Standing in Line at the Airport | Ep. 9

How many of us are standing in line for something just because there's a line? 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— as we strive to level up our lives and the lives around us. Welcome everybody, and we're excited to have you back. We'll be talking about living an intentional life and not going through life on autopilot mindlessly. And I think Jared shared with me a really cool story to kind of help, help us kind of go into that. But I mean, before we get into that, uh, let's do a where is Jared?

Um, and today's a double header. It's a where is Jared and where is Austin because I am actually on the East Coast this time and you are not. I was actually in Georgia yesterday and you were not there.

So I was not. I flew out of Georgia yesterday. Now we're in Arizona visiting Kaya's folks.

So what time did you fly out of Atlanta?

We flew out like 1:00. I missed you.

1:00. Oh, dude. Yeah, I think I landed at like 3:00. I was going to say, next time we'll have to plan it out, dude. We could have gotten lunch.

Plan our trips in the airport. But, um, yeah, so Kaya and I just planned out— little update before we go into our like episode topic today. Um, I guess I'll, I'll start out like I'm in Arizona right now because we are dropping off Georgia with Kaya's parents and they're going to watch Georgia while we go to Dubai for 10 days. So we're really excited. Anthem at the end of every year, so If you hit $100,000— if you're a rookie and you sell $125,000 worth of pest control, you get to go on this trip. If you're a vet, means you've sold 2 or more years, you have to do $150,000 in revenue. And at $200,000 or $250,000 or something like that, they pay for your wife to go with you. So this is the 3rd year I've made this trip for my my wife and I. First year Kaya was pregnant. Last year Georgia was almost 1 year old when we went to Rio. And this year Georgia's almost 2, and we're leaving her with Grandma and Grandpa for a week while we go to Dubai. So we are stoked.

Wait, where'd you go the first year? I remember you going to Rio, but I—

first year was, uh, Los Cabos in Mexico. Ah, it was so fun, man. We, uh, it was like an all-inclusive resort at the Hard Rock. And so Anthem's taking good care of me, man. We're gonna do a week in the Dominican Republic in February for her parents as a thank you for watching Georgia this week. So a little bit of travel, dude.

That's awesome.

But, uh, as far as awesome work goes, I just hit $501,000 in service revenue, which is gigantic. I've sold half a million dollars in pest control door-to-door. And to finish up my Golden Door, I need $150,000 more, which will be completed between the last week of September, October, and November. So just chipping away. Um, I've adjusted the goal. Obviously a million dollars is not going to happen.

It just—

it isn't going to happen. 650K, which is a Golden Door. So I'm excited. 736 accounts or something like that. Um, which is exciting, man. I've lived a really fun life this year. So now we have more traveling before I come back to go back to work.

So, dude, well, and, and, and just to just kind of as a reminder, um, dude, when, when we were at this point last year, um, when you were working towards your Golden Door, this is like the Austin that is you right now is not the same Austin that was back then. Like it is like a night and day difference between how you are, how you were tackling life now as you, as you were back then. I mean, you were, and you've said it too, like you were, you were overweight 'cause you weren't lifting as much. You weren't going to the temple and you were stressed. Like you were visibly quite stressed and you were, you know, you were gung-ho and driven, but there wasn't this sense of like, I don't know if balance is the right word, but like, you are, you are like whole and at peace and calm, which is— it's so cool.

So I'd be lying if I said I haven't like stressed out about like, oh my gosh, am I going to hit my goal? But then I just have to remember, like, if I just show up and work, then it usually works out. And this is the way I've like— this is the way I've designed my life, my life. This year, gotten to do a lot more with my family and gotten to do a lot more fun things that I've always wanted to do. Between Hell on the Hill and, you know, all these fun races and events that I've gone to, it's been really exciting. So this is, this is nice. It's just pure family time, pure, pure time with Georgia. I just get to go swimming with her at the pool, watch, you know, watch Moana and Ariel. She goes Little Mermaid, Ariel. We just watch that all the time, and it's been exciting, dude. So I am stoked. Just, uh, it's cool too because I've gotten to go to the temple way more. Like, spiritually, I feel way more sound, and I think physically I haven't dropped weight. Like, Kaya looked at me, she's like, dude, like, you, you are not— you're not skinny, man. Like, you're not. I said, well, look, I'm healthier. Like, I feel healthier. I've been eating healthier. Uh, but that doesn't mean I, I still want to slim down.

Yeah.

And so the running is, I've still been running about 12, 12 to 17 miles a week and working out CrossFit. So I've not been perfect every day, but one of the things that when I was working with my coach, um, just about 80% consistency is what you need to have. I mean, we beat ourselves up when we're not perfect.

Yeah.

But if you can be 80% consistent in your plans, then you're on the right track. Um, nobody is perfect. And so if a lot of times what happened with me is if I, a lot of times with my running or my dieting or trying to eat clean, um, if I have one bad day, what would send me into a whirlwind was feeling bad about that bad day and eating another ice cream bar and another ice cream bar. And I still do this stuff. Like I'm, I know about it.

Right.

But, um, or sleeping in. And then saying, oh, the day's gone. Whereas no, like you just need to be 80% consistent, try again tomorrow. So, um, that's it. Yeah, it's been, it's been great. Been a little bit more forgiving of myself this year and I've grown and I've also been more flexible because being a dad and being a husband sometimes requires some flexibility. So, and that, that comes first, man.

So, well, that's awesome. Um, And I've never thought about the 80% part. I, I'm, you know, I thought, well, like, how do you, how do you hold yourself accountable when you're not perfect? Like, how do you, like, how do you, how should you feel about that, right? Because I've used, you know, habit tracker apps and whatnot, and you've got, let's say, 15 days of green check marks, and then you have a red, a red X. Like, well, great, like, I ruined my streak. Now, now what? Well, now I'm just going to take 3 more days of red X's because who freaking cares? Yeah, exactly. I'm already not perfect. So, but then, yeah, it's just like you're punishing yourself, um, or you're punishing yourself for not being perfect, and you're— so you're like digging yourself even further down the hole, um, and that's not helpful. Um, so I'm— you actually got me thinking. I'm— I've been thinking about my weightlifting goals, um, or rather the, the lack thereof, um, and just, just that I've just been going, um, and I've, I've had some inconsistencies because I'm— I've worked too, you know, worked really late and not had time to go to the gym because I want to home before the baby goes to bed and some other things. And I haven't, I haven't really come up with a good way of holding myself accountable to a non-perfect standard. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna write some thoughts down, maybe write a new kind of a new schedule board out and start using that as a metric. So thanks, that's good insight.

Yeah, of course. I think You know, have your game plan. And then what I've realized is we're human. We have days that we're not rock stars every day. That's okay. Yeah. And, uh, I think what, what gets us is we think that, you know, one misstep or one off day, and I'm not saying this, that I'm perfect at it. I literally, I struggle with this. So that's why I have to talk about it. But like, you know, if I have one off day, it doesn't mean that my whole streak is gone. I think I used to, because I basically, uh, as a kid, you know, break the same stupid habits that every 16-year-old has. You know, you feel like, oh man, I've been so good, then you slip up once, you make a mistake, you're like, man, all my progress is lost. But in all reality, I had— at BYU, I had one, you know, I had a lot of stress at BYU between school and cheerleading. And I went to go and see like a counselor/therapist for— they have them available to the athletes. I was dealing with a lot on my plate, you know, come home from the mission, stress out about dating and breaking up with the girlfriends and, you know, slipping up with bad habits. And I remember talking to him one time and talking to her one time, I'm like, look, like, I slipped up, like, I feel terrible, I'm a bad person. And then she's like, dude, um, if you were to take a pie chart of your life and quantify, quantify like the amount of time you've spent doing this, this bad thing that you did, it is literally a sliver that you can't even see. So stop spending all this time dwelling on it. So same thing, like that was, that was just with bad habits that I had, you know, restarted, but like at post-mission. But, um, the thing is like, you just gotta realize like you spend one little sliver of this pie chart not being perfect, like move on and just recommit. And I think that, that, that would help us out a lot. Um, I don't know. There's just some thoughts on that, man. Like 80% consistent is, is huge. For, you know, yeah, for a lot of our goals that we're trying to hit. And yeah, absolutely. I've seen it in my, in my life now, like, with just trying to balance family life and, and, um, like, work and church. Like, I haven't made it to the temple every week, but 3 out of 4 weeks this summer, you know, because some weeks I travel. Um, yeah, it's been awesome.

Yeah, so absolutely. Quick update on me and where I'm at. So I am in the United States again, which is fun. So I'm in DC for a conference. So I'll be here for a week and then I'm headed back to Italy. So that's good. We found out actually we were— there was a chance that we were going to be going out to the Middle East for some training and that all got nixed. So looks like I'll probably, probably spend the rest of this calendar year in Italy, which is, uh, which is exciting because we've been, we've been out there about a year, uh, just over a year, and I've spent just about half of it in the United States. So, uh, yeah, just been a lot, lots of travel for, for work. So, all right, dude, let's— well, so speaking of travel and flying and whatnot, um, let's, let's hop right into, into the topic that we wanted to talk about. So, um, so the story that I was sharing with, uh, with Austin before, um, I just kind of gave him a brief rundown, but I'll go ahead and share it again. In a little bit more detail just to kind of kick us off. So a while, a few months ago, I was sitting at the airport getting ready to take a flight to San Francisco, and it was like 5 o'clock in the morning. I'd gotten there extra early, so I wasn't stressed out about, you know, missing my flight or anything. But everyone else seemed to be stressed out about missing their flight. So I walked in, you know, went to the kiosk, checked my bag, or checked in and got tags for my bag. And then went and waited in line to go drop my bag off. And the bag drop line just kept getting longer and longer and longer and longer and longer. And the line to go to the kiosk to actually like check in and tag your bags was shorter, but it wasn't really getting any longer, like, you know, kind of just like a steady stream of people through there. And since I wasn't stressed, I was just kind of like people watching. So I'm, you know, watching all the people in front of me in line, all the people behind me in line, watching everyone as they walk in through the doors.

And best place for people watching.

Oh, oh yeah, absolutely, dude. You get, you get everybody. You get the whole, the whole gambit of people from all around the world. It's so entertaining. And, and so I'm watching, you know, the girl in front of me, she's like nervous as all get-out. My guess is she's probably got like a 6 o'clock takeoff time, you know, first flight of the day, and you know, it's 5 o'clock, so she's like, you know, getting, getting stressed. The family behind me is a little bit stressed, just a couple And I'm watching as everyone walking through the door, they walk in and they see this long backdrop line and all sorts of swear words and angry people like, oh my gosh, I'm going to miss my flight. Oh, I can't believe we have to wait in this line. And the line just starts to wrap around the corner. It's a long freaking line. And the line actually got so long that it kind of covered up the line of people going to the kiosk. So when you walked in from the airport, you couldn't even see really the line to the self-check-in. So I'm watching and I start to like realize that as I'm looking at all the people in my line that not everyone has tagged their bags. Not everyone has little labels on them. And I was like, well, that's kind of weird. Like, I'm pretty sure this is a bag drop line. And I, you know, I double-checked like this is in fact the bag drop line. And I start looking behind me or start looking at— yeah, looking behind me and most of the people behind me have not tag their bags. And I look at— I watch the people at the door. People are walking in, seeing this long line, and then going and getting in line, and like without asking any questions. And I realized that everyone's just getting in line because there's a line. That's it. There's no— people weren't— not too many people were asking questions. Most everyone just walks in, sees a line, and like, well, I gotta go stand in line. Then they go and get in line, not realizing that they have to go check their bags first get the tags and then get in the long line. The long line is just the bag drop line. It's not the check-in line. It's not the go-get-your-tags line. It's just for bag drop. And so I realized the girl in front of me hasn't tagged her bag yet. And so I kind of tapped her on the shoulder. I was like, hey ma'am, the— like, your bag isn't tagged yet. Like, you have to go to the self-check-in, you know, check in for your flight and then print your your tags and then put on your bags. And that's what this line's for. Do you want me to watch your bag? Like, you can go check in so you don't lose your spot in line. Hey, I know you're, you're kind of stressed out. And she was like, oh my goodness, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so I watched her bag. She ran, checked in, printed her label, came back, slapped on her bag. And she was like, oh, thank you so much. And I was like, yeah, no problem, no problem. Then I'm like looking around, just kind of like watching more people. And the couple behind me doesn't have tags on their bags either. So I told them, hey, um, this is the line just for bag drop, so If you guys need to go check in, I can move your bags for you. Like, you just go to the check-in thing, print all your labels, and come back, tag all your bags, and then you'll be good to go. And they were like, oh my goodness, okay. And so they went, did the same thing. And the rest of the day, I realized— or I was, I was thinking about— the rest of the day, I was thinking about this experience, and it got me wondering how many of us are standing in line for something just because there's a line. How many of us are waiting around in a line that we don't need to be in. Tons of people in this line didn't even have checked bags. Like, it was people with just a carry-on who were just like needing to check in and then go straight to security. But they saw a line and they got in the line, and then they're just waiting around. And I don't— I don't— you know, obviously I wasn't there to watch everybody go through all the way to the front of the line, but those people would have gotten to the front of the line and got walked up to the front desk agent, and the desk agent would be like, where's your bag? They're like, well, I'm not checking any bags. And they just said Well, why were you standing in this line? Like, this is just the bag drop line. Like, you didn't need to stay. You should have just checked in at the kiosk and gone straight to security. And tons of people in the line didn't, didn't tag their bags. So then they're gonna get to the front of the line and they're— the lady's gonna be like, well, why didn't you tag your bags? Like, oh, I'm so sorry, like, I didn't realize I was supposed to. The lady probably gonna say, well, there were signs everywhere, you know, can you read a sign? And then they're not gonna, you know, then they'll get flustered and then the front desk agent will kind of oblige and say, okay, well, you know, let me see your passport, let me see your documents, whatever, and then tag their bags, check them in, and go on. But that's like slowing down the line for everybody else, and they're flustered. The front desk agent by the 50th person is gonna be extra flustered, you know, why can't people read signs, you know, all this stuff.

And just got me thinking, giving me flashbacks to like people on the doors are like, can you not read? Soliciting sign, I can read. Anyways, how you doing? That's crazy. Yeah, I mean, well, it— there are a lot, a lot of folks in life right now that we fall victim to it if we're not careful of just doing things because other people are doing them. Am I doing what I actually want to do in life, or am I just falling in line, just doing what society tells you to do? Um, not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, But what are your dreams? What do you want? You know, do you want to really go to college? You— and I think this is where we want to go into, like, a lot of times people go to college for years and then they graduate with a degree in art and then they go work at Starbucks. Or, you know, like, they graduate a degree in exercise and wellness and they go work at a gym, but they never needed to go to— like, I graduated in exercise and wellness, and while it was a really cool degree and I don't regret anything about my college I didn't need that degree to go get a job that was in the health world and, and fitness and, or in, you know, being a personal trainer. So it's just worth asking, like, what do you want to do? Um, it's interesting, like, that's where I thought you said you had written one of these things that related to college a little bit.

Yeah, well, and it was, it was just, it was just that, you know, like, what Because I remember, and I've talked about it on this, on the podcast before, I was on a date with a girl and I asked her, I was like, well, what do you want to get out of college? You know, aside from your degree, of course, like what, what would you like to get out of college? And she just sat there. She's like, I don't know, never thought about it before.

Isn't that crazy?

How do we not think about these things? I'm gonna go spend 4, maybe more, years at this place learning, taking classes, courses, seminars, and all these, you know, all these things. What do you want to get out of that? Like, uh, I don't know, like maybe, maybe you should give it some thought. If the answer is, you know, training to get a certain job, awesome. If the answer is I just want to be here to learn about a certain topic, I want to expand my mind, I want to become more literate, I want to be a better speaker, I want to be able to— like, if, if, if you have goals, um, you know, maybe, maybe going to college isn't actually the best way for you to get to those goals, right? If you want to be a better public speaker Right, you probably shouldn't. College probably isn't what you need. What you probably need is join Toastmasters or something like that, you know. But, but like, if, if you, if you have a good reason behind it, if you have a reason behind it, geez, like by all means, like move towards your dreams. But I would, I would hazard a guess that most people haven't really given it some thought and that most people are signing up for, for getting degrees and things that they don't even know if they even want to work in that field.

You know, well, a lot of people don't. I don't think a lot of people do. Like, um, you know, they always say like, get your degree. And I think me and you, we, me and you both went to college, so, and we both got our degree.

Yeah.

So for us to talk about it and be like, oh, you don't need to go, it's like, well, we both did it. So I think it's beneficial because it shows that you can accomplish something. I personally love accomplishments and I love the fact that I have a diploma. It's like, well, I went to school and I did that. Um, and they're quite frankly, the only reason I have a job right now is because I had a connection that I got from college. So in that sense, it was amazing. Like, I made— I was a cheerleader at BYU. I had an incredible sports career there as a, you know, Division I athlete. And, and it was, uh, it was like very, uh, fun experience, you know, all the free clothes and the weightlifting training and the cheerleading at the— I just love sports. So I get to watch, you know, every time I go to a sporting event now, I'm like, I don't— I want to be at the front, like on the field. I feel terrible sitting in the stands. So I don't always go to those now, but, uh, amazing experience. But one of the connections I had from college is what got me the job I'm in right now. Uh, but they would have taken me had I not gone to college, but I made the connection while in college. Right. Um, but door-to-door sales requires zero, zero qualifications. Like they'll take anybody with a heartbeat. Hey, we'll train you up. We'll teach you how to sell stuff. Right. So, um. But yeah, yeah, it made me think like even, even other areas of our life, like, are we doing what we actually want to do? Are we just doing what we've been told to do by society? Like, yeah, you graduate high school, you go to college, you take out— in a lot of cases, like, I was lucky to go to BYU where your loans are nothing. Like, you— like, my parents were able to pay for my— which is unheard of. But I mean, a lot of kids nowadays, they're told they've got to go to college and they take out thousands and thousands of dollars of loans just to go get an hourly job after they graduate, and there's no way they're going to get it paid off. If— like, I think that the exceptions here, like, if you want to be a nurse or a doctor, an engineer, like, yeah, lawyer, you know, you can rattle off a couple too, I guess. But if you want to do that, then yeah, go to college.

Yeah, I would, I would hope you go to school for those things. I would hope you are, you know, the best trained, studied surgeon or nurse or engineer as you can possibly be. Like, I would really, really hope that's the case. But like, if you're telling me that you need to go get a business management degree so that you can start a company, I would say I don't think that's legit.

I think you, you learned how to do a business by just going to figure it out, like joining, like joining a company, learning the business side, and then asking questions. Like, you can, you can get a degree I feel like in some ways, and, you know, I'm still super grateful for my stepmom and my dad paying me to go through college, but in some ways I have learned more outside of college than I have in college. And, um, just from reading, I just pick up books and I read and I apply and like I go out and I try to hit goals in my work and my sales and it's been— or connecting with people, going to events have been a huge way that I've learned. And a lot of people laugh at people that go to events that, that pay, you know, $500 to go to a seminar, but those are some of the best places to learn.

Yeah, well, and so something I— something I've been thinking about is, um, the other areas in life. So, right, we talk about college, um, the other areas in life where we are just doing what everyone else is doing. Um, a big one, for example, uh, watches. Um, everyone at work, everyone that I work with has a Garmin watch. Uh, like almost everybody. Like, it is— and maybe it's, it's a little bit of that. Yeah, you have a— which one do you have? I have the Fenix, uh, 7 Pro, dude, which I think is a super sexy watch. I, uh, we're a little jealous here, but everyone at work has one. Everyone, whether it's a Forerunner, you know, the 255, or the Fenix 6, or Phoenix 5 or Phoenix 7, or like everyone at work has them. Um, they're, you know, they're, they're cool. You can like connect with your phone so you can put like a— you can put an airplane on them or like an American flag background on it. Like everyone at work has them, and I think they're super cool, and everyone I talk to loves their watch. So like zero day on the watches themselves. But, uh, I was considering getting one, um, a Phoenix 6, and what I really wanted the watch for was for heart rate monitoring. And sleep tracking, uh, two things that I've been, I've been really wanting to start tracking for, for my own health. Um, and you know, I had the money to get one and one of them had just gone on sale, so I was like, oh, you know, it's kind of tempting, maybe, maybe I should get one. Uh, but having conversations with my wife about it, um, well, I was actually able to come to the decision, the conclusion myself before I talked to my wife, which I was kind of proud of because usually, uh, she's the one that has to talk me out of dumb ideas. But Um, she confirmed it for me, and that was that there were other things that I wanted to use this, the same money for. But the Fenix 6 in particular has actually really bad reviews specifically for heart rate monitoring, saying lots of people say it's really inaccurate, really not good at tracking when you're lifting weights, and, um, some other stuff. And I was just thinking, you know, if I had gone and gone out and gotten this watch, like, it, it could have been a fantastic one. Everyone could have given it 5-star reviews in basically everything. Lots of people said this is a fantastic watch. Except for heart rate monitoring, like over and over and over again in lots of reviews that I was reading. And I was just thinking like, I could have bought into the hype. Everyone, and almost everyone at work has a different Garmin watch, like everyone has them. And it would have, you know, I would have been able to fit in, uh, you know, if that was even important, because this is a stupid watch. Like, you know, how badly do you need to fit in by wearing the same watch everyone else wears, right? Like, not important. But Not only that, but I would have gotten something that didn't even do what I wanted it to do for me, or at least didn't even do it well enough. Which means down the road, when I realized that, you know, this watch actually doesn't do a great job monitoring my heart, blah blah blah, I was gonna have to get a different watch anyway, or, you know, eventually go get an Oura Ring or something else, right? Like, it wouldn't even have done the job properly, so I would have had to go and spend even more money to replace it later on. And like, how many How many times in life are we, are we doing this? How many times are we making a less optimal decision because we're, we're not thinking about the second-order effects? We're not thinking deeply about these, about these decisions simply because everyone else is doing them. We want to fit in with everyone else, and, or we're, we're not even conscious of it. We just do it because that's what everyone else is doing.

Dave Ramsey, we buy things we don't need. With money we don't have to impress people we don't like. I, uh, I think it's legit. Yeah, you know, I think we do a lot of that stuff sometimes. It's like, I thought about— and I was talking to you about this before we were on the camera— but like, I don't regret like how Kaya and I have spent our money in door-to-door. Like, we've made some wise decisions, uh, but I look back, I'm like, you know, First summer, first big summer, I bought Kaya her dream car. Okay, like we bought a car, that's a depreciating asset. Uh, the second summer we bought a house, like that is great too. Um, and like we bought a townhome, that is amazing, and we're gonna turn it into a rental down the road. And, um, but I always wonder, decisions are like, I don't know, I think we've done great, but there's, there's other decisions that we have coming up too because like I get paid out in December for my back-end check. It's like What do I want to do with that money? Do I want to go buy a big old house? Or like, do I want to put it into a rental property? And, you know, a lot of people are telling me what to do, certain things with my backend check. And it's like, well, what do I want to do? Yeah. And I think it's good to get clear on what you want to do. Otherwise you will— things will just kind of— you'll just kind of go through life aimlessly or the money will disappear. And I think we see that. I think you and your wife are rock stars. In my mind when it comes to like budgeting and planning, um, I am not on that same level yet. I'd like to be, but I, I really think it's cool how you guys are in such good communication with like budgeting and this is where we want our money to go and planning. And I think with anything in life, if you've got a game plan, you might not always show up. Like if you've got a map, you might all— might not always show up where you're trying to get, but at least you have a direction that you're heading. And I think Kaya and I have been trying to get more clear on how we want to utilize our income so that we can set up a great life. And one of those things is buying a rental property this year. It's not sexy, multiple doors on it, you know, a duplex or quad is what we're looking into down the road. And that would be amazing because then it would set us up for, you know, cash flow so that I don't have to work for the rest of my life. I do want to work the rest of my life, but as I told you before we started recording, like, I want to have— I don't want to have to work. I love working, but I don't want it to be like a, I have to, I get to kind of thing. And I get to work. Like, that's just being grateful for my job. But, um, if that makes sense, like, we've got to get really clear on what we want to do and the game plan we want to make as a marriage. And I think it's good to get on the same page as your wife. That's something I really looked up. Look up to you a lot about, man. Like, you guys are really good about that.

I appreciate it.

My wife will be the first one to tell you that I'm not.

Well, something you— something you wrote here on the, uh, on the kind of the, the agenda list is, is, um, the statement that Satan is no longer trying to get good men to be evil, but to get them to do nothing. And so with, with respect to budgeting, like, you know, simple subject, but my wife and I are We are like constantly in the budget and it's, it's not to say that money is ruling our lives. That is not, that is not what it is. But rather we want to make sure that we are good stewards of what we have and that we are keeping track of where things are because like performance has to be measured in order for it to improve. And so we like, we're constantly making small tweaks, small adjustments and keeping track of you know, where we're at with, you know, certain budget items. Like, are we spending— do we have enough money set aside for our groceries? Do we need to pull it from somewhere else? You know, all these, all these kind of small, small decisions that are made on a regular basis. But that is not doing nothing. And doing nothing is just not tracking at all, right? And just spending the money as you see fit. When we first got married, we were just, you know, we just kind of talked to each other about purchases before we'd buy them, but that was it. Like, that was as far as it went. And we You know, we were making good money relatively speaking to where we had been before we got married. So like, we were just fine and we were still saving some money here and there, but it wasn't intentional at all. And I remember before we even made any adjustments to our budgeting process— well, we didn't have a budgeting process— but before we did anything, I just retroactively went back and checked how much we had spent in different categories, just using all of our different bank account statements and stuff. And I went back 3 months and realized that we had spent so much money, like so much money, just on stuff that we didn't even have anything to show for it. I was like, how did we, how did we spend this much? Like, we didn't, we did nothing. Like, we were just sitting here at home doing basically nothing, um, but we had been spending money. And when you go back and look at every single transaction, you're like, oh yeah, that's right, oh yeah, that's right, oh yeah, that's right, we do, you know, we bought that, we spent money on that, etc. But you, you never have to do that when you are when you're constantly in those small decisions, when you're constantly adjusting every day, you're in there every single day or just about every single day. And since we started taking our, you know, our budgeting kind of financial planning seriously, like, we've made enormous progress since then, like, enormous progress. And it's been really cool. We hit a huge milestone I shared with you last month, and it was really cool to see, like, hey, Here, here's where we were 3 months ago, or 3 years ago when we first got married. 3 years later, here we are. Like, you know, a lot— we've, we've made a really— a bunch of smart decisions, and, uh, God has blessed us with some small windfalls here and there's a, you know, a couple blessings that we weren't expecting. We weren't planning on them. But I think, one, I think we were given those opportunities because we were taking good care of the resources that we had. I think there's, you know, God does bless us with good karma here and there. And also we didn't squander those blessings when they came. So like you were saying, you know, you're going to get your big back-end check. Well, if you have a plan going into that money, you know, not— you don't want to spend the money before you have it, but yeah, plan the money before you have it, which is different, right? You know, earmark, okay, well, we know this much is, you know, we should spend. How much do we want to spend? Do we want it? We can spend this much on, you know, on toys, on things that we'd like for the house, on this, that, and the other. But we need to have a plan of where we're gonna put all that money so that we can then— not only does it ensure that you have money where you need to have money, but when you— it lets you feel at peace, calm, confident, and comfortable with the money that you have allotted to spend on whatever it is that you want.

Yeah, you don't ever feel guilty. Like this— why? Exactly. Yeah, if you budget out fuck fun money, it's like you're confident in those decisions to go and do it, and you don't have to be nervous like going to do something.

Or yeah, yeah, like, like I was just telling you, I just bought a new microphone. I'm waiting for it to come in the mail. I'm super stoked about it, and it was an expensive microphone, but we— I had been setting aside this fun money that I have to spend on whatever it is that I want to spend it on, and I've been, you know, eyeballing this new mic for a long time, long time, just kind of been waiting and waiting and waiting, and then we had a little bit of a windfall and I was able to allocate a little bit more money to this and then boom, like perfect, wonderful. Okay, I can guilt-free set this money and spend it on this thing because I've been wanting it, I've been doing my work and, you know, we've been planning.

So yeah, there was some joy in the pursuit too.

Oh yeah.

Yep. It's like, uh, I don't know, I feel like I work out with some guys at the CrossFit gym. It's funny that you brought up like, oh, you got the watch, you were gonna get the watch just because everybody else got one. I'm like, all my buddies at the CrossFit gym had them too. Like, yeah, yeah, no. So There I was. But me and my buddy were talking because he's also in sales. I think he sells tech stuff at the CrossFit gym. And a buddy of mine named Louis, and he was like, we're like coin machines. Like, you've got to, like, for us, like, for me and him, it's like once we hit a certain metric, like, I've got to get another coin. And for me, like, my watch is like, oh yeah, 500 accounts. Like, this is what it symbolizes. Yeah. And all throughout my door-to-door career, I've picked things that have— that symbolize certain achievements. Like when I hit 40 accounts my first time and I won, uh, 40 accounts in a week, uh, my first time, and I won a basketball playoff game for the Atlanta Hawks, I bought— I customized a jersey that says Maser and the number says 40 on it. It's hanging up in my closet, but I have that forever. Dude, that's awesome. It's really, really cool. So, uh, just, you know, plan your— I think it's good to plan your fun. Yeah, plan your dickos. I mean, we've talked this before, like planning fun, planning your workout, dude. We've— I don't know if we've talked about in the past, but like there, when you're married, there's a point where you've got to plan out intimacy sometimes because if you don't plan it, like, think, it doesn't happen. Um, I was— so this summer I feel like I've done a better job at making time for my wife, helping her around the house. We've had our tiffs, you know, and, and I, I talked to one of my buddies about like, yeah, I've been struggling recently, like need to figure out how to be a better communicator to my wife, you know, be a better support to her. And I was also trying to find the quote that I sent to you already, but I was also really bummed because I'm like, yeah, I'm behind in, I'm behind in some of my goals. And not really, I mean, I have, I have 3 months to hit the $150K, but would I prefer to have more? Yeah, of course. So as I was talking to him, he said, he said, this is how you check yourself. He said, relationship with God, number 1 in a list, relationship with God, then relationship with self, then relationship with wife, then relationship with kids, then relationship with sphere of influence. So the people I come in contact with on a day-to-day basis, and then last, work. And he said, always in that order. And so he said, where are you at on all this stuff? And I said, like, I mean, all right. And he said, how about you with your wife? And it was like a week where my wife and I had a fight and it was a rough week. And he goes, okay, if you were to work on your relationship with your wife, would work go up? And instantly I was like, yeah, of course. He goes, okay, we're going to work on that. So So it's kind of a testament of like, make sure the main thing is the main thing. But if you're not planning a date night, if you're not planning to spend time with your wife or anything like that, then things can get messy, you know? Like if your priorities aren't in order, then it doesn't work. And so it's like the other thing, I have a bishop, and I think I've shared this story before. But he's— he was extremely wealthy, like crazy wealthy, but you would never have guessed it. It was my first ward I came to out here in Lilburn, Georgia, and I kinda caught wind of it, and one day after church I came up to him and I said, "Hey, like, I wanna start a business. I wanna be really, really rich." And, you know, and he just kinda smirked, and I said, "What advice would you have for me? Like, what business should I do?" And he just looked at me and he goes, 'First seek ye the kingdom of God.' And I was like, 'No, no, Bishop, Bishop, like, like, what business advice do you have for me?' And he was like, 'First seek ye the kingdom of God, Austin.' And that scripture is, 'First seek ye the kingdom of God and everything else will be added upon— added to you,' right? And, um, I just thought that we ought to have plans to put God first, to put our relationship with ourself first, to take care of ourself and our health, and to put our intentions of our hearts. And so, um, since then, you know, I, I've made some adjustments so that I can be a better husband and be a better support to my wife. Whether that means I'm going to spend an extra 30 minutes before I go to work and clean the house up a little bit to, to help Kaya out. It's made a difference, at least for the days I've done it, right?

Well, it's super interesting how you bring that up because today, uh, we were talking today at church, we were talking about, um, the, the talk Remember, uh, Remember What Matters Most, uh, from the 2023 April General Conference. Um, and that the, the two, the order of things that matter most are the things that last the longest. So first being your relationship with God and second being your relationship with your family. Um, in that order. Um, and, and so this, this list that you, that you just read off, like the order for checking in with yourself, I think is, is the most important. Well, and, and also I was, I was writing down kind of some, some thoughts, some notes today, and the first one was, um, how I can improve my relationship with God. And it's not that I haven't had any relationship, and it's not that I haven't been doing the things I'm supposed to be doing, but rather I have been, you know, read a little bit of scriptures, you know, 10, 15 minutes before I go to work, maybe listen to a church podcast for, you know, maybe a half an hour every week. So I've been like falling behind. I'm behind in my, you know, where we're supposed to be at with Come Follow Me. So I'm behind there in my scripture study, and I'm a little bit behind also on this podcast that I'm listening to. But I'm doing them and I'm doing my calling. You know, the— I'm the board secretary, so I'm supposed to, you know, schedule appointments and interviews and meetings and do agendas and things like that. So, you know, I've done all those things, but I haven't been— I just, I feel like my heart hasn't been in it, my spirit hasn't been in it. And I have been very intentional, very intentional about doing things for myself and doing things with my wife and with my daughter. And so I, I need to strengthen and strengthen my relationship with God first, and that will— I know that that will improve my relationship with my wife and with my daughter. So that's, you know, that's something that I need to, I need to focus on for sure. And, and so crazy that that's what I was, I was thinking about earlier and writing down and, and pondering about, and here we are talking about it again.

It's cool. I mean, being intentional I mean, we talk about airport watching, like people watching, and like going through life intentionally. If, and you know, I'm sure people have airport watched me and saw me on my phone and been like, look at that guy, you have no idea what he's doing. But, but I mean, at the same time, like I, uh, it's really interesting to put your phone away and to just sit and watch and one of my airport stories from when I traveled to— I traveled to Delaware for my grandpa's 80th birthday last weekend, which was awesome. One of the huge blessings of being able to kind of call my own shots on my schedule, right? I surprised him. He had no idea I was coming, and I knocked on the door, and he's like— what did he say? He's like, come on in here. What do you like? Uh, he's like, come on in here, you nut. He was like, he's like, you're crazy, what are you doing here? Uh, but it was really cool to be able to do that time. But going back to my airport, I sat in P.F. Chang's at the airport and I just put my phone away and I just watched people. I watched how people talked to the waiters. I watched how people talked to each other at their tables. And one of the tables to my right, I was like, they're probably in their 50s, and it was a man and a woman, both, you know, They both looked tired, a little bit overweight, and they, you know, they, they were obviously married, but they had their phones out and they were just looking at their phones and that is it. Occasionally the wife would look up to the husband. I saw her roll her eyes a little bit, look back down on the phone, and I'm imposing intentions on them based off of what I'm observing, but Occasionally you would see one of them chuckle from a post. They'd click on a post, but it was the whole day. I mean, it was— I was there for 30, 40 minutes. That's, that's not how we were meant to be as people, was to just sit and aimlessly go through life. You know, I, I get WALL-E vibes a lot nowadays with some of like the technology that comes out. You can just sit and have everything brought to you. And we weren't meant to be sedentary people that didn't you know, communicate with others. We were meant to connect, we were meant to have relationships, to move our bodies, to create. And so it goes back to that quote. It was like Satan doesn't want us— Satan's no longer trying to get us to do bad things because that's blatant now. Like, evil is pretty like straight up. Like, it's, it's like, it's like the norm now. Like, it's like we're in the days now where good is evil and evil is good. But now it's just getting good men to do nothing, and I think Satan succeeds, right? Um, so it's like with me being a husband, if I come home and I just sit on my phone and do nothing, like, that's, that's not good. I, I, I have to put my phone away, right? But it's just another thought I had from our airport topic earlier. So if you're ever in the airport, take time to like people watch a little bit. And I'll add one thing, I know I've talked I've talked to friends in the past about their, like, their complaint about their current situation, whether it be work or marriage or stuff like that. And they're always talking about, like, I don't want this, I don't want that, I don't like how this is going, I don't like how they treated me. And I'm like, okay, dude, what do you want? What do you want? Talk to me about what you do want. And then they can't, they can't answer it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so it is interesting to be like, okay, what do you want in life? Towards what you do want. Because I think we get more of what we don't want when we fuss about it. When we, when we say like, I'm not getting what I want, and we focus on it, that's where our— where focus, where focus goes, where energy go— where, what is it, where focus flows, energy goes. And, um, where focus goes, energy flows, where we're going to get more of. And so, um, really get clear on what you want in life. And that's what I've been working on recently, is like I have my business plan, like my intentions for the year and all of my goals for the year. And some of them have come to fruition and some of them haven't. But yeah, they're what I want. Like I'm trying to focus on this, like, yeah.

What do you want? And so the psychological reason why I think this, this is the case for so many of us is because it is so much harder to create than it is to destroy. We can destroy anything very, very quickly. It's very easy to tear someone's ideas down. It's very easy to break down walls, you know, get a sledgehammer and start demoing. Like demo's always the most right? When it comes to renovating houses, demo's the most fun. Destroying things is the most fun. We literally pay money to go and smash things in a room for an hour because we find it the most entertaining. Like, like, we love to destroy things and we're very good at it. And from a very, very early age, as I'm sure you know with Georgia, like, breaking things is so easy. Like, our daughter, like, we're folding laundry, she loves to just pick up the laundry and scatter it around, right? Unfold the laundry. Or, or her favorite thing when we were playing with her, her Duplos or Mega Bloks, whatever they are— Duplos, I think. Like, um, she'll go and grab them, she takes them all apart one by one. She takes them all apart. She can't put them— she can barely put them together, but she can take them apart like it's, you know, nothing, right? And it's crazy.

It's a, it's a thing of wipes. She'll empty a thing of wipes.

She can't put them back in, but she can pull them all out, right? And yeah, and it's, it's crazy to me that we can destroy things so easily, but it is so hard for us to create and to build. Um, and so when you look at building a life, like, okay, so rewind back when Marisha and I first got married, we're trying to, you know, furnish our apartment. Our apartment, we were talking about lamps, and Marisha had spent hours like searching through lamps on different websites. Like, I think this lamp would look really good. Oh, I think this lamp, you know. And so she selected like 50, and she's not— okay, more like probably really realistically probably like 22. Like, you know, 22 different tabs on her computer of lamps that she's looked at. She's like, Jared, like, I want you to come look at these. And she's like, okay, what do 'What do you think about this one?' 'Eh.' 'What do you think about this one?' 'I don't like it.' 'What do you think about this one?' Like, I basically shot down every single one. Like, a couple of them I might have been like, 'Oh, it's not that bad,' you know?

Okay.

And okay, it was not a good thing because then Marisha was all super upset because she had just spent hours doing all this, and I was in like 5 minutes, I was like, 'Yeah, I don't like any of those,' right? But then, so then she asked me like, 'Well, what kind of a lamp do you want?' 'I don't know.' I don't know. Well, like, that's not helpful. That's not helpful at all, actually, you know? And so with a lot of time, I'm like, when we first got married, I realized how many opinions I didn't know I had and how many of them were just destructive opinions and like zero constructive opinions, right? I had no idea what I wanted. I just knew I didn't like that. Like, I don't know what kind of account. I just don't want that one. You know, I don't know. I don't know. I just don't want that one. Okay. And like, That's not helpful. That's not helpful at all. And so when it comes to the decisions that we're making about our lives, like, it's harder to be intentional. It is harder to come up with a plan to build ideas, to create a life that you want to, or to create a dream of a life that you want to build, work towards, and, and come through. And odds are, when you go to dream up what it is that you, you want your life, your dream's gonna be super fuzzy, super duper fuzzy, and it's probably gonna change once you start working in that direction. Your dreams will become more clear to you about what it is you actually want to do, what it is you actually want your life to look like. Like, if you're not married, of course you're not gonna have a great idea of what you want your life to look like once you get married, because a huge part of that is dependent on the person that you actually marry, right? And, and so you're gonna have to dream together. And once you marry that person, then the dream of what your future might look like, your family might look like, that's going to become more clear once, you know, once you have that partner locked in. Right? But as you— but you need to work towards creating that goal because otherwise you're going to be living unintentionally and you're just going to be drifting. And when you're just drifting, any influence, anybody with any opinion online or in, you know, in your family or your friends, they're going to push you, right? Because you're just floating, you're just floating, and they're just going to push you around and you're just going to end up wherever they push you. But you have got to build your own dreams.

Yeah, it's something that Kaya and I've been really trying to figure out recently. It's like, what do we want? You know, what do we want to do and where do we want to live? Do we want to continue living here? It's nice to have— a lot of people don't. We really do feel like we have the freedom to, but even some people, they'll say like, oh, I can never leave this job because this is what I do and nobody else is going to give me a job if I go somewhere else. No, like, you can change your circumstances. You're allowed to change things in your life. So it's, it's interesting. I think it's— we, Kaya and I have everything that we've had in our life up to this point, like, we've wanted to have, and we've made it happen. And so it's exciting to be like, okay, what else do we want to do? It's, it's, it's really cool. But one thing that I've done that's helped me this year to get really clear on what I want Oh, and to your point earlier, it's okay to pivot on goals and to pivot on what you want. Just because we say that we want something at one time, it doesn't mean you have to be held hostage to that anymore. So like, I don't want that anymore, I want to hit 650. Okay, like I've made an adjustment and I move on. But it's okay to make an adjustment and, and, you know, decide, okay, this isn't working for me anymore, this no longer serves me. Yeah, but you have to be really clear on what you want. But yeah, I mean, I— what one of the things I would recommend our listeners do, and this is gonna be our invitation to you guys, is to create— like, write down what you want to do in life. So I have this, I have this Google Doc that one, two of my really, really good buddies that I— one guy that got me into door-to-door sales and another guy that worked with him, they both have they both have written down what they want in life, and it's kind of this theory of like living life by design. And so I have different, different topics. One of my topics is my Golden Door, like how I'm going to approach it, the, the stats that I hit on a monthly basis, and I record it. Then I have all my work travel dates planned. I have my daily routine written down. I have some business challenges or like life challenges that like One of them was health. Okay, so how am I gonna approach my health this year? Well, I'm gonna work out doing CrossFit 4 times a week and running twice a week. I'm gonna choose fresh food over fast food, and I'm gonna, you know, track a caffeine intake. Well, have I been perfect on that? No. But like, if I read this, I'm like, okay, cool. Like, I need to get back on board that. No morning distractions, night routine. Like, how I plan, I have like a fitness and a health category with the different lifts I want to hit this year, with how much I want to weigh, with the different races I want to run, um, parts of my marriage that I, that I'm going to work on, and how— so like marriage, trips that I want to take, um, future opportunities. Like one of them, before we even started this podcast, dude, it says Rising Tribe Podcast. Like we— but this is before we ever even started our podcast. Like, I wrote down, like, I want to do a podcast with Jared. Yeah, now it's happened. Like, I had an investment opportunity I wanted to take. I made that investment opportunity, right? Like, become a guitar player. I've not done that yet, but I wrote it down. So, you know, like, there's some things I've done and some things I haven't, but if you don't write it down, there's going to be no way that it will happen. So, and I wrote it down, printed it out in a book, and I like I'll flip through the book if I'm doing it right on a daily basis. And if it's in the forefront of your mind, more likely to happen. Yeah.

And I think with that, for example, we— you— so you set a goal and you can, you can reverse engineer what you need to do in order to hit that goal, right? But sometimes there isn't— it's not quite clear that you have too many unknowns ahead of you for you to be able to kind of reverse engineer some of those, those goals, right? Like You know, if you want to get married by the end of next year, well, how do you reverse engineer that, right? You know, I need to make 6 contacts with different women every day, right? You know, that's, you know, not, but, but it can be good to have the, have the goal in mind and to, to figure out maybe on a weekly or a monthly basis what kinds of things you need to be getting yourself involved in in order to come across or increase the chances you're gonna find someone who, you know, you'd like to marry. But kind of going back to financial things, because it's so much easier to, you know, it's a little bit more tangible and easier to understand in a lot of ways. When Marisha and I got married, and I shared this with you offline, Marisha and I got married, we had about $10,000 to our name across, you know, her savings, my savings. We had, I had some, some school debt from a loan, but a lot of that money had been invested. So we kind of had a net worth of about $10,000. And Like I said, when we first got married, we weren't really tracking anything. We were just kind of like earning money and spending it, earning money and spending it, saving some money here and there, but not really moving in any particular direction. It was just kind of slightly positive. But after about 3, 4 months, we started to get serious about like, okay, let's focus on tracking our expenses and whatnot. And we went through a lot of different processes, lots of iterations of trying to make it work better. Because we were all over the place, consolidating accounts. She had accounts, I had accounts. We were trying to close them, move all the money into the same place and kind of get our life order. And that whole first year, like, we made a lot of progress, a lot, a lot of progress, but we were still kind of all over the place. But we're more refined than we had been before. Second year of our marriage, same thing, like, processes are getting better, we're getting better at tracking our expenses, we're getting better at setting goals, talking about our goals on a regular basis. Well, almost to the exact month of 3 years since we got married, we crossed the $100,000 net worth goal. Which was huge because it was a goal that we had set at the beginning of the year to reach by the end of the calendar year. And so, and we hit it back in, it was like August 1st. So what is that, like 5 months, 4 months early, which was huge, which was super huge. And when we set that goal at the beginning of the year back in January, we didn't know, in January, we didn't even know where we were gonna be living the next year. Like, or sorry, rewind 2 years ago of January. Uh, we didn't know where we were going to be living. We didn't know what we're going to be getting paid. We didn't— there were so many things we did not know, but we knew the direction that we wanted to be headed. Then after we got to Italy, right, so now we're looking at January after we had been in Italy for like 3 months. I was living in Texas, my wife and baby were in Italy, like, and we had no idea what that next year was going to look like, but we had our process dialed down and we trusted our process. And as— and that process took into account what would happen if we got pay increases, what would happen if we got random bonuses or certain pays that we didn't know about that would come here and there. So when that— when those opportunities came up, we knew what to do with them, and we, and we acted on it. And so by the time we hit August, like, or I think it was about June, without— I realized that we were gonna cross the threshold like that next paycheck, basically. I told Marisha, and I told you and one other person And it was like, it was really, really motivating to realize that, um, we didn't exactly know how we were going to get there, but we knew what kinds of processes and systems we could develop. We were already in the process of developing them, but we could continue to refine them to put us in the best position so that as we started to get more information and start to understand what the future was going to look like, we would be able to act on those, um, on those, you know, opportunities more quickly and more decisively. And that made a huge difference for us moving forward.

If you had never set that goal though, it probably would be likely that you could have just kept going through the motions and maybe you would, maybe you'd have never hit it. You know, like it's good to have a direction that you're heading to. And I think a lot of times when we set goals, sometimes we hit them early. We're like, wow. Like that's what happened for every single one of my summers previous to this summer. I hit my goal like super early and I'm like, whoa, I can do more. Well, I can do more, you know, like, and then this is the first year where I'm like, dang it, I'm not there yet. So it's okay to have years like that too. But, um, it's, uh, it's cool. Like when you set a goal, like when you're going a direction, whether it be in your marriage and your finances, with your spirituality, with your relationship with God, it's, it's super important to have a goal. And some— and, um, I think it's easy. It's so easy to do these like quantifiable ones where you can track numbers. Some of them aren't as easy. Some of them are, you know, when it has to do with how we talk to ourselves. I mean, some— find a way to quantify that, find a way to track that. Or, you know, I guess that's where they talk about like making goals trackable, like where you can actually have data You can get creative with how you track these things too, but sometimes just being intentional about what you do. Like, when I was really good about just writing down what I was eating on a daily basis, I was losing weight just because I was more intentional about, this is what I've eaten today, and I knew what I ate. That's it. I didn't have to do a fancy diet. And then I get back into my vacation mode where I'm just having ice cream and all this stuff, then I, you know, it doesn't work. So, you know, going through life With intention is the way to go. It's a happy way to live. You're not just going on your Wally chair.

Yeah. Well, and if you're tracking, if you're doing or if you're trying to track these things and you're failing, at least you're tracking them, right? You might be tracking a bunch of failures, but you're tracking them. How many people are tracking the things that they do?

That's one thing. And I track. I'm better at tracking some things than others.

But if you don't track, dude, You know, I should start date—

I should start tracking my date nights. Like, hey, have I, have I gone on a date night with my wife at least once? I can do buy together, that'd be exciting. But like, there's, there's, there's things that your systems show the intent of your heart, I think. And so there are people out there that are crazy about tracking everything, but they're also— they also have really good results.

Yeah. Yeah, well, hey, um, uh, I, I gotta go here. Um, but what about— okay, so there's, there's an app called, uh, Habit Tracker. Uh, it's super, it's super simple. Um, it's not great for like a big community, so like if we were to have like a bunch of people that all wanted to be together, I'd recommend a different app called Kin. But for, for, for just you and I, since, since we're here talking about it, if you download the app Habit Tracker, we can share habits with each other, and you can mark like, you know, I want this to be a weekly habit versus a daily habit or whatnot. And you just like, on the days that you're not supposed to do it, you don't need to do it because it's like a, you know, weekly, biweekly thing. You just like put like a little gray circle, and then you just do a green checkmark when you do it and a red checkmark if you miss it. And you can share those with other people, which, which I think is a— I don't know, it's like, it's like helpful. I enjoy tracking habits like that. That being said, I haven't tracked anything on Habit Tracker in a minute. I'm pretty sure my phone like undownloaded that app from my phone because I haven't used it in a minute. But if other people wanted to join us, then yeah, there's an app called Kin, which I really like for habit tracking. And it's the same concept except it creates like a group chat for you and everyone else that's in the group. And so when you like complete your task for the day, you can like send a picture to everyone and it shows that like you did the thing and it sends a picture. You know, you could send a picture of your running shoes or like a selfie of you having just accomplished whatever it is that you wanted to accomplish.

Workout, journal, meditate, run, breathe. It's cool. Yeah, I'm reading it, looking into it right now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so maybe after this we can, we can talk about what goals we want to— like, if there's anything they want to be tracking, we can, we can do that there. And for everyone else listening, if you— I mean, if you want to join us, by all means, you can go ahead and shoot us a message on, on Instagram. Austin, what's your Instagram handle, by the way? I never remember.

It's just @AustinMaser.

Okay. Yeah, mine's @bigtusi. Yeah, B-I-G-T-U-S-I. Yeah, shoot us a message on Instagram, or you probably know who we are, so you can just shoot us a text if you want to be a part of a habit tracking group. Because I, I'm a firm believer in, you know, accountability and holding each other accountable, and it's definitely easier to do something in a group than it is by yourself. But if you don't have a group or you don't want to join a group with anybody, then by all means, like, you know, get a habit tracking app or a piece of paper and a pen or something and then keep track of things., and it'll definitely help. But anyway, Austin, is there anything you want to leave with everyone before we hop off?

No, I think that's all we have for you guys today. Download Kin and Habit Tracker. I just downloaded them as you were talking. And, um, and also write down what you want in life. Look at that first thing in the morning every day so that you have a direction in life. And chances are if you have some sort of goal, like you're going to work towards it and be reminded of it. So those are going to be our two invitations. So like download those apps and figure out what what habits you want to create and what, you know, what you want to track. And then also write down what you want to do and message either of us if you have any questions. But next month's podcast will be on Crucial Conversations, to give you guys a little heads up. Jared and I are both reading that book right now, and, and, uh, we just want to learn more about that because we can all get better there. So we'll see you guys next week— next month. Appreciate you guys listening, and please share.

Yeah, sounds good. Talk to you later, Austin.

Bye-bye.