this is the lifestyle builders podcast show 42 can I be an entrepreneur and
still love my job with guest Andy Hill well first of all it's a daily struggle
which is fun but like you'd appreciate Tom just systems and processes help me
get through it it's also setting boundaries of when I have family time
versus when I have you know business time so in and work time so they're all
separated obviously so I find the best opportunity for me to work on my side
hustle is in early in the morning or late at night because that just kind of
fits in with my kids time with my kids and my opportunity to keep my full-time
job going alright before we jump into this episode you guys I want to give you
a little background info on Andy Andy Hill is the host of the marriage kids
and money podcast which is focused on helping families build legacy wealth the
podcast was nominated as the best new personal finance podcast by Plutus and
2017 outside of writing for his own weekly blog of the same name
his personal finance focused articles have been featured in Stand magazine
Business Insider AOL finance nerd wallet and rockstar Rockstar Finance when he's
not talking money Andy enjoys wrestling his two kids and
singing 80s karaoke with his wife he loved that last line what could be
better than that you know so it was interested in bringing andy on andy and
i met last year at VidCon that money nerds conference and what was cool we
were actually on his podcast and then you know when we wanted to bring him
onto ours he's like you know I actually don't want to leave my job guys I don't
want to be an entrepreneur full-time and he's like I'm just building this as a
basic aside option to help build this life for our family we're like that's
perfect yes we actually had other topics that he had originally submitted for us
to chat about on the show we're like no no we're gonna chat about that one right
there cuz I think it was an interesting and very important topic to hit upon
because there are a lot of people that kind of want to keep their job and and
the financial security and stability that they have but also have somewhere
for that like creative outlet and to Packt people in some way and to do
something fun and there's a lot of people that are building those sign
hustles to do that absolutely and you know a big part of this too is that
lifestyle builders even though we talked about entrepreneurship a lot it's really
figuring out what kind of life and lifestyle you want and then putting the
right pieces in place and I think an interesting thing Gazoo that we got into
on the show was the fact that you know a lot of people end up quitting their job
too soon and it causes more issues than Andy was just kind of sharing how a lot
of the benefits he's had by keeping a job and even the benefits that having a
business on the side has helped him with his career mm-hmm yeah so without
further adieu we'll let you guys jump into this episode enjoy alright everyone
welcome back to the lifestyle builders podcast we are so excited for today's
yes Andy how are you doing what's going on I'm great I'm excited to chat with
you guys again yeah and he says again because we did a
little swap here cuz we were on Andy's podcast and Andy's on our podcast which
is awesome we love doing that so we are here about a very important topic today
which I don't know if you're gonna hear this kind of talked about a lot because
in the entrepreneur space everything is about leaving your job or not having a
job but there are quite a few people that are entrepreneurs but I also still
love their jobs and don't have plans to leave and we kind of after we chatted
with you talked about this is it's an important thing to kind of point out
there that you don't have to have your goal when you build your business to be
I want to leave my job it can also be I like my job and I'm gonna build this
business on the side so just tell us a little bit about kind of how you got
started with this entrepreneurial journey cool yeah I had been in the
corporate world you know nine to five full-time job kind of thing for a little
over ten years and I just wanted to kind of flex my creative muscle or my
entrepreneurial muscle and do something a little different but I like my job and
like the stability of it so I didn't want to just kind of depart so I thought
hey I've been hearing all this these these buzzwords the side hustle buzzword
and it just sounds like so much fun and why don't I give that a shot so a
couple years ago I started a blog and a podcast because I had been listening to
podcasts and reading blogs and I said that seems like fun called marriage kids
and money and I just wanted to have some conversations with like-minded parents
who are looking to improve their marriage their relationship with their
kids and grow wealth for their family so they can give them the best life
possible so I've done that over the past couple years and it's been fantastic
yeah I love that and that just just about aligns with everything that we
love yeah well and that was why you know when we first met I'm like oh we're
gonna do well together of course but um so yeah when we first met I was like
okay well so I come more from the entrepreneurial piece you know you come
more and that's why we're talking today more of like hey I like my job and
that's good but we're aligning on everything else and what I really like
about you I mean everything we talk about is figure out what you want out of
your personal life first and then build we talk off and build the business to
support it but in a lot of cases it doesn't necessarily have to be build the
business it might be build the business and the career all right and um I
actually just had I had lunch with somebody yesterday and they reached out
after a couple years and they're like Tom I've been in corporate for a while
I'm not sure if that's where I want to go I might want something different
can't we chat and so part of what I did when I was talking through with this guy
is say you know well what is it that you want and we came out to the end of it
where he said I probably am gonna have a side hustle but I think if I can have a
job that meets my criteria I'd like to keep my career and I was like that's
fantastic absolutely and it's amazing what you can do with just you know 10 to
20 hours extra per week because if you exchange that for the time you might
have been watching a Netflix series or I don't know readings from creats internet
look flipping through flipping through Facebook or something like that you can
produce some exciting things that not only make you personally fulfilled but
could help people as well yeah well and you know I think I think the thing with
you and when I'm looking at everything is that not only did you build this side
hustle but you've also actually been able to do quite a bit you know from
your personal finances and kind of changing your family's future as well so
can you tell us a little bit about that just get people
background context yeah sure or when when Nicole and I got married seven
years ago we we didn't know like a ton about money we knew how to earn it
pretty well we had been you know we were good at earning it but we're not really
good at managing it so combined we're making maybe you know just a little over
six figures together so that's pretty good for a family but we were we were
spending six figures so you know it doesn't really matter how much you make
him how much it matters how much you you know what you do with it so we were
starting to have kids or we were planning to have kids and you know we're
having conversations around wouldn't it be great if she was able to stay at home
with the kids and that became our driving force we said okay well let's
clean up the debt we have live on a budget make some plans and really you
know get after this so that we could have a great life for our kids and and
for my wife as well she liked her career but she was interested in kind of moving
towards that so we worked together made a plan and we had about $50,000 of
consumer debt at the time between a home equity line of credit and student loans
a car loan and we buckled down because of our good salary at the time and our
discipline to live on about half of our income and we were able to pay off all
of that debt $50,000 in about 12 months so after that we just kind of got
addicted to the personal finance stuff and became junkies so we had actually a
similar type thing where we got into a whole bunch of debt early on and then
basically had to have kind of that same thing when we were looking at like
having kids and what the future looked like we're like you know this day is
just gonna drag along with us if we don't do something about it and I mean
you know we had kind of gone through some conversations we actually went
through Dave Ramsey's financial piece just to make sure we're on the same page
with things and it was just so relieving when we actually had like that consumer
debt paid off yeah absolutely it's just so it's like a weight off your shoulders
you think about all of the the people that you owe money to or where it needs
to go and how you're working so hard at your job in order to just pay off debts
that you you've got a while ago you know like if it's a credit card you paid on a
vacation three months ago you know you year ago and you're still paying on that
vacation yeah it could be very relieving to have that as your as your personal
finance junkies you guys continued on and ended up paying off your mortgage
correct yeah we got a little cook we got a little cuckoo we we just kept that we
just kept on with it you know we were also into Dave Ramsey to Tom and you
know big part of those those processes and the steps Asst you know pay off your
debt and then man you could do some crazy things after that so we said well
why don't we keep the same intensity of living on half and pay off our mortgage
in five years time based on what we had and so we had just bought in a new we
had just bought a new house at the time my wife wanted to upgrade we had our
second one on the way and with that said hey let's get a nicer house I said okay
all right all right we'll do the nicer house but let's pay off this mortgage in
five years and she said all right deal so we we made a plan and we kept on
living on half and we just threw extra payments at that mortgage every month
for four years straight and we had up ups and downs in the beginning when both
of both of Nicole and I were working she was working part-time and I was working
full-time we had a really good income so we were throwing a lot at it and then
when Calvin came into the world we decided okay full-time full-time
stay-at-home mom is gonna happen now so we debt went down to just one income
and then the payments went lower but through consistency and you know getting
bonuses at work or some side hustles as you guys have all heard about now
through our conversations we were able to pay off the mortgage in just under
four years so we're now completely debt-free mortgage free I love I love
that because I think so many people get sucked into this this entrepreneur world
where everyone's telling you like do all these things and make all this money and
create passive income and quit your job and what they really should be looking
for is as Tom mentioned earlier like what do you want your life to look like
and then look at some of the different options you have to make that happen one
of those options is maybe to stay in your job and cut down what you're
spending so that you can pay off mortgage or pay off your debt and then
if you do start a side hustle like that's helping you pay down the debt and
then when the debts eventually paid down that's all extra money that you get to
live on so I mean there's there's a lot of ways to kind of create that ideal
lifestyle and I think the tough part is when people get sucked into the success
stories and you know kind of all the the hype that's out there not only do they
not look at other ways to do things and like kind of you know test things out
and look at different options they also kind of forget why they event why were
they even looking at this in the first place what was it that they wanted to
achieve and keep that in your mind and you can do so so many things and one of
those things might be keeping your job and actually we know somebody who left
his job and was running his business and actually missed it so he ended up going
back look like you don't have to listen to people and say you have to quit your
job because you're building a business no you do what you want
absolutely testing the waters like you said is is not a bad idea you know I
mean that's that's kind of what I've been enjoying is that I get to I get to
do both I get to you know grow my career that I that I like and you know they
appreciate what I'm doing there and then I get to do the site hustle it's it's
funny because over the couple of years that I've been doing this site hustle
I've actually exceeded my sales goals both years so it's like I feel like if
I'm personally motivated on things in my life my hobbies my my side hustle
whatever it is I feel more fulfilled in life so that makes me want to do better
at work or the mix it makes me perform better that's a great point well I was
gonna say and you know if anyone listening to this is an employer I want
to speak to you right now because what happens a lot of times because I spent
years doing corporate consulting and just about every employee that I talked
to either had a side business or wanted to start one and a lot of the employers
would look down upon that but I actually had a similar experience to you my side
ventures like first it was real estate and then it was eventually our liquor
store my side ventures taught me a lot about the
this about success about how to manage time and then like you said they
fulfilled me too and it was like look here's my salary of my job here's the
raise I'm gonna get but I have other means to fulfill myself personally to
make more money if I want to so there's less pressure on that and I didn't fall
into the like trap of like oh I hate my job
you know because of that I was able to say okay I've got this thing over here
that is building income and options as well as you know I can now do better at
my job because of this I think it's not actually hindering it it's actually
helping it I think that's a really good point and I think sometimes if we get
involved in this little world that we're in I think emotionally and mentally you
can think well maybe I don't like my job is everybody else is leaving their job
and being a super successful entrepreneur maybe I maybe I don't like
my job but then think about it a little bit more do you is it completely fine is
it providing your family with a great life and are you able to do the things
that you love while still doing it maybe that's something to consider also the
grass is greener absolutely yes so many people fall into that trap like we
compare ourselves to other people we want what other people have same thing
with the whole job versus entrepreneurship everyone in a job sees
the successful entrepreneurs I'm like ah there life is so amazing I want that
they're not seeing that you're basically for the first however many years trading
your job for another job and in this one you end up working more and you might
not even get paid as much there's no holidays you don't get sick days I love
that you guys talk about that too because that's that's the type of people
you are you show the realities of what it is to be an entrepreneur when I first
started out and I'm sending out my my invoices I'm like oh wait I have to
follow up to make sure yes you wear all the hats as an entrepreneur so it's
where you're at works and you can go and ask somebody else in a different
department to go take care of that for you no no you do it all until your
business is generating enough revenue that you can hire somebody to do those
things you don't want to do you are really good at that you've you've
outlined I think it was on your website just like these are the realities of
being an entrepreneur it is it's sexy and it's cool and it's fun because you
get that autonomy but here are the here are the realities of it so I applaud you
guys for that yeah well you know and part of this too like I ended up staying
in my corporate job even though I knew I was gonna you know eventually leave and
be an entrepreneur full-time I'd end up staying in there for about 12 years
and I look at so many people that quit too soon and then they just put so much
additional pressure on themselves and on the business and what ends up happening
is that you can't build the business the way you want because you have to do
specific things to make money there's no backup and I was gonna say and I would
imagine for you because you had the stability and you know the money coming
in from your job that's allow you to build this venture really in the way you
want it not having to be like where is my money gonna come from next month to
pay for food for my family and for healthcare and all of that that's such a
good point Tom because what one of my an example of that is one of the revenue
sources that I have is podcast sponsorship so if I were to be really
strapped for money then I would take the the the online gambling companies that
are contacting me saying hey we want to sponsor your show or I would be you get
my point but I get to be selective and you know the people I'd like to work
with that I feel like will actually help instead of being like oh man I got a I
gotta get some money in this this business right away or otherwise I'm
gonna be in a tough spot yeah yeah and I did something that just came to me while
we were what chatting there was one of the two go to the other side of of this
topic is a lot of people who want to kind of create that side hustle for use
of a better term while they're still in a job oftentimes you have to make the
switch in your minds from this is a hobby this is something fun that I enjoy
doing - I want to make this viable business I've seen that happen to where
people are kind of in the entrepreneur world a little bit and you know certain
things about it appeal to them and they're like well I'm gonna start a blog
like okay that's great there's amazing blogs out there but what are the
results that you're looking to get from your blog are you looking to help people
in a certain niche are you looking to do you know certain things get featured in
places so that you can help more people and then kind of how are you monetizing
it to make sure that you're not just spending your time doing something but
that you're getting something back and in order to help more people ultimately
you can actually build a business out of that hobby instead of kind of just
saying that oh it's just a hobby I just do that with my extra time it's like if
you're gonna if you're gonna go there go there and actually make it a viable
business and don't kind of sit in that in-between world because I've seen it
I've definitely seen it go both ways where people like I'm gonna build my
business and make it this huge thing and then when you leave my job which is
awesome and then you've got people there like I like my job I just want to do a
little something extra on the side so it's you know it's kind of looking at
what do you want this to be and if it is you do want to make some money off of it
and have it be a business start it that way and think about it that way so that
you're in that mindset that's great so I mean as your as you're doing that in the
beginning where you're just thinking hey man maybe this thing's a hobby where's
the crossover when the people you talk to I know you guys talk to a lot of
entrepreneurs where's the crossover or they're like hey this is a this is a fun
hobby - well I can make money from this and then yeah I'm sure you guys come
through that conversation a lot I think some of it well I do hear a lot about
like the whole passive income thing so there's a lot of people that that we've
met and got into blogging to kind of create a little bit of that passive
income where they're oh yeah I'll blog and then I have affiliates in there and
then you know I kind of make a little bit here and there from selling other
people's products or having ads on the site but then I think some there's like
a light bulb that goes off in people's head where they have that aha moment of
like hey I could actually make money from this if I put some extra work in
like some thoughts behind it and then they're kind of like but how do I do
that well I was gonna say part of what we see a lot is that people will listen
to a podcast or they'll hear a story of somebody else doing in there like that
sounds great I want to do that and so they're like let me
look at what that person does well they have a blog in a podcast so I'm gonna
start a blog on a podcast and then they don't really connect the dots between
how they're gonna go from that's actually making money and they end up
doing a whole bunch of things for a long time and it ultimately leads to burnout
and frustration because they're like okay I've written a hundred blog post I
did all this stuff for the podcast which by the way is a lot more work than
anyone ever told me it was gonna be and at the end of the day I'm actually
losing money because now I'm paying for different services like I talked to a
woman the other day who was in this scenario she still has her job she does
eventually want to leave but she's been trying to follow what everybody else has
kind of recommended and she basically got to the point where she's like I have
to just cut all of that and kind of be very intentional about what I'm doing
because I'm spending five hundred dollars a month on all these
subscriptions and different things yet I'm not actually making any money so now
this thing that was supposed to kind of set me free and give me more options is
actually limiting my options because now I'm funding it with my personal life and
my salary instead of it supplementing that yeah that is really interesting
yeah I mean maybe going into it with a with a frugal mindset helps because
there are a lot of free out there when it comes to being an online entrepreneur
too and a lot of these businesses know that too if I hook I'm in the beginning
with the freebie and then as they grow then they'll eventually pay me come in
their sales funnel so that eventually when you need more things which they
know you'll need because at one point they were you or they've done their
research then they're like oh hey here's this service and oh hey here's this over
here it'll make your life so much easier and yeah that I definitely can see that
because I mean pretty much that's the model in the online industry right now
is give something away for free you hook them you get them on your email list you
get them and then you keep selling them things as you kind of move them along
and that's great if it's all things you need but if you get hooked in and you're
kind of an impulse buyer or you're a FOMO person where you're like oh no I
can't miss this deal you end up paying for so many things like we've talked to
people over the past couple years who've paid for services like like a landing
page service or something they never used it but they paid for it for 12
months monthly like I say and so actually I want to ask
you a question see how this comes through so one of the things that we
tend to see is that the habits people have in the personal life carry over to
the business so if they're poor with money in the personal life they tend to
be poor in business same thing if they're good with money and time in the
personal life that goes to business when you were kind of going through your
personal stuff and kind of paying that debt up do you see that same thing
coming over to your business and helping you absolutely I mean I think I became
more interested in online entrepreneurship because of the low
barrier to entry and not you don't need a lot of capital I think you guys have
you been talked to us about this in the past or maybe I read it on one of your
on your blogs about the difference between your online entrepreneurship and
your liquor business because of the amount of capital that's needed in order
to start it so oh for me when I started out I said well what's something that I
can do that could you know express my creativity and I could have some fun
with that just cost me anything barely anything to start I mean you got to get
your you know your domain name and your hosting and things like that but that's
you know low barrier to entry you know for example my my brother-in-law very
successful brewer up in northern Michigan he started a brewery and he's
done very well with it but you know the conversation I've had with him actually
on my show to us it costs a lot of money to get a brewery going you got it you
got a bake you gotta make a product you got to have a place for people to
consume it you got a you got to put it in the kegs you got to get people on a
canning line have a lot of employees so there's you know I think that I was to
answer your question Tom I think that I was interested in getting into a
business that had a very low low I guess capital in the beginning and I sort of
kept along that free sort of thing for quite a while and I'm still taking
advantage of most of that because it doesn't need to be so expensive I think
there's lots of tools and tricks and things like there that are very tempting
like you say hey this person is using that tactic so I'm and they're
successful so I must need to buy that as well that's I found that to not be true
yeah yeah I was gonna say one of the things that we do all the time and
people are sometimes surprised are like well you guys have these businesses and
whatever else but we all we often go through and do all it to
it or basically a subscription are we paying for hot stuff out all the time so
like we used to use a software called lean kit to manage all of our projects
and it was like 500 bucks a year and we loved it but one of the times good tool
on it we're like you know Trello does just about everything that this does and
it doesn't cost us anything suppose we got rid of that we're like oh this is
gonna save us so much time and it's gonna help us so much more and we were
using it for a little while and then you know we kind of fell off and when we did
the tool on it we're like we're not really using this to the full capacity
and we're paying for it why not just switch back and make this other tool
work that is free and one of the things that we talk about often because
obviously tom is it is the processes and systems guy many many people out there
are very quick to jump on a tool or a piece of software or something because
somebody out there told them either they need it or it's gonna make your life so
much easier and save you so much time those are those are for obvious reasons
you know either they want you to buy through an affiliate or the they want
you to buy because they think it'll save you time the thing to look at is how are
you doing things because a tool is not a magic button it is you have to have your
processes in place and you have to be doing things efficiently first and then
if a tool will help you be more efficient then yes it might make sense
to pay for that tool you know it's kind of a pro's and con's thing but most
people instead of kind of looking at how they're doing things and how they could
be doing them better or saving themselves time just in the process that
they're using they say well this is something I need to do that tool does
this thing that I need to do so I'm just gonna pay for it but then when they get
in and buy the tool it's not helping them it's actually hurting them because
I gotta learn how to use it maybe it's not as efficient as they thought because
of the way the brain works doesn't translate into the way the tool works
and then they're not even using it and then they're paying for it because well
hey I bought the year cuz I thought I would need it and now you just spent
more out of your business that you needed that you didn't need to I don't
know if you guys are coaching via osmosis right now but I love this who
will audit and I'm writing that down because I'm thinking of one specific
that I've got right now that I know it's just like a hundred bucks a year but it
could be zero dollars a year pretty easily if I spent maybe two hours on my
site so thank you for that and you know oftentimes people are
looking for how they make more money and you you guys experience this with your
personal budget where it's like you know one of the best ways to make more money
is to actually just cut your spending and we've had entrepreneurs that we've
sat down and done this with and we've actually given them a raise of like a
thousand dollars a month because they're cutting out all these expenses that they
didn't realize they had or paying for so so I'm curious a lot of people come to
us and interview we get to a really good point it's like gong just to make sure
everybody hears so you know you've got you know a spouse you've got kids
you've got a job you've got a business we were the same way and people are
always coming to us saying like how do you guys get it all done how do you make
sure that one thing doesn't take over another one and for most people that we
work with it's only a temporary period of time because eventually they're gonna
leave their job and then it's just business and family so for you or you're
planning on having all three continue to go forward what are some of the the
experiences or strategies that you've had to make sure that those are all in
alignment and one doesn't take over the other for example well first of all it's
a daily struggle which is fun but like you'd appreciate Tom just systems and
processes help me get through it it's also setting boundaries of when I have
family time versus when I have you know business time so in and work time so
they're all separated obviously so I find the best opportunity for me to work
on my side hustle is in early in the morning or late at night because that's
just kind of fits in with my kids time with my kids and my opportunity to keep
my full-time job going I also utilize I'm sure there's another app that I
could be paying money for but I usually utilize the free app on my iPhone I
think it's called reminders and I sent a recurring reminder for things that I
need to do with my side every day so that I don't forget to do
them and it's just repeated activity that helps me move things forward in
that fashion one other practice that I do as a father and trying to be more
present husband and father is that when I get home from work at whatever 6
o'clock 5 o'clock depending on traffic I turn off my phone
I try to do this thing I interviewed a guy on my show and he called it minding
the gap so the time between when you arrive home from work and then you go
into family mode and for me I get it I get out of the house I get out of the
car I take a deep breath in the garage because I'm going and turning into dad
right turning into husband and I say I greet my family I immediately go
upstairs I change out of my work clothes I splash some water on my face I turn
off my phone and I put it on the dock upstairs so it's away from me away from
my family so I'm not checking it constantly when we're spending family
time together I changed my clothes I head downstairs and voila I'm in I'm in
dad mode and I keep that phone off until the kids are put to bed because I have
found and I'm you know I don't do this perfectly every time but I have found
that if I've got the phone I already got a text or I'll just it'll be a habit
that I'll look at you know social media and then not only am i taking myself
away from my family but I'm also modeling that behavior to my kids saying
hey this special time that I have with you right now I'm it's more important
for me to check my facebook status or my Instagram status than to talk cars with
you son so I don't I don't want to I don't want to do that so it's something
I'm working on and those are some of the processes that are helping me I love
that yeah so much well I was gonna say and so you talked about modeling for
your kids and that's a big thing for us who we actually brought our daughter on
the podcast and kind of asked her like well her thoughts were like what we did
was submitted questions is hilarious oh that's awesome
and then well in an hour daughter was actually inspired by your daughter so
one of the things our daughter loves to do is she makes charts and she tracks
things so like down our hallway she's got charts for everything and when your
daughter Zoe actually had a challenge where she was gonna stop sucking her
thumb you guys did a video I saw it I show it to Elena and she was
like instantly hooked yep now we can't get her to stop making charts yes so she
actually not only did she complete I think he's all we had like a two week
challenge she was doing so our daughter kids a little nuts because she's been
modeling us she said well two weeks isn't enough I'm actually gonna go for a
hundred days and track in every single day that's awesome so she she not only
did that but then what she did was said hey this is great how do I help other
people and she went to her classroom kindergarten classroom kindergarten
classroom she wants all her friends and said what's a bad habit that you want to
stop doing so she took notes on all of them and then she went back to them and
said here's how you can stop doing it she shown how to do it short and each
kid in her class had a post-it note with their name on it and it said 100 days
and she walked around and told them that they need to make a chart for a hundred
days and keep track and don't do the red habit that it's beautiful this is a
future book that she's gonna have to write children's books to make now she's
made a behavior chart for her little brother he gets he gets stars or
checkmarks if he's good and he gets an accident so I'm curious now we're gonna
shift away from the business side and more into the parents eyes here so
obviously there's a lot going on in your life so what are some of the things that
you do to make sure that you are modeling those good behaviors you know
for you know not only being a father you know but also being a good husband
that's a great question I would say you know I try to I talked at the beginning
of the show of things that I'm trying to work on in my life of trying to have a
great marriage trying to improve the relationship with my kids and then my
personal finance so from the marriage side I'm working on communication better
with my wife and I feel like obviously as we're
modeling that good communication behavior that has rubbed off under our
children I get it I get a new day every day to
try to be the best husband I can be and some of the things that I'm working on
are not always trying to fix things when she's talking to me it might it might be
a mail thing right like you know we hear we hear issues we hear things that are
coming up and we go straight to solving the problem but more often than not more
often than not I believe my wife is just looking for me to hear her out and be a
good ear and you know there are times when she say what's your opinion on that
or what's your thoughts on that but more often than not sometimes you just want
somebody to listen and and the big thing I'm working on is truly listening not
waiting for my turn to talk you know listening to what's happening
because I don't know that's that's something I'm working on for the
marriage side for sure definitely and then kids I love I love the the
challenge side of things Zoey also loves challenges and she is doing some fun
activities with me right now where we're both working on being better charitable
givers it's something that you know I've done really well in earning money or
paying off debt and things like that but the charitable giving side of my life
has I haven't been focusing as much on that and I did a little introspection or
a couple months ago actually looking at what we actually give um I was below the
average giver of an American and that's something that I wanted to change and I
wanted my daughter to do it along with me so through her work that she does at
the house her chores she has a gift jar and for a while the money was just
piling up I mean we go to church every once in a while we're not we're not the
best of going to church all the time when we drop some money in the jar or in
they and the basket but you know with the money piling up in her jar we said
well what can I do to you know find some organizations that Zoey feels passionate
about that I feel passionate about that we can both give to and you know work on
this charitable giving together and it's it's been a lot of fun so modeling you
know it's something I want I always want to teach my kids
but I'm finding that partnering with my kids is also teaching me a lot as well
mm-hmm I love it and you know one of the things that I think is great especially
when we can have these conversations is so often people put on that front or
that facade or you only see what's on social media and you know a big thing of
what we try to do I know you do with your podcast as well it's like here's
what it really is here's the ups like yours here's when I you know we're able
to pay off you know our mortgage in this time but also here's some of the
challenges and you know I love the fact that you know you're doing those
introspections you know because we do all the time as well and we try to kind
of dispel a lot of what's out there that isn't reality or that you know people
are trying to live up to and say like this is what it is like we face
challenges all the time like we got into debt and it took a long time and we got
on to debt and we do these things that work well and we do these things that
don't work well but for anybody listening just want you guys to realize
that everybody goes through this and they go through it from their career
perspective from their business perspective and from there personal life
perspective as well yeah and and and I guess to that end
Tom be wary of the the folks out there that are the gurus that say everything
is roses and sunshine because you know that's not true I mean just think about
that in life as you're as you're learning about the next gadget to buy
from the next guru think about that you know and are they are they speaking are
they speaking to you how you should be spoken to yeah it's not all rainbows and
unicorns and easy buttons yeah you guys got a new t-shirt line coming up oh I
have so many ideas started read some of your blog posts so where is the best
place for them to come yeah I would that would be great marriage kids in
money.com is the best place and marriage kids in my podcast isn't any major
podcast player so love for look well if they connect with anybody
thanks did I see it right that you're actually speaking at fincon this year
yes I have the opportunity to speak at Finn
I'm so excited that is the opportunity for financial money nerds to get
together and just be nerds I went for my first time last year and I got to be
honest with you guys it was fantasy land for money nerdery so I'm pumped yeah
sweet what's the topic right now it is TBD but I believe that me and a group of
podcasters who are nominated for best personal best new personal finance
podcast last year are getting together to share our learnings from the first
year in in podcasting so it'll be a great opportunity for the newbies out
there that are thinking about podcasting to hear all the great things and the
stuff that you know you gotta learn alright it has been another amazing
episode with Tom and Ariana your hosts and lifestyle builders and we of course
want to extend a very very special thank you to you Andy for coming on the show
and just sharing all sorts of wisdom and gold nuggets thank you so much I really
appreciate being here absolutely and you know if you guys didn't hear it
throughout the show remember it now that it's really all about your life your
business your way we'll see you next time
are you frustrated by a lack of momentum in your business do you want real-time
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