Episode 39: We Set 5 Big Summer Goals, Only Some Survived

Three months ago, with plenty of open time ahead of them, Rob and Brent gave themselves five challenges for the summer, one for each ring of the Midlife Circus: finances, relationships, health, purpose, and adventure. This episode is where they find out how it actually went, and some of the results are nowhere near what either of them planned. Along the way there's an accidental diet science experiment, plus the particular comedy of watching real life quietly rearrange your best intentions. If you've ever started a stretch of time full of ambition and ended up somewhere completely different, this one will land, and probably make you feel better about your own list.

Transcript:

Transcript Disclaimer - May contain the occasional confusing, inaccurate, or unintentionally funny transcription moment. It’s all part of the show.

Rob: 00:01

Brent, why do you think it feels like there's a hundred days in the month of June, but only four days in the month of August?

Brent: 00:27

Such a good question. It's kind of like the beginning of the year. You know, you start January and you're like, wow, I got all this time to do all these goals and hit all these accomplishments. It's like a refresh button. June's kind of the same way, it's just set for summer. And you're like, I am going to go on so many adventures. I'm going to spend all this time outside. I'm going to go visit all these friends and do all these things. And you feel like it's endless. It's like this big list that you could just knock out. Then August comes, you're like, oh my gosh, I have so much to do. And it's like, I only have four days to do this. And it's kind of like where we're at with our summer challenges, Rob. It's like, okay, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? When am I going to squeeze all these things in that I thought I would start in June? Didn't quite start to a little bit later.

Rob: 01:15

We have all this time ahead of us, right? In the month of June. And yeah, we're today's episode, we're going to talk about the summer challenges and do our recap of what we actually did. And my list was quite extensive. Yours was quite extensive as we thought about our summer challenges. And I didn't start really any of them in the month of June, late May, early June. Didn't really start many of them at all. And then most recently, as we were getting ready to record this episode, we changed our date of recording a little bit because I was hoping to cram in like three things in the last week, pull a couple all-nighters, figure a couple things out so I can come back and say, check on all of these items.

Brent: 01:50

Well, it's kind of one of those things, Rob, that it is uh it's like life. You know, life catches up to you, and probably some other things replaced some of the things you plan to do that were maybe even more fun. And you said, Well, I'll get to it. And but it just shows that there's such a pattern and such a rhythm in our habits and the things that we do. And you and I actually set out, when I was looking back at our list, you and I set out some pretty lofty goals. We did when I started it, I was like, Yeah, no problem. Then when I got through it, I was like, wow, some of those are a little bit more challenging than I thought. Some I learned more than I thought, some were like, whatever. And it was just funny. But I just remember when we did it, it was like we're so excited for the summer, and let's kick off the summer with all these big goals. And then here we are.

Rob: 02:39

Two achiever personalities, go figure we'd have an extensive list. And even though we're not working full-time, we have some part-time work that we're both doing, a little bit of seasonal type of work, if you will. I thought I had plenty of time to check off all of these items, and it would have been easy to go and do. But looking backwards at this list, I'm like, what the heck was I thinking? This was dumb. There's no way I could have done all of these things. Come on, you got to give yourself a little bit more of a break. And can't you learn from the past, Rob, that you actually bite off more than you can chew in terms of your commitments? And so today's episode is going to be that recap that Brent and I are going to share with all of you. So early this summer, so way back in May and June, we had an episode of our five challenges that we were going to give to ourselves going into the summer. We had a lot of fun recording that episode when we had the entire three months ahead of us to get anything done. And today we're going to do a readout of what we actually did during the summer, what we learned, and what we might do about those learnings and how we might make some adjustments to our lives going forward so we can still accomplish the things that we want to accomplish. Just maybe be a little bit more realistic in that list and our commitments. You're going to want to make sure that if you're not doing it already, please make sure that you're subscribed and following the show. That'll actually allow you to get the most up-to-date information for as we're distributing episodes. That you'll get the most up-to-date episode will actually land directly in your podcast feed. So please make sure you've either subscribed or following the show so you get the most up-to-date information. Brent, let's

Rob: 04:11

jump in. So we had five challenges, and when we did the recording, we started with finance. What was your finance challenge for the first part of this year, which if I remember right, I think was going to be

Rob: 04:22

the hardest one for you. You thought something else was going to be hard, but I thought finance was going to be the hardest one for you. Tell our audience what was the challenge and how did it go?

Brent: 04:31

So for me, going back in the last 30 years, is I check the stock market every day, or at least when the stock market is open. And I realized that it was becoming like why? I was asking the question why? So I said, well, why don't I just stop for three months and only allow myself once a month to do my own personal finances? And other than that, I'm not checking stock tickers, I'm not checking kind of what comes across the feed as it relates to the status of a company and you know, a company's going public or whatever it might be. It was always a fascination for me. And I spent some time in the investing landscape, so it was something that I always felt like I had to be up to speed. So I turned that button off. And actually, what I learned with this, Rob, is this was so rewarding for me because I didn't know how much I was actually checking the market, and it was a lot, and it wasn't just the quick check-in sometimes, it could have been like how somebody might peruse Instagram. I was doing that with kind of the stock feeds of like, oh, what's going on with this company? And then I go down the rabbit hole. Oh, this company's going public. Let's learn about this company. Oh my gosh, that was some bad news. But also the extension was I was actually getting it was a way of indirectly getting kind of global news because when in doubt, the stock market, it's like the current administration did this, stock market tank. Current administration did this, stock market went up. So I was getting all this information. And I have to tell you, this was a lovely surprise. I actually enjoyed not having this as part of my routine. Here's the benefit I got is I actually read a few books. Imagine that, Rob. Whoa, you got a couple times. So I got a couple books in this summer, which was awesome. And I took an online class on how to take uh pictures uh with your iPhone to take better iPhone photography because I had a little bit of time. And so I replaced it. But it was funny that I just didn't realize how much I was actually checking the stock market. So this was a pleasant surprise for me. I'm glad that I did this one. It was, as you said, it was a little bit challenging at the beginning because I was just fidgety. And the one that was challenging, and I still don't know the performance, was the SpaceX IPO. Because it happened during that time frame. So I had I would have followed that one every day. And I would have had way too much knowledge of that IPO. I wouldn't have bought anything of it. I know I wouldn't have bought into it because I know those things kind of come and go, and but that was weird for me because I would have been all over it. But I am glad I don't know anything about it. How about that?

Rob: 07:25

Do you think it's something that'll continue? You think this will be the kind of the new norm for you going forward? Now, maybe not just not looking at all, but giving yourself a little bit bigger gaps between when you read stuff or when you watch uh the news and markets?

Brent: 07:38

Uh absolutely. It'll be one I'll continue on, probably not to the drastic edge that I took it, where I'm like, I'm out, but it will be not a daily routine. There's curiosities that I have. Uh, there was a company that I was on, the board of directors that was publicly traded. I would check in to see how it's doing. That was years ago. So I like checking on that because then you kind of get the status of the board members and do they make changes, things like that. I like that aspect because I had a connection to it, but this randomness of just constantly looking, I'm glad. I hope it's over because that I the replacement was great. It's nice to learn something new. Yeah. You know, when you're doing scrolling feeds of any sort of platform, you're not necessarily learning a lot from my perspective. You're just kind of like doom scrolling. So I was doom scrolling the market. That sounds really strange to me, by the way.

Rob: 08:30

I was going to say that you were doom scrolling the markets, doom scrolling the news, and it could have been great things coming out of it, but still you're scrolling with it. Did you feel anything from an energy standpoint, any change in energy? I know that if I'm doom scrolling on Instagram or Facebook or social media platforms, after a while I feel drained from an energy standpoint and actually look back at that hour waste as an hour wasted and actually beat myself up for it. Did you feel an energy shift when you stop looking or scrolling your phone for the news feeds on markets?

Brent: 09:02

Absolutely. And what I've learned, and this is almost any social media platform, at the beginning and the end of whatever I'm doing with that platform, I rarely feel better at the end than when I approached it. So, what would happen with the market? It's be like, oh, I should invest in that company. Oh, I should do, I should have done this. And I never felt really good, or oh, I'm glad I didn't do this. So it's just like emotional ride. So absolutely, like the energy is way better. It's nice to wake up and be like, I'm going to read something today that might be meaningful and enjoyable versus what is the latest buzz around certain founder or certain company and that I do nothing with. So, yes, there's definitely a positive I got out of it. How about you on finance?

Rob: 09:48

So, finance is an interesting one. This is one, Brent, that the goal was for me to work for the podcast, and you were excited about this, to find a sponsor for our podcast and help offset some of the expenses in running our podcast. And pretty quickly after that episode came out, we made a shift in our cadence of um distribution. We went from a weekly cadence to a bi-weekly cadence of our platform or our podcast, excuse me, going uh being published. And we made the decision to pull back. You and I made the decision to pull back on approaching sponsors during the summer while we made this format shift. We didn't think it was going to be fair to a sponsor or fair to us if we were talking about a contract in negotiations around distribution and what our podcast looks like from a frequency standpoint, right in the middle of making a change. And so we actually pretty quickly removed this one from the list. Uh so I didn't do anything around finding a sponsor. We don't currently have a sponsor. Yes, we would still like to have a sponsor in the future of this podcast, but we're watching our format and making sure that we're both fair to ourselves and fair to any sponsor or partner we bring to the table to come alongside us. Now I didn't replace it with anything. I don't know if you caught that, Brent, when we did this. I didn't say, hey, since we decided not to actually look for a sponsor right now, here's my new finance goal. I was very purposeful and not adding something. So I gave myself an out. So my five-ring challenge went to four rings pretty quickly. And this one I can actually chalk up to a mutual decision to stop doing this.

Brent: 11:16

It was like about four days into it, Rob. I did not notice it. You probably replaced it with something fun in your life. So, you know, more power to you there. But that's funny how you got this reduction really, really quickly. So well played. Well played. But that was a mutual decision. So uh it was the right thing to do. But that is pretty funny that uh you didn't replace it. I'll have to I didn't replace it.

Rob: 11:39

Yeah, yeah. I let it sneak behind the scenes without actually having to do anything in finance. I did replace it with other fun stuff. You're right.

Rob: 11:46

The next area we're going to talk about is relationships. And if you go back and listen to that prior recording, Brent, this was the fun one that I thought was pretty funny, given what I had committed to versus what you had committed to. So I think it might be good for our audience that maybe didn't listen to that episode. Let's just tell each other what the commitment was first. I'll you share yours, I'll share mine, and then we'll talk about how it actually went. So, Brent, what was your commitment around relationships when the summer started?

Brent: 12:16

Rob, you threw me under the bus on this one. So my commitment was I uh wanted to figure out a way to play a little bit more golf because my oldest son was not coming home for summer. He decided to stay in his college town for the summer, and he usually was my golf buddy. So I decided to join this men's golf group and play golf every Friday as schedules allowed. So that was mine to get to know some new people and have some fun with some, you know, folks that I haven't ever met before. But mine was to go play more golf. Let's talk about yours, Rob.

Rob: 12:52

Mine was to take my spouse on three proper dates over the summer. And I mean real dates. And so while Brent's goal was to go play more golf, mine was to actually show more attention to my spouse. How do you think that played out when we actually our spouses listened to the episode? That was pretty funny to get to hear the reaction, Brent.

Brent: 13:11

Uh, so we were we had that episode that we went down to Costa Rica, and uh on the plane ride, Carolyn listened to this episode, our previous episode, about our five challenges of the summer. And she just looks at me at the end of the thing. I listened to the episode and she kind of just kind of gives me a shove on the airplane. She's like, nice job on that one. So you're going to play more golf, and Rob is going to do three proper dates. And it was very comical. And Rob, it was it didn't stop there. Friends were bringing it up that listen to the podcast, be like, you're kind of like, really? Like, good job here, Brent. And I'm like, yeah. So I took, I got run over by the bus a few times on that one. So thank you for throwing me under it. And you're welcome. Uh I fed that. But what I'm more interested in, Rob, is tell me about your dates because I actually know nothing. We have not talked about it since then, intentionally, because I do not need to relive the pain of the very beginning of this. So tell me about your dates that you did and how did that go?

Rob: 14:17

So the question I have for you is it worse to not list the goal and not accomplish it, or to list a goal and not accomplish it? And so by saying it out loud, I threw myself out there. I would say if you asked Tara, she would probably give me two of the three. So I said three dates over the summer, three months, she would probably give me two of the three. I give myself about a one and a half. One of them was really planned, and I actually think I did a good job with one of them. The one that she's going to give me credit for, hopefully she would give me credit for, she'll tell me after she listens to this. I give myself half credit for. I actually planned a nice dinner at home. I did all the shopping, did all the meal prep, did everything around a meal that we've never had before, and she liked it. We had a nice evening at the house. That didn't quite count in my eyes. If she's going to count it, I'll take it. She said it would count. There's still one more I need to do. This was one I was hoping I could kind of sneak in before we did the recording. I could say, yes, I got all three done. I only did two of the three, or one and a half in my mind, of the three. I still need to do one more.

Brent: 15:26

Very high pressure situation there that you put yourself into. Because it was also what you'd said originally was it's this, it's you, it's not your standard. It's her standard. So Tara has to be like, hey, this was official. So I will take, if she said yeah, that's a go, take it, run with it, be proud of it. And I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe if you've got one scheduled, you can knock out that third one in the next couple of weeks. But wow, that was a pressure packed situation that you did. So well done that you got a couple of them done. And I'm sure that I'll hear from Tara about it. Uh, and I'm going to actually be, I'll do the inside here. I'm going to have to figure out what she says because she might have a few things to say that she's not willing to say to you directly.

Rob: 16:07

There were a couple of them that I had planned that we actually scheduled something over the top of. So there were a couple of dates that I actually had planned out, and I wanted to be a little bit of a surprise. And so I didn't go into the detail of what we were going to do, and then we scheduled a trip in the van or a rafting trip that actually took precedent over that. So I'm going to give myself a little bit of an excuse that we did something together instead of going on those dates, but it is something that I do want to incorporate more into our ongoing lives, is more of these formal kind of dates together and actually more planned in advance as a date. It could be just a quick weekend away rather than the last minute thing, is something that is planned in advance that I take some initiative and actually plan around. Awesome. Awesome. What did you get out of your golfing? So I'm going to go back. I at least I had a goal to actually, you know, love on my spouse a little bit, Brent. You had a goal to love on golf. So what happened with your golf, not golf game, but the relationships you had around golf?

Brent: 17:03

I had a ton of fun. This was something that I was actually really nervous about because I'm not the greatest golfer. I can go play golf and I can have a good round, but I can have also have really bad rounds. I didn't really know many people. I've been a part of this club for over 10 years, and I barely know anybody because I'd always go play with my kids and we do a family stuff out there. So I didn't know a lot of people, and I was nervous the first day. It's like first day of school type thing. And I realized everybody's really chill. And I met the first day, the guy that I was paired up with lived down the street for me. I've never even met him. He lives like 12 houses down the street, so that was really cool. And then uh every week they kind of changed the format, so you meet new people every week that I was able to do it. But I have to tell you, the third week I won it all. And it's a turn they made they play these games, like you put a few dollars in, and then there's kind of like best net score. So while I'm probably one of the worst golfers in the mix based on handicap, but you get the handicap, so it kind of helps you. And um, I actually just played really well one day, and so I won it and I was all super excited. And then the next time I went out, I just completely fell apart. So I didn't ride the wave very well, but it was a lot of fun, and I had a few people reach out to me, like, hey, you want to play golf on the uh outside of the thing? And so it was super successful for me, super embarrassing that this was my relationship challenge and yours was to date your spouse. So I've got some work to make up there. Sorry, Carolyn. I will make it up to you. Uh, but it was uh it was this was a win for me just personally to be able to go meet some new people in our community. And what I loved most about it is nobody was overly serious about it. Great golfers. Like I played with some people that are really, really good, but they don't really get fixated on my game. Like that was it.

Rob: 18:56

I'm proud of you, Brent. I know this was maybe a little bit more of a stretch for you and pushing you out of your comfort zone. The biggest goal you had was to not replace your son, but actually have a fill-in for your son who you typically play golf with. And I'm really excited to hear that you had a couple other individuals. I know one of them is my neighbor that you're aligning on. I got person that lives down the hill from me a little bit. You're going to go out and play golf with him a handful of times too, coming up in the future. So I'm actually really excited for you that you're actually extending that friend group a little bit with some people you may not have actually worked to try and become friends with uh if you followed your normal pattern.

Brent: 19:28

Yeah, it was fun. It was a well-worth it. I'm glad I put that goal out there with all joking aside, because it was just me getting, as you said, getting out of my shell. Because I would play a lot of golf by myself. And I just this was nice for me to know that it always is every week, and I could go play with some people and meet some new friends, and it was great.

Rob: 19:45

Nice. And talking about relationships, I want to actually talk about the relationship with our audience a little bit here. And we're going to ask you for some help as a as our audience listening to this episode. Brent and I are working through some formatting, potential formatting changes as we think about the future of our podcast, really to more align with the needs and the desire of our audience. So some of the things our audience actually thinks about the podcast and can give us some feedback on. And so we're pulling together some small focus groups and some small individual one-on-one conversations with our fans and our audience to actually design the podcast of our future and really think about how do we more meet the needs of our audience. And so if you're willing to actually participate in this focus group work that we're doing, please just message the show. You can do it through the podcast app, send us a quick message. We're looking for just a handful of people that can actually really help us shape the direction of our show in the future.

Brent: 20:42

That's great. And Rob, as you said, this is so easy that if you just message the show, say, hey, yeah, and we're talking, what, 45 minutes maybe spend with us? It'll be a one-on-one conversation. And we will give you some swag. So if you're willing to do that, we'll throw some uh Midlife Circus swag your way. So we appreciate it. And it's just a way of us just constantly listening to our audience and you know, what makes it tick for you and what are some ideas. We can't promise anything out of it, but it's just something that we know it's time to engage and learn a little bit more uh about what you get from the show and maybe some things that we could add to the show, and we're just excited

Brent: 21:18

about it.

Rob: 21:19

Now we're on to the next category, which Brent, you said was going to be your toughest one. I thought was the funniest one of all of the list we had this last time, which is health. And so before we get into what your readout was, I figured I'd just share with you what mine was first. And so my health goal was to lose between 15 and 20 pounds over the summer. And this is one I wish I had the extra week or two on. Uh, I got on the scale today. So when we did this, did this recording the first place? I got on the scale and had a benchmark. I got on the scale today, and I'm very happy, Brent, to share with you. I am down five pounds. Five pounds? Nice. Five pounds. Not the 15 to 20 that I assumed I would be able to go down in this period of time, but I am de I am negative, which I'm actually probably excited about is that it's a negative on the scale in terms of the change. Not I didn't go up anything over the summer because I've had a lot of fun over the summer. I've eaten way too much. I think I share with you I was recently at a wedding, and man, I ate a ton of food at this wedding, and I'm happy I'm down. I'm actually chalking it up as a win. Well, it may not be my goal. I'm down, which I'm going to take as a win.

Brent: 22:28

Did you get on that scale this morning? You're like, please, please, yes, please, just give me one pound.

Rob: 22:34

I got on there and said, please at least be even. Please don't let me go up. Please at least be even. I could say, well, nothing changed. That's fine.

Brent: 22:40

Spare me. I'm okay with that. Spare me the embarrassment. I have to say, Rob, when you did this one, I didn't say anything, but I was like, that is a huge goal because I know your summers are usually packed full of activities. You're in the van a lot. You guys are traveling. I know you have this wedding coming up. I'm like, that's a lot to take on when you're not at home much because you're out and about and it's hard to just yeah, you're this wedding you went to is crazy fancy. Like they great food. You're not going to be like, no, I'm just trying to lose a couple pounds. I'll just dial back on that fancy hors d'oeuvre. No, you're like, I'll take three of them.

Rob: 23:19

I think I had like seven lamb chop lollipops or whatever those things are called. Seven of them during the happy hour before after the ceremony.

Brent: 23:29

The meal before the meal.

Rob: 23:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It definitely was a full meal. That would have been enough food if I actually was portion control, just what I had during the happy hour.

Brent: 23:37

But that's solid though. Let's go back to like the huge congrats to you because five pounds is no joke. And that was, you know, you hit it, but you got room to go. But I'm glad that you were able on the lower side versus the upper side. Because when you and I were prepping for this episode, you were definitely sweating a little bit on this one. I knew it. Because we didn't share anything just for our listeners. We didn't share the results of any of this because we wanted it to be real time. But this is the one that I honed into. I'm like, what did he do? Because I know you've been rolling pretty well this summer.

Rob: 24:10

You said sweating going into this one. I should have been sweating a lot more going into this one, is what you should have said. The sad part is, and I will actually put throw myself out there a little bit. The sad part is, Brent, is I did one of those ProLon fasts as we started the summer. And I said, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to jump start this thing. I'm going to do a ProLon fast, which I know you've done before. It's basically a box of meals. Well, it's not really meals, it's like soups and partial meals. It's not a lot of food. A couple hundred calories at the end of this thing. I did a ProLon fast to kick off the summer and supercharge the intro into this. I lost 10 pounds in like five days. I'm like, I'm on fire. This is going to be a piece of cake. I'm down 10 already. So I'm up five from the beginning of the summer, but I'm not up five from when we did the recording. So I'm going to chalk that up to I'm down five, not up five from my lowest point over the summer.

Brent: 25:01

Hey, you know, I have done that ProLon intermittent fast so many times. I think I've done it like four times, and every time I lose a bunch, and it just takes me all of two weeks to just put it all right back on because it is just starvation. I mean, you're literally going down for me. I'm going down from 3,000 calories a day, let's say, to down to 800. So you're just fasting. You're like, wow, of course you're going to lose a lot of weight. But to sustain that, really, really challenging. But I'm proud of you. You did it. Did you learn like anything from this just from the process? We've always we've talked a lot on this podcast about in midlife how things are just a little bit harder. You know, I when you threw that out there, that felt like it was a 30-year-old saying, I'm going to lose 20 pounds in the next three months. Did you learn anything from that big of a goal in that period of time at midlife? Maybe it's a little different.

Rob: 25:56

Yeah, definitely a little bit different at midlife. Um, I also, and I was going to share this at the end, the biggest learning I had overall for the for this uh challenge, Brent, was what I typically will schedule will get done. And I went into this summer with a very loose schedule from a training standpoint. So it wasn't a structured schedule. I have no races on the calendar, no big events, which is something I'm struggling with right now a little bit. And not having things scheduled and structured really is what prevented a lot of this, a lot of the change in this area. Um, I don't want to quite say that it's my age that's going to make this a harder thing to go and do. I still think I can build a ton of muscle. I think I can do all of that stuff like I was when I was in my 20s and 30s. That's not reality, but I'm not going to say that just yet. It's got it's schedule. It's scheduling it, it's not, it's not my age that's causing that.

Brent: 26:44

That's to me, it comes down to mindfulness. I mean, just being aware of everything, which leads into my goal for health. So you gave me a lot of flack for this one. This one's funny.

Rob: 26:55

So I'm going to share it with Brent. So my goal for the summer was to lose between 15 and 20 pounds of body weight. Brent's goal was to take pictures of his food.

Brent: 27:06

So you still laugh about this to this day. So I'm going to throw a little bit of mud in your face on this one. So my goal was to track my food. This was actually the hardest goal of all of them for me, because you have to be disciplined. So I signed up for an app that actually it's like a calorie counter app. It's got AI in it, it's got all these things where you can take a if you don't have a barcode for the food, let's say, or if you don't know it, like you're at a restaurant, you can just take a picture of it and it'll do its best to kind of decompose it, break it down, and then you can kind of modify it from there. So that's the taking picture of it. So Rob just couldn't get over the whole taking pictures of my food. But this was actually a fascinating period of time for me. I've never done anything like this, and it was so eye-opening for me. I actually did not enjoy tracking my food because it's actually like you have to be very disciplined. I made it two out of the three months. So I stopped at the beginning of August. I'll tell you why. But Rob, what I learned is there's some real humor involved in this one, but also some reality that's set in. The humor is I routinely sit down after dinner and I'll make some sort of dessert of some sort, but nothing like a, you know, a big cake or anything like that. But a lot of times, like I'll have granola and I might mix it with like yogurt and put some fruit on it. What I never really understood because I wouldn't pay attention to it at all, is I might just do a second helping of granola. So I started learning that some of these things that I was making would be a solid 800 to a thousand calories.

Rob: 28:47

As an after dinner snack dessert.

Brent: 28:49

Yes, and not real dessert. It was just like I just was mindlessly consuming calories. Like it wasn't anything where I was even paying attention to. I just like it's like chips, you know, like tortilla chips. Just reach into the bag, have a few more. So I was tracking that. And I would do that before I'd eat lunch as an example. I just have a few, but a few was like 30. And then you're like, well, that was like 600 calories of just nothing. Like it was just purely like this is not adding any value. So that was the coolest part of it was actually understanding like these random snack-a-thons that I do. I would just be like, you just ate like 1500 calories, not even knowing it. And to add to this, I actually did a little uh online class on meals and just eating and habits and stuff while I was doing this. Because I was just, I said, if I'm going to do this, let why don't I just keep learning about it? Like make it a growth experiment. So that was the aha moments that when I went through this, it's like the mindlessness of just the eating habits that I had was like, oh my gosh, like why did I go over my calorie intake by like 500 today? And then I just look back at the data and be like, oh, it was that. Yeah, it wasn't like one, like I have all the bars, let's say protein bars or whatever. It wasn't one. Sometimes I just like I'm going to have another. And well, not knowing that each one's 300 calories. So the little bit of mud in your face by just doing this exercise, I too got on the scale the first day, and I got on the scale this morning. I lost eight pounds, Rob. Eight just from paying attention and taking pictures. Yes, taking pictures of my food. I lost eight pounds, and it's all about awareness. Like I was surprised. I got on this morning and I did a little bit of a yes, because I remember when I said this, I didn't have the intentions of doing this. But I learned from it. But I have to tell you the thing that was the most valuable part of this, and I haven't shared much about this, is I actually needed the data this summer because I was experiencing some GI-related stuff with my gut. And I have to take you back of some poor decision making on my part back in April. So I was on this uh trip to Moab. I was mountain biking with my brother, and we were talking about protein intake. And we hear so much about protein, protein, protein. And we were like, yeah, I think I'm going to, I'm like, I think I'm going to increase my protein. I'm going to do it the easy way. And so I doubled the amount of protein that I would have in my morning shake. And that's just, and I have very clean protein and so forth, but I went from 20 grams to 40 grams. Of course, what do I do? I ask AI, I said, Hey, what do you think? Oh, your body can totally handle it. Most people can get up to 50 in one blast, no problem. About two weeks later, uh-uh, body was not handling it, and my stomach was kind of like off, and I'm just like, man, I don't feel right. Okay, so fast forward, I did it. I and then I just started saying it's got to be the protein type. So I and I do all the plant-based proteins. So I went from like this pea-based one, and then I did a rice one, and I did all these different types, same issues, still doing a lot of it. So then I cut it out entirely. Well, it wasn't fixing the problem. So then I uh did some more research, and essentially what happened, Rob, is I that blast of protein that I was doing, it was too much for my body to process in a short amount of time. And so what it does is it sits in your small intestine and it basically ferments and creates a bacteria. And that bacteria, it's not none of this is like an unhealthy scenario. It's not like I'm dying, it was just purely like uncomfortable. And it creates a bacteria, and you have to uh so I altered my gut. So then what I was able to do with all that data is I was actually able to go back and look at what I've been eating was actually feeding that bacteria. So I had to pull some of that out. So I eat a lot of pistachio as an example, or if I would eat certain blackberries as an example, it feeds that type of bacteria and it's like, oh, I'm hungry. So anything that has like a sugary, a certain type of sugars, I don't eat a lot of processed sugars, but if I would have that, it would be like high fructose if it shows up in a drink or something like that, or a sports drink, it would feed that bacteria and my gut would still just be imbalanced. So that data became very, very useful for me, which was an unintended part of this process. But I was able to reverse all of those things and fix it. But the reason I stopped tracking at the beginning of August was I actually was on a very simple diet because I needed to stop eating some of these certain types of foods and like beans, legumes, all those things feed that bacteria. And it just to get it out of my gut, you have to kind of just kill it and reset your gut. So I was like, well, I'm kind of on this boring diet right now. I don't need to really track the boring diet just to make me feel like I'm not eating anything interesting. So I learned a lot, but the other thing I learned from the data, and I think it's worth sharing to our listeners, is I always had this belief that I needed to have more fiber because you hear that too. Eat a lot of protein, eat a lot of fiber. And so I was like, I bought the fiber powder, you know, I was like, I'm going to add it to my super drink in the morning. I didn't do that, but through the data, I am getting plenty of fiber. Like, and just because I was tracking my food. So there was a lot of benefits from this. I learned a lot from AI. I learned a lot from just actually calling my doc and be like, hey, I'm dealing with this. And I talked to a GI doc and she was amazing. And she's like, actually, this isn't that hard to solve. Is and I said, I have all this data. She goes, Well, you've already kind of answered some of my questions. We just need to eliminate these things for a few weeks. So, Rob, it was actually it's funny when we started it because it was funny about the pictures and all that, but I actually needed that information because I needed to fix a few things and I was able to do that. So kudos there. But I would say that this was uh harder than I thought because tracking your food, I don't know if you have you ever done that before? No, I've never done it. It's actually challenging. I mean, and the apps are great. I mean, there's so many good apps that can help you do this. So that was a positive to it. So I could actually go look at the data, all that. But I had to track all of my little snacking and I did it like hardcore, Rob. I did not, I was tracking water intake, I was tracking it real time because I said, if I'm going to do this, I want to do it right. So I have now the benefit of having a data set that I typically consume more calories, and I'm no shock here than I need. But I had it attached to my uh athletic activities as well. So all of it was it was really cool, but it does take a lot of discipline. And um, but I do know in the future, a lesson learned is if I ever want to change something in my diet, like, hey, I need more fiber, start with something like a simple app to track like what's your baseline before you add a bunch. The protein was something that I never would have anticipated having GI issues from that, like never. And I was I learned a lot, Rob. So two follow-up questions for you. One is your gut back to normal. Yeah, it's pretty much. I mean, the hard thing with your uh small intestine or anything in your gut is it does take a lot of time to reset. So I probably like 90% there. I'm I feel great. I good. And I know the cool thing is I know what kind of triggers that bacteria now. So I learned a lot from that, and that was a positive part of it. Uh so yeah, I feel pretty good. And that's a good thing that came out unintended, Rob. Like it was a good thing that came out from this.

Rob: 36:48

All right. So my second question is, and maybe I should start taking pictures of my food, so I think I might get the app that might help. But do you think it was the taking pictures of your food that helped you lost eight pounds or the really bland diet you've been on for the last month? Because you'd probably not be eating a lot of bland food right now. So like, oh, I'm on this weird diet. Is it the pictures or is it the diet most recently?

Brent: 37:10

Uh, so I think you're a very wise one on this one, Rob. To answer your question, no, because I actually weighed myself before I went on that uh special diet, and I was still eight pounds down.

Rob: 37:21

Okay. All right.

Brent: 37:22

So that was a few weeks ago. So I was still I was actually even lighter. I think I was 10 pounds down. Nice because I was on it.

Rob: 37:29

All right. All right.

Rob: 37:31

The next category, Brent, we had was purpose. And I know this was an area you were really excited about going into the summer as well, is aligning more of your time with some of the causes and areas that you care about. So why don't you share with the group or share with our audience what was your goal around purpose and how did you do?

Brent: 37:49

I wanted to go a little bit more into some of the nonprofits that I'm involved in, that I've maybe made donations to or I've reached out to. And I decided to go all in on one of them in particular, not all in, but I put more effort towards it. So you and I and some friends, we adopted a trail in our local community uh last year. And so there's a requirement that you do, I think, six or nine hours of trail work with your group over the summer. So I said, well, I'm going to actually kind of double that, get closer to 15 to 20. And so I did meet my goal and I had a lot of fun doing it. You were on, you know, most of those with me. It was so fun. And we met a group of people that do some trail work every other week. They're so awesome. And so we got to meet them, they're active in our community, they show up for all these different kinds of trail work days. So you're out there, you're doing manual labor, you're meeting people. Afterwards, you know, you're able to have a beer and you know, have some pizza and just kind of have fun with it. So I actually enjoyed it a lot and it gave me kind of this window into the nonprofit space of spending time, and I liked it. So now that translates for me is to say that as summer wraps up with the trail work, because it usually stops sometime in September as the season changes, what is going to be my winter? And I'll have to figure that out too. I have some ideas. I did go to another nonprofit event that I think I can get involved with them. Um I went to one of their gatherings and kind of learned about it. So I spent time with them. And I think there's a new next one that I'll do in the winter months that has more indoor-related activities. So I loved it, Rob. It was so fun. And I'm glad this was like a smiling moment for me when I was reviewing this because I was a little bit like, oh my gosh, like, okay, now going to meet people I don't know again. And there's a theme here and similar to the relationships, but I met some really cool people and I actually like the work. I like the manual labor. It's nice to just get out there and you know, use picks and shovels and solve some. We did some really cool trail work this summer. We routed some trails that were kind of beat up, and it was a lot of fun.

Rob: 40:04

It was a lot of fun getting out in the trails. And one of the things, this is a callback to an episode that came out like the week before we did some trail work, and you were sharing uh about your back injury. And you and I are out in the trail and we're moving some big logs around, and I'm deep and I'm like in a really awkward position moving a log around, and you just started laughing. You go, we just talked about this in an episode, Rob, about not doing stupid stuff with our bodies to get hurt and ruin the rest of the summer. And here I am in this trench moving this log around, totally awkward. Lucky I didn't hurt myself, but that was the last log like that I had moved during that work day. I let a lot of the younger guys go out and actually work their backs a little bit harder.

Brent: 40:48

Yeah, I started to you know pick up the rakes and the shovels and the things that I knew that I could manage, but then that log that we were trying to move was massive. It wasn't a log, it was like a tree. Yeah, you know, we were just trying to move it. And here's Rob like going all in. And I'm like, this might not end well. And we just talked about it. That's back to this let we don't learn very well, do we?

Rob: 41:12

No, we don't. We do stupid stuff. Yeah, and I'll probably do it again, not thinking about it like I'm in my 20s. Like, I can do anything, it's not going to hurt.

Brent: 41:19

Yeah, and then you pay the price.

Rob: 41:21

Yeah, so mine is this is another category Brent for me that I wish I had that extra week in this summer that August only has four days in it, it feels like, because I was hoping to find that extra nonprofit. So my goal was to identify an additional nonprofit to actually become involved with. And so we do a lot of the trail work. I think I have more trail hours in doing work this summer than I ever have before. It's easy for me to go and do, it's already something that's scheduled. We schedule some in advance. I get text messages from friends that have some trails in the area that have adopted them. So I just get it acts on me to go and do it. My goal was to find one additional nonprofit. And I didn't do that. I actually reached out to one. I was really excited about one of the nonprofits to work with, and I wanted to actually become part of local search and rescue in our area. I think that would be a really fun one to get involved with. And the reply I was actually shocked that I got was um it actually was a year old. So it actually was dated 2025 that we're not looking for any more search and rescue volunteers. And I would have thought in our community, I know we have a lot of professionals like ski patrol and medics and outdoor guides and things like that would be part of it. But I would think in our community, we have a large need for it because we're a lot of a tourist that are going out in the woods doing fun stuff that might need help. And so I got a reply saying they don't need anybody else for search and rescue right now. I'm going to keep that on the radar going forward as something I would still like to go and do. But this is an area I did not get anything additional done.

Brent: 42:47

I think on that one, Rob, I think it's probably worth digging a little bit more, you know, getting to know a few of the people because it probably there's a way to learn a little bit more about what they do. This has been a very strange summer in our community because it's been so hot and the fear of all the fires and all those things. So probably the timing for them is still like, oh gosh, another dude that just wants to get in and try to help out that we have to, you know, manage. So there might be an angle there to, because we probably have some common friends that might have some, you know, access to that community. Yeah.

Rob: 43:22

Last category I'm actually really excited to talk about, go figure, it's adventure, as I like to do a lot of adventures. For my goal for adventure was to actually move five items on my 50 things that I want to learn list during my 50s. So one of our early, early episodes was about I created a list of 50 items that I want to learn how to do. So it isn't a uh a bucket list per se, it was more of a learning list to engage my mind and body doing something that takes me out of my comfort zone. And my goal this summer was to move five items forward on that list. Now, it may not be at perfection because I don't think some of these things I'll never say I'm an expert. I'm very happy to say that of the list of that I provided of the things I wanted to try and do this summer, I provided six things I wanted to move five forward, actually move four of them forward. So I'm actually happy about the four that I moved forward. I have spent some time learning how to fly a drone, which has been a lot of fun and do some drone videos. I know I've sent you a couple of videos, Brent, and I even sent them to music. It's mountain biking with my dog running in front of me and stuff. That was fun. Uh I actually completed the Wilderness First Responder class, which was actually a lot of fun to go and do. It was 80 hours, uh 30 hours of self-study and 50 hours in a class to learn how to keep people alive when I'm out in the woods doing fun and stupid stuff. So that was a great class and a great experience for me. And something I'd recommend for anybody that does stuff in the outdoors, just having a basic knowledge around not just first aid, but kind of life-saving first aid and be able to keep someone alive until people that really know what they're doing show up. So I was able to move that one forward and I got my Wilderness First Responder certificate. I have moved forward on my espresso, so I actually feel really good about making a cup of espresso. I realized that actually my machine I had dialed in completely incorrectly on the espresso machine, and so the pressure wasn't correct. That was a pretty quick fix to get it on a much better trend than it was before. Because when I started this, they were awful. It was just disgusting tasting. I could fix it with milk and sugar, which that didn't help my diet either. I was having much milk and sugar I was trying to fix the espresso with. Now I'm getting pretty close on a really good cup of espresso. Uh I did and I moved surfing forward with the surfing class that we had. The other two items, solve a Rubik's Cube and uh ride a unicycle. In order to move those forward, I actually have to touch them this summer. And I didn't touch the Rubik's Cube. I did not touch the unicycle. Didn't even put either one in my hand over the summer. The unicycle is hanging on a rack in the garage, and the Rubik's Cube is sitting in the drawer of my office.

Brent: 46:03

You know what was funny when you did this originally is I was like, why did he actually pick six things versus just pick one? But it was just shows like this overachiever mentality that we bring to this. It's like, hey, I'm going to lose 20 pounds, I'm going to do this. What the highlight for me and your list is you did a significant class. Like your wilderness class was incredible when you say 80 hours, but I was kind of playing along with you real time, and you're getting ready for it, and you're doing all this online training, and then you had five days at the actual camp to do the outdoor portion of it, and like you were so jazzed, and the things that you learned, and they we were going back through different kind of health scare scenarios of people that we've encountered on trails, and you know, there were some issues going on even in Costa Rica. There was one of the youth had some challenges one night just with his health, and so it was like you were using the skills real time. So congrats to you on that one. But it was funny when I was like, why does he have to put out like, is he trying to one up me on the list? Possibly, huh? Possibly. You're like, hey, adventure's my category, Brent. I'm going to own it. I own it. I'm the adventure guy.

Rob: 47:16

Well, it's actually because I need to, in order to hit my 50 things during the decade of my 50s, I got to move five a year forward at least to get somewhere. That's where the five came from. Is I have to move five forward someplace.

Brent: 47:29

Totally. Well, mine was a little bit different from I picked one thing and we bought these uh, or I bought a pack raft, which you introduced me to. A pack raft, uh, for those that are unfamiliar with them, is like a small inflatable kayak. And it's meant that you could backpack with it. It's really lightweight. And so I had this goal to take you to this lake that I've been to, and we're going to do an overnighter and we're going to do a pack raft uh kind of adventure on this lake. Well, we ended up not doing that, but we did pivot and we took the pack rafts out twice on a local river before the rivers got too low to do it. And I have to tell you, that was so much fun. So the first time I was super nervous because I've never done anything like that. And you and Tara were so graceful with me. So thank you again. That was a cool experience. But we ended up going the next weekend and we took my son, my younger son, and he loved it because he kind of was riding with you a little bit with it, you know, just next to you, and he was good and he was just having a blast. And that was like the highlight for me. So I feel like we did knock this one off the list. We may have not done an overnighter, but we actually did two adventures in our pack raft. Those were both beautiful days. You and Tara were so gracious with me of just kind of teaching me some of the ins and outs of it, and you know, just the fun that you can have with it. So I loved it. I can't wait till we do more adventures, but this was a cool adventure to take, and I'm glad that we got to do uh it a few times together because it was something that I had on my list and we did it, and thank you. So it was so fun.

Rob: 49:04

So if you haven't seen what a pack raft looks like, look them up online. They're actually very stable in water. And when you Brent, when you said you wanted to go pack raft around a flat lake, I was you had never been in one of these things before, not to know how stable it was. I'm like, oh, okay. It hopefully it's really pretty because that's going to be really boring, just paddling around a flat lake. Um, and having you had not had that experience. And so there's part of me that said, you know what? I know Brent could get into some white water. And so we took you into some white water. It's a class two, three section of river we took you down. Had no fear that you were going to have an issue at all during it. We have all the safety equipment and things like that. You were awesome as you started paddling. I could see you were nervous, which was kind of fun. Tara and I giggled a little bit how nervous you were when you first started. And we didn't necessarily throw you in the deep end or throw you to the wolves and put something beyond what we knew you could actually do. It was a very safe area we were taking you down, but you did awesome paddling through that section of river.

Brent: 50:03

Thank you. I was super nervous. I totally was because I've never done anything like that. And I know you guys have done lots of things, and you're also very experienced just paddling with your raft and then the kayaks and all that. So I just don't have that in my background. So I was super nervous. And me throwing out the lake was just a way of like, I just got to get in this at least one time and try it. I'm glad I did the river so I feel confident there. The lake would be really cool because we were going to bring our fishing gear and kind of pull off and go to different spots because there's nobody up there. So we would have just that was probably more of like access to different fishing water that we could take advantage of. But the river was so fun. It was we were lucky. It was beautiful days both times. And unfortunately, I don't think that lake would have been great this summer because the amount of fires that have been in the surrounding states, just the smoke levels would have been pretty high up there. So, you know, there's always a next time, but thank you for being patient with me because it was so fun. Can't wait till we do it again.

Rob: 51:00

Well, now selfishly, you're going to feel more confident doing another river, and hopefully that means we'll take you into the Bob Marshall wilderness next summer and actually do some real pack rafting, hiking in and spending five or six days on a river. That's a great idea. Love it.

Rob: 51:13

All right, Brent, as we wrap up, my biggest question for you is what did you learn over this summer that you're going to implement and you're going to use going forward? So, what happened with the five challenges that are going to continue forward, or what did you learn that you want to change about how you approach different goals that you have going into the second half of this year and beyond?

Brent: 51:35

I think the biggest one for me is I think there's tools and stuff. So, like the health stuff's great, and that's tools that I can apply in the future as needed, but it was about relationships and really it showed up a couple different ways through the volunteering work and through this men's, you know, golfing group. And I think one of the challenges that I get into and I put myself in this isolation is like I have this fear of meeting people, and it's just like I'm nervous and I'm naturally an introvert. So me putting myself out there showed how much fun I can have and how many people are in similar boats. Like when I was playing golf with people, they're like, hey, this is great. Uh it's so fun. You want to play another time? And I was like, Yeah, you can meet people in different things. Same thing on the trails, like meeting really cool people that are sharing their experiences and oh, I use this trail this way. And I guarantee you, there's one guy that I met the last two times I went, and he's like a mountain biker, he's a runner. He would be easy, just be like, Hey, you want to go do that? So it was really cool. And I think what it taught me is in midlife, that's one of the things that you got to put yourself out there. And putting yourself out there, there's a lot of people that are in a very similar situation that you're in, and they're just trying to navigate new friends because we've talked a lot about like deal friends and real friends, had lots of work friends, but when the work kind of went away, I got to meet some real friends, and there's ways to do it that actually can be really fun. So that was my biggest takeaway that I'll continuously push myself to get in environments where I'm meeting new people because it's quite fun.

Rob: 53:09

There's that episode of The Four Seasons. I think you and I have talked about this before, where um the middle-aged man is meeting a friend for the first time on the beach, and the wife goes, Oh, look, my midlife husband is making a friend.

Brent: 53:22

Yeah, Tina Fey, that her character, and she's like, Oh my gosh, is this possible? Can this happen in the wild? And he's in his midlife, and he's going to meet a friend, a stranger. That's uh The Four Seasons for those that haven't watched it. It's a comedy that's on Netflix and it's a series, and it's quite funny. But this was like the opening line on their trailer, and we're laughing because we're like, that's us. That's true. Trying to make a friend.

Rob: 53:49

Yeah. My learning, Brent, this summer was uh twofold. One is being careful not to bite off more than I can chew, and actually being really um kind to myself. So I'm not beating myself up for this list and not missing anything in this list, which I'm happy that I don't do anymore. I used to, I used to do that. If I missed a goal, I beat myself up. I should have been able to do it. But the biggest thing for me is prioritizing, are these things truly important? And if they are, I need to schedule them. And going into the summer, we had a ton of time available to be able to do stuff. We had the entire summer available and it wound down to the end where I'm trying to think about cramming stuff in here, like studying for finals right at the end, you know, pulling all nighters. And if they truly were important to me, I should have put them on the calendar and actually scheduled myself to do them. And if they're not important, that's okay too. And I can give myself that grace. But scheduling it for me, and it's different than you and I've talked about before, is that, you know, I've seen people that have retired in generations before us, and they schedule one thing to do in a day, and that's the entire day that they have. I'm not going to say solving a Rubik's Cube is the only thing I'm going to do in a day. I'm very happy about the fact that I've been able to stack a lot of activities, and we did a ton of things over the summer, between volunteering and rafting trips and van trips and hikes and running and mountain biking. There was a ton of activity that happened over the summer. But I started the summer with some intention of accomplishing some things that I didn't get accomplished. And if I do want to really accomplish these things and, you know, the accomplishment drive and the achiever thing, that's still part of me. I do need to take more intention around it and actually schedule time to go and do it. That's the biggest learning I have. So going forward, it's if I'm going to say I'm going to do something, am I willing to put it on a calendar to actually schedule it to go and do? That's the learning I had moving forward.

Brent: 55:39

And also I like how you said this. And I want to reiterate because I did the same thing as sometimes it's okay to let go of a goal. And it was me, unlike the health tracking, I got to the beginning of August. I'm like, okay, I've done enough. Like I the only reason I do it is just for this one episode to say I did it, but that actually doesn't really add much more value to the actual experiment or experience that I was going through. And so, like being able to let something go, but if it's important to you, you got to make time for it. So if it's important for you to really dial in your health, then you got to put time aside for your health. If it's important for you to go on more adventures, you got to put a time aside to go on adventures. That's the big learning or meeting new people, you got to put yourself out there, you know. But it's also okay to let a few things go. And that's definitely a learning experience that we're continuously going to go through because of that overachiever mindset. We're used to like hit your goals, hit your goals, do everything, hit your goals. That's kind of the old you, Rob. That's the old brand. You know, we got to let some of those things go.

Brent: 56:42

The way we like to wrap up our episodes is gratitude. And what I want to share today is gratitude for our listeners, Rob. One thing that you and I, I don't think we've shared on the podcast, but we hit a huge milestone at the beginning of the summer, and we achieved 100,000 downloads of the Midlife Circus podcast. So that was episodes. That only happens because of our listeners. So we have to thank our listeners for that. Similar to some of the other stats that we've thrown out over the course of this podcast, that puts us in the top 5% of podcasts globally. We did that when we hit that milestone, Rob, I think we were about six or seven months into the podcast. So it happened really fast for us. So we're really excited for that. But that's our gratitude back to our listeners. As Rob alluded to earlier in this podcast, one thing that we're looking for you is as our listeners, if you have any feedback for us or if you want to participate in our focus group, and we're not going to do it as a group, it'll just be one-on-one discussions. Just message a show. We'd love to hear from you. And as a byproduct of some of these conversations, there might be some formatting changes. Like we may change up a little bit of the cadence of our show. We do bi-weekly right now. We might mix it up or we might do an episode once a month, but it might be a different type of episode. So just know that the best way for you to stay in tune and connected with us is following the show. That's the easiest way. And you might see some modifications, but we're going to keep doing what we're doing. We love doing this, and it's all because of you, you, the listeners. So we're just have a deep appreciation for you spending time with us to listen to us and our stories, and hopefully you're getting something from it. And if you're getting something from it, we always ask, share it with a friend. That's a great way to keep the show growing and evolving, is to share it and expand the audience. So we just encourage you to do that. So to sign off today, it's just pure gratitude for our listeners. We thank you, and uh we'll be with you next time.

Lena: 58:49

That's it for this episode of Midlife Circus. Visit midlifecircus.fm. And be sure to join us in the Midlife Circus community on Substack. Follow Midlife Circus on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcast so you never miss your next great act. Quick reminder the opinions and stories shared here are personal reflections, not professional advice. This show is for entertainment and inspiration only. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you under the Big Top next time. Midlife Circus is a Burning Matches Media production.