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PJ Wehry | The Christian Reeve Podcast | #114 | · The Christian Reeve Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to another episode of the Christian way.
• 0:02
  Podcast, today's guest is a podcaster and all-around,
• 0:07
  interesting guy. All the way from Florida.
• 0:09
  His name is PJ, we re welcome to the show.
• 0:11
  PJ Hayden, glad to be here. Thanks for thanks for having me
• 0:16
  on Christian. It's a pleasure to have you on
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  the show. Most people don't know this
• 0:22
  actually. So I'm just going to quickly say
• 0:23
  this. So whatever I do the podcast, I
• 0:25
  do a little bit of a pre talking thing.
• 0:30
  NG beforehand. Which normally is just like hey
• 0:34
  is this appropriate? You know are you happy with this
• 0:37
  is? Well you know you know what?
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  It's better for those who don't know.
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  Yeah yeah everybody it's more like oh do you have any
• 0:42
  questions? Is there anything off limits?
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  That's basically what I do. You know and it's a good you
• 0:46
  know sometimes people do sometimes you know but I
• 0:49
  straight away. We just started having a good
• 0:51
  conversation and I was like hmm maybe I should stick this
• 0:56
  recording but um, yeah sure. But yeah, I just I just want to
• 1:02
  highlight a little bit, so yeah, obviously you're a podcast.
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  The but let's talk a little bit about some of the stuff you
• 1:08
  would sort of mention enough camera.
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  That was I will get you to repeat anything but yeah.
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  No, no worries. You said that you don't like 20
• 1:17
  episodes of the podcast. So what have been the kind of
• 1:21
  like the biggest challenges so far?
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  The biggest things you've learned from it and just slide
• 1:27
  it all around Lessons Learned in.
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  That in that area or what's what's, what's been the journey
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  so far? um, I'd already built my own
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  business where which were currently still running so that
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  makes life exciting. I'm a digital marketer run a
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  agency with my wife and whenever you start something new and big
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  like the like a podcast or a business or any of the you know
• 1:54
  there's going to be work but you always forget what like the
• 1:57
  early work is where you have no success just like what a slog it
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  is. You know, you're like my poor
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  wife. I'm like looking at my my phone
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  and just Checking analytics or like, you know, like it's going
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  to change in an hour or two. How many views I have on YouTube
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  and it's just, it's too bad, it's obsessive and it's bad.
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  I just got, I got a cut in that. I don't normally interrupt my
• 2:19
  guests as so, don't go for question, but you're literally
• 2:22
  describing my life right now. Literally, like this, like this
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  is this is weird. The universe is like, just
• 2:31
  fucking with me right now because yeah, actually, I had a
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  live stream the other day where I met.
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  Be my attitude was bit off, but I was like, damn it.
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  You know, I've been working like really hard for like two years
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  and and it's not going anywhere and you know, I've done like
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  over 100 episodes of this podcast and a bunch of other
• 2:47
  stuff and you know, and I've had some successes but it's not
• 2:50
  going anywhere and it's like, dude, you're speaking to me
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  right now. You're so right.
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  It is so in the beginning and just in general, it's just look.
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  Nothing is guaranteed. You don't know that it's going
• 3:00
  to happen straight away. And like I said, yeah, I've been
• 3:02
  doing the podcast year and Sony really now I'll that it's
• 3:08
  beginning to pick up what I would term is like a very, very
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  small audience which is about nothing, right?
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  You know. Yeah, yeah.
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  Oh no. They're like at the same time
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  it's like I feel like they should be more growth.
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  I've seen other people succeed way quicker with a lot less and
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  I'm like, okay like okay I won't name any names but there's this
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  podcast. The I know it sounds like it's
• 3:34
  just cause I got it. And I really respect them.
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  So, if they do know that I'm talking about them, I do really
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  respect them. You smashed it.
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  But it's like, they do like, 20, 30 minute episodes and they
• 3:51
  smash it. They get like, hundreds of
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  years. Thousands of views, I do like
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  in-depth podcasts, hour, two hours, sometimes three hours.
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  I do Clips, I do all the marketing stuff that you're
• 4:03
  supposed to do. Yes.
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  And Is nothing just nothing. Yeah, and that's the thing
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  people that do this into it and enjoy it and and, and like they
• 4:14
  say, oh it's good. There's this, there's that.
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  And I'm like, well if he's so good, yeah, knotty problem.
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  This anyway, enough talking, let's get back to, you know, I
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  love it. I let me tag onto their because
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  I so I did a couple things, you know.
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  Obviously I looked up how to do podcasts.
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  Yes. Well you know if you're getting
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  into it for the money you're getting into it for the wrong
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  reasons. That's what everybody says.
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  And then I like everybody gets into it for the money.
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  Okay. Let's be almost, everybody
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  almost everyone's like, I'm gonna Joe Rogan made 100
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  million, you know, I mean I take I take 1 million.
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  That's fine. Yeah, that's good.
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  But the So for me, I created I do to podcasts.
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  I do one. That's called we read ads and I
• 5:08
  do one, that's called chasing Leviathan.
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  So my last name is wery play on. I mean this is a great example.
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  You know we were just talking about how we're a little off
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  this morning. I woke up at 3:30 thinking about
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  business stuff and then my kids came in at five and like I'm a
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  weary Dad, I am a tired dad like but For me so and I'll just give
• 5:32
  you the two reasons I created the two different podcasts,
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  because I think what I want to do is no matter if I have to
• 5:39
  decide to pull the plug on this, and I created a business plan
• 5:43
  where I will not do that. Until I'm at least two years in
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  because most businesses will not turn a profit in the first three
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  years. Joe, no, I mean, if I'm two
• 5:56
  years in and I'm still at 20 listeners, It's like something's
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  wrong, right? Like I maybe I've made a
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  mistake, right? But if I mean you're like you're
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  at like 790 subscribers on YouTube, you're like your got
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  your. But anyways I don't need to live
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  not trying to get into that. I'd seen that you're obviously
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  growing. You're obviously going places
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  and you're starting to see that. You say that's a gear in.
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  You say that, right? I'm it's funny because I said
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  the same thing to my last guest who had similar conversation
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  about this? Like yeah if anything because
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  I'm a big-deal marketing guy, what's up?
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  Electrics will talk about Obama's a little bit later but
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  like II painstaking. I don't look at this much this
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  stuff as much as I used to, but I do look at it and I see that
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  number going off down mostly going down, right?
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  And then you let you try to look because obviously marketing is
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  all about the trends and the patterns and stuff, right?
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  So you say okay, well what's the pattern here and all that's big?
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  That's the thing, the only discernible pattern I can see is
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  that there's this small core audience that watches love you.
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  Yeah, thank you. And then there's this like Like
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  these anomaly episode. So that to give you an example.
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  Yes. If you're if you're watching the
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  podcast on YouTube, the last five episodes of be like let's
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  say 30 views. Yeah. 20.
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  Which is kind of like my average if I'm lucky.
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  Yeah. And then 70?
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  Yes. And then back down to like 18
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  and it's 12 and then there's episodes that you think oh
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  surely this will do well like friends.
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  Yeah, I had a guest recently, right.
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  Well, she don't TED Talks she'd been featured in Forbes.
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  Sounds great on paper, right? Yeah, right.
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  It's the same as that when people say, oh, who's the
• 7:48
  biggest person you've had on your podcast, who's the most
• 7:50
  famous person? I guarantee, if I could have a
• 7:54
  massive, you know, celebrity on my podcast tomorrow, and I doubt
• 7:58
  that it would make much difference even having had my
• 8:01
  stuff shared their yeah, it's about if people like you and
• 8:05
  want to stick around you. Yeah, sure.
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  Bunch of people. Might watch that clip or that
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  episode of you interview that person, but they don't care
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  about you. I care about your guest and I
• 8:15
  didn't stick around for you and that's the thing, like, I was
• 8:18
  thinking about this the other day when I was having a bit of a
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  rant on live stream, but I didn't actually say it in these
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  words, so I'll say it. Here it is so difficult to get
• 8:27
  people to care about you to care about what you have to say.
• 8:32
  I mean, it's like because who are you, like, I get that
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  sometimes I do these like, ask me anything.
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  Live streams, right? Yeah, line and sometimes people
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  like, sarcastic people do, who are you?
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  And you know, sometimes they're being genuine.
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  They're like well, you know, who are you?
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  What do you do? And it's like you say those
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  things and it sounds great. But it's like unless you're
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  someone note where the and you have the machine behind you,
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  right? I mean, yeah, it doesn't matter
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  how hard you work. I've had people say loads of
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  nice things about me and that's great.
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  And I'm very thankful and grateful to hear that, but it
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  doesn't equate to like success, you know?
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  Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, when you talk about
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  success rate in podcasting, in this is different from digital
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  marketing, like digital marketing, you can be in the
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  bottom 40% in make money. Like like, there's always like
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  that that's partly because I went into that I went in that
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  direction is there's just money and digital marketing, right?
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  I would say, from what I understand, we're probably in
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  the top five percent, but that's like that for podcasting you got
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  to be top 1%, really? To like be successful.
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  So, I mean, even if it's a tough business, and if you're going to
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  top one percent, that's not just going to be Talent.
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  It's not just going to be polish.
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  It's, it's also going to be grind.
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  And So, eventually, you're going to, you're going to like You're
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  I mean, you are, you're sometimes you're not going to
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  catch on and that that could be a whole bunch of number thing.
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  Sometimes just getting lucky. Sometimes it's that one clip
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  going viral. There's all sorts of different
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  things that can mean for that, which, for me, like, I think
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  there is an element of luck. In the podcasting side of
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  things, I think, you know, you can make a lot of your own luck,
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  right? Like it.
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  So, I don't want to, like, like hard work.
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  It's definitely a part of it, right?
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  If you're skipping episodes, if you're skipping weeks and stuff
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  like that, it's just not going to go anywhere people.
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  Really? Desire, that consistency.
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  Which I, when I look at your yours, I'm like I do one a week
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  and I see yours and you're like, to week.
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  I'm like, holy crap. This man's a machine.
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  That's the thing I need. You want to wake, I dig to walk
• 10:39
  this way. So what happened?
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  Oh okay. Yeah, I was like, oh my
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  goodness. I said, no, I'll share this.
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  So, This is actually, this is a good point that you're making.
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  I've realized both with podcasting and content, creating
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  less is more. Less is always more, it keeps
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  people wanting more but there's no point going, the car.
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  I did five podcasts this week because I know that there's
• 11:03
  people that done that. There's, there's this guy who's
• 11:06
  podcast, I was on shouts so powers and he did already got up
• 11:11
  to like 100 episodes 150 in the space of like a month or two.
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  That's amazing. But he's like recording them
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  every single day and it's, yeah, crazy grind.
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  But at the same time, I feel like trying to grow Audience
• 11:26
  with that. It's just too much.
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  It's an overload and they get me wrong.
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  I'm guilty of it. When I first started the
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  podcast, I was just pumping grinding, trying to get the
• 11:34
  numbers because truthfully what happened is in the beginning.
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  I was struggling to find guests and then you know I discovered
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  all these resources on Reddit great.
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  But then I got like a lot of people contact me and I kind of
• 11:48
  just thought well I got a Time, fuck it, let's do it.
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  Yeah and so then my numbers increased like you know, the
• 11:55
  Amount of episodes and then it kind of got back to, like, a bit
• 11:58
  more normal. Like, and then I decided, okay,
• 12:01
  let's do it one a week, but I'm about to enter a new crazy crazy
• 12:09
  period. And I've got this idea where I'm
• 12:11
  going to maybe. If I have enough episodes, do
• 12:14
  like a 20 days, 15 days of Christmas deal works like one
• 12:19
  everything. Cool.
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  I don't know, I'm still here waiting in my head but yeah
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  sense. But to get you Yeah, to get to
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  my point, though. I think.
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  I think that you're right. I think that it's better to, you
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  know, consistency is the most important thing and not doing
• 12:35
  too many. And I know it's, it's a tough
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  one, you know, like especially now I've got over a hundred
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  episodes now. I feel like it's even more
• 12:46
  important now because it's like the numbers are there.
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  There's no need to really worry about, you know, I don't have
• 12:52
  enough episodes or whatever, but there's people in my audience,
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  It's now who listen to the podcast who are unaware of some
• 12:59
  of the old episodes I did. Yeah.
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  And it's like, that's even more reason to kind of try to spread
• 13:06
  this at plus also tip for podcasters out there.
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  Anyone listening that wants to become a podcaster or
• 13:11
  struggling. You do yourself a lot of favors
• 13:15
  by scheduling ahead. Oh yeah.
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  Oh, very much. So yeah.
• 13:19
  And like, if you record that who says you have to release it
• 13:22
  straight away. I'm really sorry mum's from that
• 13:25
  depends. How Con well time specific is I
• 13:28
  suppose. But you know, I try to keep it
• 13:31
  about two to four weeks because I remember we did some episodes
• 13:35
  early for Chasing Leviathan. We read ads and it was during
• 13:42
  the American election cycle. Nah, and so we're like, well, we
• 13:47
  don't know who's going to win, you know, we weren't really
• 13:49
  getting into it. It's like, you know, we're in
• 13:50
  times of uncertainty because we don't know who's going to win.
• 13:52
  And then I like, um, like released a month later, I'm
• 13:55
  like, well, you know, it's just something to put out for my
• 13:58
  first couple episodes like, okay, my only family is gonna
• 14:02
  listen to this. Anyways, like the first one or
• 14:04
  two but but I think it's really A important for me because
• 14:09
  you're talking about one in 100, and when I say, 1 and 100, let's
• 14:12
  also remember that 50% of podcasters stop after seven
• 14:15
  episodes like yeah, that's about that number.
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  Oh, they love it is so odd, like I had a podcast before this.
• 14:23
  Yeah, set its finished on number 7 so many people get 27.
• 14:27
  There's a guy that I won't mention his name but who started
• 14:31
  the podcast recently that I know who?
• 14:34
  And I guess he's just too busy. But yeah, same thing.
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  It's like this. Nah.
• 14:37
  Seven is like, if you don't get past seven why is it number 7?
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  What the hell? I don't know.
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  That's just the stat. Those are the stats I saw, I
• 14:45
  did. Yeah.
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  So for me, I want to go to years and I think by creating
• 14:52
  consistency you create enough data that's consistent, which is
• 14:56
  important. You can't just like, if you're
• 14:58
  all over the place you can't discern Trends which is I love
• 15:01
  that you brought that up. So you have to be willing to
• 15:03
  start experimenting after you see the trends and so and you to
• 15:07
  give yourself time to establish Trends and then experiment
• 15:10
  established Trends. Again.
• 15:11
  That's why I think you don't know what you're really doing
• 15:14
  till your two or three years in like my goal is to go three
• 15:17
  years if I'm two years in and I have absolutely nothing, then
• 15:20
  I'll reconsider but you just don't know.
• 15:24
  So but the other thing is I don't want this to be a waste.
• 15:28
  So I created to podcast that were valuable in and of
• 15:31
  themselves to me, so even if nothing happens with them.
• 15:35
  I'm so Kind of a little bit of background about me.
• 15:41
  My goal is to be a philosophy teacher with.
• 15:44
  So I went and got a master's in philosophy which basically makes
• 15:48
  you unemployable except as a philosophy teacher, right.
• 15:52
  And my I developed some digestive issues around the age
• 15:58
  of 24 but the only way it showed up is that I was just very
• 16:02
  tired. It's related to Dairy but it's
• 16:05
  not dairy I'm still trying to figure out what exactly exactly
• 16:07
  it is. But I figured out by trying some
• 16:10
  dietary stuff, like all of a sudden, I for like 8 or 10
• 16:13
  years, I had almost not not 10 years, like six to eight years.
• 16:16
  I had almost no energy and then I switched, I just tried some
• 16:21
  drastic things. I went vegan for a little bit
• 16:23
  and I figured out that like, certain types of dairy, just
• 16:27
  make me have to sleep. I will literally see two or
• 16:30
  three, if I eat a lot of that kind of like, like soft cheeses
• 16:34
  and pasteurized milk, that kind of stuff, I will sleep.
• 16:37
  Two to three hours, more, and still be more tired than if I'd
• 16:40
  slept. Not slip.
• 16:41
  Those two, three hours. Mmm.
• 16:42
  And so I thought it was suffering from depression and I
• 16:45
  kind of was but that was because I was just sick all the time.
• 16:49
  It wasn't what you'd normally think of and so I was supposed
• 16:53
  to be reading 3,000 Pages directly in Heidegger, writing a
• 16:58
  30-page paper on it and applying to PHD programs while my wife
• 17:03
  and my wife had. And this also that's when the
• 17:05
  started, while my wife had just gotten Pregnant with our first
• 17:08
  kid. Oh, and I just I just collapsed.
• 17:11
  I just could not. So I went and started teaching
• 17:14
  in schools found out that teaching High School is not for
• 17:16
  me, it was not a good fit and so it's always been my dream to
• 17:22
  kind of continue. And I don't really care about
• 17:24
  teaching and academics as so much as I love teaching.
• 17:27
  And so for me, I want to there's a good PhD in philosophy program
• 17:32
  near me in Tampa. And so I want to go there and
• 17:37
  But I don't want, and I don't know what your academic
• 17:40
  experiences, but I think a lot of times people go into a
• 17:42
  program and they just learn enough to get by and I'd rather
• 17:46
  it be an enriching and like already have a firm foundation
• 17:49
  going into it. So for me, chasing Leviathan,
• 17:51
  is, I'm sharpening my conversational skills and I'm
• 17:56
  just learning. So, I know, one of my biggest
• 17:58
  problems and I notice is it shocker specially is like one
• 18:02
  thing about podcasters, is they like to talk?
• 18:04
  That's like really, I know it's like that.
• 18:08
  I wanted to focus on the habit and discipline of listening.
• 18:11
  So just chasing Leviathan is about me, just learning from
• 18:16
  other people in depth. And so, for me, it's kind of
• 18:19
  like a free education. So if worse comes to worse, I've
• 18:22
  learned a lot. It'll be helpful.
• 18:25
  When I go and pursue that PhD, probably when my kids are a
• 18:27
  little older and that waking you up at 4:00 in the morning, you
• 18:34
  know, they're in the, they're six and four.
• 18:37
  So, Like in the pooping and farting is really hilarious
• 18:40
  stage. So it's like there's nothing
• 18:42
  like 5:30 in the morning, your son just like farting in the bed
• 18:46
  and just uncontrollably laughing.
• 18:48
  And you're trying to like like teach him like good manners, but
• 18:51
  also it's like you're really tired and it is kind of funny so
• 18:54
  like this. So I'm just like this.
• 18:56
  I'm like, okay in a little bit. So for me, whatever happens to a
• 19:00
  supervised and that's good. But I'm even more excited about
• 19:03
  we read ads from personal level because I do it with my dad.
• 19:06
  So I live Of in a multi-generational house of my
• 19:09
  parents and because my dad his whole life has been a Ministry
• 19:15
  and like just mentoring young men.
• 19:18
  That's that's what he's done his whole life.
• 19:20
  And so I was like I want you near my kids, right?
• 19:23
  Like I'm like I know you'll do a good job like he was a good dad
• 19:26
  to me and I realized if we go two years and we shut this thing
• 19:30
  down, I'll have two years of content of my dad and I Talking
• 19:36
  about manhood and mentoring and spiritual maturity or just
• 19:40
  maturity in general. I don't like saying maturity
• 19:42
  because it's kind of like you know you're teaching them not to
• 19:45
  like you know, laugh at pooping and farting but really like
• 19:48
  maturity and sense of like what it means to become like a full
• 19:51
  human, if that makes sense. And I'll have two years of that
• 19:55
  content that I can give to my kids to my grandkids, to my
• 19:59
  great grandkids. And I'm like, huh.
• 20:01
  That's actually kind of. That's an amazing thing that's
• 20:03
  worth, whatever I'm putting into it.
• 20:05
  And Would I like to make this into like something I can make
• 20:10
  money at? Yeah, I'd much rather do this
• 20:12
  than staying up till 3:00 in the morning.
• 20:14
  Trying to figure out why Google DNS is not working on my on a
• 20:17
  website. You know, it's like, you know,
• 20:20
  people like oh you must like, you must like coding.
• 20:22
  I'm like, I like coding. Like, it's more fun than digging
• 20:25
  ditches. But it always involves crazy
• 20:31
  deadlines, like something, always breaks, and then you have
• 20:34
  to, I'm just like, I'm not, I'm not here for it, you know.
• 20:36
  No, it's it. No, I don't care what I'm being
• 20:38
  paid at 3:00 in the morning. I just like, maybe it's not,
• 20:41
  maybe this isn't worth it, you know?
• 20:44
  So and but I have been able to build something really beautiful
• 20:48
  with my business and with with my wife.
• 20:51
  So I don't want to downplay that.
• 20:52
  I'd much rather do that then. And you know as a small business
• 20:57
  owner I always have new challenges every day.
• 20:59
  I can't imagine doing 40 hours a week in a cubicle.
• 21:02
  It would drive me. Crazy.
• 21:04
  I'm a, I'm a very distractible I'm always obsessed with
• 21:07
  something new and learning something new and that
• 21:09
  definitely plays itself more into podcasting than it does
• 21:12
  into that. It doesn't like a corporate job.
• 21:16
  So Yeah, now I can certainly go. You coming from, it seems that
• 21:21
  we have very similar philosophies on this stuff.
• 21:23
  I gotta say like, I mean, I will say that I really admire your
• 21:29
  reasoning for doing the podcast. I've only come across.
• 21:33
  If I think a handful of people that have a similar kind of
• 21:37
  mindset, as far as you know, this is for me, this is an to
• 21:41
  make money, you know, I'm not going to lie to you guys like I
• 21:44
  am trying to get, I am sure one. Now, I'm trying to get somewhere
• 21:47
  with this, but at the same time, I think it is good to be
• 21:51
  reminded of why you start doing things in them in the first
• 21:55
  place. And to be honest, the reason I
• 21:57
  started Podcast which because I just always wanted to do a
• 22:00
  podcast. Yeah, I don't know why.
• 22:03
  I originally wanted to wear. No, seriously, I don't ya, I got
• 22:06
  ya originally. I wanted to and I still kind of
• 22:09
  do want to do a podcast on wrestling.
• 22:11
  I love professional wrestling. And here's the thing, I about
• 22:15
  five years ago, when I was at Uni, I flirted with the idea
• 22:19
  tested, with some really rudimentary equipment and then
• 22:21
  nothing ever came of it. Sure.
• 22:23
  And then, when I started doing this content creating stuff.
• 22:26
  Yeah. Some guys that I'm friends with
• 22:30
  considered, you know, doing a podcast together and I was like
• 22:33
  yeah I'm gay. My yeah that's that and we did
• 22:36
  it for several episodes. I didn't quit.
• 22:41
  Yeah let's see how the other two guys quit and they're doing
• 22:43
  really well props to them. It was the right move for them.
• 22:47
  But for me, I was sat there thinking what did wanted to end?
• 22:50
  I was like a broken. Yeah, I'd love her.
• 22:52
  I'm not ready for this. And as I will, what do I do?
• 22:56
  And I was like, It's been ages trying to like search for a
• 23:00
  co-host or something or I could just do this podcast that I'd
• 23:05
  always thought about doing that. I'd never pulled the plug on so
• 23:08
  I just did it. I just I didn't think about it.
• 23:10
  I just did it and you know year later here we are and it's bit
• 23:14
  kind of crazy as you said meant before.
• 23:17
  You know the journey shapes what it ventually becomes.
• 23:21
  They're gonna think when I started this, the format's never
• 23:24
  really changed but my Approach has Like, now, I'm, we were
• 23:29
  saying, if this off are about, you know, different types of
• 23:32
  guests that you have and siphon, I won't, I won't, I won't make
• 23:35
  you repeat it because you don't want to crucify some of the
• 23:37
  guests that you had on here. But at the same time, it's like
• 23:43
  I'm trying to do something with small conversation, like I love
• 23:46
  that, you know. I yeah, I have show notes Here.
• 23:49
  I plant and your questions and stuff it.
• 23:51
  I do want to interview my guest, but I don't want it to be like
• 23:54
  really serious. Like it's, yeah, I wanted to be
• 23:57
  more conversational. I think that's much easier to
• 23:59
  listen to. It's much more engaging.
• 24:03
  You know, I've had guests on my show where it's very clear that
• 24:06
  they just wanted to push their product product and oh, yeah,
• 24:11
  that's fine. Don't get me wrong.
• 24:13
  I realized that the whole set up is you know you come on my show
• 24:17
  you promote your thing. Yeah leather.
• 24:19
  But look at the end of the day. I'm producing a product that
• 24:24
  needs to be entertaining. So yeah, but not entertaining on
• 24:27
  a commercial. Yeah.
• 24:28
  If the whole thing is an hour of like he's gonna listen to that,
• 24:31
  you know, and like like I remember I had a guest once who
• 24:36
  was promoting their products. ask them a question about, you
• 24:40
  know, in it's a generic question, what would they So of
• 24:48
  suggest in a given area that what would be the first things
• 24:51
  they would do, you know, in order what would they suggest to
• 24:55
  people? Basically.
• 24:56
  Yes. And without skipping a beat the
• 24:57
  first in this suggested was their website, their products.
• 25:01
  Yeah, literally and I was just sitting there and you know just
• 25:06
  keeping a focus on asking the next question and I was just
• 25:13
  really disappointed. I felt like saying really Really
• 25:16
  that person you're gonna sit. That's the first thing people
• 25:18
  should do is look at your website like yeah.
• 25:22
  At the same time at here's the thing at the same time from a
• 25:25
  marketing perspective. Yeah I can't fold it, you know,
• 25:29
  it's business, it's marketing, its course.
• 25:31
  You're going to say that, you know, you're not going to be
• 25:33
  like I mean yeah I'm gonna do it.
• 25:36
  I'm gonna disagree with you and this is something like, I felt I
• 25:39
  built a thriving, you know, and so I'm not selling my company
• 25:44
  services because I don't we Were booked six months out so don't I
• 25:49
  don't I don't need any more like we're like please stop like I
• 25:53
  mean literally we're like hey it's going to be you know it's
• 25:56
  going to be March like Whitley or you.
• 25:59
  Could you suggest you go find someone else?
• 26:01
  Like no. No, wait, we like your work.
• 26:03
  I'm like, go somewhere else. You don't like it.
• 26:05
  You can't say it too quiet. You know, like, like all right,
• 26:08
  March it is. Hey, that's good.
• 26:09
  Then went into white and then take that money.
• 26:11
  That great awesome. But in the reason that we did
• 26:15
  this early and I actually just Just actually have a neighbor
• 26:18
  who runs a charter plane service.
• 26:23
  No cool. And, which is kind of funny to
• 26:26
  find in suburbs. I'm like that you're here.
• 26:27
  I thought you'd be like, you know, like on a lake somewhere,
• 26:30
  you know, like, but the starting out early and I think the really
• 26:37
  creating valuing relationships and I even hate the term Social
• 26:41
  Capital because it still gives the action.
• 26:44
  I'd hate that it's not about His actions, it's about creating
• 26:48
  trust and that's like my reputation is more important to
• 26:52
  me than the money. And when we were, like, we went
• 26:54
  into debt 50k to start the business, so that was exciting.
• 27:01
  So we were so, like we weren't paying the bills, I'm talking to
• 27:04
  my wife and she like, we're gonna make em like we're gonna
• 27:06
  make it which, you know, that take weight, when you said we're
• 27:10
  going to make it. Well, you just said that.
• 27:12
  Like, yeah, be fun. But in your head you like straw,
• 27:15
  like God. Oh no.
• 27:18
  I looked at the numbers. I looked at her business plan
• 27:21
  and I said, this is going to work and my feelings were like
• 27:24
  no it's not and I know it is like I'm like if we don't push
• 27:29
  through it where it's not going to work right leg all the way
• 27:32
  up. Like yeah you have to go like
• 27:33
  you got to do that two to three years.
• 27:35
  Like I we have been fortunate and lucky in a lot of ways.
• 27:38
  We've had some breaks, God has been very fortunate blessing us
• 27:42
  because we could have been three years before turning a profit.
• 27:45
  That's, that's And for businesses, some businesses,
• 27:49
  don't start thriving till five years and most like again, it's
• 27:52
  like 50 percent of businesses fail at thirty three to five
• 27:54
  years. So, something like that.
• 27:56
  I mean, it's just building. Something is difficult you.
• 28:00
  I was surprised because I'm a planner and I'm a thinker.
• 28:04
  I want to my wife gets so mad because I don't.
• 28:09
  Yes, I don't, I don't gain weight but it's because I
• 28:14
  literally if I have something That's going on our business.
• 28:18
  I walked the floor in our kitchen for two, to three hours,
• 28:22
  talking to myself thinking about it, right?
• 28:24
  That's like, that's how I know podcasting is just like a way to
• 28:28
  maybe monetize my constant running mouth but um, wow, when
• 28:35
  I found was surprising how businesses.
• 28:37
  Yeah, that helped me like thinking through things,
• 28:40
  anticipating problems huge. But the skill that nobody I
• 28:45
  would say. I heard a lot advice about
• 28:48
  starting a business and I realized I saw a lot of people
• 28:51
  succeed, who didn't think through things, who honestly,
• 28:55
  not the best soft, soft skills, like social skills, all these
• 28:59
  things. But they just believed that they
• 29:01
  could. They just had the nerves to say.
• 29:04
  No, I'm worth this much money. Like, I had somebody who's been
• 29:08
  unlike they were interviewed. She was interviewed in Time
• 29:11
  Magazine. This kind of stuff had her on my
• 29:13
  podcast. She's absolutely awesome.
• 29:16
  She's a And CEO coach now and the story of how she got started
• 29:20
  is ridiculous. She went and interviewed 100
• 29:22
  CEOs and wrote it up as research.
• 29:26
  And this is like I want to say like the 70s or 80s.
• 29:31
  I don't know. Wow.
• 29:32
  Okay and she got picked up by Time magazine for an interview,
• 29:35
  like this is really interesting. Yeah.
• 29:37
  And someone wrote her was like, Hey can you coach me on what it
• 29:40
  means to be a CEO. And she's like, sure, and like
• 29:43
  let me get back to you on my rate.
• 29:45
  She hadn't even She called somebody like, what do they
• 29:50
  charge like? Well, we had some, we had a
• 29:52
  consultant and they charge this fifteen hundred dollars a day.
• 29:54
  So she went back to the person, never done it before.
• 29:56
  It's like, yeah, my rate is $1500 a day.
• 29:59
  This is like the 80s, you know. Like oh yeah.
• 30:02
  And I'm like, she just was like, yeah, I'm worth that much money
• 30:06
  and then she worked really hard and she backed that up, but she
• 30:10
  didn't have the experience for that.
• 30:11
  She, I mean, she did have a little bit of content, you know,
• 30:14
  interviewing 100 CEOs. So she had Some idea, but just
• 30:17
  like, I mean, even when we started with our website, we
• 30:20
  didn't walk in and say, Hey, you know, it's going to be thirty
• 30:23
  thousand dollars, or we don't like him like it or not
• 30:26
  apologetic that, right? Because I offer like marketing
• 30:30
  Services, I've copywriting, content, yes, Services, all
• 30:33
  that. So again, had this issue still
• 30:35
  have this issue sometimes, but the biggest thing that I've
• 30:38
  learned is that you, you have to set those prices fairly high for
• 30:43
  different reasons. One, It's because you just need
• 30:47
  to be taken. Seriously, you need to have set
• 30:49
  prices. You need to, you know, I mean,
• 30:51
  you can flip off people to an extent, you can be like oh I
• 30:54
  need to see the project details. Which yeah I say that because I
• 30:56
  mean it though I need to see like I need to see what's being
• 31:00
  asked of me, how much time is roughly going to take.
• 31:03
  And then I can quote a reasonable price, right?
• 31:05
  But secondly, you need to set high price because if you set a
• 31:09
  low price people even think you're an idiot or they just
• 31:12
  think like oh this is clearly bad quality because You know, to
• 31:16
  attract a sorry good. Yeah, no you're right.
• 31:19
  You were you would attract the wrong sort of people.
• 31:21
  You like anyone. This went into work for like
• 31:23
  peanuts for the for this kind of work is going to produce
• 31:27
  something that is not worth anything.
• 31:30
  And the people, the people who are looking for the lowest price
• 31:34
  in their product, our people Who are only going to be concerned
• 31:40
  about the price and they're just going to, they're going to
• 31:41
  nickel and dime you. And you're actually going to
• 31:43
  spend, it's funny. We just found that when we were
• 31:47
  cheaper and price, we found that we had more difficult clients
• 31:52
  because they wanted to know where all the money was going
• 31:54
  and it's like, it's going to my tide.
• 31:57
  That's right. You know, whereas like it, now
• 31:59
  that we're in, we're making more money a website, the our clients
• 32:04
  generally, like we trust you, whatever you want to do.
• 32:07
  And it's actually, It actually takes us less time because we're
• 32:11
  not fighting with the client. Like most.
• 32:13
  Like we spent more time at lower fees with the client, then we
• 32:18
  did actually doing the work which is just and was over just
• 32:22
  the dumbest stuff like them. Like, well, I actually I've
• 32:25
  heard that this works better and it's like, hey did you hire me?
• 32:29
  Why did you hire me? So did they just wanna argue
• 32:33
  with someone? That's what it is.
• 32:34
  They just want to be like small sits and he said this is
• 32:37
  business. Yeah, if you wanna be a smartass
• 32:39
  go, don't go start a podcast because a lot of what I do
• 32:53
  involves collaboration and I'm fine with that.
• 32:56
  But I cannot be about in times I've spoken to like this,
• 33:00
  generally, who I'm talking to is like a Your manager writing or
• 33:04
  marketing manager, or whatever, right?
• 33:06
  And it will be like, you know, they're in conversation with the
• 33:10
  client me and the marketing guy don't really need to say much to
• 33:13
  each other because we kind of know the deal, you know, maybe
• 33:15
  we talk specifics. But like, you know, like oh this
• 33:18
  is only to be for murder. These are the keywords, right?
• 33:21
  Yeah. It's pretty straightforward,
• 33:22
  right? Yeah.
• 33:23
  But occasionally they'll get a situation.
• 33:25
  I had won that year or two ago where the client had never even
• 33:30
  they never Used marketing service before or they would
• 33:34
  they just didn't know right, which is fine that, there's all
• 33:37
  right and these things. But hey, number one, Google
• 33:41
  exists. Number two, just say no just
• 33:44
  saying just saying you can Google stuff.
• 33:47
  You can learn, you can find out, okay?
• 33:49
  That's what it's there for, you know, it's not, it's not the,
• 33:52
  it's not the old days where you just go to the library or you
• 33:54
  just didn't know. Oh, you asked like, I don't
• 33:57
  know, your uncle, who knows, whatever.
• 33:58
  Right? But yeah, whatever but yeah.
• 34:02
  Number one. Number two.
• 34:05
  Me and this guy, right? We're trained marketing
• 34:08
  professionals. Yeah, okay, and you're arguing
• 34:11
  with us, you're saying, well, I don't know about this and I do
• 34:13
  about this. And I said to this, this SEO
• 34:15
  guy, like in private, I was like, and I was like,
• 34:18
  painstakingly explaining, like basically are saying, well, I
• 34:23
  don't know what I can say to this person other than, you
• 34:26
  know, this is just how it's done.
• 34:27
  And the way that they understand it is just wrong because
• 34:31
  sometimes it is Things just don't work and they don't work
• 34:34
  for a reason and there's like, obviously marketing shifts all
• 34:37
  the time, but there are certain things that, you know, kind of
• 34:41
  always stay the same as particularly in content
• 34:43
  management and content padam. Yeah, yeah.
• 34:46
  And it's just like, if you're trying to explain that to
• 34:48
  someone who doesn't have any knowledge of it, who's arguing
• 34:50
  with you, it's easy. Sometimes, you can't say this to
• 34:53
  the client. That's the thing about you said
• 34:55
  before, when you were talking to clients, you can't voice how you
• 34:58
  really feel, you just have to be like, uh-huh.
• 35:01
  Mmm. Yeah.
• 35:03
  Okay, so this is how we should do it and these are all the
• 35:07
  reasons why. And then they go, no, we're not
• 35:09
  gonna do that. Okay, well, do you want this to
• 35:13
  happen? Oh no.
• 35:15
  No, no. Okay, well if we do it the way
• 35:17
  that you want to do it, this is what's going to happen.
• 35:21
  Oh no, I don't want that at all. Okay, so shall we do it the way
• 35:24
  that I set? Yeah, okay, great.
• 35:27
  And then that's the conversation you have to have because it's,
• 35:29
  you know, and this applies to everything in life like yeah.
• 35:32
  You know, don't talk about, don't argue with people or talk
• 35:36
  about things, you know, nothing about right?
• 35:38
  Yep. Do you research, find out about
• 35:41
  it, learn about it, and once you understand what you're talking
• 35:44
  about, then maybe you can argue a bit, you know, because don't
• 35:47
  be wrong people. People do screw you around and
• 35:50
  you know I had about that when I when I started doing marketing
• 35:52
  stuff you know and people mess me around a little bit but I
• 35:56
  mean it's like you said is I think it depends on people's
• 35:59
  priorities that if you've got a lot of money as a business and
• 36:02
  you're looking to hire people and use their marketing
• 36:05
  Services, your mail, marketing agency, whatever.
• 36:08
  You're basically saying, okay, we either don't have the no
• 36:14
  sorry, we have the money, but we just don't have the time to
• 36:16
  invest in having in-house marketing stuff or maybe we just
• 36:19
  don't want it. Maybe it's just more efficient
• 36:21
  or better to just. What do you mean might even be
• 36:24
  cheaper to just Outsource it. Right.
• 36:26
  Loads companies do this. I agree.
• 36:28
  I think it generally speaking. Should be sourced but it depends
• 36:32
  on. Your goals are depends on a lot
• 36:34
  of things but anyway, you pay for that.
• 36:37
  Having an employee for it is expensive, right?
• 36:40
  Yeah, I mean, I think, at the very least, it's useful to have
• 36:43
  someone who's But managing it like a marketing manager or
• 36:49
  yeah, you know, CMO something like that right.
• 36:53
  Right right. But that's all you really need.
• 36:56
  If you're going to Outsource everything else, you just need
• 36:57
  someone to like check. Okay.
• 36:58
  Yeah, this is fine. This is fine.
• 37:00
  Okay, great. You know but generally there has
• 37:03
  to be like trust, you know, it's like any relationship business
• 37:06
  relationships the same. You need to trust the agency
• 37:08
  that you're paying, you know. Yeah.
• 37:10
  It's only when like your check and stuff and it comes through.
• 37:13
  Like and I've seen this, I've worked for companies.
• 37:16
  We hired an agent. Those, this was amazed.
• 37:18
  I mean, well, I work for a company once and I started out
• 37:21
  as a copywriter and like, any job I ended up doing about a
• 37:24
  million different things. So, you know, by the time I ask
• 37:27
  for a pay raise and a promotion, it was, it was kind of like,
• 37:30
  they couldn't say no because it was just ridiculous how much,
• 37:32
  right? But that's just how jobs are,
• 37:35
  you know? Yeah, yeah.
• 37:36
  And I wanted to learn to be fair, is it?
• 37:38
  Yeah, you know, is invaluable and I still am grateful to that
• 37:41
  company to this day. But One thing I was not grateful
• 37:46
  for was continually saying and talking to the SEO manager about
• 37:50
  this and saying hmm. He blacked we should Outsource
• 37:53
  this stuff and I'm like I agree. That's a good idea and then we
• 37:58
  finally managed to get it out sourced because we'd had some
• 38:02
  paid writers who are out sourced but they weren't from an agency.
• 38:06
  They were just people writer and they were intelligent people,
• 38:11
  but terrible, writing, awful Dreadful.
• 38:15
  And so my job initially was to fix their writing and I realized
• 38:19
  the scope of this, oh yeah. Eventually became like a big
• 38:22
  project and I basically fixed an entire part of their website and
• 38:26
  made my own article format that I basically had to create all
• 38:32
  this stuff from scratch. Yeah.
• 38:34
  Yeah. I didn't realize that initially,
• 38:36
  it just kind of evolved into that.
• 38:38
  Yeah, but when it came eventually to the point where,
• 38:40
  you know, we had a bit more money bit more control with bit
• 38:43
  more in the driving seat. Now, We finally got, you know,
• 38:46
  marketing agency, to produce articles for us.
• 38:49
  Yeah. Now, I don't know where they
• 38:51
  were based think maybe Australia somewhere like that.
• 38:54
  But this was some of the worst writing I've ever seen in my
• 38:58
  entire life and I was the guy who had to fix this shit.
• 39:03
  Oh yeah. So it come through and I'd spend
• 39:06
  loads of time on it and my manager of your luck.
• 39:08
  Hmm. Hey, Chris.
• 39:09
  This is taking a while and I'm like, yeah, but have a look at
• 39:12
  this and they'd be like, Oh, I'm like Yeah, I know right, why are
• 39:17
  we still using them? Wouldn't it make more sense to
• 39:20
  like pay a bit more money? Get good quality stuff and then
• 39:23
  I just glanced it rather than having to fix it.
• 39:25
  I said, I might as well just write the ship myself which is
• 39:27
  ironic because you know, now I do freelance writing and I can
• 39:31
  tell you, I could tell you this, right?
• 39:33
  You don't need to be an expert in any topic unless you're doing
• 39:35
  like writing about science medicine, whatever most stuff
• 39:38
  you could just Google online and learn about it.
• 39:41
  And then you know, five You know about an hour or two later,
• 39:46
  you've written several articles on.
• 39:48
  It's not. It's you know what I mean and a
• 39:50
  lot of time his secret I'm going to release for everyone.
• 39:53
  Most people when they're real most companies, when they're
• 39:56
  releasing a new article, the first thing they do, this is a
• 39:59
  secret tricks of the trade. They Google the first page,
• 40:03
  Google Ser PS, search engine results Pages.
• 40:06
  Look at the first three to five articles, read them copy them
• 40:10
  but don't plagiarize them. Write them in your own words and
• 40:14
  publish it. Yeah, and then the rest is just
• 40:17
  making sure you have the keywords, may be spending a bit
• 40:20
  money on Advertising to push it up, but mostly it's just making
• 40:24
  sure that you write a better version of what everyone else is
• 40:26
  already done. Because there's only so many
• 40:28
  ways you can relate the same information and less Number one,
• 40:33
  very, very important. You can offer something new and
• 40:35
  alternative. Take some new information or an
• 40:38
  offer that no one else is offering.
• 40:40
  Yeah, that is the art of content production and management at
• 40:44
  least as it exists today, it's for your, a big name.
• 40:48
  Well yeah. But then again, it then that's
• 40:49
  just money, isn't it? You just how ridiculous money
• 40:53
  that I remember. I worked for a trading company,
• 40:56
  right? And the SEO manager literally
• 40:57
  turned around. To me and said, look, there are
• 40:59
  some key words that we just don't bother rank.
• 41:01
  For because it's just like, for instance, trying to rank for
• 41:04
  Forex is just a waste of money, you can do it.
• 41:08
  You could spend like, 50k on that and maybe you be on there
• 41:11
  for like a week, but you've just wasted 50k.
• 41:14
  So that you're at the top of the bloody goo, goo SEO, peas with
• 41:20
  that, even though there's a website that is called 4X, who's
• 41:23
  going to vote rank above you and no one's going to click on your
• 41:26
  ad because it's like her. Why is this here?
• 41:28
  This doesn't look right. You know yeah it wasn't that
• 41:30
  goes back to the podcast. Ting thing you were talking
• 41:32
  about, like, If you already have the brand awareness, whether
• 41:37
  it's a person or a company, like if you, if you start the
• 41:40
  podcast, then all sudden it's like oh it immediately just
• 41:43
  jumps up, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, I don't know if Ryan
• 41:45
  Reynolds does a podcast, but if he does do a pot, If he if he
• 41:48
  did a podcast, it would immediately take off because
• 41:50
  he's Ryan Reynolds. You know what I mean?
• 41:52
  It's like of course right now. I mean it took me a while to get
• 41:57
  my name on the top of the Google.
• 41:59
  Yes, Google s erps and I still struggle.
• 42:02
  My name gets, you know Up and down up and down.
• 42:05
  Because the thing is, is well, Google people forget, Google is
• 42:09
  a, iGoogle is Right pewter, it keeps changing things.
• 42:12
  So even if you've got everything that you're supposed to have in
• 42:15
  the context of marketing and SEO you doing all the best practices
• 42:18
  spending the money doing everything, you should do, that
• 42:21
  doesn't guarantee you going to be at the top.
• 42:23
  It's just gives you a better chance and I've been I've been
• 42:26
  blessed there because my last name is wery and there's only
• 42:30
  250, we're he's in the United States.
• 42:33
  So like I have my eye Gmail's just my name.
• 42:37
  Yeah. Like you know what, to get her I
• 42:39
  mean how many people have that you know like so lucky.
• 42:43
  I do same thing with like so all when you look me up it's just my
• 42:48
  dad. Who's Peter weary senior and
• 42:51
  then myself. And but that's like, I mean,
• 42:55
  there's nothing you can do like, there's a, I'm assuming there's
• 42:57
  a lot of reads, right? Yeah.
• 43:00
  Yeah. I mean that's like what your
• 43:02
  command? It's actually funny.
• 43:05
  So my digital agency is called, Candid goat.
• 43:08
  Yes, though, which only was it's a totally, a fortuitous thing.
• 43:14
  I was kind of messing around it, did a Blog early on and then
• 43:17
  that was right around when I started getting sick and I had I
• 43:20
  was actually working three part-time jobs at the time.
• 43:23
  So I was like, okay, first thing to go is the blog.
• 43:27
  But so I was subcontracting for a digital marketing agency As a
• 43:33
  coder initially and then it wasn't working out.
• 43:36
  They like they were working like 12 hour days and I'm like I have
• 43:39
  a family. I don't want to work 12-hour
• 43:41
  days. Did they say anything to you?
• 43:44
  So it's exciting but they offer you anything?
• 43:46
  Well, they just like, all right. Bye.
• 43:48
  Like I know. No you weren't they were just
• 43:52
  starting they how? Yeah.
• 43:55
  And it was and I thought there were a lot of things where it
• 43:58
  just didn't work. It was they're great guys, but
• 44:01
  just different culture. Right different different views
• 44:04
  about what they want to achieve and what I wanted to achieve,
• 44:07
  just different expectations. So I mean, if I saw, you know,
• 44:10
  I'd sit down have a drink with them, we just kind of went our
• 44:13
  separate ways. So I'm that's the honestly I
• 44:16
  work with subcontractors now because I don't want to have,
• 44:20
  like, weird HR stuff. I just want to keep you wanna
• 44:22
  work with me. Work with me.
• 44:23
  If you don't want to work with me, it's fine.
• 44:25
  Like, we don't have to have hard feelings, we don't have to have
• 44:27
  lawsuits or something, you know what I mean?
• 44:28
  Like, I don't want to what do we talk about?
• 44:30
  So h0 h0 pisses me off. Yeah, The reason that, but so
• 44:36
  they asked me to create my own company, so I could sub contract
• 44:39
  for tax purposes. I just randomly used I was like,
• 44:45
  I had to come up with it that day and I was like, I want to do
• 44:47
  PJ weary that sounds boring, you know what I mean?
• 44:51
  So I just saw is like I'll just use my old Blog name candid goat
• 44:54
  and they're like, that's a weird name.
• 44:55
  Like yeah, whatever. When we split ways, I already
• 44:59
  had this company and my wife just had just lost her job.
• 45:03
  You're pregnant with our second. Oh wow.
• 45:05
  Yeah, very exciting very exciting.
• 45:11
  Yes, tough times and grew so much through it.
• 45:15
  I love it. It's actually been one of the
• 45:17
  best things ever happened to me but what were the biggest
• 45:21
  lessons you learn in that like biggest thing to see you welcome
• 45:25
  or the biggest place you grew. Let me finish the point about
• 45:28
  category. Yeah, go go go.
• 45:29
  Yeah, so I didn't think about the time one.
• 45:33
  The name is kind of fun, right? And that's why I picked it for a
• 45:35
  Blog name, but it's worked out people, like, oh, you're like an
• 45:38
  edgy cool marketing agency. I'm like, no, it's just a little
• 45:41
  Blog name and I'll tell you this.
• 45:44
  Do you know how much competition I have on for SEO for candid
• 45:48
  goat 00? You know how many people I've
• 45:51
  had to fight for social handles 0.
• 45:56
  You don't understand how lucky woman.
• 45:58
  I know I was like I've tried to compete with mine.
• 46:03
  And it's always like, oh, the person that has my name on
• 46:06
  Twitter. It's just some person that never
• 46:07
  tweets. Oh, yeah, everyday.
• 46:09
  Yeah. And that.
• 46:10
  So I just been very fortunate all the way through.
• 46:13
  Like so, for our podcasts, there are some Leviathan type stuff.
• 46:17
  But chasing the by Athen, I'm already starting to creep up for
• 46:20
  like no reason at all. You know, it's like and then the
• 46:23
  same thing with we read ads, I mean no one had its.
• 46:26
  We H Ry, you know, I'm like, no one, no one's typing, this in
• 46:30
  unless they're looking for us, you know, so much.
• 46:33
  Already top, like it's anyways. So the I love that question.
• 46:38
  You asked what are the biggest lessons I learned during that
• 46:40
  time? I mean that's when I was looking
• 46:42
  at my wife. So I was teaching, let me, let
• 46:49
  me give this whole story, I go and I start teaching and the
• 46:52
  school that I'm teaching, I teach part-time to try and get
• 46:55
  my foot in the door, it works. They really like me.
• 46:58
  I'm the last decision that the principle makes before he moves
• 47:02
  to a different position and then a new principal comes in to hire
• 47:05
  me full-time. So that's not good.
• 47:08
  I talked to the new principal and he says, yeah, my main job
• 47:12
  is to teach an elective at. He's like, yeah, I kind of want
• 47:14
  to get that the new principal I'm like, well that doesn't bode
• 47:18
  well and I also found out I don't like High School teaching
• 47:23
  is more about lesson plans and about classroom management and
• 47:29
  they're both things that I suck at.
• 47:31
  I don't want to just cover the same material over and over
• 47:33
  again. I love creating new material.
• 47:34
  So I'd actually like substitute lectured at colleges and I loved
• 47:40
  it because the the professor to ask me research this and create
• 47:43
  a 45 minute presentation on this, and I'd spend hours doing
• 47:47
  that, and that was awesome, which is what you do in college,
• 47:49
  what you're supposed to do, right?
• 47:50
  You like come up with, Your own stuff and that's what you do in
• 47:55
  high school. So I it was just this very, it's
• 47:59
  very grinding and it requires a lot of people interaction.
• 48:02
  I enjoy talking to people, but I don't get energy from it.
• 48:05
  I'm like, I have to where it's like, after this, I'll just be
• 48:07
  like sitting in my chair. Like this will my kids run
• 48:10
  around the backyard. You know, saying y'all say
• 48:12
  Lanta, I'll glance at my analytics and see that, you
• 48:16
  know, I've gotten one view on YouTube in the time that we've
• 48:19
  talked write that like this is what I do, but Or.
• 48:25
  Oh, so. Well, I had promised them that I
• 48:29
  would stick it out for at least three years.
• 48:32
  So, we started looking for a house.
• 48:34
  My wife was had work, I had work.
• 48:37
  My wife had just gotten pregnant and the day we were supposed to
• 48:40
  go look for a house. I'd gotten a letter saying
• 48:43
  they're going to rehire me. But that year, the school I was
• 48:48
  at was in the national news for a racist incident involving some
• 48:52
  of the students, so it's a private school.
• 48:55
  They lost 60 high schoolers, 60 students.
• 48:58
  So yeah, so if you look at 60 students and I think they charge
• 49:02
  from 15 to 16 k a student. That's a lot of teacher
• 49:05
  salaries. I was one year in, I was in an
• 49:08
  elective and I didn't, I didn't have a teaching certain
• 49:12
  certification, so it was, I was first off The Chopping Block,
• 49:15
  like they're like. We like you, you're a good.
• 49:18
  You're obviously a good guy, but we're letting you go and that
• 49:21
  happened. The day.
• 49:22
  We're supposed to go look for a house.
• 49:23
  Oh, no. We had already put in for our
• 49:25
  lease on our apartment. And now I didn't have a job.
• 49:28
  We moved back in with my parents, which is always
• 49:31
  exciting as a father of two. I was probably like 28, I'm
• 49:37
  like, oh no, I'm The Stereotype. You know, at that point we just
• 49:48
  been trying to make things work. Yeah.
• 49:50
  And I I don't care about money enough, I should care about
• 49:55
  money more. And So what had happened was, I
• 49:58
  I was constantly pursuing like philosophy trying to learn more
• 50:01
  and I was just hoping that someone would see the potential
• 50:04
  in me and just give me a stable job and that didn't happen and
• 50:08
  we moved eight times in six years.
• 50:10
  Jeez, so the 8th time was moving back to my parents, we'd lived
• 50:15
  with him for like two or three months when we first moved down
• 50:17
  and look for an apartment, that wasn't that big a deal.
• 50:19
  Now we're like, I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do
• 50:21
  and everything that would have fit, what I wanted to do was out
• 50:25
  of state and I was like I don't want to move again.
• 50:29
  I'm I'm done and I don't want to move away from my parents, like
• 50:31
  I want them to be like my dad's really good at mentoring, my mom
• 50:35
  is a great Nana, you know? That's it's funny.
• 50:37
  Like you're like I thought they'd be grandma and grandpa
• 50:39
  but whatever your kids call them and ends up becoming, you know
• 50:42
  Cannon. So but So this happens and I'm
• 50:49
  like, I start temping just to like get and I get offered a job
• 50:53
  in sales for a roofing and I'm not, I actually got offered a
• 50:59
  couple different sales jobs. People are like, oh, like I
• 51:03
  tried to do it get into coding and I walked in, I was like, I'm
• 51:06
  gonna do something different. I walked into the place where
• 51:08
  they did the coding and like, hey, I'd like to do coding and
• 51:10
  they kind of like like you're just getting started which like
• 51:13
  a sales job. Do you seem really good at like,
• 51:15
  just like talking to people. I'm like, Don't want to do sales
• 51:17
  like, hmm. And I had to look at my wife and
• 51:21
  the guy they wanted, they wanted me to Apprentice to a sales guy
• 51:24
  who was their biggest sales person at this roofing company
• 51:27
  and he made a hundred fifty thousand a year and but he works
• 51:32
  70 hours a week. There it is.
• 51:35
  Yeah yeah. And he was he was also like the
• 51:37
  brother of the CEO which also like yeah yeah but I mean I got
• 51:43
  to be honest I mean I wasn't making anything I was making
• 51:45
  like ten dollars an hour. Our this is right after
• 51:48
  Hurricane Irma. My son was born the week before
• 51:51
  hurricane, the Irma, exactly a week before.
• 51:53
  I don't know if you know anything about Florida,
• 51:55
  hurricane Irma did like millions of dollars of damage.
• 51:59
  Like some people didn't have power for two to three weeks.
• 52:02
  It was so they hired me as a temp to go through all the
• 52:07
  voicemails of people who are angry and calling because they
• 52:10
  weren't answering back, that was that was soul-sucking.
• 52:13
  I'm not going to lie. And so, it was literally me
• 52:17
  like, like just putting in a database.
• 52:19
  Hey, this person is called three times.
• 52:21
  They have a hole in the roof, the size of a basketball, and
• 52:25
  they like Waters just leaking in, and this it, like, they call
• 52:29
  it, they've called, like, since, like three months ago, they were
• 52:31
  backed up like, their guys are work.
• 52:33
  Their combat crews are working because everyone had holes in
• 52:36
  the roofs, right? Like it was just insane.
• 52:38
  So they are like, hey, you've gotten through all the
• 52:44
  voicemails we Could be good, you're really good around the
• 52:46
  office, talking to people, we think you're very similar
• 52:49
  personality to this guy. You're not pushy which is like I
• 52:52
  never wanted to be the pushy salesman of the Wolf of Wall
• 52:54
  Street stuff like makes my like the hair on the back of my neck
• 52:57
  like I know so I'm just like hey these are options.
• 53:02
  This is what it would fit best for you but you got to make you
• 53:04
  make incisions right for you. And that's if I was ever going
• 53:07
  to do sales, it probably would have been the roofing job
• 53:09
  because it's not like selling a luxury car, you know what I
• 53:12
  mean? That's like, you need a roof,
• 53:14
  you know what I mean? I always knew.
• 53:15
  No, I'm giving someone something they need and I looked at my
• 53:18
  wife and I was like, I'm going to quit this job in two years.
• 53:21
  If I take it because I am not going to drive 70 hours a week
• 53:25
  and feel fulfilled. I'm gonna have a hard time
• 53:26
  getting up in the morning. I'm not going to see you.
• 53:28
  I'm not gonna see the kids and I just started working on coding
• 53:34
  and I done it, like, for about three months, when I was a
• 53:37
  teenager and then our computer crashed, unrelated, which
• 53:40
  hilarious, and my dad was like this because you're coding.
• 53:43
  I'm like, no. for adults, like, we need to do this and It's kind
• 53:52
  of goes back to the the slog thing.
• 53:54
  You know, there's going to be a lot of work involved and they're
• 53:57
  just takes nerves. It just takes the like it takes
• 54:00
  someone who's looks at the risk and says this is worth it
• 54:03
  because the safe thing and I actually had someone call me up
• 54:05
  who I respected was like sometimes you just need to do
• 54:08
  the thing. You don't want to do to provide
• 54:09
  for your family and I was like thank you, I appreciate that
• 54:12
  advice. I'm not going to take it, you
• 54:15
  know, and I was like, I want to do something that I enjoy.
• 54:18
  I want to do something that when I wake up in the morning I'm
• 54:20
  like, But I also chose to compromise in some ways because
• 54:25
  I was like, at least I'll enjoy coding at least and eventually
• 54:28
  turned into digital marketing. And I still do some coding, but
• 54:31
  I'm problem solving, and I get to manage my time and that was
• 54:35
  just really. I think too many people, I love
• 54:43
  watching One Piece with my kids. I don't know if you know the,
• 54:46
  the anime or the manga and so the whole point is you have this
• 54:51
  this one young teenager who wants to become king of the
• 54:54
  Pirates and he's willing to die for that dream.
• 54:57
  And I want my boys to get that because I think there are a lot
• 55:01
  of people in America, at least, I've heard different studies,
• 55:04
  but sixty to seventy percent of people don't like their job,
• 55:07
  right? And Looking at that.
• 55:09
  And I'm like, Man. Yeah.
• 55:13
  Like what do you like the odds of you actually dying from like
• 55:16
  pursuing your dream, a pretty low, you know what I mean?
• 55:21
  Like this. Yeah, but what you are
• 55:24
  sacrificing and this is what people like they complain about
• 55:26
  their job. But they're not willing to
• 55:28
  sacrifice their comfort. They're not willing to deal with
• 55:30
  the stress of. I don't know where the rents
• 55:32
  coming from. I might have to, you know, I
• 55:35
  lived with my parents for four to six months while I think I
• 55:38
  end up being six months while I learned to code.
• 55:41
  And then we, Out. And some people were very
• 55:44
  gracious and helped us. And some of that is just like
• 55:47
  you want to build a good support system.
• 55:49
  I, it makes you think of there's a proverb that says, if you, if
• 55:56
  you want to have friends, show yourself friendly.
• 55:58
  That's really interesting to me how many people don't get.
• 56:00
  It's like, why won't people be friends with me?
• 56:02
  It's like because you won't be friends with them.
• 56:04
  Like he like you got to be the friend that you want to have,
• 56:07
  you know? And so I had that support
• 56:10
  system. Very Grateful to my parents are
• 56:14
  not fiscal Geniuses. They don't have like tons of
• 56:17
  money but they they were there for me, right?
• 56:19
  And that's a, that's not something everyone has.
• 56:21
  So, I understand that. But I also took a very clear
• 56:25
  risk with a wife and two kids saying I'm going to, you know,
• 56:30
  literally I love, you know, messing with my younger brother.
• 56:33
  He's 9 years younger and we were sleeping in his room at the time
• 56:41
  because he was off at college. And my wife's water broke in his
• 56:44
  bedroom, which I love just bring up because it really bothers it.
• 56:47
  We had a, I mean, it's, it's easy to be embarrassed about
• 56:52
  like, oh I, you know, I literally had a baby at my
• 56:55
  parents house because I couldn't, you know, because I
• 56:58
  couldn't afford to take care of my family and if I got stuck
• 57:02
  there then I would be, I'd be doing a job.
• 57:04
  I didn't like, you know, I'd be and instead of being like okay
• 57:07
  this is where we need to go. I'm not going to be embarrassed.
• 57:09
  I'm going to I'm going to focus on what I need to achieve.
• 57:12
  And this is came up. I just talked to my dad about
• 57:16
  this and a couple. Good things.
• 57:19
  Came out of this whole thing. One is, I figured out that my
• 57:23
  parents and I could live together and so we've been able
• 57:25
  to create a more financially stable position position for my
• 57:28
  parents, and I by living in the neck.
• 57:30
  They call it next Generation but multi-generational house.
• 57:33
  They have their own like in-law suite, that sort of thing.
• 57:36
  So there are good things that came out of it right like that.
• 57:40
  Like I mean I wouldn't just To that, we had already lived
• 57:43
  together and we knew that we could get along.
• 57:46
  Definitely helps to have a little bit more of our separate
• 57:48
  space, right? But going back to it's like you
• 57:59
  have to be willing to take risks and you have to willing to
• 58:01
  sacrifice your comfort if you if you want to like, if you want to
• 58:05
  find your purpose. And so what I basically said is
• 58:08
  I'm going to create a job and I'm gonna create a company that
• 58:10
  eventually lets me I'm sick and tired of like trying to convince
• 58:15
  people that I'm worth of scholarship that only pays half
• 58:17
  the tuition anyways and I'm just going to I'm going to go back
• 58:21
  and for PhD, they'll often Go off and cover your full tuition.
• 58:27
  And in fact, if they won't, you probably shouldn't get the PHD.
• 58:29
  It's probably a scam. That's that's a whole thing.
• 58:31
  But whether you get a job there or not that actually provides
• 58:36
  living. Expenses is very difficult and
• 58:40
  also goes along with that is that it's often like 20,000 a
• 58:45
  year. It's just like nothing to live
• 58:47
  on. I'm like, you know what, I would
• 58:49
  love to just be able to say, hey I'm going to take my time and
• 58:53
  I'm going to go out and make money.
• 58:55
  Joe and then go back and stay and like, I'm going to find ways
• 58:58
  to continue to pursue but an alternate alternative path and
• 59:02
  that wasn't going to happen with a 70 hour a week, proofing sales
• 59:07
  position. It's not gonna happen.
• 59:08
  I'm gonna get, I know myself well enough, I'm not going to
• 59:11
  get home after a 10 to 12 hour day and crack open content, and
• 59:16
  try and grow myself as a philosopher.
• 59:18
  Like that's not, it's not gonna happen.
• 59:22
  And so and And I've been out of the whole process.
• 59:29
  It's been really good because instead of, like, At first, I
• 59:34
  definitely really struggled with my own mindset.
• 59:38
  I can't provide for my family. I'm failing.
• 59:42
  And I, and why did this happen to me?
• 59:46
  Why did this, like, you know, I'm looking at, like, the way
• 59:49
  that the school set up. What?
• 59:50
  I was promised, what didn't happen?
• 59:52
  Mistakes. Other people made in regards to
• 59:55
  me and I was like, you know, it doesn't help, it doesn't And
• 59:59
  help to stay there. It doesn't, it doesn't hurt.
• 1:00:01
  I mean, actually it's important to work through those things and
• 1:00:04
  I had to work through a lot of crap of like, how did I end up
• 1:00:07
  here? And you can't just blame
• 1:00:10
  everything on yourself. Like sometimes people do things
• 1:00:13
  they like okay, like that was unfortunate, right?
• 1:00:16
  But if you just stay there it's like I can't believe they did
• 1:00:19
  that to me. Never going to move forward,
• 1:00:21
  you're never going to move forward.
• 1:00:22
  You have to like, okay so what am I going to do now?
• 1:00:25
  And so and I think I actually You know, have this written down
• 1:00:31
  even from like a political standpoint.
• 1:00:34
  I don't know if this would ever work out, but I want to read
• 1:00:37
  more. I want to read her stuff because
• 1:00:40
  I have a friend who's read a lot of Simone, Vey.
• 1:00:43
  I don't know if you know that name but her political
• 1:00:46
  philosophy is we have started to create problems by focusing on
• 1:00:49
  rights rather than obligations which is a really interesting
• 1:00:53
  concept. And so And not that.
• 1:00:57
  So I'm not saying that people shouldn't have rights and like,
• 1:01:00
  I don't but that like the way that like, if instead of telling
• 1:01:03
  people what they are, what they are owed, what they owe And
• 1:01:08
  putting giving like, making sure people focus on their
• 1:01:11
  responsibilities. And I everyone who's listening
• 1:01:15
  to this, and I'm sure you've experienced this.
• 1:01:17
  There's nothing worse than a room.
• 1:01:19
  Full of people who are arguing about whose responsibility is to
• 1:01:21
  take a project. Instead of just being like, I
• 1:01:26
  don't care, I don't care whose responsibility is it?
• 1:01:28
  Just needs to get done, right? And that's like and that's your
• 1:01:31
  life. Like it's your life.
• 1:01:32
  You got to take responsibility for it and there's a lot of
• 1:01:35
  people and it's a and that's not a question about government or
• 1:01:40
  any of that stuff. I like, I want to make sure
• 1:01:41
  people are fed. We went on certain forms of
• 1:01:45
  unemployment welfare for a little bit.
• 1:01:46
  So I'm not sitting here like I'll just pull yourself up by
• 1:01:49
  your bootstraps, I understand, it's hard, I'm glad that stuff
• 1:01:51
  is there, but eventually You just stay on welfare.
• 1:01:56
  You're going to be forget about the governmental drain or the
• 1:01:59
  political of the politics of it. You're going to be unhappy
• 1:02:03
  because you have to find something that you do.
• 1:02:06
  That gives you purpose. You have to have a reason to
• 1:02:08
  wake up in the morning and you know just saying hey I'm just
• 1:02:12
  going to watch the latest Netflix show is not going to cut
• 1:02:15
  it in the long run. Yeah.
• 1:02:17
  And so and that you have to have that support network.
• 1:02:23
  I'm not a huge fan. A lot of times when people talk
• 1:02:25
  about bootstrapping, they're like well if you just work
• 1:02:28
  80-hour weeks and you just like, you know, you never see your
• 1:02:30
  family, I'm not, I'm not saying that, but you have to you like
• 1:02:35
  one try and create some kind of support network.
• 1:02:36
  I know some people have that some people don't, but at the
• 1:02:40
  end of the day, you have to be a support for someone else in
• 1:02:42
  order to create that and some of that's noticing when some people
• 1:02:44
  are just taking advantage of you as well.
• 1:02:47
  But really just recognizing like It really is all about mindset.
• 1:02:51
  That guy who runs a charter plane business was homeless for
• 1:02:57
  six months lived out of his car. And he has the same story as me.
• 1:03:02
  He said, eventually one day I was like, okay, like I had some
• 1:03:06
  bad stuff happened to me, really, like, from what I
• 1:03:08
  understand, I have gotten the entirety of the story, but like,
• 1:03:10
  I was like, oh, like you, like somebody really was just cruel
• 1:03:14
  to him. Someone like intentionally
• 1:03:16
  sabotage his life. They said, I had the end of day.
• 1:03:20
  Who cares? Like everybody has problems.
• 1:03:23
  You have to, you have to just be like, I'm going to I'm going to
• 1:03:27
  go and change and make it better.
• 1:03:29
  It doesn't, it doesn't fix a. I think what I'm trying to say
• 1:03:31
  is it doesn't it doesn't help to dwell on it because live your
• 1:03:36
  life is a victim you can. Yeah you you cannot and so if
• 1:03:39
  you do that you're just going to end up living and that's why I
• 1:03:42
  kind of goes back to that one piece idea.
• 1:03:44
  What I want my kids to understand is a life, without
• 1:03:47
  purpose is dead already. And I think that's like as much
• 1:03:50
  as it's Pirates and they basically have superpowers and
• 1:03:52
  stuff like that, like really the main lesson, I want them. is
• 1:03:55
  like, You have to have purpose in your life or otherwise.
• 1:03:59
  Like, if you're just wasting time, why?
• 1:04:02
  Like, what what's the point that those people are so unhappy?
• 1:04:05
  There they go to their job. And they like, if your job is
• 1:04:09
  making unhappy and this is what we're seeing with like, I don't
• 1:04:11
  know if you've seen like the great resignation, like, so
• 1:04:16
  people are quitting after the pandemic and Roemer.
• 1:04:19
  Yeah, because because also in there like I didn't like my job
• 1:04:25
  and its really like I was happier at home Edge and they're
• 1:04:28
  not and it's like, wait a second.
• 1:04:32
  I like what I'm doing. Like I would rather risk the
• 1:04:36
  instability and go find something that makes me happy
• 1:04:41
  and I actually I hate that that gives me purpose.
• 1:04:44
  I do I firmly believe that happiness.
• 1:04:49
  Is a secondary goal. And by that, I mean like there's
• 1:04:52
  a lot of things in life that people will pursue that end up
• 1:04:55
  not paying you back anything. And I think happiness is one of
• 1:04:58
  those. I think if you pursue happiness,
• 1:05:01
  you will not find it. But if you pursue purpose, you
• 1:05:05
  will find happiness. So I'm going to probe a little
• 1:05:10
  bit. Why do you think that pursuing?
• 1:05:13
  Happiness is not a positive thing?
• 1:05:15
  Why does it lead to failure? Because it starts becoming goes
• 1:05:20
  back to obligations and rights thing.
• 1:05:22
  It becomes about, you comes about your happiness, and I
• 1:05:25
  think that's actually short-circuiting, and some of
• 1:05:28
  this is kind of anecdotal, but I think the logic of it of, like,
• 1:05:34
  you can't find everything you need inside yourself.
• 1:05:39
  I don't think that I think, you know, if like if you're living
• 1:05:43
  completely for yourself and everyone kind of understands
• 1:05:46
  this, right? I think an Epicurean idea of
• 1:05:48
  happiness Yes, you could like the epicureans had like this
• 1:05:51
  idea of like, putting out and creating a stable purposeful
• 1:05:55
  life and that leads to happiness.
• 1:05:57
  But a lot of people when they talk about seeking their own
• 1:05:59
  happiness, they're like good example.
• 1:06:02
  And I'm just, you know, this is a, it's I didn't want to do
• 1:06:06
  controversial takes, but I know, I don't think like a lot of
• 1:06:11
  people talk about marriage and the point of marriage is to be
• 1:06:14
  happy. And then what we're seeing is a
• 1:06:18
  lot of people not getting married because they're like,
• 1:06:20
  that doesn't make you happy. Yeah, and a lot of people
• 1:06:22
  getting divorced because it's like, it's not making me happy.
• 1:06:24
  And I'm like, that's because you don't understand what marriage
• 1:06:26
  is for marriage, building something together.
• 1:06:29
  Yeah, that's what marriage is for.
• 1:06:31
  Like I'm building something with my wife, have I always been
• 1:06:34
  happy with her. No that's like that's so
• 1:06:36
  obvious. Like have you always had great
• 1:06:38
  moments with all your friends know?
• 1:06:40
  It's like I use marriage as like that ultimate connection, right?
• 1:06:43
  But like if you're if you dump your friends at First time they
• 1:06:47
  make you unhappy or seriously unhappy, you know, you're good,
• 1:06:50
  you're going to end up not having friends so it's all about
• 1:06:54
  the way that these things play out though, like, I totally
• 1:06:57
  agree with you but I think there's got to be levels to this
• 1:07:00
  stuff like if your body or your partner betrays you in a way.
• 1:07:04
  Yes, like just unforgivable. All right, fair enough.
• 1:07:07
  But if it's like, you know, like I do kind of believe in second
• 1:07:12
  chances but it is it's a tricky thing.
• 1:07:15
  Yeah folks. For instance, if someone lies to
• 1:07:17
  you, I hate lying Liars. I understand as well.
• 1:07:23
  That sometimes people lie for good reason or you know, just
• 1:07:27
  because they're scared. Yeah.
• 1:07:29
  And You have to look at the character of a person overall
• 1:07:35
  and you have to look at their intentions and who they are
• 1:07:39
  rather than their actions because good people do bad
• 1:07:42
  things sometimes. Yeah, sometimes life forces us
• 1:07:47
  to do things that, you know, maybe are not in line with our
• 1:07:51
  character and I think for those reasons, you know and everyone
• 1:07:55
  deserves a second chance everyone deserves forgiveness, I
• 1:07:58
  do kind of believe in these concerts and hey, I'm not even a
• 1:08:00
  religious guy. I know that you're a religious,
• 1:08:02
  man. I'm not a religious man, but I
• 1:08:03
  do kind of believe in these principles mostly because our
• 1:08:07
  society is built upon them. People forget this things like
• 1:08:10
  Lori order and everything. It's all built on religion than
• 1:08:13
  the principles at least you know, whether or not, they're in
• 1:08:15
  that. That's not where I thought you
• 1:08:16
  were going, but I mean, I agree with that, too.
• 1:08:17
  But yeah, yeah. Well, whether or not they're
• 1:08:19
  enacted and followed and everything is another story.
• 1:08:21
  But that's at least what the idea is.
• 1:08:24
  And I go back and forth in this because I'm very old-fashioned
• 1:08:28
  when it comes to these things. Like I'm I've had some bad
• 1:08:31
  experiences over the years and I do kind of that makes me very
• 1:08:36
  hesitant cautious but at the same time I do kind of give
• 1:08:41
  people Second Chances here and there because I try to go live
• 1:08:44
  my life with that idea of okay. Well, you know, what would I
• 1:08:48
  want if I was in their shoes? If I'd be, if I was the one in
• 1:08:52
  the wrong, what what you know, how would I want to be treated?
• 1:08:56
  And I tried to focus on that, but there are some things that
• 1:08:59
  are just, you know, you got to do.
• 1:09:00
  The line on. You got to be like.
• 1:09:02
  That's not acceptable. That's not okay.
• 1:09:06
  Yeah. It's just knowing what those
• 1:09:07
  things are. That's the tricky thing.
• 1:09:09
  What in this is so and that's why I say we should pursue
• 1:09:12
  purpose rather than happiness because purpose gives you better
• 1:09:16
  guidelines on how to deal with toxic people.
• 1:09:23
  So then then, like, it's this make me happy as it's not making
• 1:09:25
  me happy. And that's part of the reason is
• 1:09:27
  the banality of how the way happiness is portrayed in our
• 1:09:32
  society, right? Like it gets it for me.
• 1:09:36
  A lot of times the word it exists in a certain family,
• 1:09:41
  right? And exist in a certain vision
• 1:09:43
  and purpose tends to be more long-term focused.
• 1:09:48
  Pardon. So you mentioned, you know,
• 1:09:50
  people to let me be clear like obviously.
• 1:09:52
  Someone's, like if there's like serious abuse going on in a
• 1:09:55
  marriage like obviously like then.
• 1:09:59
  Get out of there. Take the kids.
• 1:10:02
  Like this is. Yeah.
• 1:10:03
  And I even say serious abuse because some people will like
• 1:10:07
  literally be like they called me a piece of shit.
• 1:10:10
  I can't believe it. You know.
• 1:10:11
  It's like okay. Like yeah, like yeah.
• 1:10:13
  Like I'm talking about like yeah dress you need to get out right.
• 1:10:17
  Like put the other side of this and I think this is really
• 1:10:20
  important and might so my parents Pants kind of come from
• 1:10:23
  a counseling background and I did a little bit of that work
• 1:10:27
  kind of underneath them at my dad, worked at a college and he
• 1:10:30
  was the dean of students and he would work with troubled
• 1:10:33
  students. And then I worked kind of in
• 1:10:35
  that department. So you can imagine our family
• 1:10:37
  discussions are kind of hilarious and everyone's like,
• 1:10:40
  well, yes, but but we're also like new englanders.
• 1:10:48
  So there's also like nah, that's stupid.
• 1:10:50
  You know? Like it's like a mix.
• 1:10:52
  I'm not Life. So one of the things my dad says
• 1:10:57
  and I think this is really useful here and this is kind of
• 1:11:02
  goes back to the obligations versus rights and just how you
• 1:11:04
  live your life. So I don't know if it would work
• 1:11:06
  politically, but from a moral standpoint, Hurt people hurt
• 1:11:11
  people. Yeah, that's I mean, that's how
• 1:11:14
  the foundational and I've been stunned.
• 1:11:16
  It's such a simple statement but it's unbelievable.
• 1:11:18
  How if I play that sentence in my head, it really helps with a
• 1:11:23
  lot of difficult situations and you start to look for the hurt
• 1:11:27
  and the other person. And so do I have that?
• 1:11:32
  Will this detract from my purpose to help this person?
• 1:11:35
  Or is this something that like? Because for me I have this Body
• 1:11:39
  vision of where I want to go, and I know that like some of
• 1:11:42
  that includes like a strong Community around me.
• 1:11:45
  Does that make sense? And so, if I like, it's that, if
• 1:11:47
  this person's going to like, destroy my community, I'm not
• 1:11:51
  going, I'm not going to give him a second chance, right?
• 1:11:53
  Yeah. But if they, but if I can bring
• 1:11:55
  them into the community and that's where the hurt people
• 1:12:00
  hurt. People comes in the only way you
• 1:12:02
  stop that, right? Because if someone hurts me,
• 1:12:06
  then I hurt someone else. And I'm like, well, it's because
• 1:12:08
  they hurt me that's like, eventually someone has to say,
• 1:12:10
  it's okay that you hurt me. There has to be Grace.
• 1:12:13
  Yes, to be a moment where someone looks and says, hey,
• 1:12:17
  It's okay. Let's work through this together
• 1:12:20
  and when you do that, you can do incredible things for people.
• 1:12:22
  You can see people who their entire life and those people
• 1:12:26
  become incredible friends because they understand what you
• 1:12:28
  did for them. When you looked at them and
• 1:12:30
  said, I understand that you were hurt, let's work through that
• 1:12:33
  and I understand you hurt me. Let's work through that and like
• 1:12:36
  move towards this purpose and that makes sense.
• 1:12:40
  And it going, I was just gonna say and then because that moment
• 1:12:44
  is not a moment of Happiness normally Whether you're
• 1:12:48
  religious or not, I won the most powerful passages in the Bible
• 1:12:52
  and you can just accept it as a metaphor, right?
• 1:12:55
  It just works as a lesson is Ezekiel in the valley of dry
• 1:12:58
  bones and people don't understand, I don't know if
• 1:12:59
  you're familiar with it. Basically, this Prophet has a
• 1:13:02
  vision from God which is why it works as a metaphor, right?
• 1:13:05
  Like it like it wasn't real, even in the Bible he goes in and
• 1:13:09
  he sees a valley full of dry bones.
• 1:13:12
  And people are like, that's good.
• 1:13:13
  You know, you ever heard the song Them, Bones Them, Bones
• 1:13:15
  them, dry bones, that's where it like So honestly, most people
• 1:13:21
  think of the song and it's kind of a happy thing.
• 1:13:24
  I like no. No.
• 1:13:25
  Like when you like look at it is the long-dead trauma of a mat.
• 1:13:31
  It's a mass grave. Like that's whether it's a
• 1:13:33
  valley full of dry bones. Like, think about what that
• 1:13:35
  means, someone killed a bunch of people and just left them to rot
• 1:13:39
  and it's been decades since then.
• 1:13:42
  That's your like kind of changes the And the what God is saying
• 1:13:49
  to Ezekiel? Is he speaking to Israel and he
• 1:13:52
  saying I know that you just lost your whole nation, but I am the
• 1:13:58
  Lord and I'm going to resurrect you because what happens to the
• 1:14:00
  dry bones is. God resurrects them into Fully
• 1:14:04
  Alive people again. and I found that to be a powerful message,
• 1:14:08
  whether you're a Christian or not because it's the whole
• 1:14:14
  principle of Resurrection is you take something that's long dead
• 1:14:17
  and you give it life and I've heard a lot of people and this
• 1:14:21
  is why I'm not a big fan of like, I understand positive
• 1:14:25
  thinking and there's a lot. Obviously, I've talked about it
• 1:14:27
  in some ways already but positive thinking without first
• 1:14:31
  going through the trauma and the difficulty, and that's not a
• 1:14:35
  happy place. And I think that's where it kind
• 1:14:38
  of where I'm going to is, like, happiness is on the other side.
• 1:14:42
  So if you're, if you're constantly evaluating buy
• 1:14:44
  happiness, you're not going to like, you have to see the
• 1:14:47
  happiness that's on the other side, if that makes sense. and
• 1:14:50
  really, it's not something like At least for me personally, I
• 1:14:55
  don't look at it like going through and working with someone
• 1:14:58
  who's been hurt and say and that's just everyone anyone you
• 1:15:02
  get close to has hurt everyone. You work with has short circuits
• 1:15:06
  and they're thinking related to something like signals.
• 1:15:09
  They received in the past that weren't actually related to why
• 1:15:11
  someone hurt them. And so you look at that, I don't
• 1:15:17
  look at that. Like well I'll be happy in a
• 1:15:19
  year from now. You know, like, like that's not
• 1:15:23
  gonna get me out of the bed out of than the morning.
• 1:15:24
  I'm like, I'm building something, I'm building
• 1:15:27
  something with this person and I'm building my life with them.
• 1:15:33
  And I mean, that for me, I tend to have not a quite, as
• 1:15:36
  individual of view of identity as westerners tend to.
• 1:15:40
  I think there's you know my backgrounds in hermeneutics.
• 1:15:43
  That's what I focused on science and art of interpretation for my
• 1:15:47
  masters. So there's this whole idea of
• 1:15:50
  the her Magical Circle where you have the whole in the part and
• 1:15:52
  you go back and forth and I think the West is like strayed
• 1:15:55
  like to focusing too much on parts and not on the whole
• 1:15:58
  that's kind of plays in this whole discussion to it's like
• 1:16:02
  your identity is very much wrapped up in who's around you.
• 1:16:07
  And you can't eat a lot of times, like to think of people
• 1:16:12
  like, well, there's this person and you have like this very
• 1:16:15
  tight identity, a wrapped around this person's like, well, we run
• 1:16:20
  into this all the time. I mean, climate change is a good
• 1:16:23
  example. It's like someone else is doing
• 1:16:25
  something and it affects me directly and it changes my life
• 1:16:28
  drastically. So, we have to address this at a
• 1:16:30
  communal level because you're like, if you just address at the
• 1:16:33
  individual level it's not going to.
• 1:16:35
  It's not going to solve a Problem.
• 1:16:39
  So that it. But it also, you can't just
• 1:16:42
  address that a systemic problem. You also have to dress as an
• 1:16:44
  individual problem, the both work together.
• 1:16:48
  So, for me, like, a fundamental model instead of thinking, in
• 1:16:50
  terms of, there's literally political philosophy called
• 1:16:52
  realpolitik, where you think of things like cute, like,
• 1:16:58
  Billiards, like you have the different balls, just bouncing
• 1:17:00
  off each other and I think it's more like we are roots and
• 1:17:05
  branches on a tree right? Where you can look at us as I as
• 1:17:10
  you know, like okay that's a branch.
• 1:17:12
  That's a part of the tree. But we're also like all
• 1:17:14
  connected, right? Like if, if grocery stores
• 1:17:18
  failed tomorrow, I would be in real trouble because I don't
• 1:17:22
  know how to get my food. You know?
• 1:17:25
  I mean and so like understanding how it all works together. it's
• 1:17:30
  very important for understanding my point here, that like it's
• 1:17:35
  the cost of having people around you who are hurting and not
• 1:17:38
  dealing with that or just cutting them off.
• 1:17:41
  If you cut off, people are hurting, you're going to cut off
• 1:17:43
  everybody, because everybody's been hurt and So eventually
• 1:17:46
  you're going to have to work through this and sometimes you
• 1:17:48
  won't have the energy to work through it and you will have to
• 1:17:51
  cut somebody off or someone it is literally just a take her all
• 1:17:54
  the time. So I'm not talking about those
• 1:17:56
  people, right? Like, it's someone, that's where
• 1:17:58
  it should check tree is actually really important.
• 1:18:00
  Are they trying to grow or they stagnating and even if they're
• 1:18:03
  at a high level, but Starting to decline and they don't care.
• 1:18:07
  That's really scary, right? Like you're like you're going to
• 1:18:11
  take me down with you but just understanding that We have to go
• 1:18:17
  through, we have to go through pain to find what I would call
• 1:18:20
  Joy, and that's that long-term happiness.
• 1:18:23
  And I the way and thinking in terms of Joy, I don't think
• 1:18:28
  gives us the ability to get through the slog.
• 1:18:31
  You know, we've taken all the way back to our other podcasting
• 1:18:34
  thing. I have to have a purpose for
• 1:18:37
  what I am building. And for me that's a that's a
• 1:18:41
  thick description, not a thin description.
• 1:18:42
  So it's just like my purpose is to be a good person is very He
• 1:18:46
  week it's like what is a good person look like?
• 1:18:49
  So you have to have a vision of like all the different like a
• 1:18:53
  thick description of like what does it mean to be a good
• 1:18:55
  person? What does it mean to live a good
• 1:18:58
  life? You know you're like I just want
• 1:18:59
  to live the good life. It's like well that changes
• 1:19:01
  every day you're just going to be like yeah.
• 1:19:05
  Like what are those like things that car car sales things you
• 1:19:09
  ever see those like balloons that are, like, looking for the
• 1:19:11
  one thing to men? Yes, exactly.
• 1:19:14
  So I don't know if that all Ah, makes sense, but yeah, no, I
• 1:19:18
  can't wait to come from really and I that's what got me through
• 1:19:23
  tough times, but it's like, I'm going to build something, right?
• 1:19:26
  Like, when I talk about my wife pregnant with a second kid, I'd
• 1:19:30
  have no job and I, there was an easy way out, but it wasn't the
• 1:19:35
  life that I wanted to live. And so and yeah like well now
• 1:19:40
  you're happier. Yes, I am happier but it wasn't
• 1:19:42
  because I was worth like there was a lot of pain involved like
• 1:19:46
  a going fifty thousand dollars in debt and not knowing your
• 1:19:49
  next rent payment is coming from like I mean and we didn't always
• 1:19:53
  do it right like I'm not a financial wizard.
• 1:19:55
  So like sometimes you're using zero percent credit cards and
• 1:19:58
  we're transferring and like, it's like like it was a mess.
• 1:20:04
  And then when I went into business trying to build Good
• 1:20:08
  relationships over money, like literally giving people money
• 1:20:11
  back or giving them free work. Either way, whatever it took to
• 1:20:16
  make sure that I was doing what I was obligated to do.
• 1:20:21
  You know? I mean like if you like if you
• 1:20:23
  mess up I need to make that, right?
• 1:20:25
  I'm not just going to take the money and run and I'm going to
• 1:20:28
  make sure that the other person is taken care of and creating
• 1:20:31
  long-term stable patterns around me.
• 1:20:36
  Because that's, that's the secret to success.
• 1:20:38
  Not like, hey Eddie, you know, if this.
• 1:20:43
  So a great example of this is the GameStop stock, right?
• 1:20:48
  A lot of people made a lot of money very quickly and that's
• 1:20:52
  great. But the people who made a lot of
• 1:20:55
  money, very quickly who didn't have, who had stable patterns of
• 1:20:59
  success already took that money and turned it into something
• 1:21:03
  better, because eventually life will give it.
• 1:21:05
  And I guarantee you there are a lot of people made a lot of
• 1:21:07
  money, but who just happened upon it by luck.
• 1:21:11
  And this is like and then they just, it's just gone, it's quite
• 1:21:15
  they've done nothing with it. I mean, it's literally the story
• 1:21:18
  of lotteries. I don't know if you know the
• 1:21:19
  statistics for lottery winners but it's horrible most of them
• 1:21:23
  live terrible lives. Did you know that?
• 1:21:25
  Yeah, I've heard about this a friend about this and I think
• 1:21:29
  the reason for that. Ironically, which brings this'll
• 1:21:32
  full circle is a lack of purpose.
• 1:21:36
  Yeah, they don't know what causes the thing, like I I've
• 1:21:38
  had countless conversations with people.
• 1:21:42
  Both friends my livestream audience.
• 1:21:44
  Unfortunately, I'm not in the greatest financial position
• 1:21:46
  right now and there's a lot of things I would love to do
• 1:21:50
  projectwise. Yeah, that it soon, as I had the
• 1:21:54
  money, I would do it like that, you know, right?
• 1:21:56
  Right. We're talking different types of
• 1:21:57
  content, different things in life, all sorts of subtle.
• 1:22:01
  Yeah, we're I just want you to know that we're doing well but
• 1:22:05
  we're still. We still haven't paid off all
• 1:22:07
  our debts like were three years in business.
• 1:22:08
  So, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. it's like, To
• 1:22:16
  the point. I mean if you are a person with
• 1:22:20
  goes with with prospects that you wish to achieve goals, are
• 1:22:24
  you sure you wish to achieve projects you want to invest time
• 1:22:27
  and money into having a lot of money is no problem?
• 1:22:30
  Like it's going to just help you achieve those things and you
• 1:22:33
  know, it's you're going to be okay.
• 1:22:36
  Mine always be easy but like you know you'll be okay.
• 1:22:39
  But yeah, people that win the lottery it's always people that
• 1:22:43
  Like don't know what to do with the money and I remember there
• 1:22:45
  was one couple in the UK 50 years old right.
• 1:22:51
  They win 160 million so stupid like that.
• 1:22:56
  Yeah. And they get interviewed, they
• 1:22:58
  choose to because you get an option, you can either choose to
• 1:23:01
  be anonymous or which I would definitely do like Sky.
• 1:23:04
  Yeah about. But yeah, they were, they were
• 1:23:07
  just like, oh yeah, let's be on camera, great.
• 1:23:10
  So, but they're living a fun life fight with trying to battle
• 1:23:13
  for. Friends.
• 1:23:14
  Right? Anyway, that's another story.
• 1:23:16
  But yeah, they go interview and the guys.
• 1:23:18
  Sorry, I don't hate to interrupt you, but I gotta add this fact.
• 1:23:21
  I think I want to get the number right by believe it was.
• 1:23:24
  You are 20 times more likely to be murdered if you win the
• 1:23:27
  lottery. Oh my God.
• 1:23:30
  Oh my God. No, exactly talk about those
• 1:23:32
  friends and that's not funny but it's almost it is funny.
• 1:23:35
  It is funny. Let's just be honest, it's like
• 1:23:38
  and most of the time it's your it's your family.
• 1:23:40
  She's like, yeah. Anyways, so yes, that's stable
• 1:23:46
  communities. This presentations reservation
• 1:23:49
  to keep your mouth shut and not, I'm not go on about how much
• 1:23:52
  money you do, what do not have. As there's a reason right there
• 1:23:55
  folks crikey. But yeah, this story, so they're
• 1:24:00
  being interviewed and, and the interviewer asked them 160
• 1:24:06
  million, that's a lot of money. We can spend that money on the
• 1:24:11
  husband just goes Well, I don't know, puppy puppy, put it in the
• 1:24:16
  bank. I'm just sitting there.
• 1:24:18
  Like, what do you mean put it in the bank 160 million and you
• 1:24:24
  know what? It's just wasted on.
• 1:24:27
  You still better still better than what most people do with
• 1:24:31
  the lottery. Wow, yeah.
• 1:24:34
  But come on. Oh no, I know.
• 1:24:36
  No, like that's like but here's the truth.
• 1:24:39
  This is the truth about the lottery.
• 1:24:41
  It, if your Good enough with finances to handle the lottery,
• 1:24:45
  you're good enough with finances, not to play the
• 1:24:47
  lottery because at the end of the day like it's not a good
• 1:24:51
  investment but it's some people that cool the lottery of the
• 1:24:55
  idiot taxed and I, yeah, yeah. Eventually it's a tax on people
• 1:25:01
  who are bad at math, that's the problem is, right?
• 1:25:11
  Yeah, you play the lottery. Every week.
• 1:25:13
  Well, ideally if you're going to do it, that's what you should
• 1:25:16
  do, right? Because obviously, you know, you
• 1:25:18
  never know when your numbers will come up, but it's always
• 1:25:20
  the sort of thing of that one week where you don't play the
• 1:25:23
  lottery. That's probably where your
• 1:25:25
  numbers are going to come up, you know, that, and that's the
• 1:25:27
  reality. And it's happened to so many
• 1:25:28
  people. So many people?
• 1:25:30
  Yes. Yeah.
• 1:25:32
  And it's Yeah, I think it's very much playing the lottery and you
• 1:25:38
  know, not trying to anger people but playing the lottery is still
• 1:25:42
  you're putting your agency in someone else's hands.
• 1:25:46
  It's another way of talking were talking about, like, take take
• 1:25:48
  life in your own hands, save that money, or just spend it on
• 1:25:51
  yourself. Like your odds of winning are so
• 1:25:55
  low, like you'll be, I mean, I would rather have the momentary
• 1:25:59
  happiness of adding an extra pump of caramel or whatever and
• 1:26:03
  whatever drink I'm getting at the coffee house, you know?
• 1:26:06
  It's like, it's still gonna be a better investment.
• 1:26:09
  So I did because you this kind of like this Lottery discussion
• 1:26:15
  and this is from 10 or 20 years ago.
• 1:26:16
  So I'm sure it's changed in the United States and I know it's
• 1:26:19
  going to be different in the UK, right?
• 1:26:22
  But they did a study on how much money how money correlates to
• 1:26:26
  happiness, and what they found was that it does make people
• 1:26:31
  happier more money, you have, well, this is interesting.
• 1:26:35
  Interesting. This is no, this is very
• 1:26:37
  important. More money, equated to people
• 1:26:40
  responding. They were happier up to 75
• 1:26:42
  thousand dollars. Now is about 1020 years ago. 75
• 1:26:46
  thousand dollars a year after that there was no correlation.
• 1:26:50
  Hmm. And that makes sense.
• 1:26:52
  Like we may suit of money, probably has more well, more
• 1:26:58
  more, I think. Once you have once, you know,
• 1:27:01
  like you're not in a position where you're like, how am I
• 1:27:02
  going to pay my rent? I'm in Jeff.
• 1:27:04
  How am I going to pay it off? Like that stress is going to
• 1:27:07
  obviously impinge on your happiness, right?
• 1:27:09
  Like I've been there like I was very stressed and very unhappy.
• 1:27:14
  I could have it sucked, right? I know like what?
• 1:27:20
  And it's interesting because when I was teaching, I gave the
• 1:27:22
  stat to my kids and one of the kids said, oh, like no way.
• 1:27:29
  I could that can't, that can't be right because my dad makes
• 1:27:32
  way more than that. And there's no way we could like
• 1:27:34
  of We could live on that much so that must be for like you know,
• 1:27:39
  specific demographic whatever. And I was like okay like I
• 1:27:42
  wasn't going to like like with him about it.
• 1:27:44
  Like tell him it's families. You know making way too much
• 1:27:46
  money or whatever. Obviously private school they're
• 1:27:48
  making good money and I was like I walked out afterwards because
• 1:27:51
  I just wasn't prepared for the objection and I was like he has
• 1:27:54
  a brand new F-150 truck that's like 60 70 thousand dollars and
• 1:27:59
  I'm like and he's 16. It's like he's like we wouldn't
• 1:28:03
  even be able to feed our family on 75 thousand dollars.
• 1:28:06
  I'm like they see, that's your right then.
• 1:28:09
  Yeah. That's an important Point.
• 1:28:13
  Yeah, because here's the thing. Yeah, it's likely Obviously his
• 1:28:19
  family's rich, right? Yeah.
• 1:28:21
  Yeah. The likelihood is that his
• 1:28:24
  parents did were not like born rich, like they had to work
• 1:28:28
  normally like everyone else and then they they got to that
• 1:28:30
  point, right? Yeah, but right there is the
• 1:28:33
  problem because they've not thought their kid the value of
• 1:28:36
  money. Yeah.
• 1:28:37
  See that's the thing. Like, for instance, with me, I
• 1:28:39
  mean look, I've lived my whole life poor but I know one day
• 1:28:42
  that's going to change. I just know it, I feel it.
• 1:28:44
  I know they are going to change and it's going to and I'm going
• 1:28:47
  to be rich. Each.
• 1:28:48
  But what I know is very important is to not lose sight
• 1:28:52
  of the worth and value of money and the worth and value of
• 1:28:56
  things. Just because you've got x amount
• 1:28:58
  of money in the bank doesn't mean you should spend it like in
• 1:29:02
  a silly manner, do you know what I mean?
• 1:29:04
  And that's the reality you need. You need to be able to teach
• 1:29:06
  your kids that you to say, do you know what?
• 1:29:08
  Yes, we can afford these things but this is a better way to do
• 1:29:13
  things like you need to make it. They always say rich.
• 1:29:15
  People always say, you need to make your money work for you.
• 1:29:17
  You need to S. If you're making money, if
• 1:29:19
  you're rich, you need to invest your money so that it's doubling
• 1:29:23
  or tripling or whatever. So that you've always, you're
• 1:29:26
  always building. Yeah, you know, so I don't think
• 1:29:29
  there's a, I don't know what the magic number is and UK of where
• 1:29:32
  someone lives comfortably and I'm sure 75,000 dollars in.
• 1:29:36
  California is different from 75 thousand dollars in Florida.
• 1:29:40
  But yeah, again thing it's it's the same in the UK.
• 1:29:43
  It depends where you're living typing life, you're living, you
• 1:29:46
  know, it's a tough. Fun, but I think there's a
• 1:29:49
  principle here in the principle is once you get rid of the
• 1:29:52
  stresses in your life and you can live comfortably.
• 1:29:55
  And by that, I mean, you just you're not having to like if you
• 1:29:58
  use your money wisely, then you don't have a lot of you don't
• 1:30:02
  have as many fears, right? Yeah.
• 1:30:03
  You don't have as many stresses. You don't have uncertainty.
• 1:30:07
  Then after that like and some that is knowing the worth of
• 1:30:11
  money. Right?
• 1:30:11
  But like if your if if someone's making a hundred fifty thousand
• 1:30:15
  dollars a year or someone's making hundreds of millions of
• 1:30:18
  dollars a year and you ask their kids and one family eats dinner
• 1:30:23
  together every night and they hang out with their dad, their
• 1:30:26
  dad takes off like once a month. You take some out for like to go
• 1:30:30
  fishing or I don't fish. I don't know why I used as an
• 1:30:33
  example but you know like I mean he does something with them
• 1:30:36
  versus the Family with several hundred million and they every
• 1:30:40
  time they come walk down the stairs, the mom and dad are
• 1:30:42
  screaming at them. Who's going to be happier, you
• 1:30:46
  know. It's like that's really like at
• 1:30:48
  the end of the day like their money is a for people and I did.
• 1:30:52
  I grew up I thought federal poverty line so I yeah.
• 1:30:57
  So at one point in our life and so we were living in a cheaper
• 1:31:00
  area. So I don't think it was that bad
• 1:31:02
  and so we never, I was never at the point where I had to worry
• 1:31:05
  about where my next meal was coming from.
• 1:31:08
  But what that next meal was could often be like like,
• 1:31:11
  spaghetti and meatballs again? All right.
• 1:31:13
  You know, it's like, I've been there.
• 1:31:14
  Yeah. Yeah, fine.
• 1:31:16
  Like and that was when I was a kid, right?
• 1:31:19
  So, and so, I understand a little bit, not not as much as
• 1:31:23
  like. I know, there are people who go
• 1:31:25
  without meals and that's a different sort of.
• 1:31:26
  Yeah, they were all different levels to it.
• 1:31:28
  Like I remember growing up at school and I was a poor kid, but
• 1:31:31
  like I remember going to other kids houses who reported me and
• 1:31:35
  I was like, oh hmm. Maybe I ain't got it so bad.
• 1:31:38
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like looking at You, when
• 1:31:45
  you look at your life and realize, yes, money brings
• 1:31:50
  money, bring stressors to like managing it.
• 1:31:52
  But I'd rather have Minds me of filled on the roof where he's
• 1:31:55
  like. If money is a curse, may God
• 1:31:57
  strike me with it. You know.
• 1:31:58
  This is never recover from the curse.
• 1:32:03
  Yeah. The but money like the lack of
• 1:32:08
  money brings certain amount of stressors but there's a there's
• 1:32:11
  so many other ways that you can have unhappiness.
• 1:32:14
  Your life, then the lack of money.
• 1:32:16
  And that's I think that the really and that's why I think
• 1:32:19
  people miss and that's why I think it's another way of
• 1:32:22
  looking at just kind of I've been mentioning this whole
• 1:32:24
  podcast which is You have to find some, you have to find
• 1:32:29
  something that fits all the parts of your life together,
• 1:32:32
  because if you're just pursuing riches, eventually I money is
• 1:32:36
  another good example. I did not focus on making money
• 1:32:40
  at the start of the start of our business, which is an odd thing
• 1:32:44
  to say, I focused on creating a reputation, well, tape it.
• 1:32:48
  So I think that that's equal, if not more, valuable these days,
• 1:32:52
  right? Online, reviews are like, some
• 1:32:55
  valuable. That's, that can make or break.
• 1:32:56
  Your business. Yes, and we and in the business
• 1:32:59
  we're in people, don't look at Google reviews, we work with
• 1:33:02
  keynote speakers and for them, it's word of mouth.
• 1:33:06
  And it's like, I mean, you, you, you want to be good with people
• 1:33:11
  and I saw this from my dad, my dad, never worked a job.
• 1:33:15
  We made a lot of money, but he was always, at least taken care
• 1:33:19
  of because he always took care of other people.
• 1:33:22
  And so, I mean, and for me this is like Creating genuine
• 1:33:27
  friendship. And I actually, I am blessed to
• 1:33:29
  have several men that I call my close friends.
• 1:33:32
  That's a big contributor to happiness, but a lot of that I
• 1:33:36
  just comes from. It's not about, you know, people
• 1:33:39
  laugh about people fighting over the bill who's going to pay.
• 1:33:43
  It's not actually about who's going to pay.
• 1:33:45
  It's about clearly demonstrating to the other person.
• 1:33:50
  That who pays is not. What's important, right?
• 1:33:54
  It's about saying I'm not here because you're paying for my
• 1:33:57
  meal. Yeah.
• 1:33:58
  Right. And it I don't care who pays for
• 1:34:01
  the meal but I if it comes down to it I'm going to pay for the
• 1:34:04
  meal and I'm always going to push to pay for the meal because
• 1:34:06
  I want to demonstrate to the other person that I am here for
• 1:34:09
  them. Not not because not because I'm
• 1:34:13
  like ooh I got you know, ten dollar.
• 1:34:17
  Ten dollar Applebee's me, little break.
• 1:34:26
  And when I say I'm broke, I mean, you know, It's tricky,
• 1:34:32
  sometimes. Tricky.
• 1:34:33
  Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, we went out and I
• 1:34:39
  made sure to keep the money low, but at the same time, you know,
• 1:34:42
  that I haven't seen this guy in five years.
• 1:34:43
  I'm going to spend money on this guy.
• 1:34:44
  I don't care. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:34:46
  And The first place we went was like a really cool arcade bar
• 1:34:51
  place and it's just, it's really good vibes.
• 1:34:53
  I just wanted to say, okay, here's a place that I really
• 1:34:55
  like. I want to show you this.
• 1:34:56
  You'll have fun here. We had fun together.
• 1:34:58
  Oh I remember it came to where we were going to buy drinks for
• 1:35:01
  each other. And I was like, I got this and
• 1:35:06
  he was, he was, he's already in there, he's got his card out.
• 1:35:08
  He's trying to yeah. Like fighting a little bit and
• 1:35:11
  then I just push him aside. I'm like listen yeah I'm buying
• 1:35:15
  you. This drink I want to buy you,
• 1:35:18
  this drink? Yeah, this is important and I
• 1:35:21
  can remember my exact wording but basically what I'm trying to
• 1:35:23
  say is like, yeah, I haven't seen you in five years.
• 1:35:26
  Yeah. And I want to buy you this drink
• 1:35:29
  because I respect you and you're my friend and it's like and like
• 1:35:32
  you say it's not about paying it's more about like the, The
• 1:35:36
  Acts or the demonstration. Yeah.
• 1:35:38
  It's like, it's like, duh, I respect you.
• 1:35:42
  Let me do this for you kind of thing.
• 1:35:44
  So I'm going to always bring it back to hermeneutics in my head
• 1:35:48
  because like interpretation is. I love it.
• 1:35:52
  I love like, I love literature. I love art and just like how you
• 1:35:55
  like, dig through things. But it's funny how like this has
• 1:35:59
  been a huge help for me and relationships and whether
• 1:36:01
  someone's toxic or not, toxic, whether someone's ignorant or
• 1:36:06
  whatever. There's a couple different
• 1:36:07
  things when you read a book and again, possibly stepping on
• 1:36:12
  people's toes, here there are different ways to read it.
• 1:36:16
  People who don't read books, I think yeah, thank you, can read
• 1:36:20
  whatever you want to a book and I don't believe that I think you
• 1:36:23
  can have different readings of books but I it's going to fit
• 1:36:26
  within a range. Right?
• 1:36:28
  You can't just my patient's of the interpretation.
• 1:36:30
  Yeah, different interpretations. And what's important is, like,
• 1:36:35
  you can read certain passages different ways, but there are
• 1:36:38
  always, if you're reading a, if you're reading a book, there are
• 1:36:41
  always certain Keystone moments that an author says this is
• 1:36:45
  what's important, right? You know what I mean?
• 1:36:48
  Like, Lord of the Flies is not a happy story.
• 1:36:50
  If you read as a happy story, you're a little weird.
• 1:36:52
  I don't know, if you've read the book, it's about it's about
• 1:36:55
  children going feral and killing each other.
• 1:36:57
  So, and that was on the syllabus that my my school, I mean, we
• 1:37:03
  never studied it, but I think that certain classes did like
• 1:37:06
  what? Yeah, so but whatever.
• 1:37:11
  Yeah, so whatever you do, the I think those kind of moments are
• 1:37:17
  have been, especially important to me.
• 1:37:19
  Because I noticed there are key moments in every relationship
• 1:37:22
  where you can like, you can read someone's reaction.
• 1:37:25
  Like someone might laugh at a joke or might not laugh at a
• 1:37:27
  joke. And you're like, maybe it's been
• 1:37:30
  think it's funny. Maybe they don't like me, you
• 1:37:32
  know what I mean? Like, there's all sorts of like,
• 1:37:33
  different. The ways you can yo.
• 1:37:35
  And I overthink things, right? They say become a parent and
• 1:37:38
  you're sitting there and you're like, oh, but there are key
• 1:37:41
  moments where someone does something like the only reason
• 1:37:44
  that person would do that is because they like me to say, the
• 1:37:50
  only reason they would do that, it's because they're an asshole
• 1:37:56
  and then they become my friends. But the ultimate.
• 1:38:00
  Yeah, but so expect this also. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 1:38:04
  No. Um, and so I've learned to do
• 1:38:06
  that for myself, is like there are key points where I'm like, I
• 1:38:10
  am like, oh I have a chance here to demonstrate that I clearly
• 1:38:13
  care about this person. This isn't something that like
• 1:38:17
  it in business. Most of the time people like,
• 1:38:21
  oh, there's doing it for customer support, right.
• 1:38:23
  But it's come up a couple times where people have had family
• 1:38:26
  emergencies, that we work with other subcontractors and we have
• 1:38:30
  Uber each that food. Yeah, that's I don't have to do
• 1:38:36
  that. That's not in the customer
• 1:38:38
  success package. Were, you know, maker and put
• 1:38:43
  your coworker happy package, right?
• 1:38:46
  That's like I care about you and I listen to them when they talk
• 1:38:49
  about their personal problems because that's me and that
• 1:38:53
  doesn't always mean I have to solve them, right?
• 1:38:55
  I'm like, I'm not saying like I don't have energy to solve,
• 1:38:57
  everyone's problems, let me be clear, right?
• 1:38:58
  So sometimes all you need to do is listen sometimes like hey
• 1:39:01
  here's a small thing I can do, I do care and that's so important
• 1:39:06
  for building. Those kind of long-term stable
• 1:39:09
  things. That do like lead to happiness,
• 1:39:12
  right? And that you let us all say Joy.
• 1:39:14
  Instead of Happiness, like they can be interchangeable.
• 1:39:16
  I'm just talking about like I think of my, my cousin went to
• 1:39:24
  West Point and then he was in the military and his friends,
• 1:39:28
  consistently talked about how broke they were and you can
• 1:39:31
  actually like, you don't have a lot of expenses in the military.
• 1:39:34
  I don't know if you know that, right?
• 1:39:35
  Because it's like, hey, if they feed you and your like your
• 1:39:38
  yeah, you don't have to pay for rent, right?
• 1:39:40
  But every weekend they went and blew several hundred dollars at
• 1:39:45
  the local bar. Oh and then they would complain.
• 1:39:48
  About why they were broke. I like and so when you look at
• 1:39:54
  this and he's like, and they're like, man, you always have so
• 1:39:56
  much money. It's like, that's because I'm
• 1:39:58
  not. But that what they were pursuing
• 1:40:01
  is like, oh, I want to be happy. And that's what, that's the kind
• 1:40:04
  of, you know what I mean? I want to be happy right now.
• 1:40:06
  I want something give me something for the G, you know,
• 1:40:09
  and like, and it's really dangerous to social media
• 1:40:12
  because you look at Instagram and someone's like, wow, they're
• 1:40:14
  having such a good time and it's like, yeah, until they wake up
• 1:40:18
  in the And they have no bank account and then like I have no
• 1:40:20
  money, you know, it's like so I think that's kind of, but a lot
• 1:40:25
  of people live that way and so I think that's that's kind of what
• 1:40:29
  I'm talking about as well. Wow, what a rollercoaster that
• 1:40:34
  was. I'm sorry, early series, and all
• 1:40:39
  that stuff. But yeah, hey, I mean, this is
• 1:40:41
  this is what it's about sitting there, thinking about a lot of
• 1:40:43
  things and I was thinking, like this is why I do podcasting.
• 1:40:46
  I think I like to hear people's stories and, and their ways of
• 1:40:50
  life, and it's funny. Now we're in completely
• 1:40:52
  different parts of the world. Yeah.
• 1:40:55
  I, I can relate to you on a lot of things, you know.
• 1:40:58
  Yeah. And I don't know, they're just
• 1:41:00
  kind of blows my mind sometimes just thinking about that is a
• 1:41:04
  phenomenal thing. I love that my favorite part
• 1:41:06
  about podcasting and not to just Central Florida because I do
• 1:41:10
  enjoy living here, but you do get a very certain crowd here.
• 1:41:14
  Philosophy. Masters in philosophy, does not
• 1:41:17
  give you a great Avenue to talking to people in Central
• 1:41:20
  Florida. Generally, like, I'm in like
• 1:41:22
  rural Central Florida. It's like, it's not, it's not
• 1:41:25
  like a Lots of hot spot. And for me it's not about the
• 1:41:29
  philosophy per se. It's a it's a exactly what
• 1:41:31
  you're talking about. It's about me, connecting with
• 1:41:34
  people who are different, Who challenged me helped me to grow
• 1:41:37
  show and just and recognizing how we are similar learning from
• 1:41:42
  our differences. And I think that's a it's a
• 1:41:44
  phenomenal thing. That's why I'm doing this.
• 1:41:46
  It's why you're doing this. It's a it's really awesome.
• 1:41:48
  So I thank you so much for having me on it's pleasure.
• 1:41:50
  Having you What's the biggest life lesson you've learned so
• 1:41:54
  far? I struggle and I know this is
• 1:42:07
  surprising know it, everyone lessons together.
• 1:42:10
  Well no it's just that I linked all the lessons together and I'm
• 1:42:13
  like yeah and one way you can look at it like this or another
• 1:42:16
  lie like you know, this is me talking to myself at, you know,
• 1:42:19
  11:00 at night pacing back and forth in the the kitchen driving
• 1:42:22
  my wife crazy. But the I think what has worked
• 1:42:28
  for me and what I'll make it very personal because everyone's
• 1:42:30
  life lessons to be different, they come from different
• 1:42:33
  backgrounds. I have always been rewarded.
• 1:42:40
  When I pursue the truth. It's sunk in it.
• 1:42:44
  Always takes courage, and it, and it often hurts.
• 1:42:47
  Because when you truly pursue the truth, you are opening
• 1:42:50
  yourself up to change and that hurts, but it's always been
• 1:42:56
  worth it. It's always been worth it to be
• 1:42:58
  like, to listen, when someone gives me feedback and be like,
• 1:43:02
  oh, I am, I am an asshole, right?
• 1:43:04
  Like I'm like, oh no. And like that hurts, right?
• 1:43:08
  It when I've been challenged in my faith and like, I grew up.
• 1:43:12
  So I'm We didn't get into this but I grew up independent,
• 1:43:15
  fundamental Baptist like weird weird stuff, right?
• 1:43:20
  Like, you know, like theologically wise where it's
• 1:43:23
  like, you know, women shouldn't wear pants and like rock and
• 1:43:28
  roll music kills plants and God is a Giver of Life.
• 1:43:31
  So therefore rock and roll. Music is evil, real thing.
• 1:43:34
  I heard multiple times. Yeah.
• 1:43:35
  It's now I love, you know, like Led Zeppelin like, a friend of
• 1:43:40
  mine Gave Me. Led Zeppelin was like a
• 1:43:41
  revelation. I mean it might kill plants but
• 1:43:44
  it's given me life. I don't know.
• 1:43:45
  Like so I had to go through a lot of change and I pursued
• 1:43:50
  truth and there were things in my past that I had to reject.
• 1:43:55
  But I also like I didn't have to there were some things in my
• 1:44:00
  past that I accepted because they helped write like, I was
• 1:44:03
  pursuing like they are true and so not just reacting one way or
• 1:44:08
  the other but like actually not focusing on where You know,
• 1:44:14
  who's right, who's wrong, but focusing on what's right and
• 1:44:16
  what's wrong focusing on the truth?
• 1:44:18
  And it's a difficult thing. It's a difficult thing to just
• 1:44:20
  be like okay what actually matters here and what's actually
• 1:44:22
  true and it's a real, it's a test of Courage because of the
• 1:44:27
  the pain. It can inflict on you, but
• 1:44:29
  you're always a better person on the other side of it.
• 1:44:33
  It in ya, couldn't agree more with that.
• 1:44:35
  Thanks for sharing. As we draw things to a close for
• 1:44:39
  today. Do you have any upcoming
• 1:44:40
  projects or maybe some final thoughts that you'd like to
• 1:44:42
  share with our listeners? You know, I have I have the to
• 1:44:46
  podcast we read ads chasing of if'n.
• 1:44:48
  I am, I, we became busier than we'd ever been in our business
• 1:44:54
  and so we, we had too much work and when we had to start
• 1:44:57
  training people to take on that work at the same time.
• 1:45:00
  So it got put on hold, but I'm halfway.
• 1:45:03
  A novel so kind of excited about that but cool what's that one?
• 1:45:09
  So it's a it's an urban fantasy it's about a an elf who's
• 1:45:13
  magically disabled who's a private investigator so festive.
• 1:45:17
  Okay I I read enough like fantasy novels where like oh
• 1:45:24
  they're the chosen one and the hours that get revealed and eye.
• 1:45:29
  Spoiler alert. I didn't do that.
• 1:45:31
  Like, you know, it's like, oh, he's magically disabled but the
• 1:45:34
  end he has like this secret power.
• 1:45:35
  That helps them win the day. I'm like, that's kind of boring.
• 1:45:38
  I've heard it enough. And honestly, it doesn't tell me
• 1:45:41
  anything about the character. It's just like, it's kind of
• 1:45:44
  wish fulfillment where people are like, oh, like maybe I have
• 1:45:47
  a secret power that will save me some day, you know.
• 1:45:50
  And a lot of times, you know, she's really realistic with
• 1:45:54
  this. Yeah.
• 1:45:57
  And I I've gotten a lot better, obviously, like, but I added the
• 1:46:02
  times when I struggle with depression anxiety, I'm gave
• 1:46:05
  that to this character. So he's like, he's constantly
• 1:46:09
  getting hurt. He's constantly failing and he
• 1:46:11
  just keeps pushing through and I thought that would be a really.
• 1:46:14
  I love the idea of the bum investigator instead of the
• 1:46:17
  super sharp like 007, like, oh, I'm going to come in and fix
• 1:46:21
  everything because I'm so Suave. But the guy who like yet I'm
• 1:46:26
  already, you know, even like Dirty, Harry.
• 1:46:28
  The guy who's like, Oh, I'm a badass.
• 1:46:30
  Like this guy's not a bad ass and he's constantly making
• 1:46:32
  mistakes to me. That's like it's a fun New take
• 1:46:35
  and kind of fresh. So that's kind of where I'm
• 1:46:37
  going with it. But we'll see, we'll see when I
• 1:46:39
  finished that trying to get things in order in my own house
• 1:46:42
  first. But yeah, just the podcasts and
• 1:46:47
  trying to guest on other people's podcasts because I love
• 1:46:50
  this. I love doing this.
• 1:46:51
  I love hanging out and talking with people who But, like, the,
• 1:46:57
  what I love about the podcasting Community is that it believes in
• 1:47:00
  dialogue, that's literally the whole point of the medium, and
• 1:47:02
  even you said it, you're like, I see people with content.
• 1:47:07
  Actually, I don't want to drag the other person, they probably
• 1:47:09
  have great contact at 20 content at 20 to 30 minutes, but like
• 1:47:13
  when you look at like Tick-Tock and people becoming famous for
• 1:47:17
  like just following Trends and just dancing stuff like that.
• 1:47:20
  You're like, I'm actually digging into stuff, right?
• 1:47:22
  Like, there's a set of values that are bedded in this me.
• 1:47:26
  Idiom that are the reason I'm here.
• 1:47:28
  And that's because I love talking at length of people, and
• 1:47:30
  I love dialoguing. And I know that's why you're
• 1:47:32
  here too. And so that's just, that's
• 1:47:33
  encouraging to me. Awesome.
• 1:47:36
  Well, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show
• 1:47:39
  and sort of say, a massive, thank you.
• 1:47:41
  And yeah, to everyone listening to the Christian way podcast.
• 1:47:45
  Thank you for listening. As always be safe, be well, and
• 1:47:48
  I will see you in the next one.