Dylan and Jaja sit down and talk about all facets of life. They tell us of the rich tapestry that is their lives, woven with stories of reconnection, personal evolution, and the pursuit of fulfillment. A couple, once estranged by youthful recklessness, recounts their tale of maturity and love rekindled against all odds, while a former city dweller reveals the contrasting peace found in rural simplicity. From the thrill of boxing to the therapeutic intricacies of LEGO, Dylan and Jaja open up about their diverse passions and the life-changing decisions that come with parenthood, career shifts, and even life-saving interventions.
Jiu-Jitsu isn't just a martial art; for some, it's a lifesaver. We're not just talking about physical confrontations, but also about the mental battles that come with parenting, coaching, and the complexities of navigating through life's unexpected altercations. Join us as we hear tales of triumph over adversity, where the boxing ring becomes a sanctuary for growth, and the struggles of burnout give rise to new beginnings. Jaja from Shasta Boxing, share her challenges and lessons learned, reminding us that sometimes, starting anew is the bravest step we can take.
As we wrap up, our reflections turn to the future and the perseverance needed to overcome life's hurdles. Whether it's establishing a stronger social media presence, setting sights on family expansion, or the determination to break generational cycles, our guests inspire with their ambitions and honesty. They delve into the nuances of mental health, the significance of therapy, and the power of personal growth. With each story, our guests exemplify that, regardless of the hand we're dealt, it's our relentless pursuit of betterment that defines us.
SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE to every new episode with video and endless LEGO content! www.youtube.com/@brickfever95
Go to my website to find every episode all of my socials here. https://linktr.ee/brickfever95
Dylan and Jaja sit down and talk about all facets of life. They tell us of the rich tapestry that is their lives, woven with stories of reconnection, personal evolution, and the pursuit of fulfillment. A couple, once estranged by youthful recklessness, recounts their tale of maturity and love rekindled against all odds, while a former city dweller reveals the contrasting peace found in rural simplicity. From the thrill of boxing to the therapeutic intricacies of LEGO, Dylan and Jaja open up about their diverse passions and the life-changing decisions that come with parenthood, career shifts, and even life-saving interventions.
Jiu-Jitsu isn't just a martial art; for some, it's a lifesaver. We're not just talking about physical confrontations, but also about the mental battles that come with parenting, coaching, and the complexities of navigating through life's unexpected altercations. Join us as we hear tales of triumph over adversity, where the boxing ring becomes a sanctuary for growth, and the struggles of burnout give rise to new beginnings. Jaja from Shasta Boxing, share her challenges and lessons learned, reminding us that sometimes, starting anew is the bravest step we can take.
As we wrap up, our reflections turn to the future and the perseverance needed to overcome life's hurdles. Whether it's establishing a stronger social media presence, setting sights on family expansion, or the determination to break generational cycles, our guests inspire with their ambitions and honesty. They delve into the nuances of mental health, the significance of therapy, and the power of personal growth. With each story, our guests exemplify that, regardless of the hand we're dealt, it's our relentless pursuit of betterment that defines us.
SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE to every new episode with video and endless LEGO content! www.youtube.com/@brickfever95
Go to my website to find every episode all of my socials here. https://linktr.ee/brickfever95
moved here from San Francisco, your 2020. Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, big move. Yeah, what did you do in San Francisco?
Speaker 1:Oh, I was an accountant there. I I've been boxing there too, okay, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Did you? Um? Well, let me pull this. Go ahead and breathe through your nose, that's better.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I met, I met a guy in San Francisco and then we just wanted to like, oh, build a family and settle down.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And this is like the place to be, cause it's quiet, you know, and simple. So we did, but we separated last year. Oh no, yeah, but it's okay, it happens, yeah.
Speaker 2:It happens. Did you know that Alexa and I actually separated years ago? Uh, we met in 2017 and then we dated through 2018. We met in March of 2017 or end of February, no, march. Then we dated cause I, my birthday, is in February, so we didn't do that together. Um, and then we dated all the way to like the end of 2018 and just ended. We weren't right for each other. And so two, two and a half years 2020, um, reconnected at the end of 2020. And like that was it. And then we started. And then, by May of 2021, I drove out to Florida in my truck from Oregon and went and picked her up, packed up her house, loaded her car on a trailer and hauled her back over here. And we even stopped up, went through Chicago all the way up to Minneapolis to see her parents and then down to Nebraska to see her grandma, and kind of did like this farewell tour. It was fun, it was cool.
Speaker 1:So what? So what was the difference between the first time that you guys were together and then the second time when you guys were connected?
Speaker 2:Um main thing, just age. Just got older. We were both really young, uh, 2017. I think I was just turned 22. I'm 22. She's 23. And I mean I just turned 22, like the month before. So we were really young.
Speaker 2:I was a mess just all kinds of men. So the first thing I could tell you this is kind of set the stage for you. So the first time we met, um, she just walks up to me. But the first time we went out and I didn't even say anything, she walks up, she goes can I pet your dog? As she's petting my dog. And I was like I have full on over the ear headphones on in the gym, like don't fuck with me, vibe. And she's just like, can I pay your dog? And she's looking up at me petting my dog. And I was like, okay, and then she bolted and took off and she, before she left, she goes I stalked you on Instagram. So I'm like who is this? She takes off. And so I was like, all right, well, uh, peak my interest. Like who stalked me? 10, 10 likes. I was like oh, must be her.
Speaker 2:And then, within a week I think, we went out to the gym just on a little gym day. I wasn't real sure about her, right, that's really creepy. And uh, she's like I stalked you on Instagram and I'm going to pet your dog without any permission or anything. And so we went out. She was cool, and the first time we went out I took her back home and I was real broke and so I said all right, we can go back to my place. I'll make you some food. Um, but before you get in this car, you should know I don't have registration, I don't have insurance, I don't have a license. I just moved from California, I got weed in the trunk and I got a bong in the car and it smells like weed.
Speaker 2:So if you get in this car, you might end up walking home, just so you know. And she got in the car. In California, the rules, the rules, the laws are a lot more. They don't really. They're not going to send you to jail over a suspended license on the first offense, but in Florida it's extremely strict, like if you got pulled over with a suspended license, you're at least going overnight. And then the reason I didn't have the insurance or registration. You lose your license, you can't register the car, you can't register the car, you can't have insurance. So it was just a domino. And so, yeah, I was totally in outlaw at the time, just running trying to stay away from the police and, um, she didn't care. So that kind of puts you in the, that kind of. That's the mindset, the place I was at in my life just reckless and wild and she was equally the same, but in her own way.
Speaker 2:And so we just had to mature and get older and I wasn't in a position to be responsible, Like I was still getting out of debt and trying to get my criminal record and trying to get pay all the fines and take care of all that. So we just weren't in the right spot. And then, years later, um, I had moved to Oregon and I had my finances in order, had my own place, had my life together, did everything that I told her I was going to do. I just we didn't, we couldn't do it together. We had to go grow on our own. And then when?
Speaker 2:we came back we were still learning and growing, but uh, much more to a place where we could actually like work together.
Speaker 1:How did you reconnect again Like from she kept stalking me she's really so creepy.
Speaker 2:So, uh, I talk about perseverance. So she never stopped stalking me actually she and I so I'm not like looking every day If I post a story like oh, who looked at my Instagram story? So every once in a while I might be laid off of a job or snowed out or something and bored or just bored, and so three times in a year I checked it and three times I caught her.
Speaker 2:And the first time she makes this fake account but then goes hey, new account, make sure you go to my old account like my actual account. So she tags herself in her fake profile that she used and created to stalk me. I was like, obviously that's her, so I screenshot that. I was like what the fuck is this screenshot that six months go by, See it again, but this time it's a real account. And uh oh, I had a time in this period where I just said you know what, I'm going to unblock everybody, like enough time has passed to where these people aren't bothering me anymore. I'll just unblock them from my phone, from my any socials. And so she had access to the account. And, um, that's when she, I caught her again. And then one more time I caught her and I did a bunch of mushrooms and I was like sitting there high as fuck and I was like you know what.
Speaker 2:I'm going to call her out on this shit. And I texted her and I was like what the fuck? Like, if you want to talk, just send me a message, like you see what I'm doing. You see, I did, I'm, you know, you see everything that's going on in my life Like you're not going to reach out after all these years and you're still stalking me. And so she did. She responded and we talked for like eight hours that night and uh, I was like I'm going to call her out and uh, well, into the next day and for her at least not three hour difference.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and then that just was kind of it and I was laid off and I was like you should come out here. And she's like, oh, you should come out here, I'm working, you're not. And I was like I have family. I have my dad, my brother and sister, my stepmom. I was like, oh, you're right, I should. So I just bought a ticket that week, flew out there immediately and it was like it was really nerve wracking to be at the door and like haven't even seen her in person in years and never in my life that I think I'd even speak to her again. That didn't end well, and so I was just at the point like I had already. I, of course, was still missing her and you know, she was the one and I just thought I fucked up forever. I just came to terms with that and it wasn't the case and I mean, god put her back in my life and here we are now with a daughter and doing great. So, yeah, it's a wild ride.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was a great story.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it is a great story. So you are in San Francisco Doing accounting, running numbers. Covid kicked you out of that gig. Is that what happened with as far as like what? Like what pushed you the family? But was it also did it just happen to be during 2020? Or was it a kind of a combined pressure?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like it's everything in one. So basically we started like so because in San Francisco it's really really hard to get a place like an apartment or a house, so we actually rent rented a room inside a house, Me and my daughter. Ok, so you have a daughter. Yeah, I have a 15 year old daughter.
Speaker 2:Oh, ok, yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so it's me and her, and then I just work, and then I do boxing and then, and then I met this guy and then, and then he has something going on at his house too, like it's it's, it's it's bad. So we kind of like got together and then after a few months we lived with each other and then and then we just can't fit in that room. Right, you know and then and then I started looking at places. But everything in in San Francisco is really, really expensive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah, yeah I've. So I've worked down there and I've been down there and spent a lot of time and I had to live in Rio Grande, or what's it called Rio Vista, way past Pittsburgh, like way up the Delta, 50 miles away, just to be able to afford to live in the city or afford to work yeah that's how far away the livable wages were.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And then I also work from home and it doesn't work because my landlord has a baby, so it was really hard.
Speaker 2:And you're in a room with your daughter.
Speaker 1:Yes, and then and then. So we just kind of like decided to like move out of the bay and and we also like shooting and things like that. So I kind of looked for a place where I could do you know, shooting and everything that I like to do when I get old.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then we found this place. It was, it's perfect. It was perfect at first, and then this place is perfect for me. Until now. I like it because I thought when we separated, I thought we're, I'm going to come back, I'm going to go back.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you're like this whole, this whole dream, this whole thing that we had imagined, that's just not going to work. I'm going to have to go back. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:But, but I end up staying because I really like it here. I like the people, I like everyone. You know like it's really simple, it's less complicated People are less dramatic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially during the the three years since. Right. So during that entire time and yeah.
Speaker 1:That's why I like it here. And I just stayed. And then I just keep, I just kept on, kept on growing and growing and growing. And then my daughter does the same thing, and then my brother came from the Philippines last year and I took him here too, and he likes it here too.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, so Philippines are. Did you live in the Philippines?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So when did you move across?
Speaker 1:So I migrated here when I was 17.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was 17. And then I don't know Philippines is like before. I always kind of like think of of I'm going to work here in America and then save money and then go back to the Philippines. That was like the original plan right. And then now I don't even want to go back there, I just want to go there for vacation, you know, because there's like really nice place there. You guys should go.
Speaker 2:It's interesting you say that my cousin be really jealous. His dreams to go to the Philippines and live there for a while he's a well, he was a professional wakeboarder, and so the Philippines has huge cable parks. They're real big in the wakeboarding. I'm not sure if you familiar with that support and scene, but that was like his. That still is one of his dreams to go there and wakeboard. So yeah, so he. I've heard a lot about my cousins over there, you know, oh man, the Philippines, and I can't wait and tell me all about it.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it would be really cool to go.
Speaker 1:That's cool it is. It is, people are nice. You know like the thing is like if you, if, if you're there and you're not well off, it's kind of like it sucks for you, you know but, since I'm already here and I already established like stuff here and I have, like you know, money to go there, it's like it feels nice.
Speaker 2:But when I was there, it was like it's so I spoke about this on.
Speaker 2:I've talked about it several times, well, in the last episode, so I'll just touch it briefly. But my family and I've never lived there and my family is from the Bahamas, on a quarter of my family and my dad's side, and he's actually a Bahamian citizen now and he's dual citizen and he was born there, and so it's like totally different going to these other places and it's just laid back and I guess kind of did it remind? Does this area remind you more? Or where did you live at? And I'm not familiar with their.
Speaker 1:Do they have urban areas or is it just all like townships, like well, it really depends, like for me, I was really like my family was really my mom, my mom's side is poor. Ok, and my dad's side. It was kind of like well off, you know. So I keep on going back and forth from to my mom, then my dad and my dad, so it's it's really different from each other. I like the, I feel like I like the poor better because we're like near the beach and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the lifestyle is a little more like chill, so yeah.
Speaker 1:And then when I go to my dad's, like his side is like in the city and stuff and it's like so hectic traffic, street kids, you know you got to see both sides, yeah, so this is kind of a lot more like your mom's slow paced.
Speaker 2:I always want people know each other, you can actually run into people at the store and be like hey, yeah. That you don't do that in the city.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my main goal is to have a land like this place you have right here is really nice, because I like animals too, yeah, so it was nice growing up here and you know, when you grow up on land like this, you don't, you don't really comprehend what you have. You know what I mean. And we had more. We had everything you see across the street. We leased for years, decades, and so that was that the old man in.
Speaker 2:He was Japanese, and so it was like you know, just keep the money going and not a lot of communication Maybe once or twice a year, but he didn't speak English and he was a big mogul like business mogul, and so there was an intermediate guy that lived here. Well, that all went south, and then he's tried to. My grandpa had tried to buy it more than once but the old man wouldn't want to sell it. Well, his son sold everything, he liquidated all of his assets and then tell anybody in the guy that was living here is already gone, like he stole a bunch of stuff and money and just disappeared off the face of the earth as far as we know. And so there was no one to even know to like let us know, hey, maybe you want to get ahead of this. And he found a buyer that had a blank check, some government contractor.
Speaker 2:And so there was no way to outbid him and so that was that definitely sucked. And then, um, so that was a little bit of like man, we really did have the life and so that got cut back and he still has land and stuff. And uh, then I moved to Florida and you know most everybody even if you didn't have vast land, like you said, a lot of people in the area I grew up in and red bank and read all these air, all these roads and districts out here, outside of town. Everybody had a little land, everybody had a little BMX, bike jumps and dirt bike or whatever. And so when I moved to Florida and I met people from the Carolinas and all the different kinds of people, uh I realized like, oh, cause they, we didn't grow up rich, like we didn't grow up with wealth.
Speaker 2:It felt like we're, it was check to check and we had, we got to do everything. But we had a shitty ski boat with towels over the seats because the vinyl was cracked. You know, we had an old houseboat that was tiny and it was so small you could put it on a trailer and haul it with a pickup truck and we just had things, but everything like that barn out there. You haven't seen it, but it's behind the house it was. We went and found it on Craigslist, far into this place, and we had to like sleep in our truck, or maybe we got a room, I don't know.
Speaker 2:We took it apart in the weekend and had to like cut it apart, put it all in a truck and send it up here Me, my grandma, my grandpa, my sister, my mom and my dad. And so we took it apart and rebuilt it and it was like chipped paint and ugly, faded, never been painted or touched up, like that was just the kind of we had things but nothing was nice. And that was the thing they always said, like we can have a couple of nice things or we can have everything not nice. And so to me I didn't really think of that as like having things, and my dad was always doing side jobs and working on cars all the time, so there was never a day where we were like sit back, like, oh OK, we don't have to worry about money today.
Speaker 2:And so I didn't understand land as wealth Right. I just saw that we were. We were in poverty but we were working class and I met some people out there and they're like you had a little land in there, like you had land. Like dude, that's wealth. And it changed my perspective and I tell them these stories. Like dude, you guys were rich. I was like no, this land was given to us by my grandpa.
Speaker 2:But then I realized, oh OK, that's a different kind of wealth and it helped me to understand like wealth isn't about like just because you have money and assets and land doesn't mean you have. It's a different kind of wealth and it's a wealth that this town really appreciates and like there's a community and so it's. Yeah, you don't have that. Living in the city is definitely totally different and I took it for granted for years. But now that I'm back I still kind of miss the city a little bit. Yep, Not that I don't want to have some land. But I miss this I miss the city.
Speaker 1:Does she miss it too?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So all she's ever done is being raised in the city. She never known anything about the city so she lived in Palmdale, which is like it's outside of LA, it's still in LA County and it's pretty big six figure city. To me, if you have six figures, if the population six figures, that's a city.
Speaker 2:Nothing from six figures start in Sacramento or end in Sacramento and the next six figure city is Eugene, oregon. Mm, hmm, it's 400 or it's probably five or six hundred miles apart. That's a big gap, and so that's yeah, she's never lived anywhere that wasn't a six figure population, so she's always had urban areas. You know shopping malls, places that you could just like. We don't have a Buffalo Wild Wings. I love Buffalo.
Speaker 2:Wild Wings and we don't have one within 30, 40 miles, I have to go to Chico, and that's where I watch all my fights. I go and watch.
Speaker 2:I'm addicted to the UFC. I used to own a gym myself actually, and she probably didn't tell you that down in that town, so I lived across the river. I think it was called like I can't remember the name of the actual Rio Rio, maybe Rio Vista, but the town I lived in was right across the river, five miles away, called. Fyleton 800 people, and so that gym was the only gym for the whole community of that city, this little city, and all these little cities around it.
Speaker 2:So, I knew everybody by name and it was really cool experience. We had a it was two stories had a dance room, full weight room, sauna. Downstairs had a massage lady on staff so, and we had a full mat room and yeah full, had a black belt training our students.
Speaker 2:And my partner was a wrestling guy big and like I don't know what his accolades were, but he was a big wrestler and even had his pro card for MMA and stayed on the regional circuit. But so that was his dream and we were welding partners. So we had traveled together welding all over the state and he said we had saved enough money. I went out to Montana for six months, came back, had a plethora of cash. He had this dream. This place just happened to open up, so we just worked there for a few months for free and there's just something to do and he loved doing it and he was training and getting to teach and I started teaching the kids and I just got to work out for free.
Speaker 2:And next thing, you know, we're going through the books and like it's failing and people are leaving every day and I'm like I don't understand. Well, the guy was a creep and these old people in their eighties owned it, but their son was running it and he was embezzling money from them. So we managed to do a owner contract and just buy him out of it and but as that happened and, like I said, the community and everybody was starting to count on me and rely on me and I knew my dream was to go to Florida to go get closer to my father and I had to do that and I knew, if I didn't, if my life was starting to solidify, I was starting to become cemented into this community and I didn't want to like rip away from that later and like let these people down.
Speaker 2:You know, and so I realized like, okay, I'm at a tipping point. I can either stay and stay committed and this will be successful, or I can leave and pursue the thing that's been on my heart for years. So I just did that. I caught out, bought out and left, like in the middle of the night, went to a sharks game. I love hockey.
Speaker 1:Is it still there though?
Speaker 2:No it didn't last long without me. So he was the brains of the like the gym, I was the accounting, I was the guy that was good with money, good with people, good at sales and personable and he was more like doing classes and all this type of training and stuff. He had the expertise. I had the ability to be a salesman, essentially you know, and so once he didn't have that partner to do that, it was and it. We didn't have enough money to pay anybody, so he couldn't be bringing in someone else.
Speaker 2:And so yeah it was kind of it. Just I don't know. It felt like I checked in on it.
Speaker 1:Oh really, yeah, that's kind of like our situation. We can't pay anyone, so it's like we're all like we're doing the books, we're doing this or do that.
Speaker 2:I still have some of my books, some of the accounting and stuff. I just look at it to like, okay, this happened. I did at one point I did own a business Like this was real. I had a license you know, what I mean. This was a real thing. I could do that again someday, but the opportunity it's a really this is a good community to get into doing something like boxing. There's not a lot of opportunities around, but it's so hard to like get your name out there. You find that here. It was hard.
Speaker 1:I feel like now it's easier because of social media.
Speaker 2:Right Things like podcasts, social media.
Speaker 1:It's easier now and I'm pretty good at like editing stuff you know, making flyers.
Speaker 2:I've seen some of your clips and stuff.
Speaker 1:So I really like doing it. I sucked before, but I feel like in time I'm kind of getting better and then imagine, if I keep on doing that I'll be better here, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, like with me, I've got this YouTube channel and podcast and it is a slow grind because I live in a trailer, a fifth wheel. I have space. It's nice now that we're back here, I can come in here and do it, and I got myself a shed so I got a little like work bench studio in there, but before I'd never even had all of my sets my Lego sets in the same room because I didn't have enough room. So I had, like a storage unit and I had it in my house.
Speaker 1:So how many Legos do you have?
Speaker 2:Ooh, well, I have an inventory on an app called Rebrickable, which is where you can like put in. You can add every set that you have. It says I have over a hundred yeah. Where is it? I can show them to you. Actually, they're all in the shed over here. It's yeah.
Speaker 1:So what is the hardest Lego piece that you have built? Yeah, you built.
Speaker 2:Oh man, okay, so they're really cool, they're huge, they're Lego Technic cars, a one eighth scale, and so they have four that they've made all together, like the Legos only produced four models of this kind of car. They had a Lamborghini, they have a Bugatti, a Ferrari and a Porsche, and that's over a span of like seven, eight years. They've only produced four, and so those are the hardest, but they're not.
Speaker 1:Do you have the four? I know?
Speaker 2:So when they get, they get expensive, so I can I have two of them and I can get the third one in the future. It hasn't retired, but once Legos retire, then they just skyrocket. And this is a thing they say and this was in Forbes and the New York times. But Legos really are a better investment than gold or stocks. You will never lose money on Legos ever.
Speaker 2:Even if I've sold some that made 30% profit and then after I pay my 10% sellers fee, I kind of break even. But that was a year later. I could have let it, I could have held it longer, but I didn't need it. Or I'm trying to get rid of inventory. That was a net zero, right, I didn't lose anything.
Speaker 2:And then if you so, even a set, if you're gambling on this and you're like I think this will sell. If it doesn't sell, you'll at least get the money you put into it. So if you start calculating, like storage space, some of these guys are really into like, oh, and how much money is it cost to have that slot on the wall filled with this set? I don't give a shit about that, I'm not that serious, I don't the storage and all that whatever. So, yeah, if they break even, cool if they make money. I've had some make more than 100%. I sold about one for 200, sold it for 440, eight months later, yeah, so I kicked myself over that because I should have bought more. So the ones that are the hardest, it's roughly 4,000, three to 4,000 pieces and I took one apart to rebuild it. So the website Rebrickable. They're called Mox, my own creations it's an acronym and people design them on a computer.
Speaker 2:I've designed a couple smaller ones, but they design them on a computer and you can create your own. And you can create your own instructions and everything and you can make it an alternate build. So this set can have an alternate of a different model car and all they use are the pieces in this set. So I did that. But when you get Legos I had already separated these bags. This is bag one, this is bag two. Those sets have like 40 bags, two thick manuals. There are hundreds and hundreds of steps and all together the manual is probably that thick and with both of them there's six different boxes. The box is this big and so when you take apart and they give you individual bags, right. So you're like okay, bag one and everything's right here. It's still a lot of pieces but it's just enough for the bag, right? So it's easier to sort when you have 4,000 pieces lined out on a table.
Speaker 1:How do you do it? So do you have like a big table?
Speaker 2:No, this is actually bigger than the table I have, but I used a six foot folding table like this for most of the time. I had the channel and it's a lot and I color sort them. So I'll put like some pieces are bigger and I'll be like all right, the big green ones, then all the rest of the green ones, and then all the black and all the blue and all, and I have all this stuff and I almost have no room to build it. I'll be building it in my building and then put it back in my lap and then, as you continue, you have less and less pieces, but those are the most time consuming because I have to take every single one of those parts pieces, every single piece apart, and then organize it in colors and then reassemble it. So that's a major undertaking.
Speaker 1:How long did it take you to finish it?
Speaker 2:16 hours just to build from the time I started on step one. So after I had it all sorted out, 16 hours to build. Yeah, yeah, ask Alexa. That thing sat in the living room of the RV for a week and a half because I still had a full-time job. Over time, I was working 60 hours a week. Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:So it's very time extensive To pick a type of YouTube channel or anything that would do anything for you and be quick, and that's not the one. So much editing and just the process of downloading that many hours of content to get it from the hard drive to the computer takes a long time, days. And.
Speaker 2:I used to do it all on this phone until three months ago. I did everything on this, so I would put that 250 gigs of information right in there and just have to set that phone down for the rest of the day. Yeah, Damn.
Speaker 1:So, when you buy it, let go. Do you build it right away or no, not?
Speaker 2:always. So sometimes, yeah, like this one I've had, and I just I'll buy when they're on sale Best time to buy is when they're on sale and then so I'll buy them like that and then sometimes they sit. This one sat for a while, the one like have you finished this, and then you just took. I have another one actually.
Speaker 2:So, I already have this set and I just happened to have an extra one. I was like I haven't used it on my podcast. I was like, oh, this is perfect. I haven't actually like used it in any content, and so I was like, ah, we'll do another one. But no, this is brand new. I got the box right here. I just I've been doing these videos and the rustling or trying to talk I'm opening these plastic bags and I was like I'm gonna try something different and have it all separated before, to not like dilute, to not ruin the audio yeah.
Speaker 2:Cause, when you're rustling plastic for while you're trying to tell a cool story and the next thing I know I'm in the editing booth, I'm like I'm like, ah, totally ruined that section of the story. So, yeah, this is a little smoother. So you've built Legos before. What Lego have you built?
Speaker 1:That's it. Like the yellow Jeep, because I have a yellow Jeep, Because we used to have like. We used to have like an aquarium and then we had a hamster.
Speaker 2:Yeah, an aquarium.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it has a hamster.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you had an aquarium for the hamster, For the hamster right.
Speaker 1:That's good transition and then I used that Jeep, the yellow Jeep, inside that aquarium. I like that. So the hamster has Jeep like, because you know it matches my Jeep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's a nice Jeep you got.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool, I'm gonna have to do that yeah when I saw that yellow Jeep at Walmart I was like, oh my God you know yeah that's perfect.
Speaker 2:That's cool. So that's a technique that's the same as the hardest set I built just at a bigger scale with all the pins and you know, it's a lot different.
Speaker 2:I tried to build some technique sets on the show. But that one you're like counting one, two, three, four, five, six, okay, seventh hole. You know what I mean. You have to count. And then we're like stuck on a page. I'm like, oh, I had to take it. I was like, okay, we're not gonna do that anymore. These are easy enough. You don't, the piece fits in the shape, you don't have to worry about counting the pins. It was a lot more difficult, but yeah, I enjoy. I've been building Legos since I was three and through high school, took a gap, did all kinds of sports, couldn't afford them. When I got older, and actually Alexa and I, she worked at Disney and we got into Lego. There they have a Lego store and we bought the yellow submarine from the Beatles.
Speaker 2:And then yeah, and I took yours. Like I said, I didn't have a lot of money then and then I got into it once I got out to Oregon. Yeah, I had a friend that owns a Lego store.
Speaker 1:So it's hard not to. Did you see the one that's opening and ready?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they postponed it, but I'm ready, I'm going, you're ready.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool. I saw it. I was like, oh wow, what the heck.
Speaker 2:So I wanted to get back to your. I'm so intrigued by it. I didn't know much about you. Alexa told me about oh yeah, she's got the gym and the readying and this, and just over her going, I've learned a little bit about the gym, but I didn't know anything about your backstory. I'm very intrigued. So when you got here, did you come with family? Did you just say you know, fuck it, I'm going. Yeah. What is it like immigrating to another country?
Speaker 1:Well, that part, I was young, so I was just going with the flow, you know by your own self.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was. Wow, that's intimidating.
Speaker 1:My dad took me here about my dad's like I never saw him. Like I never saw him besides the day that he took me here.
Speaker 2:Oh wow. So he brought you here and then was like you're here now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm here now and then he wants to like, oh, go to work, pay your rent. And I was like why would I pay rent to him when I could just go my own way, my own rules and stuff. Like just pay my landlord rent, not you, and then you're trying to control everything too.
Speaker 2:So it's like so I kind of like just All too familiar with that. I mean I live here now, but I get it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so basically I just kind of like figured it out. It was hard because this is really different from the Philippines, even when I so where did you land, like, where did you come in?
Speaker 2:Did you come into San Francisco? Like right away and then you just stayed there. That was your home base, since you got here, yes. When did you what year?
Speaker 1:That was 2005.
Speaker 2:OK, 2005.
Speaker 1:And then 2006,. I met my daughter's dad. Ok. Because like what. I said I was yeah quickly and because I was really sad I have no family no friends so yeah, yeah, it's lonely, yeah, yeah. So I met him and then, yeah, we had a kid after a year, and then we've been together for five years, but it didn't work out.
Speaker 2:And then that's a good, that's a solid try, though that's a long time Five years yeah.
Speaker 1:Five years, and then it just didn't work out. But it got me fat. The relationship got me really fat, you know.
Speaker 2:And then that's not good.
Speaker 1:So I started like oh you know, going to the gym and I really get bored like fast Because before there's no. Like I didn't know about CrossFit, I didn't know about like high intensity workout, I just know like the gym. Yeah, you go there. Yeah, walk in treadmill, yeah, so I was like I was never into it.
Speaker 2:So you hadn't done any boxing or anything yet.
Speaker 1:Like. So it kind of like I just started boxing at the year 2018. Oh, wow. Yes, because from when I separated from my daughter's dad, I was just broken.
Speaker 1:Like I was just doing things, you know, like I was just partying, you know I was just and then going home to my daughter, it's like I always just complain about life. It's like, why am I always broke, right? I used to smoke cigarette, I used to drink a lot, and then one day my daughter had like a career day in school and at that time I was doing like part time tattoos Because I couldn't go to work, because we don't have a babysitter. No one takes care of her.
Speaker 2:That's also a reason why we're here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. So I got to quit my job, so I was just doing tattoos and I'm always broke Because it's not a sure thing. You know, it's like sometimes you have people, sometimes you don't, yeah, and then so the career day comes and I couldn't say anything. You know, I don't have the self confidence to talk in front and I don't know what to say because I just I'm just kind of like a fake tattoo artist that you know, like whatever, and so I kind of it kind of like a wake up call.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, yeah. You know, it's like you want to be able to say something and then, my daughter was just looking at me like and I was like, oh what?
Speaker 1:Oh, no, hell no. And then the next day I just decided to kind, of like you know, change it up.
Speaker 2:That was the tipping point. Yeah, that was the switch right there. Yeah, that was the switch.
Speaker 1:I was like, and then the next day I started calculating how much I spent buying cigarettes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those vices add up quit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and buying alcohol. And then I started to realize like, oh, when I go out every weekend, like how much do I spend Bars?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's one thing. To drink at home that's still expensive, but when you go out it's four times. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I really I was really like shy at first, like I don't, I didn't have like like the confidence that I have now coaching women and kids, but before I was really shy. So what I would do is I would put alcohol in my coffee and go to work and I was like hi, how are you? You know, like whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, social lubricant.
Speaker 1:And I just kind of like you know what? This is not right, because the way I'm not doing it I'm so depressed, I'm so down, you know like. So I kind of realized it. I was getting more aware in time, you know, and then I was just like one day I just called Turkey no cigarettes, no alcohol. And then I was super broke and a family from the Philippines helped me to get a UFC gym membership for a year. Oh, wow, Okay. And that's when my boxing journey started.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a big. That's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Someone saw that and was like you know what, we'll help you out with that. And then that's it.
Speaker 1:And I put my because, because it was given to me. I feel like I got to work hard to learn this craft you know, because I don't want to like disappoint this person.
Speaker 2:You know that I had.
Speaker 1:I had his name tattooed here. Okay, yeah, but that's cool. That's when it started. Boxing changed my life.
Speaker 2:It's like, so it had to that you think that it would have gone a different way If that third party help with you know? That obligation of feeling like I have an obligation to this they saw this in me. I got to be able to follow through. Yes, that's what changed.
Speaker 1:Yes, and then, after a year of going um, I developed like, like self confidence, you know, like I was really good at what I do. And then this person again said that you know, like he um, he's um my brother's, um, my, my, my dad's sister, but he is a lesbian.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so and he's in the field, but he's dead, he's, he's gone now. So, basically, after a year, he's like oh, you like improved, you know like you, you talk well now, and stuff like that. So, let's, let's do more. So what, what he did? Is he paid for my ISA, issa, personal training course? Oh, okay, and I did that too. So I finished it because, because everything was given, I feel like I needed to like pass it to get good score, you know.
Speaker 2:That's a very interesting perspective too, cause, um, at least in America, the type like a lot of people that are just handed stuff. That's that, oh, you were handed this. And then because of people like, almost like the land right, I didn't understand. Not that I ever took it for granted because I worked, my. I worked since I was 10 years old. I've been working and ranching and doing. I've owned several little, you know just handy business melons. I've been hustling my whole life. Never took anything for granted, but a lot of people do, like their parents, work hard, right, to make sure you don't have to. That's kind of the idea.
Speaker 2:And then, when that is the mindset, there's something missed. But with where are you? The opposite, which is intriguing, Cause you saw that handout. You saw the opportunity given, not as a handout. There's an opportunity, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I also um realize it here, like I, I I work with a lot of kids, right, I see different kinds of parents, different kinds of kids, though there's like kids that's like not poor, but you know, like their, their parents can't afford buying them stuff. And then I see parents that spoiled their kids, like you know. So I see that the the, the poorer ones. When we do something like like, for example, we after class we go eat, like you know, we treat them like eat and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, that's cool yeah. They're more appreciative.
Speaker 1:You're like, oh, like you know, like they would order like, not not a big plate level of something, it's just a simple plate. And then they'd be like oh, thank you so much, you know. And then the other one would be like do they have this, do they have that? Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:The kid that's like oh, they're buying them, we get the where's the most expensive, yeah, yeah, something like that. And then they still not. It's not enough, it's still not yeah.
Speaker 1:It's still not like they still doesn't appreciate it, so it's it's like you know but, Do you see a difference in the work they put in in the gym?
Speaker 2:That too.
Speaker 1:It's really so. There is a different, so it's not just the entitlement, but also the drive.
Speaker 2:There's a difference, yes, but there's really different type type of kids, just different people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, different people, but mostly like the the the more, the the the more money they have is, the more kind of like difficult to like impress them with something you know Right, so Interesting. And then for me, I was also poor before when I was in the Philippines, so everything that's given to me I appreciate it Right and I don't want to disappoint that person because you know like you gave that to me, you know like you work hard for it and you're giving it to me. Yeah, so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But I feel like that that part of my life really changed my, my, everything, you know, my self-confidence, my, my, the way I see things. And I used to fight in clubs before. I'm really like a war freak. You know like, oh you, look up my man, I'm going to mess you up, oh God. You know, I really I fight a lot.
Speaker 1:You know, like, if you bump into me, I would fight you. You know, Wow, yeah, and you never see that now. And now, when I learned boxing, I never want to fight anymore. Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 2:right, it is crazy. It's so weird. And I mean they say like teach a kid to box, they'll never have, you'll be able to speak better, you'll hold yourself higher. You won't if you got a bully. Teach them to box, teach them to fight, you know that's all that type of behavior comes from a place of no confidence or never having someone believe in you, or being taught that there's a different way. Yep Right, maybe you got abused and bullied at home, and that's the only thing you've seen.
Speaker 2:So that's how you watch your father or mother exert dominance over the other, or the children, and so that's what you think you must do At school, or the kids at school bullied you so you turn into the bully. But if you could just stand your ground and now granted you don't want any conflict, but it only takes once for everybody to respect you. Yeah, yeah, it changed your mindset too.
Speaker 1:It's like right now, like at first. I was like, oh, now that I'm boxing, if I fight I would beat them up. I don't even want to fight anymore. No, it's crazy. Like I don't know how it works, but it worked.
Speaker 2:I had to execute Jiu Jitsu in the field, like in real life. It was scary and three. So I had to choke this guy out twice and like within an hour I was like fuck. And then he was still. So he I don't know what drugs he was on. I just showed up to this party boat and long, but we're over here. There's two boats tied together and we're kind of I know this guy and this was the rental boat with all these people I don't really know and all the drugs are over there and we're over here and we're having our own good time with our extra curriculars. And then I don't know what they had.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's pills, but this guy was rolling highs and lows. He is low normal. Then you catch a peak and he had just wanted to get violent and he had done. I only know this. I don't even know his name, but I know he got into war, he had killed children he was talking about like he got put back in that place and he was going to get hurt and his people just wanted to throw him off the front and, like, put him on the shore, which is all jagged. I don't know if you've been to Lake Shasta, but it's all jagged rock there's no beach.
Speaker 2:There's no shore, it's just a rock ledge that leads. You know, and where we were was not on a point in the middle, like you could get to land, but he wouldn't have found it, he would have never figured it out.
Speaker 2:And so I was like, if you guys do that, you're going to kill him and I don't know. These people were like, oh yeah, I do this too, I know this. And I was like, dude, take care of your man. And they won it. And this guy is way bigger than me and I was like, well, he's so docile. The second time I was just able to, like, get my hooks in and just mount them, rare naked, and he was just sitting on the ground.
Speaker 2:So I was like, all right, he's low, let me get him now before and then we try to get him to the boat. So I had to choke him out just to get him on the boat. Then we drag his body to the boat, called the cops, get him to the dock, and on the dock he front kicks me and I about fell on the prop. So I had one other guy there to help me hold his legs and I I had him in an arm bar so long I bruised my own feet. I was like how did this happen?
Speaker 2:And it took seven cops to take this guy down and I was so pissed cause I broke his, I ripped his elbow, he showed everything and I was please don't fight, please don't fight me, I don't want to hurt you and he would just and you know how that goes and you can't do that. And so I was looking at like getting in trouble now and luckily, as much as he gave them resistance, that's what got me out of trouble.
Speaker 2:Like we're going to write this up is it public indecency or drunken public or whatever and he'll never be able to find like press or nothing. I was like thank God, cause that. And then so the yeah, I was like this is not what you want to do. I don't want to go down this road.
Speaker 2:And that was the last thing I wanted to do, but the ability to know that I saved that guy's life Like he probably would have died, felt died in the water. They were trying to take him over the handrails into the other boat, next to engines and propellers and metal handrails and like edges and corners. I was like don't, so that's when we got him on the boat and so, yeah, no one, they didn't comprehend like the amount of danger we thank God I grew up on a houseboat, cause I understood the real dangers and yeah, at all those, and you know, I still don't know who his friends were.
Speaker 2:They never owned like, never apologized, never even claimed him. I was like those are, and that's kind of one of those moments that made me realize like what am I doing here. What am?
Speaker 2:I here. I could have ended up the one going to jail with him because of you know mutual combat. And then they don't even know appreciation. No, no, thank you. They didn't go like hey, we need to leave and go to the hospital. Like go, where do you go? No hospital or jail. You know like they didn't ask how he was, or nothing. And yeah.
Speaker 1:Right here.
Speaker 2:Yup, and then I'll put that one in there.
Speaker 1:And then did you guys what happened?
Speaker 2:I still don't know what happened to him. Nope, all I know is the cops got him. He's still breathing. Thank God he's alive. But yeah, that was the only time in real life I-.
Speaker 1:And you don't know his name.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, and that's the only time in real life I've actually had to practice martial arts, and well, I wasn't practicing. You know what I mean. And it was the, the arm bar, all that, no big deal. But the choking him out twice within 20, 30 minutes, that was scary. And knowing.
Speaker 2:You know, is that right there? Like the first time I thought I had him out and he came back quick. It wasn't, you know, it was just like you were rolling. He went out quick and I let go and he came back. I was like, oh fuck, so I had to put him down technically probably three times, yeah, and I was like fuck, this guy's got a big neck and I was like goddamn. Yeah, he was big dude, he was like 250 plus I was probably 170 at the time. Ew.
Speaker 2:Have you before. What is the craziest altercation you've been involved in in all your partying and bar brawls?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, someone like someone like bumped into me like that and I was like what, what's where you're going? But I was like saying it in my language because it's a Filipino like party. Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:And then, and then there was just like okay, so it was just okay, I think this is better, this is a better story. Okay, it was a house party. I went with my best friend at that time and her name is Sally, and then we went to this house party. I was, I just came from this time, I was working at Chase, so I have my Chase uniform.
Speaker 2:Still on. Yeah, still on.
Speaker 1:Oh god. So we went.
Speaker 2:Really represent.
Speaker 1:So I have a, not a high heel, but you know, like a little Like a wedge dude, yeah, and then dress shoes, yeah.
Speaker 2:So, you're in dress shoes trying to pick fights, yeah, so, so, okay.
Speaker 1:So this is like the house, right? And then we went there so we were drinking and stuff like that, and then there was this guy that was really drunk and then he told my best friend oh, they were kind of like debating about something. I forgot what the topic was, but I was in the kitchen cause I like eating.
Speaker 1:So I was in the kitchen, I was getting food, I was microwaving it and I can over like I can hear them from the living room. And then they were just like debating about something and then this guy told my best friend, shut up, shut up. You don't have the right to like speak because you're a hoe. But in our language in our language, and then my, my, my ears got hot and.
Speaker 1:I ran like a like a ninja, Like I was, like hopping from couch to couch, you know, like I don't know it was just so red, just so red. I was like adrenaline rush right. So this was the kitchen, so there was like a wall that divides it, but there's like two doors that you can go this way or that way.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So, and then they were in the living room over here so I went like this boom and then jump, jump, and then my best friend was here. And then he was here in the in a couch next to the window and I jumped into him, went on top of him and I choke him like this, grab his shirt.
Speaker 3:And I just keep on like oh, no, no, no, I did not do that first I was like hey, I grabbed him.
Speaker 1:It was like hey, what did you say? Can you repeat that again?
Speaker 2:And then he repeats it. That's never what you want. You don't want anyone to ask Can you? Just can you? What'd you say? It's what you say.
Speaker 1:I said. I said your friend needs to like shut up. Oh my. God.
Speaker 2:What kind of man? Where do you gain that?
Speaker 1:mentality, I don't know. And then so that's when I like like freaking, beat him up, so all of the people there was just like taking me off from top of him. And then this fool ran and I was so mad because he got away so I chased him with my little heel. Oh my God, I didn't even kick them off.
Speaker 1:yet I chased him and I was like he ran so fast, and then I was like running too, and then they were holding me back. I was so mad, like oh my God, and then I, I didn't, I didn't catch him. But yeah. That's like the worst. That was the worst.
Speaker 2:See, I messed up. Your story was too good.
Speaker 1:That was the worst. Yeah, I'll let you do that Crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. And women get nuts. I tell you what Alexis she's a oh, so this is going to be.
Speaker 1:I did these ones and then so where do I put this one?
Speaker 2:This is are you going to assemble this little piece right here? I messed up. I just put it on there.
Speaker 1:I was like huh, huh yeah.
Speaker 2:And then it'll go right there. Damn Alexis. She likes to oh, don't forget the gray ones she likes to do that. She likes to chase. She's a chaser. Yeah, she's really strong oh my God, stronger than she knows. Like look, you got to chill. Yeah, when you do things, things move, she'll the doors. She's heavy on doors, god. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's the whole wall shakes. She's like what I'm like, you're strong. So, so now you're here, you settled down a little bit, and then so you've got a daughter. How old were you when you had your daughter 20. So you're, yeah, 20.
Speaker 1:I'm 36 now 36?
Speaker 2:Wow, look good for 36. And not that 36 is old, but you look good, I would have said about. I guess it's close, I'm getting old now. I'm going to be 29 next month. Like okay, how old is it? Alexa 30.
Speaker 2:I was like, okay, that's actually pretty close to my age. Yeah, so that happens, you figure this out and you get these. You have this, papa Joy, is it? Mm-hmm, papa Joy? You have Papa Joy in your corner, rooting you on, checking in every once in a while, pushing you further, and so you, you ended up away from your ex. Now where does this story join? Like, what is the gap between you meeting your new man?
Speaker 2:before you moved and you coming to this moment of growth. Okay, like, how did accounting come in? Where is it? Where is the gap?
Speaker 1:So when we moved here, when we were planning to move here, everything was just falling in place. It's like it's ridiculously fast and it was like ridiculously like, why is this so easy? You know, like I found a job, like right away, at Sierra Central Credit Union. Okay. And then you know, and then, but because boxing is my first love, I kept on googling it, googling it like, where can I find boxing here, when can I find boxing here? And I found a place. Have you heard about Victor's gym here in Rebel? No, Okay, so.
Speaker 2:so I found- I haven't lived here in 10 years. So, I'm not that familiar Buildings. The buildings are the same, the names are different, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, this was like when I found him, he was just like starting. Like he doesn't have anything, you know, like he was just really starting. Just in a built, just had a room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was just like he has the space but he doesn't have anything. So it was kind of like good you know, like we. Then I started like working with him like privates, one-on-one, and then we, we built the friendship and then he, he taught me like a lot about boxing that I didn't know from San Francisco, you know, cause I always like cross train, I go to like gyms everywhere so I can learn a lot of things, you know, but I have my own technique.
Speaker 2:But I want like mixed stuff. You know You're not just isolating, you're not like I just do boxing or you're doing mixed martial arts. You're trying to learn well-rounded.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, but but my focus at that time is really boxing, cause I really love boxing. So and then that's when I kind of like we grew together that you know that gym and stuff. But in time, like this is the thing, when you're, when you love what you do, sometimes you don't, you don't realize that you're giving too much.
Speaker 2:Oh, trust me, you know like what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:It's like and then sometimes you get burnt out because you don't get compensated the way you're supposed to be, you know, because you just love what you do and you think that you should do do more and more, and more and more, and then at the end of the day, you find yourself burnt out because you don't. You're not getting anything out of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's why and even if you, even there's different kinds of burnout, Like I didn't mean to interrupt your story, but like when I, when you said that, I'm thinking like so I love what I do, I do what I love done it since I was 15. This is all I ever done. The only thing I ever paid taxes on is being an iron worker and welding, and finally I got to take it to the highest levels currently, but I got burned out by loving it more than I love my body.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:And injuries Like currently I'm rehabbing a shoulder surgery. That's why I'm here. That's why we're here.
Speaker 2:I've been off work for five months now because of that and I pushed it till I could not lift my like, till I couldn't work, and I was like, and I just kept pushing it out and, granted, there's finance and all this stuff, but I was like there was a year it's been injured for at least two to three years Like there was time. And I could have done things different. I just head down, don't give a shit. I'm pursuing this. And so.
Speaker 2:I put it above my own body, above my health. And that was the burnout. I got to the point where I was compensated justly, but and maybe that motivated me to push through my body you know, maybe I came to the right time where the compensation started gaining and my body started breaking.
Speaker 2:But because of that, maybe that was the reason. But in my heart I just love it absolutely and I know when I go back I'm gonna hurt myself again. I know it's not even a question, it's just a matter of when. This time I made it eight years from surgery. I've had five so far. I made it eight years and three of them have been due to the job and I've, yeah, to the same surgery. I made it eight years. I was like, okay, that's pretty good and so hopefully I can get 10, you know, but who knows? I mean, it really is a gamble. So I'm actually in a transition, but that's for a different story. But yeah.
Speaker 1:Like for me. But at first, like the first two years was really good. We build like relationship and then my ex-boyfriend was having a friendship with him too and stuff like that. But me and my ex we didn't work out. It was a pretty bad situation. He left like he left like without anything, like without saying anything. What? Yeah, and then I was planning to fight that, like last year, like I was planning to fight 2023. And that was 2022, when he left Thanksgiving day right.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was planning to fight 2023, but then I had a stroke.
Speaker 2:I'll fight this guy.
Speaker 1:No, but it's okay.
Speaker 2:Left on Thanksgiving. Yeah, he left on Thanksgiving, so you had a stroke.
Speaker 1:I had a stroke the third day Like okay, see, he left on Wednesday there's Friday.
Speaker 2:At 35,. You had a stroke.
Speaker 1:Yes, it was a mild stroke. I couldn't move, like the right side of my body, and that's when I kind of deteriorate, like my, like I wanted to fight so bad, but then because of the stroke, my energy, my stamina is not the same, you know, like I'm having chest pains all the time and stuff like that. So. But then I was still working. I was still working for this gym that I was working at, and then, because of the separation and because of the stroke, it was just overwhelming and then I feel like I wasn't getting compensated as much as I was working.
Speaker 2:So it was like all in one, and then my grandma died, you know like my close grandma died, so this is all very recent, within the last year.
Speaker 1:Yes, so it's everything in one. So I feel like that kind of like what's the reason why I fall out of the other gym that I was working at? Because you know, like I do the county, I clean the place.
Speaker 2:So you got three job titles or more you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Maybe more yeah.
Speaker 2:Essentially to the point where you're like this is what an owner should do.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Because you're taught yeah.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and there's like a lot of people that's watching my work from social media, you know, from like work and the people work, I mean the people coming to the gym see it.
Speaker 1:And yeah, yes, and then there's also like this thing called USA Boxing, which is like it kind of make the boxing world small, Like everybody knows, everyone, you know what I mean. So yeah, so they see my work. And then one of the coaches in Reading kind of saw it and then, you know, like he asked me if I can teach, coached his gym too.
Speaker 2:But so there was an invite.
Speaker 1:It was an invite, not looking for an invite. An invite, yes.
Speaker 2:And then he, kind of one of those like they saw this, another like Papa Joy.
Speaker 1:Like they saw it, I got to perform Exactly and then. But but my other gym, the one that I'm working at at that time, won't allow me what? Yeah, that was weird, right? Because? Because for me, if you want your coach to grow, you you're going to let as long as it doesn't yeah the schedule right. So I was like, oh, I'm teaching Tuesday, thursday here, I can teach Monday, wednesday, you know whatever, but it won't let me Whoa. So it was kind of like weird. Yeah, that is weird so that is in her.
Speaker 2:That's weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then when?
Speaker 2:so what did you do?
Speaker 1:So what I did is, you know, like I just, I just stayed, I just stayed and I brushed off the invitation.
Speaker 2:I don't do good with that. Yeah, but someone puts me in that spot, yeah.
Speaker 1:But I felt I'm comfortable for a very long time, like a month, you know like months and I started elephant.
Speaker 2:For sure yes.
Speaker 1:And that's that's when I thought about it. It's like if, if I want myself to really grow, I got to get out of this situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's what it was a contractual or no, it was just like, whatever you know, like he's just like if you go make more, if you go hustle and you try to provide for your family, you can't work here.
Speaker 1:Exactly Wow. Exactly. Just a hate, the things that the things that I hear about is that I fired her because she did. I told her to do something that she didn't do.
Speaker 2:Like that's the word out there you know, but of course they're going to go slander you yes.
Speaker 1:It was happening for a few months after I left, you know. But moving forward, I worked with this person that invited me to do the coaching and stuff like that. And this then would just like, because I want to, I want, for example, like we sit down like this and I would like tell him like I want to learn this, I want to learn that. You know. Ok, let's do it. He's going to bring me to like Jim and Chico, or Jim here, jim there.
Speaker 2:Exposure.
Speaker 1:Yes To like learn more and exposure and stuff like that. So with a short period of time that I was working for him, I did so much more than two years of the other.
Speaker 2:Makes sense yeah.
Speaker 1:And then that's when I realized that I am going to grow here, yeah, Like he gave me rice bros here in red blood, like, just like that. Like you want to teach, teach.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:He saw, he saw the potential.
Speaker 2:He saw the talent. Yeah, yeah so those are the people you want to be around. Yeah for sure. Yep, Exactly.
Speaker 1:And then now, and we just started like working together from, like, let's say, april last year, and then now we're having an amateur fight on April 27.
Speaker 2:Really. Yes, that's cool.
Speaker 1:USA Boxing Certified.
Speaker 2:I've had some. I've had some of my my people fight. I've put some. Yeah, I know that that's cool. It's cool thing to watch people train in your gym. Yes, and go, fight and perform.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Put the stuff that you not that I taught them, but I was in the class learning with them, that my partner taught them and yeah it was. It's cool. That's going to be a cool experience for you.
Speaker 1:And that's when we realized that you know like we're growing too Like with that, that that short period of time, an hour a day, in Reading like, and it's only 7pm.
Speaker 2:Right yeah. Imagine if we have twice a week in Reading, or once. So it's okay, I know it's once here.
Speaker 1:So for teens and adults it's Monday to Thursday 7pm, okay, and then women's in Reading is only Fridays at 6.30. And then women's here is Wednesdays every 7pm. So over there I teach Mondays the 10, 10, 7.
Speaker 2:So you got a full schedule. Yes, every day.
Speaker 1:Every day. So, but the thing is that, if you think about it, we're only operating 7pm every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, you're only looking at seven hours.
Speaker 1:If it's seven day or six or seven hours, mm-hmm A week, yes, and then our women's class is only twice a week and it's separate, like it's in red, left and redding. So basically it's just once a week there, once a week here and our youth.
Speaker 2:Is that because of the Space. Yeah, because of the location.
Speaker 1:Yes, Because they're using it from this time like Jiu-Jitsu people and stuff like that right.
Speaker 2:And that's Rice Bros is strictly Jiu-Jitsu right, Mm-hmm yeah.
Speaker 1:But we're operating in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So what we're thinking about is to separate ourselves from them so we can have our own space and coach four, five, six, seven, yeah, and we can coach anytime we want.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We can have privates anytime we want, because the more time and days we spend with our student, the more they would excel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. And you need that space, you need the ability to build a foundation. You have to build a foundation. Mm-hmm, and once a week is not a foundation here right, and then an hour a day is not a fit. You're cutting out so many people.
Speaker 1:Yes, so many people, exactly. And then we would go to like gyms in Sacramento and Oregon and we will see these kids that fight, that they train every day for three hours you know, and then that's why they're so late.
Speaker 2:They come in the morning hit a Jiu-Jitsu in the morning, intermediate Jiu-Jitsu, and then they're hitting Muay Thai or kickboxing You've got a variety to where they can become well-rounded in your facility.
Speaker 1:So that's what I was like we were thinking about to mold good fighters, we need more time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:That's where we're at right now. We're looking for buildings. We're looking, you know, and because we really want, we would also do scholarship, if your kid has talent, because we're going to do tryouts and stuff.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, ok. So if your kid is a natural, this is going to be like a team. Yes, we're trying to build a team? Yes, ok.
Speaker 1:So we're doing like because right now it's just me and him. It's just that you know like we have volunteers here and there, but you know like we want someone that could volunteer, that could put their time like consistently, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dedicated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dedicated exactly, and then it's hard, like nowadays. It's really hard, but we're working on that too. You know, like, oh, if you volunteer, you get free training, you know, and you can have your own privates and you can get 100% of that profit, you know. Yeah. That's how you're going to get your money, but we cannot pay you as of right now. Just like what you told me earlier, it's like hard because we're starting.
Speaker 2:If you have the passion, you're looking for that person.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The person that's doing it for the dream. Yes, that sees a vision.
Speaker 1:Yes, they're going to be good at it, and then eventually it's going to pay off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the way I almost touched on this earlier, but it's the same concept with this Like and I learned this through my success in my career, but it took. Oh yeah, you can go ahead, those will go right there, and it's this page right here. So, oh, I was talking. What was I saying? Oh, how long it takes to become successful, and overnight success. They always say it's 20 years, but I'm going to say anything Like, if you look at people on YouTube, go before 2020, because 2020 was an accelerator.
Speaker 2:That's an anomaly right. Everybody's on YouTube 24, seven a day, or maybe not, but they found it because they already went through all the Netflix, all the content they could absorb. And they're still stuck at home. So now they're hitting YouTube and these channels just blew up in two years and I was still out there working, so I missed that. I came when everyone went back to work. Then I was like, hey, I can, let's try this, but before that, if you look at like let's just say podcast or anything, I followed people that were organic and I watch them grow from 5,000 subs all the way to a million, two million.
Speaker 2:Now this guy I follow, he's got four million. And that wasn't a matter of six years now. I think six or seven, and so I'm thinking the whole time I'm going. I don't care what I see now, as long as I keep doing it consistently. I haven't been as consistent because my job is taking me out of state and whatnot. But consistent 10 years. If I'm at 10 years and I'm still not doing it, all right, I'll pack it up.
Speaker 2:But, at 10 years. If I can give myself 10 years to become successful, something will happen. I'll start making revenue somehow, and that's all I'm looking for. I just want to be able to pay for my own leg legs. Trying to feed my dicks in here, and so that's kind of my mindset when I started this was knowing it's going to fail and just continuing to claw at it for 10 years.
Speaker 2:And if at 10 years it's still failing. Then I'll give up. Then I'll say I tried everything I could. I put in the time. This wasn't for me, but that's the same thing. You have to do with the any dream right? My dream was the welding and the this, and to build these magnificent structures and buildings and do things that people from around the world will come to see and enjoy and just bring joy to people around the world, and I did that 10 fold, so that allows me.
Speaker 2:When I start to have that doubt, I go no, it's been done before by my like. I've done it before, I can do this again. And that, yeah, it'll be there, You'll have it, it'll happen.
Speaker 1:I love some things that it's going to happen. And then you know it's also like you are, what you work for. So if you you know, if you work hard and you just don't quit, it's going to come this in, like I mean I'm missing one.
Speaker 2:Okay, it'll be in here.
Speaker 1:It's not here. That's the yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, these are Lego, actual Lego trays.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:Lego trays. They did a collab with Target and they have sets of three. I got them. They were retired. I had to get them on eBay. Um, but, like you're experiencing that now with Tim and this gym, and he's recognizing the work put in and he saw the talent and now it's coming to fruition and you're at the point where, um, you're how many years into practicing?
Speaker 1:Since 2018. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's six years now right yeah. And uh, or coming into the sixth year. So, yeah, you're halfway there and you're seeing about halfway. You start to see that the incremental it's not incremental. Now it's becoming leaps. Yeah. And now you're at a point where you made a leap, and now you see there's a different ceiling.
Speaker 1:Exactly, but you know it's a risk too, it's scary, it's scary. It's really scary.
Speaker 2:Every time I get in my car to drive across the country. I've driven hundreds of thousands of miles, hundreds. I've gone coast to coast, I lost track Probably five or six times and we got north to south and east to west several times, and I've driven through the majority of the country, at least 30 plus states.
Speaker 1:What do you drive?
Speaker 2:Right now I got a Toyota I've driven. Every time I drove across the country I had a different car. So, I've had Florida. I lost three vehicles because of accidents, and so that sucked. And then yeah, three, and then coming out here I still had one of the broken vehicles. So then I got a truck, but then I put too much. I had to cut ties with this truck. I'd never had a Dodge. We're a Mo-Part family and that's the parent company of Dodge and Chrysler. Not anymore but it used to be yeah. Mo-part, Mo-Part. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Okay you know it yeah.
Speaker 2:And so it never had been the case. And this truck, let me down, left me. I towed it three times. I've never towed a vehicle ever for mechanical failure and towed it three times. And one time I was working on a border of Washington, Oregon, and I'm 60 miles away from the nearest gas station. I'm in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:I probably at this point in 40 miles and my truck dies and I have to park it on the side of the road. But there's a jurisdiction issue, right. So I have AAA but they won't pick it up because it's in Washington and the nearest city in Washington is another 45 miles away, and then down this road and then in Oregon. So they're like we can't get you an Oregon tow truck to go to Washington. So I didn't, and then it was during COVID. So like you can't drive out there, I'm like, well, I don't even know how to get there. Like I don't have, you can't get an Uber to the middle of nowhere Like what am I supposed to do?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, long story short, I got it figured out. I got it and, yeah, at that point I started going with dealers and I was looking for a car, a truck, because I have a fifth wheel already. So then I started driving trucks again, and then we got together, alexa and I, and she drove her car into the ground ate through both sides of the brake rotor. The brake rotor was like a knife's edge. I'd never seen anything like it. And she was like, oh, it's a car. I was like, no, there was a lot of screeching and squealing. You should have replaced that a long time ago. So we just cut ties with that and I traded my truck in for two Volvos. I love Volvos.
Speaker 2:They're my, they're the best car. The engineering is superb. It was my first car and it'll be the only car that I will. I mean, I have a Toyota now also great, but I'm a Volvo guy to the core.
Speaker 2:And so we got two and then now I had to prepare for surgery and stuff and we had to start downsizing and then we got these cars. We have paid off and I like my little Toyota actually it's small, I'm not, I'm too big for it. Like I have a seat all the way back and my knees are still hunched up a little bit and when we put the car seat in it I can't sit in the passenger seat. My knees are to my chest.
Speaker 2:So it's not really a practical car for me and a baby, but it gets by and the mileage is incredible. It's getting over 30. So for what it is, I it's definitely served its purpose. But yeah, I've driven any kind of multiple vehicles across the country. That's crazy. I like being on the road. We used to rodeo growing up and so we're in and we, like I said, we weren't like well off wealthy, but we had enough money to go do road trips.
Speaker 2:And we had enough family in Nevada and Arizona and it was we could just drive and we had a, even our trailer. We had a 1970 something prowler, just bumper pool trailer and the door. Like my dad had to reframe it and my mom had to reupholster the seats and stuff.
Speaker 2:And it was this tiny little, just janky trailer, but it worked and because of it we got to go travel and camp and so it was one of the best things, best experiences. But yeah, it was something, and so we did a lot of road trips and so then I just kind of wanted to find a job that I could travel. And you know, I was here in 08, you got here in 05. But you didn't have your family to see the downfall of 08. 08 and everybody around here and everybody at the time was buying these giant beautiful houses, building them, construction companies everywhere Everyone's just raking it in party and having good time. Money's like nothing to these. My dad's a mechanic, so it wasn't affecting us and I saw all this stuff just go away Vacant houses, this and that happened and companies going under and friends getting divorced because of the houses and no jobs and creating problems at home.
Speaker 2:So I saw all that and I wasn't very old at 08. I was 13. And so I was like that's in so 14, high school, 15, you're thinking about what you're going to do. And so I was like I need to find something, like my dad, where it's a commodity, like you have to have it. It's what they call that what they call in COVID.
Speaker 1:Essential. Yeah, you gotta be an essential worker.
Speaker 2:And which I did. I had an insulated career because during COVID I never stopped working either. And that made the most money of my life. During that period, because so many guys were out of work, you could demand your wages. And because they were getting as much money as you would get, working 50 hours a week at standard salary to sit on the couch.
Speaker 2:But the thing is we're not putting any in the backend, because I'm in the union, so we're getting a pension, health insurance, annuity, vacation pay, and so they weren't doing any of that. They're just looking at the checks. So they lost two years of all that pension and all that other credit and so anyways, and they really screwed our companies. We have a contractual obligation If you don't meet your manpower needs, they have a right to go hire non-union employees because, you can't fill your obligation.
Speaker 2:And so that put us in a bind and they just pretty much had to pay like a premium to get people to go to work. So it was good for me and I still would rather not had to be in that position, because I just wish people would. I don't know, there's like a if you can't. You know, like in the union, you know directly where your money comes from. You're in a joint agreement with, like the guy, your facilitator, right?
Speaker 2:The person with the building and the person that owns business, right, so you have this relationship with him and you can't hurt that. Like you have to curate that relationship because you guys work together and so that's how we signed contracts with these companies. We have obligation and I'm like, okay, one thing if you work for McDonald's and you know they're a billion dollar company and who cares, right, you're not getting paid well, we get paid well, we have an obligation. It's no different. Just because your name's not on the contract for the business Doesn't mean you're not partially, in a sense, like an owner, right Cause if you fail, or if they fail, you fail, cause when you come back to renegotiate and you didn't honor your side, they're going to screw you. Like you can go to a contract negotiation and lose money.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the last ever since I've been in. We get raises every time we contract every new contract to raise a raise every year we're getting every six months we get a raise and every three years they resign and we get big raise and it's allotted through three months or three years. They'll doled out. But if we really screwed them, or we didn't do well and or they didn't do well because we didn't fill the contracts, then, they're going to come to us or we abuse their equipment what's happened to?
Speaker 2:and they're going to be like, hey, look at all this stuff that you guys did to disrespect the company, right, and in a sense disrespecting our contract and ourselves. And I couldn't understand, like how can you not be accountable for something that you are directly connected to, the source of your income? You see the owners of the companies on the jobs. They come and do you know? And not just you see, oh, there's an owner. No, they come and talk to us. Yeah, we see we have a shake their hand. Like how can you not?
Speaker 2:Like it's one thing, if the owner of McDonald's was coming down and shaking your hand, you might feel a little more obligated to do something for him, right, and it's like I don't understand and they didn't give a shit and so it really just spoke kind of lost a little bit of hope and humanity.
Speaker 2:I guess, in a sense, like it changed the way I saw people, because if these people don't believe in it and will, like, I mean, it's just, you just saw what would happen in a socialist society where the government feeds you, Even when you're making a lot of money and you're directly connected to the source of your income. People don't feel obligated, they don't feel like they need to hold up their end of the bargain. They're just willing to take that free money and be lazy. And I couldn't believe it. And we are like we hold ourselves as iron workers in a high regard, as one of the hardest working people in all of trades. We have the most dangerous job. It's like that's something we pride ourselves in. And I just saw that fate like disappear overnight and it was. I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2:And yeah. So now, and I know those people by name, that didn't you know like I know some of them by name and it's like wow, okay, that's the kind of character you have. Yeah. So, yeah, it's disheartening.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It happens. You know, like, like, like what I said, you know like, as much as like people say like oh, there's a lot of good people, there's also a lot of bad people.
Speaker 2:And I think a good person thinks like maybe these people didn't think that would ever happen because they never knew an opportunity like that would arise, right? So maybe you don't understand that you would be like you haven't had your you know not, maybe they never got tested. In that sense, you know what I mean. They weren't ever.
Speaker 2:Their character was never tested to the point where they had to make that decision Exactly. Yeah, I didn't want, I don't, I don't want to take free money. Oh well our taxes paid, well, not the extra. Okay, you pay into your unemployment, but you're not getting the extra. That's all. Now, we're paying for it.
Speaker 1:The inflation, the mortgage rates.
Speaker 2:we're paying for it now and I'm like how are you so short-sighted that you can't look and you know, to the next year and see that this is not. It's never worked that way. The banks got the bailouts, we paid the price. For years, the same thing is going to happen now. Who knows how long it'll take. Yep. But yeah, so that really was discouraging. I don't know where I was going with that. Just a little bit of a rant, yeah, yeah. Oh it sucks.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's why it's everything so expensive. It's really so expensive now. It's like oh, and it.
Speaker 2:That should have been the moment where people were like okay, this is the difference between America and these socialist societies. What is this? Oh, so these are stickers because I already own this. I don't want to put the stickers on this one because I have other plans. I'm going to build something else out of it.
Speaker 1:Oh, so I just go like this right.
Speaker 2:Yep, so yeah, there's a sticker book is in the back, I just tucked it away. Oh. Cause when you rebuild them with something else, you have to be conscious of where you place certain stickers, cause, say, there was like two of those and it's supposed to be like these pieces where there's one on each side, but this one has a Qantas sticker and this one's blank on the next build, so I'm just going to leave them off.
Speaker 1:So is this right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just like that. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Coming together yeah.
Speaker 1:Hey.
Speaker 2:So what have you been? What kind of progress have you been making when it comes to where are you in your journey of finding that next place?
Speaker 1:Well, we just started doing it, but the thing is that it was weird because we like we started like a week ago, right, and then everyone was coming to our classes. We had like our biggest class last Monday, which is like almost 30 people.
Speaker 2:So that's almost too big.
Speaker 1:Yes. So I was like, oh my God, you know like it seems like the universe is trying to push us like, hurry up, hurry up, do it. Yeah. So it's like we can't even fit in this gym.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at that point, like without the, without the growth and the near future, you can get to a point where people will, they're not. You're not getting the enough attention because there's too many people in the class, so then they're going to drop right.
Speaker 2:And then it could even go to the point not that it would, but worst case, you could get to the point where they don't. That was their first experience and then, because of where we live, they don't have a lot of opportunities and they never pursue it because they didn't have enough, which is not. You know what do you do?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You want the growth, but the growth comes. That's interesting yeah. That's a position. That's an interesting position.
Speaker 1:That's why we're like trying to like. I feel like there's a lot of opportunities in running. You know, I feel like, because it's also closer to Oregon, there's like one that's really big in Oregon. It's called Spartan boxing.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he helps us a lot too, like.
Speaker 2:Is that in Medford? Yeah?
Speaker 1:He, he, he, he. You know like he brainstormed with us and stuff. He's very helpful. We're buying the ring from him. Oh, yeah, so we're actually going to have a boxing ring.
Speaker 2:That's cool, yep we already have bags.
Speaker 1:We have like 10 bags and we're ready, we're ready.
Speaker 2:So you're stocked, you just need a facility.
Speaker 1:Yes, like a place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's cool, yep, and so that's a long journey. It is, it is. Yeah, and like, did you always know you wanted to pursue this or was it because of that? Like, I know that he invested in you doing this, but what made you say I want to you have C membership.
Speaker 1:Oh, um, like what I said, like my, my main motive is just to be good at fighting because I like finding.
Speaker 2:So that was it.
Speaker 1:So you were just trying to take yourself off the street and into the okay, I wanted to like, I want to lose weight because I was really fat.
Speaker 2:I remember, yeah, you mentioned that.
Speaker 1:I was fat, and then I just want to put my my mind somewhere else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so you said you're bored with the regular. Just the monotony of a regular gym yeah. And you had this motivation from being fat and trying to get back.
Speaker 1:Oh, and I had dated a guy that was into boxing and then he was teaching me and I couldn't get it, oh, and he told me that, oh, you're so like you're not going to, you're not going to ever learn this cause you're just so slow. You know, like, but when I first got in here, um, in the United States, I never speak English. I understand, but I don't speak incredible. So in my mind I can learn everything you know like I have that, that idea.
Speaker 1:But sometimes I get like unmotivated, you know, because that time I was fat, you know I don't have the stamina and stuff, but in my mind I know that I can learn.
Speaker 2:So that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Oh man, he told me that he told me, like you're, so you don't have the mobility, you can't move cause you're too fat and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:How do you think I'm going to get there?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Keep showing up.
Speaker 1:But in my mind, why are you even with me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, if you're going to say that to me and we're together, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then that's it. So when that happened, I was like you know what, whatever.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Yeah, and then the things people have the nerve to say out loud. I can never understand it.
Speaker 1:I can never understand it, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you're like, you think I don't know that, like I mean, that's why I'm here, to get there.
Speaker 1:Yep, Yep. And that's like sometimes, it's like the the really painful situation in your life will make you motivated.
Speaker 2:I'm confused on where this piece goes.
Speaker 1:It goes here, I think Right here here, yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:Hmm, what do we miss? What's it stick to?
Speaker 1:What the heck.
Speaker 2:I think it goes ah ah yeah, there we go. I think that's it. Then you lay it down and yeah. Oh, yep, it doesn't. Yeah, because that gives it the contour oh. There we go Okay, yeah, I was confused for a second. Yeah, it was just visible because you see, that piece looks like it's yeah interesting Okay.
Speaker 1:So it does go down like that, right, yeah, yeah, that's right, that was confusing, but what's-.
Speaker 2:They're just building it up they're doing it like this they're doing it to where you build them together. Oh. And then you lay it down I see that's confusing cuz you can't really see even this one like where does it go? You don't see it.
Speaker 1:So where do you see yourself after five years? Let's see.
Speaker 2:Interesting. I was just talking to Lex about this so I mentioned this earlier. I'm transitioning, so my apprenticeship is accredited through the junior college in the region. So it's the next town over in Gresham, and the halls in Portland. This is in Gresham, so it's accredited. I actually have 60 units of college credits straight A college credits, for this program and you only need 90 to get your associates. So I'm going to pursue my and then I already did my placement test. That's no problem, those are out of the way. I just have to do the 30 credits to get that. So with and then the way this school is, it's quarterly.
Speaker 2:So, in one year I could finish the whole program and have an associates by the end of next year and or I mean probably by the spring of next year. I could have the associates and then pursue, go, continue on and get a construction management degree. So essentially there's a way to do that through the union and lots of training classes, which they only do once a year, and you might have to travel to it and it would take you years to get the amount of skills you need. And this is just going to make sure it's a focused intent and it's not going to be. It will be more. It'll learn all the skills at once. That's what I want to make sure I do not.
Speaker 2:Oh, you learned how to use Microsoft Excel this and then in six months you're going to learn how to use that and then you're going to go learn how to do estimating bidding jobs next year when that program comes to your town and so that they set it up that way the union did to for people like me that want to pursue further. In that way you'll have a union man running the job, picking the contractors when they go to bid. I'll work for the general contractor and I'll get to choose what companies we hire. That's my goal to get in the office, sit at a desk, go out in the field when the weather's nice and not in the rain, cause I got a weld in the rain and it sucks. You're getting shocked, everything. It's terrible. It's getting rained on it's really you're not weld.
Speaker 2:Metal doesn't go well with water and so, yeah, that's the plan, cause I know, like I said, I'm going to get hurt again, so I just need to get out of. It's a slow transition. It'll take me about three years and then I don't really know how to do that. Alexa really wants to go back to Florida. Since I was a child, I dreamed of building. Everything was predestined.
Speaker 2:I knew at 10, I was going to get married and have two kids. I knew that. I wasn't like that's a dream. I hope it. I knew it. As sure as I was like this will happen. It was. It was just something that I don't know. It came to me and I knew this was a fact and then, when I pursued welding at 15, yeah, it'll be these ones now We'll dump that in there. When I pursued welding, I saw it. I went to this thing, so I had an ag mechanics class which is just woodworking.
Speaker 2:I did the entire year of school in the first semester so I did every project. I started doing projects on the side for the teacher, and so then he was like, okay, well, you're not supposed to do this till next year, but you want to go start doing the welding program because you already finished the whole school years, so let's do that. And because of that they took me to this thing called arc exposure at Butte College and they got people from all the leading companies Miller Electric, lincoln Electric, hobar, all these welding companies that create welding machines, not like actual construction companies, but the manufacturers and got us exposed to all kinds of things I'd never seen in my life. And in that moment I knew, oh, I've barely ever won two raffles ever. I won my first raffle and I got a $300 welding hood and that was it.
Speaker 2:That was one of those moments where it was like, okay, this everything's falling in place. And then I worked on it. I grew up on a ranch, so there was always something broken and we raised rodeo bulls, so they're destructive. My grandpa was like you got a hood.
Speaker 2:You know how to weld, let's go to work, and so I got put right to work and then I overachieved and that finished that whole program in a year. And then the next couple of years I just did side jobs at the school for myself and for others, and I just knew that was what I was going to do. So, the same way I knew I was having kids, I pursued this career and, like I told you, when I regot, got back with Alexa, I told her I did everything I told you I was going to do, and more.
Speaker 2:And that's just the way it's happened, so I don't really know. The only there's only two things left on the list is to get a house, and at that age, somewhere in high school, I knew I wanted a container home. I want to build my own house at a storage containers and those are really beautiful modern architecture and you can you can do all sorts of cool stuff, and I wanted it on a hillside in Oregon. Yep, Northern Northern Oregon.
Speaker 1:So you have everything planned out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for decades now. So I, that's my dream. But I also have a wife now and you know I have to. She's on board, but I have to make sure, you know, we actually at least like okay, you do want to move back to Florida, but let's just feel this out. So it's not a big option, but it is an option, and I have my father and my brother and sister out there, so I'm always a little leaning that way.
Speaker 1:But if you're just asked me.
Speaker 2:Without regard to anybody, I'm going to stay in Oregon, I'm going to build this house I've looked at land and then in the next three years that's where I'll be, and then in five years I'll be running companies. That's the plan. Three years to get the degree a year, to be a junior and then boom.
Speaker 1:So how are you going to match that to whatever she wants, since you guys are?
Speaker 2:So there's been decisions that I've allowed, like things have, we've done things and she doesn't. I don't know, I don't know what your, if you're religious or anything, but I'm a Christian and she's a Christian, we're Christians, and there's a hierarchy to the marriage, to the house, and it goes God, husband, wife, child and it's been very much visibly apparent that she can't make household decision and it's not anything, it's just the way it's structured. Like when I will allow her or let her pursue these, like, okay, let's do what you think is best. Instead, it's not best and it's taking us back, it's not, it's not where we should have been, and that's always Monday morning quarterback, like, oh, we should have done this. So now we're at a point where she's like you know what? I've learned these lessons. I'm not going to fight you so much on this, I'm just going to let you lead the family, and so with that, I have to be more considerate right.
Speaker 2:Instead of because now I have that responsibility 100% surrendered to where I'm like. Okay. So, now she's not. She's going to go with it. So I need to make sure I take extra time and extra thought and let her know that I'm truly listening and hearing what she wants and actually like, weigh the pros and cons and, you know, just do it in a way that's methodical. And so.
Speaker 2:I, I would bet money we stay on the West coast, stay in Oregon, but you never really know. So I will let that. Yeah, that's the only thing in the air. But definitely going to be running companies, that's no doubt, and I can do that same, just like with the other job. I can do that anywhere and I'll be. I don't want to be too far away from building high rises and all this cool. You know heavy structural steel, and then I'll still be a book hearing union member, if there's any like incredible jobs that pop up like they're. Like I've been able to. I got to work for NASA, I've worked for SpaceX, I've helped send rockets to to space.
Speaker 2:The rocket they're going to use to send people to the moon. I got to work on that. I got to work on the one that sent people back to space for the first time on US soil in 50 years Oregon ducks. I helped rebuild that stadium. I've got to do a lot of these things. Like I just wanted to do one thing that may that people traveled to see. I did that at 19. So I didn't know what to go, where to go from there, and that's kind of where I ended up in that gym and I kind of just spiral like I achieved my life's goal. What?
Speaker 1:do? I do now.
Speaker 2:And then they call those like legacy jobs. Like every iron workers dream is to build a stadium, a skyscraper, a bridge, and that's pretty much it. And then all that like NASA and Disney and all that stuff. You don't even really think about needing to do that, but I got to help build the Star Wars theme park, so I don't really have any like career goals anymore.
Speaker 2:I've already reached the peak, I guess, and it's just so. Now it's a it's more personal growth to see where I can go, and so that's kind of where we're at. I got you. I was looking at the whole time. Yeah, so I don't know. Five years, another kid for sure we have one she's. You've met her right? Yeah, lots several times. She's a character getting wilder every day I know I would like to have some.
Speaker 2:I have some cows here and, but I'd like to have my own like 50 acres in the woods, and have some cows in Oregon and then maybe run them here and just build my herd and do that as a side thing, while I go to work.
Speaker 2:And yeah, I don't know. I would like to get to the point where Alexa doesn't have to work, and that's another reason besides my physical extra. I continue can continue doing this like living without getting injured again. But also I want to make sure she can be at home. My mother was home. I always had to stay at home.
Speaker 2:Mom, she's sick, so that was also why but, it was a type of life that everybody should be able to experience and it's very unfortunate that people can't. I had someone at every sports game. My mother was there, always there. Everything we did, my mom was there. You know, if, like me, and Alexa will have to work, we would go to the houseboat. My dad would be home working so we could go to the houseboat while we're up there. So if I didn't have my mom to take us, if they both had to work, we wouldn't get that opportunity.
Speaker 2:We would have never had the ability to buy a houseboat, because when we use it, so, we'd have just been that family that rents one every week, I mean every summer for a week or two. And that would be all right, and I don't want to be the family that, oh, we have our summer vacation. I want to be able to spend every weekend as a vacation. I want them to be able to experience life every week. That's good.
Speaker 2:My dad worked four tens, so if he didn't have a side job he was available, and so, um, yeah, I had had a lot of. I want to be there. That's really important, and I didn't have my biological dad, so I think I mean, that's the only thing that's important in life. Um, I don't know you.
Speaker 2:I briefly mentioned your father, but I don't know what that felt like if he was there a lot when you were younger or if your parents were together, but even at 17 to be like, I guess I'm going to have to do this on my own, that's a big jump and, as a man, you need to have your father. Any, anybody needs their father, um, but especially as a man, um, you don't see yourself in anybody, right? I? Don't I can't look at my mom and see how I'm supposed to be. I don't know who I'm supposed to be. I don't have a man, I don't have an image to follow.
Speaker 2:So then you end up a lot lost and you end up giving that, that role, to people that don't really deserve it, or learning from people that you shouldn't.
Speaker 2:You know and getting that attention and diverting it, and it causes conflict in the house, like with my mother, and hey, you can't. This is not who you need to hang out with. That man is not right. But you don't see that because you're a kid, you're naive. You just see whatever qualities that you're looking for, you that's who that's. You end up subconsciously choosing to only see those qualities.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:And so, uh, that is my number one goal in life. I actually just went through an intensive um. I don't know if I've mentioned this. This is kind of personal, but I am uh. Another reason we didn't make it was I'm bipolar. I was diagnosed at uh 2017. And so I was just going through that as we were um in the middle of our relationship.
Speaker 1:What was that? What? What's the symptoms Like? How did you know?
Speaker 2:Uh well, the erratic, wild, reckless lack of care for my own life. Not like I didn't ever have like extreme suicidal or depressive episodes. I was very manic. I just pretty much been manic my whole adult life. And just when you're on that high, anything less feels like you're not alive. But eventually you're gonna realize like, oh, that was a high. That's no different than doing coke or any kind of you know like any kind of. It's no different than doing any like any kind of upper, like anything that's gonna trigger your dopamine. It's no different than living Like people. It's, yeah, it's a high, it's a big high.
Speaker 2:And you feel invincible and so when you come down from that and it's exciting it's intoxicating to others. That is a big thing. That drew Alexa to me and your little life of the party. Everyone wants to hang around, but you have no regard for your own actions. Like I said, no license, insurance, registration. And I drove 3,000 miles across the country and didn't give a shit.
Speaker 2:And I was just like this is gonna work and wasn't paying bills, totally put my life in the tank and I didn't have a relationship with my mother very well and it's yeah, that was a that's an ongoing process, but so I went through that and now, as a father right, I wanna correct I believe in generational curses and that stuff that's done under you you can't pass down Cause they're gonna continue that.
Speaker 1:So Like break the cycle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean you're a cycle breaker. You came to America. You broke the biggest cycle right and I can't imagine how many people were like that's scary. Are you gonna make it? You know there's probably people in your ear saying like this might not be a good idea. You should think it through. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I never listened to those people. I just that's in. You know, a part of it is a a manic delusion, maybe just believing like who get what, what consequences, right. Just jump in who cares? And so, once I got back in, the people it affects the most are the people you're closest to. And.
Speaker 2:I didn't have a mirror to reflect that. In a sense Alexa was the mirror and she was then, and then I was alone again and so I just kind of was doing my own thing and knew that I would never find anyone like her. So I wasn't even letting people really get that attached to me and also knowing I'm moving as soon as the job's over, so sometimes I might have someone stuck around for six months, cause I ended up there for six months.
Speaker 2:But the whole time I was like don't get attached cause I'm leaving, and so I had a real disassociation with people like intimate partners in life and stuff. And so once she came back I just realized I was totally off the leash.
Speaker 2:Like I was just wild and then I was drinking and driving and just fucking getting partying, going to work, doing cocaine out of my hard hat when huddled in the corner, so it doesn't blow away Like just getting fucking crazy and going to work doing mushrooms in the field trying to thread a bolt and the fucking threads are moving. And yeah, drinking I had a guy and you meet a lot of degenerates in my line of work and so when you meet a lot of degenerates it's really appealing to someone, that's crazy and so definitely like fed me in a sense, like those people just got around the wrong people. And when you don't really give a fuck about life, or I didn't think I'd live past 25, that was real.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and not because I thought I was gonna kill myself, just because I didn't give a shit about my life. I didn't care to live past that, I just wanted to live wild. And yeah, I really didn't. And that's crazy to say.
Speaker 2:but now I can't imagine not being like everything that I've done with my family and having a city around and man, thank God I'm still here and yeah, so that happened. I ended up getting medicated over the past. Yeah, so past three years slowly transition, changing meds, getting things right, also having to do a lot of mental growth, and I've always been very insightful about that since a young age, just trying to learn. Like I said, I was lost. I didn't have anyone to learn from, so I had to learn from myself and I put a lot of heart and soul into music. I learned it from lyrics and big into music and the message and pretty much music raised me in a sense and so I just I got down this path and now being hurt, being here, burnt out, broke down, causing havoc again over the last, like being away, is very triggering because I'd never done that with a daughter.
Speaker 2:And in our first year of life is very that's a big deal and I missed a lot of that, and so that changed. Oh, I think we're gonna let me help you out real quick. He's gonna be turned around. There you go. They were just backwards these days oh okay.
Speaker 1:And then.
Speaker 2:So I did this program called IOP, intensive Outpatient Program. So a lot of people that end up there either came from rehab for drug or alcohol abuse and they have a program specifically for that kind of recovery, or people that have mental health issues and spiraled, and a lot of people were there for depression and suicide and some of them even came straight from the hospital to this program.
Speaker 2:But, and some of them had been getting suggested to go this for years by their psychiatrist and therapist and whatnot. I just eagerly jumped on it. I was like, oh, there's an additional. I just came to this place for med management. And they were like we have this program Cause I was telling them how I'm, like I need, like I don't, the people I've found that one's gotta be switched back. Sorry, the psychiat, the mental health in this country. I've been a psychiatrist in one, two, three, four, five, five states, five different states.
Speaker 2:All they wanna do is just give you meds, Like I only had two of them. Evaluate me for bipolar. I just said, hey, I'm bipolar, these are the meds I take. Can you refill them? Hey, I have a little more anxiety. Can I get a different pill for that? That's it. I mean just 30 minutes in there. Oh yeah, come check back in as couple next month, you know.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I had one, not even tell me she disappeared, she just disappeared. I was like, well, can you guys tell me where she went? Is there a doctor? She left me with Like who's gonna refill my meds? And it's really hard in cities to get any kind of healthcare quickly. And so it'll go on those, and so, yeah, that's the level of care they have, and so when I found this place, I let them know. Hey, man, this is what I think.
Speaker 1:There's a space.
Speaker 2:Oh, there'll be more. There'll be more. I'm gonna put the headlights in. But this is good yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, perfect. And so they were like well, that's not us, we have this program and I jumped on it and, man, it was life changing.
Speaker 2:I recommend it to anybody. Alexa doesn't have any mental health problems. I learned so much stuff that she could have learned from and she has anxiety I think a lot of people do but that can be environmental. You know what I mean. It doesn't have to always be a chemical imbalance. Bipolar is a chemical imbalance in the brain has to be medicated as well as therapy. You can't and that's another thing with medication that I've learned during this path is medication is not the sutures, medication is just a band-aid.
Speaker 2:And the sutures are tied together with medication and, like I guess medication would be the balm that keeps it from getting infected and the sutures are the therapy that helps you heal your brain. And so this program was life changing. And anybody out there with mental health, please go ask somebody about an IOP program. Look it up, find some sort of. This was an extensive 10 week program three hours a day, three days a week, 90 hours total life changing. And the people you meet there. You're gonna meet people that you're gonna probably never meet anybody like those people again. And, like you said, there's a lot of people that just as many bad people as good people. But that gave me a little bit of hope that there's a lot of good people out there like the ones I met in this program. And yeah, so that's been a life changer for sure, big time.
Speaker 2:Have you ever had to deal with any kind of like depression or anything or anything like that Anxiety? I know you went through a lot. You were saying you were very lonely when you got here. How did you? Well, first, what was that like? And then how did you cope? Like, how did you learn to cope with that?
Speaker 1:Well, when me and my baby daddy separated, that was the reason why I drink a lot and smoke a lot, because in my head-.
Speaker 2:So you didn't do that before. That was something you picked up, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I wanted to. If you have a broken family and you don't have moms like dad, like broken parents and stuff, you always wanna have that idea of making one yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we had the same vision growing up.
Speaker 1:And then it didn't happen. It broke. So it's really depressing. That's kinda like what made me really broke. I broke down really, really hard, but then, at the same time in time, I started to realize that everything happens for a reason. It gave me my daughter, jara, and I feel like everything that I do now that's good, that's great is because of her.
Speaker 2:That's how I feel.
Speaker 1:Because of the career day.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, I can't forget about that. There's like time I was telling my brother this like a few months ago when he came here. There's like a time where I was in a stop sign and I was driving, my gas was almost empty and I was so broke we couldn't even eat, and I was just like the steering wheel and I was looking like this and then I'm like asking God, that's like, why is this happening to me? Why me, why me? Why is this so difficult? And then now I look back to it it's because of this. You experience that because this is what you're meant for because, if that didn't happen, then I wouldn't have this.
Speaker 2:I wanna it reminds me. I've been mentioning this a few times recently. There's this movie called Tubman or no, sorry, it's called Harriet. It's about Harriet Tubman, and are you familiar? No.
Speaker 2:Okay. So she's this black woman slave and she. There's this underground railroad. Do you know about the underground railroad? How much about American history and slavery? Do you know? Not much. Okay, cool. So there's this woman. I just have to preface that. So there's this woman, Harriet Tubman, and it's called the Underground Railroad. She walked 100 miles and freed herself, just left the plantation or wherever it was she was at, there was a movie about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah, it just came out.
Speaker 2:Have you seen it?
Speaker 1:No, not yet Okay so please go watch that movie.
Speaker 2:It'll make sense and, honestly, your story reminded me of that. Because she frees herself, promises her husband I'm coming back. However long it took for her to get her freedom papers that's what they were called freedom papers so she could go back into the enemy territory where all the slave owners and everything any black person they saw they're going hey, show me your papers. Like an illegal immigrant. They're like hey, I wanna make sure you're allowed to be free. You weren't allowed to be free in this country in a time.
Speaker 1:I think I watched that and so she goes back.
Speaker 2:Her husband remarried and she thought God took her there for her husband to go free. She left with six more people and left him because he had a wife.
Speaker 2:He didn't wanna leave and that's why God sent her there. And she was having this moment in the movie like why, why did you do this? Like I thought this is what you told me to do. What am I doing here? You told me this you promised. And then she leaves and when she gets done, and freed all those people she never lost a single person and hundreds of people she saved and freed, and everyone else. She's the only freedom fighter that ever did that and she was a black woman, some sort of high ranking officer in the Civil War. A black woman. Woman don't have the right to vote and they're fighting for slaves, to free slaves.
Speaker 2:So, first of all, you're not even considered a human being on the wrong side of the line, you're considered property and on top of that you're double property because women are already property. So you gotta put that like. And you got through both those barriers and led army, led soldiers, men, into this battle and it's incredible, and she died an old age.
Speaker 2:It's like wow and that was God's purpose for her and. But she had to lose her family and it looked like there was no tunnel to look for the light and coming along, you know, come full circle. She was able to appreciate all that and kind of what you were saying, like it was for this purpose, just how I thought I was supposed to go to Florida to get a closer connection with my father, which I did and then I left right, thought I had this, I had bought a ring I was gonna propose to her and it just didn't work out and I thought I fucked it up. I was like that was my opportunity, but that's why God put me there, cause that was the foundation that started this life.
Speaker 2:And now I have a daughter and now I have, I'm able to create a better life. And one of the best things I heard in my program someone that only had been there for three days cause everyone's on a different cycle. You can't be like oh yeah, sorry, you have mental health problems and you might kill yourself, but we don't have an opening for three weeks. So as soon as you like, say yes, they'll get you in the next week, as long as it's approved or you can pay for it.
Speaker 1:I can't find this one hold on.
Speaker 2:Right there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I have, I need this one, right? No?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, okay, whoa, okay. So what are we looking for? We're looking for that.
Speaker 1:In this.
Speaker 2:Oh, the clear one, clear one. Oh, that's what happened. These aren't supposed to be that. They're supposed to have a clear one in the back and a clear one by plate. Oh, so you'll have this. Yeah, so where did that go? So you're gonna have, like that, you're gonna have this in the back, have that in the front and bam, there you go. You can duplicate it. Okay, so you're gonna need this and that. Oh, I don't know what we were talking about.
Speaker 1:The program like oh, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So people come and go, which kind of sucks, because you build a bond with the people that were closest to your start date. And then as the new ones come in, like I had a friend that just graduated, I went there with him just to be there, because the people he was with didn't know him. They'd only been there two weeks. So I was like I gotta go Cause it's.
Speaker 2:I didn't feel right. So I took him up there and this girl she goes. I can tell that you're a great father and that you like she affirmed everything I said I was going there for. She affirmed and like confirmed that I had done those things when I was in the process. So that was really really powerful for me and impactful to know like cause. My whole goal going there was to be a better father and a better husband and to break the cycle.
Speaker 1:Break the cycle.
Speaker 2:That was when they asked you, when you get there, like why are you here? And that was my purpose, and that was my goal, and yeah it's really powerful. That's really cool that you found yours in the darkness, in the lowest of lows, yeah.
Speaker 1:I always say that to break the cycle. It's like with my brother. It's like sometimes he blames the childhood and like how he was raised and I said, yeah, so if you're going to blame that and you're going to be affected in a negative way, you're going to end up doing that to your kids and it's going to be a cycle. But, what you want to do is break the cycle.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, to that point, to that end, my father, he left, he wanted me aborted. He left my mom's Christian, thank God, refused to do it. She should have, though by all means, Medical. She has MS. Shouldn't have a baby Nine months bedridden with me. Dad talk about dedication and potentially like really medical, big medical risks, and so she did. Pursued it. I had many times almost died should have died and didn't. I'm here for a purpose.
Speaker 2:And that purpose. You know I believe in I had a great history teacher and I believe in social service, like not social services but serving society and having a purpose. And I think people that pursue things that are a service like boxing right there's a huge service for that and mental health, and like it's a big deal and oh, these are going to have to go this way, that way it can hinge, and so I kind of like your way. Actually I'm going to try that because then it won't move. Man, look at you modifying already. If you do it this way it won't pivot and then that means it'll stay straight and plumb level.
Speaker 1:But can it but see you'll have to move them in. They got to go in one.
Speaker 2:So lost it again. Purpose and helping people in the servitude being in service gives you a purpose. All right, let's figure this out, and so we're going to just move on from that subject. So, now that your daughter's older, what does she think about that? And did that show her like? Did she take life lessons or did she try and treat it like your brother?
Speaker 1:Oh, like with my daughter, we had a very good relationship. Because I was by myself facing her, it wasn't hard for me to mold her the way I want her to be Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Does she think, does she didn't resent the hard times, or does she like towards her father?
Speaker 1:Oh. So basically, what I did is I just let her like deal with it. Like, oh, if you want to see her dad, you can Like.
Speaker 2:it's up to you, I'm not going to control you and you were honest about it. Yeah, I was honest about it.
Speaker 1:You know, like, if you want to see her, just tell me, if you want to see him, just tell me. And then you know at the end of the day he didn't change, like whatever was the reason why we separated, he's still the same. So her growing up she was seeing it. Right. And then so yeah, but for me it's like with her, I feel like, because we struggled a lot, so whatever we have right now, she's really appreciative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that really helps yeah.
Speaker 1:And then the way I was before, it's like an upgrade for her. You know, like, oh damn, like you did that because and she thinks she was the cost because of the career day she remembers to.
Speaker 2:She remembers to that's cool, and so she holds a little bit of like I helped that, yeah, ok so that's why we have a good relationship.
Speaker 1:We're really like friends too, but at the same time she put the icing on the cake.
Speaker 2:Good job.
Speaker 1:She really like like respect me, like OK, I'm OCD, I'm really clean.
Speaker 2:Like you know yeah. So so it's hard having a kid when you're OCD like that.
Speaker 1:So she's like she's really like you know, like right now she's like oh, my mom's not going to like that. Oh, like this. Like she knows me so well she cleans, like she knows what I want, you know, like I don't even need to tell her because I mold her to be that, Right, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you gave her character and morals and you were able to almost benefited to, in a sense to be away from that and be able to see it from an outside. So if you were seeing it firsthand, you might, that might be what she's drawn to. But because you were able to stand, say this is not tolerated, and show her this is not tolerated, and show her and say, look, I'm not going to put that evil on you, I'm not going to talk shit about him, I'm not going to tell you I'm going to let you learn it yourself.
Speaker 1:Yes, and at the same time, you know, like, if you, if you control them, like, like, if you control them like, like, really exaggerating, like I don't know, like I feel like it's they're not going to be their own. Yeah, they're not going to be their own person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wonder whether or not they end up like they may not resent you for a while and then one day they're going to realize and hit that wall and like I wish I had had a little more push or not. You know, things like some, like we were talking with the kids you know, those kids that are getting the handouts and getting things done. Every mom and dad just take care of it. They're not learning life lessons at the age where they're valuable, because now, when they learn them, it's going to have major consequences. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And if you learn them young, small little kid, little consequence.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Adult big consequence same lesson?
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, and I realized that sometimes before when I was by myself. Right, I'm like there's like you and Alexa together is like it's so, like like I'm jealous of that you know, like I should be with someone you know I should, you know, raise my kid with a father. And then I come to think of it now and when I see, like like my friends that was single mom and then they met someone you know down the road, or if they were still together, but they have toxic relationship, right, their kids are confused. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know like. So, now that I think about it, it was a blessing blessing in disguise that I was by myself, because all the rules that I have, all the things that I wanted to happen or what I want her to do, it's all me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know I don't have to deal with your, your decision or your mindset, you know. Right. So for me, I just think about it like that it's okay to be alone, because right now I don't have any complaints on how she is.
Speaker 2:And influence. You don't get that. Yeah, that draw the the the divorced house. Like you can have a absentee. Like I had an absentee right, my dad wasn't around at all. So, she had the ability to do that, and mold me. And I 100% give the credit to my mother. There was a lot of things that I would like to wish that didn't happen, but also I want to be who I am if my dad hadn't left and he came here for my daughter's birthday and acknowledged that.
Speaker 2:It was like look, I'm sorry and I wish I would have been there, but I'm glad I wasn't and that was like the biggest thing. I was like like that meant a lot, and he's apologized before, but to be able to like I was able to show him my childhood and to be able to see it like that, it was different and because my mom was much like you with the, you know, this is who your father was. These are the decisions he made. She didn't have to. I had a stepdad at one years old. I wasn't even a year when they met. They got married. I was a year old.
Speaker 2:Um, that was my dad. I call him daddy. This is his house. You know, this is my parents house. And, um, I didn't. He wasn't very vocal, he didn't give me the love I needed, especially as a son, a son that didn't have a father. You know my blood father and he wanted me to be his son. And my mom was like, no, we have to tell him. I mean, I am his son, but he wanted to. Not, he didn't want me to know about my real father. And my mom was like, no, even though he doesn't want to be a part of telling his life, we have to tell him and.
Speaker 2:I'm going to tell him and he will know. And now I was very young but always know it it caused more problems, confusion for me and it's still. It's always, it's always going to linger and but it's hard for you because you have a stepdad. Yeah, yeah, and a good one. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I had, I didn't. He didn't say I'm proud of you. He didn't say I love you. He didn't give me the things I wish I would have had because he was my dad, right, but I didn't get fatherly love from him. But growing up that was the case. Now, as an adult, there's greater. There is no greater love that a man can show than to raise another man's child. That is the greatest love in the world and it doesn't have to be spoken. But I can't appreciate that as a kid. I have to. That's something you learn as an adult.
Speaker 2:And so I was one of the things I had said in my group like I don't want her to appreciate me later. I don't want her to be like, why is dad gone now and working and then later be like, oh, he worked so we could do this. He was absent six months out of the year, working out of town so he could do this. And that's another motivator to chain, because my career, the most lucrative career, is on the road and staying home has its benefits. But then when things do get slower, whatever does happen, there's always fluctuation. In construction and just in life in general there might be a time where I have to go to the road and I don't want to have to make that decision anymore. And.
Speaker 2:I've come to the point where I don't want to be that nomad and I always loved the nomad. I love being a nomad. But I've changed and I don't want that anymore. And because my mom did that for me and ripped the bandaid off immediately, I was able to grow. At 14 years old, I call. I told my mom, I said you know what I want you to? I want to invite him to my graduation. I'm graduating eighth grade. I ended up getting some award, not valedictorian, but some honors. I didn't even know and that wasn't why I was calling. I just happened to get some award and he came and my mom sits me down, goes look, I'm going to make this phone call for you, but do not bet on him coming. He's not reached out. He doesn't.
Speaker 2:She never made him pay child support. I think he paid like a hundred a month, just enough. So there was no legal problems or anything. But he had no ties to me, it all, but written off his rights. He might have written off I don't know, but she even then, at 14, just like she did when I was a kid laid it out fucking blunt and cold and hard, hard pill to swallow as a kid. Right, and you want to fantasize, like I said, you're going to see people in a different light at that age. You're going to want to dream. You're going to try and see him as someone you imagine he is and not who he really is. So she laid it out like this is who he is. This is his track record. If you still want me to make that call, I will. And she did, and he showed up. He only stayed for two days shut up day of graduation and left in the next day and then left the third day, and then that set the trajectory and his father did unto him as was done to me.
Speaker 1:His dad left.
Speaker 2:He was born in the Bahamas. His mom moved back to the States. His dad stayed, never met him until he was in his forties. Met him once and he died. I never got to meet him, Met him and died like right within six months of meeting his father. And I call him and it's his 39th year of life and I go a couple months later. I go in August or September to his or August, I guess because his birthday is August 10th. So I go to his birthday party and man, talk about a different experience. He got so many people there and this party is huge. In this big deal 40th is a big deal and I'm just meeting my step parents, my mom, my step mom, my brother and sister and 50 other people and I felt so out of place and talk about feeling isolated and alone. Damn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't know anybody in that whole night I didn't get to spend with my family. Right, there's all these people and so that started. And why did a 14 year old how? I still ask them this question every day. How did I have that level of insight at 14? Why was I not angry?
Speaker 2:Every person I've talked to at 14 or as a child that had an abandoned father, they hold resentment or abandoned anyone that had left them. That's why I asked does she hold resentment? Because, but you were upfront, you let her make that decision and maybe if he hadn't come, things would be different. But he did and he tells me sometime later, like man I didn't really start reflecting on my life because I'm, like I said, I've been very introspective in some time in my 20s and I'm already in Oregon and we're talking. He's like Dylan. I didn't even have the ability to think like that until I was 40. Well, guess who he met at 40. Me, and I changed his life by giving him the ability, like because of the insight that some little 14 year old 3000 miles away had it became. It made him a better person, and so that just kind of set me up to not hold resent, like reinforce the idea of openness and to give people that second chance and to not hold things against people because, anybody can change yeah.
Speaker 1:Everybody can change. Yeah, anybody can break the cycle if they want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and not only to be like you know what I did, what I did and it is what it is. Now we're here, but the ability to be big enough to face that time and time again and continually apologize. Only shows extreme growth. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And pursues to be in my life and, yeah, it shows growth and at the time he was the person that I needed because he didn't treat me like a parent. He was a parent and he gave me parental advice. But when I came to him with bad shit I was doing or financial problems or whatever, he didn't school me, didn't lecture me. It was okay. Problem solution.
Speaker 3:How are we going to get there? How'd you get here? Yeah, I like that too.
Speaker 2:How'd you get here and tell me everything that's going on here, and then let's figure out how to get here. Yeah. And he still, to this day, does that and I'm, I got a. I really want to practice that. I want to be able to give you that insight without having the emotional attachment of an argument or you know.
Speaker 2:I just be able to like sit down and be like, look, you got yourself here and essentially I also learned this in group of boundaries, it's a boundary thing Like, hey, you do this, there will be a consequence, and not just be like wait for the. I did a lot of like getting in trouble After the fact like consequences came later and then obviously I got old enough to know, if I do this, this will happen but it wasn't set up that way.
Speaker 2:as a kid Like hey if you grab that, I'm going to have to take it away for good because, you are not, and maybe it was, and I just wasn't able to do that. But there was a lot of yelling and stuff in my family. I didn't have the ability to think like that. I was always looking. Now it's always in a sense of flight, you know what I mean. Never really had ability to breathe.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, I want to make sure that doesn't happen and I'm able to just communicate to her like that, and the thing I also learned based on my experience is that I barely get mad because I feel like there's no point of getting mad. You're just going to cost you wrinkles.
Speaker 2:Good, I'm talking to myself here.
Speaker 1:So for me, if I only get mad, if it's betrayal, if you're still from me or if you cheat, of course, but other than that, if you forget to do the laundry, it's okay, even if it's for a month, that's your laundry. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I'll do mine. I need to work on that part a little bit.
Speaker 1:The.
Speaker 2:OCD comes out and I'm working through it.
Speaker 1:And then now I'm trying to think like, oh, is this upsetting, is this upsetting, right there? So the old me would like what the fuck?
Speaker 2:Make sure it's like totally lined up.
Speaker 1:I was like who did this, but now I'll just fix it, whatever. So I trained my mind to be like that because what I did is like I'm supposed to be stronger than this. I carry this. Why is this controlling me? Or this I like that. I like that. There's no point of being mad. If it's reversible, if it's fixable, why mad? Why you get mad? It's a waste of energy, it's a waste of time.
Speaker 2:I've always said that, and I grew up in a household of anger. My stepdad graduated anger management and got the cops called on him that night. With fight with a neighbor, that's a and, like I said, yelling and chaos, total chaos. And so I've always been under this impression of anger only hurts the person. That's mad. If I piss you off. I'm going home and I'm going to have a nice steak dinner and I'm going to go to bed with my wife. I'm not thinking about you.
Speaker 2:You're going to go home and all you do is think about me and your daughter's trying to get your attention and you're thinking about me and now you're taking it out on her and it's a projected thing. And I had to realize like, okay, so I do have that problem, I do get mad, I do get irritable, but I've, I have this philosophy on anger, so I've called it something else. But at the end of the day, if this emotion is triggered, whether you let it out or not, or whether you choose to take it in a different path with less emotion, is still the thoughts are the same right.
Speaker 2:So, no matter how you express it in your head, it's still there. And so I've realized through my group, through the IOP, everything that anyone does is because the reason you're anyone's going to get upset is because someone else was being inconsiderate to you. And the thing that has helped me with that is to realize not everyone is as kind as me, not everyone is as thoughtful as me.
Speaker 2:Not everyone cares to the level that I care and I can't get upset when they don't care because they're not as kind as me in the, in that sense, not that they're not kind, not that they're great people, but to the level that, like I'm going to, if I see a truck on the side of the road, I get over. I don't keep driving, I get over unless I can't. That's the type of I don't. I ride motorcycles, so I don't. I keep a different level of distance from the car in front of me, whether it's a motorcycle or not. Like there's just things that I and I live in a life of danger at work and everything.
Speaker 2:So it's in probably enhanced the the sensibility to be like my sensitivity towards others and the see the dangers and all these things and just so I understood. Like, okay, I'm extra sensitive to being considerate of others and they're not and I can't expect that.
Speaker 2:And it's doing a disservice to our relationship, to me, to my family and everybody that is in this orbit around me. Because of someone else's thing that they like, I like my philosophy, they don't remember, they don't care, and it's because I I felt like it was inconsiderate and they didn't consider how it would affect me, or you know what I mean. And so it's not so much anger, it's just anger is the way you express that feeling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the way I explain it to my daughter too, when she gets really emotional, you know, and I said because of her friends or like cousins that upset her, I the the best way I explain it to her is that you know you cannot control the situation. You can't. You cannot control the other person, you can't control anything. The only thing you can control is the way you react to the situation or that person or whatever they did to you.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You, you. This is all you can control, but everything else outside you you cannot.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know. So how are you going to do it? Yeah. You know. So are you just going to cry or are you just going to get angry? It's like what, what does it does it? What does it do to you?
Speaker 2:That's big conversation for a 15 year old. I never had those talks. I needed them. Now I'm doing them as an adult in a program with other people that didn't get that talk.
Speaker 1:That's really cool to see. Yeah, and even now, if I meet someone like a relationship, it's like when they get mad, it's like why are you even mad? Yeah, I'm a social path.
Speaker 2:I had to ask my mom the other day. I'm talking to my grandma and I said something to her that she thought was wrong, which I also was like. Okay, so the argument or the discussion? Turn it into an argument. The discussion was science says bipolar or mental health. You can have a genetic like you can lean. Your genetics can make you lean, like to be susceptible to it, but it's not a guarantee that you'll get it. And.
Speaker 2:I continually run into these psychiatrists that are like is it in your genes? Is it in your family? Is it in your family? I was like, oh well, my great grandma had some mental health, and her and her brother, that's three generations right, like it doesn't work like that. It's got to be somewhere. And so I was having this conversation with my grandma and she was talking about how she had depression, so that's how it started. And I was like, well, my mom not that she doesn't have any issues and she won't watch this, so I don't care, but she's not diagnosed with anything and she won't even try and go get the help or even go to therapy. Or everybody needs therapy, whether you have health problems or not. Something happened in your life at work, at home, at the stoplight, something happened, so you had some sort of experience you could talk out. For sure everybody.
Speaker 2:And I believe that and whether that's a therapist or your friend, someone always vents to somebody and going to a professional is a lot better way to process that and if that's necessary, some people can handle it. But I don't think that anyone would go to therapy and put the work in and be like, yeah, it wasn't worth it Therapy helps, because when my ex left me, I was mad at him Like why did you do this to me?
Speaker 1:Why? Did you hurt me Right Then. Now I went to therapy and then they explained to me that you know, at that point of his life he's not thinking about you, he's thinking about himself, what makes him happy. He didn't want to hurt you, but you got hurt of the process of him making himself happy.
Speaker 2:Collateral damage yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's not intentionally, you know like, because how is he going to talk to you and tell you in Thanksgiving Day that, oh, I'm going to leave? No, he's not going to do that. Right.
Speaker 2:Well, think about it too, right. Why did you do that to me? Why were you not considering?
Speaker 1:Yeah, why were you being inconsiderate? Yeah.
Speaker 2:You weren't considering how that would affect us and not thinking about the consequences.
Speaker 1:I think it was. He was just selfish, but he did not intentionally like oh, I want to hurt you so bad. I don't think anybody can do that, you know like, that's just so like well, I don't know if I'd say any.
Speaker 2:Like we said, there's bad people out there, there's people that could. I would love to believe that it's not possible. But yeah, like, even it seems that way right and even I guess it comes. You can even relate that to the Tubman story. Like he did what was best for him, he probably assumed his wife was going to die on the way out, and never, get free, and if she did. She wasn't going to risk coming back to die again. Exactly so he took care of him and maybe this man.
Speaker 1:Has been someone right now, and they could have been something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like so. My dad right he left and he has this beautiful family and I have a brother and sister thanks to him, and I met my wife out there. If he'd stayed, I wanted to turn into the man I am today. I wanted to have got to live on this ranch. I wanted to know what it is to ride. We probably would live in San Jose, where I was born, and my mom lived in Monterey, and I would be a totally different person, you know. And so, yeah, you can't. That helps knowing that you become who you are. And if they had been around, yeah, of course you wish that, but if it had happened, you wouldn't be the person you are.
Speaker 2:If you're okay with that person, it helped. You must. It probably helps if you're okay with who you are. If you're not, it would fuel the resentment.
Speaker 2:But once you get to the point of being like content in the person that you are in your mental space, yeah I don't hold that against him and now, learning about how his father did that, like we had that discussion I'm like, oh, you didn't know any better and you didn't have. You didn't know any better. And yeah, he didn't have any faith to lean on and I did, and that probably is a big reason that helped. But yeah, yep that's it. We've been talking for like yeah, I was going to say that's pretty much right on 230. That was a perfect ending. You built most of this car. That was cool. Yeah, look.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a great conversation, man. We'll have to do it again someday, once you come. Get some things moving if you want to come back and you have a location you need to put a thing out there. Welcome back anytime. This is great. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1:Maybe we should build a bigger one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can yeah maybe next time we'll get one that's going to take a couple podcasts to finish, all right. All right? Well, thanks everybody for watching, and this is Jaja. And she's with Shasta Boxing. Put out your socials. How can they find you?
Speaker 1:We have an Instagram Shasta Boxing Club, and then Shasta Boxing Club underscore YWP, and then our website is ShastaBoxingClubnet.
Speaker 2:Right on. And if you want to see this video, go to Brick Fever on YouTube and look up the Lego Chronicles and you'll find it. If you Google Lego Chronicles, you'll find all access to it and you can get this on anything that you listen to. So share it and let people know. Thanks, we're out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that was a lot.