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Episode 0 - The Beginning · The Checkpoint Podcast: Questions

• The DECAF Network: Everyone is going to go through something similar. Everyone's going to at some point stop. They're going to lose identity because they're either going to retire or they're going to be made redundant or they've just decided that they're sick and tired of doing what they've been doing for the past twenty years and they're going to stop. And they're going to go, All right, I've stopped. Now what? And it's that now what that is the ⁓ that's the question. You know, my kids have left. Like Now what do I do with all this time? I'm no longer an accountant. I'm no longer a graphic designer. Like what now? You know, I've been an IT guy running my own IT business for close to 20 years. And I just want to help people. Like, how do I do that? What now? And you know, there's also a thing called time that is against all of us. Hello, I'm Dex, and welcome to my podcast, The Checkpoint, Stories from Life's Next Stage. And this is episode zero. This is the pilot podcast to See if this is going to be something that I'm wanting to do and wanting to share with other people. And I'm gonna do this all in one take at a time that's during the day, and I've got kids home and I've got other work happening. So let's just keep this raw. And let's see how we go. Now, first, some cliff notes. My name's Dexter. I'm born in the 70s. I'm father of three kids. My eldest is of legal age now and my youngest is still in high school. I am married and I am a small business owner. I'm an IT guy. I've been doing it now for around eighteen years on my own. And in IT in general for probably twenty five years. So that's me. And the reason why I'm starting this podcast is because for the past number of years I've been going through a a bit of a journey. Some people call it a midlife crisis, some people call it being stuck. You know, for women, they they might say it's perimetopause. There's just a whole bunch of different things that people call it. But one thing is for certain that the majority of people my age, approaching my age or slightly older, will go through something similar. They'll get to a point in their life where they start to ask themselves different questions. And I'm I'm like right in it at the moment. And so this is kind of a a live ⁓ documentary of what I've done, what I'm experiencing, and hopefully this will be something that I can go back to and ⁓ and update those that are listening and or watching. So a little bit of backstory, I won't go too far. 'Cause I know I have your attention and I don't want to don't want to bore you with all of the stuff of where I was born and all that. So basically ⁓ I've been an IT guy for a very long time. I was obviously employed and I had the opportunity to to buy a computer shop. Now I wasn't really a a business type. I I'd never really wanted to own my own business. It wasn't something that ⁓ I was born with. You know, there are people, you know, you hear stories of, you know, when they're going through high school and they were selling lemonade and they were buying clothes cheaply and they were selling it for profit. That that that wasn't me. It was just opportunistic that a computer shop that I used to buy hardware from was up for sale. Anyway, I inquired about it. The price seemed pretty cool and I bought it. And that was basically the start of me, me being a small business owner. I had no idea what I'm doing. I still probably don't have as good a a d idea as I should. But eighteen years later, I'm ⁓ I'm still doing the thing. Now in the in the ownership of that business and the running of it, I've I've grown to harness the skills that I I value most. You know, look computer skills, the y you you get them on the job. Sure you can ⁓ you can go to school and study them and that sort of stuff. But realistically, at the end of the day, it's not until you're out in the field in front of a customer, in front of a computer, in front of a server, where you really start to learn things. So my computer skills, I would say, are are pretty good. They're, you know, they're not the latest. I don't know the latest and greatest, but at the same time, I don't need to know that for some of the clients that I look after. Now the skills that I really value are interpersonal skills. My skills in dealing with clients that are happy, clients that are, you know, that aren't happy with maybe something that I might have done. And through the course of me being a business owner and obviously an employee in some way, I've gotten to a place where I'm actually really happy with how I deal with customers, with potential customers, with longtime customers, with with all sorts of people. And Through the the journey, I've realized that IT, I like it. I'm a tech guy. I'll always be a tech guy. I like digital things. I like, you know, buttons and noises and all of that sort of stuff. And that's always going to be me. But I really what I really started to enjoy was interaction with people and my customers and just ⁓ just seeing what's going on. Seeing if there's pardon me, seeing if there's a way that I could help beyond just the IT stuff. Now that happened, ⁓ that didn't happen by me pushing the fact. It just happened because ⁓ they've known me for so long. Like I said, some of their clients that I've been looking after, I've known them for over twenty years. So I've seen them give you know, I've seen them with their first kids, I've seen them I've seen their kids get married, I've seen them become grandparents, and unfortunately I've seen a number of them pass away. So I've I've been doing this a long time. And so I've been able to I've been able to work on my skills of of dealing with people at all in all aspects of their life. And I really enjoyed that. I think that that's something that ⁓ people eventually find out about themselves is that people are important for for their for their lives. And my must like Myself included, when I was going through the business, you know, this could could have been about a decade or so ago, I thought I could do everything myself. You know, I had I'd I'd been burnt a couple of times with employees and ⁓ I got rid of them. And I thought, you know what, like if there's only one person to trust in all of this, it's me, and so I'm just going to work on my own. And I did that. And I held that belief for many, many years afterwards. ⁓ As I started to work and as I started to do other things and as I really started to go in art, I realized that I couldn't do anything of any worth and any substance without other people. But that's kind of that's kind of skipping ahead. So ⁓ as an IT guy, you you you get called to fix people's computer problems, which if you've ever if you've ever done it in any sort of capacity, you realize it's quite repetitive. It's the same. It's the same problems. Sometimes it's the same people. And in most cases, it's it's the same solution. You know, it's it's the reason why the meme of ⁓ have you rebooted, have you turned it off and turned it back on again? It's the reason why that's around because you'd be surprised as to how many times just doing that will fix the the issue that you have. So in the time of me doing this, like I said, it bec it became repetitive. And I I wouldn't say I I enjoyed it less. I would say that I actually enjoyed the interaction more with the client. Sure, I'd go out there and fix a problem. ⁓ but it was me actually being with the client and talking, you know, not just about the computer problem, but about life, about business. And, you know, there was a lot of things there that ⁓ that I learned, you know, about how people ran their business, about how people treated their employees. You know, I had ⁓ some companies that had a really high turnover rate. And I had other companies that I I think in the entire time that I'd looked after them, they may have had like one employee leave. And the only reason why was because they retired. And all of the different dynamics that ⁓ that are around that, I got to see that. And I enjoyed that. And I asked them questions and then they would answer them and then they would ask me questions about other stuff. And then, you know, when you when you develop a relationship with clients for for that period of time, you get to know them quite well. In terms of their family, in terms of their business, in terms of everything. And in turn, they they trust you as well. So they'll tell you about how much they make. They'll tell you how mu about, you know, certain ⁓ staff that they might not be happy with. And in time they'll ask for your advice. And, you know, me not knowing too much about business side of things in relation to like their specific business, I would just kind of give the answer straight up in terms of what I thought out of you know, being out of that industry, being out of that company. And more often than not, my opinion was actually pretty highly regarded. Now don't want to sort of toot my own horn. But ⁓ but I was told that many times and I I I think it it kind of boosted my ego. I thought, you know, maybe, you know, maybe I have a little bit more worth other than being this IT guy and suggesting which computer to buy or which internet service to use. And I really enjoyed that. And and and so I kind of made it A bit of a point to to be around for clients if they were to ask me those sorts of questions. And again, like I said, I'm not I'm not prying to say I'm not trying to force a conversation around discussions out of IT. It like ⁓ most of them, all of them, actually just happened organically, you know, as a as a a person looking after another company, ⁓ the the second question usually after, you know, hi, how are you? maybe slash how is your weekend is how's business going? And usually the answer then leads into, ⁓ okay, well, I've had a problem with, you know, Johnny in accounts or, you know, the market's down for this whatever reason. And you know, there are discussions around that. And I just found myself ⁓ in talks and and, you know, sometimes listening, sometimes providing advice. And of the times I did provide advice, it it seemed to be pretty good. So I I kind of kept that in in the back of my hat. And ⁓ and when those discussions came up, I I reveled in it. So what happened was COVID hit. And if you're an IT guy or a tech guy that went through COVID, you'll have known that that is that was probably the most financially rewarding period of your employment. or of your business ownership. That's that's no secret. IT guys were were the winners in COVID. That th there was so much billing going on. There was so much additional work that was required. There was so much work there. And ⁓ and I I and and I was I was part of it. I I had my client base. I had to support them, like their office and at home. And and absolutely. You know, I I made more money in that period than I ever had, you know, in the prior maybe 15 or so years. And so when COVID finished, I I came out of it pretty good. and a lot of my clients didn't, understandably. And so when it came back to working in an office, I made it a point to to see as many clients as I could. And chatting to them about work and you know how how they went through COVID. And ⁓ a lot of them actually needed help just for me to listen. Look, I gave advice when I could. ⁓ I wasn't telling them to do anything, you know, drastic or anything like that. But I was just there to listen and if there were things that I could help with, I did and and that made me feel really good. You know, the like I said, the IT stuff by then is is is like an automatic thing for for me. ⁓ same problems, you know, almost always the same solution. And what I was discovering was that I was actually enjoying helping people in this other capacity where I was just either listening or potentially providing a solution or you know, questioning t questioning them to see if they actually had the solution themselves. I really, really, really enjoyed that. And ⁓ and and that happened for a number of years after COVID. And Around that time, ⁓ cost of living had started to go up. And I realized that I had to work more ⁓ in order to earn more so that I could maintain ⁓ a standard of living that I was happy with. Now, mind you, I I don't, you know, I don't eat out every night. I don't have very flashy expensive cars, I don't have a mansion or anything like that. I I actually live quite frugally. And even the the the ⁓ the higher cost of living meant that, ⁓ okay, I I might need to do some extra work here. And so that wasn't a problem, you know, in in terms of how I ran my business. I I r I ran it or I do run it. I run it to a pace that I am comfortable in doing. I'm not out there chasing every single dollar. I'm making sure that I spend the time to do the job correctly, to schedule things in, and to make sure that I'm not stretched too thin. So when it came time to ⁓ to to bill more, to to get more work, to get more money in, that wasn't it was pretty easy for me. I c I could just sort of put the foot down on the accelerator a bit more and and reach out and find some work. And I did that. It wasn't a problem. Come tax time, I found that all the extra money that I earned and that I brought into the business meant that I actually had to pay more tax. And ⁓ and I wasn't happy about that. You know, at that point I'd probably stretched myself a little bit too thinly. And you know, at the end of that period, I had thought that, you know, I I pretty much worked I wouldn't say I worked as hard as I could, but compared to how I was say coasting for the the time before it, I felt that I'd worked pretty hard. And for my efforts at that period of hard work to then be, you know, given back to the government. was a bit of a kick. Now, you know, I'm not against paying tax, but I am against seeing what the government does with certain tax dollars. Especially if I don't agree with it. And especially if it's just if the the spending is it's incomprehensible. And ⁓ and sure enough, look, there there were decisions that were made and The government had purchased things or had spent tax dollars there. Pardon me, sorry. Apologize for that. And ⁓ you know what, I took it personal. I I I I I took it personal that the extra tax that I had to pay them went towards this thing that I never agreed with, or i it was like sometimes it was even the total opposite. And ⁓ and so I made the decision to basically ⁓ become an employee after become after being a small business owner for probably At that point, maybe sixteen. Sixteen years. I thought, no, I I I can't keep going on with this ⁓ with having to to work really, really hard to earn more money, to then have to give it back to pay tax for then that tax money to ⁓ to be used in in ways that I I didn't agree with. And so yeah, I became an employee. And it's it started off well enough. I I enjoyed working in a team and I enjoyed, you know, some of the other ⁓ perks that come with with being an employee. And ⁓ and in time in ⁓ I wouldn't say slowly in time, but it was actually rather quick. ⁓ things what they weren't things weren't what they seemed and ⁓ and nine months later I was back out working on my own again. Now, financially it it didn't do anything bad. and ⁓ the the experience, if anything, taught me a lot. And I'm grateful to the company that that gave me the opportunity. At the time it sucked, you know, like I I just thought they were the worst. But in hindsight, and you know, I've I've ⁓ I've made my peace with them internally. They they did me a favor. They gave me a glimpse of what the other side was. And and yeah, so I'm I'm I'm back being a business owner again. All my clients came back as well. It was it was all very cool. But during that period where being an employee was was becoming tough, I had started to put together an online course. Now I'm ⁓ I'm actually quite a spiritual woo-woo guy. It's ⁓ it's not something that I publicly announce. ⁓ if people ask, I just say, yeah, I I am. I'm I love numerology, I love spirituality, ⁓ universe stuff, ⁓ meditation, all like it's me, crystals and whatever. I love it. It it it's kind of like my thing. And ⁓ when I was really into the spiritual stuff, I took some courses and and I found a lot of benefit in them. And I thought to myself, you know, I'd I'd like to create a course myself. Nothing big, nothing fancy. And it was ⁓ it was just on awareness. 'Cause I felt that that was kind of like the most important thing, ⁓ to me at the time and to other people as well. I just think that ⁓ everything starts with awareness. I'm not gonna go into the whole course now, but basically the gist of it was awareness is the start to everything. You know, awareness of of you doing the right thing, awareness of you doing the wrong thing, and then stopping and then Going back to do the right thing, just awareness. If you don't have awareness, then you can get lost quite easily. You know, you could find yourself down a rabbit hole. ⁓ so I started to create a course on awareness and actually loved it. And this is amongst the time when ⁓ COVID had finished, where I was seeing people and it it all just gelled. ⁓ being around people, helping them in a way beyond IT. spirituality, like everything just felt right in the world and all with all the stuff that I was doing. And ⁓ and so I did that and I was creating this course. I'd showed some people this course and it was like it was it was pretty cool. I I I thought it was pretty cool anyway. And ⁓ and then that's when the cost of living kicked in. I I like pretty much everything stopped when things started to go ⁓ a bit more serious with money. Because I had to then spend a lot of time doing work. You know, spirituality is always going to be there, but you know, in in terms of me sticking around and basically helping people with problems, that became it w that was affected because I just wanted to bounce from that job and then go to the next job really quickly and then earn money there and bounce from that and go to the next job. It was just a whole bunch of back and forth. So a lot of that stuff took a hit and the awareness course basically was on the sidelines. And and so when the last months of being an employee were in place, I actually dusted off that course and I was revamping it. I was actually using it for me. I needed it. So I was looking back on this course and changing some things and realizing that, yeah, it it's still pretty good. Maybe maybe I could I could sell this. 'Cause at the time, you know, the writing was on the wall with me being an employee ⁓ and I didn't know how it would end. You know, I was thinking maybe this course is gonna have to be my the way I make money. I I I don't know if I get fired or let go or leave, I'm I'm not sure what's going on. So ⁓ I started working back on that course and and and when employment finished up with that IT company, the results were favorable for me. So I could now become I could now fall back into being a small business owner. And at the same time, I had this course that I wanted to do something with. So I started working on it constantly. I started thinking of different ideas. I th I thought I thought of ⁓ expanding it into things other than awareness. And I started to realise that my time in IT was numbered in terms of I still love it. I still like I said, I'm always gonna be a tech guy. I still love my clients. Yeah, it's twenty plus years now for most of them. But being that IT guy is isn't isn't gonna be me in the new future. On top of that, you know, I was getting closer to fifty. Retirement is closer than ever. And could I really see myself still sort of digging around underneath desks and checking cables and that sort of stuff? I d I don't think so. And what I really wanted to do was just to to help people. ⁓ So I worked on this course. I started a community. I stopped the community. I worked more on this course. And there was just this period of a number of years where I just tried different things. ⁓ yet at the same time still tr obviously working within the IT business and just making sure that that was running. Cause that was paying the bills at the end of the day. I couldn't just stop that and focus on, you know, helping people either through coaching or ⁓ through a community or anything like that. So there was a lot of ⁓ there was a lot of feeling of being I wouldn't say it's stuck because I always feel like I'm moving. I always feel like I'm doing stuff. It was more of a feeling of of firing a shotgun. You know, trying to aim for something. Like I want to I want to go over there. I want to help people. That that's what I want to do. But I'm Trying to hit that target with a shotgun. And every time I took a shot, like I would get close to it, but I I wasn't exactly hitting it. And those shots, they represented different things that I've tried or am trying. And not one is really, is really hitting the mark. So I built this course, ⁓ I I made it massive. It's actually really good. I'm super proud of it. It's called Reboot Player One, hence my my name at the bottom. ⁓ and ⁓ and I'd given up the community and at that point it was called the Decaf network, and I still love that name. And I was was stopping things and I was starting things and I was reaching out to people, and I there was just like clarity. I I had no clarity, I I had focus, but I I could have been focusing and I was focusing on the wrong things. And look, I like I said, I I am a super woo-woo guy and I do believe in things like divine timing and universe providing and all that sort of stuff. And judge me if you will, that's cool. I don't care. ⁓ it's worked for me. and I realized that, you know, I had a whole I'd have a whole bunch of things fail and not work for me to get to where I am. And I'm actually really happy where I am now. ⁓ I'm I've been happy for for quite some time and I I understand now that things that don't go the way I planned, there's obviously a reason for that. And I I don't you know, I I don't I don't kick myself as much now for things that aren't working or that aren't fail or or that or that are failing. Because I I I can then turn around to myself and go, Okay, well, there's something in that to be learned. You know, if that didn't work Like why is that? Does that mean that I should stop doing that thing? ⁓ or should I study it and and see why it went wrong and maybe redo it with a different focus? Sorry. ⁓ like what is it? So I I'm now at a point now where, you know, I I could try ten things and if eight things fail, ⁓ I'm not gonna beat myself up eight times. I'm gonna be like, well, what did I learn from this? You know, is i should I do this another way or should I not do it at all, or should I try something else? And and I'm actually I'm actually okay with that. But still, it it just meant that ⁓ there was no clarity. And so what I did was I started to reach out to people, you know, some of the people that were part of the DCAF network, some of the people that I told about Reboot Player One, some of the people that I, you know, I had shared these ideas with. And a lot of them, in fact, most of them, honestly, all of them. They're all in the same boat. You know, we're we're all roughly the same age. We're all ⁓ just trying to find a different path. We're trying to find what the next stage of our life looks like. You know, it's somebody left a job that where they'd been working there for, you know, 15 plus years and now everything's foreign. ⁓ we've had somebody that has had a change of circumstance and You know, they were in a corporate environment, they want to try something on their own. And we were all in this ⁓ this holding pattern of trying to figure out what it is that we want to do. And no one's got the right answer. No one's got the no one's got the one answer. Everyone has answers, but the only answer that is correct is one that will that will fit you. So I found that there was actually quite ⁓ there was a lot of meaning And a lot of, I wouldn't say clarity. There was a lot of information talking with these people ⁓ about this. And there were a lot of insights, there were a lot of things that we could try, a lot of things that we all discussed. We basically helped each other. Now, you know, this isn't ⁓ a podcast where I say, This is what I've done and now everything is all peachy. No, like this is this is the start. This is this is basement level episode zero. This is part of my part of my journey, part of my hero's quest to figure out what it is that I want to do. And, you know, come episode ten, if it makes it that far, or calm episode a hundred, if it makes it that far, it could be I I could be talking about something entirely different. Like I said, I'm documenting this for the purpose of ⁓ telling people that, you know, you're not alone in all of this. Everyone is going to go through something similar. Everyone's going to at some point stop. They're going to lose identity because they're either going to retire or they're going to be made redundant or they've just decided that they're sick and tired of doing what they've been doing for the past twenty years and they're going to stop. And they're going to go, All right, I've stopped. Now what? And it's that now what? That is the that's the question. You know. ⁓ my kids have left. Like now what do I do with all this time? ⁓ I'm no longer an accountant. I'm no longer a graphic designer. Like what now? You know, I've been an IT guy running my own IT business for close to twenty years and I just want to help people. Like, how do I do that? What now? And you know, there's also a thing called time that is against all of us. You know, I'm ⁓ I'm I'm very close to fifty and depending on when you listen to this, I may have already turned fifty. And I I googled only yesterday what the retirement age in Australia is. And look generally speaking, it's about sixty-five. Let's call it fifteen years. That's not a lot of time. But what was really weird was there was actually a line that said, whilst it's been known for people to retire anywhere from fifty-seven to sixty-four, the age that most people say is sixty-five, I'm like, fifty-seven. Like There are some people that are retiring in seven years' time. That was astounding to me. Because being a being a small business owner for so long, I don't have ⁓ how should I say this? I I don't consider that I have a work life balance. Being an IT guy that works on my own, I have everything that I need in a laptop. And I've had holidays, I've bought the laptop. But it's never stopped me from wanting to do something on the holiday. You know, all holidays end back in the hotel room, back in the Airbnb, back in wherever it is that you're staying for the night. And whenever I would travel, that's when I would do the work. You know, if a client calls calls me up during the day, I say, Look, I'm actually not available. ⁓ I'll be available this evening. Is it okay if I fix your problem then? More often than not, they can do that. If things are super, super, super urgent. Then sure. Look, I might need to make some sacrifices, but that's been I probably count on one hand the number of times that that's happened. ⁓ and even then, it's not a, ⁓ look, we can't go to this theme park, we can't go to this restaurant because I have to do this. It's always just something that's very quick to do. So that's happened in the past. And so I actually see my work as part of my life. I I don't have this. fift work life balance of fifty fifty or sixty forty, whatever it is. So the thought of having a retirement age for me is ⁓ I I think is non existent. You know, when, if and when, again, we're just talking possibilities here, you know, if this helping people gig kicks off and I'm able to make a living off of it and helping people and connecting people and and just you know, allowing them to to see a different path. I'll do that till I die. A hundred percent. It's fun. I enjoy it. It's flexible. It's it's interesting. It's ⁓ it's challenging. So, you know, even though the age of retirement that was on the website said some people say fifty seven, that I know that's not for me, but hearing that some people have done that kind of gave me a bit of a a wake up call. And I thought to myself, Wow, okay, like seven years, like that that doesn't leave a lot of time. And so what I'm left is is, you know, wanting to try something new at my age with ⁓ an an identity that is entirely foreign to what it is that I want to move towards. And I'm trying a lot of different things. I'm trying so many things that experts say will work, that AI says will work, and it it's Like it's all a time, a game of time. You know, I can I can email a thousand people, you know, they're not going to reply to me straight away. Some aren't going to reply to me at all, but some might reply in a couple of weeks. It's time. I could record a thousand videos a day, punch them up, and you know, it might display to a couple of people, it might display to a lot, but they might not take action for weeks on months. So on top of, you know, trying to figure out what it is ⁓ that I want to do with this next stage of life. I also have this ⁓ this concept of time that is ⁓ that is always there. That is like each day closer is another day closer to inevitability. and on top of that I have to maintain ⁓ a certain a certain financial figure to make sure that the house is paid off, the cars are paid off and all of this sort of stuff. So there's a lot of stresses that ⁓ that that come with doing this. And, you know, for some people, I'm more stressed in my situation. For other people, they're more stressed in their situation. But ultimately, we we we can only deal with what we've been dealt. And so the idea behind this podcast is to tell people that we're all going through the same stuff, right? It it's different. We're all ⁓ we're we're we're playing the hand that we're dealt off a very unique set of cards that's only for us. But having said that, the things that we've tried to to do to find clarity, to gain some peace, to work things out, they might not work for you, but they might work for somebody else. And so the idea is to build a community, is to get a lot of people together and just talk about it. It's just talk about things that they've tried that worked for you that might not have worked for you. You know, someone might have told you what they have done and it might help them. And hopefully I can get people on that are in a similar situation. They might have gotten a bit further. They might have, you know, just started this journey of theirs and and to just keep track of them, just to see how they're going. Because, you know, even though this is episode zero, like I said, by the time episode ten or a hundred, maybe episode five rolls around. I could be talking about something entirely different. I could be recording from a different country. I could be talking about ⁓ an industry that's not IT andor helping andor coaching. It could be something entirely different. I don't know. There are just so many things that are that are unknown. But what's important is that ⁓ I have some things to try. You know, it's there is that saying, what was it? analysis paralysis, where there are just so many things that you can do that you don't do any of them because you're just shocked. And I've had a little bit of that, especially when it comes to trying to promote this community, this course. You know, you've got ⁓ you've got thousands of great, you know, business builders and people that have these fabulous stories and and you listen to them and like, yeah, great. This stories are inspiring and they've got really good tips. ⁓ but ultimately they all contradict each other. And that's difficult. ⁓ because again, we're talking about time. Somebody talks about building an email list, somebody talks about just marketing on TikTok, somebody talks about you know, running everything online, whereas the other person just says, just do face to face stuff. You know, it's it's quite difficult to know what to try and know what to do, ⁓ and know where to spend the money because, you know, that's the other thing. You know, you've got time against you, you've got finances against you, and you've got the you know, you you you have this thing where with age it's it's funny, I I I think the older, at least the older I get, the less I am impervious, is it the right word? I hope it's the right word. ⁓ to to things that don't work. But at the same time I know that I need to let things ⁓ build up to assess what it is ⁓ that you know to see whether it's effective or not. And that's difficult. That's really, really difficult because like I said, you know, people say to to run this strategy and you're like, okay, I'll do that. You know, but when am I going to see the payoff? Is it like a month? Is it three months? You know, is it 12 months? Like what happens after 12 months where the strategy that you've employed suddenly doesn't work? You've got 12 12 months down the drain. so that's that's that's difficult. So I've had to rely on a lot of you know, self-awareness. ⁓ I've had to skill up in certain areas, I've had to do research. I've had to speak to a lot of people and speak to a lot of friends and just see what would work with me. At this point, I'm relying a lot on on gut feel, intuition, ⁓ on what feels right. You know, I I I think what happens the older I get is I ⁓ I tend to audit my emotions a lot more. I tend to ⁓ dive deeper into reasons why I'm happy, ⁓ reasons why I'm sad, and you know, i are there any other ways in which I can not so much tweak it but understand it. You know, a a perfect example is material materialistic things, objects, objects that I like. ⁓ you know I had to I had to buy a car for my son because he wants to learn how to drive a manual car and You know, we have a manual car, but it's not suitable for him to learn in. So we we bought him one. And it's quite cheap in the overall scheme of things for a car. And I love it. I have so much fun with this car. I've I've had a couple before and it's it's fun, it's cheap, I can tinker with it, and it brings me back to a time when I had not as many responsibilities and I'm enjoying it and it's really, really fun. And I'll ask myself, if I was to spend 10x the amount on a car, which is quite easy because like I said, this car is cheap, but if I was to spend 10x on a car, will that equal 10x the amount of happiness? And ⁓ and the answer for me is clearly no. Like the the the joy that I get, it's it's fun. I love it. I couldn't imagine being ten times as as excited. or having that that much more of a ⁓ rich experience by spending ten times the amount. And and and that sort of doesn't weigh my mind, but it's something that I think about a lot in terms of you know, ⁓ self-introspection. Gee, I hope I get the word right, but just looking at my emotions and how I act to act to certain scenarios. I've got that going on as well. So this is just the first episode. It's actually episode zero to to tell people that they're not alone, to open an invitation. If they want to talk about their their particular situation, their next stage of life, midlife crisis, whatever you want to call it, I'm I'm more than happy to to have you on and to chat about it because I I'm I'm genuinely interested as to how people play this game. You know, pe you people play with different abilities and different skills and you know, some will come more equipped, others will come less equipped, others will have certain magic and certain potions and just it's so many there's so many different variables. You know, you you'll never be able to play the same game twice. Your the game that you're playing is the game that you've been dealt. Having said that, the things that you've tried to win at the game might help others win too. So I think that's it. I think that's a really good ⁓ way to to end episode zero. Thankfully, the dog hasn't barked too much, the kids haven't bothered me, and like my my IT phone hasn't buzzed as many times as what I thought. If you'd like to know more about what it is that ⁓ that I'm trying to do, you can visit the main website, which is rebootplayer1.com. You can also visit ⁓ the checkpoint. Which is which which one should it be? It'll be TC. Just go tc. rebootplayer one.com. I'm Dex and thank you if you've made it this far. I I tend to talk a lot. ⁓ but thanks a lot for listening, and hopefully, hopefully, you will stick around and listen to the other episodes coming up. Thanks. Bye.