Deep Roots : Why Some People Don't Break | The Sean Trace Show

Most people think strength comes from pushing harder.

It doesn’t.

It comes from what’s underneath you.

This morning I was walking through Napa Valley, back where I grew up, surrounded by redwoods, vineyards, and memories. And it reminded me of something simple but powerful.

The trees that last aren’t the ones that grow the fastest. They’re the ones with the deepest roots.

Same goes for us.

In this episode, I talk about:

the relationships that actually hold you up when life hits
why success can pull you away from what matters most
how community, family, and real connections shape who you become
and why the strongest people aren’t unbreakable… they’re supported

Because storms are coming. That part’s guaranteed.

The question is, what’s holding you down when they do?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

It's early in the morning for me. I'm walking. I'm back here in St. Helena, California, where uh I this home. I'm back in the Napa Valley, uh visiting my mom and family and having a generally good time. And it's amazing out here. Like you guys understand there's fresh lavender growing everywhere. And here at my mom's house, you can see behind me, I've got these redwood trees. Now these are young redwood trees, but I'm always fascinated by redwood trees for a lot of reasons. If you go about an hour and a half that way, over there, uh, you can go to Armstrong Woods. And it's a place that is one of my favorite places to visit. I haven't been back there in a while. But I'll tell you what's so awesome about it and why I love it. I love Armstrong Woods because it is a just these beautiful tall trees. Absolutely beautiful. Some of the tallest trees in the world. Uh, I think there's one called General Armstrong, and it's insanely tall. Like, you just look at the base of this tree, and it it would take 10 people, arm to arm, stretched out, to go all the way around this tree. Massive trees. When you want to build tall, uh, there's some things that you have to think about. One of the biggest things is having deep roots. Now, deep roots are essential in life. And I mean, when we talk about deep roots, one of the things too, I've seen windstorms knock down trees. When you see trees getting tipped over, one of the things that you notice is that the roots don't go deep. Now, you see right over here is a house. I talk a lot on my podcast about having gotten really sick. And that that house right there, that's the house that I got sick of. Now, when I was sickest and I was dealing with a really bad infection, it was really scary. And part of me didn't know whether I was gonna make it through. But I had the people around me that helped me through. And though those are the roots that I'm talking about. Roots, now going back to that tree analogy, when you have a tree with deep roots, it's hard to knock down. And when storms come along, which they will in life, it is inevitable. Storms will come through your life, and that wind will blow, and it will knock you down if you're not ready. And one of the things that I realized is that we have to surround ourselves by the people, by the things, and by the home, the culture, the relationships that nurture us and help build us up. Now, like I said earlier, the roots and the relationships that are the roots for us are not actual roots. I mean, I would be awesome to grow some roots. And I mean, when people talk about putting down roots, they talk about finding places to live and and schools that their kids can go to and the relationships that that define them, but it's the relationships. Right now, I'm going up to a coffee shop to meet um an old friend. This is actually one of the teachers from high school that my brother studied with. I know him well. I went to the school with his daughter back in high school a long time ago. And we're gonna go talk about what I've been building with uh Growing Money Podcast because it's one of those relationships and friendships that go deep. Now see these here? These are redwood trees. Also, baby little redwood trees, but their roots, as we're speaking, are digging deeper and deeper into the earth. And as we grow, we have different relationships in our lives. The relationships that define us and that help us see who we are and where we came from. And sometimes we don't understand the importance of those relationships, but they are so important. And when we have enough people that have deep roots together, it creates a community that cannot be disturbed. Right here, I walked out to this beautiful valley, and I forgot all these vines. Now, I have barrels and roots podcasts, I love wine, I love talking to winemakers. But if you see these vines right here, take a look at that, how beautiful is that? When you see these vines, one of the things that you realize is that if you have one vine standing alone, it's not as strong. But when you have an entire farm, entire rows of these things with all of their roots going deep, they stand together and they can create something bigger, they can create something better. But it takes everyone being in a relationship with each other to have those roots going deep and to be able to create something bigger than any one plant. Now, a bottle of wine does not come from one plant. We have wine that comes from all of these mixed together and these giant vats, and it's really beautiful. But you know, you have to have those relationships and you have to be willing to kind of go deep, and that's something that's powerful for me. When we talk about these roots as well, we have certain things that we can think about too. You know, for me, roots has always been family, and I've got roots in multiple places. I have roots here in the Napa Valley. This is where my mom and brother live. This is where a lot of my family's at. But I also have roots in Vietnam too. I've got roots in the people that surround us and they strengthen us, and together we are we're stronger than any one of us alone. Now, the change and the challenge is that as you grow, as life changes, you can kind of get pulled away from your roots. You can kind of get pulled in different directions. And those directions that you get pulled sometimes make you lose your center. But I think that it's really important to get back to our roots and our foundation anytime that we start having any change. You know, you see it, these people that get a little bit of success, they start getting ahead. But when they do that, it changes them. You know, we love it. There's so many movies out there about people and characters that have kind of gotten ahead of themselves. And you see in the movie some guy who comes from a small town, and then you get successful, and then it changes him, and he's like, you know what? I need to go back to my roots. And that's what you gotta do. You have to go back to your roots. You know, I just stopped here because there's a there you go, Mr. Centipede. Pretty wild, right? Now, as you get away from your roots, one of the things that's really important is to get back to your roots and knowing a couple things. Who stands with you? You know, I have some business relationships with people that are awesome. I've got some business relationships with people that are definitely less than awesome. But the ones that last are the people that are that are the relationships run deep. As I've I've been starting, kicking off this Odie brand with my brother, and we got a long way to go. But you know who's been so enthusiastic about our hats and our apparel, and I'm coming back with bags and and and shirts and t-shirts and stuff? It's our friends. It's the people who know this region, who know what this means, who know what we stand for. And in any aspect of your career and of your life, those relationships that you build, those people that you you come up with and nurture. Ryan Kugler just won a bunch of things at the Oscars. And I can't remember the name of the guy who did the music for centers, also won. Now, those guys were college classmates. They they they went to school together, and that relationship that they created started way back when they were younger. But it was nurtured, it was built, it was developed in a very beautiful, cohesive way. That to me is so powerful because you're out there and you're growing together and you're creating something that that goes deeper than just the temporary success. Yesterday in St. Helena, right over here, and that's a library over there, which is awesome. Um, I love that library, so many great books, so much cool stuff for my daughter. Every time we come here, she does reading campaigns at that library. So awesome. One of my favorite movies growing up was a movie called Super Troopers. Absolutely love that movie. And I was in town and I saw that guy, Jay, I can't remember his last name. But you know, he was around with cool friends, and not many people recognize him. His movies are not as popular now, but still so awesome. I went up and I was like, dude, love your work. And he was like, Thank you, man. Because being cool with people, being friendly with people, being awesome with people is the beginning of great relationships. Now I have a relationship with them, but we had this mutual respect. That's powerful, man. But you gotta understand where you come from and where you're going. There's two things I want to point out leadership, which is something I'm working with my daughter on right now. And when I talk about leadership, it can be your business, your career, but you've got to be the leader of your own life. You know, that's the thing that you're leading every single day. And a lot of people forget about it. It's probably one of the most important areas of leadership that you might have. But I would say this to you: leadership is knowing who stands with you and who you're supposed to stand with as well. Because, you know, if someone asks you for help and it's someone that's been there with you, step up to the plate. Do something that can help them the way they helped you, you know, because those relationships are powerful and they define us. Be honest with people about what's important to you. And one of the things I want to get to is that so often of late, I've heard people talking about transactional relationships. Like this person's nice to me, so I'm nice to them. You know, this person did something that was good for me, so I'm gonna do something good for them. Sometimes that's great, but sometimes you gotta understand that just like you're putting money in a bank account, sometimes you put stuff away, sometimes you build those relationships because you don't know the importance of them later on. And sometimes it's just good to give. It's just good to be that person that's providing compassion and service for other people around you. Because if you can do that, you're gonna be someone that people know is someone that can be dependable, someone that can be looked to for help. And that it creates value in your life and it creates value in the relationships that you have. It's a good thing, man. Up here in this area, we've got these beautiful, beautiful oak trees. Now, oak is such a powerful wood. And one of the things, I mean, we make furniture with it, we make uh the wine barrels with it. Here, I've been seeing the wine barrels. Um, the other day I went to this one winery and I got to see these beautiful wine barrels, and I thought about this. Someone was talking to me, and I said, I said I saw that wine barrel that was made, and it was so beautifully made. And I asked the guy, like, how old was this tree? Probably took a hundred years for that tree to get to the place to make that oat barrel. 100 years for that tree to build, to develop, to grow, and get to the point where that wood was ready to take that that grape juice and turn it into a fine wine. We don't see the return on some of these friendships until much later. We don't see the return on building our roots until we are at the place where we need those roots to be strong. But sometimes we have to still build and just keep putting things out there. This building right here, I used to teach a yoga class up there. And I was teaching a yoga class years ago, and uh this one person came in for a class, and that person I didn't know at the time was an owner of a very big winery. And years later came up to me and said, Hey, barrels and roots. Man, you were the guy that taught me that yoga that one time. I was like, dude, I that's a long time ago. I totally forgot about that. But it was a seed that was planted ages ago, and in life, we just have to be planting those seeds, man. You will deal with scores, you will deal with adversity, you're gonna deal with all types of challenges in your life. But if you can have deep roots, if you can build those relationships, if you can put things in the ground that are gonna grow and nurture and become something bigger, you're gonna be really happy you did. For me, that means today I'm gonna spend time with the most important people away from my house. That's my little nieces. I got three of them and they're awesome. And beyond my daughter, beyond my wani, I don't think I've ever seen people look at me with such admiration and respect. I don't know why my little nieces love me so much, but they really do. I love them to pieces. And that's beautiful because if you can see that, you can see these people, you can see what's important. You start laying the foundations, man, so that when you get hit by a storm, you might sway, but you don't fall. Your tree might blow with the wind, but it doesn't collapse. I hope to be the same thing for those little girls too. You know, as they grow and they get older, they're gonna deal with challenges as well. Hopefully they don't. Uncle Sean will always be there. Uncle Sean and Eilani and Auntie V. So get out, have some fun, nurture the relationships that you care about, find the people that care about you, keep building, keep loving, keep caring, keep living a life that is one that you want people to remember you by. I see people that work in transactional relationships around me. Now I want to be one of those people. I want to be one of those people that when you see me, you know what you get. I had one of my workers who came up and said, Mr. Sean, you're the most real person I know. And I don't know if that was an insult or a compliment. I think it was a compliment, but I said, Why? He says, You are what you show people. And like this is who I am. And if you treat me well, I will treat you well forever. And I think that that's what you have to do. And I have to work at this one because when people treat me badly, I kind of remember that stuff. But maybe we just have to treat everyone well and uh continue to build and nurture those relationships one step at a time. Now, I just pulled up to the coffee shop. I'm gonna go meet an old friend and uh talk to them about what I've been doing, see if I can help them. Maybe they can help me too. But if nothing else, it'd be nice to just have a cup of coffee with someone I really enjoy. I'll see you guys next time. And uh hope you guys have a beautiful day.