Christina McKelvy: 0:13

Welcome to Hopology stories of hope, healing and resilience. I'm your host, christina McKelvey. Today we have Sam Knickerbocker. Sam, how are you doing?

Sam Knickerbocker: 0:21

I'm doing super fantastic.

Christina McKelvy: 0:23

Thank you. Oh, my goodness, I need more coffee. That sounds great. I'm glad you're doing well and also, I was not sure, but I don't know, if I butchered your last name or not no, you crushed it name or no, you, you crushed it.

Christina McKelvy: 0:39

It was good, nice, nice. Well, sam, thanks so much for you know, being on my podcast and I did a little research on you and I saw your website and you have your own podcast as well that focuses on legacy and I think that's something that, you know, we don't always necessarily think about, especially here in western society. Know, we're very right here right now, but before we dig into that, tell me a little bit about yourself and you know where you, from A to B, like where you got to where you're at now.

Sam Knickerbocker: 1:08

Yeah, so I grew up in Grantsville, utah, born in Tooele, which is kind of a sister town of Grantsville, or I guess Grantsville is like a sister town of 12, whatever you want to say but um, seventh of 11 kids. So my parents, uh, had moved all over the country. They, when they got married, they moved up to Alaska, had a few kids up there, then Oregon, then they moved all the way over to Philadelphia, had my brother that's just older than me, um, and then they moved back to Utah and that's where the remainder four or five, five of us were born. It was in Utah and at the time I was born I was actually our family was very I mean, just imagine having 11 children at all but financially we were not very well off. My parents didn't really have any consistent work or jobs at that time, and this is the 1993. And my I was actually born in my grandma's living room.

Christina McKelvy: 2:05

So your grandma's living room in my grandma's living room.

Sam Knickerbocker: 2:08

So my dad is a midwife, um, and I think I was the first child that was born at home. The rest of them were born in like birthing centers, to my understanding.

Sam Knickerbocker: 2:18

But, I could be wrong, I wasn't around then. Yeah, in my grandma's living room is where I was born. My family was living kind of inside with my grandma another family as well as kind of living in a trailer out just on the parking pad that was by her house, and that was pretty much the existence growing up. And then when I was maybe six months old, we moved to a house in Grantsville, utah, that was actually condemned due to a faulty foundation. So the people who owned it before we bought it, they tried to build a second story on their house, but it was on a single story foundation and so the city had come in and condemned the house because that's not supposed to happen. So when we bought it we had to go in under one section at a time, dig out underneath the foundation, re-fortify the foundation so we could finish the top story of the house.

Sam Knickerbocker: 3:17

And what's fascinating is that kind of analogy and that experience often happens in our lives, where we try and build something in our life, whether it's a business, a relationship, a family, a faith in any form of religion, whatever it is.

Sam Knickerbocker: 3:33

We build something and we neglect the foundation, because the foundation is the part that gets buried that nobody sees, and so in a world where we're addicted to the approval of others, it's really easy to neglect the groundwork, to neglect the base, the part that is going to be your foundation. And they had done this in that house as well, and so that was kind of how I grew up. This house was like dirt floors, not livable, but we moved into it still and that's how I was raised. It lived there till I was nine. Then we moved up to Idaho and had a little bit nicer of a house up there, a lot of property inside the family when you think of, like low income, all of the traditional issues that would come with that. So anxiety, depression, domestic violence, like things that in an ideal scenario wouldn't be happening, were happening, and so I actually decided when I went to grow up and went to high school not high school we were all homeschooled as well. So that's another whole nother set of questions. If you're curious, we can ask those.

Sam Knickerbocker: 4:42

Um but, uh, when I went to college, I went to college for neuropsychology because I wanted to figure out how could I help families like mine, how could I help children um kind of process through and become well adjusted, through anxiety, depression, um Maybe.

Sam Knickerbocker: 5:00

How could I help somebody figure out how can they get out of an abusive situation if they're uncomfortable there? Another part of my story is that when I was 14 years old, I actually moved out of my house and moved in with my second oldest brother and lived with him and his wife pretty much till I got married or moved out in college. So very independent, was raised, very independent. But I just really wanted to help that demographic of people and so I was doing research. I'm like, okay, let's go to psychology, kind of found that psychology was a study of behavior. So I was like, okay, well, what influences behavior? Then I moved into neuropsychology because I wanted like okay, well, what influences behavior? Then I moved into neuropsychology because I wanted to figure out, well, why is, what's the hard science behind, like behavior and it's brain structure? So I was like, okay, well, what influences how brain gets structured? Like, is a brain being structured differently in Europe than in Africa, than in Asia than versus America, versus Mexico and South America, like what influences brain structure? And so then I ended up getting into a little bit of biochemistry and and found out that a lot of the things that influence our brain structure obviously traumatic experiences have an effect on it, but also, um, the food we eat, the air we breathe, that all of this other stuff that the chemical excited telling your genes how to express.

Sam Knickerbocker: 6:22

And so then I was like well, why is this happening? Why are we experiencing so many more social issues inside of low income households, like that's where the majority of the issues are? We all know rich people with problems like don't get me wrong, but generally when somebody who has resources needs help, then they either have the financial resources to remove themselves from an unhealthy situation or get the help that they need to rectify the situation Right. But somebody who doesn't have the resources necessary to improve their situation, they respond, go back to our crocodile or animalistic brain from evolution and they just they're in a state of fear, and fear turns into anger, anger turns into violence, and violence is either directed outward, towards others, where there's there's domestic violence or there's abuse happening, or it's directed inward, where there's anxiety, depression, self-harm and all of these other issues. So the but it really starts at fear and so, like, how do we help people not fear their reality?

Sam Knickerbocker: 7:28

And so that's really when I shifted my whole focus from neuropsychology and I went into teaching people how money works, because I I felt like I could have a bigger impact through financial education and helping my best to prevent some of the issues that I saw, rather than repair, although we need people doing both right. So it's not like a a good or bad. I think everybody should go to a therapist. I think everybody should go to a counselor. You know, everybody should go make sure that before they get married, they know how how to communicate clearly, like there's a lot of resources out there to get the help and we don't have to just ask what are you?

Sam Knickerbocker: 8:06

scared of and when you you're in therapy you've asked this, I'm sure, to many people like what are you scared of? People who are in an abusive situation they're scared of? If they leave, what are they going to do? How are they going to provide for themselves? How are they going to provide for their children? Right, there's so many divorces happening now with women over the age of 50. Uh, and a lot of that comes from they're raising kids the first half of their life and once their kids are out, they're like I don't have to stay in this anymore. I was staying for my kids, right?

Christina McKelvy: 8:56

And.

Sam Knickerbocker: 8:57

I staying for my kids, Right, and I I'm not a proponent of divorce, but I'm also not against it in that, um, if you teach your children to suffer through life and remain in the situation, is that better? And I think that there's uh would counter both of those arguments, right. So it's like it's undecided still. Which is better to be raised in a home where you witness somebody who doesn't respect themselves, doesn't have confidence and allows themselves to be abused, versus separating and creating clarity like, hey, you don't have to go down this path of abuse, you know. So it's like what's better? Yes, two parent households, statistically, are better for children.

Christina McKelvy: 9:45

Right.

Sam Knickerbocker: 9:46

However, is a two parent household where abuse is happening, better for the child than removing yourself from that situation, healing and maybe creating a different two parent household with more stability, more love, more encouragement, even though it's not with the same parents? And so it's like, yeah, divorce does affect children. Anyways, I'm not an advocate for either side. I just think that it's something that has to be asked Like we have to ask ourselves why are people remaining? Why do people keep eating crappy food for them? Their body right Is it?

Sam Knickerbocker: 10:20

Is it because that's what they enjoy? Or is it because when you go tell them to eat properly, they're going to have to spend two or three times as much on groceries? Okay, Well, I've got four kids. How do I feed four kids healthfully? I can't. So then they choose junk food because. So then that chemically impacts how your brain is structured, it slows down your processes, it slows down the synapse connections and it doesn't create a healthy brain, and so it's like it's not. The reason I went to money is because I think that that's the root cause of most people's um, it's, it's like a what's it called? Like a teeter-totter. Right, it's not necessarily the cause, but it's, it's an inflection point that if we can help somebody gain confidence in their financial life, then they are able then to deal with all the other things. But as long as they're still scared of like I don't know if I'm going to be able to eat tomorrow, it's really hard to process through the rest of life.

Christina McKelvy: 11:21

Yes, it's Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the foundation, as you were talking about before like you need to have that stable foundation. Are there any examples or where you might use your background in neuropsychology and your current work where it kind of melds together, and I know you kind of provided some of those already?

Sam Knickerbocker: 11:41

I would say most of the time.

Sam Knickerbocker: 11:43

Okay so so let's go back. So there's a. There's a scene in the beginning of a bug's life and it's probably one of my favorite scenes that I've ever seen in any movie as far as explaining life. And the very first scene after the two old guys same old guy, but whatever after they're playing chess, then they're collecting food. The ants are walking in a line and this leaf falls in the middle of the line. Okay, now all of these ants are all strong enough that they could combine, move that leaf out of the way. Okay, but they don't. They sit there and they freak out. And then an older ant comes and says hey, it's okay, don't freak out. And then he guides them around the leaf, which makes sense. Right, let's go around the leaf. They could have gone over it. They could have picked it up and moved it. Sure, let's go around it. Whatever, not a big deal. So they find the line again.

Sam Knickerbocker: 12:35

I didn't understand this until during college. I went and sold a pest control and they're like Sam, you're jumping around a lot. I went and sold a pest control and you're like Sam, you're jumping around a lot. Okay, follow me on this. So I went and sold pest control and the I thought the ants cause all the movies. I thought they just looked at where they were going and had eyeballs. Ants actually use their antennas to determine where they're going. Okay, so the lead ant would lay a pheromone scent with their butt and then the other ants if you ever see them they're wiggling because their job is to keep that pheromone scent in between their two antennas. Okay, so that's what it looks like. They're walking crooked and bouncing around because they're following this pheromone scent or they're searching for the pheromone scent.

Sam Knickerbocker: 13:20

So when we have this traumatic experience that falls onto our thought processes or onto the pheromone scent, we have a few options. We can freak the heck out and like I'm lost, I don't know what to do, and then sometimes we go to nice well-meaning therapy and I and I think that there's a time and a place for this. So this is not like a shot at it, but it's just is what it is. Sometimes we get taught to, rather than process the trauma, to go around the trauma because it's a quicker path to not being psychotic, right, like we all, we all choose to eliminate trauma out of our lives or to ignore it, or to forget about it, because your brain's job is to protect you from harm, and if that trauma is harm, your brain does it faster than you think.

Sam Knickerbocker: 14:09

Like I ask people how many defining moments do you think that you have in your life and how long do you think they last Right? So let's say you get injured or somebody gives you a dirty look, how long do you experience the pain of rejection before you start justifying why that person shouldn't have done it or why you are, why they should have done it right, so that the pain of rejection is a microsecond? And then everything after that is justifying. It's our brain saying, explaining to us why it happened. So we can be okay with it. The initial response, though, is a microsecond.

Sam Knickerbocker: 14:49

We probably have only less than 24 hours worth of experiences in our lives that the rest of our life we're spending avoiding those experiences, walking around those experiences, and so, for me, this is why it's so crucial to say how do we address those experiences? How do we get you in a safe enough spot to address those experiences? So when I'm working with somebody and their money, I know that how you use money has nothing to do with money. Money is an inanimate object. It's no different than our cell phone or the computer or a microphone, or our shoes or our socks. However, we are the ones who orient ourselves to money, and that's based on our perspective and our perception. And so when I'm having a conversation with somebody about their goals, their dreams, what do they believe is possible? Why do they not track their money? Okay, if you ask somebody, why are you not tracking your money? Most of them had a traumatic experience when they were three to eight years old and they got shamed for a bad report. They did something that just it didn't look good, and so it was not safe to look at something where they screwed up. And so you have to process that. You have to help somebody understand that you can't progress unless we actually know where you're at. We have to be willing to identify where we are before we can move forward, and that's what I find.

Sam Knickerbocker: 16:16

There's two quotes here that I think when I first share them with people. The first reaction again, which is because we are defensive, the first reaction is to be defensive to it and to blame our problems on somebody else. But um, if you think about it, you are exactly where you are, because that's where you put yourself right. People say, well, I didn't choose this. I didn't choose to have a car hit me. I didn't choose to have the abuse. I didn't choose to whatever, and I'm not.

Sam Knickerbocker: 16:49

I'm not saying that the abuse that you've experienced is your fault. Okay, fault is different than choice, but for me, you didn't actively not choose it right. You were passively going through life, and most people don't actively not choose things. They don't actively put themselves in situations that those are never going to happen. They are putting themselves in situations that are just whatever, and then, when whatever happens, chaos breeds more chaos, and so the first thing to recognize is you are exactly where you are because that's what you've chosen, even if choosing is. When I say you've chosen, you may have not chosen and so you just ended up where you are, but not choosing is still a choice to not be intentional not choosing is still a choice yeah, it's a binary right.

Sam Knickerbocker: 17:40

you're either actively choosing something or you're actively not choosing something like you don't get to have it Like when you deduce it down to like a computer, it's ones and zeros, it's A or B, it's not. There's not like well, there's this gray area, the computer.

Sam Knickerbocker: 17:55

if you try and do gray area, it says not working, broken, right, there's no gray area either on or off, and so we're either choosing or not choosing, and not choosing is still the choice of not choosing. And so when we, when we, think about life that way, it's like the most damning thing we could say is you're exactly where you are, your experiences are exactly as they are because of choices you've made. That doesn't mean everything's your fault, but it's a result of the choices you've made. Like that's just the realities. So, um, with that being said, though, it's also the most hopeful thing in my mind that could be ever be said is, if I'm exactly where I am because of my choices, then that means that I have the power to choose something else.

Christina McKelvy: 18:42

You're giving them the permission to have control over their own Right right Exactly, and most people they don't want control.

Sam Knickerbocker: 18:48

It's so much easier to be a victim of your circumstances. It's so much easier to say well, my mom did this, my dad did this, I had no, I had no chance, I was born in the wrong house, I was born in the wrong zip code, I was born in the wrong body, I was born in what like? It's so much easier to blame your problems on somebody else and I'm not saying that anybody's at fault but at some point we have to recognize that we have the ability to make a different choice. And once we accept that, that responsibility in our life, that we actually have the ability to choose, then the life, then life and the world becomes your blank canvas and you can create whatever you want. You can build whatever you want. You can build your dream life. It doesn't matter how low of a status you came from. You can build your dream life and that's been proven over and over and over and over and over in our world. Yet it's still easier to say no, it's somebody else's fault.

Sam Knickerbocker: 19:50

They had extra help. Helen Keller didn't have a lot of extra help. She couldn't see, she couldn't talk, like there was so many things that she had down, but she still made it possible and there's tons and tons of stories about that like that in our world. So that would be like my belief is and how I help clients is I'm processing not just how their money is. Their money is more of a physical representation of where they're at emotionally, where they're at spiritually and where they're at in a belief and confidence perspective.

Christina McKelvy: 20:41

Curious what that was like for you when you because I'm assuming that you had that defining moment where you're like, oh, I can make a choice, I can have that control. What was that like for you when you first realized that? Um?

Sam Knickerbocker: 20:53

I think it's something that continues to go. I think the first time that I feel like I was very aware of the metacognition nature of that, I because of the enforcer to become the person who replaced my mom's enforcement. Because growing up, my mom was the enforcer, she made sure everything got done. Because in my, in growing up, my mom was the enforcer, she made sure everything got done. Well, I learned at a younger age that if I didn't want to get beat, then I needed to make sure everything got done, and so then I kind of was part of the the abused class in our house and then I switched sides just out of self-preservation and I became the person who was the enforcer. So, yes, not everybody didn't get in trouble by my mom as much, but now I was the one getting in trouble and as as a part of that again I was like 12, 13 years old.

Sam Knickerbocker: 22:09

As a part of that, I kind of became a little dictator in our house to the point that people, my siblings, if I even walked in the room, they were scared, right, just as I was scared when I walked, when we, when my mom walked in the room, you know. So it's like uncertain, you don't know what's going to happen. They're off the handle. So the I had become that role. I didn't realize it because I had kind of a savior complex where I'm like I'm doing this to protect you from this other pain, right. So I thought I was helping my siblings. They didn't interpret it that way, which is fine, I totally get their perspective now. So. So that was all going through and then what happened was I was enforcing my will on one of my well, actually, my brother that's just older than me, and one of my brothers that's two or three people older than me. He had come home from college and he was witnessing what was happening and he's like, yeah, this is not going to happen anymore. So he came, he wrestled me down to the ground, like pin me to the ground and the walls are blue, blue carpet to the restrain me to the point where I really couldn't move. I mean, I could talk but I couldn't move physically. And he held me there for a while and I was confused. I was honestly confused. I was like I'm trying to help you. Why are you not like? Why are you so upset that I'm trying to help you guys? And he said, sam, like, this is how people feel. They feel this restricted emotionally when you walk into a room. And I was like what? Because, again, it's completely counter to what I believed about myself. My self-concept was that I was serving, but the reality was that other people were experiencing me differently, and so once I realized that that was the outcome in my relationship with my family, then I was like oh, that's not what I meant at all. I mean, for me it felt like it happened overnight.

Sam Knickerbocker: 24:06

I'm sure it didn't, I'm sure I was still a little annoying 12, 13-year-old kid, right, and I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, by any stretch of the imagination. But in my mind I switched pretty quickly into I'm not going to ask somebody in my family to do something unless it absolutely needs to be done and I would let them know hey, you can tell me, no, I'm not going to force you to do it, you can say no. If you say no, then I'm going to go do it immediately. Right, to demonstrate. I'm asked, I am being a director of things in the household. I am asking you to do things only because I'm not asking you to do stuff that I've won I'm not willing to do myself and two, that don't need to be done. So if you tell me no, then I'm going to go do it right away so that you see that this needs to be done. Right, it's not like Sam's just trying to have control. I don't care about control, I care about not getting spanked. That's what I care about. So, like, how do we do that?

Sam Knickerbocker: 25:06

So, um, after about three or four months of of changing my methodology, then that's really when, um, my family started responding differently. They were much uh all my siblings at least much more willing to help. They wanted to help. They would ask, hey, what can I do? How can I help? And so I think that was the first time that I really recognized that my behavior um led me to where I was and that I needed to change myself. Not my circumstances around me, but I needed to change myself. And that was a big awakening that, like I put myself in this situation and also I can create a different situation with more intention.

Christina McKelvy: 25:55

So with more intention. So, okay, it sounds like also that you had a lot of responsibility. You know you're talking about. You know wanting your siblings to do these tasks, and you were 13. You know that you took over the role of your mom in a way.

Sam Knickerbocker: 26:12

I think that I don't know that. I guess it depends on your definition of had a lot of responsibility. I think I claimed a lot of accountability and I would consider that different. So in my mind, again this goes back to kind of maybe my concept of whether I'm a victim or not and again, this is Sam's words, so you can go look it up in your own dictionary and determine what you believe or not. But if you invert the words responsibility to the ability to respond, or accountability or the ability to account, then you really start to think about life differently, right? Because if you have the ability to respond, response requires stimulus, and so if you're stuck in a state of responsibility, then in my mind you're just stuck in a perpetual victimhood. You're stuck being a victim of what somebody else and some people say well, it's not a victim, they're helping me, whatever you want to call it, dude, I don't care, but in my mind you're not proactive.

Sam Knickerbocker: 27:22

If you are responsive, you're not proactive. That doesn't mean that being responsive is bad. I'm not demonizing or villainizing being responsive, but thinking that responsive is a extremely positive creative trait I don't agree with. I think that if you're responsive to your environment trait I don't agree with. I think that if you're responsive to your environment, then you're probably just a victim to your environment, unless you recognize the environment's acting a certain way, and then you are accountable to the feedback. You're accountable to the reactions and then you create something else. But if you're not actively creating and accounting for the feedback, then you're just a victim of your circumstances. So if you're spending your whole life avoiding debt, or you're spending your whole life avoiding making money or avoiding work or avoiding bad relationships or whatever, you're just spending your life in an avoidance mechanism and cycle and that's just victimhood and everything's going to be somebody else's fault. Because anytime something doesn't work out, then you avoid rather than identify, inspect, find out what didn't work out the way you want it to, and then actively create and account for the discrepancy and then move forward towards your creation. And so that's why I wouldn't consider myself having a lot of responsibility as much as I chose to be, because I have 11 siblings right, nobody else in the house. When my mom would beat us, we would all still do what we needed to do.

Sam Knickerbocker: 28:48

So that's like we can all be responsible, but being accountable, who's going to choose to start accounting for these variables and say okay, how do we minimize the impact of these variables? They're there, we can't like. We live here, it is what it is. Okay, how do we, how do we minimize the impact of these unknown variables and start accounting for that? Like, you don't know how much you're going to spend on gas every month, but you can have a budget for how much you're going to spend on gas every month. But you can have a budget for how much you're going to spend and start tracking it. So you have an idea. Okay, I never spend more than $95 a month on gas. Great, now we know that we need to at least put away $95 a month for gas. Now, if you only spend 81 months, that's a win. But if you go spend 150 and your budget's 90, that's not going to add up at the end of the day.

Sam Knickerbocker: 29:36

And you got to adjust. You got to start telling your friends that you can't go out. You got to start doing things differently, because you can't overspend that way forever. And it's the same way with your emotions and your, your relationships. You can't overspend in your emotions and your relationships forever. You're going to break and it's not going to last. Like, you have to be accountable to your reality at some point at least I believe you do and so I do believe that I claimed a lot of accountability, um, for my life at a young age, um, and I don't know if that was like my parents had a very specific goal when they got when, when they started having kids.

Sam Knickerbocker: 30:16

And it was that we would be by the age of 14, be independent enough that if they had, if they died or something, we'd be able to take care of ourselves and provide value and work in the economy. And so there was high expectations of us and they did a very good job at raising 11 children with that mentality and that high work ethic. And so when I was 11 and I actually started working full-time at a honey extracting plant when I was 11 years old and so and it wasn't like my parents forced me to do it they gave me an option. I said you can keep doing homework, because we were homeschooled, or you can go get a full-time job. And I was like I hate doing homework, that's the last thing in the world I want to do. So I went and got a full-time job but, like at that age, I was given choice and I chose to make choices, um, based on what I wanted rather than what probably my parents would have preferred, but who knows? I mean I think they wanted me to be successful either way.

Christina McKelvy: 31:14

So I think this might be a good transition, real quick, into talking about what legacy means to you. You know, and you know why that's such an important topic for you that you share with others. You know about creating their legacy.

Sam Knickerbocker: 31:44

Yeah. So I think it stems from maybe all stems from really my core belief that I'm a creator and that my, my purpose on this earth is to to use whatever gifts and talents I was, uh, given to create something like. So that's like my core, foundational belief that the next on top of that would be that I believe that everybody not just me, like I'm not some God or anything, but everybody deserves to be remembered, like we all have some gift in our life. That if we were really to shed the fear and insecurity of what other people think about us and the addiction to the approval of others, if we were able to shed that and live in who we feel we were meant to be, I believe that there's so many hidden gifts and talents that are worth being remembered. And so, as a result of worth being remembered, I think your legacy is how you are remembered.

Sam Knickerbocker: 32:39

Now some people they aren't remembered because they didn't do anything of consequence, right? So that's also your legacy is, you didn't get remembered. But something you mentioned at the very beginning of the podcast is in the Western cultures it's very much here now immediacy, immediate gratification, what can we next? And in Eastern cultures they've really done a very good job at sharing, whether it's genealogy or understanding the history of a country or the history of a family. And, hey look, we have certain core values that have been here since 2000 years ago and it's still important that you do that. And it's there's this honor to the bigger vision, there's this honor to the legacy or the dynasty of a family or a country or a community more than oneself, and they they very much so in the Eastern cultures are not focused on self, but focused on the overall story.

Christina McKelvy: 33:41

The collective.

Sam Knickerbocker: 33:42

Yeah, the collective, and I think that we can all benefit from that, not to lose our individuality or say, well, it doesn't matter, because I'm just a little blip on the storyline of this. But what if you were to progress the legacy that has been handed down already, like learn about your grandparents, learn about your parents, learn about why they did what they did, find what you want to be a through path for and carry that on Like. I love the fact, uh, even all the things that happened in my childhood. I'm so grateful for all of my childhood the goods, the goods, the bads, everything. I'm grateful that it produced me. I'm grateful that they cared enough to help me learn to read, write, do math. I'm grateful that they cared enough to learn to teach me how to work hard and character, be honest, have integrity, do the things you say you're going to do, and so passing those on to the next generation. I love for it not to start with me and not to end with me, but for it to be a through line. Of like, when I meet a knickerbocker, this is what their experience of a knickerbocker is whether it's my parents, whether it's me, or whether it's my children or my grandparents, it's all like man.

Sam Knickerbocker: 34:52

I remember meeting a knickerbocker. They were the hardest working, honest, direct, upfront people I've ever met with. We need more of them working with us. So now there's this duty to the family name of what you're going to be, who you're going to be. There's a duty to the legacy, and it happens in corporate culture all the time. Where a CEO comes into Disney or comes into Chase Bank or comes into A1 Garage, it doesn't matter, right? They come into these companies and they have to be able to manage and further the mission of the company over furthering their own personal mission. They can get accolades while they're there and that's why they're hired, but we really want them to further the company, the brand and most of the biggest companies you know today. You see them in the grocery stores, you see them on cars, everything. They're all the last names of people.

Christina McKelvy: 35:50

That's true, yeah.

Sam Knickerbocker: 35:52

And so when you think about that, it's like man, what am I building with my last name? What am I building that's going to be around because of what somebody stood for. And so that's where I think you're worth being remembered, Not necessarily how much money you made or what you did with the money or any of that. I mean. Sure, I think we all could be wealthier and I support that and I'd encourage that.

Christina McKelvy: 36:16

Go get as much money as you can.

Sam Knickerbocker: 36:18

Don't be poor, right? I'm not saying that, but the only reason to get money is to do something positive with it and to make a change. So how are you going to be remembered? So that's really where I would put legacy at.

Christina McKelvy: 36:31

How are you going to be remembered? Yeah, I like what you mentioned. What am I building with my last name? That's pretty powerful there. Well, you know, sam, I feel that you know hope, like you mentioned earlier. That hope, it's very hopeful to. I wrote it down. I don't even know where I put it, but you know there's a lot of hope in what you're teaching others about legacy, about having that foundation. So I'm going to turn it back to you as and I asked this question to everybody that's on my show what gives you hope, what brings you hope?

Sam Knickerbocker: 37:10

Yeah. So for me, the thing that gives me hope is the first. It's Jesus Christ. Right, for me. I'm I'm a believer in Jesus Christ and I believe that his example uh had the ability to teach the world that we can create our own path, that we can um overcome all of our things, our inadequacies, all the things that we believe are um the things that hold us back, that we don't have to allow those to hold us back, that we can emotionally, spiritually, physically shed those um things and um move forward and not let them drag us down. So that would be my first thing is like Jesus Christ gives me hope. Second thing would just be my own personal experiences of being a creator. I've experienced creation enough that I am hopeful that I will continue to be able to learn to create bigger and better, more meaningful, helpful, world-serving things.

Sam Knickerbocker: 38:18

As I progress in my mastery of creation and because I see other people doing it, then I think, like, for me, that gives me hope. I will eventually figure it out. I'm not perfect at this. I would say I have an understanding of it, but I certainly am not like a master of it yet. I understand basically how a car works, but I don't know how to create a car you know. So it's like there's the difference between understanding something and being having it become your habitual routine to be implementing and so. But it gives me hope to see other people succeed, because that means I can also succeed. I don't have to be stuck in my trauma. I don't have to be stuck in my past, because if one person can get past it, then I choose to believe that everybody can get past it if one person can get past it, everyone can.

Christina McKelvy: 39:16

Yeah, and it's really inspiring seeing other people succeed too.

Sam Knickerbocker: 39:20

It can be really motivating right, like in my book, the nine pillars to build a meaningful legacy. In that book, the first two, like, there's basically nine reasons why somebody would do something, or nine demographics of people that your example could set a good example for, and the first one is for your haters. Right, the first reason in my mind to go do go build a legacy is for your haters, because your haters are people generally that don't believe anybody can do it. Most of the haters aren't people who believe that they could do it and you can't. Most of the haters are people who don't believe that your goals are even possible, that your dreams can be achieved. They just don't believe anybody can do it.

Sam Knickerbocker: 40:08

And so you going and winning. Actually, it's like you walking around that leaf, it's you showing them the path of okay, it's possible. Okay, it's possible. That's the cool part it's possible. So the first reason I think for you to go build a meaningful legacy is to demonstrate to the people around you who have lost hope that it's possible. That's the first reason. The second reason and this demographic is almost more dangerous to themselves than the haters the haters are very, again, when we're talking about the fear and then the anger and then the violence. Where does that go? The first haters that vitriol, that anger is going outward. They're the ones trying to tear you down. Those are the crabs that are trying to keep you in the barrel. But the second group is your believers, all the people who are going to cheer you on the sidelines. They're going to be excited for you. They're going to believe that you can do it, but not me.

Christina McKelvy: 41:03

Okay.

Sam Knickerbocker: 41:05

And that's even worse because those people, they believe that it can be done, but they've resigned themselves to not chasing their dreams. They've said, oh, you can get your dreams, but I can't. And this is what most parents teach their children I've got to go work, a job, but you can dream about being whatever you want. And Ed Milet he says this is probably one of the biggest forms of child abuse in our country is parents not going for their dreams, because it's teaching the next child, the next generation. You shouldn't go for your dreams either.

Sam Knickerbocker: 41:38

And then we lose innovation as a country, we lose innovation as a world, because we have tons of people resigning themselves, selling out and saying I don't have hope anymore, I'm just going to exist until I die. Hopefully it's like man. Life doesn't have to be that miserable. Life is exciting. There's so many cool things out there, and so those are the first two reasons why I believe it's it's our duty to build a meaningful legacy first to be an example and give hope to the haters, and then also to be an example to the believers who have chosen out of creating. And so, um, if we can keep focused on that, I think we've got a great track record ahead of us.

Christina McKelvy: 42:20

And you mentioned that is in your book. What's the title of your book?

Sam Knickerbocker: 42:25

Fuel your Legacy the Nine Pillars to Build a Meaningful Legacy and you can get it on Amazon or on my website, samknickerbachercom.

Christina McKelvy: 42:34

And where else can our audience find you?

Sam Knickerbocker: 42:37

samknickerbockercom you can find me and I have links to all my social medias. My podcast, the Fuel, your Legacy show. That podcast is really focused on interviewing people and learning about what questions did they ask themselves that drove them to their success in any area? Maybe they asked themselves a question and they became a successful mother, successful father, a successful husband, successful wife, like, success is not defined financially. For me, it's just like what did you set a goal out? You asked yourself a question, you decided where you were headed as a result of the answer to that question and you went and got it. Like that's success to me, um, and so it just goes to anybody, and there's lots of different people on there, lots of different characters, but I love interviewing people and so that's. There's a link on there on my website, samknickerbachercom, and then all my socials are linked to samknickerbachercom as well.

Christina McKelvy: 43:32

Thank you, and we'll all have those in the show notes, you know, for people to access easily. Well, sam, it was a pleasure interviewing you and learning about your story and what and how it shaped you. You know how it shaped where you are today and you know choosing to educate people about. You know how to have a powerful legacy, and I said build for your haters I love that, you know and also for your believers. So, thank you so much for being here and, yeah, I just continue to hope that you have a wonderful legacy yourself.

Sam Knickerbocker: 44:04

Yeah, awesome, hey. Thank you so much, christina. I'm grateful that I was able to hop on here and add value to those who listen.

Christina McKelvy: 44:10

Thank you.