Let's Ride w/ Paul Estrada

Solo Episode: DIY Nesting & Getting What You Deserve

• Paul Estrada • Season 1 • Episode 19

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Ever notice how impending parenthood transforms those long-ignored home projects into urgent missions? That's exactly where I find myself—deep in nesting mode, armed with caulk guns and Allen wrenches, frantically preparing for our newest family member arriving in just eight weeks.

There's something surprisingly satisfying about stepping away from keyboard work to create tangible results with your hands. Though YouTube makes everything look deceptively simple (seriously, those tutorial videos skip all the real-world complications), I've discovered newfound confidence tackling electrical work, AC repairs, and various home improvements. Each completed project brings a unique sense of accomplishment that my regular work rarely provides.

Between drywall cuts and furniture assembly, we managed a meaningful escape to Spain—a country that captured my heart during my college semester abroad. Returning now as a parent, the cultural contrasts became even more striking. While Americans race through life prioritizing productivity, Spaniards embrace a refreshingly different approach—restaurants where meals stretch for hours, children engaging in conversation rather than staring at devices, shops closing midday for rest, and dinner starting when most Americans are preparing for bed. This deliberate slowness creates space for connection and enjoyment that we often sacrifice in our efficiency-obsessed culture.

The trip held special significance because we brought my father-in-law, who at 70 hadn't returned to Madrid since living there briefly at 15 after leaving Cuba. These intergenerational experiences have heightened my awareness of time's passage and mortality—not in a morbid sense, but in recognizing the importance of creating meaningful memories while we can. Seeing my parents' vibrant interactions with their grandchildren reminds me how precious these moments are.

As I reflect on what wisdom I'd share with younger generations, perhaps the most valuable is this: no one will advocate for your advancement like you will. Throughout my career, I've observed too many talented people waiting for recognition that never automatically arrives. Whether in your professional life or personal pursuits, knowing your worth and actively going after what you deserve makes all the difference. The world rarely hands you opportunities—you must create them yourself.

What new skills or hobbies have you developed in your adult years? I'd love to hear how you're challenging yourself and growing, regardless of your age or stage in life. Subscribe to join our ongoing conversation about finding purpose and living intentionally through life's constant transitions.

Speaker 1:

Hi, let's Ride. Listeners, it's your friend, paul Estrada. If you've gotten any value out of any of the episodes, I'm here to ask you to pause this episode and take a moment to subscribe to the show wherever you're listening to this podcast. If you're a real go-getter, please take a moment to leave a review of the podcast. I'd be indebted to you forever. Thank you for supporting and listening to the show and for going on this journey with us. Pause, subscribe and let's ride. Let's ride on through the rain. Come on and take me anywhere that you want to be, so let's ride. What's up everybody? Long time no talk.

Speaker 1:

It's been a while since I've done a solo episode. There's been a lot going on, but just been trying to stay up with the interviews, which takes up a decent amount of time. But in addition to that, we are full on in nesting mode, and for those of you that don't know what nesting mode is, that is when you have a kid on the way and, all of a sudden, all those projects around the house that you want to do, but then you just don't find the time to get around to it All that stuff starts to become a priority. You're about to welcome a new member of the family and, yeah, full-on nesting mode. So what does that mean for me? Well, it means a lot of caulking. If you guys are familiar with that, that's just taking a tube of white stuff and just filling in cracks around various wood trim and baseboards, repainting baseboards, painting rooms, moving furniture around. You know taking a lot of building, a lot of furniture, a lot of furniture. You know that furniture comes in it's. You know it's heavy. They always have it's always with the Allen wrench and you know you're just by the end of the thing. Your, your thumbs are red and torn apart because you've twisted so many dang bolts into place. But you know that's what it takes. That's what it takes, I guess, to get the house ready. And it is nice, it is nice to have something pushing you to want to do those things, because I do stare at them right. You can have those projects and you kind of walk past it and every once in a while you look at it. It's like I really should find time today or this weekend or next weekend to get this done. And then you know inevitably something better, more fun comes up, and then you just kind of pass on that. But no, been taking the time doing all that and it's going pretty well.

Speaker 1:

I have to say, youtube is amazing. You know, you can learn a lot of things on YouTube, although I will say what I will say about YouTube is they make things look a lot easier than it is in reality. Or I'm just not that bright, but I, you know, I'll watch these videos, I'll do my research. I'll watch three videos just to make sure I get all the different angles. I'm not missing any of the details. And you know, I'm feeling real confident as I'm entering the project. I kick it off and then you kind of get started and then there's like one thing that varies slightly from what you saw in the video and you're just in a world of hurt. You're kind of just trying to figure out. Okay, well, this is not part of my YouTube training. This was not at all part of that, and now I've got to troubleshoot and figure this out.

Speaker 1:

Read the comments, man. You start reading the comments and all of a sudden people are like, oh well. You start reading the comments and all of a sudden people are like, oh well, they didn't mention this little detail, and so I'm not going to bore you, but the reality is, this has been my life the last couple of months. I kind of like it to be honest with you. It's fun. There's something about when you are somebody that typically is behind a computer screen typing away and then actually taking a few moments to do something with your hands and seeing a project kind of come from nothing to completion. That's pretty satisfying. And so I have.

Speaker 1:

I'm not gonna lie, I've been complaining about it here for the first couple of minutes, but in reality it has been a lot of fun and it is coming together. I'm learning a ton electrical stuff which I would never touch before. I'm all about it. Right, I just did some work on the AC unit and man, look at me guys. So it's just, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. We're coming to the end here.

Speaker 1:

I think we're about eight weeks or so away from the new addition to our family. We're excited. Got a little bit more nesting to do. You know, just picture those. Remember when I was talking to Craig and he got those bald eagles up in Mount Baldy, just kind of nesting, getting the nest ready, getting it all set and ready to go. So it's been fun. I got a couple more weeks in me and probably a couple more projects that we'll check off the list, but I'll leave you with this.

Speaker 1:

I think if you've been kind of contemplating wanting to do something look, it's expensive out there these days, guys hiring people to do stuff I would say sometimes it's absolutely worth it. They just do stuff real quick. It makes a lot of sense. But if you've got some time and you want to save some money, just go down the YouTube rabbit hole and good things will happen. That's all I'm going to say on that. All right, couple other things. Okay, what else has been going on? Just got back. So we did take a pause from the nesting and we went to Spain. I was super excited about that.

Speaker 1:

I, when I was 20 years old, spent a semester in Spain, specifically Madrid, and the thought there was I'm going to become proficient at Spanish. I'm going to be a Spanish speaking son of a gun. Right, that's how I sold it to my parents anyway. In reality, I am a summer baby. My birthday is in August and I came to the realization when we were 20 that I was going to be the last of my group of friends to turn 21. Of course, in my mind that meant okay, well, I'm going to have all my friends that are going to turn 21, which means they're going to be going out to bars, clubs, having a good time, and I'm going to be the guy sitting at home and just go get myself a fake ID For whatever reason. That didn't cross my mind. What crossed my mind was let me go find a country that allows people to legally drink before 21. So yeah, in hindsight I guess that wasn't the brightest thing, but it turned out it was a great thing.

Speaker 1:

I went there in I think it was January of 2004, something like that, 2005 maybe, and I had a great time. I was supposed to be in class five days a week, but things happen made a lot of friends and went out and had a good time and anyways, it became a special place for me, so much so that I really I really fell in love with the culture, all the different things, the way that they approached life. If there's one thing I'll say about the Spaniards, this is just perception. Maybe it's not true, I don't know, but it just seems like they really take the time to enjoy life and kind of prioritize spending time with friends, family, over work, whereas I feel like here in the US. We are very economically driven, and I'm certainly that way, and so, at least again, for me it's just nice to go over there. Things move a lot slower.

Speaker 1:

If you're starving, do not go to a restaurant, because that waiter's not going to come over for a solid 30 minutes. Then he might pour you some water and say I'll be back and I'll come get your order. A meal is very drawn out. It's going to take at least two hours. If you're hungry especially if you got kids that are hungry just go to McDonald's, just get it over with. You're not going to want to go sit down and spend time at a restaurant, but that's kind of part of it, right, it's just take your time. We that's kind of part of it, right, it's just take your time. We're not in a rush. Take your time, enjoy.

Speaker 1:

You know, another thing that I noticed I was there last week was you know, everyone takes their kids to the restaurants and there's not a lot of devices. I'm guilty of it, right. I mean, kids start acting up and you're just like I want to enjoy a nice dinner. Here's an iPad, here's the phone. Sit there, much over there. Kids just kind of sit there and they participate in the conversation or they're engaged in some other way. Maybe they're coloring or doing something like that. So again, I don't know Maybe I'm being kind of critical, but that's how it felt.

Speaker 1:

The shops close in the middle of the day so people can go home and rest, relax, take a nap, take a load off, whatever, and then people go back out and they eat dinner at nine 10. Don't try eating dinner at six, seven o'clock. Places aren't open. They're going to look at you kind of funny. Just go later and go to sleep late. You go to sleep at 11, 12 o'clock, maybe later, two, three o'clock in the morning, whatever. It's a very different way of life and it's just a very nice change of pace and so that was a lot of fun here over the last couple of weeks doing that.

Speaker 1:

A lot of sangria, really good sangria out there. I'm going to have to find a recipe for that and that was kind of Spanish. It was awesome to be able to take my two youngest boys there and just kind of get them into the culture a little bit, a different culture. By the end they were kind of starting to speak a little bit of Spanish and asking hey, how do you say this word in Spanish and I kind of surprised myself too, to be honest with you. I'm talking to my father-in-law and throwing out all kinds of words, vocab words. I can't put full sentences together per se, but I was throwing it out there, and then they have a very unique accent too. It's like they got a very th? Th to what they got going on. So it's like I'm going to the plaza, I'm going to go to the plaza, plaza, and it's just yeah, it's just fun, it's just fun to get out of your element, enjoy a little time.

Speaker 1:

And so that was our little break from nesting so many times in such a short period ever in my life. You know I go back and we've talked about these on some of the episodes, but it was about involving, you know, the boys in these things, right, not necessarily I'm not going to have them. You know messing with some electrical, right, but you know that's like the old age, old thing of you know the dad's working on something and the son holds the flashlight. Hey, thing of the dad's working on something and the son holds the flashlight. Hey, son, hold the flashlight, move it right here, give me this angle. Hey, hold it. You're not holding it right, but just getting him exposure to kind of just seeing these things, like seeing that it's not some crazy ridiculous thing, just like some sort of level of comfort in getting them to do that.

Speaker 1:

And one thing that really stood out to me was we were cutting some drywall and he was helping me measure things. Now, look, everything takes like three or four times longer when they're involved. But if I've got the time, as frustrating as it is, I just see a lot of value in giving him the time to measure the thing out, take the pencil, do the whole thing right, and so we've been doing that. And, yeah, just a really unique moment was we were marking some drywall and he had a pencil and he takes the pencil and he puts it behind his ear when he's not using it and it's probably no big deal. I think probably that's what most people do. It makes a lot of sense, it's easily accessible. You just lift the hand up, you just grab that pencil, boom, it's right there. You don't lose it, you don't end up putting it somewhere it's not supposed to be, it's just boom right in the ear.

Speaker 1:

And that just reminded me a lot of my grandpa, alex. He was just I mean, that's what he did. He was a handyman, he owned a bunch of properties and he's just always working on those things right, and at his house too, same thing. But he always had that pencil in the back of his ear and so as soon as I saw that, I immediately took a picture of that and just good reminder. He's been gone for a little over a year now and so it's always nice when I get those little reminders about him. And just to also remind you, I saw that stuff growing up, saw him doing that, saw my dad doing stuff like that, and so it's kind of nice to be passing those things along. And, like I said, I'm not going to be building a house anytime soon, but your boy knows how to get around a screwdriver and a pair of pliers every once about.

Speaker 1:

But coming up on hopefully the halfway point of being a professional in the work environment, right Since coming out of school, and if the savings, the investments and everything kind of works out, I should be on the backside of working, which is kind of before retirement, which is kind of crazy to think about, because it doesn't seem that long ago that I was interning at a company and green and not knowing much about anything, and fast forward and as young as I like to think I am in my mind. We've got these interns on campus and I'm speaking to them and I'm just looking around the room like, holy shit, I'm getting old. These 20, 21, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kids that I'm explaining you know what we do at work and, just like man, I remember sitting in your chair and I don't know I couldn't imagine how quickly those the first 18 years have gone by and how much I've learned and things like that. And you know, one of the questions I got asked was again, people are obsessed with titles and money and compensation. I got asked was again, people are obsessed with titles and money and compensation. I get those things right. And so it was just like man, how did you get to director? How did you get to vice president? How do you get to vice president? How do you get to the C-suite? That's where I want to be. How do I get there the fastest? How do I do that? And I don't, yeah, it's. I mean it's kind of cool. I mean it's kind of cool having a title and, you know, kind of an acknowledgement of your expertise and your hard work.

Speaker 1:

I think for the most part, but I don't know, I don't know how to think about titles. You know, I've once left a company to go to another company for a better title and I don't know, I don't know how to think about that stuff. Because if you really want, you can give yourself a title. Titles don't I mean. At the end of the day, what do titles really mean? Do they mean a lot? And so just kind of having some self-reflection on that, and what would I say to 22-year-old Paul these days? Would I have done anything differently? I don't think so.

Speaker 1:

I think I did pretty well and I will say I see some of these I'm going to call them the young kids and whippersnappers that a couple years out of school and just every once in a while you run into one that just man, they've just got that drive, they've got this something in them and you're just like man, I'm going to teach. When I see that, when I see that drive, when I see that motivation, when I see a certain skill, that gets me really excited and I want to help those people get to where they're trying to go and that's one of the things that excites me. Now I have certain projects and things that I work on that are interesting, but probably there's nothing today that gets me more excited than seeing somebody that's just got a ton of potential and just helping them figure out how to tap into that. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know where I was going with that, but you kind of yeah, I don't know where I was going with that, so that's just a work tangent, because it wouldn't be me if I didn't throw in a little bit of a corporate speak in there, because that's just what I do. That's where it seems to be, where I'm very comfortable talking in that space.

Speaker 1:

All right, let's get to a couple questions. I've been seeing some interesting things out there lately and I think I might have a take on one or two of those things. Let's see. All right, so the first one is have you started and mastered a new hobby in your 30s? I'm about to be 35 and regretting all the time and energy, youth hormones and brain power that I didn't utilize in learning a new skill or working on something that gives me fulfillment the ideas of being into book reading, working out and bodybuilding just to look better, playing guitar, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so it goes into all this kind of stuff.

Speaker 1:

So, fellow 30 plus brothers, what's a hobby that you've started and gotten better at in your 30s? Looking to be inspired by your stories? Hobbies, I think. A couple of things I'd say. I don't. You know, obviously there's work, there's being a parent. Those aren't hobbies, those are life necessities, things that have to happen. I would say most of my hobbies now tend to be revolved around something to do with finances or budgeting, or setting myself and my family up for the future Doesn't sound that exciting, right? It's like I'm not a golfer, really I'm not a fisherman. I don't have cool hobbies like that. I guess what I do do is like in the last couple years, I would say one of them would be learning how to assess stocks. Again, maybe that doesn't sound that interesting, but I find it fascinating.

Speaker 1:

And there's something called technical analysis and that is basically looking at charts or basically how a stock performs over time and trying to make sense of those and make some inferences or projections on where that stock could go. Is it a good time to buy, is it a good time to sell? I remember I got so excited by the idea that and it actually originally started because you got these online influencers on there, and it started with one. He's called the stock market wolf, right, just like the wolf of wall street, and his whole thing was day trading and I had never really heard or knew what day. I mean, I'd heard the term day trading but I didn't really know what it was and, without getting too deep into it effectively what it is it's kind of like legalized gambling.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to say it's very, very difficult to do, but basically it's watching charts and literally live as it's happening by the second, and trying to find these small moments in time when a stock is swinging either up really quickly or down really quickly. And these are not things that are happening over even hours. This is literally happening over minutes, over a seven-minute period. You might be able to buy certain options that are swinging and you get in and you get out, and the margins, the potential for profit, is insane. It's like you can make 100%, 300% your money. So at the surface it looks amazing, but then really, if you put your reality glasses back on, it's like, does this sound too good to be true? Then it probably is.

Speaker 1:

Now, apparently, there are some people out there that know how to do that and actually make a living at doing it. I was getting up at well, first I was on again YouTube, good old YouTube and watching hours and hours and hours of videos, trying to learn how to do this and unlocking these secrets. Right, and just like man, this is how I'm going to get rich real quick. And then, getting up with this guy would have a Zoom call at 6.30 every single morning and he'd be on there with hundreds of other people like me and he would just be. We'd be watching a chart SPY right which is basically a index fund ETF S&P 500 type ETF and just watching that thing and just like, all right, hey, this thing's starting to move, and watch this indicator and this is going to happen. And boom, get in. And then you know, get out. All right, who made money today? 70% of people are in the green right, and I don't know how true that is, because people are just putting it in the comments, but it was fascinating. It was an adrenaline rush.

Speaker 1:

It was definitely something I realized pretty quickly. I'm like, yeah, this isn't really. I mean, I'm sure, like I said, maybe some people can make money doing this. I don't know, it just seems a little too gimmicky, but there were certain aspects or fundamentals to it that I do carry on with me today and I do still do some chart reading and I do feel like I do have a better idea of when to get in, when it's a good time to buy something, when it might be a good time to sell something. So I feel like I really did learn a lot.

Speaker 1:

And that's one hobby. Let's call that a hobby. That's kind of a hobby. I learned something new All this stuff Again. I said I wasn't going to talk about nesting again, but here I go, all this stuff around the house that I don't know how to do Again, having to watch a lot of YouTube videos and try to figure that out. That takes time, like figuring all that stuff out. I do like it. It is interesting. I do like adding new skill sets. When it comes to that, I said I'm not going to talk about it, but the point is I think that's kind of a hobby is learning how to do home improvement stuff. So I'm going to throw that on there as well.

Speaker 1:

And another one let's see talked about this a lot on the podcast, but Adrian getting really into baseball and just trying to learn more about how to coach baseball. How do you evaluate a swing? How do you know if there's something wrong in the swing? If there's something wrong in the swing, what are some exercises or drills that you can do to correct those things? If you're running a practice with nine or 12 other kids, how do you use the time most efficiently? How do I put together an agenda I'm making it sound like work again, but an agenda right, like, hey, minute by minute, how is this practice going to get run?

Speaker 1:

And so there's a lot, just so much, that goes into that. I mean I could sit there on my phone just watching a major league baseball player swing in slow motion back and forth, back and forth, just kind of like looking at the front leg and seeing what that does. Looking at the back leg, what does that do? Looking at the elbows, looking at the head, the eyes, everything right, like you can watch everything. So, man, I just like nerding out, I guess, over stuff like that. But I don't know.

Speaker 1:

It's just all learning new skills, this podcast, learning everything associated with the technical. I mean just audio. How do you set up the audio, the microphones, so much that goes into all that stuff too right, there's a social media component that, honestly, I started studying on that. I'm just like I don't want to learn how to do that. This is just beyond me. It doesn't excite me. I don't like this part of it, and so that's one where I just decided no, I'm going to have to work with somebody that knows what they're doing here, because I can't do this part. This is not for me. So I do have my limits. No-transcript. I sent I remember Jerry Rice sending me back a signed picture. I don't know what the hell happened to my card. I sent him an awesome card that I did not get back, but I did get a signed picture of his. So I used to do cool stuff like that, you know, play video games, do all that sort of school. So it doesn't sound that exciting. I find a lot of joy and excitement in learning new things, and so those are my hobbies. Those are my hobbies. All right, this one's getting pretty heavier, but it goes.

Speaker 1:

How are you coping with the sudden realization that time is finite and we're running out of it? Title asks it late. 30s is a typical time to get. I don't understand what this guy said. How are you guys dealing with this? Okay, so questioning or managing your own mortality, I think is what we're talking about here.

Speaker 1:

I don't give this one a ton of thought Usually. I think, and why? Maybe I should. I think I'm pretty damn busy every day and I don't really have time to think about it. I'm too busy in it, I'm too busy living. I guess, to think about that. Maybe I need to pause and take a step back and I should be like, hey, what's going on? Am I doing the right thing here? I think I am right, but I think, yeah, just taking a step back and time is finite. Yeah, that is true, I don't think about it, I don't know. As long as I feel like I'm living a life that's exciting, that, like I said, I'm contributing to the lives of my friends and family, that makes me pretty happy, that I just I don't know, I don't contemplate the other things. I do think in relation to other people. I do think about that.

Speaker 1:

So I mentioned my grandpa earlier. He was in his 90s. But you start to think about some aging family members and think about that sort of thing, and how much time do these people have left? And I know actually one of the reasons why we went on this trip. Well, one was because it was kind of like baby moon. Right, everyone says baby moon, that's the new thing now. Right, that didn't exist like 20 years ago, but now it's baby moon.

Speaker 1:

But one of the reasons why we actually did it was because my father-in-law is now he's in his seventies, just started in his seventies and he immigrated from Cuba. But before he came to the United States he actually spent almost a year, I think, in Madrid or just outside of Madrid at a home for boys that would take another Cuban kids, I guess, and I don't know the reason why. Before they had to go to the US and so he hadn't been back there since he was 15. So, figure, let's do some math on the fly. I'm not good at that 55 years. And jokingly I said to him Hachi, we better go now because there's a lot of cobblestone streets in Europe and I'm not going to be pushing you in a wheelchair on cobblestone streets. And it's honestly all joking, seriously, straight joking. We had a good laugh about it because he's a very healthy and very physically capable person. No-transcript that. So let's go do that. And so we did and that.

Speaker 1:

And just you know, with the new baby coming, it's like, hey, like the reality is we're not going to get back over the Atlantic Ocean in a couple of years, so it was just kind of like this unique timing to do that. But I just, you know, do think about that. You know, in terms of my own parents, they're very, you know, healthy people, you know, for being in their late 60s. They're, I think, in very good health, both mentally and physically for the most part, and I do see how they're able to have the energy to interact with their grandkids and have a really good time and be just very present and really great, and so just very fortunate that they're young enough and, like I said, healthy, they have their health and able to do that. Every once in a while it does cross my mind, though, like hey, there will come a time as it will for everybody that either things are going to start to slip or physically, that's just it's not going to be the same and that will happen. And so every once in a while those things do cross my mind, but for the most part I am just trying to enjoy what's happening here and now, and I don't know if that's the right way to do it. It's how I do it. I feel pretty good about it.

Speaker 1:

But if you guys have any other suggestions or thoughts, I'm all ears. All right, let's wrap up with this one. So it says what brutal advice should all younger generations know? Sometimes, the most valuable lessons are the harshest ones. What's a piece of brutal, no BS advice you think every young generation needs to know? It could be from your own experience, something you learned the hard way, or just a tough truth no one talks about enough. Let's hear the cold, honest reality.

Speaker 1:

Let's see, I would say, when you're growing up, your parents are looking out for you. They're helping you stay on the track in terms of education. Um, what you know right, what's you know right and wrong, what to do and not to do, like they're just there's somebody kind of guiding you from step one to step two, to step three and so on, and that's great, it's. I think it's needed. But there does come a time where it's just kind of like you got to start fending for yourself, making your own decisions, kind of making your own way, and I just think no one's going to look out for you. Basically, I mean, they are in certain aspects, but no one's going to look out for you. You got to figure it out for yourself the best way I can think about it.

Speaker 1:

And again, always going back to the the workspace, right, but you know, if you think you're going to be in a job and your boss or your company is just going to willingly promote you, give you promotions, uh, give you pay huge pay bumps there are those out there, right, that does exist, I think. But for the most part, you kind of have to be looking out for yourself and being your own best advocate, because for the most part, people aren't going to hand you things. You're going to have to go get them for yourself. And I think what I see is a lot of people don't go out and get what they deserve. They kind of just settle for, like, hey, this is good enough and I'm not going to really push much more, and I just don't think everybody truly understands their own worth enough that you're capable of a lot more. You can do a lot more things. Yeah, I don't know. I don't see a lot of people looking out for themselves. Maybe they're thinking somebody's going to look out for them or hey, if I just kind of grind and just do what I got to do, somebody's going to eventually take care of me.

Speaker 1:

And, like I said, sometimes that is true, sometimes that does happen. But by and large, if you want what you really think you're worth, what you really want to go out and get, you kind of got it Now, you kind of you have to go out and get it yourself. You've got to know your own worth. You've got to learn how to negotiate for yourself. You got to know how to look out for your interests. Right, you want to be a team player, you want to be someone that can be managed, that's coachable. All those things absolutely are true.

Speaker 1:

But if you really want to exceed or at least even meet, if you just want to meet your potential, you kind of have to go out and get it. It's just not going to come to you and maybe that's common sense, but, like I said, I've just seen throughout my career that it doesn't usually work out that way. But if you do know how to stand up for yourself, if you know how to negotiate for yourself, if you know how to market yourself, really good things can happen and you can get. You know what you deserve. And so, yeah, you just got to get out there. You just got to get out there and get it. That's it. You got to get out there and get it. No one's for the most part, no one's going to hand it to you. Go out and get it, all right. That that's it, guys. That's all I got for today.

Speaker 1:

I really do appreciate you listening. I hope you guys have gotten something meaningful out of this. I enjoy it. If anything, it's just good self-reflection for me. Um, I think it's conversations that I have in my head once in a while, but it's nice to kind of put it down on paper, so to speak, or, in this case, out on the the internet. So, um, thanks everybody, and we'll see you next time. Let's ride. The rockies ain't too far from here. If we drive all night, the cold, that will do you well in the mountain morning light. So let's ride. Let's ride on through the rain. Come on and take me anywhere that you wanna be. Let's ride and let's ride. Let's follow the skyline, and when we make it to the other side, we'll find all the bluest guys.