Rolando opens the video with casual greetings, mentions music, and asks viewers to rate their day on a 1–10 scale. He prompts reflection on what it would take to move up a point and transitions into the main story.
Rolando opens the video with casual greetings, mentions music, and asks viewers to rate their day on a 1–10 scale. He prompts reflection on what it would take to move up a point and transitions into the main story.
He recounts walking with a campaigner across Minnesota, the experience of being offline, and meeting an older man named Chip who invited them into his tranquil blueberry-picking spot. The chapter focuses on the encounter, sharing blueberries, and the quiet setting.
Rolando reflects on how busy lives can obscure small restorative moments and uses Chip as a reminder to intentionally create silence and rest. He suggests being disciplined about carving out peaceful time and encourages sharing that space with others.
He asks viewers to identify what a peaceful, safe space looks like for them and to think of someone to share it with, emphasizing connection without added stress. The video ends with a brief sign-off and invitation to return next week.
Cadre, Cadre, Cadre fam. What's up, what's up? Rolando here. Coach Rowe, Rose 612, locking in. It is Tuesday and one of my favorite songs, a variation of the song, Sweet Disposition is playing right now. Absolute banger, right? I love house music. There's so many renditions of it when it comes to house music. Anyway, let me take these glasses off because I feel like that's doing too much. Anyways, good morning, good morning, hope all is well on the other end of this phone. How are you guys doing today?
I like to ask myself every day, where am I at? On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being it's the best day ever, hands down, and one being like, you know what? I'm not getting out of bed today. Because we all have those days. We all have both, right? So I am, I'm at a strong 8 and a half, 8. And I think a bite to eat would get me to that 10 mark. So I need to do that. So I challenge you, where are you at today? Identify that number, drop in the chat if you feel comfortable. And then ask yourself, what would it take to get to that next level?
What would it take? If you're at a 7, what's it gonna take to get you to that 8? All right, now that we got our check-ins out of the way, All right, so last week I had the honor and the pleasure of going on a bit of a journey with Jason Lennox, another contributor on CADRE, and got to go on the youth mental health walk. He's campaigning to raise mental health awareness, doing it via walking around the entire state of Minnesota. And I got a chance to go in. I shared a little bit last week, but there was a lot of moments, too many to even capture in a 15 minute window here, right?
So many moments to be able to unplug, step away, walk with a purpose, get a lot of time out there where there wasn't no service. And when there's no service, some people freak out, but for me, I get excited. I'm like, yes, I get to be alone with myself in the wild, right? And that's just where my brain starts clicking into gear, right? A lot of moments like that, right? But there was one moment I want to share with you guys today. We're walking. The weather was decent. And there was about a good couple mile stretch where there was a lot of deer flies.
There was no service, there was no houses, there was no traffic. It was just nothing, just open roads, wilderness, and a dirt road, right? So you wouldn't think to see anybody or anything like that. All of a sudden, we're walking and came across a guy. And he's sitting off the side of the road. He's sitting there doing something. And we're like, when I approach the scene, I'm like, what's going on here? Anyways, turns out there was this guy, his name was Chip. Love the name too, Chip. Everyone knows a Chip, right?
Chip, older gentleman, probably in his 50s. And he's sitting there and what he's doing is picking wild blueberries. In the wild, no cell phone service, no cars, no music, nothing, just him, the bucket, and picking blueberries. And we got to talking about mental health and what that looks like, what we're doing out on the walk. And Chip encouraged the conversation. He entertained it, right? He talked to us, shared some thoughts about mental health and the youth and things like that. But what he did is he invited us into that space, right?
This was his safe space. This was a space that he created a location that he found and picked wild blueberries. And he was like, you want to try them? I was like, I'd love to try them. So I went, tried some wild blueberries, first time for me being a city boy. And I loved it. And I'm like, all right, I'm trying to get out of here before the bears come. He was like, you know what? I've had a good spot down the road and I was trying to get out there right away, but before I got there, the bears got to him.
And I'm like, oh, so you're competing with bears over lunch out here, right? And, but, so that was interesting. But my point is, Chip shared that space, right? He invited the conversation in, he shared blueberries, and then he did make sure to mention, he was like, hey, don't tell everybody about this spot. I'm like, all right, I won't tell you guys where the spot is. But my point is, I have a couple points, is a lot of us live lives that are super busy, they could be chaotic. shout out Coleman, see you man, good morning.
A lot of us live very busy lives sometimes. It's what we're used to, it's what we've created, it's a part of our dream, right? But there's these times in life where we get to take and we can create silence. We might, we get so busy and build up so much momentum that we think there's nothing outside. I can speak for myself. Sometimes I, these I statements, I think that there's nothing outside of this work grind that I have. And I forget about the small moments that you need to be intentional about, you need to make sacrifices for, and you need to be disciplined to create, right?
So Chip was a very good reminder of that. Like life can slow down. Asterisk, it is a lot easier to slow down when you're retired in your 50s and 60s, just saying that. But it was a good reminder that no matter where we are in life, we can take a time to ourselves to stop, calm down, turn off the cell phone, close the laptop, and just exist. And pick some wild blueberries, be alone with ourselves, our thoughts, our life, our story. our memories and just sit because those are all gifts. So what that took for me is I took away from that is to be intentional and to be a chip in this world.
If you have that space that is out in the wild or your safe space of comfort, somewhere that's tranquil for you and just comforting, share it with someone. Invite someone into that space and have a conversation. Because that's where memories happen. I'm gonna remember chip for life. As soon as things get crazy, okay, remember the chip rule. Stop, be intentional, unplug, share it with someone. That's what I got. That was one of the takeaways. There's a lot more takeaways from the walk that I got.
So my question to you now is, what does creating a safe, peaceful space in your life look like for you? Maybe it's not out in the wild picking blueberries. Maybe it's not hiking or on a road, but we all have spaces that will bring us peace, comfort, joy, and just bring the noise down a little bit. But we have to create those spaces. What does that look like for you? What's one space that you can create for yourself? And then once you're doing that, I want you to think of one person you could possibly share that with.
Maybe someone that could take part in it that's not going to add chaos or anxiety, but you know, like they might vibe with it. They might be like, what? This will be an addition to the safe space. So that's what I got for you. Create that safe space. Share a safe space with someone. Let's do it. That's what I got. I'll see you guys next week. Peace out, Cadre.
