with Returning Guest Justin Bukartek

Justin Bukartek is a husband and proud father of two currently living in the Pacific Northwest. As an emergency manager, his professional life can be described as helping people, organizations, and communities prepare for the unknown and what could be the worst day of their lives. On the personal (and brighter) side, he is a fledgling gardener and music enthusiast who likes to spend his free time on the water or in the mountains exploring the great outdoors.

References:
Pain/Gain exercise - reach out to Joe to learn how to use this exercise when facing any dilemma to simplify your way forward

Follow Justin on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-bukartek-27ab9323

If you would like to have your own intentional conversation with Joe, either on or off the air, visit https://www.joebukartek.com/contact

Check out more episodes at intentionallyeverafter.com

Joe Bukartek empowers people to live intentionally. As host of the podcast, Intentionally Ever After [www.IntentionallyEverAfter.com], Joe is an ultramarathon runner and pickleball enthusiast, living at the beach with his family as part of his own curated intentional lifestyle.

As a board certified Intentional Lifestyle Coach, Joe helps individuals to have lives and careers that are wildly more fulfilling. Ready to curate a life of intention? Connect with Joe on his website [www.joebukartek.com] or LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joebukartek/.]

Joe also helps emerging adults build lifelong success beyond the nest in his specialized program, Intention to Launch. This results-driven partnership guides participants as they prepare to leave home and discover their ideal lives. Ready to launch? Check out [www.IntentionToLaunch.com]

If you would like to have your own intentional conversation with Joe, either on or off the air, visit https://www.joebukartek.com/contact

Check out more episodes at intentionallyeverafter.com

Transcript

0:06

Maybe that continual evaluation process where you achieve your goal. It's not the end, right? Because your situation is going to change and may not be what you want. Some just going through that, that reevaluation. Make sure what you originally wanted is actually what you got. This is intentionally ever after. Join Intentional Lifestyle coach Joe Brokercheck for a series of personal conversations and coaching sessions with various people about how living with intention shows up for them. Greetings everyone, and welcome to another episode of Intentionally Ever After. Today, for the first time ever, I am very delighted and excited and admittedly a little uncertain to present to you the first time I am having a guest on for the second time. And today that guest is the great Justin Bouchard tech. Justin, welcome. Thanks, Joe. And I promise the sequel will be better than the original. Good. Good. I just really listened to the first one, and it won't be that difficult to hit that mark. Banks. Thanks for that baseline. You're welcome. So, Justin, who are you? Well, you can introduce yourself to folks who don't remember our first episode from about two years ago. Yeah. I'm Justin Jo's younger, wiser brother. Husband to Lauren, father of two boys. Since our last discussion on the podcast. Aidan and Noah. Aidan just turned six. Now it just turned to aspiring rock band drummer. Failing miserably. He's currently living in the Pacific Northwest. All is well. All is well. So thank you for introducing yourself. And welcome back. It's a pleasure to have you here. The questions that we went over last time were quite similar, if not identical to the first time or this time. Now that I've been doing this for two years, two plus years. But what I'd like to do is talk a little bit about what has changed since we last spoke. And I. Since we last recorded, I should say, significant amounts of things. And I'm curious if your definition maybe we'll start here of living intentionally has changed. And no, you don't have to remember what you said before, but how do you currently define living intentionally? Well, similar to you, I also revisited our podcast past week. It's fun going down memory lane and I don't remember what I said, but I'm going to stick with that answer. But to give you like where I see it now. Now figuring out what you want and just taking the steps to do it. And to add to that, it's also going through a process of reevaluation to make sure what you thought you wanted or achieved factually. So what you want. So I think likely it won't be because I think that's going to change over time. So the only thing I'd add probably to my first answer, you know, I think I said something like action of taking actionable steps. Sounded very formal. I hate listening to myself being recorded after the fact. By the way, I found out that I say, you know, those words about a hundred times. So I'm now subconscious or conscious about that, you know? Yeah. But I would say it's maybe that continual evaluation process is one thing that I'll probably just tack on in the end where you achieve your goal. It's not the end, right? Because your situation is going to change and may not be what you thought it was. So just going through that, that reevaluation, make sure what you originally wanted is actually which. Love it. Yeah. And since we last spoke, you've lived a few things. You've had the opportunity to evaluate and then reevaluate based off of actions that you took in. Those actions you took were based off what you thought you wanted at the time. So just to update everyone who may or may not go back and listen, when we recorded, you were just about to you had already decided to move from Colorado to Oregon. Oregon. Oregon. You had one of two children, although the second one was certainly coming along. Catch us up a little bit about how your life has transpired since that moment, please. Well, I'll preface this. Speaking of our last podcast, the first podcast right at the end. So your viewers, listeners, whoever doesn't have to go back and of that brain trauma, you said something along the lines of let's let's let's just based on reevaluate or let's let's check back in again. The last thing I said was they're going to be awesome. And it was not okay. Yeah, it was not awesome. So there's there's the promise. They are awesome once again. So going back to what I just said, continue to reevaluate. Well, I think that's great. Yeah, I do want to come back. Let me just give you the skinny. Since our last conversation. Yeah. Welcome to No. Number two. I think he was, like, eight months. Lauren's eight months pregnant, so obviously, that is like the pinnacle highlight there. I think I've switched jobs twice and I've moved three times out of state, technically, twice. So just to give you an idea of some of the some of the moving parts, just in the last two years, it's been been pretty crazy. 2021 was stressful. It was to the max. I was in the pits and then 2022 was, we're going to recalibrate. And that's exactly what it was. It's a 2023 upward and onwards. There we go. That is a very abridged version of of things that happened. I had a lot of a lot of color commentary to add to the lines, but I'll just leave with that. Yeah. No, that's a good start. Thank you. Back in our first conversation, you mentioned a formula that you were using and plan to use in your impending move, which was to make sure you have a site or visibility on working the home life balance. Right. The work life balance, rather. And you said that you would ask Lauren to call you out to hold you accountable. How'd that go? She she certainly did. She wasn't the only one to say that. Okay. What do you mean by that? Yeah. So the work life balance, that was one of the things that was what was perfect or near perfect in my life. And that was it. And that was one of my concerns. Moving, taking a new job, taking a job in a leadership role. Yeah, that didn't that didn't. My aspirational thinking of trying to maintain that balance, even knowing that there was going to be some compromise that went down in flames. That was really a tough transition with the new job initially, but then moving here and then sort of being entrenched in my new professional life at the time. Yeah, there was not. It's being generous to say there was really any room for that sort of balance to the extent that while I was very conscious and intentional of work hours, it didn't matter if I was at work or at home. I couldn't necessarily turn my professional life off at all and enjoy the time I had with the people right in front of me mentally and just good enough to not unplug. We went on for quite a while meanwhile. So yeah. Lauren holding me accountable. It was, it was a a very regular daily sort of interaction and didn't even require words or conversation to come in. And there were other factors outside of the job. And, you know, it was living temporarily in rental houses, multiple houses, Airbnbs hotels, multiple homes out of you, out of your car, essentially, as far as what material possessions you have. So, yeah, there's a lot of factors where there's a lot of stressors that not only I felt that the whole family was feeling. So yeah, we had to get out of that. We did, yeah. There was a lot in flux for that first little bit. Just a bit. So obviously you were concerned that it might come to force. You didn't know the particulars. How could you write of how it would actually play out? You were, you were concerned going into it that May and I got to make sure this is in place. So much so I'm going to ask Lauren to hold me accountable. And she did verbally, non-verbally, the like. What would you have done differently at what point you choose? It's revisionist history now, so you can choose at any given point what you would have done differently from the moment we recorded the last podcast. So in hindsight, 2020, you know, there was some writing on the wall, and I'm trying to think I think when the podcast was recorded, I had yet to be in this new job. And as I'm alluding to, like the job was was the biggest crux, but it wasn't the only thing, but it was the biggest crux of a lot of this, you know, very stressful year time in my life. Our lives here. So in hindsight, even so, I started the job and I think we had to three months in Colorado before he moved to Portland. And there's some writing on the wall as to how that dynamic was going to seriously shift for me. Also, just just the expectations of that position and some of some of the responsibilities that were put on me. Okay. You mean like spoken like shared with you verbally or that you. Yeah. Both. Yes and no. Actually, more No, I think at the time I'm I'm of the mindset. Well, you're you're learning a new job. You're picking up like, like a lot of people in a new job. There's so much to learn. Once you kind of get your feet under you, things are slowed down a little bit. Once you're in an office with people versus working remote, you know you're going to start to get a rapport and still, you know, get a get a good get your stride. But I still felt that something something in that new position was just I had some hesitancy even so much that it was in the last month that before we were moving, we were still in Colorado. I kept having this sort of buyer's remorse of, is this really the right step? You know, we obviously moved forward, but in hindsight, maybe I should have had so many things going on. Our house was falling apart. It wasn't just the job. And like the typical things you're thinking about with a move with the house in which house is falling apart, Our house in Colorado, figuratively, but yeah, many, many things went wrong at an opportune time when you're trying to sell a home, which necessitated multiple moves out of the house. So in hindsight, what I, what I wish I had done was been more open with some of the thoughts and these feelings that I had probably with Lauren, even though Noah was like a month, six weeks old and you don't have the space nor like the mental capacity. At times my thought process, right? Like we have so much going on, let's just get there and then things will settle. In hindsight, maybe I probably should have reflected on some of these just these feelings I had about what we were about to step into because it was wasn't. There is a long period of time where it was too late to pull up. If you will. Okay. Is that the difference do you think it might have made? I don't think it would have made a difference. I, I still and just for everybody listening, I don't regret taking that job and don't regret moving out your one bit. Actually, as much as it was a stressful time in all of our lives. I learned more about myself professionally. I think us as a family personally, arguably, than any other year ever. There was a lot of growth. It was very rarely, you know, rainbows and unicorns, but so it wouldn't have changed things. And I'm glad it didn't change things because sometimes you got to go through that experience to understand what you truly want. Obviously, there's a few things I wish I didn't experience and, you know, could have cast aside, but it all happened for a reason. So yeah, so this maybe touches on your idea of reevaluating what it means to live intentionally. Do you feel like your any of your values shifted or what do you feel like to talk a little bit maybe about the growth that you experienced? What has shifted for you and your formula for living intentionally? My value in family shifted like realistically, I think two years ago, the whole time I did. And I say realistically because it's not that I didn't mean it before, but I feel like it was more of a formality. Like, of course, family is the most important thing in my time, some important thing, but my actions didn't necessarily state that. And talking about accountability go no further than talking to Lauren, who will say, you know, as I was in the process of going for this job and just talking about, which was the director position, leadership position, which is like I thought we didn't want that at this time because the focus was on family. Now you've taken this leadership responsibility is counterintuitive. Well, I should listen to that a little bit more. But but you did it right? Not because you just were stubborn. But why? But why? Because what I honestly, maybe ignorantly thought that I'd come in and have my cake and eat it, too, in the sense that I'm walking into a new position and leadership position with people under me and hiring people, building a program. But I also have this internal value that I want to keep, and I also want to instill that sort of value if people align with it to make sure that they feel the same way. So trying to build this culture of, yeah, we're going to work hard but play hard and whatever to play hard means for you, right? Whether it's family or whether you want to go travel or whether you just want to work more hours or if you're a workaholic and careers that important, whatever it is. So what was the question? Well, no, what you have me thinking here is this is wildly common. Wildly common. Right. And you touched on it very directly, saying it's very easy to set families the priority. So easy to say that and believe it and believe it right when we say it, we don't you know, we're not lying to ourselves. But you said realistically, like looking at logistically at our actions, at what shows up on the calendar, how we're spending our time. It's not common. It's not commonly reflected that way in many people's lives. And I would suggest that it's it's more challenging to do so. And it sounds like you would agree with that. It's if you put duct tape over my mouth and I couldn't tell you that family and this, you know, work life balance was important and you just looked at my actions, it would speak otherwise. I think it's part of what you're saying. And that's that's where I was where I'm saying this. And I did believe it, but I wasn't helping my cause by going down that route. And I didn't know to the extent that I was, you know, it was detrimental to this value of mine. And my overall goal until you get into it. Right. But nobody does that. Yeah, my my actions did not necessarily mirror what I wanted. That makes sense. It does make sense. Now I share a little bit about how I approach this with many of my clients. You have the floor. I have, but I'm asking permission for the purposes of this conversation now. Yes, you have my permission. Wonderful. If not, I'm just going to kick you off the call. Great. So, because it's such a challenge for so many people, this comes up all the time. We identify a core value family shocker, right? However, many, many people don't have a more specific instance of what that means or what that looks like for them. Just that I can't be at work all the time because because family is a value, because I need to have work life balance. But beyond that, most people don't have a picture of what that looks like. They don't have a metric, right? It's just well, it can't infringe upon because that is not the most important thing. But inevitably where it comes in and overshadows so many different things. So an approach that I take and ask simply is what do you want to do with your family? How do you want to spend that time? And obviously, you and I have had these conversations, too, but it helps to plan for those specific instances and it makes it a little more real or realistic, hopefully, where you can plan this specific IC units of family time as opposed to just saying that family is a benefit. Do you think something like that is or would be helpful? Yeah, yeah. And I think it's hard to I shouldn't say it's hard. It's you don't naturally come up with those sorts of metrics. I think it's just more of a concept in your head, right? Totally. Yeah. And I. That's where I stood, You know, when I took the new job and relocated was well, to me. I guess my metric was the 9 to 5 workday, which was a lot bigger or not? Not necessarily. Actually, it was whatever it was, but it wasn't. That wasn't good enough. It was just too broad. Where, okay, I'm just going to leave at a certain time and everything else just sort of fall in place because I just get in my car and leave. And that obviously was short sighted. So. Well, it just didn't it didn't address the things that you talked about already. Like, it didn't address the fact that mentally you would still be engaged with work. Right. It didn't address the fact that maybe you would still be reachable or had to go back and do work from home or or things like that. Yeah, I put this barrier, but nobody else saw those fence posts, right? I had the 8 to 5 or whatever it was. But yeah, that was just, that was just visible by me and nobody else. Okay. Yeah. So that's another thing too, right? It wasn't articulated. The expectation wasn't put out there to anybody else. Any other stakeholders. Yeah. So as far as they were concerned, you're available. Yeah. From this growth period. What are you. What are you taking with you? What's one thing I'm taking with me? Yeah. What are you. You have to limit it to one. But what? As far as, like, a practice, Something. Something pragmatic, something logistical. Right. Because before you had kind of left it vague. And so. Sure, you're taking some general thoughts with you, right? Yeah. I got two things that I find I currently do. And I do it. Do it successfully. One is I say no to things. So I, I recently had this conversation with a colleague of mine where back in Colorado I worked for an organization that was a Yes organization in the sense that if there was an ask, Yes, we'll do it. Yes, we'll fill that space. It was all in the spirit of, you know, increased influence and respect and power, that sort of thing. I'm just sort of build the value of the program that was sort of that mindset was ingrained in me, and I carried that to my next job. And that quickly caused me to burn out because I was saying yes, everything for all those same reasons, especially building a new program was a new sort of program I was responsible for building. I just flew too close to the sun. So that's one thing that since then I've learned to say no. And the thing I've learned is that it's not a negative. And actually I was surprised by how supportive people are when you do put up those fence posts that I was talking about before. And as long as as long as you're holding your end up, your end of the bargain up and you're performing well and you're a good teammate and all that sort of thing, can't be a dirtbag necessarily and just say no to everything. You're going to get flushed as a talk about a job. But at some point, everybody has a carrying capacity and when your cup starts spilling over, all the other things are, you know, there's a sacrifice there. It's whether it's your personal performance, your work, most like it spilling on to other people on your team or across the organization or your family. So there's cascading negative impacts. So it's it's saying no. The second thing, which I think is sort of falls into line with this this general theme is putting the so going back to the theme of family being the core value. When I have something with the family as far as the responsibility, I just put it out there as far as well, this isn't negotiable. I am taking Aiden to school Tuesday mornings, working on my schedule. I have to go to this doctor's appointment or Lauren has something. So I'm watching Noah or whatever the case is. There's there's no longer an ask or negotiation. I sort of just put it out there in a respectful way, in the same lens that I'm not, you know, pushing downstream impacts, you know, my problems on to somebody else. So as long as you balance it on your own what I've done intentionally, I'll say that word one more time before we end is I'm not afraid to bring that up in a meeting scheduled and I'll just declined saying, nope, not doing it because of this reason or that reason. We have a deadline. No, I can't do it because of this reason or that reason. Those are two things that I've taken from my experience and I currently apply again, is received very well, and I think that it's surprising to me. But after you do it like it shouldn't be surprising at all because anybody has that same sort of value, they're going to not only appreciate it, but maybe they'll want to do the same thing a little bit too. Or they have done it and they want to support you in the same regard. And that's what I found so awesome. Yes. Awesome. Awesome. So I'm hearing that you articulated this fence posts, right? You shared them aloud, which is a big difference. Right? Before you had kind of kept them to yourself. Right. Which not as enforceable. So you have that additional layer of accountability with that and you're also sharing that it is not a foregone conclusion that by saying, no, you are a dirt bag automatically, you are not a piece of garbage, not going to get flush automatically. And because you're saying no to things, because family appointments are non-negotiable moving forward and because you have the value of having a strong work ethic and integrity, you will do whatever you need to do at work to be the worker you want to be while still insisting upon family is the priority. You said it better, but. Well, I was just parroting what I heard and feels good. That's pretty powerful. Good. Yeah, it's great. And you're absolutely right that people will respect it. And if they don't see you later, who cares? Do it anyway, because it matters to you. Because it's in line with your values and you're going to act in a way that reflects your values, right? So you're going to be that coworker you want to be. You're going to be the family member. You want to be. Right. And if that person has an issue with it, then that is that person's issue. Yeah, well, Tale of two Cities where I've experienced both and one. That's fine. I'll pack my bags and good luck to you. And the other one. You know, it's an organization that I'm proud to be a part of, you know, because they support me in that regard. So yeah, yeah. And those are not easy decisions to make, but it seems like it becomes very clear once you are living in alignment with your values. Yeah. Crystal Awesome. So when you started saying no something and maybe you weren't doing so much before because it wasn't part of the culture or in or is counter to their culture, what was it like as you do you remember like when you were practicing doing it and when you first started doing it? What was that like? Yeah, it was. I didn't just, you know, show up on Monday and start doing it. Yeah, It took a little transition period where you do have sort of I don't say the word credibility, but there needs to be that report and that trust that's built. You can come in and sort of dictate or call shots because you probably won't be supported. So I think there's that this process where you need to build trust, I'll use that word again with their team and allow them to know who you are and know what you're going to get if you allow me these sort of comforts, because you're you're a better person, you're a better teammate. Everything like that. But yeah, it didn't happen day one necessarily. Yeah, that makes sense. So it makes sense. There might be some healthy skepticism of someone who comes in day one saying, I'm not going to be able to work between these hours and these hours. Right. And they're like, Who the heck is this joker? Right. So I think what you're talking about is building, building some equity. You come in and you kind of prove yourself, prove your worth while still maintaining visibility and what matters to you and and your values, Right? Yeah. And equity needs to be currency that's, you know, recognized by your organization too, which it was. So there's there's the other side of the coin to continue to use money funds. There we go. Yeah. But yeah you can start to kind of go go that route. But it needs it needs to be felt and understood and realized is that it must be supported. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a two way street and if it's not, then, you know, there needs to be discussions around what's what's best for you. Yeah. Excellent. Okay. So, so big theme here of the transformation, the growth Living family is a value as opposed to just stating it as a value. Right? That seems to have happened in a in a very good way previously when we talked about habits and we talked about things that have had exponential payoff, you talked a lot about the use of technology and being present with family. And you know, previously you live geographically in a space that just kind of made your choices for you in a lot of ways. What exists around that habit? Where does that currently lie with you? Yeah, kind of silly things, but I think it sort of holds true just how I still try to do that. Now I have cell phone towers. I live in a more I live in society now versus the boondocks or I was before, but I turn my I turn my phone on airplane mode. So I think the last time we spoke, I lost cell phone coverage, which is a good thing safety wise. So it sort of put me in that mindset of getting off my phone and just looking, you know, not through a lens but what's in front of me. And so when I when I do get home, which is now 20 feet across my backyard to my back door. Yeah, that's I'm sorry. I know what you're talking about, but that sounds really weird and random. Your office is next door. I'm. I'm right now in my office, which is a separate building plop dab in the middle of my backyard now. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying. Yeah, thank you. The catch was I turn my phone. Yeah, I turn on airplane mode. It's great. It's triumph play mode. And I wear watch. I hide this watch. You got this watch as a as a best man gift for my my buddy, Doug. Doug, if you're listening, so learn it by. Bring up the watch. Because every time you want to see what time it is, I would pick up my phone. Everyone takes out their phone. And once you say, got your phone to see that it's this time of day, it's really easy to then swipe and open up your email or something else. So welcoming back to our watch now and I look at the time when I keep my phone maybe in my pocket or on the counter, so I feel like I think I have some pretty good habits. I mean, you know, the off the grid as I once was when we when we last talked. But I think that's sort of a habit that kind of aligns with that sort of intentionality. Third time I'll say it, I'm trying to do. Yeah, I'm keeping a count. Don't worry. Thank you. That's awesome. So speaking of awesome, it's a word you used to describe how life would be when. When we feel it's going to be awesome. Yeah, it's. It. It is. I was awesome. I hung up the phone, and then it was sitting for about a year, but then it got awesome again. Then it got out of the gate. So. Okay, so I got to throw a line in there because you have promised there was an indirect promise that you and I would get to run a race together. You know, that was that was kind of thrown out there. How did that go? How was that race that we did together? Well, I'm still an aspiring race runner as I am rock star drummer. Yeah. But I do run more frequently than I did before. That is a fact. It is a fact where you are running today. I am not going to be short for the next five days. Maybe just one day I plan to run a race with you, Joe, in the next year just so I can finally get the monkey off my back a So those are some words to write down. Okay, The mileage will be five K or less, not 50 K or more. Okay. Okay. It's negotiable that I'll leave it at that. I'll quit while I'm ahead. How about your new habits or your new hobbies? Rockstar, come and talk to me about that. I've never picked up chopsticks in my life, but last year I just wanted a new hobby. And yours truly sort of encouraged me to start taking drum lessons. And actually, I literally just got texted. Even though I say I'm never on my phone, My my drum teacher needs to reschedule. So I take drum lessons every Wednesday. It's so much fun. So much fun. It started about a year ago. I've been doing it everyone's days. I go to local music shop and a young kid, David teaches me drums and I got my electric drum kit right here. So I don't keep up the neighbors or the kids. But even then they will come in here and they whack at the drum set with a stick. It's just so much fun. Yeah, it's been it's been really fun, really refreshing, very challenging. It's a lot harder than you think. So since moving out here, there's been a lot of other fun sort of activities. I wouldn't say they're hobbies per se, but no proximity to the ocean that we didn't have before. We've gone crabbing, we've gone clamming, clam digging, Just just the food. One of our favorite pastimes Now, I think we do it often because it's still an hour and a half. Change from the coast is going to tide falls, tide pooling. So these tide pools kind of come into themselves. When the tide goes out and there's starfish everywhere and sea anemones and crabs and fish. And it's it's kind of part pastime. We're going to go next weekend probably. We're going out to the coast to go camping. So we'll go tide doing some good. That's awesome. Yeah. What was your chair at a story with me recently? You had gone to an Airbnb you attempted It was more specific than tide pooling. You went out like middle of the night. Yeah, it was climbing. Yeah. Maybe you would you share that story? Yeah. So I'll. I'll forget a few details, but a good story has to do with me meeting a watch or knowing benefit of time a little bit so that these two or three types of clams, we're. We're looking to dig our best in this bay, and you have to go at low tide. So I looked at the tide chart and what the heck, whatever the bay was, I looked up the tide chart and come to find out there's there's a city of the same name in California. So I looked up the tide chart for California and we're in Oregon. And so luckily, Lauren looks at the tide chart again. It's just not I don't think the tide is going out at 5:00 or 6:00. It looks like it's a lot later. I'm like, no, no, no. I looked at it. Come to find out instead of like a late afternoon clam digging session, the tides didn't go on like 830 at night. And so, you know, you with young kids? Not at all. It's kind of like bedtime or even past that time. Well, we didn't care. We pulled the boys out and we yeah, we were at Airbnb is like 10 minutes away, so it wasn't bad, but we went night clam digging and we're not set at all to be clamming for the first time with our iPhones. At least we had a couple flashlights on Airbnb, but we got four clams and we were happy as chickenshit to get that. But it was like pitch blackout. One might say happy as a clam. I guess you just want to skip over that one. Yeah. Alley oop. Yeah, it was. It was so much fun. I mean, Noah fell asleep within 5 minutes, so all the pictures we have and he just, like, passed out in Lauren's back. She was schlepping them, but yeah, so much fun. Yeah. When to do that again. Nice. That sounds like it. Have more. Check the tide chart first. Yeah, check it twice. Yeah. Yeah. And then we. And then we walked out of the bay and couldn't find our car. So were. I don't know if I told you this. It's like dark. And there's this little frontage road we're walking maybe just a quarter mile in the wrong direction and eventually, like we think our castmates told because there's nobody out here, it's terrible. We turned around and found the car. But yeah, bunch of amateurs did it. Yeah. City slickers. It's a hell of a first time. That's great. Yeah. We took them home, cleaned them, we ate them, and we did the whole thing. So they ended up successful. That's great. So moving forward, got some things on the horizon. Talk to me through the lens of intentionality. Of course, when you got going on. All right, I wrote this down because and this will be the last time I reference our first podcast, I said, and I quote, In 2021, the perfect world will be you're not working and you get to spend time with your family all the time. So I decided to do that unintentionally so that just once I'm taking a family gap year slash sabbatical in August. We are. And I'm taking work off. Maybe not for the whole year, but I think probably for the first big chunk of it. And we are going to be doing a bucket list item that Lauren and I have only been thinking about, talking about for years and for we're just doing it. We pulled the trigger. We decided to do it back in January. And so just so excited, so excited. I'm going to be wheels up in August and we're going to be starting our until until July next year, really doing little world tour. Mm hmm. And what are some of the stops along this world tour? Oh, yes. The big four will be live in two, three months at a time. So if anybody wants to come visit Flipkart, text open invitation to anyone that listens to your podcast, just check in with me first and make sure that you're non-suspicious suspicious character. I'll be sure to list your gift with us. We may see you though. Friends and family will start there and you want to be your friend. Say, we're going to Greece, We're going to the island of Syros for three months. Then we're going to be in Australia for two months, New Zealand for two months, and Bali for three months have to have some stopover countries to and from all these spots just to kind of break it up, see the world a little bit, expose the boys to new food, new cultures, take a break from the cycle. Even though I sort of alluded to my current organization, how they align and support a lot of my values, we're looking forward to just not having, you know, those restrictions around work and having not just work, but not even school and just routines just sort of restrict us. We want to just kind of break away and further recalibrate, if you will, where we want to be. So going to take the next year and travel all over and see where that is and what we want to be doing. Spectacular. Yeah, Yeah. It's going to be awesome. I promise you this time it will be awesome. Spoken with the confidence of your former self. I love it. I love it. Okay, Get you touched on something ever so slightly, but I kind of want to call it out. Your current organization, you actually enjoy it and you enjoy the culture and I think that's important to call out because one doesn't need to leave a job because it is awful, right? That's not the only reason to step away. Right. And try something new. Try something else. It is a common way, Right. But I think I think that was important to you. You called that out that, you know, you do enjoy your current organization and work. You do work with great people. And I would actually say to that comment that it's probably easier, easier to jump in whether you take a year off or anything. If you just want to take a break, I would say it's probably easier to jump off from an organization that you do align with, that you do enjoy versus one that's not. Yeah, you might be right. I agree. I don't know. What fears do you have about this upcoming trip? Gosh, they're so heady. I don't have any fears other than acquiring a flesh eating disease in Indonesia or something like that. But I don't fear that. No, I don't have any fears. I don't think I have any. It's going to be so much work. Not every day is going to be wonderful. And so just for everybody listening, we're not going to be jumping around to, you know, see the sights every single day. Our intention is slow travel in the sense that you sort of just live and, you know, some cases work and go to school and be going to school in a couple of spots. So it's very much you just uproot your lives in one place and put some temporary roots into another. So so even though it's not going to be like, go, go, go, we have a full agenda every day. You're supposed to be days that are just crazy like we are having right now. But that's not a fear. You know, our aspect of logistics going from Greece to Bangkok, Thailand is going to be stressful. But they are, you know, jet lag is going to be a lot, especially for little ones. But I don't fear anything. The fear is to look at the other way more. And I because after we made this decision, there's this sort of, oh my gosh, we did it. We jumped off the high dive, but we've yet to hit the water. That's where we are. Not so much in but the initial weeks. And I would say couple of months after that, like was this the right decision? And we keep coming back to them right? It was. Yeah. I bet my life on it when we get back. None of us don't have any regret that we did this. Any regret. The only regret we would would have is if we didn't do it. And that's where we were for, you know, a number of years where, Oh, this would be awesome, you know, so. So no fear from the old t shirts that said no fear. I do. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like you could still see this somewhere to go, boy. Maybe a thrift shop. So is it true the rumor I heard that you were considering reengaging with social media for the purposes of serial tracking and tracking memories? Yeah. So actually, it's. It's confirmed, though. I don't know what I'll do with it. I logged into my Facebook account for the first time in eight years, and actually, it took me three days because they were going to dissolve my account and they had to do something to validate whatever. So I couldn't just log in, but they let me in and I haven't been on the site for eight years, so I've logged in to Facebook, come to find out. Nobody, least of my circles, really uses Facebook anymore. It's no longer what it was. It's now Instagram. I think. So anyway. Yeah, we're going to do some we're going to do some social media, you know, I'm going to be leaning on Lauren because she's really good about that. And the only way people know what I'm doing is through her now. I'll be right in her coattails. But yeah, I'll be coming out of darkness. Excellent. So perhaps, you know, we can chat about putting your socials in the links so that people can follow your adventures. There's really nothing there right now. Pretty stale content. No, I understand. Don't worry. Don't worry. But that's part of the excitement. People will see it grow from nothing. Yes. Back. What was your last status update or your last post on Facebook? Lauren and I went to a winery with our Scott and Gentry in Denver in 2015. Shortly after Lauren and I got married was the last picture I had in August or September of 2015. Just curious. Well, brother, we have come to that time. Is there any final thoughts you would like to share in the name of intentional living For my lovely wife who's listening, I will say to Lauren, even though I don't give her credit, listening to people around you and allowing them having them hold you accountable is very important. So being receptive to that, you've been one of those people for me as well. Joe So is intentional. That's for I went over my limit as you want to be with what you want to do, making sure that that is communicated and felt by those around you. You're in a circle, whoever that is, spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, kids, whoever, and allowing them to be supporters and champions of that goal. And there's probably going to be some alignment, right? Whatever you're trying to achieve is probably going to be a benefit or align with something they're trying to do too. So I would say that solid rock solid. Thank you for joining me for being the first ever second ever on the show. Appreciate it. And thanks for your time and your thoughts. And I actually get to see you soon. So that'll be delightful. I'm looking forward to that, too. And if we do a trilogy, even though trilogies usually don't turn out very well, Godfather Part three not so good. Yes, but it's going to be awesome calling it. It will be US. It will be awesome. All right, brother. Thanks again. Thanks, Joe. This has been intentionally ever after hosted by intentional lifestyle coach Joe Booker Tech. If you would like to have your own intentional conversation with Joe on or off the air, visit intentionally ever after dot com. Thanks for listening.