S2E19: The Week the Plan Got Messy

Life got messy this week.

We went over budget. We blew through macros. A meaningful Disney day with friends cost more than planned. Allen ate too much trail mix and paid for it. The podcast and YouTube launch got harder than expected. Video editing did not work right. Sleep got cut short. Allen wanted to skip a workout.

And somehow, the week still had joy, gratitude, progress, training, community, and momentum.

In this episode of Cheese Curds & Coffee, Katie and Allen talk about how to keep promises to yourself when life does not go according to plan.

Because a perfect week does not build self-trust.

A messy week where you keep returning does.

This episode is about the stories we tell ourselves when the plan breaks.

The danger is not always the miss.

The danger is what we make the miss mean.

One missed budget does not mean you are bad with money.

One blown macro day does not mean you have no discipline.

One hard morning does not mean you should quit.

One messy week does not mean you failed.

The real question is:

Can you return faster?

Katie and Allen talk through the June budget miss, the difference between a meaningful choice and drifting, the cost of a Disney day that was still worth it, and what conversations with friends going through hard life changes reminded them about the life they have built together.

Allen also shares what happened when the new editing tool failed, sleep got cut short, and he wanted to skip his workout. Instead of quitting on the day, he worked through the list, moved his body, and eventually shifted from the gap to the gain.

This episode is for anyone trying to stay consistent in real life.

Not perfect life.

Real life.

The kind with budgets, macros, family days, software problems, bad sleep, gym expenses, stomach problems, big dreams, and small promises.

In this episode, we talk about:

• What happened when we missed our June spending goal
• Why a budget should tell the truth, not create shame
• How to tell the difference between drifting and making a meaningful choice
• Why one miss can feel like identity evidence
• How to avoid turning one bad day into a full reset
• Why grace and honesty both matter
• How Allen moved from the gap to the gain during a hard morning
• What it felt like to finally post the first new podcast episode
• Why self-trust is built by returning, not by being perfect
• How to keep one small promise when life gets messy

This week’s challenge:

Pick one area where life got messy.

Money.
Food.
Fitness.
Sleep.
Work.
Marriage.
Content.
Business.

Then ask yourself:

1. What actually happened?
2. What story am I telling myself about it?
3. What is one small promise I can keep today?
4. How can I return faster than last time?

You do not need a perfect week to keep becoming the person you want to be.

You need one honest reset.

One small promise.

And a faster return.

Enjoy the life you have. Build the life you want.

🎙️ Thanks for listening to Cheese Curds & Coffee! If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend who could use a little inspiration.

✨ Connect with us on Instagram for behind-the-scenes content, tips, and community updates: @cheesecurdsandcoffee

💬 Join the conversation, share your wins, and let us know how you’re turning life’s mess into momentum—one challenge at a time.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

As far as the day that we decided that we were going to stop our IVF journey, there's a photo of all of the food that you brought home for me. And it was so incredible. And I was like, this man knows me. That's good. But the the other part of that is I don't overcommit. Right, right. Your laundry list is way too much for me.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Alright, hi everyone. Welcome back to Cheese Curds and Coffee. My name is Alan Thompson, and I am joined by the beautiful, the talented, the mysterious, and the wonderful looking haircut having wife of mine, Katie Thompson, star of the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Why am I the star of the show? I feel like this is a very good thing.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

You're the star of my show.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Okay. I feel like this is a pretty good dynamic duo that we have.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

We are dynamic. Can't you be the star? You're the star of my show.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

And I'm the star of my show. Today's episode How to Keep Promises to Yourself when Life Gets Messy. If you are new to Cheese Curds and Coffee, welcome. We talk about health, wealth, happiness, how we're doing each week. There are lessons to be learned about what happened last week, and we hope to share those lessons with you as we discover them uh for the first time in this conversation. Um in hopes of getting better, getting healthier, wealthier, happier. That's what we're all about. So uh, and if you're returning, thank you. Thank you for coming back.

unknown 1:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Don't forget to subscribe to our channel.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Find us on Instagram at Cheesecurds and Coffee. And if you're listening on whatever form of uh medium you use for your podcast, thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Okay, so uh we're we've really leaned into this journal concept. I love journaling, it's a great way to understand what happened and take a look at it. Katie is starting to love journaling. Are you?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Video journaling? Yeah. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

I'm not writing in a journal.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

You still do both. Yeah, I do both. What uh happened for you last week? What were the highlights?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

It was a relatively normal week, actually, and then there were like a few little hiccups that kind of came into the ecosystem. Uh regular week at the gym, so coached a couple classes, normal schedule. Um water heater broke at the gym, and we now have some water problems in our office. So unexpected expense coming out. Um with that. Let's see, we had some friends visiting from out of state, so got together and had some fun, spent the day at Disney doing the park thing, which was really good. It was hot. Oh my gosh, it was so hot. So we we as annual pass holders love going in the evenings once the weather has gotten a little cooler, the summer rain has come through, and then we can just go do a walk around the world or uh world show place, I guess is more appropriate if we're at Epcot, um, which is where we were. And yeah, it's not nearly as terrible, but because if we had guests that we were entertaining, if you will, I think we left our house shortly after 11 and then we got home at around five o'clock in the afternoon. So that was a new experience for us. We don't typically summer park during the day. Um I don't I I can't think of anything else that was like momentous for me over the course of June budget. Well, again, regular week, but because it was the end of the month, um, making sure that we check all the boxes for our finances. Personal finances I do every two weeks. Um, but gym budget comes after the close of the month, so I haven't yet done gym budget. Uh that will happen at the beginning part of this upcoming week. And personal finances, we missed on a couple things. Groceries and entertainment in particular, which are two things that we eat a lot.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Yeah, we miss when we miss, we miss there.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Typically. Um, so we'll talk about that. The bound um and we also finally decided on our trip for next year. So part of enjoying the life that we have, building life building the life that we want, more trips, more big trips. Uh, we find ourselves in a situation where we can start doing that now. And so I think we went around the world a couple times of where we were going. I know Italy was Italy was on the list, it's on the bucket list, but uh Katie has an affinity for going to new places. She has been to Italy, she has not been to Greece, so we will check Greece off the list next year. So pretty excited about that. Oh, okay. So for me, a couple of things that uh went down this week. Posted our first new podcast video, which was a whole drama. Uh I was I'm using a new software, I didn't know how to use it, became a thing. I had to get up early one morning because I wanted to keep a promise to myself, and then I didn't end up keeping that promise, so I couldn't get the video uploaded, so I had to do some re-editing. Uh it was a whole thing. Um let's see, what else? Uh ran hard, lifted weights, so working on improving my 5k runtime, which I get to test again in a couple weeks. Super excited about that.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

A couple weeks, like eight weeks.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Oh. Yes. Okay, that's like a couple months for me. I don't refer to that as a couple weeks. Got it. Good.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Uh blew through our macros and budget at Disney, but it was a great day. And uh we're just gonna talk through that. Started exploring a new business idea. Yep. A new business idea around personal agency. I am sure you are tired of hearing me talk about it, but we're gonna talk about it a little bit more today. So there you go. Okay, so just to give you all a little bit of context, Katie and I, when we first met, we were focused on building the life that we want. Maybe less focused on enjoying the life that we had, I would say. Very focused on like we're gonna get after it, we're gonna make these financial dreams come true, we're gonna save. I think our savings rate at one point, where'd it max out at? Over 58%.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

I think 58% or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

We were literally living off a one paycheck, driving one car, sharing a car.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Very minimal entertainment budget, like very minimal. And when we when we talk about entertainment, that's like literally everything that isn't a utility bill or a hair appointment or a house payment. Uh we capture our Netflix subscription and entertainment, our Starbucks coffee and entertainment. Um, anytime that we dine out is lumped into entertainment. And for the longest time, like any clothes shopping or shoe shopping for me would also get just dumped into the entertainment budget. So yeah, we were buying like nothing new, spending almost no money outside of our Netflix account and not really going out to eat. And if we were going out to eat, choosing restaurants that were highly affordable.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Highly affordable. Or taking advantage of deals, um, magical dining comes to mind. So that so just to give you all some context, that was our early relationship. Uh, when Katie met me, I was like Dave Ramsey. I didn't do beans and rice, I did chicken and rice, I think. And steamed vegetables. Steamed vegetables uh was my go-to meal. And as we have enjoyed the fruits of our labor and our portfolio has done really well, and we just we made some great investments and all the things, we lessened our savings rate. So now we're around 30, 30, 30 something percent, 32 percent of our take home is invested, which gives us the opportunity to enjoy the life that we have a little bit more uh with our annual pass holders at Disney. We also go to Dr. Phillips Center all the time. So so it's really good. We still have a budget, and the budget is the tool that we use that has allowed all of this to happen, this transformation to happen. And uh June budget, we missed. Yeah, we missed.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Gosh, and it's my fault, it's not your fault, it is literally no one's fault, and that's that's something that I think is important to highlight and talk about as well, right? So you express the fact that we have this budget that's a tool, but we also have a relatively high savings rate, and so we use that to invest. And what this just simply means for us is we decided based on the living in the now and having more current experiences during the month of June with people that we haven't seen in a really long time and friends that we really wanted to connect with and engage with, meant we just didn't send as much money to our investment accounts. Like we didn't put ourselves in the red, we didn't put ourselves in a situation where you know we're not sure if we're gonna be able to put gas in the car or have food on the table. Like when we say we blew the budget, we blew the budget because we give ourselves a a left and right, you know, barrier, and we just expended a little bit too much in some categories that we'll reel back in. Other months we don't spend all of that. So some of the time when we don't spend everything, we just send more money to our investments.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Yeah, it's interesting. So right now, when you think about when you think about our budget, you know, budget has such a negative connotation to it. People think it's like restriction, restriction, restriction, restriction. And I think for us, not I don't speak for you, but for me, our budget has been a tool that has allowed us to live the life that we currently live. And I think of it that way. But when we miss, I mean, how do you feel when we miss our budget goals for the month? Is it like a failure? Is it information? Both doesn't even phase you.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

It's not it's definitely not a failure, and it and to say that it doesn't phase me, I guess is probably the wrong approach, although it doesn't bother me because again, there are other months. Like we just moved into this new house a year ago, and we set our annual budget towards the end of December going into January for the entire calendar year. And there were a lot of assumptions that we had to make when we bought this house on expenses, a water bill. We went from living in a small two-bedroom apartment to a four-bedroom house, which from the water bill perspective, it's still only two people. But our current home has a pool and an irrigation system for our lawn care outside, right? So, like, I don't know, I gave a best guess and I over-budgeted every single month on our water bill by probably about $50. So every month there's like some extra cash floating around that if we overspend by $50, like it's a break-even because the water bill was an estimate that I had no baseline to understand. Are we on, are we off? And every month we've been pretty significantly under. Similar to the electric bill, right? Again, two-bedroom apartment. In a you know, multi-unit, we were not the top unit, we weren't a corner unit, probably not taking as much electric. Now we're in a four-bedroom house. We've got an AC unit again with a pool. I've never owned a house with a pool. How much does the pump cost? You know, as far as it's running and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

So, like we built some buffer. We built some buffer into this.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Every month the electric bill is always lower. Um, we lowered our car insurance. That was a pleasant surprise. So I watch the budget. It's our guardrails to make sure that we don't fall off entirely. But are there give and take? And are there certain things that we've allocated? We we plot $40 a month or sorry, $40, yeah, it is $40 a month for expenses for our cats. But knock on wood, fortunately, they've been doing okay for a while. So, like, again, there's money that is accumulating that we haven't spent $40 on anything for God, almost a year now.

SPEAKER_02 14:02

And when we don't spend that money, we end up sending it to the uh to our investments. But I do think it's interesting because most people probably don't budget that way, but in my mind, it's like a buffer against like when the when the cost comes, like when the cat bill comes for one of our cats who is perpetual, who has who is perpetually in need of medical attention that we even discussed getting insurance for this for him. I must call him something. He's a very expensive cat. Um, but again, like for the water example. Um, any given day a pipe could burst, and we don't know, and then that month we're just cooking water until you know we see the bill. Oh my gosh, we gotta so we have a contingency for those things, which again, um the I think the budget allows us to. We should do a whole episode on our finances, by the way. I just realized we're pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

I'm just gonna brush your shoulders off.

SPEAKER_02 15:02

We're doing pretty good. Um but we missed so for me, we missed on our you know, expenses that we have ultimate control over, groceries and entertainment. And so my initial, my reaction to us missing the budget is we need to type it up for July. And the other the other recognition I have is to your point, we set the budget in in December, January, and we get new information, and we don't necessarily update it. So it's not like you know, um, I knew Rob was coming into town, I knew we were hanging out, I didn't know what we were doing, but it wasn't gonna cost zero. Right? And you know, I never I don't we never had a conversation about you know, hey, what should we should we move some money around because this is gonna happen? And in retrospect, uh we should have, and I should have. And so that's a lesson on me, so we can approve for next time and just put this in the in the back in our in our toolkit to say, hey, these things are coming up, we should just adjust um the budget or recognize we're not gonna send as much to investment accounts this this month. Um that sort of thing. So that's my that's my big takeaway from that. I will say I not another brush brush my shoulders off moment. I've come a long way because we spent the day at Disney and we spent more than I budgeted, and I felt really good afterwards because we spent a lot of time with a friend of mine, Rob, who I haven't seen since the wedding, since he was the best man at my wedding, our wedding, and uh Kelly, another uh good friend of ours, and just sweated it out and and drank a lot of well, y'all drank. I drank some water.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

I was about to say, what did what do you mean to tell them that you drank? He had probably 12 bottles of water.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

Yeah, 12 bottles of water at Disney, Google it. Not in the budget. That's cheap. That's cheap.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

I kept telling him if he went to the quick service restaurants, he could get free ice water, and every time he would come back with a bottle of water or three bottles of water.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Yeah, yeah. So that was me. I was the I was the curmudgeon handing out bottles of water.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

That's okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Um, but I guess my point was that it was worth it.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

We had a great day. It was a great day. I had a blast. It was a great day. We made good memories. We I was so good. Yeah, we were in the moment. We were present with our friends, and I to speak to like old Alan would not have done that.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Would old Katie have?

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Yes. Without a doubt. Well, Katie would have done it. Social activity with my friends, sign me up.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Sign you up. Okay. Um, but the budget has allowed you to get better at building wealth, we'll say. Yeah. Okay. Well.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

My investment portfolio in my retirement, our investment portfolio in our retirement, has thrived in this new era of so missing the budget on June, was it a mistake or was it a choice?

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Choice. Choice for me too. And it was definitely worth it. Um and again, this is an evolution for me because uh Katie had to deal with a pretty fanatical um personal finance perspective for a while.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

I think we've touched on it in an earlier episode of our podcast, that when we started discussing our life goals and how did we want to approach this journey together as a couple and shared finances, I was very strong in my beliefs, similarly to the way that you were strong in being a minimalist and you know, save every penny, that I was unwilling to give up all of the fun. Like I I live for experiences, I live for um social interaction and travel. And sorry, we had to find where is that balance of, you know, you wanted to say, can we do a $100 entertainment budget or a $200 entertainment budget? And then when you recognized all the things that go into the entertainment budget, including your audible books, yes, you were like, Oh, yeah, we can't we can't take so much of that budget away because I I need the budget for my books.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

No, that's fair. But see, I will say that in that season, and I and I appreciate this, I don't say this enough, how like you made a lot of sacrifices, but we also started just doing things that were cheaper, like having friends over to the house. I remember we did that quite often as opposed to going out. Um which we need to start doing again, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

We have a house again. We have a house.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

And the kitchen's renovated.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Yeah. So I know we we um we talk about we missed the budget. We were in this we're in the season of life that's a little bit like a lot different than when we first got together, and we and we can talk about how we were as individuals before we got together. Um but uh the danger in missing the budget or missing a goal or missing a target that you set is that you start to internalize it and start saying things like, I am uh I'm a person who is not fiscally responsible and start taking it on as a a belief system or taking it on as part of your identity. And I used to be that person. So it's been a real journey for me. Um that like missing June doesn't now all of a sudden suggest that I'm t I'm I'm terrible again at personal finance. So were you you were really good at personal finance before we met? Or what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 21:23

I did not pay attention to my finances before we met. I didn't overspend. So I I was raised in an environment that suggested you only use credit when you know you can pay it off at the end of the month. So, with the exception of maybe not paying for a vehicle outright, or when I bought my first house as you know, a single woman, like I was I didn't have enough cash in the bank to go buy my house outright. So, right, there were there were a couple major expenses that I had uh to use credit. It for. But outside of that, even with my credit cards, and I had a ton of credit cards. If I don't know if you remember, but I had probably 10 store cards. Oh, yeah. Every time we would on top of and I would and I would open new store cards because I would get a discount if I was shopping somewhere. Um I only ever bought something if I knew I absolutely was going to be able to pay it off. So I never had to experience what it felt like to pay the credit card fees of you know the exorbitant interest amounts.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

You weren't paying minimums the next month, or correct. Yeah, every store we went to, they knew your name. No. I was like, man, you do a lot of you got a lot of store cards.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

New Organ Company, Victoria's Secret, Gap, Macy's. Banana. Oh no, Banana Republican Gap were the same company. Yeah. Anytime, any uh you want to open a card, you could save 30%. Sure do.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Love it.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Save that money.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

So we uh talked a little bit before about this, but this uh when you uh I know this week I over ate a couple times, but definitely at the Disney day. And the other day I went crazy on trail mix for some reason. I'm not I'm not doing that ever again, but um it's a similar question. Did you ever have that sort of internalize a belief system around your exercise or food in the sense that like I'm the type of person that overeats or I'm the type of person that can never get fit or any anything like that before we met?

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Belief about food that I still have is that I'm an emotional eater. I I find comfort and joy and celebration in food. So again, I was raised in an environment where that was a thing. Like you score your first goal in soccer, or you score a goal in soccer, you go celebrate with ice cream. Uh you I don't know, go through a breakup in high school, and it's like I'm gonna draw my sorrows in chocolate and ice cream, and you know, carry that on to even as far as the day that we decided that we were going to stop our IVF journey. There's a photo of all of the food that you brought home for me, and it was so incredible. And I was like, this man knows me in and out because he bought me like three different kinds of cheeses, two different kinds of ice cream, uh, a bottle of wine, and like all the things that I had to give give up while we were going through the IVF journey.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Um, because we were changing our diet and we were, you know, trying to go through all the recommendations. But when we got the news that we are not going to be able to have a child together, that our options are either adoption or surrogacy, and I said, I'm I'm finally hearing the message, like this is it for us, and you came home with this like delicious care package of all the my favorite things. That's still a little bit of like who I am and what I view a relationship with food as. So, like, is there some emotion behind eating? Yes, but I don't ever feel like wow, I'm a failure because I just ate two pints of ice cream, and I guess honestly, in my life, I've probably never eaten two pints of ice cream at a time, if I'm being honest. Um, but like indulging doesn't lead me to believe I'm a failure. I don't think coping with food is the healthiest choice, and fit Katie understands that, nutrition coach Katie understands that. Um, but there's, you know, 42 years of food-related celebrations and mourning and comfort that are tied into that.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Yes, I mean, I if just witnessing from my watching you, I would just say you have become uh a less emotional eater. Like you have the ability now to, I think, compartmentalize these are the goals I want to achieve, these are the things I'm trying to achieve, this is the thing I'm gonna do, I'm gonna count my macros. I mean, I think there's been this evolution of you are the type of person who is uh disciplined enough or capable enough of keeping your promises to yourself on food that you don't let emotions overwhelm you and say, I gotta go eat to feel better. And from my perspective, it's been um fun to watch that that side of you just uh grow and evolve and do all the things because now you're you're more dedicated than I am, to be to be perfectly clear.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Um I put my snacks in containers so I know how many I'm getting. I count my cashews. You count your cashews and I put them in a little tiny dish.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

And I think you do a great job, and I think we kind of adopt the sort of 80-20 rule where we say 80% of the time we're gonna be on point, 20% we're allowed, 20% of the time we're allowed to enjoy the things that we like to enjoy. Might be more than 20% if we count uh pretty bay pack or football season.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

But football season is only 16 weeks a year or whatever. There's 16 games. Yeah. So no, we can't like how many weeks are there in a year? I'm not good at math. That's probably more than 20%. There's 52 weeks in a year.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

Oh, you're trying to do a percentage?

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Yeah. Well, that's what you just said, 80-20.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Someone drop in the comments how bad am I during football season. And by bad, I mean I have one beer. It used to be a six-pack of beer or several pints sitting at a bar on top of that shots and mozzarella sticks, chicken wings, sliders, like just graze all day. There's three games that we're gonna eat and drink our way through all three. So the moral of the story moderation.

SPEAKER_02 28:37

Yeah, moderation. So the moral of the story, I think, is you know, we we set a goal, we missed the goal for June. It doesn't define who we are. We set a goal, we miss a goal uh miss a goal for our macros. We don't define it, doesn't define who we are. And I think that is because we understand that we are the type of people, we believe that we're the type of people that are understand personal finance and are fiscally responsible. We understand uh health and wellness, and we are uh the type of people that can uh have control over our emotions when it comes to food. And I think, and it's and it's weird to have these conversations now on a camera in front of people, but I think part of that is having these types of conversations about like you fell off, this doesn't define you, we get back on track. And we've been doing that for the last 10 years. That does something to you at some point.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Yeah, yeah, if you tell yourself good messages, yeah, your confidence is increased.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

I think the key though is you gotta be honest with what's happening. Right? Like, because I mean you could get into a slippery slope of like, well, just enjoy your life. Enjoy your life.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

YOLO.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

And I think the the other thing I we talked about the the budget being a tool that we use. We use we use a ton of tools, like the budget's one, scale is another. You just bought a new scale, by the way. Was it the Hume Hume Hume Health Pod. And I mean, we're regularly checking in. Uh Whoop was a game changer for me, and no one's paying us to say any of this, so but Whoop was a game changer for me because I started to understand how many calories I was actually burning versus actually calories actually actually consuming. And as soon as you do that, you can I mean you can be as lean as you want, or as healthy as you want, or whatever the case may be. So, leveraging the tools to help us be honest about what's happening, and I think you know, for budget specifically, and all the other ones I mentioned, but the budget specifically is a tool that just lets us be honest about what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

So, yeah, I think I think we use a lot of checks and balances. We don't just assume we're doing the right thing, right? We find some way of providing ourselves an answer to answer the question, are we doing the right things?

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Yeah, and we have to be honest with each other. I think you keep me grounded and accountable in that way. And vice versa. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Should I start putting your snacks in little containers?

SPEAKER_02 31:29

Not even a little bit. Not at all.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

I make your dinner plates.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

You do I can make your snack plates. I do occasionally make my yeah, you do make my the dinner plates, but I don't want you touching my snacks.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

I mean I'll say you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Last night I had potato chips as a snack. And he didn't have any.

SPEAKER_02 31:51

I didn't have any potato chips, I had drill mix.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Oh, I forgot.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

Yep. I finished the bag. Anyway. Shifting gears here. Let's talk about me and launching this video and the drama that happened. Wednesday morning, I think it was.

unknown 32:11

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

Yeah, it was it was gonna launch Wednesday morning.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Yep. So I sit down to publish this video, and this this new editing software is not allowing me to send it out. Upload it. And I start like getting pretty frustrated about it. I tried 15 different things. Is it the memory thing? Is it this thing? Chat GPT, every like I like I even sent the, you know, I tried to send a message to their help, but it was like three o'clock in the morning because I got up early to do this, and it didn't work. And now I'm frustrated. I'm pissed. And so I go through this whole thing about do I go to the gym and work out? Do I skip my workout this morning and just sit here and try and do this? I said my I told myself I was gonna get this done on Wednesday. It's Wednesday, it's not happening. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

So yeah, what happened at 3 a.m. while you're fighting with the computer?

SPEAKER_02 33:23

I decided to channel some Katie. It's okay if it gets done tomorrow. Find some peace in that. We've made some, uh I read I also uh finished listening to this Audible book the other last month, maybe. The gap versus the gain I talked to you about. So Audible is helpful, by the way. Anyway, listen to this book and just like has this great takeaway about thinking about the progress that you've made as opposed to this, you know, perfection that you were trying to achieve. Leaned into that, and then I went through the list of reasons why I work out, which is a pretty lengthy list, I would say, and then I decided to get a like push pause on this, go to the gym, went to the gym, went on a great run, did all the things, got some clarity on how to fix it, fixed it, posted it, the whole thing. So although you weren't there, that you helped.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

I wasn't, I was sleeping at three o'clock in the morning.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

Um, and it was a great lesson for me in the sense that you know we have this perception of perfection, how things are supposed to work, and if we spend all of our time focused on what that perfection is supposed to look like and don't achieve it, you can get into a pretty negative headspace about the things that you're working on, the things that you're doing, your budget, your food, any new YouTube channel that you launch, you can get into a pretty uh bad headspace. Because you're never gonna achieve this perfection that you have in your brain. And took me an hour and a long run, and a good work, a good lift, and a long run. But I eventually got there, worked through the problem, and voila video got posted, and here we are. Here we are.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Here we are season two, number three. I know what episode is this, nineteen?

SPEAKER_02 35:27

This is nineteen. Yep. Um but you know, going back to just this idea of just keeping small promises to yourself, like the promise I had made was this thing was supposed like we're gonna launch this video, this YouTube's gonna go up, and it's gonna happen on Wednesday. And what ultimately happened was I'm gonna what I'm gonna launch this video, I'm gonna do this YouTube channel, and the video went up on Thursday.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

It's interesting that you had the promise to yourself that it was Wednesday because I just knew we were launching this week, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Like Yeah, that's fair.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

There there was seven days in the week that we had to do the thing. And then at no point did it bother me or was it even like a concern. Like, middle of the week, we ran into another issue. Like, we still got four days. Meanwhile, you're losing sleep because you were very deliberate about Wednesday.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

Wednesday.

unknown 36:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

I thought Thursday was great.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

New episodes, Wednesdays.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Unless we have technical difficulties, unless the computer decides it has a mind of its own.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Unless we have technical dis difficulties, it'll be Thursday. Apparently. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

Some some week it might be a Sunday. But we're gonna get it up there.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

We're gonna get it up there. Okay, so yeah. So the other parts of the messy week that we had. I spent a lot of time talking thinking about the new business idea that I've been running by you.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

What are your thoughts on my new business idea?

SPEAKER_00 37:23

I can tell that you're obsessed and it is consuming all of your thoughts. Yeah. Because that is the bulk of what our conversation is around. But it is an idea and a concept that you have continued to play out over years of us discussing your desire to help people and your desire to give people tools that younger Alan wished he would have had to move faster to achieve the things that you know you want. And I am excited to watch you bring this to life.

SPEAKER_02 38:05

Yes, I am too. Now, just to give you all some context, this is what this idea is about. So I am the benefactor of discovering the single greatest skill set that I never knew you needed. You never you're never taught, it's never taught in school. Because I'm, you know, I was pretty good in school. They never brought it up, I don't remember it. Not once. Went to a pretty good college. They never talked about it. Not one time. And I didn't learn about this until I was 32-ish years old. And that skill set is personal agency. And that the easiest way to describe personal agency, if you've never heard of it, is this belief that you can influence the outcomes of your life. And what's really interesting for me about the entire knowledge or the entire book of knowledge about personal agency is that you are one of the uh one of the few people uh that I have known to have like a high level of personal agency, and you've had it since you were a kid. And I think it's fascinating. Like I think it's absolutely so interesting how you had you developed this skill set when you were 17, 18. One of the highest agency things you can do is get on a plane and move to another country. And you did that when you were, how old were you when you did that? 20. 20. 20 years old. 19 at 20. 19.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

I celebrated my 20th birthday in Spain.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

So at 19 years old, you get on a plane, you move to a foreign country, and you just figure it out. There is no there's no amount of there is no scenario where I could do that without like a pre-approved structure to help me do that. And and I'm just fascinated with this idea that some people have it and some people don't. And some people get exposed to uh agency, personal agency, and develop a high level of it when they're younger. And some people never like never develop that their entire lives. And it's just a it's a mystery that I want to unravel and solve for and figure out because I think it's this I think it's the single most important thing, the single most important skill set to develop is a personal agency for your success in life. Yeah. So you gotta teach me your ways.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

He asks me why. Why did you do this? Why did you think this? When you when you were a kid, why why were you like this? And if you know anything about Alan, you know that his favorite question is why? And he will continue to dig and dig and dig and dig until he learns something new, and then he'll ask why about whatever that new thing is. But I don't have all of the answers that he's looking for. And in the last what, two days, three days, the number of times that you have said, think about this, and why did you do that? And I'm like, I d I don't, I don't know. Yes, I don't ask why, I just do.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

Yeah, so in order to save my marriage, I'm gonna have to expand my questioning to other people because I'm driving my wife crazy uh with this. But you have been exceptionally helpful and supportive, which I appreciate. But yeah, it's a passion now. I gotta find out, I gotta figure this out.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

So if you're listening, he has his own Instagram handle at the System, no, at the SystemsThinker or just SystemsTinker. The system think the Systems Thinker. At the SystemsTinker. And he's gonna start testing some things and asking some questions, and he's gonna want to know why you've dropped feedback. But please participate. Yes, because I cannot be the only person providing any type of research. We need help. You are we're we're casting our net far and wide with all of our cheese curds and coffee uh listeners.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

Yeah, subscribers. I will uh yes, we'll have to we'll have to have some things up and running here in a week, but I yeah, I'm excited about it. It's the most interesting thing I've gotten my hands on, like in my head around for a while. And I'm I'm really excited about that. So more to come, but yeah, just why are you like this?

SPEAKER_00 43:00

I can't wait for my mom to drop a comment or my dad to drop a comment about what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

I'll have to interview them too.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

Because they will have some very colorful responses, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

It's yeah, I think it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Or my brother.

SPEAKER_02 43:17

Okay. So let's talk about what this week taught us about self-trust. And I, you know, when I say self-trust, I'm talking about the this idea of keeping the promises that we make to ourselves. I mean, for me, that's the definition of discipline. I mean, people have the whatever de definition they want, but for me it's how do you keep the promises to yourself that you make. I mean, I make a ton of them. Every week. I'm gonna be the workout, I gotta do these workouts. I promise I'm gonna like I promise, I make this promise, I'm gonna do this workout, I'm gonna do this run, I'm gonna do this lift. I'm gonna hit this MECCON, I'm gonna do this Imam. Uh I'm not gonna spend a bunch of money on things that aren't on the budget, aren't important to me. Um, promise after promise after promise. I'm gonna make sure I show up for my wife, I'm gonna make sure we go out on date night, which are headed to after this, which you look are looking spectacular. Uh make a commitment to make sure I show up for the people that are in our circle that I consider friends. So I make these promises to myself all the time. Sometimes I don't keep them. I'm a much better at it now than I used to be. But how do you do that? How do you consistently again just from my perspective? I think what makes you so effective as a leader in a community, as a partner in life, as uh I would say just seeing you conquer goal after goal after goal. You are able to consistently keep the promises you make to yourself. What like how how are you doing that? Like, what's your trick? I don't yeah, I'm putting you on the spot. Why is that?

SPEAKER_00 45:24

No, I have I have two things that I want to say to this. Uh the first is I tend to be selfish. And I I think if we go back into our dating archives, you might have mentioned that you believe that I am selfish or spoiled. Uh, and in some cases I would use that interchangeably. So I know what my expectations are for myself. I know what the expectations I have from like my interactions with other people, and I continue to put myself in situations where I believe that that's going to transpire and that's going to happen. Uh, I surround myself with people that I believe support me the way that I want to be supported, and that may appear like I'm spoiled, but it also is very self-ish. And I know just, you know, reading social media content and and um looking at, you know, how other influencers have success or how other business people have success, entrepreneurs have success. Like there is this overwhelming desire to make sure that you continue to be selfish and um I take care of what I need. Now, simultaneously, you might suggest that I'm selfless because I give onto others often and I put others' needs ahead of my own often. You shared that with me several times when we had lots of things going on within the CrossFit competition weekend, and you were like, No, you're an athlete this weekend as well. You have to stop thinking about everybody else and go recover or go eat or go rest. Go warm up. Because you can't just keep giving. So there's there's this balance that I play. Um what was the question? Because there was a second part to that, and now I've talked so much about selflessness and selfishness that my other point was.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

So the question was how do you keep your promises to yourself? I'm gonna interrupt you again.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

Okay, well, don't let me forget now.

SPEAKER_02 47:50

What's the other part?

SPEAKER_00 47:51

So part two is I actually don't overcommit.

SPEAKER_02 47:58

Okay. I rem I will remember that. We'll come back to that. Okay. So then my question is when you say you're selfish, what does that like what does that mean? Like when you say that, like selfish how? Give me an example.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

Like I know what I need to eat, and I'm the one doing the grocery shopping. So I'm gonna make sure that all the things that I need are here and available to me, or I know what I need to eat, and although we're going to spend the day at Disney and I have protein goals, I am going to make sure that I find the food items that are helping me make my protein goal. I.e., I eat chicken teriyaki and two servings of broccoli and white rice. Gotcha. Like I I participate in the thing that everybody else is doing, but I don't let it take away from what's important to me as well.

SPEAKER_02 49:01

Okay, so you're saying you're selfish in the sense of like there's an emergency on the airplane, mask come down, you put your mask on.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

Like you prioritize Oh, yeah, I always put your mask on first.

SPEAKER_02 49:12

Right. So you prioritize your needs, wants, and needs first before you before you take care of my needs or anyone else's.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

Yeah, if you're not a whole person, you're not able to show up for your family the way that they need you.

SPEAKER_02 49:29

And that's how you keep that's how you keep the promises that you make to your uh that's how you keep your promises that you make to yourself because you prioritize them. Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 49:43

But the the other part of that is I don't overcommit. Right, right. Your laundry list is way too much for me. Like I I couldn't do the things that you do because A, I would be so overwhelmed that I would just shut down and then I would just take a nap all day and not do anything at all because I would just feel so much overwhelmed. But if I set realistic expectations for myself and I know that I'm capable of doing these things, then I can constantly show up and do the thing.

SPEAKER_02 50:15

I do make a lot of promises to myself that I'm gonna do certain things throughout the day, week, etc. That's true. And some days I don't get them all done. Like some days I don't commit I made a promise to do this thing and I didn't get it done. Like the posting of the video. And I don't take it as an overwhelm, but I do through journaling, through having conversations, through talking through this stuff, I do recognize that there are limits to the things that I can do and control, and understanding sometimes that those things are outside of my. I thought maybe they were inside of my control, events happen to suggest they're not outside of my control. I need to adjust. And so for me, making all the promises I want allows me to learn about myself if I don't keep it for whatever reason. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 51:21

So it's not a failure, it's a learning moment.

SPEAKER_02 51:24

Yeah, it's like I'll set it, I'll set some, I'll make some promises, I'll make some stretch promises. Like, if I'm really good, I'll do this. And if I don't like, if I don't achieve it or I don't get it, or I don't get it done, I put it, I move it to the next day and start asking myself my favorite question.

SPEAKER_00 51:45

Why?

SPEAKER_02 51:46

Why didn't this happen today? Um so that's I think we're different on that aspect, but no, it's really good. You don't what's interesting about your answer is you don't come across as a selfish person.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

Well, that's good, because most people don't like selfish people. Well, I just it just they think they're arrogant or that they think that they're self-centered.

SPEAKER_02 52:10

No, I just think it it means some of the process some of the promises that you make are to other people. Like you're gonna show up as a good leader, you're gonna show up as a oh yeah. Right. Um and I guess in a roundabout way, like when you show up as a good leader for the community, that makes you feel good, so that's why you do it. There may be some of that in there, but that's interesting. Um so be selfish and don't overwhelm yourself. I love that. I think one theme that's kind of been running through this whole conversation is about grace and perspective. So you have to, uh at least I believe you have to really embody this idea that you're the type of person that keeps your promises. And again, we can go to 80-20. It doesn't have to be 100%, but 80 80% of the time you keep your promises. And I think if you lean into that, you can stay away from the negative um thoughts that can come up. I'm the type of person that never hits the budget, I'm the type of person that overeats. I'm the type of person that did the di As soon as you start adopting that though, like that mindset about yourself, man. You're fighting. I know because I was there. You're fighting an uphill battle. It's not pretty. Not pretty. I used to like I read some of the comments I wrote about myself in my journal 10 years ago, 12 years ago. It was like pretty I was pretty pretty terrible to my uh to myself. So I think grace is a lot of uh a lot to do with I think your success, my success when it comes to this. Do you ever think about that? Do you ever do you ever say to yourself, don't beat yourself up over this thing?

SPEAKER_00 54:07

Yeah, give yourself grace to learn.

SPEAKER_02 54:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

And to fail, that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 54:12

Yeah. That's good. Sorry, my screen froze. Okay, there it is.

SPEAKER_00 54:33

I don't know where.

SPEAKER_02 54:34

Yeah, we're gonna wrap up. All right, so this week was a win.

SPEAKER_00 54:44

Every week's a win.

SPEAKER_02 54:46

Why is every week a win? Because we can learn something from it.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

Yeah, nothing is like we're still here.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

Still here.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

We're still doing it, we're still alive, literally.

SPEAKER_02 55:01

Yeah, so life inevitably will get messy. Our goal, your goal, my goal, still keep promises we make to ourselves. Be selfish, don't overwhelm yourself, give yourself grace. What about? Yeah, sorry. I was thinking. Uh be selfish, don't overwhelm yourself, give yourself grace, and adopt the mindset that I'm the type of person that will keep my promises to myself, and you too will be happy and enjoy your week just like we did.

SPEAKER_00 55:37

Sounds great.

SPEAKER_02 55:38

All right. Where should they find us?

SPEAKER_00 55:41

If you've made it thus far, thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_02 55:43

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 55:44

Love that. At Cheese Curts and Coffee on Instagram. We are available wherever you download your podcasts and on YouTube. We'll see you next week. Thanks.