Episode 20 - Brandon & Amanda Wood: Global Entrepreneurs, Former 2 Sport Collegiate Athletes (Yes both of them), Stay at home parents and Great Friends!

Welcome back to the Extraordinary Excellence Podcast. We are so freaking excited that you're here. I'm going to be an awesome episode. These are some of my best friends, some of our favorite people on the planet, Brandon and Amanda Wood, former collegiate athletes, tremendous international company, financial stewards, ship living conservatively. They've built such a tremendous life and a beautiful future for their daughter and their family. We're just so excited for you to hear from them, learn from them. If you're in the Wisconsin area, if you know them personally, if you have a friend or acquaintance in our hearing this, or someone told you about this podcast, I would definitely do everything that you can to touch base with them or connect with them. Obviously not everyone will be, but I know that our community here and what we do is about connecting people that are looking for resources, guidance, mentorship, leadership. They're looking for opportunities or relationships or resources to further their life. Brandon and Amanda Wood are an excellent couple to do that with. So we are so excited to present this to you. Thank you all for your EOE merch orders. They are going out this week. Orders have been closed, but definitely keep your ear close to the ground for the next edition. Fall line coming out probably late September, maybe early mid-October, but look around because nobody knows, not even us. Here's your episode. Thanks guys for listening. Thanks for being part of our team. Oh, last thing, please, please, please. Tell your friends, tag us, share. If you get value and you think this is helpful, we are so thankful to provide this. We're so thankful to give all this out for free and take this time and edit it and and buy the equipment and do all the hosting. And I just want to ask you guys if you're getting value, sharing this, talking about this podcast, ask us for some free stickers, whatever we love to have your support. And we're thankful for your support, even if it's just you listening to this one episode. And we're thankful for you. God bless you. It is for real. Close after the close after the close. [Music] Extraordinary at the close. Extraordinary at the close. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Hey, I don't doubt any of your many skills. So, I don't know you. Well, here we are at episode number. Do we even know what number this is going to be? No, no. Episode number unknown of Extraordinary Excellence podcast, where becoming excellent involves doing ordinary things extra approximately. We're actually going to use that quote. We have to get that quote. It's a gym room. Gin. Gin. He's about to have a gin and tone. Gin and Rome. If we can get a gin and Rome, please. You guys want to, if you can look up that gym, Rome quote, that'd be awesome about doing excellent ordinary things extra. It's literally the name of the podcast pretty much. Yeah, and we can make that tagline so we can get some consistency here. But we have here unbelievable friends, unbelievable people. I'm going to give you their background because it is pretty illustrious. Amanda, I didn't even know this, but you're a two sport collegiate athlete. And you compete nationally as a sprinter in college with a 4.0 and two degrees at the same time in business and health and human performance. Obviously, I knew that you retired in your mid-20s. And from your multi-million dollar company that you guys built. And you left your job right before your 26th birthday. You speak to tens of thousands of people. Mother to 10 month old. Of course, I knew that. I know you guys speak on entrepreneurship value based living on annual basis. But that's serious. And then Brandon is also a two sport collegiate athlete. Football and track and field. All American sprinter in college. Master's degree in exercise science. Former semi-professional cyclist. What? I had no idea. I didn't know you trained elite level athletes for the NFL high level endurance athletes for Ironman. I have to do an Ironman. I put it in a book to get my stuff. I got three years left. So I'm going to need some help on that. I think we mentioned that once and then I forgot. Purposefully or subconsciously. But you guys are just so impressive. Left corporate America in your mid-20s early 30s. You have a multi-million dollar company. You're respected leaders in our industry. You're amazing human beings. Amazing friends. And we're just so excited to have you here. Thank you. Thank you. You're excited. Yeah. And we're excited to be a duo here for you guys too. So you can realize the first one. Yeah. You can see off the both of us. I'm okay with that. So yeah. That's awesome. We thought it would be an interesting fun dynamic to try out. You know, because we've been doing individuals. But in order to talk to the wood fan. Yeah. You guys speak together often. All the time. So we're like, this is the couple to try out a couple with. Because there at least no matter what's going to happen. We're going to be very content. And they know how to work together. And if we don't like it after that. We'll go back to singles. But this is a dynamic duo. So let's try this one. Yeah. So let's make it a break it right now. You guys are going to crush it anyway. So we're not worried about that part. Yeah, it was. Right. We took a poll. We had several hundred people ask what their number one question they wanted to ask you. They had to broke a thousand this morning. Yeah. And they asked if they said, which is a strange, but they said, if you were any flowering plant, what would you be? That was the number one question they want us to ask you. Oh. I'm sorry with that. I know. I know. I know. The man is like, are they serious? The man is saving the car. The car is his tool up. So it's a tool up for a man, for sure. Yeah. I guess. I think that would be a fruit tree. Fruit tree. I mean, I just like to eat. Oh, my gosh. I love it. I love it. We're going to have a lot of fun. But why don't we do. Why don't we start with? What would you start with? That's a really great question. I mean, I know you guys typically start with people's backgrounds and things like that. I think it's important to know where people are coming from. I think really it's more about, you know, values and kind of, you know, long term, what people are looking to accomplish in life, that people really want to know and kind of the strategies that they're using to get there. But I think if you don't understand where somebody's coming from, it's probably less relevant. You need the credibility behind the words. You know what I mean? Sure. Yeah. Sure. So let's do it. When he gives us a quick synopsis here. Sure. Do you want to start your own? Who are Brandon and Amanda Wood? Singular. Thank you. Yes. Too many people cause woods. I didn't understand your pain until I had a name that people would put an S at the end of. And then I said, "No, no, that's very, very different." Very, very different. Yeah, it's Tiger Woods fault. He's one that did it to us. Nicholas Sparks. Yeah. Yeah, he did it to you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we live in just outside of Madison, Wisconsin. I'm from Madison, originally. I'm an ass from Milwaukee. We met in college. We were both to Anthony's point to support collegiate athletes. We actually met in the ice bath in the athletic training room in college. That I knew. Yeah. I met you in the ice bath all night. Yeah. Just wasn't in college. Not in college. Yeah. Not the same kind of ice bath. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I woke up naked in a tub of ice. That's a scary movie too, if you're looking for the movie code. So. But. So. Yeah. So we met in ice bath, actually literally. Amanda Deer, me $5 to go into the water. And, you know, when you're in college, you do anything for five bucks. And so I did it. She liked it apparently. And also, I was probably just trying to show off because she was hot. And. Yeah. Good move. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Just showing her adventures. I am. I'm going to go all the way under. Yeah. So we. We started dating. Amanda was a freshman in college. I was a junior at the time. And. Yeah. The interesting thing about us is we really been teammates for, I mean, ever since we first started dating. We ran track together. Then Amanda was so fast that she actually trained with kind of like the. Lower level guys on us. Lower level. And then I went on to. To coach her. I was assistant strength and conditioning coordinator at our university for about a year and a half. So I coached her. And then obviously, you know, we started building a business together after that. But then do a lot of life shifts together, just starting off, you know, in college. You know, really being in a lot of debt, struggling to get by. Building, you know, a business that now has allowed us to create financial dependence and. And then we started to have an amazing daughter. So a lot of different phases of life together. And I think what's unique about us is initially we thought that we'd really be doing a lot of things with athletics. And one thing that we learned really early on is that when we were pursuing something that we really enjoyed. As a way to create income, we started to lose the enjoyment from it. And so we really kind of rallied against that and got out of that industry pretty quickly after college. You know, now we stay active and we work out for fun, but. Really just haven't had an interest in really diving back into that marketplace because we just wanted to keep it something that we were passionate about because we were passionate about it. Not because we were trying to make money from it. So sure. Yeah. I'm trying to get some background. Yeah, grew up in Milwaukee. It's kind of had like a wild road even to get to college. But originally was going to run division one track. The NCAA rules were different back then and I actually got injured right before I started college. And so I lost a scholarship and ended up kind of scrambling to figure out what my next move was going to look like. Honestly, considered the military considered, you know, not going to school wasn't really sure. And so I went from like having school paid for it and not. And so that was a really like interesting transition. Wanted to go somewhere just where I could play athletics academically. I was totally lost. I was really smart, but I was like totally lost what I wanted to do. And so we decided to or I actually then decided to. Kind of randomly go to school where I met Brandon and played basketball and ran track there. And honestly, I only played basketball for a year because I lost really my love for it really quickly. On and I just decided that I didn't want to do it anymore and decided then to pursue track and. And so I had a lot of ups and downs through school. I actually went to nationals the next year I couldn't compete because I had to pay my way through school. So a lot of my collegiate career was just a lot of hustle. And then you know, I was a little bit of a wild child before meeting Brandon a little bit of a loose cannon. I've heard that. Yeah, yeah. What does that mean? Yeah, well, I liked to party a lot. I like to do anything that was rebellious. Wasn't uncommon for me to go to like basketball practice high or show up randomly drunk somewhere. And honestly, what's your craziest story? What's your craziest story? Okay, so I'm going to share it. I got arrested in Vegas. Nice. How did you? How did the podcast skyrocket to number one right here? Yeah, so this like a lot of people may or may not know this story, but it was like actually before I started college and I was out there watching like a high level basketball tournament. Because I'm saying I had a lot of connections. Yeah, it was like an adidas invite tournament and I was out there watching it. And I would like I was just got crazy and this guy reached to reach my shoulder to grab me and I turned behind and I threw a punch at him and I ended up being an undercover cop. So I ended up getting shackled. I don't remember a thing because after that shackled I projectile vomited on a cop. And then the next thing I knew I ended up. The next thing I knew I ended up in like a really cold bathtub getting lectured by my friends to add like no idea what happened in between there. All I know is I didn't get a ticket. Thank God and that's wild. And there it is. You didn't go to jail for 30 days. That's why that is some outcome. Yeah, that is some outcome. That's a man. She's like never had a speeding ticket. No, I've literally in like three years had 13 warnings. Like who gets 30. Do they log the warnings because that's that's wonderful. Apparently not. I'd like 13 speeding warnings. Yeah. Like who does that? Yeah, I really left out in that regard. Fortunately, not to have a record. Yeah, love it. Love it. Okay, so anyway, crazy story, crazy background. So I'm glad we got into it. Yeah, awesome. So then you were I think that I I segwayed you off your story. You were you went to school. So you were trying to fair. I went to school. That's for Brandon. I met, you know, like I mentioned, competed collegially in the 400 action as a 400 runner. I graduated with degrees in health and human performance and business. And then I actually graduated college right before the recession in December 2007. So that was a really, really tough time to graduate. And that was really a turning point for me because I put out like 90 resumes coming out of school. And nobody was giving me a chance. And I was like, there is no way that I am going to live my life like this. Like, you know, trying to chase a job and chase a paycheck. And that was just not something I was excited about. Even in my first corporate job, I worked in human resources. I just didn't resonate with it. The politics of it all. The pay discrepancy of it all. It really resonated with me. So I think my whole life, I knew I would do something kind of out of the box. I just wasn't sure what exactly that would look like because I never have taken it like a conventional approach to anything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's yeah. Takes us up to today. And here we are. And here we are in your beautiful home. Yeah. And running a multimillion dollar company and changing lives. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. We've been extremely blessed. And one of the things that me and Amanda always make sure that we let people know is that it's not just because like we're amazing people or anything like that. We have a really great ability to remain consistent when we make decisions instead fast and the things that we do. But we've also had influence of incredible people in our life. And I like Arnold Schwarzenegger actually talks about this in one of his commencement speech is about how he hates being called self made that nobody's really self made it. Everybody has doors that are open for them. And that's that's been a fact in my and his life for sure. And we're really willing to walk through them and we've been able to we've been willing to put in a lot of hard work, but we've also had a lot of people that have guided us and helped us and really walked us through the right decisions as well. So, yes, we feel very fortunate. Very blessed. And yeah, it's awesome. It's a fun journey. And this is we feel like we're just getting started. Man, this is just the beginning. Yeah, we've always just kind of like been cutting edge like what's the next move next move like that's how Brandon I've always operated things I think we always talk about like being grateful but never satisfied and we've always lived our life like that like we always feel that we have something to learn. And I think that a lot of people can kind of get ego testicle in their journey and we've just like never been that way we've always been like very like very like childish faith and and just always looking to learn something new and looking for the next journey, the next adventure. And I think that's always it's always kept us in a in a realm where we never got like big headed on things at all and we always were well respected by people because we never thought that we were better than somebody else or knew more than someone else because we've had a like Brandon said a lot of doors open for us and statistically where I came from to you know where we are now that just wouldn't have been the case, you know. Sounds for sure. Yeah, that'd be a good thing to speak speaking from where you came from and speaking about people's belief or lack of belief of being able to change I think that's such a huge theme in people's self image and thinking that they're not worthy or they can't or because there's so many different labels of limitation you can put. There's an infinite number of things reasons why you can say you can't or you shouldn't or you you're not able to if you could speak to people that are in a spot where they want to do something great they want to do something different then they come from a place that that's not common I think that would be really helpful. Sure. Yeah, I mean, honestly the biggest battle over the last I would say 13 years now has really been the battle of myself I even had this issue in athletics like I I would. I would have to hide myself up and then defeat myself even before the race began and I think a lot of it was just what you said just like not feeling worthy or enough or having like self image issues that I've had to work through but I but I. I believe that if you have the right intention and if you have just like on dying faith and you just know your design for greatness like I feel like you can do anything and I think so many people just constantly like self defeat them themselves and also they don't take the time to actually work through those things because they tend to think like I'm the only person that has these issues and that's so on true. Like every single successful person I've ever met and it I've met some incredible athletes right I've met some incredible entrepreneurs I've I've met some really great people over the years and everybody's had to overcome the self they've had to work on it. And you know I think that there's always a stigma like seeing like seeing a counselor or a therapist like is a bad thing and I think it's so necessary to have people in your life that can see peripherally how you can improve because if it wasn't for those people in our life that we allow to kind of see directly that we couldn't we would never be where we're at today. And it's been a journey it's been a very very long journey of working on the self but I think if people aren't willing to like face what it is that they need to work on unfortunately it's very easy to get caught in just what what you think you're not capable of and brand and I were just so intentional about things we needed to do to just keep working on our self and becoming a better version of yourself every day. And I'll be I tell people all the time like I'm so human I'll be the first to admit it and I'm not perfect in any regard not the perfect parent you know not the perfect spouse but I've at least like worked on improving on a day to day basis and I think that's where people get caught up a lot it's so easy to just sit back in your comfort zone and be like oh I'm not good enough and you know I can't do this instead of just like working through what I'm doing. So I think working through whatever you need to work through and allowing people in your in your life to help you work through those things to actually accomplish what you want to accomplish because for most of us were where our biggest limited you know limiting factor honestly. So yeah I think the fact that you're listening to this podcast automatically should tell you that you have what you need to succeed because you just have you have abilities that other people in other countries don't have and I think one of the things that everybody has to be attuned to and be aware of is that there's people in the world that succeed that have way more restrictions and way more challenges than pretty much anybody that's ever going to listen to this podcast you know so. It may look different you know the challenges always look different and they're painted differently based on the person but there's some of it's overcome the things that you overcome in some way shape or form. I think that's always been something where me and Amanda recognize that look if if somebody else has overcome these challenges and they've succeeded in a big way and they've impacted people and created a legacy then why can't we do the same. So yeah with you who do you know to listen to when people are offering advice you know you talked about accepting advice that's such an important thing you know how do you know to trust who you should listen to. Yeah it's interesting I talk about this all the time when we speak but I read in a book like several months back and I think that this is the best way to sort of approach guidance and advice if you're not willing to trade places with that person. On that particular subject matter then you shouldn't be listening to them right and I think I always say that there's a lot of good intention out there that's package a lot of times and like friends and family. But you know and people and it's difficult sometimes because those individuals love you you know but they're not always in the spot that you want to be and this this was so important in my life because. I come from you know broken financial situations broken families you know there wasn't good examples of of marriages or taking care of your money or sturdying your money there wasn't any good examples of that and so I knew I needed to seek out individuals that were successful in those areas. Because if I continue to listen to people that were not obviously I wasn't going to make any changes and I think that's the the biggest thing is do people have results. Sure right yeah experience Trump's theory 100% of the time if I want to get fit if I want to become a better athlete I'm going to listen to somebody that's already been through that that's already succeeded in that arena not somebody that's just watch on TV and maybe even studied it. So this is your principle should apply in every other area of our life and we just recognize that a lot of people struggle with that emotional attachment piece because they think somebody loves them and they care about them that they should automatically listen to them. But that's not necessarily the case and I remember somebody that that has a really impacted us in a big way over our years in business particularly he asked me one time he said you know he said brand of your mom loves you right. He said yeah he goes well would you ever take football advice from her like well now that actually really he's like well why not I'm like because she doesn't know anything about football and he's like exactly so why you listening to people about finances and all these other things in your life they haven't created the results of your looking for. So true so true so often people they they lean on an emotional relationship somebody that they know and that they trust but they don't have the area of expertise. You know I don't know how good your intentions are you just can't teach somebody something you don't know you know. Yeah show me baby nothing. I know you're writing a lot over there. I got plenty I got plenty brand of man of wood plenty defining course correction defining moments in life. I know that we had we had you had mentioned some of those I think that's always a really important thing so took you talk about defining moment in life turning point. There's a few of them and probably a few of them for both of us especially since we've been through many different kind of stages in life together. So growing up my my parents have multiple divorces between them I grew up primarily with my mom my dad was around but primarily with my mom and one of the things that that happened to me initially before meeting a man. I was going to a smaller school in Iowa play football ran track down there got injured pulled two hamstrings when I was down there. And really just kind of had this like I don't know this this weird phase that I went through I was like all right like what the heck am I doing here like what am I trying to accomplish like what do I where do I want to go. I decided to take a semester off to transfer back to Wisconsin go to school there and then you know in going to school you know me and Amanda starting our relationship dating for an extended period of time and then I got into cycling when I graduated college I remember having this feeling when I got done with nationals and I've been running track at a national level since fourth grade. And so I got done I got my all American all that when I was a senior in college and then I remember sitting on the track after that race and thinking to myself like what the hell am I going to do now like this has been like like part of who I was and when your distance runner you can go out and run and do marathon so I said when you're sprinter like it's. You know like sprinting down the block you know to me like there's there's nothing for you really when you're done unless you're competing at a you know an Olympic level so I was really looking for anything to do my dad had picked up cycling as a way to quit smoking which actually worked for which was awesome and I started. Interesting trade yeah well he tried everything his thought process was he'd been smoking for like 40 years but his thought process was is that if he was on a Blake climate hills all day you wouldn't want to come home and have a cigarette so it worked fair yeah so I started riding with him and literally was like two weeks before I entered a race and then in about a year and a half span I went from category five which is like most amateur level to category two and ones and twos. I was competing against each other one is like Lance Armstrong basically so I raised against some guys that rode in the tour one guy's got third in the tour that I raised against like some pretty incredible athletes but it got to this point where I was having to make a decision whether I was going to sign with the team or not and what was happening is is I was spending so much time on the bike like 30 hours a week on the bike that it was creating this giant rift in our relationship and there is a period of time where I was. There's a period of time where me and Amanda actually split up for like a month or so I don't know yeah so we split up for a period of time just because I'm like you know I was kind of in my own world doing that she was finishing up school and I remember like just being on the bike one day by myself in the middle of nowhere like west of Madison and I remember thinking like what the hell am I doing here like I'm losing the person that I love most of my life because I'm riding a frickin bike. And so what I'm going to sign with the team I'm going to make 40 grand with no insurance and like ride all over the place like this seems ridiculous you know and looking back it's even more ridiculous now that because I was in the air when everybody was blood don't thing and everything like that like totally. It would have been it would have been insane to try to race against them I mean I did race against a lot of those guys need to crush me but I would have either had a partake in that or you know just get you know annihilated and you know that was a big turning point because I think that that was the point where I was like all right I'm ready to be done with like kind of these like chasing chasing random things you know to kind of distract myself and it's just like that. I'm going to talk to myself and it's time to like actually like identify like what I want and commit to the things that I want and you know me and I obviously work things out and it was shortly after that actually that really it was some random happenstance and being intentional with networking that we got connected up with people that really started to teach us how to be intelligent with our finances how to start businesses and put us on the path that run today. So I think that when we kind of you know when we're going through all these things we're kind of like lost you know you just feel like what am I doing what what am I supposed to do next. But it's funny how all those things kind of turn you you know in the right direction and guide you to where you're supposed to be I think so. Yeah no down I think it's a good choice I mean I don't know if anyone's ever slept with a bicycle in your bed it's not really as gratifying. No no no not at all. Good call Brandon. It was a fun part of my life and it was it was good I mean I I did actually pretty decent obviously in the time that I did it it was about a year and a half where I really accelerated pretty quickly and had some fun with it but it was also one of those things looks like okay this is good but this isn't what I'm meant to do you know totally we were talking about this if you've ever seen the movie free solo. I haven't seen that one yeah no it's it's pretty incredible it's very incredible actually it's nerve-wracking too but I remember having a irritate smell. Yeah the guy the guy is a unique person. Yeah you just have to check it out. Just to see how they look at the wall how he looks at the wall and like okay this is going to be here this is it I know that once I get to this angle where this part of the face I need to do this and yeah what yeah the strategy behind it is crazy it's yeah it's wild there's one point where he's like 2000 feet up and he has a thumb and one toe on the wall yeah it's just like this is insane I thought I was going to vomit like several times I was like I cannot do this yeah okay he's climbing things I'm trying to seek like I'm trying to figure out where are we I'm like we're 2000 feet up with a wall and like this person like painting things out of an aircraft okay got it now I'm with everybody it's happy time yeah he's the first person to solo free solo so no ropes anything all the way up it crazy yeah it's wild it's crazy his his perspective on life is pretty unique but it's you know hopefully this doesn't offend anybody and if it does whatever but me in a man I have this conversation afterwards that it seems weird to be defined in life for climbing rocks you know what I mean like like it just like I feel like we felt like there is there is so much more that we could do to impact people than to just be you know like by ourselves climbing a rock for example you know and that's just one example and I'm not trying to put him down what he does is amazing but at the same point in time I recognize for me that's kind of what cycling was it was just like yeah I'm on the bike I'm riding a bike like okay I'm there's got to be more than this you know what I mean so yeah no I'm with you I'm with you you had mentioned I think it'd be really good just in general you talked about having somebody direct you financially and I know just from our discussions the the fiscally conservative decisions you guys have made of put your family in such a strong place because you never lived outside of your means and you made such smart decisions if you could talk about any fundamentals along those lines I think that would be infinitely help why don't we ever discuss them in the podcast if I'm thinking yeah I'm definitely a brand and take the lead on this because I am not the fight I'm not the fiscally intelligent one like he gives me a budget and I spend it so that's how it worked but I will say this that if you're in a big deal you know it's not just being a couple and working together and anything in your life it's so important to be on the same page brand and I like literally talk through every decision that we make it might sound crazy but we we know where every dollar goes right it's it's really even challenging to buy each other like gifts because we know right we're like where do that go you know but I think it's so important that as a couple you're on the same page and you're able to talk through things and I think you know we I before I have brand and answer this is just something that like I think about all the time we have so many situations of people that we you know come across or network with or whatever and couples just are not on the same page totally at all and it's like you know he does her thing she does you know he does his thing yeah he does he does his thing she does her thing and you know they it's very like living to separate lives and we never lived like that we always integrated everything that we were doing and just communicated through and I think so many people really struggle with that and it's sort of like this idea of if I don't see it it doesn't exist when it comes to finances and so I think the most important thing that we did initially was we got really real with where we were actually at financially and then we had you know open conversations with people that we knew could help us and I think that that was probably the ground floor most important thing because even even when Brandon and I work with individuals or couples just even grassroots looking at finances initially a lot of people just aren't honest about it like they still like high little things and it's like man those little things are actually making a tremendous impact on your ability like project your finances forward so I just think from like a grassroots level you know being on the same page talking through things and being really honest with yourself you know so I don't know for having nothing to add that was pretty good yeah she does that she does that yeah yeah little things is huge I remember Ben Franklin quote I believe he talks about how beware of tiny expenses because even the small soul can sink a mighty ship right so so some perspective when me and a man graduated school we had about $80,000 with the debt coming out of school we lived in crappy apartment we had a roommate we're both let's see well you had a HR job that was you know pretty middle as far as what you made and works multiple jobs a lot of times when we had to yeah and I started out training athletes hind endurance athletes transition away from that just started working retail sales for a period of time so it's not like we were like crushing it in the you know I guess the corporate department as far as income goes but there's a few principles that that we learned to live by that have been very very critical for us the first one Anthony mess mess and is living below your means so we got really real with where we are at and as a man has said most people don't want to get real worth it where they're at because they just don't like how it makes them feel they don't want to log in and look at the bank account and see all the expenses leaving because it just it doesn't feel good you know so number one was was getting very intentional about where every dollar was was going and in living below our means making sure that we weren't over spending we had to you have to you know plug the drain before you can turn on the faucet so that was the first piece the next one was learning to build multiple streams of income the reality the situation is is we recognize our family would never be secure if it was solely dependent on our ability to perform to create income for the family and I think you know when people look at a job I think jobs are great people tend to think that I don't like jobs or something I think jobs are great but I'm also very real with what they are and what they'll provide and I think the great thing about him is is that their liquids you work into excited you get paid but the issue is is people confuse predictability with security and they think that's so true just because they've gotten you know a paycheck the last two weeks or last three years or every two weeks or last three years that it's just going to continue that way and they don't factor in all the things that can remove that from them and not even the company itself you could be on your way to work and get in a car accident and obviously you can't perform anymore and now your family isn't getting taken care of so we recognize creating multiple streams was 100% a must for us to not only just get out of debt but to actually start to secure us all as long term and the other thing that I find people make the mistake of with this is that when they think of multiple streams they're only thinking of things like a 401k or an IRA or whatever which those are great but the problem is they're not going to take care of you right now if something happens so it's building something in the immediate that you can start to leverage that will take care of your family if need be so for us you know we started out in that crappy apartment we let's see in two years we paid down all $80,000 with a debt during that time frame we built our first asset and that replaced Amanda's income from her job over the course of the next two years we banked her income and that's when she stepped out of a corporate career at 25. A few years later we had replaced my income as well I can remember my last year working the money that we were making from our assets was three times what my salary was so I was making three times what my salary was and then ended up stepping out of that with you know the right guidance and counsel and then from there it's just grown and it's accelerated and that's the beauty of building asset based income in your life but it all starts with first and foremost getting real with yourself plugging up the drain there was a two-year span where we did not eat out at all even our anniversary any of that stuff if it wasn't something that we could write off on our taxes like because it was a business purpose we were not doing it because we knew that every dollar was important and all those little $20 here or $10 there things make a big difference we looked at like non-essential expenses as basically like luxuries right and so our thought process was if we evolve this debt and we owe all of this money then why are we like you know purchasing luxury is there doing things that are luxuries and I think that that was a really good thought process for us because it was literally like two three years of just discipline that has totally changed our ability to live now you know and it's not like we're where we want to be yet for sure but it's definitely allowed us a lot of flexibility because as you know you can't put a price tag on raising your own kid no you can't so no you can yeah so many people they live they don't even live on a hundred percent income they live on like 105 percent you know opposed to opposed to paying off their debts and just putting them self in a strong position I mean you didn't even talked about you you know I think you had like the first house was like significantly paid off and you guys just put yourself in such a healthy position for your family you know even even the next step is then having so much money invested in save that if your asset disappears you have enough is it just preparing for all those things you wrote recently a blog on thriving not just surviving during a time of uncertainty which everyone should check out make sure that's in the notes of the podcast but can you talk about the current climate you know that same topic just enough finance you know not just financially to generally yeah absolutely you wrote that one so yeah you know for Brandon and I I think whenever there's seasons of uncertainty and like everything in life operates on cycles and that's where people get confused because I think like this is happening to me it's like no every everything operates on cycles it doesn't matter whether it's the economy whether it's business whether it's your life you're going to go through ebbs and flows right and so it's about how you respond to things and so Brandon and I just had this mentality and thought process that when whenever something happens that honestly is really out of our control we got to focus in on what we can control and make sure that the things that we can control are growing and so you know we just live a very like simple minded life in the sense that like there's certain things that we contribute into it's our faith or family our business and if it doesn't operate in those zones it doesn't it doesn't belong and so I think for Brandon and I like whenever something comes in our way or whenever we feel like you know opposition that's where we can like lean into contributing to these different buckets of our life and really focus in on growing them and and you know every smart business has to adjust has to adapt has to change and we understand that and a lot of people are so against change or they're so apprehensive when something happens and it's for us we like embrace it because you look at how many how many companies came out of 2008 2009 recession it's crazy and we use these companies every single day in our life but then yet it's like when we experience it suddenly our backs against the wall you know and it's and we just never had that mentality it was like you know there's there's always a benefit there's always an opportunity in opposition and so we just needed to figure out what that looked like for us and put a strategy in place to continue to grow you know grow through that and you know I think what you said was beautiful in the beginning because you talked about just in this pandemic how you could spend more time with family I mean that's been huge for us just being able to so season to our family so season to our health where a lot of people get so unfocused and they put time into things that just really don't matter Brandon and I have always been so intentional about where we like dropping our time into and if we are blessed with extra time we better make sure that it's going to give us a return right and so I think that that's been huge for us and we've been able to like retool and re innovate a lot of things in our life and it and when's life kind of picks up again and it gets busy we've already have these systems in place to help us be very intentional about what we're doing and I think you know whenever whenever hard times comic gives it's a great opportunity for reflection and it's a great opportunity to just retool everything that you're doing and I think because when life is busy and chaotic it's easy to just get stuck in this rhythm and not really take like an outwardly approach to it and look at okay what am I doing in my life that isn't working or isn't serving me well and how can I actually put you know different strategies and systems in place so that I can be more productive in those particular areas and I think that that's 100% what Brandon and I have done over the past several months is just like taking a back seat into our own life per se and look at like okay what can we retool where can we develop better systems and strategies and just get better at what we're doing and so that when things pick up and we're traveling more and you know speaking more and doing all of those things that we have these things already in place so it becomes very habitual to how we already operate no doubt anything to add Mr. Wood? I think the biggest thing is to to Manus Point is just understanding that there is always there's always some sort of advantage from any situation that you can pull out I find so true so you just have to see where that is I mean one of the things that we're really grateful for is that if we're going to be going through this at least we're going through it in an era where we have the technology to do all the things that we can do totally even if it was 10 years ago it would suck we wouldn't be able to do this like we are right now you know Skype was not equipped to do this sort of stuff you know so for us you know we're really grateful that we have the abilities that we have so now it's just time to be creative and figure out all right how do we leverage this for growth because some there's going to be businesses and ours included that's going to grow through what's happening right now and we just have to figure out how to best go about making it happen so yeah things change either lean in and you're ahead of the curve where you just continue to do things the same way and you're behind you know I mean anyone that says that things never change that you just need to copy someone else copy principles yeah but you should not be just copying what someone did forever otherwise we would be living without electricity or anything else in our life it's just I've never it's just it's such a strange way to think there need when there's a system you need to be coach you need to learn but to to not be looking to grow and prove and change is crazy but yeah I think Sean's got some good notes I saw him writing some stuff down he's got some good over there I was going to ask you guys because you know this is the first time that we've ever had a couple on the podcast together you know we've we've interviewed one half of the couple but I think it might be cool to hear both of your guys take on at one time on working together because you guys are you know you're married you're operating a successful business you're parenting but then you're also still friends and you still do the rest of your life together what are some tangible things for you guys if you can give it to the the extraordinary excellence listeners of tips of working together as a couple and you know because not always pretty it's super ugly especially the beginning of a relationship if you don't have that counseling what you're saying before Amanda I think it was you about the the stigma on counseling and there I was that person that would say I had a I had a guy that I grew up with say he was going to go see a therapist I said you're weak when I was twenty twenty one years old said you're an idiot and then all of a sudden you know if you years ago after meeting Anthony and getting connected to the resource I'm like I am that guy and it's so important because without the people that we've had with Anthony and Calon or 20 of Francis or Bill Hoffman I mean I wouldn't be the man that I need to be to operate anything in life with K so for you guys if you guys have some tangible stuff that you could possibly give out there that people could take away from this episode for couple yeah yeah yeah sure I got the goods over the yeah I got one good yeah you know I think what's what brand I know it's been really advantageous for Brandon I is to first start from the standpoint of it is not our responsibility to change each other in fact when we married each other we married each other it was not our responsibility to change each other the only person that I could ever work on is myself and becoming the best version of myself and then hopefully my growth would promote him to actually want to work on his self because you know as the leader of our household you know that that was my responsibility to just become the best version of myself and and to really like hone in and focus in on what do I need to be to be the best you know spouse business partner and now mom and allow him to go through his own journey of growth that's one piece and I think the other pieces you you nailed it on the head Sean is just like seeking guidance in the area like so many people think that they can just like muscle through it on their own there is so much accessibility in this world that at some point in your life you're going to get sidetracked in your relationship and it could be from numerous things right but because eventually a relationship becomes comfortable and anything that's comfortable you sort of lose intention you get complacent right and so I think for us it was just like being willing to seek outside guidance and then actually like following through on strategies that were recommended like so many people go through the the act of like seeking guidance but then they don't actually follow through on the strategies they don't actually have the tough conversations they don't actually like get real with themselves on what they need to work through and we've just been like really good at learning how to help keep each other on track without over correcting or counseling like I never wanted to be his counselor I wanted to be his wife and so I know that it's not my responsibility to counsel him but as a wife it is important for me to be able to help to keep our goals our vision on track so if I see a repetitive behavior that isn't serving our vision well then we have an open enough relationship that we can talk about those things and not be like offended and then give each other like you know the cold shoulder because you said something that offended me and I was like that's part of like having a healthy relationship and Brandon mentioned he started off like we started a relationship first like competing in athletics together and then he actually coached me and that's why I didn't know that part of the dynamic I didn't know you were the coach and I'm like super type A like no I was very caloric like very much so and so him coaching me was a challenge because I had to learn how to be a little bit more submissive and I was really challenging for me because I'm coming out of this stage of being really rebellious to having to be submissive to somebody that I'm in a relationship with yeah I I cost it in common so but at at uh but you know it was such like it was such an important point in our life because it allowed me to understand like in a partnership it's a partnership and that's where we'll totally get it wrong is like they think it's so one sided and it's true a partnership and so I don't know I just think that those were those are just so foundational and I think at the at the forefront of it all is having a really strong faith foundation yeah because I don't believe that a good marriage can like truly exist without a super solid faith foundation and something that both of you are like very intentionally working on yeah there's a few things that you mentioned that were almost like most people don't even have to start with which is a common vision yeah common foundation yeah you know so as a what you said as a wife if things are you know off the vision for the family that we need to talk most people don't even have that to start with yeah so that's a that's such an important even like a zero like before the beginning like a prequel to everything else that you said for sure yeah and I think that you know Amanda said that it isn't her job to change me invasive versa the other thing and this is one that I think a lot of people struggle with is it's not my job to make her happy invasive versa either you know no I shouldn't do things that you know automatically piss her off you know I just leave things dirty and all that either but at the same point in time she's in control of her emotions not me so yes I need to do the things that I should be doing as a husband to provide and to love her and all those things but at the same point in time she has to continue to work through her own things and you know in our belief is is have her vertical alignment correct so that she is feeling fulfilled and happy and everything that she's doing as well and the relationship should be an important component of that but it's not everything so you know I think that that's a really big piece and it's it's interesting to us how many times people think that oh it must be hard to run a business together and work together are they asked why would you ever want to do that like don't you get sick and each other in a sense it's like well I married her because I want to be around her like I don't really relate to that thought process I feel like you have some big gaps that you probably need to broach in your relationship to to overcome whatever's causing that feeling inside of you and I'll just you know I'll say this based on what you said Sean if if we didn't have people like Bill that had you know had had influence in our life we wouldn't have a daughter today yeah me for the longest time in you can probably gather just by things we talked about we are very like focused on on where we're going and the things that we want accomplished mission focus yeah and so much so that we were avoiding things that could kind of we what we perceive to detract from that and it was really because of those types of relationships in our life a critical conversation that we had with Tony one day as well where it really helped us gain a lot of clarity a marriage yeah I went to a you know a marriage course that are at our church that we go to here and it was really those things kind of kind of combined that really caused us to talk about some things that we had been avoiding but we you know today we're like oh my god I can't believe that we would potentially not have this beautiful little human in our life yeah for sure we're just avoiding talking about it you know so I believe having that outside perspective is critical and just like you see we talk what seeking professionals or people I can help you and finances are other things you got to seek people I can help you in your relationships too yeah people say doing life by like this is if it was like a business or even doing something that involves a lot of work you're like oh you're so lucky to have your spouse or you're so lucky to have somebody else with you and sometimes it's just as hard if not harder together but once you get that once you start to get on the foundation of what we just what you guys just talked about for the last few minutes things do get easier just because you learn how to work the problem together but it doesn't take away from what you need to accomplish so thank you I wanted something for the tandem couple on the cast that was really good cast it was yeah that was a good question yeah I'd say that was a pretty good for a nice yeah I think that people don't want to work together and the relationship is because it highlights our weaknesses yeah and it also highlights how much of a foundation there is because it's just hard yeah you know yeah oh man it's so much easier living in a vacuum you know yeah and that's awesome one of the things that Amanda really hit on I think that really hurts people is there there is so much accessibility today you know our grandparents who have to deal with their exes on Facebook and still being able to see them and all these different things and I can speak from a man side that a lot of the men that that we talk to I feel I find that they struggle because they're they're able to kind of seek you know attention in other ways outside of what would be a really tight net relationship at home and that could be from social media that could be from pornography it could be from a lot of different things but I think that those things yeah those things really really kind of detract from the core of what people are trying to accomplish in their relationships and you have to be aware of those things and sometimes it doesn't have to be as extreme as something like pornography but it could be just scrolling through Instagram and Facebook and seeing a lot of photos can be likes yeah yeah that's all yeah attention yeah so no doubt whenever you try to fulfill your needs in unhealthy ways it masks typically what you're supposed to be doing to begin with you know I mean and you could you could do it with food anything that you try to make is this temporary pleasure and try to cut away the long term damage it just it always catches us no way no every single time Sean you said you had good so it seemed like you had one more thing over there it was it was the good question that was the good you have questions I said I have one good I have one good question I have one bag of rice one bag of rice yes let's talk about biggest failures some of your biggest failures that you've learned from yeah you want to start okay it's funny because I was talking Amanda when we were talking about failures I was talking Amanda that this is probably one that I struggle with not because I don't feel like I fail I feel a lot but I think that in my life I've learned to develop a willingness to fail so because of it I've been willing to to kind of work through things and I realize that I learn through those things quite a bit and I think a lot of people just kind of avoid it because it's uncomfortable and doesn't feel good I think that probably the biggest thing that impacted me in my life in regards to kind of our relationship and all that was when we split up and I think that that was something that really kind of rocked me because I had already been at a point in my life where I decided that I wasn't going to just do like mindless dating or anything like that you know I was like if I'm not working towards like ultimately finding my partner like why am I going through this and I felt like even though me and Amanda you know would have kind of small riffs or whatever like any relationship would that she was the one that I was supposed to be going through this journey with and I remember that that I had really messed up in allowing that to and obviously relationships are both sides I felt like I played a major role in the reason as to why we were split up and it was because I was pursuing something in cycling at the time that was I was seeing as pretty selfish it was something where I was just like I was getting attention for it I was doing good at it but it wasn't an ultimate calling for me and it was something that was just more of a distraction and I think that it was really the kind of that moment and then I remember going back down to school where she was at and you know I had to like get some stuff that I had left with her and then all of a sudden it just forced us to have a conversation and I remember you know really on my way down there to go pick up that stuff and which you know I end up having that conversation that I really just kind of evaluate like what am I trying to do here like this is the person that you are supposed to be with like you idiot like stop messing around and figure out the path you need to take you know what I mean so I think that that was probably the biggest thing there's been a lot of other failures along the way a lot of things that you know we messed up but that was the thing that I think would have been probably the most life altering if it wouldn't have corrected it you know so totally yeah it's actually interesting that he talks about that because I remember very early on in our relationship we used to take a lot of road trips because obviously we couldn't afford when he was cycling to fly places so we literally like drive everywhere so yeah we drove all over the country just road trip in it in our crappy cars right yeah map plus directions but it was like a really great yeah but it was like a really great time for us because it allowed us to have a lot of like really quality conversations and I think a lot of people don't take the time they actually have but I remember I when I met Brennan I had so much emotional immaturity well I was just immature period but there's a lot of emotional immaturity and I remember on a drive asking them I was like is there anything that you regret in your life because I have a lot of regrets and Brandon's like no I have none and I'm like who is this guy what did I get wrong with him he's like I don't have any regrets he's like everything that I you know feel that has been a lesson for me and I was like wow I have a lot of room I have a lot of things like I regret doing you know it's my credo yeah no regrets but I'm even a single letter yeah not not a single one okay but I think I think the biggest the biggest kind of shifting points in my life was you know I I did this whole like academic track and you know I did everything people told me I was supposed to do I got amazing grades I like anything I touched like I'm the type of person that if if somebody was like oh you should come play badminton and I suck at it like the first time I'm like I'm done like never touching badminton that's why I don't golf because I suck at it and so because it's like if I'm sort of this person where if I'm supposed to be good at it then naturally I should be semi decent the first time I try it and that's how I've been like my entire life but I went through school and I did all these things right I was like really involved and all this stuff and then I get to a point where I graduate into a recession I'm like oh shit like I don't you know I don't know what this is going to look like and you know I don't have to fall back on my parents that wasn't an option for me so I was like sink or swim time for for us and so I think that that was probably one of the best times to graduate college because it really like lit a fire under my butt that I needed to like do something and so many times throughout my life I would always I always told people like yeah I'm not going to do what everyone else does like I'm going to do something totally non-conventional like you know I I like to go against the masses and I always used to say that growing up because I could never resonate with just like sitting at a desk and learning and like I could never just resonate with that but I never really followed through on anything like I had ideas but I didn't have any follow through on stuff and so I think that piece was so incremental for me just to help me really start to understand like I need to make some changes and if I'm going to make moves and do something different and start to pursue the path of entrepreneurship like I got to do it and I think even though we had met our mentors prior to that point it was like the point where I stopped like playing playing with what I had my hands on and actually started doing something so I think that was a big turning point I mean there's been so many turning points in our life but I think that was huge for me because even now I think a lot of young people are you know maybe in a point in their life where they're kind of transitional and obviously we're in an economic state that's very unique and I think for a lot of people it's a time to make an decision like to stop toying with whatever you know like toying with things in your life and not like directionally like hard stop pivot make a decision make some moves because I know that I really had to like have that like hard pivot in order to really make a decision that what I was doing wasn't working or wasn't directly what I wanted to do in my life. Can I just go back to you guys saying map quest because I don't think 75% of the people that are listening probably don't know what map quest is or ever had to use it. Yeah you're dating us now yeah there's this thing back in the day where you'd actually go to a website and type in your starting point and your endpoint and then you print out a direction. Once you left your home there was no way to know there was no way no way that was advanced by the way that was I didn't have to look at a map you know yeah I was thinking as you were saying that how it was advanced but it was less helpful than a map because God forbid you missed one direction now you know map and you don't know where you are. That is true that is true we ended up in some crazy we ended up in some crazy spots and you know cell phones I mean we live in Wisconsin so there's a lot of rural areas like outside of the city is so there'll be times where we had like no service nothing like botched directions and we're like asking random small town gas station clerks like where do we get? Where am I yeah you ever listen to the dang cooks up like do you listen ever listen to dang cook or no. He is and I've heard some of his stuff he talks is regularly so I mean he's I don't know what he's doing now but he Brandon it doesn't fall in the buckets show. No it doesn't fall in the bucket. You know listen and dang cook. No but hey this is might have been before this map quest time but he talks about landmarks and how like people say yeah you gotta go past the red house with the blue or one shingle it's like that's not helpful. That's how net that's how Netflix that's how map quest was for us back in the day if you missed one of those turns. That's how I give directions because I never remember street names it's always landmarks. Oh man alright like you're yeah you were that guy. That's the guy. Yeah it's annoying because we give directions very differently. I have no idea what you just told me. I grew up in Madison and she knows more street names than I do it's ridiculous. Hop the railroad tracks. Third door on your right is going to be blue the one across the street will be red. Once you hit that point you're about three quarters of a mile before you have to make your next right turn with the left and the S turn. The worst is when people give you like you know it's the northeast corner and I'm always like. What is that you mean where's the sun? Any any version of directions I can't follow that part of my brain's missing. You give me you give me north southeast west you give me road names you give me landmarks two steps in I've lost you. I'm just listening because you won't stop talking. Did you get that oh definitely as soon as I got nothing nothing goes in that's there. I got a tremendous one at ADD which doesn't help but yeah. That's awesome. Oh you put him on. No I he put it on I said that's Darian. Oh Darian here he is. Darian tells me he goes if there's a fork in the road there's like like a 90% chance I'm going to take the wrong wrong fork. And I only have a 50 for it's a 50 50 90% time I take the wrong turn we're driving to this place. He says are we going to go right I go right map we're supposed to go left like 25 minutes after that. I'm just surprised when people know what direction they're facing like they're like oh yeah we're going north I'm like how do you know that are you a homing pigeon like how do you have a sense of that I don't. Growing up I just don't have it my brother Corey who's like 10 years younger he has an excellent sense of direction. Yes he does and he's 10 years younger but it would be like he'd be like five no he'd be because I'd be driving so you'd be eight I'd be 18 I'd be driving calendar remember this and you'd be like you have to go this way he's like eight and I'm like no you don't. And he would always be where I was like why does no one listen to me like you would always know I was so bad and he was so much better at it. That's 40. We're off the map quest. I think it was good. No that's good. That's it now because I'll keep going. Yeah yeah. I took a page at a shawns book Brandon ask Amanda question and Amanda asked Brandon a question that's a page of my book. Yeah because you said work together the marriage so now Brandon I want you to ask Amanda a question what questions should we ask Amanda and then Amanda asked Brandon. Oh man. No it does hijack your relationship for the good of the podcast. You want you want it to be a relationship based question or no anything in the world you have one question. What's the most important question you think to what Ed value? No one would know better than you. Okay. So one thing that you are incredible at and I'm for those listening and asking you man this question. One thing that Amanda is incredible at is self discipline consistency scheduling. She's on that runs our calendar in our household and you're regardless of how she feels. She gets up at the same time does the same thing every single morning and in a big testament to the success we've been able to create. So that's what her ability to stay just completely steady and consistent. You're regardless of the day of the week or if it's a holiday if it's this if it's that if she was up late whatever. Maybe if you sweetheart could just maybe talk about. I guess your thought process behind that how did you develop that or if it's something that you feel is like God given then how can other people. Those types of habits because I think a lot of people one thing we've observed is most people struggle with consistency. They like to do things that are exciting at first and then all of a sudden it gets mundane and boring and then they don't want to do it anymore. But they don't understand that it's those mundane things that create the big results. Yeah. I think I've been blessed with a temperament that is very advantageous. What is your temperament? So what's category? Yeah. So in all. Yeah. Okay. So in inclusion I am saying St. Gwynn Compulsive. That makes sense. Yeah. In control I'm caloric. And then in a faction I am a flagmatic supine. Which is interesting because I'm sanguine compulsive in affection. So it's like absent. My love language is definitely physical touch. So what is your vision in control of your melancholy? I'm melancholy in inclusion. You're absolutely right. And then I'm sorry in control. And then in inclusion I'm flagmatic supine actually. Flagmatic supine. So it's caling. Yeah. Well thank you for giving us your temperaments. And a deeper look into those that know what temperaments are. I can't imagine a man of wood. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway. Yeah. So my temperaments advantageous to just developing routines in your life in general. But my dad was very much like a no BS kind of guy. And there was time. Like I kid you not in fifth grade. I had a bad basketball game. He's lecturing me on the way home about my play and my attitude and all these things. And I mouted off to him. And he literally had me get out of the car and frickin winter and walk home. Winter in you were in Milwaukee. Yes. So it's like no joke. That's no joke winter. That's not New York winter. That is a serious winter. There's no freezing cold. It was like January, February. And he was like, I hope you make it home alive. I hope you make it home alive. He is just like a no BS guy. And like it's funny because I was never the best student, never the best athlete. But I worked incredibly hard. Like I'm not the best entrepreneur. I worked incredibly hard at everything. And I just really learned how to like leverage my strengths. And I don't get like caught up on things I suck at. Like I'm not. He's totally like, you know, logical, methodical spreadsheets. This and that like, I don't resonate with that. That like totally makes no sense to me. If you ask me to paint a picture, I could probably do that. But like spreadsheets, like you've lost me at Excel. You know, like I'm. So I just have learned until like leverage what I am good at. And I'm really good at at just scheduling. I'm really good at staying organized. I'm really good at just like disciplining myself. So I know I'm good at those things. And so I that's the way that I operate. And then I've just now I've created such a habit in my life of like having really good morning. And evening routines. So that I set myself up for success. Because if I, if like I realize this, if I have a bad morning, the whole household is going to suffer. Like the whole household is going to suffer five of bad morning. So I know that I like it's on me in terms of like getting, getting things going in the morning. So I don't know. Yeah, I pre-plan everything the night before because I don't want to wake up in the morning and feel like ill prepared for the day. So I don't know that I think that's that's probably a lot of it's a Nate, but I've just totally learned how to operate in my strength zone. And I've learned how to have some grace with myself because I am a perfectionist. And I've let perfectionism like totally screw my life up. Because I've gotten in comparison games and I've developed like anxiety from, you know, from just being a hyper perfectionist. And I just really learned how to control that piece of things and just give myself grace and just like drum to my own beat and everything. Even with parenting, like everyone wants to give you advice and they always have things to say, like, I run my own race with parenting and I'll seek help with people I trust. But like I run my own race and that and like every kid is different. So I'm a different person. So I just think that just operating in your strength zone is so important. So yeah. What's your question for Brandon? Yeah. So one of the things I respect about Brandon the most, but is Ultra annoying to me is he's super emotionally stable, like annoyingly, emotionally stable. I try to raz him and it doesn't work. Like I try to piss him off sometimes and it literally doesn't work. You said raz, I thought you're blowing on his belly. No, that's what we call it. That's raspberry. No, I try, I try to work him up. It doesn't work. And so how have you just maintained such a high level of emotional stability? Even when there's been like crazy stuff going on in our life. And how can a man to crack it for her? There's a few things that will get me razzed up, but usually it takes a little bit. But in a special year tired and hungry, that usually kind of pushes it a little bit more for sure. But emotional stability is so critical I find and most people really stink at it. And I feel like it's something that I'm always trying to improve upon. But it originates, I think, from just gaining perspective. It's funny. My dad was visiting us. I spent about 10 days with us earlier in the month. And he was driving and somebody caught him off and he's like, oh, I wanted to catch this guy. Pull my car and he's like, you know, I'll work it up about it. Is he from New York? Yeah, right. He should be. But no, he's not. But the thing that I remember thinking when he's telling me the story about all this is, is that, and I told him that I said, you have no idea what that person was going through. Maybe they're rushing to the hospital. Like, you know, like, it doesn't, it doesn't justify what they did, what they did was wrong. But also you got a game perspective because I'm sure that there's things that you've done in your life, that in your mind were justified and other people had no idea what your, what your reasoning was for doing, what you're doing. And I think a lot of what I've been able to, I just, I guess, game perspective on is that I have certain standards and things that I want to pull for myself and for our household and different things like that. But I also can impose my standards on other people. I can lay expectations of, you know, if I'm going to be investing my time with people on what I expect from them, and different things like that. But at the same point in time, I realize that everybody has to run their own race. And I don't know where they're all coming from. And I need to be able to have grace and understand that, you know, particularly when dealing with other people that they're going to have a lot of different baggage and things that they're dealing with in their own life as well. So I think a lot of emotional stability just comes from that, that perspective of just understanding that component when dealing with other people. And then with just life in general, I've always just had a confidence that we will figure things out and we will make things happen. And in one way, like some way shape or form, like we're going to win no matter what. And I have never related to people that are continually self-defeating. I understand why some of those things happen, but I don't understand why people would want to sit in it and not work through it. Because I believe that everybody is so much more powerful than they think they are. And they can accomplish so much more than they probably think they can and they're limiting themselves in so many ways. And I'm talking to myself even in this. So I'm constantly trying to come from a perspective of I'm going to win and I'm going to figure it out and whatever challenges arise. Like we'll just be dynamic and we'll work through it. And it's proven to be successful up until this point in our life. We've been very blessed with the relationships and the things that have come in our life from just kind of approaching life, I think, with that type of mentality. I love it. Yeah. Oh, I got nothing right this second. I mean, I mean, I mean, oh, he's taking it home. No, I just I don't want to. That's why I post every song. The Nana's. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting when songs get sang in a song. Yeah. I make up lyrics constant. I'm going to say I don't. I just confidently say the wrong things and I'm always surprised at how wrong I am. I feel like it's so right. I know that's how I am. Like that was totally what the words were. No, yeah, weird. I have a weird memory. Mandela effect. Yeah. I have a weird memory where like I see things and hear things that I can almost say in verbatim. So a man, it gets really irritated when that happens. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah, I don't know where it comes from. It's just part of the recite the speech that was done at your graduation. Yeah, I don't know that. It has to be interesting. That would be awesome. It's interesting. It's interesting to you and whatnot. I guess before we wrap it up here, just really quick because you put on your tips and tips and tricks and hopes and something on there. The brainstorm list. You put being intentional with what you're putting into your mind. So it's a very, it's, you guys are very, we know this that you're very intentional with your personal development and you have a plan. What does that look like for somebody that's listening now? What are some of the things that they could use if they don't have a personal development plan to start to begin down that path of putting the right content in their dome? And you know, any other tips that you have for that? Yeah. One thing, I think me and Anthony have actually talked about those in the past too, is that one thing that I think a lot of people make a mistake on is that they have a lot of neutrals in their life. You know, it's not that I think people know that they should avoid certain negatives. And a lot of times people are actually pretty good at avoiding those negatives, but they fill their time with so many neutrals. And they're not intentional at all with what's getting programmed into their head that it's really screwing with the path that they're looking to go on. And what me and I have, I think, done a decent job at is making sure that we're filling our mind intentionally with positives every single day. That's positive books, positive audios, like story actions podcast. And thank you. Thank you very much. I'm really excited to have a quick plug and positive association. And those are three things that we are very intentional with literally every single day. And after that, if we want to put in some neutrals and you know, watch Hamilton on Disney plows or whatever it is, like we'll do that. But the interesting thing is is that what we found is that when we're engaging in more of those neutral activities, it's actually more enjoyable for us because we've kicked butt in another area of our life already. So true. And I think so many people are just distracted by those neutrals and they get to the end of the day and it's just like I'm exhausted and they all of a sudden lost what could have been really intentional growth time for them. Yeah. Yeah. Because I remember you guys, you know, you have your, you guys have a set of habits that you call them your core habits that you do. And you do them before I think it's new. I don't know about now with baby girl 10 months. If it's a say, I figured it was with you guys. But you get you get that done before noon so that you can enjoy those neutrals or enjoy whatever it is. I mean, and I mean, even though you guys happen to be financially independent of being stayed home parents, you still did that before you even had a daughter before you guys were even in that position. So, um, I mean, do you have anything to add on that click and I jumped in after Brandon was done. No, yeah, I just think I think the biggest thing for us is what you just said is just making sure that you have a core construct of habits that you have. And that we talk a lot about keystone habits too is like attaching other habits to habits, right? Yeah, not keystone like guys get your head out of the gutter. That's cheap beer. We're talking about keystone habits. Yeah, but that that piece is so it is so critical is just, you know, attaching habits to habits and a long time ago, like I have a, I have a hard time focusing in. And so I needed to figure out something that was going to work for me when it came down to reading. And so I started, I got an elliptical and I literally started reading on the elliptical and like the rhythm of the elliptical actually helped with my retention of reading. Oh, that's cool. And so now it's just become a habit where it's just like it's like a rhythmic thing in terms of reading for me. And yeah, I don't know like it's just like when we do things that are sort of like mindless activities in our house, whether it's getting ready or whether it's like doing things around the house. And we have audios and things playing in the background and, you know, and we play things like that around our daughter because even though she's 10 months old subconsciously, those things make a big impact, you know, so I think that that's probably one of the biggest things is just, you know, for me as a, as a mom and as a business owner. And I've got a dead space. So when I do have dead space or I do have time that I can maybe spend on like more entertainment based things I want to like make it worth my time. Yeah, you know, because it's just it's so it's so limited when you're focused in on health and your family and your business. It's like well, then how do you actually have time for all these other things? It's true. You know, so yeah, yeah, I think he's so light is a beer. I found out it's a very cheap beer. If you were to buy a 30 rack in the middle of it, it had keystone light, but with a cool quote and people used to put those up all over their rooms. Oh, I had no idea. I had a lot of friends that did that and they might have drank a lot of keystone back in the day. I got context at the end, but I thought you were going to talk about like a pipeline. I'm like, when you talk about the keystone pipeline for I was a bit lost there. Uh, fun fact, the only people I know that use the word irregardless, which by definition is the same as regardless is you guys and the waylands. So anytime anyone just see you guys know in the Luke or the sport household, anytime anyone says regardless, we know irregardless. Yeah, we always cite you guys. Yeah. Maybe it's a northern thing. I don't know. Yeah. Well, they also say conversate and I'm like making up words. I love it. I hate that word. No, no, no, Anthony was beyond committed and furious that conversate was not a word for a season of time. Well, I looked it up and then he looked it up. He's like, I know it converts you convert. You don't conversate, but then everyone's I'm like, what the hell? It's interesting this year, just kind of the way that people pronounce things or words that are prominent in different parts of the country. You know, it's always it's always fun. I remember we have a hold a conversation around knowledge bricks back in the day. You said you put me on that for like two years. Totally. It embraced. It is. There's a lot of wood isms. Yes. I don't think that that we really create them. I think that it's just kind of a convolution of everything that we've we've taken in over the years and it's probably regurgitated from somebody else at some point. It just kind of gets messed up in there and comes out as far as I'm concerned you said it first. Yeah, it does matter. Thanks. They're brand of demand to set it first. What isms? Well, thanks so much for being here. I had such a great time. Yeah, you guys are awesome. We appreciate you guys. Appreciate you. You guys are such amazing people amazing friends. It's amazing to be in business together with you and have an association with you and it's just such a blessing. And we're so excited to be able to do so much charity work and get together with our kids and just going to be so great. So I love you guys. I'll be excited when we have kids to get around with all our kids too. Leave me out here. Oh, that's all right. Well, I think that's it. That ends extraordinary excellence podcast. Which hold on episode number episode number. Edit with a edit later. Edit later. Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. Success is not pursued. It is to be attracted by the person you become. Success is not so much what you have as it is what we are. That's the new thing. I still like ours better. Okay. That's not the long one. That's not a tagline. That's a mission statement. It was just a first sentence. Oh, the hearing. Our research be not going to be expounded. Thank you so much. We appreciate your time. We love you guys so much. We can't wait to see you. Thank you. Thank you for not worrying about where Brandon is. Yes. Oh my God. Wow. Wow. That's a long time. You have to get away at the end to hear that part. For sure. So I feel that we perfect right there. Like that's like the gym. Yeah. At the very, very, very end. That's what they're listening to right now. Oh, we're still going. - Yes, we are. - Oh! - All right, let me guys, bye.