A Baker's Dozen | Year End Recap | Ep. 12

create your own binder with the actual goals that you are going to do, the systems that you need to put in place to hit it, with a picture that sparks that kind of dopamine release of you hitting the goal, and review your goal daily.

Welcome to the Rising Tribe. I'm Jared.

And I'm Austin.

And our goal is to inspire young men to build strong families and discover their potential as men, husbands and fathers.

And we'll do this by having authentic conversations about faith, family, health, and business as we strive to level up our lives and the lives around us. Well, happy December, Merry Christmas, uh, happy Thanksgiving, and thank you for listening with us. Uh, on this is our 12th episode that we've done, and, uh, we're, we're coming up to the end of the year, 12 episodes in. How do you feel, Jared?

Dude, we, we were just talking before the episode, man. I'm feeling great because we, we set a goal and we hit it. We set a goal of doing this once a month and, uh, 12 months later here we are. And I know, I know some people might, might laugh at that, like, okay, most podcasts are like once a week or twice a week or something like that. Um, so like once a month, like it's not a big deal, but life is bananas. And you know, I think we often discount how often we do not keep promises to ourselves. Like, how often we say, I'm gonna do this thing, and then we don't do it. We do it for, you know, a couple weeks, maybe a couple months, then we don't do it. Um, and a question that we could ask ourselves is, how many things did we say we were going to do in January, and can we confidently say today that we've been doing all of those things, or that we've done those things? And I think the answer is probably pretty, pretty dang slim.

Yeah, biggest thing with that is like, where, where, where focus goes, where energy flows, right? So like, what you're focused on, you're more likely to accomplish. And I mean, we'll have to like go over the podcast this, this year and some of the stats, I think that we can share that are actually really exciting for me and you. But like, just like a random story, I had a guy message me, like our goal in this podcast has just been to it, you impact people. Obviously, the more people we impact, the happier we are. Right. But the other day, I had some random guy message me. He just was— he had knocked doors once in his life. And now he works for some pest control company in California. But he's like, not related to the door-to-door industry anymore at all. His dad, he joined the Air Force. And he listened to one of our podcasts a while ago. And he's been following us since on Instagram. And he messaged me the other day and said, thank you for putting out this content, it's really inspiring. And so to the person who did reach out to me and say that, thank you, because that's, uh, that's a really rewarding thing to know that some of the content that we're putting out is actually having an impact on people's lives. So, uh, thank you for that. And, and be sure to share this with you guys as friends as we continue to have more momentum through the year, because we just want more people to learn and grow with us. But Jared, you got some cool stats. I want to, I want to hear these again.

Yeah, dude. So, uh, we set a goal to record this once a month and we have done that and we'll publish this December episode here in just a couple days. But, uh, we are the, uh, we are a top 10 podcast for, uh, 35 people. So 35 of our listeners, uh, we are a top 10 podcast for them. For 25 people, we are a top 5 podcast. Uh, which is huge. And we are the number 1 podcast for 10 different people, which I think is, uh, pretty crazy. Uh, I mean, who knows, maybe those people don't listen to any podcasts but ours, but even if that is the case, hey, that's still a big deal, man, because you're going from not being a podcast listener to at least listening to the 2 of us. So, uh, I mean, hey, that's a pretty big—

thanks, Mom. Thank you, Mom.

And I would say like one of those is probably my wife, but I know for a fact she did not listen to the last 3 episodes. So it's definitely not her either.

Yeah, that's why I was telling you before the episode, I could probably talk about Kaya's Christmas present on this episode and she won't know until Christmas. So we're safe, right? But dude, I think to your point, man, like a lot of people said, first of all, doing a podcast is actually really scary. And, you know, if you listen to our first podcast, the first time Jared ever brought it up to me, I was like, no, no, no. Like, I don't want to do it. It's too much work. And like, I have to focus on my work. And, you know, hitting a golden door and all this stuff. And that was still good to do back in the day. But this has been, like I said, I've gotten emotional talking about this before, but it's been like the one of the most rewarding, rewarding things that we've been able to do this year. We're just conversing, you know, and kind of trying to grow together. But today's episode, we really just kind of want to do a recap. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah.

Well, before we jump on this, I guess it's part of the recap. And that is that it wasn't, how do I put this? We made a commitment to record this once a month for the whole year. We probably recorded from like a total of 10 different places.

Oh yeah.

We were all over the world, the both of us, right? I live in Italy, you live in Georgia. Now it would've been one thing, it would've been, it is genuinely an obstacle in itself to do any sort of communication, uh, across the pond. Like, that is— it's a tough thing. But not only that, right, you've been doing door-to-door, uh, I've been in the Air Force working nutso hours, and we have been traveling the world. You have been going all over, not even just the United States, which you've been going like cross time zones freaking like every weekend, but also, right, you were out in Abu Dhabi, and, and I was over in Italy, but then I was in Texas, and then I was in Kansas, and then I was in California, and then I was Maryland, and now I'm in Vegas right now. I mean, like, we have— we've been traveling like crazy all year long, and we decided that we were still gonna make this happen, and here we are. And, and so talking about, um, where your focus goes, energy flows— like, this has been important to us. And you, you've had to buy a couple microphones from Target and return them afterwards, like, because your microphone—

like, I mean, we've—

yeah, and we, and we've done all sorts of things with tons of troubleshooting with trying to get computers to work and your computer not letting you record it.

You know, this one works.

All sorts of stuff.

The cursed computer finally worked. So who knows what that was. But for the longest time, I had to use Kaya's computer, um, you know, and, and, and like not sugarcoating anything either. Like, like sometimes when we try to get on here and, you know, there's technical difficulties, it was frustrating.

Like, like, yeah, we were trying to record from Greece.

Yeah, my wife gets frustrated that I'm like, it'll only be an hour, and then it ends up being like 2 and a half, 3, because we're like spending an hour and a half technical difficulties. So I, I'm really proud of us, man. I, I think we've got a lot to be proud of. I personally, we talked about this right before we started, I think we just keep doing with once a month to— I like the frequency of it because we always have something new to talk about. Uh, there's a lot of newness. I think next year we get more people on it, on this with us, you know. Yeah, like some guests.

Okay, so before we go, before we, before we go there, so, uh, we're going to talk about the recap of, of the this year. So we talked a little bit about that already for the podcast, and we're going to talk about kind of where we want to go with the podcast. And then we're also going to talk about how our personal goals have gone over this last year, and, you know, wins and fails, things we've accomplished and what we didn't end up accomplishing. And, uh, then we're going to talk about, uh, what our— what some personal goals we have for this next year. So with that, Austin, go ahead and shoot us for this, for this next, next year.

Well, okay. So the next year of our podcast and our movement with the Rising Tribe, I think the biggest milestone that me and you have planned is to throw an event, right? To host an event and to bring together a group of men, whether that be 4 or 20 people or 100 people or more, we, we make it happen. And, um, it just is a, that's a matter of just slapping a date on a calendar and making it happen, inviting people that we're inspired by to come and speak. That, and me and you talked about this, that's ballpark October next year. Am I right there?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. October, maybe probably November, um, if the timeline kind of stays the way that we're expecting it to go. But yeah, the end of next year.

Yeah, and it's gonna be really cool because it's like the, the birth of our get-together live events and workshops and masterminds. And Jared and I have also talked about creating like coaching groups where Jared and I can work with individuals on some of their goals they have specifically in marriage and just be being a dad. I think Jared and I have some really cool experiences and different experiences. He's military. I'm in like this door-to-door world. And, um, we've both managed to— our marriages are not perfect by any means, and nor are we perfect dads, but we're trying. And I think— no, I know that like we can bring a lot of value to individuals that want to be coached and mentored. Um, so just know that that's an option moving forward in addition to our monthly episodes.. And the other thing that we've talked about too is just get it creating a bigger social media footprint. But like I said, one thing at a time, right? So we've created the consistency here. And now we just need to create consistency in like other systems that we're going to develop. So that's, that's kind of my forecast on what I'm hoping for and what we've talked about. Anything I miss or you want to add?

No, no, I don't think you missed anything. And The reason, or one of the reasons I'm excited by the challenge is because there is an enormous amount of challenge there. As I'm sitting here forecasting what next year is going to look like, we have a lot of moving pieces coming up with the military, and I'm going to be— well, I'm going to be traveling just as much, if not more, next year than I was this year. And it was already, you know, like a challenge this year for us to be able to sync up and to have our phone calls and to to be able to have these conversations. And so I think we have a fantastic leg to stand on as we've, you know, we've already built momentum. We've got the flywheel spinning, you know, maybe comparatively it's spinning a little bit slower to other people, but comparatively it's spinning to people whose flywheels aren't spinning, right? So, and none of that comparative stuff even matters, but we've got the flywheel spinning and now we have some other things that we want to add to it. And I'm excited because we do have the momentum behind us that I think we will be able to tackle new challenges with all of the unknown challenges that are about to come our way. But I think we can still make all of this work. And I'm like really excited. I'm really excited by that.

Yeah, it's been, I think, a journal of our lives recently. And I think we will look back on this. One of the best ways to like, one of the best ways to look at physical growth is just take like measurements or, or progress pictures. And you can physically see weight loss or muscle gain, right? But like, the way you measure your mindset is just by really look— going back and analyzing how you used to think. And I think it'll be cool to look back on this. I, I journal pretty frequently. I have my episodes where I go, where I have my droughts where I don't journal, but like going back and reading is actually really cool. Sometimes I'm inspired by the person I was in the past, and sometimes I have empathy. It's like, it's like I have this relationship with myself that's ongoing and I'm learning and growing. So that's something I've liked about our podcast a lot. Hopefully you're doing something similar in your life where you're kind of just taking, keeping track of, of your growth and your thought process and what's on your mind and the challenges you're going through. Journaling is the best way to do that, in my opinion. But I mean, really grateful for this, man. This has been really exciting. I think we ought to kind of go over some of the things that went well for us this year. I mean, me and you talked in January about some of our goals for the year. I didn't hit 100% of all my goals. I hit a lot more of them than I would have hit had I not actually set them. And that's my biggest victory. Um, but I guess, I guess for you, what are the goals that you did hit that you intentionally set? And what are the ones that you fell short of? Or what, maybe they got put on the back burner. Like what, like walk me through some of the ones you did hit and you executed and you're like, wow, I did it. And then some of them that, that didn't get the attention that they needed, or maybe you, maybe you pivoted. Which is totally fine.

I've got 3, 3 that come to mind that all fall into different categories. So one of the ones that, that we, it was a big success for us. We planned and we had a goal to reach a net worth of $100,000 by the end of this year. And I don't know if you remember a couple months ago, I text you saying, brother, we did it. We already reached it. It was actually back in July, which was— it was really— it was a really cool marker because July was the month that we got married 3 years ago. And so it was like, you know, 3 years ago, we had a combined net worth of our family, right, of $10,000. And this isn't including like cars and stuff like that. It's actual like money or investments in liquid. Fast forward. Yeah. And fast forward 3 years, and we've added a zero to that. And that was awesome. And so by the end of this year, I have to double check the numbers, but I think we're going to come out to a net worth of about $120,000, which is freaking awesome, right? And that was a huge, huge, huge part of that was my wife nailing down our— the process that we have for tracking your expenses. We tried several different software products and things. And we were just like constant for the last couple years, we've been constantly refining the way that we talk about money, the way that we have conversations, how we— not just like budgeting of like, okay, we want to spend this much in this category, this much in this category, but how do we talk about our goals? And like, you know, okay, we want to, we want to get a car when we go to Italy. Like, what kind of a car? How much car do we need exactly? You know, is, do you want this car just because it's a, you know, because I like shiny toys? Or do you want, do you want, like, do you need that much car? Is this, is this the right amount of, you know, those kinds of conversations. And we've been getting better and better and better at those. Um, not, not that we were like, that money has ever been a contention point, a contentious point in our, in marriage, really, but rather that if you don't, if you've never talked about money before, like in your family or with your significant other, like, it can be a tough thing to talk about money the first time. Why money is such a taboo topic in our culture, I think, is something that's, that's beyond me. And I think it's dumb. I think we should all be able to talk about money. But yeah, Marisha and I have gotten a lot better and a lot more in sync. So to the point where we don't have to have, like, actual formal budget meetings nearly as often as we used to. Because we are on the page and we figured out ways for us to asynchronously keep each other, or like let each other know what's going on. She can say, hey, I need you to do this thing, and I'm like, okay, I'll do it. And you know, because we've been, we've been apart for almost half of this year, um, for just shy of 6 months we have not been together. So, uh, and we've been, we've been across between 6 and 9 times. I mean, like, we are, we've been several hours apart. So it's been really helpful to kind of nail that system down. And on top of that When we came out here, we were expecting to take a pay cut. And so it was extremely important to us that we figured this out so that we weren't wasting money in places that didn't bring us value and things that weren't important. And we have been able to really refine that system. And then the opportunities arose because we ended up not taking as a pay cut. We took a pay cut for a little bit and then, you know, and then we got our money back and we started getting raises here and there that we weren't expecting.. And those windfalls, and, you know, very small windfalls, all things considered, but, uh, when those things came, we were prepared for them. We were prepared to take advantage of them. And not just, you know, every single dollar we saved. We got to spend a lot more money this year on things that, that brought us happy. We ended up spending a ton of money on travel, like way more money on travel than we were expecting, but it was awesome. We got to have some incredible experiences with her parents when they came out, with my sisters when they came out, with my mom when she came out. Like with tons of people. We were able to have these incredible experiences. And we were still able to continue to save money and increase our net worth beyond the goal that we had set for ourselves because we had this system in place. And, and, you know, I say this system as if it's like this big fancy thing, but just the method in which my wife and I can communicate with each other regarding our finances has been a huge, huge win for us this year. And that was something that we did. We know exactly how we were going to do it. No, but we knew the path that we were going on. We knew that that was the direction we needed to going. And so we kept going down that path and has paid off, you know, enormous dividends, you know, no pun intended.

Dividends, I love it. But that's a huge, huge shout out to you for that, having that communication. I think that's one of the biggest issues in a marriage, right? Like that can cause issues, right? Is the lack of communication in a marriage about finance. Finances and sex are like some of the issues that cause the most problems. And unfortunately, they're the ones that we've like, we've made them like the hardest things to talk about. So it doesn't help there. So yeah, dude, we got— I mean, we've done some podcasts on like talking about finances, talking about sex, but like more to that to come too, because it's a big deal in a marriage too, right? Like huge, huge props to you for for working on that with your wife. Um, I— one of the things that came to mind when you're talking is, uh, there's this guy that wrote I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Indian dude. Yeah. Okay, so one of his, one of his phrases that, that came to mind as you were talking was cut mercilessly on things that you do not need that don't bring you much joy, and then go all in on the things that bring you—

Yeah, he says—

Well, how's it go?

He says, uh, to cut mercilessly on the things that don't bring you value and to spend lavishly on the things that do.

Yeah, because you're excited to save and you're excited to— the biggest return on investment, and I think in like the personal development world, is like investing back into you and your future. And, um, you know, dude, perfect, perfect segue.

Tell us about your gym. Tell us about the gym that you're building in your house, because this is— we're talking about investing in yourself, dude.

This is the Yeah, I'll talk your ear off. But so for the longest time, so a couple of things that happened, like, for the longest time, I was pushing off the idea of a home gym, because we're like, oh, we're gonna move into a bigger house. And we want to have more kids and all this stuff. And the more and more we started looking at interest rates and the house prices themselves, we're like, why would we leave this perfectly good townhome with a pool like 50 yards outside of our house and zero yard work. I just built a deck off this thing last year. I freaking love the neighborhood. Our neighbors are amazing. I have got a state park 6 minutes away from me. The restaurants 4 minutes away from me are incredible. Like, we love where we live. We love our church ward. I'm like, why am I feeling this urge to like get another house? I think part of it was, oh, I want to turn this, this townhome into an investment property. And which would have been great, we could have cash flowed great money on this. But then I'm like, okay, what do I really want in life? I like the idea of having a low monthly payment, and of not having to drop— we were looking at like $5,000 a month, at least after utilities. I don't even know the numbers, what it would have been, but it would have at least been $4,000 to $5,000 a month when right now we pay $1,600 a month with HOA fees to live in this house. So here's the scary thing that I did in my mind, dude, this is insane. So if I were to have bought a new house like this, and by the way, this house would have been beautiful. There's no— I feel like I deserve the house. I'm going to get the house one day. This is not the time, but like, I deserve it. Like, I know where my house is at. It's going to be on a lake. This house was on a lake. It's 3 stories. It's one of my favorite builders out here in Georgia. But I've talked to Kaya. I'm like, hey, let's be a little bit smarter. Let's stay in this house. I actually want to pay this house off now just because we can. Like, I make great income. I can pay it off in the next 5 years. But like, so I told her, I was like, let's just stay here. Well, when I decided that, I was like, cool, we're going to build you a home gym because We're actually going to stay here and I want to invest in this house and make it our dream home because it is— this townhome is like our miniature dream home. It's got all the nice furniture and like the, you know, the updated hardware. It's beautiful, man. Like, we live in a beautiful home. And so kind of out of nowhere, Kaio was actually kind of shocked. I just woke up one day and I'm like, hey, I'm building you a gym for Christmas. I don't really feel like I want to move anymore. Let's stop looking at houses. I want to stay here. And so another cat, another, another thing there, man, is like, if I stay in this house, I've got a lot more freedom to explore other careers after I'm done with Anthem. If I move to a bigger house, I've, I've got the golden handcuffs on for life. Like, I have to stay where I'm at. I can't take as many risks because I've got to meet a $5,000 a month payment. So I'm like, no, I want freedom. That's what I value in life. I don't value the house. I value the lifestyle. And so that was the transition that I, that I made to be like, okay, we're staying here, we're going to pay off the house and just eliminate that debt so that we can just have freedom. And then we'll invest. Like, one of my goals for this next year is to buy my first real estate property. But that's not going to, that's not going to cause me to go $5,000 under a month, right? Hopefully cash flows every month. So, okay, back to, back to the gym. Out of nowhere, I'm like, Kaya, I'm buying Rogue equipment for you. This is your Christmas present. Just go ahead and clear it for me. So I go on Rogue and I just build— I build the biggest cart. I'm like, I want a rower, I want a bike, I want a squat rack so that Kaya can do all of her squats, dumbbells, barbells, new bumper plates. I mean, med balls, boxes, slam balls, like everything that you could think of. Like I ordered it. It's, it is. And I showed Kaya, I'm like, hey, this all look good. All right, cool. Ordered. So like, that's how quick the decision was. It was from one morning to the evening. I was like, and what happened when I was driving to the CrossFit gym, I was like, I don't really like driving there anymore. I'm kind of done with this. Like, I just want to work out at the house. So, and the other thing too, just to give you a little bit more background here, Kaya's got to drive like 30 minutes a day into Lawrenceville and to do her training. And then on the way home, she gets stuck in traffic. It's typically 45 minutes. That's time is money. Time is priceless, right? But like gas there, plus the time spent driving, plus The cost of her membership fees for her gym add up to over $3,000 a year. We probably spend $3,000 to $5,000 a year on babysitting from, you know, when I'm door knocking. And I'm like, why are we not just investing in our own equipment? Because heaven forbid COVID come again and we can't go to a gym. That was torture, by the way, because we love working out.

That was—

couldn't work.

That was so stupid, man. I'm like, the body just taking such a hit because I hate doing bodyweight workouts. Like, yeah, maybe I should get over bodyweight workouts, but like, also I want to go back to the gym, please.

Yeah.

No.

And I don't ever want that to happen again to us because we did build a platform together when that happened and Kaya just had a makeshift workout area. So long story short, I— in a day I was like, nope, this is your Christmas gift. This is what you're getting. And I'm ordering it now. And the next night I was up until 6:30 in the morning painting the garage. I've learned how to do like spray gun painting, so I painted it this really nice charcoal gray.. And then I found this, uh, horse mat supplier. So when you do a gym, for anybody that wants to do a gym, you can message me for any advice here, but make sure you get these horse mats that are flat on the top and they've got like these little circles on the bottom. You don't want to get the horse mats that are like, they've got like lines all over the top of them. So it's really awkward on your feet. You can kind of roll your ankle. Um, so I, I bought 14 of those mats. They're all— they each weigh 100 pounds. And my buddy and I went up to like an hour north of here. We picked them all up and brought them down, and I spent a day cutting them to fit my garage. So my whole, my whole garage is lined in.

Did you just stick those in the back of the, uh, in back of the RAV4?

No, man, it would, it would have destroyed the RAV. Um, my buddy's got like a double axle Ford F $350 or something. So we just chucked them in the back of his car and yeah, you know, with dudes, you just— that's his business, by the way. So like, he was like, I'll do it for free. And I'm like, no, dude, I want to support your business. So I paid him, you know, $100, $150 to go take me up there and, and get the mats. And we got Chick-fil-A and just, you know, he's my buddy from—

okay, I saw, I saw on your Instagram, I saw on your Instagram something about moisture paper tape.

Yeah.

Yeah. What was that about? What is that?

So my buddy, my other buddy at church, he runs an account, Instagram account. He's been super successful recently. It's called The Weekend Builder. And his whole thing is like a DIY kind of like page where he teaches you how to do things. Well, I saw on one of his pages he had to lay out like a vapor guard is what they're called.

Over the concrete.

Yeah, because otherwise the con— the rubber mats will sometimes soak up the water from the concrete. And I've seen it actually happen at Kaya's old gym to where the mats actually became like this goopy slime from like Spider-Man, the Venom movie, how it's like you peel it up and it's just like bubble gum. So anyways, I want to avoid that if we ever do need to move the mats. So I laid out massive tarps over my garage, over most of it. I didn't cover the whole thing, but that way, you know, if we ever did need to pull them up, it's not bubblegum. Yeah, you could just pick the car. Yeah, dude. So yeah, that's the biggest thing I have. I have equipment coming in every day. I ordered like a neon light, neon blue light fridge for like all the protein shakes and you know, fit aids and Celsius that I'm putting in there. And dude, I'm so excited for this. Like, we've got the American flag hung up. We pretty much built a CrossFit gym in our house.

So that being said, so excited, man. I am like, I just want— I want to come lift with you. Yeah, like right now.

Yeah, you have to, man. You have to. We gotta, we gotta come visit you guys in Italy before you guys move, and then y'all have to come out here.

Absolutely.

But yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing for us, man, is like we're going to turn that into like a dance when we're not lifting weights. We're going to turn it into a dance room for Georgia. Like Georgia can go in there. I'm going to put up a little swing for her, like one of the little bird's nest swings. And, you know, just have fun, make it a family room. Like we live in a townhome, so we don't have a big living room. So that's like going to be our new area where we can hang out as a family. And I told Kaya, like, even in our church ward, and I told you this too, we could totally invite the youth over. I'm going to invite them over, teach them how to work out, and then grill, grill up chicken for them and kind of teach them how to build muscle and get a good diet. So we're looking forward to giving back. And I think we can turn a profit on it just because of Kaya's expertise in coaching. She is amazing. Like, she's at a meet right now. All the girls that she coached went 6 for 6. Really? And that's like a phrase for like they hit all 6. Yeah, yeah, dude. She's, she's doing really well. She, yeah, she lifts on Saturday and I'm driving up tomorrow to go watch her.

Dude, that's awesome.

Life is good, man. The gym, I, I get told, I told you I was going to tell you.

No, dude, I, I freaking love this. And okay, so even if, even if, uh, Kaya doesn't make any, any money off of this coaching or anything like that, right? Let's leave that, that, that part aside.

Pays itself off in a year.

So there's, so there's that first, right? Okay. The gym is going to pay for itself, right? Right. Mathematically because, um, because of the gas and the fees and the babysitting.

No, no babysitting.

Right. So there, first there's no, first there's all the money, right? The ongoing expenses. Uh, also you have the time. This is, this has become something that I have come to value far more now that I have far less time. And that is how important time at home is. Like, me spending an hour at, uh, an hour while I'm at work is different than me spending an hour when I'm at home. Um, like those, those are, those are two separate things because I get to spend way less time at home. So that time is way more important to me. Um, so there, there's also that time aspect, but thinking about this big decision. So going back to the decision about the house and whether or not you want to lock yourself in, I thought there were a couple of huge things I wanted to, I just wanted to bring up first. I think it is so awesome that you guys came to that conclusion or that realization that if you bought the bigger house, you would put on the golden handcuffs, because that is the trap that so many celebrities and athletes and people who come into a bunch of money— that is the, that is the mistake that they make. They can now afford more, quote unquote, afford more and bigger and more. But that is assuming they have to continue or assuming they are going to continue in the earnings that they currently have. And that is—

which isn't always guaranteed, right?

Like, yeah, absolutely.

Like, I am really confident in my ability to provide for my family, but like, why put the added pressure there? Like, I'd rather just put— I'd rather just stay somewhere where my life's really simple. And then any excess money, we can either spend it doing fun things as a family and traveling, which, by the way, we love, but— or we could put it towards like paying down the house early and or buying our first real estate property this year. But oh yeah, this was a crazy stat. I don't know if I told you this or if I said it before. If I did, cut me off. In the first 3 years of paying for that house, first 3 or 4 years paying for that house, the lake house, the $5,000 a month lake house, do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We would have paid the— we would have paid in interest enough money to pay for this place in full. And I, and I kind of did the math there and I'm like, nope, nope, don't do it.

Yeah.

You believe that? Like, yeah, like, in the first 3 years, I'll have flushed enough money down the toilet to have covered this. And I've made some poor you know, financial decisions. And I don't really want to make any more of them. You live and you learn. But like, but like, I'll probably make more. But this is one where I'm like, okay, cool. Like, I love my neighbors. I love my neighborhood. I love where I live. I'm like, there's no need to move. There's no need to keep up with the Joneses. I'm not trying to impress anybody. Like, this is a year where I think I finally realized, like, I've got nobody to impress. I've got nobody to I've got nothing to prove.

Yeah.

Like really, I don't like, except for taking care of my family and having an incredible lifestyle, which to, to like talking about other goals, right? Like, uh, last year I was like, what did I say I was going to do? Like a million in revenue. Well, I did half that. I did $525,000. So, um, the goal was really hard. I don't think I realized what it was going to take there. But I also realized towards the end of the summer, and we'd had a whole podcast on this, I was like, I was no longer willing to pay that price. And it didn't actually, like the idea of a golden door this year, I was like, I don't need it. Like, I'm good. Like, I've made great money. I have a great lifestyle. I have other things I want to do as well. Now, to your point, to that point, like, I actually would like to have a bigger year next year. But I don't want to give up the lifestyle that I have. So I've got to find a way to, to increase my production and my productivity while I'm working. So that's, that's like a little thing where if I get a Golden Door, if I can get a Golden Door next year, that'd be awesome. But I want to do it my way again, because I, the happiness level I've had this year is awesome. I'm the happiest I've ever been in door-to-door this year than any other year. So I don't think I, when I talk about my sales this year, I never feel like I quote unquote fell short. It's just, I actually experimented with a new system that I like way more. And I'm going to try to enhance that system next year, and hopefully go from $525K to $650K. Okay, you know, so that's what, that's what a golden door is, $650K. And that's, that's what we'll see, you know, like, I'm going to start this year on March 1st. To get a head start this year. And that's an adjustment that I'll make, right? And still take plenty of trips during the year. If I work— if I work for longer, I want to take more trips and, you know, little weekend trips. And I already have some of them planned. I have a weekend at the Ritz-Carlton planned and booked already with credit card points. I don't get the military hacks like you do, but I booked it with credit after—

after the call because we would talk the rest of this episode about it. I want, I want to know how, uh, how you did this one with points because I'm freaking all about it. Um, but sorry, go on.

Ritz-Carlton, uh, sign up for a credit card, 3 nights free up to 5,500 points.

Oh, you did that with the Chase, uh, the Chase Marriott Boundless card? Is that what you got? Yeah, right on, dude.

Yeah, I did. Yeah, you know, that was, that was good. And so I, I, I bought it because I wanted to get 2 nights at the Ritz with Kaya. That's it. Like, that's the only reason I got it. I'm like, hey, I like going to the Ritz-Carlton. I won an incentive one year to go there and it was only one night. I'm like, I want to stay here at least 2 nights.

Okay, so we got to talk about this later, man. You— there, there's like, like 2, maybe 3 credit cards total that you need to have and you guys can freaking stay at the Ritz like all the time. So we'll talk about this. We'll talk about this later.

Okay, there we go.

We'll talk about this later, dude, because I'll talk about this all day. Oh yeah.

Anyways, like other goals that I feel like I hit and I'll let you take over too, or some other ones that you, that you kind of hit, like I fell short on some of the sales numbers, right? The benefit this year was I sold less accounts, but at a higher value. So like, uh, pretty much I worked smarter, not harder this year. That was a win. Fitness and health. Uh, I did all of the events this year that I wanted to hit, like I did my trifecta, uh, for, for Spartan. The only event that I missed this year was my 50K that I was going to do for a 50K Spartan. That has been rescheduled for Hawaii in August, which is going to be way more fun. Um, so that's been pushed out, which in some goals we have to just like, things happen. My uncle wasn't ready to do the race then, so we just moved it and I'll do Hawaii this year. So. In, instead of doing the 50K at the Spartan, I ran the 50K at Running Man, which was the big goal for this year, was to run a 50K, which is like 30, 31 miles. Um, health-wise, I, last year I ate Chick-fil-A every day. This year I had Tropical Smoothie Cafe, or I went to a smoothie shop before work, and my health felt way better. Um, a little bit more conscious of caffeine. Intake while I was working, and I didn't necessarily go insane like I did years prior. Really, just there's some good things. Now, my weight is still not where I want it to be. I weigh like 230. I want to be between 220 and 225. So there's still work to be done there. And, you know, there's, there's things that I fell short on, but just having it written down, I've talked to you about my—

Yes. Okay. So for everybody who doesn't know, Austin has this binder that he uses to set his goals at the end of the year for the upcoming year and to keep himself on track. So Austin, please continue.

Yeah. Um, I don't know if I've ever talked about it before, but there's, there's like, there's the morning routine that I like to keep in here. Uh, there's like different challenges that I'm going through and how I'm going to work through them. Uh, there's a page on fitness and health that I just went over. There's a page on marriage and the things that I want to implement in my marriage. And by the way, at the very bottom it says build Kaya a garage gym. So dude, I even forgot that that was there. But just because like I see this so frequently, it's like, no, it's in there. Like I'm— if you— if you like go through this stuff even occasionally, like you'll remember it and it'll stay on your— on your— it'll be on the forecast and you'll do it. Uh, but like all of my trips I planned out, I think the thing I'm most proud of this year is that the only trip that I did not accomplish this year was to go see the Savannah Bananas. And I don't even care too much about that. Like, I, I got to go see my mom. Like, you know who the Savannah Bananas are?

No.

They're, they're like the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball and they're out in Savannah, Georgia.

Oh, right.

I've gotten really famous recently. They're like almost impossible. I almost said casi imposible. I speak, I speak Spanglish, my buddy, but they're almost impossible to get tickets to.

I don't even know how that would work anyways.

Like, but dude, they dance, they do like backflips and, you know, they act and they have skits and they do all sorts of wild stuff. But they're, they're cool, man. But like, I got to see my whole family this year because I planned it out. And that makes me so happy. Like the, the coolest thing this year was just making memories with my family. And I gave my uncle, the guy that, uh, that got me into Spartan races. I gave him a picture of me, him, and his two sons, my two cousins. I gave him a picture with like a little Spartan logo on there and I'm like, hey, look, man, like we made memories together this year. Thank you. And it's like a testament that if you want to see family, you've got to slap a date on the calendar and make it happen. And that's how we did it every time. So it means a lot, man. Like losing my dad early and then, you know, I only have Uncle Todd left and, you know, I lost my aunt pretty early too. So I only have my Uncle Todd and my Uncle Mark. Left. And so we make memories together, no matter— I don't care what it costs, dude. It's just you make it happen. So anyways, dude, like, that's a little bit of my year. Like, make a binder. Like, I have future business opportunities that are like, I want to write books, I want to do like YouTube channels, like I want to do a podcast at the time. Like, we did that this year. So like a lot of these things are in the works and happening, but really like sit down and, and, and get clear about what you want to do for the year and make it by category. Like, set out spiritual goals, physical, physical goals, financial, marital, um, and, and make one page per category with pictures. Like, here's one, here's one page here about spiritual goals. It's all about how I want to attend the temple at least once a month. During the summer, I went like every other week. But it's because it was my focus, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, would you mind sharing pictures of your binder with me? Um, I'd love to see.

I will, I'll send you.

I'd love to see kind of right now. Yeah, just something to, something to, um, to go off of. Um, and with that, I'll go ahead and share a little bit about, um, yeah, I didn't need this last year.

I want to hear more. Let's hear it, brother.

So, uh, just kind of a a review of this year. So this time last year I was in Texas. It was actually a little bit wild. I'm in Vegas right now for a planning conference for this trip that we've got to Vegas in January. And it was almost to the day that I left— that 12 months ago I left for Texas for tech school, and I left my wife and my baby girl behind. And it was really tough, man, because I was gone for 4 months. This time I'm only gone for a week, which is quite nice. But next year I'm probably going to be gone for most of the year again. And so it like this year, this year was tough. And Marisha and I learned a whole lot about, about what it's like to have to live apart while we're married. And a lot of military members have to go through this at some point, some of them for a lot longer periods of time than than others. We've been blessed that it's only had to be 5 months this year instead of, you know, instead of more, which has often been kind of a standard in the military, you know, going back, going back ages and ages. I've learned a whole lot about aircraft maintenance because that's right. That's my job. I'm here for this planning conference where I have been— I wouldn't say super beneficial because I'm still so new to this. I'm here with another guy who's been in for a lot longer and is far more knowledgeable and proficient at all of this stuff. But, um, I've been able to learn and absorb and ask questions and just open my eyes to just how much goes on in, in, in the military. And we're planning an enormous exercise here in a couple months. So it's— there are a lot of moving pieces. Lots of military units from all over the world are coming to play in this thing, and it's, it's, it's going to be wild. Um, so I've learned a ton and I've, I've grown a lot. My confidence has gone up an enormous amount because I've just because I've learned more, right? And as you, as you learn more and become more comfortable with this stuff, then your confidence level grows. And I've fallen on my face a few times in, um, uh, in some of my responsibilities, but that's, that's part of the job. And you just, you get up and you learn and you go and, uh, you keep making mistakes and you learn and you go. That, that's how you go. Like, that's how you learn is by making mistakes and, and overcoming them. So, um, definitely learned a lot. And every time I've gone to a new conference or to a new school or training or whatnot, I come out just more excited to continue to do this because I think because I learn more about it and I learn more about how important the job is and how much, um, just think, you know, really learning just how much of a patriot I really am, um, because I freaking love this country and I have since I was, since I was little. But I'm becoming more and more clear on all of the roles and responsibilities that everyone has in putting in just this big machine. And it's, it really is eye-opening and inspiring, awe-inspiring, really, to see how much of people's lives or how much people sacrifice of their life to, to this country and to, to the service. Your dad is a veteran, right? And I know that not only did he give a whole lot to this country, but you as a family also gave a lot because there are enormous sacrifices that are, that are put on on military families. And so we've had more experience with that and my appreciation and gratitude has definitely increased significantly because of it. But with that, Marisha and I have learned a lot of really important lessons for us as a couple to like how to communicate what we need, what we need from each other and how to continue with the, just like the daily tasks and responsibilities that you have managing your life, managing your family. But doing it overseas and then doing it apart as well. Like it's, we've learned a lot and it's going to help us tremendously for next year because next year is going to be, going to be tough. We already talked about finances. Let's see. Oh, okay. So a huge one, something we talked about, doing something that like setting a goal for something and then pivoting. 12 months ago, I was doing, I was doing my other podcast, the FI School. Is what it— what the podcast is. You can still— you can still go look it up, uh, listen to our episodes. We had a lot of fun doing that. I was doing my good buddy Russell.

Your intro, the music there, that was a jam, man.

Dude, I still— that— I still absolutely love, love that intro music, dude. The funky saxophone. It's called like the Funky Sax Trap Beat or something like that, dude. Yeah, but, um, yeah, it's called the FI School. The FI School stands for Financial Independence. Um, and it was kind of a dream that I had been having for a long time to talk about financial independence, um, and to do a podcast. And I asked my good buddy Russell to do it with me, and he agreed. And it was a ton of fun. We learned a whole lot, had, you know, a couple thousand downloads. Like, it was, it was really, really fun. But the— but his life was getting busier, and my life was getting enormously busier, and it was, it was becoming a lot more difficult for us to maintain the pace that we were doing. And and just the coordination, right? You and I have struggled to coordinate time with, uh, with everything going on in our lives. And, uh, he was just about to get married, and, and school was kind of crazy for him, and it just, it just became too much.

He was a bug guy too, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was.

Yeah.

Um, and so, yeah, I, I— and in the process of all the episodes we recorded, because we recorded like 30 episodes, um, I realized that I love talking about financial independence, but what I really, really love talking about is like credit card rewards, like points and miles, dude. The, the credit card game, like, that freaking lights me up like no other. Um, and I think a big part of that is because it's always con— it's constantly changing and evolving. Like, the rules change, the, the cards change, the bonuses change, all of it changes. So there's always newness to it. Um, and so I decided, you know, I talked to Marisha about it, and it took me, it took me probably like a month for, for for me to actually like come to the decision like, no, I think, I think we need to stop doing the podcast, the FI School. And that was a really, really hard thing to do. It was something I'd been wanting to do for a long time. And Russell and I were doing it for, for just over a year, I think. And, and I just, I realized that I needed to stop doing that in order to spend time in other places. And it was tough. It was really tough. But we made that decision and I then thought, well, maybe I want to do something on my own for, for like travel rewards for military members. And over the next few months, I started militarytravelrewards.com. And that website is, it's, you know, it's, it's still a work in progress, like as all things are. And I'm really, really excited. Some crazy, crazy big things have happened since, since I, you know, bought the domain and decided like, let's, let's do this thing. Some, some huge things working with some, with some affiliate link aggregators and whatnot. Like, I'm, I'm really excited and I think there's a lot of potential here and I freaking love this stuff. And so I have a lot of goals for this next year. If you, you know, if you'd ask me 12 months ago if this is what I'd be doing, like if I'd be starting a podcast and a website for military travel rewards, I'd be like, I don't, I don't think I'm going to do that, right? But I've, I've learned a whole lot in this last year. I'd already been in the game for a while, the points and miles game, but like this year really I stepped it up to next level and we've gotten to do some really cool things, stayed at some super cool hotels. I don't think I told you, we spent Thanksgiving in Rome and we stayed at a hotel.

I didn't know this.

Yeah, we stayed at a hotel across the street from the Colosseum. Like from our window you could see the Colosseum and I managed to work it out. We got this super dope hotel. It's called the Palm Suite. If anyone wants to go to Rome, stay at the Palm Suite, dude. It's freaking awesome. The super cool part, Palm Suite is a sister hotel of the Palazzo Manfredi. They're, they're both part of the Manfredi Hotel collection. So they're sister hotels. The Palazzo Manfredi is across a different street from the Colosseum, but has a completely unobstructed view of the Colosseum for most of the rooms. And that hotel is significantly more expensive. Like we're talking to the world of points and miles. Like it costs like 35,000-40,000 points a night to stay at that hotel. Whereas the one we stayed at cost 25,000 points a night. So like significantly less. The Palazzo Manfredi—

I'm looking at pictures as you, as you talk about it.

It's beautiful, dude. So cool. We had like a ceramic jaguar in our room. Like it was, it was wild. It was so much fun. But the Palazzo Manfredi is a Michelin-starred restaurant in that hotel. And that restaurant is on the top floor of the hotel. And it has like glass windows or just like the walls are like glass so that you can stare at the Colosseum. Well, the hotel we stayed at, the Palm Suite, doesn't have its own restaurant. So if you get free breakfast at the Palm Suite, you actually walk over to the Palazzo Manfredi and you have breakfast at their Michelin-starred restaurant on their rooftop staring at the Colosseum. We— it was so much fun. Super bougie. We felt way out of place like being there, but that's what makes it so much fun. And we got to, we got to bring my mom, which was huge. Marisha and I have gone on lots of trips and used points and miles to do all sorts of fun stuff, but this time we got to treat my mom. Um, and like, you know, because thanks, partially thanks to, well, thanks to the way that we have been saving our money, we've been able to set aside money to help family, um, and for, for traveling. And we, um, but, and also like we've made some huge moves in the points and miles game. We were able to fly my mom out to Italy from LA, all on points. And then we were able to treat her to this incredible— she's never been to Europe before. And we got to stay across the street from the Colosseum, go do all sorts of fun things, eating a bougie Michelin-starred breakfast on top of this gorgeous hotel, like in this restaurant that's staring at the Colosseum, you know, thousands of years old.

So cool.

And we're doing this all on points. Yeah, we had to pay for some taxes and we pay for some other things, but like we did it all on points and it was only possible because we did this on points. And so we were able to use our money to then just magnify the experience even more. And it was so much fun, dude. It was so, so much fun. And it was— my mom cried like 50 times the whole trip because it was only like 3 days that we, that we went out there or 3 nights.

Yeah, we recorded when she was here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We recorded.

And it was, it was just, she couldn't believe it. She just could not believe it. And I just, it was just a reminder, like, dude, this is what this is all for. Right. I freaking love the points and miles game. Um, and I think part of it, like, it has a perfect tie-in to your, to, you know, financial independence and personal finance in general and stuff. Um, but like getting to provide these opportunities to other people. One of the big reasons we wanted to come to Italy was obviously for ourselves. We wanted to go to Italy.

Duh.

But also we wanted to be a stepping stone for our family members who aren't going to travel, who— there are just enough obstacles in the, the course of life that they're not going to, they're not going to make the, you know, they're not going to make it. It's just, it's just not going to happen, you know. Possibly they could save the money and afford to go of their own accord, like, yes, but there are so many other things you have to take into consideration. And we wanted to be able to be a reason for people to get up and go and experience the world, because we are firm believers that one of the best things that you could do to overcome bias and bigotry and hatred and contention is to travel and to see how other people live and to be around other people and to remember that you are not the only one in the universe, that there are billions of other people, all, you know, all the struggles, all the trials in life. And also there's beauty in life, there's beauty in doing life differently and all over the world. And yeah, it was just, it was fantastic. So all that to say, dude, points and miles, like, I freaking love points and miles. And so I'm really excited to see where I'm at. So I'm planning to start a podcast for it. I have the website up already. Anyone who goes to militarytravelrewards.com, you can see the website there. And I'm, you know, I have a lot of, a lot of plans of things that I want to do with the website, with emails, and, and specifically with the podcast. They're freaking— I mean, I love podcasting. So, but I'm really excited. I'm really excited for that. Um, and we've already talked about it before and I can't remember if it was in November or if it was in October when we talked about it, but I have some like very like specific monetary goals that I want to hit with, uh, with military travel rewards as well. Um, to help fast track our, our like security and our, our freedom as a family really. Cause you're right. You were talking about, um, how important your freedom is to your family, but you know, as you know, life comes and life can go very, very quickly. You know, who's to say that we're going to be here tomorrow? Like, like your dad, he found out about his cancer like a month before he passed. Yeah. Like, I mean, it was so, so— right.

It was quick. It was—

is June.

He found out about it in June and he died in July and— I'm sorry, June. And he died in October. So he had 5 months.

Okay.

But, dude, that's, that's quick, right? That's still—

that's still— that's insane. That is absolutely insane. And imagine if you were in the big house on the lake, right? Love the lake. I mean, you guys are living it up and then you get cancer and then 5 months later you're gone, right? Now, not only does Kaya have to worry about the grieving and the state of the family, but also all these other handcuffs. Like now she's gotta deal with this, now she's gotta deal with this. Now what is she gonna do? Now she's gonna have to move. You know, like there's all these other things to consider.

Thankfully, like, I always joke with Kaya, I'm like, if I ever kick the bucket, she's a millionaire overnight, right? Because I've got a life insurance plan put in place. Beautiful thing, right? You need life insurance, especially with family. But here's the thing is like, you always look at— and this is not to say that I don't want the big house one day. I really—

right, right, right. That's another thing I want to talk about that. But go ahead.

But to that same point, it's a lot smarter to put the investing before the big house so that the big house is paid for by investments. And so that's where I'm— I have a big mentor of mine, Jeremy Davis, and then his boss, and like they work together. His name's Duane Richens. I'm speaking at their conference there in January just on like door-to-door and systems. And they knock doors for real estate, right? But that's what they do. They buy doors, they cash flow. They make great money off of owning properties, and that's what I want to do. It's probably the least risky investment in my opinion, because it's a physical property. But where I'm going with this is, did you see old people all the time? They buy the big house and then eventually they downsize because they don't want the big house. Yeah, I'm— I want to have 7 kids, so I do want the big house eventually. I don't want to put 7 kids in this townhome. Have I seen people do it? Me and you both saw it work. In Chile, there were Chileans that like crammed people in my living room, man. Like, that stuff happened. But dude, like, you don't— I don't need the house to be happy. I want it and it will come later. I'm not in a rush. I know it will come.

Yeah.

Like, we'll do a podcast in, in, in 3 years and I'm like, yeah, I've got my dream home. But like, I know it'll come. I just, I just don't need it right now. I don't want to put my family in that position.

And there is some— there's some real power to that. That statement right there, um, that, that you want it, but you not right now. Like you, like you said earlier, you know, I want the house, I deserve the house, all this, but it's just not, it's not the right time. You know, I really want and desire and deserve and all these things, uh, a home gym. And I know it would save, I would save us a ton of time and it would just, I like, I really want to, I want my children to see that, that taking care of your body is important., and that they all know that their dad is yoked, right? Like, you know, I want all of those things, but it's not, it's not time just yet. And so we wait. Sorry, go ahead.

I'm low-key, I'm low-key jealous that you're Polynesian. Okay. I wish I was slightly Polynesian.

I'm not going to lie. Genes are definitely my favorite. I get back into shape pretty quick, which is, which is unfair to a lot of people.

Yeah. You've got Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson genes in you, man. So, dude.

Um, but speak, so, okay. Speaking of which, so now talking about goals, that we did not hit this year. I did not hit my fitness goals this year, not even close. And you know why that is? The truth is I did not prioritize my fitness in a way that would set me up for actually achieving my goal. Like if I reverse engineered my goal, like I didn't do those, I didn't do those things. Like if I said my goal and I, let's, you know, to simplify it, I reverse engineered it, I have to lift 6 times a week. And then I only lift 4 times a week, well, obviously I'm not gonna hit my goal, right? And, and I've, I've been working out. I'm not unfit in that sense, but, uh, like my back's been hurting, my knee's been, you know, I'm still trying to, still trying to work through like the full mobility of my knee after my ACL surgery and whatnot. Like I don't want my injuries that are the surgeries that I've had, right? Cause I've had a herniated disc surgery and then I've had an ACL surgery. Like I know I have those things, but I don't want them to be excuses. Uses. I don't wanna have to justify to people why I, I can't lift this much or why I can't move this much or why I can't kneel on the ground because I've had these surgeries. Like I want it to be in spite of the fact that I had these surgeries and I had some, I had some mobility goals, flexibility goals, but then I didn't do all the stretching and the, the tension, what's it called? Like stretching under weight when you like, when you elongate your muscles under weight specifically as you're trying to like stretch 'em out. There's just some fancy term for for it. I didn't do that as much as I should have, right? And, uh, and so this next year, like, but, but I have made improvements. So I got— my flexibility has increased. Like, uh, I am in better shape, uh, than I was a year ago, uh, or at least I'm in about the same shape as I was a year ago in spite of the fact that all these other things happened and I wasn't exercising the way I would have liked to and I'm not eating as well as I'd like to and all these other things. But this next year I'm going to be spending some time in the desert because we're getting deployed, and I have some ideas of things that I really want to do. I have some more stability in terms of my, my long-term planning, and that I, I do know where I'm going to be every month of next year. So I know where the gyms are, I know what I can be doing and all that. So I, I know that I can hit my goals. So one of my goals is I want to weigh 215 pounds. I weigh about 208 right now., but I want my body fat percentage to be lower. I don't know my percentages right now, and I have a way to go on base and get that checked. Uh, so I plan on doing that before we, we take off to come back here to Vegas. What do they need to find?

InBody things?

Like, yeah, I can't remember the doc—

what's it called?

No, this is— it's like a body scan. It's like a DEXA scan. DEXA scan.

Oh, you're like lying down?

Yeah, yeah, one of those, one of those.

Um, So those are legit.

They, they are, dude. I used to use 'em at the academy all the time and lo and behold, I made improvements. So I'm gonna get one of those scans before I go. And I like, I have, I've started writing out my, my program for, for the beginning of the year, but I need to finish that. And then I have goals, like I wanna have under 11% body fat. I wanna weigh 215 pounds. Like, and I, and I want to feel really good. Like I want my knee and my back to feel good. Those two, they're kind of— I— it's kind of hard to, to set a goal for that, like, and I, I just need to give it some more time to figure out how I can measure whether or not I'm hitting those. But those are the two, like, those are the other, uh, or those are all the fitness goals that I have for next year. And I'm really excited. So when you get deployed to the desert, you know, you, you work 12-hour shifts basically, 6 days a week, 7 days a week, uh, and you, you work shift, you hit the gym, or you hit the gym and then you go work your shift, eat some food, and you— that's it. Like, that's all you got. That's all you do. So everyone gets in better shape with it.

They get jacked. Like, my— yeah, overseas, he got in better shape. My uncles, when they go overseas, they come back and they're like, they're yoked. But are you— are you able to talk about where you're going? Or I just—

I mean, we don't know. We don't know. And it's possible it could get shut off last minute. Right? But, uh, we are expecting—

but your wife's not going with you?

No, no, this—

okay.

Yeah, this will be a— this is your only trip deployment?

Yeah. Um, okay.

Combat things and combat places.

Uh, well, I'm excited for you. I think you're gonna make the most of it there. I know that, uh, yeah, I mean, you're going to be able to— sometimes during periods of like imbalance in our lives is when we can really kind of like lean into some of those goals. So yeah, you're gonna miss your family tremendously. However, like, you're gonna be in a desert with a bunch of weights and food, and you have a lot of responsibilities, and I'm freaking— like, you, you'll be able to get in great shape.

Yeah, yeah. Am I excited to not be with my family?

No.

Am I excited to only have to worry about lifting, working, and eating, and then like working on my website? Oh heck freaking yeah, dude. Like, I'm so excited about that, you know, that portion within those constraints, you know?

Yeah, I mean, men, I think we do well when we're just given one task to work on and, you know, for a season. I think, I think, I don't know how it is with, with a lot, with all men, but like, I think I'm a very seasonal guy. Like, I can focus on something for a season and go hard on it, and then, you know, I'm gonna go hard on something else. Like, I, I think, and I'm, I'm excited to hear about how that goes and to kind of You know, well, we'll still be recording, man.

I'll bring my stuff with me. We'll be recording from probably places we can't talk about, but that's okay.

Yeah, I think, uh, you know, you won't be able to buy a microphone at Target out there, so bring your mic.

Yeah, no, I'll bring my mic.

Yeah.

Uh, yo, so we gotta wrap up here in a sec because I gotta get going. Um, yeah, but, uh, let's see. We'll see. One thing, oh, one thing I do want to do, so to capture this is I want to, I want to build a binder like you have. Um, because I want to keep myself on track because I don't remember all the goals I set at the beginning of the year. I don't. I remember some of them. Yeah, the ones that were important, but there were all sorts of goals that I wrote down somewhere. I don't know where and I don't have them anymore.

So yeah, write them down. You can use my binder as like a template, man. Like just kind of like what the different categories, certain challenges, income, the set income goals. Yeah, like all that kind of stuff. And, uh, review it daily. Like I wasn't as good about reviewing it daily towards the end of the year as I was, as I was at the beginning of the year, but like, because I reviewed it at least every now and then, like it actually happened. Like a lot of my goals happened. So I think that's what, uh, an invitation we'll give to all of you guys. Um, create your own binder with the actual goals that you are going to do. The systems that you need to put in place to hit it with a picture that sparks that kind of dopamine release of you hitting the goal. And review your goal daily. Like I have a binder with plastic sleeves that I slide the pages into. And I review it. And that's— and I'll save it. I will literally save it and keep it on my bookshelf. And I'll look back on it one day and be like, wow, look at how far I've come and how far I've grown. And yeah, man, I still need to learn. I still need to learn X. I haven't done that yet. I want to do that, you know? Yeah. So yeah, that's our invitation. Take an audit on your year. Like, kind of like, this is cool to do. Like, uh, just be open. Like, it's okay to, to say that you fell short of a goal or this is an experiment. This is fun. This life's supposed to be like learning. So, uh, I'm really happy with this podcast. I think Jared and I will go back to the drawing board on what, what our topics are going to be this year, but just expect, um, more value that we're going to bring to you guys and, and we're grateful for all of our listeners, those 10 people that are listening to us as number 1 podcast. Thank you. And if everybody else that is listening to us and, and, you know, the top 25, top 30, you know, all you guys, like, thank you for being a part of our lives. We've, we've enjoyed this a lot.

Yeah, it has been, it has been really fun, really, really fun. Um, but more importantly, it has been, uh, inspiring and motivational for us to have these conversations. Like, for me, like, Austin, for me to get to sit down and talk with you about, hey, this is what's going on, and hey, like, hearing from you and hearing your struggles and hearing your wins and your losses and hearing all of it. Like, I don't think we talk about this enough with the people around us. I really don't. And if nothing else, if no one has listened to this podcast, you and I have had these conversations and we are benefiting from them because we are sacrificing some time. We are setting aside time, blocking it off from all the other Uh, you know, demands from the world. And we were saying, hey, let's talk about these things that are important to us. And let's like, let's connect like you, like, let, let's connect you and me on a personal level, right? Cause we're really good friends, but also like, let's dig deeper in what's going on. Uh, where, where are you winning? Where are you losing? And how can we overcome that? Let's, let's expand the way that we're thinking and, and viewing the world. And let's, you know, let's kind of recommit ourselves to improvement. And then also let's do that. Well, let's bring other people into the conversation. Which is, uh, like you were talking about, uh, earlier.

Yeah.

Next year, wanting to bring other people onto the podcast, dude, freaking send it. Let's do it. Like, I'm, I'm really excited. Uh, logistically, that's another hurdle that we'll have to overcome. But if you and I can record from Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi, then we, we can figure it out, right?

We gotta get, we gotta get my buddy. First person comes to mind is my buddy Jeremy, but we'll figure all it out, man. It'll be good. We, me and you are the experts at overcoming technical difficulties.

Oh yeah, for sure.

Actually, you're really good at it. I just, I just kind of like.

We're getting there, we're getting there. Um, I'm gonna go ahead, I'm gonna put a, uh, uh, what do you call it, like an answer this question thing, uh, in the, in the footnotes for this episode. Um, and I— so in there, to everyone listening, if there's something you want to hear us talk about, or if there's a book that you want us to read and talk about, if there's a question you have that you, that you just kind of want to ask for us to talk about, put it in there, okay? Um, now go ahead and Spotify and type in your answer there at the bottom. Bottom so we can see that. That'd be awesome. And then, yeah, you can follow us on Instagram.

Yeah. Oh, oh yeah.

Something I was going to mention real quick. So the number one, the number one shared episode was What Will My Daughter Think of Me? That is episode 7, I think. Hold on. I've got episodes here.

Yeah.

Let's see.

That was a powerful one, man.

Yeah. What Do I Want My Daughter to Think of Me? That's it. Episode 7. That was our number one most shared episode., which is I think super important. When every time I read that title, dude, I think about it. What do I want my daughter to think of me?

Yeah.

Which is crazy because now my daughter's almost 2. Your daughter just turned— she just turned 2? She's about to turn 2?

Yeah. Yeah. Queen Elsa just turned 2. She dresses up as Elsa all the time.

And then our number 1 most played episode was What Success Can't Do. That's number 5. So if you haven't listened to either of those episodes, episode 5 or episode 7, go listen to them. Definitely go listen to them. And if they bring value to you, or you think they can help somebody else, go ahead and share them. Share it on Instagram, you share it through text message, or however you want to do that. But share it with somebody. It's, you know, sharing these messages, sharing these conversations can truly impact the lives of the people that you connect with, right? And isn't that what we want to do? Don't want to help the people around us, especially the people we love the most? I think that's super important. So anyway, I got to get going. Austin, dude, thank you again so much, not just for today, for getting to sit and talk today, but dude, for a full year, We recorded, this will be 12 episodes plus that one welcome bonus episode. There's freaking 13 episodes this year, man. Baker's dozen. That's freaking awesome, man. And it has been such a ride. I'm so glad we've been—

Baker's dozen, baby. Hey, love you, brother. And Merry Christmas to everybody.

All right. Take care, Austin. Love you, everybody. See ya.