Mental health is one of those things entrepreneurs love to ignore, but it sneaks up on all of us (usually in the form of workaholism, anxiety, or quarter-life crises... that somehow become annual). In this part 3 episode with Bobby Walker, Curt & Melody share about their own struggles, childhood trauma, religious dogma, and the ways business ownership can both help and hurt your brain. If you've ever felt like you're rolling a boulder uphill or hiding your symptoms behind “just working really hard,” this conversation is for you.

What They Talk About:

• Why Melody thinks workaholism is basically a generational sickness (and also the only way to survive entrepreneurship)
• The story about Bobby Walker realizing he was “depressed”.. months into not being able to get out of bed
• Curt's framework for how religion shaped his view of mental health (and how the paradigm crumbled)
• Why “Rub some dirt on it!” was the emotional regulation lesson of the '80s/'90s
• The false idea that business success equals happiness (and how the next big win is always… less satisfying than you hoped)
• How trauma, dissociation, and ADHD show up as secret weapons (and sometimes landmines) in business
• Melody's perspective on why female entrepreneurs carry extra guilt, even when they're supporting their families
• The importance of moving from sympathy (thinking “that must be hard”) to real empathy (“this is what it feels like, and it changes how I lead”)

Key Takeaways:

• Self-awareness is the first step, but you have to actually want to look inward otherwise you’ll just keep distracting yourself with work or goals
• “Doing it for my family” can become an excuse for avoiding real healing and perpetuating unhealthy cycles
• Empathy (not just sympathy) changes how you show up for your team, your customers, and yourself.. even if it takes a few decades and a lot of therapy to get there
• Powerful stuff (business, habits, trauma) can build roadways or blow things up—it’s about how you wield it
• Entrepreneurship doesn’t automatically make you “better”—it just reveals what you haven’t dealt with yet

Here's the link about the addiction bird Curt mentioned about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUngLgGRJpo

Timestamps:

0:00 – Childhood lessons on ignoring pain

7:00 – Emotional regulation and “rub some dirt on it”

18:00 – Religion vs. mental health

28:00 – When the paradigm breaks down

41:00 – Workaholism, cycles, and entrepreneur guilt

54:00 – Self-awareness, acceptance, and juggling family vs. business

And the closest thing I can describe to the fear, it reminds me of something that happened all the time when I was a kid, going back to how I couldn't actually say I was afraid of stuff, but my parents would always— I was in charge of taking out the trash. I was the only boy for the longest time. My brother's 10 years younger than me. So I was the one who always had to take the trash out. That was a boy job. And I would take the trash out and every time I'd have that bag, you could go out your front door, around the side of the house, into the trash can and back. And we weren't on the brightest of streets, but it would be at nighttime. And in my head, I would see that I was in someone's scope.

Someone had their gun on me and they're following me from the front across from the house. And I could just, in my mind, and I would just try to walk slow, be like, it's not real, it's not real. And then like I would speed up and speed up and speed up. By the time I got to the front door, I was, the tips of my toes were barely touching the ground. I was just, you know, like a rabbit. Welcome to the Sole Proprietor Podcast. I'm Curt Kimpton.

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. How are you today?

Good, Curt. Hello, Bobby. How are you today?

If I was any better, I'd be twins. Thanks for asking.

Well, this is a fun, a fun episode. This will be our third episode with Bobby. I love having Bobby on, but we ended our last episode in a place Melody, you weren't with us and that was sad. So, so we, we got a time, uh, ability to talk about some stuff. We just scratched the surface, some stuff that Bobby and I went through together in terms of some of the, the hole in the pit, as we've discussed it before, of some mental health and depression and anxiety and different stuff that I feel like is more common in today's day and age. And I just felt like this was a topic that I'd really love to spend some time on with our listeners. And I know that each one of you, well, each one of us on this particular episode has had interaction with mental health. I want to say issues, but like, it's really a journey because you, because there's like this, this falling portion, this climbing portion, and it's a lot of work.

And I spent most of my entrepreneurial and childhood life not having any real mental health struggles. And so I started out in a place where I couldn't understand. Then I had some experiences that caused me to think, mm, this is real, and tried to come out from sympathy. And it's only been in the last few years that I've been able to get to a place of actual empathy, having had an experience myself. So if it's all right, today I'd like to just share with our listeners some of this stuff. We'll obviously be tying it back to entrepreneurship. But I think that there's some stuff going on in the world today that might require a little bit extra knowledge that we might be in a position to share.

OK. Yeah, let's do it. Tell me all about your issues, Curt. Tell me everything. I'm your business therapist. No, no, I don't know. I'm happy to start this because this is a journey I've been on since I was very young. I had a lot of childhood trauma.

As many of us have, especially in, in our types of industries, it's very common. But I didn't start recognizing it until I was about 17 or 18. Once I started trying to deal with it, I basically had a breakdown. I tried to take my life, not just once, and I, I was hospitalized. In the olden days, we called it the psych ward, but now I think we call it a— or the fifth floor, but now it's like the mental health facility. That was a very interesting experience. I think the reason I— it happened 3 times is because one of the things about being in a place like that is time stops, responsibility stops, and you're surrounded by people who feel similar pain to you. We all came from very different backgrounds, but it was easy to connect with people there.

And it started my journey with medication and all sorts of other things. And it was really, really hard because I didn't want to be on medication and I didn't know how to manage my, to manage my brain.

I don't know if you're skipping over details because probably maybe too painful, too painful, or I don't want to pry too hard. If it, you know, just stop me if I am. But how old were you, Melody?

The first time I remember it, I was 9. I used to be unable to sleep when I was really young, 8 or 9. And so it got to the point where I would take Vicks VapoRub and put it on my eyes because I thought that would make me sleep because I wouldn't be able to open my eyes. And I thought that's how sleep works. You just make sure your eyes are closed. My parents actually had to take it away from me because I was using a lot of it. I've always struggled with sleep issues. That plays very deeply into mental health.

I've always struggled. Now I understand with dissociation, I am not always present in my body, which has always been my norm. But it didn't come out that that was what I did until I was in couples therapy, maybe like 6 years ago.

Oh, gosh.

Because she saw me doing it. And she's like, you're just associating right now. I was like, no, I'm just here. But like, now I'm very hyperaware of it. It's my natural state. You know, right now I'm in Tampa. We're right next to the beach. And all day I've just been staring at my computer because I am but a brain inside of a body.

And they're two distinct separate things.

You can't even prove you're not just a brain in a vat, but that's another podcast.

I'm just saying. Yeah. My whole journey has been lots of therapy, lots of seeking, because I don't want to be— I want to be a healed person. I don't want to struggle with mental health. And, you know, I spent maybe 10 to 20 years in between that time not being medicated, but I always felt like I was rolling a boulder up a hill. Even though I was successful, maybe to other people in their eyes, it just felt like life is hard all the time because life is hard.

All of us were born in a similar age. I want to just paint a picture for either those who haven't been there to this age of the '80s, '90s growing up time. And then also, Melanie, you being a female, I want some different perspective. And then Bobby and I, while we did have very different growing up experiences, I was taught as a young man that like, don't trouble— like, if you smash your finger with a hammer, you're allowed like 10 seconds, like you can like throw it up, but don't like be bringing it up every time you pick something up and your finger hurts. And don't be, don't be like troubling other people with your problems. And rub some dirt on it and be tough, because that's the value of a man. You're a protector, and you can't be a very good protector if you're this weakling that's constantly going around talking about how weak you are or how much something hurt you. And so I'm trying to paint a picture right now of 9-year-old Melody Growing up in a day and age where at least that's how guys were.

Bobby, would you add anything to the sort of growing up of manhood?

Don't cry.

You just hit me with a memory I wish I didn't have. I remember, God, I was probably just old enough to remember stuff, you know, really. I mean, I was probably 5 or 6, and I was with my grandpa, who had a lot of not good humans in my family. He said I could use this, this ax to chop on this tree, but I'd better be careful. It was a stump. Flung it. My hand got wedged in between like the ax and the bark of the tree. Bloody, yucky.

Before I could cry, he looked at me and he was like, he goes, if you cry, I'm going to kick your blanking ass. And I just remember going, you know, and just holding that in.

And, um, that is how we grew up. That is a pretty good description of what was expected from us. I was very highly emotional. Very emotional as a child. And my parents, they didn't know why. They didn't— we all learn that bad people show up in big vans that have no windows and offer us candy.

Yeah.

They're not your neighbors. They're not your friends from church. They're not all of the— and so my parents maybe were very naive about the people they brought around us, especially because being in very charismatic churches, they tended to attract people into our lives that were not probably the best people to have around children. Because we want to save people, the worst of the worst, right? And they don't always look like the worst of the worst, but—

It's the one. It's the one sheep that's been off to the side. Look how good we are bringing them back to the fold.

Yeah. Well, it's a, it's a good hunting ground for predators, you know, because there's a lot of trust in people and especially small churches.

Yes.

You know, and that's not a criticism of the church, but it's a good place to hunt. And, um, it's sad.

Yeah. It's very sad. Because I was such an emotional child, it was very frustrating to my parents. Every holiday, I just didn't know how to tell. I didn't tell them what was happening. So it came out in other ways. I felt like I was doing something wrong.

You weren't scared of external things. You were scared of internal.

You know, one of the things I was scared of is that we are taught that we must be virgins until we were married or else you're a bad person. And if you're somebody who has been abused, what is that message now? I'm sullied, I'm dirty, and God can't save me anymore. And imagine being like 8 or 9 and knowing that about yourself, because I went to Christian school at that time too. And not like they were talking about that kind of stuff, but I understood that I was the problem. I also know that I protected my brother from that. So I knew that something was not good. And yet I was experiencing it. And also at the same time, my parents weren't paying attention because in the '80s, nobody's parents paid attention to them.

We were all allowed to.

Yeah.

I mean, we're in the neighborhood or my parents were great parents.

My dad might never use the language that Bobby's grandpa uses with him, but I learned the lesson in a similar way is that I just knew, like the way you're saying that you knew that you shouldn't be dirtied and because the lesson had been taught at church and The school reinforced it by not necessarily teaching that lesson again, but by keeping the presence of the dogma, let's call it.

You knew what the rules were. Yeah.

My dad was a tough guy. He was an old farmer. My dad, when he was a kid, he was supposed to be out milking the cows, but before he went out and milked the cows, there was a cable that ran from the hay barn down to the dairy. And the kids had grabbed a handlebar off of one of the BMX bikes and had welded a pulley wheel from the clothesline onto it. He wanted to just ride from— he climbs up to the top of the hay barn, which like you guys can't see the picture, which I can because I grew up seeing as a little kid, but it's like 5 stories high. It's big. And he gets up there and hooks on that handlebar and about halfway down he's flying and the wheel seizes up and it falls off and he falls. When he falls, he breaks both wrists and his tailbone, but he's too embarrassed to tell his dad that he was goofing off.

So my dad, wasn't until he was like, I was a teenager, he went in to get an X-ray for some sort of surgery he had to do. And they go, who set your wrist? He said, set my wrist? What does that mean? They looked at it. He had broken both of his wrists and was too embarrassed to tell anybody. So he just kept milking cows and doing things with two broken wrists and a busted tailbone. And his knee, when they did knee replacement, they're like, there's a ball of bone, like a ping pong ball in your knee. What is that from? Same accident. This guy just got up and just wanted to make sure it didn't bother anybody. He didn't get in my face and yell it.

I just saw this is how we do it. Yeah, this is how we, how we act. And all of that, I think, hindered us in our generation because even though each of us got it in different ways, we knew what the rule was, the social contract. We followed it to the best of our ability and It was maybe not pounded into our head like viciously, but it was consistently pounded into our head. And so when I first found out that people are depressed, or I found out people were gay, or I found out that people had challenges that I didn't have, my response was very easy.

I'd—

yeah, be happy. Yeah, don't be gay. If you hurt, just stop hurting.

When I went in the hospital, I felt a huge— it was before it was popular. It was not cool to be in a hospital. And it was really, really looked at like you were a crazy person now. It took years for people to trust me again, which was really frustrating because I didn't feel like I was untrustworthy, but they couldn't trust my emotional state. That was painful. Bobbi, what was your experience or what has your experience— you talked a little bit about it in the podcast, but—

I had some, some rough experiences, some difficult experiences when I was, you know, when, as we're talking about our childhoods, you know, some of it I actually like suppressed, and it's stuff that didn't resurface until the last 5 years and was really, really difficult to, to get through. I wasn't taught how to regulate emotions, and unfortunately, with a lack of self-awareness, you know, because You know, I talked about like self-worth a bit on one of the past episodes I've recorded with you guys. And one of the ways I would try to cope with that is, you know, you find things that you can hang your hat on. And I think that's like, Curt knows this real well, we've talked about it a lot, but I've had what they would call— have is not the right word, but a way in which I acted and operated was, you know, this like black and white thinking, being very, very, very polar, no gray area in between. It's good, it's bad, it's right, it's wrong. I found little, you know, certain things that allowed me to— if I, if I can work with this in this rule set, you know, it's very comforting to have this black and white way of looking at life. If I had this set of rules that I could clearly see and clearly operate within, it allowed me to view myself as a good person. Depending on how you want to use words like good and bad or evil and whatever, you know, I don't know if there is a— one thing I've learned about myself is you're a whole, you know, you're not, you're not a part.

There's some bad stuff in me. There's some good stuff in me. I am what I am. That's kind of how I regulated myself because I didn't really have like good, healthy emotional regulation. You know, I didn't know how to, to treat myself well, you know, much less those around me, you know, in that respect.

I think that comes from being like, if our parents had that, then we would have learned it.

Yeah.

Never did.

To be honest with you, I wasn't a very good dad in that respect. You know, I wish I, you know, it's like my kids got that rub some dirt on it upbringing from me because that's what I knew.

Yeah.

That's what I knew. You know, it's how it's what I did. It's how, you know, how I live.

One of the things I would ask is like, did you struggle with your mental health at all or did it happen later in life because you had that?

Yeah. I dealt with the consequences of having some poor mental health, but having bad mental health wasn't a thing.

Yeah, it wasn't.

You just deal with it, right? Oh, you know what I'm saying? So I didn't have that self-awareness until much more recently in life, which isn't a fun place to be. But when you have that awareness, you can at least start to heal on that stuff. And whenever you just push it back and don't give— you don't allow yourself nor those around you, unfortunately, But when you don't give yourself an opportunity to be flawed, if, you know, that's probably not the best way to describe it, but you don't give yourself empathy, it affects you. And I can look back and how it has negatively affected me, negatively affected my self-esteem, my self-worth, my yada yada yada, my relationships, all of the above. And when I did become evident or aware of these things, the weird thing is it was like the beginning of the most painful part of my life. You know, I was out on a job site today just working by myself, and I was thinking about this, and I'm like, some of these horrible, horrible, horrible experiences that I've had, as far as dealing with them, have been really the best things that have happened to me. Because I didn't realize what I wasn't. I didn't always realize what I was either.

You know, I mean, there's a little bit, there's a bit of both of that. The first domino was the hardest one, and it took forever, but it was like that self-acceptance, accepting I am who I am in these bad ways that I don't like, and these bad ways that I'm ashamed of, and these bad ways that I'm regretful of. But once I was able to be like, well, I don't think I deserve the death penalty— and I wasn't so sure of that for quite a while, to be frank— but I was like, I don't deserve the death penalty. I don't have any other option than just to accept me or to just continue to hate me. But once that one that domino fell over. It doesn't mean the other stuff was easy, but the other stuff was able to move and progress from there.

When I was growing up, the frame I was taught was that mental health isn't really a problem because you have your physical health that's easy to observe, and then you have your spirit, and your spirit drives your body. When your body doesn't have a living spirit anymore, we bury the body or burn it and have a funeral, but the energy that moves it, the brain and the tendencies and the, all the things that we're good at and the things that we're not good at, those are things that exist as your spirit driving this, this physical form. To me, this struggle of mental health wouldn't have made any sense because we have this perfect celestial, whatever spirit that, that maybe it's not perfect in terms of like, uh, how we act all the time, of course, but like, I always viewed it as if someone is dealing with something that's hard, it's just a matter of their, their flesh is just making it hard for them to be who they need to be. So they've got to just take a chill pill and change as opposed to accepting it. That would have never been an option for me, accepting something taking me out of line because mental health can't be the problem. It's that the spirit needs to come into alignment, that the flesh needs to like come into alignment with where the spirit wants to be. The spirit's willing, but the flesh is weak, so to speak.

Can I ask the question? Yeah. So the way that it was framed to me is you either have God and like any mental weakness is because you're not Godding enough. If you, you know what I mean?

Yeah. That's a similar frame to what I had. That was how we would keep our flesh in subjection to our mind and spirit. So that's actually the approach I took with my brother when he came out gay. I'm 22 years old and I'm telling my brother, you got to pray the gay away, bro. What's freaking wrong with you? Oh, yeah. And my mom did the same, like all of us, because that's what our training was. We were severely ill-equipped.

Now, I'm going to pause there for a second. Bobby, does that, does that line up with kind of your approach to viewing the mental health stuff? Or is it—

Yeah, you know, like, I would say before my personal conversion experience, and what I mean by that is like, when I was in high school, I chose to like dive into following God. Prior to that, you know, I was just— I thought it was all real, and I was just— you were just, you know, God, family, football kind of thing, you know, and just how you were raised from where I lived anyway. But yeah, I did. I can't say it better than you said. Oh, you're depressed? Don't be depressed, man. You're just putting your— what's important to you in the wrong spot. You know, you're being silly. Don't— just choose not to be like that.

And now in hindsight, That's really embarrassing because I was in that damn hole and God, I wish I could have just chose to not be in it. I just wish I could have, but I couldn't even throw like lifelines out. I was just hoping someone could throw one in and help dig me out of that thing. So, so yeah, I grew up like that, looking at it that way. You know, a real good analogy, you know, a pop cultural one is, um, or not an analogy but a reference, I guess, but even like ADHD or ADD as it used to be called, um, I remember there South Park episode, and they were like— there was like a commercial for this doctor that helped kids with, you know, ADHD, and had all these kids in the classroom just constantly spazzing out, blah blah blah blah blah. And the doctor was like, now with my techniques, I can help, help these kids to get over it. And he walked up to the first one and he smacked him in the back of the head and said, do your dang work! And then the kid straightened up and did his work. Then he walked up to the next one and smacked him and said, do your dang work! And he straightened up.

And then he just looked at the third one, and the third one just started doing the work. And I thought that was a funny— I mean, and it's still— I mean, because, because that worked when we were kids, it seemed like it, but it didn't work. That's what happened with me. But I still, you know, like, for me, I look back now and I'm like, wow, I suffered from ADHD as a child. I just didn't know what it was. But like, I couldn't do anything. I can stare at this book for 3 hours, but I'm not gonna get anything out of it. That's probably the best pop culture reference I could think of to describe how, how I was raised and how I viewed it.

You know, I think Christianity, I see it still. My parents say a phrase that drives me crazy. I hope they never listen, but they might. They say, well, it was a God thing. God wanted it to be. And then when something doesn't happen, it's like, well, and they don't say this part, but I've heard it. God just didn't want it to be so, or like, oh, you know, like it's like you're taking any responsibility and placing it on God. And what God wants.

And with mental health stuff, it's like, God wouldn't want you to suffer. Like, you need to just believe more so that you can—

Well, that's, that's actually—

Depends on the God.

I was going to say that my God, my God actually does want us to— it's part of the weight training program of our spirits. So I have the answers to that stuff. I have the— I can make it all make sense if we can circle our way up to that.

Take up your cross, deny yourself. Follow him. You know, it doesn't matter what makes you feel good or what's good for you. You've got to deny that. You've got to push through and do his work.

And I think that's where I wanted to get to with this, like, sort of first part was that mental health wasn't a problem until it started falling apart. And I, I made all the fine print I possibly could in my head. Like, yes, if you say prayers, God will strengthen you. Yes. You know, through the Atonement of Christ, we can be cleansed and feel good about ourselves and be good. And I don't know, I was just raised with a lot of this stuff. Like, if we have it all here in the nest at the house, you have this unfair advantage over everyone else because you've got Jesus, you've got God, you've got the right teachings, the right commandments to follow. You know, the things to do, check off the list.

And I was sheltered enough that it made sense for a really long time, really, really long time. And then when I grew up, I made my own shelter, right, from the world. But it wasn't until I started getting all these relationships throughout That stuff stopped making sense and my fine print couldn't hold up anymore. And I think that's where I want to get to now is like, if everyone that has God in their life and whatever your religious discipline tells you about the unfair advantage you have, it's when you step outside of that and you realize if we were doing a study right now, and I know right now it's anecdotal, but actually Bobby shared this with me and I, and I actually just recently looked it up on Google. Prayer actually has a negative impact according to studies. On your ability to recover in a hospital, like life and death situation.

It depends on if they knew.

Yeah, if they knew, they actually did worse.

Worse.

Which a placebo effect should be opposite of that. The placebo effect should have been different.

And that was not— that was actually a— that was the Templeton Foundation. I don't remember how old that study is, but that was actually like a Christian foundation. That's not some evil atheist scientists that were trying to just, you know, fuck people.

Well, when I looked it up, when I looked it up, it's the only people that had the courage to do it. I can't find another study Because I was hoping to find several studies that would give me more diverse data. Can't find any more.

We're talking about, you know, our religious experience a lot, but, you know, I think it's important to note that it's not just that, you know, like I wasn't raised to go to church all the time. I was just raised culturally Christian, not actually Christian, right? I know there's some people that are probably going to hear this that have deep faith roots and might feel you know, they're something that's very important to them, their faith being attacked here. And it's not like her, not, it's not a— maybe so, but it's not like an attack on that. It's just trying to have a, well, I guess a self-awareness that it's okay if there's some things that are broken in there, you know, if that's the best way to say that.

And a paradigm shift is where I was headed, like the shift of like where you're at now is basically an accumulation of all the things that you take as fact and what you're convinced of. And it's sometimes when stuff doesn't make sense, you just keep trying to bring it into alignment of the paradigm that you live in. And that's where I want to get to, whether it's really, like you said, Bobby, whether it's religious or just the cultural, or even just a familial way of being. Like my dad, that wasn't religious about how to slough off pain, but it was cultural. And it was definitely familial for me in my culture of my family. That's just how we are. And it wasn't until like later in life where I'd have like someone like that brick wall that was so stable. Like I look over and like people have pulled a few bricks out and I'm like, holy cow, this wall's really weak.

I don't even know if this will ever wall really ever should have been here kind of thing.

There's one thing that we're missing from this. We are all in our late mid to late 40s, early 50s. Right. So we grew up in a certain generation. And the other part about our generation that was really important, and we didn't even address the fact that people listen to this because it's a business podcast and we go into spirituality. There are lots of people who didn't grow up religious and they still may or may not have been aware of their mental health because I think our generation was taught to work really, really hard. We were sold that American dream. Harder than anything because we had started probably maybe to not believe in the dream.

But then we're like, you just have to work really hard and you'll get what you can work for it. And I was raised by workaholics who trained me to be a workaholic. And I think it's especially in entrepreneurship, like, that's how we kind of end up here. You kind of have to be a hard worker while also saying we're seeking freedom from all this hard work. But then we just put in more hard work, you know. So that is another sickness that we have, and it has to do with mental health also.

Yeah, it's like a drug, achieving something. But it can be, it can be in a very healthy way, very therapeutic. But if it's the only thing that you, you know, lean on, then it's, it's more like that drug. And, you know, our businesses, I know for myself, starting to have some success with it, I was so proud of myself.. But I would also see that if I— first off, that it only lasted for a second or two. And then if I didn't have success right after that, I would just crash.

Entrepreneurs, we're always looking at the next thing. I mean, the amount of things that we accomplish, it's just not normal. But it's because we have a drive. We're seeking something and we never get it. We get a feeling quickly and then it moves on. You know?

Well, you know what they say, and this makes me feel better about myself, right? The worse off you are mental health-wise, the better entrepreneur you are. So when I see people doing better than me, I just take, I just take, you know, satisfaction in the fact that they're more messed up than I am.

Yeah. Well, I would say that it has actually been aware.

I'm just kidding.

She's totally kidding. Being aware of my mental health in my life has held me back from being a more successful business person. And it's because I understand that how stressful it can be when I'm not feeling my best, when I'm doubting everything about me, when I'm having my quarterly midlife crisis, as I call it, annual quarterly midlife. And it's because we go in waves, at least I do. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, we have this vision mind where we can have sparkle brain, and then there's always a crash for a lot of people if you have that kind of brain. And I fear the crash because I know when I have a crash, I haven't learned how to accept it as part of the cycle. I've gotten better about it, but it's almost like I'm, I worry about that and it keeps me from pushing forward bigger than I would have, if that makes sense.

I put a link in the notes here. I want to put it in the show notes. It's, um, it's a, a bird. You ever seen it before? The addiction bird? Nuggets is the name of the video on YouTube. Very powerful. I showed it to my kid. My, my wife worked in the hospital in the progressive care unit as a nurse and saw a lot of like addiction, like physical addictions, drugs and alcohol. She came home and this video does a great job of showing how, you know, once you start getting addicted to something, why it's so great and it feels so euphoric and everything.

And then it takes you through the whole cycle of like how addiction works. And I know what I love about this video is it's so simple that it never once talks about drugs or alcohol. It's just showing this bird that's having this experience. It's very easy to make all the parallels. The reason I'd like to share this in the show notes and reference this video is because whether it's alcoholism or workaholism, whether it's being a drug addict or a sex addict, and whether it's the addiction to being needed, the addiction to like any kind of thing that just moves from something that you are striving for and working toward to something that maybe you're being held hostage by or that you are slave to. One of the beauties of it is that you don't know you have the problem until you can't get out of it. And then you realize that it is the old, I can quit anytime I want. I just don't want right now.

And I think that what you guys are bringing up is very powerful because as an entrepreneur, as these walls that I'm talking about start coming down and we start thinking about how maybe the paradigm that I used to live in isn't— maybe I wasn't sold all the right things, or maybe I Maybe I held value to something. I used to think that loyalty was the greatest value that anyone can have. And actually, it turns out that at this stage in my life, I think loyalty is a fairly large hindrance to us and our ability to grow because loyalty is rooted in, because I made this decision in the past, I will die for this position forever. And that's a really limiting belief. Yet for me, for the longest time, I didn't know of anything greater than loyalty.

I can relate. That resonates quite a bit with me. Same. And so speaking of that, Curt, I need to talk to you after this.

Oh no. Uh, well, I want to just put the question out there to everybody, to the two of you as we have this discussion, like, as you think about the shifting that happened And I would assume that the mental health part started to become real for you. For me, it was, it was my brother. I thought he was sick spiritually and that he just would get better. And that they say that the church is a hospital for sinners. For me, the shift came when I was like, why would he want to do this to himself?

Yeah.

Why in the world would he put himself through this? He's putting himself through the shame of family. He's going to therapists 3 times a week. He is praying so hard, so fervently. As a little kid, when it started, like, when he— and we had talks about it— when he started realizing, hey man, I'm going to the locker room and, like, I've been attracted to guys for a long time. I'm actually thrilled that I get to be in here. And, you know, things that just never would have even occurred to me. This wasn't a challenge that I had to go through. Why would he want that for himself? And do I want it for myself? No, I don't.

So he's obviously experiencing the world completely different than me. And that was when the wall started crumbling for me. That like, hey, you could be just as hurting on the inside as any wound on the outside. And just like I would be seeking out a doctor to help me, like, maybe it's not something you just tough out. And I think that I had to be 22— it just kills me to think this, actually, I was probably 23 years old before that even occurred to me. That thought had never crossed my mind. I'm just curious about you guys. Do you kind of remember your shift into that mindset?

I became gay.

I'm going to be just texting your wife real quick here.

No, but in all seriousness, I mean, I heard what you said, but clarify your question for me, please.

Yeah. I'm just curious about this. The first time that it ever shifted for you, that you came out of a life where mental health was like this thing that like doesn't actually really exist. And Melanie, I'm really curious to hear your thoughts because you're in a hospital at such a young age with medication and with actual doctors. Bobby, I think that you might be closer to later on in life like I was. Yeah, but I'm just curious, like, at what time did you realize you can't just be happy and stop being depressed? You can't just pray the gay away. Like, these are real things that have to really be dealt with, just as in a professional way as anything else.

My answer is an easy one. Basically, I had no choice but to see it because I was stuck. You know, I was probably in month 3 of not being able to get out of bed crying over anything.

That deep in before this occurred to you?

Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know, maybe I was 2 months in. I don't know. But I'm just saying, like, it was deep. Yeah, you know, I— it came on quick, you know. I mean, this was about 5 years ago. I don't remember exactly, but it came on quick and right around Christmas time, I had got out of the house for the first time. And well, I shouldn't say the first time. Over about a 3-month period, I think I left my house 12 times.

I was up at my office by myself, and I was just trying to find something to be happy about. My wife had just bought me a few days prior on Christmas, got me somewhere right over here, a little Donald Duck Lego thing that got in my stocking. And I was sitting in the office putting it together, just trying to like, you know, just something that was sentimental, just trying to get some juices flowing. And I had a YouTube video, it was like a TED Talk or something that popped up. And I remember the— I don't remember exactly now what she said, but it was just some like probably 20-something, you know, late 20-year-old woman up there that was talking about— she said, uh, something along the lines of, can you not get out of bed anymore? You know, are you stuck in bed every day? Do things that used to give you joy, not give you joy, or things that you used to be interested in, something you're not interested in anymore, you're depressed. And I remember just, I just broke down. It just hit me and I'm like, oh my God, I'm like this thing that I didn't even think existed. I had driven up there by myself.

I had to text my wife and tell her to come get me. I just kind of, I couldn't function at the moment. That was when it like really hit me hard was in that moment.

Wow.

That's really poignant. And for it to happen, it's just crazy. So yeah, Bobby and I both were quite, quite along in life before it happened to us.

Melody, how about you? Obviously a very different experience, but I would say even though that happened to me when I was, you know, 19, I think the first time I was in the hospital between 18 and 20, it's hard for me to remember. In the beginning, I accepted, like, because you were either crazy or not crazy back in the day. There was no, like, depressed or, you know, we didn't have the medications the way we do now. We did, but people didn't talk about it at all. I just felt like a crazy person now because that's what I had been labeled. I didn't understand that it was very situational. Like, I didn't know how to handle the type of emotion and thing that I was now— that was now coming to me. A lot of people have breaks when they've held something for a long time.

And I guess I'm lucky that I had it when I was 18.

Because it gave me a lot of it at 9.

You'd already been going through it, but I didn't think of it when I was 9.

Yeah, like the awareness portion of it.

Yeah, yeah. The awareness hit me in the face because I was in a hospital, right?

You had been in the pit for like a decade.

Yeah, but I just thought I was dramatic because that's kind of the messaging. It was like, I'm just dramatic, you know. I would ruin holidays, my parents would say. And anyway, that's a common thing that happens with kids who go through traumatic experiences because you can't be yourself. Nobody knows this huge part of yourself. And I was not an innocent child, and I wanted to be, you know. But as I got into my 20s, what happened is I escaped. I went off meds.

Nobody should do this. I just went off meds and I moved far away as I could. I moved to Morocco and started a different life and had my child, and then I had to hustle.. And what really happened during that time was I still struggled with mental health, but I think that's what made me recognize it was very— the breakdown was situational. It did not mean that I was like, that was going to be my whole life. I've never felt that kind of darkness that I felt then. I felt lots of depression and layers of darkness since then, but I've never felt as bad as I felt then. I did not see anything ever being good in my life, ever.

And to stick around for that when you're a young kid, like, just didn't seem— it seemed like agony.

As I got older, you could see where suicide would become such a thing, too, because suicide is when you're like, my life will never get better than this.

That's when the pain won't go away. And it feels like you're just going to be in that. And for some people, they are in that forever. I did so much work from the age of probably 22 when I started real therapy until now, essentially. And I continue to do work and it's a lifelong journey. I would say that I'm— some of the things that I realized, for instance, is I've always been afraid that I will become 18-year-old Melody who goes in the hospital again. So I've always felt like I was more fragile than I actually am until probably the last 5 years. Never occurred to me because we don't think about the way we are understanding our life.

But why wouldn't I think that, you know? And so I feared my emotions. I think right now I'm in like a pretty good place. I do ketamine therapy now because I really have done a lot of other things, EMDR, and I just seek understanding of like, who is Melody and why am I here? But also like, how can I continue to exist and be content and live a good life and understand myself. And I go through ups and downs, but they're not like they were back then.

When I first had my realization, it was, it was from a place of sympathy where both of you kind of originally came from empathetic places because you, you had experienced it yourselves. I always was trying to put myself in people's shoes, like, man, that must be really hard. I wonder what, you know, and then a few years ago, I say a few years, it was really only a couple of years ago. I just, I went through some, some stuff and it was business related where I felt like nothing could ever get better. Like I'm fighting as hard as I can and I'm just not, I'm not equal to the task. And for me actually, it was when I fell out of the spirituality part. I felt like I was worthless. I couldn't, you know, people keep talking about how Jesus, you know, God's good and Jesus loves you and he's got your back.

And I felt like even the woman I'm married to that I can physically see who is constantly trying to get my back. She can't even get my back and I'm holding everybody back. You know, that's the depression dangerous side. And then there's like this, the fear that came with it. And the closest thing I can describe to the fear, it reminds me of something that happened all the time when I was a kid, going back to how I couldn't actually say I was afraid of stuff, but my parents would always— I was in charge of taking out the trash. I was the only boy for the longest time. My brother's 10 years younger than me. So I was the one who always had to take the trash out.

That was a boy job. And I would take the trash out and every time I'd have that bag, you could go out your front door, around the side of the house, into the trash can and back. And we weren't on the brightest of streets, but it would be at nighttime. And in my head, I would see that I was in someone's scope. Someone had their gun on me and they're following me from the front, across the front of the house. And I could just, in my mind, and I would just try to walk slow, be like, it's not real. It's not real. And then like I would speed up and speed up and speed up.

By the time I got to the front door, I was The tips of my toes are barely touching the ground. I was just, you know, like a rabbit.

And Bobby, I'm laughing because I mean, I wasn't afraid someone was going to shoot me, but that fear of the dark, you know, it was something was behind you. Like, yeah, I didn't even want to turn around. I would just ran, you know.

And I would open that door and I would not breathe heavy. Immediately in the light, immediately in the house, door shut behind me, everything's normal. And I couldn't let anyone know I was afraid. Yeah.. And I felt like that 24 hours a day. I would lay in bed.

Did you feel like you were being watched is what you— because I always grew up feeling like I was being watched. It was so normal to me.

Um, no, not, not watched. Well, I had Truman Show experience. Are you talking about like a, like a Truman Show kind of thing?

Well, I think, I mean, I'm surprised that that happened to you. I know why I felt like I was being watched, but like, I just felt like I was living under somebody else's eyes and maybe it was the eyes of the Lord or something that I was thinking, but So interesting that we all—

mine, mine was, it was a very short sense, very terrifying. And then it was as an adult when I started getting that depression, then I had that same anxiety. And that anxiety was just, I mean, the only word I keep thinking of is intoxicating, but it was like I was drunk on it. Like it was, it was horrible. And I felt like I couldn't shake it and I'll never be able to shake it. And like, I can't run fast because that was the idea. If I run fast enough, that scope won't be able to hold steady on me, right? And I felt kind of like, in a more figurative way, is that that same, like, all-encompassing power? And when that empathy moved in, it changed everything for me, changed everything. As a business owner, I changed.

As a husband, I definitely changed. And as a father, I definitely changed. But I think that that's the mix that we're talking about here, is that anyone listening who has a business Like, if you don't have sympathy for people who are going through mental health, you're going to have a real tough time as you introduce to customers and employees and business partners or whatever. But if you don't have empathy, it's still like the best you can do. And certainly I think it's noble. I, it's the best you can do. But my gosh, this is one of those times for me where empathy was like just so precious to have it.

Well, I would say I've worked with, I want to say hundreds, maybe high hundreds of people at this point who are business owners getting the virtual support and with the goal of them being able to have time again to do the things they love or be with their family or take. And universally, I see that these people are unable to gain back the time that they so desire. Universally, no matter. And I am that also, that person. I can at times, but it's almost like I am my own worst— we are our own worst enemy until you start doing much deeper work. And when they talk about, like, if you want to move to CEO level, you have to do, like, all this work to get there. But it's like, we don't want to stop. We don't want to think.

A lot of people have a lot of things that if they don't think about it, then that's better for them. And I think entrepreneurs are known to have more with dyslexia and ADHD and a lot of trauma in the background because we can handle lots of things at the same time that normal humans cannot handle.

We're really good at not handling them, which allows us to keep going.

To mask. Yeah.

Like, I can— you can shoot me 100 times. I can still walk like a zombie.

I'm still marching forward, baby. Yes, yes, yes. And that's the thing about it is like, We are now all in a place where I think we're so much more aware, and yet I'm still struggling with that. I'm preaching it to people, but I also talk about how it doesn't matter if I give you all this time, you're still not going to have time.

Melanie, I think this is where we really shine as a podcast though, is that we're not here as preachers, like to tell people we've got the answers like a guru. We're here to say like, hey, this deserves real attention, right? Like, have you taken time to think about these things? It's the same reason when Bobby was talking earlier, I want to make sure everyone knows, like, I think everyone knows me at this point, hopefully well enough to know I'm not trying to tear everyone's faith down. The point is, is that have you taken time to think about this?

I became an atheist because of you.

Well, that was inadvertent because back in those days, I think that the beauty of this podcast is like, hey, have you ever stopped to consider this before? This is real stuff. And I think that as entrepreneurs, we don't do near enough of it. My experience as an entrepreneur is the moment I break through any barrier, I'm looking at the next barrier. Yes. And I'm kind of frustrated how long it took me to break through the barrier. And I'm looking back like, huh, that's just a thing I did. It's not even anything I can brag about. Yeah.

It's just, I tied my shoes this morning as well. Like, like what are we gonna celebrate everything? So it's not good. It's not good because that same thing we do with alcoholism to escape is what we do it in our business. We escape. And the difference is is that socially we are rewarded for being hard workers. Makes us feel good about ourselves. I think that the mother complex is slightly different, but I don't think that anyone who's providing for their family, or in the case of a business owner, helping others provide for their families— there's a little bit of a pride that comes along with it that goes, what a great way— while you're busy watching YouTube Shorts, I put food on the table. And that superiority will just feed the beast like no other.

I don't even think of it as superiority. I think of it as the story guys get to tell themselves because because they need to have the story that they're doing it for the family because they need to feel superior.

Yeah, Melody, you don't understand it, but I don't, uh, because you don't have a bone in your body. Can you explain it better?

Let me mansplain this to you. Yeah, no, and I think it's more, even more frustrating for me because I am the mother wife. And I mean, I did support my husband through school. He doesn't like it when I say that. Sorry, Matt. He did drive a bus during that time, part-time as well. So, but the point is, like, I loved doing that. But when he now is an engineer and makes pretty good money, like, he's supporting the growth of my company.

I call him a minority shareholder. I don't get to say the same thing, I'm doing this for my family. Yeah, because my family would probably be better if I didn't do it, and I don't want to.

See, Bobby, we've had this conversation several times, like, Imagine everything you do and then also feeling guilty on top of it.

Oh, so much guilt every day, all the time.

Crazy. Yeah, it's crazy what you have to carry. But yeah, you already have one arm tied behind your back before you even get started.

What I would want to say to entrepreneurs who are men or women, it does take a level of self-awareness, but it takes like— you need to want to. Even if you're in a depression, you don't have to be self-aware, right? Like, we've heard this in this conversation. Because it's scary. What are you going to discover about yourself? And a lot of times I've heard people talk about depression. It can be chemical. It can also be based on things that are happening or your lack of being able to move forward in your life, but not wanting to look at yourself for some of those reasons. There's so many different reasons for it, but it starts, I think, with self-awareness. And I would like to hear what you guys think about that.

What I mean is, what do people who are experiencing, like, when they're experiencing mental health struggles at times, or they're being a workaholic, but they don't want to stop because they're on a mission to do— we always be like, we always be like, we have messages for ourselves about, like, I want to help 1 million business owners. We give ourselves a sense of purpose. Right. But really, we don't want to look internal.

I feel like since Bobby, of all the people in my life that I'm close to, has probably done the most work, I'd like to give him the privilege of going last here, if that's all right.

You're just saving him because you understand what I'm—

you're—

yeah, but I also, I also know that what I'm about to share is going to be so— I really hope it helps someone, you know, like, this isn't coming from a place of guru by any means, but Bobby's been in a hole that I, I've only been able to look down into and just shout, I love you, to the bottom of it, you know, like, I just want to share that my way of going in inside myself was first to understand that I'm not weak because I'm mentally, you know, the self-awareness that you talked about. For me, the good first step was like, hey, just because you're mentally struggling doesn't mean you're weak. That's compassion for yourself. Yeah. And I think that that was something that growing up I was like, don't give yourself an inch, you'll take a mile. Like, like something bad's gonna happen if you, if you give compassion to yourself. And then the second thing that I think was, is to do something. To like, like, now I have never experienced not being able to get out of bed.

I've like kind of been like, oh, here we go again. Like, I've done that, but I'm not talking like what Bobby has discussed and described already. Like, I've never been there, but I can't tell you how energizing it was to me, even when I had a bad therapist, to go in and be able to say like, you don't know me from Adam, but I'm going to tell you what I think that I'm afraid to tell everybody else. The first guy was definitely the wrong guy, but I got it out and it empowered me to like start doing the things that I need to do to strengthen myself and to see myself different. Yeah, but I would never give myself that permission had I just kept shoving it down the way I— and I want to say how I was taught, but I actually don't think that's the right way of putting it. The culture I was born into. And so I've talked on this podcast about the monk that I had, the Buddhist monk I had as a therapist teaching me to hold things lightly and to hold my hands open, the bottom of a bowl. You're holding the bottom of a bowl and you're going to receive things and you're going to let things come out of your hands and you're just going to experience them.

And he introduced me to meditation and he introduced me to introspection about like where other people like What do you suppose other people are thinking when they do these things that drive you crazy? Do you think that they're doing it just to drive you crazy, or do you think there's other motivations? And those kinds of things allowed me to think different and help immensely. My journey has not been as deep, but it's, it's, for me, it's important. And there might be a few people out there that it helps, but certainly it's not the only way.

I don't know, maybe I'm hearing you ask something different, Melody, but Let me just kind of share what's on my mind. Yeah. You know, not necessarily talking about my experience, but when we're, you know, from the perspective of like, what do you say to, or what do you think of, you know, people that, or yourself when you've done this, you know, that are just pouring theirself into their business or the entrepreneur thing is, is the only thing on their mind. I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing. Let's just say if I have You know, like I've got a couple of guitars over here. I'm not good at guitar, but I freaking love it. I can make some— I can make some music. It's very therapeutic.

And that's what I spend most of my time on. You know, like just the time I'm allowed to be selfish with. Unfortunately, even time I'm not allowed to be selfish with, I tend to spend doing it. That in and of itself isn't a bad thing. It's helped me therapeutically. It's helped me kind of express myself when I needed some help doing that, so on and so forth. I can't like point a finger at someone, and if a hobby to them is building the business, it's like, man, if that gives you joy and whatever, do that stuff. To talk about my own experience in that context is— I've talked about it some, at least on my, my old podcast, which was like balance in life, you know, and a work-life balance, or, you know, just balance in general.

And my honest thought back then was, there's not balance. What are you talking about? Balance is stupid. You're just, you're all in here, you're all in there. You do. And, and all I was doing was just describing my own experience, which is I'm, you know, I am that adult poster child for ADHD. So I'm, whatever I'm doing at the time, it's like the only thing I'm doing and I'm doing a whole lot of it.

That's my experience as well.

Yes. Yeah. And now it, that's not necessarily good for me, but that is kind of a natural state. So for myself, what I've learned to do is one, condemn myself or not beat myself up when I'm doing that because it's like, hey, this is how I function and I'm just going to be like, all right, I'm going to get really good at this guitar technique this week or this month or whatever it is, or, or, okay, I'm going to be really good at sending out email campaigns on this particular month because that's where my head's at. But I think for me, you know, and maybe for people that that have been like me or are like me. But I think at least exploring that balance thing, you know, I don't want to keep going back to the acceptance stuff, but that's, that's really important. And the reason it's so big to me is that's a new— it's a new food for me, you know, for you Harvest fans out there. But, um, but you know, that it's a new thing for me, so it's still kind of fresh and, and a big deal.

But, but for me, you know, starting to find balance where it's like, okay, I can You know, in my example, I can obsess over this thing, but I've got to make sure that I can do the things that are important, at least when they need to be done, learn how to deny myself a bit. When I do accept myself for what I am, it makes it a little easier to, to not be in that hole so much and so laser focused, and I can step back and see how the rest of the world around me needs to be taken care of. And the final answer is finding some balance. From someone that used to think balance is silly, I think that's at least, at the very least, a good topic for someone that doesn't have that to explore.

You know what was missing from what I was talking about? Because it was an assumption that I have in my head always is the fact is a lot of people start doing it for the family and then they be— they get lots of money or they get the things and then they keep doing it anyway. And I guess that's what I was really talking about, is the seeking of the stuff, the money. It becomes a game of just always collecting more.

That's big, actually. And that resonates with me. And so just to add to that, going back to the whole self-acceptance thing, but maybe it's not self-acceptance, but self-prioritizing. A way someone that doesn't have a lot of self-worth can synthetically manufacture it is to do everything for the people they care about. So now I want to be clear, I'm not suggesting we should not do everything we can for the people we care about. But to your point, Melody, if I'm following you now, is that those things are still not fulfilling. One day the kids are going to move out of the house. Someone listening has already had this tragedy, but some of us are going to lose our loved one.

Sooner than we expect to. And when the stuff hits the fan and all we've done is build our self-worth around what we can do for others, that's when you find out that you're built on the sand, not on the solid Christ, the solid rock, you know, but you're built on the sand.

When you say do stuff for others, you also mean gaining the— are you meaning through business or for your family?

Well, I would say your life. So like, from, you know, in the context of this podcast, a lot of us, I mean, we all see it, you know, and you were just talking about, I'm doing this for my family, you know, I'm, I'm giving. And yeah, that should be a motive. I don't want to put a should on you. That should be a motivation. You know, you love these people, you want to do your best for them. 100%. I think the important thing that we have to realize for our own health is that you can do those things and still do the things that you need to do for you.

You can prioritize your needs and still be a giver. But just being selfless is not selfless. You know, just being a people pleaser is not. It's a very selfish way of doing it. If you're just doing those, you know, I don't know.

I'm getting— I get that. Yeah. It's not the weeds, but I do agree with you. And I think interestingly, you went to that giver perspective. And I agree with everything you said. What I was actually thinking about initially was the excuse of I'm doing it for my family. And then watching— we have all seen the people who then start, once they're really doing well, they start new businesses that take up all their time. And really, I don't know how to give you the answer you want, Melody.

Leave me alone. Well, the family— so I guess what I'm saying is there are lots of different ways to approach this. And I just learned that we actually, I agree with all the things you said.

And also I was talking about—

because they were all spot on.

They always are. You've done, you both have done a great job for me of illustrating just the complexity and layers involved in all of this. And it's why all the world's problems aren't going to get solved. And there's just, there's an hour. Well, at all, like they're not ever going to get solved because there's so many things leaning against so many walls. And every time you go to move one wall to make something better, people are going to fall, people are going to get hurt. And when you do something to make yourself better, especially mom guilt, when you go do something to make something better, you're going to feel a guilt that comes along with it. And when you, when you numb that guilt away, then maybe you'll— that you won't have that check in place to keep you in balance.

And so are you telling me to continue to be guilt-ridden, Curt?

I am telling you that listening to the two of you talk, has been incredibly enlightening to show all the nuance that goes along with something that is such, such a powerful thing. We've talked about addiction today. That's powerful. Habits can be powerful, but you know what else is powerful is a hand grenade or a dynamite stick of dynamite or nitroglycerin. Like all of these things can be used to like cut really nice roadways and to keep people warm at night. And to move trains forward, and they can also be used to burn people's faces off and hurt people really bad. And that's just the nature of powerful stuff.

Well, on that note, I have to go to an elegant dinner soon, you guys, because I'm taking care of myself and I'm at a mastermind.

I guess that's not really taking care, but it is if you went growing up tonight.

I did go to the beach right before this. I didn't stand my computer.

So, okay. I thought you had been at the computer all day.

No way. I mean, no way. Only because I'm staying with somebody who, and we both agreed we wouldn't stay at the computer all day. That's how you do it, guys.

Very cool. Well, I appreciate you, Bobby, joining us today. I promise we're going to start having podcasts without you. I just don't exactly know what that could possibly—

I promise too, this is my last one for a while.

But we love you, Bobby.

I had a blast with it though.

Well, you are our only and premier atheist correspondent. I wear that badge proudly. And you are so much more, and we appreciate you. And you are always welcome.

Thank you. Yeah. Well, everybody, I hope this has been an opportunity for you to think inside of what goes on in your mind and in your heart, and that you can think of ways to be able to magnify what you want to make more of. Bobby's, uh, for those you can't see, Bobby is putting up a nice statue of Jesus.

Oh wait, put the statue back up so I can screenshot that. There we go.

That's great. We all need a little Jesus in our life. We do. But anyway, I hope that you've taken time to be a little bit introspective, see about what kinds of things in your life could use a little attention and what kinds of things in your life are maybe something you want to do less of. But either way, we are really excited to have these conversations with you and we look forward to talking to you guys next week. 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, 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.