Money Reveals Your Leadership

Here’s a strong, on-brand Buzzsprout description for Episode 5:

Money doesn’t just reflect your situation…

It reveals your leadership.

In this episode, Marc and Cole break down the connection between financial habits and personal responsibility — and why the way you handle money says more about your standards than anything else.

Because leadership isn’t just how you show up at work.

It’s how you manage what you’ve been given.

We get into:

• Why money is a reflection of discipline, not just income
• The difference between stable and flashy
• How lifestyle choices quietly create stress
• The mindset shift from scarcity to ownership
• Practical ways to take control of your finances

This isn’t about getting rich.

It’s about becoming the kind of man who can be trusted with more.

Because no one is coming to fix your finances.

That responsibility is yours.

And when you take it seriously — everything else starts to follow.

OperationNextChapter@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You realize how much in life we don't need. We need family, we need friends, we need faith, our health. It's very simple. We just complicate our lives by adding stuff. But it's a behavioral thing. You said it earlier. It's not an income problem. We have a behavioral spending problem in this country. And other countries too. I've seen some documentaries in Canada, Great Britain. You know, these wealthy countries, we are just spending more and more and more. And it's not making our lives better. Welcome to Operate the Next Chapter. We're Mark Nicole, retired Air Force First Sergeant, and this season is about leadership without the unit. Because eventually the rent comes up, the structure changes, and no one is giving you orders anymore. So who are you when no one is telling you who to be? This season is about reclaiming your standards, your discipline, and your role as a leader at home, at work, and in your own life. The next chapter isn't a sign. It's built. Let's get to work. $4.55 is what I saw today for unloaded gas driving to the gym.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

I drive a diesel. I put $150 in it the other day, and that's where the pump stopped, and I didn't get a full tank.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

What was diesel per gallon?

SPEAKER_02 1:27

It was $589, I think, is what I paid for it that day.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

I'm glad I'm not in California.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Yeah. Gas is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Yeah, and just not gas. We're going into this episode talking about money, and it just kind of hit me the other day how expensive everything is. Gas is just one of those things that's probably the most noticeable to all of us. But I also had family in town for the last month or so, and we went out to eat quite a few times. And let me just say, every menu that we have looked at and been to previously, it it's all gone up. Like they're new menus with new prices. And I'm talking, you know, I like a burger. It was $18, $19 for a burger and fries. And that's up, I would say four or five dollars just from a year ago. Groceries, you're getting less for more. What else?

SPEAKER_02 2:34

You name it. Well, we mentioned gas, groceries, and well, food, right? But let's talk about clothing. Let's talk about all the consumer products that we need. Heck, toilet paper, paper products. You know, we have to use it. We have no choice. It's just part of living. Everything is getting more and more expensive. And finances, finances are a hot topic. And, you know, if you're living paycheck to paycheck, any increase is now a crisis.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah. I want to talk about this because we can't control the prices of the things that we need to buy, the things that we want to buy, but we can control our own finances. We have to lead our money and not let our money lead us. Going back to leadership. You know, this season we've been talking about leadership without the uniform, after service. This applies to whether you're in uniform or not. Finances is an everyday thing for everybody. It affects everything we do in life.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

Yeah. We talk a lot about discipline. We talk a lot about purpose. Having discipline with your money and having your money have a purpose makes six dollars a gallon for diesel not as big of a deal.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Having, you know, a purpose and being purposeful with your money and budgeting your money and budgeting everything, leading your money, instead of allowing your money to lead you around by the nostril to the next flashy thing, having that discipline and giving your money purpose in your life, whether that be the purpose that it needs to stay in a savings account, the purpose that it needs to go to the to an investment account, or the purpose that it needs to go buy toilet paper for your family.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Yeah, we should mention that if you hear a third voice, that would be Kurt. And we did an interview with him for the last episode. So Kurt might chime in on this episode talking about money. He's retired, going into the next chapter of life. So just know that it's not some weird thing happening. It's actual third person providing some input and perspective.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

You're not doing voiceovers?

SPEAKER_00 5:03

No, not today. Not today.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

I do have, and I've talked with Cole. The biggest challenge I had when I retired as far as finances is health care. I know the the military health care is very good, they take care of you, but when I retired, I now have to pay 100% of my health care. So I have to go through the private sector to get it. And Cole shared with me what he pays per month, and I shared with him what I paid per month, and after I picked him up off the floor, and I bought him dinner. Yeah. He said he'd buy me dinner that night. That is one difference between uh the veterans aspect and the private is health care for for us. That was something we really had to shop for and look for. When I retired, I could get Cobra, which I kept my city healthcare for 18 months, but yet the city's not taking that out of my pension. I'm paying 100%. But now we're in the private market, and it's not real great. I mean, there's been some struggles, so that's something as far as um to you have to plan for when you're retiring. Don't just think healthcare is going to come. I know a lot of people that have to work full-time to cover their health care as well, their health care costs after they retire.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

That yeah, absolutely. That goes into the things that you have to do for a living. Let's not just talk health care, let's talk insurance, period. Yes. Right? Car insurance is ridiculous. Homeowners insurance is ridiculous. And that has nothing really to do with the rise in the gas prices or what's going on that you know could be cause causing it. But that's doing nothing but going up and up and up and up. Jenny and I haven't had an accident, and I'm not gonna knock on wood because it makes a lot of noise, and Mark gets irritated. Please. But you know, we haven't accidentally had an accident in a long time. We're I am 50 years old. I will not mention her age, but we have been married and we're close to the same age. But anyway, we still play an arm and a leg, it feels like, for car insurance, and we drive paid-off vehicles. And so just the cost of living, everything that is associated with living breathing air on this earth is expensive. Shoes, clothes, all of it. And again, are you leading your money? Are you being disciplined with your money? Are you giving your money purpose instead of allowing your money to dictate and give give you purpose?

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Yeah, that's a great point. And statistically, 70% of people are living paycheck to paycheck. A lot of that has to do with debt. We are financing our lives because we live in a consumption nation and we think we need more than what we do. Our houses, our garages are full of stuff. In my neighborhood, we walk daily, multiple times a day. You know how many vehicles I see that can't fit in the garage because they're stacked with Amazon boxes? You can't tell me they need all this stuff. We don't need a lot to survive. And until people realize this is what is their holdback, they're gonna struggle. And I hope that we can change perspective by this conversation today that we don't need a lot. We just spend a lot, we spend more than what we earn, and that equals debt, which equals payments, which equals living paycheck to paycheck, and you're just trying to survive from today till when you get paid again.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Yeah, I I've been there. We lived paycheck to paycheck for a long time, and when there was a rise in gas, we felt it. Because it's not like you don't you have to drive to work, you have to use your vehicle. I mean you don't have to, you can walk. But things that you have to do and have to consume, when there's a fluctuation in those prices and you're already living paycheck to paycheck, the amount of stress that that creates in life, the amount of you know anxiety that that creates, it it's terrible. It's a terrible feeling.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah. So you have a few options. You can use credit, you can try to get more income, or less outgo. That's really what it comes down to. What are you gonna choose to make your life easier? For you and I, and I know Kurt, we kind of talked about it, we chose less stuff, less outgo from the income, right? We have the opposite problem. We gotta figure out what we're gonna do with the extra money we have at the end of the month. But it's because we took two years of being pretty restrictive to get to this point. We had to put our wants aside, get out of debt, create some barrier, had an emergency fund, and now the little hikes in prices, it affects us, but it's not, oh my gosh, we can't afford this. It's comfortable, but it took a little sacrifice to do that.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

And when I was working, like the holidays were coming up or a vacation, I could sign up for overtime, I could sign up for a special detail, get a little bit of extra money coming in. When I retired, that was gone. So that was an adjustment on our part. But you know, we for three years before retirement, you know, we were able to pay the house off, we were able to pay our cars off and get basically debt-free. But that took a lot of discipline. Um, and not having that extra what I call play money that I could sign up for, you know, work four hours over or a special detail to say, hey, we're going on vacation, let's have a little fun money, that's gone now. And the only way, you know, you know, in the last episode I talked, we do have a small business, which throws a whole new perspective on things because it's a retail business. That's what we do now is for us to have more, we have to grow our business. The discipline, and it all goes back to discipline, all it goes back to do I need this now, or I do need it, but I don't have the money, so I won't buy it now on credit. I'll wait till I have the money and pay cash.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Yeah, and you bring up a good point. And I'm sure that was really convenient at the time that you knew you could pick up extra shifts or overtime and have that extra money, but that still comes at a cost, right? Yes, it costs you time, time it costs you time away from your family.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

So that only lasts so long, a in your career, and B before you get tired of just working all the time.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

No matter what it costs us. Money is the next thing that we can control. So, what how do we get this out to our listeners? Of if they're in this struggle, they're living paycheck to paycheck, gas is at five dollars a gallon, you know, averaging across the country. How can we help people see it from a different perspective and make the choice to maybe throttle back on the purchases, maybe save a little bit, maybe even find a different job that's going to create more income, but something has to give.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

I agree. And you talk about the outgoing, right? A lot of people that are living paycheck to paycheck do not have an income problem. Right? We didn't have an income problem. I didn't make a ton of money, but we didn't have an income problem. We had a spending problem. And that's hard, right? That's a bitter pill to swallow because you know, we all, my opinion, we all want to do better for our kids than what our quote unquote what our parents did for us, right? You all want to give your kids everything, you want to make them happy and everything else. Well, happiness comes from a toy, right? Or a new thing. Joy is not dependent on anything. So spend more time not spending money. And what I mean by that, you don't have to take the kids out to eat to have a good meal. It's much cheaper at home. Then you have extra time because you're not driving to go get food, so then you get more family time, potentially play a game, you know, get crazy, play an actual board game or a card game and not a video game, but that's that's neither here nor there. But spending time with your family, if you're single, spending time with yourself, not using retail therapy to find happiness, find joy in being exactly where you are, and I will tell you that the joy of not being paycheck to paycheck is very beneficial, but most people don't have an income problem, they have an outgoing problem.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Yeah, that freedom. Yeah, and until you experience that freedom, it's hard pill to swallow. Most times the best purchase is nothing at all.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Right? We live in a society where people think they they think they want more or need more, more income, more stuff, whatever it is. Usually it's the opposite. Sometimes less is more. When you have a decluttered house and not a lot of stuff, that also creates freedom in your mind. Like people walk into our house and they think it's a model home because we don't really have a lot of stuff. We've sold a lot of stuff. We realize like, why'd we spend money on this? It didn't bring us happiness or joy or contentment. We just thought we needed it. So that's another option. Go sell some stuff. I bet you got a lot of stuff in your house you can sell. These times we are literally making less when everything is costing more. The income and pay has not caught up with the cost of goods.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

But you can help that by not spending the money on the goods. Right? Mark and I, we've talked about this. Make no mistake, neither one of us are quote unquote minimalists. Right? We still have things, right? But we have simply trimmed all the fat, all the extras out. Why on earth do you have five TVs in your house? You can't watch all five of them at the same time. Why do we have you know extra cars or extra this or extract? You you can only drive one car at a time. And I'm not saying not having a project car or anything like that. I'm not saying that. If your budget can support it, have all the things that you want to have. But if your budget can't, and if your credit card has to be the backup, then maybe it's time to sell some of that stuff. Maybe it's time to go through a good old reset and you know, and get rid of things that are not essential to life.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

You know, you just hit the nail on the head. We were going down the minimalism route, but the true minimalist is not for us.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

But the essentialism is what is essential and what is not. And that was a book I just recommended to you. It's fantastic. You realize how much in life we don't need. We need family, we need friends, we need faith, our health. It's very simple. We just complicate our lives by adding stuff. And it's stressful. And not having money is stressful. But it's a behavioral thing. You said it earlier. It's not an income problem. We have a behavioral spending problem in this country. And other countries too. I've seen some documentaries in Canada, Great Britain. You know, these wealthy countries, we are just spending more and more and more, and it's not making our lives better. There's your sign.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

And it doesn't matter who the president is or what war we are fighting, that makes no difference to your outgo problem.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

They want you to believe that.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

That's right. That's right. They want you to believe that. And here's the other thing: the marketers for all of these vehicle companies and toy companies and and you name it companies, are spending billions of dollars to get you to spend your hard-earned money.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

They know us better than we know us.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Yes. Fight the urge. Amazon, Mark hit it. You can't put a car in a car because it's full of Amazon boxes. If your porch is full of Amazon boxes every day, you don't have an income problem.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

What's your thoughts, Kurt?

SPEAKER_01 18:23

To me, it's kind of a mindset. Uh, I knew when I was working, when you were topped out, everybody made the same amount. And I'm thinking, how are these guys affording two jet skis? How are these guys affording a $500,000 home? I know what you're making. You're not taking any more home than me. But my mindset was I don't want the debt. I don't want to be house poor. I don't want this or that. We have a beautiful home. We've added to it. We've we love our home. But we've been there 20 years. We paid it off. And when we added to it, we saved up and we get went without until we were able to pay cash. So I think it's kind of the mindset of keeping up with the Joneses. Oh, you bought a motorcycle, I need a motorcycle now, or whatever. That's something that me and my wife didn't fall into.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

The comparison game.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Exactly. You know, keeping up and and all this. We loved our life, we loved our home. If you bought a brand new car, great for you. You know, my truck's a 2012. And I was able to pay cash for it. And I will drive that thing until it's dead in a ditch.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Did you know you're a unicorn? You have a paid-for house.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

That is one of the best things you could have going into retirement. Yes. Or in retirement. Yes. It's the largest bill for everybody, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:49

We we sacrificed for that. We went without.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Wait a minute.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Say that word again. Sacrifice.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Wow. I'm joking. I'm being sarcastic, but that's what it takes. You have to sacrifice something.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

You're sacrificing a little bit of happiness and joy and contentment for a short period of time. Choose your hard.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Yes. What's your peace worth? What's your peace of mind worth?

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Peace over payments.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

That's how they're affording it. Payments.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Payments. Exactly. You know? Just because the interest rate's low doesn't mean it's time to go buy something new. Just because you can, you know, get another credit card with zero interest for six months on your transfer balances doesn't mean it's time to get a new credit card.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yeah, we know some people that play that balance transfer game.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

That's stressful by itself.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

And and don't get me wrong, I travel for work, I have a credit card. I'm not an anti-credit card. I'm not anti-credit card, period, right? I am anti indulgence mindset that's going to cause you to rack up, oh, it's just $100. It's just $50. It's just this. And next thing you know, you've got $6,000 on a credit card with an interest rate of 29%. And if you're making the minimum payment, you will never pay it off.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

Kurt mentioned, you know, they sacrificed, they saved the money. They they paid their house off. And then when they wanted to put an addition, and I've been to Kurt's house. That addition is massive, and it is beautiful. They saved the money and they paid cash.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

And I bet it made retiring that much easier to decide on.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Because you weren't having to chase after a certain dollar amount in the next chapter.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

That's yes. Um the reason I was able to walk away it after twenty five years was because we planned prior to that date. You know, there's there's guys working that should have retired six, eight years ago, but they got bills. They got bills. They're putting their kids through college. Whatever. You know, I can't retire. Healthcare. I can't retire because of health care. Well, we planned for it. Yes, it's a big hit every month, but yet we we are making it work.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Fail to plan is planning to fail.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Yeah. And we had a couple episodes about that, just you know, transitioning from the military to the civilian world, whether you are separating or retiring. But money is at the top of that list, right? Like that's a game changer from having a study paycheck to finding the next career or relying on your pension or disability or a combination of both. Like money is the root of our daily life. Whether we want to like it or not. Like everything revolves around that. That's how we survive.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

And it's funny because we made boatloads of mistakes when we were young, first married, but we learned from them. And you know, a couple episodes ago, you talked about parenting adults. My son's a great example. I was talking to him about, well, you need to start a, even though you'll, if you stay in law enforcement, you'll have a pension, but you need to have something else for retirement. Well, his response was, Well, I want the money now. I don't want to wait till I'm 50 or 60. But yet, if he would start now, he wouldn't even realize it was gone. You know, every time you get that bump increase in a and it's your job, take a percentage of that, put it away, you won't even notice it's gone. And by the time you're ready to make that decision, you're set.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Yeah, let that compound effect work for 30, 40 years and it's sitting in a crock pot.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

But a 20-year-old doesn't see what we see as in our 40s and 50s.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Yeah, they're gonna see it late like we did. Yes. And wish they had started earlier. Yes. Just like we were told to do. Delayed gratification. Yeah, I think what that's what we've seen too is the younger generation wants what we have, but doesn't want to wait and let time work on their side. That's the comparison game. The keeping up with the Joneses. You can't compare us to our parents or grandparents, and same for our kids and their kids. They they we we are not comparable. It's time. Time is on your side if you start early enough. Uh my wife and I and post a lot about finances and we teach and we facilitate classes. They know what our perspective is, but it's hard to get that across and have people start doing it now because it's like, well, I'll do it later. Well, later's never gonna come. Or when it does, it's already too late.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

And you can't catch up.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

No.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Right? You can't catch up.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

So then you're sacrificing your retirement days, quote unquote, and retirement's not as you would expect it to be, because, well, it takes money to have some fun, but if you're still working, there's not a lot of time to do the fun. So sacrifice earlier. That way later you don't have to sacrifice.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

Yeah, I obviously I'm still working, I'm still in in quote unquote corporate America and and push and everything. I work with a a lot of folks that are that are older than me. You know, we get to talking about things, and my goal uh is to be completely retired, not work another day in my life by the time I'm 55 years old. You know, and I talk to people who are above that in their 60s or mid-60s, and they look at me like I'm speaking a foreign language. Well, I want to retire when I can still go do anything I want to do, right? At 55, I should have taken care of myself, and my body should still be able to do 99% of the stuff that I can do at 40, right? Now, you push over to 65, 67, 70, you know, obviously you got to slow down a little bit. The American dream, right? And Social Security and everything else, and you can work a couple extra years past 65 so you can max out your social security and all that. I don't care. I don't care about that. Why don't I care? Because we've sacrificed now, we've sacrificed for a while, we have saved money, we've driven older cars, we have not had the fanciest, shiniest new thing, we've not done X, Y, and Z that marketing and consumerism promotes every day. Does Amazon show up on our house? Yes. But does it show up every day? No. And do they show up with multiple boxes? No. We have sacrificed those little things so that at 55 or maybe earlier, I can quit working. And I can then start to enjoy all of the benefits of not having to go to work, not having to pay bills, not having to make a certain amount of money in order to just live. Now, I'll go back. I am blessed. I, you know, I have a retirement from the military and all that. It's not a huge pension, but because we've sacrificed along the way and invested along the way, I can make up for that and never have to work again.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Yeah, blessed is a good description, but like you said, we sacrificed, all three of us, was some sort of service to a government, right? Or the people. So blessed, sure. We also earned it, right? And that was the promise made. Like, you do this for this amount of time, you'll get some on the back end. That's that's nice. But you also don't have to rely on Social Security, it'll just be the cherry on top. But it wasn't meant to be a retirement plan, it was meant to supplement retirement. And that's where we went wrong. Back in the 80s when pensions pretty much went away from companies, and it became our responsibility to invest for retirement. We just haven't done a good job at that, at teaching people how to do it, or people haven't done a good job at teaching themselves how to do it, and not rely on somebody to save them. We have to take some responsibility for it. We can't rely on somebody to do it for us or make sure we're doing it. Maybe I'm wrong in this perspective, but I don't want to rely on nobody for my contentment and future.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

That's joy.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Yeah, it's freedom.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Yeah. And every single person listening to this has the opportunity to do the exact same thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

The choice.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

That's right. Make the choice. What are you willing to do different? If what you're doing now is not working, why are you still doing it? The definition of insanity. Keep doing the same thing over and over and over again, expecting different results. Why?

SPEAKER_00 29:07

Because it's hard.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

Yes. But not doing it is hard.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Hard. Yeah. Yeah. It's uh we could talk about this subject every episode and not get through to people. Right. And and I know that, but I think right now, because of everything that's going on, the world and the country, and we're distracted. And we want somebody or the government to save us. And that's not gonna happen. Whoever's in office right now, whoever's gonna be in office in the future, it's not gonna affect our life. No. I mean, maybe a tiny percent. But for the most part, I don't care. Like I care what's going on in the country and the government, but it's not gonna affect us personally. I I don't need somebody to go in there, but I'm gonna change things and your life's gonna get better. Because I know that's BS.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

It's just a selling point.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

What are you willing to do to change your outcome?

SPEAKER_00 30:07

What are you willing to sacrifice?

SPEAKER_02 30:08

Yeah. Yep. It's as simple as that. And and no, it's not simple, but it is as simple as that.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Yeah, it's as simple as that. It's not simple to do.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

Yes, right. Yeah. Yeah. And it takes hard work, it takes discipline, it takes having a purpose, it takes all of those things to make it work.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

A plan.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Yes. Yeah, if you're just getting up, living life, and spending your spending plan is whatever whatever the mood strikes you, or however whatever makes you feel good, that's not a plan. It is a plan. It's a plan for failure. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Isn't it ironic how all the same principles apply to everything in life? Plan, purpose, consistency, discipline, sacrifice. Like you apply that to every facet of life. It's the same.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

And it's beneficial.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Yeah.

unknown 31:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

We were talking about it with retirement. Now we're talking about money. Like you talk about it with health and fitness. Like it's all the same. You have to do those things if you want to see change. But choosing to do it is the hard part. Because if it was easy, everybody would be doing it and nobody would be struggling.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

The other piece, never rely on somebody else to make that change for you. If you're looking to somebody else to make the change, if you're looking to somebody else for the help, if you're looking to somebody else to, you know, give you a financial plan or give you a nutrition plan or give you, you know, whatever. I'm not saying don't do research, but if you're looking to them to make the change for you, it's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Yeah. Ask for help. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. We mentor people on the regular. And it's only because we post stuff on social media, and then people reach out and be, hey, so well, usually the first question is, are you financial advisor? No, I'm not. I'm a financial coach. And this is what we do to help people get out of a rut in life. Hey, let's meet. I'll help you develop a budget. We'll help you get on a plan to get out of this mess that you're in. And that's what we do. But it takes a lot of courage for people to call or text or message us and ask for help. And guess what? Those are the smart people. Don't listen to Uncle Johnny who's broke and got four boats and eight trucks. And his house is mobile, but his vehicles aren't.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

There's nothing wrong with living in an RV.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

I was referring to a mobile home, but oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Your words are hurtful. But that's that's it. You can I'm not saying don't do research. I'm not saying go ask for help. I'm not saying to, you know, do it all on your own. But understand that those people that you're asking for help, those people that you're seeking advice from or seeking coaching from or seeking training from or anything else, they can't make the change in your life. You have to actually make the decision to change, and you have to do the work, the hard work, to make those changes, and then you have to have the discipline to stay with it and stay consistent in order for that change to set in. And then that change just becomes part of life. Yeah, just becomes what you're doing. Doesn't get any easier.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

And and find a good mentor, someone that you respect and you see how they've done things, and you want to be at their level, and that person will also hold you accountable.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

So if you make a goofy decision, they're not going to come at you like, well, that was a dumb decision. They're going to be like, okay, this wasn't probably the best thing, but here's how we can get out of it. You know, so don't look towards your neighbor who has the eight trucks and or the the the flashy stuff.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Flashy stuff. They're probably not as well off as you think they are.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Find somebody that I mean I grew up in the country back home and a lot of these farmers are loaded, but you would never know it. Just the way they carry themselves. Yeah, because they don't they don't splurge. They don't they do what they need to do to survive, yeah, and actually have a little bit left to pass on to their kids or their grandkids, but those are the type of people to look up to or not the person that seems like they have everything.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

Yeah. Well said, Kurt. That's so true. We can be blinded by the light.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

I've been in many half million dollar homes that there's no furniture because they can't afford it. They're housebroke.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

No, this is a good episode. I feel like this could be a conversation every week, but we'll limit it to this and you know move on to something else next week. But you know, if you got anything out of this, share it with somebody, and we're trying to, you know, get this out to as many people as we can. Like we said before, we make zero off doing this podcast. We do it because we have a passion for helping people, and it's fun. It's something that we're doing in retirement, and we just enjoy talking with each other, but also sharing our thoughts with other people. And if you've got anything for us, let us know. Reach out to us. But Kurt, thanks for being here. Appreciate your perspective. Enjoy your time in Tucson and I'll see you soon.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

Hey, thanks for listening. If this episode challenges you, good. Leadership without the uniform isn't loud, it's daily, it's quiet, it's built, it's all the system that no one else needs. This is your reminder to reclaim it. Reclaim your standards, reclaim your discipline, reclaim your responsibilities at home, at work, and in your own life. No one is coming to a sign your next minute. The next chapter is built by the person you need to be tomorrow morning. What's the U next week?