Trusting Your Team Enough to Let Go

I also had a magic ear crystal come out of my—

Yeah, that was great. You texted me and you're like, I gotta go to the hospital.

Yeah, I was taken in an ambulance because, guys, we have magic ear crystals, and if one gets displaced and goes into, like, your tunnel, I don't even know.

Did you ever see the crystal, or—

No, no, no. It's so tiny. Literally, it's just calcium And I know it has a role in our ear and I've already forgotten what it is, but I bent down to tie my shoe. Okay. It was Velcro, everybody. I had Velcro. So I Velcroed my shoe.

That makes it seem better.

I know. And then I stood up and I suddenly experienced dizziness like I have never had in my life.

Welcome to the Soul Proprietor Podcast. I'm Curt Kimpton.

And I'm Melody Edwards.

Each week we dive into the ethical questions that keep entrepreneurs awake at night.

Whether you're building your own company or exploring life's big questions, you are welcome here.

Hey, Melody, how are you today?

I'm good, Curt. How are you?

Good. I thought you were going to say your regular.

Normal. I was trying to be abnormal and say good.

Um, we haven't seen each other forever, and I feel like there is so much to catch up on. Like, it sounds like you're coming back from— after not seeing you for a while, that you're better than normal. Is that—

I wouldn't say that. I would just say at this very moment, I am good enough to say that I am good, the American way. I don't know if I could make this any weirder, but you know me. I haven't worked for like 6 weeks. I don't think I thought originally it would be this long, but once I got started, I was like, yeah, I'm not going back. How about you? How long has it been? Because you went on a lot of different vacation or trips. What were you doing?

Yes, I actually, I've been back to work now since the beginning of the week. So I left for 10 days and did a mountain bike epic trip. And I would love to tell you all about it. I don't know if a podcast is the right place to tell you all the details, but I did everything from taking my son to his first nationals mountain bike race all the way up to hunting for Bigfoot. And Didn't go very well, by the way.

You didn't find Bigfoot?

I did not. And unfortunately, I'm even more— I want to believe in Bigfoot so bad. I want to believe in this so bad because there's a lot of good things that could be. But after going on the hunt and sort of being around the people who swear he exists, my gut is telling me that he probably doesn't, which is so stinky. And then we did some epic mountain biking, like the most epic mountain bike. Just imagine the most epic mountain biking.

And we did like 6 days of that during the hottest time of the year.

Well, we were camped at the very top of the mountain just outside of Moab.

Okay.

And like, no joke, you drive from it for an hour to go like 16 miles from the bottom to the top of the mountain. This is the windy dirt roads, 30-degree difference. So Moab was warm. It was like maybe like 100 degrees, but then you would get up to the top and it'd be 70. And then nighttime would come and you get down to like the 50s. Yeah. You're like, wow, this is so cool. So coming back home to 115 was like, ugh, but it was fun.

Once stayed on the top of a mountain. I think it's such a weird thing to say you stay on the top of a mountain, but you truly can stay on the very top of a mountain. I found a campsite in Colorado and it was the scariest drive to get up there, even though we were in a Jeep. Then we got up there and it was just amazing. I think we were on a 12,000 footer or something. Oh, wow. Yeah. Surrounded by other ones.

There's still snow on the top. It was July.

So what mountain was that?

That's a— I don't know. It's up Tin Cup Alley. That's all I know.

So we were just over 11,000 feet and the altitude was really getting to me. Luckily, I started to adjust, but we would drop from 11,000 feet down to like— actually, what am I saying? It was like 6,000 feet and it was so fun. So we did that trip and then we came home, did my laundry, and then my wife and I immediately went up to a church camp and We worked in a commercial kitchen at a Boy Scout campsite, but it was the young men and young women from the camp.

Oh yeah.

And we cooked for them. And I knew restaurant life was hard, and I even worked at Pizza Hut in high school. But like, seriously, Mel, 4:15 AM, we would get up. I'd be in the kitchen putting stuff in the smoker, getting it ready to go by, you know, before 4:30. And then we would work until dinner was served, and that would get around 7. then you start prepping for the next cleaning. The amount of cleaning, mopping dishes, it's a commercial kitchen. Then you have to prep.

You're working all day.

I actually thought for a minute that my heel bone had actually broken through the skin of my heel because you haven't sat for so long. But boy, taking off my shoes at the end of the day has never felt any better than that.

I once worked in a camp for weekends, and I did a lot of restaurant work when I was younger, but camp kitchen work is, I think, the worst. Meaning it's good, but it's the worst because it's so hard. It's never ending. And there's a lot of cleaning. Even the coffee shop, when I ran that, there's a lot of prep we had to do because we made food there too. And I would start at 7 in the morning, would not get home till 7 PM, even though I lived next door. So that was okay. But it was way more exhausting than I thought it was going to be.

I mean, these people that serve us food, we should be kissing their feet.

I think restaurant people know. They know. Yeah. Yeah.

So that's what I've been up to. I got back last weekend and then I've been working out Thursday or as we're recording here. So I'm back in the grind and I've never felt more refreshed, to be honest with you. This is what I want to get into with you, how you might feel today, because I know you haven't done any work. I got that laundry day that I got to come home and work, and then I went out and was in the mountains with no cell reception. I was without cell reception almost every day of that 10-day trip. And I was without cell reception completely when I was in the mountains. I was just outside of cell reception, so I exhausted myself, but I feel completely renewed.

Feel so renewed.

Well, I don't feel very renewed.

Let's talk about that.

So a lot happened in the last 6 weeks, like a lot. I will start by saying I have been on a medication, an SNRI, for the past 9 years since my former husband died. The grief of that experience was so— I mean, I needed it. I couldn't survive without it. But then after like maybe 4 years—

Melody, I'm sorry.

What?

If I just break in, I don't know what SNRI is.

So I think there's SNRI. It's like a serotonin thing. Like it gives you more serotonin. So our brains get used to, like, we might have less than we need or I don't know if we get more than we need. Maybe that's mania. Who knows? But basically, when you're going through something, or if you have depression, it's altering the chemistry. It's putting it back in line, you know?

Okay.

But when you stay on those things a long time— and I didn't even realize how difficult my specific one was that I was on, which is Cymbalta— to come off of it was really horrifically difficult. It took me probably a month and a half to regulate because I started before my— like, I started coming off of it before I stopped working. But I was crying every day a lot.

And I'm assuming you were just— you're still taking it, but just a little tiny bit less. Is that—

I was taking a lot less. So I went from 80 milligrams, then I went down to 40, and I was working with my med nurse. We had a whole system. We were tapering. But by the time I got down to 10 milligrams, And then I went down to 5. Like, I took apart my pills and was counting little pellets inside.

Oh my gosh.

I did it like I was very scientific about it because I wanted it to be like as easy as it could be. And it was still very hard. I think the longer you're on it, the harder it is to come off. And I actually wanted to document the process as I was doing it because I was like, I wish— this is the kind of stuff people don't talk about. Most people stay on meds forever. They don't know if they need it or not because our chemistry changes over time. But that was a very hard part for about 3 weeks, crying all the time, but not sad, not depressed all the time, but anything could make me cry. I would just start, music plays, I start crying.

And I kind of allowed that to happen. I was kind of observing the experience. I was acting as an observer of my own experience, but then it started.

I'm sorry. I just, I think it's so important for us to like kind of dive in for me to really get in your shoes here. When you're crying, you understand at the time that you're crying, you don't even know why you're crying. Is that—

Yes.

Or, okay. So you don't, do you feel sad? I'm assuming you must feel sad.

Most of the time I didn't feel sad. I felt feelings because I think, Curt, I had not really been, it was like my emotion was right at the surface and it had not been that way for years. The reason I wanted to also come off, it was not to come off and just be done with it. It was because I wanted to see if I still needed it. And it's a long process to do this, to just decide whether— and after I was doing it, I'm like, if I still need this, I am going to be so sad to go back on. There's something about not wanting to be on meds, right?

Sure.

But at this point, my husband has also confirmed that I seem to be in a pretty good place when it comes to, like, I'm no worse than I was before. In his view, I might be like emotional or whatever at times, but I think my mood is really pretty good and I feel good, but I also have been doing other things during that time that have helped me as well. And the reason I decided now was the right time to go off of meds, even though I've talked about it with my med nurse for 4 years, every time we have an appointment, I say, I don't think it's the right time right now. And the reason I decided now is because I decided I was going to go on a medicine journey.

Hmm.

Medicine being drugs, everybody.

Well, medicine is drugs, so maybe this means—

Yeah. And when I said medicine, I meant like nature's drugs, like mushrooms and things like that. And I couldn't do it if I was on those drugs, on my, on Cymbalta. I had never had a setup where there was anything after I came off meds. That was another reason I never came off because I was like, well, what happens if I'm struggling or like How do I make sure that I'm going to be okay? So I went on that last month or 3 weeks ago or something, and it was really transformative. I've told you I've done ketamine therapy.

Yeah, you did tell me that.

With a therapist that has been transformative as well. But I really believe to get to the deepest root inside of ourselves, it's not just thinking and talking. It takes so much more to get there because we have a lot of wounds and a lot of healing and a lot of like walls that we need to get through. And this just makes it faster. I also had a magic ear crystal come out of my—

Yeah, that was great. You texted me and you're like, I gotta go to the hospital.

Yeah, I was taken in an ambulance because guys, we have magic ear crystals and if one gets displaced and goes into like your tunnel, I don't even know.

Can you explain what happened? Like, did you ever see the crystal, or is it—

No, no, no. It's so tiny. Literally, it's just calcium. And I know it has a role in our ear, and I've already forgotten what it is. But I bent down to tie my shoe. Okay, it was Velcro. Everybody had Velcro. I Velcroed my shoe.

That makes it seem better.

And then I stood up, and I suddenly experienced dizziness like I have never had in my life. And I was like, whoa. Oh yeah, I didn't eat anything today. I better eat something. But I felt like this isn't normal. I ate some food and then I was about to go on a different podcast, Curt, with this woman. And we were just about to go on and I suddenly had so much dizziness and I thought I was going to throw up. And I don't throw up usually, but I was like, I got to go.

Yeah.

And I literally was like, something's wrong with me. I slammed the computer shut. I ran up to my room because I was staying at my cousin's, kind of like a bed and breakfast. And then I basically was stuck on the bathroom floor, just violently throwing up for an hour because my phone was not near me. I couldn't move an inch. I could not move an inch. And I'd never— I thought I was dying. I thought I was having a stroke.

I didn't know what was going on. But I thought I was gonna be alone when it happened. And so finally I was like, Siri, Siri can save me. And I, um, asked Siri to call my husband and then told my husband to call my cousin. When my cousin came, she's like, yeah, you need to go to the hospital. You need an ambulance. And so she called the ambulance. Meanwhile, I can't move.

I'm sick. Like, I'm terrified. The ambulance guys come and they're like, we gotta move you. And I'm like, no, I can't do this. But they did. It was crazy. And then they gave me some meds when I was in the ambulance, and about 20 minutes later, totally felt normal. And it was because that ear crystal thing had given me vertigo.

But like, I think what ended up happening was because I was in a position and I couldn't move, it was probably leaving the crystal exactly in the wrong place.

Yeah.

And if I had moved, I probably would've been able to get over it faster.

But when the room's spinning, you—

I could not. I could not.

Yeah. So here's the thing. You told me you broke an ear crystal free and you explained to me through text.

Yeah. Yeah.

So this comes over text and then it's very disturbing to me about what you're going through. And so I'm like, do a little research. Let me tell you a little bit about these ear crystals that maybe you already know, maybe you don't. These ear crystals can get dislodged, and they sit not on top of, like, a sensory gland. They sit on top of a sensory cell. They are 1 millionth the size of a grain of table salt.

Yeah.

Now, you said they're made out of calcium. It's calcium—

Calcium and magic. But yeah.

And magic. They're like measured in nanograms, not milligrams. So these crystals that we talk about, like there's pieces of dust that fly in your air that are much larger than these crystals. So my friend Mel is on the floor. The world is spinning because a cell that's a sensory cell is missing its little crystal thing that it's using to figure out balance. Our body's balance is hanging on by this crystal. Meanwhile, I am getting these texts as I am bouncing down a mountain on my mountain bike.

Yeah.

Imagine these little specks that are sitting on top of cells. Like, how am I okay? How is any of us okay? How are jet fighter pilots okay? How are any of us able to jump on a trampoline? Why can we ride on a swing? How do we get in a car and drive around corners and we're fine? I am very weirded out by this.

Curt, can I tell you, I knew that this was a job for the internet. Like, anytime something bad has happened to me, I don't put it on the internet because I want attention. I put it on the internet because I know that I'm not the only person who has ever experienced this. I got so many responses of people who have said, I've had this happen. I had PTs, you know, physical therapists saying, I'm an expert at this. There's these exercises you can do if it— but don't do it unless it happens again. So many people have had this, and it's one of those mysterious old people things that happens. I might never experience this again for my entire life.

I might experience it tomorrow. For a long time, I've been carrying the meds and commercial-grade puke bag that I got from the hospital into my bag just in case. That was my security blanket.

If this happens again, do you immediately just start shaking your head as hard as you can trying to get it to go back in?

No, I'll have to, like, watch the video to figure out how to do the—

You won't be able to watch a video. Look, I've experienced vertigo one time in my life. It was for a period of about an hour. I was just walking out of my master bathroom, like my bathroom. I was leaving the room, and all of a sudden I remember like, oh my gosh. And I clung to my bed because the room started moving around so hard. And for an hour, I was in absolute misery.

You don't think it was this? You don't have to have an extreme reaction like I did. Some people, it can just be Absolutely.

All I'm saying is, is that with this little tiny experience that I have had, and I think to like what you're going through, I'm like, dude, we need to all be prepared for this. This is very important information for us to all have.

That's why I'm spreading the word about all of my ailments as they happen. Speaking of which, that happened when I was on my vacation, and that was definitely something where I'm like, yeah, I'm not— between that and going off the meds, I'm not gonna Go back to work for a while. But I think one of the reasons why I've struggled so much is I really do believe that I have a cognitive issue from my concussion from long ago, but also from AI, Curt. This is a thing that I believe is going to be huge in the near future, maybe in the next 6 to 12 months, because I think a lot of people are going to struggle with what I've been going through. I just think mine probably happened faster because of the concussion symptoms I'd already been dealing with.

Mm-hmm.

Trust me, it's going to be a thing. It already is. It's already being studied. It's something that we talk about, AI. I wish our whole podcast wasn't about AI. Most of the time it feels like it is, but that's because that is the— it's the biggest ethical human dilemma that we have right now. And it all comes back to that.

Let's do our next podcast. I want to catch up with how business is going in your life right now, but let's do a podcast in the very near future where we do talk about sort of this implication AI is causing things to move a lot faster, which ironically is making people have to adopt AI much faster. And it feels like there's a lot to unpack there right this second as well. I just heard some new news that I want to get into with you as well. So with everything going on, have you found any enjoyment in the 6 weeks being off work?

Oh my God. Yes.

It sounds horrible.

No, it's been awesome. So first of all, I slept a lot in the beginning. I really was sleeping and I was allowing myself that. Sleep. I was pretty much off my computer most all of the time. And I really tried to be off my phone. There's only one thing that I did in the last 6 weeks that had anything to do with work, which was a 2-day workshop for building AI second brain. And as you know, I'm obsessed with that idea for 2 years now.

So it was awesome to get to see how other people have been doing it. And it helped me to move mine along as well. But otherwise, if I go on the computer for too long, it's almost like a reaction. If I went back to work right now, I'd be no better than I was 6 weeks ago. And remember that episode we did about burnout?

Yeah.

I've read about burnout. It can take 2 years to recover from burnout.

Really?

It can take a long time. I don't expect my burnout to be like that though, because I'll be better than that. I've spent so much time with my little nephew. A lot. And my other nephews. I have spent time with a lot of different people. I've done a lot of things the past 6 weeks. And I'm going to be leaving.

We're going on a family vacation in a week. We're— it's Thursday right now. We're going to be going in another week and a half. And then I go straight from there to the Philippines for almost 3 weeks and a stopover in Tokyo on the way home, which I'm excited about.

Ooh, that sounds fun too.

I am so excited about that. Yeah. I don't know about you, but I don't like to leave home. And I put off buying tickets because I don't want to go. And then I bought the ticket and I'm like, great, I'm going and I'm going to be okay with this. And now as the time gets closer, I realize, oh, I'm going to be away from home a month between our family. They're literally dropping me off at the airport as they go home from vacation.

Oh.

And that kind of freaks me out. I don't like the idea of leaving for that long. That makes me sad.

Yeah, but it's gonna be such an epic trip too. Like, just trying to live in it, man. That's so cool.

People— I'm doing it—

would love to have that experience.

I know. And I don't know if— who knows the next time I'll be able to go and do something like that. So I'm like, which one does Philippines— I'll start in Manila. I'm gonna go visit my operations lady lives, so I'll be there for a few days in Baguio.

Oh, like, that's what I already Yeah, that's actually, I think, one of the coldest places in the country.

Yeah, it's like in the mountains. Yeah.

Yeah. No one else gets that.

And then we're going to a GoHighLevel conference for 2 days. That's one of the reasons why I'm going is because my whole team is going and I was like, I probably should go. And then afterwards, Denise and I are going to go on a leadership retreat. I'm using my air quotes because it's going to be on whatever islands I can get to.

Puerto Princesa is where you need to go.

Yeah, there's like 7,000 islands, Curt.

I know, but Puerto Princesa is the one that the Filipinos will all recommend you go to, to chill.

I mean, I have a list, like I've been asking all my people, but it also is going to depend because it's typhoon season and I'm like, I don't want to plan that until it's closer. I feel like—

They don't mess around with their typhoons around there.

So there's a lot going on in my life. And also I have not missed business. My business is doing fine without me.

Oh, that was what I was just going to ask you about. So everything's great. So how often do you check in and how do you get these reports? So I know you deleted all your apps.

I deleted my communication apps so I wouldn't be obsessed with looking at stuff, but I do WhatsApp with them. And I had one emergency group in case somebody had a problem. But I was really struggling to leave. I've been talking about a break for 6 months now. And I always was saying, I'm not ready. The business is not in a good enough place. We don't have our stuff together enough for me to leave. And I got counseled by a friend who said, what if it fails? It's not a question I even allow for.

I just don't. And he's like, what is the worst that could happen? It would fail. I'm like, I don't— But no, it can't fail. I've never— I can't have a business fail. And he's like, but— I'm like, I guess that's the worst. He's like, he gave me the KPIs of keep it— because he was doing a leave too. He said, here's what I did. Kept it simple.

The KPIs are, while I'm gone, if you lose a customer, find a new one. He said, take really great care of our clients. And for me, I said, and our VAs, of course, our agency VAs.

Yeah.

And then I added on that they needed to take care of each other and support each other. And that was very freeing for me because that whole conversation freed me up to be like, okay, there is no reason for me— it'll never be where I want it to be. And in fact, I was blocking progress, I believe, because of how burnt out I was while also trying to like get us to some place that we have never gotten, nor were we about to get it when I'm burnt out, right?

Yeah.

So it was awesome. It's been awesome, even though a lot of weird things have happened.

A lot of weird things have happened?

Yeah, like a lot of weird things, meaning in my life since I left.

Oh, oh, oh. And they check in and they're like, hey, we got all these weird things happening.

They've only had to check in like really 2 or 3 times with emergency things that Mel, they wanted my input. Otherwise they can do what they want. Like literally. They have it handled. And it makes me wonder, like, why am I even involved? Just saying. What about you? So you left for 10 days. I know that you really struggled to leave, I feel like.

Yeah, I struggled to leave because I think I feel like I set a tone for being a hard worker. I don't know how to explain it other than the fact that I feel like if I'm on the team and I'm not there, Then, well, actually, you actually just said it. You said like, you know, there's this little bit of like, well, I guess they're better off without me. Why am I there ever anyway? And I think for me, it's like maybe some therapist could pull it out of me and I'll just say it as a sort of a joke now, but like, you can't have a team without me. But honestly, I do feel like the amount of people that come to me and that I'm genuinely helping in my business all day, every day, I feel like if I was to not be there doing that for them, I just feel like I would be falling short of, you know, being a good teammate.

But you're not a teammate. You're the founder and the leader. And yeah, I mean, and they did not ask you questions, I imagine, for those 10 days that you were on a mountain.

Wouldn't matter if they asked the question. I just went into a black hole. So everything was fine. And I think that was pretty insightful for me. Like, it was cool to see, like, while I was gone, But, you know, I was gone for 10 days and then I was gone for another 3. So it's not like—

It's like 2 weeks though.

Yeah, but it's not 6 and it's not a year. So I think that yes, they ran into issues that they just said, cool, we'll wait till Curt gets back. And there certainly were, but I don't feel like I got back and got like an absolute barrage. I had like, you know, real emails, like not junk emails. I probably had a total of like 50, emails that actually needed addressing. And I would've thought that number would've been higher. And I had some Slack messages that were good and important, but I think that at the end of the day, the biggest thing for me was I had a big project that I had started before I left, and we uncovered something that had been blocking us for quite a while. And I had dug in the best I could and started employing some solutions.

Unfortunately, I missed the mark for like the people who actually had to use my solutions. And so it was tough to leave town, like on the note of like, I really would love to go refine this and work on it. But you quickly forget that as soon as you're on the road driving through the Indian reservation and, you know, there's no reception and you're looking at these crazy mountains. Like I went through Monument Valley and stuff and I'm just like, work just disappeared. I'm like, holy cow, how did these mountains form? How is everybody not here all the time? In fact, there's a whole group from India. Like, you just tell these people had all come and they wanted to get this shot of the road that's really, really long, this insane mountain background. And so they're all like in the road, and then as one car drives down, because it's very secluded out there, they all come out and they do these like, you know, maybe a coming-of-age kind of type pictures that everybody wants to have. I've never had one, but I was like, as we're driving by and I see them come into the middle of the road and then out in the middle of the road.

I'm thinking to myself, yeah, they're just out here doing their thing. And I would just tell these people, you know, they plan a whole big trip. Now, did they all come from India? I don't know, but they made a trek for sure to get there. And then just from there, everything just melted away. I was just in it and I was as exhausted as I've ever been in my life. I worked so hard on the mountain. Like I burned thousands and thousands of calories and I broke a toe and I broke a few ribs.

Oh my God.

Actually, fun fact. If you're going around a corner really fast on a mountain bike and you slam into a tree stump, I assume I shattered the toe. I don't know what happened, but the nail fell off and it turned all weird colors and stuff. I actually can't feel this toe. Like I have a toe that the colors are starting to disappear, even though the shape of it's not quite right. But when you touch it, like you can't feel it. So like, I'm going through all these like crazy things, but this is. So renewing for me.

It felt so good. So yeah, anyway.

So do you feel like you learned any lesson about when being away from work? Did it help you to kind of look at your relationship to work and look at it any differently? Are you going to take any of that back with you, or did you go right back the way that you were?

I like normalcy. So like, I like patterns. I eat the same thing for breakfast basically every day. I shower at the same time every day. I wear the same clothes every day, not like I wash them and stuff, but like I have the same rotation of clothes. All my clothes look exactly the same and I ride my bike the same. So for me, of course I fell back into my thing, but I did learn something and I don't want to pass that by. I did learn that as a coach of my team, you know, on the sidelines, or the team is playing on the field and I'm more of a coach role.

I did learn and feel that like, hey, these people don't need another player on the field so much as, you know, you could be a little bit more on the sidelines.

But is that what you want?

Honestly, I'm getting older. I need to— I want— I need it. But Mellie, right now, if I was a saw, you know, if I was doing this Stephen Covey sharpening the saw thing, right now I feel so sharp Like, if you've ever used a chainsaw before that's freshly sharp versus not, when they're throwing out those big fluffy chips, like, that's how I feel right now. I'm throwing big fluffy chips and I want to be cutting wood.

I hear you, but I think I'm the absolute opposite of where you're at right now. Okay. My chainsaw is extremely dull. It's not even a chainsaw. It's probably just another piece of wood that's trying to saw a piece of wood.

Well, then that's how it feels.

Yeah. Right place.

You got to get renewed.

I think, I don't think this is a melody gets renewed. I think I'm going to be going to a brain clinic to just kind of see where, what's going on, like to actually get imaging to see what's going on because it doesn't feel normal. And it might be normal because I'm older now, but I have not had that sharpness in such a long time. I've had it since I've been in AI world. I have had it. I know that.

You get into a flow state.

Flow states, yes.

But not like maybe like a whole, like, I'm just trying to differentiate here, a flow state of like a session versus like a week of like—

No, I've had—

Oh yeah.

Yeah, definitely. I've had those, but I really do feel like I've been depleted of that because the problems to solve are never ending. There's no break, and I'm not disciplined enough to, like, give that— it's— I'm an all-or-nothing person. I am all in, and then I'm all out when I can't handle it anymore, and that's not healthy. So I'm always trying to change that.

Man, you just reminded me of one of the reasons I'm so renewed. So when you're working in a kitchen, at a camp kitchen, and you talk about there's no end, you would get so close to getting caught up on the dishes, and then just— it's another big old pile of dishes, and This one's got caked-on mashed potatoes that are like hardening like glue and you gotta chisel it off. And then this is grease and you can't put it down the drain, you know? And so you're like, oh, I almost caught up. And then, and then like you're totally not caught up. The same with the food. Like, all right, that was a great meal. We got it served up, but we still are behind on dinner. We gotta get the rest of dinner done.

And I just felt like, golly, is there a win to be found? I thought about my business in that sense, like I'm an entrepreneur. This should feel like second nature to me. But you know what's funny is, I don't know. I think that the exception of being on your feet all day and literally with your feet running to every emergency, as opposed to me, like just switching monitors and doing other things. I'm wondering if there's a chance that like me seeing how much worse it could be in like more, maybe more of a physical representation. I'm wondering if I, like something hit me and like, was like, Yeah. But dude, you sit your butt in a seat all day at work, and then when you're done with work, you check out and you get on your bike and you go ride. It's completely separate and different.

And then when it's time to go to bed, you don't have to keep going. You could actually go to bed and sleep. But then like when it's time to get up, you don't have this looming like, oh my gosh, if I don't do this, people are going to go without. So I think that the contrast of a kitchen to what you were just saying of like never getting a win. Is it like, okay, that was helpful for me?

Well, it does because we were both people whose bodies were tools at one point. Our bodies, when we had our window cleaning companies, my body worked very, very hard and I hustled very, very hard for decades doing this, that work. And my dream at the time was I would love to sit at a desk like people do and just like do computer work and kind of do what I wanted. It's not going to be like all the time, so it would be okay. And of course, I invented a job where I'm just staring at a screen all day, and my brain doesn't like screens anymore. I do understand. And I think— I don't know about you, but I can't go back to that. I killed my body back then in a way that it was not sustainable.

But I did it because I had to. And then I did it past the time of having to because I didn't know any other way, right?

Yeah.

This seemed to be a better way. But I have to tell you, and I hope this doesn't happen to you, but I don't think it's sustainable. for us to go on like this forever. And I do mean because of how quickly we can iterate and create now without any barriers or constraints, because that's part of our human process includes constraints. We don't have those right now. It's very addictive. So let's talk in a year and see where you're at with your brain. Yeah, it's still great, but—

I think in our next episode when we do talk about some of the AI things that are just kind of new in the news and stuff, I think one of the topics we should make sure we go over is talk about sustainability because This is a new sort of fatigue and a new exhaustion. I will just say it's ironic today in my weekly newsletter to the company, in my message to the team, it was, if you haven't gone out and relaxed for a while, I'm begging you all to just take some time, take some PTO because this burnout's real. I've never had burnout. Burnout's always been real cyclical for me. So it kind of weirded me out when you said that burnout could take up to 2 years to recover from. I've just never experienced it personally.

Yeah.

But, you know, for me, I don't know that I've ever had such a contrast. I think the literal not having cell reception—

Oh, that sounds like heaven, Curt.

Every other vacation I've ever done, I've always made sure to have a little cell reception so that I can check in a few times per day. And, you know, even a lot of times it was just to check in and see if there's nothing to do and have that assurance. But this, I didn't have that. And at some point your brain just becomes like, well, can't do anything about it. Completely unplug. And it did. But I want to tie this back to what you were saying earlier, which was so sad, actually. And that is that you're like, I'm having this great conversation with you.

I can tell you're mentally sharp. You're very acute.

Yeah.

I'm not sitting here, like, stressed out about your brain, but you're like, I need to go get my brain checked. It's a lot like that mental health episode that we had with Bobby, where, you know, as a kid and being raised to become a man, I was always really, whether it was specifically said to me or whether it was specifically, or maybe more indirectly just learned, was that if you're a man and you have pain or you're a man and you have an issue, be sure to not trouble anyone with that. Right. Just make sure you take care of it. And if you feel like things are getting really hard, you just rub some dirt on it. It's going to be okay. And we talked to Bobby about that. What I think is really interesting in your situation is sort of like that whole, like, so mental health ends up becoming quite invisible.

In a lot of ways. And I'm not just talking about men, I'm talking about over both genders. I'm just saying that my personal experience, I can see how mental health can get really buried and, and not addressed and all that. With what you were saying and this topic that we're having, it sort of made me draw 2 different things together that I maybe wouldn't normally.

Mm-hmm.

And that is brain fatigue and, you know, through hard work and, and all that. And also brain aging. You know, I'm, I'm a year older just like you are, and, you know, I can see different. Like, I used to have HD vision. I used to be able to see so good. Like, I would always brag about what I could read, how far away. I went to the eye doctor. He's a buddy of mine and he's an ophthalmologist.

Yeah.

Anyway, I read the thing and he's like, holy mackerel, Curt, you have— I don't remember like how the numbers all work together.

Like, like 40/20 or something. Yeah.

So I have like The numbers swapped, right? So he's like, dude, this is very irregular for people to have eyesight as good as you. And I'm like, yeah, man. Well, now, like, I'm constantly having to put my phone further away, and I had to get these little glasses here that I can use.

Adorable.

Yeah, they are. They're adorable. But I'm changing, and my body is changing. And luckily, I just broke some ribs and a toe, and they're healing fast. But like, that's not going to keep going either, because I can already feel that slowing down. Now I'm thinking about your brain and I'm like, hey, as my body is aging and whatever, well, my brain is in my body. It's aging too. And you've had the concussion.

I've never been checked for a concussion. I don't think I've ever had a concussion. Like I've hit my head before, but not like what you experienced, like with a concussion.

I mean, I barely hit my head when that happened, by the way. It was probably from all the other previous ones I didn't know about. I'm surprised in window cleaning you never hit your head 50 million times. Cause I definitely did.

I had some that really rang my bell, like going into the trailer and you don't duck down quite far enough.

Yep.

Grab the top of it. Like I've had some real, and I was wearing a hat with a little, you know, button on the top of it that just, yeah, just thinking about it makes me want to cry. But I'm thinking about us as we're aging and as we've got this fatigue setting in and now we've become a brain economy where, you know, a lot of our, well, our livelihood depends on thinking and You know, for me, and I think for you too, is the decisions per day. Like, if we measured our day-end decisions per day, like, I think we'd probably be very shocked at how much. And when I'm working in AI, the amount of decisions I'm making in AI every day is a magnitude of like maybe 10x or 50x even, like, just because it's constantly asking for, what do you want to do? What do you want to do?

What do you want to do? We're not meant to do that, Curt. I mean, we might think we're superhuman, We are not meant to do that long-term. And our makeup as humans, just like we've changed biologically over time based on what we're experiencing, AI has happened so fast. I don't think we're meant to expand how many decisions we make per day at that level. And I do think that's part of my problem. I really do. I feel even weak saying that, but I don't think— that this is going to be just a Melody problem because I already see the data coming out. It's going to be a big problem for a lot of people.

However, that's what has stuck out to me is like, I should only be making the highest-level decisions, the ones that are most important in my company. It's so easy to get sucked into every little thing. And people get used to the cycle of just ask Mel, just ask Curt, right? Yeah. And we have to be less available in that way. And you and I both have been less available when we were away. everybody seemed to do okay. So it's something I think about a lot is how am I gonna go back in and not ruin what I've just been creating, right? And which is space. Space to be able to think again.

Space to be able to dream and to create. It'll be interesting. Can I say one more thing about something I have done?

Yeah.

I said I wasn't doing anything. I've been taking my old recordings, because, you know, I've recorded a lot of music over the years, and I've been using AI to re-record them because the vision that the music in my head, I was never able to fully put it into the world. Even when I've had musicians playing with me, I could never explain what I hear in my head because a lot of times the songs are there ready-made. And I've had AI and I've been able to prompt it almost good enough to where it's rewriting my music. Expanded. Now it's adding its voices. I'm taking out those voices and I'm going to re-record my own voice. But that has been such fun for me.

It is very much a creative outlet. And also it still exhausts me. It's the same thing. It's still AI. But I think that has been really fun. I'm also aware that I made a decision to like give AI my music and my voice. And I did that willingly because I think it's more important for me to hear what I've always wanted to hear in the world. Like, you know, like you have a vision or you've created something in your brain.

There's nothing that feels better than like being able to see it in existence.

That's the lure that's getting us all to run to the edge. I know we can see things exist so quick.

And so I'm going to do a project though, where I'm going to show my old song and then what AI did to it to show like the difference. And I feel weird about it, but I'm like, no, this is how creation works. This is the new iteration of how people are going to be creating.

Did it improve it?

Yeah. Well, my husband and my son who really don't love AI at all were like, I like the original versions better. But for me, I was able to hear what I wanted to hear and it did improve it. Sometimes it made it a lot worse, but it's so many iterations. Like I didn't just prompt it once, you know, you have to keep going. And then it gets addictive and then I have to stop and shut it down. So anyway, that's kind of where life is at for me. Philippines up ahead.

Well, should we address the elephant in the room?

Which one is that?

While we were gone, our editor Ivan—

Oh, yes. Ivan.

I love Ivan. And that was fun.

And Jean Bear. She wrestled control from—

We had to get the sunglasses off of him and, um— Power hungry Ivan.

Yeah.

What's funny is they're just the sweetest couple. And so for him to be taking on the role of this, you know, megalomaniac.

Yeah.

Uh, but for our listeners listening, I hope you guys know we are so thankful to Ivan for covering for us while we're gone. And I don't need to say it again. It was so good for me. I'm so glad. I'm so glad I was able to take the time. And that's just one more reason I felt comfortable taking the time off.

Yeah, I agree. It was really Nice to have that break for as long as we did. Well, Curt, thank you so much for this update of our lives. It's like Days of Our Lives.

Thank you. And it's so good to see your face again. So thanks for doing this with me.

Yep. I will see you next week.

All right. Sounds good. See everybody. Thanks everybody for joining us at the Sole Proprietor Podcast. It has been an absolute It's been a pleasure having these discussions with you. If you wouldn't mind taking just a few minutes to rate and review us wherever it is that you listen to podcasts, it would mean so much to us. We really do read each of these reviews, and it gives us the opportunity to get the word out to more people who could benefit from hearing about topics like this and so many others. If you want to engage with us at our website and maybe share some topics or ideas of other people that you'd like to hear on the podcast, feel free to go to soleproprietorpodcast.com and share with us your thoughts and ideas about what we could do in the future to bring even more light into the world.