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Welcome back to Beyond Small Talk, What Men Don't Say.
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Today's conversation is one that I've been uh looking forward to for a while.
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Partly because my guest, and as like to say, my co-host is a good friend of mine, uh, but mostly because his story, his story gives me an opportunity to talk about something that is very relevant to me, and in my opinion, a lot of men struggle with and probably don't talk about nearly enough.
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Uh, Chandler is a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, and one of the founders of Relay.
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He spent several years helping uh build a company he deeply believes in while at the same time building a family, trying to figure out and trying to figure out all the responsibilities that come with all of that.
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And that really interests me today, and I believe it interests a lot of people who listen to this podcast because betting on yourself is one thing when you're only one person taking all the risk.
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Uh, but what happens when you're married?
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Uh, what happens when you have children?
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What happens when people uh depend on your income?
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Uh, what happens when the dream that you are uh chasing now coexists with mortgages, groceries, health insurance, career decisions, and uh and the responsibility of providing stability, growth, and hope for others that you really care about and not just yourself?
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I really want to kind of touch on some of those topics.
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I want to touch on uh refusing to give up.
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Is that perseverance at what point uh does that touch a little bit on concepts like like ego?
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Uh at one point, changing the plan uh might be giving in, or changing a plan might be just a responsible thing to do.
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And maybe underneath all of that, there is a bigger question.
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How much of our identity as men gets wrapped up in what we build, what we earn, our ability to provide.
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When I when I asked Chandler if he was willing to have this conversation with me because I knew a little bit about and his his uh his uh story and what he was going through, I kind of gave him a rough idea of what I wanted to to uh talk to me about.
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And his response basically uh set it all for me.
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And and maybe Chandler remembers this and I'm kind of paraphrasing, but he said, dude, I could share some raw stuff.
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I've been going through the gauntlet.
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So, Chandler, my friend, welcome to Beyond Small Talk.
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I'm gonna give you the floor to say hello, but I'm gonna right off the bat start with that question.
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Tell us a little bit about this gauntlet that you've been going through.
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Oh man, well, that's that is one way to tee up the introduction.
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It's great to be here, my friend.
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I've uh I've missed uh chatting with you.
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It's great.
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Uh we're just looking at the calendar, trying to figure out how long it's been.
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We're coming up on three years of knowing each other, and we've had a lot of really deep, uh, I would say beyond small talk conversations in our time knowing each other.
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Absolutely.
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But yeah, I guess you you kind of summarized a lot of my last uh few years very well in building a startup, uh building a family.
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We actually just hit our seven-year anniversary, uh, my wife and I, this last weekend.
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Um we live in Salt Lake City, Utah, and uh it's uh we didn't know this at the time, but we got married near the end of September, and the leaves start to change colors here, and it's just this beautiful uh nature scene with red and orange leaf colors all over the mountains, and and so we'll usually go to Park City to to celebrate.
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And um, anyways, so coming up on on or we just passed our seven-year uh milestone, and we've got two little boys now.
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So we have a two and a half-year-old, and uh just recently added our second little boy as well, um, who's now six months.
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And so we're in the thick of it.
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It's uh yeah, when you texted me, I I can't remember if I uh if it was work stress or family stress or probably all of the above, but um let's just say we're not sleeping a whole lot at this stage of life.
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Um I I recently transitioned out of the startup that I was building for the last five years and in a new job now where um, you know, I maybe expected it to be a little bit slower or or less intense, but in many ways it's just as intense, if not more.
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Um at a bigger company with a lot of responsibility.
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And and so yeah, it's like, you know, I'm uh coming up on 30 years old, which which uh to disclose my age, you know, I'm I'm still fairly young, but in the b in the years of trying to establish my career and and at the same time, it's like you know, I I want to balance being successful and working on things that I care about in my work.
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And and then in my home and my personal life, I want to feel like I'm um just as present there.
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And I'm sure we can get into it, but but what I'll say right off the bat to be to be totally vulnerable is I don't feel like I've got it all figured out.
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I constantly feel like the math doesn't add up, that there's not enough time in a day to actually be good at all of these different areas of my life, um, whether it's taking care of myself, taking care of my marriage, taking care of my kids, taking care of my work.
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Um it's it's too much.
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And I think even just acknowledging that has helped me feel less, less like kind of guilt about, oh man, I need to somehow be more of superman.
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Um But I think there's a lot of lessons and things that I am learning and trying to work at, and I'm happy to share.
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I love that.
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That's a pretty good intro.
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Uh before I get to some of my questions that I have for you, Chandler, can you give us a kind of two-minute version of uh the company that that you built to start with?
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Kind of take us to Relay and tell the audience what that is all about.
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Yeah, Relay is a uh men's health platform.
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It's really a uh group-based recovery tool that helps people that are dealing with unwanted sexual behavior like pornography, um, other forms of unwanted behavior, and how to help provide community and accountability and um brings in a lot of psychology with some therapists that we partnered with over the years to create a resource like you know, AA and 12-step groups have been around for many years and traditional recovery scenes.
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Um but we've got modern uh vices, if you will.
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Uh, pornography, obviously, with the advent of the internet, became way more prolific and um widespread.
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And then, you know, you had smartphones and social media just in the last 10 to 15 years, and that's only exploded even more.
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And now I would say, even beyond that, in the last five-ish years, you get uh sports uh prediction markets, sports gambling, um, all of these things.
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Uh you could throw out video games too.
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Like there's just so many things that are attacking the dopamine of young people, and particularly targets young men.
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Um, it also targets women as well.
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Um, whether you're a moral person, a religious person, or or not, um, I probably have talked to literally over a thousand people uh just as I'm talking to you right now, and have had conversations about these things that are somewhat taboo or maybe not as frequently talked about, but I actually think are becoming way and more normal to speak about.
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And and really the reason I built relay was I felt like um, you know, I got exposed early on when I was a teenager, and I honestly didn't feel like I had a choice.
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Uh it it kind of took a hold of my brain before I really knew what was happening.
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And um, you know, there's a whole uh layer of shame and self-control and wanting to feel like, you know, I'm I'm really living aligned with my true values and just feeling that lack of control that honestly started so young before I even knew what was going on.
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It just feels unfair.
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And so uh really it's not about pornography, it's not really about any one of these vices.
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It's about how do we help make it easier to be a healthy, whole human being in a world where, man, it is just harder and harder and feels like there's all these headwinds, you know, attacking people younger and younger, making it uh, you know, harder for our brains and our relationships to be healthy.
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And that's really what I became passionate about.
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I spent five years building relay and uh had a great run with it.
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It's still going today.
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Uh my co-founder Jace is still running it and ultimately got to a place where um, yeah, for me, it just started to feel like I needed to move on to something else full-time, but it's a mission I care deeply about, helping guys be healthy.
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Thank you so much.
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What a uh wonderful introduction.
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It actually links up really well with our previous episode with Matt Wenger from the Begin Again Institute.
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We got a really good conversation about some of the uh challenges that you alluded to.
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Uh, before I go to the human side of the question or the uh the discussion, because I want to go back to your progression and the last few years.
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Um, I do want to applaud you and your colleagues at Relay.
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You guys are building something very wonderful.
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I certainly wish all of you a ton of success uh for your own personal benefit as well as uh the society as a whole.
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But you were talking about uh this uh mission of uh feeling whole as as a person, kind of as sort of an underlying uh ambition behind uh relay.
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That takes me to to my next question.
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Uh you you obviously are a very ambitious person, you've been working on relay, and you alluded to that recently you've had to uh think about a new course of action for yourself and your family.
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So my question is did uh becoming a husband and and father change the way you thought about uh ambition?
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That's a great question.
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Um yeah, it's a really good question.
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I feel like ambition has always been kind of embedded within me and something that I it's not like something I think about or or necessarily try to channel.
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It just feels like if if I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna work hard at it.
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If I'm gonna try to build a new skill, I'm gonna try to be the best that I can be, not necessarily compared to anyone else, but just because I I find more satisfaction in that.
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Um I think there's a lot of motivations that drive ambition.
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Um, early on when I first got exposed to startups, I remember uh I interned for this startup and was reporting to the CEO and it was my first real work experience.
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We were building a new product, they had just gotten some funding, and I ended up, you know, spending the better part of two years of my undergrad time uh working on the side at the startup.
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And it just kind of opened this whole new world for me of like, wow, it's so cool to build a brand new product that is trying to solve an unmet need in the world, an unmet problem in the market.
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And how do you build something that that people really love to use that actually solves their problem that also helps grow the business?
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Like I kind of liked all sides of it.
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I taught myself to code a little bit.
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Um, and this is before I got married.
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Um, you know, fast forward, I got married pretty young.
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I was still in college at the time.
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I was about to graduate.
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And I remember my wife, what you know, what I fell in love with her about early on was she, I think, was very aligned in this, I don't know if you'd call ambition or just what we value in in life, where um we just would always talk about these uh deep topics and like the things that we were working on and why certain projects felt appealing to us.
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We actually were on a volunteer-based project to try to improve the mobility for people with handicap, like wheelchairs or crutches around our college campus.
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And she was the project lead on that, and that's where we met, um, which maybe sounds noble.
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It really, I was like, yeah, I kind of need some volunteer experience on my resume.
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So maybe I should, it sounds like a good thing to do.
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I wasn't really like, you know, that that uh noble about it.
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But um, you know, we started dating and I think quickly realized that even though her and I felt so aligned on um, and we talked about this like early in my career, I want to be able to work really hard.
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And that might mean long hours, that might mean some sacrifices in some areas.
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And are you okay with that?
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Am I okay with that?
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What is the motivation?
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Is it to to get ahead and to save a lot of money?
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Is it to be able to work on problem spaces that are impactful or interesting?
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Um, and I think early on we aligned on like, yeah, like if I'm gonna spend a bunch of time in my life on a career, I want to spend it working on things that I am passionate about that I that I can feel like leave a mark on the world.
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And so we were philosophically aligned, and I would say still are philosophically aligned.
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But I remember uh this is a long-winded way of kind of answering the question as we get into marriage early on in our first couple of years, she started dealing with some mental health uh things.
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Um this is around the time of COVID.
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So she she felt a lot of depression and anxiety that maybe was related to COVID, maybe it was just general.
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And that was a really tough time period.
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And I think she uh started to feel like, man, you know, Chandler juggling, uh, you know, work, uh, I was wrapping up my degree.
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Um, there just wasn't a lot of time, honestly, to spend as much time just hanging out, being together as we did when we were dating.
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And even though we were aligned on the reasons behind that, the rationale behind that, it didn't necessarily change how it felt for our relationship.
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And it's it definitely created some real strain.
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It was something that honestly, we are like, to be totally candid, are still kind of figuring out like what that balance really is.
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Cause it's like we still agree that, you know, building relay for the last five years has been the right thing to do.
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But it has absolutely cost some uh opportunities of being able to, you know, whether it's spending more quality time together, or maybe I could have been making more money doing something else.
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So we could have spent more money taking trips or vacations or taking more time off than I otherwise did running my own business.
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Um, it's hard.
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I think marriage, you know, it it's been a tough thing to realize like we are aligned together in our marriage that we want together to work on things that uh have mission behind them.
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And so she was my biggest supporter through relay.
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But it didn't mean that it was always footloose and fancy-free and easy emotionally for us in our relationship.
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I like that because this I think comes up a lot.
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It actually comes up in my relationship too.
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Uh there's one level of complexity when what I like to achieve in life, my ambitions and underlying really reasons underneath them, behind them, is not aligned with what my wife uh may expect.
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So when there's not alignment, there's one level of complexity.
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But I love your example because I think maybe uh the other part of the spectrum is easier for people to kind of visualize.
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Two people have a view of the world, they fall in love, once they start living together, they realize what they're trying to achieve in life is not necessarily aligned, so there's got to be some compromise.
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It doesn't mean the relationship cannot be a loving relationship, but there's this challenges in bringing those two paths together.
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And then your example is kind of interesting.
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No, there was a lot of alignment in what we're trying to achieve, but but the cost of trying to achieve that when you get married uh might be different or higher than uh anticipated beforehand.
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So I'm gonna ask maybe a rhetorical question, but I do think this is kind of relevant.
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Did having kids become more of a motivation to run after that ambition?
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Or did having kids bring even more awareness to the costs associated with chasing that ambition at at the pace that you or you and your wife in this case, since you were fairly aligned?
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Yeah.
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That's kind of an interesting question for me.
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Yeah, I mean, so we've had our first two and a half years ago.
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Um we were you know deep into relay at the time, you know, so startup was already off the ground.
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I was taking a paycheck, but not not a whole lot, like really not much more than covering our base expenses.
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Um I would say immediately, like I've talked to friends where adding kids adds that financial pressure and it and it comes with some immediate kind of recognition of um the weight of that.
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I I'd have always known that I've wanted to have a family and have kids.
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And I think in a lot of ways, I would actually say, maybe somewhat counterintuitively, it didn't seem to really change a whole lot about the career ambition or or the focus that I had maybe placed in my career.
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But logistically, there were just new elements that made this more challenging.
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And I remember early on, it was like, holy crap, this can sleep through the night.
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Like he wakes up every two hours and you know, I'm getting much less sleep than I did before, and and so is she, right?
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And I think one of the biggest things that I realized is when my wife's not getting good sleep, that really impacts our dynamic.
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And I think I underestimated how much kind of the hit on that relational dynamic in our marriage affects my kind of uh kind of capacity emotionally to go handle stress at work.
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And I think it uncovered some pain points where I'm like, oh, maybe I was depending on Jade to, you know, make up for some lack of maybe self-sufficiency in my own self-care because without a kid, um, you know, we get good sleep and uh it wasn't necessarily too hard to juggle um, you know, my work and our marriage.
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It was still a lot of you know time spent on work.
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But now when we're taking care of a human being and a lot of it is compromising our sleep, both of our sleep, um, but I still have to get up and go work, but she's also feeling drained.
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So even though she wasn't working at the time, um she's feeling, you know, neglected and not like her self-care is out of whack and she doesn't really know how to influence that because this child is kind of just taking all of that.
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Um, which I know, you know, people will say, well, you know, try sleep draining.
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And let me tell you, it's not that simple.
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We we are we've tried and we're working on stuff, and I think we just got some hard kids sleep-wise.
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But um, I think that's the sneaky part, Sean, that we started to realize was uh having kids didn't necessarily make me think, oh man, like, you know, it didn't cause some existential reflection, I don't think.
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If anything, it made me feel like I want I want them to know that their dad uh was fierce in pursuing what he believed in and working on things he believed in.
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If anything, I felt like, man, I feel like I am proud already of like the dad that I am, not because of my work, but just more just because I feel like I'm intentional about what my values are.
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But on the day-to-day basis, I feel like, you know, with kids now it's like barely holding things together.
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And a lot of times between me and my wife, it's like ships passing in the night where you know, she feels like when the kids are in bed, now it's her time to like, you know, watch Netflix and just be a person again where she doesn't have people clamoring for her.
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So she's like, you know, eight to midnight is like finally I get to rest and like enjoy myself.
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And I get to like eight o'clock now and I'm like ready to fall asleep because I'm I'm dead.
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I've been up since early and I've been, you know, between work and kids have just been running around.
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So sometimes a lot of time we're not like having the connection that we did before kids, and that that does start to impact.
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And I think was a it was a factor when I started to feel like, man, I don't know if uh continuing to do my own startup and uh run run the day-to-day entrepreneurship was making as much sense when it just was like really, really difficult to meet some of those core needs um of connection and self-care.
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Uh in some ways, if I want to be very uh binary with the answer and my question, listening to you, I hear a lot of energy and even extra motivation.
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I want my kids to know that I I'm continuing to pursue uh what I find aligned with my values.
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Uh but logistically, things are a lot more difficult than it used to be, and that can impact my energy level, my my mental health, my relationship with my partner.
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Uh, I thought that was very real.
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Thank you for sharing that with me.
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Um Jordan Peterson, I I listened to a lot of his podcasts.
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There's a couple of books from him that I've read.
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You and I have to share some thoughts on uh and some of the reading from Jordan Peterson before.
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Uh there are sections where he talks about, it's very I'm I'm not sure if you've listened to him speak.
00:20:11.200 --> 00:20:17.519
He does a lot of like TED Talk like uh you know speeches, and he's very uh strong motivational speaker.
00:20:18.079 --> 00:20:25.119
There's a video that I watched where he strongly motivates his audience around chase something meaningful in life.
00:20:25.279 --> 00:20:36.960
Uh and uh he talks about chasing something meaningful may mean going at something for a long time and and throwing a lot of energy at it and working through challenges.
00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:42.480
Uh, choose meaning in life versus achieving something fast and quick.
00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:47.599
So your story kind of reminds me of of the speech from him.
00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:55.200
Because it's to me, it seems like building something, raising kids, being married, none of those things necessarily make your life easier.
00:20:55.359 --> 00:21:02.559
At least in my story, in some ways, it has uh some of the changes in my life have substantially made my life even more challenging.
00:21:02.720 --> 00:21:04.079
Some of it you kind of talked about.
00:21:04.400 --> 00:21:04.559
Yeah.
00:21:04.720 --> 00:21:09.920
Uh, but they can certainly make your life a whole lot more meaningful, and and that's what I'm hearing when I'm listening.
00:21:10.160 --> 00:21:10.480
For sure.
00:21:10.640 --> 00:21:26.319
Uh but what I where I wanted to go to next is this stereotypical uh label that comes with a lot a lot of us men, or we put on ourselves, and this whole idea of being a being the provider in in the family.
00:21:26.559 --> 00:21:40.799
Uh, I'm interested as you've been sort of transitioning through your 30s and your life is continuing to become more and more meaningful if I were to use kind of Jordan Peterson's description of what meaning a life uh should be.
00:21:41.039 --> 00:21:46.799
And you're certainly uh learning that there is challenges associated with this journey and you're battling that.
00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:53.039
How much of being a provider gets tangled up with your identity as a man?
00:21:53.440 --> 00:21:54.000
That's interesting.
00:21:54.160 --> 00:22:03.279
I think about the word provider and it it brings back some like early childhood memories of I was pr raised in a pretty traditional Christian family.
00:22:03.359 --> 00:22:05.359
And um, my mom stayed at home.
00:22:05.440 --> 00:22:06.960
I was the oldest of five kids.
00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:12.640
My dad um, you know, w went to work and he traveled a lot for for business.
00:22:12.799 --> 00:22:19.200
And um and it was just understood that, you know, if dad couldn't be at something, it wasn't because he didn't love me.
00:22:19.279 --> 00:22:21.920
It was because he's working hard to provide for our family.
00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:26.880
And I, you know, I'd heard my mom say that, and it was clear that she supported him in that.
00:22:27.119 --> 00:23:02.319
And there's a lot of things about that that I really like, honestly, like that I think um call it traditional, call it whatever, like I think uh, you know, has been a thing for a number of years, um, which doesn't mean, you know, that that can't look different for different families, but I think just feeling this role as a provider for me now is like, I think, you know, I want my family to feel comfortable, is the thing that I, you know, have thought a lot about where it's like we when we had our first kid, we were still living in a one-bedroom apartment and we just kind of slotted the baby at the foot of our bed and didn't have much like walking room.
00:23:02.480 --> 00:23:06.400
So we had to like crawl over kind of the bassinet to like get out.
00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:09.359
And it was a nice apartment in a decent part of town.
00:23:09.519 --> 00:23:16.319
Like it wasn't necessarily a bad uh living situation, but it wasn't uh spacious or bougie by any means.
00:23:16.480 --> 00:23:25.200
And I I don't honestly think that I felt uh like I know some men may feel like, man, I need to, you know, be further ahead than I am right now.
00:23:25.279 --> 00:23:40.400
And I think there's a part of me that actually felt a lot of peace with the decision and the trade-offs of you know what it meant to start a company and paying myself below market rates and uh not being able to put away a whole lot of savings or investments for quite a while.
00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:51.359
Um But I there, I think there for sure was a point where I started thinking about, you know, I've been uh devoting five years of my life, of my career full-time to building this startup.
00:23:51.680 --> 00:23:59.680
And um, you know, I I think the question that I started to think about was how many years would I be willing to continue to make these trade-offs?
00:23:59.759 --> 00:24:04.319
Because I could see a lot of success in the impact and the mission that we were just talking about.
00:24:04.400 --> 00:24:15.279
I could see uh we'd get emails and texts from these guys or these couples, these families that were saying, hey, what you've built is so amazing, it's incredible, it's helping save our marriage, it's helping me feel so much hope.
00:24:15.440 --> 00:24:20.960
And that, I don't want to undermine how much I value that and how proud I feel of that.
00:24:21.119 --> 00:24:39.920
But at the same time, I know that there were things where, you know, whether they're material needs or or other things, just like planning for long-term retirement, where I knew that uh I was continuing to make trade-offs and sacrifice, maybe at the expense of my family or being uh a better provider in a material sense.
00:24:40.079 --> 00:24:42.720
Um, and we talked about, you know, when when should we buy a home?
00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:44.000
Just to get really specific.
00:24:44.079 --> 00:24:50.720
Like it's a hard question for a lot of young people these days who want to buy a home just because of the economy and and the housing markets.
00:24:50.880 --> 00:24:55.119
But we had been trying to save towards this, but it didn't really feel super feasible.
00:24:55.279 --> 00:24:58.640
But I knew my wife was kind of tired of us moving apartments every year.
00:24:58.720 --> 00:25:02.319
And it was something that I did reflect on of like, you know, would she be happier?
00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:09.279
Would her mental health be a little better if we could afford a place that was a little bigger or if we could get into a house and get out of an apartment?
00:25:09.359 --> 00:25:12.480
Like maybe that would be a better situation for her.
00:25:12.720 --> 00:25:18.480
And um so yeah, it's something that I would say like for sure started to cross my mind more as time went on.
00:25:18.559 --> 00:25:21.599
Like it's easy to make that decision up front and say, I don't care.
00:25:21.680 --> 00:25:29.680
Like, I know I could go make more money at any point, which is maybe a little egotistical or like overly confident of like, I know that I'm marketable, I can go get a better job.
00:25:29.839 --> 00:25:31.920
Um, which in many ways is actually just true.
00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:38.559
Like I know that I could uh and I had I had opportunities to go take jobs that were much more high paying.
00:25:38.720 --> 00:25:51.119
Um, and so maybe it was like a genuine sense of peace, I guess, that like if I need to index harder into providing materially or financially, I can, but I'm okay making the trade-off.
00:25:51.279 --> 00:26:02.240
Otherwise, right now, and I think for anyone that's in a position where they just feel like they need to make ends meet, and maybe you're not working on the most mission-driven thing that's your life's calling.
00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:06.960
I think that that is totally uh, I don't even want to say totally okay.
00:26:07.039 --> 00:26:11.920
Like that's I think a very um noble way to index as well.
00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:15.359
Like I don't think there's a right or a wrong way to lean there.
00:26:15.519 --> 00:26:19.119
I think that there may be time and seasons to things, and maybe that's what I felt too.
00:26:19.279 --> 00:26:25.359
Like the company that I went to uh that I just started my new job at a few months ago when I transitioned out of relay.
00:26:25.519 --> 00:26:27.119
I like the mission of the company.
00:26:27.279 --> 00:26:33.200
Um, if my employer is listening to this, I like working for you, uh employer, and and you know who you are.
00:26:33.359 --> 00:26:40.319
Um I I've enjoyed a lot of things about this new job, but I will say it's not as personal to me as my last company was.
00:26:40.480 --> 00:26:44.079
It's not as mission-driven for me as my last company was.
00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:45.119
But that's okay.
00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:50.880
There's other things that I'm indexing for in this new season of my life that I think are like, hey, we're having young kids.
00:26:51.039 --> 00:26:52.880
I want to be able to provide for them a little bit more.
00:26:53.039 --> 00:26:57.359
I want to feel like maybe I don't have to run this entire company myself.
00:26:57.519 --> 00:27:01.759
So I'm not the CEO anymore, and that's part of the decision I wanted.
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:09.200
Um so that and maybe in some ways that is saying I want to focus more on being just a dad, a father, you know, provider.
00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:09.920
Very good.
00:27:10.079 --> 00:27:10.480
Thank you.
00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:19.119
I I was going to actually slowly get to the point of you kind of walking us through uh making some of the decisions that you alluded to, but in the interest of time, I think you've covered a lot of it.
00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:22.240
You said something, you touched on something that channel I want to go back to.
00:27:22.400 --> 00:27:30.559
Uh this whole idea of uh when is I'm at least this is how I'm gonna paraphrase it, I'm not giving up.
00:27:30.799 --> 00:27:34.720
When is that courage versus when it's ego?
00:27:34.960 --> 00:27:37.680
You kind of talked about a little bit, it it definitely resonated with me.
00:27:37.759 --> 00:27:39.440
I would love for you to go back to that.
00:27:39.599 --> 00:27:41.920
Tell me kind of how how that felt.
00:27:42.079 --> 00:27:54.720
Uh, was there a point in your sort of transition from one job to another, from one life-changing decision to another, where you are thinking, what are what am I gonna think of myself?
00:27:54.880 --> 00:27:58.319
What are others going to think of me as I'm making this change?
00:27:58.480 --> 00:28:02.559
Is this courageous of me to walk away from this or introduce a parallel path?
00:28:02.640 --> 00:28:07.440
I'm not even saying walk away from introduce a parallel path alongside my plan A.
00:28:07.759 --> 00:28:11.119
Uh, because I I struggle with sometimes with those decisions.
00:28:11.279 --> 00:28:20.720
I I feel like at times I uh kind of go back and forth between this whole idea, idea of am I being courageous or is this my ego talking?
00:28:21.039 --> 00:28:26.400
And I would love for you to kind of tell me if that uh kind of if you felt that along along the way.
00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:31.200
Yeah, it it reminds me of uh of another framework from a good therapist friend.
00:28:31.359 --> 00:28:34.000
Um you know Chris, Chris Chandler.
00:28:34.160 --> 00:28:45.119
Um he talks about this idea of uh is this a fear-based decision or is or uh or a comfort-based decision, or is this a values-based decision?
00:28:45.279 --> 00:28:47.440
Um actually I think he says it the other way.
00:28:47.599 --> 00:28:52.559
Is this a values-based decision or is this a fear-based decision or comfort-based decision in any given time?
00:28:52.640 --> 00:29:08.240
Or am I operating out of true value and true north, or am I kind of making a decision that optimizes for some insecurity or some uh yeah, ego or other, maybe it's just more comfortable sometimes to not not make a values-driven choice.
00:29:08.400 --> 00:29:09.039
It's hard.
00:29:09.119 --> 00:29:11.599
Um, man, I would get people, including you.
00:29:11.680 --> 00:29:14.720
I mean, when we would check in as friends and you'd be like, How's relay going?
00:29:14.960 --> 00:29:20.000
I would get friends in my parents, my family, you know, it's hey, you've been doing this startup for four or five years.
00:29:20.160 --> 00:29:24.559
And sometimes, to be honest, to the theme of this podcast, I would give a small talk answer.
00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:27.359
You know, it's good, you know, lots of updates, things are good.
00:29:27.599 --> 00:29:30.079
You know, and the answer is always more nuanced, of course.
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:36.240
Uh the reality for anyone that's that's taken a jump to try to do their own entrepreneurial thing, the answer is never black and white.
00:29:36.319 --> 00:29:42.319
There's always some like gray uh layers to it that I didn't know how to summarize, honestly, man.
00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:48.480
I was like, sometimes I try to like be more open with my mom or my dad, and it would feel like, man, did I overshare?
00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:58.799
You know, do they even care about all these like context of, well, like this part of it's going well, and this part's like stressful, and this part like I'm honestly worried about, and this part we'll see.
00:29:59.119 --> 00:30:06.079
Um, it would, it would get harder and harder uh over the years, I think, to give an answer to like, how is this going?
00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:09.599
Um and uh we had we had taken investors too.
00:30:09.839 --> 00:30:15.119
And so there's some people that had invested money into our company, and it's like I want to be honest with them about how things are going.
00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:19.119
And there was a lot of things, just to be totally clear, that were going really great about the company.
00:30:19.200 --> 00:30:21.759
And the company's actually doing better now than it ever has been.
00:30:21.839 --> 00:30:23.440
Um, and that's not why I decided to leave.
00:30:23.519 --> 00:30:29.279
But it there were things that I'm like, man, it's not as good as I thought it would be, or it's not moving as fast as I wanted it to.
00:30:29.680 --> 00:30:34.960
And just trying to reflect on like, am I just trying to save face or project confidence?
00:30:35.119 --> 00:30:36.799
Um, am I being authentic?
00:30:36.960 --> 00:30:43.440
Like, and I feel like sometimes I would be more authentic and vulnerable, but then I would feel like, man, did I, was that the right choice?
00:30:43.599 --> 00:30:51.519
Like, should I, should I, do I need to be authentic and vulnerable with everybody about how things are going in my in my you know, very detailed aspects of my work and my life?
00:30:51.759 --> 00:30:52.880
And so, yeah, I don't know.
00:30:52.960 --> 00:30:56.319
You feel free to rein me in if there's more things that you want to double click on.
00:30:56.400 --> 00:31:03.839
I think this is like, this was the question of like coming to understand um how do I really feel and what do I really want.
00:31:04.079 --> 00:31:06.160
And it's okay for that to change.
00:31:06.319 --> 00:31:13.440
And what I kind of realized was I care about the mission of relay and I want this business to exist for many decades to come.
00:31:13.680 --> 00:31:16.160
This product has helped so many individuals.
00:31:16.400 --> 00:31:24.880
And at the same time, I think I'm at a place in my life where for my health and my family and my values, I need to not be in the day-to-day.
00:31:25.039 --> 00:31:34.720
Like the cot the cost that I was pouring into the business um was no longer sustainable for me to do the day-to-day work as the CEO.
00:31:34.880 --> 00:31:41.680
And Jace, though, my my f my dear friend and co-founder, still had a lot in the tank and his sort of life circumstances are different.
00:31:41.759 --> 00:31:43.200
He's not married, he doesn't have kids.
00:31:43.279 --> 00:31:48.319
And um, as we talked about it, was like, you know, like I want to continue to run it forward.
00:31:48.480 --> 00:31:57.920
And essentially we talked and decided to hand him the baton, where I'm still very much involved, um, you know, on the board and helping support him and the team.
00:31:58.079 --> 00:32:05.279
Um, but I realized at first, like, man, when I had this thought, like, should I, should I leave relay or should I take a step back from relay?
00:32:05.440 --> 00:32:07.440
I felt like I was cheating on myself, man.
00:32:07.599 --> 00:32:10.720
Like I had been married to this thing for five years.
00:32:10.880 --> 00:32:19.599
And I don't know if anyone else can relate to that listening if you've ever poured your heart into a project for a long period of time, but it felt like a little bit like entertaining the thought of cheating.
00:32:19.680 --> 00:32:20.240
And it was weird.
00:32:20.319 --> 00:32:29.200
And I was like, is this even appropriate for me to be thinking about um, you know, getting another job and wanting to still be involved, but to not be the CEO?
00:32:29.599 --> 00:32:31.039
Um, and it took some time.
00:32:31.119 --> 00:32:32.960
I'll just say, like, it took many conversations.
00:32:33.119 --> 00:32:46.160
I consulted with many trusted friends and mentors and peers and and um and talking to Jace, my co-founder, and eventually realized, like, no, this is a values-based decision that I think I uh I've done what I need to in this chapter.
00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:53.680
And I think relay is entering a new chapter where I can still be involved and I can move on and and prioritize other things at the same time.
00:32:53.920 --> 00:32:56.799
And it wasn't a one, you know, it wasn't clear right away.
00:32:56.960 --> 00:32:59.119
I grappled with that, I wrestled with it.
00:32:59.279 --> 00:33:02.880
Um, but I think having people around you to do that with is really, really important.
00:33:03.200 --> 00:33:05.839
Dude, that man, that was wonderful.
00:33:06.079 --> 00:33:12.480
Um, I I really hope that the way I'm going to take your answer, I'm not an entrepreneur, I don't own a company.
00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:21.680
And then I hope others really listen to the the core message under what you just shared with us, which was uh raw honesty and I loved it.
00:33:21.759 --> 00:33:46.720
Um whether I'm a teacher, a coach, uh a mechanic, a CEO, we all there, there's many circumstances in life where I find myself in a situation where I am deciding do I need to make a change in in uh in the course of where my life is headed, in my relationship, and my relationship with myself, my spiritual relationships, my uh relationship with my partner.
00:33:46.880 --> 00:33:51.039
Uh and this whole idea of fear-based versus value-based, I wrote it down in my journal.
00:33:51.119 --> 00:33:56.240
I think it's it's uh it's a lovely nugget that you shared from our friend Chris Chandler.
00:33:56.400 --> 00:34:01.759
Um and the I think you presented that whole thought process really well.
00:34:01.920 --> 00:34:04.880
Uh, not easy, very intentional, very thoughtful.
00:34:05.039 --> 00:34:12.639
Sounds like there was a lot of um beyond day-to-day conversations that was necessary to kind of help you get comfortable enough with that decision.
00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:31.920
And what I what you mentioned that is so real in my life, Chandler, is how different sometimes my answers to the questions that people ask me throughout the day, how different at times are versus what I think about two o'clock in the morning, uh, or well, what I think about when I get up at uh you know 6 a.m.
00:34:32.079 --> 00:34:46.079
when everybody else is still sleeping, for the first 10 minutes when my brain starts back up and everything starts tossing and turning, and things that I'm responsible for for that day starts kind of coming in and in and out, and my insecurities, my thoughts, my fears.
00:34:46.320 --> 00:34:52.880
Uh and uh that the not always we have the opportunity to be very vulnerable and honest.
00:34:52.960 --> 00:34:57.599
And I love that you said there's questions around whether I should be honest or vulnerable with everybody.
00:34:57.840 --> 00:35:02.079
Those were those were some really um serious, good reflection points.
00:35:02.159 --> 00:35:06.880
So I'm gonna definitely go back and listen to the segment and do some reflection on my own.
00:35:07.039 --> 00:35:11.360
I know you're a busy man and you have uh a commitment after this that you need to go to.
00:35:11.519 --> 00:35:13.199
I do want to ask one last question.
00:35:13.440 --> 00:35:22.639
Before marriage, before kids, before relay, uh before the decision to create a parallel path, uh, what does success look like to Chandler?
00:35:22.719 --> 00:35:26.719
Again, success is another big buzzword that many of us then carry with ourselves.
00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:29.519
And what does success look like now?
00:35:29.840 --> 00:35:35.280
Oh man, you're asking me all the philosophical uh reflective questions at the heart today.
00:35:35.519 --> 00:35:45.119
Um The first thing that came to my mind when you said that was a book from Clayton Christensen, who was a professor at Harvard Business School.
00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:48.320
Um his book is called How Will You Measure Your Life?
00:35:48.559 --> 00:35:52.000
And uh he's passed away uh in the last couple of years, I believe.
00:35:52.159 --> 00:35:57.119
But um I had a class where we discussed that book, How Will You Measure Your Life.
00:35:57.199 --> 00:36:14.159
And the essential premise is to just think about how you want to measure your life, which it may sound like a simple concept, but you really start to think about it and how you want to define success, whether that's you know, what do you want your obituary to say, what do you want people to stand up and really say at your funeral someday?
00:36:14.320 --> 00:36:30.079
Um, it really makes you think about, yeah, like I remember in that class thinking, uh, and this is before relay, before I got married, before all of this, like I think I want people to be able to say that Chandler really cared and focused on the people around him.
00:36:30.320 --> 00:36:36.800
And I think that like lens of people and relationships and influencing one person.
00:36:37.360 --> 00:36:46.239
Um, there's a because I'm a religious person, there's a scripture that has always touched me that essentially just paraphrases the worth of souls is great.
00:36:46.400 --> 00:36:53.679
Um and just thinking about, you know, in my day-to-day work, sometimes I want to impact thousands and millions of people.
00:36:53.760 --> 00:36:55.199
And, you know, it's game planning.
00:36:55.360 --> 00:37:03.039
How do we reach and change so many people's lives, or how do I, you know, be successful on a big scale or make a big impact?
00:37:03.280 --> 00:37:10.960
But when I come down to it, it's like, what did I do today to help somebody else feel seen, to help somebody else feel loved, to help somebody else feel known?
00:37:11.199 --> 00:37:20.880
And I think even just you asking me this question is a, is a it's kind of ironic because if I'm being totally honest, I haven't been thinking about that, you know, day to day the last few weeks.
00:37:21.039 --> 00:37:27.920
Like this is a lens that I think has been on my mind over the years in terms of how I want my life defined.
00:37:28.159 --> 00:37:31.599
But life throws a lot of like, you know, other noise at you.
00:37:31.679 --> 00:37:37.599
And sometimes coming back to like what success really is needs to be probably a recurring exercise.
00:37:37.679 --> 00:37:44.239
I'm realizing I probably need to like revisit that more frequently to make sure that am I really living that way, if that's what I believe.
00:37:44.480 --> 00:37:53.519
And I think, I think I would say that is still my definition of success is like how um how did I shape the individual relationships around me?
00:37:53.679 --> 00:37:55.360
The quantity doesn't really matter.
00:37:55.519 --> 00:38:01.360
Um, how did I shape the individuals that I had the chance to cross paths with and caring about them?
00:38:01.840 --> 00:38:03.760
Wonderful answer, my my friend.
00:38:03.840 --> 00:38:15.760
Uh sounds like your definition of success does not necessarily need to change as life, the complexities change with marriage and and kids uh change of careers.
00:38:15.920 --> 00:38:20.639
And that is certainly uh a very uh powerful answer to that question.
00:38:20.800 --> 00:38:29.519
One that I I need to uh think about myself, because uh there are times where um I do think my definition has changed.
00:38:29.599 --> 00:38:51.280
And I'm I'm not here saying uh which one is the right answer, but it certainly creates a great opportunity for me to sit down and think about is definition of success changing okay as life changes and life progresses as I grow, as I learn more, as I understand my limitations, as I value new things in in my life.
00:38:51.440 --> 00:38:58.880
Uh and in some ways, for some individuals, like the example that you gave me, uh maybe the definition has always been the same.
00:38:58.960 --> 00:39:07.519
Uh maybe uh it looks and feels different sometimes because of the complex things in life, uh, but maybe the definition is not changed.
00:39:07.599 --> 00:39:07.760
Go ahead.
00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:08.880
Get something else you want to say.
00:39:09.199 --> 00:39:13.119
I was gonna say, I mean, I think it's okay for values to evolve to some extent.
00:39:13.199 --> 00:39:19.679
I I know a lot of companies will set values and sometimes you argue and debate, like those things maybe should be immutable.
00:39:19.840 --> 00:39:24.719
Like no matter what, we can always fall back on these, you know, core values that are pretty constant.
00:39:24.880 --> 00:39:37.679
And maybe that's true for the most part, but I do think as you go throughout life, you discover so much more about yourself and different life experiences maybe help inform and shape what those values mean to you or or the relative importance of different values.
00:39:37.920 --> 00:39:42.400
I think it's okay and natural for those to like kind of grow and expand.
00:39:42.639 --> 00:39:54.639
But what I do think is maybe the application of what it looks like and what that definition, you know, how that means right now in this phase of your life or you know, what it looked like 20 years ago, that probably will look different.
00:39:54.800 --> 00:39:56.400
And that's I think normal too.
00:39:56.480 --> 00:40:08.960
And so, you know, maybe what what that meant for me when I was building a company where I had a specific platform to help specific individuals, like, you know, for that period in time of my life, it probably meant one thing.
00:40:09.119 --> 00:40:12.000
Um, you know, the next 20 years may mean something totally different.
00:40:12.159 --> 00:40:15.280
It might be the same definition, but the application may change.
00:40:15.519 --> 00:40:15.920
Yeah.
00:40:16.239 --> 00:40:43.840
I but I I do think one thing I'm hearing from this whole conversation from the very beginning, you have a very uh strong connection with your personal values when it comes to um what uh the career that you've been building, the decisions that you've made, and the people that you have surrounded yourself with, the way you're um driving your relationship with your wife, uh what you envision your kids will look back and think about you as you go through this part of your life.
00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:48.239
Um I hear a lot of very strong connection with your own personal values.
00:40:48.400 --> 00:41:00.559
And to me, it does sound like that connection with your personal values, whether an individual is spiritual or not, um, whether an individual is religious or not, personal values to me uh vary, but they can be personal values.
00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:10.079
I think that connection, that linkage sounds like it is bringing a lot of stability, even when things are uh maybe difficult, even when the there's unanswered questions.
00:41:10.159 --> 00:41:33.599
And I I uh that is my one takeaway, and that's uh it's a comforting one, and one for me to kind of sit down and think about what are those strong values in life that I really want to stick to as a foundation of my life, even when things are changing, even uh things are evolving, even when I come across complexities in life that I don't have a lot of practice with, and I have to uh sit down and and learn.
00:41:33.679 --> 00:41:35.039
Um that is wonderful.
00:41:35.199 --> 00:41:37.840
Uh, my friend, I don't want to take more of your time.
00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:42.960
I have uh quite a few more questions that I wanted to ask you, but this was a wonderful question uh discussion.
00:41:43.119 --> 00:41:48.559
I would love to kind of give you the floor one more time if there's anything else you want to uh get off your chest.
00:41:48.639 --> 00:41:52.480
I would like to ask you the typical question that I ask everybody else.
00:41:52.639 --> 00:41:53.360
What is your beyond?
00:41:53.679 --> 00:41:58.719
I typically ask people what is your beyond small talk for today, but you've been doing a beyond small talk this whole time.
00:41:58.880 --> 00:42:03.440
But I I will give you the floor for one last beyond small talk before I close it up.
00:42:03.760 --> 00:42:04.079
Yeah.
00:42:04.719 --> 00:42:19.280
No, I I do actually, I think there is one thing that I did want to say, which is maybe maybe as I'm even just like reflecting and telling my own story, it might even sound more, you know, rosy or like uh like I've got it all put together more than I actually feel inside.
00:42:19.440 --> 00:42:23.920
Like on a day-to-day basis, just to be clear, I don't usually drive home.
00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:25.840
Uh, I've got like a 30-minute commute.
00:42:25.920 --> 00:42:33.760
I I'm not normally thinking, man, I'm so glad, you know, with how I showed up today and cared for people today and the relationships that I have.
00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:44.639
I'm normally driving home feeling some amount of overwhelm or stress, like crap, I didn't get this thing done, or like, man, I didn't love how that conversation went, or like I'm feeling so behind in this area.
00:42:44.800 --> 00:42:49.760
Like I get really sucked into like, again, just the bit the day-to-day of like the kitchen's a mess.
00:42:49.920 --> 00:42:52.800
My to-do list is uh, you know, I'm behind on it at work.
00:42:52.880 --> 00:42:58.800
I'm got a pressing deadline that I, you know, I owe my boss these three things, you know, all by tonight or tomorrow.
00:42:58.880 --> 00:43:09.360
And and so I I think the beyond small talk too is like just realizing that everyone's kind of figuring this out, uh, you know, even the the mentors and the people that I look up to the most.
00:43:09.440 --> 00:43:17.519
And you're one of them, Sean, like, you know, that that seem to have some amount of consistency or or like they they focus and they're able to stick with what they want.
00:43:17.679 --> 00:43:23.519
Um, my my experience has been that under the hood, most guys are really uh totally imperfect.
00:43:23.599 --> 00:43:28.079
And that may, that may seem obvious, that may seem intuitive, but I most of the time I feel like a total mess.
00:43:28.239 --> 00:43:40.480
I feel like I'm not uh prioritizing or balancing things nearly as well as I want to, but I'm trying to find grace for myself and knowing that yes, I can be authentic and vulnerable and and clear on my values.
00:43:40.639 --> 00:43:55.760
And at the same time, if things don't translate perfectly day to day, if I'm still, you know, stressing over the things that are not necessarily that related or correlated with the things that I supposedly do care about, I'm a I'm a I'm a natural human, you know, I'm a natural man.
00:43:55.840 --> 00:43:59.760
Like I'm still working through those weaknesses and I'm also trying to be gracious with myself.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:05.119
And not get overly worked up about trying to come back to this sort of zen, you know, values.
00:44:05.199 --> 00:44:09.920
You know, I'm just like, oh, it's perfectly, you know, having the right mindset in every situation.
00:44:10.079 --> 00:44:10.960
That's never the case.
00:44:11.119 --> 00:44:17.440
And so I think even just the meta, you know, opportunity to just be kind to yourself and realize that life's hard.
00:44:17.599 --> 00:44:18.159
There's a lot of things.
00:44:18.559 --> 00:44:27.119
Trying to figure out how to be a good man, trying to be honest, trying to be um uh present and to be live a life of meaning um is hard.
00:44:27.199 --> 00:44:29.920
And I don't think it ever looks uh perfect, and that's okay.
00:44:30.320 --> 00:44:31.599
Oh, that was great.
00:44:31.840 --> 00:44:32.480
Thank you so much.
00:44:32.559 --> 00:44:33.760
I appreciate Chandler.
00:44:33.920 --> 00:44:45.280
Um I think uh one of the things I'm taking away from this conversation is that we sometimes talk about ambition and responsibility as as though uh they are opposites.
00:44:45.599 --> 00:44:46.719
I've come across that.
00:44:46.880 --> 00:44:50.719
I sometimes I viewed as if there's this there's a pendulum here.
00:44:50.880 --> 00:45:05.119
Either I'm the guy who's willing to get everything done and get to the dream that I'm trying to get to, what I've envisioned, the type of guy that I'm going to be when I'm in my 60s and 70s, or the other side is you're this responsible guy who plays it safe.
00:45:05.360 --> 00:45:09.760
In my head, it's it's sometimes as if these two are the opposite of each other.
00:45:09.840 --> 00:45:12.559
But but life is obviously a lot messier than that.
00:45:12.639 --> 00:45:15.199
And I appreciate uh your uh message there.
00:45:15.360 --> 00:45:24.079
Sometimes believing in something uh means pushing forward, sometimes being responsible means adjusting the plan.
00:45:24.239 --> 00:45:25.519
You talked a little bit about that.
00:45:25.679 --> 00:45:36.719
Sometimes providing for your family means taking your risk, and sometimes it means uh creating stability while you continue building uh something you believe in.
00:45:36.800 --> 00:45:38.800
Uh, you brought a really good example of it.
00:45:39.039 --> 00:45:46.480
Maybe growing up as a man is partly learning that changing the plan doesn't necessarily mean abandoning the dream.
00:45:46.639 --> 00:45:55.599
I I've come across that that uh sort of that uh decision-making cross before where I'm deciding, am I changing a plan?
00:45:55.760 --> 00:45:57.199
Does that mean I'm failing?
00:45:57.360 --> 00:46:01.440
Does that mean I am giving up and abandoning abandoning a dream?
00:46:01.679 --> 00:46:03.760
I don't necessarily think that is the case.
00:46:03.920 --> 00:46:12.320
I also think there's probably a lot of guys listening to us who, like I said before, who don't own a startup and maybe never will, but but they know this feeling.
00:46:12.480 --> 00:46:23.599
Uh you know what it's like to have people depending on you while privately wondering, like Chandler said, in the middle of the night, whether they're making decisions or on that 30-minute drive home.
00:46:23.840 --> 00:46:24.960
Am I earning enough?
00:46:25.199 --> 00:46:26.159
Am I doing enough?
00:46:26.320 --> 00:46:28.559
Did I have the right conversation with the right people?
00:46:28.719 --> 00:46:31.679
Did I take full advantage of that opportunity?
00:46:31.840 --> 00:46:36.559
Uh am I becoming the man I always envisioned I would be?
00:46:36.719 --> 00:46:46.079
I think those are all very fair questions in this uh messy life that uh that we try to keep as organized as possible on a day-to-day basis.
00:46:46.239 --> 00:46:52.960
To me, those are the real conversations I'm hoping to motivate uh with this type of chat that I had with Chandler.
00:46:53.119 --> 00:46:58.559
I hope others have felt the opportunity to sit down and reflect on some of these topics.
00:46:58.800 --> 00:47:00.559
Chandler, my friend, love you.
00:47:00.719 --> 00:47:03.519
Thank you for your honesty and courage to sit down and have this chat with me.
00:47:03.599 --> 00:47:05.280
It was very, very meaningful to me.
00:47:05.519 --> 00:47:16.960
Hope this world continues to find uh good-hearted individuals like you uh that that try to continue to stick their to their values and and make a difference in this life.
00:47:17.039 --> 00:47:17.760
That is very many.
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:18.159
Thank you.
00:47:18.400 --> 00:47:21.119
Uh, for everybody else, thank you for listening to us.
00:47:21.280 --> 00:47:27.840
Uh, I hope you're motivated to go and have a beyond small talk after this conversation.
00:47:28.079 --> 00:47:30.079
Chandler, my friend, I will talk to you later.
00:47:30.239 --> 00:47:30.719
Take care.
00:47:30.880 --> 00:47:31.920
Thanks, everyone.
00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:37.119
Thank you for listening to today's episode.
00:47:37.280 --> 00:47:40.000
I would love to hear your thoughts on today's conversation.
00:47:40.239 --> 00:47:43.840
Where in your life do you need to go beyond small talk right now?
00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:50.639
Maybe with your partner, maybe with a friend, a family member, or maybe just with yourself.
00:47:50.800 --> 00:47:55.920
Leave a comment, send a message, or share this episode with someone who came to mind while listening.
00:47:56.079 --> 00:48:01.440
And if these conversations are meaningful to you, consider subscribing and following the podcast.
00:48:01.599 --> 00:48:05.440
As always, thank you so much for being part of the conversation.
00:00:07.519 --> 00:00:12.400
Welcome back to Beyond Small Talk, What Men Don't Say.
00:00:12.720 --> 00:00:17.120
Today's conversation is one that I've been uh looking forward to for a while.
00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:36.079
Partly because my guest, and as like to say, my co-host is a good friend of mine, uh, but mostly because his story, his story gives me an opportunity to talk about something that is very relevant to me, and in my opinion, a lot of men struggle with and probably don't talk about nearly enough.
00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:40.560
Uh, Chandler is a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, and one of the founders of Relay.
00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:54.240
He spent several years helping uh build a company he deeply believes in while at the same time building a family, trying to figure out and trying to figure out all the responsibilities that come with all of that.
00:00:54.479 --> 00:01:05.599
And that really interests me today, and I believe it interests a lot of people who listen to this podcast because betting on yourself is one thing when you're only one person taking all the risk.
00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:08.400
Uh, but what happens when you're married?
00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:10.640
Uh, what happens when you have children?
00:01:10.799 --> 00:01:14.239
What happens when people uh depend on your income?
00:01:14.480 --> 00:01:33.519
Uh, what happens when the dream that you are uh chasing now coexists with mortgages, groceries, health insurance, career decisions, and uh and the responsibility of providing stability, growth, and hope for others that you really care about and not just yourself?
00:01:34.079 --> 00:01:36.159
I really want to kind of touch on some of those topics.
00:01:36.239 --> 00:01:39.920
I want to touch on uh refusing to give up.
00:01:40.079 --> 00:01:48.640
Is that perseverance at what point uh does that touch a little bit on concepts like like ego?
00:01:48.879 --> 00:01:57.519
Uh at one point, changing the plan uh might be giving in, or changing a plan might be just a responsible thing to do.
00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:01.359
And maybe underneath all of that, there is a bigger question.
00:02:01.599 --> 00:02:10.319
How much of our identity as men gets wrapped up in what we build, what we earn, our ability to provide.
00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:24.000
When I when I asked Chandler if he was willing to have this conversation with me because I knew a little bit about and his his uh his uh story and what he was going through, I kind of gave him a rough idea of what I wanted to to uh talk to me about.
00:02:24.159 --> 00:02:27.840
And his response basically uh set it all for me.
00:02:27.919 --> 00:02:34.560
And and maybe Chandler remembers this and I'm kind of paraphrasing, but he said, dude, I could share some raw stuff.
00:02:34.719 --> 00:02:36.400
I've been going through the gauntlet.
00:02:36.719 --> 00:02:40.400
So, Chandler, my friend, welcome to Beyond Small Talk.
00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:44.719
I'm gonna give you the floor to say hello, but I'm gonna right off the bat start with that question.
00:02:44.879 --> 00:02:48.080
Tell us a little bit about this gauntlet that you've been going through.
00:02:48.400 --> 00:02:51.599
Oh man, well, that's that is one way to tee up the introduction.
00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:53.840
It's great to be here, my friend.
00:02:53.919 --> 00:02:56.639
I've uh I've missed uh chatting with you.
00:02:56.719 --> 00:02:57.199
It's great.
00:02:57.280 --> 00:03:00.719
Uh we're just looking at the calendar, trying to figure out how long it's been.
00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:08.560
We're coming up on three years of knowing each other, and we've had a lot of really deep, uh, I would say beyond small talk conversations in our time knowing each other.
00:03:08.879 --> 00:03:09.439
Absolutely.
00:03:09.680 --> 00:03:18.080
But yeah, I guess you you kind of summarized a lot of my last uh few years very well in building a startup, uh building a family.
00:03:18.319 --> 00:03:22.719
We actually just hit our seven-year anniversary, uh, my wife and I, this last weekend.
00:03:22.879 --> 00:03:41.039
Um we live in Salt Lake City, Utah, and uh it's uh we didn't know this at the time, but we got married near the end of September, and the leaves start to change colors here, and it's just this beautiful uh nature scene with red and orange leaf colors all over the mountains, and and so we'll usually go to Park City to to celebrate.
00:03:41.199 --> 00:03:48.719
And um, anyways, so coming up on on or we just passed our seven-year uh milestone, and we've got two little boys now.
00:03:48.800 --> 00:03:56.240
So we have a two and a half-year-old, and uh just recently added our second little boy as well, um, who's now six months.
00:03:56.400 --> 00:03:57.919
And so we're in the thick of it.
00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:11.280
It's uh yeah, when you texted me, I I can't remember if I uh if it was work stress or family stress or probably all of the above, but um let's just say we're not sleeping a whole lot at this stage of life.
00:04:11.520 --> 00:04:26.399
Um I I recently transitioned out of the startup that I was building for the last five years and in a new job now where um, you know, I maybe expected it to be a little bit slower or or less intense, but in many ways it's just as intense, if not more.
00:04:26.639 --> 00:04:29.759
Um at a bigger company with a lot of responsibility.
00:04:29.920 --> 00:04:47.519
And and so yeah, it's like, you know, I'm uh coming up on 30 years old, which which uh to disclose my age, you know, I'm I'm still fairly young, but in the b in the years of trying to establish my career and and at the same time, it's like you know, I I want to balance being successful and working on things that I care about in my work.
00:04:47.680 --> 00:04:53.120
And and then in my home and my personal life, I want to feel like I'm um just as present there.
00:04:53.360 --> 00:05:00.639
And I'm sure we can get into it, but but what I'll say right off the bat to be to be totally vulnerable is I don't feel like I've got it all figured out.
00:05:00.720 --> 00:05:14.000
I constantly feel like the math doesn't add up, that there's not enough time in a day to actually be good at all of these different areas of my life, um, whether it's taking care of myself, taking care of my marriage, taking care of my kids, taking care of my work.
00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:16.560
Um it's it's too much.
00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:25.120
And I think even just acknowledging that has helped me feel less, less like kind of guilt about, oh man, I need to somehow be more of superman.
00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:30.480
Um But I think there's a lot of lessons and things that I am learning and trying to work at, and I'm happy to share.
00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:31.600
I love that.
00:05:31.759 --> 00:05:33.279
That's a pretty good intro.
00:05:33.519 --> 00:05:43.680
Uh before I get to some of my questions that I have for you, Chandler, can you give us a kind of two-minute version of uh the company that that you built to start with?
00:05:44.160 --> 00:05:47.360
Kind of take us to Relay and tell the audience what that is all about.
00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:50.720
Yeah, Relay is a uh men's health platform.
00:05:50.800 --> 00:06:18.959
It's really a uh group-based recovery tool that helps people that are dealing with unwanted sexual behavior like pornography, um, other forms of unwanted behavior, and how to help provide community and accountability and um brings in a lot of psychology with some therapists that we partnered with over the years to create a resource like you know, AA and 12-step groups have been around for many years and traditional recovery scenes.
00:06:19.120 --> 00:06:22.160
Um but we've got modern uh vices, if you will.
00:06:22.319 --> 00:06:29.040
Uh, pornography, obviously, with the advent of the internet, became way more prolific and um widespread.
00:06:29.199 --> 00:06:36.720
And then, you know, you had smartphones and social media just in the last 10 to 15 years, and that's only exploded even more.
00:06:36.879 --> 00:06:46.000
And now I would say, even beyond that, in the last five-ish years, you get uh sports uh prediction markets, sports gambling, um, all of these things.
00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:48.240
Uh you could throw out video games too.
00:06:48.319 --> 00:06:56.160
Like there's just so many things that are attacking the dopamine of young people, and particularly targets young men.
00:06:56.240 --> 00:06:58.720
Um, it also targets women as well.
00:06:58.959 --> 00:07:18.800
Um, whether you're a moral person, a religious person, or or not, um, I probably have talked to literally over a thousand people uh just as I'm talking to you right now, and have had conversations about these things that are somewhat taboo or maybe not as frequently talked about, but I actually think are becoming way and more normal to speak about.
00:07:18.879 --> 00:07:28.079
And and really the reason I built relay was I felt like um, you know, I got exposed early on when I was a teenager, and I honestly didn't feel like I had a choice.
00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:31.920
Uh it it kind of took a hold of my brain before I really knew what was happening.
00:07:32.160 --> 00:07:47.279
And um, you know, there's a whole uh layer of shame and self-control and wanting to feel like, you know, I'm I'm really living aligned with my true values and just feeling that lack of control that honestly started so young before I even knew what was going on.
00:07:47.439 --> 00:07:48.800
It just feels unfair.
00:07:49.040 --> 00:07:53.600
And so uh really it's not about pornography, it's not really about any one of these vices.
00:07:53.759 --> 00:08:11.519
It's about how do we help make it easier to be a healthy, whole human being in a world where, man, it is just harder and harder and feels like there's all these headwinds, you know, attacking people younger and younger, making it uh, you know, harder for our brains and our relationships to be healthy.
00:08:11.680 --> 00:08:13.439
And that's really what I became passionate about.
00:08:13.519 --> 00:08:16.800
I spent five years building relay and uh had a great run with it.
00:08:16.879 --> 00:08:18.560
It's still going today.
00:08:18.639 --> 00:08:31.360
Uh my co-founder Jace is still running it and ultimately got to a place where um, yeah, for me, it just started to feel like I needed to move on to something else full-time, but it's a mission I care deeply about, helping guys be healthy.
00:08:31.680 --> 00:08:32.320
Thank you so much.
00:08:32.480 --> 00:08:34.559
What a uh wonderful introduction.
00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:41.120
It actually links up really well with our previous episode with Matt Wenger from the Begin Again Institute.
00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:45.279
We got a really good conversation about some of the uh challenges that you alluded to.
00:08:45.440 --> 00:08:52.960
Uh, before I go to the human side of the question or the uh the discussion, because I want to go back to your progression and the last few years.
00:08:53.120 --> 00:08:56.159
Um, I do want to applaud you and your colleagues at Relay.
00:08:56.240 --> 00:08:58.000
You guys are building something very wonderful.
00:08:58.159 --> 00:09:05.360
I certainly wish all of you a ton of success uh for your own personal benefit as well as uh the society as a whole.
00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:17.600
But you were talking about uh this uh mission of uh feeling whole as as a person, kind of as sort of an underlying uh ambition behind uh relay.
00:09:17.919 --> 00:09:20.080
That takes me to to my next question.
00:09:20.720 --> 00:09:30.720
Uh you you obviously are a very ambitious person, you've been working on relay, and you alluded to that recently you've had to uh think about a new course of action for yourself and your family.
00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:40.720
So my question is did uh becoming a husband and and father change the way you thought about uh ambition?
00:09:41.039 --> 00:09:42.080
That's a great question.
00:09:42.320 --> 00:09:44.159
Um yeah, it's a really good question.
00:09:44.320 --> 00:09:53.679
I feel like ambition has always been kind of embedded within me and something that I it's not like something I think about or or necessarily try to channel.
00:09:53.759 --> 00:09:57.200
It just feels like if if I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna work hard at it.
00:09:57.360 --> 00:10:07.759
If I'm gonna try to build a new skill, I'm gonna try to be the best that I can be, not necessarily compared to anyone else, but just because I I find more satisfaction in that.
00:10:07.919 --> 00:10:11.120
Um I think there's a lot of motivations that drive ambition.
00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:21.120
Um, early on when I first got exposed to startups, I remember uh I interned for this startup and was reporting to the CEO and it was my first real work experience.
00:10:21.279 --> 00:10:30.080
We were building a new product, they had just gotten some funding, and I ended up, you know, spending the better part of two years of my undergrad time uh working on the side at the startup.
00:10:30.159 --> 00:10:39.759
And it just kind of opened this whole new world for me of like, wow, it's so cool to build a brand new product that is trying to solve an unmet need in the world, an unmet problem in the market.
00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:48.399
And how do you build something that that people really love to use that actually solves their problem that also helps grow the business?
00:10:48.559 --> 00:10:50.159
Like I kind of liked all sides of it.
00:10:50.320 --> 00:10:52.320
I taught myself to code a little bit.
00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:54.399
Um, and this is before I got married.
00:10:54.559 --> 00:10:57.360
Um, you know, fast forward, I got married pretty young.
00:10:57.440 --> 00:10:58.559
I was still in college at the time.
00:10:58.639 --> 00:11:00.000
I was about to graduate.
00:11:00.320 --> 00:11:20.879
And I remember my wife, what you know, what I fell in love with her about early on was she, I think, was very aligned in this, I don't know if you'd call ambition or just what we value in in life, where um we just would always talk about these uh deep topics and like the things that we were working on and why certain projects felt appealing to us.
00:11:21.120 --> 00:11:31.600
We actually were on a volunteer-based project to try to improve the mobility for people with handicap, like wheelchairs or crutches around our college campus.
00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:36.720
And she was the project lead on that, and that's where we met, um, which maybe sounds noble.
00:11:36.799 --> 00:11:39.919
It really, I was like, yeah, I kind of need some volunteer experience on my resume.
00:11:40.159 --> 00:11:42.080
So maybe I should, it sounds like a good thing to do.
00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:45.919
I wasn't really like, you know, that that uh noble about it.
00:11:46.080 --> 00:11:57.360
But um, you know, we started dating and I think quickly realized that even though her and I felt so aligned on um, and we talked about this like early in my career, I want to be able to work really hard.
00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:01.679
And that might mean long hours, that might mean some sacrifices in some areas.
00:12:01.759 --> 00:12:02.799
And are you okay with that?
00:12:02.960 --> 00:12:04.080
Am I okay with that?
00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:05.440
What is the motivation?
00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:08.480
Is it to to get ahead and to save a lot of money?
00:12:08.639 --> 00:12:13.759
Is it to be able to work on problem spaces that are impactful or interesting?
00:12:13.919 --> 00:12:26.399
Um, and I think early on we aligned on like, yeah, like if I'm gonna spend a bunch of time in my life on a career, I want to spend it working on things that I am passionate about that I that I can feel like leave a mark on the world.
00:12:26.639 --> 00:12:30.879
And so we were philosophically aligned, and I would say still are philosophically aligned.
00:12:31.039 --> 00:12:40.159
But I remember uh this is a long-winded way of kind of answering the question as we get into marriage early on in our first couple of years, she started dealing with some mental health uh things.
00:12:40.240 --> 00:12:41.840
Um this is around the time of COVID.
00:12:41.919 --> 00:12:47.919
So she she felt a lot of depression and anxiety that maybe was related to COVID, maybe it was just general.
00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:50.000
And that was a really tough time period.
00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:59.600
And I think she uh started to feel like, man, you know, Chandler juggling, uh, you know, work, uh, I was wrapping up my degree.
00:12:59.759 --> 00:13:07.360
Um, there just wasn't a lot of time, honestly, to spend as much time just hanging out, being together as we did when we were dating.
00:13:07.600 --> 00:13:16.559
And even though we were aligned on the reasons behind that, the rationale behind that, it didn't necessarily change how it felt for our relationship.
00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:19.360
And it's it definitely created some real strain.
00:13:19.440 --> 00:13:25.840
It was something that honestly, we are like, to be totally candid, are still kind of figuring out like what that balance really is.
00:13:25.919 --> 00:13:31.600
Cause it's like we still agree that, you know, building relay for the last five years has been the right thing to do.
00:13:31.759 --> 00:13:43.120
But it has absolutely cost some uh opportunities of being able to, you know, whether it's spending more quality time together, or maybe I could have been making more money doing something else.
00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:50.960
So we could have spent more money taking trips or vacations or taking more time off than I otherwise did running my own business.
00:13:51.200 --> 00:13:52.399
Um, it's hard.
00:13:52.480 --> 00:14:04.000
I think marriage, you know, it it's been a tough thing to realize like we are aligned together in our marriage that we want together to work on things that uh have mission behind them.
00:14:04.159 --> 00:14:06.639
And so she was my biggest supporter through relay.
00:14:06.879 --> 00:14:12.080
But it didn't mean that it was always footloose and fancy-free and easy emotionally for us in our relationship.
00:14:12.399 --> 00:14:14.320
I like that because this I think comes up a lot.
00:14:14.399 --> 00:14:16.240
It actually comes up in my relationship too.
00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:27.600
Uh there's one level of complexity when what I like to achieve in life, my ambitions and underlying really reasons underneath them, behind them, is not aligned with what my wife uh may expect.
00:14:27.679 --> 00:14:30.399
So when there's not alignment, there's one level of complexity.
00:14:30.559 --> 00:14:37.200
But I love your example because I think maybe uh the other part of the spectrum is easier for people to kind of visualize.
00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:46.399
Two people have a view of the world, they fall in love, once they start living together, they realize what they're trying to achieve in life is not necessarily aligned, so there's got to be some compromise.
00:14:46.559 --> 00:14:52.559
It doesn't mean the relationship cannot be a loving relationship, but there's this challenges in bringing those two paths together.
00:14:52.720 --> 00:14:54.399
And then your example is kind of interesting.
00:14:54.559 --> 00:15:05.600
No, there was a lot of alignment in what we're trying to achieve, but but the cost of trying to achieve that when you get married uh might be different or higher than uh anticipated beforehand.
00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:09.919
So I'm gonna ask maybe a rhetorical question, but I do think this is kind of relevant.
00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:16.240
Did having kids become more of a motivation to run after that ambition?
00:15:16.720 --> 00:15:29.360
Or did having kids bring even more awareness to the costs associated with chasing that ambition at at the pace that you or you and your wife in this case, since you were fairly aligned?
00:15:29.600 --> 00:15:30.080
Yeah.
00:15:30.320 --> 00:15:32.080
That's kind of an interesting question for me.
00:15:32.399 --> 00:15:36.320
Yeah, I mean, so we've had our first two and a half years ago.
00:15:36.559 --> 00:15:41.840
Um we were you know deep into relay at the time, you know, so startup was already off the ground.
00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:47.519
I was taking a paycheck, but not not a whole lot, like really not much more than covering our base expenses.
00:15:47.759 --> 00:15:59.120
Um I would say immediately, like I've talked to friends where adding kids adds that financial pressure and it and it comes with some immediate kind of recognition of um the weight of that.
00:15:59.360 --> 00:16:02.799
I I'd have always known that I've wanted to have a family and have kids.
00:16:02.879 --> 00:16:15.759
And I think in a lot of ways, I would actually say, maybe somewhat counterintuitively, it didn't seem to really change a whole lot about the career ambition or or the focus that I had maybe placed in my career.
00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:19.360
But logistically, there were just new elements that made this more challenging.
00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:22.960
And I remember early on, it was like, holy crap, this can sleep through the night.
00:16:23.120 --> 00:16:30.720
Like he wakes up every two hours and you know, I'm getting much less sleep than I did before, and and so is she, right?
00:16:30.799 --> 00:16:38.159
And I think one of the biggest things that I realized is when my wife's not getting good sleep, that really impacts our dynamic.
00:16:38.399 --> 00:16:51.039
And I think I underestimated how much kind of the hit on that relational dynamic in our marriage affects my kind of uh kind of capacity emotionally to go handle stress at work.
00:16:51.200 --> 00:17:10.720
And I think it uncovered some pain points where I'm like, oh, maybe I was depending on Jade to, you know, make up for some lack of maybe self-sufficiency in my own self-care because without a kid, um, you know, we get good sleep and uh it wasn't necessarily too hard to juggle um, you know, my work and our marriage.
00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:13.119
It was still a lot of you know time spent on work.
00:17:13.279 --> 00:17:22.960
But now when we're taking care of a human being and a lot of it is compromising our sleep, both of our sleep, um, but I still have to get up and go work, but she's also feeling drained.
00:17:23.039 --> 00:17:36.880
So even though she wasn't working at the time, um she's feeling, you know, neglected and not like her self-care is out of whack and she doesn't really know how to influence that because this child is kind of just taking all of that.
00:17:37.119 --> 00:17:40.880
Um, which I know, you know, people will say, well, you know, try sleep draining.
00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:42.720
And let me tell you, it's not that simple.
00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:48.880
We we are we've tried and we're working on stuff, and I think we just got some hard kids sleep-wise.
00:17:49.039 --> 00:18:00.400
But um, I think that's the sneaky part, Sean, that we started to realize was uh having kids didn't necessarily make me think, oh man, like, you know, it didn't cause some existential reflection, I don't think.
00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:10.640
If anything, it made me feel like I want I want them to know that their dad uh was fierce in pursuing what he believed in and working on things he believed in.
00:18:10.880 --> 00:18:20.960
If anything, I felt like, man, I feel like I am proud already of like the dad that I am, not because of my work, but just more just because I feel like I'm intentional about what my values are.
00:18:21.119 --> 00:18:26.559
But on the day-to-day basis, I feel like, you know, with kids now it's like barely holding things together.
00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:40.400
And a lot of times between me and my wife, it's like ships passing in the night where you know, she feels like when the kids are in bed, now it's her time to like, you know, watch Netflix and just be a person again where she doesn't have people clamoring for her.
00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:45.759
So she's like, you know, eight to midnight is like finally I get to rest and like enjoy myself.
00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:50.160
And I get to like eight o'clock now and I'm like ready to fall asleep because I'm I'm dead.
00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:55.279
I've been up since early and I've been, you know, between work and kids have just been running around.
00:18:55.519 --> 00:19:01.839
So sometimes a lot of time we're not like having the connection that we did before kids, and that that does start to impact.
00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:21.359
And I think was a it was a factor when I started to feel like, man, I don't know if uh continuing to do my own startup and uh run run the day-to-day entrepreneurship was making as much sense when it just was like really, really difficult to meet some of those core needs um of connection and self-care.
00:19:23.839 --> 00:19:33.839
Uh in some ways, if I want to be very uh binary with the answer and my question, listening to you, I hear a lot of energy and even extra motivation.
00:19:33.920 --> 00:19:41.759
I want my kids to know that I I'm continuing to pursue uh what I find aligned with my values.
00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:51.759
Uh but logistically, things are a lot more difficult than it used to be, and that can impact my energy level, my my mental health, my relationship with my partner.
00:19:52.079 --> 00:19:53.359
Uh, I thought that was very real.
00:19:53.519 --> 00:19:55.519
Thank you for sharing that with me.
00:19:55.759 --> 00:19:59.599
Um Jordan Peterson, I I listened to a lot of his podcasts.
00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:01.200
There's a couple of books from him that I've read.
00:20:01.359 --> 00:20:05.519
You and I have to share some thoughts on uh and some of the reading from Jordan Peterson before.
00:20:05.759 --> 00:20:11.039
Uh there are sections where he talks about, it's very I'm I'm not sure if you've listened to him speak.
00:20:11.200 --> 00:20:17.519
He does a lot of like TED Talk like uh you know speeches, and he's very uh strong motivational speaker.
00:20:18.079 --> 00:20:25.119
There's a video that I watched where he strongly motivates his audience around chase something meaningful in life.
00:20:25.279 --> 00:20:36.960
Uh and uh he talks about chasing something meaningful may mean going at something for a long time and and throwing a lot of energy at it and working through challenges.
00:20:37.200 --> 00:20:42.480
Uh, choose meaning in life versus achieving something fast and quick.
00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:47.599
So your story kind of reminds me of of the speech from him.
00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:55.200
Because it's to me, it seems like building something, raising kids, being married, none of those things necessarily make your life easier.
00:20:55.359 --> 00:21:02.559
At least in my story, in some ways, it has uh some of the changes in my life have substantially made my life even more challenging.
00:21:02.720 --> 00:21:04.079
Some of it you kind of talked about.
00:21:04.400 --> 00:21:04.559
Yeah.
00:21:04.720 --> 00:21:09.920
Uh, but they can certainly make your life a whole lot more meaningful, and and that's what I'm hearing when I'm listening.
00:21:10.160 --> 00:21:10.480
For sure.
00:21:10.640 --> 00:21:26.319
Uh but what I where I wanted to go to next is this stereotypical uh label that comes with a lot a lot of us men, or we put on ourselves, and this whole idea of being a being the provider in in the family.
00:21:26.559 --> 00:21:40.799
Uh, I'm interested as you've been sort of transitioning through your 30s and your life is continuing to become more and more meaningful if I were to use kind of Jordan Peterson's description of what meaning a life uh should be.
00:21:41.039 --> 00:21:46.799
And you're certainly uh learning that there is challenges associated with this journey and you're battling that.
00:21:47.039 --> 00:21:53.039
How much of being a provider gets tangled up with your identity as a man?
00:21:53.440 --> 00:21:54.000
That's interesting.
00:21:54.160 --> 00:22:03.279
I think about the word provider and it it brings back some like early childhood memories of I was pr raised in a pretty traditional Christian family.
00:22:03.359 --> 00:22:05.359
And um, my mom stayed at home.
00:22:05.440 --> 00:22:06.960
I was the oldest of five kids.
00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:12.640
My dad um, you know, w went to work and he traveled a lot for for business.
00:22:12.799 --> 00:22:19.200
And um and it was just understood that, you know, if dad couldn't be at something, it wasn't because he didn't love me.
00:22:19.279 --> 00:22:21.920
It was because he's working hard to provide for our family.
00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:26.880
And I, you know, I'd heard my mom say that, and it was clear that she supported him in that.
00:22:27.119 --> 00:23:02.319
And there's a lot of things about that that I really like, honestly, like that I think um call it traditional, call it whatever, like I think uh, you know, has been a thing for a number of years, um, which doesn't mean, you know, that that can't look different for different families, but I think just feeling this role as a provider for me now is like, I think, you know, I want my family to feel comfortable, is the thing that I, you know, have thought a lot about where it's like we when we had our first kid, we were still living in a one-bedroom apartment and we just kind of slotted the baby at the foot of our bed and didn't have much like walking room.
00:23:02.480 --> 00:23:06.400
So we had to like crawl over kind of the bassinet to like get out.
00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:09.359
And it was a nice apartment in a decent part of town.
00:23:09.519 --> 00:23:16.319
Like it wasn't necessarily a bad uh living situation, but it wasn't uh spacious or bougie by any means.
00:23:16.480 --> 00:23:25.200
And I I don't honestly think that I felt uh like I know some men may feel like, man, I need to, you know, be further ahead than I am right now.
00:23:25.279 --> 00:23:40.400
And I think there's a part of me that actually felt a lot of peace with the decision and the trade-offs of you know what it meant to start a company and paying myself below market rates and uh not being able to put away a whole lot of savings or investments for quite a while.
00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:51.359
Um But I there, I think there for sure was a point where I started thinking about, you know, I've been uh devoting five years of my life, of my career full-time to building this startup.
00:23:51.680 --> 00:23:59.680
And um, you know, I I think the question that I started to think about was how many years would I be willing to continue to make these trade-offs?
00:23:59.759 --> 00:24:04.319
Because I could see a lot of success in the impact and the mission that we were just talking about.
00:24:04.400 --> 00:24:15.279
I could see uh we'd get emails and texts from these guys or these couples, these families that were saying, hey, what you've built is so amazing, it's incredible, it's helping save our marriage, it's helping me feel so much hope.
00:24:15.440 --> 00:24:20.960
And that, I don't want to undermine how much I value that and how proud I feel of that.
00:24:21.119 --> 00:24:39.920
But at the same time, I know that there were things where, you know, whether they're material needs or or other things, just like planning for long-term retirement, where I knew that uh I was continuing to make trade-offs and sacrifice, maybe at the expense of my family or being uh a better provider in a material sense.
00:24:40.079 --> 00:24:42.720
Um, and we talked about, you know, when when should we buy a home?
00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:44.000
Just to get really specific.
00:24:44.079 --> 00:24:50.720
Like it's a hard question for a lot of young people these days who want to buy a home just because of the economy and and the housing markets.
00:24:50.880 --> 00:24:55.119
But we had been trying to save towards this, but it didn't really feel super feasible.
00:24:55.279 --> 00:24:58.640
But I knew my wife was kind of tired of us moving apartments every year.
00:24:58.720 --> 00:25:02.319
And it was something that I did reflect on of like, you know, would she be happier?
00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:09.279
Would her mental health be a little better if we could afford a place that was a little bigger or if we could get into a house and get out of an apartment?
00:25:09.359 --> 00:25:12.480
Like maybe that would be a better situation for her.
00:25:12.720 --> 00:25:18.480
And um so yeah, it's something that I would say like for sure started to cross my mind more as time went on.
00:25:18.559 --> 00:25:21.599
Like it's easy to make that decision up front and say, I don't care.
00:25:21.680 --> 00:25:29.680
Like, I know I could go make more money at any point, which is maybe a little egotistical or like overly confident of like, I know that I'm marketable, I can go get a better job.
00:25:29.839 --> 00:25:31.920
Um, which in many ways is actually just true.
00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:38.559
Like I know that I could uh and I had I had opportunities to go take jobs that were much more high paying.
00:25:38.720 --> 00:25:51.119
Um, and so maybe it was like a genuine sense of peace, I guess, that like if I need to index harder into providing materially or financially, I can, but I'm okay making the trade-off.
00:25:51.279 --> 00:26:02.240
Otherwise, right now, and I think for anyone that's in a position where they just feel like they need to make ends meet, and maybe you're not working on the most mission-driven thing that's your life's calling.
00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:06.960
I think that that is totally uh, I don't even want to say totally okay.
00:26:07.039 --> 00:26:11.920
Like that's I think a very um noble way to index as well.
00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:15.359
Like I don't think there's a right or a wrong way to lean there.
00:26:15.519 --> 00:26:19.119
I think that there may be time and seasons to things, and maybe that's what I felt too.
00:26:19.279 --> 00:26:25.359
Like the company that I went to uh that I just started my new job at a few months ago when I transitioned out of relay.
00:26:25.519 --> 00:26:27.119
I like the mission of the company.
00:26:27.279 --> 00:26:33.200
Um, if my employer is listening to this, I like working for you, uh employer, and and you know who you are.
00:26:33.359 --> 00:26:40.319
Um I I've enjoyed a lot of things about this new job, but I will say it's not as personal to me as my last company was.
00:26:40.480 --> 00:26:44.079
It's not as mission-driven for me as my last company was.
00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:45.119
But that's okay.
00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:50.880
There's other things that I'm indexing for in this new season of my life that I think are like, hey, we're having young kids.
00:26:51.039 --> 00:26:52.880
I want to be able to provide for them a little bit more.
00:26:53.039 --> 00:26:57.359
I want to feel like maybe I don't have to run this entire company myself.
00:26:57.519 --> 00:27:01.759
So I'm not the CEO anymore, and that's part of the decision I wanted.
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:09.200
Um so that and maybe in some ways that is saying I want to focus more on being just a dad, a father, you know, provider.
00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:09.920
Very good.
00:27:10.079 --> 00:27:10.480
Thank you.
00:27:10.640 --> 00:27:19.119
I I was going to actually slowly get to the point of you kind of walking us through uh making some of the decisions that you alluded to, but in the interest of time, I think you've covered a lot of it.
00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:22.240
You said something, you touched on something that channel I want to go back to.
00:27:22.400 --> 00:27:30.559
Uh this whole idea of uh when is I'm at least this is how I'm gonna paraphrase it, I'm not giving up.
00:27:30.799 --> 00:27:34.720
When is that courage versus when it's ego?
00:27:34.960 --> 00:27:37.680
You kind of talked about a little bit, it it definitely resonated with me.
00:27:37.759 --> 00:27:39.440
I would love for you to go back to that.
00:27:39.599 --> 00:27:41.920
Tell me kind of how how that felt.
00:27:42.079 --> 00:27:54.720
Uh, was there a point in your sort of transition from one job to another, from one life-changing decision to another, where you are thinking, what are what am I gonna think of myself?
00:27:54.880 --> 00:27:58.319
What are others going to think of me as I'm making this change?
00:27:58.480 --> 00:28:02.559
Is this courageous of me to walk away from this or introduce a parallel path?
00:28:02.640 --> 00:28:07.440
I'm not even saying walk away from introduce a parallel path alongside my plan A.
00:28:07.759 --> 00:28:11.119
Uh, because I I struggle with sometimes with those decisions.
00:28:11.279 --> 00:28:20.720
I I feel like at times I uh kind of go back and forth between this whole idea, idea of am I being courageous or is this my ego talking?
00:28:21.039 --> 00:28:26.400
And I would love for you to kind of tell me if that uh kind of if you felt that along along the way.
00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:31.200
Yeah, it it reminds me of uh of another framework from a good therapist friend.
00:28:31.359 --> 00:28:34.000
Um you know Chris, Chris Chandler.
00:28:34.160 --> 00:28:45.119
Um he talks about this idea of uh is this a fear-based decision or is or uh or a comfort-based decision, or is this a values-based decision?
00:28:45.279 --> 00:28:47.440
Um actually I think he says it the other way.
00:28:47.599 --> 00:28:52.559
Is this a values-based decision or is this a fear-based decision or comfort-based decision in any given time?
00:28:52.640 --> 00:29:08.240
Or am I operating out of true value and true north, or am I kind of making a decision that optimizes for some insecurity or some uh yeah, ego or other, maybe it's just more comfortable sometimes to not not make a values-driven choice.
00:29:08.400 --> 00:29:09.039
It's hard.
00:29:09.119 --> 00:29:11.599
Um, man, I would get people, including you.
00:29:11.680 --> 00:29:14.720
I mean, when we would check in as friends and you'd be like, How's relay going?
00:29:14.960 --> 00:29:20.000
I would get friends in my parents, my family, you know, it's hey, you've been doing this startup for four or five years.
00:29:20.160 --> 00:29:24.559
And sometimes, to be honest, to the theme of this podcast, I would give a small talk answer.
00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:27.359
You know, it's good, you know, lots of updates, things are good.
00:29:27.599 --> 00:29:30.079
You know, and the answer is always more nuanced, of course.
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:36.240
Uh the reality for anyone that's that's taken a jump to try to do their own entrepreneurial thing, the answer is never black and white.
00:29:36.319 --> 00:29:42.319
There's always some like gray uh layers to it that I didn't know how to summarize, honestly, man.
00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:48.480
I was like, sometimes I try to like be more open with my mom or my dad, and it would feel like, man, did I overshare?
00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:58.799
You know, do they even care about all these like context of, well, like this part of it's going well, and this part's like stressful, and this part like I'm honestly worried about, and this part we'll see.
00:29:59.119 --> 00:30:06.079
Um, it would, it would get harder and harder uh over the years, I think, to give an answer to like, how is this going?
00:30:06.400 --> 00:30:09.599
Um and uh we had we had taken investors too.
00:30:09.839 --> 00:30:15.119
And so there's some people that had invested money into our company, and it's like I want to be honest with them about how things are going.
00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:19.119
And there was a lot of things, just to be totally clear, that were going really great about the company.
00:30:19.200 --> 00:30:21.759
And the company's actually doing better now than it ever has been.
00:30:21.839 --> 00:30:23.440
Um, and that's not why I decided to leave.
00:30:23.519 --> 00:30:29.279
But it there were things that I'm like, man, it's not as good as I thought it would be, or it's not moving as fast as I wanted it to.
00:30:29.680 --> 00:30:34.960
And just trying to reflect on like, am I just trying to save face or project confidence?
00:30:35.119 --> 00:30:36.799
Um, am I being authentic?
00:30:36.960 --> 00:30:43.440
Like, and I feel like sometimes I would be more authentic and vulnerable, but then I would feel like, man, did I, was that the right choice?
00:30:43.599 --> 00:30:51.519
Like, should I, should I, do I need to be authentic and vulnerable with everybody about how things are going in my in my you know, very detailed aspects of my work and my life?
00:30:51.759 --> 00:30:52.880
And so, yeah, I don't know.
00:30:52.960 --> 00:30:56.319
You feel free to rein me in if there's more things that you want to double click on.
00:30:56.400 --> 00:31:03.839
I think this is like, this was the question of like coming to understand um how do I really feel and what do I really want.
00:31:04.079 --> 00:31:06.160
And it's okay for that to change.
00:31:06.319 --> 00:31:13.440
And what I kind of realized was I care about the mission of relay and I want this business to exist for many decades to come.
00:31:13.680 --> 00:31:16.160
This product has helped so many individuals.
00:31:16.400 --> 00:31:24.880
And at the same time, I think I'm at a place in my life where for my health and my family and my values, I need to not be in the day-to-day.
00:31:25.039 --> 00:31:34.720
Like the cot the cost that I was pouring into the business um was no longer sustainable for me to do the day-to-day work as the CEO.
00:31:34.880 --> 00:31:41.680
And Jace, though, my my f my dear friend and co-founder, still had a lot in the tank and his sort of life circumstances are different.
00:31:41.759 --> 00:31:43.200
He's not married, he doesn't have kids.
00:31:43.279 --> 00:31:48.319
And um, as we talked about it, was like, you know, like I want to continue to run it forward.
00:31:48.480 --> 00:31:57.920
And essentially we talked and decided to hand him the baton, where I'm still very much involved, um, you know, on the board and helping support him and the team.
00:31:58.079 --> 00:32:05.279
Um, but I realized at first, like, man, when I had this thought, like, should I, should I leave relay or should I take a step back from relay?
00:32:05.440 --> 00:32:07.440
I felt like I was cheating on myself, man.
00:32:07.599 --> 00:32:10.720
Like I had been married to this thing for five years.
00:32:10.880 --> 00:32:19.599
And I don't know if anyone else can relate to that listening if you've ever poured your heart into a project for a long period of time, but it felt like a little bit like entertaining the thought of cheating.
00:32:19.680 --> 00:32:20.240
And it was weird.
00:32:20.319 --> 00:32:29.200
And I was like, is this even appropriate for me to be thinking about um, you know, getting another job and wanting to still be involved, but to not be the CEO?
00:32:29.599 --> 00:32:31.039
Um, and it took some time.
00:32:31.119 --> 00:32:32.960
I'll just say, like, it took many conversations.
00:32:33.119 --> 00:32:46.160
I consulted with many trusted friends and mentors and peers and and um and talking to Jace, my co-founder, and eventually realized, like, no, this is a values-based decision that I think I uh I've done what I need to in this chapter.
00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:53.680
And I think relay is entering a new chapter where I can still be involved and I can move on and and prioritize other things at the same time.
00:32:53.920 --> 00:32:56.799
And it wasn't a one, you know, it wasn't clear right away.
00:32:56.960 --> 00:32:59.119
I grappled with that, I wrestled with it.
00:32:59.279 --> 00:33:02.880
Um, but I think having people around you to do that with is really, really important.
00:33:03.200 --> 00:33:05.839
Dude, that man, that was wonderful.
00:33:06.079 --> 00:33:12.480
Um, I I really hope that the way I'm going to take your answer, I'm not an entrepreneur, I don't own a company.
00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:21.680
And then I hope others really listen to the the core message under what you just shared with us, which was uh raw honesty and I loved it.
00:33:21.759 --> 00:33:46.720
Um whether I'm a teacher, a coach, uh a mechanic, a CEO, we all there, there's many circumstances in life where I find myself in a situation where I am deciding do I need to make a change in in uh in the course of where my life is headed, in my relationship, and my relationship with myself, my spiritual relationships, my uh relationship with my partner.
00:33:46.880 --> 00:33:51.039
Uh and this whole idea of fear-based versus value-based, I wrote it down in my journal.
00:33:51.119 --> 00:33:56.240
I think it's it's uh it's a lovely nugget that you shared from our friend Chris Chandler.
00:33:56.400 --> 00:34:01.759
Um and the I think you presented that whole thought process really well.
00:34:01.920 --> 00:34:04.880
Uh, not easy, very intentional, very thoughtful.
00:34:05.039 --> 00:34:12.639
Sounds like there was a lot of um beyond day-to-day conversations that was necessary to kind of help you get comfortable enough with that decision.
00:34:12.800 --> 00:34:31.920
And what I what you mentioned that is so real in my life, Chandler, is how different sometimes my answers to the questions that people ask me throughout the day, how different at times are versus what I think about two o'clock in the morning, uh, or well, what I think about when I get up at uh you know 6 a.m.
00:34:32.079 --> 00:34:46.079
when everybody else is still sleeping, for the first 10 minutes when my brain starts back up and everything starts tossing and turning, and things that I'm responsible for for that day starts kind of coming in and in and out, and my insecurities, my thoughts, my fears.
00:34:46.320 --> 00:34:52.880
Uh and uh that the not always we have the opportunity to be very vulnerable and honest.
00:34:52.960 --> 00:34:57.599
And I love that you said there's questions around whether I should be honest or vulnerable with everybody.
00:34:57.840 --> 00:35:02.079
Those were those were some really um serious, good reflection points.
00:35:02.159 --> 00:35:06.880
So I'm gonna definitely go back and listen to the segment and do some reflection on my own.
00:35:07.039 --> 00:35:11.360
I know you're a busy man and you have uh a commitment after this that you need to go to.
00:35:11.519 --> 00:35:13.199
I do want to ask one last question.
00:35:13.440 --> 00:35:22.639
Before marriage, before kids, before relay, uh before the decision to create a parallel path, uh, what does success look like to Chandler?
00:35:22.719 --> 00:35:26.719
Again, success is another big buzzword that many of us then carry with ourselves.
00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:29.519
And what does success look like now?
00:35:29.840 --> 00:35:35.280
Oh man, you're asking me all the philosophical uh reflective questions at the heart today.
00:35:35.519 --> 00:35:45.119
Um The first thing that came to my mind when you said that was a book from Clayton Christensen, who was a professor at Harvard Business School.
00:35:45.280 --> 00:35:48.320
Um his book is called How Will You Measure Your Life?
00:35:48.559 --> 00:35:52.000
And uh he's passed away uh in the last couple of years, I believe.
00:35:52.159 --> 00:35:57.119
But um I had a class where we discussed that book, How Will You Measure Your Life.
00:35:57.199 --> 00:36:14.159
And the essential premise is to just think about how you want to measure your life, which it may sound like a simple concept, but you really start to think about it and how you want to define success, whether that's you know, what do you want your obituary to say, what do you want people to stand up and really say at your funeral someday?
00:36:14.320 --> 00:36:30.079
Um, it really makes you think about, yeah, like I remember in that class thinking, uh, and this is before relay, before I got married, before all of this, like I think I want people to be able to say that Chandler really cared and focused on the people around him.
00:36:30.320 --> 00:36:36.800
And I think that like lens of people and relationships and influencing one person.
00:36:37.360 --> 00:36:46.239
Um, there's a because I'm a religious person, there's a scripture that has always touched me that essentially just paraphrases the worth of souls is great.
00:36:46.400 --> 00:36:53.679
Um and just thinking about, you know, in my day-to-day work, sometimes I want to impact thousands and millions of people.
00:36:53.760 --> 00:36:55.199
And, you know, it's game planning.
00:36:55.360 --> 00:37:03.039
How do we reach and change so many people's lives, or how do I, you know, be successful on a big scale or make a big impact?
00:37:03.280 --> 00:37:10.960
But when I come down to it, it's like, what did I do today to help somebody else feel seen, to help somebody else feel loved, to help somebody else feel known?
00:37:11.199 --> 00:37:20.880
And I think even just you asking me this question is a, is a it's kind of ironic because if I'm being totally honest, I haven't been thinking about that, you know, day to day the last few weeks.
00:37:21.039 --> 00:37:27.920
Like this is a lens that I think has been on my mind over the years in terms of how I want my life defined.
00:37:28.159 --> 00:37:31.599
But life throws a lot of like, you know, other noise at you.
00:37:31.679 --> 00:37:37.599
And sometimes coming back to like what success really is needs to be probably a recurring exercise.
00:37:37.679 --> 00:37:44.239
I'm realizing I probably need to like revisit that more frequently to make sure that am I really living that way, if that's what I believe.
00:37:44.480 --> 00:37:53.519
And I think, I think I would say that is still my definition of success is like how um how did I shape the individual relationships around me?
00:37:53.679 --> 00:37:55.360
The quantity doesn't really matter.
00:37:55.519 --> 00:38:01.360
Um, how did I shape the individuals that I had the chance to cross paths with and caring about them?
00:38:01.840 --> 00:38:03.760
Wonderful answer, my my friend.
00:38:03.840 --> 00:38:15.760
Uh sounds like your definition of success does not necessarily need to change as life, the complexities change with marriage and and kids uh change of careers.
00:38:15.920 --> 00:38:20.639
And that is certainly uh a very uh powerful answer to that question.
00:38:20.800 --> 00:38:29.519
One that I I need to uh think about myself, because uh there are times where um I do think my definition has changed.
00:38:29.599 --> 00:38:51.280
And I'm I'm not here saying uh which one is the right answer, but it certainly creates a great opportunity for me to sit down and think about is definition of success changing okay as life changes and life progresses as I grow, as I learn more, as I understand my limitations, as I value new things in in my life.
00:38:51.440 --> 00:38:58.880
Uh and in some ways, for some individuals, like the example that you gave me, uh maybe the definition has always been the same.
00:38:58.960 --> 00:39:07.519
Uh maybe uh it looks and feels different sometimes because of the complex things in life, uh, but maybe the definition is not changed.
00:39:07.599 --> 00:39:07.760
Go ahead.
00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:08.880
Get something else you want to say.
00:39:09.199 --> 00:39:13.119
I was gonna say, I mean, I think it's okay for values to evolve to some extent.
00:39:13.199 --> 00:39:19.679
I I know a lot of companies will set values and sometimes you argue and debate, like those things maybe should be immutable.
00:39:19.840 --> 00:39:24.719
Like no matter what, we can always fall back on these, you know, core values that are pretty constant.
00:39:24.880 --> 00:39:37.679
And maybe that's true for the most part, but I do think as you go throughout life, you discover so much more about yourself and different life experiences maybe help inform and shape what those values mean to you or or the relative importance of different values.
00:39:37.920 --> 00:39:42.400
I think it's okay and natural for those to like kind of grow and expand.
00:39:42.639 --> 00:39:54.639
But what I do think is maybe the application of what it looks like and what that definition, you know, how that means right now in this phase of your life or you know, what it looked like 20 years ago, that probably will look different.
00:39:54.800 --> 00:39:56.400
And that's I think normal too.
00:39:56.480 --> 00:40:08.960
And so, you know, maybe what what that meant for me when I was building a company where I had a specific platform to help specific individuals, like, you know, for that period in time of my life, it probably meant one thing.
00:40:09.119 --> 00:40:12.000
Um, you know, the next 20 years may mean something totally different.
00:40:12.159 --> 00:40:15.280
It might be the same definition, but the application may change.
00:40:15.519 --> 00:40:15.920
Yeah.
00:40:16.239 --> 00:40:43.840
I but I I do think one thing I'm hearing from this whole conversation from the very beginning, you have a very uh strong connection with your personal values when it comes to um what uh the career that you've been building, the decisions that you've made, and the people that you have surrounded yourself with, the way you're um driving your relationship with your wife, uh what you envision your kids will look back and think about you as you go through this part of your life.
00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:48.239
Um I hear a lot of very strong connection with your own personal values.
00:40:48.400 --> 00:41:00.559
And to me, it does sound like that connection with your personal values, whether an individual is spiritual or not, um, whether an individual is religious or not, personal values to me uh vary, but they can be personal values.
00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:10.079
I think that connection, that linkage sounds like it is bringing a lot of stability, even when things are uh maybe difficult, even when the there's unanswered questions.
00:41:10.159 --> 00:41:33.599
And I I uh that is my one takeaway, and that's uh it's a comforting one, and one for me to kind of sit down and think about what are those strong values in life that I really want to stick to as a foundation of my life, even when things are changing, even uh things are evolving, even when I come across complexities in life that I don't have a lot of practice with, and I have to uh sit down and and learn.
00:41:33.679 --> 00:41:35.039
Um that is wonderful.
00:41:35.199 --> 00:41:37.840
Uh, my friend, I don't want to take more of your time.
00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:42.960
I have uh quite a few more questions that I wanted to ask you, but this was a wonderful question uh discussion.
00:41:43.119 --> 00:41:48.559
I would love to kind of give you the floor one more time if there's anything else you want to uh get off your chest.
00:41:48.639 --> 00:41:52.480
I would like to ask you the typical question that I ask everybody else.
00:41:52.639 --> 00:41:53.360
What is your beyond?
00:41:53.679 --> 00:41:58.719
I typically ask people what is your beyond small talk for today, but you've been doing a beyond small talk this whole time.
00:41:58.880 --> 00:42:03.440
But I I will give you the floor for one last beyond small talk before I close it up.
00:42:03.760 --> 00:42:04.079
Yeah.
00:42:04.719 --> 00:42:19.280
No, I I do actually, I think there is one thing that I did want to say, which is maybe maybe as I'm even just like reflecting and telling my own story, it might even sound more, you know, rosy or like uh like I've got it all put together more than I actually feel inside.
00:42:19.440 --> 00:42:23.920
Like on a day-to-day basis, just to be clear, I don't usually drive home.
00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:25.840
Uh, I've got like a 30-minute commute.
00:42:25.920 --> 00:42:33.760
I I'm not normally thinking, man, I'm so glad, you know, with how I showed up today and cared for people today and the relationships that I have.
00:42:34.000 --> 00:42:44.639
I'm normally driving home feeling some amount of overwhelm or stress, like crap, I didn't get this thing done, or like, man, I didn't love how that conversation went, or like I'm feeling so behind in this area.
00:42:44.800 --> 00:42:49.760
Like I get really sucked into like, again, just the bit the day-to-day of like the kitchen's a mess.
00:42:49.920 --> 00:42:52.800
My to-do list is uh, you know, I'm behind on it at work.
00:42:52.880 --> 00:42:58.800
I'm got a pressing deadline that I, you know, I owe my boss these three things, you know, all by tonight or tomorrow.
00:42:58.880 --> 00:43:09.360
And and so I I think the beyond small talk too is like just realizing that everyone's kind of figuring this out, uh, you know, even the the mentors and the people that I look up to the most.
00:43:09.440 --> 00:43:17.519
And you're one of them, Sean, like, you know, that that seem to have some amount of consistency or or like they they focus and they're able to stick with what they want.
00:43:17.679 --> 00:43:23.519
Um, my my experience has been that under the hood, most guys are really uh totally imperfect.
00:43:23.599 --> 00:43:28.079
And that may, that may seem obvious, that may seem intuitive, but I most of the time I feel like a total mess.
00:43:28.239 --> 00:43:40.480
I feel like I'm not uh prioritizing or balancing things nearly as well as I want to, but I'm trying to find grace for myself and knowing that yes, I can be authentic and vulnerable and and clear on my values.
00:43:40.639 --> 00:43:55.760
And at the same time, if things don't translate perfectly day to day, if I'm still, you know, stressing over the things that are not necessarily that related or correlated with the things that I supposedly do care about, I'm a I'm a I'm a natural human, you know, I'm a natural man.
00:43:55.840 --> 00:43:59.760
Like I'm still working through those weaknesses and I'm also trying to be gracious with myself.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:05.119
And not get overly worked up about trying to come back to this sort of zen, you know, values.
00:44:05.199 --> 00:44:09.920
You know, I'm just like, oh, it's perfectly, you know, having the right mindset in every situation.
00:44:10.079 --> 00:44:10.960
That's never the case.
00:44:11.119 --> 00:44:17.440
And so I think even just the meta, you know, opportunity to just be kind to yourself and realize that life's hard.
00:44:17.599 --> 00:44:18.159
There's a lot of things.
00:44:18.559 --> 00:44:27.119
Trying to figure out how to be a good man, trying to be honest, trying to be um uh present and to be live a life of meaning um is hard.
00:44:27.199 --> 00:44:29.920
And I don't think it ever looks uh perfect, and that's okay.
00:44:30.320 --> 00:44:31.599
Oh, that was great.
00:44:31.840 --> 00:44:32.480
Thank you so much.
00:44:32.559 --> 00:44:33.760
I appreciate Chandler.
00:44:33.920 --> 00:44:45.280
Um I think uh one of the things I'm taking away from this conversation is that we sometimes talk about ambition and responsibility as as though uh they are opposites.
00:44:45.599 --> 00:44:46.719
I've come across that.
00:44:46.880 --> 00:44:50.719
I sometimes I viewed as if there's this there's a pendulum here.
00:44:50.880 --> 00:45:05.119
Either I'm the guy who's willing to get everything done and get to the dream that I'm trying to get to, what I've envisioned, the type of guy that I'm going to be when I'm in my 60s and 70s, or the other side is you're this responsible guy who plays it safe.
00:45:05.360 --> 00:45:09.760
In my head, it's it's sometimes as if these two are the opposite of each other.
00:45:09.840 --> 00:45:12.559
But but life is obviously a lot messier than that.
00:45:12.639 --> 00:45:15.199
And I appreciate uh your uh message there.
00:45:15.360 --> 00:45:24.079
Sometimes believing in something uh means pushing forward, sometimes being responsible means adjusting the plan.
00:45:24.239 --> 00:45:25.519
You talked a little bit about that.
00:45:25.679 --> 00:45:36.719
Sometimes providing for your family means taking your risk, and sometimes it means uh creating stability while you continue building uh something you believe in.
00:45:36.800 --> 00:45:38.800
Uh, you brought a really good example of it.
00:45:39.039 --> 00:45:46.480
Maybe growing up as a man is partly learning that changing the plan doesn't necessarily mean abandoning the dream.
00:45:46.639 --> 00:45:55.599
I I've come across that that uh sort of that uh decision-making cross before where I'm deciding, am I changing a plan?
00:45:55.760 --> 00:45:57.199
Does that mean I'm failing?
00:45:57.360 --> 00:46:01.440
Does that mean I am giving up and abandoning abandoning a dream?
00:46:01.679 --> 00:46:03.760
I don't necessarily think that is the case.
00:46:03.920 --> 00:46:12.320
I also think there's probably a lot of guys listening to us who, like I said before, who don't own a startup and maybe never will, but but they know this feeling.
00:46:12.480 --> 00:46:23.599
Uh you know what it's like to have people depending on you while privately wondering, like Chandler said, in the middle of the night, whether they're making decisions or on that 30-minute drive home.
00:46:23.840 --> 00:46:24.960
Am I earning enough?
00:46:25.199 --> 00:46:26.159
Am I doing enough?
00:46:26.320 --> 00:46:28.559
Did I have the right conversation with the right people?
00:46:28.719 --> 00:46:31.679
Did I take full advantage of that opportunity?
00:46:31.840 --> 00:46:36.559
Uh am I becoming the man I always envisioned I would be?
00:46:36.719 --> 00:46:46.079
I think those are all very fair questions in this uh messy life that uh that we try to keep as organized as possible on a day-to-day basis.
00:46:46.239 --> 00:46:52.960
To me, those are the real conversations I'm hoping to motivate uh with this type of chat that I had with Chandler.
00:46:53.119 --> 00:46:58.559
I hope others have felt the opportunity to sit down and reflect on some of these topics.
00:46:58.800 --> 00:47:00.559
Chandler, my friend, love you.
00:47:00.719 --> 00:47:03.519
Thank you for your honesty and courage to sit down and have this chat with me.
00:47:03.599 --> 00:47:05.280
It was very, very meaningful to me.
00:47:05.519 --> 00:47:16.960
Hope this world continues to find uh good-hearted individuals like you uh that that try to continue to stick their to their values and and make a difference in this life.
00:47:17.039 --> 00:47:17.760
That is very many.
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:18.159
Thank you.
00:47:18.400 --> 00:47:21.119
Uh, for everybody else, thank you for listening to us.
00:47:21.280 --> 00:47:27.840
Uh, I hope you're motivated to go and have a beyond small talk after this conversation.
00:47:28.079 --> 00:47:30.079
Chandler, my friend, I will talk to you later.
00:47:30.239 --> 00:47:30.719
Take care.
00:47:30.880 --> 00:47:31.920
Thanks, everyone.
00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:37.119
Thank you for listening to today's episode.
00:47:37.280 --> 00:47:40.000
I would love to hear your thoughts on today's conversation.
00:47:40.239 --> 00:47:43.840
Where in your life do you need to go beyond small talk right now?
00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:50.639
Maybe with your partner, maybe with a friend, a family member, or maybe just with yourself.
00:47:50.800 --> 00:47:55.920
Leave a comment, send a message, or share this episode with someone who came to mind while listening.
00:47:56.079 --> 00:48:01.440
And if these conversations are meaningful to you, consider subscribing and following the podcast.
00:48:01.599 --> 00:48:05.440
As always, thank you so much for being part of the conversation.
