A Force To Be Reckoned With
A Force To Be Reckoned With
240. Corey Did What?! Pruning, Pivots, and Good Things Ahead!
HEYYY EVERYONE!!! So glad to have you here. Join us this week for a debt update, casual life update, and catching up with us as if we were chillin' over a warm cup of joe.
We missed recording and are so thrilled to be back! Don't forget to send us a text if you want to connect!
We are at war, and it's not against our neighbors, spouses, children, politicians, or whatever else we feel like we're battling against.
SPEAKER_02:So the questions are, who's to fight against? And are we winning or losing? We're the advice, and we are a force to be reckoned with.
SPEAKER_01:Are you ready to join the force?
SPEAKER_02:Happy Tuesday, everybody.
SPEAKER_00:Tuesday.
SPEAKER_02:I'm legit giddy about this.
SPEAKER_00:Why?
SPEAKER_02:We haven't been on the air in when was that? Okay, that's gotta stop.
SPEAKER_00:Just hit continue. Let's see what it says.
SPEAKER_02:Sorry guys, we're getting an alert. So should I just minimize this?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, just minimize.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Yeah. We hi everybody. It's us, Corey and Bethany. Um, we haven't required it on the cast since September.
SPEAKER_00:On the cast, they call you Bethany. But if I call you Bethany, you're like, why did you call me that?
unknown:Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's been since September.
SPEAKER_00:Dang.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So that's why I'm legitimately giddy. This is something I love to do. And here we are doing something that we love.
SPEAKER_00:Bro, do you feel like from like September or whatever that was on? Like I just said like a lot. Like you did. Like I'm an influencer. I wasn't gonna correct you. I'm gonna flip my hair next. Um, it's been a blur.
SPEAKER_02:It has.
SPEAKER_00:I felt like the rest of the year.
SPEAKER_02:Hold on, guys, we'll be back because I cannot do that sound over and over. And we're not editing this.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Should be good.
SPEAKER_02:It was a blur.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. The first whole part of the year I felt everything was not that it was bad, not like the not that the last ending of the year was bad or anything, but it really seemed like the first whole part of the year up to September was like just everything felt good. It was like a normal year.
SPEAKER_02:Felt good to who?
SPEAKER_00:You I mean, it felt like normal pace.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then the the that from September on, it was like Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I've I don't I feel like the whole year felt like that for me. So maybe I just projected how I was feeling the first.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe mine was self-induced now that I'm thinking or like what do you mean by that? Because I finished at 75 hard in September. Oh, and then it was just like yeah, free for all rest of the year. Oh, can I get a slice of pizza over there? Oh, slice there. Oh, cookies? Cookies are at the office. Yeah, I will have all of them.
SPEAKER_02:You're either one extreme or the other. And how much weight did you gain?
SPEAKER_00:It was like 15 pounds.
SPEAKER_02:In how short of a time?
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's well, I will say from September to like Christmas-ish, like leading up to Christmas, it was I stayed pretty even keel. And I have been maintaining the same like healthy weight in pretty much my body composition for the most part for two years.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, long enough that I forget how blown up you were at one point.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I know. We have to look at the pictures, like, oh my gosh, who was that guy? But and then at Christmas, Corey. I got a little procedure done and sat on my butt and ate all of the things, everything that was in front of me, and gained so I gained 15 pounds pretty much in two weeks.
SPEAKER_02:And you've lost it though.
SPEAKER_00:I like five of it.
SPEAKER_02:You've only lost five of it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, bro.
SPEAKER_02:Wow, you look good.
SPEAKER_00:No, I don't.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you do. You don't just say that. No, you do. I'm serious. You do anyway. Enough mumbo jumbo. It was a blur, but we are back. And really excited to be back. And we have this is just gonna be a fun episode. We do have some catching up. We're just filling our friends in. You guys are our friends, hopefully.
SPEAKER_00:Our only friends.
SPEAKER_02:Is anybody out there anymore? We don't know. Although I will say every week I get emails about like a little recap, and people are still listening. There's some of you who are going back and listening to old episodes. There's some of you who are new who have come along since we haven't been recording, and we're so sorry.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, I'll get verbals from you know, two people.
SPEAKER_02:Verbals.
SPEAKER_00:They're like, hey, when when you put on another episode, what's going on? Never on here.
unknown:Fire happened.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, yeah, I don't even know what happened, but it was just got to the point where it's like, okay, two-week break, four-week break, yeah. Let's just give it two months. And then it was like, just forget it. We're not coming back till after the new year. Yeah. So, but we've got updates, we've got things. We're gonna just have some small talk with you guys. We're gonna give you guys the debt update you've been waiting for. And yeah, and it's just gonna be one of our live update episodes. And then next week, and the next two weeks, we have podcast interviews. There's interviews that I did last year that I never even released, and so things just kind of crumbled really quickly. Um, but with all of that said, I wish we had this preloaded.
SPEAKER_00:But what do they but what do they say?
SPEAKER_02:Who?
SPEAKER_00:You never fail unless you give up. I mean And we did not give up.
SPEAKER_02:We are here, but don't you ever see people in life where you're like, dude, just give up already?
SPEAKER_00:No, because when you see them at that point, they already gave up. They may have not admitted it to themselves or others around them, but you gave up, dude. You gave up a while ago, and it's really sad.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. Yeah, I wish we had this soundboard loaded because what do you mean? Like that's you know, that's one of our podcasts. That's one of our podcast tasks this year is we should do have AI make different theme songs for different segments. So like a dead update song. And then we get to play it like, and here's our dead update.
SPEAKER_00:That's a mystery. AI can do that.
SPEAKER_02:I think AI can do anything. So dead update. Last year, one thing, and I know you're gonna talk about this a little bit later, that I will say, as much as things flew off the handle, there was chaos, we were ships in the night, there was a lot of crazy stuff happening. We did show up consistently in our little anchor points, and one of those things was our finances. And can't give all the credit to us. God was so good to us, you know, last year with just providing for our family and just providing financially, and so we were able to continue on our debt journey, even though we didn't give those updates. Is there anything you want to say about that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, is uh we're just shooting because I might jump ahead from where it all ties together. Well, I I do want to I so I just want to talk about I how we don't really do New Year's resolutions, and I don't really do New Year's resolutions, but so last year I picked a word, and my word was consistency, and we were talking about this, and I I feel like the over 2025 I I was I was consistent, I was a lot more consistent because it was a it was a focal point, it was something that I wanted to work on. So I felt like I was more consistent. In what? Like just give a couple of small examples in my my health, my health um at work, like different uh objectives that I wanted to do at work with like relationship building, setting meetings, things like that. Um, and then I will say financially, I feel like we were pretty consistent financially.
SPEAKER_02:Like we paid cash for everything the whole year, we didn't go into debt at all.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And yeah, and I and I will say it's it's kind of odd because when I look back on it, I didn't feel like I like gave it everything that I had either. But I was I was I don't know, I was toiling around with these thoughts, and I think after some time of you of building habits that you start to kind of take them for granted a little bit, and so I was consistent, like I'll use my health for example. Like I I did the 75 Hards, I worked out, I drank water, and I ate pretty healthy most of the year. Like I stuck with my with my habits for the most for the most part, but I didn't feel like I gave it everything I had in in that arena.
SPEAKER_02:I would does that make sense 100%. I feel the same way. My word was not consistency. I feel like all my goals I did accomplish some of my resolutions, but one thing that I was trying to be more intentional about, and again, it was not like the intentional, obsessive intentional like we've been in the past, but it just was like in the back of my mind, and I was always trying, or it was always trying to keep it in the forefront of my mind, and it kind of ties in with what you're saying, was um not to be so extreme black and white, one end of the spectrum or the other. You're not eating any gluten or dairy or anything, or you're basically having only water, or you're eating, you're binge eating, like you're you're completely gonna get out of debt and you're not gonna go out to eat, and you're not gonna um even drive to this extra store that's 30 minutes away because it's extra gas money, or you're gonna go be so frivolous. Like that's my personality. That's my personality. But um even today, I was just thinking about um, this is totally random, but I'm just gonna say it like drinking alcohol. My personality, I want to, I don't drink that much. Like I go months without having a drink. So I could say, um, I just I'm gonna never drink again. But why? Like, why it's not alcohol? It's fine. I don't judge people who do, who they say I don't drink, I never drink. But like if I want to have a glass of wine at a special dinner or something, or like I have girlfriends and they want to go get margaritas, why be black and white like that? And so that's something that I've really had to work on because it's almost like you get uh, what's that word? Like like a Pharisee or dogmatic, dogmatic. Yeah, you almost get legalistic about things, and so just showing up consistently and being like, it's okay, like giving yourself grace. And like today, I literally was like, you know what? I'm just probably never gonna drink again. And I'm like, why would you you know what this is making me think of?
SPEAKER_00:And I think that uh thinking this through and talking about this right now has helped me kind of, I don't know, for me at least it's making sense. Anybody for anybody out there, do you remember? I can speak for myself for sure, when you became a new Christian. I remember um not so much when I became a new Christian, but when I read after my season of rebellion and rededicating my life, how I had to like extreme cut things off.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Like I I can't watch this, I can't listen to this, I can't be around people that are doing this. I had to because it was tempting to get pulled back into those things when I really needed to stop. It's kind of like when you have an eating problem. Like maybe every night I'm eating ice cream.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Every night I'm having a giant bowl of ice cream. I have to stop. I'm like, I just can't have any ice cream because I need to stop. But then over time, I can dabble. Yeah, I could have a bowl of ice cream and it's not gonna, I broke the habit. It's gonna, it's not gonna pull me back in. It's kind of this year was in a lot of ways kind of like that.
SPEAKER_02:Like learning to live in the gray and be okay with it and not go completely off.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because even from the health perspective, like maintaining a fairly healthy lifestyle all the way up until December-ish, November, yeah, was banking on the habits that I'd built over the past three or four years of being healthy. So it wasn't hard for me to as to like manage it. Where before, if I would have gone off, I just would have packed on a bunch of weight and had a bunch of health issues because of it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but it's those anchor points that we've talked about all in the previous year that like ground you of those small habits of getting up early and doing a workout and taking your supplements and drinking your electrolytes. Those are those things that it's like once you really they're truly, truly habits. It's okay if you go enjoy your vacation or you know, you go off and you but you you come back to those anchor points and they keep you.
SPEAKER_00:And financially it was the same. They help course crazy before we had to do it where it was like, nope, we're putting cash in an envelope and we're paying everything for cash because we we weren't disciplined.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and it makes me want to give you a fist bump right now. So I'm gonna do that. Yeah, because I feel this is really good, as bad as I feel about some things of last year, and like I feel like I was in a we could have done better, and I was in a really bad spot for quite a while. Like, we still made progress, and I feel like this conversation is showing some growth in us, and that it's doesn't have to be black and white. We're we've been podcasting for six years. Yeah, if you would go back to our previous episodes, which if you want to laugh, go ahead, they're probably not that good. Um, we were very black and white, and that's because we had to be bit, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I guess like if you're if you're listening and maybe you're trying to formulate some new habits, this is like a pot this is a positive note because if you can spend a few years building habits, whether it's financially, health, spiritually, when you hit when you get two, three, whatever years down the road, you're not gonna fall like if you if you're not as strict and as disciplined about it, you're not gonna fall all the way back to where you were because you've made progress to kind of build these habits that you can kind of rest on.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you can course correct.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I think there's so much uh importance in having somebody that holds you accountable and isn't afraid to say, all right, it's gone on too long, time to get back on the course. And that is something you do for me, and that's something I do for you.
SPEAKER_00:And it's annoying to each of us when we do it, but yeah, but it's important. But we're like, dang it, she's right. I don't want to tell her she's right.
SPEAKER_02:And I want to say two more things. That's not to say, like, we're all different. And as I've thought about all the things we're gonna be talking about in the coming weeks, months, um, I do just want to emphasize that you like we're sharing our journey, we're sharing our life, we're sharing things that work for our family, and we hope that it helps you and we hope that it encourages you, and we hope that it inspires you. But what we're doing is we're doing it because of our personal relationships with Jesus. And I want to emphasize the personal because it's personal because it's my relationship with Jesus, your relationship with Jesus and what he is calling us to do in our lives. So there's gonna be things that like I'm gonna talk about career changes. And when I say them, they're personal to me, they're not a slam to anybody else. And when we talk about eating and health, it's all the same or habits. Like we're gonna do something that works for us, and hopefully it inspires you to do something for you. But that doesn't mean you have to buy the book, do everything that we're doing. We just want to be a family who loves Jesus, teaches our kids to love Jesus, has fun, and encourages other families to do the same. But our the common thing with all of us is that we love Jesus. But we're in the cool thing in that is that we're all different and unique. And so, yeah, I want to say that yeah.
SPEAKER_00:The principles are true. How you go about it or get there can be unique. It's it's kind of like eating, yeah, right? What the way I eat may not work for somebody else else, but the overall goal is to take care of your body and be healthy. And for some people, that means eating different ways or working out in different ways. Sometimes that might mean different financial disciplines. Um, how you go about reading your Bible might be differently than how I go about reading my Bible. The overall goal is reading your Bible, taking care of your body, being a good steward of the money that you have, doing the things that God has asked you to do and called you to do. And you really only know those things by having that personal relationship with him and inviting him into all of the different spaces of your life.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah. So with that, I have two scriptures that I want to share. Ones that I have been hit over the head with many, many times over the last, I don't know, six months. Ones that I have found comfort in and am clinging, have clung to. And I do think they kind of tie in with what we were just saying. So the first one is ow! Don't do that.
SPEAKER_00:I was just opening my Bible up and hitting you over the head.
SPEAKER_02:That's not funny. Her John 15, 4. Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vi in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me. And so this is just Jesus encouraging us to stay connected to him, just like the branches to a vine, because that is where we get wisdom, that is where we grow, that's where the fruitfulness comes from. And that talking about consistency, that is one thing that more than anything else, any other habit, any other workout, anything, that abiding in Jesus it all flows from there. Yeah, it all found from there. And so through the good times, through the hard times, through the every time, just abiding in Jesus. And so, like I said, we're gonna be talking a lot about like our journey and what we have changes and all that, and it all has stemmed from seeking God and what he is calling for us in our lives. So that's just a really good um scripture to put on your fridge and to just to remember like I really struggle with like I'm a cynic with negative thinking, with uh pessimism, and I'll let myself go down that, whether it's thinking bad things about myself or the way a conversation went or the worst case scenario. Having that scripture at the forefront of my mind is like, okay, get rid of all of that and seek Jesus first and cling to him, and yeah, all of that. So I think that has been a really good scripture for me. And then another one, which really is the same. Um, it's a verse that's so that was John 15.4. This is John 15.2. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. And actually, we are gonna talk about this and pruning, but first we should probably do the dead update before we get much deeper.
SPEAKER_00:But I will say that goes back to even what we talked about with even formulating new habits, is pruning the dead branch so that fruit can grow. Sometimes you have to cut off the dead branches.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. But I was gonna talk about like the pruning of last year of different things, finances, because it goes into um like the sh uh shifts of 2025. So we'll revisit that.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So debt update. Should I pull up the numbers?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because I don't remember it off the top of my head.
SPEAKER_02:The first time that we did our debt journey back in like, I don't know, 2019, 2020 when we first started the podcast, we were very practical. We gave you guys tips and and we still could do that. We're gonna give you guys the numbers, and maybe we'll share more practical episodes later. Maybe we'll share two things off the top of our heads if we have them, but just to say the numbers. So last year in January, we did a New Year's resolutions episode with giving our numbers. And I we can link that in the show notes. And we were in Do you want to say the number?
SPEAKER_00:Ninety one thousand nine hundred and seventy-eight dollars and eighteen cents of debt.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Was not good. It didn't feel good. And we had one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven, six, seven. Eight lines of credit. Eight lines of credit. And so we have done like the Dave Ramsey debt snowball. Um, we cut back on, we said, okay, we're not practical things. We're not using any credit cards, we're not charging anything. We're gonna cut back on eating out, order groceries and more. We went through, we audited our budget, we got rid of lots of different random subscriptions that we were like, what this isn't necessary anymore. And yeah, just like daily habits of like trying to cut back in our spending.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And this is where I I feel that we we could have like if you look back, could have done better.
SPEAKER_02:Like we still ate out, we still went on vacation.
SPEAKER_00:And there were times where we went over the allotted, like uh, what is that, the spend budget, but at the same time, we if you look like we stuck to not charging anything. We did cut back on and there were multiple times where like where we said, should we get something out to eat? It's like, eh, let's we have something at home, let's cook something at home. Yeah, we cut out the automated subscriptions. So we were able to have a good amount of progress because of that, because we we stayed disciplined in those things because we had been disciplined before, yeah, in them.
SPEAKER_02:And also, I will say that God was faithful in providing us. Very true. Corey has a great job, I had a great job, and the business was doing really, really well, and so that helped. So it it was I had you know two employees, and they were making good money, and I was able to for the first time ever pay myself, which that went toward business debt, and then I was had surplus that was able to go toward our debt. So that's what when I say like that's not us, that's just us being obedient in the work that God called us to, and he was faithful to provide financially.
SPEAKER_01:Sure.
SPEAKER_02:So then it by end of December, so that was January, 91,000. End of December, this is where we're where we're at right now. We uh have 66,185.28 of debt with one, two, three, four, five lines of credit. So we paid off three lines of credit.
SPEAKER_00:Three lines of credit and twenty what twenty-five, almost twenty-six thousand dollars.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Nice.
SPEAKER_00:Give ourselves a round of applause on that.
SPEAKER_02:And not to mention, what like like we said, we did go on two vacations last year, which if we had we done without, we could have this number lower. And we got had our pool renovation, which was not cheap, it needed done. Our pool was falling apart, and it's a way for us to host people and have people here, and we can't really do that a ton in the winter because our house really isn't that big.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but in the summer we have a pool and and now we have a nice patio area, and we paid cash for that lawn area.
SPEAKER_02:So on top of the 25,000, we paid cash for our pool renovation and we still did go on vacation. And that I do remember last year saying that like this is while we're following Dave Rien Z kind of with the snap debt snowball, we still are acknowledging the fact that we still have a family and kids, and like we want to enjoy life and not just be hunkered down in our house all the time. So you can agree or disagree, but that's what worked for our family. And man, I feel so much lighter having that. Like those we had so many credit card payments last year that I was just like, it's overwhelming to have that many.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so we have three more and a car to pay down, but I feel like we're starting off the year in a way better spot than last year, and we still have a ways to go. But my hope is that by the end of the year we will be out of that consumer debt.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And we'll see.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I was just at least the credit cards. And if you were talking about some practical tips, which we had mentioned, not using credit cards, um, limiting eating out and getting rid of a lot of automated subscriptions. The other thing that we did that I take for granted that we started doing when we were getting out of debt originally back in the 2019-2020 days, is that we have a budget sheet. And um, we had created that online for the first time with autumn it automatically like at totals things up and all of that. And we have stuck to that. We still use the same version of those budget sheets, and we now could we've been better about reviewing those together like we were doing weekly at the time, yeah. But at least once a month, we were still getting on the same page looking at the finances, and sometimes just seeing the numbers and being aware of having like having that scoreboard there to look at and see where you're at. Even that is helps because when you look at that, it helps you in um one being on the same page with things, and two, it makes you think through some purchases, yeah. Right? Where you're looking at it and you're saying, Well, you know, we shouldn't buy this right now because look at where we're at, when especially when you're on the fence, or when you want to go out to eat, and you're like, Well, we already ate out, you know, earlier this week, and seeing the numbers where they're at, we should we should probably not eat out this time. So even that is just helpful with having the scoreboard and being aware.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can't really acknowledge where you're at. I think one of my ears and my headphones went out, but um, can you hear me okay still?
SPEAKER_00:I can hear you, or maybe you're just deaf.
SPEAKER_02:I don't think so. But that scoreboard is really helpful. Sorry, I'm just trying to look something up because I was gonna say, um there's a new feature. If you listen on, I don't know if it's the case for I think it is for wherever you listen podcasts, but definitely on Apple because I'm looking at it. When this episode comes out, you should be able to go to show notes and there's a link that says send us a text.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, really?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And you literally can it's it's not on our podcast right now because we have to air this episode.
SPEAKER_01:Oh.
SPEAKER_02:It's through BuzzSprout, which is where we publish. But if you go into the show notes, um my uncle's podcast, I set it up to have where it says send us a text. No way. And they can text you. So we're we receive your text, it goes into Buzz Sprout, like a MP.
SPEAKER_00:So you have to log into Buzz Sprout and Buck.
SPEAKER_02:And so what I was gonna say, if if you ever hear us saying something, because I was just listening to Corey talk about the budget sheet, which we don't have it prepared to share right now, but if that's something that would interest you guys, it's really like an Excel sheet, we could do an episode on that. So, like if you're ever thinking, like, hey, this would be good, just send us a text and we'll we'll kind of read through those. And yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What happens if somebody is spamming you with text? Then I wonder if BuzzBrout has like a filter feature.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe.
SPEAKER_00:Do you get all those random texts that I get? Yeah, uh, not as bad as you of like, hey Phil, do you want to meet at the ballpark? And it's like, what? They're getting pretty clever though, too. Some of the times they say stuff that you actually think is real. Yeah. They don't say names and stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I my Elizabeth Dixon just shared on her Instagram the other day that I forget, they were funny, but she's like, is anybody else getting these texts? And the one was like, hey, your cat got outside again.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's like so weird. We don't even have a cat.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Okay, so that's our debt update. Now we can go into favorite accomplishments. Favorite accomplishments of 2025. Do you have any?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, we mentioned the one we gotta make get better songs. We mentioned the one, um the the pool renovation and being able to pay cash for for all of that. And I I just I love that space. It's is now my favorite space.
SPEAKER_02:Except hopefully we can get a heater this year.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we did have we had that bad boy up into the 80s.
SPEAKER_02:I know, but we were we're raising a generation of softies, and our fun, fun neighbors, mindy and sam, they have a pool heater.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so all the kids want to go to Mindy and Sam's house. We love you, Mindy and Sam.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, how do you fix that? We got a bunch of soft dude. I didn't even know a pool heater existed when I was a kid. I didn't know that was a thing. It was just, hey, there's a pool. We're gonna play in it. And I'm gonna stay in it all day. All day. I didn't get bored. Yeah, I don't know. All day in the pool.
SPEAKER_02:All right, so pool right now. We we got like 10 minutes. We're trying to keep these short for you then.
SPEAKER_00:And then the other one, I don't know why stuff like this makes me uncomfortable to say. I know. No, just because it's me. I know like if it was you, I'd be sitting here and I'd be like, look what you did. But when it's me, I I feel I don't want it to come across like I'm bragging.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know what I mean? When I when you I when I personally accomplish something that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_02:You want me to say it then?
SPEAKER_00:I I need to get over this. I've been trying to do better about it. But um, I hit my volume goal at work, and so I set a volume goal for uh 520,000 square feet through my accounts, and the previous year I had uh just a little bit over 400,000 square feet.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and you've talked about this before. Your work sets a goal for you, and then I set one higher, and then you set a higher one as a stretch goal. Did you reach your stretch goal?
SPEAKER_00:That was the stretch goal, and I didn't think that that was when I set it, I looked at it.
SPEAKER_02:You've never hit your stretch goal before.
SPEAKER_00:And I have I no, I did one, I did it another time, okay. But I was like, I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, this is a real stretch goal. Like, there's this, there's no way I'm hitting this, there's no way, and um I passed it, so I set it at 520,000 square feet. No one had crossed the 500,000 square feet mark before. Um, and I just I feel humbled by it, and I'm so grateful to God. Uh, and I know that I had to work and play a part in that, but I'm so grateful to God, and that and when I hit the 400,000 mark, no one had hit that. And so crossing the 500,000 square foot barrier was huge for me. And I not only hit it, I like went way, I went a good amount past it. I ended up with 565,000 square feet, which that's awesome. A lot. So doing the same thing this year and setting I set a new goal at 720,000 square feet.
SPEAKER_02:Ooh, that's a big one.
SPEAKER_00:Because and again, I don't we don't have to get into the whole goal thing, but I always I I look at a thing, I remove the emotion from it. So like when I set a goal, I'm if I don't hit it, I don't get upset about it. But I have to I have to set something as stretch because if I didn't and then I hit it, I would like taper off yeah after I hit it. But when I would like I feel like, oh look, I hit it, I accomplished it, great, and then not feel like I'd had to push more. Right. So I always try to set one that makes me push to the very last minute. So, anyways, I was super grateful, humbled um about that, and uh proud that I was able to do that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and that was awesome and really cool to just see and also just see. I feel like you really hit a groove with work this year. The last few years have been a lot personally, and well, yeah, again, there's more we're gonna hit, but I it was just really cool to kind of see you hit your groove. I got to travel with you on one of your work trips this fall to Nashville.
SPEAKER_00:I traveled a lot too.
SPEAKER_02:You did travel a lot. That that sent me over the edge. Uh please don't do that to me again. Although now I'll be home, so that should be better. But that truly sent me over the edge this year.
SPEAKER_00:But no comment.
SPEAKER_02:But that's a whole other episode. Um, yeah, it's just so cool to see you like in your element and with your clients, and yeah, I love it. So I'm proud of you.
SPEAKER_00:But the wild thing is is even hitting that goal and talking about it too, and even talking about the word consistency for the years. I was really focusing on being more consistent. I felt like I left a lot on the table still. Yeah, and that I feel like that's a good spot to be though, too. Yeah, because you don't feel like you've reached your peak. Right. You know, there's always room to move forward and keep pushing forward.
SPEAKER_02:I agree. And I just feel and it's good, like you can celebrate where you're at and what you gave in anticipation of knowing like I can do better still, and I can give more. And I think that previously I would have felt like, oh, this is a fail, or I should have done more, but now it's like, no, that's a really good, healthy place, and so it's exciting for what's ahead for me. So yeah, I don't know. First one, I made it through the year. Seriously. I know I sound like such a loser, millennial, but I survived, I didn't thrive.
SPEAKER_00:Um there's some thriving in there, yeah. There's some thriving spots.
SPEAKER_02:There were just a lot of training spots this year. My biggest accomplishment, and it's not like it's because it's like, wow, this is incredible, but more because it's something I've wanted to do for 10 years, and I've tried three times previously in uh trading for a half. The first time we got really sick.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, for all those people that don't know what you just said, because that would be me. There we go. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:First time got really sick and got COVID. Uh, the second time I think I got pregnant, and then there was another time, it was when um all Julia's kids came back in our house within like a two-week span. We ended up with nine kids in our house, and the it was the weekend I was supposed to go run it. Oh, yeah. And so um, I ran my first half marathon in 2025, and that was in the rain, bro. In the pouring, pouring rain. It poured the entire time 13.1 miles, and for me, that was a really good accomplishment. And also like a little, I don't know, just one of those things where God's like, I see you, and I feel like that because it's something I've always wanted to do, but had I done it previously in all of those previous attempts, I probably wouldn't have done it in 2025. And 2025 is when I needed it the most. Like I needed that win. Um, running is just, I mean, I'm not fast, I'm slow, and I'm not like in super good shape. I mean, stamina wise, yeah, I can run really far. Um, I cannot, but for my brain, it's so good. It makes me feel like when I go and I run eight miles, I'm like, I can do literally anything. Like everything I just felt two hours ago, all the negative gone. Do you want to come talk to me? I can solve all your life problems and more. And so, yeah, it just came at a really good time. It was like so good. And we and I could talk about that more later, but um maybe on another episode. We could do a whole path.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because I did on tips literally from the race.
SPEAKER_02:No, I literally have it outlined as I was running in the half marathon. I was outlining a podcast episode in the notes on my phone, literally while I'm running the race. And it was like I've something thoughts from my half marathon. I have it outlined, they're so good, and so I will do an episode on that later. But yeah, I think are you doing another one?
SPEAKER_00:What are you gonna do another one?
SPEAKER_02:I am so I said I will never run a full marathon, it's 26.2 miles. But then once you finish the half, you're like, I was only halfway done. Yeah, I mean, in the moment, I literally almost died. I had to run into spaghetti warehouse and go to the bathroom.
SPEAKER_01:You gotta go, you gotta go.
SPEAKER_02:But but afterward, I was like, this is so fun. There's strangers that you don't even know that want this for you so bad. And it was the Columbus half marathon, and there are kids that are like have cancer, and they're on the side of the road, high-fiving you. I forget what they call them, but like there's they're literal superheroes. It's just like so fun. So I am gonna do a half marathon at the end of April, uh with Missy, actually, a friend of ours. She's what we're seeing, and then um that'll be fun because it's in Nashville with the goal to have that keeping it. To have that keep me in shape because in September I want to return to the Columbus and do the full, God willing, as long as my knees don't crumble and my hips don't give me problems.
SPEAKER_00:Your intestines bleed out.
SPEAKER_02:But I want to use it, it's so good for my brain, and I want to use it as an excuse to just get in good shape. So yeah, that was my accomplishment. Half marathon, made it through the year.
SPEAKER_00:Good job. Yeah, oh, that was terrible. Do that again. There we go.
SPEAKER_02:But talking about the shifts and all of these things, um, we're getting long here. So probably fine.
SPEAKER_00:No, just go.
SPEAKER_02:Are you sure?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. If Joe Rogan can talk for three to five hours, we can do under an hour.
SPEAKER_02:I know, but I wanted to record another episode. Okay. And the babies are gonna wake up soon.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, six months later. Sorry guys, the baby woke up from a big woke up, so we couldn't do it ever again. Yeah. Yeah, we're talking about consistency, and they're like, Well, how about us? The podcast.
SPEAKER_00:You're leaving us hanging.
SPEAKER_02:You released 21 episodes in 2025. Oh, sorry.
SPEAKER_00:And we'll shoot for 26 and 26, all right.
SPEAKER_02:Oh gosh. Well, with that, so I will say it back to the pruning conversation. Uh, that is what 2025 was. Maybe it's more for me than it was for you, but it does tie together.
SPEAKER_00:But in a different way.
SPEAKER_02:Snip snip. Speaking of, is this gonna make this episode explicit?
SPEAKER_00:Wait, what are you gonna say?
SPEAKER_02:No, I shouldn't.
SPEAKER_00:Hey listen, you go to doctor's orders, all right? Doctor's orders.
SPEAKER_02:I think this guy's bamboozling me. I am not. Yes, he said, was it 50 or 90?
SPEAKER_00:No, it was 50 in 90.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Because we're at New Year's Eve, and I'm telling it shortly after.
SPEAKER_00:You're gonna clear the system out.
SPEAKER_02:The sectomy. And I'm telling my friends, because they're like, oh yeah, my husband had it. I'm like, oh yeah, well, nobody told me that he's gonna have to clear the system out, clear the system out 50 times before this thing will even potentially work. And they're like, What? No, he's tricking you. That is not true. That is not they're laughing at me.
SPEAKER_00:Every single one of those ladies got pregnant afterwards after the procedure. I'm not taking any chances, dude. The bro said 50 in 90, and I was like, oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_02:I'm like, all right, all right, so uh yeah, well, anyway.
SPEAKER_00:You got some catching up to do, bro. We're a little behind, all right?
SPEAKER_02:No, buddy, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:This is not over.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so pruning. Where were we pruning?
SPEAKER_00:You were pruning back life, and I was pruning my manhood.
SPEAKER_02:So that scripture in John. Um, I just so with work with Hope Bridge, we did these things called spiritual formations every month. And I don't remember what what month it was, but it was later. It was like fall, maybe September, maybe October. I had already like it's different topics prayer and pilgrims feast and fasting. You focus on a different spiritual formation every month. And for me, I felt like they were all wonderful and great, but the whole year God was just pruning. And back in January, we had all of these audacious goals, but I just life was just, I mean, if you listen back to our podcast episodes, even we're just like life is so heavy and hard and for like three years. For like three years for real. And it was, and I feel like for a season, we were doing that, and there was peace in it. Like even with working, like running the business and and working full-time. So this time last year, I was running a business with two full-time employees, couple contractors, and I was working a full-time job as marketing director at Hope Bridge. And it was like hard and heavy, like hard for a long time, but it was there was peace in doing it. Like I felt like I can get up, I can go every day. Like I was doing it in God's strength, and He was carrying me through. And maybe on the outside, people were like, Well, how are you doing it all? And I'm like, I don't know, I'm just doing it.
SPEAKER_00:Jesus.
SPEAKER_02:Well, shortly after January of last year, the peace just kind of like disappeared. And I went into like a spiral of very just became like really mentally unhealthy. It I'm not that type of person generally, but it was just bad. And so I like wrestled physics not physically wrestled with Corey, but we, you know, I just remember sitting at the counter and we were like, something like that.
SPEAKER_00:You guys remember those black eyes I had over the summer?
SPEAKER_02:But anyway, ultimately through talking, like I'm like, something's gotta give, and and prayed about it and decided I gotta scale back the business. This is I felt like it was growing too fast, it was growing really well and really fast, but I was unable to serve the clients the way that I wanted to serve or had previously been serving. Like I was doing people a disservice because I didn't have the bandwidth that I needed to do both my job and my business. And thinking about which do I let go, it was like for right now, let's not close the business but scale it back. So Whitney and Victoria went and worked for um uh were able to get full-time jobs through Hope Ridge doing what they were already doing, basically. And that was like the first step. And then um that was in like April, I want to say. So it took like four months of me being stubborn and and trying to figure out like what am I supposed to do and realizing, oh, God's just pruning you of this. And if you hear that verse again, every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. And so TBD on whether or not it was bearing. But either way, it's gone for the time being. No, um, I'm really thankful for the way it worked out because um still got to work with Whitney and Victoria in the capacity that I was. It was just better and it was healthier for me because also with that, we've got teenagers, we've got teenager all the way down to babies, and I felt like we were missing, missing the mark and uh not purposely, but giving them like neglecting our family because you have a very demanding job, and then as the mom and the wife, like although my heart is to be the home maker, I was working like 80 hour weeks, like I was working a lot, and it wasn't good. So long story short, that happened, and then shortly after, so that was in like April, May, June, July, I was like, Well, this feels better, but it we were I was slowly uh offboarding clients, which took some time, and I was like, Well, this doesn't it still doesn't feel right because I'm this is taking time, but all that to say, through the next several months I realized, like, yeah, this is something is still not right, and that's what I mean. Like, for a long, I'm not saying that my job was bad, the business was bad for a season, they were all really good, right? But then it's like you get you realize when you start to it's like God's calling God was calling you to something else, and because you weren't accepting it or saying yes, like it was a disobedience, yes. Well, you when the one morning you were reading me from Jonah, remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when you were reading me that passage one morning I was getting ready, Corey was like my saving grace in this season because he was just like in the middle of the night praying with me, reading the Bible to me. But when you read this, it was like, okay, this is for sure the right thing. Do you want to recap that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was the story of Jonah and how Jonah God was calling Jonah to go to Nineveh to preach, and he didn't want to go to Nineveh, and um, he was on a ship going away from Nineveh, and the giant storm came, and they realized that it was Jonah that was the reason there was a storm because God was trying to make it because he was disobeying disobeying, so they threw Jonah overboard. When they threw Jonah overboard, the storm stopped, and so it wasn't like wrecking the ship anymore. And then the whale came and swallowed Jonah, and it was all because he wasn't obeying God, so things got harder and got chaotic because he wasn't obeying God, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And not to like pull scripture out and say, Well, this is about you know, this is about me, but that is when I heard that it resonated because it was like there's so much turmoil in our lives, and for a while it was like this is chaotic, but this is doable. And then it got to a point where it was like, this is chaotic, and I don't think I can go on for like another day with it how it is. And it was really hard and sad letting go, scaling back the business. We still have it in some capacity. I have a very, very select few number of clients with our podcast included. Like that was hard because that's like a baby, you know, that I worked really hard and poured a lot of time, and that was a pruning of like, okay, well, it's not about you or your accomplishments, you gotta let this go. But then when I thought, okay, well, that's the answer, and everything's gonna be good, and it wasn't, I felt like it just wrecked me even more. And I'm like, okay, I know my desire first, and my first call is to be a mom and wife. And I know that it's not working right now because of me being outside of the home. But like, do I really have to give all of this up? You know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So, long story short, I ended up leaving my job at Hope Bridge, and I'm now home. This is my first day on the job. I said last week was. Um, my last day was like mid-January, and I'm so thankful for that journey and that job, and it was so sad to leave, and it was really hard to leave, and all that. Like, there's so much I could say.
SPEAKER_00:It's hard to give up things that on paper are are good and on in and of themselves are good. Yeah, it just it became because it wasn't good for you only because God was calling you to do something different.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and ultimately, it wasn't good for me because it wasn't good for our family.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And that was the bottom line. It was like last year we did this episode with Elizabeth Dixon about purpose. And like at the core of it, my purpose is to be a wife and a mom and raise up disciples who know and love Jesus. And that's the heart of our entire podcast is to be a family centered on Christ and to be so intentional about those things and have be so fun and contagious that it bleeds into other people. And when I like took a step back, it was like I don't even I just it got to a point where I was driving in the car with you know liberty and I don't know anything about her, and I like I can't even hear what she's saying because my mind is so consumed with all of the work I have to do and all of the things I have to do, and like I'm not even cooking dinner, you know. Like it's it, it's just so the opposite of what we preached about and talked about as a family of like being intentional, and I wasn't fun, I was miserable, and no comment. Yeah, it was it's just terrible. Like, there's that's why there's so much to unpack here. Yeah, and that's honestly probably why we stopped recording episodes because it's like felt hypocritical. Like, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was probably a combination of that chaos of everything, you battling with all of this, and our family just it was just it was a really it was there was a lot going on, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So all that to say, um there were some major shifts in 2025, and I'm now home for the time being, and I don't know if that's gonna be forever, but I do have peace with it. I feel like that turmoil uh is settling. I feel more stable and healthier, and I I already feel like it's reflecting in our kids and in our home. I don't know. Do you think?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I do. I think as soon as even as soon as you made the decision, it was like a weight had been lifted off of your shoulders, like you were heading in the right direction. And I feel like our home changed because of that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and I and that's not to say that um all struggles and like anxiety and depression and all of these mental health struggles that people have are a direct result of um disobedience to what God is calling you to. That is not what I'm saying. It can be all kinds of things. It can be all different kinds of things, but I do think that for me uh a lot of that stemmed from continuing to cling to things that were not that I wasn't supposed to be doing in this season of life. So I don't know. I'm trying to keep it brief because and it's not, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, I do have a new job for you. What?
SPEAKER_02:Now that you it's not gonna be cleaning the pipes or whatever you refer.
SPEAKER_00:It is, we gotta clear that system out, dude. We got about like 35 more times.
SPEAKER_02:That is so where do we go from here? So I don't want to talk about this because we can save that for another day, but yeah, so for me, you talked about your your were your word for the year. I don't have any resolutions this year, just continuing to focus on growth, keeping good habits, which for me in itself that is kind of a resolution because normally I'm like black and white, gotta have goals, gotta reach these. And it feels really good to just be like, nope, I'm just gonna be good on and work on my health and work out when I can and give myself grace and yeah, continue to get out of debt, adjust to being on one income. So our debt updates might be a little bit more boring for the time being, and have fun and enjoy life a little bit.
SPEAKER_00:I just want to have fun. I just want to have fun.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's just like we we've played board games with the kids recently. I even when we would go through the motions of playing board games, I yeah, I wasn't even mentally or I mean I felt it too physically there and not mentally present.
SPEAKER_00:I felt it a lot, yeah. Yeah, especially uh towards the end of the year. I felt it the same way, yeah. Yeah, but uh and just to say, I so I did talk about how I picked consistency last year, but uh I kind of left it out there. I I did I'm doing two words this year. I usually only do one, but I'm doing two words, and I'm keeping consistency because I felt like I kind of laid a foundation and but I left a lot on the table. So I'm keeping consistency in there, but then the other word that just kept coming to mind was surrender. And what I mean by that is I'm I really want to focus on just surrendering every nook and cranny, every um category of my life to Christ, whether that's my health, working out, finances, my relationships, uh, my work, uh, every person I come in contact with, coaching, all of it. I just want to surrender it all to Christ.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I love that. I think I'll do that too.
SPEAKER_00:Copycat.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, well, we had so much catching up to do.
SPEAKER_00:I'm so hungry.
SPEAKER_02:I think we covered like 80% of it. We'll come back for another week. So we are gonna air this as our coming back episode. We have the next two weeks will be really good. Um, interview we did with my uncle Dale and my uncle Brian. They were on stop. They were on the podcast before, but this is an interview that we did with them about leadership, and they are so they've been so influential and instrumental in the people that we are. And so we're gonna share those. We did two parts, so we'll do them back-to-back weeks. And then we have a fun episode coming up after that. And stay tuned for all that's to come in 2020. And if you think of anything, if you need anything, if you just want to say hi, if you feel like we need to do more giveaways this year, send us a text. Send us a text. All right, talk to you guys later.