Melody’s nearly ready to start a fight club or at least dish out a little “petty justice.” This episode is basically what happens when you hit your late 40s and realize you’re done tiptoeing around fragile egos, especially when being “nice” never seems to work out. Curt and Melody share about a messy neighbor drama, the exhausting rules women are still expected to follow, and where standing up for yourself starts to feel like a crime.

What They Talk About:

• The saga of Melody vs. her neighbor’s rowdy late-night parties (and why she almost landed in jail over a phone snatch)
• Why Melody is officially out of patience for dimming herself to coddle male egos and what happens when she doesn’t
• The story about Matt’s black belt and the absolutely worst time to mention it to drunk party bros
• Curt’s “Bro Code” theory and how it played out when the cops showed up
• How Melody’s fight for peace triggered flashbacks to her old, much scarier neighbor (yeah, the one who literally sued everyone)
• Why “Karen” isn’t quite the insult you think it is.. at least not when you’re just fighting for some sleep
• Curt’s frank take on male vs. female expectations in parenting and work (featuring Rachel’s frozen dinners)
• What changes and what doesn’t—frustration with slow progress, politics, and why real change takes generations

Key Takeaways:

• Sometimes, standing up for yourself will absolutely make you “the problem” and that’s still better than shrinking.
• There’s a real energy boost in letting yourself feel anger instead of constantly bottling it up.
• The rules and expectations placed on women (and especially moms) run much deeper than most guys ever realize.
• If you’re tired of being a pushover, you don’t suddenly have to become a jerk.. you just get to stop apologizing for being yourself.
• Real change is slow, messy, and full of setbacks, but the small ways we show up matter.

Timestamps:

0:00 — The great neighbor meltdown/night of petty justice

10:12 — Melody’s realization: done dimming herself

18:55 — “Bro Code,” cops, and gendered assumptions

33:30 — Women in business and Melody’s double bind

43:41 — Curt’s take on mom guilt vs. dad self-permission

54:55 — Why systemic change is agonizingly slow

1:04:00 — Petty justice as self-respect (plus closing laughs)

I am tired of taking crap. I am tired of trying to dim myself or dampen something in me to be extra polite, to make the male ego of certain people feel okay. And when I don't do that, I have really intense reactions from men.

Welcome to the Sole Proprietor podcast. I'm Curt Kempton.

And I'm Melody Edwards.

Each week we dive into the ethical questions that keep entrepreneurs awake at night.

Whether you're building your own company or exploring life's big questions, you are welcome here.

Hello, Melody.

Hi, Curt. Hello. How are you?

I am doing well. How are you?

I'm good. I'm normal, Curt. I'm totally normal. That's what we decided last time. That I could say, except I did almost land myself in jail on the weekend.

Well, that's not normal for you, actually. As I think back to our past conversations, what's going on?

But it might be in the future. This might be the new me. Usually I would tell a story like this on social media because it's a good story, but also I've had to really think about it because it doesn't make me look good at all. I, for 15 years, had a neighbor that was so awful that he tormented us. He truly tormented us. He would take pictures of every single visitor we had. He would take pictures of my daughter riding her bike or me. Thousands and thousands of pictures.

No joke. He tried to strangle my tenant when he was riding his bike through a right of way. This is, by the way, an 80 year old man. He might have been 75 to 80 at the time.

Wow, this is crazy.

It was crazy. When I bought the house, I knew that there was a crazy old man who lived next door, but I also knew that the person who he had been fighting with was somebody who had owned the house, was somebody who would poke. So I could understand why that guy might have a problem with them. But I'm like, I'm a nice person. He's not going to have a problem with me.

Everyone likes me.

Yeah, yeah, everybody likes Melody. But no, that is not. He started out fine and he got progressively crazier to the point he would call the police. He sued the building department, the police department.

He sued the police department.

100%, he sued. People like that know exactly where the law is, where the gray area is, and they know exactly what to do to get what they want. Their whole goal is to make people miserable and have control. He would call the police, they would come. I, being a good citizen, would never call the police until it got really bad. I Just didn't want to bother the police with an issue about this guy. But what ends up happening is you look like the problem because this other person's always calling the cops. Eventually I went to court because he threatened to kill me.

And finally I was able to, like, actually take him to for a reason. And in between the time that I filed that and the time that the court case was, his wife died. And he had the nerve to accuse me of killing his wife by saying I had caused them so much stress that she died. And then I made a video of it on TikTok and it got like 800,000 views. It got a lot. It said I was accused of murdering my neighbor's wife.

Oh, that's a salacious one.

It is. And it's because I have to make light of some of these crazy stories that have happened. So knowing that background about me, knowing that I've lived in peace for the last six years, since we moved, or seven years, whatever, we have neighbors who have lived next to us in a way for about maybe two. In the summer, they start partying. They're just about in their mid-20s and they party hard. And the sound from their home to our home, it's like a megaphone. And so we hear everything. And sometimes it's just their conversations, and sometimes it's yelling or fighting.

But usually it can also include peel outs on the road where they're like egging people on to peel out. Could be 11 o' clock at night, or it could be 1 o' clock in the morning. They don't seem to care. I have never called the cops on them, but I have gone over there several times in good nature and been like, hey, guys, it's like midnight. Can we stop this now? We're trying to sleep and usually it's been fine. Last weekend on Friday night, they started their annual party time and there were like a dozen guys on the porch. And I had just fallen asleep and I was already probably in a little bit of an aggravated state, but I fell asleep and I felt good about getting to there. And then I got woken up by that noise.

No windows open. Like we're in our house and we can hear it and it's so loud to wake me up. And so should I have called the police? Probably. That's apparently what people do. But I wanted to be a good neighbor and give them a chance to stop. And what are the cops gonna do? What I learned last time is they do nothing. I started walking over to the house. Every intention was I was Annoyed very much.

But I was also like, I'll just do the melody nice thing and they'll stop. But instead, I could hear that they were talking smack about me the minute I left the house because of the megaphone effect, so I could hear their conversation already. That did not make me feel like being nice. But when I got there, they're like, what? And I said, can you please not? It's like, it's one o' clock in the morning. I really would like to sleep. And they're like, we can't control what people do in their cars. They were just being teenage boys and they were super hammered. They had been drinking all day.

I didn't take that into account, by the way. But now I know don't ask for reasonable things when people are hammered. And they started being belligerent to me. Now, Matt had run over because he had also been woken up and he was worried that I was going to be beat up or something, because I don't feel shy away from a fight. Not that I've ever had a fist fight, but I'm not afraid to have one, is my point. And he knows this about me, so he was there, but I was like, this is my fight. So these guys are getting more and more belligerent. You cannot imagine what they were saying because it wasn't just one, it was many.

And I was getting pretty mad, but in my melody way, which I know that if I can maintain control and not get upset with them, they will get more mad. Because that's what happens when my voice

goes down, is when they get. Yeah. Yes, I know that.

Yeah, that trick. Because then you have control. But what happened next? I learned a lot about the law. What happened next is that one of those little boys took his phone out and started recording right in my face. And my immediate instinct was to take his phone. And I did. I took his phone. Well, I'm like, you don't get to record me while I'm talking to you guys, while you're being belligerent to me.

You don't get to record this and put it on the Internet. I don't know all the laws, but I kind of knew that you can't record people without their knowledge. So I was thinking that for video. But you can record people without their knowledge for video.

Every security camera in the planet does that.

Or without their permission, but it depends. But you can't record their voice without their permission. Like, if it was just voice, did you know that in Massachusetts at least. Okay, you can't. So I became really mad. I took their phone and then I had six boys in my face screaming,

give him back the phone.

I felt so peaceful inside my heart because I felt like they were now feeling the anger that I had felt when I woke up. Yeah.

On teens time.

And yes. And I'm trying to be a good human and I'm trying to do all the right things and people know how to get away with things. So anyway, they said, I'm going to call the cops, whatever. And then the next thing I knew, one of the boys took his vape pen and he blew it right in my face. But they kept just egging. And of course, if I was a mature person, I would have just left and gone home and called the police or I would have just never gone there or I would have just. But up until this point, I've never had that kind of relationship with them. And so I assumed I could talk to them like a reasonable human.

Instead, I became a Karen. But now I understand Karen's. I get it.

Our Karen's getting a bad rap. Is that what you're saying?

That's what I'm saying. Now Karens have a bad rap when it comes to neighbors, at least. The thing is, Matt is a third degree black belt in taekwondo. Did you know that?

I did not know this.

Matt told me afterwards, something that I will try to keep in mind for the future. But they were getting aggressive with him and he was doing nothing. He's a very patient person and he never starts a fight with anybody and he knows that he can get in trouble if he's like doing that. Plus, we were on their property at the times, but they were getting more and more aggressive and I said to them, don't pick a fight with him. Like he's a third degree black belt. You'll get hurt. And what Matt said afterwards is, you never, ever tell a drunk man that somebody is a black belt because they will immediately want to fight you. And it's so true.

I saw that happen in real time.

I actually, I've never been drunk personally.

Yes.

But just the male ego.

Yes.

Like if you take inhibition away, this is. Now you just challenged me is what you just did.

And it wasn't doing the thing where like, my husband's going to beat you up. It was more like, don't do that. Because one thing I do know about Matt is he is super patient, 99% patience. But then he's not.

Yeah, well, it's like a dog. Like if you have like a dog that is ferocious, you're doing, like, the whole, like, please don't stick your hand near his mouth. He does bite, and he bites hard.

Yes. But I just want to say for the record, in case Matt hears this, you're not ferocious. We know that. But I do know, like, he has a limit. Everybody has a limit. And so I was trying to be like, don't push to the limit right now. And this is my fight. Anyway, I called the cops at one point because they kept threatening to call the cops.

And I was like, I'll call them. And I did. I don't think they saw me, but they kept saying, if you don't get off the property, we're calling the cops. And I said, I already did. And I showed them my phone and they said incredulously, she did. She did call the cops. And so then it was a thing where I don't think they were ever probably going to call the cops on me. But then when the police came, did

you still have the phone in your possession this whole time?

Yeah, Yeah. I was like, well, what am I gonna do? Give it back? I was gonna wait until he apologized and then I would give him back his phone. And also, I have to say, like, they were pushing buttons like a teenage child would in the mother and me. That was another part of this. Oh, I'm sounding so bad. But I'm not ashamed to tell this story because I got pushed to my limits. And this is what happens. This is how people blow up.

I'm like, just salivating over here. This is a juicy story.

It sure is. Yeah. So the cops came, and it wasn't our local police. It was the state police, and they're a different breed. And the state police were exactly usually who my neighbor would call and who would come and did nothing. So I already have this thing. There are good police in this world. I know, I've heard of them.

But these guys were power trippy police, especially one. And he was like, ma', am, do you have his phone? I'd already put it down at that point because I didn't want to have it in my possession. So it was on the property. It was just not in my hand or anything, like, yep, it's over there. And he was so firm with me, but like a child. So I think he thought I was drunk maybe, but I was completely sober. I was just mad because I had been woken up and I have these bad neighbors and I'm trying to be a good neighbor. And he was like, ma', am, you should have stayed safe in your house.

And called the police. I'm like, you guys don't do anything. Like, I've seen the police over there before. They leave, and then they just do it again. And he's like, wouldn't get off that point of, like, I could arrest you right now and bring you to jail for the phone. Yeah, because apparently when you take somebody's phone, it's a federal crime or something. Or I don't remember. Matt told me what it is because it's over $11,000 in value or whatever.

Who knows? But I didn't care at that point. I was willing to go to jail. I was, like, ready to spend the night. But that's when I realized, Curt, I'm almost 50 years old, and I don't care anymore.

Yeah, it happens. This happens.

It's also because I have lived in a world following rules in this country, and now I'm watching a country that is on fire, and there are no rules being followed except by people like me and you. And nobody is being punished for their bad behavior, so they get to act out more, especially men. Right now, not all men, but, like, I'm looking at these boys, and I'm like, it just triggered so many things inside of me. So anyway, basically, the cops refused to arrest me.

Oh, you're asking them to arrest you?

I did maybe say something like, go ahead. I don't really care. I was just so mad. I was livid. But I also wasn't acting like I wasn't screaming or shouting. It was just an internal fire with within.

Yeah. So raging storm on the inside, but on the outside, could they tell you were calm or were you?

I was frustrated, and I was trying to explain what was happening, what was going on. They didn't really care to hear it. It was like bro club. It felt like bro Club because all the cops were guys, and there ended up being five cops there. And then all the guys were guys. The 12 on the porch, 10 or 12. And one of the guys said that he had been scratched, I think by Matt or something. But then the cop accused me, because I'm a woman, of course, of scratching this guy.

And he's like, look at your hands. I'm like, there's nothing. I didn't touch anybody. This is insane. So it just made me more and

more frustrated because Bro Code was being followed. Did Matt touch anybody?

There was a part where they started bumping chests with him, and he did end up in some sort of thing, but he. When it was five guys, he kind of just put his hands up he's like, I'm not doing anything, guys. Because it was gonna get out of control. We were, like, at a point of out of control. The whole thing was out of control. I didn't party in my 20s, but that's kind of what I imagine people do every weekend. Probably not you or I, but other people. So anyway, I went home, and I was still fuming, in fact, but I also was very energized.

And that's when I realized that I spent a lot of time being exhausted by a lot of things. But, like, the next day. I have never felt more energy in my life. I was, like, doing our yard work. My head was clear. Everything was great. I'm like, holy crap. I have a lot of trauma in my life.

I am so fight or flight. And that's what has been lacking in my life. So now I'm going to just do a lot more fighting. Maybe I'll start a fight club or something.

Well, I have been known to stress clean, and I wonder if that's possibly

like, I don't know. And I talk to a lot of women about this, and I want to say, like, I am tired of taking crap. I am tired of trying to dim myself or dampen something in me to be extra polite, to make the male ego of certain people feel okay. And when I don't do that, I have really intense reactions from men, and it makes me sound like I'm the problem. I do understand that. But what I'm realizing is when I'm more of myself and less of, like, I guess I spend a lot of time, especially in, like, when I'm in home service world, making men feel good and feel like they do not have to feel threatened by me because I'm not smarter than them and I don't know more than them. And I'm just a woman, and I hate that. I don't want to do that anymore.

Why do I even do that? My voice gets higher. The tone of my voice gets higher. Like phone voice. And it's my natural state at this point in my life. And that makes me angry. So anyway, I feel like those poor, poor little boys, they did not know what they were getting when they started with me. And I would have gone on. That's, like, where I was at.

Have you had any interactions with them all week or seen them?

So it's funny because the next day, Matt and I were out in the yard working.

Obviously you're wanting to be seen by them, by the way.

Oh, for sure.

You wanted them to see, like, I'm not working.

No, I had just gotten a mulch delivery and this is going to. We were hosting the Easter Sunday service for the church.

That's right.

And so I had to make my yard look better than it actually is. And mulch does that. So anyway, we were out there putting the mulch together and we heard screaming suddenly. And we ran over to a bridge next to my house and this teenager had fallen down on her bike and she like had blood on her face. And one of the brothers from the house had run over too. And he was saying things to me, but awkwardly like, oh, I think she fell down. You know, like when you've had a fight or something or.

But you're trying to like, trying to be normal, like be cool.

Trying to be normal.

Yeah, this isn't the fight. This is an extension of other.

I also think they woke up and realized, look, you don't say things you wouldn't want to say when you're sober that you say when you're drunk. So they said a lot of things that they probably maybe remembered the next day. I would not feel good about that. Plus there were two girlfriends there and they looked absolutely terrified and they didn't say anything. And I have a feeling, because they were definitely way more sober, that they understood what had happened in a way that was different than the guys because it was definitely group mentality. And that's another thing, Curt. Like, I don't like that kind of mentality. I've literally seen people on the street sometimes and there's some sort of danger, I will go and this is how I'm gonna die, I'm sure.

But I will go and I'll be like, hey, stop it. You can't do this. I'm that person. And so it was kind of like what my sister in law called it lovingly is petty justice. I'm a law and order person and I'm going to have my petty justice.

Okay, so you had that interaction with a bike, but like even just coming and going is anything else?

Oh, I don't see them. We don't see each other. Cuz we're like, I can see their front porch when they're partying. That's where they're sit. But usually they're working or whatever. I don't know, whatever they do. But they had an opportunity to do the same thing the next day. And I was waiting to see if they would, because if they were gonna hold onto that and be stubborn about it, they would've partied again the next night.

They did not do that. So I was like, okay. I took that as a sign. All that being said, I find right now in my life, I am not putting up with a lot of things that I used to put up with, and it started to get me into trouble. And that's an extreme example. But to me, it's a funny story. And I know it makes me sound bad, but I don't really care. I keep saying that because I wouldn't tell the story if I really cared.

But it just shows, like, where I'm at in my life right now. I don't want to pretend anymore. I don't want to make people feel good unless I like them. And I want to make them feel good, right? Not because there's like, a social commitment that women have made that in the business world. Because either we're going to be in the business world acting like a guy, at which point we have to have, like, bravado. We have to be a bitch, essentially, and be okay with that, or women tend to go the other way, where we're helpers, we're givers, we're going to support and be safe.

Now, at the beginning, you talked about the crazy neighbor that takes pictures of everything. Did she tie into this, or were you just basically saying.

My point was that was a very, very traumatic experience in my life that I don't think about a lot anymore. But it brought up this experience, brought up that feeling that I used to feel with the neighbor, where I was always trying to figure out, how can I beat this guy at his own game? And so immediately that person came into my head of like, these neighbors think they're gonna get me? No, I'm gonna figure out how I can get them in a legal way, because that's how I had to think with that old neighbor all the time. Now I have great relationships with every other single neighbor that I have in this whole town. It's just these guys. That's to my credit. I hope everybody knows that I can have good relationships with people.

I think that there's some really cool stuff to talk about in there today. I'm glad you got that story out because you've made me wait since Easter. You sent me a text on Easter, like, afternoon or something, and I didn't actually see it until later that night, but it was like, remind me to tell you how I almost went to jail yesterday. And I'm like, oh, haha. Where's the haha? Like, I was like, waiting for the. There's supposed to be a text Here, where it's like, just kidding or no,

I really could have been in jail.

So I'm like, yeah, for sure. And then you're like, okay, I will. Like, this is real. So we get in this morning and the talk or this afternoon. And you brought that up, but then you said you had some other interactions with males this weekend or this over the course of this week. And I kind of think I see where this is going. This is definitely not going to be a conversation I'm going to be able to win of any kind. Not that I'm trying to win, but it's going to be weird for me to talk on behalf of some other minority as a white male.

But tell me more about these other interactions, because I'm literally coming in just as cold as the listener.

Yeah. So there were a couple. One was a family interaction. He got very frustrated with me because he thought I was trying to give him advice. I was trying to say, hey, I could help with something that he needed help with. And so he cut me off. But then I also had something with my. And this isn't the first time he's exploded at me.

And it's not a me problem. It's a him problem. And I know that, but it makes it feel like I can't be myself with him. And that makes me feel really sad because I really like him right now. It requires me to be a woman who is not going to have strong opinions. Like, we were just having a fun debate that suddenly wasn't for him.

Okay, so that gives the context there. So.

Yeah. And I found myself over and over in my life in those situations where I think I'm safe, that I can be myself and just say my opinions and then somebody will freak out at me. And it's usually a man who has an ego issue and there's something going on with them, but they take it out on me. And I'm not sure why I'm the safe person to do that with, but I've definitely established that that's the case.

Well, if we take all the examples you've just given and distill them down. You said pretty confidently. Typically, when someone confidently says, I know it's a him problem. It's not me.

Yes, I know it's a him problem. I am feeling triggered by these people right now. But for my, yes, it was a him problem. He's going through some stuff. I know that.

That's what I'm trying to get to here. You don't believe in any of the three examples that you've given that you were acting outside of what a reasonable person would.

Of course, I do know that first example. Of course I was being unreasonable.

So your response to what they were doing.

I just don't regret that I was being unreasonable. And the reasonable thing to do would be call the cops, complain, and then just sit on it, let it take its course. But I thought I was doing something reasonable, but it became unreasonable very quickly because of my not wanting little boys. I'm. See, I'm getting mad again. I'm calling them little boys. I just am so not into that culture anymore. And I think part of it is like I've been in male worlds, in home service world my whole adult life.

And whenever I talk about this, oftentimes people hear it like I have a victim mentality. Like I don't have to see it as like, people don't respect me or people don't. But there is something that I trigger in certain types of men when I'm just being myself that they can't handle because I'm not an authoritative person. I don't act like that. Normally.

I would say that that's been 100% my experience is that you don't come across authoritative.

No, no. But when I have a strong opinion, I don't hold back from saying it.

You won't be silenced, I think, is the way I was about to put it.

Yes. At this point.

So rather than me from the outside trying to fully draw this conclusion and paint the picture, let's just take the easy route. What conclusion do you draw from all these experiences, especially in their compressed nature?

Yeah, it's very compressed. And I think part of it is I noticed it in a different way. I have just reached a point where I feel like I'm being inauthentic to myself.

I'm happy to go to the internal portion, but I want to understand what your external realization is. I want to make sure I got a. A really good handle on that.

So what do you mean external realization?

Well, I've been trying to point to the fact that in my own analysis that I think I've been missing a little bit is that you feel like as a woman, I'm being treated differently or I am more sensitive now to the fact that men don't want to hear from me or I have to pretend to be someone else in order to appease these people or I won't be heard because of my gender. At the same volume as someone else, or taking it seriously is probably the way I was my Point is, is that externally, what is the obstacle that internally you are trying to solve?

Well, I don't know, because it's not like every day I run around having fights with people or that people yell at me. I just think two things happened within a very short amount of time. And I don't know how to answer your question. The normal things I would have done in the past in those situations, I didn't want to do. Like, Curt, if you were on right now and you had a fit, you know how the president, every once in a while, he kind of just has a fit, and then people are, like, not calling him out on his bad behavior.

Like, this whole entire country will be annihilated.

Yes. And people just, like, tiptoe around him. Like, I don't want to tiptoe around people's egos anymore. You know? Also, though, when you're doing a change, you kind of probably go, maybe I'm going to the extreme pendulum, because I have been holding it in for so long, I can't hold it in anymore.

I think that's part of what I'm hearing, too, is, like, at my highest version of myself, I would behave this way. And then I'm not sure where to go from there, because it's like. But the highest version of myself is too accommodating and doesn't care about me. So I'm going to change my highest version of myself. That's one thing I kind of was pulling out. But then I also heard, like, at the highest version of myself, I need to correct the things that I have been doing to try and not experience friction.

Well, I don't want to cause people to feel uncomfortable.

So now do I swing this pendulum past the highest version of myself that I always knew I needed to be, and I need to now offset, like a pendulum would, all of the accommodations that I event and not making people uncomfortable. I'm ready for discomfort to dish it out.

So I'm not actively pursuing that. I am going to become, like, a raging lady of petty justice. That's. This episode will be called Petty Justice.

Oh, I love that. I really hope that's the title of this episode.

We can make it so.

Oh, I love that. We can do anything we want.

We really can. Yeah, I'm not trying to do that, but I think when you hold something in for a long time, and I was conditioned to be this way. I've told you before, I was conditioned to be a helper, a supporter, or a missionary, and my heart has always been that way.

I Think your parents needed it to be honest.

Yeah. And I think the world needs kind support, supportive people. But I'm not in a world like, I'm not in the nonprofit world. I'm in like the space of home service world, where there's a lot of ego there. And so over the years, I've really dimmed myself down, dimmed the light of Melody, because I wanted to be the version that people have gotten to know that I feel they need, which is. I'm not gonna fight with you. I'm not gonna call you out on your bad behavior.

So instead of what you're not, tell me what you've been. Cause I'm gonna be asking you a follow up question. Just to the spoiler alert. I'm gonna ask you who do you. After this week, who do you want to be? So tell me what you've been.

Yeah, I've been somebody who is very like, I have an internal battle every day. I've talked about this before. Like, I don't want people to call me just to be able to dismiss me as being a feminist who hates men, who's just like, out to get men or whatever. Like, that's not who I am. And I have been conditioned by my childhood and I can't let it go to feel that if I am just being authentically myself, having my own opinions, having my own thoughts, sometimes they're not nice. And talking straight to people when I think they need to hear it, that usually gets a reaction and I usually care. I think if it was in my best. I guess what I'm trying to be is not a pushover anymore because I have felt like a pushover.

So if you're not going to be a pushover, what are you going to be?

I'm just going to be me, Curt.

See, this is where I've been very interested in this conversation is that you've told me I'm not going to be this anymore. I'm not going to be. So what are you going to be? You're going to be an assertive woman who fights for what she wants.

So you're telling me what I'm going to be? Because I don't know what that. How to say those words.

Yeah, well, I feel like as I've been listening to you talk, there's been so much of. I don't want to do this. This is not the person I am. Okay, cool. You've labeled what you're not. Can you just give yourself a quick label of like something like a finish line or not even a finish line, but just like a target to aim at. Because one of the things that I think is interesting about both you and me, as people pleasers, we refuse to draw our own target of what we're trying to go to because our target may intersect with someone else and cause them to not get exactly what it is that they want. And as a people pleaser, that's pretty painful.

So I'm listening to this whole thing and that's been really coming to my mind this whole time is, do you want to be a Karen?

I don't want to be a Karen, but I'm joking when I say I am a Karen, because Karen's actually are people who I think are very self absorbed and they're putting their foot down for the wrong issues.

Yes.

Like oftentimes very bad issues or things that they should not be doing, like calling the cops on whatever. Not my cop situation. When I think of Karen, I think of a woman who will call the cops on like a black person who's trying to deliver a package or something, you know?

Yes. Hey, you're on my street. People like you can't. I'm very self absorbed, so that's what I'm trying to establish here. You don't want to be that the pendulum to be over there.

I would never be that because that's more of like a bigoted, completely unself aware person. The thing that happened with those guys next door was like a point of exhaustion, but also like I had just had it with the world at that. You know, I'm having a lot of

fun because I have no dog in this fight. But I'm loving the, like watching the realizations and the growth. And one of the things that I just love to see is like someone who's like learning from their experiences and intentional with it. So I'm just curious, like, replay those three scenarios. What did you want to happen? Like in your highest form of yourself, what do you want to do next? The boys. You already said I'd stay in my house. I'd make the phone call.

Oh, no, I wouldn't have. Actually. I can't do that. I'm sorry. That's what I should have done. I would have still gone over and tried to have a polite conversation with them. But if I was a more mature, not easily triggered by their words person, I probably would have just been like, screw you guys and gotten home and

then made the call.

Or not. Or just tried to go to sleep or whatever. But that's not an empowering I think that's when I think of maturity. That's what I would think a mature person would do.

So you started out doing what you wanted to do when you were first over there, you were being exactly who you wanted to be.

Yes.

If you could, can you draw the line on, like, where you're like, at this point in time, I should have done something different.

I know it's illegal, but I think I still would have done all the things I did because he was being a real jerk. Like, they were all being super, super horribly. I wish I could say the words that were coming out of their mouths. It was the worst words you could hear they were saying to me. And when people talk like that, to me, going home would feel like retreat and like, they quote, unquote 1. And my ego chip on my shoulder is, I'm not going to let these boys win. Even though it wasn't about winning anything, we were not winning anything in this altercation that we had. I was meeting with a woman I know today, and this does have to do with this.

And I was talking to her and she was like, well, why hasn't your company grown or something? I'm like, well, I'm not really authoritative in the way that you need to be in home service. And she's like, why aren't you making your social media content about that? More like being a woman in this men's business world is not the way that I approach it is not working. That's what she was trying to tell me. And there's something inside of me that is so resistant to talking about that kind of stuff because I don't want people to write me off. I. She's just emotional, and she's just like a victim. I've seen the way the world works for me, and it feels like I'm tossed around a little bit sometimes. And I think a lot of women are, and men, too.

I'm just speaking to women because this is where my heart is today. I'm not eloquent about it because even though I think about it all the time, I don't know how to talk about it, because the kind of woman that I would probably be is a feminazi. And I think I already am, just to be honest. But I can't accept this identity. I want people to see me for who I am, for what my knowledge is, for what I can do for them. I don't want to pretend like it's the same old thing, Curt, but it's just a different level of not wanting to be, like, inauthentic to who. What's inside.

Until I've had it as a lived experience of being a woman, all I can do is sympathetically say, like, I've been written off.

Yeah, for you, when you've been written off, what does that feel like? And if you're written off all the

time, I think that's the part is where I'm not written off all the time. I'm not looked at like. I'm not, like, treated like some sort of trite member of this conversation or this argument. And I think that that's the part where I can empathetically say I've been treated like the trite part of a conversation. I literally had to run out of the cops maybe two, three years or months ago. My son and I were done at a shopping center, and we're backing out. And I was talking to him as I was backing out. I didn't look at the backup camera as close as I should have, and there's another car that just backing out the exact same time we both hit each other, bounced off each other.

No damage done to our car by any means. But as I look, we're both backing out at the same time. And as soon as we hit, they honked their horn really loud, and we pulled in, got out. And I'm like, all right, well, I can see that your bumper's all messed up. We were both backing out into each other. You know, what do you want to do? And she's like, we got to call the cops. I'm like, so we're just going to raise our insurance rates to deal with this stupid thing? Like, she's like, well, someone's got to pay for this. And I'm like, yeah, I was supposed the person backing up your car would be.

But anyway, when the cops got there.

Yeah.

This woman told the cops that my son, who is 12 years old, got out of the driver's seat and that she was parked when I hit her.

Your son was driving and she was parked. Oh, my God.

Now they pulled us apart. I didn't hear that until they came back. And she's like, talk to my son. How old are you? And he told her. And she's like, well, I understand you're behind the wheel. I was like, no, my dad was. Anyway, I remember, like, the whole rest of that conversation. Like, there's literally a camera right here.

And they're like, well, do you want to go to the Verizon store? I'm like, you're a cop. You could like walk in there and go ask him for the footage.

The cop I was dealing with was treating me like. Your cop was dealing with your son. Yeah, that's how they were treating me the other day, actually.

Like me, I'm like, wait a second. I just told you I'm driving. You think I would let my kid drive this car? Okay, fine. Some people do let their kids drive a car. Here's a camera. We could look at the footage. She's like, and the cop was a woman, but she's like, do you want to go get the footage? I'm like, but you're a cop.

Yeah, that's your job.

You could like walk into the Verizon store and get it. So she does. And she's like, oh, well, it's held by the shopping center, so they aren't in right now because it was night, so we'll have to get it later. And I'm like, okay. And then they wrote it up as if I had. My son was driving. They didn't listen to anything I said.

Like, yes, that's exactly.

I'm not trying to make this about me. The point is, is that I felt that that trite. So I understand that part.

Yeah.

But I don't think I've lived my whole life in an industry or with people or with just feeling like every interaction I have is like, you're the second class citizen or you're the word we're not going to take. Like, I haven't really experienced that to like a huge degree or like if I'm in a circle of people, I don't feel like whenever I want to offer up my opinion that everyone in the circle, including myself, knows that like, mine is the opinion that has less weight behind it and that they're just being patient and hearing me out. Which I'm kind of reading into what you're saying, but it kind of sounds like that's my maybe like your lived experience.

And it's not every day. My lived experience all the time. And this is not to say that there aren't worse experiences out there. Let's just put that out there. But we're talking about me and my experience. So I have heard several times from actually many people that they either didn't like me at first because they thought I was to ditzy because I was so nice, because I'd be like, oh my gosh, it's so nice to meet you. And I just was very much trying to make men feel safe around me as the only woman sometimes in the room who actually did the thing that they did. There are not a lot of women doing what we did.

And so I learned that's what I had to do. And my goal in that, I think, as I think about it, is because I wanted them to eventually get to know who I was, and then they would respect me and we'd be friends. That's all I ever wanted. Even Bobby Walker would be triggered by me at times when we had had some conversations in the past. He would admit that when we've talked about it. I didn't remember one in particular that he had apparently gotten really upset with me about, but he reminded me last time we talked, and I was like, oh, yeah, I totally forgot about that. But, like, I have a tendency to do that for some reason, but it doesn't take a lot, maybe because I've. I don't know.

I think I'm as nice as you are, Curt. So it's like. I don't know what the difference is.

The difference that I been feeling this whole time is that, like, you know, you're operating as an entrepreneur, as a homeowner, as a member of society in any different way, but you're operating under what it would be to be a female in the social contract and a mother in the social contract. I just had a conversation. It was a really good friend of mine, and she's like, you know, people keep asking me. I didn't ask her in this situation, but she's like, one of the things that I hear people all the time

is, how do you achieve such a

balance between your kids and your job or your. In her case, your business? And she's like, isn't that such a stupid question? Men get asked that question zero times, and women get that question asked. I get that question all the time. She said and said, the reason men don't get asked the question is because nobody cares.

Yeah, well, there's no expectations on them to have balance in that area.

And I've talked to you about mom guilt before. That's something that I personally just don't experience that much. Like, that's crazy. Like, I'll sit down and eat breakfast, and I'll be finishing up breakfast. If someone else comes in the room and they start breakfast. And my wife's like, you guys, we're missing the opportunity to all sit down and eat breakfast. I'm like, yep, we're waking up, running around, trying to get out the door. Like, everyone's got their pace.

They got to get out the door.

Yeah, my wife has Sort of, like, drawn these, like, targets on things that are important to her. You know, when she misses the target she has guilt on, yet no one else is aiming at that target. And a lot of her targets require either doing something for the kids or the family. Or the family participating in something that no one else cares about except for her.

Here's what I will say one thing about that. You might not care about these things because I guarantee all of you men could live without wives and raise children. There would be a lot of chaos involved. But, like, you're not going to have the same kinds of memories because of the way that Rachel has made your house a home or children. You've all had memories together. Like, these are the kinds of things that we think about. I'm always thinking about, like, this is the last two years with my son and he's about to buy a car. I don't want to be.

I want my husband to be involved in that process, not me, because it stresses me out. But I'm, like, trying to orchestrate moments for the memories for later. My husband doesn't care about these experiences, but later you do.

By the way, not saying it's bad.

Oh, I know.

I actually am saying it's good. If I'm being honest, I think it is good. But my whole point is, is that because these things don't even register in my mind. Yeah, there is zero calories burned on my part for any of this.

Don't you ever feel bad for how little time you spend with your children?

I just don't. Because I spend the amount of time with my children that I can.

Oh, my God, I wish I could say that now.

If I was looking for opportunities to not spend time with my kids or to grow them or teach them or whatever, I mean, it'd be fine. Last night, I got done with work, went to dinner, got back from my ride, ate dinner. I was ready for bed. I was exhausted. I was so tired. And my son, who just got a new bike frame, wanted to switch stuff over. It required a hydraulic hose switch over, which he didn't know how to do. And it's like 9 o' clock at night.

I gotta be up at 4. I'm like, oh, son, I just wanna go to bed. He's like, dad, I need to get my bike riding. And I'm like. So I go out there and I'm nine o'. Clock. Ends up take something that should have taken about 30 minutes. Took about an hour and a half because I gotta show him every little thing.

And all these problems and he has questions. And then he broke two of my tools. And, like, it's just like, it'd be so much easier if I didn't have to do this with a kid. My point is, is that I don't feel guilty because when he needed me, it was enough in that moment to be like, this is. It's time for you to do the thing. Like, just do it. If he had said, no, I can do it in the morning, I would have thought, zero calories. I would have gone straight to bed.

That's an okay excuse. But what happens if, like, your kids, like, Rachel's out of town for a week and you're not cooking them?

So who cares?

What if you run out of toilet paper? Do you think about that?

Well, we have a day, so who cares?

Who's thinking about all those little details?

Who cares?

Rachel is.

Rachel thought of the deals. Hey, listen.

Yeah.

Rachel, before she leaves, has. I'm going to be gone for five meals. All five of them are frozen in the freezer. I've labeled them. They know. And I'm like, rach, we're not going to be at home for four of those meals probably. And we're going to grab something while we're out. But then she gets home, she's like, you didn't eat all my frozen meals.

Oh, my gosh. She's showing her love.

That's just it.

And the guilt. We really, honestly, all moms, most moms. That's why there's always the talk of work life balance. How do you get work life balance? Because you can't.

That's what I'm trying to get to here now, is the reason that guys don't need to have the work life balance is because we're not shouldering. Not to say it's not important. I'm just saying that we aren't by normal default. On average, most guys are not shouldering the on ram that the guilt could use. And so because we're sort of like just driving down a road here and just doing our thing, we take opportunities as they come before us. And some men, maybe they do sit on the couch and just watch TV with their hand in their pants like Al and Al Bundy and. And I think that those people could definitely step up their game. But for me, when you're going as hard as you can, doing everything that you can and things are a little bit out of control and not in balance and stuff like that, for me, it's enough to know that I'm trying as Hard as I can.

But I think that where things get a little different between the genders is that I think it's hard for a guy to understand that when a woman is trying as hard as she can and she's not reaching all of those targets that she's drawn around herself and around expectations of other people and how events need to go down and what the proper non chaos version of that would have looked like, what happens is they can be trying as hard as they can, they being women and still feel really like less than which in the case of all three stories that you told, I don't know that you actually even want to change anything about the way you did any of it, but you are very capable of walking out of that story and going, I did everything the best that I could and it's going to weigh on me. Or again, going back to your lived experience. I think there's a bit of like, I am tired of these external forces pushing on me. But what I heard from you was, is that internally I'm satisfied with what I'm doing and I'm not going to make any different adjustments because those external forces are the problems and it's not me.

Again, I do think I played a part in bad behavior in these situations. I could have done it better. Not actually not in the other two. But there are plenty of times when I am not the best version of myself, when I really should be. Because somebody's behavior has triggered something in me and have been for a long time. But I've been noticing more and more. Maybe I'm mad at myself for the way that I behave in situations just automatically where my behavior goes to make this person feel comfortable. Don't say anything that's going to make them uncomfortable even though they just did a really bad thing.

Don't call them out on that bad thing because you don't want to make them embarrassed or, and this is part people pleasing, but also like, oh, you can't go travel for work because what's your kid gonna do? And your husband's gonna have to leave his job and he's gonna have to do groceries and bring him to work. And so like the mom guilt comes from not being all things to all people at the same time and the expectations that are normal for a lot of women as mothers and we have this internal need that's very different than men probably of like, not all women, but like, I feel like I want to show people that I love them and care about them. And maybe guys show them by going out to make money in their brain. I'm trying to build a business for myself, not for my family. Like, I'm trying to do something for my family generationally. But I'm really doing it because I like it. And I just talk to a lot of people, a lot of women. So common.

I'm not feeling anything new. I definitely do not think I do a good job of representing women's feelings about this because I'm so confused most of the time. And I'm moving through it, trying to figure out how to be a good human in this world while also not getting taken advantage of. Yeah. So that's.

To me, the real complexity is when you go, I'm happy with the person I'm being. I'm doing the right things. There's not a dial internally that I need to turn. I only have these external dials. I'm so tired. These adjustments that need to be made outside of myself. And if it's societal, that's a really hard row to hoe. In fact, in most cases, it's impossible.

But that impossibility doesn't keep you from at least doing things to try and impact society on it. You know, again, part of being a white male is that, like, I'm in a position to probably make effect more change on behalf of women, But I don't really know, like, who I talk to about it other than just what I do in my regular life and making sure that the norms that I can control. For example, my company never really thought about how many men or women worked in my company. It's like 50, 50, like 50% men, 50% women. That's cool. And it's never occurred to me that women in my company should be treated different than men. Like, just never thought about that.

And you're not saying they should. What you're saying is you never thought about it because you've not had to, because you treat everybody.

It never occurred to you. Well, but where I was going with that is, what if I did think about it and went, are you treating men and women differently? So subconsciously I've never thought about it because by nature I do it right, or, you know, that would be something that would take some intentional change. And then the other question is, is, are the things that I'm saying publicly that do affect how women or, you know, men or whatever privilege or otherwise, how are my interactions affecting the whole. Am I sending a message that I actually want to send? And those things I can control, they're miniscule, they're absolutely Minuscule compared to the whole societal thing. But I will say, as a kid, I remember when it was so dorky to wear a bike helmet and now it's normal. I remember when wearing a seatbelt. Like when I was a little kid, no one told me to wear a seatbelt. But now when I get in a car, why am I only thinking of safety things? My mom and dad always treat each other with respect and love.

So that was how I was raised. And there was never really any different. But someone who was raised in a house where the man put his hands on the woman or was emotionally degrading to the woman, those are cycles that need to be changed and have to become intentional. So I'm just thinking about the things that you're saying. I'm like, I can't do everything, but I can do the things I can do.

Listening to me actually is very nice. That's a very nice thing that you did, listening to my stories. Because I will be making a video about that story. Because I think part of what I do is when I do something that's embarrassing, the more I talk about it, the less embarrassing it becomes to me. Everybody should try that. It's so much better. Because otherwise if you don't talk about it, it becomes shame or something. But having you listen to me and then.

Or just being open to having this conversation about it is very helpful. Have you ever felt like when you're a group conversation or you're talking to somebody one on one and you're offering them some advice that they've asked for or something, that there's a resistance to you as you're talking?

Oh, yeah. I'm in SAS Academy and go to this coaching group and we meet and when you're asking someone to change what their default behavior is, that resistance is going to percolate up. I mean, my gender isn't at all the problem.

Oh, no. Like, I'm very resistant to many things as well.

Yeah. So, like, I'll be sitting in a room with someone who's struggling with a problem that I've actually overcome. I'm like, hey, well, what you gotta do is X, Y and Z. And you know what? That's even a stupid way to phrase it. The right way to phrase it is what I was in that situation and I did X, Y and Z. And that was, for me, what got me out of it.

Yeah.

And you don't tell people what to do. You just tell people what your experience was. And I've had lots of people, like, just dismiss it like, well, that would never work for me. Or I've had people be like, I tried it, that didn't work. I've had people, oh, that sounds like that's too uncomfortable for me. I'm not willing to go to those lengths or whatever. And I've done it. I've done it too.

When people are giving me advice and they're like, yeah, you just gotta do these three impossible things and you can do it. And I'm like, well, that's terrible advice because I can't do any of those impossible things that you just made sound like, or, first get out the milk, then get out the cereal, then get out a bowl. You have a bowl of cereal. And I'm like, you just totally made that sound way easier than it really is.

Right. The farther away that I get from our home service trades world, I'm not feeling it day to day the way that I used to feel it. And there are so many great guys out there. Please hear me. I have a lot of friends who are awesome. And I think it's specifically when you're in a low barrier to entry trade or the home service world is. That's really where there's a lot of ego stuff, as we've talked about. That's maybe why it's so triggering in those situations and why it's happened so much to me is because I experience it more because I'm like one of the few women at times in those rooms.

Although it's gotten so much better. I just want to put that out there.

I would just say that if it's because you're a woman, we've got work to do. If it's because people aren't taking your advice, that's different. No, that's different.

No, no, no.

I've told this story once before on here, I think. Did I tell the story about when I was standing at Thomas Jefferson's grave site? I was walking around touring his whole plantation and his house and everything. And then, yeah, he's the one that wrote in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal and women are created equal. But he didn't say that. But anyway, he had a slew of slaves. And there's a lot of things that he did that that really, really hurt my feelings. When I was learning about Thomas Jefferson on that tour and it was very complicated. And I'm so grateful that we don't live in the time that they did.

Obviously, a lot of modern conveniences, but we also, we don't think of black people in A sense that they're less than or that can be owned or whatever. And gratefully, everyone that I am close to doesn't as well.

That's awesome.

I haven't really had to struggle with having a relationship with someone who felt

like slavery was okay.

Yeah, yeah. Slavery is okay. Or that people could own other people in any sense. Yeah. My point is, is that as I stood as grave, the reason I. I got really teary was because I had this realization that, like, I don't think I'm any better of a person than Thomas Jefferson was if I lived in his time. They're busy building monuments. The whole Washington D.C.

downtown area is fill. These gorgeous buildings that we just look at, like these Taj Mahals of like, history. They're all built free. They're all built for us, for you. Just keep them alive and work their butts off and those slaves will build us the Washington Monument and the Capitol buildings. And like, it really hurt my feelings to sit there and think, if you lived in that time, you, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson would have had no guilt about owning another human being. And I say that now because I just feel like we've turned the corner. I'm not trying to say that there's not any more racism in the world, but I am saying we have certainly come a long way around that corner.

We'd love to see more progress, of course, and that is because the norms are changing and these norms build the foundation of the new norms that come in the next generation. I think that that's really the legacy that I feel like we can have is just intentionally saying, I tend to do this, so I will intentionally not do that, or vice versa.

Yeah, well, I mean, we still have tons of human trafficking, which is slavery in this very country and all around the world. And it's not just about race. So there's a lot of different ways that that comes into play. And I've said this before, I know it keeps coming up, but I can't believe it. I cannot believe that in my entire lifetime and in the history of this whole country, there's never been a woman who has been a president here. And that is how I know that things have, like, we have not evolved. There are lots of countries, including the Philippines, including other countries that have had female presidents. To me, there was a funny comedian who was saying, like, how somebody had said, well, I'm not voting for.

I don't know who it was, Elizabeth Warren or somebody, Hillary, because you know what happens if she gets her period and starts a war she's like, well, that would be like magic, because she's, like, 70. But also, that would be, like, the least worst reason that somebody has started a war. Every other war has been started by men on no periods for much worse reasons than that.

Yeah, that's a good bit of comedy, because I'm sure it was delivered in a very funny way.

It was delivered hilariously, but the truth

of the statement is good. Now, I know we try to, like, be a little bit neutral politics. I'll say this. I've always hesitated to say I can't vote for someone because of their gender, male or female. I got to do it based off of their qualities. The way I've been looking at it is, why are not 50% of the candidates through the primaries women? You know, like, that's what we've got to fix.

Well, that's because they know they won't win. The political parties know women won't win at that level. And then they don't go bring them through the system.

But, yeah, I mean that to me, people talk about making a woman a present. I felt like there was a time when it's like, if you don't vote for Hillary Clinton, you are a male chauvinist pig. But it was like, well, but I disagree some pretty fundamental stuff with her. And I remember, like, really stressing out. I remember I kept thinking, you got to vote for her. She's a woman. And I'm like, the problem is, is that we need women to come up through, like, we're talking about what the delivery needs to be. And I think the filter above the delivery has got to change.

Do you think there would ever be a woman who would be good enough to be president, though? I know that there would. But I mean, like, there will always be ways that women will be desecrated or denigrated.

I work with women that I feel like, you know, they don't know everything to be president. But I go to church with women who run things.

But I mean, that the country could accept.

I understand what you're saying, but what I'm trying to tell you is that, yes, I do, of course, I do think a woman could be good enough. I'm surrounded constantly by women who I go. I am in awe of the way that you approach this problem. I am in awe of your ability to multithread. And that's different than multitasking. Multithread is the ability to sort of weave four problems together and create one really gorgeous solution or one really unifying thing that Seemed like any one of those four things was just too big of a problem to even start. I see the capacity. Problem solving games.

I say all of this because I had this thought when I was at Thomas Jefferson's place too, is that at the time, they didn't think they should bother educating women. They thought that educating women was a waste of time and money because their mental capacity was less than a man. I don't know who fathered that thought process.

Men, obviously.

But which man was the first one to go? Woman not think. Very smart. Women not good thinker. I listened to things that are said, and I don't know how anyone arrived at that. I don't know how any man with a mother who cared for him and nurtured him and got him to that point, and then he turns and goes, yeah, women don't have the capacity. Like, I don't know where the myth got the legs.

It's actually another hilarious joke because we're so emotional. And then you look at Donald Trump, who is the most emotionally driven human I've ever seen in my life, and

how celebrated it is. He's so celebrated by his supporters because they say, this is what the world needs. Now we finally have someone who's willing to stand up on these emotional high heels. I mean, just. I'm being a little bit silly now, but to stand up emotionally and get what we deserve. And it's like, well, isn't that the reason that we said women weren't capable of it?

I mean, I couldn't even have a checking account when I was born without a man's signature. I believe so. It has not been very long. And so you can't expect that just because it looks on the surface like there's progress and there is technically progress, I really don't see the progress the way that I would hope that we would see it. And maybe it's a dis. Disillusionment. I've spent my whole life waiting for something to happen, and it didn't happen.

I understand your disillusionment. I actually am feeling it a lot today in your discussion. Like, I think a lot of it is like, I'm just so disillusioned. There's nothing left in myself that like, to be true to myself. I need to keep being who I am, but I need this world to allow me to be who I am. That's a lot of what I felt through discussion today. And again, as a white man, to say, look how far we've come in the 150 years of this country being moving forward. And I understand that's not really an acceptable answer.

It just feels not good enough.

Yeah, but at the same time, I look at it and I go. I look at the kids coming up. I mean, we're still filling out a bubble with a pen to do our votes and wondering why our votes? Dude, we got cryptocurrency on blockchain. Like, why are we going to the polls and voting? Like, I should be able to digitally log in with an encrypted thing, because

not everybody has that ability.

Well, the IRS does direct deposit of my thing. I have to file taxes every year. Look, if we need poor people to have paper, give the poor people paper. But we don't need to have. Like, we have progressed as a society, and yet most of the underpinnings, the stuff that. That safety net that's holding our whole society up is so stuck in old. And we have new people showing up and going, like, looking around and going, I don't even know how to operate under these conditions. I was raised with an iPad in my hands.

And you're expecting me to, like, somehow at these higher levels, in these institutions and the way that things work behind the scenes, I'm supposed to be sending faxes and faxes. You know what I mean? Like, well, honestly, medical records mostly are shipped around with faxes.

And.

And I go, we as a society have progressed, and yet I think those are the. At its highest levels, society has not been able to catch up because we created systems for really big things that would be really hard to transition from one to another. And that goes for how we treat women, how we treat people of color.

Do you see how quickly Trump was able to dismantle systems, though? Because it wasn't positive dismantling. It wasn't for the betterment of our society or anything. He was able to do it in ways that we would never have imagined, because nobody has ever even thought of doing that kind of stuff, because it's not better for everybody, as the promise of America is.

You know, that brings up a really, really good point. And the thought you gave me and that I kind of want to maybe end this on from my side is, you can wreck a building that took a decade to build with a wrecking ball in just a couple hours in the morning, with a crane and a wrecking ball, you can accomplish so much destruction so fast. It's true for burning a house down. It's true for what an earthquake can do. Things that are beautiful and wonderful, they never accidentally happen in A really short period of time. They always intentionally happen with planning and work and order and tenacity and determination. Like, you gotta be working towards something. And we shouldn't be surprised when backsliding happens fast.

But we have to be committed to progress, always happening. And I think that's something that I think really resonates with me with our discussion today, is that, like, I know that I'm not gonna be able to, like, with a pen and paper, make any sort of, like, big thing happen today, but I know that with the interactions I have with people and keeping my eyes open for opportunities to continually push the ball forward and to be willing to speak my mind about things that I know are good. Like even this podcast, right? Like, no single one of our podcasts is going to do anything. But what do I hope is going to happen? What I hope happens is that people who are trying to put good out into the world but feel like it's not worth it, it's easier just to play the game in the most profitable way. For now, if I can reach those people and say, no, utopia, maybe out of reach for us, but, like, we can move two more steps today towards it. And who cares if you didn't do that much, did you affect 10 other people to do something?

It sucks that we don't really find out about our impact until we die. I feel like a lot of times that's when you would find out all the amazing things that how you impacted people or what you did that you didn't even know was an impact. Because I bet you more people would do good if they understood. Sometimes really small things can mean a lot to people. We just don't take the time, all the time to talk about it. You can't convince people of something. Like, it's hard to convince them that doing good is worthwhile for the sake of moving something forward. When it's going against their best self interest in their mind, when it's going against their personal self interest.

My goal is that the more good that we put into the world, the more that we talk about integrity and things like that and petty justice, then the better the world is going to get. And I also. We learned today that Melody is willing to go to jail, so don't mess with her.

Yeah, well, I've certainly been willing to die on the hill of principle a few times, and I can actually relate to it. Maybe that's how we leave today. Is that. What steps are you taking? And are you hoping that you just wake up tomorrow and that you accidentally Took some steps in the right direction, or are you thinking about it? And I know I committed in our last podcast that I was going to do a few things. One of those things was to meditate each day, and the second was to stop working after dinner time.

Oh, did you?

And I did. I did on both. And those are both very internal personal achievements. And I think that coming out of this podcast, I would love to, like, maybe see if I could spend some time thinking about what external things I could do, something I could do that would impact externally in a positive way.

Yeah, I'm gonna get a superhero's uniform and then just go into the dead of night and fight crime. My name will be petty Justice. I love it.

I really do like petty justice.

I love it. Thank you, Iman, for giving me that great name for the A term for what Melody does sometimes. So thank you for this conversation, Curt. Who knows if this is helpful, but I bet you if somebody's listening to this, especially women, they are going to relate. I don't think they're going to think I'm a Karen, most likely, because I think we've all been there, even guys, they've all been there where we've been pushed too far. And you do silly things sometimes in those situations. And I hope that I made somebody's day just by telling my. What should be a more shameful story, but it is not at all.

It's hilarious.

It's a mama bear story is what it is.

It is. Okay, I'll see you next week. Curt. Thank you for this.

Thanks, Melody. Thanks everybody for joining us at the Sole Proprietor Podcast. It has been an absolute pleasure having these discussions with you. If you wouldn't mind taking just a few minutes to rate and review us wherever it is that you listen to podcasts, it would mean so much to us. We really do read each of these reviews and it gives us the opportunity to get the word out to more people who could benefit from hearing about topics like this and so many others. If you want to engage with us at our website and maybe share some topics or ideas of other people that you'd like to hear on the podcast, feel free to go to soleproprietorpodcast.com and share with us your thoughts and ideas about what we could do in the future to bring even more light into the world.