Dwan's 67th Birthday Message!

A birthday toast turns into a blueprint for a braver year. We celebrate 67 with honesty about grief, chronic illness, and a new diagnosis, and we choose a simple operating system for 2026: stack gold bricks. A brick can be a workout, a hard phone call, a quiet hour with family, or a closed real estate deal. Coins count, too. When days hit hard, we use a code phrase—“movie day”—to protect morale and communicate needs without giving pain more power than it deserves.

Faith frames the plan. Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us there’s a season for everything: building and letting go, speaking and staying quiet, weeping and laughing. That lens steadies the heart through a year of loss, a daughter starting chemo right after giving birth, and the strange rhythm of pain that can greet you first thing in the morning. From that place, we choose action that fits the day. We eat for strength, titrate meds wisely, and set energy boundaries that honor the body while keeping momentum.

On the money front, we cut through hype and keep to what works in real estate: respectful outreach, consistent follow-up, steady skills, and a bias toward small daily wins. We talk about purging closets and habits, consigning the excess, and making room for the life that fits now. Then we round it out with the five slices that keep us balanced—financial, spiritual, physical, emotional, family—and a third-quarter mindset that plays to win with high-percentage moves. If you’ve been waiting for perfect conditions, this is your invitation to move anyway, one coin, one brick at a time.

If this message hits home, subscribe, share it with someone who needs hope, and leave a review to help more people find the show. Then tell me: what gold brick will you stack today?

Chapters

• 0:00 Birthday Toast And Milestones
• 4:57 The 2026 Gold Brick Mindset
• 12:32 Health Trials And Language Of Hope
• 22:38 Seasons Of Life In Ecclesiastes
• 34:03 Grief, Joy, And Practical Coping
• 43:48 Embrace Or Refrain: Energy Boundaries

Transcript

Dwan Bent-Twyford: 1:15

Hey everybody, it's my birthday. Today is my birthday, February third. I just turned 67. I mean, can you believe it? It's like, oh my gosh, how on God's earth am I 67 years old? I don't even know how that happened. But the great thing about that is I've been investing in real estate for over 35 years. So I am the girl to teach you and to show you and to share. So first, let's have a birthday toast. Here's to me, here's to you, here's to the best year ever, 2026. This year is gonna kick rock. So cheers, everyone. I am having some Pinot Grigio. I love this wine. It's my favorite wine, Pinot Grigio, and this is my Queen's uh goblet here. All stones. Very fancy, very bougie. So happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. I got my new hair. And I uh y'all know I cut my hair a while ago, giving myself a little bit of a blow-up. Got good makeup. And yes, this face is surgery free. People always say, Oh, yeah, she got the best face love money can buy. No, I actually don't. This is it. This is the real me. Sun damage everywhere. This is the real me. This is what I look like. I will say the women in my family age amazing. My mom is 89. Her sister, my aunt is 99. My other aunt is uh mom's 89, so she's 87. And my cousins, we all really got blessed with some good jeans and some good skin. So, no, this is not the best face flop money can buy for those of you that say that. I don't do fillers, I don't do anything. I do a little botox here and there, but I haven't even done that for a while. I'm kind of just embracing my age. Of course, I'm not gonna go with the gray hair. I'm not going down without a fight. So this is me embracing the gray with the fun pink because this is my wonderful vibe. So this is the most wonderful real estate podcast ever. We're in season eight. Season eight, eight, eight, eight. Can you believe it? For eight seasons, I've been bringing you podcasts. I'm up in the 450s on the uh number of podcasts I'm done. So I'm hoping to uh top 500 this year. We're up to almost 2 million downloads. So I want you to really help me get there this year. Help me get there, please help me get there. So find me at Dwanderful, like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Threads, Dwanderful. You can find me everywhere at Dwanderful, and I want you to remember the motto. So I have these with me today. We're gonna stack gold bricks in 26. So I've got all my bricks over here, and we're just gonna keep stacking till you can see these on the camera. You go. We're gonna stack gold bricks in 26. This is our motto: stacking gold bricks in 26. And every gold brick counts for something. So you're gonna have a brick for your success, you're gonna have a brick for your marriage, you're gonna have a brick for your health. You're gonna even have days where you have tiny bricks. Maybe you worked out and went for a walk today. Hey, every little brick counts. Maybe you spent an hour in your real estate investing career. That counts for a brick. Maybe if you have an autoimmune disease like I do, which I have two now, rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia, and you just got up and took a shower. Counts for a brick. Maybe you went out and did something you don't normally do. Smaller, smaller, gold coins, it all counts. Every single thing counts. So your day, your your goal, I want your goal this year to be make every day count for some gold. So again, if you happen to have like an autoimmune, I know you can go a week without taking a shower. If you took a shower, give yourself a coin. If you got up and cleaned, give yourself a coin. If you lay in bed and watch some movies all day, give yourself a tiny break. If you, I don't know, went out with your friends, give yourself some breaks. If you made phone calls and returned calls, if you talked to homeowners in distress, give yourself a break. If you closed the deal, give yourself a break. If you did anything at all that's worth celebrating, give yourself a break. Every little win counts for something. Everything doesn't have to be a giant gold brick, everything doesn't have to be little. Little bricks count, coins count, gold coins are what, four grand a piece right now. Everything counts. So it really is up to you to make 26 the best year that you can make it. Now I'm gonna be honest with you. My 26 started off pretty rough. I've been feeling really bad, which I told you all this. I've been feeling really bad for months and months and months and months. I thought the RA had gotten worse. I thought I was gonna have to switch over to some kind of crazy medication and start giving myself shots or something like that. But no, life could not be that easy. I got diagnosed with a second auto. So now I also have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. But if you notice, I always say, I've been diagnosed with RA, I've been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I don't want to say I have it, I have it, I claim it, I claim it, because the Bible even says speak things into existence as if they already are. Some of you may call that manifesting or whatever term you use, but the Bible clearly says speak things into existence as if they're already there. So every day I'm like, I am cured, I have no autoimmune. I got up and took a shower, I went and got my hair done, I went out to eat with my friends, I got my nails done. I'm even wearing gold nails this year because everything is about getting the gold. This is the Olympics this year, so we're all about getting the gold, whatever it takes to get the gold. So I want to talk to you today about something very near and dear to my heart. Um, I typically talk about this at least once a year. But since I have personally been having a lot of trials, I lost my dad last year. I lost my very best friend for 30 years. My mom is honestly not doing very well. I could certainly lose your prayers for my mom. She is really struggling in the last 60 days. Her health has really tanked. She's staying at a rehabilitation place right now. And I don't know if she's gonna make it, to be honest with you. My daughter, Christina, was diagnosed with breast cancer. So she just gave birth to a baby in October, and about a week before she gave birth, she got diagnosed with breast cancer. So, and a very aggressive form of it. So, my oldest daughter, Christina, uh, so excited about having her first baby at 39, and then she got diagnosed with the breast cancer, and so now she's doing chemo. And you know what? We're all helping. All right, something just popped up in front of my face. There we go. We're all helping, we're all taking turns flying out to LA. We're doing the best we can with her, too. So I could really use some prayers for my daughter. I remember if you've been following me for any length of time, you know that I lost my sister to breast cancer a little over a decade ago. I remember my dad saying, the three worst words you ever want to hear from one of your children is, I have cancer. So when it was my sister, I was just like, oh my gosh, my sister, my sister, my sister. But I had to watch my mom and my dad struggle with, and my stepmom Lois, she I call her my little mama. They were married uh 45 years before they, you know, individually passed away. And I remember thinking, like, oh my gosh, it's my sister, it's my sister's my sister. This is terrible. This is the worst thing that's ever happened. But then when my daughter said I had cancer, I remember thinking like, wow, I totally understand what my dad means now. Knowing it's your mom or your dad or your sister or your friend, it does not hit the same way as my child has cancer. It definitely does not hit the same way. So, of course, we're all devastated. She found out a week before she was giving birth, she had a little hard spot on the side of her breast. And they said, Oh, it's probably just your milk ducts, your milk ducts are coming in. And you know, Christina is hyper-vigilant, thank goodness. She's like, No, no, no, I it's something else. I want you to biopsy it. So they pulled out some fluid, and about a week or two before she gave birth, she found out she had breast cancer. So that really, I mean, that's a lot to go through. You're getting ready to have your first baby, you're planning on nursing, you do all the stuff, you got this long maternity leave, and instead of being able to enjoy the baby, which she certainly is enjoying the baby, she's had two surgeries, she's already in her third week of chemo, and it's a lot. I gotta tell you, it's really a lot. But we go through different seasons in our life. Some seasons are so great and we love them, and we're so happy that we're in this season, and some seasons really suck. So I have been feeling crappy since the summer. So the whole summer until uh here in January 1st, I thought, oh, my RA's gotten worse. I'm gonna have to take new medication. Everything after what I'm on requires me to give myself shots. I don't want to do that. And it turns out it's like, oh no, your RA is okay. You now have fibromyalgia. So I'm taking some new medication for that, uh, Cymbalta. It's an antidepressant, but it helps with pain. It helps your body with pain. So I'm not crazy about antidepressants, but I can't take the pain every day. So I'm doing it. And I've been having a lot of side effects of the medication, so I'm not really loving that. But I'm weaning up from 20 to 40 to 60 milligrams, and I do feel mentally like happier. So my body's getting, I don't know, the serotonin and the dopamine or something. So I feel a little bit better about that. But it's like, oh, seriously, I'm 67. I would like to live, like my mom's 89, I'd like to live 20, 25 more years, but gosh darn, not in like pain every single solitary day. So I've had a few days I was like, Lord, if you took me tonight, I promise you I would actually not be mad. But I don't want to do that. I've got I have five grandkids now, and I've got my beautiful daughters and my son and my family and my husband and my friends, and I've got everybody. So I want to live and I want to live to be old and happy and beautiful and still have some like, you know, some bougie going on. But it has not been that easy. But I'm telling you, I've just made the decision that this is not gonna control me, I'm gonna control it, and that's just the way it's going to be. So I want to, there's a song. Oh gosh, I don't know. Is it not Peter Paul and Mary? Uh, it's a song about the seasons. There is the season, time, time to everything. Well, that is actually straight up out of the Bible. So I'm gonna read something today. Um, I like to do this at least once a year, and I thought for my birthday, this would be the perfect time. And it is Ecclesiastes 3. And when you hear me say that listen, if you're not a Bible person, don't turn this off. If you're not a Jesus person, a God person, you're like, oh, I'm not a Bible person. I don't care. I want you to listen to this because this will help you. So, what is that song? I think it's called Time, Time, Time, Time, There's a season. I don't know, I can't sing, so you'll have to Google it and look it up. But it is actually straight up out of the Bible. So here's the season that we are in today. You might be in the best season of your life, you might be in a bad season, you might be in a questionable season, but it's okay. At the uh in every season, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. So we're gonna talk about the light at the end of the tunnel. So cheers again. I'm really enjoying my fancy glass, and I'm enjoying my Pinot Grigio. And if you don't drink, toast me with a Pepsi or a Coke or something. All right, so in Ecclesiastes 3, I'm gonna read it and then we're gonna talk about it. So this is Solomon. Solomon uh gave observations and he said, There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven. So kind of wish I could name the name of that song. You listen to it. It was back in like the 60s, and I never knew back then that it was straight up out of the Bible. So there's a time to be born and a time to die. My granddaughter's been born, my dad and my friend they passed away. It was their time. There's a time to plant and a time to uproot. Well, this year I want you planting seeds, real estate investing seeds, planting, planting, planting, planting seeds. Okay, plant the seeds. This is your year. 20 26 is a time to stack gold bricks in 26th. So that little bit of wine gave me the hiccuff. Okay. A time to kill and a time to heal. Okay, let's just don't kill anybody. A time to tear down and a time to build. Maybe it's time for you to tear down your barriers. Maybe you've been listening to real estate investing podcasts for years. Maybe you've been going to real estate investing workshops for years. And you know what? It's time to tear all that down. Whatever it is that's stopping you from doing it, like, oh, I can't do it. I don't know. What if I fail? What if this? What if that? Stop. It's time to build. There's a time to weep, and there's a time to laugh. Now, when my sister first passed away from breast cancer over a decade ago, I did a lot of weeping for sure. But then some time comes along, and then you start remembering all the funny things and the stories. And now I can tell stories about her that are so funny that I actually cry from laughing, not from being so sad, because she's with Jesus. Like she wouldn't come back here for nothing. It's a time to mourn and a time to dance. So when you're in a mourning stage, and you could be like for me right now, I'm actually kind of mourning my health. I have noticed that um since the uh secondary symptoms came along, which hit me really, really hard in September. So September, October, November, and December, I was just like, golly, I kept getting steroid shots. I kept taking steroids, and I was just like, something is seriously wrong with me because the steroids help with the RA. When I have a flare up and my joints hurt and I'm in all kinds of pain, the steroids just fix it. So it's like, oh, great. But they weren't fixing anything anymore. And I was feeling worse by the day. So I'm actually in a season right now where I am kind of mourning my health. I'm mourning the things I used to be able to do. I'm mourning the fact that now if I plan a big event, like on a Monday, I'm probably gonna be in bed on Tuesday. If I do a big Saturday and Sunday thing, I'll probably be in bed for Monday and Tuesday. So I've even gone to workshops with my husband where we were both supposed to speak on a Saturday and a Sunday, eight hours each day. And I made the first day and spent the second day in bed. So I would say I am definitely in a mourning stage because I want to be as vibrant as I was when I was 56 and 57 and 58 and 59. And then when I turned 60, the RA diagnosis came along. And it's, I gotta tell you, for the last seven years, I'm 67 today. Uh, it has definitely been a challenge. I've been kind of mourning the person I was, and I'm mourning the fact that, oh, some days I just like literally, I just I would I call it a movie day. So I finally had to make a code word with my husband. Instead of saying, hey, I don't feel good today, uh, because your your body believes everything your brain says. So if you tell your brain every day, I feel great, I'm healed, I'm cured, your body starts to believe it. However, you still wake up in days where you feel like you got hit by a bus while you were asleep, which is so weird to me because I can go to bed feeling great, and I open my eyes at eight o'clock in the morning, and I'm just like, did a bus hit me while I was sleeping? What happened? Why am I so beat right now? So mine is more like I go to bed fine and I wake up feeling hit by a bus. I may take a day or two, then I wake up fine again. So it's like, what the hell's going on? So it makes it very difficult to plan. I've I'm in Florida right now. I've made plans a couple times with some friends of mine, and I woke up and I feel like I got hit by a bus. So now I have like a code word with my husband because I don't want to say I'm in a flair, I don't want to say I feel bad. I don't want to like, I don't want to give those words any power. So I just say, hey, listen, today's a movie day. And he's like, okay, tell me what I can do to help you out. So I'm like, I need heating blankets, I need snacks, I need a lot to drink, I need Netflix, I need quiet in the house, I just need a day. So, and I I mentioned this in one of my videos that's on Instagram right now. And I had so many people DM me and say, you know, I never thought to make a code word. So I don't want to say, oh, honey, I'm in a flare, oh honey, I hurt, everything's bothering me, because I feel like I'm giving those words power. So I just say, hey, listen, babe, today's a movie day. He's like, okay, I got you. What can I do to help you have a movie day? And that's my code word. So if you do suffer from any autoimmune and you're married or you have kids or whoever you live with or they live with you, get a code word. Because instead of saying, like, I feel like I'm dying today, I feel like it must hit me when I was sleeping. Just say, today's a movie day. And they'll go, okay, how can I help you? And that has only made a big difference to me because I'll I'll come up sometimes in the morning and just like, oh man. And I would have to explain the whole thing, which I felt like I had to explain, but I probably didn't have to. But I felt like I had to explain every symptom and everything. And finally I was like, you know what? I'm not gonna do that anymore. I'm not gonna let this disease control me. These two, I'm not letting them control me. So say it's a movie day, and he's like, Great, I'm gonna do this and this and this. Do you want to come? No. Okay, can I bring you back something? Do you need something? What do you need from me to make this be a good day for you? And I'm just like, honestly, some water, some by. I drink those buys, um, some food. He makes me steaks and a lot of protein, which really help a lot. And I just need quiet. I'm gonna watch movies until I don't know when. I might watch them till five, till six, till seven, might stay up till three in the morning. I don't know. It's a movie day. So I'm gonna suggest for those of you that suffer from an autoimmune and you live with other people, give yourself a code word, which means no further explanation is needed. It makes a big difference. It made a big difference for me. I'm just like, oh man, it's so nice not to have to just explain myself over and over again. I feel like a freaking broken record. Okay, so there's a time to mourn and time to dance. And hey, on my good days, even like right now, I'm at my house in Florida, I got my phone, I put on my Spotify, but having a good day, I'm dancing, I'm hanging out, I'm feeling good. The time to scatter stones and a time to gather. Well, scattering stones might be moving, trying new things, planting our garden, I don't know, doing things. And there's a time to gather back and, like, you know, hey, this is what I'm doing. The time to embrace and a time to refrain. Now, I personally, so I'm just gonna talk about how I feel on a lot of these. And you can tell me if you relate. A time to embrace and a time to refrain. So, for example, a few months ago, we have this thing in Colorado called Anderson Farms. And every year in October, they have this giant corn maze and they have these fire pits where you sit on hay and they have these massive fire pits. And it is so fun. I love doing it so much. But this year, I did buy tickets for Bill and I to go. And I woke up that day with the it bought bus. And I thought, okay, I want to embrace and I want to go to that event. But that drive is two hours from my house. It's at least four hours at the place. So two hours plus four hours plus two back. And I was like, listen, I can't do seven hours. And there's no place, once I'm there, there's no place to go. Like, unless I sit in the car, which I don't want to do that. So I didn't go. This is one of the first years I haven't gone. My daughters, my kids, my son, my husband, my grandkids, everyone goes. It's a big thing. We make s'mores, we have dogs, we do all the big things. It's a giant fun fall event that happens up in Colorado. And I was this the first time I said, listen, it's too many hours. If it was 45 minutes from the house, I would have gone knowing Bill could bring me back. But it's a two-hour commitment to get there. It's three or four hours there. It's two or three hours back. It's like I can't do it. And so I said, no. Now I wanted to embrace that, but I had to refrain from my own sanity. Okay, there is a time to search and there's a time to give up. Well, what are you searching for? Are you searching for the meaning of your life? Are you searching for the health diagnosis? Are you searching for the love of your life? Like, what are you searching for? And there is a time to give up. So uh I personally don't believe in ever giving up. Whenever my health has gotten bad, I just search and search and search. I Google, Google, Google, I go to my doctor and I find answers. I'm all about getting an answer. And I know, let me tell you something. I know so many people, especially in my age group, like you know, 65 to 75, they're like, oh, I never go to the doctor because I don't want to get bad news. It's like, okay, but by not going, if you get the bad news, like maybe it's cancer, you're gonna die. So go and search and search and search and get your answers. And if you have to go to a second doctor and a third doctor and a fourth doctor, keep searching. If you're trying to find who do I follow in real estate, well, you don't need to search anymore because I'm here. I've been doing this 35 years. I've done over 2,000 deals, $500 million worth of real estate. There's there's nobody out there who knows more than I do. So you see all these new people with this great marketing, like, oh, here's the shiny object. Buy this so you can print checks while you're sleeping. It doesn't work like that. Come on, you know that. You're not stupid. You know that. Work with someone who's been doing it since the beginning of time. So stop searching for that part of your life. You don't need to search anymore for someone to make you be successful because you have me, you have Bill, you have my son. The three of us are a powerhouse. We coach hundreds of people and they're all making money. In fact, my average student makes $108,000 in the first six months. So that type of searching, don't give up on real estate investing, stop searching for other people who work with me. A time to keep and a time to throw away. Now that is actually something that kind of hits home with me. In Colorado, I have so well, here in Florida too, but I already did this last year. I have so many clothes. I had so many totes of clothes that I forgot that I even bought. So I decide this year, because we haven't done the addition to our house, so I have a smaller, not a small, but a smaller closet. So I thought, you know what? I'm going through every piece of clothing I've ever bought, every shoe, every boot, every coat, every pair of jeans, everything. I have stuff in totes, totes, totes, totes. I ended up getting rid of like 12 totes of clothes, which is a lot. That's like thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars worth of clothes. And I have, I'm sleeping in a separate room right now because you know, Bill had his stem cell transplant, and he still has limitations for another year and a half. And one of them is he can't be in a room with a humidifier because humidifiers, you know, it comes out of our well water and it puts out spores, and he still has to really watch his immune system. So I'm sleeping in another room, and plus with the RA and the and not even that, it's the fibromyalgia. When he touches them, sometimes I'm like, oh my God, my because your skin hurts, it was just so new to me. My skin hurts. I'm like, oh, my skin hurts, don't touch my skin, or he'll rub my back. It's like, oh God, don't hurt my back, my back, my back, my skin, my skin, my muscles. So other than like hugging and loving on him as much as I do, it's like when you start trying to touch, it's like, ah, everything hurts. So I don't like that. But the room I'm in, I thought, you know what? It's one of the uh rooms our kids used to sleep in when they live there, and they have a massive, I don't know, it's probably 10 by 10. It's a big closet. And I have clothes all over, so I'm always running around the house searching for things. I thought, you know what? I'm gonna compress everything into this one single closet. So I ended up finding like five totes that were completely full of jeans. I even forgot that I bought. So I've got skinny jeans, I've got straight-legged jeans, I've got bell bottom jeans, I've got short jeans, I've got long jeans. I have every style of jean that's been in style for the last 20 years. And I probably kept about 50 pairs and toss this, I didn't toss them, I the same amount. So we have a little, you know, we're rehabbing that town in Iowa. So in Clinton, Iowa, I have a little store called Boutiques at Riverfront. So if you ever get to Clinton, Iowa, go to boutiques at Riverfront. I sent like 12 totes of clothes there, and we're gonna sell them on consignment. And they're all really good. A bunch of them still had tags. I was like, nope, I'm condensing, I'm organizing, my closet in Florida is organized, my closet in Iowa is organized, my closet in Colorado is organized. I said, I don't need a bunch of extra stuff. I spent too much time in my life buying stuff, and I just want to enjoy the stuff that I have. So I did a major purging, and I had to do it when Bill's out of town because he'll look and go, like, these are good jeans. This is a good shirt. I'm like, dude, I don't wear it. It's either too thin, too tight, too this, too that. Because you know, girls, you all know. Women, you know, we have our fat jeans and our skinny jeans. And uh I happen to be in my skinny jeans, not skinny jeans, thinner, because the medication I don't eat as much. I'm uh purposely tried to lose a few pounds with the um what's it called, the uh carnivore diet, because when I'm a little bit thinner, it's less pressure on my joints for the RA and my hips and my back and my knees and my feet feel better. So I've been carnivore dieting for about two months. Um I've lost about 15 pounds, but I was not trying to actually lose weight. I was just trying to get some of the weight off of my joints because I know when I'm around 150 to 155, uh my joints don't hurt. I don't need blood pressure medication, like a bunch of good things. But I always seem to hang around like 165 or 170. So I'm hanging tight around 150, which I'm gonna stay because I feel better. So I'm 5'10. I feel better, but I don't have so much weight, especially on my hips and my knees and my feet. So I didn't throw away, I'm gonna put him in consignment, but I got rid of an unbelievable amount of clothes. A time to tear and a time to mend. Well, we tear down relationships, we mend relationships. I mean, when's the last time that you haven't talked to someone that you used to really be super close to? And for some reason that relationship kind of fizzled. Maybe it's time to go back and try to mend that fence. Now, saying that, a lot of times God closes doors. I've had two friendships in the last decade that I have for over 30 years. I'm thick as thieves for 30 years. Excuse me, mine's giving me hiccups, I guess, I guess. It's okay. It's my birthday. You can forgive me for that. It's my birthday 67. So I knew the kids say that stupid thing 6767. I don't even know what it means, but I don't like it. So I had to end a couple of uh 30-year relationships because we just grew so far apart and so different in our values and things like that. So sometimes you want to keep the people near you. Sometimes you do need to end some relationships. Now, I'm not saying like cut your parents off, cut your friends off, I'm not saying that. But you'll start to notice as you become more successful, some people just don't suit you anymore because you're just not in the same realm. And that's okay. It says that. So time to tear, time to mend. So again, mending. If there's any fences that need to be amended, if you've got a relative, a parent, a sister, a brother, uncle, someone you haven't talked to forever because you got mad, you just blew up and got mad and stopped talking to them. Maybe it's time to mend that fence. It's a time to be silent, and it's a time to speak. Now, I'm always speaking. But I will tell you, last year in 2025, when I went through all my podcast statistics at the end of the year, I only did 25 podcasts last year. Now I do 52 podcasts a year. I do one every week, sometimes two a week. And I only did 25 podcasts, and I only podcast eight out of the 12 months. So for four entire months, I didn't speak. I didn't do a podcast, I didn't do a live video, I didn't do anything. And the reason is I was feeling so bad, I couldn't figure out why I felt so bad and why I didn't have the energy to like just sit up and go, hey guys, follow me. Like, here's a real estate tip, here's this, here's that. I just couldn't figure it out. And now that I know about the fibromyalgia, it makes perfect sense. So sometimes you do have to be quiet, and sometimes you have to be quiet and bite your tongue around your family. And sometimes, especially as our parents age, I can attest to this myself. As your parents age, my my dad passed away um a year and a couple months ago, and I had to bite my tongue a lot because of the things he would say. And I was like, it's okay, it's time for me to be silent. This man is 86 years old, he's lived his life being the way he is. He's lived his life out in the world, doing whatever he wants, saying whatever he wants, no matter how bad or racial or demeaning to women it was. I'm like, I'm gonna be quiet because he's at the end of his life. And I did speak up at the end. So sometimes it's time to be quiet, sometimes it's time to speak. And a time to love and a time to hate. Well, I love everybody in my circle so much. But you know, I hate a lot of the things happening in the world. So I am a Republican, I'm not ultra conservative, but I am more conservative along the lines of, you know, don't have abortions, um, get married. Uh, your government, you're supposed to, the Bible says you're supposed to pray for your leaders. Now, I'm not against anyone that's gay. I don't care if you're trans. I don't care if you're transgendering. I don't honestly care. I have friends doing all those things that I have a lot of friends that are gay, and I love them with all my heart. I do have a problem transgendering a 10-year-old child. Like, stop doing that. They're 10 years old. Your frontal cortex doesn't even develop till you're 25. To all of you that are younger than 25, this part of your brain that makes good decisions doesn't develop till you're 25. That's why we do so much stupid shit in our 20s. From my 18 to 25, I did so much stupid stuff, so many drugs, so many parties I should never have been to, so many things that I look back and I'm just like, oh God. It was completely cringe worthy. But at the time, it was the season. Your frontal cortex develops, you're like, oh man, why'd I do that? That was dumb. So just keep that in mind if you're under 25. Um, don't be hating on people. When you get a little older, you need, but I don't hate on people anyway. Do I like some of the things that are happening in the country? No. Do I like all these people getting ripped apart from their families? No. Do I think all these illegals should be here that are coming from drug cartels? Hell no. So I I speak up when I should. And when I'm in someone that's in my own circle that's saying things, I stay silent because it's not worth the fight because we're all gonna keep changing as we age. A time to love and a time to hate. So again, I love all of you. I love everybody. I love the world. I love everything. I love the sun, the rain, the moon, the wine. I love my family. I love everybody. I don't really hate anything, but I do really hate all this discord that's going on in the country. I don't like that. We're America. We're strong, we're independent, we are the world power, we're Americans. So somebody needs to stand up and act like it. And time for war and time for peace. I am always a peace person. I don't think we should be fighting and having war. Uh, but I know that the Bible says there'll always be wars and rumors of wars and duh duh. So I don't think that's ever gonna end in our lifetime. But I don't even like our own soldiers that have to go to war and we lose people and they get killed and maimed, and they do it for our freedom. So it's like, have some more respect for the military. I have more respect for the military than probably any group of people. It says, What does a worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also said eternity in the heavens of men. Yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I'm just telling you, you need God to need Jesus. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but through him. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live, that everyone may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all his toil. This is a gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing can be taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him. Okay, so God loves us, he wants us to be happy and eat and drink and get married and have babies and not fight with everybody and not have wars over religion. Nothing can be added and nothing can be taken away. So that is the answer right there. So I'm gonna read the whole thing all the way through. So Ecclesiastes 3 is Solomon's general observation: a time for everything. There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the sun. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. What does it gather? What does the worker gain from his toil? I have been the burden God has laid on men. I have seen, I'm sorry, I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live, that everyone may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all his toil. This is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing can be taken away from it. God does it so that men will revere him. I'm going to read the last little couple paragraphs. Whatever has already been and what God will be has been before. That means there's absolutely nothing new under the sun. So we're just like, oh, look at AI, look at this, look at that. There's nothing new under the sun. And God will call the past to account. And I saw something else under the sun. And a placement of judgment, wickedness was there. In a place of judge justice, wickedness was there. I thought in my heart, God will bring to judgment both the righteous and the wicked. For there will be a time for every activity, a time for every deed. So when we're just like, oh, look at these wars, look at this, look at that, look at that. The Bible says there's nothing new under the sun. I mean, look at the pyramids, look at some of these things. How are they possibly explainable? There is nothing new under the sun. So what we are going to do in 2026 is we are going to strive for health. We are going to strive for good health. We're going to strive for a good marriage if you're married or a good relationship if you're dating. We're going to strive for a good spiritual relationship with God and Jesus, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit lives right here inside of you. We're going to strive for better family relationships. And family is everything. And we're going to strive for better physical and mental health. And that means finding out what's wrong, taking medications, walking, exercising, dieting, doing whatever it takes to make yourself feel better. So if you can enjoy these five equities of life here, these are my five slices of pie. I call them my five slices of pie. Hang on a minute. Financial, spiritual, physical, emotional family. If you can work on your five slices of pie and you can make them the best that you can make them, you'll be happier, you'll be healthier, your life will be better. And I just want you to know that in 2026, that is what I am working on. I'm working on having the best family life and relationships with everyone in my family. I'm working on my spiritual self and to just to be more at peace with the things I have going on. I'm always working on the financial, teaching you how to be a successful real estate investor so you can make the money. I'm working physically, spiritually, family, mental health, all of it. So I just ask the same of you. Take time this year to make time for all the things. in your life and try to be as even as you can in things like balance out your spirituality your finances your family your mental and physical and your hold on I forgot one uh your health oh no mental and physical they're separate okay so your family your finances your faith your mental oh and physical and your family now wait I forgot one it's a one emotional and physical so if you take care of all those five things all year long financial spiritual family mental and physical if you'll take care of those five things all year long you will have a better 2026 so now I just have to get used to the idea of being 67 years old it's like how did that happen? But then my mom's 89 it's like okay well I'm there you know my aunt's 99 my dad when he passed was 86 and it's like I am literally in the last decades of my life and it's kind of weird to think about like I have this much time that's passed and only have this much to go. Now personally I break down I break down life in quarters. So the first quarter is one through 25 I guess kind of like football it's four quarters one through 25 and then 25 to 50 and then 50 to 75 and then 75 to 100. So in my mind I'm in my third quarter. So zero to 25 and you know 26 to 50 50 to 75 75 on. So I have always broken life down into four quarters and I expect to live until my fourth quarter which would be 75 and on. So I see myself as in my third quarter of life. These first two quarters they're gone zero to 25 25 to 50 gone I'm in the third quarter 50 to 75 75 on I would like to finish the entire run all the way to the fourth quarter and live to be 100. But if I'm not able to do that and I tap out in the third quarter it's okay because the first two quarters were amazing. This third quarter has really been amazing besides like you know my dad my friend my health my daughter like but day in and day out I lead a very happy life and I'm happy and I see my kids I see my grandkids um I'm successful I help you guys become millionaires like I really do my best to try to make a positive impact on everybody. So let's make that our goal for 2026 we're gonna we're gonna stack gold bricks in 26 and we're gonna make everyone's life anyone that we come in contact with better. So if you can do that you're gonna have a good year. All right so we're gonna be back next week same bat time same bat channel find me at dwanderfold.com d-w-a-n d-e-r-f-u-l dwanderfold.com and you remember that the truth is in the red letters all right everybody ciao thank you for spending my birthday with me we're gonna go out with having uh a little sip of wine so cheers hold on cheers like my fun glass 2026 is gonna kick ass we're gonna kick ass and we're gonna take names so cheers everyone thanks for tuning in and celebrate my birthday with me going out with a bunch of friends tonight gonna have super great fun and we're gonna keep on rocking life day in and day out let's just keep on rocking okay God bless you guys