April 3, 2025 • 26 mins
I'm navigating new beginnings while reflecting on past relationships and helping my adult children find their paths.
Please start with Episode 1. Go to my site BrandonHeld.com
• Website brandonheld.com now launched with podcasts being uploaded incrementally
• Memory challenges affecting creative process and retention of episode ideas
• Identification as an audio-visual learner who struggles with reading-based education
• Reflection on three past marriages and what each relationship taught me
• Introduction to international dating through watching 90 Day Fiancé
• Experience with dating sites connecting Americans with international partners
• Disappointing experience with a Colombian woman who never showed for our meeting
• Struggle to guide my son Ethan toward stable career options while respecting his choices
• Challenges balancing new job requirements with time for my younger children
BrandonHeld.com iPad drawing for Life Coaching clients
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Welcome back to Brandon How Life is Crazy.
This is episode 20.
We are reaching the end of myoutlined podcast and I will be
trying to come up with someother ideas for future episodes.
(00:25):
I have currently started mywebsite, Brandon, and I was able
to Start uploading some of mypodcasts.
I'm going to do itincrementally.
I don't want to do it tooquickly because the cadence I
want to have is two times aweek, ideally.
(00:46):
And frankly, I just need moreideas for episodes to be able to
keep up with that cadence.
I'm really creative for someweird reason at night laying in
bed.
Or when I wake up in the middleof the night and my brain's
going wild.
But then I don't write stuffdown and I forget.
(01:09):
I know I've had ideas for futureepisodes.
I know I've had thoughts thathave crossed my mind on good
topics to discuss or cover.
And I've already forgot them.
Forget them within minutesbecause that is one thing that
goes with you when you getolder.
And that is your memory.
(01:31):
Not that my memory was evergreat because it certainly was
never great.
I definitely had strong times,strong points in my twenties.
My memory was pretty good and Iwas very good at remembering
things that were important tome, but I've never had a really
(01:52):
great rope memorization skills.
Just when I need to get in andtest for school, like it didn't
behoove me to study days andweeks in advance because I just
didn't retain that memory.
I was someone who always had tocrash study, not because I'm a
(02:16):
procrastinator.
I'm quite the opposite of aprocrastinator.
I like to get things done andget them over with.
And when they're looming over myhead, And then to be done, it's
almost like this anvil that'ssitting on my shoulder weighing
me down.
And so I prefer to get thingsdone right away whenever
(02:38):
possible.
And I couldn't do that whenpreparing for tests.
I had to do the kind of lastminute night before cramming and
studying and then the next day.
cramming and studying and triedto jam all this stuff in my
memory so I could recall itquickly because my long-term
(03:03):
rote memorization skills justsucked.
Maybe I was studying wrong.
Someone who probably knows muchmore about remembering things
than I do, which I have lookedinto different ways to remember
things, would probably know WhatI would need to do differently
(03:24):
to have a better memory in thoseregards.
That's why I really struggledwith, say, Spanish.
Because you have to memorize thewords.
How are you going to speak inSpanish if you can't memorize
words?
That was an issue for me.
And it was definitely somethingthat I had to do.
(03:48):
And I just couldn't.
I couldn't remember all thedifferent words in Spanish, so
therefore I couldn't speakSpanish very well.
Anyway, I went off on a tangentthere.
Maybe you're someone that hasmemory issues and you're someone
who doesn't understand, or maybeyou think you're all alone.
(04:09):
You're definitely not.
We all have different ways oflearning.
I'm definitely an audio visualtype of learner.
Oh, the perfect scenario for meis a video, right?
It hits two parts.
It hits what I can see and whatI can hear.
(04:30):
The worst way for me to learn,the absolute worst is reading.
I can't stay focused.
I can't concentrate.
And I'll get through three pagesand my brain will be somewhere
else.
My eyes will have read the wordsand I will be turning the pages.
And then I'll realize, oh man, Ijust haven't retained anything
(04:53):
that I just read and I'll haveto go back and read again.
So that's a little bit why theway education works bothers me
and it definitely needs to beupdated and reformed to match
(05:13):
all the different learningstyles and learning types just
because Not everyone can read abook and learn from that book
and turn that knowledge intomemory and knowledge and be able
to repeat that back on a test.
Doesn't mean they're notcompletely capable of being
(05:36):
intelligent in other ways andbeing a high contributor to some
type of career or society.
It's just Tom Cruise dropped outof high school.
So what's Tom Cruise worth?
Probably half a billion dollars,if I had to guess, maybe more.
(05:57):
And he dropped out of highschool.
I know that's a one in a billionstory, but it's still a point.
There are plenty of people thatare not highly, quote unquote,
educated by school.
who have done well in life.
(06:19):
Unfortunately for me, I neededthat education to open doors for
me.
And then I just needed my ownwork ethic and ability to apply
myself to keep those doors openor open new doors along with
that experience.
(06:39):
So now moving on, here I am inmy new role, my new job.
As we've established, so I'mback on my feet.
My health is getting better.
I'm starting to work out again.
And now I have unburdenedmyself, whether by choice or
(07:02):
force, of this unhealthy, badrelationship that I was in.
And I believe in love.
You have to believe in love.
If you don't believe in love,you don't get married.
I was divorced three times and Iam married a fourth time, which
I will get to at some point.
(07:23):
But you don't do that if youdon't believe in love.
You also just don't do thatlightly.
At least I didn't.
When I got divorced the firsttime, I never said I'm never
going to get married againbecause I knew what that was.
For me, it was a situation thatjust was what it was.
(07:45):
I knew it was never a lifelongsituation, but the second time I
got divorced after a shortmarriage that was an ultimatum,
I really believed I was nevergoing to get married again.
I just thought marriage isn'tfor me.
I just spent five years withsomeone who at the time I
(08:08):
thought was terrible.
the biggest love of my life thatI would never love anyone like I
loved her.
But that just obviously turnedout not to be true.
And the third time around I wentwith someone that I thought was
a more safe, stable optionbecause she wasn't this beauty
(08:34):
queen that my second wife was,but she was someone who was
really into me and seemed at thetime to be loyal and just really
wanted me as a part of her lifeby the way she treated me, by
the things she said to me.
And we made that work for 12years.
But in the end, it didn't workeither.
(08:56):
And I got married in that casethinking it was going to be my
future, my life.
She decided to end it and that'sokay.
Life goes on.
It was tough.
And here I was at this pointnow, three divorces, another
girlfriend that I knew I wasnever going to marry.
(09:20):
But I was trying to, I don'tknow.
I don't know what I was doing.
I just didn't want to end it yetbecause I felt like I owed her.
And I'm not saying I ever wouldhave.
And for all I know, maybe wewould have stayed boyfriend and
girlfriend for many years by myside.
logic and reasoning, but she wassuper religious and getting
(09:43):
married was important to her.
And I knew that wasn't somethingI was going to do.
So that was over.
And I had been watching a showcalled 90 day fiance and while
watching that show, I saw a fewthings that made that appealing
(10:06):
to me.
One, I saw Women from anothercountry, they were just
different than American women,indifferent in some good ways,
in my opinion.
They still had some more what Iconsider old-fashioned values,
where the man should be the headof the household and the man
should take care of the familywhile the wife...
(10:30):
as more of a wife and a mom.
They cared more about theirappearance and upkeep, which is
something I've always caredabout for myself, is my health
and my appearance.
I'm pretty vain, that's thetruth.
You don't try to stay in goodshape just because you want to
live to be 100.
(10:51):
You also stay in good shapebecause you feel better about
yourself for whatever reason.
That works for you.
And for me, being fit and strongand looking in the mirror and
being proud of what I look atmatters to me.
And I feel like a lot of that'sbeen lost in this country.
(11:12):
And then even when you find itin the small world.
options that are limited tofind, I have found myself not to
be compatible with those womenfor whatever reason.
That was one reason.
Another reason was I was seeingthese beautiful women with these
(11:32):
not so good looking Americanmen.
And I was thinking, I'm not abad looking guy, so...
You know, if these guys can geta beautiful woman, I'm sure I
could meet a beautiful womanfrom another country.
And finally, thirdly, I thoughtat that time, I've just gotten
(11:54):
onto two ugly things and I coulduse the type of relationship
where.
We don't just dive in head firstand we're just like immediately
spending all our time togetheror living together or whatever
the case may be.
But there were some downsides Ididn't think about getting into
(12:16):
something like that.
And I'll talk about that as I goalong.
But I was thinking mostly of thepositive.
And so watching 90 Day Fiancémade me really feel like the
next person woman I want to bewith is going to be from another
country.
I got some money now.
(12:36):
I can travel.
I can go see her wherever she'sat.
And I joined two sites.
I joined internationalcupid.comand I joined braziliancupid.com
because I specifically thoughtBrazilians were beautiful based
(12:57):
off of this one Brazilian on 90Day Fiancé whose name was
Juliana.
And she was with a guy namedDavid and he was like 50
something.
And she was this young 22 yearold model and she was beautiful.
And I thought Brazilian womenare beautiful.
There's a lot of famous,beautiful Brazilian women.
(13:18):
So I specifically wanted to lookfor a Brazilian, but I also
looked across the world.
And so initially I was talkingto women from everywhere,
literally everywhere, Ukraine,China, Philippines, Japan,
(13:39):
Africa.
I wasn't really talking to womenin Africa, but a lot of women in
Africa were trying to get myattention, but I just never
really found anyone that did itfor me in Africa.
There was even Canada and UK.
There was just, it was just allover.
There was Columbia.
(13:59):
And then of course on Braziliancupid.com there were Brazilians.
So I was on the sites and I wastrying to connect with people
talking to women specificallyand make a connection.
It was just really hard to dofor one reason or another.
(14:23):
Maybe they didn't speak English.
We were using a translator appto try to translate our
conversations, which is awkwardbecause translator apps are not
completely accurate.
And it's hard to maintain aflow.
Maybe some of them were catfishspammers trying to catfish you
(14:45):
or scam you out of some money.
which is why if you ever dosomething like this, don't just
send people money.
That's a huge mistake becausethere are a lot of scammers out
there trying to do that, but Ihave enough common sense to know
if I couldn't get on a videocall with someone and talk to
them face-to-face and get a feelfor who they really were on a
(15:08):
video call, then most likelythey were a scammer or a catfish
on the other side, and I didn't.
encounter some of those.
The first girl that I somewhatconnected with was a Colombian
girl named Juliana fromColombia.
And we were talking.
(15:28):
She was fun to talk to and shewas attractive and fit and all
that.
And we had video calls.
So I knew that she was real.
I knew that she was who she saidshe was.
But she was also very sketchy attimes and hard to reach and just
(15:49):
not everything fit.
Not everything seemed right.
She would always swear to methat she was just dating me, no
one else, blah, blah, blah.
And so yeah, after a couplemonths of talking to her, I
tried to meet her in person.
I went to Mexico to meet herthere.
(16:10):
And she supposedly had flown inand tried to land to meet me.
And the Mexican authoritieswouldn't let her in.
And she went back to Columbiaand we never met.
And I knew with all the issuesthat already had arisen, just my
doubts in her.
(16:31):
I don't know.
Trust is an issue for me, as youcan imagine, after some of the
things I've gone through.
And so I knew when we didn'tmeet, that was the end for me,
right?
But she calls me crying, saying,I swear to you, I was there.
The Mexican authorities wouldn'tlet me in.
And she wanted to keep it going.
(16:54):
And I just said, this isn'tgoing to work for me.
So I had cut it off.
And that was the end of that.
So I was just going about mylife, going about my business
and working and trying to get inbetter shape and seeing my kids.
At this point, Ethan was stillin Arizona, but it just, nothing
(17:17):
was going his way.
He had a really toxicrelationship here that he
couldn't break away from, whichsounds familiar.
Right.
And so I was trying to get himto join the air force.
I never wanted my kids.
to join the military.
That's just the overprotectivefather in me.
(17:40):
It's one of those things where,you know, just because you went
through it and you were able tohandle it and you gained some
pride and all that from what youwent through.
I just don't know if my kids arewired for that, but Ethan, I
felt like he needed it.
I knew what a change was.
(18:02):
bootcamp had made in me.
I knew what it changed being inthe military had done for me and
the projection of my life andhow it changed my life.
And I felt like Ethan neededthat.
He was like 24 at this point, 23maybe.
He had already dropped out ofcollege.
(18:24):
He didn't have any future plans.
projections of where he wasgoing to go or what he was going
to do or how he was going tomake life better than these call
center, barely above minimumwage jobs.
And I didn't want that life forhim.
I tried really hard to talk himinto joining the Air Force and
(18:44):
he didn't hear it.
He didn't want to hear it.
He wasn't having it.
He gave me the old, I'll thinkabout it, but I love Ethan, but
that's one thing he's alwaysdone is he's always been great
at making you Hear what you wantto hear when you're standing in
front of him, even if it's notexactly how he feels.
(19:05):
I was waiting for a realdecision on his part.
And then he came back withthere's this music class cause
he wants to work in music.
He wants to do producer typework where he's on the
switchboard behind theswitchboard, helping produce
music.
And there was this class back inOhio close to his mom that he
(19:28):
could go to for 5k and it wastwo months and this was going to
help him go in that direction.
I asked him for informationabout it and I read it and I saw
what it was.
I also happened to talk to mybrother who is a drummer.
He had been in the music scene,lived in Nashville, and his best
(19:51):
friend went to this exact samething that Ethan was going to go
to.
He basically said it was a wasteof time and money, that it did
nothing to help him for that.
And I shared that with Ethan andhe just didn't care.
He didn't want to have it.
He didn't want to hear it.
So he left Arizona.
(20:12):
He moved back to Ohio with hismom so he could go to this
school.
And he just, he had to learnthings the hard way, always has.
Doesn't want to use my advicefor whatever reason, maybe
because we're not as close as hewould like us to be.
I guess my advice doesn't meanas much.
(20:34):
I'm not sure.
I still love all my sons and Iwant to help all my sons succeed
and be successful in life.
And that is all I was trying todo for him.
So he went back to Ohio and hewent through this school, this
thing that he went back therefor, and it ended up being
(20:56):
exactly that.
I think at first he was excitedbecause he felt like he was
getting maybe some newexperience and some new thoughts
or whatever that he didn't havebefore.
But in the end, it did nothingfor him.
It didn't get him anywhere.
And he was back to square one.
as to where he was when he firstmoved out to Arizona, which was
(21:21):
now he was back in Ohio,jobless, living with his mom.
And that made me really sad thathe was back there again because
I really wanted to help him getoff the ground and get his life
going.
I was dealing with that withEthan and I was working my new
(21:42):
job, learning my new job.
And that was causing me to misstime with my younger boys
because I couldn't work.
My job was on site and I had todrive 35 to 45 minutes one way
in a complete opposite directionat 6.30 in the morning to get to
(22:06):
work.
And my kids didn't go to schooltill 8 or not.
And then they got picked up inthe afternoons at 2.30 and 3
something.
And I just didn't have thebandwidth to get my kids to
school and or pick them up whilegoing to work.
So it was cutting into my timewith my sons and that was
(22:29):
affecting my mental health.
So I was looking for somethingand someone to connect with and
help me feel better just aboutwhat I'm going through in life.
And having a life partner ishuge.
That's what they're there for,right?
You're there to help them whenthey're down.
They're there to help you whenyou're down.
(22:51):
And you just go through lifeassisting each other, loving
each other, helping each otherwhen you need it.
just helping each other justbecause two heads are better
than one.
So I was still on the appstrying to find that.
(23:11):
And I finally did connect withsomeone, someone on
BrazilianCupid.com and I readher profile and she was
intelligent.
She could speak English.
And she was currently studyingfor the bar exams in Brazil to
become a lawyer.
(23:32):
She had graduated law school andnow she wanted to become a
lawyer.
And so I messaged her and Ithought it went into a black
hole for a little bit becauseshe didn't respond to me for a
couple of days.
So I just thought maybe shewasn't interested.
I learned later that she justdidn't get on there anymore.
(23:53):
She had given up.
She...
started focusing on herpotential law career and just
didn't think anything was evergoing to come of the Brazilian
Cupid.com.
But she did get back to me andthen we started talking and
right away it was pretty great.
(24:14):
I could tell she wasintelligent.
She had a lot of logic to herway of thinking.
She wasn't too overly emotional.
But she was studying for barexams, and she was really
committed to that.
So I just wasn't getting a lotof her time.
Initially, I had questions howinterested she is, she was in
(24:35):
me.
And she wasn't the greatest atletting me know that she really
was.
She just was busy, super busy,like she would say the words.
But there was a lot of comfortin those words.
So it was a struggle in thebeginning.
And so I was just kind ofworking through that and doing
(24:57):
my job.
And we were about to do a big golive at Davis Month.
And I had to go through that.
So I was trying to focus onthat.
And that's where I'm going toend this episode.
And I will pick up from there inthe next episode.
So thanks for joining.
Welcome back to Brandon How Life is Crazy.
This is episode 20.
We are reaching the end of myoutlined podcast and I will be
trying to come up with someother ideas for future episodes.
(00:25):
I have currently started mywebsite, Brandon, and I was able
to Start uploading some of mypodcasts.
I'm going to do itincrementally.
I don't want to do it tooquickly because the cadence I
want to have is two times aweek, ideally.
(00:46):
And frankly, I just need moreideas for episodes to be able to
keep up with that cadence.
I'm really creative for someweird reason at night laying in
bed.
Or when I wake up in the middleof the night and my brain's
going wild.
But then I don't write stuffdown and I forget.
(01:09):
I know I've had ideas for futureepisodes.
I know I've had thoughts thathave crossed my mind on good
topics to discuss or cover.
And I've already forgot them.
Forget them within minutesbecause that is one thing that
goes with you when you getolder.
And that is your memory.
(01:31):
Not that my memory was evergreat because it certainly was
never great.
I definitely had strong times,strong points in my twenties.
My memory was pretty good and Iwas very good at remembering
things that were important tome, but I've never had a really
(01:52):
great rope memorization skills.
Just when I need to get in andtest for school, like it didn't
behoove me to study days andweeks in advance because I just
didn't retain that memory.
I was someone who always had tocrash study, not because I'm a
(02:16):
procrastinator.
I'm quite the opposite of aprocrastinator.
I like to get things done andget them over with.
And when they're looming over myhead, And then to be done, it's
almost like this anvil that'ssitting on my shoulder weighing
me down.
And so I prefer to get thingsdone right away whenever
(02:38):
possible.
And I couldn't do that whenpreparing for tests.
I had to do the kind of lastminute night before cramming and
studying and then the next day.
cramming and studying and triedto jam all this stuff in my
memory so I could recall itquickly because my long-term
(03:03):
rote memorization skills justsucked.
Maybe I was studying wrong.
Someone who probably knows muchmore about remembering things
than I do, which I have lookedinto different ways to remember
things, would probably know WhatI would need to do differently
(03:24):
to have a better memory in thoseregards.
That's why I really struggledwith, say, Spanish.
Because you have to memorize thewords.
How are you going to speak inSpanish if you can't memorize
words?
That was an issue for me.
And it was definitely somethingthat I had to do.
(03:48):
And I just couldn't.
I couldn't remember all thedifferent words in Spanish, so
therefore I couldn't speakSpanish very well.
Anyway, I went off on a tangentthere.
Maybe you're someone that hasmemory issues and you're someone
who doesn't understand, or maybeyou think you're all alone.
(04:09):
You're definitely not.
We all have different ways oflearning.
I'm definitely an audio visualtype of learner.
Oh, the perfect scenario for meis a video, right?
It hits two parts.
It hits what I can see and whatI can hear.
(04:30):
The worst way for me to learn,the absolute worst is reading.
I can't stay focused.
I can't concentrate.
And I'll get through three pagesand my brain will be somewhere
else.
My eyes will have read the wordsand I will be turning the pages.
And then I'll realize, oh man, Ijust haven't retained anything
(04:53):
that I just read and I'll haveto go back and read again.
So that's a little bit why theway education works bothers me
and it definitely needs to beupdated and reformed to match
(05:13):
all the different learningstyles and learning types just
because Not everyone can read abook and learn from that book
and turn that knowledge intomemory and knowledge and be able
to repeat that back on a test.
Doesn't mean they're notcompletely capable of being
(05:36):
intelligent in other ways andbeing a high contributor to some
type of career or society.
It's just Tom Cruise dropped outof high school.
So what's Tom Cruise worth?
Probably half a billion dollars,if I had to guess, maybe more.
(05:57):
And he dropped out of highschool.
I know that's a one in a billionstory, but it's still a point.
There are plenty of people thatare not highly, quote unquote,
educated by school.
who have done well in life.
(06:19):
Unfortunately for me, I neededthat education to open doors for
me.
And then I just needed my ownwork ethic and ability to apply
myself to keep those doors openor open new doors along with
that experience.
(06:39):
So now moving on, here I am inmy new role, my new job.
As we've established, so I'mback on my feet.
My health is getting better.
I'm starting to work out again.
And now I have unburdenedmyself, whether by choice or
(07:02):
force, of this unhealthy, badrelationship that I was in.
And I believe in love.
You have to believe in love.
If you don't believe in love,you don't get married.
I was divorced three times and Iam married a fourth time, which
I will get to at some point.
(07:23):
But you don't do that if youdon't believe in love.
You also just don't do thatlightly.
At least I didn't.
When I got divorced the firsttime, I never said I'm never
going to get married againbecause I knew what that was.
For me, it was a situation thatjust was what it was.
(07:45):
I knew it was never a lifelongsituation, but the second time I
got divorced after a shortmarriage that was an ultimatum,
I really believed I was nevergoing to get married again.
I just thought marriage isn'tfor me.
I just spent five years withsomeone who at the time I
(08:08):
thought was terrible.
the biggest love of my life thatI would never love anyone like I
loved her.
But that just obviously turnedout not to be true.
And the third time around I wentwith someone that I thought was
a more safe, stable optionbecause she wasn't this beauty
(08:34):
queen that my second wife was,but she was someone who was
really into me and seemed at thetime to be loyal and just really
wanted me as a part of her lifeby the way she treated me, by
the things she said to me.
And we made that work for 12years.
But in the end, it didn't workeither.
(08:56):
And I got married in that casethinking it was going to be my
future, my life.
She decided to end it and that'sokay.
Life goes on.
It was tough.
And here I was at this pointnow, three divorces, another
girlfriend that I knew I wasnever going to marry.
(09:20):
But I was trying to, I don'tknow.
I don't know what I was doing.
I just didn't want to end it yetbecause I felt like I owed her.
And I'm not saying I ever wouldhave.
And for all I know, maybe wewould have stayed boyfriend and
girlfriend for many years by myside.
logic and reasoning, but she wassuper religious and getting
(09:43):
married was important to her.
And I knew that wasn't somethingI was going to do.
So that was over.
And I had been watching a showcalled 90 day fiance and while
watching that show, I saw a fewthings that made that appealing
(10:06):
to me.
One, I saw Women from anothercountry, they were just
different than American women,indifferent in some good ways,
in my opinion.
They still had some more what Iconsider old-fashioned values,
where the man should be the headof the household and the man
should take care of the familywhile the wife...
(10:30):
as more of a wife and a mom.
They cared more about theirappearance and upkeep, which is
something I've always caredabout for myself, is my health
and my appearance.
I'm pretty vain, that's thetruth.
You don't try to stay in goodshape just because you want to
live to be 100.
(10:51):
You also stay in good shapebecause you feel better about
yourself for whatever reason.
That works for you.
And for me, being fit and strongand looking in the mirror and
being proud of what I look atmatters to me.
And I feel like a lot of that'sbeen lost in this country.
(11:12):
And then even when you find itin the small world.
options that are limited tofind, I have found myself not to
be compatible with those womenfor whatever reason.
That was one reason.
Another reason was I was seeingthese beautiful women with these
(11:32):
not so good looking Americanmen.
And I was thinking, I'm not abad looking guy, so...
You know, if these guys can geta beautiful woman, I'm sure I
could meet a beautiful womanfrom another country.
And finally, thirdly, I thoughtat that time, I've just gotten
(11:54):
onto two ugly things and I coulduse the type of relationship
where.
We don't just dive in head firstand we're just like immediately
spending all our time togetheror living together or whatever
the case may be.
But there were some downsides Ididn't think about getting into
(12:16):
something like that.
And I'll talk about that as I goalong.
But I was thinking mostly of thepositive.
And so watching 90 Day Fiancémade me really feel like the
next person woman I want to bewith is going to be from another
country.
I got some money now.
(12:36):
I can travel.
I can go see her wherever she'sat.
And I joined two sites.
I joined internationalcupid.comand I joined braziliancupid.com
because I specifically thoughtBrazilians were beautiful based
(12:57):
off of this one Brazilian on 90Day Fiancé whose name was
Juliana.
And she was with a guy namedDavid and he was like 50
something.
And she was this young 22 yearold model and she was beautiful.
And I thought Brazilian womenare beautiful.
There's a lot of famous,beautiful Brazilian women.
(13:18):
So I specifically wanted to lookfor a Brazilian, but I also
looked across the world.
And so initially I was talkingto women from everywhere,
literally everywhere, Ukraine,China, Philippines, Japan,
(13:39):
Africa.
I wasn't really talking to womenin Africa, but a lot of women in
Africa were trying to get myattention, but I just never
really found anyone that did itfor me in Africa.
There was even Canada and UK.
There was just, it was just allover.
There was Columbia.
(13:59):
And then of course on Braziliancupid.com there were Brazilians.
So I was on the sites and I wastrying to connect with people
talking to women specificallyand make a connection.
It was just really hard to dofor one reason or another.
(14:23):
Maybe they didn't speak English.
We were using a translator appto try to translate our
conversations, which is awkwardbecause translator apps are not
completely accurate.
And it's hard to maintain aflow.
Maybe some of them were catfishspammers trying to catfish you
(14:45):
or scam you out of some money.
which is why if you ever dosomething like this, don't just
send people money.
That's a huge mistake becausethere are a lot of scammers out
there trying to do that, but Ihave enough common sense to know
if I couldn't get on a videocall with someone and talk to
them face-to-face and get a feelfor who they really were on a
(15:08):
video call, then most likelythey were a scammer or a catfish
on the other side, and I didn't.
encounter some of those.
The first girl that I somewhatconnected with was a Colombian
girl named Juliana fromColombia.
And we were talking.
(15:28):
She was fun to talk to and shewas attractive and fit and all
that.
And we had video calls.
So I knew that she was real.
I knew that she was who she saidshe was.
But she was also very sketchy attimes and hard to reach and just
(15:49):
not everything fit.
Not everything seemed right.
She would always swear to methat she was just dating me, no
one else, blah, blah, blah.
And so yeah, after a couplemonths of talking to her, I
tried to meet her in person.
I went to Mexico to meet herthere.
(16:10):
And she supposedly had flown inand tried to land to meet me.
And the Mexican authoritieswouldn't let her in.
And she went back to Columbiaand we never met.
And I knew with all the issuesthat already had arisen, just my
doubts in her.
(16:31):
I don't know.
Trust is an issue for me, as youcan imagine, after some of the
things I've gone through.
And so I knew when we didn'tmeet, that was the end for me,
right?
But she calls me crying, saying,I swear to you, I was there.
The Mexican authorities wouldn'tlet me in.
And she wanted to keep it going.
(16:54):
And I just said, this isn'tgoing to work for me.
So I had cut it off.
And that was the end of that.
So I was just going about mylife, going about my business
and working and trying to get inbetter shape and seeing my kids.
At this point, Ethan was stillin Arizona, but it just, nothing
(17:17):
was going his way.
He had a really toxicrelationship here that he
couldn't break away from, whichsounds familiar.
Right.
And so I was trying to get himto join the air force.
I never wanted my kids.
to join the military.
That's just the overprotectivefather in me.
(17:40):
It's one of those things where,you know, just because you went
through it and you were able tohandle it and you gained some
pride and all that from what youwent through.
I just don't know if my kids arewired for that, but Ethan, I
felt like he needed it.
I knew what a change was.
(18:02):
bootcamp had made in me.
I knew what it changed being inthe military had done for me and
the projection of my life andhow it changed my life.
And I felt like Ethan neededthat.
He was like 24 at this point, 23maybe.
He had already dropped out ofcollege.
(18:24):
He didn't have any future plans.
projections of where he wasgoing to go or what he was going
to do or how he was going tomake life better than these call
center, barely above minimumwage jobs.
And I didn't want that life forhim.
I tried really hard to talk himinto joining the Air Force and
(18:44):
he didn't hear it.
He didn't want to hear it.
He wasn't having it.
He gave me the old, I'll thinkabout it, but I love Ethan, but
that's one thing he's alwaysdone is he's always been great
at making you Hear what you wantto hear when you're standing in
front of him, even if it's notexactly how he feels.
(19:05):
I was waiting for a realdecision on his part.
And then he came back withthere's this music class cause
he wants to work in music.
He wants to do producer typework where he's on the
switchboard behind theswitchboard, helping produce
music.
And there was this class back inOhio close to his mom that he
(19:28):
could go to for 5k and it wastwo months and this was going to
help him go in that direction.
I asked him for informationabout it and I read it and I saw
what it was.
I also happened to talk to mybrother who is a drummer.
He had been in the music scene,lived in Nashville, and his best
(19:51):
friend went to this exact samething that Ethan was going to go
to.
He basically said it was a wasteof time and money, that it did
nothing to help him for that.
And I shared that with Ethan andhe just didn't care.
He didn't want to have it.
He didn't want to hear it.
So he left Arizona.
(20:12):
He moved back to Ohio with hismom so he could go to this
school.
And he just, he had to learnthings the hard way, always has.
Doesn't want to use my advicefor whatever reason, maybe
because we're not as close as hewould like us to be.
I guess my advice doesn't meanas much.
(20:34):
I'm not sure.
I still love all my sons and Iwant to help all my sons succeed
and be successful in life.
And that is all I was trying todo for him.
So he went back to Ohio and hewent through this school, this
thing that he went back therefor, and it ended up being
(20:56):
exactly that.
I think at first he was excitedbecause he felt like he was
getting maybe some newexperience and some new thoughts
or whatever that he didn't havebefore.
But in the end, it did nothingfor him.
It didn't get him anywhere.
And he was back to square one.
as to where he was when he firstmoved out to Arizona, which was
(21:21):
now he was back in Ohio,jobless, living with his mom.
And that made me really sad thathe was back there again because
I really wanted to help him getoff the ground and get his life
going.
I was dealing with that withEthan and I was working my new
(21:42):
job, learning my new job.
And that was causing me to misstime with my younger boys
because I couldn't work.
My job was on site and I had todrive 35 to 45 minutes one way
in a complete opposite directionat 6.30 in the morning to get to
(22:06):
work.
And my kids didn't go to schooltill 8 or not.
And then they got picked up inthe afternoons at 2.30 and 3
something.
And I just didn't have thebandwidth to get my kids to
school and or pick them up whilegoing to work.
So it was cutting into my timewith my sons and that was
(22:29):
affecting my mental health.
So I was looking for somethingand someone to connect with and
help me feel better just aboutwhat I'm going through in life.
And having a life partner ishuge.
That's what they're there for,right?
You're there to help them whenthey're down.
They're there to help you whenyou're down.
(22:51):
And you just go through lifeassisting each other, loving
each other, helping each otherwhen you need it.
just helping each other justbecause two heads are better
than one.
So I was still on the appstrying to find that.
(23:11):
And I finally did connect withsomeone, someone on
BrazilianCupid.com and I readher profile and she was
intelligent.
She could speak English.
And she was currently studyingfor the bar exams in Brazil to
become a lawyer.
(23:32):
She had graduated law school andnow she wanted to become a
lawyer.
And so I messaged her and Ithought it went into a black
hole for a little bit becauseshe didn't respond to me for a
couple of days.
So I just thought maybe shewasn't interested.
I learned later that she justdidn't get on there anymore.
(23:53):
She had given up.
She...
started focusing on herpotential law career and just
didn't think anything was evergoing to come of the Brazilian
Cupid.com.
But she did get back to me andthen we started talking and
right away it was pretty great.
(24:14):
I could tell she wasintelligent.
She had a lot of logic to herway of thinking.
She wasn't too overly emotional.
But she was studying for barexams, and she was really
committed to that.
So I just wasn't getting a lotof her time.
Initially, I had questions howinterested she is, she was in
(24:35):
me.
And she wasn't the greatest atletting me know that she really
was.
She just was busy, super busy,like she would say the words.
But there was a lot of comfortin those words.
So it was a struggle in thebeginning.
And so I was just kind ofworking through that and doing
(24:57):
my job.
And we were about to do a big golive at Davis Month.
And I had to go through that.
So I was trying to focus onthat.
And that's where I'm going toend this episode.
And I will pick up from there inthe next episode.
So thanks for joining.
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