There is a lot of research back in the idea that seeking new information.
Building new skills, and using your brain.
In new ways on a regular basis is one of the best ways to.
Preserve the long term health of your brain.
It can slow aging, reduce your risk.
Of dementia, and keep your brain nimble and clear for the future. Isn't it interesting that the more you use your brain, the more you can use your brain?
How?
Curtis, my pal here, is Joe, and we are dudes in progress.
Hey, Joe.
Hello, my friend.
How's your brain doing?
All right.
The more I use it, the more I use it. The more I use it, the more.
I can use it. I love sayings like that, man.
I do.
I've got one that I use all the time. The older you get, the older old gets.
That's true. I saw someone just recently go, wow, they're definitely older than me. I don't know if they really were or have.
I think we may have talked about.
This before, but it's funny when you go on Facebook or you get a.
Friend request from Facebook or you see.
An old friend that you grew up.
With and according to their picture, man, they look like a 90 year old man with suspenders on and gruffy beard and wrinkled face.
And you think, my gosh, I probably look like that.
Right? I know it. I don't know.
Do you have a fear of growing old? That's not what we're going to talk.
About today, but no, I don't have.
A fear of growing old.
I have a fear of getting old.
Yeah.
Not really a fear. You know what it is, Curtis? That's a really interesting question. There's a lot that I want to do. There's impact I want to make and.
There'S things that I want to accomplish.
Yeah.
And not high lofty things.
Right, right.
But there's some things that I want to see happen and I want to be here for it.
And I want to not only be.
Here, but I want to be vibrant and healthy and focused, energetic and all those things.
I think you're going to like my.
Quote of the week when we get to that, but we're going to be.
Talking about what are we going to learn in 2024.
Last episode, we talked about what we.
Learned in 2023, so we thought it'd be a good time. I know, Joe, and I don't think you are either really high on New.
Year's resolutions or setting goals for the new year.
I feel like it's something, my wife even said this to me today, that.
Something you should be doing all the.
Time, but it's still fun. It's a good time to think of it in ways. And I was during the week off, take vacation time between Christmas and New.
Year's, and I tried to.
I didn't sit down and really get crazy with this, but this episode has.
Motivated me to write some things down.
And that quote that I read from the intro is from a book I bought today. Just searching around one of the things.
I was doing this morning, I was.
Looking, hey, I got to get myself a book that.
A self help book.
And I bought on Amazon.
It's from Mike Bayer.
I don't know. You seem to know everybody that I mentioned.
That's not a name I'm familiar with.
Okay.
Honestly, he's associated with Dr. Phil.
I've heard of him.
He's got a show and famous from Oprah.
Sure.
But I noticed him. I didn't do a lot of research.
On it, but I found this book called best self be you, only better.
And it looked interesting. So that's where I just happened to.
Be looking at a chapter.
And that caught my eye as I.
Was browsing through it after I bought it today.
It's interesting about buying books, Kurt, I heard one of your mentors, and I like him, too, Cliff Ravenscraft.
I heard him talking about how he.
Buys books and pays for books, and what he will do is he will get a preview of a book, like on a Kindle. And as he's reading through the preview, if something catches his eye that he feels is worth the price of the book, just that single nugget. If the price of the book is.
$15 and he reads something very profound.
Or educational or motivational or whatever it might be, if he feels like that little nugget is going to add $15 worth of value to his life, then he'll buy the whole book.
Yeah, well, you're so insightful all the time when I talk to you, Joe. That's what motivated me. There was a chapter in there that.
Seemed to speak to me a little.
Bit, and I wanted to learn more about it.
So just for that chapter, I said, why not?
I will get this book.
If you want to learn how Kurt and I feel about goals and values, go all the way back to episode.
One, the very first episode of dudes in progress. Just go to dudesandprogress.com.
Go all the way back to the.
Very first episode called Goals and Values.
New year's resolutions don't work, and we.
Talk a lot about setting goals and how we feel about setting goals and how I feel about setting goals and goals versus values and so forth.
So if you want to check that out, just go all the way back to episode one. And that brings me to this, Kurt, what are we celebrating today right now?
Oh, you mean is this our one year anniversary?
Can you believe.
I can't believe you forgot that, brother.
This is episode 52, okay? Of dudes in progress.
52 weeks of producing a weekly podcast every week.
Never missed.
Not missed a week.
Miracles never cease.
That's persistence.
Miracles focus, commitment, all those things.
A lot of times we came in wheels of squealing, right?
That's true.
And I can say we technically got it released in that week, right?
It may have been at 1159 59, but, yeah.
What do you do?
I got a question for you. Have you looked at our website lately?
Because you told me to, I think, on Saturday.
Awesome.
And I'm trying to catch up on the artwork on the episode.
Artwork and making sure we get those posts right. There's a big gap.
If you look at our website, there's.
A big gap between episode 24 and episode 47.
There's certainly some catch up catching up to do.
But how do you like the artwork I've put in there?
I really like it, and I have a sneaky suspicion. I know how you're doing it, too.
Yeah, I'm using chat, GPT's dolly, AI.
Generated images, and I'm learning how to use that. And it's very interesting. But you can tell there's some real indicators to AI generated images. But I still like them, man.
I think they look cool.
We're having fun with that.
Again, going back to the motivation for me to do this podcast, there were a couple, one that Joe and I have a great relationship, and we have great talks, I think, on Saturdays, and.
Even something we're improving on getting into.
More of a format of a mastermind with our friend Clay. And I just wanted to be intentional.
About things that I want to accomplish.
And so this was a great topic today.
What are we going to learn?
I think, yeah, ongoing learning is something.
I really enjoy doing, and this podcast motivates me to do that.
And I wouldn't have wrote down these things that I want to learn for this year. And Joe, I was going to say.
To you, this is going to be a discussion, not a decision.
I've heard that before.
I haven't decided which one. I'm going to go real deep. Some I've already been working on, and I'm going to continue with those.
But you mentioned artificial intelligence and the.
Things that we play around with, whether.
It'S technically for the website or our podcasting skills.
I enjoy all those things, and those are some of the things that are going to be in my list.
I'm curious to see what's going to.
Be in your list of things you.
Want to learn this year.
Well, before we transition into the meat of the show, Kurt, I do want.
To say happy anniversary.
Happy one year anniversary, my friend for dudes in progress, and let you know.
How much I appreciate you as a.
Friend, as a mentor, as a confidant.
As somebody that I can mentee. Sometimes we go back and forth. You're my mentor, I'm your mentor. We go back and forth and just somebody that I really appreciate having this relationship with.
So happy anniversary, pal.
Thank you. And right back at you.
It's just some of these little things. One of the things is going to be on my list.
I can get started into it. I've already been talking about it, so.
It'S just going to continue with this basic handiwork I've been doing in the home.
So just to be clear, just to.
Be clear, not to interrupt, but just.
To be clear, today's episode is all.
About things we want to learn in 2024. I think you mentioned this earlier.
We did set the stage last week.
For the things we learned, and I.
Think a reflective moment was good to.
Understand what we learned in last year. But these are the things we want to learn in 2024.
Right, Kirk?
Yeah.
And what I was getting at was, it's really interesting. It can be simple things. It doesn't have to be life changing things. When you have a mentor or like.
The relationship that you and I have.
On Saturdays, a little thing like when.
I was working on my bathroom, you.
Mentioned the shark bite for the shut off valves.
Sure.
I had never heard of that. And not that I'm surprised you said it, but I wouldn't turn to you.
For my home improvement necessarily, and you shouldn't. That didn't come out right.
You actually have been a pretty good resource there.
Yeah.
If I was going by.
I know we were having that. Was it a shelf you were trying to put up?
A microwave shelf?
Yeah. During your months to build a little microwave shelf.
I don't know why it took me so long.
That's what was hanging in my memory banks from your Simple Joe podcast. When I listened to that, I was like, when is Joe ever going to get that microwave shelf up?
That's funny.
No, but the point I'm just trying to make. It's interesting when you collaborate with other.
People and whatever the topic is, if you're very focused in whether it's your.
Entrepreneurial things that you're doing or technical.
Things or even just general life experience, it's interesting how getting information from others. I love that.
Me too. Me too.
I want to continue to be a lifelong learner and had stages in my life where I didn't learn a thing.
And didn't learn a thing intentionally, I.
Could say didn't try to learn in.
Their stages in my life.
Like the past year, in the past few years that I've intentionally learned things, things regarding my health, regarding entertainment, relationships.
All kinds of stuff.
So I want to be a lifelong learner.
I think it's very rewarding. I find it just incredibly rewarding. I'm really excited about this bathroom renovation I've been doing. I don't think I told the audience here. Was I telling you Saturday I had a Larry Curly mo moment.
I'm not sure when you mentioned it either. I know you definitely mentioned it Saturday. I'm not sure you mentioned that on the show.
Well, I thought I shut the water off for the shut off valve for the toilet. But as I learned, and speaking of talking with friends, this pipe downstairs has.
Hot and cold water that merges into one pipe and goes up and connects both toilets together. Trying to get more technical than that. And I learned that the reason I do that is so the toilet won't sweat. It's a little bit warm water that's.
Always in the toilet. But I had to leave that shutoff valve downstairs on or else no one could flush the toilet upstairs but the one downstairs.
I had forgotten that I turned that back on.
I thought I had shut that water off, Joe. Well, I found out that I didn't.
When I started to take the shut.
Off valve off in that spare bathroom.
And the water shot at me like.
A Larry Curly Stooges episode. And luckily I was between a rock.
And a hard place. Should I run down and shut off the main water, or should I try to get this valve back on real quickly? Luckily, I got the valve back on.
But I had laughed.
I got a good laugh out of that.
It got really wet, too, because it come out fast.
So did it do any damage? Did you have any good? That's good.
No, just even my pride wasn't damaged.
I got a good laugh out of it.
Yeah, that's awesome.
But if that's the only mistake I make, then again, I'm just learning so.
Much having these little conversations, little tidbits, and it's coming out. It's going well. Yes.
My number one thing I'm going to.
Be learning again, continuing that basic handiwork and renovation in my home. So that's my first one, Joe.
Yeah.
And you've got a good start, man. You've got a good start.
I'm getting more confidence.
Right.
We talked about the more you do.
The more confident you get.
Right.
And I remember the days of you building stuff out of wood pallets, and.
Those were always cool projects.
And moving into home handiwork is.
Yeah, awesome.
You got some good momentum here.
It's true.
It started proud of you.
It started with just getting free pallets.
And going on YouTube and buying some. There's another one. You gave me that advice. Why don't you just get the ryobi battery powered tools?
Yeah, the whole ryobi kit.
I got those.
Yeah.
Now, all you professional do it yourselfers out there, all you guys out there.
May rail against Ryobi, but I've used ryobi for decades. I have one toolkit that has lasted me for 20 years, battery powered toolkits. And I've just had to buy new batteries for them. But they work wonderfully.
And for the ods and ends and stuff that I need to do around the house.
I love it.
Yeah.
Honestly. So I live in a pretty good.
Location for getting to stores.
So Home Depot is five minutes from my house. And it's interesting, a woman that is a cashier there. There's one woman who lives across the way from me in my backyard, who's a cashier there.
And there's a woman I used to work with at my first job at.
The bearing manufacturer, and she says hi to me.
She says, how's your.
So I'm in there all the go in.
I have a thought in my head.
I just pop over. I might not need to buy it right now, but I got an idea. But quite honestly, I really like Lowe's better.
I was down at Lowe's today.
I had a great trip down to.
Lowe's today because I'm trying to figure.
Out the flooring of this bathroom I ripped out. I had great success during the vacation. I got all of the first layer of plywood off, including the flooring that.
Was on it, if you want to call it flooring. I don't even know what this stuff is. This old stuff is so brittle and.
Garbage really thin, but I got that all off. I'm trying to think of the depth that I need the thickness of the plywood in addition to this vinyl flooring that you, I think, again, we talked.
About the, what do you call it, LVT?
Luxury vinyl tile.
Luxury vinyl tile, yeah.
And I was at Home Depot and.
I had a thought, and I was going to ask the woman that I.
Know, can I get a sample of this flooring so that I can gauge the thickness?
They tell you it's five millimeter or six millimeter. And then the plywood is a certain by inches.
I'm trying to figure it out.
It's easier. Just have a sample and lay it on the floor, see how it fits.
And I go down to Lowe's and.
I was looking at a couple things.
And would you believe they had samples right there in the open that I grabbed.
No kidding.
And it was also a way serve.
Two purposes because my wife has to decide which one she wants. She doesn't really want that wood flooring. She wants something that looks more like.
A marble or a stone, I think. So I picked up a couple of.
Those and at least I got that conversation going. But you know what? I nailed the thickness because I already.
Had some plywood that I bought and it was perfect. So I was really excited about that.
Yeah.
So I love going down to, and.
Lowe's seems to do, I seem to like their selection of things. I got those shark bite shut off.
Valves down there at.
I guess, I.
Guess your first one is you want.
To continue to learn basic home repair stuff, right? Absolutely.
I'm going to continue that into this year. How about you?
What's your number one?
Well, these aren't in any particular order.
I didn't put these in.
I have 1234-5678 things that I want.
To learn in 2024.
And I'll just talk briefly about each.
One as we go, and we'll just go back and forth.
And if either one of us have more than the other, then that's fine as well.
But my first one is to learn active investment strategies.
I've always invested in passive investment strategies.
Meaning, or passive investments, meaning my 401 and some savings accounts and things like that.
But no real active investment investments, like where I do a little bit of.
Research on a company and think about, okay, how do I think this investment.
Is going to do?
And maybe I'm going to put a.
And I want to learn more about active investment strategies. Now I may learn that they're not for me, right? Yeah, I may learn that. Hey, I'm just better off just sticking stuff in the s and p 500.
Or 5000 or whatever they call it.
And letting my money grow as it grows.
But I just want to give it a shot. I want to see if I can.
Really hit some winners.
Right.
Okay.
But again, learning is about learning, and.
I want to learn about active investment.
Strategies and see if it's for me.
It's interesting you said that just today.
And I remember a friend of mine, he's a programmer, and he was talking about, I don't remember how he was doing. I think he had a little side.
Project where he was thinking about writing a program, and I'm not sure how.
He was getting this information or if he was or wasn't or he was.
Thinking of how to get it, but the investments that our politicians make in Washington, congresspeople.
Yeah.
And how interesting. They do very well. So he had an idea, and as.
I was preparing for this podcast, and I was walking past the television my.
Wife'S watching and on the news, it was like a little stinger, or they're.
Trying to tell you what's coming up.
And it was an app that will tell you what Congress is investing in.
No kidding.
So there you go.
A little tip for you to add to your ideas.
I want that.
I don't know if that's real.
I just literally heard this an hour ago.
Awesome.
I thought that was interesting. I'm with you, and I'll just tag one of mine. There is.
We've talked about this already, again, continuing the financial education. I'm thinking again in terms of retirement.
Too, and how to prepare not only financial education, but also even what's my lifestyle going to be like in retirement? Thinking about what? That it's not that it's far enough in the future, but so many people, I don't think, put a lot of thought into it. They just one day think they're going to stop doing everything, quit work, and I don't know what they're not thinking at all. They have no plan. So I don't want to be one of those people. Financial education is not something I spent a lot of time in. Same thing.
I think maybe, like you said, the.
Passive stuff years ago, it was easy just to throw it in a 401k in a certain mix and forget about it. So I want to be more active in that also.
Yeah, I agree.
And like I said, I may find that active investment strategies aren't for me.
I may find that picking stocks aren't for me.
But I'd like to give it a shot, at least on a small level, see what happens.
I like it.
The other one I had was woodworking.
But we mentioned that, too.
And recently we talked about buying the miter saw, which was a fun. I would like to put some more.
Work projects into my miter saw.
And then also probably a table saw. I was looking at a table saw that I was thinking of some projects.
To work with, seeing every time I.
Looked at YouTube videos. Those are two of the big tools that often these woodworkers are using that I didn't have. I've always used just my ryobi battery powered tools, and so any tools like that for woodworking. So I would have to come up with some projects. It's always something that I think would be useful. I want to build, like, maybe a vinyl record stand is one of the.
Things to put in my office. And I got some other ideas of things.
So continuing my woodworking.
So my next one is create an online course.
Now, here's what I mean by that. You can go to Google and look up online courses, and many content creators have online courses, but I want to.
Just learn the process and learn how.
To do it at a small scale. Just pick a subject that I know, that I know about and see if.
I can create a little half hour online course.
I have the software for it. I've signed up for the software, and.
I have it already.
It's paid for, and it's just sitting there.
And I want to learn how to do this, Kurt. I want to learn how to create an online course to see if it's.
For me, because passive income is very.
Important to me as I go into retirement, and that kind of dovetails into my next one. And we can talk about that.
But specifically, I want to learn how to create an online course, and I have a couple of ideas. A big saying that I use is.
Memories are better than stuff.
And I thought, maybe I can create a little online course about that saying, or maybe I can create an online course, just a little online course on minimizing an office. Something like that. Just something, not the subject matter isn't important.
What's important is that I learn the process.
What types of things do you think you don't know that you're going to.
Be learning as you go through that process?
I have a couple of thoughts on. I like this idea, too. It fits well with one of my things that I want to learn.
It's one of those things with all my technology background.
Video is not one of my specialties.
Right.
And you see videos on YouTube that.
Are done really well, and what are.
The techniques they're using? What's the software they're using?
Is that the type of thing you're.
Yeah, definitely. In recording an effective video, but also.
Formatting the course and understanding the process.
I know that online courses exist.
I've taken online courses and I've completed.
Online courses, but just how to create.
It, I don't know.
From soup the nuts. How do they do it?
I have a couple of courses that.
I've spent a lot of money on, but I don't want to go through.
That extensive of a process.
I just want to simply create one. Just create a beginning to end how to online course.
You can do some research on courses.
That you've done or are you going.
To look at other courses and see.
What kind of aspects of the way.
They present them that you like?
Yeah, I might find a small, cheap course on how to create a course.
In fact, the place where I bought the online course server, or whatever it might be, has a couple of courses in there.
Okay, so I might just take something simple. I might go to udemy or check out YouTube or something like that.
But just something clean and simple that.
I can take from beginning to end. It may be only 15 minutes long.
It may be half an hour, but something simple.
I have an account with udemy that is offered free to me through my local library.
Wow, that's awesome.
Yeah. I often think of that in this area of learning in 2024. I would love to incorporate udemy into that and see what they can offer.
Some of these areas I'm looking into.
Also, and online courses or how to create online content is definitely one of them. Yeah, love it. All right, I'm going in no particular order, but the general topic of health, again, continuing the weight loss. I'm proud of what I accomplished during the holidays. I had lost ten pounds before thanksgiving. And I love to report, and I'm going to report right now, I didn't put on any weight through the Christmas.
Awesome, man.
And that was really, I can remember.
Years ago when I was an avid member of the gym at work. Their weight control program for the holidays was don't gain weight.
Wasn't to lose weight, just don't gain weight.
It stuck in my mind this past.
And so I'm really happy.
I checked the scale on Monday and.
I was pretty much where I was.
The last month or so, so I'm happy about it.
Congratulations, pal.
That's awesome.
Now you on the other hand, we'll see.
But I also included I probably gained.
A little bit of weight. I got on the scale this morning.
And I'm about where I started in December, but it's nothing to be proud of.
Okay.
I'm including in the health, the mindfulness and meditation. I almost bought a book on meditation.
That I was looking at, too.
I want to continue in incorporating that in the importance of mental health, I think is the area I want to.
Continue to focus on. I wrote down some things like patience.
I am not a patient person. And the chapter that I was speaking.
Of earlier in this book that I.
Just purchased was about health, but also this positive self talk instead of the negative self talk that I feel. And sometimes I take a little survey.
And you feel like you're bad in this area.
And then as I read the question, well, I'm not real bad, but I can improve there. I'm not happy with some of the self talk sometimes and just basic general self care that we've been talking about, the sleep and all those kinds of things. Exhaustion and.
Yeah, just good blood pressure, low that dovetails into.
Yeah, I want to learn how to.
Get into great shape as a man in my mid 50s.
Yeah.
Can I get into great shape? Can I lose a bunch of weight and build muscle and really get into great shape over the next year?
It's going to take some commitment, and.
I want to learn how to do that.
Yeah.
That's part of my things. I want to learn.
Like it? I like it.
All right, what's your next one?
Well, that was my next one, but.
I'll go ahead and give you a new one here. I tell you what, I'll give you two in one.
I talked about how to get in great.
I wanted to learn how to get.
In great shape as a man in my mid 50s. So when I talked about creating an online course, I also want to become.
An expert in artificial intelligence, chat, GPT.
And similar types of things, because I.
Think that will help me in the future.
Create a business, create some kind of business that I can take into retirement and through retirement, and I'm putting those two together, become an expert, those actually three.
Create an online course, become an expert in artificial intelligence or chat, GPT and.
Similar types of things, because I've already.
Have some momentum in that area and.
I have a real keen interest in it. But I really want to become an.
Expert in those things, somebody that people.
Can go to for how to, when.
It comes to chat, GBT, how to, when it comes to using artificial intelligence.
In business and life and creativity, and.
It may lead to a business that.
Can take me into and through a retirement.
Yeah.
It's a great area and I added it to one of the subtopics of.
What I'm looking at.
And you and I have been dabbling in this.
I just got an email from Jason van Horton.
Remember, he was part of an online business course.
Yeah.
Wow, didn't we both buy that years ago?
Yeah, Internet business mastery.
That was like the original how to.
Make money on the Internet course.
Yeah.
I really always like the host of.
That show and I still get an email.
I get it through.
Not indeed.
What's the. He uses LinkedIn. He uses LinkedIn for some reason.
I must have subscribed to him on LinkedIn.
And he had a good post that I got today on some of the.
Software tools that are based on artificial intelligence. Descript was one of them that I've.
Been using, we're using to record right now, squadcast, that's part of descript, but.
He had some others that he was mentioning there.
Yeah.
All these different tools that are incorporating artificial intelligence.
I'm curious on where I can use those to help my side hustles also. Yeah, lots to learn there.
Lots of new things happening all the.
Time is a big year for it.
Here's something you might not expect, Kurt.
Yeah.
I want to learn how to play their harmonica.
That one came out of left field.
Yeah.
I want to learn how to play their harmonica. I've always had a keen interest in the harmonica. I've always been interested in playing the harmonica. In fact, I've bought a harmonica in.
The past and just never really did anything with it. I couldn't tell you where it is.
But I love the sound of a harmonica. It looks not easy to play, but.
It looks like it's something that you can pick up and play anywhere.
Right.
Sitting on the back porch.
Yeah.
Well, for sure it's easy.
Yeah.
That part just holding.
It's easy.
Right.
I don't know how you learning it.
We'll see.
I don't know. I can blow on one.
That's what I know.
But I really want to learn how to play the harmonica.
I've had. Of all the things I've tried to learn in my life playing an instrument, I have had miserable experience. If I were to try to tackle something that I've never accomplished, this goes back to grade school.
I can remember the music teacher making.
Fun of me because I just could not.
And I love music.
I'm a listener of music, but making music, I don't think it's in my repertoire, but I've tried playing guitar and my wife has bought me guitars and lessons, and my son is my wife gets some really interesting Christmas presents. And I don't even know what this thing is. It's almost like a drum. It's a single little bongo thing, but when you hit it, it's almost like.
A chinese instrument and you can play a tune. He picked it up and he just started playing it, and he started sounding good right away.
He said he's seen videos on it.
And he was really excited to get that as a gift.
I was like, he's got such a talent for it, but not me. You didn't get it from me.
Here's something we need to ask ourselves.
When it comes to learning new things is when do you stop? When do you realize.
Yeah.
Playing the harmonica.
Well, I thought I might like it.
It's not for me. There is that balance right.
There is that balance when you have.
Okay.
I'm frustrated because I'm just learning, and I'm new at learning.
I'm frustrated. Or is it time to just say, yeah, maybe I'll try the kazoo?
I was looking into this chapter of this book. I'm just, like, breezing through it. He was talking about going back.
He said he was going to. I think when he's talking about going.
Back to school to get an advanced degree or was. Yeah, after college, like the master's degree. And he started going back to school and just could not get into it. And you're right.
Where's that point where you just say.
This isn't for me. You don't want to quit. But sometimes it probably is the best thing to do. I like that question. Well, getting into softer things. Again, no particular order cooking and the.
Things I like to get into.
And I've talked about this slow cooker recipes. I'm talking about easy stuff. I like simple and fast things.
That thing I like about the slow.
Cooker, you just throw all the ingredients.
There and you just let it go.
But you get this delicious meal. Love a sit down.
Right?
So I'm really interested, and it's simple things.
And I don't need to make my own barbecue sauce.
I watch these cooking shows and that kind of thing.
And my daughter in law is.
She's so good. She should be a caterer.
And I was over their house, and.
She'S gotten into baking now.
And my wife bought her for Christmas, the starter. Like, how do you make the sourdough starter? She got her bread, starters kits and all this stuff. I like doing that, too. I would love to do pizza and pizza bread. So my wife bought me one of those outdoor pizza stoves for Christmas. She got it at a Black Friday deal at. It's. It's not one of the famous brand names.
It's from Westinghouse.
It looks just like that, but it uses wood pellets.
I love my outdoor cooking. I love my barbecue.
I built my own smoker, and I have that flat. What's the Blackstone grill that I love learning stuff onto?
The griddle.
Yeah, the griddle.
Oh, that's fantastic. I love that thing. Now, building pizza, my pizza.
Outdoor oven and slow cooker recipes are the cooking that I'm interested in.
Nothing fancy.
Yeah.
My next one is really interesting, and.
I got a preview of your list, and this is one that I'm surprised that we share, and we can talk.
About this a little bit.
All right.
Okay.
I want to learn how to.
Well, let me ask you.
I'll just put it this way.
I have done it in the past a couple of times. I have one, and I know how to use it in an emergency, but I really want to learn how to handle, shoot, and know my way around a gun.
Yeah.
I know.
You mentioned there was something on my.
List that caught your eye, and I didn't realize that was the one.
It didn't necessarily catch my eye. I was surprised that it was both.
On my list and your list. Yeah, I just didn't expect it.
Yeah.
Well, maybe if I explain a little bit. Well, my dad had guns. He grew up on a farm. They had guns on the farm, and I lived in kind of a rural area. We have a good friend that has.
Some farmland, and their family has an.
Extensive arsenal of guns. And my wife wanted to learn, and.
So we went up, and we've done.
This on a couple of occasions, and they have shotguns and pistols.
I remember as a kid having a.
BB gun with a scope. Real nice one, too.
My buddies and I, we would shoot.
Targets, and so I have that in my background. That kind of gives me an interest here, too. And I love history, I'll tell you, they had Joe, the m one grand from World War II, and every time. I've always watched movies, especially if you think of the band of brothers, that gun always seemed.
I don't know.
I was like, really?
Is that the. Just to look at it, I was like, that gun.
I don't know.
Just didn't seem that special to me. I don't know what the words I'm.
Trying to get out, but my friends had one, and that gun is amazing. And it's accurate from. It's so accurate from a long distance. It's heavy. It's a heavy duty, and it packs a wallop. It's such a nice. It was fun to shoot.
It was so fun to shoot.
And my historical juices were, like, freaking out shooting this gun.
I was like, one of the paratroopers.
From Band of brothers. And there's a scene in band of brothers. I'm not saying that I, like, go.
I want to hurt harmony, but there's a scene where.
But if you had the chance.
If I had to, I would like.
To have an n one grand in.
My hands from World War II.
He takes this shot. He's a paratrooper that's having difficulty.
He's having PTSD. And the officer, sergeant Winters, is trying to get him to shoot, and he stands up and he starts firing his weapon. It has that really distinctive sound where the pin pops out and, you know, your clip is empty. So it's a kind of unique thing.
But, yeah, he takes this shot, and I'm just thinking of that.
It's a decent shot he's taking, but.
That thing is so accurate. You don't have to be a good.
Marksman to hit what you're shooting at. But, yeah, I don't know. Does that explain. It's also a safety issue in the home, fearful of home invasions and that kind of thing.
I'm confident that the little gun that I do have, that if I had an intruder that, given enough advanced notice.
I guess you would say, knowing that.
I had time to go get it and put the bullets in it and do all of that, I'm fairly confident that I could take an intruder out.
Okay. Yeah.
You just aim for the big part. You just aim for the body mass.
But I really want to understand, have confidence, gun safety, handling a gun, have confidence in it. Maybe go. Maybe use it as a recreational activity, go to the gun range every once in a while.
Right.
Things like that. And I was really surprised that we.
Both had that on the list.
I would have never thought it would be on your list, and you probably.
Never thought it would have been on my list.
That's very true. It's funny that we never talked about.
Yeah, yeah, I like it.
Interesting. Yeah, definitely.
We have a lot of these serendipitous moments, Joe.
I dig it. What's your next one?
Yeah, this is a big one. We danced around it a little bit.
But I have the same interest. I have a side hustle that does quite well. I'm quite proud of my Disney travel podcast that has a really good Patreon following and that I really enjoy. And also the travel agency, really that my wife and her friend do all the work, but they make a nice income there.
And I'd like to have another income.
Source, just as you talked about and been exploring this for a little while.
And we've even had some conversations starting about this. Maybe it would be to extend the.
Travel podcast into other areas. I'm thinking of different topics of snowbirding, maybe tours, group tours, something that has.
A community building aspect to it. But all of the things that go.
Into learning that the social media. I don't know if I've had this conversation with you. I've noticed a real dip in my download numbers. So there are there things in my current podcast that I could do to try to increase downloads there.
The social media, what's going on in that area? Could I bring YouTube into it, artificial intelligence, all that? There's so much.
The great thing about that area, it hits a lot of my interests and passions in learning.
There's so many areas to go.
You got to be careful what you focus on, because I could spend the.
Whole year see a lot of shiny.
Objects right in that area, for sure.
Right.
But I think that's one other thing that I like about it, too.
Well, here's the beauty of the business.
That you have now.
You talked about your Patreon and you talked about the travel agency, but also you have built an incredible community over there. People that love you and people that you love quite honestly, and they can be a tremendous resource for promoting your show. I think that if you engage those relationships, you can certainly continue to move.
Your show forward, because I know a.
Lot of those people, and they love you.
I love them. We've got great relationships. And yeah, I'm excited to maybe grow that even some more in the future this year.
So I definitely have on my list start a business that'll take me into and through retirement. I've not identified it, and I'm not.
As far as long as you are.
But this really needs to be a focus for me.
In 2024, I thought it was going to be more of a focus in 2023.
I got a PS five, PlayStation five for Christmas.
It was part of the reason I mentioned to my daughter, and she told my wife, that's how this works, Joe.
For Christmas presents, we've talked about financial stuff, and I had a Sony card that had lots of points on it. And I was thinking, what can I use these points for? And my boys play online with the PS five.
One of my sons talked to me.
About, hey, why don't we play that Call of Duty online?
They always do it.
And I've never really done online, but I had some games and my PS.
Four wasn't working and I didn't play a lot.
But I've been really enjoying it since Christmas. I've been playing golf and a shooter.
Game on there and I have actually enjoyed it.
So I think I'm going to continue that hobby.
And it's relaxing and it's not watching tv.
And so far I'm enjoying. It's challenging. That's a lighter one.
We got to do things to have.
Fun too in the new year.
Absolutely.
So just to review my list real quick, and I'll ask you to review yours, just to review my list. Active investment strategies.
I want to learn more about active investment strategies. I want to learn how to create an online course.
I want to become an expert, a.
Real expert in artificial intelligence, chat, GPT and similar items.
I want to start a business that.
Will take me in and through retirement.
I want to learn how to get in great shape as a man in his mid 50s, how to really get into great shape. I want to learn how to play the harmonica as hard or as easy as that may sound to you, Kurt.
And I want to learn how to shoot a gun.
Awesome. That's an awesome list.
Yeah.
I'm going to continue my basic handiwork.
And home improvement, woodworking, getting that same.
Financial education, similar what Joe was saying.
And health areas. I'm looking at weight loss, weight control, and mental health. And those things that self talk that is negative, get rid of that, be more positive, more, have more patience.
Cooking, I'm looking at different areas of.
Cooking that I do enjoy.
And the side hustle, the current one.
That I have, and even creating another income source that could carry me through retirement.
Something that I would enjoy, be passionate about.
Similar to what I'm already doing in the travel space.
Possibly.
But there's so many great areas to research there and entrepreneurship. And then we talked about the gun.
Safety and shooting course I'm thinking of doing.
You have to get certified here in Connecticut.
I'm not sure how it works in.
Ohio, but there's courses that you can.
Take for that and then just continue.
My fun and enjoyment with video games.
You know what?
I'm going to expand.
I'm going to get a little more detailed on my gun thing as well.
Here in Ohio, you can get a.
Concealed carry carry license here in the state of Ohio. And with that comes all the things.
That I want to be able to.
Do with the guns. I'm going to be more specific with.
That because I can shoot a not, I don't want to learn how to shoot because I can shoot a gun.
But I want to go deeper into that knowledge and get my concealed carry.
Yeah.
That course, as I've looked at before, gives you all of that content that will get you there.
Perfect.
What's your win for the week, Joe?
That was fun.
Well, I am back to work. That's my win for the week.
I'm back to work and I'm back in the swing of things.
But more than that, I've reengaged my morning and evening journaling.
Oh, good.
So started. I've not done it at all, quite honestly, in a while. And so I've reengaged my morning and evening journaling and that process. I opened up a brand new book.
And this was my resource of the week last week.
So I opened up a brand new journal, a book of blank pages, and I'm going to fill it out for this year.
I was walking through Walmart and I don't know if you ever noticed, there's.
A section there of faith based books. And there was a journal there and.
I opened it up. It caught my eye.
I didn't catch the title, but it.
Had a journal in categories of scripture, like a scripture.
And it had it already filled in for you, but it had a gratitude.
Section, a wellness section, and there were.
Different questions for each.
I almost bought it.
I was thinking of you. There's a prayer there and some other things.
So I don't know.
I like that idea too.
Joe, how about your win?
My win for the week is a.
Brand new washing machine that was delivered really yesterday. So we've been talking about the bathroom.
That I've been renovating.
The dryer and washer are there and.
They'Re in the way of me putting the flooring in.
So it was interesting that the washing machine broke down last week. And it was actually a very good.
Time because I was able to rip.
The floor out because I took the washing machine out because it wasn't running. And the repair guy has come to repair it twice before. He's a really good talk about having a resource again. Know who, not how.
He's a fantastic repair man. He's very reasonable.
I love people that you can talk.
To and he's honest with you. And he said it's probably time to replace it.
Now.
We've tried to repair that we've done this twice before. This will be the third time.
I think it's just a lemon.
But my wife was so excited and my daughter to get a brand new washing machine.
And the bonus was when we unhooked it and I took it out, the hoses were leaking.
Yeah.
And here's my expertise in shutoff valves. Now we got another problem.
The washing machine shutoff valve apparently needs to be replaced.
And I was looking at it.
It was much another complex thing for.
Me to figure out.
And when he came over, I asked him his opinion. He basically explained to me it's probably something I could do.
And we also want to put a.
Little box in front of it. It's just like a cut out. The sheet rock was just cut with.
A knife and it's just exposed there.
So I'm probably going to do something put like a little front box in front of it.
But anyways, I got a brand new washing machine and some great advice on.
Fixing the shut off valve for the washing machine. It's not a problem when it's hooked up, right?
When it's hooked up, it's fine.
It's not a problem. But anyways, yeah, that's my win for the week. And it's a good thing because my underwear drawer was getting really low, so I told him. He got a laugh out of that.
Joe, I'm glad his name is Joe, too.
Joe, I'm glad you're here, dude, because my underwear drawer was getting really low.
That's funny. That's really funny.
We're all caught up too in about a day.
So I guess that brings me to my resource for the week. And this is something that I've used.
At work in years past and something.
That I've even used here at home.
In years past, but I haven't in quite a while. It's a large wall calendar and I just ordered one on Amazon. And I have a spot right here on my wall that's perfect for it. And I like using these.
And I don't know why I stopped, but you can plan your year in advance. It's your whole year at a glance, right?
Oh, wow.
It's a big, large wall calendar. I don't know, 36 by, I can.
Look at my Amazon right now and.
It'S a year 36 x 48.
Wow.
So big, large wall calendar that I can put all the big rocks in, all the planning in and just review.
My year at a glance and see.
The progress that I'm making and the things that I want to get done and so forth.
I bought one of those.
I got it right here on my desk.
I got the Walmart.
It's month by month.
It's a big one on a desk calendar.
Oh, cool.
I never use it.
It's covered with all kinds of junk.
That's funny.
I like your idea of putting something up on the Wall. You can see I had one of.
Those magic marker ones, but I put my vinyl record collection, I replaced it.
So that's what this is. This is a wipe off large.
Gotcha.
Yeah, I gotta look that up.
I like that.
Well, my resource is boring.
It's similar to my win for the week. It's a speed queen washing machine.
Joe.
Front load or all top loading. Clean all that underwear.
Yeah.
And it's made in America. He said it's one of the only things that he sells of these. Yeah, he said.
I was really worried because remember the shortages with so many different things during the pandemic.
And I know at some point in conversation we were worried, and these have come back.
So he has no problem getting.
I was doubtful of his date that he was delivering, but he delivered right on time.
He said, refrigerators are tough to get.
But the speed queen washing machine, it's high quality. It's supposed to be well made.
It's supposed to last us a while.
But that's my.
Hopefully I won't need one for quite a while.
But if I do, I'll look at speed queen, man.
There you go. Made in America.
How about that?
What's your quote? Let me know how it works out for you.
Oh, it's going great, by the way.
Much better than the old one.
My quote comes from Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi.
Yeah.
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
That is awesome.
I thought you were going to say one that I saw when I was.
Doing my research, but I didn't see that one.
Yeah.
Say that one again.
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
And that's always the balance, right?
Yeah.
How do you live life in the focused, vibrant way that you want to live life and just squeeze every ounce.
Of juice out of life today, but still, you got to make plans for tomorrow.
You got to learn.
Learn as if you were to live forever. Actually, it's in reverse. Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever.
Well, I resonate with that because I.
Think learning is living for today. I get an excitement of learning new things.
I can really appreciate that.
A lot of people, they think you can't teach old dogs new tricks, and.
They just say, hey, what's the sense.
Of learning new things? I totally disagree with that. And that's where my quote comes from. Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. Henry Ford.
That's a really great quote.
Henry Ford is good for a lot of quotes. If you look up some of his.
Quotable stuff, he's really good. But it reminds me of somebody that, an old sales trainer that I had years ago, and he said, there's really two. When you look back at somebody's career, you have two types of people. You have the person that has one year of experience, repeat it 20 times.
And then you have the person with 20 years of experience.
I want to be the person with.
20 years of experience.
Right.
Not just stuck in my old, stagnant ways. So I love that from Henry Ford.
He talked about an old dog.
You can't teach an old dog new.
Tricks, but you can teach a couple of old dudes new tricks. And I plan on being that.
I agree 100%. Take us home, Joe.
Good show, Kurt.
Really good show.
I'm glad we planned.
We talked about last year, last episode.
And this year, this episode. And I think we have a good.
Mindset when we talk about these things together, they start to feel a little more real, too.
Yeah, definitely.
So our website is dudesinprogress.com.
Dudesinprogress.com.
And that's making some progress.
Dudesandprogress.com is.
In fact, I think I fixed our.
About page a little bit.
It was in construction or under construction page. I did some work there.
I'm catching up on our episode. So dudesandprogress.com is our website.
If you want to reach out to us.
Dudes@dudesandprogress.com. Is our email address. Dudes@dudesandprogress.com and if you see fit, if you feel motivated somehow in the next year to support what we're doing here, we would love that in many ways. You can go to dudesandprogress.com slash support, dudesinprogress.com slash support. And we would certainly appreciate you contributing to our Patreon account. Remember, Kurt, progress is better than perfection. We got to keep moving forward, even.
If I'm getting old, Joe. I got a big birthday coming up, but I'm going to keep learning anyway.
Absolutely. Talk to you soon, my friend.