Todd: 0:00

This is the cluttered path, a compass for midlife.

Singer: 0:03

The path is long, the map is born, a little cluttered since you were born. The middle chapters feel unclear. Don't worry, friend, no need to fear.

Todd: 0:14

Do you ever find yourself feeling trapped in modern life and just wanting to escape? As you seek tranquility, does life just seem to keep getting more and more overwhelming? Here's the thing most people don't crash. They just erode a little bit over time. Just adding a little more responsibility, a little more debt, a little more noise. And we're told that freedom comes later, after your promotion, after the kids grow up, after we fix everyone else's mess. And somewhere along the way, we just wake up tired of a life that looks fine on the outside and it just feels empty on the inside. Let's start with a different question. What if the problem isn't that we haven't done enough? What if the problem is that we've been carrying too much? It was just never ours. Because peace doesn't come from fixing everything, it comes from letting go. Today we're talking to Paul Streyer on this topic. He's written about it in his upcoming book called Living the Zero Life. Paul, welcome to the show. Thank you, Todd. I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me. So we work in the tech industry. We met like, what was it, 2007, 2008 times? Yes, it was. We were working on a specific voicemail platform, and you were an instructor at a popular training company. Yeah. So that's where we met, man.

Paul: 1:31

That's a long time ago. We're aging ourselves. So yes, we met as me teaching a class on that particular uh topic. Yeah. And then I think we worked on a few projects after that. Yeah, yeah. And we hated that voicemail platform. You mentioned it this morning. I hadn't thought about it since then. And I about hurled when you uh when you mentioned it.

Todd: 1:52

Dude, everybody hated that, but we loved you because then you were uh just good instruction, man. So you're good people, dude. Thanks. Thank you very much. So let's start, man. Let's uh just kick into the interview. Can you just tell us about your background and give us just an intro to living the zero life?

Paul: 2:07

The zero life is really a new way of thinking. It's a new way of living a new life. You know, most people live in chaos most of the time, and that's because they've been living an autopilot their whole lives, and they weren't really taught to think about what they're doing in their lives, they just live their lives. And one day they wake up and say, Whose life is this? I'm I'm living this life that I hate. You know, I hate my job, I hate my wife, I hate, you know, I hate everything, you know, and it's uh uh they're just not happy. And so living the zero life is all about reducing your life to have a much happier and better quality of life. And it what I call it is mental minimalism. Now, the problem is when I say minimalism, people think, oh my god, I gotta get rid of everything and go live in a cabin off the grid somewhere out in the wilderness somewhere. Yeah, that's not what it's all about, right? It's about reducing mental chaos so that you just have a freer mind to be able to actually live a happier life. Yeah, I don't think I'd ever want to live off grid. So I've done it because I lived in an RV for the last four years. So I've lived in RV parks, but I've also done it off the grid, and it's I loved it every second of the time. Oh, that's cool.

Todd: 3:14

I like I do like having neighbors now, so that's pretty cool. But so let's get into the the questions, man. We'll start with the early years. We'll start with childhood. Where'd you grow up?

Paul: 3:24

I grew up in East Tennessee, a little town called Morristown, Tennessee. And that's when as soon as I say it, I start talking in the in the accent. They all talk like this out there. And uh and uh I grew up there and I got out of there as quick as I could. I remember at about 12 years old, I said uh uh it was a I was about 12, I said, the day that I can leave this town, I'm out of here. And I graduated high school on June 11th, and on June 12th, I was living in Orlando, Florida, going to audio engineering school. Now, what was your relationship with money as a kid?

Todd: 3:54

You talk about that in the book.

Paul: 3:56

So there was no relationship with money as a kid, and that's what I think most kids struggle with once they become adults is no one's teaching about money, no one's talking about it, and that's only a third of what the book is about, but it is an important part of the chaos that most people live. Yeah. And I had no relationship with money because my dad never once ever talked about money. We were a lower middle, maybe middle, middle class family in the, you know, growing up in the 70s and 80s, and we had what we needed, but nothing extravagant. And we had a good life and we had summer vacations and stuff, but dad never talked about where the money came from. I mean, I know he owned a business and he worked, but and he was working a lot, but he never ever talked about money or how to use it or what to do it. I just when I needed something, it showed up. And so when I got out of, you know, when I moved to Orlando and I was living on my own, all of a sudden I'm like, wait a minute. I'm in the music industry, I have no money, and how do I live this life that I was raised in that you know that I I was used to and I couldn't. Right. So it all went on credit cards, it all went on loans, and that's when the whole thing of bad financial decisions started was when I was 18. Right. Yeah, I grew up the same.

Todd: 5:07

It was well, I grew up differently, actually, because our the whole thing with my family was you put everything on credit, as long as you can make the payments on it, you were doing good.

Paul: 5:16

But the problem is most people don't make the payments. Yeah, and that's so you go on vacation one summer, and next summer when it's time to take vacation, you're still paying for the previous vacation, and and that's the problem.

Todd: 5:25

Yeah, it just adds up, man. And you just spend so much more when you got a credit card. Yes. It's so easy just to I know it.

Paul: 5:32

I know it's so easy to go back, even though I'm living the zero life, it's real easy to go back. I mean, I you know, sometimes I don't have money or it's in an investment and I don't can't pull it out and so put it on a credit card, and all of a sudden three months later, I'm still paying for it.

Todd: 5:45

Yeah, yeah. That's how it works, man. That's American life, man, with our finances. I mean, our government, dude. It's yeah, our government is just paying for everything on a credit card, but this is not a political show. We won't go there.

Paul: 5:57

Yeah, let's not go there. We'll we'll you know me and you, we'll be here for four hours just talking politics. All right, well, so how'd you get into the tech industry? Well, like I said, I went off to audio engineering school and I got an audio video degree and was in the music industry from 12 years old when I started playing guitar until about 26 when I realized I wasn't gonna be the next Van Halen. And uh I realized I suck at playing guitar. And uh and I and to be honest with you, after I left the music industry, because what I did best my whole life, what I was really, really good at is recording albums. I'm really good at that. I didn't have to think about it, I just did it. And I was really good at it. But the problem was is I wasn't doing drugs. And in the 80s, it was all about the drugs. All the contracts for all the engineers to get percentages of the con of the album, they would sign over cocaine at three in the morning. Well, at three in the morning, I was at home in bed.

Singer: 6:48

Yeah.

Paul: 6:48

Because I had to open the studio the next morning to get ready for the next recording session. Right. So I never signed any contracts for points on albums. So I was with all these big name people, but never ever got a payday. I was making my five or six or eight bucks an hour to be an assistant engineer, even though I was doing all the work because the engineer was hung over on the couch while I was doing all the recording. Wow. So but when I got, I didn't realize that till I left that it was because I wasn't doing the drugs that I wasn't progressing in my career. And that's when I got I left audio engineering and went in. Uh one of my friends said, dude, you should check out this thing called Novell. And which at the time was the biggest, was the biggest uh uh server out on the market. There was no Microsoft server yet. Yeah. And so I went and got, I I literally took my money and paid for a uh a degree, a six-week course in Novell. So I would take a class for a week, take the test on Friday, take the next class the next week. Yeah, and by the time six weeks is over, I was certified. Certified paper certified. Certification. And I went from making like I would I think the best year I ever had in the music industry was like like 10,000 bucks, maybe. Like, and and I'm living in California, even in the 80s, 10,000 bucks was nothing. And uh I don't know how I did it, to be honest with you. Yeah, and uh I went from making 10 grand to 60k in six weeks, just like that. Wow. I was like, you know, and of course I'm freaking because I'm like a paycheck? What the heck is that, you know? And uh uh so that's how I got in the tech industry is I rolled into uh being a Novell engineer, then a Microsoft engineer. I was a lead engineer for Levi Strauss, I was a lead engineer for Providian Bank Corps. Wow, and then uh and then I realized that I hated working as an IT person because I didn't want to work with the end users. I hated the end users, they they suck, you know. You know, you know, you tell the same person 50 times what they're doing wrong on their computer and they do it again the next day, and I just couldn't take it anymore. I was like, what are these guys doing in the back room with all these routers and switches? Right. So uh so I went and saw what they did and I said, you know what? I wanted to be in the back room with the routers and switches. I don't want to deal with the people up front. Yeah. So I actually went and uh I went and got another paper degree in uh uh in some routing and switching for a couple of weeks. Then I went and actually interviewed with Cisco back in '97 in California. But I also knew I wanted to get out. I had a a uh a one uh like an eight or nine month-year-old kid. I had my new wife, and I wanted out of California because I couldn't afford to live. Oh, wow. And uh so Cisco was hiring. I said, Who's the best in the industry? Cisco was hiring. So in 97 they interviewed me in California, then they sent me on a plane to North Carolina because that's where I wanted to be. Yeah, and uh the longest six-hour interview I've ever done, it was incredibly insane. I didn't answer one question, but they would teach me in the interview and I would play off of their teaching, so they hired me. That's cool, man. Didn't answer one question. That's true. And uh, but I got hired, and now I've been at Cisco since 1990, November 17th, 1997. Good on you. And still there and trying to get out, but yeah, yeah. And uh I'm trying to work my hour out now by building AI agents on my own business, and it's going well.

Todd: 9:51

Yeah, yeah.

Paul: 9:52

So let's back up a little bit. So you eventually got married. In 96, yeah. Can you tell that story? Oh, so uh, yeah, that's when the pain started, right? You know, because uh I no one yeah, along with money, no one ever taught me about love and life and marriage because my mom and dad were together until I was 15 and then they got divorced, but it never was a happy relationship. It was there, yeah, it wasn't a bad thing, they weren't like beating each other up or anything, but there was no what I would call real love there. So I never have a good example. I didn't know what love really was. And it took me a lot of years to figure out what love really is and what it means to be in love. And so I got married just because we were having a great time together, and I figured, okay, that must be love. Yeah. And then we got married, had a kid, and then moved to North Carolina, and it just, you know, just there were just issues, and it wasn't all my fault, it wasn't all her fault. We, you know, it takes two people to tango. And uh, you know, 13 years after knowing her, you know, I stayed a lot longer than I should have for the kids.

Singer: 10:55

Yeah.

Paul: 10:55

And then Dr. Laura let me know that it was okay. If you remember Dr. Laura on the radio. Yeah, I was listening to her one day and she said, Well, if you have the three A's, you should get out, otherwise stay in. I was like, What are the three A's? And she went to commercial and I was at work and I had to go for a meeting. And anyway, they didn't have internet back then. You couldn't go Google it. I couldn't go Google it. And uh, but I finally figured out what the three A's were and I left the very next day. Oh, wow. And uh and so that was in 2005 when I got divorced and left.

Todd: 11:22

Yeah.

Paul: 11:23

And what was the money situation in that marriage? It was bad. It was just terrible because no one taught me about love, no one taught me about money, and so I was still living on credit cards and on borrowed money, even though I was making good money at Cisco, we were living way beyond our means. And if if I'd gotten laid off for Cisco, we would have lost everything. We had the 4,000 square foot house, we had the, you know, the you know, the four motorcycles, we had the brand new cars, the boats, you know, we had all the toys, and but they were all on loans, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars in toy loans, you know. It's like, you know, and then you had the house, and you had, you know, and I was just miserable. I was miserable every night when I went to bed. I hated every second of it, but I did it because I thought that's what I needed to do to buy her love.

Todd: 12:06

Performance-based love. Yes, and lifestyle creep.

Paul: 12:10

Yep. That's miserable. It was and every time you got a raise, you just spent it. That's slavery, dude. Yeah, and I was miserable the whole entire time. Uh but I did my d I did what I had to do because you take care of your business, right? I mean, you know, you take care of your wife, you take care of your kids, you take care of the house, you just do whatever it takes to get it done. Right. But I was miserable, miserable every second.

Todd: 12:29

Yeah, and I appreciate that you don't like blame your ex-wife. You're just like, hey, this is my stuff.

Paul: 12:34

Yeah, well, it's well, it takes two to tango, right? She had things that she was doing, and we won't get into that. It's not right something you advertise. I mean, yeah. But I spent, you know, after the second marriage, I spent a lot of time figuring out what all those things were. I didn't, you know, even between the first and second, I didn't do the work that needed to be done. Yeah.

Todd: 12:50

Yeah. So you you guys got divorced, then you remarried. Yes. How did that play out? The second one.

Paul: 12:56

The second one, I met her at that same institution where I met you. She was she was actually in my very first class at that place where I went to work. She was she was in the in the uh in the audience. With the students? Yeah, she's one of the students.

Todd: 13:09

How dare you?

Paul: 13:09

Yeah. So uh and what's funny is you know, the very beginning of the class, the very first day, you go around the room and introduce each other, right? And you were tutoring her privately. Yes. Not yet, not yet, not yet. That was later. Uh that was much later. That was some good stuff right there. Um so so we're going around the room, right? Yeah. And it's a funny story. Going around the room, everybody's introducing, hey, I'm Joe, I do this, I'm from this company, I want to learn this from the class. You know the root the routine for every beginning of class, right? And I get to her and I hadn't seen her yet. I'm just like, what's up? I'm sure my tongue was on the ground. I was just like, and the very first thought in my head is I'm gonna marry this woman. I mean, I just I was like, wow. And you know, the even funnier part is is you know how in a movie, when someone something happens to them and their whole room goes black and they just see tunnel vision on this one thing, right? It's exactly what happened to me. And all of a sudden the lights went down, and all of a sudden this wind machine and lights came from underneath her and hair was blowing up, just like a movie. That's what I saw. And then she goes, Hi, my name is Jennifer. Just like Marilyn Monroe, even though she didn't do that, and I that's all I saw, and that's all I heard. And I was just, and she's talking about her, what why she's there, and I didn't hear a damn thing. I was just like that's funny. I was just like, I was just like, I was just like, and so, you know, and then she had the same kind of thoughts, and you know, we realized that. But it's funny, we didn't really talk much that week. I was too scared, right? I'm you know, I was like, you know, what do I do? Um every time I try to talk to her, my I I start stuttering. Yeah, and uh and so like two weeks later, she needed some help at her career job. So she called her guidance counselor at that school and said, How can I get help on this? Because I need help. He said, Why don't you call your teacher? There you go. And that's how it all started. We went on a date, and and uh but and she absolutely, out of everybody I've ever dated or been with or anything, was the love of my life. I mean, I was madly in love with her.

Todd: 14:53

That's cool, man. And how did it go financially with that one?

Paul: 14:57

Same. Oh my god. Same. Just as I mean, actually, it was better because she had a little bit better habits and she wasn't as materialistic as the first. But it was still just as bad. I was I hadn't learned my lesson yet. Uh just overspending. Overspending, thinking, you know, we had to spend to make each other happy and you know, make life and make us look good to the Joneses and all the other things that we do in our head to think that we're doing something good and we're not.

Singer: 15:23

Yeah.

Paul: 15:23

And uh, but I didn't know it at the time. Obviously, now I do.

Todd: 15:27

Yeah, I think all guys are susceptible to that. We think it's performance-based. I'm only valuable for what I bring it in, the money, the whatever. Yeah, and so we're just focused on that job and lifestyle creep comes in, you're buying the toys, and it happens, man. And then you're just saying yes to everybody.

Paul: 15:44

Everybody, not even her, just to everybody. Yeah, yeah, everybody at work, everybody at family, everybody, you know, everybody.

Todd: 15:50

Yeah, it's and we all do that, man. You you're like, you're signing up for more projects at work, working 60, 80 hours a week, 100 hours a week. Just get burned out, man. It's yep. There's a lot of people that can relate to that, but then it all crashed down. You got divorced again.

Paul: 16:06

Yes, and uh totally out of the blue, I was completely unaware of how unhappy she was. I knew I was unhappy, but I was still madly in love with her. Yeah, and uh, but I just didn't have the tools again to know how to manipulate the wrong word to maneuver the relationship into a place where we were fixing it and becoming healthy, and I just didn't have those tools. I didn't have it. Whereas now, next relationship I'm in, which I'm single right now, um, but next relationship is going to be incredible because I've done the work. Nice. That's cool, man.

Todd: 16:37

Yeah. So and what was your mental state after that second divorce?

Paul: 16:40

I mean, just I was completely devastated, first of all, because you know, out of the blue, she's gone. And uh totally out of the blue. I had no clue. I mean, I was completely oblivious, which is really bad on my part. You know, that means I wasn't nurturing her the way I should have and uh and being present with her like I should have been. I wasn't. I I I I admit to it. I was I mean, again, you know, on both relationships and every other relationship I've been in my whole life, not including women, but any relationship, a lot of times when things go bad, people point the finger at other people. Yeah. They're like, Oh, you did this and you did that, and I hate you, and I blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And then, you know, when I came out of that relationship, the first couple years were really bad. I was a zombie. I I did exactly what I had to do to keep my kids, and I was raising my kids solo, and I raised my kids most of my life solo, and and then I also had to keep my career, obviously, and I managed to somehow keep the career. I have no idea, because I was a zombie for about two and a half, three years. And once I started coming out of that zombie phase and started actually feeling better and not being so depressed about losing her, yeah, um, and I I I didn't never blamed her. I mean, I I knew that I had done a bunch of stuff wrong, and I know she had done a bunch of things wrong. Right. We both killed the relationship. It wasn't just one of us. Yeah. Takes two to tango. But I came out and said, you know what? As an engineer, I started going, wait a minute, this happened and this happened and this happened and this happened. And I was like, wait a minute, I'm the common denominator and all those things happening, and I'm the common denominator for everything that happened in the previous relationship, in the previous relationship, in the previous relationship. I was the common, and I started writing it down because as an engineer, we do flow charts. I actually did flow charts on all the things I did right and all the things I did wrong in each one of the relationships. I have flow charts for everything. I also have pros and cons of the relationship. I also have lists of uh what I did right and what I did wrong in the relationships. Yeah. I had a lot of uh, you know, as an engineer, we do that, right? I mean, I'm sure you do it too. Like when I write a book, the very first thing I do is I write a flowchart. You gotta diagram it out, man. Yep. So just like a network side. But yeah, I was completely crushed, completely devastated. But it wasn't until I woke up one day and said, you know what, it's all my fault. Not all my fault. The like I said, there's we both did things to crash the marriage. Yeah. But I had to look at me and say, okay, these are all the things. It's you know, I'm the common denominator in all these situations. Yeah. You know, even not just marriage or relationships, but every, yeah, you know, at work, everywhere. And so that's when the healing began. That's when I started. I didn't set out to to create a program or a lifestyle. I didn't pro I didn't set out to do that. I just was surviving. I I needed to survive. Right. And the only way I could survive is to figure out, you know, as an engineer, how can I put this into a system that works for me? Yeah. And then I, you know, started, you know, coming up with ideas of of things that make me feel better.

Todd: 19:27

Yeah. You know what I think's cool is uh the fact that you didn't look outward. And there's so many voices out there. You can go on YouTube, social media, TikTok, wherever. And you can see all these videos, you can go out and find videos that are going to tell you that it's your wife's fault. Mm-hmm. And they'd start going into she's not doing this. And it's usually a woman recording the video saying, Oh, if she's not doing this, then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you start going, Yeah. And that feeds into it. That just destroys the relationship even more, man.

Paul: 19:58

So and it's and it's not Just relationships, it's you know relationships with wives or husbands, it's people at work, your manager, yeah, your co-workers, yeah, you know, it's your friends, it's not just relationships. And we spent a lot of time talking about relationships because you asked me about my past, but it's everywhere and everything that you do and everybody you talk to. And when I meet new people and I talk to people, even when I talk to you today, when we haven't, you know, the last couple years we reconnected. When I talk to you, I talk to you totally different than I did back in 07. I I hope that you noticed. Yeah. Um, but I think about it, I have intentionality to everything I do and everything I say. And after a while, of course, in the beginning, it's hard to do that, but once you start living zero life, right, you you you you change the way you think and feel, and it feels so good because you have more space in your brain and in your life to take people in and be compassionate and be empathetic to the to their needs, but you're also not having them suck your energy out, but you're still able to be part of their life if you want them in your life. But you're also intentionally going, Do I really want this person in our life? Do they bring peace to me? Yeah. You know, if they don't bring peace, if they bring chaos, no, they can't be in my life. Yeah.

Todd: 21:10

And you mentioned work, like career, jobs, and stuff like that. We can also find those voices that are gonna say, it's your employer's fault. Yeah, they need to be doing this, it's capitalism, it's this, it's that. And you can find so many sources that are gonna stoke those flames and make you hate your job, hate your boss, hate your wife.

Paul: 21:28

Yeah, and I did a lot of that before I started living the zero lives, before I started changing who I was and the way I thought, I was so discontent with everything. I hated everything and everybody. And by the time I woke up in 2012, 2013, I was actually about 2013 or 14 when I started coming out of it. Yeah. And I started waking up, I'm going, you know, I'm just not happy. You know what? Everybody around me is not happy. And everybody I know is not happy. And you see people on the line that on the internet, nobody's happy. Why is nobody happy? And everybody's on and you know, on depressants and anxiety medicines, and we didn't have that in the 70s. We pulled our bootstraps up and we went, right? There was a lot of weed too. It was right out of the 60s, right? So there was a lot of weed there. You know, you're right. But but I mean, you never heard of anybody on anxiety medicine in the 70s and 80s. You never heard of depression medicine back then. I mean, there was some, but now it's everybody. I mean, everybody's on it, and it's like an epidemic of these pills. And I truly think that if you I'm trying not to sell the zero life, but I am. If you do things like zero life where you intentionally change your life instead of just living on autopilot like most people do, I think a lot of people could get off of these pills and off of anxiety pills because if you reduce the chaos in your life, yeah, you're gonna feel better. Right. So why do I need these pills anymore? And I and I'm not saying there are people that actually really do need these pills. You need them, yeah. And because they just have to come up with them, yeah. Well, you know, sometimes people need you know, weed maybe, but no. I actually I've I I did smoke once, I didn't inhale. Um I love it. But uh, you know, it's it's but I truly think that if you intentionally live your life and have a plan and make a plan and work the plans, right, and and you're working towards something and have purpose, and I think a lot of the discontent in life is nobody has purpose in life. Nobody was taught to say, you know what, this is what I want in my life. What do I need to get there? Yeah, what do I need to work on? And what do I not need to do, you know, not spend on credit cards, not do this, not do that, get this person out of my life, whatever it takes, so that I can get to my purpose. Yeah. And and I think if more people had purpose and they lived to their purpose and had a plan to get there and work the plan, I think we'd have a lot less of these anxiety medicines and depression medicines. I'm I, you know, I'm not a doctor, but I'm just I'm just realizing as an engineer, I'm analyzing it and I'm just going, where did this come from? Why are all these people on all this stuff? Right. And and I I just can't be everybody that needs it. You know, right, yeah.

Todd: 23:52

And and sometimes you need those meds when you're in a crisis. Yeah, yeah. And then once you're done, get out of it. But you have to be wary. And if if you're into counseling and stuff, if you're talking to a psychiatrist, counselor, whoever, a good one, they're not gonna be pushing the pills. They're gonna sometimes they aren't. They're gonna say they're gonna say, take the pills right now, and then let's start working things. And they come up with a plan and work through things with you, and you have to work, but then eventually you can cut it. But a lot of people aren't. So for anyone out there listening to this, uh, you know, we're not anti-medication. Sometimes you need it. Yes. And uh but uh there is a way to get away from that. Yeah. And so let's talk about that. What is the zero life? Let's get into those details.

Paul: 24:36

Uh the zero life, again, is living with intention instead of an autopilot. And most people just live and and they have a ton of chaos in their life. Yeah. And I based it, and and as I said, when when I came out of that relationship, my second wife, and I finally woke up one day and realized, hey, I gotta do something. I feel bad. I started doing things and making flow charts and doing all the things engineers do. And I said, you know what? The thing that's really bothering me the most right now, the most heaviest thing in my life is my finances. Yeah, yeah, I have all this other crap that's going on, but my finances are really killing me right now. So I said, you know what, I'm gonna work on those for a bit. What is the low-hanging fruit that can make me feel just a little bit better? And so I finally put my finances on paper. I had never put my finances on paper. And uh so I put it on paper. I got spreadsheets out, I, you know, put it all together. I read a bunch of books on it, and you know, a lot of Dave Ramsay, and uh, and and I'm actually Dave Ramsey certified now. And a few years ago, I wrote a book called Breadcrumbs to Financial Freedom. Nice. And uh and I've been coaching and teaching a lot of people how to get out of debt and build wealth. And uh and I do it the same way as Dave Ramsay, I just have my own little twist to it, my own style. Right. But I had to learn at first, and I I read a lot of books, I got some spreadsheets out, I did a lot of flow charts, yeah, and I figured out, hey, the first thing I really need to do is lower these expenses. Yeah. And so I started lowering expenses, and every time I'd lower a little bit of expense, I was like, oh, I can breathe a little bit. Yeah, you know, it's not so chaotic. And then I said, Well, you know what? I have this, you know, I have this massive amount of credit card debt. Right. I really need to get that gone. Yeah. So instead of spending, I got rid of all the credit cards and I started using it. Yeah. Now don't get me wrong, I have a credit card now because you can't travel without it, right? Right. Yeah. But it's paid off every month.

Todd: 26:23

Yeah.

Paul: 26:23

You know, it's always at zero at the end of the month. There's never interest ever. But for the years and years and years and years, I was paying two, three, four, five, six hundred dollars a month interest.

Singer: 26:31

Yeah.

Paul: 26:32

You know, and never thought about it. I just kept going.

Singer: 26:34

Yeah.

Paul: 26:34

And uh so I lowered my debt, I lowered my expenses. I'm like, whoo, wow, that's incredible. I can breathe for the first time in my whole adult life since I was 18. Yeah. And then, and then I started thinking about um, and that was one pillar of the zero life. Now, I wasn't trying to make a program at that point.

Todd: 26:50

Yeah, if I can interject on that one, it's um so my wife and I, we got married, she was a saver, she was taught to save. So we get married, she's like, Well, we need to save money. And I'm like, Okay, cool, all right. We were always savers, but we had plenty of money, good income, money was saved. We weren't tracking the expenses, and so there was that stress associated with am I doing the right thing with my money? Yes, am I planning the money? Yes, that's what was missing. We had plenty of savings, yeah. So we thought, but we still thought we were messing up. Yeah. But I sat down and I started tracking the outgoing expenses. We there were some things we could reduce, but just having that peace of mind knowing, okay, well, here's the money, and I made a plan for it. Yep.

Paul: 27:29

And over the years every dollar should have somewhere it goes. Yes.

Todd: 27:32

So I mean, so I mean, maybe you're not someone who just has just blown all your money and all this debt. You have you've got savings, but you're still stressed. Yeah. Zero life, I think your idea is there for making plans for the money, man. Yes.

Paul: 27:46

Yeah, you gotta make you gotta every dollar has to have a place that it goes and you make a plan for it and spend it and use it and save it, whatever you do. But you know, you gotta get rid of the debt, you gotta get your expenses down. Yep. I mean, I live on about two grand a month now. Back then, I was living on ten, fifteen thousand dollars a month. Everything was gone. Just gone. Yeah, just gone. And I have no idea where it went back then because I wasn't tracking anything. Yeah, it was all in my head. If it stays in your head, you'll never get it fixed ever. Yeah, it has to get on paper or spreadsheet.

Todd: 28:12

Yeah, when I was reading the book, man, I was like, yes, yes, because you got the financial stuff in there, and I'm like, yes. And you got links out to tools and stuff that you can use as well. That's cool. Thanks.

Paul: 28:20

Yeah, it's it's it's it's good, but that's only a third of the book, right?

Todd: 28:24

Yeah, you talk about three burdens. Yes, and one of them is the money. Yep. The other one is drama. Yeah. Can you talk about that? Give us some examples of drama that we need to eliminate.

Paul: 28:33

Well, remember what I said, most people are living in chaos all the time. They're just like this the whole time. They're just going, you know, and they and they wake up every morning going, I gotta get to work, I gotta do this, I gotta do that, I gotta do that, I gotta do that, you know, and they're just up to here. And they're just a hundred percent going all the time. And money being one of them, yeah, and then drama, and we'll talk about responsibility in a minute, with the three what I call the pillars. I wish I had a better word. Uh well, you mentioned crisis by proxy when you talk about drama. Yeah.

Todd: 28:58

Uh what is what is crisis by proxy?

Paul: 29:01

Well, when you're talking about drama, you're talking about, yeah, a lot of people make their own drama, yeah, but also a lot of drama comes to you from other places. Yep. And uh so crisis by proxy is where people are bringing you their drama and expecting you to help them fix whatever that drama is or just be there to listen. And it and it sucks the energy out of you. Oh, yeah. And it gives them the energy because a lot of times it's like a narcissist, right? Narcissists feed on that energy. Yeah. And I'm not saying everybody that brings you their drama is a narcissist, right? But I mean, they're feeding on that energy, it makes them feel better, it makes you feel bad. Yeah. And so now you've taken this burden on for them. You go home, you're still feeling bad. They might feel a little better because they've They've unburdened themselves. Yeah, they've unburdened even though they still have the problem.

Todd: 29:46

I confess I've done that, dude. I've been I'm I'm the guy at work complaining, and it's like complaining all the time.

Paul: 29:52

And I used to be that that guy too. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't do that anymore.

Todd: 29:56

I've realized that it's it's I'm foisting things on my coworkers. Yep. I do it to my family too. Yeah, I'm trying, yeah. So that's something that it's getting better at. I don't want to foist that drama on people, man. Yeah.

Paul: 30:07

Well, that and we are what we think and say, right? Yeah. So if you're always talking about that drama and always thinking about that drama, you become that drama.

Todd: 30:15

Yes. And so I've started doing some meditative practices. That's good. Starting the day. Yep. You gotta start those meditations, man. You gotta get your mind right at the beginning of the day and just start, you know.

Paul: 30:26

I meditate first thing when I wake up when I go to when I go to bed, and sometimes even during the day, I'll just stop and say, you know what? Right, my day's not going the way I planned it or the way I want it. I'll go sit on a rock somewhere or go one of the meditative things I'll do in the middle of the day if it's summer. I won't do it in the winter because I'm you know, if it's not 80 degrees, I'm freezing. Um, but I'll go out to a creek or a river and stack rocks and balance them, right? And you totally zone out of everything in the world because you're trying to find the right rock, right? And you're trying to stack them and stuff, and it's just a total meditation for me. That's you know, and and yeah, I started doing that about two years ago, and now every time I turn around, I'm trying to find a place to go stag rocks.

Todd: 31:00

Yeah, yeah. So I'm a Christian, and people will say you're in church, they'll be like, read your Bible, pray, you gotta do this every day. But there's no real instruction on how to meditate. Yeah, but meditation is a huge part of the Bible and what what people did back in the day, man. People you you read stories about it, they go out at the evening when the sun's setting and just meditate. Yeah, but not not too much detail. But so what I've done is I've started incorporating those breath practices, getting up and meditating, writing down things I'm grateful for.

Paul: 31:30

And if you notice at the end of every single chapter in the book, there's a silent practice.

Todd: 31:34

Yes, and uh you you've got a journaling. Yeah, and I'm having a journal prompts that you put in there and you ask people to write these things down.

Paul: 31:41

Yeah, and you can't do anything unless you write it down. Yeah, and if you're writing so back to drama though, people bring you drama for the crisis proxy, and then you also have you know the toxic person that they bring you toxic drama all the time. And I have one example that I always see in my head of one person that was constant for years and years and years in my life, and I was I was enabling it because I was continuing to to to delve into these dramas with this person, and it was every day, all the time. Everything they did was always drama, and I was always drugged down by it. And uh, and in the book, when we talk about drama and how to fix drama, it's not that you become mean or you're like, get out of my life or I hate you or anything like that. You do it gently, and you might, you know, like if they text you at six in the evening with a with a drama that you need to fix now, right? Maybe you don't answer until nine the next day. Just say, Oh, you know, sorry, I was busy, you know, but how did it turn out, you know? And yeah, and then you stop answering less and less frequently and and all of a sudden they just go away because you're not feeding their energy anymore that they need from you, and they go give, you know, they go find someone else. Now I feel sorry for the other person that they went to, but at least they're not in your life anymore. And again, so if I have these three pillars of things that are in my that are, you know, drama, responsibility, and uh and cost of living, if I reduce drama by let's say 10%, you're gonna be like, mm-hmm, wow, I'm breathing. And if I reduce my my finances by 10% and my drama by 10%, that's not a 20% change because it's exponential. Yes, it's exponential. And I have an equation in the book all about that. Yeah. You also talk about guilt-based family drama. Yes.

Todd: 33:17

That's another biggie. That's a big one.

Paul: 33:19

I I grew up in a Jewish household, right? It's all about guilt. It's all about the guilt, right? They're just you obviously don't love us because you're not doing this for us. Manipulation. Manipulation, and it's just it's it's very bad, and you gotta learn. And it's harder with your family, right? Right. Because you're just, you know, you want to be there for your family, you want to help your family, but I have a lot of people in my family that I keep at arm's length because they bring nothing but drama to my life because of that. Right.

Todd: 33:44

And then a lot of it's money. Yeah, they've got their money chaos, yeah, and they want you to help. Yeah, and the worst thing you can do is give them money.

Paul: 33:52

Yeah.

Todd: 33:52

Because then they just spend it and come back one more.

Paul: 33:54

Well, that's kind of like they always, you know, and I'm I'm not a I don't know how I really feel about this, but they always say, Don't give money to people on the streets. You know, give them a job or give them food or take them to food or teach them something. Don't just hand them money because they're just gonna go blow it on booze or whatever.

Todd: 34:09

I got transferred when I my first duty station was southeast DC. I was at the Marine Barracks. It's homeless people all over the place. I'd never seen homeless people. Yeah, I came from a small town, I joined the military, and here I am with homeless people. Yeah, dude, they are the best at manipulating you out of your money. Oh, absolutely. And so I I I'd never seen homeless people. It broke my heart.

Paul: 34:30

They'd come up and be like, oh, and they have their dog with them and spare some change.

Todd: 34:34

Yeah, and I was always giving them money. Every time I saw it, I'd give them a dollar or whatever. Yeah, until I didn't have any money one day. Yeah. And the guy got mad at me and he was just he was hounding me, he was following me down the street, and I was just like, I finally got mad and said, You probably have more money than me. And he's like, Well, matter of fact, yes, I do. Yeah, he pulls out a wad of cash. I was like, I'm done. Can I borrow a dollar? I am not giving money to homeless. And then we all caught on, all these all these young Marines. We started we started making them do push-ups for quarters, dude.

Paul: 35:02

That's not nice. It was not nice.

Todd: 35:05

And somebody called the media and they had a company formation and pulled us out, and our company Gunny was like, Stop messing with the bombs. And we were like, Okay, cool.

Paul: 35:15

Well, the things we do when we're young, right? I stopped giving money to homeless at that point because I knew the game. But you know, living in San Francisco for a long time, yeah, homeless all up and down Market Street. And when I walked, and I used to go to school on Market Street, so I'd be walking up there every day. Yeah, and I'd be like, dude, I'm not gonna give you money, but I'll take you right in here at McDonald's and buy you a meal. And they wouldn't take it.

Todd: 35:33

They'd be like, No, I just want money. Well, yeah, I had one a lady come up to me in Southeast DC and said, Listen, I'm not on drugs. I just need food. Can you buy me some food? And I was like, Yeah, absolutely. Cool. Let's duck into subway right here. Boom. Got her some food, got around. I'm cool with that. Yeah, I am too. I am too, absolutely. That's cool. Now, some of those homeless dudes were very in shape, dude. They could do a lot of push-ups.

Paul: 35:56

After you were done with them, they definitely could.

Todd: 35:59

Yeah.

Paul: 35:59

I'll give you a quarter for every push-up you do. Now, if you should have done that, that would have they would have done 200 of them.

Todd: 36:04

Yeah. Uh, anyways, so all that aside, so you got these three areas you got drama, cost of living, and responsibility. You came up with a formula, you approached it from a system-wide approach, and you you came up with an engineer's formula for dealing with that. Yeah. How did you do that?

Paul: 36:20

Well, as I was surviving myself and figuring out how to make myself feel better and actually have a better life. Yeah. And, you know, and in turn have a better life for my kids, because if I'm more present for my kids because I'm more present, it's much better for the kids, right? Because I'm always there. I'm not saying, well, wait a minute, I gotta do this work or I gotta do this or I gotta do that. I'm like, okay, what do you need? You know, what what are we what are we doing here or go play, go ride bikes, whatever. But as I was doing it, I started realizing that, you know, as an engineer, I had all these flow charts. I had the whiteboard at home, and the whiteboard was starting to fill up. And I I started realizing that all of the things that I was fixing that made me feel better and started breathing fit into three one of three categories either financial, drama, or responsibility. And it's over and over and over again. I could every time I'd fix something, I would put it in one of those three columns. I would write it on the whiteboard because that's how I was tracking everything at this point because I'm an engineer, right? You gotta have data, right? Yeah, yeah. And uh so every time I'd fix something and and go, you know what, that felt better, or that feels good, or I feel better, I can breathe, you know, whatever it was that was you know emotionally feeling better or fixing, I'd write it on the board and it would always fit in one of three categories either responsibility, drama, or cost of living. Yeah. And so So this formula kind of emerged. Yeah, so they it emerged, and the formula itself didn't emerge until I started writing a book. Right. Because I was like, well, you know what? I really need a way to quantify this. So I came up with a test of 30 questions. Now I'm putting together an app that they can go and take the test so it's easier than trying to read the questions out of the back of the book. Um, so I'm putting together an app that will have hundreds of questions, and they'll still only take 30 per test, but that way they can take the test over and over again and get different questions and see how they're progressing as they as they build their zero life themselves. Nice.

Todd: 38:04

That's cool, man. You also know it's it's not just formulaic, you also approach it from the perspective of you have two main characters, Mitch and Laura. Yes. Can you talk about their struggles? And where do those characters come from?

Paul: 38:16

Yeah, this is uh this is the tough one for me because Mitch and Laura is really me and my two wives, right? We didn't have a three, so it wasn't the same time. Sister wives. Yeah. So you know, I had my first wife, my second wife, and me. And what was I was the common denominator for problems for both those marriages? And Mitch and Laura is really me and a combination of those two people and where they were. And so Mitch and Laura are me and my ex-wives. And they are basically a parable throughout the book. Now, when I went to write the book, the first the previous two books that I wrote, they look like lab guides. Why do they look like lab guides? That's what I write at work for the last 30 years. So I've been writing classes for you and for everybody else that are lab guides. So those two books kind of sounded and looked like a lab guide. Right. And this book here, Living the Zero Life, is so important to me, and it made such a difference for me in changing my life. And I just want to help other people. I want to change their lives. But if I made a lab guide, they're gonna be bored out of their mind and toss it halfway through the first paragraph. Right. And uh so I sat down when I wrote it and I said, Well, I really like the way of the peaceful warrior, and I really like Zen and the Art of Happiness, and I really like the power of now, and I like The Secret, and I like all these self-help books, but they did it with parables. There was no teaching, the teaching was in the story. Right. And and but I still wanted to have stuff come from me. So I was like, How do I do that when I write this book? Yeah, and so I said, you know what? Why don't we make it a 50 50 book? Let's make it 50% a story or a parable. That's where Mitch and Laura came in. And then the other 50% is Paul's perspective, right? And uh and what I learned and how I relate that to the world, yeah, and how I can help you. Yeah, so I have 50% lab guide and fifty percent story. What's funny? Is I was creating the audiobook this week, and of course I had to listen to it because I did the whole audiobook with AI. I got a British accent lady to do it. It was incredible. They sound so pleasant. It's great. But the problem was is I'm listening to the story, and every time Laura or Mitch would cry in the story, I would start literally crying right there on the spot. Yeah because it hit home. I was like, and then the second part of me is like, I wrote that? That came from me. That's incredible. Because you know, there's imposter syndrome with everybody, right? And I'm just like, I wrote that. But but I started crying every time I I would when they would cry in the book. But Mitch and Laura is a story of a couple that, like most couples nowadays, on the outside, everybody thinks they're perfect and everything's great, and their life is fabulous and everything's great, but on the inside, they're just dying. Yeah. Well, that's what was happening with me and my first wife. I didn't know it in my second wife because I didn't feel it. I was madly in love. You know, I didn't see anything. But with my first wife, I was miserable, and everybody thought we were the perfect couple. When we got divorced in 05, we had four or five of our friends that were couples come to us and goes, Oh my God, you can't be getting divorced. We based our relationship on your relationship because you were so great. Right. And I'm like, No. We were terrible. We were never good. You know, it was bad from the very beginning. We should have never gotten married. And that's what people saw on the outside was how perfect we were. And that's what Mitch and Laura were. They're perfect on the outside, but inside they're both miserable. They're both talking to lawyers without each one knowing it, and they've both got PIs looking at each other because they think they're cheating and all this miserable stuff, and it was all made up in their head. Yeah. And that's what happened with me, and and that's why Mitch and Laura are me and my ex-wife's.

Todd: 41:38

Yeah, I mean, that's encouraging for people out there that uh you think you're alone in this. So many marriages are like that. Yeah. I I heard I was talking to a psychologist about it, and he said 50% of marriages end in divorce. Of the 50% who remain, the large majority of them, they just kind of numbers. They get numb emotionally and they're just existing. Yeah. So there's maybe 10% out there of good couples that are really in love and fostering a good relationship.

Paul: 42:06

So the good news is, people, if you're married and you're not happy right now, but you think you can save it, there is a possible there's a way to there's a way out. There's a way to make actually have a happy life. There's hope. It's the zero life. Yes. But but it doesn't necessarily have to be the zero life, but if you work together as a couple and come together instead of fighting each other and thinking each other is to blame, yeah, you know what? Look inside, change yourself and work on it together. It it can be an amazing thing. The problem the difference between Mitch and Laura and my life was Mitch and Laura, since I was the writer, I got to have poetic license. Yeah. So I actually made it to where they got the zero life just in the nick of time, to where they could save their marriage, and they actually fell madly in love afterwards because they were working together, whereas I lost my marriages, right? Right, right. But so that's the difference between mine and Mitch and Laura, because you know, I'm the writer, so I got to write it the way I wanted to. So I wanted them to have a happy life like I wanted to have. Yeah. So I gave them the happy life. So I gave away the I gave away the storyline.

Todd: 43:02

No, I appreciate you sharing your life, man. You're not sugarcoating things, you're not putting things out there that just aren't true. You're just like, hey, here's me. This is how I I came up with a solution, and thanks. You've documented it for us, man. So that's cool. I enjoyed reading the book, dude. It was it was good. So did it help you in any way? Yeah, it was a good mix between the parable, Lauren Mitch, and the quality of life and uh that formula you came up with there. But have you had any instances where you've used the book in your head that uh yeah, dude, over Christmas, man, I had some family drama and it was like uh it was you know, so an extended family member having some money problems. Yeah. And I'm just sitting there thinking, yep, this is exactly what Paul was talking about. Did it help? And it's just like uh yeah, I mean, it was just it was a good reminder and it it helped me to stick to my guns and say no. And I I I said no. Awesome. And that was the best thing that I could have done in that situation. It helped the other person, but it also helped you. The other person figured out their problem on their own. Yeah, and they didn't suck your energy out for it. It was um yeah, it was a s it was a scenario where they were expecting other people to make changes and help them, and they weren't willing to make changes themselves. And uh dude, I yeah, I'm reading the book and I'm I encounter the situation and I'm like, Yep, this is it. So family. I'm glad, yeah.

Paul: 44:23

I've had a few people I've had like eight or nine beta readers for the book. Right. And all of them are like, first of all, they liked the book a lot, they fell in love with it, they really enjoyed it, and yeah, and they were like, Oh my god, that's me. Oh my god, that's me through the whole book. Yeah, and then I have a few people that have actually called me and texted me a bunch of times in the last two or three months. Yeah, like, dude, I solved this problem with this, and I did this, and I did that, and I did this. I'm good. I'm like, and that's making me feel good because if I can just help one person, yeah, I've done my job. Right. Because I'm all about helping people, and that's why I'm being so honest, because yeah, I want people to trust me so that they will look at my book and read it. Of course, I want to sell books, you know, that's what I want to do, but I also want people to actually get something out of the book and change their life and actually make a difference in their life and make a difference in their family and their wife and their kids and their dog, you know, and you know, even the dog needs love, right?

Todd: 45:13

Yeah, dude. So I mean, so often we just let life life is kind of just happening to us and we're being carried along by it. Yes. And this is a way to just throw, throw a lifeline out to the to the to the shore and pull yourself up to the river's edge, put a stake in the ground, say, this is how I'm gonna live now. Yeah.

Paul: 45:29

So it's it's a change of it's a change. I mean, you're basically going from autopilot to intention, you're making a plan and working the plan, and you're you're you're actually living to a plan now. Right. And that gives you purpose because you're heading in a direction. And if you do that with your spouse and you're doing it together, it's even better. And then you because you're working on something together, it it fosters more love, right? And that's what we all want is love. We don't want to be mad all the time and upset. Right. That's true, man.

Todd: 45:56

Well, that's a good place to wrap it up, dude. So uh how do people find you? Where do they find you online?

Paul: 46:01

Well, they can find me right here in the video. No, so you can go to living the zero life.com. The book is available pre-order there. Uh, you can also search on Amazon.com once it gets published. Yep. You can't find it there yet, but it will be there soon. I'm gonna try to publish it in the first quarter of 2026. And I'm also working on a course, a Living the Zero Life course that will also be on the website soon once I get the whole thing wrapped up here. I'm working on it now. And of course, that's what I've been doing for 30 years is writing courses. Yeah. So that's what I actually love doing is writing courses. Uh, so that's I'm having fun doing my own thing course instead of writing Cisco's courses, right? Right. And uh, so I'm writing a course that'll be out there, and at some point I also want to get into doing retreats. So we'll do you know, couples retreats or even you know, singles retreats, whatever. Nice, and maybe do those, you know, where you book a cruise out and actually do it on a cruise, who knows? Yeah, we'll figure it out later on, but that'll be next year, not this 20, you know, 2027 or something. Yeah, yeah.

Todd: 46:57

So here's my takeaways, dude. Lifestyle creep, that's the enemy. Yeah, and we allow things to creep up on us job responsibilities, maybe you're building a business, things just overwhelm, and then you're taking all that on yourself instead of delegating. Our mission is just to cut through that chaos. Yeah, the drama, responsibility, and what was the other pillar?

Paul: 47:19

Cost of living. The cost of living. And one thing I didn't one thing I'd like to point out right before we go here, yeah, is people say, Well, you can never have zero of anything. How can you have zero responsibility? Well, you can't. If you have a kid or if you have a wife, you can't have zero responsibility. But if you're at 100% right now and you reduce it by 50%, yeah, you're gonna be breathing like crazy. Yeah, right. And you can never have zero drama. There's gonna be something. Now, I actually have zero drama because I've forced it on it. I I have absolutely for the last three, four, five years, I've had zero drama. At some point, I'm like, man, I'd like to have a little drama just because I'm bored. Yeah, you know, and then and then you know, your finances you can get to zero cost of living. And it explains in the book, but zero cost of living isn't just getting rid of everything and not spending ever. Zero cost of living is bringing your expenses down as far as you can and then bringing passive income in. Yes. And when your passive income matches your expenses, you're at zero life. Yeah. And then if they go above it, if your passive income is bigger than your expenses, that's just that's just great. That's heaven, right?

Todd: 48:15

Yeah, you know, so that's the goal, financial independence where you get to the point where your income exceeds your expenses.

Paul: 48:22

And we've never lived in a time better than right now to have passive income. With AI, if you're not making money with AI right now, you I don't I don't even know why not.

Todd: 48:32

Yeah, I mean, there's the I mean you could just do it with stock investing too. You could do it with AI, you can do it with real estate, you can do it with and there's that book that I I mentioned in previous episodes, the you know, the simple path to wealth. Yep. He goes into that. J.L. Collins, man, that book changed my life, dude. Yeah, I mean, it changed my financial life. Yeah, and I just totally changed the way I'm investing. And you get to the point, and that he talks to young people about that. If you can save 50% of your income, you can reach financial independence in about 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. And financial independence means your investments, whatever they are, are bringing enough money to they're paying more than your expenses and you're just living. Well, that's what I do with passive income, right?

Paul: 49:12

Yeah. So right now I'm at about 50% of my expenses with passive income. And a few things have happened in the last month or so that probably by February of 2026, I will be 100% at zero cost of living. Nice. I mean, it's just it's happening really quick all of a sudden because I'm focusing on it all the time. I have a plan to get there, right? And it's just constant. So I hopefully will be without a day job here. I'll get to fire my day job, hopefully, in 2026. Good for you, man. Yeah.

Todd: 49:38

So and I can attest to it. I've seen Paul living this for everybody out there listening. I've seen him living this over the last number of years. I've known him since like 2007.

Paul: 49:47

And uh well, we didn't know it. Yeah, we didn't know it. I didn't know that. It was uh I didn't know it either. Yeah, it was I didn't know my life was such a mess. Yeah, so interesting, man.

Todd: 49:57

So yeah, I appreciate you coming.

Paul: 49:59

I really appreciate you having me here. It's been fun talking to you. It's been fun reconnecting with you after all these years. Yeah, dude.

Todd: 50:04

So uh go to living the zero life.com and sign up for Paul's newsletter. Send me an email at living the zero life at gmail.com. Yep. And he'll you'll get a notification when the book's released. And do a search for it on Amazon. I'll be including a link in this episode once uh once the book is released. So uh appreciate everyone listening. And uh if you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to give us the review. We read every one of those. We appreciate those. And until next time, do you want to talk about that?