The Ryan Leak Podcast - Work Life Balance w/Former NFL Quarterback Brooks Bollinger

Episode Date: December 30, 2020

Brooks Bollinger is a former American football quarterback in the National Football League for the New York Jets, Minnesota Vikings, Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions. He also was a member of the Florida Tuskers in the United Football League. He played college football at the University of Wisconsin. He's now the VP of Bell Bank.  Highlights from this Episode: Focus less on the hypotheticals and the next "step or destination" and focus more on the moment you are in now and how you can be your best now.    The key to finding work-life balance is riding the waves of the ups and downs and realizing whatever season you are in. You have control of the external things that you prioritize and can align them in an order that works for you. When asked to do something I don't want to do, I tell myself, " it's not about the task. It's about how I execute the task and the standard I set for myself and that everything I do is for a bigger vision and much bigger purpose.    It's essential to take pride in the little things. Happiness won't arrive at a milestone or destination. True happiness will arrive when you stop and enjoy what's right in front of you. Your life will feel full and rewarding. For more episodes and show notes, check out ryanleak.com/followership.

Welcome to Followership with Ryan Leak, a podcast design to equip followers with the tools they need to succeed in the workplace, regardless of the kind leader you have. It does not have to determine the type of follower you can become. On today's episode, we're going to be talking about failure in work-life balance with Brooks Bollinger. We've got an ex-NFL quarterback on the podcast today, ladies and gentlemen. Currently, he is the vice president at Bell Bank. We're going to get into all of that. Hey, before we do, I want you to know that you can get all of today's show notes from today's episode on Ryanleek.com slash followership. I want you to go check out the website, see all of the fun

stuff that we have there for you. Hey, without any further ado, would you welcome Brooks Bollinger to followership to Ryan Leak? Brooks is here with us today because he has a passion for developing people and he understands what it takes to succeed in many different arenas of life that we'll jump into here in a minute. Brooks, welcome to followership, my friend. How are you? I'm doing well, Ryan. Thank you so much. And thanks for having me today. Oh, man, it is an honor of mine to have you here, man. And, you know, one of the first questions I want to ask you is, you know, when you look back on your very successful career in many different arenas, and what would you say are some of the core values that have helps you along the way? Yeah, well, I'd start off by saying the first one.

And this was a, I'm not sure if I considered a core value. And it's something that was really hard for me. And I had to learn over time. But, you know, when you talk about all the success that I had, it's almost a little uncomfortable for me. Because I naturally think of how many failures I've had. And, you know, especially when you play quarterback and you grow up playing, in that position. You get to fail a lot, you know, play by play day by day. And it gets called out and you fail publicly in front of your teammates and you fail publicly in front of the fans. And

then, you know, you get high enough level. You get to fail on national television. And, you know, you get to learn that lesson. But I think, you know, the first thing was, was learning and growing into that growth mindset of celebrating failures and learning from them and facing them and living in them. Just, you know, it's been one of the gifts that I think it's the greatest gift that taking the journey I did through sports gave me. And really as a parent, you know, and raising my kids and in my own life now. And it's just, it's against our human nature to be that uncomfortable and to feel that way.

but I think that over time, that I can just think of how many times I had to work my way through that and learn from and grow. So I think that that's the first one. And really what I always point to when people ask me, how are you successful and how did you get to the places you work? They can look at me pretty quickly, especially in football, and go like, well, it wasn't just like your size or, you know, this total athletic ability.

right? You had to be something else there. Oh, yeah. So, you know, it was really, I always point to the people around me. And what I would say to my core value of that is I grew up, I think a lot because of my parents. I just had a, I would say belief, right? I had a belief that tomorrow could be better than today. I had a belief that whatever obstacle is being faced, we could solve it. I had belief just deep-rooted in me that I could trust the people around me and to know when I could

couldn't in a belief that we're going to work together to get to where we wanted to go and where they wanted to go or where I wanted to go. So I think that's something that in my life, when I look back and I, you know, some of it, you've got to get lucky and get around the right people, right? But I was so fortunate to have the teachers, coaches, friends, teammates, family members and it was born into around me to really allow me to have trust in that belief. So I think whenever I had struggles, it was really easy for me to look outside myself and kind of go beyond what I was feeling or my disappointment into a belief in that person

and saying, hey, even if you can't do it for yourself, you got to pick yourself up and dust yourself off for that guy, that guy, or that lady there. and that's really been something that I think has helped me along the path. What's the moment that you had maybe on national television where you failed or maybe you threw an interception. You didn't throw that many in your career. But, you know, what was the moment that you felt like you really had to get past failure and learn from it?

I've had so many of them, Ryan. And, you know, and I could take you back to them. the first time I ever really felt that. I started varsity as a freshman in high school. I wasn't really ready, but they needed me. And I guess I was the best option. But, you know, I threw four interceptions and we lost to West Fargo and homecoming, right?

And that was the first time in my life that I was like, I shouldn't play football. You know, like I, this is, this is it. And, you know, what was interesting for me is, so my college career, and, and I think this is a, interesting thing to think about it. I had a ton of success really early. I redshirted.

And then my redshirt freshman year, I didn't go in the season as a starter, but fourth game of the year, my first start was at Ohio State. We beat them 4217. We won nine straight games, including the Rose Bowl. And I believe I won my,

as a starter, my first 14 or 15 games, then going into my sophomore year, which, you know, we can get into while that happened and how it happened, whatever. But I think the important thing is that it took me a long time to kind of think about is, you know, I, on the positive side, I had the courage to put myself out there when I knew I maybe wasn't quite ready. And that's a pretty intimidating huddle to step into at that age. And especially on national TV in the horseshoe.

but sure you know to have the courage to put yourself out there and continually go over your ski tips and put yourself in those challenging environments like I had that naturally what I what I what I learned then and then that first loss was was at Michigan my second year and I didn't play well and I think what can happen is when you don't really evaluate and aren't aware of why you're having success and how you're growing from it you end up holding on to something Right. And then you're just trying to protect what you think you have. And I mean, you can watch football and see this happen real time, especially with quarterbacks. But you can see it in our daily lives as well. And the reality is that it just doesn't work. It doesn't work in your personal life. It doesn't work. Change is inevitable. Right. And the only way and the only reason it's worth it anyways is to grow from it. And you lose all of that. you lose the most important piece

if you're just trying to hold on to something. You know, the whole point of this journey we're on is to become the best version of yourself. And the only way to do that is to face it head on and continue to grow, whether you're winning and losing or whatever.

And I think that kind of happened to me. So that, you know, that Michigan game, I let my teammates down. And I knew deep down that is because I was selfishly, you know, not purposely in any way, shape, or form,

but it kind of became this thing of just protect and don't screw it up, right? And it totally stunted my growth. And then I would say I hid from it for a while, and it probably took me and, you know, I kind of started chipping away at it and working away through it, because then I think you kind of go on this cycle, right,

where you have these peaks and valleys where I've always been in my best, like when the stuff hits the fan, right? Sure. I would say my other core value is just grit, you know, like the worse it is, the better I am. And I just, I thrive in that environment. I love that environment, whether it's personal, professional, or in sports.

And, but then all of a sudden, you'd go back to the top and you start holding on to something. And then you'd have to get your back against the log in. And then you'd have no other choice, right? I got, I got nothing left. Guns blazing. And then you play way through. And I think it was really into my NFL career, where I was comfortable. enough with myself and kind of mature enough to go, okay, now, I've been through this enough times.

Why is this happening to me? Right. And what's really, and that's when I, you know, I just started on this journey to realize that, man, that failure is the best part if you use it the right way. I mean, that is, that's where it's all at. And then I became more comfortable with it and started to really grow and learn and and dive into it more and from that. You know, one of the things that I admire about your career is this idea of staying ready,

you know, especially in the athletics world. I think in the, you know, for our listeners, you know, in the workplace, you know, there can be somewhat of a dissatisfaction of going, and I feel like I can handle more or I want to advance or if we're talking NFL, it's like, hey, I want to play. and how important is it to have a mindset of staying ready for an opportunity? I'm sure you could give some examples too of even in private wealth management of saying, hey, just staying ready with knowledge for a client. I think some people are waiting for the opportunity to showcase their skill sets,

but sometimes they don't work on their skill sets in the proverbial offseason of their job. I mean, how important for you was it to just stay ready? Yeah. And again, I've been on kind of all over the spectrum on that. And I think when I got myself into trouble and what I've learned is, and you kind of alluded to it, is when I focused on staying ready, when I focused on being prepared for that opportunity.

And I wouldn't even say being prepared, but when I just worried about that opportunity and when it was going to come and how it was going to come and what would happen, right? I worried about all these things that were hypothetical. And I spent so much time worrying about all these things that are hypothetical. Again, because a lot of people don't appreciate how hard that that position is. I've gotten in on the second play of the game and I've gotten in on the first play of overtime, right? And, you know, it's so fascinating to sit there as a backup quarterback watching the bullets fly

knowing that you didn't get any reps in the week of practice. And this guy could go down at any point, right? There is no roadmap. And you can get really overwhelmed into what ifs. And what will I do then? And I got a friend that talked about it. It's a little different, but I'll draw the parallel. He talked about how, you know, people always come up to him and say,

he's a guy played in the NFL a long time, made a ton of money. And people would say, you know, if I had a million bucks, I'd do this. If I had your money, I'd do that. Right. And he goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, time out. what are you doing today? From where you're sitting, you can do something. What are you doing?

And that's really how you prepare for that moment in my mind. And where I had to get to when I was successful at that, I thought less about the moment and what I wanted from it. And I focused more on the moment I was in right now. And where can I grow? How can I challenge myself? How can I create the game within the game that will ready me for anything I'm going to face on the other side?

and I think it's so easy for it to happen to us, especially in this world of, you know, you can get lost in the internet and information and all those things, right? LinkedIn, you can start daydreaming up where you'd want to work and how you want to look and people you know in the world. And listen, I think from a high level, you need to do some of that to paint the picture and play the movie in your head of what your aim is. but there's a line that has to be drawn

and bring back to what can I do today? How do I grow? How do I challenge myself? How do I influence the people around me and start polishing that skill set today? And that's where that growth really comes is just your hands getting dirty and then all of a sudden you wake up and it happens

and you're just, you have that true confidence and you're ready for it. I want to talk to you about another stat that is you can't really find it on the NFL website. You won't see it on your LinkedIn page right. You know, it's not there bright and obvious. You've got five kids, okay? Five kids.

It's not a stat, you know, but it's a number. Five children. And it's a, I'm just so. I'm always impressed with people that have more than five children, especially ones that can have an incredible amount of success and still be good parents. It's, you know, the ultimate conversation about work-life balance. You know, what has been your philosophy on work-life balance? What are some of the conversations you've had with your wife about work-life balance?

How do you balance it all in all that you've been able to do? Let's see. So you had your first kid in what year? 2006. We married in 05. Didn't waste any time. So my oldest son is 14. And so, yeah, 06.

So you got a 14-year-old and then give me the other children's ages. 14, 12, 9, 6, and 2. So I said it's really interesting right now. my wife and I were talking about the other night. It's, you know, it's our first time through kind of that teenage stuff, right? So my oldest is a freshman in high school. And, you know, when that season of life comes, you're getting into real conversations. You're starting to talk about driving and girls and drugs and alcohol and social life.

And, you know, you're certain to really have some hard conversations, but you're also having some fun conversations about who do you want to be and what's your identity. and like you're really trying to start to build a lens around, you know, all that stuff. And it's interesting, right? And then at the same, very same moment, I turn around and I got a two-year-old that I'm trying to get to go to the bathroom or the toilet. Oh, yeah. So it's truly the full spectrum. But I tell you what, it's such a blessing.

And we're so fortunate. And, you know, life is full right now. Last night we had, for the first time, I think we had all four, or four of our, you know, the older four all had activities, right? So, you know, zigzagging the metro area up here. And that's our life right now. And in the middle of that, you have to find a lot of time just to be intentional and thoughtful on how to spend your time with your family.

So, I mean, how can followers do this well? You know, I think there is this temptation if you're, you know, if you are a follower in an organization, you're trying to make an impression on others. You're trying to make an impression on your leader. And so you can be tempted to put in an insane amount of hours, but you don't, you don't make time for either yourself or loved ones. And, you know, so what, what?

But at what point, you know, at what point, you know, maybe there's a moment in your career where you had to choose family over an event or something. And what has been, you know, what would you say to somebody in an organization that's trying to make an impression, but also trying to put things in its proper perspective and have their priority straight? Yeah. So I think it's a great question. And I think in today's world, it gets discussed a lot in a lot of different ways. And I think it's really important to have a thoughtful discussion around this as much as we can because it's always evolving. So I'll talk to you about a little bit of my story and how I kind of got to the place I'm at today. And I certainly don't have it figured out.

But I'll tell you what I've learned. And so when I got done planned, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. And I grew up my parents were coaches and teachers. and I got offered this high school coaching job. So I wasn't making much money, but I was a head high school coach right away. And then my good friend Paul Chris got the job at the University of Pittsburgh as a head football coach and called me up.

And here's my wife. You know, I still remember telling Paul we'd come to Pitt to coach quarterbacks. And I'm talking to him on the phone. I'm looking at my wife because she's just got tears coming down her face. Because, you know, we're living in Minnesota. My wife's from here. our path was next chapter was kind of getting written and we're going to raise a family and

be in St. Paul and she's gone, what are you doing to me? And we made that hard choice because that was, that was my dream. You know, I knew as a kid that I wanted to be a, that's what my dad was, right? Like, I wanted to be a college football coach before I wanted to be a player. That's what I wanted to do. And it was an unbelievable opportunity to work with a guy had a ton of respect for. So we made the decision for all the right reasons, and we moved out to Pittsburgh. And you talk about a shock to the system. So we were, we had three kids at the time. And my wife went from being a player's wife.

And I went from being a player, which in the NFL is a pretty great gig. Okay. It's, you don't travel, you know, your travel days are one day. you're home most of the time. You're home by four or five o'clock. And you got the whole offseason. And all of a sudden went from that to being a college football coach, which is the complete other end of the spectrum.

And nonetheless, we're living in a city where we had no family, no idea, completely new and fresh. And, you know, there we were. And, you know, by the way, I was gone. She's basically a single parent. So I mean, I don't know how much you know about college football coaches lifestyle today, but it's probably worse now than it was then. But, you know, Sunday through Wednesday, I'd basically leave the house at 530 or 6 in the morning

and get home at 11 or 12 o'clock at night. And then Thursday I'd get home and we'd have dinner with the kids and we'd hang out. I'd get up Friday morning, take them to school. and then I wouldn't see him again until next Thursday. Wow. So that was kind of the flow. And, you know, and then there's kind of seasons with it. So then you get a little time in the off season,

but you also got to go recruit. And so you're, I was, you know, you'd have five flights a week, flying over the country, seeing these kids, you know, for kind of a couple months at a time. And so it's a, it is an unbelievable, never ending deal with college football coaching lifestyle. It's a huge commitment and very difficult.

So that's what we, jumped into. And the second year at Pitt, we played Miami last game of the regular season. And I was getting tired. My oldest son, Miles, was eight at the time. And we finished playing Miami Saturday, Sunday morning at 8 a.m. flight, got on the flight. I had 12 flights and 14 days. The day the season ended. And then we had a little time off. We came back home. We still at her house here in Minnesota. I turned to my wife. And I said, I've been thinking about this a lot. and I'm done. I'm going to leave coaching.

And she looked at me, and by that point, we had kind of settled into the routine of that life, and she said, what are you nuts? What are you going to do? I said,

I have no idea, but I know if I do this another year, it's going to be another year and another year, and then I'm going to do it for us in my life. I'm going to look back at these kids. I'm not going to know them, right? Miles is going to be 18 and 10 years,

and it's going to go like that. And she's like, well, what are we going to do for money? What are we going to do? I said, I don't know. So I called the principal at their old elementary school back here. I said, hey, do you get room in kindergarten and second grade? She said, yep, I said to start Monday, boys get your uniforms ready.

You're going back to school in St. Paul. I went back to Pitt, filled up a, you know, finished recruiting, filled up a U-Haul and drove back here and basically jumped out of the plane with no parachute. It started a new career, right? So when you talk about, did I have a moment like that? I did, actually. It was a pretty big moment. for a couple reasons.

One, because, you know, I knew that at that moment, you know, once you jump off that train in the way that I did, you're pretty much leaving the profession that, you know, you can be successful at and you have the skill set for in the background. I have the network to probably have a pretty good job in the NFL or college football. And it's something I love to do. So you're not only leaving that, but also, So you're jumping into a world where I literally have no resume, no background, no exact

industry that I know I'm going to get into. So, you know, I luckily, it'd save some money from from playing in the NFL and probably was a little arrogant in what it would take to make that transition. And on we went. And for the first time of my life, I had no idea. I had no idea what I wanted to be. I had no idea what my purpose was. I had never had to think about it.

And it was such a blessing to be put in that spot, right? And to have to wrestle with all of a sudden, my whole identity, I shouldn't say it because I consider myself, you know, not like my whole identity was football, but I don't care who you are. When that's what you do for your entire life, there's a big part of your identity that's wrapped up in that game. Sure, of course.

All of a sudden that was gone. So I'm wrestling with all of that normal transition stuff. on top of, what is my purpose? What all my life to look like? What kind of income do I need to all these things? And I think like most people I went through that, kind of making a list of, you know, what's important to me.

First of all, like, what's my identity? What am I rooted in? What's my purpose? What's important to me? What's important to my family? And I think what happens to a lot of us is I got stuck in worrying too much about what I wanted that to look like, right? And again, less about getting my hands dirty and building an understanding of what I can do,

what's possible, and really giving myself a better lens to see that process through. So, you know, I became a, I kind of met with everyone in the sun. I became a financial advisor because I'm like, well, I'm going to do a couple things, but I'm going to get my seven of my 66. I want to help some of the guys that I played with and some former players. And I think that this industry could provide a little bit more value, especially to those guys.

So I learned pretty quickly that it's a full-time job. It's not a part-time job. And building the career, starting at 34, is no joke, right? For sure. So I was very quickly, completely, you know, swallowed up in that and then started to have some success and then work with business owners and individuals. And it went on from there.

But what I believe today, and now I feel like I'm at a place in Bell Bank where I'm in a better place than I've ever been with doing what I love, doing what I'm good at, and also having that proper, having things in the proper order with my family and my personal life. What I go to is where I think discussion gets a little sideways, at least in my opinion in the world, is, again, I think I spent

too much time thinking about, again, what I would want it to look like and less time thinking about what's the proper order for me in my value system. And then realizing that it's not always going to be this perfect harmony of work-life balance. Like in my mind, work-life balance, man, okay, we're going to do the weekends at the cabins. I'm going to get the coach of sports. I kind of put all these parameters around it. And every time I got outside of that, I would kind of spin and go, wait, this is out of balance.

When in reality, what I've come to learn is, for me, what's important is that, okay, what is the proper order of my life, right? My faith, my wife, my kids, my job, my extended family, my friends, you know, the community, right? And that's what's important to me. Now, I have to be able to order that, whether it's in chaotic times or it's in peaceful times where I have total control.

Right. And, you know, I think it's a yin, the yang of the order and chaos of it just be, you're not going to, in my opinion, you're not going to have this utopian work life balance. Because I think that, especially as you become more successful, So there's going to be more requirements of you. And then there's going to be seasons of life. Like I'm living right now where your family is more busy or less busier

or requires more attention or less. And I think the key to finding quote unquote balance in that is riding those waves and constantly, whatever season you're in, whether you feel that you have control of those external things or not, that, you know, your order is aligned. And the things are in proper order in your life. Yeah, you know, and I, you know, funny, funny enough, like, you know, I'm doing

Work-Life Balance recording this episode right now, you know, I can hear my kids yelling in the other room. So it's a constant juggling act. And, man, I just, I know for you, you know, it just requires a ton of discipline in, in your craft and what you put your hands to. man, I think the last question that I would have for you is, man, what do you tell yourself when you don't want to do something? I mean, I just, I know that there's so many of our listeners today

who are given jobs, assignments that they just don't really want to do or maybe don't even feel like it's their job to do. But they're, how do you get past some of those hurdles as a follower? You know, when you go from being an NFL quarterback, and then a coach and then all of a sudden you got to go back to the bottom right and you're like wait a minute my network and the people I used to run with are way up here and like what am I doing down here in the mail room you know and and I think that it goes back to that order for me right is I'm doing all this for a bigger purpose and a bigger vision than what's right in front

of me right is it's not about the task it's about how I execute the task, right? And the standard I set for myself for this bigger vision, right? And it's for a much higher purpose than just to get the job done. And I really, really think this is kind of critical back. And I think it ties into that work-life balance thing, a little bit of, we've gone to a place in our society where there's a lot of cool jobs out there, right?

And it's really easy to go on LinkedIn. Instagram be like, that's a cool job. That's a cool job. That job's probably way cooler than mine. The reality is they all have things that suck. I mean, played in the NFL for, you know, and you could go into an NFL locker when there's going to be a subsection of guys that are complaining about their job every day. Right?

Most people would say it's the greatest job in the world. And it probably is one of them. But the reality is, is it's all about, it's all tying those smallest details into my purpose and into keeping things in the proper order. And that's where the switch flip for me was, and it's humbling to do when you feel as though your skill set fits somewhere else. And I think it's the biggest mistake people make is you got to earn the right. like those things will come, right? But it's, it's just taking so much pride

in doing those little things as well. For sure. As you possibly can. And then it's, and then it becomes, you know, your mentality of where you're choosing the hardest things to do

or the things that you'd maybe avoid, you're choosing to do them first. Because that's my calling. That's my challenge. And I, and rather than hide from her complain about it or feel that I'm above it, I'm going to prove to myself that I can do this for a bigger purpose and do it to the best of my ability. It's so critical today because I just

think it's easier than ever before to see how good everybody else has it. So how do you fight that? I mean, how do you, how have you, you know, obviously anybody not in the NFL can look at you and go, oh man he's got it made but when you're in the NFL you're obviously looking at other quarterbacks and other teams and other player you know how how did you deal with some of those mind games you know in a culture today where we really can see everybody else's success i think you i think for me i had i had to get to the place and and i would say i didn't really make this link until fairly recently for me you know um it took me some some time to get there.

You know, like you're sitting in the NFL and you're like, I say it's a high stress job, right? And there's a lot to it and a lot of uncertainty. You know, I was like,

I might be in Detroit tomorrow, you know, like literally. Like, tell you, we'll send your stuff in the mail. You're on a flight to Detroit at 7 p.m.

You know, and so there's some of those things that do when, and I remember thinking about, like, look at that guy. Like, he's got weekends off and,

He goes to the bank every day and he's got this nice little family and he knows where he's going to be for the next 30 years. And isn't that just keep it simple, right? Like, isn't that just a nice life? You know, and it's true. But then there's the other side of that the bankers sitting there going, oh, this is boring. Like, I'm going to be in this job for the next 30 years and, you know, it's nothing exciting and blah, blah, right? Like, we can all play that game and kind of choosing it all, right? and turning whatever situation you have today and tie it to your purpose, right,

and tie it to this bigger vision of whatever, whatever situation I'm in today is a blessing. And whatever situation I'm in today is awesome. And I have a chance to grow from it, to learn from it, to impact somebody else's life. And I don't care if you're doing the most menial past in the world. I can change somebody's life today. Man, that attitude is crucial. It's so much more fun too, right? All of a sudden, it's like, I can't wait to get out of bed.

You know, because whatever I had today, what an opportunity. Right. You know, and man, it's hard right now. It's hard because especially you look at this younger generation that has been raised. And I hate to sound like an old guy, but, you know, I do some high school coaching kind of here and there. and I'm around young people still and now I haven't moved to my house but you know

all of a sudden you're raised in that world with Snapchat and Instagram and Twitter and face whatever right all LinkedIn for us older folks and it's just easy to go man this is what am I doing like why am I not an influencer

you know or why am I not this or that or like this would be cool oh he's got it wired but like you know there's there's ways to get to that point and to to roadmap it out to your aim and to have a dream and to build it and take action on it but there's also a time where you got to draw that line like we talked about early and come back to just like man I have a world of possibilities today like and I just think you start stacking those days up and magically all of a sudden you wouldn't believe it.

I met this guy. I was doing this work and I met this guy and then he connected me to another guy. How'd you end up there? Well, I just got my hands dirty and just attacked it. Whatever that was. That's how you and I got connected.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it just, just, you know, navigating and stewarding great relationships and I'm glad we got connected that way too. So, yeah, man, I'm a firm believer in that. That's awesome. Well, don't you think, like,

it kind of drives me nuts sometimes and even some of the people I know and I've probably been guilty of doing this too but I probably have already done it here today but you know when successful people that did something whatever that is and then they they're speaking about it and they say well I knew this was going to happen so I did this I said it I took all the right steps and I did it and I'm like is that really how it happened right like you just you just knew, you know, and because I do think that, again, it's, it's kind of both sides of your mouth. I think there's part of it of like, like, you've got to have an aim, right? You got to have an aim.

You got to have an aim. You got to be striving for something. And I get that and that's part of it. And there are times in life when there's people that have gone, boom, boom, boom, boom, and it all went right as I knew. And I thought, and I made every right choice. And I got there. Yeah.

but I think most of the time it's like I started on this past with this aim and I just did everything I could every day to be the best I could be and grow from it and then that led me on this different path

and I went back over here and I ended up in this great place and that's what I think life is and to me the key like we associate comfort with happiness right and And if I could just have that, I'd be happy.

If I just could get that job, I'd be happy. If I could just fix this one thing, I'd be happy. And I think that in reality, the exact opposite is true. Right. If you can just learn that there's a million gifts right in front of your face or challenges or opportunities and to tackle each and every one of those, all of a sudden your life feels so full and rewarding. And you didn't change where you were. You just changed where your focus was. Brooks, thank you so much, man, for being on followership today, man. I really appreciate your time and in your stories. It's very helpful. That was so much fun getting to learn from Brooks.

Man, he's got a lot going on. And I think so many of us can sometimes be wearing many hats. And I think he does that well. And so I think there's a couple of things that I want you to think about today. And really, the first thing I want to ask you is, we found yourself unhappy where you are right now because, well, you're expecting for happiness to arrive when you are in a certain position. Are you feeling like a failure because you're comparing yourself to others highlight reels and their resume and maybe some of the things they're posting on social media? What I want you to do is I want you to stop and look at your life. I want you to ask yourself, what are some great things that are happening in your life right now.

And is there the possibility that you could find happiness and contentment right where you are? The reality is, is we all get ready to step into another year. I think it's easy to look around and compare our situation to someone else's position. But I want to encourage you today to find contentment in whatever you've been given and be a great steward of that. that's what I want you to think about. Hey, if today's episode had a value of your life in any way, shape, or form, you know what I want you to do. I want you to share it with at least, let me think about the number today.

I want you to share it with at least two friends that you think could use some help with work, life balance. And don't forget to rate and review. And if you haven't already, subscribe. Happy New Year.