Keep On Truckin' | Ep. 24

We got a free ticket to the World Championship Trifecta in Sparta, Greece, dude. I do not care what place we come in.

How sick is that, dude?

And I was thinking about it, dude, we're gonna get like, what, 4 free t-shirts out of this? Like, dude, that's reason enough to go. Shoot. 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. Welcome to our September episode, everybody, uh, our second one I think we've done this month. Yeah. And, uh, it's just fun. This is— we hit our goal this month doing two. Awesome. Um, yeah, I've got a buddy of mine that'll hop on with us this month, but I, I've had so much fun recently. I think now that Summer Sales is over, it's been, it's, it's been way easier to kind of get back into a rhythm, and I still look forward to these so much, man. I, uh, fun updates and fun things that Jared and I want to talk about today, but I mean, I, I want to hear about your website. That's my first thing, dude, that like you're like, wait, I can't tell you that. Okay, well, what's up?

Yeah, dude, uh, yeah, we'll go, dude, we'll go ahead, we'll go ahead and talk about this. So, um, as many of you know who are listening, I run a website for, uh, a website and a podcast for credit card rewards for military members. It's called militarytravelrewards.com, and the podcast is Military Miler. We've got a Facebook group, the Military Minders Facebook group, and an Instagram page that is, uh, pretty much empty. And, uh, but with lots of things in the works to start putting up on there. And the way it works in the, in the affiliate world for credit cards is that there are a few companies who aggregate all of the affiliate links for banks. So Chase, American Express, Capital One, Citi, Barclays, US Bank, all of them, they all have affiliate links for all of their cards. So if you refer someone to, um, or if someone signs up for a credit card having used your link, just like a personal referral link, then you'll get paid for it. And there are a whole bunch of different rules and regulations, and every bank has their own rules and regulations. And so these, um, these companies, they aggregate all of the links and then all of the compliance rules and regs, uh, to make sure that you are or to just make it easier for people to then start working with, with banks. Um, and so a year ago, uh, a little over a year ago, I, uh, about a year and a half ago, I bought a domain and I was like, this is what I want to do. Um, I'd been doing some personal finance stuff. And so I decided, you know, this is, I think I just want to focus on credit card rewards and I want to focus on them for military members because they get their annual fees waived for credit cards. And so you can do all sorts of really cool stuff. Um, and so I decided, well, I'll go ahead, I'll buy a domain and I'll make a website and we'll figure this out and turn this into a business. Because it's hands down, like, points and miles, hands down my number one favorite hobby, like, without a doubt. And so, uh, uh, so I bought the domain militarytravelrewards.com. I'd actually looked for the domain, uh, militarymiler, and it was taken. It's still taken to this day, so someday I will get that domain. But in the meantime, militarytravelrewards.com. So I bought the domain, uh, and then I like half sort of made a website in that like I kind of picked a theme. There's all sorts of like different themes in like WordPress or Wix site or whatever size you use. We use WordPress. Um, and I bought the domain, kind of threw up a half-hearted, haphazard website, and then I was like, dude, I wonder, I wonder how you get to work with, uh, with these companies that give you referral links to make this a business. Like, I know everyone does it, all the, um credit card blogs and the points and miles blogs and podcasts that I follow, they all use them. And I noticed there are a couple companies that, uh, multiple, uh, blogs and, and podcasts use. And so I was like, well, let me just go to their website and see, like, see what their looks. So I typed in the name of one of those websites and, um, went to it, and there at the bottom there's like a become a publisher, become an affiliate link or something. And so I clicked on it and you fill out a contact form. And so I submitted it and I just put, you know, My website's militarytravelrewards.com, blah, blah, blah. And I just submitted. I was like, dude, I don't know, I don't know how this thing works. Like, I've got no idea what I'm doing. I just like threw it out there. And so, um, I put it out there and a couple days later I got an email, uh, from a guy from this company saying, hey, we'd love to sit down and talk. I see that you, you know, you're interested in becoming an affiliate. Uh, let's, let's hop on a call. Does, you know, anytime next week work? And I was like, oh crap, like they responded. Um, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I set a time, we, we hopped on a call for 30 minutes, and just before that call, dude, I like hopped on, I'm like doing my best to like throw this website together because I'm like, I don't know what I'm— I don't know what I'm doing. At the time, I barely knew how to run a website. I had done a couple, uh, trial runs of some other websites that I experimented with, um, and I still didn't know a whole lot. So I just kind of threw something together and we hopped on the call, dude. And here's how the call went. The call was like Um, yeah, so, you know, tell us what you want, like, or tell us what you're, what you're about, what your company's about. Let us know, like, tell us how do you market all of your credit cards? Um, how much traffic do you get on your website? Blah, blah, blah. And I was like, crap, dude, like, uh, and he had, so they had, they had actually emailed me these questions ahead of time. And so I was reading them. I was like, oh crap, dude, I don't have, I don't have any traffic to my website. No one knows about my website. I have, I'm not marketing any credit cards because I haven't done anything like this. I, I'm just starting, dude. Um, or really I haven't started. And so I, um, so then I, uh, start typing up responses to all of his questions so that I, I have something to, to kind of go into this conversation with. So we hopped on the call and, and we started talking. And so one of the questions was, you know, like, how are you marketing your credit cards? And my response was, is truthful and something to the effect of, um, well, I spend a lot of time talking to people and I have, I've helped several people open credit cards and this is what we've done and kind of talk through a couple anecdotes. Um, but then at the end saying, but as far as, you know, actual traffic to the website, there isn't very much. Uh, which those are probably the words that I used, and the answer is very much as in zero, as in like there is— there are— there are zero traffic to this website. The only clicks to this website are me trying to find it on Google, you know, like that's—

and your mom, and that's like—

and me, not even my mom, dude, just me, myself, and I. And, uh, but the conversation went really well, but I told the guy, I was like, Uh, but these are, these are the reasons I love credit card rewards. This is why military members love them. And I've discovered a whole bunch of things that military members can do that regular people wouldn't think to do because it wouldn't make sense for them. Um, and I think there's an enormous market out there. I actually know, uh, the people who run the other blogs in this space. Uh, like one of them, uh, he's the biggest guy in this whole space for sure. Um, like we've hopped on a phone call, like we've talked before. He's a great guy. Um, he and his, uh, his business partner. They do a podcast too and whatnot. I'm like, dude, they're awesome. Um, and also I want to be better. I want to do better. I think I can. I think I can make a website better than his. I think I can do this. Like, we can do it. And I'm brand new in the military. He just got out of the military a couple years ago. So I'm like, dude, we could pick up the baton and keep going, you know? Um, and so that's how that conversation went. And, uh, basically in weekly emails and then in, uh, monthly, uh, Zoom calls, we like, we kept this relationship going. And so that's where I learned, uh, all about like how many, how much traffic you need to your website, how much the commissions are for cards, uh, how certain cards get marketed, what are all the compliance rules, what things you can say, what things you can't say on a website, what stuff can have hyperlinks, what stuff can't have hyperlinks, what kinds of words you have to use, uh, where you have to have your advertiser disclosures, like all sorts of stuff about, about how, uh, the affiliate world works. And I was like, dude, like it was so much information. Like I had no idea how any of this worked, but once I saw those rules, I started reading through the compliance guides, dude. It like— everyone's emails, all of the newsletters that I get from all these different businesses, the podcasts I follow, the way that people talk, it like all made sense. I was like, oh, that's why they say this. That's why last year I saw a change in all of the wording and all of the emails that I got from everything. That's why I always get an email from like 6 different websites all telling me that a certain credit card has a new offer. Because they all get the update at the same time, and then they go and like they write the email and then they publish it, right? They post it out there and stuff. And so like so many things made sense. Um, but dude, like I'm, I'm doing this on like part-time, you know, I'm doing this after work, I'm doing this before work, I'm doing this on the weekends, I'm doing this, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm asking my wife to give me a couple hours on a Saturday morning, uh, so I can sit down and record, so I can sit down and edit the stuff on the website and whatnot, like to make this happen outside of my you know, 12 to 14 hour days at work. Um, and so the, the progress on the website, like the amount of foot traffic actually on site and the number of applications, uh, people are signing up for and the number of approvals for credit cards, like it was pretty low, like pretty low. Um, basically like what they said I needed to start hitting, uh, every month I hit in the last year, you know. So I'm like very far behind the curve. And so earlier this week, uh, I woke up to an email And it says, um, hello, due to the tightening of compliance and revenue requirements from credit card issuers, we were required to do a full audit of our network. And after viewing your 2024 performance, we will be removing your access to all affiliate links. Please remove all your links that lead to our website by Tuesday. Once your links are removed, please confirm that they've all been removed. Thank you. And, uh, you know, let us know if you have any questions. And so, dude, I got that email and I was just like, it was tough. I was still lying in bed. I hadn't even gotten out of bed yet, and I was like, oh, like, yeah, dude, like, that's, that's the income stream. That's, you know, like, it's— I haven't made a ton of money, but like, I was able to buy a new MacBook Pro with money from, from this, from the website. We've been able to, um, I mean, I, I've used some of that money, uh, for us to, to pay for some of these subscriptions that we have for, uh, for recording this podcast and other stuff. Like, we, uh, The snowball is rolling, though maybe slower than, than we had hoped. And so now I'm like, dude, well, this was— these were my plans, these were my goals for the year, you know, all of the, like, the financial goals, the net worth goals that we had for, for how this year was going to play out, um, like all of those just like sliced at the knees. And, uh, and so I got ready and drove up to, to base to, uh, to go to the gym. It's about a 45-minute drive. And that whole drive, like, I started listening to a book, um, and I like paused it and I just kind of lit— I just thought the whole way up there, just kind of like running through, like just sorting through my emotions, sorting through plans, um, options and whatnot. And by the time I got to base, dude, I was feeling pretty good, honestly. Like there were a couple different things that, that popped into my mind. First being like, there's a part of me that kind of knew this was coming because, uh, like the tr— the traffic wasn't there. I wasn't meeting the, the quotas that they had said. Um, so like by all means they have every reason to remove me. Um, there was another part that kind of felt relieved, like now I don't have the pressure to do, like, to meet the numbers that they said I need to be meeting, right? Um, so like there was that relief a little bit. Um, but more than anything, I thought nothing's really going to change. Like, there are a couple things I have to change. I obviously have to take the links out, and I'm going to have to figure out a new way to do referrals and, and marketing cards and stuff. But there are some restrictions that that the, uh, by that, working with one of these affiliate companies, there are restrictions that they put in place. Um, and so without those restrictions, I now am free to say some other things on my website, and specifically regarding like military benefits and whatnot, stuff that you can't normally say when you work with an affiliate company. And so I was, I was thinking there, there are some opportunities in here. Um, and really what has to happen is I have to get— I have to continue working, continue putting out the information, the, the content out there for people to learn, help people, uh travel the world more comfortably and more often. And as I do that, and as people start signing up for my personal referral links that I'll start to use, then, uh, once I have kind of that confidence that I could get reapproved, then I'll go back to the company and say like, hey, here are the numbers, here are the metrics, the traffic. Like, I think I now have enough for us to pick this relationship back up. And I already know all of the rules and the requirements and, and the compliance guidance and whatnot. So, um, it won't be that hard to kind of get back into it, uh, as long as, you know, as long as they're willing. And I think as long as I have the information, like the numbers and the data to back it, then it shouldn't be too hard. And heaven forbid they're like, no, we just don't ever want to see your face again. There's— there are a couple other companies I know about, so like, I, I know I can easily go to another one.

Um, maybe, maybe this door closed so that the— you hope you have a better relationship with a different company too. Yeah. Which Totally kind of put a reason behind it, but I didn't realize you can still monetize this by referral links.

Yeah, so they're, they're personal referral links. So when you refer someone to a credit card, like, uh, let's say I have an American Express Platinum card, uh, if I could send that referral link to you, you could apply for a card, and if you get approved, then I would get like 10,000 Membership Rewards points or something like that, you know. Most of the time it doesn't pay in dollars, it pays in points, uh, whereas these affiliate links, when someone clicks through and applies for a credit card, then you get paid out in in dollars. Yeah, and that's, and that's how, that's how all the travel blogs, all of the, uh, like NerdWallet, the, all the Motley Fool, all the, all the finance, uh, websites and everything, like that's how everybody does it is they work through one of these affiliate companies.

I think I might have applied for a Wells Fargo credit card through Credit Karma was a recommendation. I'm like, oh, I already have that, so I just clicked on a link.

Yeah, that's exactly how they do it.

Okay, dude, it's, I think it's cool that you share that. I mean, I like that you had a reframe, like in your drive, like you cut the music off and you just reframed the scenario. You're like, okay, I can still do what I'm doing. Like, it sounds like you can still do your podcast. You can, now you have some more freedom to say what you want. Without the restrictions of, you know, verbiage and hyperlink here and hyperlink there.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, if anything, it's almost like props to you for just creating a seat for yourself at the table of like affiliates, right?

Dude, yeah.

Like you had a meeting with someone and they're like, okay, what's the traffic? And And, and you're like, I just talked to people about it. We're still so down to work with you.

Yeah.

But that just goes to show like, yeah, once you have the data that shows that you're, that you know what you're doing, then you'll get in, you'll get your seat back at the table. But I mean, this, it's just so cool that you just went for it. And I think that's one thing to be proud of is that you just, yeah. You just went for it. You called somebody and you made it happen.

And it was terrifying. It was absolutely terrifying. And a couple of the things that I've learned in the process was one, I learned how much money some of these other companies are making. Like, right, so you sell pest control. Like, as you get to know the owners of the company, then you start to learn like like what the, what the financials are for the whole company, not just for every single rep, right? And, and so you've talked about, uh, wanting to run a, like, to run your own pest control company. Like, obviously part of that is the financial aspect of it. And, uh, and so like seeing how, like, I, I, it just made so many things make sense afterwards of how the business works and how all these companies are doing, why they're pushing certain cards over other cards, why I always get, you know, I always get these notifications from all these other, um, bloggers because, you know, they're the people I want to keep up with. I want to see, you know, just what they're putting out. That's why I see they push one card over there, because for a long time, for example, they're two different cards. They're like sister cards, very similar, and I think one of them is better than the other, like for sure I think it is better, but everyone always advertises the one that I think isn't as good. Yeah, dude, the commission's like 5 times as much, and I'm like, oh well, I hate that, you know. I hate that, like I hate that people are advertising a worse card because of it. But then seeing like how banks vary and how much they're willing to pay for cards. Like, I'm like, oh well, it totally makes sense why everyone's gonna, uh, promote certain cards. Because it— I mean, it's not just like a little bit more, we're talking like straight up 5, 6, 7, 10 times as much, like depending on which card it is. And so I'm like, it's insane. But I talked to my older brother who's like— he's— his whole career has been in advertising and marketing and like affiliates and all of that. And he's, he's coached me through a lot of, uh, like running my website, how to make my website look and work and function and stuff. Cause he, he's run, uh, multimillion dollar businesses, websites. Like that's, that's his job. And, uh, he was like, I'm honestly just surprised that they even agreed to work with you in the first place. They had, he's like, that surprised me. That straight up surprised me. Like they had no reason working with, no reason to work with you. And I was like, yeah, straight up. Like these dudes were betting on me. This is what they were doing. They're giving me their time. They were sharing a commission with me, right? Obviously, cause they make, they make a certain percentage of every commission. Like, and in the end I probably was a net negative on their business. I don't like, I don't know how much each account costs them to run, like to be in the, in the, use the software and whatnot. I would say maybe I was a net negative or maybe like breakeven. Like I really don't know. Cause I don't know what their costs are, but, uh, but I got insight and got some coaching. Like, because they were, they were helping with— they're like, hey, this, these are some things that we see, uh, work really well for some other companies. Um, maybe check out this blog, maybe check out this blog, go check out this blog. This is another publisher that I work with. Um, because these people that I meet with, um, or used to meet with, they work with up to like 60 or 70 other websites. Like, they work with all of them. And so, um, you know, given the compliance guidance and the revenue requirements from the banks, then that's why they're saying they had to you know, they had to thin out the, the tree. Um, and so there were, there were a couple things, uh, so that, that my brother said that I got this— I got a whole year of knowledge, a whole— like, I actually know how big the mountain is, which is crazy because when you start anything new, you have no idea what it looks like. You just show up and you start learning along the way. And I found out just how hard it is not just to like be in the space, but to be in the space, uh, specifically for military members, because there are specific Uh, things that you cannot mention on websites regarding military benefits. And so I was like, dude, that's the whole business is the military piece. Like, uh, and, and there are more details. I don't think I'm allowed to talk about them, but, uh, uh, so yeah, I'm like, this is nuts. I now see just how steep a hill this is. But what that really means is that all the other— the Facebook groups that I've seen, the, the like smaller blogs, the— I say smaller as if they're smaller than mine. My blog has like no traffic. So like, but other, other small blogs that I've seen where people use personal referral links and stuff, like, I would, I would bet that none of them have worked with an affiliate company ever, ever. One of them I know could not because they— the name of their group has like uses words that are in violation of the compliance guidance for, for some of these companies.

The other thing too, man, is like maybe those people haven't even shot their shot, you know, maybe they're— maybe they— and I think it goes to show like it's okay to just shoot your shot and go for it. And just ask the question. Like, freaking, you don't know until you ask. My wife gets so mad at me when I'm out in public. I'm like, I'm going to see if I can get this thing for free. I think I talked about this here, but I mean, not because I can't buy it, but because I just want to know. And I get free stuff all the time. Double meat at Chipotle all the time. I'm like, I don't want you to charge me for double. I just want a little bit of extra love. And they're like, all right, you know, but, um, but that, yeah, you just gotta shoot your shot. And I think that's— dude, I'm so proud of you for doing it. I— it's by no means is it a dead end. It's just, you know, God, uh, I would always think— I don't know who said this, but it was like, uh, rejection is just God's redirection, just helping you figure out the right way. And there's gonna, there's gonna come something better from this, man.

Oh yeah.

Um, and I'm not just— I'm not— I understand that that email is not fun to wake up to at all, but yeah, you know, something's gonna come out of it.

Yeah. And I don't want to spend the whole podcast talking about, uh, no, me and this, but, uh, there was one insight that Okay, two small insights that, uh, that I thought were kind of really important. The first one was that when, after I read this, like my first thought wasn't, it's over. Yeah. Like, like that I'm done. I like, I'm, I'm packing it up. It was like, how do I figure this out now? Like, like crap, now what am I supposed to do? And it was, and my brain started, you know, just like running wheels. Like, how am I gonna figure this out?

Where?

What am I gonna have to do? What changes am I gonna have to make to the website? Uh, how am I gonna have to change my marketing, my advertising? What things can I now do that I couldn't do before? And so like, that's what, that's what I went to because the answer isn't I'm done because we, we've talked about this before, dude. If I like, if I, you know, canceled all my subscriptions, canceled the websites and like, like, dude, that's it. I would go crazy. I'd go absolutely crazy. Like I have to, there's something in me that just wants to figure out this entrepreneurship. Who wants to figure out creating a business from nothing. And, um, and so I'm like, I just— I'm gonna keep creating, keep, uh, recording and publishing, and we're gonna figure it out. Um, and the other thing— sorry, go ahead.

I said the people that win in life, they just shoot a lot of shots.

Yeah, yeah. And they miss a whole bunch of them.

My favorite quote is, uh, you miss 100% of the shots that you don't take. And then it has the guy that said it, and then it says Michael Scott. Uh, yeah, but yeah, man, it's, uh, I cut you off, but—

oh no, yeah, the, um, and then the, the other, um, the other kind of, kind of big insight into this was that if it's that much harder for me, it's that much harder for everyone else. And that just means that many more people are not going to want to do it. You know, if the barrier to entry gets bigger, that means fewer people are going to enter, which means that the reward on the other side is there's just going to be more of it. You know, you're going to get a bigger share of the pie because fewer people are going to want to make those sacrifices. And that was the most motivating thing that came out of my 45-minute drive to work. I was like, dude, well, that just means so many of these other people that I thought were competitors Um, maybe they're not, because maybe they're, they're probably not willing to do what is required to make this work. Um, like there are a couple blogs I've seen that I'm like, okay, I know what kinds of things they would have to change in order to legally be compliant with one of these companies and to really start making some money. I doubt they'd be willing to do it. And it's not a knock on, on them and their company, but it just means that if I can figure it out, then the share of the reward is going to be that much bigger. And so I'm just that much more excited to really become the credit card guy for military members.

Yeah, and still, this is just part of your story, which is cool. It'll be something that you can share for a while.

Dude, I saw a video, I saw a video from the Savannah Bananas, the baseball team.

Oh dude, is that what they're called? Yeah, yeah, he's cool.

Uh, well, I watched a video of him talking and he was, he was talking about failing forward and he was like, well, not, not failing forward, failing and continuing to move forward.

Hi, right, the guy that dresses up as the Greatest Showman dude that he got denied from baseball teams and everything, is that who you're talking about?

Maybe, I don't know. He was talking about the starting the Savannah Bananas. He was like, the first batch of t-shirts that we ordered and sold, we misspelled Savannah, we had too many N's. And he was like, and then he talked about all these other failures that they made along the way. And he, what he was saying was that Failure is just a part of the process, you know, and you just, you just gotta keep going. You gotta keep moving forward. And that's what sets people apart is who's still willing to go forward after those failures. And so I just thought that, like you just said, this is just a part of the story.

Yeah, that's, that's, that's it. And I think, uh, you learn, right? Like, this is a little bit of insight on my life recently that you talk about barrier to entry. I started working on my real estate license. It's like, takes forever. Freaking, that's the biggest barrier to entry. Like once people like start taking it, but I would say, uh, to your point on like, hey, stuff happens and you know, you, you better things happen or like other things can happen as a result of it. I think, um, like we're supposed to do things and find out, hey, that didn't work. Let me try something else. Like that's totally fine to do. It's just data. Yeah. Dude, I, and, and I talked to you before a little bit about life before this, but, um, scariest thing for me recently was walking away from my job at Anthem. And I think when we did our podcast, I was like, uh, super nervous, but as I've like sat and and like explored options and everything, I've never been more excited in my life. But I think it's, it's, um, we don't get those moments unless we're put in a position where we, I wouldn't call it failure, just redirection where we're learning and collecting data points and experimenting. So dude, I'm stoked for you. Um, I, I met a grandma the other day. Yeah, this is totally off topic.

I just had to—

I met an 86-year-old grandma the other day and I was talking to her and I look at her walker. She has a walker and then on her walker, it's this book.

Dude, I still haven't read that book, but I need to.

Oh, it's funny. The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F. Um, so I like, I was like, how old are you? She's like, 86. And I'm like, you're reading that? And she was so embarrassed. Like, so embarrassed. She's like, it's my daughter's book. And I'm like, I'm reading it too. Don't worry. And she goes, no, you're not. And I go, yeah, I am. Read chapter 4. Like, it talks about this, this, and that. And she goes, you are reading it. So anyways, I just thought that was something to mention off topic. 86 years old reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. It's a good book. It's a really good book. And right just now that I'm talking books, I just finished reading this, A New Era. It's like by Eckhart Tolle. He wrote The Power of Now, I'm pretty sure. But with my situation, I— dude, there was a part in this book that just stuck out to me a ton. And I'll read it if that's okay.

Yeah, dude.

So, um, so basically talks about this guy like walked— oh, he says, okay, so he like walked from a really nice situation and it ended up being the best thing in the world for him. And so I think that's kind of been similar to what's happened in my life recently. Is I walked from a very comfortable, like, awesome spot. Like, and a lot of people that know me in my life, they're like, what are you doing? I'm like, I don't know. I actually don't know. But I, I know that this is what I need to do and I need to move forward. And so I was reading this in one of my studies the other day. It says when you become comfortable with uncertainty, Infinite possibilities open up in your life. It means fear is no longer a dominant factor in what you do and no longer prevents you from taking action to initiate change. The Roman philosopher Tacitus— maybe we'll see these dudes out in Greece. He's from Rome, but, um, rightly observed that the desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise. If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. So basically, like, if we can't sit in the unknown, like, we get— if we're not okay with that, we get scared. And it says, if it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity. And then this is the part that I really enjoyed. I'm like, whoa. I think some books we read in our lives because they were like meant for us at that time. And it says, many years ago, as a result of a strong inner impulse, I walked out of an academic career that the world would have called promising, stepping into complete uncertainty. Literally what I'm doing in my life right now. And out of that, after several years, emerged my new incarnation as a spiritual teacher. Much later, something similar happened again. The impulse came to give up my home in England and move to the West Coast of North America. I obeyed the impulse, although I didn't know the reason for it. Um, out of that move into uncertainty came The Power of Now. Which was written in California and British Columbia, um, and basically turned into this huge bestseller. The guy's been extremely successful since. This guy has just followed those impulses of like those nudges to be like, okay, it's time to move into uncertainty again. And uncertainty isn't a bad thing. And I think that's one of the things I've learned about this year is like every day in my, in my past job and door-to-door, it would be like, uncertainty is a factor that you have to live with. You know, you don't know what's going to happen every day. Um, but to that point, uh, in my men's group, which I have a retreat coming up in a couple weeks— no, sorry, a couple days. Sorry, I fly to— I fly to Vegas in a couple days. Why do I keep pushing this stuff out mentally? But, um, I have a retreat in a couple days, and one of the big themes that we went over in the collective is like changing your relationship with the unknown and being okay with it. Because I think that, that book explains it really well. When you're not okay with the unknown, we're crippled and we, we turn to fear. But then when you're, when you're like okay with it, like, okay, cool, what's next? It's exciting. Like, life is really like legitimately exciting for me right now. And I love that. Yeah, so that's, that's been the perspective shift I've had. Have there been moments where I'm like, oh my gosh, what did I do? Absolutely. Like I had, I had one of those last week where I'm like, what in the hell did I just do? Did I just like get in a terrible spot? I'm like, no, dude, it all worked out. So it's, um, that's just some thoughts, like especially with your credit card, like, okay, a little bit of unknown, move forward. Like those that take action and just move forward in faith always do well.

Yeah.

And I think that's all I'll say about my career at this point. Right.

But right now there's a lot of things we can't talk about yet. But yo, that coach in the, in the coaching, one of the notes I took from my coaching, coaching calls a few weeks ago, I wrote this down and that was the question to myself. Am I serious about my own success? And dude, like, what a, what a time to ask that question now, you know? Like, uh, like, I mean, things were going reasonably well when I was doing that coaching call, but she had me thinking, you know, am I, am I really serious about, about my own success? And, you know, something like this comes up, like, oh, uh, actually, you can't make any money off of what you've been doing, you know? Like, I feel like I finally have the ball rolling on getting, um, like, getting all my Uh, all my podcasts up on YouTube. The videos are rolling out, the podcast episodes are rolling out. Um, we've got a, a huge plan for how we're going to start making stuff for social media. And, um, like, we're really excited. I'm really excited to start making this happen, and it is moving. I mean, uh, the episode for the podcast that I just released this week was episode 19, you know, like, we've been doing this for 19 weeks in a row, you know. Um, and so, like, things are moving. And then just as we're starting to get a move and we're starting to get a groove. Like, sorry, you can't make any money. They're like, oh well then, now what? You know? And, uh, in, uh, Think and Grow Rich, uh, which I've, I've read a few times now, um, one of the, one of the quotes, one of the things he says in there is that no one ever is defeated until defeat has been accepted as reality. And I like, I I heard that and I rewound— I think I rewound it like 5 times to listen to it over and over again. Um, because we're not defeated, you know. Even if, like, even if I, I actually did have to, uh, close up the website and start something new, like, doesn't mean I've been defeated, you know. It just means that this one, this opportunity is over. And if you, uh, if you listen to the story of any, uh, any entrepreneur who's been successful, like whatever venture they're on is venture number like 10 of all of the things that they've done. They've started and stopped so many different things. Um, and it's all just learning. It's all just data points like you were saying. Um, and so like, am I defeated? No, not even a little bit. It's just—

yeah. Oh, I can see her. I can see it in your eyes. You're fine. Like, you're like, okay, now I can see, I can see the look of defeat when someone just gave up the ghost. They're done. It usually happens like, uh, in door-to-door, you can start seeing the look on people's eyes. Like they're just having flashbacks to Nam around August. And I, and I'll just make fun of kids. I'm like, what are you doing, dude? Like, just wake up, stand up. Um, yeah, but no, you can see it in people's eyes, dude, when they, when they accept defeat and, uh, It's like you, you literally give up your spirit almost. Like you're like, I'm done. Now there are, there are, there, there, there are times in my life when I've pivoted. It's like pivot is different than give up cuz you still keep moving forward, but you just change some goals.

I mean, well really cuz you're making a decision like to be defeated. Like you didn't decide to be defeated, you were defeated, right? Like you didn't make a choice. But if you, and I'm not saying that it just happens to you, I'm saying like, you didn't choose, you didn't make a choice. Yeah. You just let yourself be defeated. Whereas if you're gonna stop doing something because it's not right for you, it's not the right time or whatever, like that's an active choice. Like you've, you've been the one to change the course of whatever it is that you're doing.

I sent the podcast that like I kind of had to come to with the idea that it was darn near impossible to hit a golden door last year. I sent that to a buddy of mine. And he was like, yeah, the only reason I'm still pushing right now is ego. And I'm like, dude, just go out and sell and have fun and just go make yourself some money for your family. Your values have shifted. You don't give a lick about a Golden Door anymore. Just go out and sell and make an impact. And he's like, you know what? That's good. That's what I needed to hear. And I'm like, dude, I've been there. I've been on top of the mountain. And then I realized that the mountaintop wasn't the place where I could have the most impact. It was mostly in my home. And then, you know, now I'm at a time in my life where I'm like, okay, man, I kind of want to kind of lean into more of my work a little bit more. And there's different seasons in life when our decisions will, like, our goals will reflect what we value at that time. And that's okay. Imbalance is okay sometimes too. But yeah, dude, I mean, pivoting is okay. That's totally fine. I forget how I got off on this, but Yeah, like defeat. Like, you're not defeated at all. Like, you just keep on trucking, dude. That's, that's a mission phrase, man.

Yeah, keep on trucking for Jesus.

Jesus, baby, dude.

Well, and it has me wondering, you know, uh, this, this response— not that I want to like prop myself up here, but, but the response to something really, really negative, some really bad news, um, like how much of our response was actually determined 6 months ago, you know, in the conversations we were having 6 months ago, in the things that we were feeding our thoughts and our mind 6 months ago. Um, like, if I look back at all of the books that I've been reading for the last 6 months or so, like, I've been listening to, um, The Next Five Moves, Your Next Five Moves, and Choose Your Enemies Wisely, both Patrick Bet-David business books. I've been listening to them on repeat for like months, um, and I've been listening to Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and, um, a couple other, other books I, I can't remember right now. But, um, like, those are the, those are the things that I've, I've been feeding myself. And I wonder if I had been feeding myself, like, even if I wasn't listening to, like, or I wasn't giving myself, you know, negative books or anything like that, books that were like intentionally trying to tear me down, but I like, if I was just listening to music in the gym for the last 6 months, which I haven't listened to music in the gym for— I don't, I don't know, actually, the day that I got the bad news, I did listen to music in the gym. I couldn't listen to anything else. I was like, I should listen to some music, so it's just some hard rock, uh, and I did. And I, I'm dead serious, dude, I don't think I've done that in like 6 months, if not more. Like, it's been a long time since I've listened to music in the gym. Um, and so I was just thinking, like, if I've been listening to music in the gym for the last 6 months, would I mentally not have been ready for this email?

I would probably say I don't think so. Like, I think what you listen to matters and, you know, affects your mood, affects your thoughts and everything. That's why just, just starting your day out mentally is, uh, with like something positive is so important. Um, I guess, you know, physically we eat a certain way, like we eat physical food and we look a certain way depending on how we eat. If you eat cheeseburgers and fries all day, you probably look a little bit more chunky. But like, I guess you could ask yourself, like, how's my mind? How's my mind look? Like all those graphics online of like, you know, you are, if your mind, if your mind looked the way you fed it, how would it look? And it's a good question to ask ourselves. And, but dude, this is a fun, fun thing. So Tyler and I went to Running Man, Tyler McPhee. He said he'd hop on the podcast with us next month. He's got a really inspiring story. Father of 6. He just started working out that last January. Now he looks like Captain America and his, his, his mental state is also more of like a Captain America. Like he's, he's gone from not very fit mentally to in a lot better position mentally just because he's worked on himself. And so that's one of the reasons why I wanna have him on. Um, but we went to Running Man up in Rome, Georgia. He ran his first marathon. I ran for the first time in like a year. And did a marathon with him. It was rough. He smoked like he, he was, he was ripping through this thing. He's in, he's in better shape than I am now after working out with me for 6 months. But, um, but yeah, he was, it was awesome to go with him. We spent time in saunas. We got to listen to Mike Posner, uh, sing. And he basically did like a TED Talk that night, um, about just like changing direction of what's important to him. And, you know, this guy climbed Mount Everest and did like a— he walked across America. You know, Mike Posner, the guy who sings Cooler Than Me, was just decided, I'm gonna walk across America, got bit by a rattlesnake. And then everybody, all of his producers are telling him, you're crazy, like, you need to get back to making music. And he goes, what did he say? He was like, no, he talked about how pivotal that decision was. And they fixed him up from the rattlesnake bite. He showed back up to where the rattlesnake bit him at the exact location. And to quote him, he goes, I pissed on the spot where the rattlesnake was walking. And so, um, it was, it was really cool just to hear him speak. But some of the things he said is like, not all— I— not all ideas, um, So like, not all ideas are crazy, but all, all, no, not all ideas are good, but all good ideas are crazy. Meaning like anytime you have a good idea, it's going to be thought of as crazy. Um, and I think the vibe at that Running Man thing was like, shoot your shot, take the risk. Jesse Itzler spoke the year prior about, you know, make a seat at the table. If there's not a seat at the table, that's what, that's what came to mind when you were talking. Like if there's not a seat at the table with the affiliate, you made yourself a seat with a table. Now you know what it takes to get there. But this year's whole thing was like, yeah, what do you value in your life? And then just take a risk, like start the business, start today, start now, don't wait. And so, which leads me to my next thing is I bought a sauna.

Yeah, dude, you got to tell me about this.

Dude, I just— Tyler and I, we spent like hours in a sauna. We just hung out. I do feel like you just vibe well. It's fun conversations. You make good memories when you're hanging out with people in a sauna. And so we spent forever in these sauna tents. I was like, man, I want one. I'm going to— I'm going to buy an actual sauna barrel for my house once we figure out how we're going to finish the basement, whatever. But like, I'm going to get a sauna barrel for the house. But in the meantime, I'm like, dude, let's get a sauna tent. They cook up to like 200 degrees. And the perfect excuse to get it is when we're not using it, we're going to, we're going to list it on Facebook Marketplace to rent and pay it off in like 10, maybe anywhere between 10 to 15 rentals will pay it off. And I made sure Tyler was on the phone the other day. I'm like, I'm buying it. And you're on the phone with me, so if I get in trouble from my wife, you're also in trouble.

And, uh, wait, so like you can rent it out? So like you take it to people's places and they keep it for a certain period of time? They come and use it at your place?

No, I'll just— it literally rolls up into a bag. You have like a big duffel bag, and then you have a furnace, uh, with a pipe that goes out the top. There's a bench with it too, so it's this big tent that you unroll and you just pop out. You don't need to slide tubes through it. Just, you unroll the tent and it just pops out like a big, like a freaking playground toy. You know what I'm talking about? And then you put the furnace in and then you just feed wood in it and it gets to 190, 200 degrees. So we're just wanting to rent those out for whether it be retreats for people. It's ours now. The deal with Tyler was like, look, I'm buying this thing I don't have anywhere to put it because I have a really strict HOA. Like, some people live to be a member of the HOA, dude.

I'm pretty sure some people aspire to it their whole lives.

They love it. And some people, like HOA members— I've got buddies in my collective group with like HOA board members that live for getting solicitors put in jail. One of my buddies has got a mugshot. It's a legendary story. But I kind of wish I had a mugshot. I almost had a mugshot 2 years ago from knocking until 10:30. But point is, my neighborhood won't let me have that in my yard right now because I don't have a fence. I don't have a backyard. So I'm like, I'm going to buy it. You're part of the rent. You're part of buying this thing is it needs to stay in your backyard and we can use it whenever we want. He's like, cool.

How far does he live from you?

Dude, he actually lives like a mile and a half away from me, like super close. And so it's like, that's what's been nice is we live right next to each other. Yeah. And so he comes over to my house every day, we work out and, uh, dude, that's been one of my favorite relationships, friendships that I've had. Like, yeah, dude, it's so cool. Um, So like just working out with him, we've become best friends and it's just been fun. So going to Running Man together was great. But yeah, Kaya's excited for a sauna now. We're gonna have like a little sauna party when we get back in town and then we're probably, we're gonna pick up a cold plunge to, you know, cold, hot, cold, hot. Yeah.

So dude, I love it. I love it. I, uh, I also really want to get a sauna and a cold plunge integrated into my, uh, into my my pain cave when, uh, when I get mine. We're still, we're still a ways out. As long as the military is moving us around, we cannot have a, uh, I'll say we cannot have, but like gyms weigh a lot and the military pays you only a certain amount per weight. Uh, yeah, we're like, you have a weight limit. So if we're like hauling around our own home gym, we're not gonna, we're not gonna have enough weight for everything else. Yeah. So in the meantime, we will wait.

We will wait. Yeah, it's, uh, yeah, I think I, I keep saying I think we're gonna stay at this house for a long time, but I said that about the townhome too.

We'll see, man. We'll see what happens.

Yeah, I love it. I love it.

Life is full of surprises, man.

We never know. I'm open for anything, man. I like change. I like, I like a little bit of the unknown in life. It's fun. But where we're at right now is so good, man. Man, we got like kids in our neighborhood. It's been fun. And everybody knows when that gym door opens, the garage door opens at 7, people can come work out. That's like the vibe that we want to have for our family is like our kids grow up seeing mom and dad work out. And you know, like Georgia's in the gym with me in the morning. Like I feel like that's one of the coolest things is like I'm squatting in the morning. Georgia's in her little like baby camper chair. Just hanging out, drawing, talk, or I'm squatting. It's like, it's fun, it's awesome. So, um, anyways, but like, that's a little bit of update for us. And like, I like that same mentality. I was on the phone with Tyler and I'm like, what are we waiting for? Like, same thing with you, like you called the affiliate. Like, what if we want to do like a sauna rental? Oh, I was like, oh, we can get together and plan. What do you mean plan? You need a sauna to have the sauna rental company. I'm like, We just need to buy it and then we need to just post about it and then just have people rent it from us. So we'll, uh, we'll see how it goes. I'm excited for that. And, uh, we'll have Tyler on next month in the month of October and just kind of talk to him about some of the changes he's had.

Yeah, dude, I can't wait to talk to him.

Yeah, I'll talk— dude, he's so cool. I'll talk a little bit about the retreat next month, but yeah, I want to hear about it. I'm, I'm stoked for you in credit card rewards business. I think It's been a fun show today.

It has, dude. It has been a good, uh, good episode. So I'm glad we were able to hop on. Um, and I will go ahead and get the, uh, I'll get the last one edited and uploaded, and then I'll, I'll get this one edited and uploaded too. I'm pretty stoked Marisha's coming out here. I'm in the UK. That's, that's, uh, where in the world Jared is right now. I'm in the UK. And, uh, yeah, she's gonna come out. She's bringing the girls. Um, we got another couple of weeks here before, uh before we head back, uh, to Italy. And then it looks like— it looks like I actually have to go to Poland for a few days, maybe. We'll see, who knows. Um, and then we're gonna fly— or then I'm gonna fly to Greece. I want to meet you there. We've already got all our stuff booked and we're gonna freaking do these Spartan races. And, uh, I've been running, but, uh, have I been running as much as I am supposed to? Uh, no. I don't think my wife listens to these episodes anymore, but, uh I like, I like, I ran on Monday. I ran, uh, I ran. I was like, I'm just gonna run for 30, 30 minutes flat. And, uh, I ran 3.5 miles and I was like, okay, yeah, all right, all right, man. We were gonna do— I think one of these, I think one of the mornings, uh, this week, um, after I do my burpees, I'm just gonna go run for the, the rest of my hour of working out.

Well, uh, 30 minutes, 30— 3.5 miles in 30 minutes is good. I told you, I just been— as I've been prepping Like for a week straight, I've just been running 3 miles a day. Today I logged 27 minutes in 3, so 3 miles in 27 minutes. So it's like, yep. Solid pace. I just, my, my, my one fear is I'm a bigger dude. People at Running Man, they're like, what do you, what distance are you doing? I'm like marathon. And like, are you a big runner? And I'm like, I am a big runner. Um, one of my worries is during the Spartan holding you back. But I don't want to—

I'm not— dude, nah, dude, we're not competing. We're not competing against anybody. We got a free ticket to the World Championship Trifecta in Sparta, Greece, dude. I do not care what place we come in. It's so dope. We're like— and I was thinking about it, dude, we're gonna get like, what, 4 free t-shirts out of this? Like, dude, that's reason enough to go.

Shoot. Me and you can sit down too, like you figure this stuff as we're there, but like figure out a couple cool places to go visit because we're going to finish our races early in the morning and then we have the rest of the day. I want to go to freaking the, the gates of hell. What is it called? The fiery gate, dude. That's where they battled, man. Like, I don't know where that's at.

We'll figure it out, dude. Uh, dude, we're— I'll bring, uh, I'll bring my other mic. I have like a, a spatial mic, um, that can like record in front of like a, like a group. So like you and I can have a conversation on just the one mic because I don't, I don't have the equipment for us to hook up two mics.

Yeah, we'll record a podcast out there.

That's why we're out there, dude. Um, maybe we record one every day after we run. Uh, yeah, it was like, uh, hey, here's how it went, here's what happened. And, uh, uh, yeah, dude, I say we do it. Um, and then I remember if I told you, but right after we're done, um, we'll fly back, we'll do a little bit of adventuring, then we'll fly back to, uh, to Italy. And then like the next day I'm gonna turn and fly Um, I'm gonna turn and fly to the States for a wedding.

So is Marisha gonna go with you?

Yeah, yeah, she and— she and the girls will all come. Uh, Talitha is going to be a flower girl for— for my buddy's wedding, so we're pretty, pretty excited about that.

Yeah.

Uh, but all right, dude, let's go ahead and wrap this up. Marisha just called, so I'm gonna— I'm gonna hop off here. But, uh, dude, I'm glad we were able to talk. This is great. Um, so all right, dude. I'll talk to you soon.

Share the sode. Yeah. We'll see you guys next week. Love you, dude.

See ya.