413 – Depression and Introversion didn’t stop this high achiever: Tom interviews Jen Amos

Episode 413 – Jen Amos
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody it's Tom here with episode four hundred and thirteen is Screw the Commute podcast. I'm here with Jen Amos, and she is, I would say, perfect for this podcast because listen to what her credential is that I think is really awesome. She got fired four times in a row. And then one media professional of the year. Now that's what I call the great credential to get her to tell me about that, because, you know, that's a really high achiever that can get fired four times in a row. That's that's great. So we'll bring her out in a minute. Hope you didn't miss episode 412. That's Lindsay Adams. He's the business relationship guy and he has a book called DNA for Business Relationships. And it's really great the things he was bringing out on how he keeps up with people and how he turns that into business. And you might notice that I screwed up the schedule and he was on Monday, because that's normally a day when I just do a training session. So if you're wondering what happened to me, no, I'm still alive. Here I am. But on the Monday thing we had Lindsay. All right. How you like to hear your own voice here on Screw the Commute. So if the shows helped you out at all in your business or given your ideas to help you start a business, we want to hear about it. Visit screwthecommute.com. Look for a little blue sidebar that says send voicemail, click on it, talk into your phone or computer and tell me how the show has helped you out.

[00:01:57] Put your website on there so you can get a big shout out on a future episode of Screw the Commute. Now pick up a copy of our Automation eBook, this ebook. The techniques in it have saved me millions of keystrokes. Definitely save me. Carpal tunnel allows me to ethically steal business from other people who are too slow to get back to prospects. And it's just wonderful. You're going to thank me for this. And we sell it for 27 bucks, but it's yours free for listening to the show. So pick it up at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. While you're over there, pick up a copy of our podcast app at screwthecommute.com/app. You can put us on your cell phone and tablet and take us with you on the road. All right. I know everybody's still freaking out about the pandemic, but I'm not and my students aren't because we know how to sell online. I've been doing it personally since the commercial Internet started in 1994. That's twenty seven years and been teaching it for twenty three years. But thirteen years ago, I decided to formalize the training and I went to the state of Virginia and I'm the only licensed, dedicated Internet marketing school in the country certified to operate by SCHEV, the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia.

[00:03:18] But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's good quality distance learning, not like these four year colleges, then all of a sudden have a distance learning program after two days and say, oh, we got to still steal money from kids and and teach them how to protest remotely now instead of in person, I guess. And then they get out and they're competing for jobs at Starbucks. So no, the stuff we teach is in high demand by every business on Earth. So your young people in your life can have a good, solid career. A lot of them are making money right before before they even graduate. And if your business is spending too much money to get to little Web presence and too little sales, maybe you want to get into it, too. And I'll tell you how you can get a scholarship to it by being in my mentor program. Tell you about that a little later. So the school is IMTCVA.org. Of course, all the stuff we have and Jen's stuff will be in the show notes.

[00:04:15] All right, let's get to the main event, Jen Amos is a gold star daughter and she's a veteran spouse. And host of the award winning podcast Holding Down the Fort, and that highlights the needs and perspectives of career military families. Now she is the community relations director of an award winning business, U.S. Vet Wealth, which she runs with her husband, Scott Tucker. And he's been on the show before. You want to make sure you look up that episode. And Jen, you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:04:52] Absolutely. So how are you doing?

[00:04:55] Great. And I just want to start by saying thank you for, I guess, reframing that time in my young 20s when I was fired from four jobs consecutively and calling me an overachiever. But that's that's the I am thrilled to death with that credential. I mean, how many people have that kind of good credential? And I kind of relate to it. I wasn't really fired, but I had people trying to kill me at a job. I is yeah. I did have a part time job at a steel mill one time and I was doing so much work so fast. The guys were yelling at me and say, stop it, they're going to increase our quota and I wouldn't stop. And they started trying to run big steel beams and so like so I was an overachiever that lived through it. But yeah, four times getting fired. Oh, my God. We we really have to get some type of award for that too.

[00:05:49] So I would love that.

[00:05:51] So tell everybody what you're doing now and then we'll take you back and see how you came up through the ranks.

[00:05:56] Yeah, absolutely. Well, I feel very fortunate today to be an award winning customer as well as run an award winning business with my husband. Scott, as you had mentioned, a lot of my time probably is similar to you talking to a lot of good people and finding common ground for, you know, to foster community and connection and potential collaboration, you know, through podcasting.

[00:06:17] And, you know, with the pandemic, it was really a perfect time to be in podcasting because of just how isolated, you know, we all are also being an introvert, Tom. I was thrilled, to be quite honest, when we all were forced to be at home because I thought, OK, cool, like now doing virtual meetings are justified. Like I don't have to prove myself by showing up to places and traveling and dressing up a certain way. It's like, oh, I just I could just do it all from home. And so a lot of my time is really that whole community building that I do through podcasting so that, you know, we can find good people who may want to work with us at our company, US, but. Well, or even be a client. So, yeah, that's a little snippet of snapshot of my life right now.

[00:06:59] Yeah. And I'm the same way. I'm actually thrilled to death to be sitting home and people like, are you crazy? Because, you know, I speak at these big events and I'm Mr Personality and all that fun, but I'm thrilled to death to come home and recharge and be sit here with the dogs and nobody bugging me.

[00:07:17] So I was going to like I know that you had students come at your place, right. And I asked you before I was like, do you feel lonely? And you're like, no. And I was like, that's awesome.

[00:07:24] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:25] So so speaking of lonely, I was doing a little research on you. And so this is kind of opposite of what you just said. You're happy to be alone, but you started your podcast out of loneliness, at least in part. Tell us about that.

[00:07:42] Yeah, absolutely. Tom. Well, you know, prior to moving out to the East Coast, I've lived here for about three years now. I lived in San Diego, California for twenty years, and we moved out here formally for work. And initially we were in Richmond, Virginia. And then seven months later, we came out to Virginia Beach. Pretty much I've lived here for about two years now, but by the time we moved here, I was just starving for a social life. You know, like I said, we moved out to Richmond at first for work. And so it almost felt like and I think it almost felt like a deployment, you know, like it felt like we weren't going there to start a new life together. It was for work. And so when we came out here to Virginia Beach, this was actually a family decision. I knew that I wanted to start growing roots from the bottom up. Like since we decided it's not just for work to be out here, we were going to try to start a life of some sort. And so but it was hard. It was it was hard to build local connections. And my background, being a military child for the first ten years, sort of convinced me that it was just going to be really difficult for me to make friends locally or physically. And so I needed to find a way to build a network in a community that I could take with me wherever I go. And that's how podcasting came into existence.

[00:08:54] How long have you been there?

[00:08:56] So how long have I been in Virginia Beach? Virginia Beach?

[00:08:59] Yeah, for about two years now. I think this year will be our second year.

[00:09:02] Ok, so hold on. Hold on. So, yeah, you've been here two years. I've been here twenty years and we met in person one time. I mean, how much more social life do you want.

[00:09:12] I mean, yes. Sorry Tom you weren't enough. Oh man. I thought I was enough to go around for a lot of.

[00:09:22] But it's difficult because, you know, and that's the thing you mentioned, you lived here for a long time. I was running into a lot of people who've lived here for a long time as well. So to just kind of try to integrate myself in those circles is really difficult for me. And then, of course, when the pandemic hit, it made it even more difficult. I remember at the beginning of twenty twenty, I did start to go to networking events and meet ups and trying to make friends that way. But like I said, the pandemic hit. Everyone started meeting online and it kind of just reinforced why I started podcasting. And I'm so glad that I had summer of twenty nineteen to start because I think it gave me like the practice to get into podcasting so that when 20, 20 came I was already at it. I was, I was already kind of in my zone to, to do it and to have conversations virtually.

[00:10:08] So I would have thought this area would have been extremely easy because of all the transient, you know, the military like, you know, I do stuff for military spouses and stuff and they're here for two years and gone.

[00:10:21] So aren't they all in the same boat or they're you know, they're really trying to find some local friends or else they avoid that because then they have to to leave them?

[00:10:31] I don't know.

[00:10:32] Yeah, I think it's a hit or miss. You know, sometimes people in the military, they know they're going to be here temporarily. So they they kind of stick to their own. They'll stick to their family. You know, they'll kind of do stick to the long distance call to stay in touch with family or some will dive in deep and just straight up make friends. They'll just be like, I'm going to make friends. I don't know how long going to be here. I'm going to get into it. And so I think for me, it was like trying to find that balance. But really, when when I started going to podcasting, I thought, oh, well, this is easier for me. This is more convenient. Right. And so I kind of just stuck with it. It became my number one way of socializing.

[00:11:07] Well, tell us about us vet. Well, what what exactly does it do?

[00:11:12] Yeah. So you see that? Well, the way that I like to describe our company nowadays is we like to provide thought provoking financial education and flexible financial solutions to our career, military families. And what I mean by that is, you know, when you think about traditional financial planning, it's usually tailored towards civilians with the assumption that you're going to go through corporate America and you're going to climb up the ladder. And the whole idea is to work until you're in your 60s and then you can pull money out of your insurance and out of your retirement planning. And and the thing is, though, with the military, especially career military families, when they transition out, they're not going from one corporate job to another. They're going from being trained or prepared or preparing themselves for war to go back to regular life. Yeah. So the financial planning is a lot different for them. It's not just about the money, it's the mindset. And so what we like to do is be able to support them in a way where they can adapt to post military life and have money, be one of the last stressors for them to think about in that new life of theirs as civilians.

[00:12:20] Now, the name of the place is vet well, like veteran wealth, but do you wait until they're out of the service to start? Wouldn't it be better to start while they're in thinking about this?

[00:12:32] Yeah, yeah. So that's a good point. We started we call it US vet. Well, mainly because it is started by a veteran. My husband. Oh yeah. When he had transitioned out, he actually got into financial services around like late twenties, actually around twenty eight when the economic downturn happened in America. Good times. And so he got into financial industry while everything was crashing. And so he was able to kind of learn the hard way of how to do financial planning. But he also saw a significant difference in serving our military families at the time when he was stationed in in Germany versus our civilian counterparts. And so that's that's part of why we have that in US wealth, because he was a veteran when he started this business. But you're right, Tom, we do highly, highly I highly encourage people to look at their finances, their personal finances while they're in service. However, there's a certain kind of mindset or certain kind of season we're looking for. So when you first get started in the military, we don't really target, I guess you can say, like the young active duty military service members, because they're young, they're young, probably not married yet, don't have kids. They're not thinking about it. They're not really thinking about, like financial planning for their future. Right. However, we like to work with the seasoned military families or we call them career military because they're in the service with the intent to be in there for at least ten to twenty years, if not more. And so these are the ones by then that have families. They're kind of in that stage where they are thinking about transition maybe, and therefore they're in that mindset to think about their personal finances and what that's going to look like in post military life. So those are ideally the best demographic that are most aware or willing to be able to talk to us.

[00:14:22] Don't you have a book or something that also helps them out?

[00:14:26] Yeah, yeah, we do have two books. I mean, one that really dives into the philosophies of our company is actually called Veteran World Secrets. And to our listeners, you're more than welcome to download the first three chapters at our website, VeteranWorldSecrets.com. So that's one book that really gets into the philosophise. But the one I really wanted to talk about today is actually called the Modern Guide to Veteran and Military Life Insurance Planning. And this is really for the families that haven't really taken a deeper look into their survivor benefit plan or the the veterans group life insurance. And so these are plans or benefits that these families are told are benefits Tom. But in reality, they're paying for them. They're paying for them. And a lot of military spouses, for example, don't know that the survivor benefit plan doesn't benefit the service member. It benefits the spouse, it benefits them should anything happen to them. And those benefits actually increase when they transition out of the military. And so if they don't look at it while they're in the military, they may be in for a surprise and post military life, paying more for a plan that may not actually serve them and their family. And so that's a good book that I recommend. We do have a website for it if anyone wants to learn about it. The website is SurvivorLibertyPlan.com. And from there, there's a webinar on there where you'll see my husband's face really get into the nitty gritty of the survivor benefit plan and what other options you can have in case you realize that the SBP is not the right option for you and your family.

[00:16:04] So again, you know, I think when I met you and your husband, I told you I was not married.

[00:16:12] And I've always been skeptical of buying big life insurance. Like, I wonder if she's thinking, man, I'm worth more dead than alive. So and I heard this one guy there's one famous guy said he says, I don't have any life insurance. He says, well, when I die, I want it to be a real tragedy.

[00:16:33] Wow.

[00:16:35] So so, Jen, besides your colorful employment past my higher my high achieving pass. Yeah, I noticed that you're a journalism major and probably had publicity in there somewhere and you do a lot of podcasts, but one in particular stands out. And I'm not actually going to say it on here because I don't want to have to make this episode explicit, but I'll say something that maybe rhymes with it. So you were on Gajina Talks with Sophia Wise, and I'm thinking to myself, man, she's on there, but they always say no to me. I don't know what they're talking.

[00:17:26] So that show about.

[00:17:29] Yeah. You know, I mean Sophia is great. I wow. I mean there's so much to say about her. I mean but yeah. I mean wait for the show or whatever rhymes with Gajina. Yeah. I mean it wasn't actually even about that to be quite honest.

[00:17:44] I think it's our conversation was really about, from what I recall, like talking about our inner child, talking about kind of the the child that you may have abandoned as you started to like the younger version of yourself.

[00:17:57] Yeah, but it did get her mentioned on this show and probably a lot of other ones, because this long list of shows you've done, that's the only one noticed.

[00:18:06] That's the one that stood out to you, of course.

[00:18:08] Yeah. I mean, you know, I love being on other people's. Yes. Because for one, I like to kind of test my range in regards to, like, how much of myself I'm willing to share, I don't know, until I'm on the show, you know. Right. And I'm open to it.

[00:18:22] I love the challenge. When people ask me questions, I kind of get me caught off guard and get me to think about later. But, yeah, one thing that I did with her that I hadn't done on other people's shows was kind of talk about the younger version of ourselves. And when I think about the younger version of myself, I think about when I was 10, when I lost my dad, how my family became a Gold Star family, you know, he was on active duty. He was eighteen years and he was only two years away from retiring. His last duty station was Yokosuka, Japan, and his ship, the last ship he had was the or the last ship he was on was the USS Kitty Hawk. And his ship was going from Yokosuka, Japan, to South Korea when he went missing. And they sent a search crew for him for three days. They continued an investigation for three months and eventually they let it go. And that is the girl I think about, you know, pretty much for the rest of my life, like what happened to her, the younger version of myself, my 10 year old self and who I became after. Or that time, so it was really fun to unpack that with Sophia on her show.

[00:19:27] Well, yeah, I mean, that seems like there's a big open door there. That's it's not been shut on what actually happened to him. I'm really sorry to hear that, but thank you for that.

[00:19:37] Yeah.

[00:19:38] Besides being on that show and besides your stellar employment record, you have a Guinness Book World Record in all.

[00:19:51] Yeah. I told you, you're a high achiever. Yeah. So don't leave. Sure.

[00:19:57] I don't want to make sure I say the title correctly. So I got I got my certificate. And so this was actually a ton of fun. This was done during the pandemic. The shout out to Pod Fest Expo. They wanted to do something fun during this time, since a lot of conferences were obviously shut down and canceled. So what Pod Fest wanted to do was they wanted to break the Guinness World Records for the largest attendance for a virtual podcasting conference in one week. And so Tom the the record at the time was five thousand. So we had to break five thousand in one week, you know, have that many attendees. And at the end of that conference, we were able to break five thousand, five thousand and three participants.

[00:20:42] So how do we barely made it out of Guinness?

[00:20:45] Check up on that, because they're pretty strict on stuff on proving that you did what you said you're going to do.

[00:20:51] Oh, yeah. Well, you know, it's really the the organizers that were able to make that happen, I'm pretty sure. I mean, I can't speak on behalf of that. I just had the fortune of participating and speaking and helping get the participants. But, you know, I mean, I'm holding the physical certificate right now. And also the fun thing Tom is they decided Hotfix Global or Pod Fest Expo decided to do it again just a couple of weeks ago at the time of this recording. They wanted to beat that record five thousand and three attendees and get this. So at the end of the event, they actually hit over six thousand. Oh, I think I think almost seven thousand, but I think six thousand eighty. To be specific. I could be wrong. But yeah, they broke it again, which means I'm going to get another certificate, two world records the next. Yeah, it's fun. That's part of why I strive for these awards.

[00:21:43] Yeah. Because you have a lot of more than I can read off today. I was looking through your stuff. You got a little bit of everything going on.

[00:21:50] Yeah, but but you know what though? If you if you do read them, the commonality is that I received the majority of them when I moved out to the East Coast. So mainly in twenty nineteen till today.

[00:22:02] And there are now all those West Coast people are just selfish, absorb people.

[00:22:07] You know, they're upset that I left them like, oh, you could have brought that all here.

[00:22:13] Well, the the reason why it was I guess so important for me to achieve all of that is because I was trying to reestablish myself out here. It goes back to how lonely I felt, how when I moved out here, I left my former business behind my friends, my family, my reputation to follow my husband and to follow his business. And part of the whole loneliness back in summer twenty nineteen now is I wanted to have an identity outside of him. I wanted to come as a whole person into our business. I didn't want to just be Scott's wife.

[00:22:46] You know, I don't want to just I've been through that before. Yeah.

[00:22:48] Yeah. His business partner. And so for me, all of this is for me, it's it's this validation that I can stand on my own two feet. You know, I am I am of value. You know, I'm a whole person coming into this business, coming into the East Coast. And so that's really what it meant for me, is to just know that, like, you know, in less than three years I was able to accomplish all of this. I was able to reinvent myself. And I'm proud of myself for that.

[00:23:16] And you still had time to instead of being a stuck up snob about all these big awards, you got to volunteer. That's important in your life, it appears, from the places you volunteered.

[00:23:29] Yeah, yeah, it's it's very important to me, it's, you know, the things that I volunteer for, like one of the things I do is volunteer with Better, where you can provide free consultation to veterans and military spouses and family members. And, you know, that's especially important to me. Just kind of going back to my own Goldstar family background of, you know, when we transitioned out, it just seemed as if like my dad's story disappeared. We didn't talk about him anymore. And I felt like a lot of my life since then was just trying to be my own adult ally, like, look out for myself, you know, hence why I had my own business before I met my husband. And it was a really humbling experience for me when we came out here and I had to depend on him.

[00:24:15] So, you know, like just having that whole background of, like, I can stand on my own. I'm an independent woman, you know, although I have learned the importance of interdependence and, you know, coexisting. I'm sure he depends on you for a lot.

[00:24:29] Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Like, we we definitely complement each other in in a lot of ways. But but yeah. Anyway, I lost my train of thought.

[00:24:39] I know you were was talking about your volunteer work.

[00:24:42] Oh yes. Yeah. And so with better body for example, it's my way to give back and a form of self healing to know that like you know, even though I may not have received the help that I needed, at least I can give that now, you know, and then with the other volunteer work that I do, which is completely anonymous, it's this website called 7Cups.com. It's really a space for people who maybe aren't ready to seek out therapy, but and maybe they don't want to burden their friends with their problems, but they still need to have an outlet to talk to someone. And so 7 Cups is a perfect platform for anyone that's kind of just looking for a pen pal, you know, to open up to about anything and everything. And it's anonymous on both parties. Like, I'm an anonymous woman. They're they're anonymous. And so it really gets them to feel more safe to open up about certain things. Of course, there are some topics that should not be addressed because, you know, if it's anonymous, people think they can get away with anything. But there are guidelines.

[00:25:39] Well, I'm going to say I said maybe I shouldn't go over there because it'd be like, what do you what are you wearing?

[00:25:45] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:46] And there is checks and balances you can report, you know, you can report like the volunteer or the, you know, the member on there. But yeah, there's definitely checks and balances. We they are aware that that could happen and that has happened. But if you do use it for the right reasons, it is a really valuable place to feel heard. And sometimes that's all people need, is they need to know that someone heard them and say, hey, I hear you and I validate what you're going through and what you're going through is normal. And sometimes that's enough for people. And that's a good taste to, you know, what a good mental health resource could be for people that still have a stigma toward seeking out help.

[00:26:24] Mm hm. Yeah, right. And just in case you're wondering, I have a triple X hoodie on and a pair of ratty sweatpants.

[00:26:35] I didn't ask just in case you were wondering.

[00:26:40] So we're got to take a response or break here. When we come back, question what's a typical day look like for her and how she stays motivated? So folks are about 23 years ago, I kind of turned to Internet marketing guru world on its head and that people like me were charging 50 or 100 grand up front to teach you this small business, Internet marketing. And I knew a lot of these people. They'd be hiding out somewhere if you gave them fifty grand up front and wouldn't help you anyway. So I said, you know, it's not fair to small business people. So I said, I'm going to charge an entry fee and then I'm going to tie my success to your success. So for me to get my 50 grand, you have to net two hundred grand. Well, people love this idea in seventeen hundred students later in twenty three years, it's still going strong. It's the longest running, most successful, most unique Internet marketing mentor program ever. And I don't feel bad about saying that because I've tripled their people over years. This put their program up against my line for line and see who wins and nobody will do it. I'm a crazy fanatic that I work day and night holidays, weekends and helping people.

[00:27:51] And I could have quit this years ago, but I just love to see the results from the folks that I'm helping. So so you can check that out and check out all the unique features at greatInternetmarketingtraining.com. And if you're in that program, you get a scholarship to the school, which you can either use yourself or gift to someone. There would be one of the best legacy gifts you could ever give to a nephew, niece, daughter, grandchildren. You know, way better than just giving them money or a car that's going to depreciate it away in no time. This will give them an in demand skill so they can. They have their own career and as little as six months, and some of them in two or three months are already making side hustle money to the tune of a couple thousand dollars a month. So this is serious stuff that I've been living and breathing for twenty seven years now, and I'd love to see you get involved. So check it out at greatInternetmarketingtraining.com. Give me a call. A very easily accessible we could talk about your future online and some of your loved one's future online.

[00:28:58] All right, let's get back to the main event. Jen Amos is here. She is a big time overachiever in so many ways. And for being a diminutive, lovely young lady, she can really turn it on. I'll tell you, she's done a lot of things when all kinds of awards in the Guinness Book of World Records. I mean, jeez. So, Jen, what's a typical day look like for you now since this covid hit and kept this home?

[00:29:26] Mostly, yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks again, Tom, for just making me feel good about myself.

[00:29:31] You know, when you're stuck at home, like, all the time, I mean, even literally just yesterday I was like questioning my existence. What am I doing all this for? But for you to just remind me of my own success. It really is.

[00:29:45] I mean, look, you know, I've done four hundred and some. You're four hundred and thirteen. So I see all these four hundred people, what they have done in their life. And you are way up there in the top percentile, let me tell you.

[00:29:58] Oh, that's so kind of you. Yeah. Thank you.

[00:30:01] Well, my doesn't mean you could come over and visit me just cause you're lonely. Oh yeah.

[00:30:06] So just but you know, literally, you know, I see lots of people and you've done lots of great things in your life and you're still doing great things, especially with the volunteering and helping people that need it. So.

[00:30:19] Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for saying that, Tom. Well, yeah, I mean my day to day. So I actually it's interesting because when we first moved out here, I was when we first moved to the East Coast in general, I was trying to establish myself and ultimately like figure out what my day to day routine is. And so for me, this is how it now has laid out. So Mondays are typically like an admin day for me. That's kind of the day to like, you know, look at my calendar, see if there's any it starts out like what time you get up?

[00:30:49] Do you work out? Do you have a morning routine? Do you meditate? I mean, what it's it's it's that they start out like where?

[00:30:55] Yeah. Let me think about like my busiest day because I think it pretty much embodies what my day looks like. So I typically start my day at least work meetings starting at eleven thirty. Prior to that it's free game for me. It's kind of like I could sleep in, I could listen to an audio book. Actually the first thing I do when I wake up, it's so funny because I don't like turn on my head until my meeting start. But yeah, literally when I wake up I drink two cups of water, not just any kind of water. I really love alkaline water or high water, which I get at Whole Foods for like ninety nine cents a gallon and everywhere. It's so funny because everyone thinks like, oh that's so expensive. I'm like soda is expensive.

[00:31:37] I going to go. And I was thinking there's going to be nine dollars a gallon for food.

[00:31:41] Yeah, it's actually really affordable, but I've been drinking alkaline water for years now and you know, no joke. Tom like the one time the only times I've gotten really sick was when I wasn't drinking water like when I ran out or alkaline water. So tip for anyone that's looking for, you know, just an easy way to stay healthy because there's just something about it that works for me. But anyway, I start off my my day drinking water, looking out my window. We're very fortunate to live on the beach. And so I get to see the waves first thing in the morning and then I, you know.

[00:32:12] Did you move since the last time I talked?

[00:32:15] You know, no. We lived in the same place, Norfolk or somewhere. Now we live we live in a beach specifically. Oh, OK. Yeah, yeah.

[00:32:25] And so it's actually fun to visit Mount Trashmore when because it's like there's grass there, you know.

[00:32:32] So I stay away from the and I stay away from the beach because I get I get too many harpoon wounds when the whalers are going by you.

[00:32:39] Oh my God. I'm awful. I'm glad I haven't gotten caught yet.

[00:32:43] Well they wouldn't, they wouldn't try to hit you because you don't look like a whale.

[00:32:48] Oh my gosh.

[00:32:50] But yeah. So I start my day drinking water, kind of looking outside, reflecting. I'll turn on my phone, I sleep with my phone off and I have one of those alerts on American right there.

[00:33:02] I thought you were a Gold Star family member and you sleep with your phone off.

[00:33:07] Oh yeah. Well it's called Healthy Boundaries Tom. OK, all right. But anyway, what I how I do wake up.

[00:33:13] I did mine in the alkaline water, that's all.

[00:33:17] But yeah, if I, if I have to wake up at a certain time so like, I start to prepare for the day two hours before my first meeting. So if my first meeting is at eleven thirty I set. My alarm for nine 30 and I have this alarm, it's a vibrating alarm that I put in my pillow, so that way I could actually sleep with earplugs because, you know, the good thing about I mean, I love living on the beach, but the waves and just, you know, I'm a I'm a light sleeper because of it. And also my husband snores and my dog snores. So. So just all this chaos going on.

[00:33:49] So I sleep with earplugs, but yeah, I wake up and yeah, I start my day, let's say like at nine thirty, that's when I start to make myself coffee or I check in with Scott and see how he's doing. Sometimes we'll do a little powwow, see what his day is going to look like and then ten thirty I start getting ready, I start putting my Zoome face on nowadays. Right. And then by 11, 30, I'm just on, you know, I have my light on in front of me, my camera, my microphone and I'm doing a bunch of meetings like I'll do, I do a lot of back to back meetings. Sometimes they're half hour meetings to forty five, forty five minute meetings to an hour. Sometimes I have a little breather in between in between my meetings. I always make it a point to like drink a cup of water. I'll go and water specifically and yeah it helps me get through the day. And so yeah like I said on my busiest day I'll probably have meetings from eleven thirty till five, six at night. Sometimes I've got until 8:00 at night because you know Tom like without commuting. Right. Which I think your listeners will appreciate because it's, it's like I can do so much more with my time and like now that I don't have to like I don't feel pressured to meet people in person. It's like, oh like what. Of course I can cram all these meetings. Right. Right. Oh so yeah. And then typically by the end of the day I start to unwind by like sometimes I'll walk my dog or I'll nowadays in the pandemic rollerblade with my family, my husband Scott got Scott, he got rollerblades as well, OK, because he saw how fun I was having because I was like, I want to roll as well. So he has roller blades now and yeah, well we'll like go to the park or exercise and then pretty much the rest of the evening is just unwinding.

[00:35:33] But I'm also a night owl Tom and so usually let's say from like seven to nine, I'll just be kind of doing whatever, whether it's like catching up on my favorite podcast shows or whatever. But it's usually after that like nine, ten o'clock mark where I'm ready to volunteer my time. So the cool thing about 7 Cups is you can hop on there any time because it's a worldwide volunteer army so you can come on any time. So when I am at that time where I'm ready to talk to people or I even have pen pals myself on there that I check in with, that I update my life on, that's usually the time that I volunteer. And then. Yeah, and then pretty much from there I, I sometimes get into a lot of deep reflecting and I journal, I listen to the point, I get tired and then I go to bed. So that's, that's what a busy day looks like for me.

[00:36:25] Wow. And what do you do to keep motivated.

[00:36:29] Oh, I mean, the meetings are really helpful, to be honest, I think if it weren't for, like podcasting and feeling obligated to show up to them, I don't know, like I definitely have my hard days. I definitely have days.

[00:36:43] Like just like I was telling you the other day, I was questioning my whole purpose in life, you know, but here's here's one thing I realized Tom, because a couple of years ago I was diagnosed with a mild depression. And rather than taking antidepressants, I decided to be a student of my depression. So there's a really good book I read called Upward Spiral by Alex Corb. His last name is about Kostabi, so Upward Spiral by Alex Corb. And he said in there that one of the best ways to combat depression or even manage it, make it manageable, is to be in community with people. And so to feel accountable, to feel like you're part of something greater than yourself. And so podcasting has been that sense of that sense of community and accountability for me. And so that's what really keeps me motivated, is despite how I feel, despite the hard days that I have, just knowing that people are depending on me or I feel obligated to, you know, making other people's stories feel heard or even serving them as our clients, that's really what keeps me motivated, is I don't make it about me, you know, like I make it about the people that I can help.

[00:37:50] Well, it kind of reminds me, did you ever hear of Patch Adams named? Patch Adams was a guy.

[00:37:57] I think he was a doctor, but he didn't really you know, he was kind of a clown. He just made people laugh all the time. And the Robin Williams, I believe, played him in the movie Patch Adams. But I spoke with him one time. He was at the same speaking at the same vet I was speaking to. If somebody was diagnosed as depressed as and by his fellow doctor and they just wanted to give him pills, he said, forget the pills. He handcuffed them to himself and he took them around with them to working on all the patients that are dying and really in bad shape. And none of them felt like they needed pills, you know, after that. And it's the same thing with like they call them candy striper is at the hospitals. There's been studies that show that they live longer than the average person because they're not focused on their own troubles. They're helping other people just like you are. So so you're probably going to live to be forty, forty one or two or something like that.

[00:39:02] Well, I hope for a long, long time. Yeah.

[00:39:05] Yeah, it's it's important, you know. I mean, I've already gone down the route of isolation, you know, I've gone down that route of not telling people what I'm going through, not telling people how I'm feeling, you know, and I just it just wasn't serving me. It wasn't serving anyone I loved. You know, if anything, it hurt the people I love for them to know that I'm sad. And they felt like they couldn't do anything about. Right. Right. You know, and so it causes this really tragic ripple effect to people if you're sad. And so, I mean, I don't think I'm faking my happiness. I think the fact that I'm being transparent and open and putting myself out there and seeing how I can help people like it's it's so self healing, you know, that feeling. It's fun and it's exciting. And, I mean, I don't I wouldn't have it any other way. So I'm so grateful that, you know, when I got diagnosed, I decided to be a student of that and I had come to find that community is important. And so, I mean, hence I wouldn't have started podcasting if I didn't feel lonely. Right. So it's very important.

[00:40:04] And you're an overachiever. So that means to me, you'll be able to help more people. Why? You're helping yourself, you know.

[00:40:10] Yes. Perfect. Perfect. I love that. That's like the word of our conversation over. Thank you for that.

[00:40:16] That's going to be in the headline of this episode, by the way, overachiever. So so thanks so much for coming on and filling us in on the the veteran work you're doing and give them the website again that they can or where should they contact you or get these books or what? Put them all all that will also put it in the show notes for it.

[00:40:36] Yeah, absolutely. Well, the main site to find anything in regards to the books that I had mentioned earlier would be usvetwealth.com. If you just want to get a hold of me, you can. My direct email address is Jen@usvetwealth.com. So from there, like, if you're if you want to reach out, if you have any questions or. Yeah. Like I said, just reach out, just email me like I'll respond.

[00:40:59] And they might have relatives that are veterans or military people that aren't that aren't listening to this, that need your kind of service. So overall, I think we're going to end this podcast now. But I do want to end on a really good note that how happy Scott's going to be that you equated his snoring with the dogs in front of thousands of people.

[00:41:23] So, yeah, don't let it get to the end.

[00:41:28] So Jen, so good talking to you. You know, being neighbors, of course, we will never see each other again because it's too close. You know, I lived in DC for fifteen years and had neighbors across, you know, three blocks away and never, never, never, ever visited them in fifteen years. So that's the way the world goes now. But so glad the catching up with you. Tell Scott I said hi and the and again, thanks for all the great work you're doing in the veteran community because we're big veteran believers around here. In fact, September is Veterans Month here. So. So thanks so much.

[00:42:05] Yeah, thanks, Tom and thanks for having me. It was an absolute pleasure and it was great catching up with you.

[00:42:09] All right. We'll catch everybody on the next episode. See ya later.
 
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