Hey, what's up, Troy? How you doing, man? Daniel Burke. What's up, dude? I'm good. I can't believe it's been a whole decade since we last spoke. It's, it's felt like a decade at least. What has it been? It has.
Four y- four years? Four days? I don't know. Time is a construct, but welcome back to TDIT, Two Dads and Tech. We are right off the tongue roll, TDIT. Find us at twodadsintech.com, and we're back.
We've taken a little bit of a break here, and here, uh, we start with kind of a new strategy this year. And so if you've been listening with us from the beginning, hopefully you like the new direction that we're headed.
It's not gonna be so different that you have to change what you think and feel about Two Dads and Tech, but we're gonna lean into guests quite a bit more.
And while we've always been Two Dads and Tech, and we're still gonna be Two Dads and Tech, we're gonna kind of run with TDIT. So if you think of the podcast, you think TDIT.
And the reason being is we're gonna lean a little bit more into the people. Probably gonna be people who work in tech, although not primarily.
There, there will be others, but more about who they are as people beyond the tech, beyond the screen, beyond the work, and I think that's just an exciting direction for us.
We found that that's what is most exciting for us last year, and that's what we're gonna lean into this year. Troy, what do you think? Yeah.
Yeah, and to add on to that, we kind of analyzed all the messages that we got from people saying that they enjoyed the podcast, and honestly, not one message was about, "Oh, I love that you told me about this software."
It was always about how somebody resonated- Yes...
or how some specific scenario was relevant to them in their life, and it was always, "I spend too much time on my screen," or, "I love this moment with my son," or, "Me and my wife are trying to figure this out."
That's what we wanna focus on, and that's the impact that we wanna bring moving forward, so- Yep... I love this, uh, I love this switch. I think it's gonna be so cool, and I think 2026 is gonna be huge for us. Us too.
Tell us what you think. Email me, daniel@twodadsintech.com. Hit us up on our website, twodadsintech.com, and enjoy episode one with the new strategy with an upcoming guest. Take it away.
Welcome back to another episode of TDIT, and today we are joined by Brendan Hufford, the founder of Growth Sprints, where he helps B2B SaaS teams build content strategies that actually drive revenue, but outside of that, and more importantly, he's married.
He's raising four boys just outside of Chicago, balancing work and running his own company, fatherhood, and whatever emotional rollercoaster Chicago sports teams are putting in front of him that week.
[laughs] Brendan Hufford, how are you? Brendan. [singing] I got doubled, I got doubled up on this last week 'cause I had the Bears and the Hoosiers to deal with. Oh, shoot. [laughs] True. It was a lot. But good and bad.
What a time in the Midwest. Good and bad. Hey, you know what? The, the Packers win was our Super Bowl, so I'll take it. I'm just fine. Like, they lost that game, but they still... I, here, I'll tell you this.
It's been so nice just to have a quarterback that's like da- Like, I think it's media training, and I think Caleb Williams is really smart. Any time he does any interview, he always thanks the city.
He talks about the city and the people. Yeah. And he's relentless with it, and I'm like, "I can tell you're doing it on purpose now, but thank you." Oh, yeah. For sure, yeah. Like, that's all we want in Chicago.
We just want our guy, and he feels like- Yeah... our guy.
You know, I hated Caleb Williams the first two years, and I think, and I think a lot of people did because he walked around like he had already won a Super Bowl, and he had that mindset of like, "I am the best," and he didn't have the numbers to prove it.
This year I'm like, and I, I'm a Cowboys fan, but I'm kind of like married into the, the Packers fam as well. What? So this year I'm like, you know what? Like, you're actually kind of a good guy.
You're smarter than what you came off as the first two years, and you're a good quarterback, and what's really sad is what might be the best throw in NFL history will never go noticed because he threw the interception to lose the game, and that's sad, but that's all right.
Caleb Williams, much love to him. If you're listening, he should because [laughs] he's us, but- [laughs] He's our biggest fan, Caleb Williams. Not in tech. Yeah. Not a dad, but for sure.
He never stops DM-ing me on LinkedIn. I'm like, "Come on, Caleb. What, what's your deal, man?" Relax. I feel, I feel like you should go- Go win games... go get, go get something more important to do with your life.
Oh, goodness. Well, hey, Brendan, thank you so much for joining. Thank you. Let's start off with, like, a open-ended question here. You have four boys. Daniel and I both have two boys. You're a husband.
You're running a company. Tell us how in the world did you get here? Oh, man. Okay. So I, I was very fortunate.
I think, like, the first, the first answer is I got super lucky when I was 20 years old that I saw a really cute girl that I was working at summer camp with, and we dated in college, and she convinced me to move up to Chicago, and then we ended up getting married, and that's my wife, right?
Like, the- Luck, man. Beautiful... I look at it all the time. I talk about this constantly... I'm gonna pause you there and just say that's, that's a good, that's, that's a great way to tell your story is you got lucky.
We're all lucky. We g- we don't deserve it. Anyways, continue. It's, it's out- Carry on. Daniel, it's outrageous that, like, she made a... I said, I literally said this to her this morning.
I was like, "It's so crazy to me. You made a bet on this weird, like, pop punk boy with his spiky belts- Yes... and his, like, dyed black hair and a faux hawk, and, like, now we have this," which- It's crazy...
things are going, all, all things considered, it's going great. Yeah. And it's just like that's wild that she made that bet. She was like, "Yeah, like, we, I was just down for whatever."
Like, it's great that we're doing this, but, like- Yeah...
she was also down for me being a teacher when I, which is what I went to school for, 'cause we let 18-year-olds decide what they wanna do with their lives, right? Of course. And making 50 grand a year. Yep.
I had my admin license. I tried climbing that ladder.
I thought it was gonna be what I did for the rest of my life, just be a teacher or a principal, and then I had an extra 25 pounds around my midsection, Sunday night panic attacks. The Sunday scaries were very real.
I, like, hyperventilated on my way to work one time on a Monday. Wow. A not great relationship with alcohol, and I was like, "This, I can't keep doing this." Mm. And I just kept going, kept going.
I read a thing, I think it's Albert Einstein. I don't know if either of you have ever heard this story, but he worked in, I believe, a patent office- Yep...
because he could get his work done in, like, an hour or two a day, and then he would just shut the door and work on his own stuff the rest of the day. I had no idea.That kind of sounds like a lot of us- Yeah. -now. Yeah.
But he figured out how to do it in office, which is some real gangster... And I was like, "Okay, cool. I'm gonna do that." So I was a principal, and I was, like, really overworked making...
I was literally the lowest paid assistant principal in the state of Indiana, 'cause you can look that stuff up. Wow. And [laughs] I... It's so sad saying that now. And I just took a step back.
I was like, "I need escape velocity." So I went back in the classroom for a couple years, built a little side business, sold some e-commerce businesses that I had, and then just started working pretty much in tech.
I worked at a web design agency. I went, I worked in another B2B SAS agency. I went in-house at a company called ActiveCampaign.
And all of that, I mean, even that, like, I did it again when I was a director at the second agency leading a big team. I was like, "I need escape velocity. I gotta get out. I can't do this working 60 hours a week."
You know- Yeah... I was doing whatever it was, 996 before it was cool. Yep.
And then when I went in-house at ActiveCampaign, I had enough escape velocity to just put in my two weeks eventually, and I just was already running my own thing.
It overlapped enough that I just had less meetings the next Monday. And that was a couple years ago. Wow. Ah. Ah. So wait, real quick, back up. You moved to Chicago for... Where were you before that?
So I grew up in Upstate New York. Okay. And I lived there until middle school, at which point my mom moved to the other side of Indiana, closer to Ohio, to a city called Fort Wayne. I'm familiar.
And I lived there all throughout high school. I went back to New York for college, to Ithaca College, came back to Fort Wayne. There was no teaching jobs there 'cause there was, like, one giant school district.
And they were like, "We have one social studies position open." And I definitely was not getting that role at 22 with my mismatched, like, suit jacket and pants showing up. Like, the too short tie. It was bad. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, my wife just... She literally, I was on the phone with her. She was, like, you know, my girlfriend at the time. And she was like, "Just move up here. There's a million schools."
And I was like, "No way," and I can tell you living here now, there are literally a million schools.
My wife was a teacher in the Chicago, uh, well, southern sub- south suburbs in, in Orland Park and then, you know, Homewood, Illinois, and stuff. Heck yeah. We lived there for about five or six years.
She grew up in Orland Park as well. So it was one of those stories where she was teaching with people who were her teachers 25, 30 years prior.
Which, uh, I don't know if you have those types of relationships, but I've heard, uh, from my wife, it's weird when you go and your coworker is the person who bossed you around, you know, decades prior.
[laughs] It's so... We live in my wife's, uh, hometown where she went to elementary school through high school. And I love it here, but she's attested that it is, the townie's situation is very bizarre. Yeah.
That is, uh, yeah. You moved around a lot. You mentioned a guy, Albert Einstein, never heard... No, just kidding. Um- [laughs] That's, uh...
No, I, I think the teachers to sales, or not even sales, tech kind of train is one that I believe firmly in. I, I'm, I'm not a teacher. I've never been a teacher. In fact, I had a very difficult time in school.
And so the idea of even becoming a, a teacher just never even occurred to me.
My wife, though, had a, had a kind of the, your star student experience her whole life, and then went to college and got her degree to be a teacher, and then taught. She just kind of never left.
And the, the thing I've seen her do really well, and some of the really stellar sellers that I've met and come across, is that, that, that acumen to do teaching well
requires a lot of the same skills and talents that it just takes to build and be an entrepreneur and to, to do really tech sales, but tech in general.
Did you find something similar with your transition that you're like, "Oh," like, "everything I do here is sort of what I learned how to do there, just packaged differently"? It overlapped so well.
I mean, it was hard to, it's hard to tell, right? 'Cause I started an e-commerce brand. Right. I started to review an affiliate websites. I learned a lot of, like, SEO stuff and email marketing.
I kind of just picked up all these skills trying to build my own stuff. 'Cause I didn't come up in the, like, an adult world of, like, digital marketing or tech or anything like that.
I came up in the world of what I would call, like, online marketing. Yeah.
Which is a lot of the people selling courses about success, and then they'll sell you a course about how to make a course, and podcasts about how to podcast. Like, that... If you're familiar with Tai Lopez.
Like, it was, like, that world. Oh my goodness. I am. I had a conversation with Tai Lopez. Oh. Uh, fun conversation, I'll tell you about it later. But, uh, yeah. I'm here in my garage. That classic video. Yeah.
I wanted, I showed that to my kid the other day because my kid said something about knowledge, and I'm like, "Let me show you the funniest clip ever." So funny. This is knowledge.
Tai Lopez saying knowledge for 15 minutes straight. Um, but I came up in that world, and that world convinces you to, like, hate your life. They're like, "You hate your life. We're gonna make your life great." Yeah.
And it was like, I don't... When I kind of uncovered, like, I don't actually have to hate this- Mm... that was kind of a big unlock for me. And the move from teaching, like, I was already really, really good at teaching.
I, also, because I taught in Gary, Indiana, and on the south side of Chicago, like, I was really used to, in high school, you have to be the show or these kids are gonna eat your lunch.
Like, if you show up unprepared or they smell blood in the water or sense any weakness, you have immediately lost them. So I had to be, like, ready to go, just, like, two snaps and go a- all the time.
And then all of a sudden, I hop on calls to sell clients or I'm meeting with people or doing a presentation or whatever, and it translates, like, one to one. Mm-hmm.
I don't know if I am this way naturally, but I definitely learned how to be this way over 10 years. You know? You get in, whatever it is, the certain number of reps or hours, rules, or something around mastery.
I definitely got that, just not directly. Ah. Right? I don't even know if I would've gone directly into this career if I would've, if I would be as good as I am now- Yeah... what teaching made me, you know?
And I think especially working in marketing, and especially marketing in tech, there's such an education component that understanding- Yeah... how people learn and all this... Here, hold on. Wait. Oh, where is it?
Hold on, I'm gonna show you something really cool.So this is my school. I was too cheap to buy- I was listening over YouTube. Huh? Go ahead.
I was telling the listeners, if you're only on Spotify, you don't get to see what we're watching on YouTube. Okay. Go ahead, Brendan. The... Yes, for sure watch the video.
The, my school was too, didn't have the money to, I wasn't gonna call them cheap. They definitely didn't have the money to buy all the teachers' editions, 'cause that's kind of the racket. True.
They're like, "You can buy the books, but the teacher's edition is $400." It's insane. So I, they literally gave me the book. This is my, like, psychology book. I taught psychology.
The, the cover that I made for it is ripped off, but you can see all these little things in here. I put my name on it so nobody would take it.
But like, I have all these notes about teaching psychology to these kids, so I just... Teaching psychol- like, it's so meta, but I developed this mastery of understanding- Yeah...
human psychology, and then also how to communicate things to other people, and explaining the world to people and how that captures... Like, all- Yeah... everything translates one-to-one, and that's what's so wild to me.
Yeah. Whether it's marketing or sales or pro- like, whatever, teacher skills... Daniel, I just would feel bad. I th- I had this idea of like, I should help more teachers do what I did. And I was like- Sell the course?
[laughs]... I kind of feel bad pulling all the best teachers out of teaching, though. Like- Yeah, yeah... "Hey, you're really good at this. Come make more money." It's so tough. But, uh, so- It's so tough. Yeah.
I mean- Who's gonna teach then? I've had this- I don't know. I've had this conversation- Yeah... with my wife dozens of times, and she's now a co-founder of a media company she and I started together here locally.
And I, I mean, it's, it's discouraging when you think about the money that came in from a grueling week. I mean, you know, the, the hours of a teacher are very similar to an entrepreneur. You just, it just never stops.
You go home, and you grade, and you plan, and you go to school, and you get, you know, tormented by kids all day. And then you do it again every single day.
The weekends, your mind is just bombarded with what Monday morning looks like, and it, it's, it's discouraging.
So here's a question I, I, I have for you as a former teacher now on, let's call it the other side, as poor as that connotation might come off. Would you, would you have stuck around if it wasn't for the money? Oh, God.
I, so the, the original answer that I wanted to give you is I make a lot more money right now. Right. A lot more, and it would've been... [laughs] I can't imagine them paying a teacher what I make right now. Yeah.
Now, granted, I have friends that live in s- Chicago suburbs that are making six figures teaching high school fricking poetry, and I'm not demeaning that.
But where I was teaching, I was working my ass off making 45K a year, and they're making 145K a year 'cause they've manipulated all the, like, lane changes and salary- Yeah... table whatevers. Yeah.
Anyways, would I have stayed? No. I would've taken l- I'm, I'm very fortunate that I make more money now, but I also, like, the freedom to be able to do this is a really hard thing for me to argue against. You know?
Like, even when we were scheduling this and it was like, "Oh, we got the time switched up. Can you move it up an hour?" Yeah. I can do whatever I want. This is all, everything's made up. [laughs] Yeah.
There's, there's- There is freedom... a hard thing to, to exchange or, you know, I was just looking at my calendar. In two weeks, my wife's like, "Hey, I'm working the book fair.
Can you pick," uh, you know, "my youngest up from school?" His school is right there. That's why I rent this office that I'm in right now is 'cause the school is- Yep... across the street.
And it's like, yeah, no problem. I'll just cancel- Easy... my meetings for the second half of the day. It's all made up. Yeah. Yeah. That's a hard thing to, like- Yeah. Money is- Especially the teacher...
does not replace that freedom. And especially the teacher. Like, I mean, I remember the long- Oh, I had to ask permission to go to the bathroom for 10 years. Like, when I- Like, seriously... when I- I mean...
It was wild. When I went- Yeah... in my first design, that web design agency, my first day I was sitting, I was sharing a desk.
They didn't have a desk for me yet, so I was sharing a desk with my boss, which is really uncomfortable. That's weird. We're literally like face-to-face at his desk. [laughs] So weird. Ugh. And I was like, "All right.
Hey, man, I'll be right back. I'm gonna go to the bathroom." And he's like, "Yeah, cool." Go to the bathroom, come back.
You know, later in the day I'm just like, "I'm gonna run to the bathroom real quick," and he just looks at me, he's like, "Brendan, you do not need to tell me.
If you tell me again that you're going to the bathroom, we're gonna have a problem. You don't need to tell me any of that stuff." And something in my brain went, "Oh, my God. I was treated like- Yeah...
a child for 10 years." Yeah. Like, I didn't even, couldn't even go to the bathroom when I wanted to. That is nuts. The, the bar is literally on the floor for free. Yeah, literally. So I'll take- Goodness, goodness.
Well, so you have, you have four boys. I think you said 5, 7, 10, and 12 when, uh, when you filled out that doc. I know that that's gotta be an active household. What does the morning look like for you? I'm very lucky.
My 12-year-old is really cool, and he's getting this, like, sense of independence- Right... where he sets his own alarm right now. He gets up and goes for runs on his own. Wow.
I, I don't know what I'm doing right, but things are going great right now. Awesome. And the... So he gets up and he does that. Some kind- like, I'm not, I, I've been under the weather for the last week or so.
All the kids went back to school. They brought, there's three separate schools, so they bring three schools' worth of germs home. Invariably, somebody gets sick. It was me for the last little bit.
And like, I was asleep, and he'll, like, wake me up, which feels irresponsible. Like, my son, which is not always true, but he's so responsible now. He's like, "Hey, you gotta take me to school in 15 minutes.
We gotta leave at 6:45. Hey, I'm getting up and going for a run." So the mornings can be really chaotic sometimes, depending on who is, who is the deepest into their, whatever, their quirks, let's call them.
You know, one of my kids is super disorganized. One of them is, like, more prone to be whiny. One of the... Like, they all have their things, right? Every kid's different.
Depending on who is deep into their quirk at, on that day kinda decides the morning. But I honestly, like, we tend to have pretty chill mornings. Like, I don't have to rush out.
I try not to schedule calls or anything before I take them to school. Like, we just kinda get up and hang out, and then I take my oldest to school, and I go to work.
And sometimes I don't right away, and I take the other boys to school. I don't, it's kind of fluid- Yeah... and easy- Yeah... and a little bit less... chaotic than you might think. Yeah. Yeah.
After school is where the chaos happens. [laughs] Dive into that.
Well, they all just come home, and they've all had completely different days, and they're all at such different ages that it only takes one of them to, like, set off somebody else or to start a conflict or to get into it with my wife or whatever, and I'm not home during that time.
Like, I, I usually come home... I've come... I- we've done it for a while where I went to work earlier, and then I came home in time for them all to come home around 3:30.
Right now, we're doing the thing where I take my oldest to school, and I start my work at 8:00, and I work till, like, 4:45 or 5:00. I get home around 5:00. She fields a lot of that. Yeah.
But that's where a lot of the chaos happens, 'cause we're just not... I have this dream of being, like, a very re- you know, I watch all these TikToks of these, like, "I'm a super regimented
military fitness dad, and here's our family routine. Kids come home, and they do homework, and then they put their affirmations up on the board, and they do all this stuff" and that's awesome.
Whatever makes your family work and be happy. Uh, we're just a little looser than that. Yeah. So- Yeah, yeah... that loosey goose, like, is really nice and chill sometimes, but sometimes- Yeah... it's a little...
It just gets... It, you know, it descends into chaos. I haven't known you long, I mean, 30 minutes now, and I feel like I'm already gathering the,
like, let it, let it kind of brush off the shoulder type of approach, in a good way. I guess I'm wondering, as someone who's a successful entrepreneur with four kids, I mean, that's more than I would say most people...
Although, I don't know the median. I think one, two kids is probably more common than four. What do you think most people get wrong?
And specifically builders, entrepreneurs, people who, who own some process, who are also parents. What do you think they're getting wrong?
So I think all three of us would agree that we put a lot of work into our craft, right? Yeah. And for some reason, I think some people feel, for a, whatever, there's a myriad of reasons this happens.
They just don't see the other things in their life as work. And when people...
Like, I've spoke about my marriage for a long time, very intentionally, that my marriage was the most rewarding and important work that I did. Mm.
And that frame of, like, this is work, and when I see it as that, I can take joy in that work, but it, it, I have to work at this for it to be good. I think the same thing with the kids.
Like, my wife and I are just constantly, like, talking about them. Something we got, again, really lucky with that, like, we both over-communicate.
We talk all the time about everything, and we joke with each other of, like, "Are we doing okay? Are we gonna be okay? Is this okay?" And it's like the fact that we're even asking that puts us in the- Yep... top 1%. Yep.
Yeah. Right? So I think it's, it's a lot of that, of just constantly trying to acknowledge things, notice things, do better. We have high accountability, I think, in our house, and it don't...
Like, it's really nice, 'cause things get better fast when they're hard. I, I told somebody the other day that, like, parenting is repair.
You know, you're gonna screw up, so a lot of your work as a parent is just to repair those relationships with your kids, uh, and your partner as well.
But we spend an inordinate amount of time talking about those things and trying to do that, and it's a, it's a total pain in the ass.
'Cause y- when you hold your kids accountable, your kids hold you accountable, and when they're- Yes... 12 and 10, like, that sucks, 'cause they notice some [censored] that you're not noticing, and you're like- Yes...
"Ugh, you got me." Like, that's a... Yeah, man. Yeah. That's a great point. Like, they... I also think it's that I spent so many hours with teenagers for so long. Yeah. And I just had to humble myself and be like...
I remember I would tell my high schoolers, like, "You're smarter than me." Not to be a nerd about this, but I was thinking in, like, Dungeons & Dragons, like, stat lines, right? Like, "You have equal intelligence to me.
You're just as intelligent. You can notice, you're perceptive, all these things. I just have more wisdom than you." Mm. "I just have more lived experience."
And in some cases, that allows me to do better in certain situations, but in a lot of situat- like, you're just as smart as me. You're just as capable, and I... Right? They're not. Like, I don't... Whatever.
Your, your front part of your brain doesn't develop until you're, like, 20 or something. But they're really brilliant. So it does make it a pain with the kids sometimes that they're just... They hold us accountable, too.
Yeah. Which I think is a good thing long term. My three-and-a-half-year-old holds me accountable, because he does really bad at biting his nails. So does his dad. So does his mom. And so I say- Same here...
"Hey, get your hands out of your mouth. Get your hands out of your mouth." And then he will say, "Dad, get your hands out of your mouth."
I'm like, "Oh, I can't, I can't tell you to do that," and then just turn around and go do it myself. And, uh, to your point of, of work, I think that's so true.
I feel like many people forget that a marriage is work, and parenting is work. They almost fall into this place of it's just, it's just a repetitive process. You get off of work, and then you go home- Yeah...
and it's like, "Hey, hon. Cool, let's cook dinner. Okay, great. Kids, good, awesome." Like, it's, they're not working on it.
They're just like, "I have to do this because I'm, I'm in it, and I've committed to this," and, you know, things like that.
I do feel like people forget you have to continue to work on it, and that's where things, in my opinion, things slide. I would guess... Who... I don't know the statistic.
I'm sure we could ChatGPT it, but probably 60, 70, 80% of couples just don't actually work on their marriage, and they're just complacent. They're, they're content with where it's at. I agree with that completely.
It's something we've talked a lot about on the podcast, where, you know, Troy and I both believe heavily in communication and valuing our wives, and Brendan, it sounds, you know, without a doubt that that's exactly how you would feel with your relationship.
I, I just don't think it works. You know, we, we obviously, there's so many couples we know that it does work. But what does that... How do we define, like, a healthy marriage?
I mean, people make unhealthy marriages work all the time.
But to have a healthy, happy, like, life-giving marriage with a spouse, I think it requires being on the same page, and you can't be on the same page unless you're communicating about what page you're on.
And as much as I think two people could mesh, even you've mentioned luck a few times. Like, sometimes people are justAlign more easily than others, uh, even in marriages.
But eventually you gotta start talking about stuff. Switching gears, do you watch Abbott Elementary? No, but I'm aw- Oh. Is that the- Okay. No, I need to.
I've, I- It's a great show, and i- there's an episode, if you don't watch any other episode, you won't get a lot of the character development, so actually you should start from the beginning. Love the show. Okay.
But it's a show in Philly about a school called Abbott Elementary, and the main characters are very, like, Office, Parks and Rec-esque- Yeah... where you're following the teachers.
Anyways, there's this episode called No Phones, and the district puts on this, like, contest.
All the schools in the district have to put their phones, students and faculty, in a box, and if they can last the whole day without opening that box, they'll get a pizza party.
I won't tell you how the story ends, 'cause it's a really, really funny, really good episode, but there's this point, there's this scene where you can tell the teachers and the grownups are just, like, addicts looking for a fix.
I mean, they're like, they're like, "Oh, God, I heard this news thing popped off and I'm not telling all my followers on Twitter about it," and like, you know, I- I, "My plumber's a- supposed to tell me what it costs to fix the blah, blah, blah," and they're just, like, freaking out.
"Oh, rent's due. I need to pay it with the app on my phone, but I don't have my phone." Meanwhile, all the kids are having the time of their lives. Like, like, no technology, no screen. They're playing with Legos.
They're doing charades. They're reading books. And there's this moment where the, one of the teachers looks around and they're like, "Huh, they're all obsessed with their phones when we're on our phones?
Like, they're copying us." Mm-hmm. "They're mimicking us." But when we, when none of us have phones, you level the playing field, they're all actually relieved.
Whereas we, the, the adults in the story are, are more or less, like, the opposite because they're just addicted to this, to this fix. And you mentioned the kids just look at us doing things and they start to mirror it.
And I'm seeing, you know, the way that my kids start to talk, uh, oh, wow, that's some, that's a word he learned from me, or that's a, you know, a tone or a even expression he learned from me.
I want my kids to learn the good things from me, but not the bad things, and unfortunately [laughs] that's not how it works. Yeah. All to say, great show, great episode you should watch. I will.
But I think the takeaway is, is we are being watched. And the kids in our lives and, and even the people, I mean, when you run a business, the customers.
You know, I work at Beehive as a employee, but then I operate two different businesses, and I'm seeing every day, more and more now as we mature as a company at Beehive, but, like, my customers and my could-be customers are watching me.
For better or worse. I'm a little chaotic on LinkedIn. And it is funny, 'cause I was on a call yesterday with a potential customer and I said, "Hey, I requested you on LinkedIn, just FYI."
I was like, "Just, you know, apologies in advance, I get a little crazy." And I say it almost as, like, an icebreaker. But like [laughs] I'm an idiot on LinkedIn- Yeah, you are. [laughs]...
and I use that to my advantage, but it might not be for everyone. But it doesn't change that people are watching. And, uh, I think it, it applies online, it applies in real life. Goin' on a tangent- Yeah...
here, but, you know, lot of thoughts. I think you're unpacking some really good stuff. No. We love tangents. And something you talked about is work. You worked on your marriage, you work on being a parent.
Also, your work right now, you're making way more than you were as a teacher. Where do you feel like you're trying your best, but it still feels like you're falling short? Mm.
So I have these, I hold these two thoughts to be true at all times, that I am both better than everybody else at this. Like, I just do think that 100%.
I also think that I'm a lazy piece of cr- undeserving of love and success. Like, those things are, are both in my brain 100% true at all times, and oscillating between them is a challenge.
It's, I get, I put a lot of pressure on myself, and it's very, very hard for me to see the label from inside the jar at everything. Like, I enjoyed Brazilian jujitsu and MMA for a really, really long time.
Always felt like I was behind, always felt like I had to compete and assert myself and all this stuff. I stopped doing that just 'cause of injuries and timing and stuff.
All the training was when I was putting my kids to bed, and I'm not gonna miss putting my kids to bed.
But for the same reason I enjoy jujitsu, which is really hard training with other people, I also enjoy CrossFit, because it's just training really, really hard with other people. I don't care what the activity is.
And doing CrossFit, I'll have people make comments about how much I lift or how strong I am or that I'm a bigger human, and I don't see any of that.
Like, I carry a lot of, "You're behind, you're going slow," like, "You could do better."
Somebody jokingly asked me the other day, so I just hit, you know, I have a group chat with a bunch of friends, and I've been joking about hitting 50,000 followers on LinkedIn, 'cause it's just, like, a fun, silly thing.
I saw that. Right? I saw that. Hey, I saw it. Uh. Congrats, dude.
[laughs] Fun fact, if you update your profile with your current follower count, you update that bio link, every time you do that, LinkedIn resets who they send your stuff to.
So if you're doing it every day, none of your stuff's gonna get reach. Terrible idea. That's hilarious. Just don't do it.
[laughs] I had, like, six posts in a row where they got, like, 1,000 impressions, and I was like- Ugh... "I probably shouldn't change my bio header every day to this." That, that platform. Had the opposite effect, right?
It was so funny. Anyways, I hit 50K and one of my friends is like, "I will accept no less than 50 lessons you learned," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Daniel, you get such a kick out of that.
I said, "Lesson number one is no matter how good you think you're doing, you will immediately log into LinkedIn and LinkedIn will show you that somebody is doing better." Yes.
[laughs] And I sent him your post you just made- No, you didn't. [laughs]... of like, "Here's my 13 million impressions and I doubled followers last year." That's funny. "I'll probably double again this year."
And I'm just like, "Shit, do better, Hufford. Do better." [laughs] "You're behind again." Do better. I wrote that post for you. I was actually gonna tell you the same thing, is I think you should do better.
No, it's so funny how this works out, right? But it's like, I put all this pressure on myself. So if you're asking me the question in earnest, like, where am I behind? Feels like everywhere.
Like, I have all of these goals for this year, and I have all of these things I wanna do.
I'm-Sorry, I have one of those, uh, I don't know if either of you have ever seen this, like, uh, these Jesse Itzler, like, big calendar that's got, like- Yeah...
every month is a row, and it's 365 days all in a calendar, and you can mark out things. And what I mark on mine is, like, days that I work out. Yeah. And I'm just trying to...
It's like a Jerry Seinfeld thing of, like, not missing too many days in a row. Like, you just try to like- Yeah... keep the streak going as long as you can. Yeah.
And I can see in a glance, like, my 2025 of all the days I missed, the periods where I missed a lot and, like, whatever. Like, I, I don't know, like, I put...
I'm always feeling behind in my fitness, my family, my faith, like, all of these different things. I'm not having enough fun. I'm not enjoying myself enough. I don't have enough hobbies. Like- Yeah... I,
I've run on, like, toxic fuel for a very, very long time. Only through therapy and a lot of introspection and stuff over the last couple years have I started to feel like I'm using that a little bit less.
Uh, it's a very effective fuel, but it definitely, like, rots the engine a little bit. Yeah.
You mentioned, uh, along the same lines, a, a car ride to work back when you were a teacher where you kinda had a, a panic attack.
And, and o- in that same sentence, you mentioned a- at one point having an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Mm-hmm.
I was hoping you could walk us through how you resolved or if you did resolve that, and it sound- you just mentioned therapy. I'm curious how that, if it played into it.
But walk us through kind of the journey of who you were and now i- it sounds like you're, for all intents and purposes, very healthy now, so kinda give s- give us a little look into the journey. Okay, cool.
So I was teaching at a really n- not challenging school. The kids were great. I loved the communities that I taught in in Gary and on the South Side of Chicago, like, amazing communities, amazing families and people.
It was really the other adults that were really challenging for me. And being caught up in some really, like, toxic environments in these schools, making next to no money, working a lot, I used to...
In Gary, there's a really nice area called Miller where there's actually a beach on Lake Michigan, and I used to drive up to Miller and just, like, sit in my car and look at the water and, like, make videos to myself about like, "We're gonna get through this.
We're gonna get out of this. In a year, you're gonna look back on this."
Like, all this, I was, like, deep into Gary Vee before he was the Gary Vee we know now, when I was, like, still trying to find, like, him speaking at real estate events and stuff on YouTube.
But he, he didn't, he wasn't a social media guy in that way. Yeah. He was still doing Wine Library. And I was like, you know, I remember just hearing him say, like, "Make these for yourself.
You're gonna appreciate this stuff later." And I was, like, trying to do all of that. I knew I had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol when I was hiding how much I was drinking. I never went off the rails.
Maybe, like, once a year, I would pull, like, a Bert Kreischer and, like, take my shirt off at a party or something stupid, and everybody- Hey... I was rewarding- Nothing wrong with that.
I was re- but that's the thing- That's like Troy's Thursday night... I was rewarded for it because people are like, "Dude, you're a good hang. Like, this is so much fun." Yeah. "You're a trip." Yeah.
And nothing bad, the thing is nothing bad would ever happen, but then I would be like, "This, it's not right that it's getting out of control like this." And I, my brain is very wired for if one is better, all is best.
Mm. No matter what I'm doing. Like, I don't listen to podcasts, I'll start a podcast. I don't... I'm not a member of Slack communities, I'm gonna start my own community.
Like, this whole trajectory I've been on in life has just been part of my brain being like, just this dumb stupidity of like, "I think I can do this too." And so far it's going okay.
But a lot of that, it's also the same with, like, fitness. It's also the same with alcohol. It's the same with all of these things, where it's just like my brain is like, "Oh, you wanna have one beer? How about 12?" Mm.
And it's just, there's not a lot of in between. There's not a lot of moder- like, I don't enjoy having, like, a taste of something. Yeah. I'm kind of all in. I can agree with that one. Yeah.
I could agree with that one too. But, like, that is when I knew. So I just kind of just stopped drinking completely. I started drinking again a little bit when I was at the web design agency.
We would do, like, beer runs on Fridays. You know, my wife and I talked about it. I'm like, "Can I just, like, have a beer with these guys?" And she's like, "Sure." Uh, and then eventually she was like, "I don't know.
This kinda feels weird, like, you're drinking again." I was like, "All right, cool. I'm not... I won't." Yeah. Uh, and I just don't. I just don't now. Nice. It's just not for me. It's totally fine. Yeah.
And that was, that worked, but I just noticed I was really coping- Yeah...
really hard with a challenging work by coming home and doing, like, dumb, I don't know if this'll resonate with anybody, I was doing, like, stupid stuff like opening two drinks at once, but trying to mask the sound of, like, opening one, but I'm opening two, trying to, like, time it.
[laughs] And I was so juvenile. Like, what am I- Yeah... am I 16? Yeah. Sneaking a, my dad's beer in the garage? Like, what are we doing? And, like- It's interesting... all this stuff is so stupid.
Anyways, but I was like, "This is not, this is not who I wanna be." Yeah. You know? No. Yeah. I, I stopped drinking about a year and a half ago now, and just went cold turkey. I went 90 days, decided, "You know what?
I'm just gonna stop forever." Here we are. And it, it's, it's funny. I was not an over-drinker. Uh, had a, honestly, fairly healthy relationship with alcohol. I just did it purely for physical health. Mm.
That said, I remember in the first several months, the tendency I'd have after a really stressful day at work, which is just another day at work for me,
"Man, I would love to crack open a, a cold one," or, "Oh, an old fashion would be so ni-"... And I had to start asking myself, like, "Why is that where my mind is going right now?" Yeah.
There are so many good outlets to de-stressing. I am a long distance runner. I have an incredible family, obviously playing with them and, you know, going on walks, like, all this good stuff that's not drinking.
So I realized, like, even though in hindsight it's like I, I had a healthy relationship with alcohol, like, that was still an outlet.
It's like, long day at work or long week, you know, Friday night comes aroundIt just felt good to numb a little bit even with alcohol, and I'm like, I don't think there's anything innately wrong with that, but it was interesting to be removed from it that I could sober-mindedly say, "Oh, actually, that's, that's maybe questionable."
Yeah. You also mentioned faith. Where does faith come into all this with you, your family, work, life? I think I was never... We moved around a lot growing up.
I was never really, like, a part of a church or anything like that, and it reached a point, I don't know, maybe, like, early in our marriage, my, my... I was very lucky that
I, my wife's parents were part of a church that just had a large influx of, like, newly married couples.
There were probably, like, 30 different couples that had all just gotten married, and we had a very progressive pastor that understood the church cycle that happens, which is usually young people found a church, and when they get old, they age up through the church, but they refuse to change.
And when they're old, they want it to be how they want an old person's church to be, and eventually that church withers and loses membership and all this stuff, and then new churches form, right?
But most churches last whatever it is, like, 25 to 30 years or something at most, and there's this cycle of, like, churches dying. And he was like, "We're just not gonna do that here. Like, I'm a new pastor here.
We're gonna invest in the young couples, and we're gonna bridge this church. Like, it's gonna continue to survive 'cause we're gonna keep investing in the young people."
And so I was just thrust into this world of young couples, like, doing life together. It was a really, really valuable time and experience. I, for a while, you know, I did some, like, speaking at the church.
I was like, "Am I supposed to be a pastor? Like, what is this?"
And I realized pretty quickly I'm a little rough for what my [laughs], my local area might have viewed as, like, somebody to, who was pastoral or in any sort of church leadership at the time, as you might be able to pick up on just from our conversation right now.
And but it was still, like, an important part of my life, and I wrestled with stuff for a very, very long time 'cause I see my faith maybe a little bit differently than a lot of other people do.
I see my faith, like, I really look as a, a Christian, that means, like, very different people. So I live just outside Chicago. I live in Northwest Indiana. It's basically a Chicago suburb, right?
It's like living in- Chesterton area?... closer, like, literally, like, first town over the border in Indiana. My brother lived in Chesterton. He became a- Yep...
professional poker player and then moved to Vegas, and so he's not there anymore, but I, I made my way to Chesterton quite a bit. Like, we'd go out to dinner in, like, Homewood and stuff like that. Oh, yeah.
We lived in Homewood. Like- Yep... yeah. Yep. Awesome. Like, I, as soon as you were talking about it, I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, this is, this is Homewood." Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Homewood Flossmoor is our second home. Cool.
All right, all right. So the way that I look at my faith is looking at a lot of, at least my view of it, around, like, what Jesus teaches about love and taking care of people. I feel very strongly that...
Like, so I'll give you an example. Like, when I train with my kids, my kids and I work out together a lot.
We always talk about the goal of being strong is so that we can help other people, and it's, it's a call and response thing. Yeah.
Like, I ask them all the time, in moments when they're doing something strong and helping somebody else, I'll remind them of this. I really believe in service, and that- That's cool...
our, my at least, or I think collectively, our purpose is to reduce the suffering of other people.
If you have the means and the capabilities, like, your job is to use wealth, property, power, prestige, whatever you have available to you, to reduce the suffering of everybody else around you as much as you possibly can.
And in my area, there's... Faith has taken on a very political bend, which is a real bummer for me because I couldn't see it more differently, and I think we kind of take our eyes off the ball.
So my job, and, you know, you'll probably see this more and more, like, woven into my content and the way I move and all these other things, is that, of like, this is my job. And I remember I was following this guy.
His name's Barrett Brooks. He's a leadership coach now. He was leading a community I was a part of for people starting small businesses years ago.
And I remember I found out, you know, just happenstance on a podcast, he was like, "Oh, you know, every couple of years, I kind of disappear for a month, and I, like, read the whole Bible."
And I was like, "Oh, I didn't know, I didn't know we shared the same faith." And then thinking about it, I'm like, "Oh, I can, but I can see it in how you move in the world. It all makes sense now that you would- Yeah...
be that, too." And I think that's a big thing for me. Like, I don't, I don't talk about it a ton, which is weird because I have, like, a full sleeve of, like, Christian iconography tattoo.
I have a giant Jesus on my arm for a while. He was only an outline 'cause I got him outlined in March of 2020, and then the air- Ah... could kill us, and I couldn't get my tattoo- Yeah... finished.
Uh, Jesus' outline looked a lot like James Van Der Beek, my brother-in-law pointed out 'cause he likes- Hm... to make fun of me. Do you just tell people it's James Van Der Beek now?
[laughs] I just told him it was J- well, he, he looks like Jesus now, but he just- Yeah, okay, okay, yeah... the outline looked like James Van Der Beek, and I called him James Van Der Jesus for a year or two.
Like- Mm, mm, mm... it's fun. Like, I don't know. I don't, I don't take some of this stuff that seriously. Like, I'm okay- Yeah... joking about my faith and stuff.
I don't begrudge anybody else that my silly thing that I believe to be true about the world is different than your silly thing you believe to be true about the world.
It's okay, and I know I'm now the one on a tangent, but, like, I think that it is a very important part, but I, I remember there was a C.S.
Lewis quote of like, "We n- we need less people writing books about Christianity and more people writing books about other things with their faith just latent in the, in that writing."
And that's kind of how I look at my expression of faith. It's just woven in.
If you were to later find out what the influence for that was, you'd be like, "Makes sense," or it might be surprising depending on what your view of American Christianity is. Yeah. But
that's kind of how I think about it. I think very similarly about it, uh, particularly I think the three of us being content creators, I think it gives us a different view of how people can perceive us.
I want people to see who I am as a person.Before they know what I believe as a person.
And here on the podcast, I think Troy and I both do a fairly good job on TDIT not expressing specifically, like, what we believe about the world and especially, like, politics. Yeah.
I think it just, it's, it's impossible- Well, you were talking about it in the, in, like, the recap episode at the end of last year too. We were. You were like- Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We, we almost- Like should we?
We almost dove into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We almost did. You know, I think it's, it's- It's, uh- I want people to know I am a f- a person of faith. Yeah.
But I don't, I don't think I have to constantly talk about that on, on the platform that I have on LinkedIn, for example, for people to know that.
I think y- the way I talk about my family, and the way I talk about my wife, and the way I talk about resolving conflict at work, and it comes out in the content, I would hope, I think is, is sort of what you're talking about here, Brendan.
I like that. Yeah. It's a, it's a really, really good way to put it. Even, even now, like, we're not very, we're not very religious. We're not a very religious family.
I don't have anything against it, I just didn't grow up with that. Like, my upbringing was not, was not revolved around anything when it comes to religion, so I don't know it, right?
So it's, uh, obviously, you know, you can make stereotypes, you can make judgments, perceptions, things like that, but I, I'm not against, like, I'm not against it. I'm not for it. I just, I just don't know it, you know?
You can't be, uh, you can't be really deep into something if you're not educated about it, in my opinion, so.
Which kinda like talking about upbringing, and I know we only have a few minutes left, but talking about upbringing, I haven't heard much of yours, but is there anything from your upbringing that you don't want to repeat as a father, as a husband, et cetera?
Yeah, the whole, my- You're like, you're like, "How long do you have?" [laughs] My marriage, my marriage and my fatherhood is a rebellion against the way that I grew up. Mm. Like, it's all...
I took my kids back to where I grew up in the, uh, it's called the Southern Tier in New, upstate New York, like, the Binghamton, like, South... You know, if you look at, I know Michigan always does the hand.
I think New York is also the hand. It's, like, right in the middle, like, right by Pennsylvania, right? Where I grew up, I took my kids back to see it, and some of the...
I always lived in, like, attic apartments and stuff, and I know my mom was doing the best that she could, but my parents got divorced when I was one.
I didn't reali- You know, the cool thing about kids is they're so dang resilient. Like, you know, my wife was a social worker for a long time. She has her MSW. Yeah. And, like- My wife is too...
she would always talk about, like, who's this a problem for? Like, she, you know, her just being this white girl going into homes in Gary and being like, "This is wrong." Yeah. "That's wrong."
And, like, she had to come to terms with this, like, cultural relevancy around, like, this is a problem for me because it's just different. But these kids aren't suffering. These kids aren't struggling. They're happy.
This is a good, bonded family. Like, they're going through a hard time, but I don't need to come in asserting my cultural norms on anybody else. Amen.
But going back and looking at the attic, you know, when I was growing up, I remember my, my mom and I sat up in, we looked out, again, just, like, attic apartments that were really sketchy in retrospect.
The one where that I took my kids back to show them is now burned out and boarded up. Mm. Not a lot of people's childhood homes are burned out and boarded up.
Like, that's an indication of probably why I have this massive freaking chip on my shoulder.
But I remember sitting in my mom's room watching the house across the street burn down, and, like, that's also, like, not a normal experience. Like, going to- Wow...
Toys "R" Us and doing looking trips where we didn't buy anything ever at Toys "R" Us. Like, that's not a common experience.
Or, like, the, all these things that I just thought, you know, I had, like, a little box of, the little cardboard box of baseball cards and one little basket of toys. Like, we would move constantly.
I could always pack all my, my belongings, my clothes, my everything up in one little box. I thought that was normal.
Not, like, maybe I just have too much plastic in my house now with all these kids, but, like, we [laughs] could not move like that. Yeah. Yeah. And
all of that sort of stuff, the relationship, like, I don't have a fantastic relationship, uh, with my parents, and it is something I desperately wish that I had, but I don't because of their decisions.
I have nothing but empathy and love for all of these struggles, and I do believe my parents, in a lot of ways, like, did try hard, but I really struggle to use the phrase, "Did the best they could." Yeah.
'Cause I just don't see that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I relate to that completely. Completely. My mom tried her best. Single mom. Worked. It's all I, that's, I feel like that's why I'm a workaholic when I think back on it.
I don't wanna, like, say, "Mom, you're the reason why I wanna work so much," but she had to work for us to eat, and for us to go to school, and for us to do this and that.
And, I mean, she was the only one that worked in the house. So yeah, I get that. I get that. Before we wrap up, I did wanna ask, what is one piece of advice you have for dads, new dads, husbands, whatever?
Just one piece of advice to leave the audience, and then we can get to where they can find you. Okay. So I think first, let's talk to new dads.
Well, this is advice that a mentor gave to me, and I've given to as many people as have ears to hear it, is don't let your joy be stolen by other people. My wife and I worked really, really hard- Right... to have kids.
Like, we tried for a long time to have kids, and we couldn't, and we went through rounds of doctors and procedures and IVF and all this other stuff, and we're very blessed.
But I think when you work really hard to have kids, you're do- [laughs] There's a million mental checkpoints where you could back off that and be like, "We're, we're, we don't wanna do this anymore." Yeah.
So we have made a million mental confirmations that we want these kids, and I was just bombarded with, like, "Hope you don't like"... And I'm not trying to be crass, but, like, all the tropes, right?
Like, "Hope you don't like having sex anymore. Hope you don't like sleeping. Hope you don't like, you know, you're not gonna miss your freedom. Like, say goodbye to hanging out with your friends."
Like, people say all this stuff, and they're, maybe they're trying to be funny. I don't really know. They're not being very thoughtful about their words, and that you will have your joy stolen, and it's,
my experience has been such the opposite of just, like, every single minute that I can get with these kids, I've started doing... Maybe we'll make this tip two, but tip one is don't let people steal your joy.
Even if they're well-meaning, you just say, "Hey, thanks for the advice," and just mentally put that in the bucket ofI can choose to, like, love this, right? Amor fati is a Latin phrase, means a love of fate.
No matter how hard this is, I can... The thing that can't be taken away from me is that I can choose to love what I'm enduring right now.
The second thing, and this is so dumb, but I really want it to be practical, is I've started using my journal app on my phone. iPhone has a native journal app, and every single day,
I, I try not to live my life through my phone, so I'm not experiencing my children or my family through the, the screen of, like, recording and taking a million photos, but I do try to snap a few photos 'cause I realized [laughs] I was so intent on living through my eyes that I had no photos of my children.
[laughs] And I'm like, "Ugh." Like, we... I do wanna document some of this. Sure. It's gonna go away. These memories are gonna fade. Yeah.
So every single day, whenever we're doing something cool, I just pull the phone out, boop, quick photo, done, right? And I put it in the journal app, and I just write this down.
I think I heard Ryan Holiday talk about it. I think he has a lot of, like, really cool stuff for dads that's been really impactful for me. And
one of the things he talked about, I think it might even be another Seinfeld thing about, like, garbage time, like, that in-between time, that time in the car where you're just going somewhere.
You're taking them to school, you're going to a soccer practice or something, and one of them says something, like, super funny. That goes in the journal app. Like a dumb little joke. Yeah. Yeah. Or one of- Yeah...
my kids, you know, they gave me... Like, I have all these little Legos all over my desk because one of my kids always... I'm not kidding you guys, like, I have so many little, like, trinkets here. Every...
My 10-year-old just gives me random stuff. He's like, "Take this with you," as I'm leaving the house. [laughs] Take this with you. And it's like, all this little, like, garbage time stuff that you would just forget.
Yeah. And I was talking to my wife the other day, and now I have, like, two years of daily journals. And it's not deep. It's just like- Yeah... Bears game- Just a thought. Yeah...
didn't feel good, nachos, a joke that Finn made. You know, one of my kids. Yeah. But I can now go back through and I get all of the garbage time back. That's so... Come on, man. Like, what's that worth?
Like, on my deathbed- Yeah... I would give back all the money, all the success, all the, uh, you know, external validation that people see- Yeah... on LinkedIn.
I'd give it all back just to put my kids to bed one more time. Like, come on. Yeah. Do you do that daily, or do you do it in the moment when something happens? It c- pops up every single day at 8:00. But, like,
literally, I don't know if we'll get this in here, but, like, it's- I got some trinkets of my own... dude, I love... L- like, look at all these da- it's just days and days- Yeah. That's sick...
with that focusing super well. So cool. That's okay. I... Yeah, that's awesome. It's so many. I love that. But, like, you know what? You know, would I...
Remembered that on Monday, June 23rd, that my boys were camping with my in-laws and my wife, and I worked all day and went up to see them, and my kids... Like, they're just, like, silly pictures of them around.
Like, I, I would never remember this in a million years. Yeah. But now I do. Yeah. That's awesome. I love that. So I just think, like, documenting it. We all do the...
You know people that work in tech or post on LinkedIn or whatever, you know, content creators, make content for yourself. Yeah. Like, make content about your kids for yourself.
Even, even if you don't do a journal every single day, just take those photos, man. Just pop, pop, pop. Yeah. And then you can scroll back through. Ah. I love that. Scott Barker made a post yesterday.
I know we're jumping off, but Scott Barker made a post yesterday that said, "I used to write for people. Now I write for myself," and my creative juices have just- Mm... expanded so much.
But anyways, we only have a minute left. Brendan, thank you so much. I love chatting with you. This has been huge. I'm sure Daniel did as well. Yes. Where can they find you?
They can find my, uh, new newsletter on Beehiiv. Hey. Um- Let's go. The- I didn't even know that. How did I not know that? Anyways. We... I don't know. We can talk about it another time. Sounds fun.
I would love to talk more about that. Yeah, for sure. You're good. You're good. Uh, the [laughs] you weren't my sales guy. Uh, I'm, I'm too small. Anyways, the... You know, you could...
Honestly, if you Google, like, growth sprints, it's exactly how it sounds, or you Google Brendan Hufford. It's not 'cause I'm good at SEO. I am. But Brendan Hufford's a pretty uni... You know, my name's not, like,
Matt Johnson. Josh Smith. Yeah, yeah. [laughs] Yeah, something where it's just you're... no chance of rank. Brendan Hufford, spell it wrong, Google will still get it right. Find me on LinkedIn.
I try to share something cool and thoughtful every single day. I also share, uh, a lot of dad stuff on there because I am... there's a lot of time I'm writing for... to get clients. I'm trying to drive business.
I'm trying to help move my industry forward, but I'm also writing for other guys like us, so. I love that. Brendan, this has been huge. I mean, so many thoughtful nuggets. I can't wait to listen back to this episode.
If you are listening, find us, Two Dads and Tech, Spotify, YouTube, podcast. You can find us at twodadstech.com. This is TDIT weekly podcast every Wednesday morning.
We are going to kill it this year with guests like Brendan. Thanks again, Brendan. This has been awesome. Yeah. Thanks, guys.