Embracing Resilience and Authenticity with Rachel Marie Martin
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You know, once you get a taste of freedom or my own self coming back to life, I was like, I am not going back to that. But that's not to say it wasn't easy. I'd have moments where I'm like, am I? I mean, I would question, like, am I crazy in my head to do this? Like, what is wrong with me? Because but now I'm like, oh, my gosh, that woman, she had so much courage. Oh, my God.

And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm Jon Gafford, and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the drift, and it's time to start right now. Back again, back again with another episode of Escaping the Drift, the podcast that gets you like the opening says, man, from where you are to where you want to be. And today...

You know, you can have a lot of success. You can have good health. You can have a lot of things. But if you're not finding personal joy in life, what are you doing, dude? Like, why are you doing all this stuff? We all hit ruts in the road where sometimes, man, you just got to make a change. You got to make a pivot. You got to get back on track to finding that level of personal joy. And I got somebody in studio today that is going to help us find that.

She's going to help you find it. She can help me find it. She can help us do something. I don't know. She is the founder of the blog Finding Joy. She is the author of a bunch of books, Mom Enough, The Brave Art of Motherhood, the soon-to-be release Get Your Spark Back and How to Find Happiness and Reignite Your Life. She is the founding partner of Audience Industries. She is just a rock star all the way around. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the studio here.

is Rachel Marie Martin. Rachel. I'm here. I'm here. I'm ready. I know you're here. I'm ready. I fired myself up. I hope I fired you up a little bit from that as well. So a little bit of background about you. So if you, all of those things that I said in the opening really describe you, but if you had to give yourself one sentence, give me the elevator pitch about what you do. Somebody's like, what do you do? Oh, what do I do? Well, I'm going to tell you in one, probably a couple of words. I'm a decider. I make a decision and I go with it and I'm confident about it.

And you think most people don't, obviously, if you're prefacing that, you think that's a problem that a lot of people see that. Yeah, I had someone say it to me once. They're like, you know what you do? You make a decision and you go with it. And I thought, really? I'm a decision maker? And then they said, let's look at the last 10 years of your life. And they're like, you make one decision after another decision and you keep yourself moving. And it was like the most insightful thing someone had said to me. And I was really proud of being known as someone that makes a decision because I thought I wasn't. But

But here I was making all these choices. So it's just, it's definitive with you. Somebody put something out, there's an answer and then that's it. Yes or no? Yeah. I actually will just, I'll go after it even if I don't know the solution to it. I don't know the end result. I'll just move forward. I would rather be moving than doing nothing. And stagnant. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. All right. So tell me about the background. Obviously, I know you grew up in Minneapolis. That's where you're from. I did. I grew up in Minneapolis. What did the folks do?

- My dad was an engineer. My mom, I call her a rule breaker. She was a trendsetter. She worked downtown Minneapolis in reinsurance. So my mom was one of those work at home moms in the 80s with the big shoulder pads, feathered hair. - Why don't I just have Mary Tyler Moore just jump into my head?

- Yes. - Literally. - Yeah, I know where that statue is. - There you go, okay. - She did that. So my parents taught me good work ethic. They taught me don't limit yourself. And I grew up learning to love tech. That was the cool part for me too. My dad bought a computer, Texas Instrument Computer before Best Buy. And he's like, and then handed me a book on how to code. And so I...

I learned from a very young age not to be intimidated by progress, but to kind of adapt to it and learn, figure it out. What's next? What year was it? What year are we talking about? I think my dad got that computer 83 or 84. Yeah, I'm dating myself right now. No, dude. Like, I am just letting you know. You can do better.

I had the Commodore 64. I had the green Tandy computer in a classroom as a kid. I had all this stuff. I remember the joy of watching your name scroll diagonally across the screen. Yeah, I used to code. And if you made a mistake, all the text would go backwards and take a while. Yes, but that would never make sense. Yeah. As a kid, so I'm guessing with those parents, you were always a good student. That was never an issue for you? Always a good student? I was a good student.

What about the entrepreneurial side of you? What was the first hustle you had to make money? You know what? It didn't happen until I was ending a really bad marriage. And I was like, I have got to get out of this. I got to figure it out. And so I kind of tapped into this younger part of myself that didn't really realize she was an entrepreneur. Like growing up, I kind of thought,

I had to stay in the box of, you know, get a good job, get married, go to school, all of that stuff. But I always pushed against it. I never felt like I quite fit in, even though my family was like, you know, you're great. You're great. We love you just the way you are. But I was, I was like, I feel like I'm not quite like everybody else. And I think it was that entrepreneurial part of me. Is that what you did? Did you go to school? Did you get a degree? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. So what happened? Well, my backstory is it's a little rough one. I, I went to college.

almost graduated from college but got married and then kind of pivoted in that life role of okay I'm gonna I'm gonna have start a family have kids and there was a moment in that journey where I could see that entrepreneurial part of myself I had had two kids I was working at Pier 1 Imports doing merchandising and I ended up creating my own job within the company they're like well I don't know we've never had this position and when I look back I'm like you know what

that was that like looking outside of the box is what an entrepreneur has to do is they're always looking while that system's not working how do we change it yeah and so I had that

But then I, truthfully, I got mired in having kids, which wasn't bad, but in a marriage that wasn't helpful or healthy for me where I was, instead of being able to flourish, I just ended up adopting, got smaller and smaller until one day I was like, you know, going with the drift thing. I wasn't even drifting. I was drowning. Oh, wow. And I was like, I have got to change my life. Wow.

Let's talk about that a little bit because I think so many people suffer from relationships, jobs, situations, all of those things where they don't realize that A, they're stuck on a hamster wheel and B, they're losing some sense of themselves. Right.

what were some things that you started to feel or see in your own life that you really kind of said, man, this is, I'm slipping here. Yeah. When the phrase it is what it is became the mantra that that was a real telling thing. I mean, you can use that, but when it was like, eh, I don't care. It is what it is. Nothing's ever going to change. Like I started hearing that and I didn't want that echoed onto my kids. I didn't want them to be like saying that's what's acceptable and

And I didn't want them to all of a sudden be like, mom, she was a really good mom, but she was never happy. And I could feel myself sinking. And I knew there's no other decision I have got to change my life. Did you know that other people would describe you as unhappy in that time? Absolutely not. If someone was to look at me from the outside, I think they would have said,

wow, she's got it all together. She's managing all these kids. She's taking care of it, but it was a facade. And I always tell people like well before COVID in my first book, I wrote about taking off the mask before masks became a controversial thing. But I talked about taking them off because I was spending so much time holding up the illusion that everything was great

But then when you're holding up the external illusion and the internal parts of mess, you can't fix it. I was spending more time making people think everything was great than the time to actually change things. Yeah, I think that's something that everybody struggles with, especially. I think, you know, I talk about it on here a lot.

Which is you get so concerned with what everybody else is thinking. And really, I go back to the same stuff I tell my like high school age kids. I'm like, don't worry about what everybody else is thinking because they're not thinking about you at all. Right. They're just not. And we spend that same advice you would give a 14 year old kid who feels not enough because she doesn't have something her friends have, you know, is the same thing you should give a 40 year old man that's running around scrambling trying to keep up with the Joneses and keep that facade on. Right. But I think

And I think we get pushed into, like the world tells us, go to school, do all these things. And in the last five years since COVID, I think it's unraveled a little bit because everybody was like, whoa, life can change in an instant. Everybody got that. And so I feel like...

even with that little bit of unraveling or kind of a semblance of normal, we all have this moment now where we're like, well, what's next? This isn't what I want to do. I want to do something that has meaning or I want to change my life or, you know, I want to do something more. Yeah. I think that, I think that's split though. I think that's dangerous because I think you have, I think you have half of the people that are looking for purpose and meaning and half of the people that just want to be on a boat. That's true. I will say that. I will agree with you. I will agree.

I was reading an article yesterday. It was talking about Gen X is so hard to deal with because they see the social media lifestyle of we're out on a boat and they want to work three days a week and that's all they want to do. And it's like, when your nurse calls in because she wants to go to a boat party, that's a problem. Yeah, that is a problem. I will say that I'm a real advocate for the amount of work that it takes to create something. I mean, you know, you've heard those quotes about I was an overnight success in 17 years or whatever. There's a lot of

work behind the scenes. And for my own kids, I want them to see that. I want them to see that hustle, that decision-making, that determination. And the only way they're going to see it is if it's modeled in me. Yeah. Like, yeah. How do your kids now?

My kids are 14 to 28. Okay. 14 to 28. So you got to... How many kids do you have? Oh, okay. Are you ready? I have seven biological kids of my own and then I'm remarried and we have four. What? Yeah. So we have... I don't have four more. I have four additional ones. Yeah. No, no, no. No. Seven is enough. That's the special stick figure printing thing on the back of the minivan. You can't just get the normal one. They just do plus five. You got to get two and stick them together. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. And I...

And so let's back up a little bit. So you got divorced with all these kids. I did. How old were, how old was your youngest? How old was your oldest one? He was three. And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to be very honest because part of my messaging is about finances. I found myself getting divorced, being well in debt, not knowing, which is why I'm a real advocate for women. No, you got to know your numbers. You got to know your money. You have to know it. You have to be confident in it. And so not, and then I was left with pretty much taking care of them all myself. So.

So I created the business, had to figure out the money and found out that there was a bunch of debt that I didn't expect. So I'm telling people, I tell people that because if I can do it, I know other people can do it. Well, it's the, no offense, but you know, I don't use this word a lot on this podcast, but it's fuck your excuse is what it is. Right. Like, I mean, how can anybody get in front of you and use an excuse that makes anything that makes sense? It just doesn't make a lot of sense. Right. So you came off not even knowing,

not, you know, it happens so often. It does. Where in divorce, unfortunately, you know, my mother, same thing, right? Like my mom made the carnal sin of you never divorce a Southern attorney in a small Southern town. Oh, my heart. Oh, yeah. You can only, you can only imagine what happened there. And that's what my mom did. So my mom got,

obliterated by my father in the divorce. Now, luckily later in his life, he turned out to be a decent human being and kind of handled his stuff. But yeah, it was, it was hard and it was a very difficult thing. So I kind of, I grew up in a weird kind of deal where, and I talk about this in my book, where it was a very mass situation because we got left the house in the nicest neighborhood of my small Southern town and my mom was flat broke. So here we are surrounded by the wealthiest people in our community and

trying to keep up with them. And we're, my mom doesn't know where like our next meal is coming from. It was that big of a scramble. So, you know, having, having you come through that and then, you know, I'm not, victim's a bad word. We'll call it, we'll call it a partner of circumstance that you were able to overcome. Cause I'm sure that victim is not in your vocabulary. Is it actually a,

I love that you brought up victim because I think victim can be a dangerous word. It can make you feel like you're exempt from fixing things. Like, Oh, what was me? And I had to come to the place where I was like, I'm not going to be a victim to this anymore. I refuse to,

absolutely refuse to allow myself to be defined by this. And it meant looking at it. I mean, it really meant coming face to face with it and then deciding I'm just going to get myself out. I don't even know exactly how, but I'm going to do it. Well, I think the first part of solving any major life problem,

problem is taking ownership of you, what your responsibility was to get you there. Right. And so many people want to point the finger instead of pull the thumb, I guess is a good way to put it. And one of my favorite sayings is it, you know, wisdom comes from the strangest of places, if you will. And one of my favorite things I always go back to is the movie diehard where the, the

the bad guys are talking to Bruce Willis. He's like, no one is coming to help you. It's like, yeah, that's life. Nobody's coming. Like you got to save yourself. Right. Nobody's coming to help you. Yeah. I like it. Well, one of my favorite quotes is fall seven times, stand up eight. I love it because it never says fall once, get up. It's like, you're going to fall a bunch. Just keep on standing up. And the presupposition is,

there's the strength in the standing. And I just, I clung to that. I was like, I am going to stand and keep moving. I might be scraped up, banged up, but I'm going to keep going. Well, let's face it. The easiest part of that is the standing. Right. Getting up is the harder. It's the hardest part. You got to will yourself and you have to kind of had to change that mentality from waiting for the next shoe to drop to

to being prepared for the unexpected. This stuff's gonna happen and it's not a deterrent, it's just what you do with it. - So what was the first business you started when you're like, oh shit, here I am, I got the Partridge family. - Right, pretty much. - And I'm all this debt and I'm newly divorced. - So I'm gonna back it up a little bit. I started blogging and writing online before that. And I remember realizing, oh, you know what? I can get paid for this.

And it was a really powerful moment. Like I realized I could put ads on my site and Google would pay me. And I can remember that first check, which...

Now I wish I had kept it, but I needed it. But it was like $31.67. And that changed everything. I started writing an e-book. And then I remember sitting in church, actually, on Mother's Day, seeing all these sales coming in of this e-book. And I thought, I can do this. That was all I needed to tell myself I could do this.

I didn't get, I didn't get separated, divorced probably for another year to two years. Cause I thought I I'm going to do this and try to fix it. Yeah. Figure it out first. Or maybe I can, maybe things can get fixed. And when I realized I was just getting pulled down, I knew the only thing I had to do was I had to be willing to completely upset the apple cart, completely take off all the masks and emerge as who I really was, which meant it meant

admitting everything do you think that maybe part of that was like you just made a commitment to saying well maybe if i'm get better if i get better and the relationship will get better and then here comes the rub because once you got better you realize i don't need this yeah well i think that when i got better it was like almost a threat it was this weird thing where i was like i'm getting i'm changing things and instead of it being like this is awesome it was the opposite and i

I, you know, once you get a taste of freedom or my own self coming back to life, I was like, I am not going back to that. But I would, it's not to say it wasn't easy. I'd have moments where I'm like, am I, I mean, I would question like, am I crazy in my head to do this? Like, what is wrong with me? Because, but now I'm like, oh my gosh, that woman, she had so much courage. Like, I'm so grateful for that. Well,

Well, I'm interested. So I'm interested in this. So you start writing a blog. You start running ads. This is what year? I started writing in 2008, 2009. I started getting paid in 2011. Okay. And then you create an e-book that you're selling. I am. So let's walk me through the interesting process of creating that first funnel because I think that's probably like you're going from zero to build a funnel to sell an e-book. I was in it.

I'm gonna tell you too, it was really the, my kids like to say I was an OG blogger, but this was really the pre years for influencer culture. It was when companies were like, oh my gosh, you bloggers have so much voice. Here, take a car, like take all this stuff.

And so everything was new. There was no, like the concept of building the funnel back then wasn't even there. It was just, we were just, okay, I'm gonna figure it out. So created the ebook, made the funnel, was an email list. Like you bought the ebook, you got on the email, all of that. And

There was an affiliate program for it. So I started getting affiliates that would sell the book. They earned extra money, which was cool for me because I was providing that for somebody else. And then it just grew. You just researched this? How did you figure this out? Well, I worked with a bunch of people and actually met my now husband who helped me out. He had his own business helping people

figure out how to do this, which I think is important is the ability to say, I don't know how to do this. I'm going to outsource this part and to trust somebody else with it. Well, I think that's become a real big topic in the entrepreneurial circles. There's a book called who not how, that I think is a great book for people to read because people always immediately when they're trying to figure out how to solve a problem, it's, I need to learn how to do this. Right.

No, you don't. You need to find somebody that knows exactly how to solve it and then just pay them to do it. Right. Or cut a deal or do a JV with them or do something to bring them in. Assembling a powerful team of people that already knows that will make you go so much faster and so much further than trying to figure it out on yourself. Right. Totally. Totally. So in the process of doing that, I actually started that. This was in the beginning of like Facebook pages.

And I started my page then. And my first post on Facebook, which I'm like, oh my gosh, could it be any better? Was I'm going to give this Facebook thing a try, which is crazy.

Now, we have almost 1.1 million people on that page. I am like, thank God I gave it a try. And thank God I didn't let the small things like the speed bumps stop me. Like there was no way to have even a like button on my blog at that point. So I figured it out. I was like, I'm just going to figure it out. And then people wanted to pay me to learn how. So, okay. So Finding Joy is still up, right? It is. Still running. And how many visitors...

Monthly just for this funny joint. I'm going to tell you that over the time that I've started, we've had 60 plus million visitors to that site. 60 million visitors to that site. And yet you've built a community with 1.1 million followers on Facebook. I have. How? All about relationship. Authenticity. Most people are intrigued by this. I've never paid Facebook either. Back in all the time, there were people who'd be like, Facebook is dead. You have to... 31 million people would argue with that. Yeah, yeah. I just decided...

I'm going to figure it out. And it was all about creating a relationship. It was about the audience. It was me paying attention to them, not not blowing them off. I always give the example of I have a son that's celiac. He has celiac disease. He can't eat gluten. And about 10 years ago, there was a gluten free company that I loved. They had like this is like a lunchable, but for gluten free. So I was traveling a lot. So I loved it. Would tweet them all the time. Love your stuff. Love your stuff.

after about eight times of tweeting them never hearing anything, I can remember the moment in Target where I was like, I'm not buying that. They don't really care about me. And that moment of caring about the other person, about the importance of that person on the other side of the screen, it was pivotal. Dude, I'll

I'll tell you a story from today, from today, as far as not caring about your client base and being tone deaf. So I'm on Facebook this morning because obviously we use it for business and everything else. I'm on Facebook this morning and I'm scrolling through and I see this post from somebody I'm connected to and I don't know them really, but it's like, hey, I'm thinking of

selling my house for sale by owner. Here it is. This and that, blah, blah, blah. And describes the house. And then it says, please know real estate agents. DM me if you're interested. If you're interested. And of course, you know, our core business here at Sillamy Vegas is real estate. I mean, this is the largest luxury real estate brokerage in Vegas. We,

That's what you do. We're a giant company. This is what we do. Right. So I see this and I always think to myself, I'm curious. I'm like, look, if you want to sell your house for sell by owner, God bless you. Whatever. Yeah. Good luck. Good luck to you. Right. Do what you want to do. But then I always wonder to myself, I wonder what people do that think that this is just so easy. Right. Like what could this person do for a living that this is just going to be so easy. Right.

So I click on their profile and I pull it up. This person is a vice president at an escrow and title company. Really? Which is a business that is 100% dependent on the goodwill of real estate agents. Right, right. Oh, that is... And I'm just like...

So then I go into my mode where I'm like, don't you need agents for your business? I'm like, delete. I'm like, how can you do this? Delete. Put the phone down. Delete. I'm like, fine. I'm not going to do anything. But I just thought to myself, talk about not understanding who your tribe is and who you're trying to attract and what's worse, how to repel them. And I think you're right. If you send a comment, if you call a company or whatever else or make a comment and the people respond to you,

it builds that so are you somebody back to your individual thing after my after my rant sorry no no i appreciate that no no but back to your deal do you respond to like all the comments that people make i mean are you are you that person are you crazy about it like that no i mean i can't let me just say i can spend all day trying to keep up with comments and never catch up there's so many i'm so grateful but i i do make my presence known i will respond i'll go on there and

I have to tell myself, you know, people would be like, social media is a waste of time. I'm like, this is my job. So I'll go on there and I'll, I'll, I'll set a timer. I'm like, you know what? Respond. And I will respond as truthfully. And as like you and I were having a conversation, it wouldn't just be like, thanks so much for commenting. I'll take something and I'll be personal back. And I will sign my name. Or if it's a really long thread, I will make a point of saying, you know what? I've read everything. I really appreciate it. Because I think even I have, even with a team that,

me showing up really matters. It makes a difference because they, that's what they've learned to love is I am part, I am, I am the brand at this point. Yeah. It's, it's the same reason that I'm in this building every day. And it's the same reason my partners in our building across town is because it's

even if nobody needs this. I mean, you saw my offices when you walked in. For those of you who don't know, my office is like some executives are all the way in the back behind like five secretaries. My office is literally a glass cube in the lobby. I mean, it's in the lobby and you can see me from wherever you are. And I do that because it doesn't matter if the agents need me. It doesn't matter if anybody needs to talk to me, but they just see me here. They just kind of feel that I'm here. And if they did need me, they know where I'm at, which is nice. Right.

But at 1.1 million people, even though the brand is yours, right? At some point, it had to kind of take on a life of its own. It has. I mean, it definitely has. We've had to in the last five,

five years figure out how do we manage this thing? Who takes care of stuff? How do we outsource? Because I can't do it all, which is I think part of the entrepreneur's struggle is moving from entrepreneur to something else. Like I remember once my husband and I, we do a lot of teaching and training of entrepreneurs and we led a retreat or a conference and

at a place in Minneapolis. And we asked them like, are you guys like, what would you consider yourselves? They're still entrepreneurs because they told us. And they're like, well, we have 400 people that work here. I'm like, are you really? It was like this really hard thing to give up that startup culture for them. And so for me, trying to scale it is trying to figure out

Well, I need people that are on the team that match my ethos. They have to be they have to get that core value that we can't just blow people off or we have to we have this line of integrity. So if someone reads something and they say this sounds like you, that tells me I have made such a brand that people can read writing in it.

reminds them of me so much that they will come back and tell me, like, this is you. Is this you? Do you have core values you put out to your community that they understand exactly what they are? Well, one of them is that the Facebook page is sacred place. Like, there is no fighting going to happen there. There is absolutely

Absolutely none. I tell them all the time, women have fought for thousands of years to have a voice. And the best way to honor them is to not pollute this place with a whole bunch of bickering over stuff. Let's build each other up. So the core value there is it's really about integrity. Let's build each other up. We don't have to agree on everything, but we can hold a conversation and we can do it respectfully. See, I think that's the problem, right?

with this country anymore is everybody's gotten so, well, I don't know that everybody, I believe that there's 15% on this side off the grid. There's 15% off the, off this guy, the grid. And then there's the giant portion of the middle that just wish everything would kind of calm down. And the ones on the ends are the ones that yell the loudest, obviously get the most attention. But I think that most of the argument comes from people don't really want to hear the

They don't want to discuss the topic. They just want to be on a team. They do, or people are so loud. I give this example all the time. People now feel like, I'm just going to slam my views on you. It's like that power over. They're just, this is the way it is. You're wrong, or you're an idiot, or whatever. Versus what I always say, you support people underneath. They can do amazing things. And sometimes it takes...

listening to them. Like, why do you believe that thing? What is it about it without judging? And really taking that moment doesn't even mean I have to agree. But if someone feels like they have a seat at the table, then maybe there's more chance for more to people to share. But you know what my favorite question to make people question their own views? Yeah. My favorite question to ask people. Here it is. I love it. I'm ready. Here's my favorite question. Okay. Now I'm nervous. No, no, no. When somebody spouts out some crazy view about whatever it may be, left or right, I ask one simple question. Yeah.

Hey, if you wouldn't mind, how many, where have you been in the world? Oh, where have you been? That's okay. That is the greatest question in the world. I love that. It's great because I tell people, my husband believes a lot in exposing our kids to different, to other countries all over the world. They can see it for me. The most profound experience in my life is I've been to Haiti twice and I

the first of all, the people I love. You don't have any problems. Yeah, none. You go there, you have no problems. They're happier than we are, which is, which I was like, how can this be? And I can remember coming back just so full of life, like so built up by, by these people that now, I mean, Haiti is really a rough place. You can't even go there. No. Coming in,

the Miami airport and standing in line for $7 Starbucks, knowing that that $7, some of them didn't even make in a month. And the woman in front of me was complaining. And I thought,

Okay. But it's so hard to keep that posture when you come back. Like you just start to, it's that slow fade. I just wanted to be aware. Like, you know what? No, this problem here, if I have to wait a little bit, it's okay. Yeah. Just dude, open your eye. One of my favorite things ever said in this particular room was somebody said one time, I've never met a well-traveled racist. Oh,

Oh, interesting. And I just love that statement so much because when you see how the rest of the world lives, it does a couple things. A, it makes you incredibly grateful for our lives here. B, I think it makes you incredibly grateful for the freedoms that we have in this country, which are amazing. I mean, you go to places...

I mean, you go to some of the bad parts of downtown Cairo and tell me, come back and tell me that America is not the greatest country in the world. I mean, there's just a different sense of the world when you do those things. You know, when you go to Budapest for Independence Day and you're expecting hot dogs and fireworks and then you realize, oh shit, it's a solemn event because these people haven't been free very long and they remember what it was like to not be free. The world is a funny place with that. But I love that

you know, your site can promote some sort of conversation without having vitriol. Right. Oh, I absolutely will. So I meet, there's, I'm not telling you people don't come on and come up with their arguments, but I'll meet them. I'll actually respond to,

with grace for the first time. I'll see the comment or people will tell me someone's going crazy or something's happening in the comments and I'll take that moment because I think that's just as important. You know, if you go to Target and let's just say the restrooms are a mess or the fitting rooms, you're going to remember that it's their job to keep that part clean in order to match the brand. And that's my job is to keep it a place where people feel safe to make a comment.

So I'll meet with them. I'll comment back. And sometimes it has led to amazing conversations, dialogues, or where the readers are like, oh my goodness, I didn't even know that you could respond that way. Is it always easy? There's many times where I'm like you, like typing it in, delete. Type it in, delete. Because I get angry. I'm like, how could they assume that about me? Oh, I get it. Dude, I'm a typer and deleter like crazy. I love the type and delete. Sometimes, I'll

I'm a sender. Right. I know. And then you're like, I'm an occasional sender. It's out there. It's out there. I know. And you can't delete it. It's terrible. I have told that to my kids. Like, don't just put it out there. If you delete it, someone's going to screenshot stuff. I know. Well, let's talk about the new book that's coming up. I'm interested about that. Um,

What's the philosophy of the new book? Who's it for? What are we trying to accomplish? - All right, the book is "Get Your Spark Back." So the number one question I get is, how do I get my spark back? And nobody says, how do I get a spark? Not one. They always say, how do I get my spark back? And that word back, it's powerful. You've had little kids and they have a toy, they will fight over their toy if some other kid takes it. Like that is mine.

I feel like most of us have these moments in life where we're like, well, now what? We get hit with crazy things in life, hard things in life. I tell people, nobody puts in their yearbook, you know what would be great is when I'm 40, I'm going to go through divorce. That'll be fun. Let's do that as the life goal. And yet when it happens, we're all like, well, where did that come from? I don't know what to do now. So for me, it's the answer to, okay, what's next? I'm going to live the rest of my life

all in. I'm not going to hold back because nothing is guaranteed either. So it's the definite answer to those that are wondering, how do I get my spark back? Where is it? Am I too old? Or the other question that I really am passionate about is what if I don't have money? It's reframing that relationship with money because I had my own story with money where I had to reframe it. What was that? My relationship, I lived scarcity. I lived afraid. I mean, I

didn't think I could ever get out. I was almost resentful of people with money because I thought I could never be that person. And I had to really come to grips with all of the weird like things that would be put on me, like money doesn't grow on trees or money is the root of all evil and come to like, that's not true until I recognize this, this energy, this currency. And I'm either going to be on one side or the other side, but I can be grateful. And if I want to help others, I

I have to be in a position where I don't need help. Yeah. No, no, dude, they say pulled, but the, uh, was I put the oxygen mask over your face before you help others. You have to do that. I think that so many people get an unhealthy relationship with money because

through their upbringing. They see either real scarcity mentality through their parents, you know, penny pinching, penny pinching, penny pinching, you know, save your money, save your money, save your money. And they don't realize it. They don't look at it as a vehicle or a tool to get to achieve things. I think you also see people when they come into money. I think anybody that does that goes from broke to this, you hit that thing where you start buying a bunch of crazy stuff. Right. You know, when you guys came in today, we talked about my car that you saw that really I bought it because I was speculating on investment. Didn't work out that way. And now it is kind of a toy. But

I wouldn't have bought that car if I couldn't afford to go buy it. Right. Right. I wouldn't have done it. But I think, I think also I'm at a place where, and I told the story the other day, I'm in a place now where I still struggle with a little bit because being real estate is such an image business. It's such an image business. And I don't want to care at all what anybody thinks about me ever. Right. I just don't want to care ever.

And my wife needs a new car. She needs a new car. So I'm like, okay. My wife is why I had every Highline car you can imagine. I'm like, you can have whatever you want. It doesn't matter. Pick out whatever you want. She comes back, settles. She wants a Kia. Nice. That's what she wants at SUV. And I'm like, okay.

You want a Kia? So I'm thinking to myself, okay, you know, you want, and I'm thinking, oh my God, people are going to be like, what happened? Is Gaffer going broke? He's trying to Kia. What's going on? He's to start hawking his watches. What's happening? And I'm like, I don't want to think that way. And then eventually I just comes like, you know what? You get whatever you want. I don't care. Right. I think she's not going to get it now, but still it's, but it really bothered me that way. And it's funny how stupid that is.

mean, I get it. My whole brand is finding joy. So I, it's like, sometimes I'm like, oh my goodness, like I'm very aware of it. Like, what does that mean? Because people will be like, they'll meet me and I have to like match that. Doesn't mean I'm always happy all the time. I have my down days, but I'm certainly not going to be over there complaining about somebody else. But don't you, but don't you find your people though, through finding joy that those people early on that think that

things are going to bring them joy. Oh, if I get this car, if I get this watch, if I get this bag, if I get this whatever, that you find that that joy fleet, that is fleeting very quickly. It is. I think that's, it's because we think if this happens, then I'll be happy. If this happens, then I'll take that job. And I have challenged myself.

women, people all over the world. Like you need to reverse it. You need to make the then, whatever it is, that's your priority right now. Not the if, because you could be contingent on the if forever. Say that again, because you glossed over that real quick, but I loved it. What was it? Make the then your now. The thens, meaning if you say, if I get this, then this will happen. Make the then. Now, and then what happens?

is I remember thinking if I can fix my money situation, I'll become a public speaker. No, no, no. I became a public speaker which fixed my money situation. It's the reverse. You got to do the hard stuff first and then all the little, the ifs are the excuse. Yeah, but nobody wants to do the hard stuff. I know. Dude, everybody knows how to get six-pack...

Everybody knows how to get them. Everybody knows how to get washboard abs. Nobody wants to go to the gym. Everybody knows. Everybody knows. Everybody knows, but deep down they know they got to do the work. They don't want to do the work. They don't want to do it. No, they don't want to do it. Which is why semi-glutide is one of the fastest selling products. I get that. Well, you know, the thing is, is,

That's the threat of someday. Someday I'll get that thing. Someday, someday, someday, someday. And then all of a sudden the someday's run out. Oh, dude, I get it. You know, for me, talking about joy is all about, and where I find joy and what I use money for is the experiences, right? It's all about experiences. Right. I want to do the craziest, coolest stuff

I can find, I want to take my kids and do, you know, I'm very much subscribed to the Jesse. It's sort of thing where you got 18, 18 summers where your kids, he is powerful. Yeah. I am. And I am hyper aware of that is my, I mean, we just got back from Europe for almost three weeks. I just, I'm very focused on any time I can spend with my kids is what I want to do. And that's where I find joy. So how,

when people come to you and they're seeking that, how do you help them find their what is? Because how do you help them find it? Well, initially it has to be willing to say, I'm seeking it. Like a lot of people don't even have the courage to say that. It's too frightening. And then to wonder about the possibility. Until you wonder what is it,

You're looking for somebody else to tell it to you. You have to have the tenacity and the grit to sit in the wonder and to sit in that uncomfortable thing where it might not look what other people want. Your story, their story might not be what you were taught to do. But if you don't allow yourself to go into that space of the unknown, the goo part of it, you won't get to the other side. So I

I tell them you have to be uncomfortable. You know that threshold, I'm a runner. So in the beginning when people, they'll say, I can never run. I'm like, can you run to your stop sign? Maybe. Well, so then I'll tell them, run to your stop sign. Then the next day, maybe run five feet beyond your stop sign. And eventually you'll find yourself running a mile past the stop sign, but you won't do it until you let yourself run there. Yeah, until you at least get to the first, what was it? Yeah. The four minute mile mark. Yeah, I'm not there. No, but that-

But that record lasted forever. And as soon as one guy did it, they said it was impossible. Like 60 people did it the next year just because they believed it was possible. Exactly. Because I think so many people don't even, they don't really believe what could be possible.

I agree. I think it's rooted in fear. Because to believe that it's possible, somebody's got to challenge it. And if you challenge it, you're challenging the status quo of everybody saying, that's not possible, that's not possible. That first guy who broke it, he had to deal with that can never be broken. That whole mentality or all the people that have changed stuff in life, they're constantly having to push against what everybody says is the limit.

And that's why I love even like science where they're like, you know what? Everything that we thought with the way it was isn't anymore. And it takes somebody saying, okay, maybe we were wrong. Let's see what's actually possible. Of all things that Terrence Howard video with Joe Rogan was like, no, the periodic table is actually a circular thing. It's like, Whoa, what? I just got to open your mind. Like maybe that's right. Cause I don't want to be the person that's like, absolutely not. This isn't it. I, I will be an early adopter.

Of all of it. Do you think that, I think that one of the things that's such a thief of overall happiness right now, I was talking to my wife about this last night.

You know, it used to be when I was a kid, if you said, what superpower would you want? I was like, oh, I want to be able to fly or I want this. You know what superpower I honestly would love to have right now? What would that be? I would love to know that if something came out of your mouth, I would love to know for a fact if it was true or false and what the actual truth was. The truth-telling superpower. Because you just don't... I know. I don't have any idea if what anybody is telling me is true. Right.

And I think that is causing a level of anxiety and unhappiness amongst our population that is crazy. Probably that coupled with all the decisions, like there are a million decisions we have now and a million probabilities. You could make a decision right now about whatever you're going to do and you could go on the internet and be told instantly that's the wrong decision. So it's, I know I do too. I actually think it's good. It opens up things. But for some people, instead of making a decision, they're like,

Oh my gosh, I'm not going to make any decision until I know absolute. And there is, I always think there's not really a strong absolute. There is the navigating in between. People will say, I want to find balance. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. It's balancing. You're never, if you're seeking like equilibrium, you're just, you're, you're drifting then. You have to be willing to like move with everything and start paddling and be okay with it tipping one way. Was it not making a choice if,

That's a rush lyric, I guess, to not decide at all and still making a choice. You are, you are. You're some eggnog. Now, I think that you talk about being very decisive. When we first started doing this thing, you said you're a decision maker. Which I didn't know was going to, when you asked me, I'm like, what am I going to say? No, that's okay. No, I love it. I want to talk about making decisive decisions. Okay. Let's talk about your process for making decisions. Okay.

My process. Head or gut. Let's start with the first one. Head or gut. It's all gut for me. All gut. And then what happens is my head gets in the way because I'll tell people I'm a very creative person. I'm a philosopher, like a philosopher inside thinking, mulling things over. And the other side of me is a deep analyst, which has helped me a tremendous amount. Like I'm able to analyze the data of what people comment about, what the trends are on my site. So I could be like, oh, this is a trend. I'm going to recreate that. So those two things,

They worked hand in hand. Now I have to realize when I'm making a decision at some point, one of them is going to constantly try to overpower the other one. And so at a certain point, I'm just, I give myself a deadline. You got to make your decision now or cause I don't want to, I don't want to not make a decision. Does it mean that when I make a decision, I'm not going to my husband? Like I think I made the wrong decision. No, but I,

I still keep going. But still act on it, file it, or throw it away. Yeah. That's where you're at with it. Yeah. So, I mean, do you pros and cons it? Do you asymmetrical risk analysis? I mean, what... What do I do? I think about it a lot when I'm running. I'm a definite thinker. Okay. Because that's the analyst on me. I've done the pros and cons, but I can...

I also know that I can deceive myself. Like, oh, I'm going to make my pros list, which tells me I kind of know what the decision is then. If I already know, and so then that's- You start with the pros list? Yeah, like, wow, that pros list is really long. I need to start with my negative list. It's kind of where it goes. Yeah, and so I also know my tendency is to see-

I'm a real good strategist in finding the small details, like the little minute things. And so I tend to find somebody else that's able, especially my husband, to see the big picture. He can see the entire thing. Whereas sometimes I'll spend so much time thinking, well, there's a hole there. If we're in a boat, there's a hole there, there's a hole there. And he's like, well, let's just keep rowing because we're sinking if you're paying attention to that. So I do seek counsel because I know-

I could find, well, that won't work. That will work. And what's funny about is I have a couple of kids that are like, well, that won't work. And it annoys me. And then I'm like, oh my gosh, that's me. You got to listen to the consigliere. Dude, I have, my wife has said no. Right. To two deals. Oh.

Okay. More, more like the two people. Like I don't know. I don't, I don't think this is a good, I don't, I don't get a good vibe from the person through her empathic. I can totally relate to total loss on those two deals.

Three million. Wow. Give or take. Because I did them anyway. Right, right. Because of course I was like, no. I'm just going to do what I'm doing. Because I'm all gas and no brakes. But yeah, total loss on those two transactions is probably three million. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. So now we have a deal. We have a deal now that if the empath steps in where it's bad vibes, I'm not allowed to do anything with those people. Good for you in respecting that. Because I will- How do you-

No, see the analytical side of me now is like, that's trend. I see that. That is, that is, that is high probability of success. Right? No, no, no. I mean, I've had people like growing up, going back to that. I was always different. There's definitely that empathic where I can come into a room. I'm like, whoa, you can read the vibe of the room. And,

And it's learning to trust that because not a lot of people get it like, well, that's kind of weird. It's just me. Well, I think a lot of people, you know, risk is such a huge part of our lives, especially did you want to get ahead? You want, you want to, you want to start hustling risk becomes part of it. I mean, it really does. And you know,

Looking for asymmetric risk is what I try to do. And sometimes I'm not the best at, hence the $3 million loss I just talked about, because I tend to see probably more of an upside sometimes than I should. I don't lose a lot. I don't lose a lot, but I did lose in those instances. So when you're looking at risk, talk about analyzing something that you know is risky. What's your process for analyzing that?

Boy, my process for that is I know that in, for something to work, you have to put in, you have to put in the time, the effort and the money. It's, it's absolutely there. And for me, even right now with this whole book, the whole book tour going around all of that, I, it's, it's a risk. It's, it's putting yourself on the line. My ultimate process, which you're going to, it's going to sound maybe really simple. It's what will I regret more at the end of it is I,

I don't want to get to the end of my life regretting something. And your gut will tell you, I know that, you know, this is going through the analysts, putting all this stuff there. But eventually that part of what you are, you just know, you just know your gut probably told you don't listen to what your wife is saying. But you like, there's that part where you're just like, I'm going, I'm going.

Yeah. Well, for me, look, well, for me, the upside of, of, of those transaction was very high. Right. And I was like, this is high. This is very, very, it's, it's a big win if it goes. Right. And keep in mind, so,

some of the home runs that I've hit have been riskier than those two transactions. It's just, that's my thing. I'm completely risk averse, which is why I think me and my wife are a good match. So question about you and your husband, would you say that he's the yin to your yang in those things? Oh my gosh, he's like, let's just jump. I'm like, well, I don't know. Oh, he's the all gas, no brakes. Yeah, he is. We've flown, we've gone to, we've done speaking tours in New Zealand and just landed. I'm like, where are we staying? He's like, I don't know. I'm like, okay, all right.

All right, let's just do it. But because of it, we've had the greatest experiences. And in my own life, the moments where I've said,

I'm just going to take the risk have led to unbelievable experiences where I become aware that a lot of times my no is just fear trying to hold me back. And on the opposite side of no is exactly what I've always needed or wanted. Dude, you know, it's so funny. People think it's like a closing technique and Tony Robbins uses it. And yeah,

Because it's coming from Tony, it's such a hard deal because you hear it and you think, it's just a closing technique to get me to go to UPW. What is this? But when he says, if you can't, you must. Like if you're coming up with all these bullshit reasons why you can't come do this, then you need to do this. Right. Right. If that's your only excuse is these petty little things, then you absolutely should do it. Yeah. Because I think, again, people are, I think they're fearful of what, some people are fearful of positive results. Yeah.

Well, I know. I mean, I had to come face to face with that. I was like, how does this positive result of me changing my financial situation, my marriage status, all of that, what

what is my identity now? Like, who am I now? It was my identity was struggling. Like I actually realized one time that I was so stuck in that identity when I would, this is going to sound like when you, when you don't have money, I would read receipts. Like it was crazy. I'd go back into like, you overcharged me because every penny was, was gold. And I realized when my, my financial situation switched and I was still reading receipts like that, something I had not

come to accept my new identity. It was, I was still living scarce. I was still living fearful. I was living like I needed the $3 and I had to let it go. So now I just,

Take the receipt and I go. Do you think that some people, I don't think they realize they do it, but do you think that some people relish in a negative identity in those facts? Yes. Like a big hunt, like they're, I'm unhappy. That's who I am. I, yes, I think, well, I think staying unhappy, the choosing to be happy, choosing to find joy, choosing to change it. That's,

there's a part of you that feels like, am I giving validity or credibility to a story I didn't want? Like, am I in agreement with this? Like, did it, all that struggle, was it for nothing? So I think they're afraid to let go of it because there's that part of them that's like, well, look at what I had to go through. It's not fair without realizing you are keeping yourself stuck and it's not fair. It's not fair. Like, you can move forward, but they have to be willing to say this part

happened. This was my story. This was my financial story. This was whatever, but I am worth more now. Right. Well, some of the most unhappy people I think I know are, you know, I tend to, I tend to call my herd pretty quick of people that are very positive move forward, but we all got some families need some, need some love, right? And like my mother-in-law, God bless her, right?

She's been she now she had a tough upbringing. I will get into that. But she's been really unhappy her whole life because she's an absolutist in things. What I mean by that is because this went wrong once, it is always going to go wrong. Like she was married to my my wife's father. They got divorced. She never went on another date.

Ever. Right. And that was it. Right. Because that's what happens when you go on it. That's what happens when you deal with men. Right. This is what happens. Yeah. And like everything in her life that like, I mean, she had one drink when she was 16. Not that everybody needs a drink, but she had one drink when she was 16. He got sick. Never again. Yep. Never again. Yep. And it's like, I think people that go through their life in that absolutist mindset, they

really cripple themselves. Have you dealt with anybody like this? Is this something you've seen? I have met many people that have that because they're, they're, they refuse to, they think they're not going to get hurt again, but all they're doing is closing the limits on themselves. It's, and I see it. It's very hard to change that mindset. It's, you can lead them with truth. You can lead them with stuff. But, and even in myself, I was like,

life isn't absolute and coming to that, that kind of chaos. I actually referenced that whole chaos theory of you have to be willing to recognize that it's going to shift. It's going to move. And your job, our job isn't to be like, Whoa, I'm not doing that again. It's to take whatever happened.

learn from it, adapt, move again, keep moving. Yeah. Everything is not touching a hot stove, right? Right. Everything is not that. Now I, something else that jumped out on me from your bio that I liked and I highlighted it or was it a highlight? I'm a highlighter. I'm a highlighter. But I love this. And it was something that I've tried to get much better at over the last several years. And it was this, where is it? I don't want to misquote it. I see the highlighting. I don't, I don't, I don't want to misquote it, but it was there.

It was, oh, establishing boundaries. Learn to say no to commitments that drain you and prioritize activities that replenish your well-being. I think part of being, like in a job like me, where we have...

Overall, of all of our companies, we have north of probably 700 employees. And to try to always be there for people, you're constantly getting pulled in every direction and constantly asked to do this or getting asked to do that. Learning to say no is something that is incredibly hard for a lot of people. I'm trying to get better at it. I get that. So let's talk about learning to say no. Well, this is coming from People Pleaser. I had to recognize, wow.

Wow. I don't like to let people down. That was the reason I didn't like to say no. I wanted to be that person for everybody. But the person I was letting down was myself.

And I was saying yes to everybody else and no to me. Yes to everybody else, no to me. So learning to say no meant saying yes to myself and switching that helped. Learning to say no, sometimes you can't change or you can't adapt or you can't move forward if you're always making sure everybody else around you is okay and you're sinking because that's what was happening. So I have learned to be

Very, very clear with my no when I say it because I don't really like being like, no, I can't help you. No, I can't. But I can't. I can't continue to scale the business if I'm saying yes to everything out there. It's impossible. So let's talk about actually saying no to people. Okay.

I don't like it. I'm going to tell you. I'm just going to be honest. I do not like telling people no. Do you know what I found? The one thing that I found that gave me a lot of power in this was don't justify. You don't have to justify. When you justify, it makes it worse. It does. It's so true. If somebody asks you to do something, if you just say, hey, I really appreciate the offer, but no thanks. Right.

That's it. That's, you know, I actually started doing that. I can't, I can't attend. Thank you so much for the invite. I appreciate it. I think the words I appreciate it are powerful. I appreciate you, but I can't attend. And, and then a period. No reason. No, no, no, nothing else. Put your phone down. Just no thank you. Right. Right. Yeah. And I actually believe people respect that. They want that. They're, they're looking for that in their own lives. And when they're around somebody that gives something,

that confidence that can say no with that. It gives them permission to, to be that person for themselves. How much,

How life-changing is it for a people pleaser to start saying no to other people at regularity? Well, for you, for what's for you? Dramatic. I mean, it's actually what changed my entire life. I had to say no to everybody that thought I should keep in the role that I was 12, 15 years ago. I mean, it can't, that is where I learned to change it. I had to be willing to say, you know what? No, I can't do that or no. And actually to teaching my, it taught my kids the value of hard work.

They got to see me. I had missed birthdays, missed that, but it changed their lives. I give a really, really simple example of that. My grandfather was a farmer in southern Minnesota. When I was a little girl, we would go up during harvest time. My grandpa was not interested

in there playing with us. My grandpa was on the field harvesting. And did I, as a little girl, think grandpa doesn't love me? No, I knew he loved me. He was saying no to playing with me at that moment, but yes to providing for his family, which is ultimately a yes to me. Mm-hmm.

How do you build? No, because you're doing pretty well now. Things have changed around. Things have changed. Gone are the days of staring at the receipts. We don't have to do that anymore. Now we're just taking one-way tickets to New Zealand and hoping for the best, which in itself talks about where we're at. So one of my biggest fears always, and I always ask affluent people that come on that have kids, and you've got all the kids, so you can answer this, is

Is it ever your fear that you're going to raise worthless children because easy times make weak men, hard times make strong men? Is that a fear of yours and what are you doing to try to make sure they don't? Okay, this is very interesting. My oldest kids have seen the struggles. They saw the whole thing. Yeah, so they came to the struggles. A 28-year-old is probably fine. Yeah, they know.

- No, and actually, I mean, I've got some really money savvy older kids because I've seen the story. Yeah, and I've actually had to say, you know, it's okay to buy something. - Oh, so this is great. No, so you get the beta test if we got the, we had the hard life kids and now you got the gravy train kids. - Yes, and now I got the other side.

where I'm like, I want to be like, dude, you know what? It's not normal. Like sometimes where we live has a fabulous like swim club. And it's part of just where we live. Sometimes I sit in there and I'm like, these kids are growing up thinking this is just life. Like, how do I, how do I tell them like,

A lot of people don't even have pools. They have little blow up pools or they just run in the street with a sprinkler. So it's been a balance. I will say my younger kids, they do not have that deep struggle, that fear that my older kids had, yet they're very conscious of it. My youngest guy, Samuel, like this is, it was $10. He wanted to buy something on, I think it's Brawl Stars, the app or something like that. And he'll be like, I need to pay you the $10. And I could easily say,

pay that $10. But I need him to pay it because I need him to take that responsibility, that ownership. The cool thing is, is he feels that. And I think that's part of teaching them money responsibility is that

exposing them to situations. My husband and I, we do travel a lot. We haven't, we haven't done the Europe thing with the kids, but we do let them see the world outside of their centric of Nashville. This isn't the world. There's a lot more out there. There's more than Broadway. All this. Yes, exactly. Well, my, my family lives in Minnesota. I'm going to just like Minnesota, the state that was at 1984, uh,

And it was the only Reagan elected and Mondale was the only blue state. Yeah, right there. I remember being in school like, how does the state not vote for Reagan? Come on, anyway. I know, that's Minnesota. Anyway, I've really emphasized teaching them money responsibility. You know, when we, when we close around like the whole Europe thing, I did it ad nauseum.

We're like everything we did. Because luckily for me, I'm in a place where we have very credit card heavy businesses, right? Where I spent a lot of money on credit cards for a lot of things for these businesses. So I rack up a tremendous amount of miles. And so that whole trip was free, right? Everything was paid for and we travel hacked the crazy and it was, you know, Emirates business class and British Airways first class and all this stuff. And I made damn skippy that they knew exactly how much everything they got was cost.

was cost. Right. That's good. I mean, it's true. Like just, just so we're clear chief, if you would have gotten on this airplane, that's a $6,000 seat you're sitting on just to be clear. Right. So, uh, you know, I really try to emphasize that with them. They, you know, they got in business when they were very young, they owned the vending machines in my, in my company, which is so awesome. They manage all of that stuff. But yeah, at the same time,

The struggle ain't real. There's no, there's no straight, you know, like, like we try to manufacture the struggle through sports and those things as much as we can. But, but yeah, that's, I'm always love asking that question because that is my biggest fear in life right now. If I had one is raising worthless kids. My kids are great kids. I'm going to be wrong. I see it. I see my older kids be, they, I can see the dichotomy there. Sometimes my older kids, like it's so easy for them. And I will actually say, you know what? You're right.

Like I'll never disagree with them because it is, they, they come, my older kids come to our house now. It's probably the house they wanted to grow up when they were kids. And so for me to not recognize it would be a disservice to them and I'll tell them. And I, I, but I've also told them, you know, there's, you have learned life lessons that they might not ever have right

right now. You have learned. I mean, like one of my kids, she's married now. They put one income away. They live off of one. And I was like, wow. Good for you. Amazing. And that's a, that's a direct result of the upbringing that you had. And so consider that a gift because I mean, all of your challenges, everything that's happened in your past, all of that luggage is that you, you can either be, it can either be an anchor that drags you down or it can be rocket fuel. And that's really up to you. I use it. I love that. Yeah.

All right. One last quote on joy. So what one last thing people should do to achieve their joy? You got to be willing to look for it. And it's not going to be like...

you could have those amazing trips, but I bet when you think about your Europe trip, some of the best moments were unexpected moments or just like these crazy little things. And I tell them, if you want to find joy, it means being willing to look for it in your everyday life in little things. Wow. Today is amazing. Sunrise, taking that breath, that pause in the busy looking up. You want to talk about escaping the drift. It means looking up around what's, what's there and being grateful for it. And when you do it,

It changes everything. I can tell you my favorite parts of the Euro trip were, so I would wait for moments when my kids were really annoyed or irritated or tired or just angry. Such a parent thing. And as we were sitting at a four-top table, I did it in every country we went to. I would just do a poll on Instagram for who's really annoyed now. And I would just flash the camera around to everybody really fast. Oh, that's awesome. And then like in Rome, I'd play like Mambo.

me buying it for just every country had a different one and people voting it was always my daughter she always was the most irritated with me well if they want to find you how can they find you and continue following obviously all right you can they can find me on my website findingjoy.net

It's been there since 2009. And then on Facebook, that is where most people find me, facebook.com. And then it's slash findingjoyblog. You'll see my face there pop up. And you have a place there to pre-order the book, I'm assuming. I do. Yep, we do. Both spots. Both spots. Perfect. I love it. All right, well, Rachel, thank you so much. It was a great conversation.

Man, I got a bunch out of it. If you're listening to this, man, I'm fired up. I'm ready to enhance my joy after hearing all that stuff. But guys, just remember, like we said earlier in the podcast, nobody's coming to save you, man. If you're drifting along with the currents of life or if you've achieved some moniker of success and you're just feeling flatlined a little bit, not finding your joy, nobody's coming to save you, man. You got to get it out there and get it yourself. We'll see you next week. We'll see you next week.

What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift.com. You can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five-star review, give us a share, do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully, you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.