Oversharing with the Overbys

Nosebleeds, Mental Health, and Careers in Creative Fields

November 08, 2023 Jo Johnson Overby & Matt Overby Season 1 Episode 56
Oversharing with the Overbys
Nosebleeds, Mental Health, and Careers in Creative Fields
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

From a deviated septum to candid mental health discussions, we start off this episode with a bang.  We trade stories about nosebleeds, breathing troubles, and the unexpected camaraderie found in a Sam's Club encounter, and in the video we showcase a sneak peak of an upcoming product launch! We touch on the art of balancing hobbies with ADHD, and share Matt's athletic feat that nearly removed his big toe.  We hit Greg's Reads of the Week (plural this week) and launch right into a handful of voicemails!

Questions ranged from the proper utensil choice for Mac and cheese to avoiding burnout and the proper way to store those countless photos on your phone.  Join us on this journey as we navigate through our experiences, hopes, and anxieties and remember, we're all learning and growing together, one episode at a time.

If you've got a voicemail or want our (likely unqualified) advice on something, hit us up at the Speakpipe link below!

http://www.speakpipe.com/oversharingwiththeoverbys

If you'd like to email us you can reach the pod at oversharing@jojohnsonoverby.com!

CONNECT:
TikTok: @jojohnsonoverby / @matt.overby
Instagram: @jojohnsonoverby / @matt.overby
Website: https://jojohnsonoverby.com/
Watch the Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL29Si0ylWz2qj5t6hYHSCxYkvZCDGejGq


Jo:

Welcome to Oversharing with Overbys. I'm Jo.

Matt:

And I'm Matt.

Jo:

And each week you can tune in to hear us respond to your voice mails, go in depth on our lives as content creators and hopefully leave you feeling even better than we found you.

Matt:

With that being said, let's get to Oversharing.

Jo:

I think this is where you go. Hello, my name is Matt and I am a loud breather.

Matt:

Hi, I'm Matt and I have a deviated septum and it means when I breathe it's loud. So I've been trying not to breathe into the microphone because I really listen to one of the podcasts and I was like dear God.

Jo:

It's so bad. I've had multiple people DM me and ask if we have Rory, like just like off film a little bit, just breathing.

Matt:

It's one of your dogs in your lap.

Jo:

No that would be Matt's deviated septum that he refuses to get checked out. It's so bad.

Matt:

Okay, yeah, I'm not proud of it.

Jo:

I didn't really understand what a deviated septum was until recently, because mine is just not.

Matt:

Because you haven't been hitting the nose a thousand times?

Jo:

Yeah, a thousand times.

Matt:

I mean, I don't know if it's a thousand, they say anytime you've been hitting the nose and it bleeds there's like you broke it to a degree. I've never had a bloody nose, I've had a thousand probably, Like I don't know if that's an.

Jo:

I bet you've had a thousand in the time I've lived with you. But I mean like a thousand's a lot, yeah, but there are 365 days, okay. There are 52 weeks in a year.

Matt:

So over the course of 10 years and I bet you have- what two to three a week. I don't think it's that many. Is it Do?

Jo:

you really not think it's that many I do at least I'd say one or two. I would say one.

Matt:

But I guess over my lifespan, yeah, it's probably a thousand.

Jo:

Oh, you've had more than a thousand in your life.

Matt:

Well, but I go on runs where I don't have a nosebleed for a while.

Jo:

Okay, do you think it's stress related at all?

Matt:

No, I don't know, maybe I'm a hemophiliac.

Jo:

A, what Word of the week. I don't think you've had a thousand nosebleeds you don't think I have. No, I think you've had way more.

Matt:

Oh, okay, okay, yeah.

Jo:

I don't think a thousand is a correct.

Matt:

But I don't think I've had two thousand.

Jo:

When did you start having them? How old were you? I want to get down to the details. I want to do math here. I don't know.

Matt:

I don't know. I mean probably, since I was a kid.

Jo:

Okay, what's a kid Ten?

Matt:

Sure Okay, it's arbitrarily called ten, so in 21 years A hundred a year, that'd be every three days.

Jo:

Yeah.

Matt:

Like clockwork.

Jo:

Uh-huh.

Matt:

Every four days, I guess. I don't think it's every four days.

Jo:

I think you're out of your mind. I think of going on road trips with you and it's almost guaranteed you're going to have at least one nosebleed per leg of the drive.

Matt:

I'm going to have four per month.

Jo:

Okay.

Matt:

I bet it's north of a thousand but less than two thousand.

Jo:

Okay, okay, is this normal? It can't be normal.

Matt:

There's no way. It's normal.

Jo:

I've never had a nosebleed. My nose has never bled, it has never had blooded flow from it.

Matt:

That's weird.

Jo:

No, it's not. I don't think that's that weird.

Matt:

Okay, you know what? Go ahead and throw a poll up somewhere, because there's no way. More than 15% of people have never had a nosebleed.

Jo:

Really there's no way.

Matt:

Okay, I don't buy it, I'll put it up.

Jo:

I'll put it up.

Matt:

That's based on zero knowledge or science, but I just don't think it's true.

Jo:

I bet we could Google it, but we're not going to.

Matt:

There's no reason to do that, that's not what this podcast is all about. Yeah, the spirit of this podcast is just confidently saying things we don't know about Speaking of confidently saying things we don't know about.

Jo:

that didn't work at all because it doesn't have anything to do with the slightest, but everybody who's watching on YouTube check out Matt's new hat.

Matt:

Oh yeah. They're not out yet, but check it out.

Jo:

But this is a hat that's from my collection that's launching November 16th with Riff Raffer. I'm really excited about it.

Matt:

Yeah, it's on theme. It is on theme it is inspired by the pod. Yeah, speaking of people watching or listening to the pod, shout out to Julie, who I ran into at Sam's Club and had like a short awkward interaction with because I was uncomfortable because we were standing in the road.

Jo:

He wasn't uncomfortable with you, Julie.

Matt:

No, no, no. You were fantastic. Great to see somebody who. Yeah, he was very excited, but then he was very worried about how he came across, I was just like, oh no, don't stop traffic, that's the worst thing you could do. Just be a slight inconvenience to people driving. Also, mildly like don't let this person get run over just because they listen to your podcast.

Jo:

I'm so confused, I wasn't there.

Matt:

No. Matt, it's kept Matt up, though it hasn't kept me up. I just mentioned it when I you were in the car.

Jo:

I was in the car. Yeah, on the phone, julie. We could have been friends, bummer.

Matt:

There you go. What's news of the week in our life?

Jo:

We have a lot of things I feel like Is it week?

Matt:

Yeah, it's a personal training, oh, yeah, if she keels over in the middle of this podcast, it's because you've done your first strenuous workout. In how long?

Jo:

Three years.

Matt:

Three years.

Jo:

I've been to Pilates, but not like a really.

Matt:

Sure but kicking Pilates class, not a resistance training. Well, pilates is resistance, I mean. Anyway, it's your first, yeah.

Jo:

Pilates literally is resistance training, so that wasn't a good.

Matt:

I was thinking more of a high intensity.

Jo:

Which I also didn't do in my personal training.

Matt:

I literally lifted weights, just lifted weights.

Jo:

Yeah, I don't know. I haven't consistently worked out in a really long time. Yeah.

Matt:

But the goal is to change that. But if she falls over or just has a cramp, my legs feel like jelly.

Jo:

I feel like I ran a marathon. Yeah, or what I imagine. It feels like to have run a marathon.

Matt:

Feel good to be back.

Jo:

No yeah.

Matt:

Mentally.

Jo:

No, Mentally no.

Matt:

Physically yes, oh, okay, interesting I feel like mentally I'm just.

Jo:

I'm a disaster having kids and it has nothing to do with my children themselves, but becoming a mother completely has thrown my mental mojo out the window.

Matt:

Your mental mojo. I got nothing. Wow, okay, interesting.

Jo:

I feel like I've been super existential.

Matt:

Existential. Okay, that doesn't seem ideal for you.

Jo:

No, it's not.

Matt:

You're not a very Existential is not a good place for you to be mentally no, it is not. Because you are a what's the right way to put it? You are very much. I have to make a change to fix things, and making existential changes is bold. If anything's wrong, you're like okay, what do I change to do this? I can just blow it up and walk away and then I'll find something new. I think existential change I can just blow it up and walk away.

Matt:

You don't necessarily blow it up. You're like I'll just jump to the new thing. I'm gonna throw myself all into a new.

Jo:

But do you feel like?

Matt:

Existentially. That's a bold move to do regularly.

Jo:

Do you feel like that's ADHD, jumping from one thing to another? No, okay.

Matt:

No no. Well, I feel like that's what a lot of people say Some people, yeah, I was trying to clarify, I was trying to clarify, but I don't know if they have existential level things that hold their focus and shift like that. I think a lot of times it's just hobbies or tasks.

Jo:

I want to know if anybody listening ever wakes up and is talking to their spouse and just has this realization that neither of you are hearing each other this slightest that day and that you should just give up, because that's how I'm feeling right now.

Matt:

Do you ever record it and then put it online for thousands of people to listen to? Because we do.

Jo:

I'm not upset.

Matt:

It's not like that.

Jo:

But I keep saying things, and then what you're saying back to me I'm speaking Spanish and you're speaking Portuguese.

Matt:

They're not completely different, but they're enough different that they don't work.

Jo:

Yeah, yeah, like this is not working.

Matt:

It's great.

Jo:

But it's kind of hysterical.

Matt:

I hope so, I hope so.

Jo:

I don't know if it will be to anybody else, but to me it is.

Matt:

So your legs are falling off because you worked out.

Jo:

Yes.

Matt:

And my-.

Jo:

I'm happy about it, yeah. My toe is falling off because I oh my gosh, the story of the toe Almost knocked it off of my foot.

Matt:

Yeah, Our child, the toddler, obviously was-. Was she trying to do handstands? I don't know what she was trying to do yeah. You think she was trying to do a handstand?

Jo:

She got up into one. Yeah, sorry that I keep yawning everybody. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm just-. Oh my gosh. Okay, yeah, she was doing handstands.

Matt:

Hopefully that distracts from my breathing is all the yawning coming from your side.

Matt:

So she was just and she's been doing this a lot where she gets on her hands and kicks her feet up just into like a like a donkey kick is kind of what they call it. When you're trying to practice for a handstand, you just kind of kick your feet up and tuck your knees. She's been doing a lot of that. And then she did a like powerful one when she was really trying to show off for her grandparents and went all the way over her hands and kind of landed on her side because she was not prepared to actually go over. But very impressive that she actually got into almost a handstand or did for a second. And then she was like dad, I do one because she's seen me and you practice handstands. Not that we're in practice, but we can do enough to kind of get there and then fall over. So I did that, but I did it too close to the kitchen island and as I went over I smoked just my big toe on the island.

Jo:

I thought it was more the top of your foot.

Matt:

It was just the top of my toe, just the top of my big toe.

Jo:

But like kind of the joint, wasn't it Just right on top, like right on the- like behind the nail, but in front of the foot. Okay.

Matt:

So I just smoked it.

Jo:

Smoked it.

Matt:

It didn't even For an audience too. We were hosting.

Jo:

Like four people watched him do this, plus our children.

Matt:

And they're like oh, and nobody even like it didn't make a noise.

Jo:

So people it did not look bad yeah.

Matt:

People weren't sure if I had hit my foot or not. And then I was like, oh, that's gonna be bad and uh-.

Jo:

It was yeah.

Matt:

Yeah, so my toe like is just calloused from working out and running and stuff. It broke the callous, it looked like I cut my toe.

Jo:

It looked like your toe had split in half.

Matt:

And I was like I don't know how I cut myself, because this isn't but what it is is. The skin was drying up, it broke and uh-, so that was cool.

Jo:

This is like the grossest story I've ever heard in my entire life. Yeah, sorry.

Matt:

Trigger warning late. Um- yeah, and it bruised and it's it's doing better now, but it was it was very painful for a day or two. Yeah, I was worried I broke my foot.

Jo:

It was very valid, but you don't think you did.

Matt:

No, no, I think it's all good.

Jo:

Uh so I'm gonna say that was bad dad.

Matt:

Bad-, what do you mean?

Jo:

Bad dad uh was trying to hang with the little ones and broke himself.

Matt:

I think it was a good demonstration. I guess, that was how you that's how you're supposed to like bail out of a handstand. I just did it too close to an island.

Jo:

Yeah, I get that.

Matt:

So I think it was the right lesson in the wrong place.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

I'm not accepting a bad dad for that.

Jo:

Okay, that's fine. Do you have a bad dad? Mean mom it taught her about band-aids too.

Matt:

Yeah, yeah, she was really intrigued by like she's only been using the little kid band-aids, and so I had to use a big kid band-aid to put my toe back together.

Jo:

Yeah.

Matt:

And uh-, then she wanted to use big kid band-aids, and they work better.

Jo:

Yeah, she didn't want the fun ones.

Matt:

No, she wanted a cool one like dad. That's skin-towned and boring.

Jo:

Of course she did.

Matt:

Yeah, anyway. So, yeah, I almost broke my foot in half and you are actively breaking your legs apart.

Jo:

On purpose, though, yeah. I'm breaking my legs apart on purpose.

Matt:

Yeah, mine was not on purpose.

Jo:

I really want to get back into some level of shape. It's not about any kind of like aesthetic or wanting to lose weight, I just want to feel-. I want my body to not hurt. I want it to hurt because I moved it, not hurt because I didn't move it. Does that?

Matt:

make sense. You don't want to be winded going up a flight of stairs, yeah, Exactly. I think that's fair.

Jo:

And so it's been three years, like you said, and I never got back into it with being pregnant and being so sick and I'm excited. Yeah, good, it's going to be a workout, g'ul.

Matt:

G'ul.

Jo:

Yeah, how do you?

Matt:

spell that word.

Jo:

G-W-O-R-L.

Matt:

G'ul G'ul, g'ul G'ul Got it.

Jo:

I feel good because the personal trainer that I'm working with told me that my form and stuff looked good.

Matt:

Nice, nice.

Jo:

It's a good training that you can tell when people were once upon a time like athletes or anything because they have more awareness of their body.

Matt:

Yeah.

Jo:

And that's the kind of gold star I need to keep going, that's good.

Matt:

Yeah, it's important to give you lots of validation.

Jo:

Yes.

Matt:

Especially in a workout environment.

Jo:

Really in any environment.

Matt:

Yes, but if it's something you don't want to do, there needs to be a lot of yeah. And you're not a love to workout, girly.

Jo:

I'm not. I like yoga. I don't. I'm more of a. I'd rather do an activity Like I'd rather.

Matt:

You'll do a class or you'd like to go do something.

Jo:

Well, like I'd rather go and have a night out on a dance floor or going on a long walk with friends or play a game of beach volleyball, or you know what I mean.

Matt:

Uh-huh yeah.

Jo:

I'm not good at.

Matt:

So you need like an intramural sports league kind of thing I do I do, Because I was going to say I don't know that you can schedule. I mean I guess you could schedule a dance floor, regular dance floor, like twice a week You're going like Mondays and Fridays.

Jo:

I always watch on TikTok the dance classes where they're like teaching classes to like the step classes on those you know the things that were really popular in the 80s, the little like step block thing.

Matt:

Yeah, the steps.

Jo:

I don't know what it's just called a step, the stair step. It's not a stair. I don't know the stack on top of each other.

Matt:

Yeah, they're like a little short bench.

Jo:

Uh-huh, but I love watching people in those classes. They learn the choreography and then they like pump through it three or four times. That looks like an absolute ball.

Matt:

Yeah, you just want to be a dancer.

Jo:

I do, but I don't have any of the skills. You don't got it. I'm kind of hoping that one of our kids is into dance and that I can kind of learn with them.

Matt:

Okay.

Jo:

Not like I'm going to the dance classes, I just mean like maybe I can learn some of the things with them as they go.

Matt:

They're going to teach your kid and then your kid's going to come home and show you the moves. Okay, you're like it's time to practice, now that I've said it out loud, it sounds dumb and I take it all back. No, I'm not going to try and learn anything with my kids?

Jo:

ever?

Matt:

No, I think it's a good idea. I hope you try when they, like, are really small and so you're learning just the hilarious little kid.

Jo:

It's like that segment on that late night show where the adults just mirror whatever stuff the toddler's doing in the dance class.

Matt:

Yes, yeah, pretty much, and that's what you'll start with Pretty much. Then you should go bust those out at like a wedding. Okay, little kid dance moves.

Jo:

Little kid dance moves rock. I've never seen something that holds down a dance floor as well as a toddler. Yeah. Like people make a giant circle around them and then any move they make, people are like yeah, yeah, and I wish we had more of that energy into adulthood. Yeah, that's fair.

Matt:

Our kids are big like dinosaur stomp in a circle.

Jo:

Yeah, she loves a dinosaur stomp.

Matt:

Yeah.

Jo:

She loves a roar. You didn't go. We went to a birthday party this weekend. Gee and I did, and I. It was a dinosaur themed birthday party and the kids were roaring at each other and our kid can hold her own in a roar contest for sure.

Matt:

I mean she's not going to hold back. I know that for a fact.

Jo:

No, she did not hold back and I actually had to tell her settle down, stop scaring the kids.

Matt:

Settle down, rory.

Jo:

Rory, it was Rory. Well, I know it wasn't, it was Gartie, but I was thinking of like roaring.

Matt:

And then when it came out of my mouth, got it.

Jo:

I was like, oh, that's our other kid's name.

Matt:

I was like I don't think he's roaring a lot.

Jo:

No, not intentionally. I wasn't mean it that way. I was like if she was barking like, simmer down, barky Got it.

Matt:

But please don't nickname our other kid, rory.

Jo:

I realized really quickly that that is in fact our other child's name.

Matt:

Anyway, easy to forget.

Jo:

Easy to forget what I just repeated, what you said I shouldn't have. I'm bad about.

Matt:

She calls him the baby or baby.

Jo:

You are really bad about that.

Matt:

And when she says that, I just try to acknowledge that's truly the bad dad moment is, instead of saying Rory, I just say yeah, baby does this, and I'm like gosh, you got to stop encouraging the. She knows his name, though.

Jo:

Now. Yeah, there was a period where there was a time where she knew all of our friends baby's names, but her baby's name was baby, so my baby, my baby, oh boy, it's fun. It's a good time out here. What else has been going on? Do we have any other updates to slinging?

Matt:

You're getting back into the hosting season. So you've been, you did a little couples night hosting piece and we're going to get the patio cleaned up and do a little outdoor outdoor series scenario. So that's been the projects of the week.

Jo:

Family photos are the most interesting thing of all time. We took some family photos while my best friend was in town this weekend. And, holy cannoli, do they get harder when you have a toddler?

Matt:

Yeah.

Jo:

I don't know how to make it happen.

Matt:

Do you feel like we utilized our advice that we gave like a week ago?

Jo:

Yeah, I do, I do. I still stand by everything that I, okay, okay.

Matt:

Do we have to make amendments and be like sorry guys, it's impossible.

Jo:

No, no, no, I don't think that. I mean, I think it went really well. I think the part I need to work on, and the advice that I gave last week, is just being happy with what you get, like not creating a vision of what it should look like or what it should be, because when you do that, that is when it gets dicey, I think.

Matt:

You get frustrated and your kids get tired and they sense the frustration and they sense the everything they're like no, no, thank you, you just get what you get and you don't throw a fit. Yeah.

Jo:

I just don't have a very aesthetic. That's going to sound crazy to people listening, probably, but I don't feel like I have that aesthetic of a lifestyle.

Matt:

Compared to other people that do what you do.

Jo:

Compared to other people that do what I do, and I see a lot of really cool series of images of people out with their kids and doing stuff and I don't know that it's curated to be that way or if they really are just naturally and organically that cool. Because I do know people who, when I meet them in real life, they just organically are that together and that cool and their style, just everything flows and vibes. And that's not me and it's never been me and I, when we do family photos, always feel the need to stick myself in a box that I should be able to achieve that, even though it's not really who I am.

Matt:

I think it may just require me being a better photographer.

Jo:

I don't know, do you think?

Matt:

I mean, I think that helps the people, that really have it have somebody on their team, whether that's their partner or actually somebody that shoots photos with them.

Jo:

I'd say a lot of them are partners. Yeah, that are into it.

Matt:

But I think some of them are, you know, like a kind of more nanny role or something that also can shoot.

Jo:

We don't have that.

Matt:

No, no, you got me.

Jo:

Matt has fantastic pictures of me.

Matt:

Yes, that's what you mean, yeah.

Jo:

You're not bad.

Matt:

No, I'm functional. At this point, I would say yeah. Like I can follow a few rules with them. I can almost set the camera poorly, but not consistently, and I need several test shots of you to be like is this what you're thinking? Because I cannot see what you're thinking.

Jo:

Yeah, you definitely don't have like an artistic vision with it.

Matt:

No, even if I did, I don't think our artistic visions are going to overlap a lot.

Jo:

Yeah, but I would love to see even if it wasn't the artistic vision I had, I would love to see it through your lens and idea of the creativity that you want to express and how you want to capture moments, but I don't feel like that. That's necessarily what you're doing.

Matt:

Fair, I was a little creative when we were in Oregon.

Jo:

Tell me more.

Matt:

Remember my boots picture.

Jo:

Never mind. No, tell me more, not memorable.

Matt:

Not memorable at all. It's fine Just my ego.

Jo:

Matt, you know I have a terrible memory.

Matt:

You just talked about how you have a great memory last week.

Jo:

How so.

Matt:

You have a good memory and I have. Right, I remember in Oregon, Wait no, you have a bad memory and good recall.

Jo:

Yeah.

Matt:

You can recall everything. You remember poorly.

Jo:

Right, well, I can tell you when we were in Oregon and I can tell you what airport we flew into and where we stayed, and the dates we were there and our schedule. I don't have good detail recall, which is what you're asking me to do right now. Tell me about the boot picture.

Matt:

I was trying to put them in the foreground.

Jo:

Oh, yeah, yeah, I was trying to do cool things.

Matt:

I don't think you thought they were that cool.

Jo:

You know what? It's fine, you're breaking down my walls. I'm hearing what you're saying.

Matt:

No, it's all good. It's all good. I got you Some ideas are bad. I think that's just a fact.

Jo:

You don't have any bad ideas.

Matt:

That's not true.

Jo:

You've never had a bad idea.

Matt:

I think most of the ideas I come up with, like for videos, perform poorly.

Jo:

Yeah.

Matt:

You're not wrong, they're jokes, just for me.

Jo:

Yeah, well, it's not that the joke's not funny, it's that your delivery is not what. Okay. No, your jokes are hilarious. It's not even that your delivery's bad. That's not what I, okay.

Matt:

I was worried. I was worried. You didn't even look at the finish by sentence.

Jo:

No, your jokes are good, your delivery is fine, but not for video sharing.

Matt:

That's true.

Jo:

That's the problem.

Matt:

Yeah, I'm not a great video performer.

Jo:

No, it takes a skill set and I'm not even I feel like that. I know people who are really good at it. It ain't me.

Matt:

No.

Jo:

Okay, matt and I are mediocre. Greg's Reads of the Week.

Matt:

Is it Reads Plural?

Jo:

or is it Reads of the Week like last week. What? Oh, I don't know. I just assumed he sent more things. Yeah, so Greg's your dad. Yeah.

Matt:

He sends us a lot of articles. You tend to read most of them, I do and then I tend to read the headlines and prejudge them, and so this segment is our evaluation of just the headlines on one to five how much anxiety they give us.

Jo:

Yes, so Number one legal scrutiny signals shift in how US homes are bought and sold.

Matt:

Two.

Jo:

Oh, like a five.

Matt:

Five okay.

Jo:

And because I have no idea what that's trying to say to me and that stresses me out.

Matt:

As people privileged enough to have a home, I'm not looking at buying and selling one soon, so my immediate brain's like, okay, I guess I'm learning.

Jo:

I get a lot of anxiety about things I don't understand.

Matt:

Fair, fair. Are you just worried about looking dumb? Or yeah, okay, that's what it is? Yes, okay, 100%. So it's not important for you to know stuff, or it's just important for you to look like?

Jo:

you don't not know stuff. No, it's not about looking like I know things.

Matt:

You just don't want to look dumb.

Jo:

Yeah, like I don't mind to not know something. The situation that I hate is when somebody says something to me.

Matt:

As though everyone should know it.

Jo:

Yes, Got it. And then I'm like that's how I feel reading that headline is legal scrutiny signal shift in how US homes are bought and sold? I'm like, oh man, they said that to me, like I should really know what that means, and that makes me feel panicked.

Matt:

Okay, fair.

Jo:

Does that make?

Matt:

sense Interesting yeah no-transcript.

Jo:

Sure yeah, learn something new.

Matt:

I mean, I know it's. I know you really don't like to look dumb, so that's not like new.

Jo:

I don't. I don't like the wording of that, because I don't feel like I'm going to look dumb.

Matt:

Yeah, it's not an ego thing. Yeah, I don't know. Is it that you don't want people to think less of you?

Jo:

No, I don't care about that.

Matt:

I don't feel like that's what it is.

Jo:

I have a feel for it. I don't know if I can describe it, though I think that growing up I was told over and over again I was so naive and I like didn't know stuff everybody should know, and I've carried that into my adulthood really big time, because I feel like I was very sheltered and I just didn't get a lot of exposure to people.

Matt:

Got it, got it. And so I to a broader perspective to any perspective okay.

Jo:

At all, like I don't even feel like I was really privy to my parents perspective. I feel like I was just kind of kept in my own little box, and part of that's my personality, you know. Part of it was I wasn't asking the right questions, but I don't like that I was left to my own devices, that I had to ask the right questions in order to you know, I don't know if I've evaluated my own like I like you on that level.

Jo:

I've told you the story about. I was reading the book in elementary school Guys, so have I told? I may have told this on the podcast before, but I was in elementary school and there was a book all about animals and I loved animals, and so I think that this is a perfect example of the feeling that I don't like and I was reading all about the scientific names for these animals, sure, and in this book it called a female dog a bitch, and nobody in my life had ever said that word around me or told me it was a bad word or anything like that.

Jo:

And I'm in my, like, third or fourth grade classroom, like it's just a book that was, I'm sure. I just didn't know it was in it.

Jo:

but anyway, I came back to the table and I sat down next to Cassie, who is my neighbor, and we drove to school together and I said, did you know, a female dog's a bitch. And she lost her ever loving mind and was like you can't say that, like why would you say that? And that was one of those moments for me where it was like oh, everybody else's parents, or like are swearing around them.

Jo:

I've told them they're not like that. There's this, this I don't know. It was one of those moments where it felt like there's this secret handbook that everybody else has that I don't have.

Matt:

I don't think our kids going to have that problem.

Jo:

No, no, but am I making any?

Matt:

sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah absolutely. And so I don't like when you say that just like total, just to be totally caught off guard and feel ignorant. Yeah, got it, yeah.

Jo:

Ignorance are really good, like I don't like to feel ignorant because it's not about dumb I am dumb all the time.

Matt:

Sure, constantly Sure.

Jo:

Like, that's just not something that.

Matt:

I think it's almost. You don't like to be dumb about common sense. You're okay being dumb about facts or knowledge, but if you feel like it should be common sense and you don't have it, you're like, oh no, yeah, I get really freaked out.

Jo:

I'm, yeah, I'm an idiot it's not even about being like, it's just I don't know.

Matt:

Yeah, I keep throwing the word idiot and dumb. No, you do.

Jo:

And it's really not about that.

Matt:

No no, no feel other.

Jo:

I don't even feel like in my day to day. I don't know. I'm happy to not be right about stuff. Like that's really not a problem for me.

Matt:

Okay.

Jo:

I don't know.

Matt:

Totally fair, totally fair.

Jo:

Have, I, have I.

Matt:

We covered this article long enough.

Jo:

I'm like okay, Next thing.

Matt:

We didn't even talk about housing, we just talked about your feelings.

Jo:

That's okay, there's a space for that. It doesn't feel very okay. It feels like maybe.

Matt:

Yeah, I want that's. I think people tune in for that sometimes.

Jo:

Okay, after $1.8 billion verdict, the clock is ticking on the 6% real estate commission.

Matt:

Hmm, interesting. Yeah, I mean a two out of five again, I don't know.

Jo:

That doesn't give me a ton of stress because I'm not a real estate agent, I'm not in the real estate industry, yeah, but the article was interesting.

Matt:

What's, what's it about? I mean, I've, we've bought and sold a few houses, so we know the 6% game, kind of.

Jo:

Uh, I think that there is like a big lawsuit or some kind of something going on in Missouri court about real estate and being liable for damages in conspiring to keep.

Matt:

Oh, like collusion.

Jo:

Like with commissions, like keeping commissions higher than they should be or something along the.

Matt:

They're colluding to keep uh to prop up commissions. Yeah, Hmm, Interesting.

Jo:

Anyway, it was interesting but it did not give me. I'm going to say did I say two out of five? I'm sticking with my two out of five.

Matt:

I don't know if you said it, but that's. That's where I'm at, too Okay.

Jo:

How to text Siri instead of talking to it out loud.

Matt:

How to text Siri instead of talking to it out loud.

Jo:

I mean no anxiety, that's interesting. Yeah, that is interesting.

Matt:

You know what drives me nuts. I'm going to switch the button. If you press it it will call Siri, kind of. And the number of times see, you wear yours where the crown goes up your arms, so that doesn't happen to you, but my wrist goes this way. Also, the number of times I've almost blown out my eardrums accidentally spinning the dial and my AirPods are like max volume. Yeah, I think.

Jo:

I can, you should flip it.

Matt:

Yeah, I wonder. I haven't looked into the settings, but it seems like it'd be so Super doable.

Jo:

Yeah, I wear mine on my right wrist, yeah, so I don't have that problem.

Matt:

It's called the Destro.

Jo:

All right the best protein bar you've ever tried is being unveiled at the 2023 Olympics.

Matt:

Building the hype. What are the carb numbers on it? I don't know, I don't know. Is it keto friendly?

Jo:

I'm mad, I don't know.

Matt:

It's the best one.

Jo:

Do you think it has like 200 grams of protein?

Matt:

Is it like a rice crispy looking bar? Yeah, in a period of time there was something called snap bars. I don't know where they've gone, but they were delicious.

Jo:

If anyone has a lead on snap bars, that's not like $8 a bar that's 15 grams of protein, 3 grams of net carbs and a mere 2 grams of sugar.

Matt:

Okay, this sounds like the snap bar that I was eating years ago.

Jo:

And then somebody said it's not technically a bar they don't like the word bar, it's more of a treat, but it's like a protein treat. It looks like a rice crispy treat, but it's obviously lowering calories, high in protein and very low in sugar, gluten free and tastes great. What?

Matt:

I think this is somebody rebranding snap bars and maybe they went away for a period of time. They are delicious. Has anyone had a snap bar? They're so good. I love that feel there was a period of time where I was eating a lot of snap bars. I remember I was buying them any time I could find them. I remember, yeah, you were there, you had some of them.

Jo:

Matt has a real problem.

Matt:

I have real ADHD is what I got. Real spectrum nonsense where you have comfort foods that you eat for months at a time and then quit.

Jo:

Yeah, snap bars were it for a while, salmon was it for a while.

Matt:

Yeah, salmon was probably the healthier choice there.

Jo:

Brownie brittle I loved your brownie brittle phase. That was probably my favorite phase that you've been through.

Matt:

I would eat enough that it would stay under like my carb threshold. But I would be eating brownie brittle regularly. It'd just be a piece or two, but it'd be every day.

Jo:

I. There are some phases that I've really loved of yours. I don't like the peanut butter phase, Just eating peanut butter. Yeah, I really don't like that one. Sorry, there are some that I love and some that I don't, because, since Matt's in charge of groceries like what groceries I have in the pantry really very based on what he is going through, and he will tell you on the podcast right now that if I just ask him to get me stuff, he will, but that's actually a lie.

Matt:

I'll try.

Jo:

Yeah, exactly.

Matt:

I'll try. I'm not a list at the grocery store person, but I need to be badly, so I go off of what I remember. That goes off all vibes in the grocery store the number of times I go to the grocery store, get to the car, remember what I forgot and go back in.

Jo:

I did that with butter last time I went. The number of times that Matt is about to go to the grocery store, he goes hey, is there anything you want? And I text him a list and he gets home and I'm like where's this?

Matt:

He's like I didn't get any of that. It's not I didn't get any of that. It's usually at most two items that I missed.

Jo:

You're always willing to go back. Yeah, and we don't live far from the grocery store. You are always willing to go back.

Matt:

I can make a 20 minute round trip and get whatever you need.

Jo:

Yeah.

Matt:

As long as it's still at the grocery store. But oh yeah, that is a weakness of mine. It's not ideal.

Jo:

Hey, we all have them.

Matt:

Yeah.

Jo:

Mine's healing, my inner child apparently.

Matt:

All that to say, snap bars, so good. I think they're back or somebody's copied them.

Jo:

I love that I love, that for me, I love that for me.

Matt:

I wonder if that's why dad sent it.

Jo:

I don't know, Greg do you remember Matt's snap bar obsession?

Matt:

I don't think he I don't know why he would know that.

Jo:

No, because that would have been when you were living in St Louis, wasn't it?

Matt:

Just when I moved in with you, because we'd go to the grocery store and if they had them I'd buy like all of them. They were also like pretty affordable yeah. As far as like protein bars go.

Jo:

Yeah.

Matt:

Like they were, like a buck.

Jo:

I'm trying to think of other phases you've been through.

Matt:

The grilled cheese phase.

Jo:

The first phase is the number one worst phase you've ever been through in my life.

Matt:

That's the worst one. Yeah, because I was pregnant.

Jo:

And the bacon phase during your pregnancy and there was grilled cheese and bacon and you wouldn't give it up for me.

Matt:

You almost left me.

Jo:

You would not give it up for me. You would only do it when I wasn't in the house, but you always, like Matt, has this really toxic, like I would say, this is one of your most toxic man traits. Okay, and that is that you don't believe me when I say I don't like things.

Matt:

I believe you, but I was you think.

Jo:

I genuinely don't. You're like it's not as bad as she says. It's like me saying that I can taste the tap water.

Matt:

Okay. That was yeah, that still drives me nuts, because we have good tap water here.

Jo:

And have I proven to you that I can taste the difference.

Matt:

You have, you have.

Jo:

He tries to sneak me tap. Well, not, he haven't done it in a long time, but for like the whole first year we lived together, he would try to sneak me tap water, which is fine. It's not that I won't drink tap water, I will.

Matt:

I will. I would drink it If you have to.

Jo:

But I was like, can you put it through the water that ran through the filter?

Matt:

Why was I avoiding filtered water? Was it just slower?

Jo:

I don't know. Oh okay, I have no idea.

Matt:

I'm trying to figure out what corner I was trying to cut here.

Jo:

That's your own thing, but you were determined to prove to me that I couldn't tell the difference. I bet I was just annoyed that it would take me two minutes to fill the cup instead of 12 seconds.

Matt:

That's the kind of dumb time saving that I do Some boy math right there.

Jo:

That is boy math. And then what was the other thing? Oh wait, I don't remember the water, the, the, the.

Matt:

The problem was I would try to cook it while you were gone, but it turns out bacon smell. Doesn't leave your house in two hours. I would do it on times where it was a tough turnaround, like maybe if you were going to shoot a wedding and you were going to be gone all day, I could maybe cook it in the morning and try and air the house out, but I'd try and do it when you were gone for like two and a half hours.

Jo:

And I'd get home and I'd be like man. I'd have the vent fan just like blasting There'd be candles lit all over the house and then it just smelled like scents mixed with bacon, and it was just anyway.

Matt:

Yeah, it was a potpourri of candles and bacon.

Jo:

You never did it Like if I was home. You didn't even go there. I did.

Matt:

I was smart enough to not do that, but I was bold enough to try and skirt the edges.

Jo:

Because you had to have bacon.

Matt:

I was eating a lot of it.

Jo:

You were going through a bacon fixation.

Matt:

I was loaded with nitrates for sure, oh Lord, I'm a problem.

Jo:

You are a problem.

Matt:

In so many ways.

Jo:

Yeah, so am I though, oh yeah. We're really, you know, we're quite the pair.

Matt:

You're eating more pretzels than, I think, anybody in the world.

Jo:

It's because you regularly stalk them.

Matt:

I mean yeah, because you regularly eat them yeah.

Speaker 3:

That's your give up.

Matt:

Like I don't want to think about food, I'm going to eat pretzels.

Jo:

Yeah, might slap some Nutella on there.

Matt:

It has been for years. Yeah, it has it, has. It's just, I do a lot of peanut butter and jelly. So the part of your wellness journey is maybe improving each time you're going to eat.

Jo:

This morning I made a real breakfast, you did.

Matt:

That was funny to me because I felt like you did not have time to make a real breakfast, but you pulled it off.

Jo:

I finished it before she walked in. I know you did.

Matt:

I know you did. I can't eat that close to a workout. That's my problem.

Jo:

I wasn't doing a HIIT workout.

Matt:

Oh, okay, well, all right, okay, fair I was going through a lifting circuit. I hate.

Jo:

I wasn't doing any kind of elevated heart rate Like. I mean my heart rate was elevated because I haven't lifted weights in a long time, but it wasn't like a. You know, I can't do. I can't eat like that and then do a HIIT. Well, actually I probably could have.

Matt:

I think you can. Yeah, yeah, is it just practice? Do you do years of swimming and would you eat right before swimming? I had to eat something on my way to swimming, or I would throw up. Yeah, you would throw up because you didn't eat Mm-hmm. Interesting. I wouldn't, actually, I shouldn't say it, I would throw up.

Jo:

I wouldn't throw up, but I would feel like nauseous my entire workout. But you can't.

Matt:

Your blood sugar would crash out.

Jo:

You can't wake up at 4.30 in the morning after like what, fasting for eight or nine hours and go and swim two to three miles without eating anything you can, but you're going to feel like garbage, you're going to be in great shape, though You're going to burn all that body fat. But that's not great shape. You're just eating all the muscle that you're trying to put in because your body is just Depends, depends, no, there's weights.

Matt:

There's weights. No, matt, that's not good for you. Read the science. Read the science Fasted, fasted workouts. I'm not saying fasted workouts are good, great you, you were.

Jo:

I'm saying when you're talking about a teenage all American athlete.

Matt:

like you didn't have a lot of extra.

Jo:

No.

Matt:

Body reserves to go off of. No, I hear you, I hear you, yeah, all that to say, all right, I'm trying to build better habits, and snap bars might be back.

Jo:

Snap bars are back baby.

Matt:

Watching me, nothing like snap bars.

Jo:

I'll be so disappointing.

Matt:

It would be yeah, I'm pumped. Now I bet he didn't know how pumped I would be about that article.

Jo:

Yeah, you didn't even read it.

Matt:

No, but I just saw it and I was like wait a second.

Jo:

I love that. Okay, we have voicemails.

Matt:

We do.

Jo:

Voicemails, voicemails, voicemails.

Speaker 3:

Hi Joan Matt, this is Cassidy. I'm from Abbottsford, bc. It's about an hour and a half out of Vancouver. I just want to say I love your guys' podcast. I listen to it all the time and I look forward to the new episodes that come out. And also, funnily enough, I started listening to it and I found it on Spotify when I was kind of doing a social media fast and so, yeah, I didn't know you guys or hear about you at all or your social media platforms before I started listening to this. But, yeah, anyways, I've got a question for you guys Do you eat your mac and cheese with a spoon or with a fork, and why?

Speaker 3:

Okay, thank, you guys so much, thanks so much for all that you say and all the wisdom you've got Bye.

Matt:

That's the hard-hitting questions that we could. There were qualified to answer this.

Jo:

Oh, we are qualified to answer this.

Matt:

I'm not eating a lot of mac and cheese these days. What are you going to say? It's a fork. It's a fork 100%.

Jo:

Oh, okay, I was going to say it depends. It depends on the texture and the noodle.

Matt:

Okay, well, I exclusively eat craft tubes.

Jo:

See, oh, craft, I can go spoon or fork.

Matt:

Yeah, the fork can help you pick up the elusive last ones.

Jo:

I want mac and cheese. I want a spoon.

Matt:

I'd probably still go fork.

Jo:

I want a spoon.

Matt:

Okay.

Jo:

But there are a lot of kinds that I want a fork.

Matt:

Prefer a fork.

Jo:

Yeah, it depends on how liquidy.

Matt:

You want to be able to scoop up the cheese.

Jo:

Yeah.

Matt:

Even as someone who likes craft, that kind of grosses me out, I don't know, just texturally, I think that concerns me.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Matt:

I like the fork. I like the fork keeps it almost I mean lighter. We're talking mac and cheese here, so it's arbitrary, but yeah, I'm a fork guy.

Jo:

I was a spoon girl growing up my entire life and then I got introduced to the fork when Matt and I moved in together and I was like, oh, this makes a lot of sense.

Matt:

You can stab a ton of craft noodles with a fork, like if you want to stack your fork up, like all the way to the top of the tines, just like, stab away at it. You can get a ton of mac and cheese on one fork. And it's just a dummy that tries to eat as fast as he possibly can.

Jo:

I guess that was valuable to me. Matt's always trying to save time, but we don't know what for yet. Yeah.

Matt:

I've wasted most of my days, but I am trying to save time at every possible moment. I'm trying to save it for, like I want to waste it on my terms. I don't want to waste it on eating, sleeping things that will enrich me.

Jo:

You're fascinating.

Matt:

In the worst way.

Jo:

Wow, okay, I love that. Also crazy that you found us.

Matt:

Organically.

Jo:

I love that though because, I feel like the podcast is probably the most not that we're nailing it every week or anything like that, but I feel like it's the most authentic representation of what I would love to be doing in our day-to-day with work and things. I feel like this is a true manifestation of like how I want to be connecting with people and how I feel like I serve people better.

Matt:

I thought you were going to say it was a true representation of how we're doing. I was like, yeah, sometimes the bad ones, that's, I think accurate.

Jo:

No, I'm confused now.

Matt:

No, you were just. You were starting to say that it's what you want, like it's a reflection of what you want to be doing, and I thought you were going to say it's a reflection of like us and whatever you know.

Jo:

guys, earlier today I said Matt and I weren't connecting and I just want you to know, every time we get done recording this podcast, we look at each other when it's over and we're like, do we feel like that one hit? And sometimes we're like, yeah, that really hit. And today's one of those days that I can go ahead and feel the conversation happen before we even get done recording. We're going to look at each other and be like what just happened.

Matt:

I don't feel that bad about it.

Jo:

Really, do you think anybody's I'm sitting here going? Is anybody going to be able to listen?

Matt:

to this Make it to the end.

Jo:

It's just I won't be able to listen to it.

Matt:

Okay, interesting.

Jo:

It really has nothing to do with you. I end up going through phases where I don't like how I sound.

Matt:

It's an individual performance thing, like I don't think I was on. Is that what it is? I can feel that.

Jo:

Not how I sound, like my voice actual. Physically my voice does not bother me at all, but I don't like how I come across or something.

Speaker 5:

Sure.

Matt:

Sure, you didn't.

Jo:

I have so many insecurities. Okay, well, on that note, here's another voicemail.

Matt:

Let's give somebody advice Hi.

Speaker 5:

Matt and Joe. My name is Rara Sump. I'm listening to you guys as I drive home from work and just thought I'd leave a voicemail because I know how much I believe Joe really enjoys these voicemails. I had a question, because you talk about taking pictures of your family and I always see you posting them online. How would you save the pictures and not have an abundance of printed copies all throughout your house that are overwhelming in storage bins and boxes but also aren't taking up so much storage on your phone? Because I have a seven month old son and I just feel like I'm constantly taking photos because I want all of those memories, but I feel like I'm running out and I'm fearful to lose the images I have. So what would you recommend? Would it be a hard drive? Is there any other ways you guys save all of your photos or keep them? Maybe it is printing them too. Thanks, I really enjoyed the podcast.

Jo:

I love this question.

Matt:

Yeah.

Jo:

This is maybe my life's favorite question what are these Google photos for digital backup? We keep stuff on hard drives too.

Matt:

Well, that's how you keep this storage on your phone and check a little bit. Is you back up to Google photos I know you can use. I think Amazon has a photo. What it is is cloud storage that you automatically back your photos up to cloud storage and you can delete the originals off your phone to save space. There's several different. Google integrates pretty well with Apple. Apple's got their own cloud storage. You can pay for it's usually quite a bit cheaper than hard drives. Well, yeah, then upgrading your iPhone for sure.

Jo:

I, though, tell people to not trust. Don't put all of your eggs in one basket with photos.

Jo:

So, yes, keep them in storage, but please print your pictures. I use chat books. I've never worked with them. I always feel like I have to say that, because I know that they do work with a lot of content creators and I always want to be abundantly transparent. Maybe one day I will and I will be very excited about that, but I've used their services for two and a half years now and I do monthly books with them and that's a really really good, easy way to make sure you're printing at least something, because if anything would ever happen tragically and you lose digital files, at least you have printed copies. I think it's a balance of doing a little bit of both. I don't think you have to make sure that you back up everything digitally perfectly. I don't think you have to make sure you print everything perfectly, but if you utilize both of those tools, it means that you kind of have things spread out, so if anything happens, you are not losing everything.

Matt:

Yeah, I would almost add, even less so worrying about losing them out of cloud storage.

Jo:

It's the quality. It's not losing the file.

Matt:

Sure, but even that the problem is you're backing everything up and so the quantity is so much that you'll never go back and get through it. So I think the good part of printing and doing your little chat books is you curate kind of the highlights and keep those present. Anyway, that works. For you to curate highlights, maybe you have one of those digital frames or something that you pick the best ones and then you just offload your phone to cloud.

Jo:

And chat books didn't update this past year, where now it used to be that you could only with their monthly books they're $15 a month and you could only print up to 30 pictures in the books. But they didn't update this year, where you can pay like four cents a page or that's probably wrong I have no idea what it is and have up to 60 pages of photos in the monthly books, which has been really helpful to me.

Matt:

If you have like a just a bus in month.

Jo:

Yeah, sometimes I can do it in 30, but sometimes I want to have I've never had one that I have all 60. But anyway, that's what I do Chat books, google photos and, yeah, print your pictures, curate your pictures and make it something that later your kids can go back through and see what your favorites were and highlighted moments, rather than just an abundance.

Matt:

Yeah, but make it part of your routine, you could even. I mean, maybe you post it or, like you know, just find a way to curate the highlights.

Jo:

A lot of those apps have really cool tools where it's like here, you can print everything that you posted to Instagram or like whatever. I like chat books because we don't post pictures of our kids online for the most part, and so I like chat books because when I use it it only brings up, like my photos from September to do my September book. I find that really convenient.

Matt:

Yeah, that's, that's cool.

Jo:

So do to do another voicemail.

Speaker 4:

Hi John. Matt, I'm listening in here from the state of Indiana. I love your guys's podcast. I've been following along on Joe's Instagram and TikTok since around the time that you guys became pregnant with G, but I've just gotten into the podcast recently, over the last couple months. My question is more geared towards Joe, and you may have talked about this on either this podcast or maybe your other podcast, so I apologize if you've already covered this topic, but this question is photography related.

Speaker 4:

My husband and I own a fairly successful photography and videography business. We had over 30 weddings this year, double headers every weekend in October, so just now coming out of busy season, and I guess my question is kind of how did you decide to make the decision to step away from your photography business? Was it more of getting into content creation? Was it burnout? What kind of factors went into that?

Speaker 4:

Because you know we go back and forth between, especially in busy season, feeling that burnout and not sure how much longer we can keep up with the editing queue and being, you know, our Saturdays taken every weekend, but then, on the flip side, coming out of busy season and getting to rest a little while, you know, feeling that again, it's our passion and we couldn't imagine doing anything else. The flexibility that allows me to stay home with our son during most weekdays when we don't have sessions, and also just the income that it provides. So, yeah, I would just love any kind of insight into how you made that decision, how long you stuck with it and how you knew it was time to wrap it up, um, and just any advice you had. Thanks, guys, keep up the great work.

Jo:

Fantastic question and it's funny listening to this because I never was that into photography.

Jo:

As an art as an art and even as a business, and what I mean by I was never that into it is. I mean, I knew from day one and anybody that knows me on a personal level knew from day one that it wasn't my end goal. It was more of a stepping stone into learning about entrepreneurship, seeing what direction I might want to go, and I, to be completely transparent, still haven't figured that out. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what I want to do. I know that I love people, I love connecting with them, I love hearing their stories. Uh, I love any opportunity I have to talk with people and make them feel seen and heard and things like that, but I don't know where I'm going.

Jo:

Uh, and when I was doing photography, I knew that it was a stepping stone into whatever was next. I didn't know I was going to go into content creation. Uh, I made the choice to step back from photography because at the end so in 2018, I shot 52 weddings. I think that's right and it no, there are 52 weeks. I shot 48 weddings and it was absolutely insane.

Jo:

I was traveling all over and I was getting really burnt out. I was missing all of my friends, engagement parties and the exciting things going on in their lives, and so I finally made the decision that I wanted to start cycling out. Uh, and I knew at that point that my goal was for 2020 to be my last season of weddings, that I was like really relying on my photography as my full time income. Uh, and that is when I started jumping with Joe and I started doing more workshops and going in the direction of teaching and, uh, yeah, I, I, it was a, I've always been a, I've always been a really slow and intentional decision maker.

Jo:

Like I can really, up until recently, I can, really, I can look two years out and I can start kind of building the foundation for where I want to go, and I very much did it in that way. It was not a quick decision and I think a lot of people, because of how my exit from photography uh coincided with COVID and coincided with TikTok and growing on social, I think a lot of people perceive me as somebody who made kind of a rash decision to leave photography and that just wasn't the case, did I answer that question?

Matt:

Yeah, yeah, I think you did, I I burnout was definitely a big part of it. For sure, you went, you flew into the sun.

Jo:

Yeah, 100% again to tie back to the beginning. You've never been afraid of a change.

Matt:

Right You're. You're big on if you're not loving something, changing it. Now you did make a very intentional longterm plan about that. But I think once you got started getting burned out, you were like, yeah, I'm, I'm going to do something different, and I knew that it was going to take me a couple of years to move out of it because I couldn't replace my photography and come overnight.

Jo:

I knew that I didn't want to go and work for somebody else, and so I knew that I needed to get entrepreneurial and figure out something different. I had no idea that was going to be content creation. Well, plus, you had bookings 12 plus months in advance.

Matt:

Yes, at a certain point you have to plan it ahead, just so that.

Jo:

But even after I made that decision. I still took bookings all the way through quite some time, yeah, but there's a point where you cut it off. But yeah, yeah.

Matt:

I'd say the biggest part was burnout and then just not being your passion. But yeah, I, I feel like I'm not going to be a good person.

Jo:

I feel like being a creative requires a level of passion that I don't have. I don't have it, uh, I don't. The things in my life that I feel deeply, creatively connected to, I don't necessarily love to share, and not from the way of wanting to keep them to myself, more of the way of I don't want them ruined for me by other people's opinions. Hmm, Interesting.

Jo:

And I think I'm very much in a season currently where so many things that I love and I'm enjoying, I think, being online, everybody has something to say about everything and there are there's good feedback out there for everything and bad feedback out there for everything, and there's a lot of sweeping judgments of you know, if you feel like this, about whatever you're like this, I don't know just a lot of defining people and I just don't necessarily enjoy being defined or put in a box, and so when there are things that are really special to me, I tend to hold them really close. Yeah, so it's hard for me to envision a career I didn't feel connected to photography so having a career where I was showing people my work. I didn't have this deep seated, you know, soul connection with it that I felt like I was putting myself out there every time I delivered work, and I know photographers that are that way. It is their passion and I just I don't know that I could do it.

Matt:

Yeah, Any advice for these people?

Jo:

Eyes and lows, yeah.

Jo:

I'd say my biggest advice is stop overscheduling yourself. If you're doing double headers and you're hitting October like that, part of your problem, of that burnout feeling, is overscheduling yourself and over committing. I think photography can be done in a way that is very livable. Take it back. Only do 20 weddings, charge more. If you feel like you can't make ends meet on not overextending yourself, then you're probably not charging an adequate amount and that's just the reality of it. And also find balance. You know you can not exit the photography world entirely. You can cut back and supplement with other things, and don't be afraid to do that you don't have. There's not one right way to do it, I guess is my best advice. Yeah, yeah.

Matt:

You can maybe look for more. You can scale back photography and video and pick up a different freelance kind of thing that's maybe more stable or off season, and you can do that.

Jo:

Yeah, an ideal, so All right, we have one more voicemail.

Speaker 6:

Hi Matt and Joe. This is Hannah. I am from Minnesota. Love that. You have visited my state a couple times and loved it. If you decided to do a yearly trip up here, please do a meet and greet, it would be so fun.

Speaker 6:

I just listened to your podcast about tattoos, about how you don't know what to get. I wanted to give you an idea. I just got one with my kids. It's their birth flowers and in the stem of the bird Flowers and in the stem of the birth flower is the silhouette of their face. So my oldest son's birth flowers are poppy, so I had the poppy and in the stem of that is the silhouette of his respective face. I have three kids and it's kind of in a bouquet form. Sounds weird, but it's so beautiful. So that's an idea. And then my question is Joe, you seem very methodical about what you choose for your outfits, for your house, how you decorate. Can you walk me through the process of how you decide to choose what you choose, because I want to be more methodical with my choices and kind of make my home and my style more neat, and that any advice on that would be great. Thank you, keep doing what you're doing. You guys are wonderful.

Jo:

I have so much feedback. Okay, one we go to Minnesota all the time, lots, lots. Matt's family is from there and they're still there, and one of my cousins who's a very, very, very close friend I mean she's family, but we're also friends and very tight is in Minnesota. So we will be up there many a time, I don't doubt it. Second, that tattoo sounds beautiful. I would like you to send me pictures.

Matt:

That is cool.

Jo:

So send me pictures, dm me or DM the podcast. I need to check the podcast, instagram. And then, third, I don't know if I'm methodical as much as I am. I don't want to say insecure, but kind of insecure. I am not confident in my decisions in decorating, and so that has resulted in me really choosing to take my time, and I also have found the pieces that I love, that I'm really grateful for are things that I really thought about and then invested in, rather than making quick decisions, and so I think that plays a role too. What would you say?

Matt:

Yeah, I think more so than being methodical in your choices, I think you're definitely methodical in what you choose to buy at this point. When it comes to clothes, it has to have a purpose and a function. It has to really stand on its own. You have to have an idea for what it's going to do. Kind of the same for furniture. Again, I think you feel fine on clothing wise, choice wise. You've got enough of a vision or a look that you're comfortable with that you can make choices there. You're just very intentional of I'm not going to buy it unless I need it and it's going to serve a purpose for me. At this point, because of just your background and what you do now and what you've done in the past, you've had an abundance of clothes and so the quantity.

Jo:

I worked in retail before doing photography full time. I'm sure I've said that at some point, but let's reiterate that I worked in retail and I got paid partially in store credit at retail or my bonus like my extra, whatever, when we hit goals and stuff.

Matt:

And especially early in social media, you were doing more work on clothes and just style type stuff, and so you got a lot of things on trade or through promotions and whatnot. So you've done the quantity thing and it just means you end up with a lot of clothes.

Jo:

It's terrible.

Matt:

I mean.

Jo:

I appreciate it for what it is and it's a huge privilege to have access to have clothing like that, whether it's through a 40 knit or trading for it or whatever it was. And it is just. That is not for me. I want to be a cartoon character. I want to have three outfits I wear and that's iconic look.

Jo:

Yeah, like that's I not actually like. I do enjoy style to some point, but I really enjoy reworking the pieces I already own rather than feeling like I constantly need to be adding or keeping up on trends. Yeah, and.

Jo:

I'm just in a season where I'm really realizing I want to be comfortable more than anything Like. And I don't mean comfortable so much in the way that like the fabrics feel on me or how it like holds to my body, but more in the way of how, how confident I feel in it, how you feel you look.

Matt:

Yeah, yeah. I get that I get that.

Jo:

But with the house it's just taking my time really. I mean, the house does not look how I want it to look. The bones do. The bones are really good and I feel like we really nailed that. And then we moved in and it was our turn to do all of the additional stuff and I haven't nailed it anywhere in the entire house.

Matt:

I do have a thought on that. I think the intentionality that you're seeing is the intentionality of what she chooses to share.

Jo:

Oh for sure.

Matt:

Now you are also being intentional, that you don't just want to fill it with stuff, Because again, that's that kind of comes from a point of privilege in terms of abundance. We've had too much stuff and it's really hard to conceptualize if you've always lacked having too much, but once you have too much it's it's at times just overwhelming, and so we're trying to avoid just going and diving in and then regretting things, just picking up pieces that we really love and we know are going to function well and we know we're going to fit long term.

Jo:

Well, and I have a goal of long term in this house getting the remaining pieces that we need, for the most part going to a state sales and thrifting yeah, Because we're not in a hurry.

Jo:

We have everything we need in order to live. We have a bed, we have a bed, our kids have beds, you know, we have seating. We have a TV at the root of it. From here on out, it is cultivating a space that represents the lives that we live, and I want to do that slowly rather than try and do it to completion. Yeah, Does that that sounded way deeper than I meant it yeah.

Matt:

Yeah, I mean, I think one side of you really wants to finish out space is just to have them done, but you're really practicing a long term perspective when it comes to furnishing and that stuff. So it's also expensive. So expensive so anyway, it doesn't hurt to be intentional and then be like oh great, I don't have to. Yeah, that's true?

Jo:

Well, in that note, we'll catch you guys next week.

Matt:

All right.

Jo:

Find us on all the things we love. Y'all Bye, bye.

"Discussion on Nosebleeds and Mental Health"
Existential Changes, Toe Injuries, Workout
Family Photos and Aesthetic Challenges
Anxiety Over Not Understanding and Ignorance
Real Estate Commissions and Snack Bars
Mac and Cheese
Balancing Digital and Printed Photo Storage
Transitioning to Content Creation and Passion