Service, Structure, And Steady Progress

Time keeps moving whether we feel ready or not, and that truth sets the tone for a wide-ranging, surprisingly practical conversation with my nephew Nicholas. We start with the song “Time” and quickly land on the parts of life most of us avoid naming: the fear of being recorded, the cringe of hearing our own voice, and the need for at least one trusted person to tell us we’re doing better than we think.

From there, we get into Nicholas’s faith journey and what he calls being a “Christian nomad” moving between Catholic tradition and non-denominational community. We talk about what he looks for in a church, why theology and history matter to him, and how faith gets tested in the daily grind through pride, envy, and the urge to be “right.” The conversation stays honest and grounded, especially around the question he’d ask God if they met today: how to help people while staying humble.

Nicholas also shares how the Marine Corps shaped his mindset around suffering, discipline, and deliberate discomfort, from hard training to cold plunges. Then we shift into mission and impact: his new nonprofit, Mackie Hall, focused on preventing veteran homelessness with proactive financial advising, smarter retirement planning, and real estate support like help with VA home loan closing costs and trusted connections to VA-literate professionals.

If you care about personal growth, resilience, faith, military transition, veteran homelessness solutions, or real estate and financial literacy, this one will stick with you. Subscribe, share this with someone who’s building their next chapter, and leave a review with the biggest takeaway you’re putting into practice.

0:00 Welcome And A Song About Time

1:56 Feeling Awkward On Camera

4:15 Being A Christian Nomad

12:23 Sin, Pride, And Questions For God

15:04 Why He Chose The Marines

20:17 Training The Mind Through Discomfort

28:07 Hearing How Others Describe You

31:17 A Nonprofit To Prevent Veteran Homelessness

37:59 Goals, Humility, And Avoiding Complacency

Transcript

Welcome And A Song About Time

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Supernaut, where we explore the inner and outer dimensions of the self. Today my nephew Nicholas is on. After graduation, he went off to the military, got to see the world, married his high school sweetheart, and now is back in Minnesota refurbishing an old RV, remodeling a house, selling real estate, and starting a nonprofit. So Nick, I asked you to pick a song for us to listen to before we started so we could get on the same brainwave. What song did you pick?

SPEAKER_04 0:26

Time by Hootie and the Blowfish.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Why did you pick it?

SPEAKER_04 0:30

Well, I was thinking of a song for uh this meeting, and as I was doing work, I was just listening to Spotify. And I was thinking, all right, which which one's gonna really get me excited for this? And uh after hours of listening to music, a couple days probably um this song came up. I was like, okay, this is the vibe I think for this uh meeting and stuff, and it's about um about time, um sorry in the world or even maybe in your life, and well, time just keeps going on by. It's sometimes your friend, sometimes your enemy, um, but it always keeps going. It was there prior to you and it's there after you. Um and it I think had some of these the some of these vibes that we're having today.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

So true. Time is something that we can reflect on so much, but we don't enough.

SPEAKER_04 1:27

Mm-hmm. For sure. Uh I think that song just soaked all all that in. Um, and yeah, you can never get the time that you waste uh wasted. He uh mentioned that in the song and stuff. And we gotta really conquer what we have. We're all on limited time, so we gotta make the most of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Yeah, that puts it in a perspective, and we just have to slow down and contemplate it more, I think. Definitely.

Feeling Awkward On Camera

SPEAKER_00 1:56

So Uncle Mike helped me uh with this question. He said, Do you know how contagious and awesome your laughslash giggle is? Like, do you realize how good it is?

SPEAKER_04 2:07

No, and I'm kind of self-conscious about it sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Are you?

SPEAKER_04 2:11

I mean, I don't I think everyone kind of is.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:14

Or listening to your voice when it's being recorded is always kind of scary, or maybe a laugh, but that's nice that he said that, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Yeah, yeah. It's still hard for me to listen to my voice, super hard. Or like when Veda doesn't tell me she's putting a TikTok on, and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna sit down and watch some TikToks, and then like three go by and it's one of super not, and I'm like, I get sick and I'm like, hey, that ruined my night.

SPEAKER_04 2:35

Yeah, I can never watch anything with me in it uh when I make videos for my business or anything like that. I'll watch it as I'm making it, or if someone else is recording it, they will do that and stuff like that. I'm like, no, I don't want to see it. Just post it. If you think it's good, it's good enough for me.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

I I I hate watching myself, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

But that's so nice. I mean, it's kind of nice to hear that even you're insecure about that stuff because I just feel like you wouldn't be. And it's just like every single person is, yeah. Because no matter what, all of us just want to be observed in a good way. And when we're vulnerable and put on camera like that, you just never know.

SPEAKER_04 3:19

People from like they're watching from wherever, and who knows what they're gonna think, or and and I think when making content, yourself is your own worst enemy. Uh, and you're you overjudge yourself. And when you have someone else saying, Oh no, actually, this is really good, you're like, Okay, I trust you. You gotta have that person that you trust to tell you that. Um, and then they do and then they do that, or you just gotta be like, you know what, this is good. I just gotta post it and trust, and it and it'll turn out good.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

I feel like I was raised to believe that all of um your self-security has to come from internal. But I remember Simon Sinek, the leadership um podcaster talking about how everybody needs at least one person to tell them that they're doing a good job. Otherwise, there's they don't have a chance in the world. So can't really change my perspective on that. Yeah. Um,

Being A Christian Nomad

SPEAKER_00 4:15

okay, so your dad was my first guest on SuperNot, and he is not religious. Like maybe he was when you guys were growing up and you went to church some, but by the time you graduated and left the house, like he wasn't religious at that point. Um, but I feel like you are pretty religious. You said you call yourself a or consider yourself a Christian nomad. What does that definition mean to you?

SPEAKER_04 4:41

Uh yeah. Um I guess I've been attending mass and I've been attending um different uh churches. Uh every time I move, it's kind of like I'm not kind of looking for a Lutheran church, I'm not looking for a Methodist, I'm not looking for a Catholic uh cathedral to go to. Um kind of just going, kind of doing some research, some research online, going if I like them, if I like the pastor that's talking. Um, I obviously will understand the theology behind um behind what they believe in. Um but I've always kind of just like flopped back and forth and I haven't really picked out which one I guess I truly believe in, or really does it matter, I guess. I don't I don't really know.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Um have you guys picked one since you moved back to Minnesota?

SPEAKER_04 5:38

Uh my wife's a Catholic. Um, we kind of picked out a cathedral that we want to go to in St. Paul. Um, but we've also been talking about looking for a non-denominational church as well and kind of going to both of them. Um, I kind of like the grassroots of the non-denominational, um, very personal. Um, if you've ever been to one and you have the rock bands and stuff like that, and it's it's it's a different kind of vibe, but then you go to a cathedral and you see the tradition, um that's incredible too. So it's totally different, but you're still worshiping God um and you still worship Jesus, so um different views. Um but I feel like it's good to have both of those perspectives. Um, and then the Catholic Church just has so many um, so much history and theology behind it. Um, just studying maybe Saint Thomas, um Aquinas and his writings on stuff, um, and other saints. Um is a great perspective versus if you're just going to a non-denominational, they don't really have that history. Um but I it's really nice. And and then going to a non-denominational, they do the uh baptizing um as adults and stuff like that. Um, and that's also really cool to see uh people who were atheists, didn't believe in God, and then as an adult uh found Jesus and they decided to get baptized um as a new person, um, where uh more traditional, I guess, churches, maybe um like the Catholics, the Lutherans, Methodists, uh, they only do infant baptisms. Uh so and they recognize other denominational baptisms, so you don't really get baptized in those churches as adults, which I think it's super necessary for a society to maybe have baptisms as adults from people founding finding Jesus. So I think a society needs both, so I've been attending both. Um, and I think it's really good. I think it's a good you're always learning and stuff like that and a fresh perspective on uh theology.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

I love that so much because yeah, I've always been fascinated with the Catholic Catholic traditions. Like I wanted rosemary beads so bad, and um learning all of that stuff, yet being able to go to the newer age non-denominational ones where like everything's just maybe a little bit more chill, and you know, I mean that's a very good contrast. And like you said, yeah, you'll just keep learning more and more. And my niece, your cousin Haley, just yesterday, I believe, got I don't know what it's called, but like she got somehow baptized into Judaism, which is super exciting. I don't know what the term is though, um, but I think like I only know from the show Sex in the City when Charlotte um converts, she like dunks underwater. So it's it's something like that. But my mom Judaism? Yeah, yeah, maybe that's wrong, but I don't look it up. Um what so when um you are researching these churches that you're thinking about stopping at, is there anything that you can think of that like stands out to you? Like, yes, I want to check this out because this pastor thinks this way or does this?

SPEAKER_04 9:21

Um I guess I'm mostly looking for um more traditional views um that they will be preaching because you can have um maybe a more traditional church that uh maybe doesn't hold a little bit more traditional views, and then I tend to not that I don't want to go, like I'll still go if I feel like I I I need to go. Um but if the guy's saying super weird stuff, you're like um yeah you do you, you know, there's people that may be looking for that, but um I might be wanting to look for something maybe uh what I feel like is more in line with God's teachings and stuff. Um and you have the spectrum through all the denominations. And that's what I like about the Catholic Church. It's it's very centralized. Um things aren't gonna change a whole a a lot. And uh if things do change, it's very serious consideration um through a established organization. Um where a non-denominational church or um your more evangelical or just smaller organization, they can change through political waves, which the church isn't supposed to be following political views or anything like that. Um, and we kind of see smaller churches do that all the time. Um, where the Catholic Church or maybe even the or nor the Orthodox Church, um, these bigger historical traditional churches, they've been following the same theology since the beginning almost. Uh so things are gonna just change because of the trendy political views at the time or what's politically correct. Um, they're gonna stick to what has been, not what they think it is going to be.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Yeah, that makes sense. Is there other things in your life, or you as a person in general, value that anyways, of like this is how things are like clear path, like black and white, like you kinda like that anyways? Sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Do you find anything out? Mikvah is what it's called, and they are they submerged underwater.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

It doesn't really say, it's just kind of the multiple different ways.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Okay. Well, anybody that knows sex in the city will know what I'm talking about, but hopefully Haley can come on soon and tell us.

SPEAKER_04 12:06

And probably a lot of your viewers probably watch sex in a city. I'm I'm gonna guess if there's a polling, I would love to say 98%. Probably watched it three or four times the whole season through.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's yeah. Mm-hmm. It's changed culture in so many ways. When

Sin, Pride, And Questions For God

SPEAKER_00 12:23

has your faith been challenged or tested the most?

SPEAKER_04 12:26

Yeah, I think sin um challenges people every single day. We're fallen people. Um, we kind of chase it.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Uh so and we get addicted to those voices in our head telling us we aren't good enough or somebody's mad at us or whatever, and that is kind of a sin to not just give it to God.

SPEAKER_04 12:50

Yeah, envy. Um, you walk down and you're like, oh, I wish I had that car or something like that. Um you're envious from your neighbors or something because they gotta remodel on the house or something. Um kind of need to humiliate yourself and um maybe try to achieve something higher to maybe have those things. Um But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Which deadly sin do you struggle with the most, do you think? I think pridefulness is a pretty I think I think I think a lot of people would probably said when she came on.

SPEAKER_04 13:39

And the scary part of that is like you don't know that you're being prideful.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Yeah. And I definitely since then, like there's been times where I've laughed at myself and been like, pride is my number one, you know, but in general, um, gluttony and sloth is mine. But of course, of course, we all have all of them.

SPEAKER_04 13:59

And so yeah, there's times I've just laughed at myself and been like, oh I take uh great pride that I'm humble sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Right, right? That's where it can be so sneaky.

SPEAKER_04 14:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Uh if you met God today, what's one question you would ask?

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Am I doing good?

SPEAKER_04 14:24

Um how do I help other people? How do I be humble in what I do? How do I not steer people away? Because that's always something that someone, you know, you always kind of scared to falsely teach something or falsely say something. Um, how do I stay away from that?

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Gotta do your homework, I guess, but um And maybe never say something with absolute certainty. Say this is my perspective on it, or this is how it resonates with me. Yeah. Yeah.

Why He Chose The Marines

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Okay, so I remember when you were trying to figure out what you wanted to do after high school. You're thinking about being a police officer for a while, then you ended up going into the military. How did you decide to go in and how did you decide which branch?

SPEAKER_04 15:21

Uh well, I talked to quite a bit of them. Uh talked to the Navy guy, um, the the army guy and the marine guy. Um and uh Yeah, just talking to the Marine Recruiter just seemed like that was the that was the path I really wanted to go down. Um I was kind of interested in the infantry. Um and obviously the army has that, but the navy didn't really have something like that unless you go the special forces route. Um but yeah, the the infantry kind of intrigued me. Um and yeah, I mean because you can talk to all of them and then you just pick one, whatever you want to do. Uh everyone kinda offers like a different role in the Department of War and a different um mindset and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

And the Marines are badasses, so I mean Yeah, I was gonna say at some point you were like, okay, well, I'm the biggest badass that I know, so I suppose I just gotta go into the Marines.

SPEAKER_04 16:29

For sure. Yeah, and then Yeah. I think he get he could get me to boot camp really fast too. So I was like, all right, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

When you're ready. What was your favorite memory from the Marines?

SPEAKER_03 16:43

Um getting made fun of by it as like a private and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 16:54

Just uh looking back at it, you know. It's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

The banter back and forth, like you were making fun of people too, or like what do you just being a private and just I mean, maybe not at the moment, but looking back at it.

SPEAKER_04 17:08

Oh I mean, those were all the funny stories come from and okay. Yeah, just little moments and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:17

Oh, your platoon sergeant said that to you or something, and you and you laugh, or whatever. The bonding with your other fellow PFCs and Lance Corporals and stuff like that. Um the stuff that's been done to you and stuff in you know, good training, good quality training. Um before you joined uh no, because I think learning was part of growing. I think learning beforehand kind of takes away from the growingness. Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Getting used to being surprised.

SPEAKER_04 18:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Like living in the moment.

SPEAKER_04 18:10

Yeah, like oh, yeah, I finished boot camp, hit the fleet, but I'm still I still, you know the lowest of the totem pole, like you know. It humbles you. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Mm-hmm. Do you have any excuse me, did you have any insecurities growing up or going into the Marines that were dealt with while you were there?

SPEAKER_04 18:35

No, I mean I mean very it was okay, you gotta do this. Um you don't have time to think about that stuff. Um yeah, uh as soon as you go put your feet on the yellow footprints, it's just go. Go.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

And that's it. You're just trying to survive and make it one day at a time.

SPEAKER_04 18:59

They're they're just breaking you down, rebuilding you. You don't have time to think for yourself. Because it's a it's a team effort.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Um, as a kid, uh, you uh like from jumping in ice cold water to rollerblading and falling and being all bloody, like you literally, I feel like didn't feel pain. Do you feel pain now?

SPEAKER_04 19:22

Sometimes. No, yeah. Yeah, it's something about kids when they're growing up, they just don't care about pain.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Yeah. But I feel like that's why you were such a good marine too, because like you're just able to shut off pain. Do you is that true? That's like what I've observed in you, but I've never taught you about it.

SPEAKER_04 19:43

Yeah. I guess it's a general mindset, you know. Just gotta push through things. Can't be weak minded.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

But like, do you ever remember learning that lesson or uh how you got such a strong mind like that? Or was it just natural? I mean, we're all born on a spectrum of everything, right? So, like pain tolerance and ability to change your mindset. Maybe you're just really high in that, but help us, Nick. Help us learn the ways.

SPEAKER_04 20:13

Don't be a wimp.

unknown 20:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 20:16

Life is

Training The Mind Through Discomfort

SPEAKER_04 20:17

painful. Like there's this there's no going around it. Life isn't easy. If you think it's easy, I think you need to change your mindset. Um there's definitely gonna be things you can do to make your life comfortable for a short period of time, but you gotta grind in life. Um and if that's if you need to jump in cold water to experience some pain and then get you in the right mindset of okay, I just accomplished this difficult thing or whatever. You know, if it's running a marathon, if it's training for a marathon, like I ran a marathon, I can wake up and go to work. I ran, you know, two marathons, okay, I can go to work and I can be a top producer in my job. You know, it's putting I think putting yourself in deliberate pain, like obviously not like hurting yourself, but yeah running a marathon, going to the gym, um puts can like puts you in a mindset, okay. I just accomplished this incredible thing. Okay, let's apply this to my life.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

But it's training your brain automatically to think that way too, because the voice is quiet enough that say you can't do this because your brain knows, yeah, but I did a cold plunge today.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Which today I didn't have time to do a cold plunge. So I did a cold shower, which is 4,000 million times worse to me.

SPEAKER_04 21:51

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Yes, because like it's moving. So it's like you know, when I get in the cold plunge, I just stay still for three minutes and it's fine. So It's only horrible while you're getting in. But like the cold shower is horrible the entire time because you can just step back so easily. My gosh, it was so bad. But yeah, and like I have some quote somewhere that says something about um the biggest mistake you can make is thinking that life is supposed to be comfortable and easy. And also like as Americans, it's like we think that every meal we eat should be like a five-star meal. I did that today. I made the salad and it wasn't good. So I threw it out, but I was thinking that I was like, this is still like got black beans in it and garganza, um um garbanza beans and rice, and you know, I should just make myself eat it, even though the dressing I put on it wasn't super good. But I was like, no, I'm throwing it away. Like I want every meal to be amazing, but like we shouldn't think that way, and that's probably another Asian thing, too, where they're like, we're gonna eat what makes us feel good, not what tastes good. That's why they're so healthy.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Maybe, you know.

SPEAKER_04 23:03

Maybe. No, yeah, I I definitely think it's it's a mindset thing that yeah, it starts with food.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Um, but everything needs to be but you can't just every moment of every day be like my mindset, my mindset, my mindset. So it's like it's training it, you know, and every little hard thing that you do, then you have to think about it less and less.

SPEAKER_04 23:28

Yep, yep. And now these hard things that other people might say, oh, those things are super hard. Now it's just like, yeah, that's just autopilot.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Yeah, my new job is like calling people and um the guy helping me with my script and everything, he's like, Imagine in 60 days, you're gonna have a whole different life. Every day in 60 days, you're gonna have a whole different life. Like, I always say you're one decision away from a new life, but imagine in 60 days you're like a whole different person, and what you do today consistency wise.

SPEAKER_04 24:03

And you probably made 180 pretty big decisions in those 60 days that changed your life. So yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Yeah. So what does what do you think gives life meaning?

SPEAKER_04 24:28

Relationship with God relationship with God you can deprive so much things from just that family, your own personal health, nature, other people in general, um, doing generous things.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Do you think suffering has a purpose or it's just something we endure?

SPEAKER_03 25:01

I think it has to have a purpose.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

It's kind of like what we just talked about. I mean, it just makes us grow and makes us stronger and I mean kind of simplify it down to just a burning stove.

SPEAKER_04 25:14

Like you have to burn yourself to kind of realize, oh, I shouldn't touch the stove when it's red. Now apply that to a more bigger task in your life that is really difficult. Like uh maybe you know, if you want to be a doctor, go into medical school. Those four years of school of medical school is going to be extremely hard. But what you get in return is a lifetime of helping people. Um so yeah, you have to go through suffering to to to get purpose, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Yeah. Do you have any regrets in life?

SPEAKER_04 26:03

I think uh everyone has r regrets, you know, they they wish oh I I wish I didn't say that or do that. Um but I think it's how you look at those things. Um something that you did wrong, you said something wrong, um, or you might be learning something, practicing something, doing a drill, um, and you did something wrong. It's like, okay, I regret doing that, but how am I gonna make sure I don't do that again? Um, I guess you start regretting stuff when you repeatly do it over and over again and you don't learn. So maybe not learning from mistakes is a regret. Um but then you learn from not learning from something, and then you really try to focus on, okay, I just did this thing pretty bad. Um, you know, you apologize for it, whatever, or do whatever you need to do to fix it, um, and then keep that in the back of your mind and know and learn from it and build as a person.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Yeah, it's like the word regret could should really be separated into two words, like regret with like you learn something out of it, or regret like you're sitting there feeling bad for yourself. Yeah. So it's like which one are you gonna do? Which way are you going to use regret?

SPEAKER_04 27:28

Yeah. And hopefully, you know, I think you should use it to grow as a person. I think that's the the positive way of thinking of anything negative.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:40

And hopefully the person that you might have wronged didn't take it personally. And if there's a but that's the whole point of forgiveness.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Yeah. And if they're gonna choose to take it wrong, that's their own internal thing. But until we forgive ourselves, it's a lot harder to be able to forgive other people.

SPEAKER_04 28:04

For sure.

unknown 28:05

Yeah.

Hearing How Others Describe You

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Okay, so now we are at the segment where I reveal to you how people see you. Last week I asked you to give me uh the names and numbers of people I could reach out to that know you well, and I asked them to describe you in six or seven adjectives, and then I put all those into themes. And I do this because I think we're just really bad at seeing ourselves, how those around us see us. And I think we all kind of want to know deep down. Um, so do you have any guesses?

SPEAKER_04 28:37

Mean and a bullying again.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

No, not quite. No.

SPEAKER_04 28:43

I'm interested.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Your first word is electrifying. Because two people said confident, two said inspirational, charismatic, enthusiastic, engaging, confident, nationalistic, and carpe diem, which isn't really an adjective, but I don't even know what it means. Carpe diem. It means like live life to the fullest, no regrets.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

Uh no regirts.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Yeah. And your second word is unyielding, because you're relentless, gritty, hardworking, stubborn, headstrong, driven, resourceful, candid, and undeniable. And also somebody said thick skinned, but they did two C's and thick. So putting that under that one. And then untamed, because you're rebellious, spontaneous, carefree, pain in the ass, loud, talkative, and outgoing.

SPEAKER_04 29:43

Did my wife say pain in the ass?

SPEAKER_00 29:45

I don't remember. I like put them all in a group and then I don't look again. Oh, okay. Um, but yeah, I thought maybe her or maybe Cody did.

SPEAKER_04 29:55

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

But I don't know for sure. And then fourth word is steady. This two people said loyal, two said supportive, understanding, patient, calm, lighthearted, and carefree. So really funny that you got untamed, like rebellious, and then steady, like you're an equal mix of both.

SPEAKER_04 30:16

And then your fifth with meing.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Yeah, you got a good um balance there. And your fifth word is adventurous because three people said adventurous. So your synopsis is some people chase adventure, you just live and it finds you. You don't follow the map, you are the map. Loud enough to fill a room, loyal enough to carry the people in it, the most relentless person anyone knows, and somehow still the most fun. You don't slow down for anyone, but you do anything for the ones you love. Seems about right.

SPEAKER_04 30:58

I hope so, at least that sounds like a great person.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

So please remember you are not these words, you are not your thoughts, you are the space between the words, the space between the thoughts. You're the one who knows you have thoughts. Observe them, reflect on them, but know you are not them.

A Nonprofit To Prevent Veteran Homelessness

SPEAKER_00 31:17

So, will you tell us about your nonprofit that you're starting?

SPEAKER_04 31:20

Yeah, it's uh one of my military buddies and I. Um it kind of started as a small little podcast just talking about um current um business affairs and stuff like that. Uh, how people can um um buy real estate at this point. We were looking at I was looking at already having my uh first rental and stuff like that. So talking about that experience, uh, my partner, he's uh a banker and becoming a financial advisor, so talking about that. Um and then as you guys know, podcasts are really hard, takes out a lot of time. So I decided to do something that's even harder and takes up more time. Uh, so we're kind of looking at nonprofits and stuff like that. Uh, because at the end of the day, um, doing a podcast is about financial stuff um can only kind of go so far, you're not putting money in someone's pocket, you're not um talking about um how to maybe grow your real estate portfolio or even your um him kind of getting in front of a lot of people um to truly help with financial advising and stuff like that. Uh so we kind of took a break from that and started brain brainstorming writing a business plan about a nonprofit to uh help veterans um end homelessness through a per proactive way instead of a reactive. Um, how do we prevent people from being homeless, like we kind of talked about early in the podcast? Um uh United States kind of has a homeless problem, has uh trash in the streets and stuff like that, I think. From uh kind of this overlapping problems. Um, you know, how do we fix that before it becomes a problem? Uh and with a lot of veterans, they get out and they have a lot of money or they have some money saved in their retirement program, uh, just what the government provides us with the TSP thrift saving plan. Okay, how can we roll this over for someone to manage it and get a higher return on their money than if it just sits in a IRA unmanaged and stuff like that? Um, and talking to a lot of people, uh, and they can definitely triple their money just doing nothing with the money that they've already saved and money that they're already not touching until retirement. Um, so and he was already interested in the financial advising. Um, so like, all right, how do we outreach these people? How do we provide your service um for a discounted price or pretty much free? Um going through this is this nonprofit and stuff like that. And then also um the highest way to move people up from lower class to maybe to middle class is to owning real estate. So it's the financial advising uh side of things, and it's own and it's also owning your own house, um, which is getting harder and harder every single day uh for people. Um and the VA does offer the VA home loan, but a lot of people are still struggling with maybe even pulling enough money for the closing costs and stuff like that. So we're thinking about an idea of even assisting in some closing costs, so then the VA home loan actually becomes zero percent down. Uh closing costs can cost someone up to two to four percent of the house. Um, which when you're talking about someone uh just getting out, um they might struggle with getting a job at first, um, or maybe they're going to school, um and they're trying to buy a house or something like that. Um, because that's probably the more financially um better way to go down rather than just renting, especially if you're in a place for long term. Um it's okay, how do we get you to buy a house with your current financial position and that's to help to cover closing costs and stuff like that? And also connect you with um real estate mortgage company that um deals with VA, um, a realtor that understands the VA process. Um because there's some loops you have to go through and stuff like that, and make sure just to deal with a VA um to get to make sure veterans are taken care of on that side of things. Um there's a lot of um nonprofits out there that um we feel like weren't doing a good enough job and we could do better. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Um that's a really great thing to put your energy towards.

SPEAKER_04 36:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

If anybody's interested in being involved or supporting, how can they find you?

SPEAKER_04 36:21

Uh we have our website up right now, it's still in development. Um the nonprofit is called Maggie Hall.com. M-A-C-K-I-E Hall. Um uh our contact information's on there. Um, or you can give me or my friend a my my partner a call and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

Um I don't know if you yeah, people can reach out to me and I will hook them up with their digits.

SPEAKER_04 36:52

Yep. We're uh still in the process of getting a 501c status, but we should as of today. Um, but any minute now we should be getting it. Uh probably when this goes live, you might probably have it, but um yeah, then we're gonna hit the ground running with it.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Awesome. I'm so excited. That's great. And that's like um your two worlds, real estate and um veterans.

SPEAKER_04 37:23

Yeah, yeah. And then yeah, we wanted to do something that we're passionate about. We also know things about. Um, didn't want to start something that we had no clue what what we're doing. Um, so yeah, we're we're we're we're connecting what I've been working on for the and what he's been working on the past five years, and what um we were in the military for and stuff like that. Um kind of combined the last 10 years of our lives into this thing, the helping veterans and and people and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Okay.

Goals, Humility, And Avoiding Complacency

SPEAKER_00 37:59

Okay, so last questions. What do you do right now that you hope your grandkids do when they are your age?

SPEAKER_03 38:19

Set goals in life.

SPEAKER_04 38:22

You gotta have like a one-month goal, six-month goal, one-year goal, five-year, ten-year goal. You gotta write that stuff down. Um, and you need a wide spectrum of timelines because you can see that yourself hitting these goals in life, but then you're also chasing maybe a 10-year goal too, or a five-year goal. Um, and those things are always changing. You should always evaluate your goals short-term and long term. Um, and I think that keeps people go um moving forward in life.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

Um I see I can see it would help keep you disciplined if you're looking at that. Where do you have your goals written out? Because I need to do this. So, like in a notebook on your computer, how do you how is it in your face enough that you're remembering?

SPEAKER_04 39:15

Yeah, so um actually I started writing out my goals. Um, I had a platoon commander like assign us this the this goal thing. I think it had to do with like physical fitness, and he had whole like like three different categories finance, uh, he was a business major so finance, uh physical fitness, um, and then our job and like um education and goal-wise and performance for uh for our job. Um, and I kind of just kept going with that. Um kind of like job, finance, uh physical fitness. Um, I kind of have my physical fitness notebook um floating over around now that we're we're moving, but um I think it might be my truck. Um and then I guess my long term, I kind of have in my head with school, uh, this nonprofit. Um and and I do write stuff down, but it's also having a mindset, like you know what you need to accomplish a lot of times, and it's like, oh, I need to make sure I have this done, this to this done in this month. Um I don't necessarily write stuff down a whole lot, but I can look back. Oh, a month ago, I wanted to get these things done. I accomplished that that I accomplished this semester of school, I got our 501c established. We donated ten thousand dollars this month. Um, all like like all these things. Um, but yeah, I I have written them down quite a bit. Um, I think recently I've been moving around and stuff like that, just moved back to Minnesota. I think my goals have kind of been in my head.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

Yeah. Um who did I just hear? It wasn't Johnny Pops, but it was some other food company like that, of just these that these guys started, and they said they had told each other, or one of them said, when we hit a million or something, I'll get it the tattoo of their logo or whatever. And then like he thought it would never happen or years, and it was like so fast. Yeah. So that's a good motivator.

SPEAKER_04 41:39

I gotta tell my partner that once we hit a certain goal, we gotta get tattoos and say it's an unre an unrealistic goal, but then try to hit it and get these tattoos we'll regret.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

So, what do you do right now that you hope your grandkids don't do?

SPEAKER_04 42:11

Be complacent.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

What ways are you complacent?

SPEAKER_04 42:16

Oh that I do, apparently. Um I guess I wouldn't I mean I I I try not to be complacent, I guess. Um I mean I hope my kids aren't complacent and and and and I don't know if I'm complacent in some ways. I guess it's kind of hard to think about negatives of yourself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

But like a vice you have to give up or something. Like a vice you have to give up. This is so that you're reflective when you leave here and you're like, yeah, I don't want my grandkids to do this.

SPEAKER_04 42:58

Moments of pridefulness in my life, I guess. Um not listening to people that I probably should have listened to and then realizing a year ago, hmm, maybe I should have done some of those things that they said I should have done. Um try to be more humble than me.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Yeah, be so cocky about how you have this great laugh.

SPEAKER_04 43:24

Exactly. You don't have a good laugh, you know.

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Yeah. Love that. Well, thank you so much. Is there anything that we didn't get to that you were hoping we'd talk about?

SPEAKER_03 43:42

No, I think we covered a a a lot. This was this was super nice.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Good. Yeah, I loved it. So nice talking to you. Thanks so much for coming.