WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:10.350 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. 2 00:00:10.380 --> 00:00:22.950 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. 3 00:00:23.060 --> 00:00:32.400 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. 4 00:00:32.460 --> 00:00:40.880 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. 5 00:00:41.050 --> 00:00:49.960 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. 6 00:00:50.460 --> 00:00:56.460 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. 7 00:00:56.540 --> 00:01:05.840 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. 8 00:01:05.880 --> 00:01:11.460 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. 9 00:01:11.520 --> 00:01:20.780 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." 10 00:01:20.860 --> 00:01:23.470 It was always about how somebody resonated- Yes... 11 00:01:23.480 --> 00:01:32.920 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." 12 00:01:32.940 --> 00:01:42.580 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. 13 00:01:42.620 --> 00:01:54.800 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. 14 00:01:55.040 --> 00:02:10.900 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. 15 00:02:11.039 --> 00:02:21.360 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. 16 00:02:21.450 --> 00:02:32.750 [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. 17 00:02:32.750 --> 00:02:43.470 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. 18 00:02:43.860 --> 00:02:53.360 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. 19 00:02:53.420 --> 00:03:01.880 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. 20 00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:05.400 We just want our guy, and he feels like- Yeah... our guy. 21 00:03:06.340 --> 00:03:17.360 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. 22 00:03:17.960 --> 00:03:26.020 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. 23 00:03:26.060 --> 00:03:39.480 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. 24 00:03:39.560 --> 00:03:47.390 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. 25 00:03:47.400 --> 00:03:54.400 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. 26 00:03:54.440 --> 00:04:04.940 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. 27 00:04:04.980 --> 00:04:12.860 You're running a company. Tell us how in the world did you get here? Oh, man. Okay. So I, I was very fortunate. 28 00:04:13.040 --> 00:04:29.260 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? 29 00:04:29.700 --> 00:04:35.880 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. 30 00:04:35.960 --> 00:04:43.780 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. 31 00:04:43.840 --> 00:04:58.260 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... 32 00:04:58.270 --> 00:05:06.020 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." 33 00:05:06.080 --> 00:05:08.310 Like, it's great that we're doing this, but, like- Yeah... 34 00:05:08.320 --> 00:05:18.770 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. 35 00:05:18.820 --> 00:05:21.180 I had my admin license. I tried climbing that ladder. 36 00:05:21.460 --> 00:05:32.040 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. 37 00:05:32.120 --> 00:05:43.320 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. 38 00:05:43.480 --> 00:05:52.780 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... 39 00:05:52.840 --> 00:06:03.064 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. 40 00:06:03.564 --> 00:06:12.044 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... 41 00:06:12.204 --> 00:06:22.144 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. 42 00:06:22.204 --> 00:06:33.104 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. 43 00:06:33.164 --> 00:06:40.104 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. 44 00:06:40.113 --> 00:06:50.304 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." 45 00:06:50.384 --> 00:06:54.124 You know- Yeah... I was doing whatever it was, 996 before it was cool. Yep. 46 00:06:54.824 --> 00:07:03.824 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. 47 00:07:03.864 --> 00:07:16.464 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? 48 00:07:16.724 --> 00:07:26.264 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. 49 00:07:26.424 --> 00:07:35.224 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. 50 00:07:35.264 --> 00:07:48.184 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. 51 00:07:48.404 --> 00:07:55.563 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." 52 00:07:55.604 --> 00:08:01.124 And I was like, "No way," and I can tell you living here now, there are literally a million schools. 53 00:08:01.204 --> 00:08:10.164 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. 54 00:08:10.184 --> 00:08:17.924 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. 55 00:08:18.104 --> 00:08:27.643 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. 56 00:08:27.684 --> 00:08:38.564 [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. 57 00:08:38.964 --> 00:08:45.884 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... 58 00:08:45.964 --> 00:08:59.624 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. 59 00:08:59.644 --> 00:09:04.044 And so the idea of even becoming a, a teacher just never even occurred to me. 60 00:09:04.564 --> 00:09:13.094 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. 61 00:09:13.764 --> 00:09:25.824 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 62 00:09:27.004 --> 00:09:34.964 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. 63 00:09:35.444 --> 00:09:44.944 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. 64 00:09:45.264 --> 00:09:53.524 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. 65 00:09:53.604 --> 00:10:02.204 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. 66 00:10:02.384 --> 00:10:05.684 I came up in the world of what I would call, like, online marketing. Yeah. 67 00:10:05.804 --> 00:10:15.924 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. 68 00:10:15.984 --> 00:10:24.754 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. 69 00:10:24.764 --> 00:10:32.294 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. 70 00:10:32.314 --> 00:10:42.314 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. 71 00:10:42.314 --> 00:10:55.504 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. 72 00:10:55.644 --> 00:11:06.804 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. 73 00:11:06.944 --> 00:11:18.744 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. 74 00:11:19.364 --> 00:11:29.594 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. 75 00:11:29.604 --> 00:11:39.704 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. 76 00:11:40.504 --> 00:11:50.944 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? 77 00:11:51.164 --> 00:12:01.993 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? 78 00:12:02.064 --> 00:12:09.896 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. 79 00:12:09.976 --> 00:12:16.446 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. 80 00:12:16.656 --> 00:12:23.226 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. 81 00:12:23.226 --> 00:12:31.726 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. 82 00:12:31.816 --> 00:12:39.356 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. 83 00:12:39.756 --> 00:12:51.805 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... 84 00:12:51.805 --> 00:13:00.976 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. 85 00:13:01.016 --> 00:13:12.626 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? 86 00:13:12.626 --> 00:13:21.086 [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. 87 00:13:21.096 --> 00:13:30.476 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. 88 00:13:30.486 --> 00:13:44.896 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. 89 00:13:45.076 --> 00:13:52.956 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. 90 00:13:52.976 --> 00:13:59.696 The weekends, your mind is just bombarded with what Monday morning looks like, and it, it's, it's discouraging. 91 00:13:59.736 --> 00:14:12.996 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. 92 00:14:13.496 --> 00:14:25.186 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. 93 00:14:25.186 --> 00:14:33.656 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. 94 00:14:34.076 --> 00:14:46.616 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. 95 00:14:46.816 --> 00:15:03.396 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? 96 00:15:03.496 --> 00:15:12.056 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. 97 00:15:12.196 --> 00:15:18.156 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. 98 00:15:18.256 --> 00:15:26.626 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. 99 00:15:27.336 --> 00:15:36.576 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... 100 00:15:36.746 --> 00:15:44.216 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... 101 00:15:44.416 --> 00:15:48.876 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. 102 00:15:48.896 --> 00:15:58.836 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. 103 00:15:58.876 --> 00:16:02.996 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. 104 00:16:03.896 --> 00:16:10.216 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. 105 00:16:10.296 --> 00:16:18.956 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... 106 00:16:19.036 --> 00:16:31.666 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. 107 00:16:31.936 --> 00:16:44.736 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. 108 00:16:44.856 --> 00:16:56.936 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. 109 00:16:56.966 --> 00:17:06.756 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. 110 00:17:06.816 --> 00:17:14.076 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. 111 00:17:14.736 --> 00:17:25.156 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. 112 00:17:25.456 --> 00:17:39.736 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. 113 00:17:40.256 --> 00:17:46.876 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. 114 00:17:47.216 --> 00:17:58.096 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. 115 00:17:58.336 --> 00:18:07.086 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. 116 00:18:07.236 --> 00:18:17.975 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. 117 00:18:18.066 --> 00:18:22.266 After school is where the chaos happens. [laughs] Dive into that. 118 00:18:22.646 --> 00:18:38.766 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. 119 00:18:38.826 --> 00:18:45.846 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. 120 00:18:46.406 --> 00:18:56.096 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. 121 00:18:56.106 --> 00:19:04.586 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 122 00:19:05.526 --> 00:19:14.506 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. 123 00:19:14.606 --> 00:19:25.086 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... 124 00:19:26.466 --> 00:19:34.826 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, 125 00:19:36.506 --> 00:19:47.036 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... 126 00:19:47.066 --> 00:19:54.106 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? 127 00:19:54.166 --> 00:20:04.046 And specifically builders, entrepreneurs, people who, who own some process, who are also parents. What do you think they're getting wrong? 128 00:20:05.486 --> 00:20:18.306 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. 129 00:20:18.906 --> 00:20:24.366 They just don't see the other things in their life as work. And when people... 130 00:20:24.466 --> 00:20:32.446 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. 131 00:20:32.506 --> 00:20:43.806 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. 132 00:20:43.906 --> 00:20:51.186 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. 133 00:20:51.766 --> 00:21:03.466 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. 134 00:21:03.526 --> 00:21:17.066 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... 135 00:21:17.106 --> 00:21:23.506 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. 136 00:21:23.846 --> 00:21:29.726 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. 137 00:21:30.506 --> 00:21:38.986 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. 138 00:21:39.286 --> 00:21:48.006 '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... 139 00:21:48.036 --> 00:21:58.806 "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... 140 00:21:58.886 --> 00:22:08.566 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. 141 00:22:09.226 --> 00:22:15.846 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." 142 00:22:16.506 --> 00:22:25.396 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. 143 00:22:25.466 --> 00:22:36.386 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. 144 00:22:36.596 --> 00:22:46.476 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... 145 00:22:46.476 --> 00:22:51.026 "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." 146 00:22:51.066 --> 00:22:58.746 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. 147 00:22:58.866 --> 00:23:10.616 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... 148 00:23:10.616 --> 00:23:16.066 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. 149 00:23:16.086 --> 00:23:21.226 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. 150 00:23:21.786 --> 00:23:29.246 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. 151 00:23:29.306 --> 00:23:39.616 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. 152 00:23:39.626 --> 00:23:53.326 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. 153 00:23:53.356 --> 00:24:01.016 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? 154 00:24:01.666 --> 00:24:04.406 I mean, people make unhealthy marriages work all the time. 155 00:24:04.946 --> 00:24:16.506 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. 156 00:24:16.546 --> 00:24:26.930 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. 157 00:24:27.590 --> 00:24:36.830 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. 158 00:24:36.970 --> 00:24:44.980 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. 159 00:24:44.990 --> 00:24:54.530 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. 160 00:24:54.910 --> 00:25:00.250 Anyways, there's this episode called No Phones, and the district puts on this, like, contest. 161 00:25:00.310 --> 00:25:09.510 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. 162 00:25:09.890 --> 00:25:22.490 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. 163 00:25:22.570 --> 00:25:33.910 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. 164 00:25:34.040 --> 00:25:45.110 "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. 165 00:25:45.130 --> 00:25:55.470 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? 166 00:25:56.150 --> 00:26:03.210 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. 167 00:26:03.790 --> 00:26:14.200 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. 168 00:26:14.210 --> 00:26:23.470 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. 169 00:26:23.950 --> 00:26:33.060 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. 170 00:26:33.070 --> 00:26:41.950 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. 171 00:26:42.120 --> 00:26:54.890 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. 172 00:26:55.050 --> 00:27:03.190 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." 173 00:27:03.280 --> 00:27:11.460 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]... 174 00:27:11.460 --> 00:27:22.110 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... 175 00:27:22.120 --> 00:27:30.030 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. 176 00:27:30.190 --> 00:27:42.730 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. 177 00:27:43.690 --> 00:27:55.970 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%. 178 00:27:56.530 --> 00:28:11.570 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. 179 00:28:12.570 --> 00:28:29.230 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. 180 00:28:30.130 --> 00:28:38.030 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. 181 00:28:38.870 --> 00:28:42.609 All the training was when I was putting my kids to bed, and I'm not gonna miss putting my kids to bed. 182 00:28:43.289 --> 00:28:53.870 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. 183 00:28:54.130 --> 00:29:04.530 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. 184 00:29:04.670 --> 00:29:10.930 Like, I carry a lot of, "You're behind, you're going slow," like, "You could do better." 185 00:29:11.010 --> 00:29:19.690 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. 186 00:29:19.700 --> 00:29:21.500 I saw that. Right? I saw that. Hey, I saw it. Uh. Congrats, dude. 187 00:29:21.500 --> 00:29:29.390 [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. 188 00:29:29.490 --> 00:29:34.650 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. 189 00:29:34.670 --> 00:29:45.230 [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? 190 00:29:45.770 --> 00:29:54.810 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. 191 00:29:54.850 --> 00:30:02.640 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. 192 00:30:02.640 --> 00:30:11.110 [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." 193 00:30:11.170 --> 00:30:20.010 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. 194 00:30:20.070 --> 00:30:27.650 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. 195 00:30:27.710 --> 00:30:31.350 Like, I have all of these goals for this year, and I have all of these things I wanna do. 196 00:30:31.430 --> 00:30:38.704 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... 197 00:30:38.734 --> 00:30:49.134 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... 198 00:30:49.214 --> 00:30:55.534 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. 199 00:30:55.574 --> 00:31:04.134 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... 200 00:31:04.533 --> 00:31:16.514 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, 201 00:31:17.454 --> 00:31:27.494 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. 202 00:31:28.394 --> 00:31:33.154 Uh, it's a very effective fuel, but it definitely, like, rots the engine a little bit. Yeah. 203 00:31:33.194 --> 00:31:40.974 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. 204 00:31:40.994 --> 00:31:46.644 And, and o- in that same sentence, you mentioned a- at one point having an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Mm-hmm. 205 00:31:46.644 --> 00:31:55.214 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. 206 00:31:55.294 --> 00:32:05.754 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. 207 00:32:05.834 --> 00:32:18.174 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. 208 00:32:18.254 --> 00:32:30.714 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... 209 00:32:31.474 --> 00:32:47.414 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. 210 00:32:47.534 --> 00:32:49.954 We're gonna get out of this. In a year, you're gonna look back on this." 211 00:32:50.034 --> 00:32:58.194 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. 212 00:32:58.204 --> 00:33:06.534 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. 213 00:33:06.594 --> 00:33:19.694 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. 214 00:33:19.754 --> 00:33:29.154 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. 215 00:33:29.254 --> 00:33:35.744 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. 216 00:33:35.754 --> 00:33:50.514 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. 217 00:33:51.274 --> 00:33:57.794 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. 218 00:33:57.894 --> 00:34:06.974 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. 219 00:34:07.814 --> 00:34:18.034 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. 220 00:34:18.134 --> 00:34:27.444 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. 221 00:34:27.514 --> 00:34:37.574 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. 222 00:34:37.654 --> 00:34:44.534 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. 223 00:34:44.574 --> 00:34:55.074 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. 224 00:34:56.034 --> 00:35:00.724 And that was, that worked, but I just noticed I was really coping- Yeah... 225 00:35:00.814 --> 00:35:16.924 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. 226 00:35:17.134 --> 00:35:27.354 [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. 227 00:35:27.474 --> 00:35:38.544 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? 228 00:35:38.594 --> 00:35:50.314 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. 229 00:35:50.354 --> 00:35:59.814 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, 230 00:36:00.814 --> 00:36:11.004 "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. 231 00:36:11.014 --> 00:36:22.894 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. 232 00:36:22.934 --> 00:36:28.654 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. 233 00:36:29.414 --> 00:36:48.046 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." 234 00:36:48.056 --> 00:36:58.076 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. 235 00:36:58.166 --> 00:37:07.756 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 236 00:37:08.826 --> 00:37:14.466 I, my wife's parents were part of a church that just had a large influx of, like, newly married couples. 237 00:37:14.506 --> 00:37:29.806 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. 238 00:37:29.826 --> 00:37:39.606 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? 239 00:37:39.626 --> 00:37:49.846 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. 240 00:37:50.346 --> 00:37:57.106 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." 241 00:37:57.846 --> 00:38:11.726 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. 242 00:38:11.846 --> 00:38:14.686 I was like, "Am I supposed to be a pastor? Like, what is this?" 243 00:38:15.566 --> 00:38:31.606 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. 244 00:38:31.686 --> 00:38:43.206 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. 245 00:38:43.426 --> 00:38:54.186 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? 246 00:38:54.246 --> 00:39:00.456 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... 247 00:39:00.466 --> 00:39:08.606 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. 248 00:39:08.646 --> 00:39:16.366 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. 249 00:39:16.546 --> 00:39:31.386 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... 250 00:39:31.406 --> 00:39:35.006 Like, so I'll give you an example. Like, when I train with my kids, my kids and I work out together a lot. 251 00:39:35.186 --> 00:39:41.255 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. 252 00:39:41.266 --> 00:39:49.766 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... 253 00:39:49.926 --> 00:39:55.146 our, my at least, or I think collectively, our purpose is to reduce the suffering of other people. 254 00:39:55.206 --> 00:40:06.826 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. 255 00:40:07.886 --> 00:40:20.346 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. 256 00:40:21.066 --> 00:40:34.706 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. 257 00:40:34.926 --> 00:40:40.886 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. 258 00:40:41.586 --> 00:40:50.746 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." 259 00:40:51.186 --> 00:41:02.696 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... 260 00:41:02.696 --> 00:41:14.886 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. 261 00:41:14.946 --> 00:41:25.066 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. 262 00:41:25.446 --> 00:41:32.686 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? 263 00:41:32.786 --> 00:41:40.826 [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. 264 00:41:40.976 --> 00:41:48.036 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. 265 00:41:48.146 --> 00:41:54.126 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. 266 00:41:54.166 --> 00:42:02.626 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. 267 00:42:02.706 --> 00:42:11.446 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." 268 00:42:12.386 --> 00:42:16.466 And that's kind of how I look at my expression of faith. It's just woven in. 269 00:42:16.506 --> 00:42:25.886 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 270 00:42:26.886 --> 00:42:37.366 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. 271 00:42:37.606 --> 00:42:44.034 I want people to see who I am as a person.Before they know what I believe as a person. 272 00:42:44.114 --> 00:42:54.504 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. 273 00:42:54.514 --> 00:43:00.964 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? 274 00:43:00.964 --> 00:43:08.224 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. 275 00:43:08.234 --> 00:43:15.214 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. 276 00:43:15.274 --> 00:43:26.674 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. 277 00:43:26.854 --> 00:43:33.194 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. 278 00:43:33.354 --> 00:43:43.394 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? 279 00:43:43.674 --> 00:43:53.224 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? 280 00:43:53.254 --> 00:43:57.794 You can't be, uh, you can't be really deep into something if you're not educated about it, in my opinion, so. 281 00:43:57.834 --> 00:44:10.114 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? 282 00:44:11.614 --> 00:44:20.214 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... 283 00:44:20.294 --> 00:44:30.134 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. 284 00:44:30.174 --> 00:44:39.334 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... 285 00:44:39.514 --> 00:44:45.474 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. 286 00:44:47.294 --> 00:44:55.634 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... 287 00:44:55.694 --> 00:45:02.914 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." 288 00:45:02.954 --> 00:45:10.994 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. 289 00:45:11.074 --> 00:45:18.134 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. 290 00:45:18.674 --> 00:45:29.134 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. 291 00:45:29.214 --> 00:45:35.274 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. 292 00:45:35.334 --> 00:45:39.334 Like, that's an indication of probably why I have this massive freaking chip on my shoulder. 293 00:45:39.954 --> 00:45:46.824 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... 294 00:45:46.854 --> 00:45:53.894 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. 295 00:45:54.054 --> 00:46:02.334 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. 296 00:46:03.074 --> 00:46:09.074 I could always pack all my, my belongings, my clothes, my everything up in one little box. I thought that was normal. 297 00:46:09.574 --> 00:46:16.234 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 298 00:46:17.334 --> 00:46:29.574 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. 299 00:46:29.854 --> 00:46:41.974 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. 300 00:46:43.154 --> 00:46:55.254 '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. 301 00:46:55.354 --> 00:47:02.664 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. 302 00:47:02.694 --> 00:47:16.374 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? 303 00:47:16.494 --> 00:47:24.323 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. 304 00:47:24.474 --> 00:47:36.954 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. 305 00:47:37.014 --> 00:47:46.154 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. 306 00:47:46.234 --> 00:47:55.634 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. 307 00:47:55.714 --> 00:48:09.194 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? 308 00:48:09.254 --> 00:48:17.434 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." 309 00:48:17.474 --> 00:48:24.684 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, 310 00:48:25.854 --> 00:48:35.474 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. 311 00:48:35.534 --> 00:48:45.742 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. 312 00:48:45.802 --> 00:48:51.262 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. 313 00:48:51.412 --> 00:49:01.742 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, 314 00:49:02.722 --> 00:49:18.782 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. 315 00:49:18.802 --> 00:49:24.032 [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. 316 00:49:24.042 --> 00:49:32.502 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. 317 00:49:32.612 --> 00:49:38.432 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 318 00:49:39.562 --> 00:49:47.902 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. 319 00:49:47.922 --> 00:49:57.812 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... 320 00:49:57.812 --> 00:50:07.202 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... 321 00:50:07.322 --> 00:50:15.982 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. 322 00:50:16.322 --> 00:50:24.792 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... 323 00:50:24.802 --> 00:50:35.942 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? 324 00:50:36.002 --> 00:50:43.942 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. 325 00:50:44.042 --> 00:50:56.142 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, 326 00:50:57.102 --> 00:51:06.882 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... 327 00:51:06.902 --> 00:51:12.522 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... 328 00:51:14.242 --> 00:51:28.202 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. 329 00:51:28.262 --> 00:51:34.582 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... 330 00:51:34.622 --> 00:51:43.462 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. 331 00:51:43.582 --> 00:51:53.562 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. 332 00:51:53.612 --> 00:52:00.562 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. 333 00:52:00.742 --> 00:52:07.022 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? 334 00:52:07.462 --> 00:52:16.872 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. 335 00:52:16.902 --> 00:52:25.912 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... 336 00:52:25.942 --> 00:52:35.242 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, 337 00:52:36.262 --> 00:52:44.162 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. 338 00:52:44.282 --> 00:52:53.362 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. 339 00:52:53.422 --> 00:53:05.042 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. 340 00:53:05.142 --> 00:53:16.022 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. 341 00:53:16.542 --> 00:53:23.252 We are going to kill it this year with guests like Brendan. Thanks again, Brendan. This has been awesome. Yeah. Thanks, guys.