Jim

Hey, so we're in bed and we just had a quick question.

Are you guys fucking drawing this new season? Is that what's taking so long?

I was going to go to college and I had about a week off the summer and it was a Sunday and I met a bunch of friends on the beach and they had had a completely different summer experience than I had traveling. They're like, Oh yeah, the next week we're just going to hang out on the beach. This is what I should be doing. Tomorrow I'm quitting. And so I took the zinc sunblock.

I was like, I'm going to quit in a blaze of glory too. So I wrote on my chest, know this with a huge arrow to my crotch.

You really caught up to them.

I was thinking like the crew's going to love this and all the four men are going to be like, oh man. Yeah. What was amazing is how well it worked. It was bone white on the Modus and then bright red everywhere else. And the arrow was huge. And so I worked all day. I was super excited about this. I am kind of a blabber. I normally will like spill it. I kept it all day.

I'm like, wait until everybody gets a load of this. And so we get back and you have to gather around, talk about what you got done and then where you're going the next day and who's on what crew. And I was like, all right. And so I ripped my shirt off. Nobody even looked at me. And then finally, someone looked over.

And I remember a guy just smoking a cigarette looking at me like, what in the world does this guy have? It was so embarrassing because I had to basically quit with my shirt off and be like, today's my last day.

My expectations in reality were really, really far apart. But to know this was on there for a while, leaving for your first week of school with this, not realizing you had communal showers.

I had a lot of manual labor jobs growing up. I think it instills a good work ethic. Oh, yeah.

It was really, really hot. There was one tornado warning, but people just come out of their house and are like, you can come stay with us. As a stranger, I stayed in someone's basement after biking 100 miles that day, smelling horrible, but they gave me a clean shower. And it was quite an experience to show how nice the people in Iowa are.

Do you want to sing a tune or something? I'm going to have a theme song. Oh. Okay, great.

Hello.

I'm a fan of travel posters, but I'm also a cyclist. That's from RAGVRAI, which is a ride across Iowa. They do it every year from the Missouri River to the Mississippi River.

It is. I did the 50th anniversary and I think it was like 50,000 people.

I think the people from Iowa are some of the nicest people in the entire United States. They take you into their homes, they cook you meals. And every small town and every church is putting out like a bake sale. It's really neat.

I am talking to you from Richmond, Virginia, but I grew up in Virginia beach, Virginia, the summer of 1995. I just graduated high school. My dad actually worked at the school in the business office in this lawn care company, cut the grass at the school grounds. And he got me a job there. And I was like, oh, that'll be pretty good. They mostly did commercial lawn care.

He got me a job and two of my friends.

That's the hope. I was like, we're going to be riding big riding mowers. The three of us are going to have a great time together and we'll spend all summer together just goofing off. And it was not bad at all. You do not get to ride the Dixie mower if you are one of only three people that are there for the summer. Everybody else is there full time doing the work. What we expected and what

actually happened was a pretty far cry from each other. So the three of us were split up immediately. So they had different crews. You got there at sunrise, loaded up the trucks. One of my friends only made it two days. He was on the residential side and he got fired for jumping on somebody's trampoline and then getting hurt falling off of it. My other friend was like, this is terrible.

He made it like a month, then he quit. But I gutted it out all summer and I was exposed to some pretty cool stuff that I hadn't seen before. Like we one time went cut a shopping center lawn and the guy just walked right into the grocery store and came out with steaks all down his pants that he had just stolen. He's like, I'm going to sell these later.

And then he opened up the water cooler and just threw them all in there. And we're like, all right, I guess we'll just store your bloody steaks in the water cooler. Sure, sure. We just had to pile in the back of the truck. We went all over town all day long and it would rain. You just put a trash bag over you. I mean, it was not safe at all.

But we pulled up next to a car that had a failed inspection sticker and he offered to sell them a counterfeit one. Oh, my. I did not even know like state selling and sticker selling as well. I learned a lot about raunchy humor and drugs.

Yeah. A lot of masturbation jokes. Some of the people were really, really good, but the guys that ran it weren't. just assholes. I mean, they just run you straight ragged from the time you get up the sundown, you kind of come back and unload the truck and you never cut enough. They were like, Hey, we need to cut more. You should be out there. Go faster. Stop taking so many breaks.

Probably will get really big. It's a crazy story. It's contrary to what he said in our interview.

Good morning, Jim. You got a weather report?

If this conduct does not rise to the level of bad faith, it certainly comes so near to bad faith as to show signs of scorching.

Well, as in any case that we evaluate as medical examiner, we consider the scene investigation along with whatever evidence we have, the body. or whatever is left of the body. Maybe photos were taken. The metaphor examiner will consider all of that in its totality. Just like if you go into a doctor's office and you say, just figure out what's wrong with me.

And she got about a $6 million payout from the perpetrators.

It's the same when you have a dead body one day or a hundred years dead. You need to know the context.

You have to learn how to interpret the decaying body as well as the skeletonized body. Because a gunshot wound, a stab wound, they may leave marks on the bone. that you can detect and they'll be present for many, many decades. There have been evaluations of, you know, mummies in terms of how did they die. The bones carry a lot of information.

Certainly the remains can carry the poison, but it depends on the poison. There are so many drugs and chemicals and toxins in the world. So I think the first thing with the poisoning is you have to have a suspicion of it so that you're making sure you look for the category of poison that you're suspicious about.

Now, that being said, as the body decays, so does the blood, so do chemicals in the body. And so it becomes harder to test for those.

Well, certainly, I mean, I've been on multiple sides of that particular dilemma where my ruling may be questioned and maybe the police and I don't agree. But the medical examiner may have a reason for that determination or may not have considered it. the insulin overdose because it's a very subtle thing.

I don't think exhumations are that easy to occur, especially legally. There has to be a certain burden of proof of the need to do it to further the case. But I've been involved in those court-ordered exhumations. And sometimes if there is trauma to the skeleton, then it's very worthwhile because you can show that and document that. And you can show the absence of that if that's important as well.

But I always say that it isn't so much that You can't kill someone without leaving a trace. You can. What's really hard to get rid of is your motive. And so if you have a motive to kill someone and someone suspects that, then forensics is there to figure it out. Mary Jembelek, thank you so much for coming back. Thank you very much, Andrea.

Karen, read that dog bite testimony. It's in.

For what? to get whatever, anything that I thought I could use to help find my daughter.

Yes.

It's the same when you have a dead body one day or 100 years dead. You need to know the context.

He breaks down on the stand and they basically have to end his testimony because he is so upset.

He says to me, we're going to come to your next ceremony. We just did a photo shoot together, and she wants to meet the T. And I said, okay.

It's a ceremony. It's a ritual. We sing predominantly in Portuguese, and we have these chants with drums.

When you open your eyes on ayahuasca, a dirty wall can look like a sacred painting made 10,000 years ago. And you look at it, and it's the most beautiful thing, and it's just a dirty wall.

70.

How can we help you?

I'll just put my coffee down, boys. Now, boys, I'm going to go off a script. My wife keeps telling me that I waffle on too much and I go on tangents all the time. So I thought if I stick to a script, I'll best utilize your time.

Your message is getting out there almost through osmosis and that's powerful. I personally haven't experienced anything like this, like your approach or your type of advice in the 50 years that I've been doing this stuff. So I hope you guys keep it up. I hope you guys don't change your formula or your approach because I want this message going out to my kids and now my grandkids.

So very much appreciated. Thank you. Okay.

All right. It's my challenge. Boys, psychopenia is a bitch. You guys are in your mid-40s, so you'd start to feel the effects just a little bit, but you could put it off as, you know, didn't get enough carbs the last 24 hours or something like that. But when you get to your early and mid-60s, trust me, boys, she becomes a vengeful bitch.

And that's the core of my challenge or my question or my problem. Anyway, let me set up a framework for you. I'm 66, I'll be 67 next month. I picked up my first weights when I was 16 years old. And really, I haven't looked back since. Mind you, back in those days, I came from a very, very poor sort of background. My mum was a single mum. It was only me and my brother.

And no money for anything other than food and a roof over our heads. So I had to be quite, what's the word? Probably creative. in terms of my first sort of gear that I created in the early 70s. So what I did was I made a bench out of an old bedhead. So it was an old wooden bedhead. I cut it out. I used pillows for the base and I just strapped it all down. Wow.

For my weight stands, I used, well, I reappropriated. Maybe there's a better word than that. a couple of stop signs from our local council. Hopefully they won't be listening. And I cut off the stop signs and I just cut a slight. And that was my weight. That was my weight set up for five or six years. But anyway, it just shows you if you're committed, you can do it no matter what.

All right, since then I've lived a life. I'm still married after 44 years to my gorgeous wife. I've raised three beautiful, successful children, and I'm now a nonno. And, Sal, you'll appreciate this. Both myself and my wife are of Italian heritage. I'm Sicilian. My wife comes from the north of Italy, a little place called Belluno, north of Venice.

So we constantly have debates on what being Italian really is because we're so far apart. Anyway, through all these chapters of life, I've kept passionate to my weight training, all being the varying degrees of motivation and availability. Life gets in the way sometimes. And I've had my own set up in the garage here for about 30 odd years. So I've got no excuses. All right, fundamentals.

I've been weight training 50 years. I weigh 78 kilos, which is about 172 pounds. I'm 175 centimetres tall, which is about 5 foot 9, but I'm shrinking. Another beautiful aspect of getting older. 27% body fat, according to my scale this morning. I average about 2,500, 2,600 calories a day. Always prioritise my protein. I get about 160 to 180 grams a day.

For instance, this morning I'm going to have chicken thigh fillets for breakfast, which much to my wife's disgust. Now, I've always trained a four-day split, and that's part of my question that I'm coming to you guys with. I currently bench 200. I do squats and powerlifts. I know I've heard you guys go over and over and over this. I haven't done squats or powerlifts for most of my training career.

I've only just started. The reason being is... I've always thought it puts too much pressure on my lower back. And some of the big gorillas I used to train with in the 80s and 90s, they've all got back issues now. And I've sort of justified that in my mind. But I'm coming around, and I'd like you to hammer that into me, I guess.

In my training career, I've torn a pec, I've torn a lat, I've dislocated my shoulder about four or five times. I've torn my right bicep in half. I only have half a bicep in my right arm. All these things to show you that I am committed to what I do. I love it. Absolutely love it. I don't train hard anymore, but I am consistent. All right, what's my question?

I suppose I am starting to waffle on even now. Bloody hell.

I think I should have got my wife to write this. All right. My question, look, guys, I've been listening to you for about two years now. Ever since my daughter came to me and said, hey, Dad, I'm getting married in six months. So I thought, oh, shit, I've got to get back to some sort of, some sort of a stick or some sort of rope, I guess. So.

It took me six months to go through my traditional four-day split routine with some real weight, what I thought was some real weight. Constant injury and rehabilitation. Adam, I'm really associated with you and what you went through lately. Pure, utter frustration and not being able to do anywhere near what I thought I was capable of. And that realisation created havoc in my psyche, boys.

I'm not the man I used to be. Anyway, I'm a stubborn Italian. I don't believe there's much new in the game since I purchased my Joe Weider bodybuilding system some 40-odd years ago. A squat is a squat is a squat. A bench press is a bench press. A curl is a curl. There's not much new in this space in my mind. Although... I did change when Arnie came out with his supinating bicep curls.

I thought, shit, that's a good idea. Anyway, I wrote to you guys a couple of months back saying, hell, I'm stuck in this four-day split routine. I can't do anywhere near what I used to do. I wanted some ideas. I wanted someone to just hit me across the back of the head and say, Jim, do this or don't be stupid or whatever. But in writing that email to you guys, there was a realisation.

I went out and bought Maps Anabolic. Now, it's the first time I've bought anyone else's program in 40-odd years. And I put my faith in you guys. But I've got a problem. I don't think there's enough volume in it for me. At the end of Phase 2, I'll start Phase 3 tomorrow. And I used to do five different exercises or four sets each just for my chest twice a week.

I'm going down to just, you know, two exercises a week or three exercises a week for my chest. It's doing my head in, boys. I'm looking for guidance. I'm looking for inspiration. I'm looking for advice. Now, after that diatribe, What can I do, boys? What's your advice?

Of course, yeah.

I haven't watched the whole series now.

Boys, that sounds like a great, great approach. And for my psyche, that's what I need, I think. I think I need to have that as a comparison.

And push myself back to how I like to push myself. You guys know it. Yeah, for sure. When you're pushing these things, it's such an ego boost just to – Just to feel your body. It doesn't have to be a big way, just to feel your body. So I appreciate that, Adam. I think that's a great idea, boys. I'd like to try that. I love that.

Boys, you didn't disappoint. Thank you so much. It's exactly what I wanted to hear. Thank you, boys. Awesome. Appreciate it. You got it, my friend. Thank you, Jim.

Oh, yeah. Thanks for all you do. But I have kind of a question. I don't know if you have any evidence or anything, but I was wondering about the EPS Epstein files. We haven't heard anything about that. So here – yeah, go ahead, please.

I'm wondering if there's some kind of leverage that Trump is using with those – in other words, he had quite a few Democrats vote with him on the last – the deficit – raising the – Yeah, the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling. I want to say deficit. Yeah.

Well, I was thinking about doing that, right? Yeah, that's what I was considering doing.

And I will say I did approach the topic of reconciliation in March of last year, like only after two months of recovery. And she was like, you're crazy. And then she just unloaded on all these previous ruptures, which I wasn't quite present to, which was great to hear. But she was just like, yeah, you're just nuts. And then of course, then we,

all the crap that comes with the divorce stuff, which is really not great. You know, like the custody mediation and attorneys midway through, cause she was happy at the first attorney. And then all those, and then, you know, then balls in the court and now this is what she wants. They said, okay, well we have to sit down and talk. Yes.

What's going on? Yeah, yeah. Well, I just wanted to say I've been listening to your show for about a month, and I really appreciate... how perceptive you are and your empathy. And congratulations on the one million mark. I just heard that right now.

Yeah, so I'll start with a question, and we'll dig a little deeper. So the question is, how can I reconcile with my wife after revealing my gambling addiction, which was back in December of 2023? and work in recovery for over a year now. Tell me about it. Yeah, so we'll start with the 30,000-foot view. So I'm 47 years old. I was a compulsive gambler from 2017 to 2023.

So about seven years, which I hid from my wife. Sports gambling was the game of choice. I've been a casual gambler for a good portion of my life, probably since middle school. In small amounts, it was like office pools, fancy sports, side bets, smarts, badness, stuff like that, occasional trips to Vegas. I revealed the addiction to my wife in December of 2023, as I already mentioned.

A letter came from one of my personal lenders, and she was questioning about it. It was pretty much a volcano ready to erupt, as you know, with addictions. The last year or so was just absolute hell, with all these things coming in the mail. I was hiding and making up all these stories. I revealed how much money I lost, which was a six-figure amount, and some other financial misgivings.

We have three small children. They're ages eight, five, and two, boy, girl, girl. My wife has not worked in 10 years, so I pretty much work two jobs. I work as an educator down in the Bay Area, but my family lives up in Sacramento, so I can explain that situation in a little bit as we dig deeper. My wife is an amazing stay-at-home mother. She runs a phenomenal household.

But again, she's not worked in nearly a decade. She was devastated when I revealed all this to her. I mean, I lied to her often. I was not present as a father. And she actually did question me about this back in February 2022. So, and I... Kind of made some stories and said, okay, well, yeah, I was gambling, but I broke even.

And, you know, just, you know, you lie as you do when you're in addiction. And then, well, the survival mode for quite some time. And then, of course, you know, the anxiety, all those things to start building up in you. But, yeah, and again, we've been married for a little over 10 years, but we've been separated for the past year. Um, I've been going to GA.

Um, I went to GA right after I revealed the addiction to her in December of last of, uh, 2023. Hold on, let me stop you real quick.

So, um, so she filed for divorce, um, in January 21 to 2024. So after a few weeks, after I revealed, um, the gambling addiction to her, um, she initially said that we were going to work as a team. Um, but I guess just after a few days when she saw just all the stuff had done and all the debts and the lies, um, she just, um, and there was some previous ruptures in the marriage.

No, no, not at all. Um, no, no physical abuse, no verbal abuse. I'm like probably the nicest guy you'll ever meet. Um, but I, I do have an issue with avoidance. Um, I do keep things to myself. Um, um, just, you know, there was other, uh, I, I, I mean, kind of tell you, um, some other things like I would unilaterally make financial decisions without consulting, um,

My wife, there were other financial issues like involving my parents. I didn't tell my wife that created some hardship for us when we had to buy a house. I mean, I can get into more of those details if you want to. But there were, yeah, I mean, she didn't feel she was treated as an equal or as a partner with other financial decisions.

How can I reconcile with my wife? After revealing my gambling addiction, I revealed how much money I lost, which was a six-figure amount. It was pretty much as a volcano ready to erupt as, you know, with addictions. The last year or so was just absolute hell.

Well, so then she hired an attorney around this time last year. And then she told me she wanted to have this meeting with her father and her sister and it was on a Sunday afternoon. And then, uh, I just thought we were talking about finances and then she hits me with, um, divorce. And then, uh, and then of course I was like begging and pleading.

And then she's like, yeah, but it's not just the gambling. It's all the other things that, you know, you, um, yeah, you never been honest with me. Um, well not never, but there's, you know, many times you're not been honest with me. Um, you've, um, um, you know, stonewalled me, uh, lack of communication, lack of transparency, um, emotional insecurity.

Those are a lot of some of the other deeper things that have been, um, going on. Um, but yeah, then a few days later I got served papers and then, um, we've been kind of going through the process, but, um, you know, we're now in a nesting arrangement with our kids. So as I said, I work down in the Bay area, but they live up in Sacramento. So I'm down here four or five days a week.

I stay with my parents. Um, then I go back to my house on Friday night and then my wife leaves and she stays with her. Her family lives up there. Um, she stays either at her parents or sister's house. I'm with the kids on Saturdays, and then she comes back Sunday night. We just kind of do it all over again. That's kind of the hamster wheel we've been on.

Obviously, when you go through the process, there's financial disclosures, all these things. I give her everything back in the summer. She's had a few months to look at it, and then But, you know, there's a lot of stuff, right? I mean, it's many years of financial documents to look through, and I guess it can't make sense of it.

So her attorney reached out to my attorney and said, like, hey, can we have a settlement hearing? And our settlement hearing, interestingly, is on January 21st of this year, so exactly a year after. So we have a settlement hearing coming up.

My original question, yes. How can I reconcile with my wife?

We're the tail end of a proceeding, yes.

Kind of. I mean, I will say I have experience. I mean, the year 2024 was obviously a challenging year, but a good year in the sense that I did experience a lot of character change, you know, by going to, you know, I attend three or four meetings per week. It's amazing. I'm super proud of you, by the way.

It's awesome. And I got a sponsor a few months ago. I read literature. I'm a more present dad than I was before where I'd like, Not pay attention to my kids. I'd be on my phone looking at, you know, sports stats or things like that. Income's gone up by 32%. Debt's gone down. I've been, my wife and I, we do work well together with the finances, with the house, with the kids, with the education.

So we've been communicating well with that. And, you know, we're in the house at the same time many times because, you know, we are in the nesting arrangement. And, you know, again, like it's this weird situation.

I've not done that, no.

Right, right. I've seen a lot of people relapse. And I have to do this for myself. I get that. It's been all about my personal growth. Because, you know, I have to be a better version of myself. If I do want to be a better father, a better partner to either my wife or someone else down the road, I have to be, it has to start with me, and I have to want it. And I am extremely motivated.

I agree. I will say I was riddled with anxiety the last year and a half after my wife had some questions about it about two years prior to the revelation of how bad it really was. This was back in February 2022. That timeframe until December 2023 changed. Yeah, no, it was hell.

And I am more at peace, you know, to have that serenity prayer, you know, when you go to the meetings where they talk about the serenity of accepting things you cannot change, the courage to change things you can, was another difference. And that really sticks with me because I do feel less anxious now.

Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, no, I mean, no, that's the harsh reality.

Hello. I'm honored you're taking the time to help me and millions of others with our money questions. Well, thank you.

I am a 40-year-old widower and ready to date again. However, my truck is 25 years old, and I perceive the ladies I want to date will judge me based on the vehicle I drive. It shouldn't matter, but as a guy of average height and average appearance, I don't have the charisma to overcome a poor first impression.

The question is, should I spend $5,000 to $10,000 to buy a car for the sole purpose of dating to find my future wife?

Okay.

No debt, no mortgage, no kids.

1.3.

$132,000.

the truck i have been on a second date that was going i thought very well the conversation was good and when we walked out to the parking lot she said oh you're driving that and i never heard from her again but she doesn't know i try and i hide the truck on the other side of the parking lot i'll walk her to her car leave but hey listen that that's a good thing that you ran that one off

100%.

Right, with the status symbol of choice, a BMW.

So I am currently in a straight commission sales position. Been in it for somewhere 15 years or so. Making about $200,000 a year currently. But the pay structure of our company is changing from straight commission to a base plus bonus model. Okay. The question is, or my concern is, I'm in a very established market currently.

So I'm concerned about being able to hit those growth bonuses because there's not a whole lot of growth in my current area left, in my opinion. So the option that they have proposed to me is, well, you could pick up additional territory in some additional states where we don't currently have market share. or you could simply go relocate to a new area with, you know, uh, sky's the limit territory.

None. I'm, I'm, I'm not concerned about that. I very much like the company, respect my bosses, enjoy what I'm doing. Um, the, the, the actual literal question is, um, financially, uh, does it make sense to relocate or do I, which is the option on a weekly basis. and be away from the family, which is not something that I want to do.

Thank you. Thank you. It's a blast. It's what we're all called to do. And when we do it, we feel like we're in our purpose and we're alive. So seeing someone else's day made because you gave a sacrifice, whether it's small or big, it's always worth it.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. When I was a little kid, the first time I really experienced what it's like to give something away and to bless someone, my parents for Christmas gave us $200. They said 100 for you to keep, buy whatever you want, 100 you got to give away to someone else. And so the very first time I gave was a guy on the street. He had a sign.

I gave him 100 bucks and just as a kid seeing his face just melt. changed my life and marked me, and then kind of lived for a knucklehead the rest of my high school years and did a lot of party videos. But then when I was 18, I just met the love of Jesus, got transformed, and never thought I'd pick up my video gift again.

And I was out reading the Bible one day, and I felt like the Lord said, Jimmy, it's time to go back and make videos, but this time do it for me. And I said, all right. I mean, what do you want me to be, a preacher? What does that mean? He goes, no, I want you to ask people for help, and when they help you, change their life.

So that's when I started doing these videos, asking someone to help me get a tank of gas in my car or to buy me a gallon of milk. And when they did that, we gave them 500 bucks and just to see their reactions was powerful. And then the internet started donating and that person's $2 or $5 they gave me turned into them getting back like $50,000. And so it was pretty powerful.

You got to get back to work. People need you out there.

24 hours earlier, I met Lulu, a struggling mom who couldn't get a job because of her smile.

I then surprised Lulu with $1,000 for her kindness, and then she shared this with

Yeah, she gave me a dollar to get on the bus, and then I asked her her story, and she started telling me that she's been trying to get a job as a single mom, but it's been really hard because... Her teeth were kind of messed up and people assumed she was on drugs and all this. And so it was just the saddest story ever. And I ended up giving her $500. She starts bawling her eyes out.

And I gave her a hug, got her number. And I said, I'm gonna be praying for you. Knowing that she doesn't know, but there's millions of people watching on the other side of that phone that are going to want to change her life. And so. We ended up raising over $50,000 for her and ended up flying her out to Nashville. And she got brand new teeth. Jason Aldean and his wife, they're dentists.

They helped make that happen. So she's got brand new teeth now. She went back to Vegas, got a job. She's given her life to Jesus, I've heard. And so her life's got back on track.

And those are the temporaries. They'll even look better than that. So yeah. That's incredible.

Yeah. Yeah. A few times I get turned down. And when I do, I mean, you know, I'm just looking out there for the people that do pass the test because we're really trying to find people that have lived a lifestyle of generosity and kindness their whole life and never got rewarded for it. But in that one moment, they become the hero and

And if you read the comments of my videos, like 90% of them are about the person and not me. And that's why they want to help out. And so it's been really powerful. And there's been a lot of amazing stories. Yeah, my favorite one is probably Steve. He was a homeless vet. He was in Anaheim. He was just sleeping on the side of the road, went up to him, saw he was struggling with addiction.

And I was like, man, I don't know if there's anything to help this guy. So I almost kept walking. That's when I felt the Lord say, no, no, no, maybe not money this time, but ask him what he wants, what's on his bucket list. So I said, Steve, what's on your bucket list? And he just perked up and he goes, man, I want to skydive, hot air balloon and go deep sea fishing.

It was like he was ready for me to ask the question. And I said, all right. And sure enough, a few hours later, I came back and my little Honda picked him up and he was jumping out of an airplane and we were going over the sky. And he then got out of addiction, got moved into a housing, got his life turned around and All he needed was a spark to realize life can be fun again. Wow.

yeah yeah absolutely yeah you know uh yeah having your fist like this with money in it you know obviously if god tries giving you something it'll just hit the ground and so when you're generous and give to people god can also bless you more and uh so that's just how it works and yeah when you live within your means you don't buy stupid stuff you save your money

you can give to other people and that's just something that will never get old. And yeah, whether you've got a million dollars in your bank account to bless someone and get them a new car or just like the poor widow and the Bible and all you got is a coin, heaven is moved by generosity and it'll make your heart come alive when you do it.

Yeah, absolutely. Generosity is addictive. And, yeah, I mean, if all you have is a couple dollars to give, what's worth a couple bucks? A coffee. If all you have in your budget is $10 a month to give away and you buy a stranger a cup of coffee every month, it might be outside of your comfort zone, but it's going to blow them away. Because when's the last time someone bought you a coffee in line?

I can't remember that happened to me.

It probably was in the lobby here, but, yeah.

Oh, man.

Thank you. Couldn't have done it without you guys or I'd probably be in debt over my years.

Yeah, thank you.

Hey, thank you for taking my call. So my situation may be a little bit unique. I am 100% self-employed. And I recently just sold one of my businesses, the shares in that business. And me and my wife have been following the baby steps. We're on step two, paying off all our debt, and we're hitting it pretty hard. With my situation, though, I want to know if it's smart to...

maybe put a hold on step two and go to three. And the reason is, is my income and my, my job is very seasonal. So when winter time comes, the income definitely slows down. Um, like right now I'm bringing in pretty good money and I'm applying it to a lot of the debts, but I'm afraid I'm going to pay down my debt so fast that I'm not going to have any money come winter just to survive. Yeah.

With my line of work, that's impossible. The reason is because we do the jobs when the weather's good during the dry season summertime. But during the wintertime, I handle the permitting process. So the permitting process cannot stop. So it's lining up the jobs.

There you go.

Okay. You said you sold the shares.

I'm making right around $300,000, a little over $300,000. And I'm getting paid over five years. So I'm getting roughly $4,000, $4,500 a month out of that. And then in the month of August coming up, I will be getting a full $40,000 on top of that.

I have $90,000 in vehicles, $20,000 in a recreational vehicle, and... I owe on my house. That's it. I owe $250 on the house, and we're definitely way ahead on the house.

And come out ahead?

and get rid of the payments, I could.

Oh, he did?

Well, no, she didn't have to press her at all.

Oh, hello, Jimmy.

That's so true.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

True.

No, I think I'm dying.

Yeah.

How's it going?

I'm Jim and I'm also 26.

Yeah, I guess he was connected to me originally. So I guess I could take the context from the top. We knew him in college. He was kind of a fringe part of our college friend group. For example, I lived in a house with eight guys. However, he wasn't in the house group chat, for example. However, he was in a different group chat with about 20 people. So a little bit on the fringe.

Sometimes we asked him to hang out out of pity. Sometimes he'd ask us to hang out a lot. However, a lot of people in the group didn't like hanging out with him because he would talk about himself a lot. He would talk about going to law school all the time. For example, he posted all of his acceptance letters in the 20 person group chat that I mentioned before.

He talked about scholarship money, his prestigious internship, et cetera, et cetera. So he got on our nerves a lot, but we often hung out with him because we felt bad that he didn't have many other friends to hang out with. Kind of making a long story short there. Well, fast forward a little bit to after graduation.

We both, my fiance and I moved to a big city after school and he happened to be there and we connected up with him and things were a bit different this time. He had a girlfriend who had the same credentials that he had. She went to the same law school as he did and she ended up working at the same firm. So we ended up liking hanging out with them because we thought she toned him down a lot.

She would call him out if he started talking about law too much. And she'd say like, hey, guys, hey, Max, which is his fake name. No one cares. So, however, over the last summer, things with that relationship started to become a little rocky, and he started to ask to hang out with us a lot more, reminding us of what happened in college.

Really, he started to ask us to hang out every week, and we really don't have that kind of time or energy to be able to... be that type of person for him last fall. So we follow our school's football team very closely as does he, and we would go to the bar to watch the game and he knew that. So we would almost every week go to the bar and watch the game with him.

And he has seemed to think that after the football season, that this weekly hangout can continue. And we definitely, Don't really know how to tell him that we hung out with him every week because we made time for the football game rather than for himself. And I guess I would wrap up with just a couple examples of what we're dealing with.

One, he makes reservations for us without us telling him that we could actually hang out on that day or go. A different example was we thought he genuinely once tried to trick us into hanging out with both Friday and Saturday that, no, I'm not going to be in town Saturday. And then I said at the beginning, you know, I really think he is going to be in town Saturday.

I don't want to hang out Friday. And then magically he was, in fact, in town Saturday and we saw him on Saturday. So, yeah, that's the that's the context. And we we don't necessarily want to break up with him as a friend. However, we just are tired of saying no all the time. We're tired of making up excuses. And then we also don't want to just hang out with them basically out of charity either.

So.

He has stable employment. He has a dog.

There's a lot going on. However, we don't think he has many other friends to hang out with. He doesn't have many other friends from college to hang out with, from grad school, from high school to hang out with. That's why I think he keeps coming back to us, and it's a really big role for us to play.

Yeah.

Of all these cases that he's worked on. or look how many hours I worked this past week. And we heard from a different friend who's also a lawyer. And we told them the firm, we have no idea about the prestige of law firms. And we thought he worked at this top-notch firm, but apparently it's pretty solidly mid-tier. So I guess that's another example.

Not directly, no. Some indirect messaging doesn't seem to work. So I guess there's another lawyer that we're friends with. And we say, hi, hey. filling girl's name that I can't think of. Why don't we hear about your job? And I guess a subtle joke doesn't really land.

So we, I think internally are probably in the place where, yeah, a more direct conversation is probably in store because more subtle ways of doing so or trying to get him to take a hint is probably not going to work at this point.

That's the problem. It's been going on for a very long time. You think that they'll grow out of it, but it's probably part of the time in his life right now going through a breakup. But the problem is that we've seen this pattern before and that this isn't just a one-time thing. He'll get through it. He'll get through with this. It's, oh, we think this is who he actually is.

Or maybe he takes it as a joke, but we actually 90% mean it seriously.

Yeah, it always seems like he's trying to prove something. And I feel like he's trying to prove himself through his career, I guess. Yeah. Is he good looking?

Yeah, he's definitely not bad looking.

Yeah, I would also say some happenstance that we happen to be living near in the same city, which is where we went to school. So, yeah, but you're right. We could have broken up with him by now, but it's hard because we feel bad for him.

yeah that'll be tough yeah it will be coming at some point but yeah there's no way he can come i don't think so i mean i i i'm not surprised but just out of curiosity when you say there's no way why because he like he would be that much crazy i don't want him i don't want to be driven crazy on my bachelor party this is one of my times i can be selfish

A point that you brought up earlier that's sticking with me is that in the end we have nothing to lose.

We lose him as a friend, I guess, which is not something I don't think that we're going to really miss that companionship. However, I think it will stick with us in terms of feeling bad for him. But, oh, another question I have is, I think it seems like he needs to get help for himself. And we're talking like professional help or a therapist. Sure.

Is that a conversation that we can start or is that an out of balance conversation?

Yeah.

Yeah. The sooner, the better.

I think we would have to probably brainstorm that ourselves. Also a problem, a little bit of a problem with that. Kind of is we mostly hang out with him at bars and restaurants. And that's kind of an awkward place to do that. We don't usually go to each other's apartments. So I feel like... Are you expecting shouting? Shouting?

No, I guess what I'm associating going to a bar with sports and beer and TVs is something a little more laid back, relaxed. We're just trying to enjoy ourselves. So...

Yeah. I have a question. Have you, with your hot lawyer friend, did you ever have a conversation like this with him or did things kind of just fizzle out?

Having the mindset that we're trying to help him the whole time is probably the way to go. And if we're trying to go backwards from we're trying to help him, then we can find a way to word this, to bring it out to him in a way that he can receive it. And the way he receives it, though, is just out of our control.

I think that answers your question.

That's a good takeaway as well.

I'll definitely be thinking of that going in.

Yeah. We'll send a follow up.

Well, thank you.

Bye.

No.

If we could just step back for a second. When President Trump last addressed the BRT when he was on the campaign trail, his big push was on tax cuts. He's going there today as he's proposing tax hikes in the form of tariffs. Not true. He's not doing that. And I'm curious for why he's prioritizing that over the tax cuts.

Because I have. They don't get charged on foreign companies. They get charged on the importers.