Blaze Your Own Trail - They Live On a Cruise Ship with Jeff and Debb Knapp

Episode Date: September 20, 2026

Jeff and Debb share their inspiring journey from hardship to living full-time on a cruise ship, emphasizing the power of resilience, faith, and community impact. Their story highlights overcoming adversity and building a life of purpose and impact.Key TopicsJeff and Debb's background and childhood storiesThe decision to live full-time on a cruise shipThe role of faith and community in overcoming adversityThe journey of building a social media presence and brandThe importance of authenticity and impact in content creationStrategies for overcoming personal struggles and depressionThe significance of setting boundaries and self-careFuture plans for growth, impact, and monetizationThe power of sharing stories to inspire othersConnect with Jeff and Debb: https://www.weliveonacruiseship.com/Grab a copy of Jordan's Best Selling Book: The Life-Changing Power of Adversity: https://www.amazon.com/LIFE-CHANGING-POWER-ADVERSITY-Struggles-Potential-ebook/dp/B0FHYB6JV3 Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action! Join here: https://trailblazerecosystem.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I know it's Jeff and Deb, but two F's and two B's because I was like, I think I put it with one B. And I was like, wait, I need to go back and do my research. So I started going through your post to try to figure it out. We have it with Jeff, two F's, two B's, and our last name is not K and A P. Man, two Fs, two Bs and two P's. You need a shirt, T shirt, right? Two Fs, two Bs, and two P's, right? Just let everybody know.

Can you imagine what people are going to come up with funny comments, though? Two Fs. Hey, by rality, guys. virality that's built in. Well, hey, pleasure to meet you officially. I know we've been chatting to the DMs. You know, I've been in your lives a little bit. And it's been really cool just to see and hear a little like some tidbits about your story and journey. And I know you guys got a little bit to, you know, dive into my show, check out some of the different stories. And I hope that you see why I wanted to invite you. I hope that you see that, you know, that you are trailblazers. You know,

you're blazing trails out there. And to be able to just say, you want to kind of dive into living on a cruise ship full time, it takes a certain type of person, a certain type of mindset, but also you have had to have done some things in order to get to that point, if that makes sense. And so that's why for me, I was like,

you know what, I need more context here. I need the story and the journey. And so my favorite part of the show, as you know, if you heard any episode, is I like to take a rewonder. and really get context in my guest's story and journeys. But before we do that, just quick intros, ladies first, of course. So Deb, if you want to share, you know, where were you born and raised?

Or actually just, who are you? What do you do? Where are you from? We'll start there. And then we'll get the same for you, Jeff. And then we're going to take it back and rewind back to childhood. Hi, my name is Deb. And I was born and raised, but almost my entire life in a town called Vancouver in the state of Washington.

not to be confused with Vancouver, BC, or Washington, D.C. Right next to Portland, Oregon. So a suburb almost of Portland, Oregon. I was born and raised, a family of five, two siblings, two parents. I became a teen mom at the ripe young age of 17. Had two babies by the time I was 19, so I had to be responsible from a very, very young age. Went on my first cruise in 1995, and I found a lot of. lot of freedom in cruising because having to be so responsible financially and in all ways.

It was my first trip away from my children. And on a cruise, things tend to be all-inclusive cost-wise. So you pay one price, you get on a ship and in most cases you really don't have to worry about finances. So it was a first time in my young adult life I was 24 that I got to experience what felt like freedom. And I made the decision after that trip that someday I would retire on a business. crew show. I love it. Appreciate that context and, you know, way to go to be, you know, a young

parent and, you know, having to take on all this responsibility. You know, my wife and I, when we had our first, by the way, we're parents of six. We have four boys and two girls. From diapers to the workforce, I like to tell people because our youngest is two, our oldest is almost 22, but I remember being a 22 year old, a couple months from my 23rd birthday, having our first child and being like, I'm still a kid. Like, what am I doing here? You know, so I appreciate that context. At 22, having a kid is, you know, and I, and I watch your story and, you know, I know your first story, you know, so it's hard, you know, but it's just really hard. Same thing with me.

I was a teen parent. I had two kids, same, same thing. Our kids are about, we both have three kids. Our kids are almost exactly the same age. So it was definitely a struggle. I was born in a state of New Jersey. I never wanted the cruise. I thought cruises were stupid until 2019.

I never even thought they were. I thought, because I used to get on a ferry and get seasick. So why would you want to be on a ship that does this all day long and get sick? Join the Army at 17, got away from the house I was in, was abusive house, got joined the Army, and never, never looked back. Grew up from that day forward, and that's when I had my two kids. Appreciate that context. And, you know, I love the fact that you're like, I didn't even want to go on a dang cruise ship. I had no interest in it.

And here you are. You fast forward and you meet your bride and you have this incredible life where now you're educating people about cruises. You're like the cruise spokesperson and it's like least likely guy to ever be on a cruise ship, Jeff. The guy that now is on a cruise ship telling everybody about going on a cruise ship, Jeff. I mean, up until I decided to say, who cares? But go into your shopping mall and that's what it feels like on a cruise ship. Yeah, that's incredible. Well, let's, I'm going to go back over to Deb. So you grew up in the great Pacific Northwest where I grew up. I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, North Portland. So I'm very familiar with across the bridge in Vancouver and spending some time there and just the beautiful nature and the scenery and being a kid and walking down any street and there's fruit hanging from through people's fences and you're just getting to kind of chow down on it. And then you meet a guy from the, you

East Coast. And so this is funny because growing up in Portland, I met my wife in Georgia. She's a, you know, southern peach through and through and totally different parts of the country, total different mindsets and perspective. So can you talk a little bit about what it was like growing up in the Pacific Northwest and then eventually kind of getting over to different parts of the world and traveling? And I know everyone says there's no place like home, but can you give people that might be tuning into this and they have no context of, you know, how vibrant it is when it comes to. Obviously, there's a lot of rain, but what that brings in nature, what that brings in fruit and air quality. I mean, all these benefits of growing up there. I'd love you just to share some

context. So being from the Pacific Northwest and, you know, being more from the southern part of Washington State, we do get a little less rain than is typical of areas like Seattle. But the greenery is gorgeous. I was lived right off the Columbia River Gorge. great for hiking. So it could go out your back door and have beautiful hikes and see, you know, get to get to the top of these big cliffs and overlook the entire gorge. It's beauty like you've never seen before. In fact, in my travels, people always said, just wait until you go to Ireland. It's so beautiful. But I got to Ireland and I'm like, well, this doesn't look much different than home. So it was not a stark contrast or somewhere where I'd say, oh gosh, I have to go see Ireland

because I saw that beauty. It's nice. Warmer and warmer in the Pacific Northwest. So, you You know, when we used to have rain for X amount of months a year, that decreased over year over year to where our summers got so beautiful, mild temperatures. So I hadn't really, my first time going on a cruise was my first time getting to the East Coast. And that was, that cruise went out of Miami. So I'll say getting into Miami my first time was a culture shock. I went from not being a minority to getting into Miami and being a minority.

And that's an interesting thing in and of itself, because it's not something you think of. But when you experience it, you're like, oh, this feels different, you know. So, and I didn't spend, besides being on cruises, because over the years I've been on many cruises before I lived on his ship, I really haven't explored the East Coast. So my first time really going on land anywhere else was after my husband and I met, we met on a cruise ship. So my first time seeing New Jersey was with him just for a short three-day jaunt. But that's my first time really being to the East Coast. Wow. Incredible.

Yeah. Appreciate that context. And for you, Jeff, I'm going to say an exit on the turnpike. And I need to tell me which city is associated with because I'm going to test your New Jersey skills live on TikTok. You ready? Exit 4. Exit 4 would be Wildwood, New Jersey. Okay.

And what else is near there? My wife and I visited somebody there. Yeah, go ahead. Exit 4th 4 is North Wildwood, Anglese, your Rio Grande area. you're the villas. I was at exit zero, Kate Maddie's low as you can go. Exit tennis,

courthouse, exit 12. You know, exit tennis also is Del Haven. Going up to all the way, exit 80 is Tom's River. I mean, it's just, what area,

where they, so my aunt, so my wife and I used to travel up there, you know, especially we lived in Maryland in Bethesda, and my aunt was up in Cherry Hill,

so we would drive up. Derry Hills where else? Oh, is it? Okay, that's great. Yeah. That's like, that's like mid-state and over towards Pennsylvania.

Yep. Jerry Hill, what a great place. My aunt lives there. She was a retired nurse and a lot of cousins that went to Princeton. And yeah, I love that part of the state. And tell me a little bit about what you remember about the place called Roy Rogers. Roy Rogers. I don't even know what Roy Rogers.

You've never been to a Roy Rogers, the hamburger joint on that was, they had it on the, a lot of the rest stops going up the Jersey. Turnpike up into New York. I honestly did we didn't stop. We didn't stop. We didn't travel much when I was growing up. And then when I was older, honestly raising two teen kids, there was not much money. Not much of that. When we grew up, when we grew up from zero to 17, we were on paper food,

Sam's welfare. And we were poor, so we didn't really eat out. You're in good company, brother. So was I. I just did a podcast. I was talking about that. It felt like I was dealing with monopoly money. You know, you walk in with this different colored paper.

You walk in the world while we went, you know. So let's talk about careers because obviously, so just so the audience knows, these amazing people are living full time on cruise ships. And it actually cost money to do that, by the way. It's not free. So they had to have built something in order to be able to afford a lifestyle where they can do that. And I really want to get into these journeys and these stories because I know you both, You both had separate careers in different industries.

And so if we can get a little context, starting from you, Deb, you know, what was that career path like? Because I know obviously raising kids, you know, and then, you know, doing that in an early age and then finding out about cruising and saying, you know, one day I'm going to retire. There had to be in a career path and some goals you had to be able to get to that point. Yes. So I realized after my second child was born and I became a single mom, that the job that I had out of high school, I could not afford to maintain a life with myself and my children. So that forced me to go to college,

and I was not a person who ever enjoyed school, but you do what you have to do, right? So I managed to get a bachelor's degree in three and a half years, and that was after that in 1995 is when I went on the first cruise, and that was the time that I also started my career. My plan was to become a school teacher, but I got side railed because I did an internship, and the state government offered me a job.

Well, you can't turn it down when you don't have financial means. So I started out working for state government as a social worker. I realized, I think I did it for three years and realized that really wasn't a good fit for me. I was successful at it, but it just didn't feel right. So then I actually went and became, worked for the child support agency. And I did that for about 10 years. And then I ended up in state, this is all within state government. I ended up working for our workers' comp system, which is one of the only public systems in the U.S.,

most are privately owned, doing investigations. And I didn't go out and do like field investigations of fraud. I actually, my investigations were regarding employer and employee conflict regarding labor laws. And I did that until I retired, so I did that for 28 years. And on the side, so that actually provided me a pension, stability, medical insurance, but it wasn't my main bread winning. What I did on the side is I flipped home. So I would buy vacant land, negotiate with a builder, build a house,

live in it for two years for the tax benefit, and sell it. I represented myself as the seller. And then additionally, I did renovation, so flipped home. So that's where I made most of my money, and I invested all of those funds. So I learned young. Somebody told me when I was 24 and started my career, as most of social workers were way older than I was. Most of them were 40 plus.

I was 24. They called me the young one of the people gave me this tidbit of wisdom. They said, it doesn't matter how much you earn. It's how you spend your money. And I took that to heart. And I always was very cognizant of how I spent money. So later in life, because I did so much move with flipping homes, I always had to do all the packing.

And that's a lot to pack up and move a house. And it could be like every six months sometimes that I was moving. And I learned that all of this stuff did not have value to it. Like, for example, one of my houses, they wanted to buy all my furniture. So I calculated what it would cost me to replace the furniture. And that's what I sold my furniture for. But then I started looking, well, resale furniture has no value. So why not decorate my next house with the used furniture, right?

Why should I take the hit buy it new? Sell it far cheaper, because if you sell it all a cart, a dining room sets $100. you probably paid $1,100 plus to buy it. And then over time, with moving and moving, I just started downsizing. What do I really need? And I remember, because we're taught growing up, most of us, that success comes in getting married, having kids, buying your house, and then from there, it's bigger is better. The fancier car, the better the brand name, the bigger the house makes you successful.

So I climbed that ladder. I started out in an 1,800-square-foot house. My last house was 4,500 square feet. And I remember as my kids started leaving the nest, looking around and saying, how much this house am I really using? And I realized I was just using a tiny footprint. And I'm like, what a waste. I'm cleaning this house because I didn't have cleaners. I wouldn't spend money that way.

But what a waste. And I realized that the more that I had did not bring me more happiness. But travel did. So I would go on a cruise once a year, then it became twice a year. And then it was like, how much can I work and save up my sick leave and vacation time to get more cruises in? So it became this pattern of get rid of stuff, realizing how important travel and that freedom was. So it all kind of came together a bunch. Yeah, I love it.

Well, I appreciate you giving us that access into the past because what I want all your viewers and all your audience and all of our listeners to know is that what you did was not, normal and it was not easy right you put in the reps you built a whole entire career in in the state which is not easy right you there's so many rules and regulations and and you did it and you did it well and you advanced but at the same time this is this is what i want the listeners to hear is in parallel you also had another business that was helping you build things for your future things where now you're able to travel the world you now you're able to you know, have savings and investment that is actually helping you afford the lifestyle that you want to have. And what I want people to understand is that if you want to be a trailblazer, you can't do

what everyone else is doing. You have to do things against the status quo. You have to take action and invest in yourself. You got to be willing to take risks because she didn't know folks if that was going to pay off or not, but she said, you know what? I've got young kids. Like, I've got a future ahead of me. And I need to do what I can do. I need to take action and go blaze a trail that no one else is doing my age. But I think you kind of saw the writing on the wall of you could just stay here and do the same thing and go through the mundane monotonous lifestyle of government work or you could build something meaningful on the side and then getting into traveling and seeing what that could

unlock. So kudos to you for blazing a trail. That's incredible that you're able to accomplish that. And Jeff, we're off to you now, brother. And the stage is set here. So now let's get into what did the career look like? I know you got into real estate as well, which is interesting because her flipping houses and getting into that, there was so many, so many like common threads, I'm sure as you guys were having these conversations.

We have so many common interests. Like when we met and we first started talking about and she just told me she flipped homes. And honestly, I was a realtor back in 1991. So after I got out of the army, I was in the army for a few years, had a couple, two kids, my two kids. and I, you know, left the army, and then I became a realtor and then just did odd jobs, but real estate was always my passion. Then I ended up being a builder with that. So we're learning to flip homes and being a builder.

It just was such an amazing thing. I mean, I've done other jobs also. I had two retail stores. I bought a few motels and a bunch of apartments and a bunch of houses, and that was rental income. So, I mean, it was all fun. But when I grew up, poor on welfare till 17, joining the Army, he only makes $700 a month, $700 a month was nothing. I quit high school, you know, when I was in 10th grade, joining the Army. So I didn't have a high school degree.

I always had that mindset that, you know, my dad always said, you're going to be nothing. He was, you know, abusive man. And he always said, you're going to have nothing. You're going to be nothing. And I just always kept in the back of my head, like, he's not right, right? I mean, it was, some people either take that as a victim. I took it as motivation. I took it as like, okay, so maybe you're not anything, but I will be.

So, you know, like, I'm the youngest of the boys. I eventually had a big building company where everybody in my family, both my older brothers were working for me, my mom was working for me, my little sister was working for me. So for me, it felt good, you know, it was like great to be able to show the world that, you know, I wasn't this nobody kid that, you know, grow up poor, did nobody could do anything. I was eventually being able to do that and eventually had a 6,300 square foot house where I was the most depressed in my whole life. And I didn't even want to be here anymore.

And then so the great thing is I recovered from all that and, you know, changed my whole life, became a Christian, became a minister, found my right way in life, and realized that nothing. No material item in this world, nothing. There's not one material item in this world means anything to me. Nothing. Everybody says, well, what about having this? You need to have this. It doesn't.

The only thing I brought on the cruise with me was a little cross that's right over there. It's from the dollar store. It's a little cross that says faith. That's all I have this material. And it doesn't really mean anything if it was lost, it would be okay. But that's the only material thing I own in this whole world.

everything I have on this cruise ship for the last 936 days, 38 days that we've been living on a cruise ship. That's the only one material thing I have. So what you learn is you learn every time you buy the newest television, the biggest couch, the newest Mercedes Benz. I had two Mercedes Benz at one time. The biggest newest truck that you want to have a yacht, you have a yacht. The more things I had, I want to go and buy new quads for the kids. You want to have, you know, buy your kids a new car. But everything you buy, it is a waste.

Everything I spent money on was an actual financial waste. I try to teach people, we don't get financial advice, so this is just my story. Don't listen and don't do what I'm doing. But for me, once I stopped buying stupid thing, everything, if I buy something now and it costs me $1, I call my dollars my friends. If I have a dollar goes out, I want two friends to come back. So it has to be an investment for me. So everything I'm buying now,

everything we're buying for our social media is an investment. So if we buy a new phone, it has to have a great process that it has to do lights. And I'm a builder. I don't even know what that is until we do research on it. But people always ask, you must have a great selfie stick or whatever. I have a $5 one that we got on the TikTok shop.

I mean, so it's like, you know, like we're not wasting money on anything anymore. It's just something that we've learned together. We both have that same mindset as we bigger houses don't mean anything. The bigger house I got, the more depressed I got. 40 years of depression, and that was my breaking point, is when I had the biggest and best of everything. I had the most of everything in my life material.

The world saw me as the biggest company, the biggest everything down where I lived, and I was the most depressed. You know, it broke me. It broke my mind. It took my mind break to where I cook. I don't even want anything in life anymore. I had to take myself and get the help I needed.

And that, you know, we're starting a series on that. You know, it's, you know, about what you don't see. It's the four seconds before we start this camera. It's what nobody sees when we start this camera. It's the four seconds of do we put a fake smile on. Hi, good morning. I'm Jeff. Like, and I make a joke.

But some days, I don't even want to get out of bed. So, you know, it's something that you have to work on. And what gets me out of bed is my one goal in life when I met dad was I want to make one person smile a day like Robin Williams used to make me smile when I couldn't smile. So I look to Robin Williams and I look find a video or movie and I laugh and I'd say, I'm going to stay today and tomorrow I want to come back and see what else he's going to do. And I want to be that person that is silly and goofy. If you look at my videos, I try to do something silly and goofy and my wife finds these weird outfits to put me in. And our chat has fun with it. And I jump in pools and do all kinds of stuff.

So it's just every day I want to make one person smiling. Every day we have at least one person, sometimes 50 people write private message and saying, you made me smile on, you made me happy today. That's what makes me, even sometimes I start this podcast or start this video in pain or sad or whatever. And I can change that because I know the outcome is going to be. I'm going to help somebody today. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, I love that your goal is about creating impact.

You know, how can I inspire someone, encourage someone, make somebody's day better? And that's really what I do as well through the podcast, the book, speak on stages. It's about how can I inspire one, right? Because if you can inspire one person and that inspires one and they inspire one, I mean, the math gets really easy, you know. And that's actually grows. It's just a really, and that's the idea is because when we started this, we didn't even know if it was going to work. She wanted to start this when we met. She talked about doing something, and I only had my space for two weeks.

So I wasn't in social media. I didn't like my photo taking. I'm 54 years old, almost 50 bucks. You know such that you didn't like it. You were adamantly opposed to having videos or photos. Absolutely, because I had a childhood that was very abusive and the photos were part of it. So being abused when I was a small child and photos were part of it, it was something that didn't sit with me. So nobody, I mean, even my family, there might.

be 100 photos at 54 years old down. So there's not many photos of me. So when she said that, I said it brings back a triggering that I just don't like. It just brings me something to sadness. And it just makes me something that hurts inside it, just hurts. I'm a big tough guy, but it brings me back to a darkness that I don't want to be dark. After a year and a half of living together, she said, let's just try it. And I said, we tried it.

First, we actually eased into it. So we would do, like, you know, they have photo stations all over the cruise ship on formal nights. So we started by doing one photo. And then we go to the top cruiser event where they photograph us. So it was a slow thing. Then we had our wedding, which was, which he originally didn't know if he even wanted to photograph or to photograph our wedding. And so we got through the legal ceremony, just he and I at the beach with, and it was a cheap wedding.

It was $199. The efficient was the photographer. He made it through. And so it was right after our wedding where he finally said, okay, let's give it. Let's try it. So then we tried it. And honestly, it's hard a lot, but we're, but I didn't even understand why somebody would want to watch us because I am so, we are so blessed to be able to, some days we have 3,500 people in our chat at one time. Right now we have 563 people. I don't know why 5662 people are in here. I know why you're in here, Jordan, but I don't know what 5602 other people are in here right now.

I can't imagine, and I'm so grateful and thankful that everybody is in here. It means the world to us and the opportunities that are coming our way. We have so many great opportunities coming our way by being on here. But I honestly can't honestly understand why somebody comes on here. The average has been for the last week is 1,100 to 1,200 people every two minutes being here. I can't imagine that people are doing it. So it must be impacted somebody or somebody must be saying, this is something okay.

And we want to show people to cruise life, but we also want to show real life too. I mean, Deb did a brawl lift in Turkey. We show that. And, I mean, got millions of views on the videos. It wasn't why we wanted to go viral. The comments were so bad. The comments, you know, they say we got lobotomies.

It's okay. And I did a hair transplant. And I showed it. And, you know, I want to be real. And grown up poor, I had the most horrible teeth. I wouldn't ever smile. So every photo for a year and a half, Deb and I got, Matt even got our wedding photo. I'm like this.

So I wasn't smile. And then I was able to get all my teeth replaced and fix, you know, crowns on every one of them and three implants. And I used to, and then before I met her, I was over 340 LBs. And then, you know, I lost a down, now I'm down 160, you know, being a carnivore. So people like, you know, I'm trying to do a lifestyle change, but I want to show everybody what we're doing. Yeah. You know, the good at the bad. There's good about everything we're doing, but there's a lot of bad about it, too.

Sure. Yeah, well, here's the thing. If your audience liked you before being transparent, sharing more stories, being a real human, they're going to like you even more after you start to do that, right? Because these things are relatable. Grow up super poor. Check, right? Abusive people in real life, check, right?

A lot of people have faced this. And there's people out there that are listening. They're going, check, that's me today. and when they see through your smile and through Deb's smile and when they hear the stories of how you started in one place, but now you're in another place and you're here to help other people, that right there is why they're hitting that follow button. That's why they're viewing your content because you're being real people. And I think gone are the days where people are just following people because they've got a million followers.

Does that make sense? Like people actually want to be around and surround themselves. with people that are more like regular humans. You guys, you can't be transparent in public and not show yourself and not show deficiencies or not show that, hey, you know what? Some days I don't want to turn on that camera, but I'm doing it because of you because you want to create impact. And so that, to me, is way more meaningful.

And I wanted you guys on the podcast, but that makes me want to bring you back for another round sometime, right? Because I'm like, these guys are awesome. They're tough. They've been through the mud. They know what it's like to struggle. They know what it's like to have not. And now they're using their platform to help other people.

And that's what it's all about. It's just about creating impact. Right. I think for me, the hardest thing is, which we're building a 10-day series, which we're going to make a video, it's about the struggle about starting this podcast, the four seconds before we start, what we really go through, and what we're doing with it and how each day goes by that nobody sees, it's just something to me.

That's going to be our core thing because being a minister also, I want people to know that when they come on a ship, that if there's 3,400 passengers on a ship, how many are here and have a perfect mindset that everything in their life is going right? I'd say 5, 10, maybe. So how many people are on this ship right now that are having some kind of worried about a medical test that are sick, that are sad, that are going through a fight with their partner, their spouse, their job, their job, their job, just that they're stressed from getting on vacation. They're stressed being on vacation. Their flight was bad.

They got late. There's something in everybody's life that there's stress, sadness, turmoil, or something wary. And I want them, when they see us on the cruise, I want somebody to be up, look on the cruise and come up to me and say, even if I'm in the middle of live stream, wave everyone, guy, can I have two seconds? And I will hand Deb to live stream and I will go pray with them. I want people to know, our staple,

to know that we're here. And if they don't want that, and they just want somebody to talk to, they don't want a prayer. If their faith is different, and they just want somebody to talk to, I just want to let them know that I will be there to take, whether it's two minutes

or 20 hours, whatever it takes, to get them to the next day. I want to do that. Because I remember how I've gone to therapists, probably thousands of hours of therapists. And I remember the last time I went to a therapist is when the therapist looked at his timer and I was in the middle of a heartbreaking story

about my abuse from my dad, and a timer went up and he goes, okay, see you next week. And I thought, how could someone do that? And it stuck with me. And I think to myself, whether somebody needs one minute, because sometimes all somebody needs is just one minute

to say, I hear you, I see you, or somebody needs 20, 20 million hours for that day. It doesn't matter what we had plans. It is so, so freeing for that person to know that somebody's there. Because who knows not there? Who knows if that five minutes will change that person's life? Because if I didn't have that person that was in a high school counselor that took me aside,

I didn't have that drill sergeant taught me how to box. If I didn't have that one nurse that cared for me, If I didn't have one doctor that said he can do this and give me a word of encouragement, I wouldn't be here. So to me, I want to be that person for somebody. I know the cruise ships are new, and the new cruise ships do not have a place of worship,

and because it was underutilized. But what I am definitely looking at, and they're finding, is it going to find a place where we can actually have a spot where I can minister to people, or just listen to them? More minister, but listen, more listen, and be there for him. That's our.

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, I love it. And I love that you're, go ahead, Depp. Going back to the few minutes week where we get on a live stream, so a lot of our live streams start in the morning. Jeff struggles sometimes in the mornings, and I can tell when he's struggling. And I'll do funny things like I'll put on lip plumber and kiss him. And that just snaps him right out of it because he'll kiss me.

And I'll make sure he kisses me a couple times. We'll walk out the door, he'll get ready to hit the go live. button, he'll go, you got me again. And it makes him laugh every time and snaps him out of it. It does. She's definitely my... Or he might turn his cheek and I might look the side of his face. You know, Jeff, he's got severe OCD.

Severe. But every time it makes him laugh. So I just try and get him to laugh and it changes the direction of the day. And the other thing, when we started social media, as you know, on social media, we get a lot of trolls. So we set a boundary with the two of us that if either of us doesn't like something that's said, and we just block people. We try and create a safe space for our audience. So I would say we're probably block more people than any other creator

because if somebody tries to invade our community with negativity, we just don't tolerate it. Right. At all. I mean, I do love that she can actually on my worst bad days, and she knows how I'm on a bad day. And I go walk out, and then she gave me a kiss. And I've never been with anybody in my life that has,

lip plumber oil lips stuff. I don't even know what it really is. It's the worst. I do not enjoy it, brother. So I feel your pain. I think it's just so weird because she's used to it. I start taking five steps and I'm like, and then I'm already on live stream.

She's already hit the button live. And it goes three to one. I'm going, hi, I'm Jeff. And it's just, but it changes because I was a second ago before I was saying, I don't know if I could do this today.

I was a second before that, I was babe, I don't know if I can do this. You're going to take. the camera. So sometimes she'll take the camera for a little bit when when I need a moment, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I love that she can shift your mindset. Well, if we're looking at, you know, your relationship right now, I mean, she's just winning all over the place. I mean, Jeff is not going on a cruise ship ever. Jeff lives on a cruise ship. Jeff is never going on

social media ever. Jeff is like crushing social media. Jeff, it doesn't matter what you say, Jeff, Deb is going to figure out a way to get in there. And that's why you guys are such great partners. It's really, really cool to see. I mean, honestly, I think that is, we were talking the other day about all the growth that I have done. I've done so much that I wouldn't do. I mean, Deb and I, I mean, this is probably going to be a little bit sharing.

Sure. This is my first exclusive relationship in my whole life. I've never been from my abuse. I've started, you know, I've known about sex since I was a little boy to, you know, so my childhood was all messed up mentally. So I didn't realize what good love and a relationship was about. It was just to me, just, you know, relationships, you know, off and on and no stability. So none of my relationships I've ever had exclusive relationships.

So, you know, I stopped dating a couple years before I met Deb and I just said, God, I'm going to leave it up to you. I'm done dating. I've already sold, you know, sewed all my oats. I need to sell. We're good. But if you find somebody and we were sitting in an empty venue, I sat down. There was a hundred other seats and this beautiful girl sat right next to me. She had a hundred empty seats to sit next to, but she sat next to me. I turned around and for some reason, I looked at her and I fell in love her that second. She, slow learner, she didn't even fall in love with me. I have to take a little while to get down me. But I mean, from that point on, I knew I only wanted to be with her.

I know that, you know, I never wanted to, you know, hold a girl at night. I never wanted a girl to stay with me. I can't not hold her, wrap my arm around her, and pull her close to me, and just be next to her every night where we can't go sleep. It's just something, I mean, if, and I'm sorry for anybody that I know our exes watch this, and I'm sorry for that the way I was, and I was unavailable emotionally and physically that way. But this, I've never had an amendment.

emotional connection, like in a physical connection, like you wanted to hold somebody. To me, this is like an amazing thing to be able to have that connection with someone and want that. Yeah. Well, it sounds like to me, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like that from the start of it, it was built on firm foundations. Like you went to your faith. You went to your faith first, you know. You know, if you're not built, you know, if you build your, your relationship on a sand, it's going to get watched out, right? You have to have a rock, you have to have a strong foundation.

I mean, I took my whole foundation, build it on God. And every day my whole foundation, I love my wife more than anybody in this world, but God still comes first. It's God, my wife, my children, my family. So I mean, it's- We have the funny story. So when we first met, so he had me laugh in three and a half hours of the very first night we met. We didn't exchange anything but names.

So we went our merry way. No phone numbers, no nothing, didn't know if we'd ever see each other. But it was day one and being on a cruise ship. I know. But he eventually started asking me out on what he called outings. So at some point, we had almost dinner every night together, but he called it an outing.

And after a while, I kind of was insulted. I'm like, you can't even call it a date. Is he like embarrassed? What the heck is going on? Well, later I find out that for him, a date meant you ended up vertical. Or no, horizontal, sorry, you ended up horizontal. So he was doing it to be respectful to me, but I took it as a total insult.

I think we were seeing each other for six months before he actually was willing to ask me out on a quote-unquote date. But I was truly so insulted. I'm like, what the heck? Well, my thing is I wanted to, what I was trying to do is something I've never did in my life. Walk up to a girl, meet a girl, court a girl, get to know her, make her my, get to be best. friends, I was already in love with you, so I already had that down. And if I said, Hey, baby, Bobby threw you over my shoulder and we went back to my room, I would have had zero value for you. You would have been like every other lady that I was with. And now you are,

every person I had a relationship with is a good person and it was a good time. But you are way up here. You were something totally different where there's not one person in this whole world in 54 years will say that I courted them. I respected them. I went on dates and I went after six months. Yeah, we went on dates because I wanted you to be in my room. I couldn't take it no more. But imagine how he probably reacted inside when I told them years ago,

I was first time ever I went on a dating app and I went on 25 first days a month. That when I say dates, it means you go to dinner, right? And most of the time it was like, no, we'll never see that person again because I don't want to. So keep in mind it from his context, what I'm thinking, wow. You're saying, wow, this girl's been around a block. I'm thinking, I've been around a block a lot. And this girl's been around a block too. I'm like, wow.

I'm like, wow. Well, we both need to get preyed upon and cleaned upon. But her going out and date was totally different mind. So when I went on a date, it was, it was, you meet somebody, you smile somewhere, a bar or a restaurant or a target or wherever. You just go wherever and have a great time. It was inappropriate, wrong, and not what I would rent one for anybody watching. The most foundational part would be is if you can get to know somebody, be their best friend,

and then the connection you have had is going to be by far nothing comparable, any relationship you've ever had. Yeah, I love it. So one thing I wanted to talk about is that adversity is going to happen to every viewer. If you're watching this right now, adversity's going to happen. It could happen today. It could have happened this morning. It might happen on the way to work.

So that's the one thing I want to make sure that everyone understands is that what happened to Jeff, it's not new. What happened to Deb, her upbringing is not new. What's happening to you right now? It's not new. It's the end of time, right? It's the beginning of time. And it will continue to happen until that one amazing day that my Lord and Savior comes.

So that's the guarantee, guys. That's the guarantee. And I wrote a whole book about it. It's called the life-changing power of adversity. It's called the life-changing power of adversity. how to overcome struggles, unlock your potential, and blaze your own trail to success. Because here's what I believe, and I believe that Jeff and Deb believe this as well, is that yes, hard things are going to happen. Yes, they suck. Yes, it's unfortunate, but it doesn't mean

that you can't get to the other side. It doesn't mean that you can't completely shift your mindset, your life, your world, your situation. And if you look at these two right here, who in regular senses of the words probably should have never met like completely different parts of of the country different upbringings different situations and here they are combining their strengths or talents or gifts and abilities for the greater good i mean that that in itself is just such an incredible story that could be a disney movie one day because it just shouldn't have happened and disney if you got if you run with this remember your boy but so so let's talk about this what does that mean to you that there is life-changing power in adversity.

And I'll start with you, Deb. Right. Well, and that's one thing I do tell people who come to me for advice is if life had just gone, and nobody's life does, but if it had gone perfect, I would not have learned and grown in the way I have. I would say I have a lot of tenacity because of the adversity I went through. I have a way of digging my heels in and making something happen that may not be easy to have happen. I've also, and throughout my career, I was told that I was a person who never let the grass

grow under it be. I was always a mover and shaker got things done. So I've learned a lot just through that adversity. I've had to overcome. I taught my children a lot of things that they would not have had skills that they would not have had, had I not have that adversity. But one of the big ones that I always told my kids, because I did have two of my children that had issues with depression over the years, as I said, any bad day, see it as a roller coaster. When it goes down, hang on, it will come back up. So just wait for the next day. Hang on until the next day. Love it. Such great advice. And that's very true. Yeah, what goes up must come down, you know, And just understanding having the context to know that it's not going to be there forever.

So Jeff, let's get your take on it. I think for me, there was so many days growing up being a young boy abused. You know, and a family that, you know, my mom was amazing, but my father was a monster. So it's so for, for the... And I want to cut into that. And it was more than abuse. He was tortured for many, many years. So it was way beyond.

abuse. So it's just something like to me, it took so many years to learn that you can either be the victim or you can be victorious. I did something most of my life. I faked victorious. I was successful. I was able to. My mind spins 24 hours a day, non-stops. I have so much going on on my mind. It never does. So I could always see a goal. I've achieved every one of my goals. Anything I want if I've worked hard and made it happen. I could work so hard to make it happen. But it was all for show. It was all for theater. I never got a high school apartment guy G&D. I didn't even really get a GED. My drill sergeant took the test. I couldn't even pass that. He helped me. You know, there's so many things in this world that I couldn't do. And then I went back and learn things. Then I went back to

to school. Learn the things I need to learn. Anything that I wanted to learn about, I would sit in a library before those computers, I would go to a library and learn it. Like, I had a car business. So I didn't know how to do cars. So I went there and bought a ship, borrowed the Shilton manual and learned how to replace a head gasket, learn how to replace cranks shifts, and learn how to work on cars. And then I wanted to open a body shop. I opened a body shop.

I didn't know anything of that. My father had a body shop, but I wanted to be more successful than them. So I learned how to do that by books. And it's something that was so hard for me because reading comprehension, I was always in a special reading class. So it took me five times longer to read a book and understand it. And so I learned that for most of my life being victorious to the outside made me worse than it was. And until I learned to take care of being victorious for myself and being successful for myself, it wasn't about money.

It wasn't until I lost everything, lost everything I owned. and you know when I when I got divorced and just gave up in my life. I didn't want anything in my life anymore. I didn't want anything. I didn't want anything in life and I can care. And that was the wrong way it was. I'm not that way now. But I didn't want anything.

So I left it, lost it all, gave it all up. And to start all over and realize nothing is important except for being able to, when I do smile, make it a real smile. When I do buy something is for the right purpose. when I'm around somebody, it's the right person. And for the last seven years, I haven't drank, which is also another great thing. But when I wake up and I go,

today is the day that I'm going to work on myself and I'm going to improve, make it a little bit better for somebody else so somebody else can say he's made it. And what has made him make it might not be the same for me, but if he can make it and he went through that hell and he came back

And he's trying to be there for someone else. And to me, that's all I want to live there for. I want to live there to make Deb's life the best it can be. It's never going to be perfect, but it's going to be the best that I can provide for, whether it's, you know, whatever she desires she wants or whatever she needs, whether it's me coloring her hair, which I'm going to do in the next couple days, or me, you know, just being there to hold her at night or whatever, having a being her best friend and laughing with her and I'll doggie kiss her,

or jumping and dressing like a pig and making our chat laugh and just being silly, my goal is to do that. And I know it's all because of God because before I met her, I was from the state of New Jersey, and I'm not saying our country's divided, but our country's divided.

So from the state of New Jersey and the state of Washington, our beliefs are different on a lot of things. So when we met, I went and date other women that had different mindsets as me. So when we got together, we started talking about different mindsets, And I said, I don't care. I don't care.

Even if you believe God is a piece of lettuce, I don't care. I know I'm in love with you. And I accept you for whatever you believe in, whatever you do, whatever you want to be, I'm going to be your biggest cheerier. I'm not going to believe God to let us. She doesn't believe that. She's a Christian also. But I'm just saying in general, like, for anything that she believes in or whatever her mindset is,

I'm her biggest cheerleader. If she says, Jeff, I want to do this. And I don't think it's right. I go, Deb, let's do it. I go, Deb, let's make this happen for you. I don't believe in it, but I'm going to help you get it accomplished, and I want to be her biggest cheerleader, because the last thing I want is for her to look so much else,

look for a different cheerleader. Even if it's not something I want, I want it for her, because I want my lady to be happy. I love it. I appreciate you given the context. And, you know, going through as much as you went through, you and I both know this, and I know that Deb knows this, there's a complete other version of what could have been.

If you would have played the victim, if you had to decide to stay down instead of get back up, if you've decided to let all the negativity overcome you, instead of you overcome it, instead of shifting that mindset. Because what you've done and what's really inspiring about, you know, this whole interview that we've had is that, you know,

your test has become your testimony, you know? And if you look at the Bible, and if you look at all the knuckleheads there that we're messing up just like us today. We mess up every day. My dad of six, I mess up every day so many times. And we still get forgiveness and we still get grace. And we still,

hopefully if we wake up the next day, we get to do it all over again. So yes, what you went through was terrible, abuse, torture, all of that. None of it's good.

But you know this. And I know that Deb knows this is that our God is good. And he's going to use all of that. all of the adversity, all of the setbacks, all of the hardships, it's all going to now be used for good. It's now going to be used for that person that gets on the live at their wits in and they get to hear your testimony and say, you know what, Jeff made it past this. You know what? Deb was a single mom. I'm a single mom too. And she's inspiring me to know that if I just don't give up, if I keep blazing a trail, if I keep looking at adversity as just a stepping stone instead of a roadblock,

There are so many amazing things that can happen. Right. And Jordan, just like you were saying, there's a different path that could have been. I speak about this, the time that when I needed help, and I suggest if anybody does need help to reach out. When I was, when I checked myself into a hospital to get, when my brain had a brain break and I couldn't handle life. And when I was in a hospital, I saw people in there with the same, not the same level, but some levels of it. that have been in that hospital room for two years, three years, still sitting in a chair stuck.

And I just kept thinking, I can't do this. This is not where I don't want to be stuck. So what do I need to get stuck? What do I need to do to get unstock? What do I need to do? And what you need to do is you need to do the work. What you need to do is you need to get into therapy. You need to get into group therapy.

You need to, and if that doesn't work, You need to find a friend, not phone a friend, but find a friend that you can trust in and talk to. You can share your story because once you share your story and you make it out there, it's no longer a secret because the secret is what hurts you. Being ashamed has hurt you. The shame, the shame of being abused, shame of, I always feel dirty. I used to scrub myself so clean, my skin would be raw. I don't know what I'm going to do.

I got to go back and make this work. And then you just, you just figure out what you got to do. You got to put the work in. And I'm not saying you have to find God, but that was my secret. That is the secret medicine for me. I'm a full-time carnivore in almost five years. I haven't eaten anything but meat, eggs and seafood and cook everything in butter. I used to be over 340 LBs.

And so for me, I actually started the lifestyle carnivore. So for me, I saw a little platform on one of the other social media sites that says, try this, the sugar up and down will help your depression. So I said, I'll try it for one week. That's almost five years ago. The benefit of it was losing weight and on top of being a carnivore without having a sugar rushes and the ups and downs. I'm about 80%, I'd say about 80% depression-free for me.

So for me, I say I had to drop to my knees. I had a heart attack. I was 340 pounds at the heart attack day. the jumpstart me three times. You have to figure out what you want in life. And what I want in life, more than anything, is to help my wife have the greatest life she has. And then I want to help as many people in this world

that I can help find their way, whatever way that needs to be here tomorrow. That's what I want. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you giving us that access and getting deep and real. If you're listening, folks, this is what life is, right? There are hard times.

there are good times, there's times in between, and we just have to figure out how can we stay as in the middle as we can as life comes at us because we've seen the commercials, life comes at you fast. You don't know when we're going to hit by a hardship, by, you know, depression, by a situation where your health takes a toll, maybe there's a loss in the family. I mean, all of these different things. And if you don't think they happen to regular people, you know, rewind this interview and listen to some of the stories or grab a copy. of my book and read the first five chapters and go, how is this guy still alive? And I know the only answer is that, hey, I serve a good God. And he has kept me here for such a time as this to create content that's going to help encourage, motivate, and inspire people. And I love the fact that you two are cut from that same cloth and you're about creating impact and how can we serve and help other people. And here's the thing. You can never give too much. You can never help too many people. and I'm just so excited that we've connected A and that when this episode releases to Apple and Spotify

and our listeners in 120-something countries, that they're also going to get inspired. And I hope that if you're watching this live, we are streaming live, that if you're seeing this, that this has created some type of impact for you. And just one takeaway, guys, if there's just one piece of this conversation that shifts your mindset or shifts your perspective

or maybe just impacts your day in a positive way, I feel like, I don't know about you, Deb and Jeff, but I feel like our job was accomplished today. Right. That's our job every day. I mean, it's to meet, you know, meet somebody, put a smile on their face. You know, we've connected just through, you know,

private messages. But I did, I was on your page and I did listen to your story because honestly, I'm being more selective who I shared a screen with, and I wanted to know your story, and I believe your story, and I get a good feeling about your story. So that's why I wanted to share more,

my story because honestly I share my story on here sometimes but most times I keep it light most people don't hear the trouble the abuse that I've had the struggles I've had the changes I've had I don't put it all out there you know I piece it I throw a little piece of the pie because I don't want to you throw the whole pie at somebody and it's hard to swallow because you also don't want to go through the that to those dark places a lot right because going going through those conversation it it brings darkness in. So, so, you know, when you, when you, when you, when you relive that moment, share that story, you still feel it. You know, my body's tensed up when I was talking about things and it's stuff that you, you don't want to do every day, but you, you want to share it.

So you, I know there's some boy out there who might be being abused right to second by a family member, a friend, somebody that they, they never know and they don't know what's happening or what can they do? What you can do is you can go to your local authorities. You can go to another adult far away and ask for help. Scream on top of your lungs and say, I need help, because that's one thing that I didn't do from age four to 14. I learned to accept it. And eventually, you learn that that's what life's about. Until I joined the Army when I was 17, I didn't realize that most people don't have that lifestyle until I went from state of New Jersey being abused to Portland, and Missouri, where the next youngest guy was 28 and I was 17 in the Army,

I couldn't, and I was talking to him and I was trying to figure out, they were talking to me, trying to figure out what my life was about and they couldn't understand, and I couldn't understand theirs. Their life was normal and not normal, but different than mine, and that's when I realized Life is no longer going to be that way. And I had a drill sergeant that I said, I want to learn how to fight because I never was able to fight back. And he talked after basic training, they don't provide boxing there. He was a professional boxer, and he taught me how to box.

And that's one of the greatest things I learned how to do was box. And now that gave me not the ability that I can win in every fight because I can't, but it gave me the confidence and the techniques and the skill to be able to box and be able to be able to protect myself, but what I love that I can do now, I'm 54, nobody's going to hurt me again, nobody. But what I love is that I'm 54, and I can be here to protect somebody else.

I want to protect that little boy, or I want to protect somebody to, I see, you know, and I can sense the hurt, and I can just hug on him and say, listen, I got you. Let's get some of the help we need. Let's get you away from that person. Let's get you to protection you need,

whether it's a guy or girl, a child, a wife, a mother, a sister, sister, a daughter, you know, anybody, if they need help, I want to be that person and dad wants to be that person. They can come to us. We'll find the resources for you. If not, we'll provide for it. We'll help find a way to help you get safe. Because safe is, once I became safe, and that was the Army, once I became safe, I was able to rebuild my mindset some. it took me 40 more years to get past what happened in abuse, but what happens, what was able to do is that army,

that mindset, that shifted my mind to be able to say, this is what I want to do, and it took all those years to do it. So sometimes, just like in a story, sometimes people walking in the mountains for 40 years. That's not their end of the story, right? It's not. Some people go away in a mountain for 40 years, right? And they say, I didn't do what God called me to.

God says, you still can. You still can. If it's been 20 years, you can, you can still do what you're called to do, whether it's, whether it's just to be there and listen for somebody or whether you can help them in other way. That's what we can do. It took me all these years to do it, and I'm so glad now I can do it. I want to be a blessing for as many people as I can.

Love it. Yeah, I love it. I love the attitude. I love the fact that both of you in your careers, up until me, meeting, yes, tenacity, yes, grit, determination, resourcefulness, the attitude that I'm going to go, if I don't know it, I'm going to go learn, and I'm going to invest in me. Because if you don't do that, folks, anyone that's watching, if you're just sitting around, scrolling the internet, trying to find the next best get rich quick screen scheme out there, I'll tell you, you're not going to find it. It doesn't exist.

So you've got to find what actually works. You got to start doing the hard work, start investing, investing in yourself, start getting around coaches and mentors and people that actually are in the mindset and the environment that you want to be in. And when you start doing that, because here's the thing, folks, if you show me your five closest friends, I'll show you your future. And what that means is your environment matters, who you surround yourself with day in and day out matters. And I know that some people in the early times you don't have a choice. But there'll be a point like what happened to Jeff and like what happened to Deb where you do have a choice. You do have a choice in which direction am I going to go.

And I love the fact that you both have chosen a path that somehow, and we know how you guys intersected, we know that this wasn't coincidence. This was a God incident, for sure. And so I want to, as we're wrapping up the conversation, which has been amazing, I want to just, let's bring this back full circle. So you had this separate life away,

both enduring your sets of hardship, both blazing trails, both getting to this point of retirement. And then 2019 happens. You meet on a ship. There's 100 people. No, we met. We met, we met, we met, we met, we met, we met, we met, 24. 2024.

Okay. 211, 2024 is when you met, which is my birthday, by the way, 211, which is crazy. Happy birthday. I appreciate it. You met, you met there. Yeah, that's right. As we're kind of closing the loop here. So you meet on my birthday, on my birthday.

Tell us what happened. next and then get us caught up to current state today. Well, 21, 20, 24 is Jeff likes to say who's sitting there with his dimples out. We talked for three and a half hours, parted ways, didn't exchange any information. It just happened to be that was his third week on that ship. It was the newest ship in the fleet at the time. It was my very first day on the ship that we met. But he already had, what you're put.

34 cruises and you have 57. And so we just kept. running into each other. And when he says, he did say for him, it was love at first sight, he said, for me, I was a slow learner. But the reality is, Jeff, it was pretty much an open book with me. My backgrounds in psychology, that's what my degree, undergraduate degree is in. And he wasn't, he didn't just have red flags. He was like a full fire pit full of red flags. So I had to spend some time working through those and realizing how that would work in a relationship, how that would impact me before I could let my guard down

because nobody in their early 50s wants to start a new relationship that could be harmful to you, right? So I had to work through and see how all of those issues would impact me and a relationship with him to let my guard down. And so because our cruise is almost fully aligned my 50-plus weeks and his 30-plus weeks, we were able to continually get to know each other, And so back, so that would take us to April of the following year.

April 4th, 2025. And we got married in a legal ceremony on land in June and then a formal ceremony on the ship. So a lot, so we've never lived together off a ship. So our whole life has been on a cruise ship. And we just really, really love our life. It's been an amazing, blessed life. And being on a cruise ship helps Jeff with his OCD, because he's got severe, severe OCD. So it helps us to develop patterns with meal times, being able to go to the same restaurant,

same table, same weight staff. He's actually able to eat warm food because when he had a house, he had to do all the dishes before he would eat and make the space meticulous. It's allowed him to have some joy in life because he's not cleaning his house all that time. Jeff would every other week pull his dishwasher out to clean underneath it and disconnect it. He washes sheets every other day. So he's now got much more of a quality of life. Right.

And I think the back story with the water is I grew up on a lake. And to get away from people that were abusing me, I could swim, and I learned how to swim at a very young age. And I would swim in the water, and I would hide, flip a boat upside down and hide and have the air there. So when I was in the water, I would stay there for hours and hours until the person was drunk and passed out. And so being in the water was my safety.

So when I'm out here in water and all I can see is water, people say, I get so nervous. I'm like, you don't even understand. I am so safe. Not that anybody, again, nobody's going to hurt me. I'm 54. I'm mentally and physically strong. Nobody's going to physically hurt me again. But in your mind, you still go into that spot.

You can't stop it. It's just something you can't stop. Exactly. But so when I'm out there looking and I'm like, I'm so free. My best freedom is when we're out to sea, not at port. And so we're out to see and I look out and I go, I love it, you know. And then when you were talking about who you're around, I've had a policy for the last couple of years. I surround myself around positive people, positive place and positive things in my life.

If it's not, I love you, but I'm going to separate myself from you. Even family members and people like, how could you not talk to that person or your family? They are, but if they're hurting, they're toxic to me and toxic to my development and my mind space, I need to survive and be the best version for me. If they're not, they're being toxic and their lifestyle is not what I want to be around, I need to separate myself and just pray for them from a distance. Yeah, you got to have boundaries. You know, one of my brothers, he, he keeps, like, calling me and text me,

and he's telling me all these stories about, I'm not going to name the family member, but I go, wow, that's strange. I blocked her like six years ago. I don't hear any of that drama. And I was like, man, this has been the best six years of my life. I don't know what's going on, and I don't really care because you have to. You don't have boundaries. Yeah, I don't care.

I'm not missing. Thank you for the update on this TMZ stuff that's happening, but I don't really need it in my life. And we have to have those boundaries. Yeah, what I do is I tell everybody in our family, I tell anybody, do you not mention that person? I don't even want to hear, I don't even care. I just want to pray for them.

I prayed for them. I forgave them, and I move on. That's it. But some of the best for them, but, you know, if they do a change around, obviously, everybody deserves a second, third, 50th, 100 chance. If they turn their life around and they come back and want to have a private conversation, I'm open to open arms.

Love it. Love it. And so let's talk about this live journey. So I heard I was watching you guys because you guys did tabs on me. I'm going to watch your stuff too. I got to research you guys too, right? What? What are you watching?

I was watching one of your broadcast and I remember hearing, I think it was Deb's daughter is the one that said, maybe you should do this like TikTok thing. I think it was a conversation. Someone's like you should start this social media thing. And you're like, really? Why should we do that? So can you kind of give us, let's kind of dive into this situation a little bit where you guys decide to say yes, create an account.

I want to kind of hear the setup. Did you create just one account first? Did you get on multiple platforms at the same time kind of for this omnipresence approach? And then today as it stands, is your brand everywhere? Do you have that kind of omnipresence on multiple platforms? And are you monetizing this? And is this, what are you doing with this? Is this to supplement something?

Is this to fund projects or be able to give back to the community? Like, what is all of it for? Because I know, and again, I heard this another conversation. I understand that you live off pretty much investment money. So you did well in some investments and you're living off that. And I know it's not cheap to do what you guys do. So let's get into it, guys. Let's get into some of the behind the scenes of how it started.

and then the economics and then, you know, what's next for you guys? I know you're trying to get after LivePro. I heard that too. See, I'm paying attention. I know what's going on. So let's get some context. So we actually started Facebook and TikTok at the same time. The other platforms we've more recently gotten into, but we really found that we just stumbled upon live streaming.

So we just started with, so let's back up. So my youngest child and my youngest child is. non-binary now. So my youngest child said to me, before Jeff and I even knew each other, it was back when Royal Caribbean had the first world cruise. I was actually traveling at that time to South American Antarctica on celebrity and ran across that ship, the first world cruise with Royal. And my youngest said to me, Mom, you know, I see all these people on social media and they're doing really good. Why aren't you doing it? And I'm like, well, I don't know. It's just not something I considered it. And at that time, I was living on a cruise ship by myself, traveled alone. And I actually

had a female friend. She's older. She's in her 70s. We'd hang out together, go into the ports of call. And so I shared that with her, but just never did anything with it. So when Jeff and I met, then I brought the idea back up, because Jeff is so funny. He really has me laughing all day, every day. And he said to me, I just want to make one person laugh every day. And I've seen him do that on the ship. And I'm like, why don't you share your comedy with the world? Because he did tell me he's been on comedy stages. But with his uniqueness, setting a time to do it, he just can't work for other people

because he just doesn't know how he's going to show up each time. So I was like, well, I think we could spread that joy with the world. So then we got on, we started doing videos. And then one day, I think we just hit a button and realized we're on live stream. It was. I would say, and it went, okay, and we're like, well, let's try it again. And I think the third time we tried it, we had like 2,000 people in our chat once. And we're like, what?

We didn't have Maws. We didn't even know what Maws were. We didn't know research. We were just, we just stumbled into it. And we just found that we just had such an embracing warm community. And as a lot of people know, in the platforms that we deal with, videos do not monetize you much. I'm sure that there's a way to make it happen. I know the YT is better,

but we found that downloading anything from a ship to YT is next to impossible. We have to have a third party. We have to be able to send stuff to a box and have somebody else put it on there. Because our video is good enough that we're here streaming with you. But like when we test it here on the ship versus what we see on land, night and day difference. So we do have some barriers here. But so yes, we do monetize on this platform specifically, and it does help supplement our journey and our income. But it's not our end goal isn't to monetize.

We have bigger, better plans. We are now working on partnering with TikTok. We've got some big news coming up. Next week. That we've been brought into. But we are in contact with some Hollywood producers, some playwrights, some really big name people who are all for us. We've been told by some very big people that they see us as the next Sonny and Cher, which is very flattering, very complimentary.

But we're just kind of bumbling our way through and finding, but we do have big plans. I know Jeff in the future will have a book out. He actually had a full book, ready to be published, but some family members asked him to hold off because of how that's going to impact. But there will be a book. We expect that to be more. we expect it should be turned into a movie and some other things because Jeff is such a fascinating human who's had such a fascinating life and is the most unique person I've ever met the most

fascinating person but there'll be a lot more to come on that. We are working towards eventually getting some brand deals to make our cruising even better and to have even more opportunities. But right now we are not sponsored by any cruise line. We get nothing for what we do for the cruise line. but we're hoping someday in the future that will also change. So we have big plans for the future. I love it. And we want to give back to our community. So when we have this, we also go and we bless other people.

But people always ask us, just like you did, who do we support and what do we do? And honestly, we don't share that. That for us is what we share. Who we bless is we're going to bless in private because I don't want to put them out there and I don't want to put anybody else out there. And what I believe is I don't need a platform

to say, I support this person or this thing. I'd rather just do it alone and private. I mean, obviously what we do donate to, you can look online and bind, but it's private. But one thing we do share is that we have, because obviously they come on with us, we have blessed our community,

our top supporters. we've brought them on the ship with us. We've also blessed our top moderators because they all do that, this out of the goodness of their heart, and because they love our content. But our top mods, the ones that are here the most for us,

we also bring them on a cruise ship. And we pay for the cruise. And the idea is try to make people's life a little bit better in any way we can. So everything we do is going to help our future. And the thing is, we can't buy any material things. So living on a cruise ship,

I don't know if anybody understands this. People like, oh, you're just trying to get rich. Well, it doesn't matter whether we have $1 or $20 million. We can't buy anything, material things. So what are we going to put? We don't buy anything. So all we can do is bless people around us. So if we get $100, what are we going to do with it?

Yes, we're going to, you know, maybe buy a shirt or whatever, but we also can go bless somebody else. But how many shirts do I buy? I mean, if you see my wardrobe, I have 30 shirts and 10 pairs of pants, and then I'll wear them for two months, and then they get dry clean, and I take them and I give them to the staff, and I go buy 30 new ones. You know, like, so I just keep rotating. So I can't, the closets aren't so big.

They're small on the cruise ship. So you can't have a lot of stuff. So there's nothing that we can do. So what we're going to do is, and that's one of the part of becoming a live pro. Live pro will help push us out there from having, you know, 1,500 people in our chat to 2,000 people or 3,000 constantly in our chat, any idea is to get out further in the world. Right now we always ask, where's somebody coming from?

I always like to ask people, where are you coming from? And then it goes all across the world. Well, we want to continue that. We want to branch out completely. Because there might be somebody in, you know, Tokyo or, you know, Asia or, you know, Germany or anywhere that just needs to hear this message and say,

I needed that today. Or I'm going to go on a cruise. I can't believe I'm going to go on their same. crew and I just hope I can meet them. Well, send me a private message. We check off our message. Send us a private message. Let us know when you want to meet. Or if you see us live streaming, stop me. Feel free. There's been people we eat up at the Lumominee restaurant or we go to the Ocean View Cafe. There's many times, at least once a week, somebody comes up while we're eating and says, excuse me, do you mind if I just say hot? We love that. I will stop eating. I love it,

Love it, love it. When you see us 24 hours a day, anywhere, except for when we're in our room and it do not disturb signs on, don't knock. But if you see us anywhere's on a ship, please or out on the streets, stop us. Like, we were in Fort Lauderdale walking. We got off the ship and we're walking to a store just buy essential shampoos. And a lady goes, dimples and blondie. And it was so nice that we're in regular just walking on a street and they know it. And then we can talk to them.

You know, like that's what we love. We want to be able to recognize that where people can come up to us and say, Whether you can say, I saw you in a ship and I think you're funny or silly or whatever and I like you guys, or can I have two minutes of your time and just tell you about my life? Or can I just have two minutes or can you just pray for me? We tell people, just write the word prayer in there and I promise you, I'll see you and I'll pray for you. That's what we want. That's our goal. So Live Pro will really help us achieve that.

Live Pro is something we're learning. We had to get to 100,000. We just reached 100,000 to follow. We just achieved that last week. And every day we've been grown about 1,000 followers to 2,000 followers a day, which is amazing and a blessing. So now this month, September, month of September, we're going to be on live as much as we can and doing what we need to do, putting a time in, and also doing more elimination battles, because that's where we will earn the most amount of diamonds because we need to earn 10 million diamonds. In one month, which is a huge course. It's a huge ass.

But some people make that in one day, some streamers make 10 million in one day. we've never done that. So we need to make 10 million diamonds in 30 days. And today, I don't even know, is September 7th. So we have 23 days to make 10 million diamonds. It is a huge ask. But once we get that, the metrics, we far exceed that forever. We'll be able to stay on it.

So the metrics, once you get a live pro is so easy. Not easy, but for our platform, we've always achieved it. And TikTok says we will not ever have a problem. as long as we keep coming along. Well, this has been amazing. You know, learning about you guys, your story, your journey, it's actually not a surprise that you're having the success with this venture that you started in December. And the reason why I say it's not a surprise is if you look at everything you've gone through

to get to this point, this is easy, right, compared to the hardships, compared to the losses. Absolutely. This is right. To all of it. This is like child's play compared to that. And so I want people to remember. that is that, you know, Jeff didn't want to go on a boat, social media, nothing. Now the guy from December to now, they've built an audience of 100,000 incredible humans that are fallen and

contributing to their journey to hit their goals. So if you're watching this and you're thinking, man, I need my first 100 followers. You can do it. If you're saying, I need my first thousand, you can do it. If you need your first 100, you can do it. But what I want you to think about is why are you doing it? What's the reason you're doing? And why do they get up every day? They made it clear. They want to help people. They want to show you that you can do it too.

And so I love that. I love the fact that you guys are helping, encouraging, motivating, and inspiring people to show them that, hey, you can have a whole career and some other thing. You can go through a whole slew of hardships, but you can still do it, wake up with a smile. You can still go create positive impact and do it and really, really, really blaze a trail that you never thought was possible. So I appreciate your guys this time. As we're wrapping up here, tell the audience the number one place you want them to go to connect with you guys. Probably the website.

We live on a cruise ship.com. We live on a cruise ship.com. You'll be able to see all of our major platforms there. We live on a cruise ship or we live on a cruise ship. You'll see us. Sadly, there's other accounts, but there's only one account that has over $100,000 and that's us. Okay. I love it.

Well, we're going to make sure we get all of that. Yep. Yeah, we live on a cruise shift.com is the best way because then you can click the live button on TikTok and you can check our other pages out. And we want to do more on those other pages. It's just time consuming, especially going to be on for the next 23 days. We're going to be on live streaming as much as we can because every rose, every go popper, every blessing will achieve that goal.

And Keisha, that's 10 million diamonds in a month, this month that we have to attain to get to that live. Right, which is crazy a month. Well, I believe you guys can do it, you know, with everything that you've gone through getting to this point. I don't have any doubts to accomplish that goal. And I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I appreciate you guys taking time out of your schedule. I'm going to be cheering you on. We'll make sure that our listeners in 120 plus countries are cheering you on as well.

We'll get all your info down in the show notes. Any parting words for the audience before we wrap up? If you need help, don't be ashamed to do it. Don't be ashamed to reach out because there was days where I was ashamed to reach out and I almost lost it and I almost lost it and I wouldn't have been here. I wouldn't have had this happiness I have with my wife, the love I can give other people. So if you need help, seek it. And if you see me, reach out.

My hand is open. Love it. Deb, what about you? I would say the exact same thing. I mean, I couldn't have said it better. Love it. Well, hey, I appreciate you guys. Deb, Jeff, you guys are incredible. Thank you so much for creating this platform. I wouldn't have met you if you guys wouldn't have decided to do this. So thank you for doing it.

Yep. And I know we'll be staying connected. I'm sure we'll all see you guys. I'd love to do a round two on a cruise ship. Bring my wife out. That'd be incredible. So we will. If you want to let us know, send us a private message when it works for you. And we can see if we can help. That'd be incredible, guys. We have an amazing afternoon. I know you're going to be on live a ton. I'm going to be cheering you on. to hit your goals. So absolutely. Appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for your time. Have a good one. Take care. Bye-bye.