Living Without Rules - Break Rules to Find Balance

is coming to an end. And it was like the there was a kids party every other day it felt like and then they graduate kids at every grade level grade level, it feels like, Oh, you're going to third to fourth grade. Do that. It wasn't that bad. But it felt that way. fifth to sixth grade, there definitely was a thing. And yeah, and then the end of year parties and then baseball and then dance recitals and

everything in between. So let's just say that this recording we're very disciplined today we are practicing discipline because Yeah, neither one of us felt like talking. Right now we're just staring each other at the dinner table. Like these cold eyes like wanna, man? Yeah, we agreed to do this. And we're here. Yes. And I think we've got an awesome message to provide as well. I hope so the listener will appreciate that. We practiced our discipline muscles

today we exercised. Okay, well with our brain muscles in our bodies, because we worked out to we did work out today, which I didn't even know if I'd get around to. I was up until two in the morning last night watching the new avatar movie. Yeah, I don't know. I heard some screaming and I'm like, it scared the crap out of some crazy sea monster. It was one of the Avatar thing I didn't even know you were watching it. I crashed. I was in the mood for sci fi last night.

And I was like, You know what? That's weird. I know, it was random and like a huge sci fi guy, but I'm in the mood for something weird. Yeah, I've turned it on. And it turns it on way too late into long movie, but it's good. It's like three hours long. And so it's like, I'm gonna have to finish it. I'm just I'm captivated. Now. I'm invested. I'm gonna have to stay up. I don't know how you stay up and watch movies all the way through. I don't watch movies

all the way through. i It takes me like three days to watch it. I don't know. I just like to get it done. Are we married? I don't know. Yeah, they say in a marriage. There are two types of people. There's one person that is going to bed at 10pm the other? Who's asking Okay, so what are we doing tonight? Oh my god. Somehow these people get married. You can relate. Give us a shout out. I'm sure a lot of people do. Yep. All right. So today we are talking about living without rules. So that's

so weird. For me. This is a topic for Paige that has been I don't know what 30 Something years in the making. Yeah. So our our personalities are extremely different. I have always been someone that questioned the rules, I questioned rules. From the time that I was first told what a rule was. You could ask my mother and she would tell me when I was three years old. I was arguing about rules and the validity of the rules. And where did this rule come from? And is this really necessary? And does

this apply to me? That was always me. And I married somebody who you could you could create a rule didn't matter how arbitrary and she would follow it because someone put enough thought into it to make it a rule. Yeah, I don't cross the street. Whatever. Holy crap. That's right. That's I was gonna go I was like, oh, when we travel, we all we go out of town to a big city, usually big cities where you have to respect the crosswalks. But even not

even big cities. We could be in like, downtown where we live, which is like a sleepy little town. If that crosswalk says don't walk, and there's not a car for miles on either side. She moved in y'all I've crossed more streets, and then turned around to see her just giving me a nasty look from the other side of the street. Because I broke be fair, you almost killed our family. I was gonna hit one time by doing that one time, so I got pretty good success. The rules

are important. I think that's the gist of the discussion today is that rules are important. Sometimes. Sometimes in the situation, they are manmade, right? They are manmade, and rules do serve a purpose in life. They keep us safe from harm. Most rules are designed to keep us safe from harm. I think of rules like actually, red light. I'm having trouble now. Yeah, red lights, red lights keep us safe from harm. It keeps traffic coming up with things tonight. What's up

with that? Oh, no, I thought I was gonna have to carry it because if y'all can see her if you're watching us on YouTube, or maybe an IG clip, y'all she's gone. I am. Um, I don't even have makeup on or anything. I'm just like, I'm just here like a zombie came from the baseball field straight in here. And yeah, you're done with some other rules that are designed to keep us safe that serve a purpose. We can all agree Okay, that's it. That's a valid rule, driving on the right side of the road, or

the left side. But yes, yeah, we're all gonna drive on one side of the road, right? A lot of traffic laws are set up. Okay, so these are laws, but what about like rules? You know, like no talking in class that doesn't keep you safe. But what does it do? Keep saying structured and it keeps the environment calm for learning. Okay, I suppose. No talking class. But does that mean you never talk in class?

No, no. What we're talking about today, this, this, this topic has come to us from people that we've worked with, and what we've observed. The wide variance experience a lot of study. Yeah, for sure. I've had to have a total mind shift. Just so y'all know. Yeah. Well, I can't wait to hear your story about coming to terms with this rule thing. But Paige has always looked at rules as almost like carved in stone 10 commandment type things. And it doesn't

matter where we are. If there's a rule, she will respect it no matter what you used to use to Okay, use two rules. Give me some props here. I'm giving you props. All right, you've come so far, you've done some incredible things. But I'd still like him for the day when you cross the street with me. I do it sometimes. Every so often. You're like, and you know, you feel guilty when you do it. Maybe, like, what do you think's gonna happen or I feel empowered, sometimes I do it.

And I'm like, Ah, it wasn't so bad. I made a decision today. But the point is that rules are not the end all be all to life. Yeah, some rules are obvious. And you can look them up. They're written on posters, they're posted on signs. They're presented to us on our first day of school, or you're yawning don't make me yawn too. But they are created by people. Remember this, they are created by other people just like you and me. Just like us, these aren't special people always use my

ears, sorry, rules. highly sensitive person who are very highly sensitive, right? And I'm ruining her by. Okay. But rules are not definite no. And they do not dictate the terms of our lives. And they don't always apply to us a controversial thought. They don't always apply

to us. There's a gray area, when it comes to some rules, and especially those that we made for ourselves or that others have made for us like these unwritten rules, I guess you could say, you know, so think back to when you were young, and the world was your oyster, and you're being asked in fifth grade, what you want to be when you grow up, you can have any

answer you want. At some point, we lose that curiosity about life, and we lose that, that wonder and that thought about, what could it be, I could be anything I want, I could do anything I want. At some point, I guess we get cemented in our routines, and in our roles that sometimes society is put there, or we've placed on ourselves. And we feel like we're boxed in. Like, why can't you get a tattoo sleeve? Even though you're on the parent teacher organization? Why? Like what what's that

about? PTO stands for PTO? Yeah. Yeah, parent teacher organization used to be PTA, the parent teacher. Organization more often. Now, I don't know what led to that shift. But I'm sure it was a stupid rule. Who says you can't have a nose piercing? Like when you're 35? Like, some of these things are becoming more acceptable, but a rainbow Hey, just I want you to ask yourself the question. Are you living for rules? Or are you living from your heart? And let's discuss the gray area in

between the rules. And Paige and I were talking about this before the episode started. She was like, you know, Wouldn't it be easier? If you just had two choices all the time? Like if life were black and white? Yeah. And I guess underlying this entire discussion is this cognitive distortion that we've we've had a whole episode on this called All or nothing, all or nothing thinking it's either all this or all that there's no gray area in

between the two. And it leads to actions that can be harmful for yourself or for people around you. Because you've just you've drawn a line in the sand. You're like, I'm just going to do this because this is this is the way it is this is what I've agreed to do. And for no other reason, with no common sense with no thought behind it. I'm just going to keep doing this. Or it can it's it's thinking in

extremes. So it's like, I can't be on a diet because that means I can never eat sugar again for the rest of my life. That's all or nothing thinking. Yeah. And, like I'm, I don't mean to demean this. And I know that some people suffer from this and it's debilitating for them. But it is it is insane in a lot of ways, right to look at life in these absolutes and these extremes, it's crazy, but it's at the root of a lot of

relationship troubles. It's a root of a lot of toxic relationships with your job or with your kids or with people around you. It's just it can be really bad for you. Yeah. So we were talking about it. She's like it just be so much easier. Now, why do you think that is? And bring me back to the way that you used to think why is it simpler? Why is it simpler to look at it either one way or the other? It just because I don't have any other options to look

at. I'm just thinking that I'd see they're going to be this way or that way. And that's simple. So in that art, is that correct me if I'm wrong, but are you okay with other people making decisions for you? Because it requires very little personal touch to your thoughts and your decisions. When you only have two choices. That's always been my beef with politics in general. I know exactly. Politics. No, but that's the thing. Like you go to McDonald's and you have 30 options for a

burger. And when I'm voting for people that are gonna represent us, I get two choices. You could call it three, but the three really count. Yeah, you know, so is it just simpler for you? Or is it you just don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about it. It makes me think of like when we went to Panera Bread and you ordered avocado toast. Oh, storytime. So they didn't have avocado toast on the menu. But Matt wants avocado toast. And he's like you have avocado. Yeah. Well, do you

have toast? Yeah, then you have avocado toast charged me for both. I don't care how you charge me just make me some damn avocado toast. It was pretty hilarious. So it was great. But it wasn't rude about it either. No, no, you were awesome about it. It was really good. It was a very good learning experience for the kids and for myself. Because you had no beef at all asking these questions like can I just have some freaking avocado toast? Yeah, cuz it was breakfast time. And I was

craving it. They did. But it blew their mind did on the other end. They were like, Wait a second. That's a very black and white thinking for them to then they came back in. They're like, we'll figure it out. We'll make it work. I'm like, awesome. Just charge me whatever. Like I understand them asking for something weird. Not on the menu. I can argue price. Right? I just really need some avocado toast in my belly right now. Yeah. And they figured it out. Yeah, they had the ingredient

that does? That's a very good example of what we're talking about. Okay. I like that example. I forgotten about it, too. And then you just clicked that always cracks me up. Okay. So behind it all is that it's easier for you because you don't have to put any personal thought into the decision. Yeah. Which is difficult, like, let's be real about it, it is taxing on the mind to have to think about what's right all the time, like

what's right for us. In that moment, that situation, it's easier to be told what to do sometimes. And if you look at the way that society in general structure, I'm gonna get too deep in the weeds here. But like we're raised in this way, we are given guidelines to follow and if you follow these guidelines, and you'll be successful, yeah, there are some people who just say, No, I'm breaking off, I'm doing my own thing. And some of

them end up in prison. Some of them also end up being billionaires, you know, so there's, there's varying extremes here. Not everyone ends up in jail. Not everyone ends up super successful, you get some people who just kind of float along in life. Yeah, kind of going out their way. But we've decided, as a whole that following these guidelines is better. And so just do what I say. Forget about personal thought, just do this is gonna make it smoother has will make everything smoother if you just

do it this way. Yeah, we're taught to obey these manmade rules, no matter what. Yes. And so back to the intro. We're talking about living from your heart. I want to challenge everyone to consider what that means for you. And look at your life today. And are you where you want to be? Whether that's in your marriage and relationships? If that's in your career, career comes to my mind, big time here? Is this where you want to be in

life at this point? Or did you just follow someone else's outline for life? Rules don't exist. They are made by man, someone probably no smarter than you decided to put this on paper and we've blindly followed many of them. Yeah. You know, go to school, get a degree, get a job work for someone else get a 401 retire, whatever. Yeah. And I think that midlife crisis is exists because at some point, we questioned the validity of these things. We're like, Wait a second. Yep. Did I

even want this? Yep. Or was I just fallen when everyone else? Exactly. So that needs to be at the the core of our discussion, I think, is that mindset, because when we talk about relationships, especially codependent relationships, addict relationships, or just difficult relationships with people in your life in general, you have to consider alternatives sometimes. Yeah. Because the tried and true methods have just left or right, black or white don't make sense.

They don't apply here. No, we're taught vote this way or vote that way. Well, what about Hang on a second, I have a different opinion. There's no option. Yeah. But in your own life, you can create options, you can do those things, and we will talk about how to get there as well. Yes. So let's talk about some examples here. Because I think that we've haven't really honed in on it like we did the Panera Bread ones, I think was pretty good. Yeah, but some of the examples like take us through a

few examples. Okay, so always taking care of others because we should seek the well Being of everyone is a very mom attitude as well, it is it is. So we're like constantly having to take, we think that we are supposed to take care of everyone. And we start to lose ourselves in that because we're focusing on what everyone else is doing instead of ourselves. So finding that balance is that you can focus on everyone and yourself. That's not the caretaker identity. Yeah, that's

just my role. It's what I'm doing. These are the rules. This is what these people do. I've right seen this happen. This is how you do it. This is how I was raised. This is how I was taught to do this. This is how the society works is that you have to fill everybody else's cup before you fill yourself up. Because we're supposed to take care of everyone else first and it deep down. You're miserable when you do that, because you're not you're you're you lose yourself. Like I said, like I

lost myself. I wasn't doing that, you know? Alright, what's the next one? Taller, you're so tired. I am. But I think we got this. Got this y'all tolerating an abusive, tolerating an abusive relationship? Because marriage is forever, right? Yeah. So you're taught to take care of each other in sickness and in health no matter what. This isn't always true. So it's controversial as hell, what you just said, it is very controversial. A lot of people are hearing this and be like,

That's blasphemy. I think you might have just lost half the room. Right? Just hear us out real quick. Yeah, I think that that only applies whenever you're both willing to work on what is broken. Yeah. So when you say sickness in the health, like we're not talking about let's just let's let's address the all or nothing thinker in the car listening to this, like we're not talking about like, your spouse gets cancer, and you're just like, Alright, peace. Like, that's not what

we're talking about here. Right? Like, to the wheels fall off till the wheels fall off is our battle cry. And that's the name of the show. And it's the name of this thing we're doing because it's been a belief of ours forever, that until the wheels fall off, I've got your back. But there's a there's an asterisk. There's a caveat. There's something written underneath the surface there that is that we both share the same goal, and we're working toward the same thing. And that

can change over time. Yeah, that can change and, like in our relationship, we get asked us a lot. It's like, well, what would you have done if he would not have recovered if he would not have gotten better I would have been gone, you would have been gone. So till the wheels fall, we have

boundaries, right? We put boundaries in place, you I put that boundary in place with you, you put a boundary up in place for me whenever I started getting really mentally ill whenever I was having major panic attacks, like let's address this, if you do this, if you don't get help, I'm going to have to leave. And that's okay, because I wasn't working towards our marriage or making things and it's not like there weren't a million discussions that led

up to that moment, either. No, and it wasn't like I just I was hands off. Like I was the one calling the therapist. I was the one like buying the books. I was, like, having my night, but I had to do the work. Yeah, like if I wouldn't have done the work, you would have been gone. You had to be on board with me. You can't be in a marriage. That's one sided. Yes. So like we're not advocates necessarily of staying together no matter what. And we're not necessarily advocates of like, just get

divorced. It's easier, right? This is a gray area or area, their boundary. Every situation is different. It's not all or nothing. Yeah, here we are, again, with the gray areas. Yep, it's true, like till the wheels fall off. As long as we're both walking, working toward the same thing, man, we're walking in the same direction. Yep. So protecting people from harm is another one. I think as caretakers like, even as parents like I feel this one but no is like for women you feel this

problem much stronger. Is that you feel like you have to save others from consequences. Yeah. Like you've got to protect your kids at all costs. And sometimes that means like doing things for them so that they're not embarrassed or they don't get hurt. Like we're like we got a kid that will go to school and it's 20 degrees outside wearing shorts. And like he'll fight you

tooth and nail on it. But it's like, you know, I think you you were the one telling me like you know what, he's gonna have to experience this he's gonna have to get called at recess and be like, I made a poor life

decision today. Yeah, because it's not gonna kill him that he wore shorts when it's really cold outside no and like having that fight and like just throwing your weight on him is really it's it's saving him from natural consequences that he needs to experience in order to see adversity that children need Yeah, and not just children people. Yeah, grown as people and as people, your husbands or wives, anybody in your life you have to allow them to make their

own mistakes. Yeah, and there's a gray area you can still be with them, love them and watch them experience natural consequences. right through it. I think that that's till the wheels fall off. If it is anything at all. It's like I'm with you, even though you're experiencing some crazy crap right now. You're going through it right now. Yep. Another one like this. This one's big for me that I've always had a problem with. This is like Work life balance, and finding what that gray area looks like.

I mean, like working hard is revered in our culture, maybe not so much as it used to be. Yeah, I think some people would actually argue that it's not anymore, but it always has been in my small circle, like working hard. Like, you may not be smarter than me, but you will not outwork me and like hustle culture is really, really big, especially on like LinkedIn, like you can get on LinkedIn, and be made to feel like you're not doing anything in your life,

right? Because everyone's hustling harder than you and they're getting stuff done. Yeah. And I will do this at the expense of my health, my family relationships, my friends, relationships, like everything in my life, like everything will suffer because of this because I go too far to one extreme. We've we've talked about extremes, you've heard this now several times, let's discuss picture in your mind's eye for a moment, a grandfather clock, and it's got

a pendulum on it. And it's swinging from one side to the other. It's going from one extreme to the other. Back and forth, back and forth. This is what life looks like. We swing from one side to the other in order to make change before we can find balance somewhere in the middle. Yep. So when we talk about balance is what the discussion is really about? And how to find it. How do you recommend like someone's

listening to this? And they're identifying something in their life like, Okay, I've got to find balance when it comes to allowing people to walk all over me, I need to find balance at work, I need to find that wherever How do you recommend someone find it in the first place? Okay, well, let's say that you are a type of person who puts everybody first and not yourself. I work with a lot of people who who struggle with this, I was one of these people.

And what worked for me is that I tell them that they have to focus on themselves first in order to start their healing process. So when they first begin, the process is usually super extreme to where they push a lot of folks aside in order to work on themselves, right? They go like too far, we go way too far on, like focusing on that, like I'm saying to focus on them, but they're like, Oh, I just got to focus on me. And that's it. Nobody else. And this

is okay, temporarily. I'm gonna say this is okay, temporarily, because it's going to help you find that balance. Because you don't know the opposite until you actually try it. Yeah. You don't know what the extreme looks like until you try it. Yeah. Yeah. So allow yourself to make that mistake is what you're saying I am, I'm telling you to make that mistake to go the what you've been doing totally different. You go when you do

that. And then eventually, you'll find that balance in between to where you can focus on others, and focus on yourself. I love that. I think this comes to my mind, like as an example of this. I've done this in my life many times when it comes to fitness. I'm like, Alright, I've been really unfit. I've been really out of shape, overweight, and I'm like, I'm going to I'm going to lose weight. And I'll buy all the books, and I'll do all the things and I'll go super hard

and heavy. And I'll go, I mean, I'll, you know disregard everything. It's all I talk about. I want everyone to know what I'm up to. And I'm like, I'm just that becomes my personality for a period of time. But it's not sustainable. And yes, people will get burned out. I've been burned out many times. And then I think about where I came from where I'm at. I'm like something in between the two is probably the answer here. So maybe I don't have to

be so crazy. But I don't want to go back that first extreme where I was being unhealthy. And I certainly don't want to do this, like where it's a full time job either. So something in between the two, or maybe three clicks to the right of that is where I want to be Yeah, but you don't find it until you go out there and figure out what that looks like. Yep. You have to change the stakes. Do do it. Make the mistakes. Yeah. I mean, it was like a year for me of doing the

complete extreme. And I'm grateful I did it because it helped me find that balance. Yeah, I love that. Just let yourself make the mistake. gave yourself permission to make the mistake. Yep. And other people keep them in the loop. They'll understand what you're going through, or they won't, but that's on them. Yeah, you're right. In which case FM whatever, right. Okay. Yeah. But like you're on this as you write this your journey. Oh, no rules, right. There's no rule that says you have to be

who you are today. Tomorrow. Yes. There's no rule that says that. No, and I'm a big believer in that. You can choose to be anyone you want to be starting now. Yep. Choose wisely. Okay. The next thing we would recommend to do is the simple process of reflect and challenge yourself. So regularly reflect on your own thoughts and

beliefs. And so ask yourself why you hold certain beliefs and whether they're based on evidence or personal experiences, or some sort of bias you have, or just some arbitrary set of guidelines, and challenge yourself to explore what the opposite looks like. I wonder, okay, well, let's just say this weren't true, what would the opposite look like and allow yourself to explore that freely, without any judgement, just think about it. So, like, let's think about your career.

For instance, let's say that you're a copywriter or something, which is a job that AI will probably eliminate, sorry for all the copywriters out there. But either way, let's say that that's your profession, you're not even sure how you ended up there, you're just doing it, you don't love it, you don't get any joy from it. It's not what you wanted to do. It

just pays bills. Consider for a moment, if you weren't a copywriter, consider for a moment you were a marine biologist or something, and what that would take for you to get there, and what your life would look like and live in that fantasy for a moment. challenge those beliefs. And the more often you do this, and you allow yourself to wander and dream and think about things, you will start to explore other

possibilities. Yeah, you won't be living by a set of rules or guidelines anymore, you'll more than likely achieve balance when you start questioning the beliefs that you hold true. What's next? Now you use the next one? She's so tired, y'all. Like I'm looking at her. It's like the lights are on nobody's home right now. I'm sorry. You're like that house at Halloween and turns off the porch lights at 7pm? Yeah, they stopped giving out candy. I know

you got some in there. Let the listener have some candy page. Oh, come back to the door. All right. Another thing that has helped me a ton is seeking diverse perspectives. If your friend circle is rather homogenous, and what I mean by that is that you're all the same color, you all came from the same background, you all went to the same schools and you work in the same jobs and you're the same level of income level of income. I'm like, slurring now.

Because my lips are dry. So more than likely, you're not drunk. You're no, your your guidelines will look very similar. Right. So you'll be doing what your circle does, like we've said before, like you're only as sick as your circle. You know, he's healthy is your circle. Yeah. So seeking diverse perspectives means broadening your circle just a little bit. Yeah. Doesn't mean you have to make it super wide. That's not go all or nothing extreme, but add some add some

flavor in it. Yeah. And consider what that looks like. Like we've got friends from all walks of life. Yes. All walks of life. And I need to hear diverse perspectives. Because I'm always constantly questioning what I believe to be true. Absolutely. Always. That's beautiful. The last thing is, it's like a step one practice for me admitting, yeah, let's admit that our current way of doing things has caused us some sort

of harm. Like, if you're listening to this show, let's be honest, like, you maybe just like hearing motivational stuff. But I think a lot of people don't show up till the show on a winning streak. Yeah, you know, like you're looking for something something in your life is not going well, right? Or maybe you just feel like it could be going

better. And so you're exploring what that looks like, but admitting to yourself, that your current way of doing things is causing some sort of harm, whether it's emotional harm, time management, harm, anxiety, stress, fear, whatever. And accepting that this is no longer serving you. That's a big step. Yes. Just that right. There is a big step. Just saying, Man, I'm just going to admit, I don't know what I don't know. And I'm gonna start questioning. Yeah, just gonna start questioning and

admitting that. I don't know at all. Mark Twain's got this quote that I love. I'm a big Mark Twain quote guy, by the way, if you haven't know, yeah, it's this close on our website. Is it? Oh, that's a good one. So it's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know, for sure. That just ain't so. He had this great way of delivering this these like comedic lines that were very profound. And that's one of

my favorites. And it's basically saying that the things that we just know for sure to be true are often the things that stall growth, get us into trouble and block us off from the beauty of life. It's not the things you don't know and that's what we think it is. It's like I think that me not knowing about X, Y and Z is going to prevent me from being great. It's actually the stuff that I think I know Yep, that

just ain't so. Yeah. So in summary here as we've kind of run you through this balance exercise and identifying the cognitive distortion at the at the root of it all which is this extreme all or nothing thinking. Balance is the goal, like balance should always be the

goal. But in order to achieve balance in order to find what balance looks like you have to fall first think of your child or if you don't have a child think of a child walking for the first time baby knows what it's like to crawl baby decides there's more than this out there I see all you bipedal people walking around so baby stands up takes a few steps baby crashes and falls baby you know falls over man. Okay, you gotta find

balance. You know what crawling looks like you know what it you know how to push the limit to where you fall. So let's find out what balance looks like. I was fine with that healthy balanced looks like and balanced and relationships will enhance your life. I think that when we talk to a lot of couples, it's one person is trying to pull all the weight.

And they have just hyper focused on this person and decided that if this person would just live up to this image in my mind or what I know they could be, then things would be perfect. Things would just be perfect. You know, I think that it's flawed thinking in a lot of ways because your partner shouldn't be your life, they should just enhance your life. I think that we lose our sense of self sometimes in relationships, I think to a degree once again, gray areas Some of that's a good

thing, right? Like I have turned over some things to you like yeah, like, you are there to back me up when things get dark. You are there to remind me of who I am when I lose like my sense of direction. And like when I when you call me on my shit often. It's like, dude, that is not you. I don't know what the where that came from. But that's not who you are. I'm like, Oh, shit. Thank you. Thank you for that, at the turn some of that stuff over. But I still have a sense of self and who I

am and what I want to do. Yeah. And you support that you're my cheerleader. I'm your cheerleader. Doesn't mean though, that if the team starts going, you know, oh, and 15 That ain't showing up for a game. Yeah, that's an option, too, right? It's an option. It's just not as simple as having. Let's just choose a side and stick to it. Right? Like all life requires thought it requires reflection and requires a lot of time spent and thinking about what's the best thing for me

right now. So the next time that you're at a stoplight, your name is Paige. And it's two in the morning, and you're in a town with a population of six. You look to your left, you look to your right, and there's no cars. It's okay to run the red light. Yeah, no one's gonna give a shit. I've done that before. I'm proud of you. I did I thought of you called me was like, uh, what would Matt do in this situation? I was like, You know what this is? I can go it's all right. Red

light or not? I don't care. Yeah, the rules there to keep you safe. But yeah, they would write you a ticket for probably, I would take that ticket and say to myself, You know what? Some rules are made to be broken. Yeah. Let's end it on that. Okay. If you haven't already, check out our new website. www.tufo.com. Hang on, Paige. She's got her hand up. I did want to bring up that a

lot of things. The one thing that really helped me see this, besides you beating it down my throat forever about rules is the change your thoughts change your life. By Dr. Wayne Dyer. It's a great book, the book. It's really awesome. Just so you all know that it really helps me to see this in a different light. Yeah, it's an amazing if you're interested to look at a different way. If you are interested in that book, and we do recommend it. You can find it

on our website. Yes, it's our website, which is www.tufo.com. That's t wfo.com. There, you can also scroll to the bottom of the page and find all of our social media pages and we're on all the stuff we're on YouTube. We're on Instagram, we're on Tik Tok. We're on Twitter, although it hasn't been updated in quite some time on Twitter, on Facebook. And if you go to Facebook, and you searched to folk community, you will find a community that we are building.

And it's an amazing place where you can go and talk about what you're working on. And it's been struggling with, it's been a really cool thing. It's fun seeing the community take a life of its own outside of us, which was always the goal. It's not a place for us to go and just promote our stuff. No, that's we don't even do that really not unless it's something that we feel is extremely crucial at

that moment. Right. But it's about it's a place for people with a shared purpose to come and discuss and not feel alone. I think that's really what it was started for. Yes, it's serving its purpose. And I think it's an amazing, amazing thing. I'm looking forward to seeing that grow. We've mentioned in the past several episodes, the counseling for the futures foundation, you can find out more at counseling futures.org.

This is an organization that I am part of and proud to be part of pages also part of it by proxy, I suppose because we're doing everything together. But imagine a world where there was a therapist there when you needed them, which isn't always the case. And it's something that we found in our search for a therapist, we're reaching out over and over and over and we're getting like voicemails, we're sending emails and you get nothing back. And you reach out when you're in crisis, and you

need someone to be there. But the fact of the matter is, is there are not enough therapists to go around there are not enough of them to meet the growing demand of the deteriorating state of mental health in this country. And so we are trying to change that a big reason that therapists never enter the field is because school is incredibly expensive. education costs rise every single year. And what therapists can earn especially as a new therapist in their first couple of years, just doesn't make

sense. It doesn't add up Yeah, they're paying tons and tons interest on their student loans. And they're trying to get by and they want to help, they want to help, but they also have to eat. And they have to pay for gas, and they have to pay for an apartment. And most choose not to enter the field because of that huge chunk of student debt that just eats their budget. And so we are trying to end that

discussion in their minds. By sending therapists through the graduate program completely debt free, we are raising money to put therapists through graduate level programs, so they can graduate with Not a cent of debt, which allows them to focus on their patients, their work, their continuing education, providing incredible care, without the fear of going broke, and having their student debt eat him alive. So check that

out. I would love for you to check out the website, small donation, you don't have to give anything at all, but we would really appreciate just letting people know about this thing that it exists, share it out on social media, put it out in the world, I'd really appreciate your help with it. I need your help with this. There was something else I was gonna ask, Oh, yeah, if you haven't already reviewed the show, please do that, too. We just every time I get a new review, I get so happy. We just

got one recently. And I didn't know who was from but it was so cool. Just getting the feedback. It was an awesome review as a glowing review. But if you hate the show, and you want me to know about that, that's fair, let me know you can take it to me one star, that's fine. Just give me some feedback. I really

appreciate that. It also helps the show grow in that when people search the terms that kind of go along with our show, these things pop up, and it moves them up the search results so that someone in need of something like this can find it which is crucial. Remember where you were when you stumbled across it? how helpful it was, someone else can have that same feeling you can make it easier for them by simply following in reviewing the show. Yeah, I think that's all we've got. Oh,

I'm so proud of you. Why carried this one very well. Thank you guys. She's like half asleep. I get one of yond about five times dogs in the corner staring at us. Like why aren't we in bed already? It's late for reference. It's like 11 o'clock. I think it? I don't know. Yeah, it's like 11 so it's late. So we're gonna get this thing out there to you. Thank you again for being here. would not be able to do this without you guys. We love you all. And until next time, I am Matt. im PEI.

We'll see you bye.