Tom Vacala

Tom Vacala is a friend and vice president of operations at Restore Masonry. He manages more than 100 employees and oversees about $10 to $30 million in construction work a year. He has been published in Masonry Magazine, and he teaches a foreman training class for the Mason Contractors Association of America.

The conversation covers the work, giving back, spirituality, family, and what hard work has meant in his life.

This is episode 6 of Flipside Frolic. It was recorded December 7, 2024, published December 29, 2024, and runs about 3 hours and 32 minutes.

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Transcript

This transcript was generated from the episode audio. The YouTube caption file was not available. Obvious name errors were corrected. The conversation was not rewritten.

Hey there. Thanks for joining us at Flipside Frolic, where we learn to understand each other's perspectives by flipping the script and having some fun. Here we go. All right. I guess we're good. Welcome to Flipside Frolic. I'm Carl Kmiec. I'm your host. We have with us Tom Vacala. Thanks for having me. Anytime. so basically, again, you know the basics of, of Flipside Frolic, the way it works. It's just long-form discussion. We just talk about various subjects or whatever. If we happen to come across an area where we disagree we just talk about our positions. We're not here to change anybody's minds. We're not here to, to con- convince anybody we're right and you're wrong or anything along those lines. We just want to try to get a better understanding of where people are coming from with their positions.

And the fun aspect of it is supposed to be, we'll see how this, you know, develops over the ti- over time, but at some point we might ring a bell, do a buzzer and flip. And then try to debate the other person's perspective on an area that doesn't agree. Now, we don't always do that, but that's just kind of the original vision that I had, that if we debate the other person's position, then maybe we just come across with a little better understanding of where other people are coming from instead of just thinking that they're crazy people that have these different opinions than us or whatnot, which seems to be pretty common in the, in the world today. So that would be the Flipside. The Flipside of this frolicky kind of conversation. Gotcha. So that was the vision.

but other than that I invited you here cause you, you, you lead a very interesting life. We've, we've known each other for quite a while. Yes. we've done a lot of work with veteran organizations and service. you have, you have quite a, quite a story with how all that developed. so if you want to just tell a little bit about you know, how you grew up. You have a better story. Well. We, people, we're here to talk a little bit more about Tom. I, I am gonna do, I'm doing like a weekly live stream. Okay. Where I'm gonna try to tell a little bit more about me. So, so like one, I might do a full two-hour live stream and just tell my story. Yeah. That way, if anybody's more interested of what I have to say, then they can always refer to those videos.

this obviously is more focused on the guest and, and pe, and, and it's all just based on my interest. And, and what I love the most about people is people that have passions for things. Gotcha. And I think that a big problem in society and a lot of people with anxiety and with depression and with all these other things is they don't feel like they have a purpose. They don't feel a connection to something that's important to them, whether it's a hobby or whether it's service for others or whether it's Whatever the case may, even their job, like some people, believe it or not, enjoy their work. Yeah. And what a gift if you can have a job that you truly enjoy as opposed to... And then you stop calling it a job.

Yeah, as opposed to showing up to the grind every day and, and not feeling that you're being a part of the purpose of why you were put on this planet or whatever the case may be. The bigger, the bigger purpose. Right. Than just showing up and doing a J-O-B. Yes. Yeah. So, so you're, you're, you definitely have an interesting story. And, and so just give a little background of, you know, where you grew up, how you grew up or whatever, and how you ended into this masonry craft. and, and, and how you developed into what I have to, that craft is like any other art form in a lot of ways. Yeah. And, and that you're a true artisan of, of perfecting a craft like that. And, and that's one thing that I've noticed just in general. a lot of times you'll see these cheaper product projects that go up, and it's like they're missing...

Like buildings, projects? Yeah, or, or remodeling on houses, box on house, I call them sometimes, because, you know, it just lacks that, those little hints of character of a little extra pieces of limestone or some decorative bricks or something to just give it some kind of character, like the old school architecture was of the old masons of old. Especially in Chicago. Yeah, it was always such a proud thing to be a part of that, and it seems to be tapering off. Yeah. So people are losing the art form in a sense. Potentially, too, for financial reasons, maybe. For sure. It's obviously cost a little more to put detail. Yeah. But longevity's there. So I, no, I appreciate that. I, I think to segue into what your original question was is a little bit about me.

I do want to pull some story about you, though, because I, you're s- you have an interesting, a very good story and a very good story for you know, survival taking on challenges that are unexpected and, and believing in you, your purpose. So so we're gonna get there, Carl. Oh, that's fine. I have no problem, I have no problem talking about myself and, and, you know, we just want the listeners to not have to just, you know, hear about me all the time. But it definitely comes in, and I'm, I'm more than willing to talk about anything, because that's what this is about. You're the reason why I'm here. I appreciate you.

You, you, I, I don't care, no matter what, Carl, I mean, you've done so much, and you've been a part of the same organizations that I've been a part of, and a few things when it comes to veterans, and the friendship that we have you're a, a true friend. a true you know, your, what your beliefs are, like what the veterans and what you want to do to, to serve and to give back to what you were from, you truly believe it in your heart and soul, and it shows. So that's why I'm here for you always. Thank you, thank you. I appreciate that. so I'll, I'll go on. Okay. I won't get distracted anymore. That's all good. grew up on the north side of Chicago. So there's eleven, there's eleven kids in my family. I'm the youngest of eleven. Eight boys, three girls. we were north side Irish, maybe you can call us.

my dad was a carpenter worked his entire life. He was in the union as a carpenter. And my mom was she raised kids and then after she raised the kids, and we were at an age that she had some time on her hands, she was able to go out and serve. So she was a crossing guard on the corner of Foster and California, cause after raising eleven kids, she and kept us safe. She wanted to continue to keep other kids safe, so she crossed kids on that corner of Foster and California, which was a busy intersection. If you ever go by there, you know with all the buses that are at the bus station down the street, and then you have the hospital right there. it's a very, very busy intersection, so that was the challenge that I felt that she probably picked that corner purposefully.

Not that it was close to home, but to really be able to make a difference and, you know prevent accidents and prevent kids from getting hit. So, so she served, and, and that was the dynamic of how I grew up watching my parents watching my dad's work ethic. taught us a lot. He was devoted. He raised the eleven kids. We always had a roof over our head. We always had food. We always had even, you know, there was hand-me-downs, but we also had our own clothes. You know, after eleven kids, you think you could just keep handing those clothes down and, and shoes, hand them down, and that's probably the smart way to do things financially, but we had new stuff as well. So it was, it was humbling as I grew up kind of looking back on that and, and me, you know, having two kids and raising them, seeing dynamic what they did.

And they basically I grew up with, you know, having parents that dedicated their lives to us, and then when we were growing up and, and moved out, they didn't live much longer after that. they retired, and then, you know, at young ages I think my mom was 66 when she passed. My dad was in his seventies when he passed. but they left behind A legacy of, of kids and a legacy of friendships and a legacy of stories that many people will tell about both of them. So so that kind of, as I got older, that I reflect on that quite a bit, and it, it... It's amazing that obviously, you know, there's, I have a proud union home, Matt Hare, I've been a union worker for 20 years, and, and the idea of having a union scale and, and a mom at home and the ability to afford to raise that many kids just seems so unbelievably impossible today.

so obviously, cost of living is not keeping up with pay increases and all these other things, but, but I mean, I, I grew up with three kids in the house for the most part, and then we had ten years later, we had our sister come along. but being the youngest of three boys, I think we went Clothes shopping to where I could pick out my own outfit twice or one time before a trip to Florida in like 7th grade. Other than that, it was birthday, Christmas, and hand-me-down, you know, but there wasn't shopping sprees and running to the mall and all these, you know, cause, cause it was, it's always tight and most people I think can feel the struggle today, especially that everything's tight.

Been fortunate to work some overtime and have quite a bit extra and made it through COVID as an essential employee, so I didn't really get too, too hurt from COVID, where many, many families were suffering a lot more. but again, the more you make, the more you spend, unless you have some discipline to finances, which, you know, is a whole nother topic, but but yeah, go ahead, continue on. It's... So my, so my parents you know, paved that road for, for myself and for my siblings as well to understand if we reflected on it, the purpose of life. so they, they lived a very humble life and, and but I think their purpose was fulfilled in their hearts, I, I think so, which is amazing. we didn't have a, a, a lot, but we had love and we had trust and we had you know, we, we mentored each other.

So I had like I said, I'm the youngest of eleven, so having siblings, my brothers were mentored me quite a bit, and my sisters as well, in many different aspects of life. my two older brothers, my brother Pat and my brother Larry, both got into the masonry business. So we had an uncle that came in from Ireland. He was a bricklayer, because my dad was a carpenter. So my brothers became bricklayers through my uncle, got him jobs, and then they went on their own and started their own businesses. So I was fortunate enough to work with my brother Larry, and we did restoration. So the difference is my brother Pat started a business, and it was in masonry, but it was all new construction, so they built buildings from the ground up.

And my brother Larry started a business in masonry but we did restoration in residential we started, then we got into commercial, it grew. From there and it grew naturally because there was, they did such a good job. So we a lot of my brothers joined the company. So my brother Pat had a few brothers who worked for him, my brother Larry had a few brothers. I've always just worked for my brother Larry my entire career, and you know, grew up at a young age. I was, before I had my driver's license, I was driving the work truck with the tools and equipment and some of the employees in there with us to go to the jobs because there were some times, unfortunately, you know, the way our industry was that I might have been the only solar one 1st thing in the morning and that might have been the case.

But but everybody showed up, you know, so they're, they're on time no matter what, you know, they needed to earn a buck and they, they were dedicated employees, like they really, I, I think back at that and they, they trusted my brother. And, and they were, they dedicated themselves to make sure they didn't want to let them down. And, and, and, and are these mostly Irish employees at that time, or a lot of different diversity with... Diversity, for sure. With... So, you know what's cool is that we, my brother had people from the neighborhood, okay? So you, you think about nowadays we've grown up some like we'll hear some stories of, of people that might be in a underprivileged neighborhood growing up and not having opportunities in those areas.

So the opportunities they see are what's going on with the people in those neighborhoods, and it might be gang violence, it might be drug related things along those lines, so they end up going down that path because that's what's in front of them, and that's what they see successful people doing in the neighborhood. So our neighborhood, they watched two of my brothers become successful in the industry of construction and masonry. So my brother hired guys from the neighborhood. And, and these were guys that, you know, didn't, some didn't finish high school but just, they were good and then they would go with their hands and they wanted to make a buck and, and they just seen, you know, the Possibility. The possibility, but they seen, they seen a guy from the neighborhood start to, you know, excel, to succeed, yeah, excel and succeed.

So they wanted to go down that road and they were offered that opportunity. They didn't even know some of them how to lay brick or how to labor or how to tuck point or do any of that stuff and they were taught that. So it was very cool what happened. Well that, that, you know, for one can stem into a whole conversation on, and, and, and that's a form of giving back. And, and, and somehow in this day and age you, you, you have a few different perspectives on how society, capitalism, all these sorts of things work, where A lot of people, there's, there's quite a few books back here with different things, but one is like The Millionaire Next Door, or there's these ideas that people with money only got that way by stepping on other people.

Like people only got rich by, by taking from their workers more than they deserved, because the workers deserve more. And, and gosh, how, how wrong that is, is that most business owners and most people that I know that are successful is, are that way because of those things that you were talking about and how they're helping people and how they're, they're, the, the idea that that CEO or one individual that took the initiative and took the risk and took all that, that mortgaged his house for equipment and did all this sacrifice to start this business, but as it grows, Every one of those employees is partially owes everything they have to that person that took that risk and took that leadership to provide that opportunity for them in some ways. And so it's, it, it, we have to be grateful for obviously the opportunity.

Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it, is being grateful. Owing, you know, owing is a tough word to, to use in, in any of that sense, and I think you know, I think being grateful is really what I would, how I would present it is, is you don't, at the moment, no one has that understanding that, you know, I'm grateful I got this job. You know, you're just, you go through the, the the, the, the days the reaction of just, you know, getting up, going to work, working, going home, getting a check, you know, living your life, paying your bills, doing a, you don't really reflect. You know as much. When you get older, you do, hopefully you do, and when you reflect back, then you, you're grateful for the way I look at it.

And, and, and, and obviously, I mean, people are, are made from a different mold too, and there's some people that for some reason have a drive that pushes them to, to build and create and do more, and other people are perfectly happy with, with a decent wage, going to work, spending time with their family. I mean, the, the main reason we work is to afford to do fun stuff with our families is, is, is, well, for those with family and those that, that have that moral ethic and, and drive to just know that family comes 1st and family's the most important thing. That also can seem somewhat lacking in society today, but there's reasons that we have some of those views, right, that we can talk about.

but before we get too far, one thing that jumped in mind for, just for the kind of For the listeners to understand, you mentioned the differences between new construction and Restore Masonry and, and, and restoring. So talk a little bit about what the process is of restoring a building. Is it, is it sandblasting and repairing broken bricks and, and these sorts of things, which in itself is very difficult in a lot of ways and more, so much, we were talking a little bit before just about the artisanship or, or Artistry of some of, of, of all the trades crafts, whether you're building a piece of furniture or whether you're building a building, and the personal touch that comes in, in, in different styles or whatever.

When you're restoring, obviously you're trying to do, bring it back to what its original condition was, but to, the ability to, because I've had some bricks replaced on my house, and just the idea of trying to color match mortar and find old bricks that don't exist anymore, and, and, and, and some of that what's the process for, for restoring some of these old buildings and trying to do, do your best to make them look original? That's a big question.

there's many different avenues that we can go down on that question, but I'll, I'll just like give some cliff notes is you know, restoring a building, you have a, a building that's current, it's there and maybe dilapidating or like you said, you have bricks that are falling out or cracked Foundation shifted settled, so you have some deterioration, you have some cracks in your walls or it's just a building that's been abandoned for many years and you know, and some beautiful stone buildings in Chicago, beautiful brick buildings, beautiful designs on the brick patterns and, and the stone patterns in Chicago too, but it, it, for whatever reason, got neglected and is falling apart.

So we come in at that point and we want to restore it back to its original look, but you can't get it, typically you can't get it back to its original, original brand new look. patina's nice, okay, because patina will tells a story, you know, so, so some of the buildings, and especially in Chicago, have some great stories, some great history behind it. If you could take time, like I said, you know, reflect a little bit on it and learn about the building it, it's, they're so interesting. So we, we get that opportunity. So we are restoring buildings. You know, we work with architects, and they'll design, you know, what the problems are and then how to resolve those problems, and they'll put it together and give you a drawing, and, you know, we bid on it, try to get the job, we get it, and then we have to go in there and start the work.

When you're doing the work, if there's a crack and they says, okay, take this brick out and fix it. Now, the way we look at it is I'm going to take that brick out, and why did it crack? So I want to see what's going on behind that brick, and that's where restoration comes in, is that, you know, when we do it right, we're not just restoring it back, but we're trying to solve the problem that caused the, the larger problem that we're seeing, the outside of, you know, the cover of the book is what we're seeing, but I want to go inside and, and read that book and see what is causing the name of the cover of that book.

So What is going on inside of the building is there's steel that's in the building, and water has gotten in there and rusted the steel, and now your steel starts to expand with the rust, and now you're pushing pressure on the front of your building, and you're causing cracks, or you're causing bulges on the front of your building that we have to fix. So we're not going to fix the bulge, we're going to, we're going to fix that, but we're going to open it up and then... Trying to determine the cause, what caused that to happen. Yeah, so if it's steel, then we're going to have to fix the steel, and we're going to have to go back or replace the steel, or just clean it and flash it, you know, to protect it. And make sure water's not getting in there. Correct. Sealing wherever that leak was occurring. Correct.

So buildings were built years ago you know, and designed very well and built very well, but some of the steel embedded inside of it was not didn't rust yet. They didn't have that clue of, you know, this is going to rust in the future. Decalcification or whatever other metal processes help. So they didn't flash it. They didn't allow for, you know, brick And masonry is a breathable material. It's designed to absorb water and extract water, okay, depending on the weather. summertime, it's gonna want to extract the water out of the wall. wintertime, if you have an exposed wall on the inside, it's not gonna extract anything on the outside, but it will extract it on the inside. So a lot of times people see efflorescence, which is a white powder.

sometimes you see it inside the wall, sometimes you'll see it on the outside of the wall, depending on where you're at in the weather and the climate. You know, if it's heat on the inside and it's cold outside, it's gonna draw it on the inside. So just different things like that, that when we restore buildings, we're not just trying to get it back to its original look. We go deeper into it, and we want to solve the problem. so we, by doing restoration, I've, I'm a better new construction builder now, because I, I've seen the flaws of the way things were built years ago on some of the designs. How to do it differently so they wouldn't have those problems that we're having today. Yeah, that that experience in any trade is very similar.

That, that experience, and sometimes you're paying extra for that, and people don't understand the benefit of that, because even in any trade, so like I did plumbing for 15 years on, mostly part-time on the side, but we did all North Shore homes, and they were all high-end homes. So it was cool to see the high-end stuff, or some homes where interior decorators come in and design stuff, and you're like, oh, wow, that kind of looks weird, but oh, that looks pretty cool. And then, and then you could just repeat and do that at home for so much cheaper, but it's just about, you're almost stealing ideas from the people that have the, the money to pay for people that come up with these great ideas.

But, but I do appreciate what you said about, even in a new construction style, it's almost like a carpenter, like, you know, any trim carpenter could do rough carpentry, but not all rough carpentry. Can do trim carpentry. So it's in that same harness. Right. And then, and then again, knowing problems that exist and know, knowing how to solve those problems to prevent them from in the future on new construction makes all the sense in the world. And, and then even determining the cause, that was always a mechanical aspect too, like at a car dealership or anything else, well, the fuse keeps blowing, so just change the fuse. No, why is the fuse blowing? It's not ever supposed to blow. Is the system overloaded? Is there a short? So determine the cause to prevent this from happening in the future is sometimes skipped.

So do you enjoy that part of it, like the troubleshooting part of it? The troubleshooting part is, is definitely more interesting. So it's one of those things where, you know, any, anybody that has some mechanical ability could do just about any job at some point, because most of the, I fortunately have, I, I've been I've worked on so much different type of equipment that at the end of the day, s- a man built, a, a person, a human being built this machine, and when you get into bigger equipment that's most, almost all custom, it's not coming off an assembly line per se, because they're, they're, they're just mostly custom built, and, and different products and different components are all the same that are just put together in a different way.

So you have a Dana rear end and an Allison trans and a Detroit diesel engine, and somebody built the frame, and somebody built motor mounts, and somebody put belts on, you know, most of this stuff. And so you start learning specifications over the years in different areas, and you understand why those specifications exist, there has to be a little bit of play in this, or how much deflection on this belt, or how, how much, what valve clearances are. And after a certain time, you could almost guess. You don't necessarily need the manual. Experience and knowledge has given you a better opportunity to guess, to solve the problem. Right. But, and if you have a question, and then you get into the manual, some companies have outstanding manuals.

My, one of my family members is a technical service writer for, for John Deere and for Harley-Davidson now. And so it's pretty cool that, that, you know, the, the pride that he takes in writing that manual, because how frustrating is it when you're trying to find the answer to some problem, and the manual's disorganized, or you can't quite search it, or the, you know, and the pictures just aren't good enough to see what they're talking about. And that costs, you know, a lot of time and money to do it properly, because quality photographs and printing and, you know, all the stuff that goes along with that, and is a, is a company willing to spend that extra money to help the customer fix a product instead of just buying a new one, which obviously they would like that too.

But so diving into some of these manuals and seeing when they have a section that says, you know, the overall process and how this works, learning some of that over time, obviously, is the only way you can truly diagnose something, because there, there's a lot of, there's a lot of of ways that if money's no object, then you're just a parts changer. So if you think it's this part, then just change that part. Well, that don't work too great. Whether it's a dishwasher or your washing machine, you know, everything's a module now, everything's a $200 board, you know, it doesn't co- it doesn't pay to just start changing stuff and hoping. So...

Like I said, I think that's the experience comes into play, but the game of like problem solving in, in my industry, and like you were using example of as a mechanic, Is a fun game to go down because then you can look at a problem and then say, well, I think it might be this, you know, so if I got a leak in a wall down here, I'm going up. Sure. Where's the water coming in? And then I'm gonna, and then from past experience... Statistics will tell you that that's probably where it is. Is it the capping? Is it what's going on on the roof? Is it this or that? But then you, you've come across these weird ones that are fun too, because it's like, you know, you didn't realize how much condensation an air conditioning unit does in this pipe that goes up an outside wall is dripping down the water. I can imag...

We, we, we had a house one time where it was raining in this closet. Yeah. And we're, same kind of thing. We're checking the roof, we're checking this, we're checking that. And all it was, it was a bigger building, so it was a two-story vertical pipe that was not insulated for air conditioning line. And just the sweat coming down a two-story pipe, a six-inch pipe or whatever the vent duct was, was like it was a shower running from upstairs. It was incredible that we finally found it. We're like, oh my god. And the fix was dry out the area, insulate the pipe, you're done. Yeah. Like, wow, crazy.

So I think at that, no matter if you're in plumbing, if you're in masonry if you're a builder, you're working on houses, you're working on your own home, you may think because I can, I'm a carpenter and I can build these walls and do all this, but to have enough knowledge on the entire package, on the plumbing, on the airflow, let's just say airflow of a building, how they're designed and how to design the buildings and how they were intended to be designed, especially when you're doing restoration, going back and understanding how that building was intended and how it was designed. you have to have that knowledge to really, really be good at your job because like you said, you that was the problem.

Initially, you'd be like, okay, well, it's leaking from the roof or it's leaking from outside or there's something going on and you're looking at all these things and probably spending a lot of money and time fixing all that when really the problem was inside that if you had a bit of more knowledge, you would understand condensation and you would understand over-insulating a, a, a property and how it was designed to flow into an attic. Your walls may flow air coming up from the bottom, flowing up in that cavity wall space into your attic, circulating and then coming out the Friends, and then it all needs to happen to breathe properly. So going back to knowledge, it, it's good to have a little bit, not a, you know, an expert at all of it, but to have some knowledge in all fields.

Well, that's, that goes into, pull that a little closer to... Oh, sorry. Sorry. but that goes into, like you said, most of the time, most people are very specialized now in this day and age. So to, to step back and get that overall view is a rare thing, especially for someone to have that broader base knowledge, and that's where that broader base knowledge is necessary, like you said, for diagnostics or for tr- troubleshooting or things like that. When I was off injured, I did take a class at the Chicago School, what is it called?

The Chicago Center for Green Technology, and it's kind of, it's kind of hid down behind some railroad tracks down by Sacramento and like North Avenue area, which is not a great neighborhood in some areas, but it's this little This little thing that's just tucked away in this corner where they're doing green roofs and they're doing solar stuff and they're doing wind stuff. Actual buildings they built with that. They did. They did build and, and, and then they tried to implement those processes in a lot of other buildings and stuff. And so there was some free classes that you could take and I was sitting home so I just always am trying to learn and educate myself and become better@whatever.and you mentioned airflow in homes. Yeah. But airflow systems in homes was one class that I took that absolutely blew my mind. Yeah.

Because it was so cool. And most people don't understand that. So like a lot of people, they want to wrap their tight houses tight and, and, and, and not have any airflow and these old brick buildings have cold walls because, you know, there's a gap in between the brick and they don't realize that that airflow is The delta T of 20 degrees or more causes condensation, so you can't have a cold outside wall and a hot inside wall and not expect it to sweat and all these other things. And, and a lot of these old bungalows would plaster walls. I mean, you're going to get some sweating if, if you're going to have your house at 78 degrees. Yeah. Yeah, and there's like, what's in, there's nothing in between the outside wall and that, the lath and the plaster on the inside. I mean, it's up against it, so.

Unless there's a barrier or some sort of insulation. So the processes are all, you know, we're learning all these different processes that help with that. Understanding when that building was built, so you know pretty much that era of building they didn't have a cavity, or they did have a cavity, you know, you just need to do your research a little bit more, and that helps solve problem. But you, you said so you're always about increasing knowledge, and you've always done that, and I respect you for that because that just You know, broadens your horizon, but also expands your your growth of what you can get involved with, you know? so knowledge is powerful. You mentioned about your injury. Have you talked about that? Not quite, not too much. Can we just touch base?

Cause I just want to touch base on your, your expanding your knowledge, and let's talk about your brain. Well, okay. So, so for those that don't know, which there, there, there'll be a, a more about me video out there, but I did sustain a pretty serious injury at work where I had a, a forklift jacked up in a certain way, and, and it was one of those, you know, you think about something before you do it, and you might say, this probably ain't the greatest idea. So mo, if, and, and, and obviously this'll, this'll tether in very nicely with safety, which I know you're very concerned about. I, I actually was Took some OSHA safety classes and, and, and all those certain things in the past, but so obviously safety, if you truly respect and love your employees, you don't want to see anybody get hurt.

And, and so most accidents happen for doing things that aren't the greatest thing to do, whether it's in a hurry or whether, you know, most of the time if you're rushed or if you, you're lazy, too lazy to get off the ladder and just move it over 2 ft or overreach. Yes.

And so that, that was kind of how this forklift was jacked up, kind of like a car, that's a standard way to jack up a car, and, and it's a long story on how that happened, but it was one of those things where I, I was working on it from above, I changed this oil pressure sensor that I was able to squeeze my hand between the exhaust manifold and was able to get little baby channel locks in there and get it to come off, and then I got the new one threaded on, but I couldn't get the right angle to just give it a quarter turn to tighten This thing, cause it's gonna leak for sure if you don't tighten this and plug the wire back on. That's all I had to do. Yeah. So it was one of those quick things.

So I go under there and I give it a turn and then snap, and then the forklift fell, it was about 12,000 pounds, and, and so the area, the wheels were still on it, so there was an area of about eight to 10 ", but I was underneath that with a creeper, on a creeper. So basically my head was pushed down into the creeper, bent the wheels on the creeper, and we think we probably crushed my skull about an inch and a half sideways. And so I broke both my cheekbones, I broke both, I had four skull fractures and had to push myself out from underneath this cause nobody else was around. So I ended up not realizing it at the time, but through adrenaline or whatever, I tore both my rotator cuffs pushing myself out from underneath this vehicle.

And then I felt that there was blood, and I, I couldn't, I couldn't, I tried to scream for help, and, and I couldn't make a sound. Whether it was like a, a fear panic thing or whether it was the pul, there was a number seven nerve was damaged, so there was like full facial paralysis in the right side. and then I tried to call for help, I couldn't, and I ended up having to walk like 60 ft or so towards the shop office before somebody saw. There was blood coming out my ears, my nose, my mouth, it was a, it was a mess. And then I was able to talk slightly, like I was wasted drunk, though. It was like, what happened? I mean, I could barely talk.

And then I just about bled out as we were waiting for the ambulance to come, and there was a five-foot pool of blood where I was waiting for the ambulance, and went to the hospital, puked a bunch of blood all over the emergency room, cause it was all dripping down the back of my nose, cause all my facial bones were cracked and stuff. So if you don't think I'm that good looking, I got an excuse. But, but I've always had a, a good attitude towards it. I, I was in the hospital and my, basically a, a spiritual advisor, a really close friend of mine came to visit me at the hospital and I got nose, things stuffed up my nose and tubes and, and my head swelled up and, and the neurologist was in there talking to me and, and checking up on me and my buddy comes in and he's like, how's he doing, doc?

And, and, and the doc's like, he's like, this is just incredible. I mean, I don't know how much more it would have taken for stuff to be coming out his ears that's supposed to be in his head or whatever. But it was incredible that there was only, there was bleeding at one of the skull fractures on the brain that they wanted to monitor, but they didn't have to go in and relieve pressure. They didn't have to do any emergency surgeries. Everything kind of just squished and kind of went back where it's supposed to be. There actually wasn't even concussion, because concussion is more bruising. Swelling that occurs when the brain hits the side, and that really didn't happen. But losing the fluid that's kind of cut, buffering the brain is, is not a great thing either. No, no.

And there was, my eustachian tubes messed up from, so I don't get fluid draining from my ear, so I have ear issues on the right side. But that's obviously the least of my, my concerns at this point. It, it worked out pretty well overall. but he said to the, he said to the dr., he goes he's like, the doctor's like, yeah, it's amazing, blah, blah, blah, it's, you know. And, and my friend's like, yeah, sure, good thing it didn't fall on his ass, because he would have brain damage for sure. And I started like laughing, he's like, oh, he's like, stop, don't make him laugh. Because it's like I felt like I had to blow my nose, because everything's all coagulated and dried up blood all over the place, and he's like, no, absolutely not, because so much stuff's broken, you don't know where air is going to go if you blow your nose, so.

It was very uncomfortable to just kind of sit there with this whole stuffed up head and not be able to just, you know, like a boxer or something. You want to just go... Yeah, you don't know what's going to come out. So yeah, that was that, that gave me some time off. It, it was actually three years off work, recovering from both the shoulder surgeries and everything else and dealing with insurance companies and, and all the chaos that goes with personal injury and workman's comp and denying claims and, you know, that goes into 700 other conversations about some of the issues with insurance stuff. Let me just tie into a, a small part of, you know, cause our relationship kind of started from that, like you were... Right about that time. That was, that was 11 years ago. Yeah, cause I, I've known you from Paul Paul Connaughton and...

Shout out to Paul, one of our previous guests, episode three, two or three, I believe. Oh. So you know, I, and, and then we started becoming friends after You know, maybe it was a year or two after that the accident happened, or maybe it was during it. I think, cause I remember every little bit piece, so I think it was during it, but you've never used it as a crutch. Like you, even during that time, like you said, your time off, you went to increase your knowledge. Yeah. So, so, so like I didn't I didn't know if I was ever going to work, right? And then, you know, everybody thought because it was such a severe injury, most of the time you hear people making millions of dollars on things like this, you know, on severe injuries like that.

And the way workman's comp happens, and, and I actually was planning on having a workman's comp attorney come in just because it's so interesting. And the laws change so frequently and how it works and, and what your rights are and all these different things are so confusing. When you get hurt, you don't really have a trifold packet of, so you got hurt on the job, what do you need to know? And, and, and in my situation, you're, you're focusing on getting healthy. Yeah. You know, like you're part of a union, maybe that they would handle that part of that for you, like that's part of the organization to sort of support you. Right. So the point was that I didn't know what's going to happen.

So there's some fear there and there's some worry about whether you're going to be able to support your family and what's going to happen and how this is going to work. So I did try to take the time to work on blogging and some computer marketing and videos and editing and, and different things because I had some time. And, and, and again, I really at 1st didn't think I was ever going to go turn wrenches again. I didn't think it, I, I, but at the time of the injury, you had no idea.

You needed time to just See how you heal and how you develop, and, and as it turns out, fortunately, I made a 95% recovery or whatever, and, and maintained whatever scrambled melon I had from before the accident from other issues in life over the years, because, because, you know, I have a crazy story with recovery too, and, you know, because I don't drink, I've been sober 20 years, so I had some issues from that, so I beat my brain up enough over the years from things like that as well. So it is incredible but it is incredible also that, you know, you're, for whoever's out there listening to this thinking, you know, like they think their story's not amazing, their story is probably amazing.

And that's the cool part about this podcast that I really enjoy is Whether I just use it as an excuse to call up an old buddy and catch up and see what's going on and, hey, how can I help you? Or maybe, you know, if, if we just voice an issue we're having, our, our contacts are so wide that there's an answer. Yeah. You know, and, and if you just sit at home trying to solve your problems by yourself, it's probably not a great way to do it. No, there's, we're, we're, our bodies are designed to to converse with others, to be apart and to have a conversation, not texting or emailing and all that, one-on-one conversations. That's the way we're designed to heal and designed to work through problems as well.

Just backing up a little bit with your stories, like, you know, what I've always, like, just you were inspiring for me is that you never used that as a crutch. You never once said even when you're going through the process of trying to figure out how you were going to pay the bills, it wasn't about I'm suing, I'm doing this and that. It was how am I going to pay these bills, and then if I'm not going to be able to work, how am I going to support my family? And during that process, there was so much unknown from our conversations that you went out and ventured into blogging, ventured into network marketing, and you ventured into why you're doing that, still serving, serving veterans. You know, so you never sorry, Carl, poor Carl, you know, it was never, never at all.

You've, you've just kept pressing forward, and that's so much that's just you know, especially even for your kids to be able to, when you do tell the story, for them to see that it's so inspiring, you know, and, and they're, I'm sure, proud of their dad, and I know your wife is extremely proud of what you've done with all of that, too, and what you continue to do. So, you know, that's why that I would always be here, you know, to, to help you out anything I can, because you're inspiring for me. And, and a huge part of that is, is, is, you know, a little bit of faith, right? So, so this all happened in sobriety. This all happened in sobriety, right? And so it's funny when you talk about stories of sobriety, the story of getting sober and some of the problems and, and, and, and going through that process is amazing in itself as well, right?

And so, and then you can hear people, oh, Mike, there's a lot of people that are in and out, in and out, they relapse, they have trouble, and why that happens is a little bit of an unknown, but there's a lot of similarities in people that stick with it and, and, and never relapse, and there's a lot of similarities to people that actually work a program and help others and, and, and, and have this spiritual basis, a spiritual understanding.

That the main, one of the main things is when you go through, again, I, I lost faith for a long time and was living in darkness, which, which was a part of addiction or alcoholism or whatever, trying to hide this emptiness that we feel inside for whatever reason, whether it's trauma or whether it's just us or whether it's just a lost path, went down the wrong, made some bad life choices, and before you know it, think you're in a situation that's insurmountable, and this is just, I guess this is just what's in the cards for me, and not realizing that there's always a choice. So, especially with alcoholism, it's interesting because I never felt like I needed to have a drink, and I didn't go so far down the road where I was absolutely deep tea in, and, you know, there's people that have gone so much further down the road.

And it's, it's a horrible, horrible experience with many brothers and sisters and Irish Catholic upbringing. I, I can imagine that there's family members and, and you've watched this happen, and it's not a great thing. So one thing's for certain that, you know, people think that they can't get sober for this reason or that reason, and that's all just self-denial and delusion and all this other stuff. But, oh my God, you went through all that, and you had pain medication, and you didn't relapse, and, you know, it's like, well, you have to read the prescription. It says take one every 4 h, not take four every 1 h.

But the pain medication and different things, we have to realize that we're not doctors, and pain medication is there not just to make you comfortable, but it's to alleviate the body from fighting pain, so it could focus on healing the wounds. So if we have a problem Prescription meds, then that's a little different thing. You try to be responsible and say, "Hey, doc, I have some addiction, addiction issues. Is there something non-narcotic that might be useful?" But if not, give me whatever you're prescribing and I'll take it as prescribed. And we don't know where people are. So like when I've learned in nutraceuticals is that your body, everyone's body is in their own personal chemistry set. So our addictions, we all probably have addictions to whatever it might be but we don't know everyone's body's differently.

So I can't judge you and say that, you know, you this is what I did. You should be able to do the same thing. We don't know, we don't know the circumstances. We don't know the surroundings of that person's life. We don't know their personal internal chemistry set that how those drugs may interact with them. The doctors don't even know that, okay? Because the doctors don't know what you're eating, what you're taking in every day, what vitamins you're taking in, you know, we're telling them what we Do and hopefully we're being honest with them, but just the foods, especially nowadays, all the different, you know ingredients and, and processes that are in the foods nowadays are chemically imbalancing our bodies as well. So just going back to that is that we don't, you know, medications there for a reason.

addiction is, as we all deal with it, but like me personally, I'm not going to judge anybody and say that they, you know, it's just do this, because I don't know. I don't know, you know, where they're coming from, and I sympathize with that, and it's hard. But your story is powerful. like you said, your story of not drinking is powerful, but I think this just talks about you as an individual is that when you set your mind on something, you're in it. And we talked about that earlier, like when I came in here and seen all this equipment and everything, that's Carl. When you were doing blogs, and, and let's go back to just the fish tanks, you know, when, when you were in that industry is you had all the equipment, you had everything, you were all in.

When we were doing the veterans stuff and we were getting involved with something, you were like, we got to do it this way, we have to buy these, and we have like, it was all in because you believe in Carl. Well, I, I think that's a big part of recovery, and it, as far as my story is concerned, because most of this stuff happened after 2004, which is June 26, 2004 is my sobriety date. And, and I hold on to that because it's important, right? so when you talk about other suffering people, and we try to, you know, we can be an example. That's all we can be. Yeah. And hopefully, and then that's a big part of some programs. It's, it's about attraction, not promotion. I, I cannot dictate to you or demand you do anything.

If you like the way I seemed to be, or if you seem to think that, wow, this is kind of a happy guy and he's kind of nice to Wife and he doesn't cheat on his wife and he's got some pretty cool kids and what is he doing, right? So I'm willing to tell you, you know, but you have to be willing to ask in a sense that I can't push my beliefs on anybody. Yeah. And, and, and, and so attraction, not promotion is one of those tenets of some programs that, you know, and, and that works for the, it's, the church has evolved in a lot of different ways as well as with some of that, that we have to meet people where they are. And one thing that is absolutely certain is anybody listening to this, you are right where you're supposed to be right now. Yeah. And, and people, man, they don't get that, you know, and, and yes, you can change it.

And that change is going to be an awesome story that you could talk about on a podcast. Or design. Because everybody's amazed. Well, we're not doing it, but we try to do it. So to have the acceptance, Of it is what it is, but still have the choice because we are given free will, the choice is not always easy, and the right choice is u- a lot of times the harder choice or more uncomfortable choice, because if we're in a funk and we're not in a great place, we're still comfortable with where we're at, whether we know it or not. Yeah. And in order to change that, it's going to be uncomfortable. And a lot of times, even to this day, when something's uncomfortable, it piques my interest because I think this is something I need to explore. So you were, you were on a, on a, a masonry podcast. What was the name of that? I know.

Yeah, through the it's called Masonry Strong, and it's through the Mason Contractors Association of America. So they, they started a podcast just recently. And, and, and so give them a follow, give them a like, search them up, cause it was, it was a great little podcast for sure. And, and again, anybody that has a passion for their craft, it's cool to hear those stories. And, and one aspect of that was that you, you had talked a lot about, you know, about faith and about, you know, part of that, that same sort of journey. and for me, like I said, I can, I can touch base real quick.

Like I had a story where, I don't know if I've told it before, sorry if I did, but I was like in 5th grade at a Catholic grammar school, grew up Catholic, grew up with a mom and dad at home, grew up with a, a mechanic father that worked in the garage for extra money to buy the things he wanted, and mostly his check went to mom to pay the bills. And he was a union guy. He, he did, he built his own cloud by doing door knocking and, and, and made mo, a little Better pay than most people as a result of networking and doing the work and getting out there. but with, I don't know if he graduated high school. I'm not sure. He went to Tuley High School in Chicago back in the day and, and but was able to raise three kids provide a home, provide the opportunity for college for all three of, four of his children with a 50% return.

So I graduated college and my, my sister graduated college. The other two did not, but they had the opportunity to go. And so that's sound pretty successful. Yeah. You know, as, as, as what a man would consider, you know, his responsibility to his family or whatever. Yeah. And then we, you know, even society where, you know, your next generation is a little better off than the previous, which this is, this is a time where we don't know if that's exactly how it's going to be unless something's Yeah, what we, what, what, what we can change is what we do within our own house and in our own minds. So that's how we can control in a sense, so change within. yeah, you you've opened up a lot of interesting topics.

you know, I, I think faith, you know, having faith, like we just talked about you, you, when, when you're struggling going through rehab and then also the struggle you went through with addiction and say what you learned was faith that would keep you grounded. Back that up even further, it's, it's, if you can, at some point, realize what is your purpose, okay? Because life is, we're here on this earth for a short period of time, you know, as you get older, it shortens even more. and we think about it more, I think we think about death, and I think it's okay to think about death. I think we have to think about death, because we have to think about it and process it and put it aside so we don't get distracted by it, because you can't. and, and you can be afraid of it too, which will be a distraction for what your purpose is here.

So faith is interesting. Faith is can go down many different roads, but finding your purpose, I think, is, is key, and we should also be always trying to find that purpose. And I think you know, like with yourself, what you've done, you're an inspiration. I know for me, for overcoming what you've overcome and continue to go down a path with a smile on your face all the time and, and being joyful even through hard times. but you know, purpose is is a tough one to try to, to find, but I think if you're thinking about what your purpose is and you're open to it, It will allow you to venture into things, like you said before, that look like it's a little bit it's harder, it's gonna take a little bit of work it's uncomfortable. Or scary. It's scary.

It's gonna, if you have faith, so faith is trust, if you have that and you know, and, and you know, you, you feel that it's your purpose to go down that road, for me, I have faith in God, and I know that God's gonna be with me alongside me during that scary journey that I might go down. But if I feel it's His, His, His calling for me to go down that road, then I'm gonna go down that road and, and just see where it takes me, you know, but go down it joyfully, but going down it without, you're gonna have fear. I think fear is, is is good as long as it's not distracting. Well, so just on fear itself, so, so some say fear is the absence of faith, right? So we, we, in some ways that may be true.

and, and, and so in my instance, after a severe accident and near-death experience, which is 100% what it was the realization that if there's a God and he has some sort of plan, then his plan wasn't for me to die that day. So there might be a reason that I'm still here. What's his plan? Well, that's the problem, right? So... You know what they say, if you want to make God laugh... Think you're in control. Tell him your plan. I, so my God definitely has an extreme sense of humor. Yes. Because when I try to take my will back and do it my way, usually some, something happens that's not great.

You know, and, and so obstacles or whatever happens, you know, and, and it, and when you turn it over, let go, or some of these other things, p, and it's so weird because for those out there that don't have any faith or any belief in this magical power of the universe, whatever they want to, whatever people want to call it it's kind of like if you're reading a book and, and just read a book, and then there's some things that stimulate you within that book, and maybe you'll look in the, in the footnotes and see this other book, and then, oh, that's interesting. So now it piqued your interest, so now you're reading this other book, and then something else piques your interest.

So next thing you know, I'm reading a book on metallurgy and, and alloys, and the interesting, and just interested in, in how these different forms of metal and different strengths and weights and carbon, and you're like, how the hell did I get here? Like I was reading a book on the environment, you know, or something. So, so. That's the same kind of guidance in a way that if we just kind of explore our curiosity a little bit. Yeah. So, so, so to, obviously to self-evaluate, you know, are we, you know, being of maximum service to God and our fellows, right? We can, we, if we have even the hint of thinking about that, we're probably in a better place than just pure selfishness and going out there and doing what you think you got to do to make, make yourself better.

And, and it's such a weird, it's very difficult to see the difference between those sorts of attitudes, because that's mostly coming from our heart, and we can't read somebody else's hearts. They can be doing all the best things that looks to paint this perfect picture of, of what a great person they are, but it could all be coming from selfish interests. We don't know. Yeah. But it doesn't matter, because the outcome Is what's most important. If, are they helping people? Great. You know, and, and again, everybody's right where they're supposed to be. So if that's part of their journey and one day they'll find something that, you know, resonates. So it kind of comes down to kids and stuff too, where, you know, to find our purpose, like we're saying, did we find our purpose? Well, I don't know if we ever can. We sure don't know.

So I Searching is kind of a better word, because we're searching for what we think we're supposed to do. So, so you can't find God, cause my, my belief and my understanding has developed and changed dramatically over twenty years, for sure. so, so I'll, I'll give you that quick recap. So in sixth grade, there was a brother, I was at a Catholic grammar school, and, and this brother was there, and, and I was starting to question my faith, right, as most developing boys with new ideas and different ideas. I asked the question... So the brother was like not a, a priest, not a... Not a priest, one of the teachers that was a brother in the Catholic church, which is like a deacon or whatever else. Yeah, kind of, yeah, so religious figure of some sort. Okay.

So I, I, I asked, like, so you're telling me that some Guy in Africa in some tribe that was always helpful to the community, was always, you know never cheated on his wife, was very loyal, always helpful to other people in the tribe, never lied, just lived a perfect life as we would define what we consider a perfect moral life, is gonna burn for all eternity because he never heard the name Jesus Christ. And that was my question in sixth grade. And his answer was, yes, that's why we have missionaries to go out and save these people. And I vividly remember thinking, I don't think my God would do that. And so it was just a hint of the beginning of kind of falling away from what they're throwing at me. And I'm just not accepting Yeah. Full force. Okay. And, and that was just a start.

And then obviously through drinking at a pretty early age, not too much after that starting and dabbling and then finding this feeling of, oh, I think this is where I'm supposed to be, because now I can talk to girls and I can this and I can that. I drive better, I play better pool, I do this better. Everything's better with a couple of beers in me, you know. Obviously not true, folks. but that was part of that filling some hole with something else. And so, in my way, I, I, I felt I was a good person my whole life. I was raised pretty decently.

I tried to do what I thought was helping other people, and a lot of times they're self-reflecting, there was selfish intention and all these other stuff, but that's through the process of Of evaluating ourself through an inventory process and through, you know, speaking about it with other people and all these other things that, that the twelve steps of many different programs offer religion offers, hell Dianetics offers. I mean, there, there's, there's a lot of different ways to kind of find yourself in that sense, and that's what happened to me. And, and so with me trying my best, working as hard as I can, even to not drink or to have a good life or to make more money or whatever we thought our goals were at the time, my best thinking got me in a pretty bad place. Yeah. And so I had to accept that that doesn't work.

And so one of my advisors, and one of the main things they said was like, you can't think your way into right acting, you have to act your way into right thinking. And that really blew me away, that my thinking is broken. I truly believe that for the first thirty years of my life, for the most part, or at least from age fifteen through thirty, fifteen year period, if I would have done the opposite of what I thought was the right thing every time, my life probably would have turned out better. I had a gift of making bad decisions. Yeah. But, you know, we can't go back at then.

So, so you're, you have a good life right now, and, and it was, you know, what, who, however the journey was your decision, God's decision, the world's decisions, you know, whatever happened that got you where you're at, like you said earlier, you're in the right spot. You're where you're supposed to be. Yeah, and, and, and so that journey Of seeking, not finding. We got to keep learning and, and, and we keep developing and we keep growing. It's like, and, and then, you know, if you get a little bit more in tune, not to crick, you know, with, not to, cause obviously you listen to enough of these podcasts, you're going to see, is Carl a conspiracy theory, is, is a conspiracy theorist? Is he a nut job? I explore everything. I question everything.

I, I change my views on things when I learn new information from people and say, wow, I never looked at it that way. That's very interesting. And I have plenty of stories of that, which I'm sure will be out there. But yes, just keeping an open mind, keeping growing. And, but one thing's for certain, when these tools were put, put laid in front of my feet as a possibility of something that might help change my outlook and my position in this world, What's the worst thing? It, it just kind of hit me like, what's the worst thing that can happen if I give this thing a shot? Yeah. And, and that's one of those things where, for those that don't have any faith or don't believe, and my explanation could sound as crazy as possible, but it's magic. Yeah. And, and, and if you don't believe in magic, you don't believe in magic, right?

It might just be a trick where I can make a cart disappear. And it's amazing and it's wow, you know, but it's real magic is al- is impossible to explain. Science can't do it, but science can barely even explain the process of how gravity works. Like gravity is a force, it's something out there in the universe, they can measure it very accurately, so now we can call it science because we could measure it. Correct. But they can't really explain ex I could be wrong, but I haven't seen the explanation of, of, a fact of how gravity actually works. Okay. All right. Is it a wave? Is it a particle? Is it a force? Is it, what is causing this force? I don't believe that we have a definitive answer to that. And I'm not obviously an astrophysicist or anything along those lines. But we accept there's gravity. We definitely accept there's gravity.

So, so when it came to my life experiences, my way didn't work. Yeah. I tried this way of faith that wasn't very structured or organized in the tenets of organized religion initially. but I got on my knees and asked for help in the morning, and I got on my knees and said thanks at night. You knew there was something more powerful than you. I had shit at that time. But I was instructed to give it a shot. And try it for two weeks. If you don't feel better, stop doing it. And guess what? After two weeks, I'll just keep doing it. And twenty years later, that's one thing that hasn't changed from those that, you know, go in and out of different programs or maybe relapse on different things or whatever. There's certain similarities that I see in the people that succeed and have what I want.

So if you, if you want what I have, you have to do what I did. And so here are these simple instructions on, on laid out in this book on, on, on, and the self-help industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. There's plenty of books out there and people are searching. People are looking for something and they don't know what it is and, and they just know something's missing. So they bring, they, they read this book, and this book says, now take out a pen and write down a list of resentments or whatever it might be. And they just read to the, they turn the page and read to the next page. They don't actually follow the instructions. I could sit there and think about what I would write down if I was to try to develop a list of my character flaws or whatever it is.

And obviously awareness of an issue is half the battle, because we do do so many things that we don't even realize we're doing. Just ask our wives. You know, there's probably a few little annoyances that maybe, you know, if it really bothers you, I'll try to work on that, but is it that big of a deal? But that's what relationships and love and all this other stuff are about. So, so with that, you know, I started doing these basic things, and then, huh, this seems to be working. So It's the acid test in a sense that one way works, one way doesn't work. And so if somebody wants to go out there and tell me that I'm delusional and that I'm just an idiot for believing in this mysterious magical force, fine, that's your contention. But I'm going to continue to do what I did yesterday because this seems to be working pretty good for me. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think like when you said about magic I like to use the word mystery because they're like that, that is our faith. Okay. So if you think about Well you know, we talked about you know, trying to find your purpose is and God sending Jesus down here on earth. That, that's a lot, and just God in general is hard for all of us to really retain. It's not tangible, you know, just like we were talking about with science or magic. That's why we call it a mystery. It's the mystery of our faith. Because it's some things we just can't explain, because it's, it's a higher power than us, okay? So we can't explain it, and it's okay. You're not supposed to. you just, how has it worked for you? Like you said, this is working for me every day. That's the power, that's right there. And, and the faith over time turns into fact. Yeah.

Right, so, so, so beca- my belief today is that something exists, and it's an absolute fact. There is no faith. It's my faith is gone, because I just know with everything in my heart that this Shift works. So you don't have to understand what the electrons are doing when you flip that light switch and it goes on. But after a thousand times of doing it, you have pretty damn sure confidence that when you flip that switch, that light's going to go on, right? Sometimes it don't. If you blew a fuse or the power's out or something else, sometimes it don't work. Well, maybe it's not supposed to work at that moment, but, you know, and maybe, you know, so, so like, like I said that, like the accident changes in a sense that I believe that there's a purpose for me to be here.

Now the, the catch is I might not ever realize when that purpose was fulfilled, other than the fact that maybe I died, did I attain that purpose or not? You, you, you ever, that, the Mitch album book, The Five People We Meet in Heaven? No, no. You would love it because it's very powerful. There's a series of, here it is, right here actually, folks, Mitch Albom, The Five People We Meet in Heaven. There was a made-for-TV Hallmark movie that was pretty good. But the basic premise of the book is like when you die and you go to the pearly gates or whatever, you encounter five people that you've drastically influenced through your time on Earth. And, and throughout the story, some of these were very traumatic experiences, right? Like some, somebody almost died, or whatever, whatever it was.

I don't want to ruin the spoiler alert, I don't want to ruin the book, but at the end of the day, he learns what good came from that tragedy. So we can consider this a tragedy that I almost died, but if some good comes from it. Yeah. And, and so when you help one person or when you smile at one person or you open the door for somebody and just get a hint of a smile, I just brighten their day slightly. I'm affecting, whether it's the butterfly effect or all these other things where maybe they open a door for the next person or, or this carry it forward kind of mentality that everybody just be a little nicer to each other would probably be better off. Yeah. but then the ability to learn what good came from these horrible things.

So, so that's one of the, like, that's one of the holdups of a lot of people, like, if there's a God, why would he allow this to happen? Sure. Or for somebody that lost a child or for some, God, it's just, it's, it's very hard to understand that there might be a good reason for this. And, and they're processing, you know, people are always processing things, but if they're willing to Want to find an answer, I'm willing to take the time and devote to search and to read the books like you do and spend time reflecting and and praying. You know, you'll you'll... I heard an interesting thing this morning. So I go Saturday mornings we have a group of men that we meet at our church, and we, we call it Coffee with God and Men.

And we sit down and read the scripture and we listen to Bishop Aaron does a his talks a little bit about the gospel and how it relates to our lives today. So then we reflect on that and then we'll go ahead and and have discussions on that topic. And, and one of the things that he said today is you know, people ask, like, how do you pray? You know, you go read, you know, Our Father who art in heaven, you kind of like, you know, some of that. So that's a way, but He, Bishop Aaron says, he goes, just go, get on your knees, and ask God how to pray. He goes, and guess what? You're praying. It's that simple. It's just having that conversation. It's trying to quiet the noise around you, the surroundings, the, the thoughts. Sometimes you just need to sit still and have quiet for quite some time to get into time to reflect.

So whether you call it prayer, reflection, meditation. I don't know if I'm right. I don't care, really, in a lot of ways, because this is just what I do and what works for me. And so meditation and prayer is important. A morning time is very good in my experience because Hitting the snooze bar one more time just to get five more minutes of sleep and then rushing to get your shoes on and run out the door and get pissed off at traffic because now you're going to be, you're going to be late and then swiping the clock 20 s before it's time. I cannot live like that. I have to be 15 min early. And this is all from, you know, wherever we meet, anytime I'm there, every time we showed up for a breakfast meeting, Tom's already here. so, so that's part of it.

And, and, and so having a bit of a quiet time to just try to calm the mind down of all the craziness that's going in in our head is probably beneficial. Get ready for the day. Get ready for a. in the day, quiet your mind too, to process the day. And then what I've learned with prayer that seems to work For me is, and there's that great country song with the kid, and then he's like, he talked to God like he was talking to a friend. Okay. Like, how magical is that? Because that's what it's about. Yeah. You know, and, and, and so another, another crazy good book, if, I don't know if you've read the Sermon on the Mount. Oh, yeah. By, by Emmett Fox. Okay, yeah. It's a great one, too, because it just talks about the Lord's Prayer and the Beatitudes. Yeah.

It was one of those things where in the beginning of this journey of faith, I was all over the place. I was researching world religions because I wasn't sure if I fit in with the Catholics. Yeah. I wasn't sure if maybe I should just, the Razor's Edge came out one, one time with Bill Murray, where he, he like went to Tibet and joined some monastery. Yeah. There was a moment in my life where I thought that that's what I needed to do. I was lost, and I didn't know what the answer was, and, and I sure as hell didn't think I had the money for a flight to, to bed. so I was trapped. There's nothing I can do. I just, I'm stuck where I am. Yeah. And obviously, that's part of free will. There's always a choice, that sort of thing.

but what I found was if we develop a, somehow some inner searching of, of the things that aren't great about us, our character defects and our flaws, well, then we try to get rid of those. So if you don't want to have a potty mouth and you don't want to swear, then just stop swearing. Yeah. It's that simple. And don't be afraid to search in yourself to find what's wrong with yourself. Well, and, and, and if you try with everything in your heart to do this thing or stop doing this thing, and you can't seem to stop, now what? Yeah. So that happened to be How drinking is or addiction is in most people. I honestly want to stop, but I just end up with another drink in my hand or my brain twists me around and thinks just one, it'll be different this time. And that's part of what the addiction is. Sure.

So if you try to not do something you don't want to do anymore, and you can't stop. That's a problem. Now we got this other power that maybe we could tap into. Yeah. So if I got on my knees and did a prayer or even not even getting on my knees, but over my years, I prayed plenty of times. Sure. It sure wasn't the right way, I could assure you. Okay. Most of them were conditional prayers, like you do this, I'll do this. So we're trying to strike a deal with God. We're trying to sell something to God, like probably not going to work. help me win the lottery, help me do this, give me this, give me that, give me that. It's okay, you're on your journey, man. And those didn't seem to work. Yeah. Right, then, then with some advisement in, in, in, in a program where it was more about you can't pray for yourself, pray for others.

I said, well, why the hell would I do that? I'm the one with all the problems. Because they're praying for you. Hopefully, somebody is. Yeah, they are. And so that was a weird concept, right? And, and, and then it was like, the next thing was, if you pray for yourself, pray for things to be taken away, not given. So these 5000 year old premises of the Lord will provide, right? He will give me what I need. He will not necessarily give me what I want. And so when I had a simple defect, like take away this compulsion to drink, I don't know the moment that it went away. I remember very vividly the moment that I realized it was gone. It had been removed. The idea that I do not want a beer right now was such a foreign concept to my brain that that moment is a spiritual awakening. God did for me what I could not do for myself.

And that, that didn't happen overnight. No. And you didn't expect it like you said. You didn't, you, you just all of a sudden you realized, wait a minute. Wow. Yeah. So how many prayers... Did you praise God right away when you... Of course. But how many prayers are there? Yeah. Help. Wow. And thank you. Yeah, that's enough. I'd like to start with forgive me. Well, that's a good one, because that's... We're all imperfect, there's no doubt. We're not. Yeah, we, we, we're always making mistakes, you know, but, and we're, and we're, we're our own worst critic. Oh, God, how true is that? We should be. 100%. And that's it. Like, you can't, there's a lot I would hear people say, well, it's, you know, Catholic guilt and guilt, and there's that. Well, that's you. Don't blame it on other Catholics. Don't, that's you.

Or it's, it's the opinion of a brother when you were in 6th grade. Oh, my God. And it's the church dogma. Yeah. So, and, okay, and then we could get into... That's impact. The road less traveled, and we could get into subconscious mind and memory and all these other things. Now, did that actually happen the way I remember it happening? Maybe, maybe not. Then you, I mean, then crazy Carl could get into like alternate realities and, and, and alternate timelines and why we remember certain things differently. There's no question. Maybe, but the, the truth is we don't know. Okay. And, and this, this system of the universe is very complex and we, and, and for us to even think that we have a, a slight understanding of how all this stuff works is a bit egotistical, I think.

And, and the more we develop and the more we learn, the more we understand, and the more we think, wow, how could I never have figured that out? That's so simple. Like the truth is usually simple, even in science. Yeah. They can be, they, how the hell did I not figure that out? And then everybody just has a broad understanding that, no, this is the truth. Yeah, we complicate things. And, and, and we're, our, our worst critic is, is so true, there's no question about that. So, but the main thing was that, okay, so now I built a little faith. Yeah. Because that worked. I asked for something to be taken away, and I stopped doing something that I tried every way to stop doing myself. I couldn't. Huh. Yeah. Then there's this possibility that, well, maybe it'll work in other areas.

So, I mean, and so going back to where there's a lot we can unpack there, but going back to where like magic and mystery, mystery of our faith, at some point is, okay, we live this life, we die. Now, if we don't have the faith, we don't have a relationship with Jesus, and we in our minds you know, we're going to go to heaven. If, if we're on the outside looking in, we don't know anything about religion, we never read the Bible, don't know anything about Jesus, and, and we're listening to this conversation that we're having right now, what do you got to lose to not Try to pray or to have a little bit of wanting to search for God or search to read the Bible or, you know, I'm interested, I'm intrigued. What, what do you got to lose? It's, it's such, that's my story, right? So, so, so it was like, I want to point my finger. So much to gain.

I want to point my finger and blame others for all my ailments. Okay. That's how I started. Okay. Right? And then you learn, like, if you point your finger, you got three pointing back@yourself.yeah. I am the problem most of the time. Yeah. And, and so we have this perception of the world around us. And, and how do we change emotions? It's not easy. Well, how do we change belief structures? It's not easy. No. And so up on that whiteboard, actually, there's, I was talking to somebody else, A squared plus B squared equals C squared. Okay. A is action, B is belief, C equals emotion. Okay. So in action, something happens, and then we have a belief, and it creates an emotion. Can we change the emotion? No. It's just what happened as a result of the action plus the belief. Okay. Can we change the action? Yeah. No, because shit happens. Wow.

So something happened, and the way I react to that is based off of my belief structure, kind of. So I can only change that maybe I'm wrong with how I'm perceiving something, or... It's almost like if you're driving down the street and everybody's driving like an asshole, and then you pull in and you get a double snack at Wendy's, you know, wow, everybody just seems to be driving fine now. So sometimes I'm just hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Hangry. You're hangry. Hangry. Yeah. Especially if, you know, insulin's spiking and, you know, nutrition and all these other things. So, so that's, that's a big part of it. So, so the idea, like, to, to clo, to go back to what you're saying is, what's the worst thing that can happen if I give this a shot? Yeah.

And, and, and, and that's just the basis of, you know, it's not, you know, it's not brainwashing, it's a, there's way too many people that have found success and found something better by doing it this way, so why not give it a shot? And so unless you're some extremist and, and, and think that cutting off somebody's head for not believing the way you believe is a good thing, which neither of us believe, then other than that scenario of some sort of extremism, I don't know any examples of where trying this turned out bad for people. Yeah. And, and if, you know, people do have a story where they tried and it turned out bad, it's Maybe, maybe try longer, maybe try differently, maybe Maybe we weren't honest with ourselves, maybe we're self-delusional, you know, it's very hard.

We just have, life is too short to not venture down a path that will put things into perspective at your current moment to give you an enjoyable life while you're living here on earth to potentially go to heaven or go somewhere that's greater. But if, if we go back to our, our mystery, okay, so the what do we have to lose? The other thing is, is that if you just, like, let's just say we're from the outside looking in and we don't, we're just learning a little bit about this, and we hear about heaven, and let's just say our belief is, okay, cause you, they may say, well, where is this heaven? Just like, it's cause we want to be tangible, we want to be able to touch it, feel it, see it, smell it, all these things, otherwise it's not real. So it's hard for us to understand this heaven thing.

So let's just break it down and say, let's, let's take that out of the equation and say, when we die and I use my mother as an example, after she passed away at her funeral, the conversations we had with people, one after another, after another, and it was a lot of people, the stories, how she impacted their lives. And we, now we have an organization too that my, well, one brother started with the help of many people contributing is the Julia McHale Foundation, and we're able to give scholarships to kids@St.hilary Grammar School. And we go there every year and we give away a scholarship and we talk about our mother.

To this day, through that scholarship and through all the interactions she had, whether crossing kids across the street, crossing Parents across the street, crossing someone across the street to go to the hospital, maybe pregnant, ready to have a baby, maybe going into surgery for something critical going in for chemo to fight off cancer. They all had conversations with her. She might have impacted each and every one of them and changed their viewpoint on things, changed their life, changed their direction, changed their path, all for the better. She's long gone, and she's still changing lives. That's, that's powerful. That is heaven. That's immortality. Let's just call that heaven. Let's just call it that.

So if you lived your life trying to fulfill that, that when you're gone, you've helped enough people that those stories and those lives are changing and people are still talking about you after you're long and gone, you lived a good life here. That's, if you could just focus on that and not just say, if it happens too hard for you to contain right now or to absorb or to think it's real, let's just talk about that. Right. In general. And, and let's say if you, if you just lived your life that way, you're going to have a better life here on earth. And like I said, you don't know what didn't happen, so you're, she's a crossing guard. Yeah. If she wasn't there, this child might have got hit by a car and killed. Simply, yeah. What does that child end up doing in life? It could be curing cancer, it could be who knows what. Yeah.

And you never even knew. That that would have happened had you not been there. So that's tricky, folks. So, you know, we, we have to just one day at a time continue to do the next right thing as best as we can and hope for the best in a lot of ways, but have some faith that it's going to be better off in the end. That it, you know, we're not dead, we're not truly dead until the last person alive remembered, you know, or tells a story about us. It bring, you know, that's immortality, like you said, because you're affecting your children and their children's children, and we're telling a story about grandpa, so he's still alive. You know, the memory's still alive. And something almost magical even about podcasting is that this video evidence of this conversation will go on for eternity.

And so in a sense, this conversation lives forever, we live forever. I mean, that's a little deep. But there's some truth to that, that, you know, God forbid, if my nine-year-old never had a conversation with, like, or heard my positions on some of this stuff can listen to this podcast ten years after I'm dead when he's 25. Yeah. Maybe me being dead can save his life. Yeah. Crazy. Your story. How magical could that be? So if we have that perspective, okay, let's just say we have that perspective on this now of our faith change your perspective, change your... Basically, you could change your life if you change your perspective on a lot of different things.

So I, when we when I talk, I teach a foreman training class for foremen in, in our industry bricklaying foremen superintendents, project managers, whatever you want to call whatever level they're at, leadership, you know, In our field. And when I teach them, well, one of the things that well, outside of teaching at our, at our job site we'll do a morning prayer before we start our day. We started that many years ago, and, and it's great because you get a bunch of, you know, burly construction guys out at a job site. It's cold out or, you know, it's in the morning and we're all there and, you know, you just, whatever, everyone's got their own story of what happened the night before and all that. And from the outside looking in, people are looking at these, you know, construction guys in the old stories you hear.

And then all of a sudden, some moment you see everyone take their hard hats off and they bow and we pray. And we simply just pray, you know, God be with us today and, you know look after all of us, keep us safe, look after our families that are away from us, keep them safe, look after our children, guide them and give them opportunity. And we thank you for, you know, the skills you've given us. And we move on and We go on with our day. Simple. But what we do is I, I try to relate to the guys that they're coming in and they're like, okay, we're laying brick today. We're tuck pointing today. We're demoing that wall today. Change of perspective. We're not. We're working on a school, and we're, we're restoring a school.

What we're doing is we're coming in to make this building a safer building so our other parents or our kids, but other parents' kids have a safe environment to be able to learn, to be able to grow without having to worry about rain coming in, without having to worry about a wall falling in, without having to worry about the weather outside that's going to affect them, their safety inside that building. We get to build those buildings, and we get, we change their perspective on what they're doing. They're not just For 20 million brick, they're building a safe environment for kids to learn in and for teachers to teach in, so they could take that out of their mind to know that they're coming in a safe place and just focus on learning, not is this building going to leak today, is the window going to fail, is... That's a distraction.

So, you know, we've, we've put a lot of time and effort into changing that perspective. And when guys understand that they come in, they really, we all take a different look and different approach on how the good quality of work we're doing out there. And we feel good at the end of the day what we've done. And at the end of the job, like you said, artist.

I, I, I, I, I wonder, that's one of the most beautiful things about the trades, and we are s-starting to see a little bit of a shift in, like, the college path versus, you know, the trade path or Whatever the case may be, the entrepreneurial mindset of not having to deal with another boss, all the benefits of being an entrepreneur, or, or to create these things, or to help other people by creating jobs for others that don't have the will or the inclination or the drive to take these bigger tasks on of starting businesses and all these other things, it's ma- that's magical as well, right? And, and, and it's just such a process, like partially of where that comes from, or, but how many people...

So, so the point was is, is as a tradesman, there's times when you have the self-gratification, delayed gratification, some of the conservative kind of avenues talk a lot about, that you put in the hard work for days after days after days without getting anything out of it until some moment where it, it seems to have paid off. Right, and that can happen in a lot of areas of life. Getting out of it financially or getting out of it? All of it, anything. But the idea is, is that you put the time, you put the effort into learning something, and then when you finish tiling the shower, and you could step back, like, wow, that's pretty cool that I just completed this task. And so the trades have that. Yeah. Aren't we lucky? Very often. Yeah.

But I just kind of, my brain went to like some of the normies or some of the, some of the struggling people out there searching for purpose, like how often does that occur, happen to them? When they get that gratification, maybe at the end of the day. And that's pretty good. Yeah. And you don't want it from somebody else. You pat yourself on the back. I don't need anybody else to tell me how great I am or what a good job that is. Sometimes it's nice to hear it here and there. Sure. But if you're... Depends on your love language. Yeah. Depends everyone's gonna take it differently. So what a gift in the trades or in music to complete a song or and be proud of what you've done. Yeah. You know, that is very important to inner worth, purpose, happiness, you know, and, and searching for a way to find that. Yeah.

We do have that, you know as, as being in the trades. So we joke about this though, cause like if we when we talk about the bricklaying, you know, laying brick, laying block inside of schools we build the outside wall and then we build the inside glazed tile, you know, and glazed walls, and the plumbing is inside of that, you know. And, you know, when you pull up to a school on the outside or drive by a school or drive by a building, we could say we laid brick on that building. You know, we joke about it, and we're like, you know, plumbers are gonna drive by and say, I, I got pipe inside that building that I made, or... But they're gonna say I helped build that building. For sure. But what, what, you know, how awesome is it that we get to point at the outside? We're, we're the, the cover of that book.

People are gonna judge that building on The face, the brick, the stone, the, the front of that building. So if it's a, if it's a, a wood, you know, and it's siding building, carpentry, they're judging the building on that appearance. Yeah. So we have a lot of you know, we have to take pride in our work, and we have to realize that, that we're not just building wall, we're not laying brick on brick, and we're not here to get a paycheck. We're here to put the cover of the book on. We're here as artists to portray what the, the artist, the architect drew, we have to make it look a certain way. Yeah. So it, it paints the same picture that he put on paper, we put it in the light, and then how gratifying is it that we, for many, many years, get to tell our kids, and maybe our kids can tell their kids. And grandpa worked on that or whatever.

Yeah, he built that building, he worked in it, he did the plumbing, he did the, you know, tile, he did all of it. A great example, what's the, there's this, I don't know if you guys did this job, obviously, you guys do so much work, but on Lawrence, right? On Lawrence, almost to the railroad tracks before Mannheim, there's a school on the north side of the street, a grammar school. So that's probably Schiller Park. Yeah. But watching that process happen by not being a brick, I'm not a mason, you know, and sometimes you go into a construction site, and fortunate that I worked on quite a few construction sites, so you learn a lot just on order and process, construction management, the cart before the horse.

You, you know, having the right stuff at the right time is the most important thing and keeping a job moving, of course, and the magic of how, like, a Wendy's can be built so fast nowadays and how each, each truck shows up with a numbered skid of exactly what you need next. Like, that, that in itself is magical. In, in, in all the planning and all the people that were a part of. Were, were a part of that. But this school, like, so they did the brick, and then you, you, you see some lights on inside, and then you see this, and then you see this. But they did these details around the windows. That were left blank, so it was, you're still just seeing Tyvek with all the other brick, and you're like, oh, I wonder what they're going to do there, you know?

And then it took a while before, I don't know if there's a process of letting the rest of the stuff settle before you do some finishing touches or just waiting for this other... Yeah, they're behind in production or something. Or a different trade, you know, that's what people don't realize too sometimes with like multi-million dollar homes, like they're just screwing these rich people by charging more. And it's like, no, when you get to that level of building, most trades actually have like three trades instead of just one. Yeah. So like in your regular house, you have a painter come in, right? And well, in this high-end home, not only do you have the painter, but then you have the texture painter that comes, there might be a different company that comes in and does this one accent wall in this Or a mural, you have an artist come in.

Fifteen coat surface and they're taking leaves out of the backyard and imprinting them on this wet wall. And you're like, what are they doing? And God, how long they've been working on this ten coat process on this wall and then they're done. And you're like, holy crap, that looks awesome. Yeah. Like it looks like wallpaper. Yeah. You know, and it's like, oh, well, you could have just put wallpaper out. You know, so, but it's one of those things where those little details that you don't just have a mason guy, you have a mason guy, and then you have a tile guy, then you have a granite guy, and you have a stone guy. But what, what's the beauty of that, that you get, okay, so you can, your perception of that could be that this rich person is just wasting money away.

They could have just put wallpaper up there and take that money and give it to the poor or give it to underprivileged areas or, you know, wherever charity organization, whatever they think it might be given to. But another perspective is That guy that did that with the leaf, that's, he's an artist. And now he gets to put his artistry, cause he's not a painter, he's not at home, he's probably not doing, he's out doing it in the field. Now he gets someone that's paying him to come out that understands the art and gets the art that he's able to do, and he's able to put that on that wall, that's his art. And he's able to portray that in someone's home, and they're willing to pay that extra money. How beautiful is that? And the fact that he might not ever get credit for it, but how many people walk in and appreciate what he did. Yeah.

Every guest that comes to the house that... That's beautiful. Of course, there's few that just walk by and don't even notice. Sure. But every once in a while, you're going to get somebody that goes, holy crap, look at that. But that's great that people are able to do that, but I think, once again, I'm backing to perspective. Yeah. You know, we need to have the right perspective on things, and when, you know, us being in the trades, we get that, because that individual finally had an opportunity to Put his art up there. We go in and we do buildings all the time where someone's building a house and we're laying brick on top of brick and brick. But if we get to put a basket weave or we get to do herringbone or we get to do arched windows, we get to... It's not cheap to do that, but that's our artistry. We're like, oh, great.

We get to do some really unique, you know, patterns and we get to put limestone in and we get to put up terracotta and we get to do all this really unique scorbling and fun stuff. Then it turns into art. It costs more. Sure, they could have went up with a straight wall and take that money and give it to somebody else, but then we don't get to create. We don't get to feel fulfilled. Yeah, you're stealing that, you're stealing that creativity. Our artistry, and it's, you know, we, we'll, we'll be driving by that, bringing our families saying, look at that one. That's awesome. We're not going to go to the one that we built a straight wall. No, for sure. That was a cheap box. That was Beldenburg. You can tell Beldenburg from two blocks away. They got real straight lines on that straight wall. But those are needed too. Those are needed.

You know, it's all needed. But one example. One example in my life, we did this big job in Indiana and, and, and, and there was this floor area on this balcony that was like, we had all these different woods and there was all these different hardwood floors. There was, every room had like a different type of flooring with old refinished barn wood and some, the kitchen was painted like a green color, which is like you're painting hardwood floors, but then at the end of the day, wow, that actually looks pretty cool. And then this one area, there was a birdhouse and there was a telescope and stuff in this room, so it was like they, they did a nautical thing. So we want some sort of nautical theme in this floor, and here's all this wood, all these different colored hardwoods that you can inlay. Oh, cool. Go to town. Go to town.

We trust your artistry. Go for it. Wow. That's cool. I wish I had a picture of that, because it just was such a cool, unbelievable job that this car, carpenter did Deva. Shout out to Deva from Australia. Yeah. but those are those moments that it truly shines, and, and there's something to that. Well, and, and for the artist that does the work, there's something to that too.

Just like as a bricklayer, as we finish a building, and like you said, if we could look back at it and have a, our perspective of that job is that, you know, we built not only really a piece of art that we were a part of, but a safer structure for kids to learn in, a safer structure for doctors to be able to cure patients, and, you know, all these different things that we're building, you know, that we get to build out of brick that we know is going to be there for a long, long, long time. we, we get that, you know, gratitude from that. So let's, let's talk a little bit about cause it's something that I heard it, it's constantly comes to my mind, I want to bring it up, cause it resonates with what we're talking about too when it comes to searching for your purpose. I love that too.

Ed Milet, I don't know if you've ever listened to Ed Milet, he has a podcast. He's just an amazing interviewer good guy, great guy. He said something that really inspired him to continue to be successful in life and, and, and, you know, you always want to find your, sometimes your why, because that's going to drive you, if you can find out your why. And he mentioned this, and he says he had a he had a vision that when he died and he went to heaven, and I, and I apologize if I say this wrong at all, I might butcher it, but he died and he went to heaven, and when he went to heaven, he met God, and there was a guy standing next to, to God, Jesus, and this guy standing next to him was, looked just like that. And God said to him, he says, I don't want you to meet the person that I intended you to be.

And he wants to be able to look at that person and he wants it to be a spitting, you know, image of exactly who he is. So he went and he fulfilled the person, the individual that God designed him to be. He did that. So that's his challenge. He's like, I'm, if I'm not pushing myself, I'm not taking advantage of certain opportunities, if I'm not serving, if I'm not being the greatest me that I can be, then when I go to heaven and I meet that person, they're going to say, Almost. Almost. Almost. Go back and try it again, baby. You won't have that chance. So that's his drive. That's his why. And I think that's kind of cool. Like I, I say that because you know, when you're searching for your purpose also is to, to search for a why. So the perspective thing is interesting, okay? Again, and to close the loop on, we're our worst critic too.

So even in that perfect looking thing to 99% of the people that search at it, we're sitting there sometimes just remembering that one flaw that didn't come out quite the way we wanted it. And I could point out every one of them in my house. And if I never do, nobody else ever notices it. But man, that drives me crazy. I wish I would have just cut that a quarter inch longer or whatever it was. And so we have to be careful there too, because once again, we still have free will and we have a choice on whether we want to focus on negative or positive. but the why is incredible. And it was funny you said that because I just pulled out another one from the shelf, but Scott Belsky, start with why. And if the why isn't strong enough to make you cry, you need a new why. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And it's great for on some of that finding purpose, which relates exactly to what we're saying here, because that's, that's searching, you know? And, and again I love you no matter what, right? And, and, and a big thing is a problem in society is when we have these large groups, you know? So community is important, helping others is important, so naturally groups form and different things form. But, you know, I just, in my personal belief, you know, for me to tell anybody that I'm right and you're wrong is a dangerous place to be. Correct. You know, so we can, as a group, can have a consensus based on what we consider right and wrong or morals or whatever, and agree that, no, that's probably wrong. Yeah.

But it's not really our place to impose our will on other people, which is interesting because I don't know how that relates to traditional Catholic faith and ministry. What do you mean to impose your will? To almost try to force our way onto other people. Okay. Whether it's another country. Sort of convince them our ways. We're right and you're wrong. Okay. And so instead of more of that attraction, hey, this seems to be working for us, and if you're interested, we'll show you the way. Yeah. But I can't make you do it. But if you're not in Interested. And, and that's obviously comes right out of treatment, because if they don't want help, there, there's nothing you can do for that person.

And, and that willingness to surrender to this problem that is insurmountable, that you can't seem to fix on your own, and the possibility that there might be a way that doesn't make sense to you. So, so like for me, it was, you know, when you think you know everything, you can't learn anything because your brain's full. Yeah. So it takes a little bit of humility to, to say, wow, that's interesting. Let me learn more about that. Or Descartes, you know, the philosopher would talk a, a lot about, you know, our opinions. And with social media and the internet, everybody seems pretty quick to express their opinion. But having an uneducated opinion, is it really the right thing to express that or not? So, so his contention would be, your answer most of the time should be, I don't have enough information on this subject to merit an opinion.

Let me do some more research and I'll get back to you with my thoughts. Yeah. That doesn't really happen too often in the social media world. Yeah, real quick. People read a head, they read a headline and they just jump to conclusions or, or whatever the case. And that's because it's based on profits and clickbait and marketing and time on page and all that sort of, you know, thing. But at the end of the day, you know, the purpose and the why and what works and everybody's individual spiritual journey. So, so, so that was one of those things like to go back to like the Evan Fox book, the Sermon on the Mount. It was like as a, raised Catholic, I heard of these things, these Beatitudes from Matthew, you know, and, and it's like then I'm reading this book like, was I sick that day?

Like, this is, it almost proved me right with some of my questioning to this brother. Like, I was kinda right. Like, like, you know, like, it's, I don't care how you get to this place. Fucking get there, man. Cause, man, it's pretty cool. And, and give it a shot. What's the worst thing that can happen? And, and so sometimes you get fundamentalists that, that are a little more extreme, and that's their beliefs, and, or, or they, they're stronger in some of their opinions on the way things are supposed to be. That's great. I don't have to criticize you or what's worked for you, cause all you have at that point is your story. I don't know the magic on exactly which part of this combination lock of steps that I took in order to get to where I'm at today, but I can tell you how I got here, you know, and what's worked for me.

and so that's where sometimes, and, and, and I'm, I'm, I, for, god, over a decade, I, I definitely wanted to get more into a formal Bible study because Regardless of religion, I have a copy, the Koran that somebody gave me when I was getting my beard trimmed by a Middle Eastern male, which they know how to trim beards because there's information and, and it's kind of my belief that I, I, over 20 years, I have a much better understanding of what I believed in 2005. Yeah. And I do believe that God, it's so weird cause self-limiting belief is such a poison, right? And I, I, I kind of believe that good and evil or the angel on our shoulder and the devil of our shoulder is the epitome of free will. Yeah.

And not only, but it's, it's this voice in our head when this imprintation comes from wherever it comes in this magical universe, whether it's I don't care if it's downloaded from aliens or if it's downloaded from God or whatever, wherever it comes from, it doesn't matter. You get this idea what might be a passion or might be a purpose for you that's given. It's a gift. Yeah. And you could choose to ignore it, or you can choose to listen to this voice on your shoulder saying, you're not smart enough for that. It's your choice. You don't have enough money for that. You can't, you have any idea that that's not going to work? Usually. It's going to be louder, it's going to be stronger. Yeah. And so the people that trust in that or have faith in this guidance. Yeah. And persist and go through and accomplish it sometimes get rewarded.

And, and usually money's not the focus ever. Yeah. For the ones that truly succeed. Yeah. And some of those self-help books will say like, you know, your income is the Directly proportional to the amount of value you give the marketplace, right? Or just give value, create stuff, educate, help, you know, and, and sometimes... Educate, elevate, like perception. Yeah. Cause, cause like you can perceive that you know, it's interesting cause through my path, what brought me closer back to the Catholic faith actually was sitting Sunday morning one time, and then you start having kids that are younger, and then you start thinking, okay, well, there's the, I definitely accept that some of religious training and the, just the, the discipline of having to sit quiet for an hour in church for a five-year-old is important. Yeah.

Whether they're absorbing any of this information or whatever. Sure. There's different little self-disciplines that are good, moral, moral compass, where does that come from through 5,000 years of all these different world religions. I was saying how I, I kind of went down the rabbit hole of various world religions to try to find where my true calling or path might be, and, and you're looking at deism and all these, you know, all these different ideas and stuff. And at the end of the day, to realize that I'm not a religious scholar, folks, so these, these are all just my thoughts and my ideas and my experiences, but if you had a, a, a, a being that lived at a time and had a great message, again, where we don't have to impose our will onto other people. I don't care what religion you are.

I don't care if you're Jewish or Protestant or Catholic and weigh all these different, look at religious history and how all these different denominations spread apart from each other in a time when there wasn't communication, there wasn't pagers and cell phones. So if this great leader existed and had an awesome message of, of love your neighbor and these basic truths, That have worked through maybe multiple evolutions of species, who knows? but this is the way that works. And, and, and then you get twelve or 13 people that go out to spread this news. Well, you can't, the, the passenger pigeon doesn't, isn't a good form of communication. When I come across somebody that has a question, and I say I don't know if I quite remember J.C. covering this, right? What do I do? Yeah. Well, I pray about it. Yeah.

And I trust that through those other teachings, I will probably give an answer that's based on those other teachings that's probably close to right. How, how well suited you are in that point? Is the message you're going to portray to them. That's, that's the answer you're going to give them. So, so in the spreading of the carrying of this message, different denominations existed, right? Because maybe some of those questions were answered a little bit differently over time. Yeah. And it turns then into a church dogma, which may not necessarily be the truth, but that's just their belief at that time through their experiences. So it doesn't even make them right or wrong, because we don't know the truth or exactly what happened, because we weren't there.

but it's still worth saying, let's forget all of that for a minute and just focus on the message, because the message is pretty damn good. Yeah. And, and it'll probably help you live a better life. Yeah, it will. Without obsessing over some of the details that maybe some others dis-agree or disagree on. So like you said, you were gonna, you wanted to To learn a little bit more about the Koran. Like I had, I got that one cause it's nice. it, it's just a copy of NRSV Bible. But one of the interesting things that through, through my journey or whatever, but also now, even if you talk about technology and if you talk about AI and the ability for, for AI to translate, the capabilities of translations in different things to happen so much more accurately.

One of my little rabbit holes that I went into was kind of like, I want the oldest copy available in the best translation possible, because there's definitely a lot of mistranslations that have been known over the years in different Bibles and different things. So it would be interesting to me to, to, which I don't even know. What the oldest version is and the most unalterated and unedited through the, you know, the consularia and what was taken out and what was get put in and, and human hands intervention into this writing, which is believed to be based on the will of God or whatever. But Would be interesting to, to learn like that oldest text, because all the same basic principles are there, you, you know, that, and, and how much of it was actually manipulated by man's hand as opposed to the true word of God, in a sense, would be fun.

It'd be a fun rabbit hole. It would be, yeah, but that's you, that's your personality. Yeah. You're in, you're all in. Like, let me, I'm, I, but the research is there, like you said, you want to, you want to know a little bit, and I think it is important to know a little bit about other religions too, you know, and, and have an understanding of where they're coming from. and, and listen, it, it's a, my belief is, is we're all on this journey, okay? No matter where you're at, no matter what your beliefs are no matter whatever difference we have amongst our religion, amongst our lives, all this other stuff, it's a journey.

And even in, in our faith, You know when, when you are coming down and let's just say the core, the center is God, and, and when we're on our path and we feel our prayer life, our, our surroundings, everything that we're doing, we just feel like we're in tuned to God. You just feel that. And then all of a sudden distraction comes in and you're back outside of that core and you're a little farther out. And you could probably put a date on that and remember what that was, what was going on in your life and what was distracting you, and then what happened in your life that brought you back closer to that circle. And that's our journey. Yeah. Okay.

No matter what faith you're in, and if, and if we're like, you know we're Catholic and there's Christians and there's you know, Lutherans, and there's, and, and you could, wherever your path is, listen, just find something that's gonna fulfill you to Be that person that when you leave this earth, people are still having discussions about you and, and the impact, the good impact that you had on them and their lives and other people. You're on track. That's it. Let's just stay there. I mean, and, and that's where like, you know, if we want to dwell on the positive and, and let's focus on the good and not the bad, because obviously every organization has bad, everything, and, and, and it's almost like I, I was just talking about somebody else with that, because, you know, the kids are in Scouts and it's just such an awesome organization.

I, I, I, I, I think as parents and I've been talking quite a bit about this lately, is like my job as a parent is to offer the opportunity for experiences. And however I can do that. So I don't really believe in some of these sports programs that like you're on summer league and you're in one sport and it's year round for these young kids. It's just like, I get it that if they really want to be a prof- most of the professional baseball players probably focus mostly on baseball their whole life. Maybe, maybe not. I'm kind of assuming what their stories are, which maybe that's not the case. They just, if something resonates with somebody in this weird place, why is there a stronger than normal pull towards this activity? And where does that come from? Is interesting. Yeah. And it should be explored. Yeah.

And sometimes they'll lose interest and go on to something else, or maybe they'll return back later. But God, just, if we could just give a little bit of a fan to the flame of passion, If our nine-year-old likes, you know, like, like my nine-year-old just started up completely on his own going through YouTube tutorial dances for K-pop dancing, those, those Korean guys or whatever. Absolutely magical dancing. I mean, they're incredibly talented and, and I didn't encourage this, but you think I'm going to say, don't do that silly, don't be a, you know, some sort of weird, you know, homophobic or who knows what idea, why, why would you not encourage something that they found a love or a passion for? Absolutely. Fan that a little bit and see where it goes.

And, and, and, and I think that's just our role as a guide through trying to, it should be, as best we can. We, we have, sometimes we get lost into thinking that our role as a parent is to teach our kids and to tell them the mistakes that we made, but make them be like us, but a better version of us. So we want to correct them when they do something wrong, because we know it's wrong, but we never give them a chance to be the best version of them. They're, they're not us. Listen, as a parent, whatever you're doing is going to rub off on your kids. So they're going to be a part of you, regardless. You don't have to put the effort in. The example is obviously so much more than what we say, what we do. But what you're doing is allowing them to go out and be them, and to be the best version of them, and like you said, you're fanning them.

You're just inspiring them, you're motivating them, you're encouraging them, you know, and, and that's so important to do, and allowing them to fail. Sure. And, and praising failure. Don't, don't criticize failure. Praise failure. Say, okay, that didn't work, let's try something else. I just heard that like on, on a Rogan podcast, I think it was, with it might have been a fighter that his dad would take him out and buy Present when he lost, not when he won, because it's easy to be happy when you win. Yeah. So, so that was right along those same lines. Yeah.

And again, you know, whether it's through faith or whether, whether we're learning, you know, there's all these virgins of, of how to be a parent and all this craziness that, you know, at the end of the day, these personalities and how different each child is, whether it's because they're the firstborn, and let the, let the psychiatrists and psychologists try to pick all this stuff apart and think that they have a, a way to figure it out, it, it's just, I don't know, man. It's, it's weird as that come from, right? And so that's some of the magic too with, with science and, and, and even rabbit holes or whatever, that it's being proven that learned behaviors are passed down genetically in some animals for sure.

With chimpanzees, there's a study where They took a, a newborn infant out of a community and whose mother died and put them in another community. And there was this hunting tactic that the chimpanzees, I think they were chimpanzees, used where they would lick this straw and stick it in an ant hole to, to get more ants. And they even developed a stickier saliva over time to help them, like an anteater or an aardvark or something. But then this infant was brought into this other community that never used that hunting tactic. And when it developed and became of age, it taught that tactic to others, even though it never actually seen it. Wow. So that's weird. That's weird. Right? That is weird. Because we don't understand. Yeah. But if learned behavior is passed down genetically, then maybe that's part of where these passions come from.

And then it's not exactly part of our faith as Catholics with reincarnation or past lives or, or these sorts of things, but Sometimes things that just make sense might possibly be true. So if we didn't quite get it right, maybe we have to go give it another shot. Remember Defending Our Life, the, the Billy Crystal movie? It was like, he was it's pretty interesting story that he's up in front of a court of law and he's defending his ability to move on to the, to the next. We could say heaven, or we can even see the next level. Because if as spiritual beings, we're, if we're in this process of developing from nomadic tribes to some, something greater that we don't even have the fathom or the ability to comprehend of an energy source or some, our soul is not no longer attached to our physical body or whatever. It could be anything.

We have to be humble enough to understand that we don't know. but he would, would like have a defendant that was trying to defend his actions in order to help him for the judge to make the ruling that he could go on, or he has to go back and try again. Okay. So then they even had like past lives hall where you could see what you were in the past and different things and like he's getting chased from a lion, you know, and he, so, so the whole thing was mostly on fear, right? and so it was like there was opportunities in his life where he could have taken a chance and it would have been very beneficial to him and he would have made a lot of money. And so the defendant was like, see, it's about money again. We're not talking about, no, it's not about money, it's about fear.

It was your fear that prevented you from trusting that this might be a good opportunity. Fear of failure. And so he was more of a scaredy cat and not a brave soul that helped others, which is really what they were looking for. Okay. And so it was an interesting, you know movie. but again, just the searching for what's right. Like I was saying that in, in, in my view, like the multi-billion dollar self-help industry, power positive thinking, manifestation principle, you know, Bob Proctor, you were born rich. all, all these tenants are all the same. It's all the same magic. And, and no, you're not going to get a Ferrari just by putting a Ferrari picture up on your office, you know, or something, some of these different material wants that we have.

But By focusing daily and subconsciously seeing your goal each day, you're more likely going to achieve that goal because you didn't forget about it. Yeah. If that's something you really wanted, right? So, so it's really about the only people that actually achieve goals are the ones that set them. Yeah. So sometimes we get stuck in life or sometimes we achieve a goal and we forget to start a new one. So then we can end up in a little funky p-period where we're not growing anymore. And sometimes you set a goal, but you don't reward yourself when you achieve it. You forget. Of course. And you're, you're going on to the next one. And it's important to reward yourself, to stop, reward yourself, think about it, congratulate, and move on. Because you do, you need to feel good about it.

So, and, and, and that's perfect, perfect, like, you know, tenant into this Positive or negative thinking, right? So, so like I, I had said that, you know, one of the things that brought me closer back to the Catholic faith was a Joel Osteen sermon. Okay. Where he's, you know, I'm just flipping through the channel and it's like, okay, I'm developing this belief, I have this faith, I know there's a God. What's the worst thing that could happen if I listen to a little sermon on Sunday mornings since I haven't been to church in a while? Sure. So it's almost out of guilt. I'm going to watch this goofy looking guy tell his stories. And, and I was very impressed at the way that just as kind of Jesus or any of the figures in the Bible would use real world and real life experiences to relate the scripture. Okay.

And so we don't have to necessarily literally take this text in every word. Yeah. He's talking to fishermen that understand what fishing is. If he's talking to a carpenter, he's not going to explain it like he's talking to some financial guy on Wall Street. Yeah. So that makes sense, right? And, and he was just pr- pretty good at relating real current events and stuff and what's going on in the world. And, and it was one of those times where, where it was like, God doesn't want us to be complacent, like, and, and it was just a message, like when the student is willing, the teacher presents himself. And, and, in some ways, that's magic too. Yeah. Or God puts books in our hands. Like, how did this book even get in my hand? I don't even understand how I got here, but it's pretty cool. Yeah.

And, and so, or even just the innate curiosity of why I have so much interest in so many things, and I just have this natural curiosity. Yeah. Or, like Rogan talks a lot about, about innovation. Why do we have something inside us that just wants to make things better? So we want to improve on technology, and we want to create the latest, greatest thing. And the negative side of this, there might be a lot of waste, there might be a lot of environmental consequences, you know, or you look at Joel Osteen and you see he's got a multi-million dollar mansion, and it's like, why doesn't he give more to the poor? Coming from a person that hasn't given a penny to anybody, and then you're going to criticize somebody else, and you don't, oh, he's just doing that for the tax write-offs.

You know, all this just negative attitude towards people that give, but the reality is, is if you want to be giving, and if you want to help others, obviously you have to, your house has to be in order. There has to be an abundance, unless you really believe in self-sacrifice, right, let's say. Abundance of resources. Gotcha. Right, so in order for me to give to the poor, it'd be nice if my kids were fed 1st. That's not selfish, right? That's That's considering your house, making sure your house is in order, and then helping others. But the tidings thing, I know we've had conversations in the past about... Sure. Was it you, was it you that was talking about actual spreadsheets where you can almost prove scientifically that tidings, you end up making more money? I don't know. No. No, okay. There was a story with... I won't make that claim.

Well, obviously, that's not the point. Yeah. but it does seem that the more we give, the more we get, and it's, it's, it's, there's a lot of truth to that. I think giving is so I, like I learned a lot with was it David Ramsey? what's his Paul brought it to us, I think, in the be- in the beginning of Financial Freedom. I can't think of the name of the series. But anyhow, it's a great series. And it was at a point in my life where I was in pretty, you know good debt, and, and the debt was it was it was a distraction for me from who I was intended to be at that time, the things that I should have been doing, my distraction was debt that I kept going further and further into. And when I got into the program that Paul brought to my life and, and and told me about, and I I did it and it changed my life.

Like it, and it gave me a different perspective on money, and it, and it brought me down this great, you know, rabbit hole that continued to want me to learn more about finances, and, and he spent a lot of time about tithing and, and why you need to tithe, and it's not our money, it's God's money, and you thank him for that opportunity that you can make that money. You know, we pay our taxes. It's, you know, similar type of situations, not like that though. But I don't, I think there's, there's a time and place where you're gonna go through that process of thinking that I'm gonna give, because look at all these guys that have been giving and girls that have been giving and, and tithing and constantly giving and got, and they're, and they will tell you testimonies of how God has given back to them and given back to them tenfold.

And that's, but that can't be our drive, you know, cause it goes back to like your prayer life you were talking about earlier is how it was, you're starting off with the prayer as You know, tit for tat, what can... I'm giving you this, now can I have this? Right. If your only intention is doing good so that you can feel better, that's philosophical from the, from the 1400s, where the only reason you do nice things for other people is because it makes you feel good. That's selfish. It's like, okay, no, that's really not, that's not the way it goes. But, but with, with the tidings and with, with, you know, it, it's almost, it brings us, I don't want to get sidetracked on like the multi-level marketing industry or different things, but a lot of times Sometimes we can tempt people into the idea of getting rich quick. Yeah.

And then use that as a format to show them how to make a little bit of money, and then they realize and come to the awareness that this money shit isn't very important. Yeah. And then they make a bunch of money. Yeah. You know, so it's like... Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. You know, you tempt them in with the, with the carrot that they think they want, and then you give them what they really need, and then they go out and do, and lo and behold, they become successful. Well, your intentions, if you, if you start a business and your bus, your purpose of your business is to Gain wealth. I'm gonna make a lot of money. I need to start this business cause I can make a lot of money. You're gonna, most likely you're gonna fail, okay? Cause you're driven with money.

When you're driven with money, you're gonna make decisions within your business and within your life that are about money and not ethically correct and not about serving. It's about the money, and it's gonna steer you in a different direction. It's gonna it's gonna gonna allow your business to fail. It's gonna, it's gonna continue to give you bad decisions that are gonna... Just let me give an example. If I'm, if, if my business in construction, if, if I'm worried about Working on this building, and we're starting to lose money because it's taken us longer to design it this way, and I didn't bid it that way. We're going to lose money, and I built this business to make money. So you know what, guys? No. Just let's hurry up and get it in. We're not going to put this extra stuff in the back of it because I need to make money here.

Now I, I allowed money to drive my decision of how I'm going to do the job, and I took quality out of the job, and I put money in there. Now when I've done that, I've I've built a building that is poor. Now that building fails, or something happens to it, they go open it up, find out that I, you know, shortcut it, I didn't put in when I was supposed to. Now I'm getting bad publicity, and now my business is going to just fail. So you have to go into it and you have to go into understanding, you know, when you're, you're building a business, it's, you can't have that about, can't be about money. It's how am I serving, how am I helping, and am I passionate about what I'm doing? Money will come, your business will grow, and, and if you care about others and put others 1st, your business is going to grow.

And that, you know, in a sense, starting with why that, that book was, was kind of part of that as well, because it's, it's almost like, you know, if you have this passion and it's real and it's authentic and, and people can see that and people feel something different because you're not just a pitch man for some BS something. Yeah. Like, damn, this guy's got some passion. So it was almost like that was a tenant in some of the MLM world where it's like, you know, call up five, you know, 500 people you know and tell them your idea. And, and something will come from that action. Yeah. It might be that, man, this fricking guy's got some passion, I love him, come work for me. But you might end up, you're gonna probably end up someplace you didn't even think you would end up. Yeah.

And maybe your, your idea gets a back burner, but this opportunity gives you the ability to build some capital in order to Make that later. So the, the idea of making ideas happen is another one. Did I? Oh, this is Simon Sinek. My bad for start with Y. I said Scott Melsky, his book is Making Ideas Happen. Okay. but that was about categorizing some of our, our ideas, because some we can explore later, put that on a back burner, write it down so we don't forget it. Yeah. And then, and other ones, cause, you know, creative minds, a lot of times sorry about the dog barking, but creative minds are sometimes scatterbrained, so sometimes you need an analytical, analytical mind and a, and, and a creative mind working together. Yeah.

Which is the same in relationships and positives and negatives and, and, and the way people complement each other by being better at some things than others and how that is, you know, everybody being the same and, and thinking that you, you need To find somebody exactly like you for a relationship, it's probably not the best avenue, you know, instead of just following your heart or whatever. Yeah. so that's, that's kind of interesting. I think the, you know, the analogy that I use is probably not a hundred percent of what I'm trying to portray when it comes to, you know building your business on serving or on making money successful through finances and, and focused on that. It's, you know, and, and we, we, that came up because of Ty being thinking that, you know, we're going to give 10% to God and God's going to give us 20% back, right?

that's not it. It's not, you're not, you should never be given and you should never be building your business on the receiving end. Just morally, ethically, do things right, treat people well lead well. You know, it's all about leadership. no matter what business you're in, I tell this, we teach our class, and I ask the guys, raise your hand and let me know what business you're in, you know, brick business, construction business, all the hands, and then I tell them, you're in the people business, because we are. No matter what you're doing, you got to deal with people. So we're in the people business.

And when we become foremen, leaders, and, you know, project managers, now you're in the business of developing people, because you have to teach them to be good, because your resume was once about you, now it's not about you and your production, it's about you and their production. So train them well, and then that's your resume. Your business is the same way. When you build a business, it's not about, you know, the brand, and, and you are still the brand, okay? People are still going to follow you, like you mentioned about that person that had, you know, the passion about their business, and someone hired them because of their passion. Because they were the brand. They liked them. They didn't care about the business, but they just seen how passionate they were and they're like, oh, I like them.

If you can, if you could give 10% of that passion towards building my business, I need this guy on my team. Bring him, come on in. Let's see. This is what we're looking for. Yeah. So that, that's a big that's your brand, you know? So, so when you're, when you're building your business and you're, you're building your relationship with Christ and you're tithing as well, is you're willing to sacrifice money. You're putting money aside. Okay, so tithing, you're giving back, because you know that God's given you this talent, God's given you this health, God's, you're building a relationship with God that you want to give to his church so others can get what you've received. So you're giving that back. You're also giving time. So when you're tithing, it doesn't mean, well, I gave 10% to church. I'm not going there on a Saturday to help out.

I'm not going to go after church and do this. I already gave my 10%. Why do I got to give more? So, you know, and that's the impression sometimes we get, too, and it's not about that. It's money and it's time, it's your talents, you know, your, your gifts that you've been given to give that back, and it's not necessarily with the church. You know, what I do about teaching and, and giving back to my industry and teaching other young foremen and young masons and entrepreneurs and those are the thing, that's I'm passionate about that, you know, cause I've made a lot of wrong decisions and, and I've guided I was able to get my life back on track. And I've learned so much from it that I want to eliminate that distraction to other people so they can get there quicker.

And you could try, and they might make those same mistakes, and that's okay too, but we're, we're responsible for the effort, not the results. And that's, that's where we know in our heart we did the best we can, and, you know, so, so that's mostly in my life that I'm responsible for the action, I leave the outcome to God. Sometimes it doesn't work out, but that's not on me. I, I tried, I did my best, and, and, and it is what it is. And, and it is, probably is what it is for a better reason that I can understand or that I might ever know, and maybe one day it's part of my prayer. And, and like when I pray for other people, particularly when people die, you know, that, that's a tricky one. And, and, and, and it's a little bit personal, but when my father died, I didn't cry. And I was like, is there something wrong with me?

Like, am I really some cold-hearted, cynical asshole that I've been accused of in the past? You know, do I not have the ability to truly love or feel loss? Like, that's not, that's psychopathic. That's not a good thing. But it was partially my faith's fault because this is what was supposed to happen. So who am I to criticize? And God forbid I believe in something better, then what a selfish prick I am for wanting him to be here longer than paradise. You know, so that's where I was kind of toiled. And, and what I found though was I was really more, I, so I ended up doing a Google, a shared Google folder and everybody was downloading pictures and stuff from, to if we do a compilation for the funeral or whatever. And And it was at that point where I was thumbing through the pictures, like, I definitely teared up.

I'm like, okay, I, I feel something, that's good. But what I really felt was more the missed opportunity for my kids to know him, like so many of the older cousins knew him because he was so good with the kids. So here's my younger kids that aren't going to experience that. So I was, it was more of a, almost a jealousy in a sense, or just that loss, that, that, that unable to experience that, which was, was, I was sad about. but still, I can't be sad about the other stuff because that's not my plan. You know, that's not, that's not what, who, who, you know, who am I? Yeah, that's a tough one to battle with. That's a good, that's a good one to go down.

I think it's a good Cause you know, you, you wonder, cause you know, like I, with my kids too, is, you know, my, my nieces and nephews got to spend time with my mother, you know, their grandma. my kids never really got that. You, you have how many, how many kids you have? Two. Two. Yeah. So how does that work? How do you come from a family that large and then only have two kids? Oh, wow. Do you, do you feel like you, how can a mother, I mean, we try to give our kids attention and love, right? That's, that's important. Yeah. With a house with 14 kids, you sure as hell didn't get all that much attention unless Cause I was the youngest. So you know what's crazy?

The coolest thing is like we would, we just did this recently, we gave away scholarships at the Saint Hillary Church, and a couple of my brothers were there as well, and there was a new principal there, and she, and it was really neat. She came and she asked us you know, we spoke to the people, and we told them the story so they get to know who our mother was Julia Vacala. And when the principal asked, she goes, okay, well, I'm going to ask each one of you guys tell me one good thing about your mother, and tell me one thing that was bad that you did in front of your mother. so we were like, oh, here we go, you know? So we were like, well, wait a minute, those stories might get, you know, we're in church, you know, like maybe these stories are not to be spoken here.

so one of the things that we, my siblings always say is that we always thought we were number one. Her mom made us think that we were like, we were the golden child, each and every one of us can say that. Now how can... Okay, so, so... Like we were thought, we all thought we were the favorite one, we were the favorite one, we were the, the, you know, the special one. Every one of us said... So, so the thing that pops in my head that hopefully is not disrespectful in any way, but if you've ever been on a golf course during like a, a, a tournament or a, a, a best ball charity event or whatever, and you got a bunch of guys that are drinking and having a good time and out there for charity, and then the golf girl comes and you throw some tips because I don't want to be sitting here with an empty beer, right?

And, and next thing you know, I'm like, you, for almost, for a split second, you're like, where the hell is that golf girl at? And that, cause your beer's, you know, almost gone, and then you look and here she is pulling up. You know what I mean? You're like, wow, that was incredible. It's because I'm tipping her well, you know, because she's, she's blah, blah, blah. Then the thing ends, they have the steak dinner at the end, and you start talking to everybody else, and everybody... Do you have a steak at yours? Well, it depends on how much the tickets are. Yeah, you better go cocktail, and you know, you got to get out of those, you know, park district courses. Okay. but then you start talking to everybody else, and they were saying the same story, like the beer cart was giving her, them special treatment. Yeah.

And she just knows the course so well, and she can time people on how fast they're drinking and where they're drinking. She's just So good, yeah. So your mother was just good at her job, obviously. Yes. Because for 14 kids to all think they were special, that's magic, that's incredible. Yeah, she set the bar high. And, and, you know, like I said, I've, I said this many times, is our dad just taught us work ethic. We all had different relationships with our parents. I mean, I, my older brothers that, you know, my brother Pat, he was an only child for how long? A year. Yeah, a year. My brother Larry was born a year later. So, but then they were two children. So they had that relationship of, as a parent with, you know, just two kids. So they got all the attention that way.

And then as it went down, you know, the middle pack probably was a different relationship. And me and my... But the youngest and the oldest siblings were getting attention that they needed, even though it maybe it wasn't from mom or dad or whatever. Yeah, but there was, so there was times where I would get The attention from my older brother or sister when my parents weren't there. You know, so it was just the love. You would just get love no matter who it's from. It's a family member. You're getting it. You're receiving it. You're getting it. You're feeling it. And you're growing from it. But it was when, when I was in high school freshman year, I was the only 1@home.so I was an only child. Cause my brother Danny just graduated high school and he went away to college. Wow. Everybody else was gone.

So that's a pretty big span of years too. So your, your mom was pumping him out for an extended period of time. Oh, a long time. Yeah. 17 years is, my brother Pat is 17. He's the oldest. He's 17 years older than me. Oh, okay. That's, yeah. Doesn't seem like a lot, but it does when you talk about fertile years and, and a woman. Well, think about your mom pregnant with you and your dad's at work and your older brother is driving your mom to the hospital. Have you. Yeah. That's how it was. Yeah, yeah. So it was just, it was a big span, it was a lot of kids. And, and so many positives, so many positives too, because like you said, dad didn't feel obligated because there were, you know, he had other men to handle the manly things that needed to happen. And he had a few eleven kids. He's like, got another one coming, I can't miss a day.

I can't miss a half a day. So, so, so not to get too much off onto the finances, because we, we stemmed away from that a little bit, but just, I never heard of that program specifically. Yeah. I, I might have seen one or two. Money Makeover, David Ramsey, The Money Makeover. Oh, The Money Makeover. It's about financial freedom. And then as a tradesman, I don't know if you've ever read The Richest Man in Babylon. Yes, I did. So, so that It's mind-blowing. That's a hard read, though. It's a little hard because it's ye, thou, yea. Yeah, do, do the get the book and also do the, the audio book. Okay. It's helpful. That's the way I did it, and it helped me. That makes sense. And as a tradesman, it's, that's a very interesting thing of putting 10%, you know, 20% aside, 10% to God to live off the rest.

And it don't matter if you're a minimum wage at McDonald's, it's the same sort of sacrifice regardless of what, what level you're at. Yeah. As far as, obviously, at, at a certain point it gets easier. David Ramsey does a really good job of helping you get out of debt. So if you're in debt and you're in financial... So, so, so for the debt, just focusing on the debt thing, let's, let's say, give me the three best things that you pulled out of that series. Oh, so just like if I was a credit card debt, it was just write it all down, write your credit card name, the debt on each one, and the interest rate on each one. Go in and look at your minimum payment, write that down, because you're paying at least that minimum payment. And then look at your budget, see how much money you have left over after paying all that minimum payment.

If you have enough that you could pay a hundred more towards one of them, one being the one that's the highest interest rate, you pay that hundred dollars towards that one. So let's just say that minimum payment was $200. So now you're paying 300 on that one. And the next one that was the next lower, it was a high interest rate, but not as high as that one, is let's say that one's 200 minimum too. So as you're paying that, once you pay that top one off, cause you're paying an extra hundred dollars a month towards it, once that pays, you pay that off, you take that 200 plus that hundred, that 300, and add it to the one that's the next one. So now instead of paying 200 a month minimum, now you're paying 500 a month minimum. So now you get rid of that one even quicker. And then you go back down to the next one.

So now you get five year, your, you know, six, eight, another one was a hundred, so now you're six, 700 a month that, or 600 a month you're paying towards that. So you're banging them out quicker and you get out of debt. Yeah, no, that's... So it's really cool the way, you know, I just never wrote it down and looked at it, visually looked at it that way. Once you could write it down and look at it that way, it's not so much stress. You, you've eliminated the the ability that you thought you couldn't overcome it, like it's overcoming you. Yeah, it's... You've overcome it. And, and that, the other, the other like magical thing of just perception, again, is if we focus on debt, there's some that believe that our subconscious mind can help us to create debt, because that's what we're focusing on.

Okay, so, so it's, it's, it's a little out there, the way, did you, did you ever read The Ant and the Elephant? someone just talked about that book too. So now that means that you're supposed to read it because that's twice. And I always write down books that are suggested because I really do, you know, I do my best effort to try to do, to get through them. And there was a moment when I went to listen to some motivational speaker and it was one of those scenarios where, you know, he's like, you should always have, he said you should always have two books in your, on your, on your person. So he had cargo shorts on, like, so he's like on one side, I got the book that I'm reading, and on the other side I have the book that I'm writing. My self story, my story. So you should always be journaling. And god, I wish I do. I wish I do.

So many things that we wish we could do, like. I'm going down that. You were talking, it's worth it, and just like a Bible study, I mean, I'm gonna, I gotta get there at some point, but I I have five books that I read in the morning. There's this one-page daily things. Two of them are kind of prayer-based Bible things, and then a couple of them are treatment things. Takes me 15 min or so, not usually more, too much more than that. No, I read all five, but they're all kind of daily. So it's one page out of each for each day of the week. So is it like a daily devotion? Yeah, pretty much. So one of them is... So it could be a paragraph, or just a half a page. Yeah, or Golden Wisdom or whatever. So maybe one little piece of scripture or whatever. I have Billy Graham one that I do. My daughter got it through my daughter.

And again, it's just like just to start the day on a little bit of a positive note and a calm note. But to do formal meditation, been meaning to get into that for years too, you know, to maybe learn the process a little bit better. I've done it a little bit here and there. And it's magical, there's no question. And tapping into that subconscious mind could get into a whole nother rabbit hole of stuff when it comes to the But the Anthony elephant is kind of about the conscious and the subconscious mind. Oh, okay. And so the conscious, conscious mind doesn't interpret things the same thing as your conscious mind does. Subconscious. Oh, the, the subconscious mind does not interpret things the same. So that's where like hypnosis is kind of like tapping into that subconscious mind.

So some believe, or science believes that, that, that this space between consciousness and unconsciousness is where you almost have direct access to the subconscious mind. And, and so it's dangerous to toy with that. So most real hypnotists are very careful because what they implant on that subconscious mind may not be interpreted the way they intended, and it could cause severe harm, not fix whatever's ailing. So it's very tricky. And then there's the showboating fake hypnosis that can get you to cluck like a chicken and all that other kind of stuff, and that's just more of a psychological toy of choosing people that want attention. It, it's, so, so that's not real hypnosis. Real hypnosis probably does work in a lot of ways. It should be an area that's explored more because we don't understand enough about it.

but there's also some thoughts that even Einstein had, had, had that iconic picture of him holding the cigar and kind of like staring up in the corner. And some, he would be in the midst of just, this is theoretical physicist, which means they don't test anything because the idea of testing something alters it by looking at it. So we can't actually test anything. We have to just think about it. And going through these thought experiments, we can deduce what would hap, you know, all these mysteries of the universe. I get it. So, so in the old days, they didn't have YouTube and, you know, all these other distractions. They just sat around with four or five guys and just talked like this. Yeah.

So the podcast world is almost bringing us back to just connecting with a human being and allowing that collective thought and mind to enter into realms that we never would have got to individually. Yeah. And, and the group conscious does that, you know, whether it's in a training seminar or whether it's in a, a focus group for how to do better in business or whatever it might be. So there is the story of Einstein, Einstein that he would like be off. Okay. Like his eyes were still open, he wasn't sleeping, but they'd be like, yo, Aini, you still here? Yeah. And they said that he admitted that he would self-meditate into a place of transient thought. Wow. That's what he called it. And so somebody that didn't really have a formal education. Yeah, would think he's crazy. That would. Well, he didn't. He was a patent clerk, right?

That extrapolated some of these ideas that baffled the world maybe came from this realm of subconscious thought, that maybe all knowledge of the universe is contained within us because learned behavior is passed down genetically. We just don't know how to access that information. Maybe it's a wireless ether of information that's transported through us. So when we, when we pray for somebody, it's actually physiologically doing something to their brain in a sense that we are connected. And just by giving positive thoughts or love towards another human being is actually helping them, maybe. Scientifically, we don't know. But the way all that magic works, we sure don't understand, but the idea of doing it sure does seem to help. So I'm just going to, I don't have to figure everything out. I don't have to know everything. I just have to do.

So how is that working for you now with the meditation? I haven't really got down the formal side, but I know I've been in a place where, you know, it takes you more than 20, 30 minutes to get some, if some, but I've been at retreats and stuff where we kind of did some guided meditation, and you feel something, there's something there, and there's something worth exploring, and I just haven't made the decision to, to dive all in on that sort of thing, and next thing you know I'll have crystals around or what I, who knows, but, but if, if, if that's the way people choose to live their lives and they're happier people as a result, then it's worth exploring. Yeah. Because if you want what they have, you have to do what they did, right? That makes sense. Yeah.

And so most of the people that have what I want in life, if we choose, You know, if you soar with eagles, don't wallow with worms. Again, it's a choice. Do we want to hang with the cool guys that are maybe not doing such cool stuff? Yeah. Because we think we're cool, or do we want to stick with the winners? And, and if it's all focused on money, but if money guides you towards a better place where you've, you, because that's part of your journey, then great. Yeah. So if you want to focus on money, then some people say, you want to know how much money you're going to make? Average the income of the five people you hang around with the most, it's probably close. You know, so go out of your way to be with people that are succeeding, and that shit rubs off on you.

And if you, if you, if you can't find those environments, 1st of all, search, because you, they're not going to find you. They're there. Yeah, they're there. You got to search, though. And if it's a church, or if it's at a focus group, or if it's at a meetup.com thing, With, with just like-minded individuals focusing on marketing, it doesn't matter. You have to be intentional. You have to search it out. It's not going to come to you. But, but when you get there, you got to have an open mind, you know, and you got to be willing to be challenged. So I, I think it's a great, yeah, it's a good, good point you just made there, a hundred percent.

Yeah, and, and that's, you know, whatever it takes to journey, that's, this is all our journey, and we, and, and, and if you, if you don't think you have an amazing story now, try some of this simple stuff. So, so for a guy that knew everything 20 years ago, right, this, that was me, you know, inability to learn. Yeah, we all, we all were there. And my way didn't work. And so I tried every way possible in my mind that I could think of. Yeah. And so when it came to what's the worst thing that could happen to give this thing a try, okay, that's one thing, but It, it, it really was more about that, you know, I, I kind of lost a little track, the, the, the thought there about, what was I saying? Well, meditation, meditation going into purpose.

Oh, oh, no, but, but the people, the, soaring with eagles, you know, hanging with the people that have what you want, or whether it's relationships or what, it, it could go anywhere. Yeah. Cause I, we didn't even touch on that. It'd be awesome to, to hear more about, you know, going from 14 kids and then having your family and your structure and you, you have a wonderful wife and a wonderful relationship and she does all kinds of fitness stuff on, on Instagram and she's, she's a rock star. You guys are healthy, fit. So, so you have these things that a lot of other people would want. Okay. Whether it's just healthy, vibrant vibrance and, and, and success and all these things are all part of it because you can't Take massive action if you're out of shape, lazy, and unmotivated. Yeah, just use a tool.

So how do you find that motivation and all that sorts of stuff, right? but, but soaring with eagles and, and, and I just have, if you, if you just explore all these different areas, some, you might find people that you think are fake and are just putting on this show. Yeah. But if you came from where I came from with hustle and pool or doing all these different things, we, we're pretty good readers of people. Yeah, yeah. And, and, and in Chicago and just the hustle and are there businesses out there trying to cheat you and are you gonna get scammed if you're a sucker? Of course. So these are all the things that you learn. Unfortunately, we're, we always have our guard up. Unfortunately, we do. Being from Chicago, we've always got our guard up. We're always thinking, come join this investment opportunity.

You got a little money on the side, you know, or, oh, this is a fake coin. Look at all the people, the, the, the, the Hawk two girl had a, had a coin that she put out or, or an NTF coin or whatever, and it spiked and then it went, and it went down and it went from $50 million to zero, you know, to near zero again, it spiked or whatever. But it's just amazing that like, you know, there's articles out there just shitting on crypto. Oh, okay. So they're using this. I don't know anything. They're using it as an excuse to just shit on crypto because it's, oh, it's a scam. Well, it just, if, if you've, if let's say, is Restore Masonry is not a publicly traded company, right? It's privately owned. Yeah. So if you chose to IPO it and go on the stock market with it, there's a complication to that and there's a process to that.

And there might be a lot of buzz around what a good company you are, all this kind of So people would want to buy in early on that stock, knowing, like if, if Tesla takes Starlink and goes IPO. Okay. So, so the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, that everybody wants to shit on these days for, for reasons because he believes in free speech and he's, he's stirring the pot and he's maybe going to end some corruption, which how can anybody be against that? He's not only the richest man in the world, but he, he doesn't even have an 8th of his wealth because Tesla is his main source of, of wealth. Okay. And you're saying he's rich because he has that money in stock. So he has to sell stock in order to make money because he doesn't draw a salary. Oh, that's just a way to cheat taxes because he doesn't actually make any money. Yeah.

No, not really, but so taxing capital gains and all this other kind of craziness in the world, it's, it's, it's not a good idea. But if you want IPO on Starlink, how well do you think that stock would do? Would you buy some? If, if you had an extra thousand dollars laying around, There's no way that the Starlink investment is going to fail. It's going to do better as he gets more satellites and more people and more subscriptions. All right? So, so it's a sure thing that you're going to make money on that. Okay. So buy some. So more than likely when that, the moment that launches and you have the ability to buy, and everybody in the world's buying to try to get some, but there is a limited amount. Yeah. That's, it's going to skyrocket. Oh yeah. This, it's going to spike. Yeah. But then it's going to level out.

And some people are going to sell before it levels out and then buy back in and play the day trading game. Yeah. And some pe, so some people are going to lose some money and some people are going to make a bunch of money. When somebody's making money, someone's always losing money. That's the way the market works. Yeah. So you just try to be smart and you try to not risk too much and you try not to gamble too much. It's a gamble. The, the, I look at it, that's why I don't really I'm not going to converse too much on it because in my mind it's still... And I, I have, you know I dabble in stocks and, and I Well, if you're not doing that for a living, and you're humble enough to know that I don't know enough. So if you... Don't talk to a mechanic about investing, please. Or a bricklayer. Or a bricklayer, go talk to a financial advisor. Yes.

And I'm sorry they take a commission because they need to take a, make a living too. Yeah. But if they're doing that for a living and, and they make more money when you make money, they're in, it's in their best interest, not like a real estate broker sometimes or different things where it, it doesn't seem like the fast sale is not always in the best interest of the customer. It, it's, that gets into a tricky thing. Yeah. Got to know your people. But you got to know. Yeah. So it's, it's just... Know enough about it though. It's one of those things. Know enough about it so you got, you know who to pitch to. There's scams out there, be careful. The, you know, the, the, the, you know, If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, you know, and, and be smart.

But like the richest man in Babylon, if you could take ten percent or, and put it to the side and make that money work for you and, and, and find some good funds that you, that are, you know, reputable, that you can just put a 401k or get these younger kids to just put fifty bucks a week in the 401k, bro. Come on, please, just start. Because you're in, in twenty years, you're going to wish you started five years earlier. Yeah, yeah. And, and just, and that's where just some responsibility with finance and putting some to, to the side and saving for the future instead of just blowing it all and then depending on the government or anybody else to, to take care of you when you're eighty years old. If anything, just research compound interest. Yeah. Just learn about Just research that.

It'll help guide you down that road a little bit better to understand that when it comes to putting that $50 aside or just learn a little bit about that. Me personally, I've always believed in my gamble's going to be me. Okay, so like that's why I got into real estate, because I'm in construction and real estate, I know buildings, I know houses. I had a family that taught me how to renovate inside homes too. You don't rely on the home inspector, but you have to use them because legally or whatever. Yeah, but I rely on, I'm gambling on me. Right. And, and, and then, and then when you get to a point where you're learning how to you know, in real estate, I'm allowing my money to work for me, putting your money to work. And that's important. When you want to research that part of it is research how to get your money to work.

And sure, a negative person could say there's a hundred other people out doing the same thing you're doing, so there's no way you're ever going to make money doing that because they're going to undercut you and all this other kind of stuff. But the idea is like, if you're just aware and you're on the MLS and you're just looking for an opportunity, and God forbid, God forbid you have a little cash on the side, you might as well make that money work for you by taking, you know, by doing that sort of thing. Real estate's been an avenue for me to do that, you know, and then you know, I, I do, like I said, I have a 401k so I have that going as well. And then there's other things that I'm, you know, investing in me, you know, with my ability to be able to go and, and teach and mentor and, you know.

Yeah, and that's, that's where just the ability, again, the, the, the richest man in Babylon, one of the biggest premises out of that book is if you want to invest in jewels, you don't, you go to a jeweler, you don't go to a blacksmith. Yeah. Right, because he ended up losing some money by buying glass and getting scammed. Yeah. That's right in that book. Yeah. So that happens. So if you're a mechanic, don't talk to your coworkers. The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, T. Harv Eker, is another interesting book, and that's one of his premises that was like, you know, if you want to, if you want to invest money and make your money work for you that you've saved, well do so, but invest with somebody. Get suggestions from people that have more money with than you, not from people that have the same amount of money as you.

Like, don't talk to your coworkers about how to invest your 401k. Go talk to a financial planner, somebody that specializes in these sorts of things. But learn about it, though. I think educating yourself about it is good. Like, those books you mentioned are really good. The Millionaire Next Door is another good book on that, too, to be able to understand what is the definition of wealth. Living above your means or below your means. Yeah. You want to build wealth. You could, you could say, I want to be a millionaire. What does that mean? Let's break that down, and it doesn't get you anywhere. I want to build wealth. Yeah. Having a millionaire in assets and stock makes you a millionaire, but it doesn't mean you have that.

Yeah, well, you just mentioned that about like Elon Musk, his money is on Tesla, so he doesn't really, you know, have that. And we used to always say that when we did network marketing, is that you're, you know, we would paint the picture, we would draw a line and say, okay, this is your house, and you draw a line underneath your house, and that's you. You own this house, this is your property. are you a millionaire? And you're like, well, no. Okay, well, underneath your house, you have oil. It's in the land there. So we drill down, we drill that oil, and then we draw that picture of a, an oil rigging drill that goes down, and then it goes into the ground, and you got oil, and it shoots up. Okay, so now you got oil there in your property, are you a millionaire? No, because you have to sell that oil.

Okay, so it comes to a point, but it's understanding that concept that you may be that person. You have the wealth. You just have to look underneath it. You have to just dig deep. You have to dig deep. You have to use that analogy to go down, dig deep, find out what's within you to be able to bring that wealth out, and then to be able to cash that wealth out. But you have to dig deep into you, because everyone has it. That's all. And, and the compound interest comes into play too, because There's a lot about work harder than the next guy, out, outwork your competition, all this sort of thing, which is, which is great. I believe it. It, it, it, hard work is going to help you. Yes. And, but in the same token, consistency and standing the test of time, that compound interest works.

And that worked with blogging in a sense, too, that just one blog post a day, or this podcast, for, e.g., I can care less if I ever make a penny on it, because I enjoy it so much. Yeah. Right? More than likely, I'll make some money. It's not going to be the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd episode, right? And, and you, you got to build up followers or in, in order to even qualify to monetize things. And the way all the social media is making things harder, because a lot of people made a lot of money in different things and whatever, and whether you sell the brand or there's a million ways that people make a bunch of money. Yeah. But people are getting really close to, on, on, on the spectrum of why I'm doing this, you know what I mean? And, you know the greater purpose.

And, and that's where the authenticity just is natural, and, and, and that's where you can see other people that are, you, they read the book on how to be authentic. Yeah. It just don't work quite like that. Yeah. You know, it's do they preface something they say and then say something, cause they know it's inauthentic to say this, but then I'm going to preface it by saying, I know this sounds like being a jerk for saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway. And it's just like, yeah, it's just weird. Yeah. And, and I think people just... Just be you, be real, be passionate, don't be afraid, you know, to don't be afraid to show your weakness. It's always been, it's, it's always seemed to be what works the best too, even in sales, right?

Like, you can have the greatest salesman in the world, another phenomenal book that anybody in sales should read. The, the ending of their book, Well, it's like I told all the friends, I'm like, you've got to read this book because the ending of it, you're going to be like, wait a minute. It's so awesome. It's so good. And it's written so long ago. It's so long ago, and, and it's so difficult to make a living the way he made a living these days. Yeah. Because everybody makes a hundred bucks on a car now. Yeah. I, I don't even know how car salesmen can, can be in, in, alive. but the competition's so fierce and the blue book values and all this other stuff. Maybe it's just bulk, you know, maybe that's how they just, I don't know. Well, new car, it's more in used cars that they can make money because there's a little more leeway.

But, but either way, the idea of sending a birthday card instead of a Christmas card, like most companies send out Christmas cards, you get 7000 Christmas cards in the mail. Do you really even look at them? But your, your own brother didn't even send you a birthday card. Yeah. But my car salesman did. He's thinking about me. So that is going to make me think about him, and that's going to make me refer business to him. You know, it's just little, little tricks like that, but he didn't learn that. He just followed the muse and did what he thought was right and became very successful, and now other, other people try to pick what you did apart to try to figure out what worked so that they can teach the five-step method for, for how to succeed in this business, when there really are no experts with some of this stuff.

It's just trying to pick apart what worked for somebody, and if you just go out there and, and, and, and, and do it authentically, that's probably what's going to work. Trying to find there's a Brian, I can't think of his last name, I'm going to try to find him, but he he's the one who, I, I, I went to a conference in Tennessee, it was a David Ramsey conference Entree Leadership it was called. Amazing conference. And this gentleman spoke, and he was just he was just phenomenal. And he's the one who talked, said about the mentioned the book, The Greatest Salesman. Oh, okay. And so I read that after. I was like, I gotta read it. So I read it. I'm just trying to find his name 'cause I want Brian Buffini. Oh, okay. He's local? Or he travels around? Yeah. he's from Ireland, so he's got an Irish brogue on him which I enjoy to hear. Sure.

It helps me. but just an awesome individual. It's so driven, so motivated, but anyhow, he has a good podcast. And and, and he, he really, his he, he was real estate sales. Yeah. And, and he just wants to help everybody to grow. Like, there's so many different podcasts out there that people are gonna give you the information for free. Like, it's just what you're gonna do with that. The gold's there. The problem... The problem is, is you don't know what you don't know. Yeah. Okay, and people don't realize it. Until you know. So, so it's almost like, you know, when I was doing the blogging thing and there was that Empower Network that was out there doing training, training seminars, and then something like Trump University or some of these other things were, oh, it's a scam, you know, just like all the MLMs are a scam.

It's like, okay, you thought you were going to get rich quick, we're trying to give you this recipe on how to succeed in life and how to be well, you're not following any of the instructions, you're not doing anything, you start in, you start inputting with your ideas and what you think would work, even though you've failed and done nothing for your whole life. You didn't follow the system. Can you just follow what we're telling you to do? And, and so that's actually kind of similar to a 12-step program or a spiritual journey in a sense that this is, you know, there Kirk Cameron had a, had a he's always been very religious, and, and, and there's a movie, I think it's Fireproof.

Where it was a, like a made-for-TV Hallmark kind of movie where he's a fireman, and he's having troubles in relationships with his wife and stuff, and they're going to get a divorce and all this stuff, and his father's a preacher, and his father's very biblical, and, and he kind of came up with... This like 45 day program or something about rebuilding a relationship. And so here is this guy, he's a hero to everybody that he comes across because he's a fireman and he saved people and everybody's grateful and he can't even get a thank you for taking the trash out or something@home.you know, this is just this attitude that he had that why can't I have any respect in my house when I get respect everywhere I go and that's part of selfishness and all this other thing.

So, so just like I said I knew everything 20 years ago and so I was unteachable and then when I became willing and I surrendered and I said help me, teach me, help me, I don't know everything. Yeah. My way don't work, what's the worst thing that could happen if I try your way for a while and it seemed to work so I just continued each day and 20 years goes by, right? And, and I'm still doing okay. Yeah, you are. And, and so, so that works and, and that was the same kind of system that this, some people say it's simple, it's not easy. So this process is a simple process, and each step of this process is the hardest thing you ever did in your life. Yeah. And then you do it, and it's no big deal. Yeah. So I know I wouldn't do it myself, because it was too damn hard. Yeah. I was too uncomfortable.

I would have screwed it up by thinking to do, try to change it and do it my way. My way don't work. Just do what's told to do. Yeah. And so I was saying I like pointed fingers and blaming, so I took my mentor, and I pointed my finger at him, like, if this thing don't work, I'm screwed. Yeah. There's nothing left other than, you know, horrible things, right? And so I'm going to do everything this person does like it's an order. Yeah. Because when this shit don't work, it's not going to be on me. Yeah. And it's so weird what a small shift in willingness that is. In my own brain to be willing to take an action, as opposed to, God forbid, they said, you got to do this, you got to do this, you got to do this. I would have said, you got to do this. Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, I'm just rebellious. I just don't want to listen.

I don't want to this. But for somehow, some magical way, I, I developed a, a willingness to just give it a shot. Be vulnerable. And, and, and continue to grow ever since. Yeah. Which is, but that fireproof movie was same thing. It's like, if, if the answer is really this simple, and I'm such a smart guy that knows everything, I would have figured this out myself. So this simple answer cannot possibly be the way. Yeah. Because if it's that simple, I would have figured it out, because I'm a pretty smart guy. Yeah, yeah. And, and then you just have to have a little faith that this stupid sounding simple little thing about a way to rid yourself from resentment Is probably going to help you. Yeah. And if you just follow the process, you're, you're probably going to do okay instead of doing it your way. So how did the...

So, so each day he had one little thing to do that sounded stupid. Like the 1st step was read this passage in the Bible, and then at, in the morning, and then at some point during the day, just say thank you to your wife. Doesn't matter for what, just one time. And then, you know, he's, all right, whatever. So then he goes, he reads the scripture, and then he, he sees his wife, and then she did something, and he said thank you. She's like, whatever. It's like, see? Fuck, man. He's not working. You know? Yeah. It's like, no, it's a process, just relax. Day two. You know, day two, blah, blah, blah. Then day six was like, give her a hug, or, you know, whatever it was. Yeah, yeah. And then at the end of it, it all worked out in the end or whatever. Yeah. Spoiler alert. Basically, you're, you're, you're creating a new Pathways or...

Yeah, creating a new normal, new habits. Yeah. You know? You can't think your way into right acting, you have to act your way into right thinking. That was what was drilled into me. Take the next right action, believe the outcome to God, and slowly my thinking started to change to where I would give a suggestion to somebody else that blows my mind, like where did that come from? I'm just regurgitating what was thought to me. I'm just, I'm a plagiarist, it's fine. But if I'm plagiarizing and it, and you could relate and you could get some help out of it, then it's obviously it's a good thing. Yeah, you're a vessel of somebody else is all you're doing. You're just taking their message and carrying it on. I'm not plagiarizing my, my Harvard thesis or something.

So the blogging got you, carried you down that road into doing the podcast, right? Yeah, in some ways. I, I know that analysis, paralysis, procrastination, I planned on launching in February. I made a, I set a goal and absolutely failed. That's sidetracked with other stuff and got worried about, you know, the backdrop and the cameras and editing software and how, how, how this is supposed. So, so, so this is, I, you know, it's one of those things. You want to do something and then your brain's telling you you can't afford to do that. And this equipment costs a lot of money and, and, and to, to do a professional production and, and, and all this post work is going to take hours to edit things and to do this and that. So obviously, having a conversation, there's no editing involved. Yeah.

I just, I just tack on an intro and an outro and then check the sound quality and some of the, some of the color and stuff. But and I can get better at that as I go. But it, it was, I did get hung up on like the logo and then the sign, cause that, it's almost like trusting the vision though. So, so there's talk of the muse and this power, this magical, you know, inspiration that comes to you and you have to give some trust to that. Yeah. And, and so like it goes to the, the CEO of The, the guy that started Home Depot, I, I, I can't remember his name, but his story was very interesting that he had this vision of this idea, and he tried to sell that idea to people and was laughed out of the room, in most rooms.

Venture capitalists, Shark, wasn't on Shark Tank, but things like that, where you pitch your idea, and the guy's like, you want to do a hardware store? You're like, Ace Hardware, True Value, they're dying. Yeah. Like, you want to do this on a grander scale? Good luck. Yeah. I'm not putting my money on that. Yeah. And, but he, he held true, he determined, persistent, kept going, kept going, to the point that this rack-tiered system that we see everybody ripped off of now, that Lowe's does it, Menards does it, Costco does it, Sam's Club does it, was his vision. Yeah. And all that overstock being stacked up on skids above, he didn't have money for all that inventory, but he had to hold true to the vision. So he ended up getting cardboard boxes empty and contacted the manufacturer and they sold them the stickers for the boxes.

So he can just have the stickers on all the boxes as if all this inventory's there. They were all empty boxes. But he wanted the grand opening to look like his vision. It's kind of magic. It is magic and it's funny too cuz when you are building something you have vision your vision's not going to be like everybody else's. So people are going to say you're crazy you know and those are some of the people that are very successful nowadays. Those are the innovators right cuz if it was that simple somebody else would have already done it. So there's no way you can make money on that. No. But that's like a guy like you mentioned like Elon Musk I mean he takes on a lot of criticism. He just thinks differently than everybody else. He gets off of em he don't give a shit he just keeps going. Good for him.

And some of the earlier interviews like that's what I said that's why there's a lot of hate on there you know the I, I talked to union members, being a union supporter, how could you support Elon Musk? He hates unions, you know, and it's like, he's a union buster. And I, cause I, I posted once on, on Facebook, I said, I said, man, why is it that this, Elon Musk can't get a positive article to save his life? Okay. After seeing some interviews and saying, this is something I want my kids to hear. They say you're crazy, keep going. Yeah. You can't build a rocket that lands itself. I, I mean, this is magical, crazy stuff that everybody told him he's insane. And did he do it? No. The smarter team did it. He's not the smart one that did it.

Listen, being a leader and understanding you don't know everything, being humble enough to go out of your way to bring in the, the world-renowned experts in these areas to make this crazy idea happen, the leadership skills involved in putting those teams together to accomplish these tasks is the process. Yeah. Is he taking all the credit for? Never. Every moment with the opening of that factory in Texas, the, the Tesla factory that he chose to build in Texas in the United States, his vision was raw materials come in this side, on this side door, and new cars come out the other side door. I want to do everything. Wow. I want to make the glass, forged almost, you know, it was almost that process. Wow. I want raw materials coming in, new cars going out. Yeah. And, and, and is that feasible? To some extent, no.

You're going to have maybe chips or this or that. Yeah. There might be some outsource parts, but what his vision was, was like, like weather tech. Local company in Chicago area, absolute rock stars. Yeah. Every time I grabbed a guy that was by the door, and I don't know if he was a senior level kind of guy there, I think he was, but I was like, bro. Every time I come in this facility to get something, there's three more items on the shelf that are blowing my mind like how cool this is. Like, you guys are so innovative. The quality of your product is uncanny, so there's no excuse why you aren't rocking it like you are. Good success story. And, and, and even when I was doing the marketing, I started seeing some billboards up at, on 294 for WeatherTech and stuff. They were really starting to explode. Yeah.

And the fun part about marketing is if you get the numbers, behind the scene numbers, and they do track all these different ad campaigns to where they really can, a good marketer could know exactly where his traffic's coming from, where the sales are coming from, the radio ads doing better than the billboard. Some of it's hard to track, but you could just test, because I started this billboard on January 7th, and it's, you know, sales increased by 12%, you know, whatever it is. And once you get all those numbers, you can toy with that stuff, and that's kind of the fun game behind the scenes of tweaking marketing and seeing why, trying to figure out why this ad works better than this ad, and A-B split testing and seeing You know that this color font works better, then you got the guys that are all trying to figure out why.

The psychology behind sales and, and it's like, who cares? Just go with what works. How well does that close the loop on? Get on your knees, ask for help. Try it every day for two weeks. If you don't feel better, stop doing it. If you're not happy, pretend you're happy for two weeks. Say good morning to people, bring positive energy out. You can't find a good relationship with somebody because you got a bad picker, write down on paper with a pen or pencil and paper all the characteristics you want in somebody else. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Then read them and say, am I that person? Yeah. Because if you're not that person, how the hell you think you are, you, you have some sort of obligat, some right to demand that from somebody else when you can't even be the person that you want?

Feed your brain too with good positive Stories, good positive podcasts you know, like this type of information right here that we're giving. I mean, the books, every book that you mention is r-rock solid. Like, if you want to venture down this road and, and find success in life, read these books. Leaders and readers, that's, it seems to be a common thread in successful people. Listen, if it's a, if it's a, a you know, spiritual-driven, faith-driven book, and, and, and that's not your faith, read it. You'll learn. There's so much out of it. It's just what you, what, how you relate to it is what you're going to get out of it. You know, you just got to make it relatable.

And whether it's Tony Robbins, or it's just, if, like you had mentioned in the other podcast, that you felt a calling because of a weird circumstance in which you were asked to speak in public, which is not What, what you felt was not one of your best characteristics, but obviously if you can have a conversation with a human being in, in a good way and, and, and, and, and, and audibly express your ideas in a good way, of course you could speak publicly. So what is the self-limiting belief? What is the fear? What is the what that's holding me back? Okay, well, this opportunity was stuck in my face. It's probably there for a reason. I guess I have to take action on this, even though I'm uncomfortable. Yeah. And I'm going to do it every day until I'm not, until it's not uncomfortable anymore. And it still is uncomfortable.

Every time I do it, it's uncomfortable, and then, and yeah, I have to dig deep. I'm like, why am I uncomfortable? This is like what I do, but I think it's the perfection, the perfectionism. I promise, I promise after the fir, after a couple of times, you're not going to come across as being uncomfortable to the people in the audience. This is all just our inner bullshit. You'll, you'll, if I talk to people after something, whatever I'm doing even this, I'll talk to people, and then I'll be like, I didn't like, they're like, I didn't even notice that. Yeah, or I didn't complete this circle of thought that I was going into and I was driving, I wanted to think and I got distracted and I missed my...

There's a program where sometimes I tell part of my story for an hour and it's one of those things too where it's like you just speak from the heart, you speak the truth, you give your story and somebody comes up to you like, wow, you know, maybe somebody comes up to you says, wow, that was incredible. So, so if you go to a Tony Robbins thing and you think it's a scam because you're paying two hundred and fifty dollars or whatever the ticket cost is, but you come out of there with some sort of drive and passion that you didn't have before, whatever you need to tap into the motivation that it takes to get off your ass and, and take some of these actions, it's worth every penny. And, and then when you do those too, like what I do is I always, I'm taking notes.

During, cause things would come to mind that he just triggered, whatever the, what happened, whatever he said or she said the moment triggered something, and I'm writing it down. And I always go back to those notes, like for years, and I'll be like, oh, shoot, I'm off my beaten path. I got to get back to those ways again. I got to do this, or I want to audit the books. That's powerful, that's powerful, cause you, you, you pulled out one of my own defects in a sense, cause it triggered a defect that I, a realization of a defect, because my first question is, do you ever review those notes? Because I take notes as well. Yeah. I read a book, I like paper in my hand for some reason. I like highlighting stuff or underlining stuff.

And, and I always think maybe I'll do a book review on a blog or something, and, you know, and, and, and I want to remember those key points or whatever, and never do. You know, I never go back and look at the, look at them or, or I still could, I'm not dead yet, but they're there. Go back and look at them. It's worth it. And, but, but the other thing, there's another book, almost like a Bible. Study that I, that I read all the time. And, and the first time I read it, I had a highlighter, and the second time I read it, I had a blue pen, and the third time I read it, I had a black pen. Good. And so it's like, these are all spiritual principle kind of things. Yeah. And you're like, how the hell did I not highlight that? How did I miss that? This is so important. It's where you're at. But I wasn't there. Yeah, it's where you're at.

I wasn't ready for that yet. And so you can physically see your absolute growth over time by like, wow, that doesn't make... I, I see why I highlighted that before, but that's not that important. Yeah. This is what matters. And it's good too to go back and, and read some of your old notes too, to see where you were at, because sometimes we don't give us ourselves enough credit of the progression that we've, we have, you know, overcome and, and where we're at today. And we, we have a hard time stopping and giving ourselves gratitude and looking back and saying, wow. Yeah, gratitude list is, is so important. Look at what I, you know, The, my, the love people around me, the health of the people around me, the job that I have the vehicle I'm driving the clothes. I mean, it's any, like, just, just stop and do that.

So sometimes reading your old notes, you're like, wow, look how far, this is what I was worried about back then, or this is when I was kind of where my mind was, or I'll go back and look at my, when I did that David Ramsey thing and I wrote everything down. I have budgets. Since then, I create budgets every year, and I've gone back where I'll look back at those old budgets and see all that. And there's sometimes too where I'll go back and be like, oh, back there again. How did I fail to get back there again? I, I know how to get back out, though, but I did it again. No, right. And, and it is, it is repeating. Actually, it's funny you say even with the car, like I, I drive a 2017 Ram truck. Yeah, I like it. It's awesome out there. It's, it's, it's It's 2017 now. You're like, Jesus, that thing's pretty old. No, it looks badass.

So originally I had some buyer's remorse from that. Like, this was pretty expensive. Yeah. Reliable transportation's important, blah, blah, blah. I used it for work and okay, I could've got a used truck, you know, the, a Ford F-150 used, blah, blah, blah. And so I go to my accountant. So folks, use a CPA accountant. Don't TurboTax is not really going to help you that much, but educate yourself on, on getting write-offs or investing in a, in a rental property so you have write-offs, so you're not paying so much taxes. You're not professional. You're not cheating the system. You're, you're playing the game, whatever, but. Pay the professional. and I think mine, I think I, I paid 850 or something last year, but, but he gets every penny and then some way more back.

You're doing a, you're following the rules that the government put into place for tax. Taxes are there for a reason. They're there for you to pay the taxes, and they're also there for the greater purpose of what the government's trying to have you help them pursue, what they want to pursue. They're incentivizing what they want, whether it's new buildings or whatever the case may be. Electric cars You're right after helping somebody else in some other way that you might not understand, but either way, my, my wonderful accountant, Neil Wolin, shout out to Neil, he's, he's the best. I don't even think he takes new customers anymore because he's so busy, but he's wonderful.

And, and I've been with him for twenty-five years, and, and, but I'm like, yeah, Neil, man, we go down to sit down during tax time, which is the craziest time for an accountant. He's pulling his hair, you know? Yeah. And, and he's like, I got to go see you in the truck, because I told him I bought a truck, like maybe I could write something up or, you know, register it for the business or whatever. And he's like, I got to see your truck. I'm like, really? You, you're going to get up from this desk and come look at my truck? And he did. And I was Like, dude, I was like, kid's college, I know I got a 529 going, and I'm trying to save for their college, and he's like, it's so, it was kind of expensive, and he looks right at me, and he's like, Carl, stop. You need reliable transportation. Yeah.

He's like, you're either going to move to the next level or you're not. Yeah. I drive a Range Rover. He's like, you're moving to the next level, let it happen. Yeah. And it's incredible. Yeah. You know, so, so. Good for you. God, just accept the gift sometimes, you know, and it's, it's okay to treat yourself sometimes, and, and at the end of the day. Look at the, so like, you talk about that, but I just, on my phone, for my car, to have the Ford, so that's what it's called. God bless, God bless. Cause it, you know, when you have a nice vehicle or something, you're like, sometimes you're, you know, do I deserve it? Do I need it? Do I? And at some point you're like, you know what? This is a blessing. And thank you. And just accept it, love it, and then don't take it back.

Everything that comes, you know, everything that comes in with the positive of consumption is providing opportunities and jobs and careers all the way down the line that somebody's got to do that, right? And that's, that's part of the process too. But also, I'm a mechanic, man. So I could keep a beater running for ten more years than it's supposed to be on the street. But the friends and the, the other people that I know that, that do that sort of thing, and then the car doesn't start when it rains, the, you know, there's just all this bullshit. And with, with kids and with a wife, it's like you can't really screw around with that, you know? You need something reliable. It's got to be safe. The brakes gotta work, and you don't want a line to go cause it's rusty, and just so many problems that creep in later.

Now it's, it's a little tricky with the newer stuff because you really do start after 15 years with all the electronics, if things start going, it gets expensive fast, you know, but trying to take care of stuff. That, that right there topic can take us down a whole nother podcast, cause it, you know, when you're getting to a point in your life where you're, you're valuing, valuing your time is important. So now you're like, okay, is it worth me cutting my grass? Cause if I take that time and I, if I take that time that I'm doing that and pay someone else to do it, and I use that time valuably to do something else that will help my growth or help my family or help, you know, serve the community or something, I'm, I'm in better use of my time. You're getting more value than the $40 it costs. Yeah.

So when you're talking about the money you're spending on buying a newer vehicle, well, if I'm spending this time of money when my car breaks down or I have to bring it in for, you know, these repairs and all this other stuff, if I can eliminate that distraction and focus on this, it's worth the extra money, you know, to, to eliminate. So you have to, you process things differently when you start, you know, looking and, and reading all those books and wanting to cook. Yeah. To the millionaire next door, perfect example, that when he broke down the idea of buying a car, dollar per pound. Yeah. That like... Time and spend. Just dollar per pound. Yeah. So, so at the time, the Jaguar XJ12 was like $14 a pound, but good old Detroit diesel, Detroit metal, Ford F-150 was only like $4.50 a pound. Yeah.

Like you're getting raw material for the same price. Yeah. So buy a better deal. Yeah. And I It, it just kind of opens up your mind to look at things a little bit differently. Like looking at a car dollar per pound, that's preposterous. Yeah. But wow, no, that kind of makes some sense. It's interesting, but then there's luxury and there's craftsmanship and all this other stuff, but, but it, it's neat that are you focused on that, you know, and that's what the thing is. But the people that both spend, you know, a half hour trying to find their, you know, accountant. Yeah. But they'll spend four days figuring out who and what car to buy and how they're going to buy that car and what's, and it's like, where's your priorities? You know, your next door, like how many people spend more than an hour a week dealing with their finances?

Well, talk, and, and, and how, that was the p-premise of the book, right? Where, I think that was the right one. It's time management. That's one of those, yeah. We're interviewing all these millionaires. Yeah, yeah, millionaire next door. And then how much, how much time they actually spend on thinking about their financing. Yeah. And then same thing with debt, again, self-conscious mind kind of stuff. If you're focusing on debt, Your mind might help you create that, whereas if you just focus on general, obviously you need the basics tenets and the skills to make, you know, analytical data analysis of what's the best case scenario to get rid of that by paying the highest interest 1st and all that.

But if you focus on generating more income, and like you said, maybe outsourcing some of the things that ain't worth your time, if you can do that, like I personally don't feel I can afford to pay a producer for the podcast at this point, but you don't, you look at, but you might find some intern or somebody that wants to just do it to, to learn, because that's the only way you learn by doing it. There's always other ways that sometimes you got to just think outside the box and do it. My, my thirteen-year-old, I was trying to get into some of the editing software because for those out there, I use DaVinci Resolve. It's from Blackmagic. That was the video switch that I use here. And it's magic. It's like Photoshop.

Like, I mean, you could spend your whole life learning that program, and then it also comes out, and there's new stuff that you didn't know. It's like magic. And, and, or, or, or CAD, right? If you're, AutoCAD or whatever, when you're doing designing and engineering, it's like magical, right? And, and, and so you, is it worth your time to learn all that stuff? But like you said, it's, it's always a good thing to learn some about it. Because if you can talk the lingo, if you can talk the language, if you understand some of the processes, then you're protecting yourself from getting scams. It's like a beautiful blonde walking into a car dealership saying, there's this squeak, squeak, squeak, knock, knock, knock noise in my car.

She, she might get taken over a little bit with some repairs that might not necessarily be needed or something if there's people that are working on commission or whatever. But if you come in there talking the talk, then they're like, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm not going to be able to scam this person. To just know when you're not being taken or like you said, just to put yourself... Have the process. Yeah. Fake it. Fake it, right? Fake it till you make it, baby. Yeah. That's great. This was good. This was fun. It's awesome. I, I, I love you, brother. It's, it's, it's so good. Well, this is like, this is cool. What you're doing is really inspiring. I like the conversations today, though.

We went down some good had some good topics and I, I'm glad you were able to talk more so about you, cause your story is really good and, and what you've overcome and what you continue to do. It works, man. And, and, and we didn't even, you know, we, we'll have you back too, cause there's still a million areas that just your, your growth and how you were raised and your faith and, you know, you mentioned on the other podcast that you're in church every morning and, and, and how we decide to, to give our time is, is valuable and, you know, obvious. Basically, you feel that that pays off in the long run or it gives you a better start to the morning. It's whether you're doing a cold plunge or whether you're doing a sauna or whether you're doing a workout in the morning or whether you're getting spiritually fit in church.

You know, there's, there's just processes that work better. Start your day. Start your day, even as far as starting your day without having this alarm that's like crazy, like you're waking up to a fire in your house. Yeah, yeah. Like we just have, we have this thing that just goes ding, and that's it. Like I'm up. Most of the time I'm up before that anyhow, but that's it. As long as you're getting to bed at a reasonable time. Just starting your day, like, you know, and that's why I love the, the morning mass. and then there's one day a week where I do in the mornings with a group of guys we, we do the rosary, pray the rosary. And that's really cool too. And that's, you know, it's just keeping grounded, keeping humble, you know. No one finding my center.

in, in, in worst case scenario, if you don't believe anything, put your car keys under your bed. And if you got to roll onto your knees to get your car keys in the morning, it's a start. There you go. And and, and, and let the growth go from there and, and try it, try it if it works. How I know you were talking, you, you had some publications, you had some, some articles. Is there anything else you got coming out? There, there is one coming out. What do you got going? Oh, I'm going to do a book. I've, I've been talking about it and, and I, so I, I put myself out there on this last article that talks about, cause I, I put a topic on and it says, but more information will come in my book. So I, I'm publicly putting it out there. Well, you just did it again. I did it again. So the book is coming. Get anywhere from 17 to 2.7 million views.

So you got a, you got, you, you got a commitment there. And we'll hold you to it. We'll have you back for the launch. You know, just some of those ideas just like the, the, The voice recognition stuff is coming so crazy along to where if, even if you're driving to a job site that takes you 25 or 30 minutes to get there, and you could just do a voice note. If you just, so you just take an action, you get your whiteboard, you write an outline to your book. And again, I can easily give you these instructions, and I could do the same damn thing myself, and I probably won't. Right, where's my ten books?

You just do an outline, and you can almost just talk one chapter a day, voice memo, and then it transcribes it, and then you copy and paste it into, into a Word document and try to do, it's going to take some time to edit, or you could send it off to an editor too on, on Fiverr or something that, that might be able to just put it in, put it in book format for you and do an ebook and, and you, there's no exc, I have no excuse. I have the, the information that I've been gathering for years of different, you know classes that I've Put together that I taught articles that I wrote that I have, like all this information is formulating. My book, I just, I, I have my ideas of the title and where I want to go, just got to put it all together. You got a whiteboard? I do have a whiteboard, yeah. So I have like three.

You know what I do too is I, I have like our office or at home we have a, a mirror. And just dry erase. Right on the mirror, like a, like a crazy math genius. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, On that. My wife, my wife does it, so I learned from her on that, and that's really cool. But, but like you said, that's almost like manifestation too, that you write that basic outline out, and then you look at it every couple of days, and then you make a little tweak, or you do a subcategory of, or, of the way you want to structure that chapter, and just talk about one at a time. You know, I love it. We're going to, we're going to look forward to seeing that coming out. You do social media, any outreach, and you, anything like that? You're not huge on it. LinkedIn, yeah, I'm not really, don't have the time for it yet.

I think if more, I'm learning more about LinkedIn and, and understanding the value of that, so I'm trying to put stuff on there, but I'm not very much into... Our last, our last guest, Dan Koss is pretty big in LinkedIn. He, he, he's got, I don't know, 17,000 followers or something on, on LinkedIn, which is incredible. So he's, he does plumbing, he does a lot of different trades. Obviously, there's always connections. We all know people that can help each other, but somehow we never even know. And I'd much rather, you know, hire your brother as an electrician than some stranger, even though he's going to charge me, you know, $2,500 to do three little things in my house. But at least I know he's going to do it to the best of... do it like it's his own house, and, and, and, and that's important too. So that's awesome.

So we'll, we'll, we'll do that. Yeah. I love it. Sounds great. I appreciate it. Thanks for your time and allowing me to be a part of this thing you got going, and let's see, man. I know you're really going to take it. No, we're just going to... You're all in. We're going to keep going, you know, and, and, and it is what it is. I'm glad we didn't disagree on anything, so we weren't able to flip sides. Yeah, we didn't flip too much. I know we could... I could have, I could have pushed some technicalities here and there, but we do, we do have a few gifts if you're interested. obviously, you get a, you get a Flipside Frolic Challenge coin. Oh, beautiful. That I'll give you the example you can hold. But it has the episode number etched on the bottle, so that's pretty cool. Get you half, get you whatever you want. Awesome seeing you, brother.

We'll catch you. All right, Carl. Love you, brother. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks for joining us at Flipside Frolic. We hope you enjoyed the conversation and maybe learned a little something about other people's perspectives. Don't forget to subscribe, share, and throw us a like on the video. Comment if you have any questions, and we'll see you on the next episode.