee. And he comes walking over. He says hello to a few of the crowd. He obviously knows him. Maybe he's been around for a while, and he sits down at the table.
William Hocking:Looks at Tommy. Apparently, knows Tommy. He's met Tommy. Looks at me and goes, what's happening? That's my first introduction to mister Dave Stutzman.
William Hocking:And I noticed that the guy has got you know, he's he's smiling, and he's smiling for a lot of reasons. And thinking, okay. Well, he's in a good mood this particular morning. So after he says, what's happening? I said, what's happening with you?
William Hocking:And then at that point, we just start talking. And after a few minutes of pleasantries, he gets up. And I said, you heading to your first class? And he looks at me, and he smiles even broader and goes, no. I says, where are you off to then?
William Hocking:And he goes, I'm just going out to the mall. The the mall was an open area, and he picks up his Frisbee, he holds it up, and goes, gotta get my practice in.
Dave Stutzman:I'm
William Hocking:like, okay. I'll see you And so instead of going to class, he's going out to play Frisbee. So, anyway, I go to my first class. After class, probably, what, 10:00 in the morning, I'm walking across the mall. I look over and I see this Frisbee coming at me.
William Hocking:It almost hits me in the head. Good shot. And there is this guy, Dave, in the distance waving at me like, what are you doing? Go get the Frisbee. So I went and got the Frisbee and threw the Frisbee back and we started throwing the Frisbee.
William Hocking:And as I say, the rest is history. Care to comment on that brother Dave?
Dave Stutzman:Well, yes, there are some things that have been left out of that story, which are probably not to be, don't need to be told. However, in my defense, you know, as people who have been to college, it's not like high school where you have classes all day long. You have several subjects, several, you know, several different classes that you go to. You may have a class at 09:00 may not have another class at 03:00. It's not nonstop.
Dave Stutzman:Right. So therefore the two book, you know, the two book minimum is for just for a prop, but you never know whether I needed them or I didn't, or maybe I was studying who knows, but just the fact that I went to the mall did not mean I was, you know, missing a class. I just didn't have a class at that time.
William Hocking:Okay, avid fans, I'm gonna pivot for a second and talk about Books That Matter. Now, if you are like me, if any of you are like me, and in some ways I hope that you're not, you know that for a long time you've had story inside of you, a book that's been yearning to get out, a tale to tell. And in your case, that if it did get out, it would help increase your business, increase the impact that you want or that you need to make to the world around you. Well, Books That Matter is a solution for you. I'm gonna give you three scenarios.
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William Hocking:Thanks. Or if you had a class at that time on day one, it didn't mean as much to you as getting that frisbee action going. Well, not well. That's a possibility. Fact
Dave Stutzman:of the matter is the first if it's one of the first days of the calendar year for school, the chances of skipping a class the first day are are probably pretty slim. So Well, avid fans Not that I remember the exact details, but I I would submit that I didn't skip a class and I didn't have a class at that particular time.
William Hocking:Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Let's assume that he's authentic and telling the truth as he remembers it because only he knows whether he had a class or not. And at this point in his life, he probably doesn't remember if he did it or not.
Dave Stutzman:That is a fair, a fair assumption. I do not remember, but just, you know, my recollection is I did not skip a class, specifically not the first day of school.
William Hocking:Okay. So at any rate, this friendship started literally from that morning and it's lasted through today. And it was most of you who watch podcasts or even for those of you who don't, I would submit to you we would submit to you that friendships are the core of what living a life worth living is all about. If you don't have friendships in your life, I'd say most people would submit that your life is emptier versus more full. And so, you know, a lot of people have friendships, I think, on and off during their lives, but how many of them keep those friendships intact, grow them, value them?
William Hocking:Friendships like other relationships, marriage, whatever, they take work. You know, you don't necessarily develop a friendship and just assume that it's going to continue because as Dave mentioned, there's bumps, there's challenges, people go in different directions. You you live your lives as you proactively try to live them, strive to live them, in some cases you let things just happen. But friendships are things that you arguably work at or should work at, and I think we would submit to you, the audience, that it's worth working at, because if they can last for fifty two plus years, there's something there. Obviously quite a bit there.
Dave Stutzman:Yeah, I agree, and I would also add to that, that as Bill mentioned, we have bumps in the road, our paths, you know, go in different directions over the, over the, you know, the span of our lives, but we do not let petty things interfere with the, with the bigger friendship. We've had disagreements on things and, and we've actually had enough, you know, a couple of disagreements where we decided we're not going to talk to each other for a few weeks and that's okay. That doesn't mean, you know, we're, we're just cutting off the relationship entirely. It doesn't work that way. As Bill says, you get this all this time invested in this, something a petty disagreement is not a sufficient reason to cut off a friendship.
Dave Stutzman:It has to be substantially bigger. And life, almost a life altering situation where, okay, I can't deal with this guy anymore. I'm done. But it'd have to be, you know, life altering. So you don't let petty things get in your way.
Dave Stutzman:You move on, especially in this day, this day and age of politics and
William Hocking:other social, you know, situations that obviously bring out our opinions on various subjects. So can't let that interfere. Okay. We're gonna switch gears for a minute, and I'm gonna ask all of you a basic question. Are you a business owner, a leader, or an entrepreneur that's looking for more support?
William Hocking:Well just imagine how fantastic it would be if you had an easy way to engage with a vision and thought leader acceleration partner. We have a solution and it's called geniusdiscovery.org. And what this organization does basically is it acts as a one on one incubation platform for you to help accelerate your vision to the market. Geniusdiscovery.org will help you to craft an approach to bring your unique impact to the market. It also offers tools and thought leader assets to help you finalize your vision for your business, help increase your capabilities and your business impact and bottom line, and create podcasts like this one.
William Hocking:So if you're an expert and you're ready to be that thought leader that you know yourself to be, check out geniusdiscovery.org. Thanks. Very well said. I mean, unfortunately, I think all of us know of people who, unfortunately for them, do let things get in the way of their friendships, perhaps politics especially, which could be and probably will be the subject of another podcast. Because if anything is prevalent in today's society, it's the impact of politics.
William Hocking:The impact that politics has and will probably continue to have on people's lives in both positive as well as negative ways. So as it relates to friendships, and since this is our first podcast, we're going to wrap this up. Politics has, especially in the last four to eight years, ten years, etcetera, has had an interesting way of creeping into our lives in incredible ways, not all of them positive. So perhaps we'll table this for now and revisit the subject of politics and friendship and its impact on friendships for another time?
Dave Stutzman:Well, I I would be content with not talking about politics at all, but certainly not in this form on this format. Right. I mean, it's risky. Certainly enough, there's certainly enough topics to talk about. Right.
Dave Stutzman:Politics, politics have become so polarizing. I don't really want, I don't want to go down that road. Okay. I mean, I obviously bill and I know our individual politics and that's not an issue, but if this going out for publication or other people are going to see this, we don't need to, to open up that can of worms. So I'd be happy if I'm a, if I ever get invited on as a guest again, we don't need to talk about politics.
Dave Stutzman:We don't. We can talk we can talk about football. We can talk about golf. We can talk about or significant others, we can talk about
William Hocking:wildness. Could talk about them. We could talk about music. We could talk about a lot of things given fifty two years of history. And yeah, we could absolutely not touch politics because there's such a plethora of other things to talk about.
Dave Stutzman:Exactly. At least for me, I have no need to feel we have to go down that road of politics. Right. Okay.
William Hocking:And since this is a friendship based on, among other things, respect for the other person, we will respect that. Even though I'll probably try to convince him otherwise at another time that, you know, like is typical of what I try to do. But for now, we'll table it. And thank you, mister Dave, for spending your few minutes this morning. Obviously appreciate it.
William Hocking:And I'm guaranteeing you'll have another opportunity to share some of your amazing insights with our audience.
Dave Stutzman:And knowledge. And knowledge. And is, you know, just to put a little bit of humor on this. I've been for all these years, I've been trying to teach you the ways of the and, you know, you are the younger, the two of us. And so I'm proud of it.
Dave Stutzman:You're still the grasshopper.
William Hocking:A grasshopper. Okay. We've been relegated to the role of insects at this point in our relationship. And needless to say avid fans now, there's going to be barbs back and forth between he and I or myself and whomever because humor is one of the spices of life. Neither one of us has been known to hold back when it comes to skewering the other person in a fun and pleasant way.
William Hocking:That's the thing we can wrap on this is that if you have a real friendship based on trust and respect, you can skewer the other person without them feeling incensed or upset. And the only thing you've got to be able to do if you can dish it is to take it. And he definitely can dish it. And I know I can take it. And it's just one
Dave Stutzman:thing And to vice versa. And what is interesting avid fans out there is just for a change of pace. We do on occasion decide that that particular day would be a nad day. And it may be something other folks out there may want to consider. We have, we'll determine this day as a NADAD, which stands for no abuse day.
Dave Stutzman:So it means that we don't skewer each other. And although we try hard, sometimes it doesn't work out, but we try to not be too cynical or condescending or whatever adjective and adverb you want to use, but we try to be pleasant.
William Hocking:Try and usually end up being pleasant. You know, there's definitely lines that you shouldn't cross as friends. So if it's an ad and it usually is then, you know, we may approach that belt area, but we never cross it.
Dave Stutzman:And of course, when we think we're getting ready to cross it, we say, I would say this, but it's a nad day. And so I don't say it.
William Hocking:Keep the
Dave Stutzman:talk to myself.
William Hocking:Alright, Dave. We'll let you go. Thanks again for your time. And I appreciate you. Always, always have.
William Hocking:Absolutely.
Dave Stutzman:Well, it's been fun. We'll just do it again.
William Hocking:There you go. God bless. Talk soon. Later. Well, there you have it, avid fans.
William Hocking:Another podcast in the books. This one with the one and only living legend himself, David Eugene Stutzman, my old great buddy of fifty three years. We were talking about friendships and to me, it was a fantastic experience. I hope you guys agree, listening to this, that friendships are critical and what makes friendships critical in life is the effort, the work, the focus, the dedication and the loyalty that it takes to keep those friendships alive, breathing, thriving, etc. We talked about a lot of things relative to friendships.
William Hocking:Over fifty three years, you're gonna have a lot of memories and a lot of moments, and one of the things we talked about is that shame on any of you if you allow a really solid long term friendship to get destroyed or broken up because of a difference of opinion of something, perhaps it's a change in political views, or it happens to be the presence of someone of the opposite sex or whatever that gets in the way of your friendship should never allow that to happen. We talked about that to some extent. And we talked about the fact that friendships are gonna have highs and they're gonna have lows. You're gonna have differences of opinion because you're different people. But the basic tenet of friendship is trust in each other, being loyal to one another, having things in common that you enjoy with each other, and that you should never strive to do anything to disrupt that.
William Hocking:So Dave's been my friend for fifty three years and if we're lucky enough to live fifty three more, I fully intend to be his friend that many years in the future. Hope you enjoyed your time listening to us talk about friendships and I fully intend to get him back on the air in the near future. One of our topics that we'd like to talk about is about kids, how they're different today than what maybe they were when we were actually kids ourselves. So that's a topic that you all as avid fans can look forward to in our next podcast, is talking about kids. So until then, I hope you enjoyed your time with us today and give a proverbial shout out to David Eugene Stutzman for his time and until next time, we appreciate you, appreciate you listening and as Plutarch said in April, don't look down unless you drop something.
William Hocking:Thanks for listening. Okay, avid fans. Before we say, au revoir, we bid all of you a fine adieu. I wanna give a big shout out to the scary smart people at Podcasts That Matter. Now if I was you, I wouldn't walk.
William Hocking:I would run and check them out. Podcasts That Matter at podcaststhatmatter.org. The link is in the show notes. Thanks again. Well, avid fans, as they say in LA, that's a wrap.
William Hocking:Thank you so much for listening to today's conversation. We hope you enjoyed it, and we hope that you learned something that perhaps there was a few pearls of wisdom that you took away from today's conversation. Thanks again, and until next time. God bless.
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