Breaking Free: A Journey from Restriction to Authenticity

Nick: 0:07

It's time to get fucking authentic. The hour back again.

Nancy: 0:14

Hey, how's it going?

Nick: 0:17

Oh my god. So it was funny because the last episode we were talking about the alien ship. Yes. Yeah. People just thought that was fucking hilarious. Oh my god. It's an alien. That's fucking great. I still remember that. And ever since then you're just like, Yeah, but my kid wasn't really. He was an ugly kid. I mean, you know you we do I mean, we said it about the babies are fucking ugly.

Nancy: 0:46

Some of them are Yes.

Nick: 0:48

Like, let's be honest. Right. So they come on all the form their heads. They're like, like, it's just funny is that is that

Nancy: 0:54

and people take the picture, like right away? It's like, oh, no, just give it time. Puppy. It smells like a little puppy. Oh

Nick: 1:02

my gosh. Anyway, I think we left off where we were talking about how we got married. Yeah, we then we want to have your brother moved in. Oh, yeah, we, my brother. And we took the responsibility of it wasn't like, you know, like, Oh, will you be my daddy, we just sort of inherently just took on this responsibility. Because I, I had already been out of the church for such a long time that I knew what was out there. You know what I mean? I'd gotten into some trouble and just I knew what was out there. But I just began my journey of being this protector, like I had already with my son was raising him and I was just like, so fucking hell bent. And being the Sheepdog. I was, so hell bent on protecting people. Period. My son is what really brought that out in me. But it just extended it was just in my blood to do that, and it was not only in my blood to protect, but it was sort of in my blood to just do everything for everybody. And we did. We did. Yeah. We had so many people living with us. I feel like, well, let's see help that we had. We had my brother living with us. We had your sister living with us. We had your your brother living with us. We had my dad living with us, dear friends. We had a couple friends living with us. We had my mom living with us. We had your other brother. While we raised him. We raised him. Well. Well, I know. We fucking raised him. See, I think I think this is part of the thing where when you're going through life, and you're just fucking just going through man, you don't think about this shit. Right? You're just going through. Okay, I think that maybe some people do think about this. Dude, I was beat down when I was growing up. And so I knew how that shit felt. So I tried to do everything in my power to help out everybody, no matter who you were. Fucking give you the shirt off my back. I go without food. So you had something to eat? Like, it's just how I was. And the thing was, what made this relationship so fucking phenomenal. Is that you allow that. You allowed me to be me. Right? And I allowed you while you were doing right, we both allowed each other to be who we were at that point. You know what I mean? We were just fucking did our shit. We didn't question if I didn't feel like anybody owed me anything. I don't know, for whatever reason, I felt like I owed everybody something. I was kind of you know. And I felt like I owed everybody something. But yet I was the one doing all the giving. Yeah, it was kind of weird. Now when you talk about it like that, you know? Yeah. So we wind up making like the safe house. We want a decision that we're going to move out of my well, we want to move out of the back of the yards because it just became a point where we were getting cars stolen. Yes. One was repossessed, the other one was stolen. Just we didn't want our, our son to grow up in that neighborhood. We knew that he wasn't going to wind up going to school there. Right. We didn't want that. And so we decided to move into the suburbs, the suburbs.

Nancy: 4:51

Well, yeah, for me, I mean, I always grew up. Houses were right next to each other. So when we moved into the suburbs, To, which really wasn't suburbs, but, you know, there was there was a little distance between houses, it was kind of funny, you know, I never experienced that less cars and you know, you actually had parking and you

Nick: 5:15

know, you didn't have to put fucking right exactly folding chairs and garbage cans. After you shoveled out your spot, you know,

Nancy: 5:22

it was a different it was different. So we moved into an apartment and

Nick: 5:29

we moved to into a third floor apartment, which wasn't probably the best idea probably wasn't the smartest idea with the small kids. So what ends up happening is right, this this apartment, we had a young older lady lived downstairs from us that worked second shift. So of course, you know, we had a two year old kid or whatever it was, that's a fucking nut job.

Nancy: 5:51

She's a kid.

Nick: 5:52

That's what I'm saying. And like, they're, they're doing their thing. You know what I mean? And anyway, we wind up getting kicked out of that apartment. They wouldn't renew the lease, they wouldn't renew our lease, like Nah, fuck you. So we wind up having to move to another location instead of one of your friends. Yeah, yeah. At a house house. That he rented us. Right. And then someone lived upstairs. No, no. The other guy. Oh, okay. He rents it out to us. And that, for that became the debt. That's what should really started to amp up because now everybody's getting older. You know, guys are starting to get older people are starting to fall into their own. Well, there's teenagers now are working. Yeah, well, yeah, they're their work. And I remember all those guys. Go all those guys were like an asbestos. That was when asbestos was huge for removal. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. I didn't know that. All those guys were we're pretty much doing asbestos. Interesting. Yeah, that place becomes just bucket party, party house there. But in our minds, they always say it was always like, we're just living our lives, right? We're just doing our thing. I mean, that's just, that's just the way it was. And for you and I, we were holy fuck. I mean, we, we were consistently moving forward. Right? We were consistently becoming better. And we were consistently, really getting into our groove of of what we wanted for our life. And you have to remember one thing, unfortunately, and this is just the truth. We weren't taught chips from our parents. This bottom line. I'm not here to put anybody down, but I'm just telling you straight out. We weren't taught shit. There was no, hey, let me sit you down and tell you how life is or, you know, you should do this in this situation. Or, you know, you'd better be better off if you did. There wasn't none of that. There wasn't. But as a matter of fact, the whole time that we were married. First of all, your dad never talked to me. Yeah, he was non existent. He never talked to me. It was in the first 10 years probably said five words to me. Yeah, right, number one. Number two, let's be honest, your mom couldn't fucking stand me still. Right? Like, that's reality. And your mom was finding yourself? Well, my mom was finding herself. She's running routes.

Nancy: 8:17

Because the church was broken up. She was she was just like, the teenagers wild and free. And

Nick: 8:25

then my, you know, my dad, he's, he's still living with, you know, with this woman. And at some point, they wind up getting a divorce. They had two kids, so they were my sisters. They weren't they were off doing their own thing. You know? So it was like, we literally it was us, dude. We were a pack period. And, and we, we just fucking ran it out. That's exactly what happened. And we wound up having all these other responsibilities added on to that. And we look, we were young, I'm not even complaining about the ship. US forging ahead and doing what we did is what set us up for failure, success, whatever, it set us up to where we are today. Right? We still have great relationships with the same fucking guys. I mean, I love these guys. These guys are like my brother. So anyway, we move into this one house. And that's Party Central. And then after a while, our son starts to get older. And let's just say it like it is. We were very cognizant of us. We were never under the influence. There's one thing that I would never fucking do. I was again, you have to remember my role as a protector. I would never ever in a million fucking years allow myself or you allow yourself to get to a point where we first of all, we would never ever both of us. Be under the influence of anything at the same time. You No, because our pact was that if something were to happen, God forbid, we were fucked up. And in something happened to our son. That was number one. We never, never allowed that to

Nancy: 10:13

happen. I think we were like that even with everyone. It was always Yeah. Before you're like a very, we were like the protectors we were always like, Okay, everyone is safe. Everyone's okay, you know, can be drinking can be, you know, so yeah, we were always

Nick: 10:28

right. God wants God forbid something happened to mill the night. And, and what first of all, I didn't want to happen like that. And then all of a sudden, we're under the influence. And then all of a sudden, our kid gets taken away from us or something like, like, we were very, very cognizant of that. Yeah, we were. Yeah, we wouldn't do that. And that's, that's why for. I mean, forever. We didn't do that. Even when our son was born, or even up until he was what we didn't sit there. And after that part, right? He gets into preschools of wheat, that shit stopped. Yeah, right. Obviously, we were getting older, right, and we had more responsibility even more. But that should stop. Like, it wasn't like, you know, the guys started getting older, they were going out right Rome thing able to go to the girlfriend, sort of thing Stop,

Nancy: 11:21

we actually became there. If you're too drunk to get home, call us and we'll pick you up type of so we like became their designated drivers, whatever, whatever you want to call

Nick: 11:34

it. Yeah, whatever it was, I mean, we were there for them regardless. And that was sort of how it went. The thing about life, especially when you're married, and I don't want to say just young, but as life goes on, is that you just do your shit. And the one thing that I've learned is that the problem with some of this is that you get too caught up in the day to day responsibilities and all that shit that you really, for me, I'll say, I think we've learned a big lesson from what's happened in the past couple of years, and you begin to lose, every day, you start beginning to lose a bit of your identity, you begin to start losing a bit of who you are, and sort of what you stand for. And not to the point of like, let's say you Well, I can say that I probably betrayed myself, you know that I should have been a little bit more cognizant of that. But it happens slowly, in a way very slowly. And life seems to take a really slow approach to fucking with you. This isn't like a sprint, this is like a marathon. But it happens. And unless you're really aware of this happening, you just don't know, right? So we know, she's so much shit going on. But we were consistently trying to better ourselves, everything that happened to us, we became so I want to say, like, so cocky. Because everything we were touching, was working. And it was just rolling. And we were just going with it. And this formula that we had, was working. And so as it kept going, we just kept rolling with it. And it got to the point where even like, making friends like all these other guys, now they've, they've grown up, they're sort of out there, and it's just really us. We, you know, it's not that we lost touch, but it's just you're not hanging as much you're not doing that right life is happening on all sides. And, and we just start rolling on ourselves. So you're, you're getting more into accounting into into Financials, and then working in that and I'm winding up, you know, so so, you know, you're obviously making more money. And so this is allowing us to do more things and I'm allowing, it's allowing me to open up some businesses and we're beginning to,

Nancy: 14:11

to it's funny that you say, you know, we're so cocky, we're so this because a lot, there was a few things. Of course, now that we're talking about that I remember, but that didn't work for us. Yeah, but that's you know, we did like the different things that we did that didn't work.

Nick: 14:32

So just so you guys know, I guess he was always sort of in the accounting side of things. Right. And so, man, you know, just growing up sort of being on our own a lot. We always had to fend for ourselves, for the most part. What was ever in the house. You know, you made food so I love being creative. I became here real creative with but I love that I was more of a stay at home dad. So I was always cooking. I was always doing the cleaning and all that kind of shit. And then we got to the point where it's like, Man, I really, I really wanted to, I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to go to chef school. That's what I wound up doing. And I wound up graduating at the top of my class. And straight out of there, I want to work for some really fine dining restaurants. And I really, I loved what I did. And that's all I did, I cooked and then we wound up opening up a catering company. And you know, we're young, we're just fucking busting our ass doing our thing. And you're still going on with yours. And you're moving up, right? And I'm just, we're working on the catering. And so what I mean by khaki is it didn't matter if it failed or not. Because to me, I was always like, well, fucking, I'll just do something else. Like it wasn't. failure was. And this is where I am going through it right now, where I'm trying to process in my head, in my life right now, of blaming myself for certain things. That was the thing that we, that I always told our son growing up is that failure is not an option. And I think that this is going to lend itself to Part of the reason why we're going through we're going through right now with my third son, but

Nancy: 16:18

I think if it wasn't for your persistence, and you're like you would you know, I'm the one where I fall, just leave me here, I'm gonna die. Just he'd leave me here, you know, just go. Just leave me right here. You know? Anytime anything happens, that's how I actually.

Nick: 16:39

But

Nancy: 16:42

this has always, always been a thing that I was always telling her son is that your persistence kept me going. Yeah. And moving up. Yeah. And I think when you talk and you say, we really don't realize these things, we really don't realize it. I can't move it up. Because of the way you are doing your stuff. It wasn't. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like, it was a combination.

Nick: 17:11

No, we realize each other's dreams, we definitely realized, like, I knew that if I was able to do everything I did at home, so that you didn't have to come home and worry about that and get stressed about it. That helps you out.

Nancy: 17:25

I'll totally but it wasn't like I wanted to do numbers. No, no, no, you don't. I mean, it was like, seeing you attempting all these different things that we did together and pursuing all these different things. gave me that push gave me that animal, that paragraph talking in Spanish, but gave me that. What's the word drunk drive? There you go made your drive even stronger. Yeah, exactly. So I mean, give credit where credit is due. Yes, we were together. But seeing that was a big Yeah.

Nick: 17:58

I get that. And I appreciate that. I think for me, though, when I talked about that failure was not an option. That was my mind. Right? My mind was, I can't fail. There's no way that I can fail. And so that was my that was my mojo. Right. And I think what happened was, I know what happened was I, I pushed that on to our son as well. And the ultimate failure in that, ultimately, that was a failure in itself, by me saying that failure is not an option. So as I'm once living that, in my mind, and in my, my existence, was that if I failed, then I'm a failure. If or if I failed, then we're fucked. And so when you take on the responsibility at such a young age, of, first of all being on the streets, you can't fail. If you fail, you're fucked. You better thrive on the street, you're not just surviving, you better not fail, because if you fail, you're fucked. So that was my mindset. So every time I would say that, you know, we're getting a little head here, but when I would say that to her son, I believe that for me, but I didn't realize at the time that you can't, that failure is an option. And actually failure allows you to become a stronger person and allows you to grow. But when I was so cocky,

Nancy: 19:43

I guess on my side, I felt like we failed in a lot of things. Yes, so I

Nick: 19:48

never took anything but that's the thing when he said when I say we were cocky, because I'll say I was cocky. I never took any of that as a failure. Yeah, because for me, it wasn't a failure. It was just Like a setback that I'm gonna roll the fuck over. It wasn't a failure. Gotcha. It was in this is again, this is just my mind. I mean it was like, go okay, so I fucked up or I didn't get it or I didn't get the job right? Dude, I was getting jobs at 18 years old fucking working as an inspector down in the fucking downtown at high rises, doing you know math man, let's go back. I didn't graduated day High School fucking never think it was like, right out of my freshman year I fucking dropped out, I was constantly kicked out of the house getting in trouble. I didn't graduate. But I was an intelligent motherfucker. Because I learned how to be intelligent, from like, the streets and from being beat all the time. And from having to come up with solutions to not be hurt or to to survive, or to make you know what? So, so for me, I didn't feel that I needed school. I felt like I could do whatever the fuck that's why I say I was cocky. Right? Because there wasn't anybody who could beat me. Period. I got whatever the fuck I wanted period. I went in for a job. Dude, I could talk to Yeah, it was crazy the way fucking president united states to a bum on the street. Doesn't matter. No, I wasn't above anybody. I could just roll anybody over. And I knew that. And so when I say the failure thing, it's fucked up. Because that's what I believed. Gotcha, that failure was not an option. And so when we get back to the cockiness, that is what I brought to the table. And when I say that you start losing your identity. You believed in that as well. You bought into what I was selling. And I bought into what you were selling. And so when you would say to me, calm down, you know, you want to talk about two totally different people. Yeah, it was funny, because up until a couple years ago, when we had this whole shit started, which actually got us into doing this fucking podcast, right? What I realized is almost the roles that almost reversed you almost be kidding me and I almost became you or I'm like, Hey, relax, you know what I'm saying? And life will creep up on your fucking ass real fast. And it'll do shit to you that you have no motherfucking clue it does. And again, the whole time, we're thinking, we're just doing our shit. We just move forward. We didn't let anybody bother us. We didn't really take on any friendships. Because we knew what we wanted. Or at least we thought we knew, right? Yeah. And so we went from making $200 a week, to $400 a week to $800 a week right to $1,000 a week to making very good money. Right. And you started your business? Well, yeah. All this time. Our son is enjoying the benefits of all this stuff. Yes. And I'm loving that shit. Yeah. Because the whole thing for me was, my kid is not going to fucking feel a thing that I felt when I was growing up, right? He's not going to feel want pain, failure, any kind of suffering, right? He's gonna have the best of everything. And again, stupid motherfucker. Like, now at distance what I say, right. But my intention at the time was, that's all some noble shit right there. Who doesn't want their kids to have better than what they have? Every parent than what you had when you were younger? Totally. Yeah, that when I had when I was younger, but this wasn't even about. It turned into things. But it was never about that in the beginning. No, it was just about feeling loved and feeling protected. And again, I go back to the protection

Nancy: 24:20

even even like for me, I mean, it was like, Okay, let's keep them in one school. That was a big thing for me. Remember, because I moved to so many cheese. I can't remember how many grammar schools I went to. You know what I mean? It was crazy. It was like, so yeah, you try and do the opposite of what you grew up in or what you had because you don't want him or her to feel that.

Nick: 24:46

Yeah, so totally. Again, I think now knowing what I know now, not then. But my intention. Knowing what I know now is that I fucking overdid it. You know, and people people might say, Ah, you didn't over Did about know I? You know, there we could have? I don't want to say that I could have done things different because I did only what I knew to do. Yeah, you know, I mean, so I can't say I would have done a different Yeah. You know, people would say, oh, you should have done a different you should have done it this way. Yeah. Nice to talk motherfucker, like, you're not in my situation is a damn now, right? It does. What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter now only to the point of the situation where now because of what happened that this how you feeling now? So? Well, yes, what I'm saying what I'm saying here is that again, this, this turned into a failure is not an option thing. That's where this way started. And so that's why we just kept moving on. We kept moving, right? And we opened up business after business, and you kept moving up. And we kept doing it. And then we wound up moving out of that house. And then we weren't moving into a better neighborhood. Although we were still renting right for the first eight years. Yeah, we rent we rented because our credits were still fucked. Yeah, because of that. While we were building our credit, but our credit was still fucked from the stupid fucking mistakes we made when we were younger. Yeah, that repo man just do that fucking thing was killed a year.

Unknown: 26:17

This man.

Nick: 26:19

I can't believe they did. That was crazy. They did it. But again, you know, our choice, right? So. So we wind up moving out of that basement. And we wind up buying a house in 97. And dude. Oh, that you were fucking you cried. I went from being a chef. Getting in the restaurant industry. And you have to understand, and I'm going to tell it like it is. I couldn't keep a job for nothing, because I just I wasn't a very easy person to get along with number one. I want you. No, not really. No, I can't imagine that. Fucking Angel. They should have named me Angel. And you go. I just I knew what I wanted. Well, first of all, the biggest thing was I couldn't stand authority.

Nancy: 27:06

I was in St. Louis. Let's see what it is authority. I mean, that's probably because of being in the streets. And yeah, it was just like, Well, fuck you. I've raised myself. You know, don't tell me

Nick: 27:19

what to do that. You better listen to whatever they say even if you're wrong, right? When I got out, I was like, you were telling me nothing to do. And I just remember, you know, time and time again that that you just weren't telling me. That's actually that was the bottom line. I didn't want people telling me what to do. Yeah. And I but but beside that I also was a very good fucking passionate work. Yes. And I learned shit real motherfucking did. Yeah. So you didn't have to tell me twice? And if you did, I'd be like, fuck you. But you don't have to tell me that. But anyway. So we buy a house, we buy a house, and you're just at this point. And I started the trades. Yeah, that's right. And I was like, I don't know, we could do this again. That's That's what I'm saying. Like, I could do you always think

Nancy: 28:10

you could walk into something and say, Oh, this can happen. And this can happen. And yeah, I couldn't see the vision. Remember, I'm the girl that just I followed

Nick: 28:19

the numbers behind the desk. You can see the numbers. Yes. All you saw. That's

Nancy: 28:23

all I seen. Were the numbers. I'm like, this is gonna cost us this month. Yes.

Nick: 28:28

Yeah. And I'm like, No, it's gonna be three grand in your pocket. 30,000. No, but but but that was the that was the thing. Like I see. That was always the thing though. Right? I always had the vision. Yeah. You were sitting behind the desk doing the numbers, but I always had the vision. And I think this is what kept us going. A lot of times. This was a difference in our relationship. I was who I was, and I had the vision. You didn't see the vision that way, but you love looking at it through my eyes. I did. Yeah. Just like for me, I didn't really care about the number I the numbers board meeting. None of they did anything for me. But I knew that at some point, we needed to be able to be responsible. So I was okay with that to a point. But then of course, I'd get pissed off and I'd be like, What the fuck you talking about? We need to do that. You know what I'm saying? But it's still kept us grounded. It's still kept us tied to each other. Yeah, because we were doing that. But we got this house man and let me tell you, dude, I'll tell you what, we we bought that house in 97 I think cost is $115,000. And we had a lot of work to do that fucking house.

Nancy: 29:34

That was nice when you have friends that actually can help you. Take down wallpaper and I'll do that was that Orange? Yellow carpeting and I'll do this. To remember that there

Nick: 29:48

was carpet the bathroom the old man all over that shit. It was stunk. The fucking wallpaper was at foil wallpaper all over the walls with the shag fluffy

Nancy: 29:56

membrane lions heads you know that were on the banks.

Nick: 30:00

Sure, whatever the built ins in the in the living room with too much of a discount light in the living room. This was like wrecked when the now today, people that's fucking cool man. But back in fucking late oh, it was almost like the late 1997 Yeah, yeah. But it was it was hilarious. But anyway, that's the house we stayed in for the next 20 years. And

Nancy: 30:30

my son go in a different school.

Nick: 30:32

And we stayed in that house for the next 20 years. And that was, that was pretty much one of the places that well that our son grew up and that was pretty much his whole life. Yeah, but in that house. And that's where things really just took off for us. Took off for a lot of people, you know, in America, like in the 2000s. And a lot of people lived with us at that house. Yeah.

Nancy: 30:56

And over the years, well, we had a basement. So we were able to, like convert that room or something and bedroom down their fireplace.

Nick: 31:04

And so we kind of we ran a couple other businesses out at that house. Yeah, we were pretty successful at what you did. And then all of a sudden, man, fucking What happened 2001 The World Trade Center hit. At the time I had a landscape business. Yeah, it was another business. I was out of construction, I was out of the restaurant industry. And I went into a landscape business. And we grew that business into a really great, profitable business. The World Trade Center was bombed. I remember the day I remember it, I remember the address I was sitting at. And when we heard this, everything started to fall apart at that point for for us, because so a lot of people were losing their jobs, remember, especially my our neighborhood, like the price of gas had rose, like whatever. And then the landscape and gas is everything, right? You need gas to run. And we had a bunch of people that were running around putting lawn mowers in the back of their trucks. Oh, yeah. And taking over a bunch of our clients, ultimately wound up selling out the business, selling the accounts and putting everything up for auction. It just turned into a nightmare. And then that's when I had gotten back in into the trades, and then started selling real estate. After that, the economy. We go into a recession back in 2006 2007. In the meantime, the real estate's doing okay, you're doing the best you've ever done. And we wind up buying some properties, and we wind up opening up another business down south in Illinois. Oh, yeah, that's right, and building a house, a vacation down there. Then when the recession hit. That was it. Everybody's losing shit all over the place. And we wind up losing our house. Remember, we go from really good six figures. And we lost like 80% of our income. Or maybe more. We go from that to nothing. And in the meantime, you got to remember like our son is still young. This was in high school. Right? Yeah. 1516. This affects him big time. Because now remember, he doesn't have to want anything. We go from whatever amount of money we're making. Right? At 90%. Lower, right. And the real estate industry winds up taking a massive turn huge. So what do we do? We still keep going right? This whole time we're going we're pounding it, but what's starting to happen in my life anyway, is I'm starting to question my ability and my abilities, period, I'm starting to question whether or not I am the provider, and the protector, you know, that I that I really should be and the decisions that I'm making. And and here's the sad thing, this is what's really sad, I blame myself and start thinking about this, when actually it's the economy and everything that's dying for everybody. But, but through all though, all that happening, I'm trying to make better decisions of what to do with cash flow and whatever we had. And, and, and I'm making suggestions and then we're coming to conclusions together, right? But, but still, those things ultimately start to fail one by one. And you seem like we were losing Yeah, we You start to lose ground and you start to lose money, right? And you're not exempt. Now, I don't think well, back then nobody was really. And so we're beginning to really struggle. I wind up taking on a management role in a real estate company. And this company now is on the leading edge of the industry, because it's not about sales. Now, it's about leasing. And we're turning high rise units into apartment apartments instead of condos and general contractors are wanting our services, right. And these businesses are opening up, left and right. Like, within not even a year, there's five, six locations happening. Yeah. And you wind up losing your job.

Nancy: 35:47

Well, well, go ahead. Everything is losing for you. But no, it wasn't losing. I wind up

Nick: 35:53

quitting my job. You had to quit. I weighed that decision. Yes. You were getting sick. Yes. Stress. Stress was just too.

Nancy: 36:05

I let it overtake me. So yeah, I wind up leaving the company that I was with for maybe 15 years. I think it was 15 years. And yeah, that was a big decision to make. But you were on board. And well, we were like, Hey, we're gonna make this happen. Whatever.

Nick: 36:26

So so so we're still we still got balls? Right? Yeah, they're not necessarily Balls of Steel anymore. To like, balls of plastic. Plastic. Still got him? Right. But, but that was devastating for you.

Nancy: 36:41

Yeah, it was, it was.

Nick: 36:44

Because you worked. Again, your drive. You're in a company. That's an all male, dominant fucking industry, in the construction industry. And you work up to what you work up to. And you wind up putting almost your life on the line for that fucking company. And I say, Fuck it enhanced. It's not worth it's not worth it. Like, it's not the money's not worth it to us. Yeah, fuck this man. Get the fuck out of there. What am I going to do if you're not around anymore? Right? Like, this is stupid. Yeah, there's nothing worth it. That ultimately, I believe is what? changed. So So because of that, not just because of that third series of events that happen. We wind up then losing our house, making a decision to let go of our house. Well, yeah, ultimately lost it. But we made a decision right and what winds up happening is 20 years later and I'm sure most of you who lived through this maybe if you're younger you don't understand it. But if you're older you do we bought the house for $115,000.90 9720 years later we're we're fucking having to short sell the house for$150,000 Yeah, it was crazy. So we're we lose that. We lose a few properties we have we wind up selling them

Nancy: 38:14

we got them. I mean, we got rid of everything is basically what we did.

Nick: 38:18

Well, we got rid of everything right. We had to get rid of it right? Yeah. We wind up at the bottom. Do we busted her ass? Yeah, like we fucking went crazy. And that's where you start to really realize like, wow, was this all worth it? We did all this. The whole thing was losing the house. You forgot 115 grand 20 years later? How should we were 300 Well on paper it was right on paper. It was like almost $400,000 Well, yeah, we know inflated and check the bubble. And we wind up losing it's worth I think we sold it for $122,000 was a short sale and the fucking thing is crazy. That there is your biggest devastation Yeah. You fucking cried and cried and cried.

Nancy: 39:08

Well, you start thinking like what the fuck like you just said you know you worked so hard for everything and now there's nothing we sold everything we got rid of everything everything like everything the property the the business we had the yeah the lands Yeah, we we sold everything and it was like starting over.

Nick: 39:35

And then it was a property we couldn't even get rid of. Yeah, we paid for that while the fucking thing for another almost five years because we were so so far under and then wound up selling it for less than what we paid for it 10 years before. So it was pretty fucked up time. I guess now when you think about it. So then out of the real estate part of it. As I'm running these offices. You want to be Losing your job and you wind up coming on board. Yeah, no, you're you're helping out more with something administrative part of it. We're both. And of course, we're just going gangbusters with this, but not I mean, we're not really gaining any traction. Right? It was like something was, yeah, just wasn't happening. And we were putting our lives on the line every mother's day with that job, neighborhoods that we would go into, first of all, Southside rental, like it was just crazy. It was insane. We would literally have to go into these neighborhoods before 10 o'clock in the morning, because after 10 o'clock, the whole fucking zombie motherfuckers would wake up. Yeah. And these neighborhoods were just filled with fucking gangbangers and drug dealers. It was fucking insane. So we did what we had to do. We were doing, again, what we thought we had to do at the time. And it paid what it paid. And it got us towards the next level, right. But then our son decides, because we had got him in with us. In the real estate industry. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And he winds up working at one of the officers. And he's leasing all these units. In the meantime of all this, he meets this girl. Yes, through high school. Remember, we we would have all the kids always at our house, right? Because we felt safe with that. And he meets his girl. And ultimately, is the girl that he marries? Yes. Well, I don't know. We've been going on and on here for about 45 minutes or so. So I think it's time to stop Yeah, we'll stop here. And we'll get into our son getting in through high school went out through that and then what winds up happening as we go forward so yeah, this is all just been really fun. Like wow, we're just going down fucking memory lane here is like it's crazy. Like so much shit. If you guys have questions and you know, he wants to ask feel, feel free to ask but yeah, for right now. We're gonna let this one go. We're gonna let it rest. We'll see you guys later. Talk to you soon.