Podcast Transcription

Intro: Welcome to “Flippin’ Off”, a purpose-driven podcast about flipping houses and making a difference.

Melina: Hey. Hey, everybody. This is Melina Boswell, New Wealth Advisors Club, coming to you live from Huntington Beach, my home, because, you know, quarantine. This is the first time. I was going to say, Rona, we were going to call this probably Rona. This is our Rona podcast, let’s see, experiment. With me today, kind of with me, virtually with me, I have Christian Rios.

Christian: Hey, guys. Glad to be on here.

Melina: Yeah. I’ve got Oscar Solares.

Oscar: Hello.

Melina: John and Selene Slater.

Selene: Hey.

John: Hi.

Melina: Actually, Selene Slater, along with her husband, John.

Selene: Oh, I like the sound of that.

John: Oh, nice twist. Nice twist.

Melina: This is the first time. We wanted to do a podcast trying it from, well, virtually. We’re doing everything right now. We thought it would be important and valuable to come to you guys just in the now, you know, what we’re really doing right now. I just got a thing, a note, that said my internet is sustainable. I’m guessing maybe I froze for a second. I don’t even know.

Oscar: No, you’re good. You’re clear. No, it’s fine.

Melina: All right. We thought it would be good to have a conversation about what we’re doing, how we’re coping, and the truth is we’ve been on Zoom here for probably, I don’t know, the last half an hour or so just, like, talking and shooting the crap and, you know, talking about what’s been happening and how we’re adjusting to new life in quarantine. I was sharing with everybody that I’m quarantined in my home with my son Andrew and Adriana “Spoon” Uribe. If you know anything about Adriana and Andrew, they are both really antisocial. For them, like, quarantine is, like, that’s normal. They never talked… For the girl who is social and really, you know…I’m introverted, so I need downtime for sure, quiet time. But, man, I’m kind of going crazy with the two of them because they just are both perfectly fine staying in their bedroom and not coming out. I think there was a meme that “Spoon” showed me and it said something like, “You recognize you’re antisocial when quarantine rules don’t change your life.”

Selene: Yeah.

Melina: Totally, right?

Oscar: Yeah. Totally true.

Melina: For me, it’s been, whew. I’ve been managing, but I am definitely going a little stir crazy. We thought it was important to hear from each one of you guys, and I’ll share a little bit about the transition that’s happened for me maybe over the last, we’re almost in two weeks now. The first few days, I don’t know about you guys, but for me, the first few days, I found myself almost paralyzed. I just kept on eating, like, and eating and eating. I was just so weird. I was lazy and couldn’t get any motivation to get anything done. I found myself – and I’m not proud because this is pretty embarrassing to say, but that’s the truth – I think I ate, like, a whole bag of peanut M&Ms. I felt so emotionally stuck, and it was coming out physically, you know? I couldn’t do anything. I don’t know. I was seeing people say things like, “Oh, it’s a great time to organize your closet, do this.” I was like, “What? I can’t get off the couch.” I felt so stuck physically and emotionally. Then, you know, as the days have gone on, I started by, one day I finally went for a bike ride, you know? Then little by little I started to pick up my good habits, you know? I’ve come to the realization this is not good. This could be very bad for me. What about you guys? How did it start? Have you seen a transition? Have you seen yourself starting one way and then ending up..?

John: Yeah. I mean, the first few days, to be honest, was almost like, oh, I’ve got a vacation. I’m on vacation right now. I can get up when I need to get up, I can go to bed when I…

Melina: Want.

John: …need to go to bed, and I kind of do a little bit of work here and there. I mean, it didn’t last long. Maybe a day or two. I can’t even remember what day we first started to say, “Okay, that’s officially it. We’re staying indoors now.” I could probably tell you how many bags of Chips Ahoy! we’ve had. Yeah. I feel like we’ve had cookies every single—

Melina: Did you go for the junk food?

John: No, not really. I mean, we still just eat…I mean, I love chips. I love chips and I love Chips Ahoy! . I love chips and cookies. We’ve probably had chips nearly every night and we don’t have any cookies, only because we ran out. I haven’t been back to the store. But other than that, you know, that’s just me personally. I drank a lot of tea, a lot of coffee, you know? But we’re still eating normally.

Melina: It’s funny. We knew, like, we’re going in. Right? We’re going in. We kind of did like everybody else did. We bought a bunch of food. We thought two weeks of food because that’s what the president told us. Hunker down for two weeks. We went and bought two weeks worth of food. I bought a bunch of healthy food and then, you know, a couple of, you know, kind of bad things. Literally by the second day, all the bad food was gone. All I ate was the bad food, you know? Like, I went for the junk. I said, “Oh, I guess I should eat these oranges now.”

Oscar: I kind of got to witness that when we went to Beaumont.

Selene: Oh, that’s right.

Oscar: Remember that pit stop we made? We went to walk WAKA House and it was Melina, Andrew and I, and we made a pitstop on the way back at the gas station.

Melina: For food.

Oscar: Yeah, for food… But it really became more of, Reese’s, right? The healthiest thing we got I think was water.

Melina: That’s true.

Oscar: Other than that, it was just junk.

Christian: For me—

Selene: Yeah, go ahead.

Christian: I was just going to say, for me, it’s been ranch corn nuts. This week it stopped, but they’re so addicting. They’re so addicting.

Melina: That’s so funny. What is it about the ranch corn nuts? Is it the crunchy..?

Christian: Oh, god. Everything. It’s everything.

Melina: Do you eat them a certain way? Corn nuts, do you eat them a certain way?

Christian: Yeah. That’s such a funny question. I literally think about it when I do it. Sometimes I just want to get the ranch out of it and then sometimes I want to like, wait until I crunch it until the very end. I have different strategies, yeah.

Melina: Seriously, I don’t care what anybody says, I believe that people do…I know for me, the peanut M&Ms or almond M&Ms, the reason I like them is because I like the process of eating them. I like to suck on them and get like, the chocolate, get it melty. Seriously, there’s a whole thing to it. That’s why they get so addicting for me.

Christian: Right. Yeah.

Oscar: That’s funny. Mine was chips and bean dip or cheddar cheese dip.

Melina: Yeah, Oscar. You were eating dip out of a can. You sent me pictures.

Oscar: I did.

Melina: We were recording.

Oscar: I said, “This is happening.” Did you see the other picture? It grew up. It went from chips to a big giant bag of popcorn.

Melina: You had kettle corn.

Oscar: Maybe.

Melina: Was it kettle? Oh my god, it looked so good.

Oscar: It was really good. Yeah. Anyways.

Christian: We’re all human.

Oscar: Yeah, it just is. It is what it is. My exercise is going to the supermarket looking for more bean dip and cheddar.

Melina: There’s the funniest memes out there about, and “Spoon” always shows them to be about, you know, before the Rona, then after the Rona. You know, what it looked like. It’s so bad, you know? I think everybody is experiencing this, yeah?

Oscar: Yeah. I think so, yeah.

Christian: It was back, like, what John was saying at the beginning where it’s almost like the first day or two, there was like a little vacation because it seemed like the whole world just stopped. No one kind of knew what was going on. We’re just like, “Okay. Well, let’s kind of maybe just chill,” you know, and when that happens you start eating junk food and all that stuff. For me, like, the last week is when it was kind of, like, what the heck was going on? We’re all creatures of habit. When the little things like waking up and going to the gym in the morning, you don’t do that, then it’s like the next step you don’t do, and then you don’t do, and it just can create a big snowball. For us and for, like, myself, I was like, “By Sunday, okay. We’re adapting to the new normal. Let’s make this week a really productive week.” I think with everything going on, thank god for Zoom. We’re having, like, a million zoom calls a day, but they’re productive and we can still get a lot of work done.

Melina: Yeah. Thank god we’re in a business that we can continue do this. For sure. There was this meme that “Spoon” showed me, and it was Fred, you know, from “Scooby-Doo”. You remember Fred from “Scooby-Doo”?

Christian: Yeah.

Melina: He was, like, the guy that always, like, discovered the mystery, you know? In “Scooby-Doo”, there was always a bad guy. It’s a picture of him and there’s, like, this big giant heap and it’s, like, who’s really behind the coronavirus, and then the next picture is him lifting it up and it’s Zoom.

Oscar: Oh my goodness.

Melina: Zoom is the one responsible for the coronavirus because we’ve all depended on…I mean, how many times do we say thank god for Zoom? We’ve been saying it, you know, constantly. It’s been great that we’ve been able to virtually connect, virtually work, but I agree with you. It was the same for me. I was trying to think, like, when did I shut down? You guys, for me to sit there and, like, munch on a bag of M&Ms is absurd. Oh, when Oscar and I went that day to go walk that property, I bought like a healthy snack kind of thing and then I bought this little…you know those little rounds of cookies? All I ate was the cookies. Probably should close the window. Did you hear that?

Oscar: Yeah.

Melina: They’re working outside my house right now. I guess they’re back from lunch. Anyway, so that’s all I ate. I think what happened for me too was my gym closed down. It was almost like the moment I got the email that said we’re no longer…I was just, I was like, oh my god.

Christian: It’s never happened. Nothing like this has ever happened. If gym shut down, everything’s shutting down, it’s, like, what do we do? Let’s just do nothing then.

Melina: Exactly. Exactly. I’m just like you, Christian. I decided to pull my head out and get it together, and so that’s what I’ve done this last week. I started working out at home, you know? I have weights here at home. I’ve ridden my bike several miles, but for me it’s mostly been weightlifting that’s helped me. You know what’s crazy? The moment I got back to working out, my energy came back up, my head got clear and then I was able to be way more accomplished throughout the day, way more productive throughout the day and not, you know…I’m still, you know, wearing pajama bottoms. It’s fine. It’s kind of cool, right? It doesn’t matter.

John: Saving money on laundry

Melina: Yes. It’s actually funny. Well, when I’ve gone out…I’ve gone out a couple of times. I think I’ve gone out maybe twice. The day before mentorship I decided that, you know, I give all of my students a book. I decided that I was going to go to the office because I had ordered the books. They all live…normally we would meet at the office, but now we have to do it virtually, so I went to the office, picked up everybody’s books, bought everybody a card, wrote a note to them and I hand-delivered everybody’s book. I got in my car and drove all over southern California and hand-delivered their books for the. Well, I didn’t hand-deliver them. I put them in an envelope and left them on their doors.

John: Very cool.

Melina: Yeah. But then when I was out I had to charge my car, which means I had to go to Target. It’s not my fault. But as soon as we got home, I told “Spoon”, “Take off all your clothes and put them in the washer.” You just don’t know if you’ve been out, you know? It’s really, really weird.

Oscar: All the stuff that we’ve gone through, right, I mean, right now we’re talking about the more personal stuff of the impact and effect and all that, but that same behavior really transferred over to the business side of things, right? I think that’s where everybody is going to be struggling right now is, how do they stay focused in actually running their businesses and doing what they’re supposed to be doing? For us it became a matter of, how do we adjust our business? What do we need to do? What needs to change? How does that shift? Christian was talking about all those conversations we’ve been having via Zoom. Some of it is education, but a lot of it is talking through things and understanding what roles and responsibilities are going to be and who’s going to do what and how all that is going to be carried out. I just encourage people to really look at themselves and their businesses and look at what needs to shift. I think we’re experiencing something that isn’t going to end when this is over. The shifts that are occurring are shifts that are going to continue going forward. We need to adapt.

Melina: Why do you think that is? What is that about? For me, I think the exact same thing, but what do you think that’s going to mean? What do you think it’s going to mean?

Oscar: One of the things for me that stands out is, if we look at some of the most successful businesses in the last, call it three years…Amazon, right, everything’s done through the computer. We all have had access to do those things, but it was never a necessity to do those things. It was, like, a nice to do, we’ll get to it, we’ll plan on it, and then you plan on it and never do it. Now it’s become like, oh, this is actually possible. We can really do this, and everybody’s doing it. Brick and mortar locations, right, what is that now? What is it that going to look like down the road?

Melina: That’s a great question. You know what I was thinking along with that is, because one of the things that we’ve been focused on in our business is what we call LMS, Learning Management System, and getting all of our classes online. We’ve had this system for how long?

Oscar: Probably about eight months.

Melina: Yeah. We’ve been sitting on it. It’s been like, yeah, we’ll get to it, we’ll onboard, we’ll whatever all these…, you know?

Oscar: We’ll get to the content creation, yeah. All those things, yeah.

Melina: Yeah. I’m, like, now it’s like, well, holy crap, we’ve got to get this one right now, right now. Now what we’ve learned is we can go fully electronic, or digital, I guess, digital with all of our training, and something that hit me is, man, when we get to be together for live events, it’s going to be special.

Oscar: It’s going to be powerful.

Melina: Right?

Oscar: Yeah. It’s going to be powerful.

Melina: That’s going to be the new way. The new way is, oh my gosh, they’re going to be live, where you can, like, touch each other.

Oscar: Claudia made a comment at the club meeting I think it was, where she said that, “Man, I miss the energy. I miss walking in for the energy and the hugs and all the things that are normal.” But at the same time, when it was done, it was like, “Man, I got my fill. I feel the energy, all that stuff that goes on.”

Melina: Wasn’t that great?

Oscar: Yeah.

Christina: Hi, this is Christian Rios. As many of you know, I’ve been a member of New Wealth Advisors Club for over seven years and got started when I was 17 years old with absolutely no real estate experience. One of the biggest lessons I have learned from being in the industry is the need for authentic relationships. If you’re looking for an actual team locally in southern California with all the resources needed to close deals, register for one of our free workshops by visiting www.joinnwac.com. Thanks for listening to the “Flippin’ Off” podcast.

Oscar: I feel the energy, all that stuff that goes on.

Melina: Wants that great?

Oscar: Yeah, it’s good. I definitely think the shift that has happened is for the long term.

Melina: Yeah. I could see it. I could see us making the necessary changes. I was reading something, and I’m trying to remember what it was that I was reading, and it was just talking about the necessity. Good businesses, they will pivot. Maybe it was the accountability book.

Oscar: Yeah. It is in the accountability book, yeah.

Melina: Yeah. It was talking about how, you know, businesses that are lasting will evaluate themselves. They will look and they will evaluate and they will pivot when necessary, which made me, and I’ll be honest, so much of what I’ve learned in reading is, oh, we did that, but I like to be like, “Oh, yeah, that was intentional.”

Oscar: Totally planned.

Melina: Yeah, totally planned. That’s not the truth, right? So much of what we do is instinctual, right, and we just kind of know, we’re, like, oh we need to do this. One of the biggest things that I feel proud of us as an organization is we’ve always been very willing to pivot. We look at ourselves, we look at ourselves honestly in the mirror and go, “This needs to change,” or, “Here’s an idea.” Dave would say things, like he would say, “I had a divine inspiration.” He would. He would just get an idea and he would be like, “I don’t even know where this came from.” He would literally wake up and start writing whatever it was that was given to him. I mean, that’s continued with us. We’ve been able to be, like, okay, we’ve got an idea, an inspiration and then we move with it. I wonder if that goes back to…actually, I don’t wonder. I know it goes back to, like, real strong belief in what it is that we’re doing.

Oscar: Right.

Melina: I think when you’re trying to muster up something if that’s, like, not real, these kinds of things don’t flow naturally. Does that make sense?

Oscar: Totally agree. I know that, you know, Christian is in charge of enrollment and all those things that need to be done. He’s really adapted how he teaches and how he coaches and all that to the new environment. It’s important, right? There’s a lot of lessons that we’re learning along the way. Like, expect it. But I think it just also goes into that whole continuous service improvement that we talk about, right? We always have to look at what we’re doing and what can we improve, what can we shift, what do we throw out as well, right? There are some things that are just staying because oh, we’ve always done it that way, versus, oh no, that needs to go away. We don’t need to do it that way anymore.

Melina: Yeah. How do you feel…I know this is going to be maybe a controversial question, but I’d like to hear from each one of you how you’re feeling about, like, our leadership in the country. How do you feel that they have been, like, leading? How do you feel about the leadership in the country?

John: I don’t know what to believe from one day to the next.

Melina: What do you mean?

John: Well, because for me it depends which website you read, which news source, which twitter feed, which whatever it is. I stay away from posting political stuff on Facebook and all that stuff and I see all these conversations and I see everybody, you know, having a real go at, you know, the democrats and Nancy Pelosi because of, you know, this new act they’re trying to get in and how the democrats are screwing up. I’m, like, I don’t even know who’s writing it. Who is writing it? I’ve read part of it, and I”m, like, what’s that got to do with coronavirus? What’s that one trillion dollars doing going to this that has anything to do with coronavirus? I don’t know. I mean, do I believe this president? You know, I’m kind of calmly relaxed about everything but worrying internally about what’s next, because I don’t think we really…I feel like we just don’t really know, you know? You look at New York State right now, New York State is in a boatload of trouble, you know? When you look at all the new cases flying in there, but, you know, Trump comes across as very relaxed about it. “Hey, we’re going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.” I get it. You’ve got to calm the people. But then if you watch the number of new cases being reported, well, of course, they’re going to increase. People are now getting tested. People weren’t getting tested.

Oscar: Of course.

John: Of course there’s going to be loads of new cases, which doesn’t mean everybody now goes and panics, except I feel half of society will go out and panic.

Melina: They already have. That’s the whole toilet paper thing. That’s all that is. It literally makes no sense. It’s not logical.

John: As a sidetrack, by chance, did you see the meme, the video of the guy who dissected how many pieces of toilet paper there are in a roll of Costco packed toilet roll and would actually allow you to go restroom 20, 30 times a day for the next six months on one pack of toilet paper. I mean, that’s how crazy it is, and people have got wall to wall toilet paper that could literally last them a year, you know? That’s how crazy it is out there.

Melina: Just so you know, we’re out. I think we have two rolls left.

Selene: Yeah. We are not hoarding anything. We tried to prepare as much as we could, but we’re not hoarding. We decided that we’re going to, like, take it as it is. Like, we run out of toilet paper, we will just go and hunt for another package and we will take it from there.

Christian: I’ll post my affiliate link right here for you guys to buy it off of.

Oscar: Rios Toilet Solutions.

Christian: Rios Toilet Solutions.

Melina: Yeah. Just so you know, we call it pillage over here. But…

Oscar: We know where you live, Rios.

John: We’re going to throw out Selene’s dad into the supermarkets for us because obviously as an elderly gentleman, he gets early access. We’re going to give him $40 bucks in his pocket and throw him into the store one morning.

Selene: …with him and he’s going to say, “No, it’s my granddad and he has dementia.”

Christian: Oh my goodness.

John: He’s just going to come out with load so M&Ms and cookie and chips and, oh, and a roll of toilet paper.

Melina: Exactly. Well, you know I’m a big fan of bidets, so I have bidets everywhere. I definitely installed a new bidet in my beach house. I also bought one for Christine, Jesus and my parents.

Selene: That’s it. Yeah. Going back to the question for me, I always go back as a reference with my country and with the president there, because I mean, when people think that I’m liberal, some people think that I’m democrat and some people think that I have a little bit of republican. I believe that I’m none.

Melina: Right. You’re libertarian. I always tell you, you’re a libertarian.

Selene: I need to do my research about that word. I always, when you say that to me, I always say, “Oh, I need to go and research what does that actually means, because probably I am.” But anyway, what I think is, I think there are some things that he’s doing very well in my opinion. I have a lot of anxiety right now with all this that is happening right now. We’re not hoarding, but I am in the mode of, we need to, how do you say when you are…

John: You need to be mindful.

Selene: Be mindful…

John: You need to be mindful of what we’re using.

Selene: …what you have and how much you’re using it.

Melina: Oh, yeah.

Selene: That’s, like, more than ever, I think that it’s going back to basics, right? This is how it used to be. This is how I grew up…what we have. It’s for today. That’s it. It’s for everyone. I think that it’s something that everyone is missing, especially with all the love in my heart that I have for America, especially for America. This is a country that is so used to have and have so much. You don’t have any shortage of anything.

Melina: Right.

Selene: Right? That make you go into entitled mentality.

Melina: Totally.

Selene: Yeah. You waste a lot. This is what you’re going to have and you don’t know when you’re going to have more, or are you even going to get more? That’s not necessarily a bad thing, people, you know? With Trump, when he start shutting down the country and people start criticizing him and going into a panic mode, I actually think that it’s a good thing in my opinion, and to be very honest, I was hoping when some rumors were out there saying, “Oh, he’s going to have us, like, locked down in home. No one is going to be able to go out.” I was really hoping for that, which didn’t happen. Why? Because I felt that we really need to go very drastic in order to really have a drastic result about people saying, “Oh, but everything about politics and he’s doing whatever he’s doing and saying whatever he is saying so he can be reelected,” my answer to that was “Well, if this dude actually do the right things, I will vote for him again.” That’s what I need, someone that is going to do and make the right decisions when I need him.

Melina: Absolutely.

Selene: If he’s my favorite person, he’s never going to be, right?

Melina: Of course not.

Selene: He’s not my best friend or my husband or my anything, so I need someone that is going to pull the right decisions.

Melina: Lead, like really lead.

Selene: For instance, unfortunately, what worries me a lot about my country, it’s my president. Well, it’s not my president. The president of—

Melina: Who is your president?

Selene: No, the president of Mexico is making such stupid decisions. That’s what I don’t want to have.

Melina: Yeah.

Christian: Yeah, that’s what I was going to share. For me, honestly, I’m not that political. I don’t watch too much news. Even these last couple of weeks, I have been watching a little bit more because you have to be more relevant on what’s going on, but what makes me really appreciate Trump is he’s an entrepreneur, you know? He’s a business owner. He’s a real estate investor. He knows how to run a business and he knows, like, what’s happening to businesses. Having a leader like that is huge, and I know some people, like, when he went off on that journalist, I don’t know if you guys saw that, but I loved it. I loved just how raw he is. He is, like, “Oh, like, your journalist is horrible,” or whatever he said to him. I love that. The media does portray, like, such a bad picture. That freaks everybody out and that’s what’s making the stock market go down. We’re going to be okay. We’re going to be okay. We’re going to get through this. I think we are taking the right precautions and everything, and I do think Trump is doing a good job, you know, through all this.

Selene: It’s just making us, like, example of what you were saying, Christian. When he was saying, “Oh, because this is a Chinese virus,” and woman say, “Don’t you think it is a little bit racist for you that you call it a Chinese virus? Why are you using that sentence?” He says, “Because it’s coming from China.” People is just, like, they get stuck into that, like, who cares if we call it the Chinese virus? That’s not relevant, people. That’s not. But it’s funny because it’s coming from China. The Chinese virus.

Christian: That’s so true.

Melina: It’s totally true. Yeah. I’m personally very, very happy with the way he’s handled it. Honestly, I am. I have the same thoughts as you do. I think I told you, there’s one of the days he was doing a…I don’t want to hear anybody’s spin or whatever somebody thinks about what he’s doing, right? I don’t want to hear that. I want to hear, like, what he says and I want to hear what the doctors say and then I want to make my own opinions, right? I really am thankful for the people he has around him because I think that he has surrounded himself with very smart people. But I personally appreciate his own personal response to it, which is, we’re going to be fine, and he made this statement. Like, “We’ve got to get back to work. This virus isn’t going to be the thing that is going to take us out. It’s going to be us not working.” I heard him. I didn’t think anything of it. Again, I don’t want to hear anybody’s commentary about it. I want to watch the live, I want to hear what he says. Then I want to shut everybody off and I want to just take in what he says. I was driving afterward and I was seeing people outside, and I thought, “We do need to get back to work.” We can’t all be on vacation all the time. That is going to be the most dangerous…the most difficult part is all of us getting back to a normal routine. I was, like, man, he does know what he’s talking about. I totally agree. I agree with that and I’m very thankful that he understands what it’s like to be a CEO, to be an entrepreneur, to be a real estate investor, and that he cares. He’s been where we are. He knows exactly what it’s like. Oscar, what about you? Where are your thoughts? Where are you?

Oscar: I think, overall, you know, yeah, I get he’s the head guy. But I think overall the decisions – that’s what I focus on, is the decisions that are being made and where those decisions lead us – and I’ve yet been able to punch holes in any decision that have been made. I think just like Selene was saying, right from the decision of cutting out travelers from China to eventually closing all of our borders, all of those decisions were very key decisions in being able to control our environment. Yeah. He did, right? But here’s the thing. Because he’s a CEO…

Melina: He doesn’t care.

Oscar: …he knows that every decision made comes from scrutiny, and the scrutiny comes from the people that are the least informed of why decisions are being made. That whole thing that we talked about earlier about being able to pivot, right, half the time people don’t understand why they’re making that left turn.

Melina: I know, I know.

Oscar: It’s just a decision that was made. But the left turn went through several hours of conversation before that left turn was actually made, right? Those decisions, that’s what key for me, is the decision-making process and how they then communicate it. Years ago I used to tell Rebecca, you know, what the country needs is really somebody who understands business. The government right now is a cost center. They’re not a profit center, right? They don’t make money, they just continually spend money. But once you bring somebody who understands business and runs it like a business, total different ballgame. That’s kind of where we find ourselves now, right? It’s a businessman, and nobody likes the CEO typically, right?

Melina: No. I don’t.

Oscar: They say they do because it’s the right thing to say, but half the time they’re talking behind their backs about the other crap.

Melina: Entirely, entirely.

Oscar: It’s just one of those things. But for me, yeah, it’s absolutely the decisions making process and then the outcomes on those decisions have been, I think, flawless. IS everybody happy with it? No. Does everybody need to be happy with it? No, but they’re alive, so I guess that’s good.

Melina: Yeah. I agree, I agree. As far as the bill goes, you know, the bill was passed yesterday. We’re two trillion.

Oscar: Yeah, two trillion.

Melina: Two trillion.

Oscar: I started reading some of it and looking for some key buzzwords and that type of stuff. There’s a lot of things, you know, John mentioned. It’s questionable, right, as to why that money is going where it’s going. But again, decision, right? I’m sure decisions were made to allocate funds for whatever purpose. Will it ever be clear to us? Probably not. But nonetheless—

Melina: Well, it’s like 1400 pages, right?

Oscar: It is. It’s 1400 pages. It’s a lot of reading.

Melina: I’m going to depend on Mark Coller to decipher it for me and hear what he has to say about it, right?

Oscar: I missed it earlier, but I think they were going to have Mark Cuban on some…I don’t know if it was Fox or whatever. But he was going to talk about what those 1400 pages looked like for business owners from his perspective. It’s something to look up what his take is on it. Especially, he’s a mogul, of course, right? But he’s also been very critical of the administration and all that.

Melina: Oh, very.

Oscar: It would be interesting to hear what his take is on the decisions that have been made.

Melina: Yeah, I would be interested to hear that too. I think that’s, like, the smartest thing. I have this conversation. When I think about being a libertarian I think, you know, in general I don’t want anybody to think for me. I want the government to make the least amount of decisions for everybody’s personal life as possible is really what it comes down to. That’s what I really do want. Maybe I’m naive. I don’t think I am, but you know, people would call these my Jesus goggles. But I still believe in the American spirit. I believe deeply in the American spirit and I believe in the human spirit, and I think that there is this deep, powerful thought process that is America and I trust the people to do the right thing. I don’t think the government has to step in and tell us all the things he has to do. I think we will do the right thing. I believe it the people. That’s ultimately where I get my thought process from, and so to be totally honest, like, when I was watching Trump speak, I was like, I totally feel exactly the same way he does. My message to our club members has been this: keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the ball. Just stay in the game. That’s really all we need to do because we’re going to be fine. Just keep your eye on the ball.

Oscar: Party of keeping your eye on the ball then becomes hold to your routines. Right? Hang onto the routines that you had before the shutdown. That means that you still make your bed. You still shower. You still get dressed. You still go through those things, right? Even if it’s half, right, half…

Melina: Half dressed.

Oscar: …for video and the rest is shorts, or whatever. Hey, newscasters do it all the time.

Melina: Totally fine. They do. Yeah… That’s an actual workout fit.

Oscar: It is. But stick to the routines. We do all this mentoring and coaching and all that and we talk about habits and how long it takes to break habits and so forth. Right now people are stuck in the period of time that allows them to develop new habits, and it’s choices, right?

Melina: That could be bad.

Oscar: It could be bad habits. It could be great habits. But it goes back to what adjustments do people need take to actually continue to function and operate their businesses…

Melina: That’s right.

Oscar: …in our industry, right? Like you said earlier, Melina our industry is great because we can do it from anywhere. It doesn’t matter, right? We’ve done it from beaches, we’ve done it from the river, we’ve done it wherever we’re at. We hang out, we have a good time, we make our phone calls for X period of time, you know? It’s just managing your time and being effective and efficient. Christian is a big guy on doing those things, and it works, right? We see the proof is in the pudding with him.

Melina: For sure, for sure. All right. Well, how are we doing on time? I don’t know. Anybody check and see when we started this little doodad thing we’re doing here?

Oscar: We’re at about 40 minutes right now.

Melina: All right. That’s probably a good time to warp it up. We’re going to see how this goes. For now, this is how our podcast will be dropped and we will be dropping a podcast every week for the next several weeks. We usually drop them every other week. Right now we will be dropping them every single week, maybe even more than once a week. Oh, look at that, Christian.

John: Oh, R2D2.

Melina: R2D2 just entered Christian’s screen.

Christian: We got these cool things.

Melina: We did…

Oscar: Darth Vader.

Melina: Darth Vader. I should have got C3PO. Darn it.

Oscar: Should have gone rose gold.

Melina: We’ll be doing them in different places, but we did invest in some mics we that we can sound better. We’re hoping that, you know, this is how it will…we’re just believing this is the way it’s going to be from now on. So thank you so much to you three, the four of you, for coming in and being willing to do the podcast today. Selene, bless you. You did your hike today and then we just grabbed you and said, “Come join us,” and you did so. Thank you for that.

Selene: No, thank you for including me. I appreciate it. I’m happy to hang out with you and see your faces. Yay.

Melina: As soon as I saw you guys I was like, “Oh my gosh, I miss you.” I said we should do happy hour tonight, so we’re probably going to do virtual happy hour. We were thinking of playing heads up together. I think we’re going to do that tonight. We’re going to maybe go live and do it so people can see how much fun we actually do have together.

Oscar: Should be interesting.

Melina: Thanks, you guys. Oscar, thank you for this, for just forcing us like, “Hey, let’s do podcast tomorrow,” period.

Oscar: Love it. It’s a good time… It’s awesome. It’s good stuff. I enjoyed it. It’s good to see you guys as well in a more relaxed format.

Melina: For sure. Well, I’ll end like normal. We are NWAC, and we are flippin’ out.

Oscar: Awesome.

Melina: I’m Melina Boswell, your host of the “Flippin’ Off” podcast. I really hoped you enjoyed it. If you did, we’d love for you to subscribe, give us a five-star rating and tell your friends all about us. You can find more episodes of the “Flippin’ Off” podcast Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher or wherever else you like to listen to awesome podcasts like this. If you liked what you heard, we’d really appreciate it if you’d follow us on Facebook and Instagram and tell us the stories you’d like to hear.

Tim Jackson is our senior producer. Luke Jackson is our editor. Brothers. Josh Mauldin is our producer. Sound design by Frequency Factory. Our executive producer is Mind & Mill. This was all created by Dave Boswell for New Wealth Advisors Club.