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“I Was a Husband, a Father, and a Pastor. But I Wasn’t a Man.” - Mel Mullen
27 Oct 2026
00:44:23
Can you be a husband, a father, and a leader and still not feel like a man?
Pastor Mel Mullen grew up in poverty with four siblings and a father who spent years in a mental institution. His mother raised the family on $27 a month, and whatever food and hand-me-downs neighbours dropped off. His father eventually came home and worked another 35 years, but never knew how to be the dad his kids needed. When Mel was 32, already a husband, a father of two, and a pastor, he got the call that his father had taken his own life. On the drive over the Rocky Mountains to the funeral, he told his siblings something he had never admitted out loud: he was just like his dad.
That drive through Rogers Pass became the start of a two-year process of rebuilding himself from the inside. Mel went from slipping out the back of ministers' meetings to taking charge of his family, his church, and his own life. He wrote 31 personal statements on index cards, each backed by a Bible verse, and read them daily until he believed what he was saying. Those statements became the foundation of his book Be a Man.
In this conversation, Mel shares how he learned to honour his father without becoming him, why your life follows what you believe and speak, and what changes when a man stops pointing back at his childhood and takes responsibility for who he becomes. He also tells the story of how a 30-day favour turned into founding Home Church, now in 13 nations and 128 locations, and how his daughter Christy "came through the telephone" when a pastor friend called asking if anyone wanted to adopt a baby.
🔹 THE DRIVE: The moment on Rogers Pass when Mel admitted he was becoming his father 🔹 THE 31 CONFESSIONS: One statement for every day of the month, and why repetition rewires belief 🔹 FALSE CONFIDENCE: What to do when your strength is really fear wearing a mask 🔹 THE CALL: How a 17-year-old with a list of career options heard "I have a work for you to do" 🔹 AGES 16 TO 24: Why the decisions made in these eight years shape the rest of your life
Now approaching 80, Mel believes his greatest decade of influence is still ahead. This episode is for every man who knows he needs to grow up but has never had someone show him how.
⏱️ What's Inside: 0:00 Intro 0:42 Growing up poor with a father in a mental institution 9:12 Taking responsibility for who you become 10:12 How to honour your father without becoming him 12:58 Asking "what's wrong with me?" honestly 14:28 From the back row to the front seat: building confidence 17:11 Why what you speak shapes who you become 18:10 The mindset shift every man needs to make 19:29 False confidence, ego, and anger 21:53 How to discover who you really are 22:28 First steps for anyone curious about faith 26:10 How Mel knew he was called to ministry 27:40 What 60 years of ministry taught him about God and people 29:18 Encouragement for when life isn't going well 30:35 The 30 days that turned into 54 years 33:56 Adopting Christy 37:12 You Choose: a book for 16 to 24 year olds 38:40 What a successful life actually looks like 39:34 Why his 80s will be his greatest years 40:40 The legacy he hopes to leave 41:27 The One-to-One discipleship guide 42:17 What happiness looks like to Pastor Mel
Connect with Pastor Mel Mullen
Website, books, and the free 31 Confessions → melmullen.com Home Church → Visit any Home Church location in Canada or around the world Books → on Amazon (click the links) Be a Man, You Choose, and Experience Jesus and His Church
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
C.S. Lewis Says Most Men Never Get Past This One Stage of Friendship
20 Oct 2026
00:15:13
Is your monthly guys' group actually friendship, or is it something else that just looks like it?
C.S. Lewis has a word for the card nights, the golf trips, the group chats: Companionship. In The Four Loves, he's careful to say it isn't the same thing as Friendship, even though we treat the words as interchangeable. Companionship is what forms when people share an activity. Friendship only starts in the moment one person turns to another, mid-activity, and says something true, and the other one recognizes it: "You too? I thought I was the only one."
In this episode, we walk through why that distinction matters more than most men realize, and why it's so easy for a group of guys to log years of consistent hangouts without ever crossing into real friendship.
🔹 THE LEAST NECESSARY LOVE — Why Lewis says Friendship is the one love you could skip entirely and never notice, and why that's exactly what makes it worth protecting 🔹 THE BUILT-IN ALARM — Marriage, kids, and work all come with consequences if you neglect them. Friendship has none, which is why it's usually the first thing to go 🔹 THE TRUE THING — The difference between "I'm good, just busy" and actually telling someone what you're carrying 🔹 THE THIRD THING — Why Lewis says real Friendship needs something outside the two people involved, and how to spot whether your group has one
We also cover why the first time you say something honest in a group that's only ever run on Companionship, it can land awkwardly, and why that's not a sign it failed.
By the end, there's one specific thing to try this week: saying the true thing first, before someone else does.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – Card games, e-scooters, and the word Lewis uses for it — Companionship vs. Friendship: the exact line between them — Why Friendship has no built-in alarm — What "the true thing" actually sounds like — The third thing every real friendship needs — This week's practice
If this one meant something to you, subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
He Built Other People's Businesses to the Top 1%. Then He Walked Away to Build His Own. Richard Oostra
13 Oct 2026
01:23:14
What does it take to spend two decades building other people's success before you finally build your own?
Richard Oostra's public story starts with the highlights: top 1% in the network marketing industry, teams of thousands, stages across four continents, 25+ countries, six of them home. But his real timeline, the one buried in his own LinkedIn history, tells a slower story. Nine years he sums up in three words: failing forward. A stretch selling insurance in Alberta. A run of freelance consulting he wasn't quite ready to name yet. Then four unlisted years where the actual climb happened, before he finally, in June 2024, closed one chapter to build something entirely his own.
In this episode, we go back to the beginning and walk the whole arc with him.
🔹 THE QUIET DECADE — What "failing forward" really meant during nine years most people never hear about 🔹 THE CLIMB — Insurance, freelance consulting, and the years of network marketing that got him to the top 1%, more than once 🔹 THE TURN — Why 2024 was finally the moment to stop building someone else's vision and start building the Self Image Formula and the High Performance Brotherhood 🔹 THE FOUNDATION — What faith actually looks like for him day to day, not just the line on his Instagram bio
We also get into what most men get wrong about discipline, what a real shift in self-image looks like in practice, and what it cost him personally to leave behind the version of success he'd already built.
By the end, we land on the question that closes every episode of this show, one he answers without the polish of a stage or a slide.
⏱️ What's Inside: — The quiet decade: what actually failed between 2005 and 2015 — Insurance sales to freelance consulting to the top 1% — The unlisted years and the climb no one asked him about — Why that was finally the moment — Faith, discipline, and the man behind the coach — What happiness looks like to him now
If this conversation gave you something to sit with, subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
The Millionaire Who Went to Prison for Money He Didn't Need
06 Oct 2026
00:10:07
Have you ever hit a goal you worked years for, and felt almost nothing?
I remember the exact night our net worth crossed our biggest milestone. I sat there waiting for something to hit me, relief, pride, some kind of internal celebration. Instead I opened a new tab and started calculating the next number. Two minutes, and my brain had already moved the finish line.
That pattern has followed me my whole adult life. Paying off $60,000 in debt. Closing on the first rental property. Reaching door number ten. Every milestone felt enormous right up until I touched it, and then it just became the new floor.
In this episode, I unpack why that happens, using a story from Morgan Housel's The Psychology of Money about Rajat Gupta, a self-made multimillionaire and Goldman Sachs board member who had, by any measure, already won. He went to federal prison anyway, trading on inside information for a few million dollars he didn't need. Not because he was short on money. Because some part of him couldn't stop reaching, even after enough had already arrived.
🔹 THE TRAP - Why chasing a number teaches your brain that satisfaction is always one milestone away 🔹 THE FEAR - How "enough" started to feel dangerous to me, like settling instead of peace 🔹 THE FIX - Why Emily and I stopped defining enough with a number and built it around the Six Fs instead
This isn't about giving up ambition. It's about deciding, in advance, what a full life actually looks like, so that when you hit the number, you're actually able to feel it instead of already calculating the next one.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - The night the number finally hit - Paying off $60K and building the next spreadsheet by Monday - Rajat Gupta: the man who had enough and lost it anyway - Why more convinces you that enough doesn't exist - The Six Fs: redefining enough beyond your net worth - This week's exercise
If this episode gave you something to think about, subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
She Spent 16 Years Climbing the Ladder. Then She Pivoted. Dr. Tristin Brisbois
21 Sep 2026
00:59:43
What does it actually cost to walk away from something you spent eighteen years building?
Dr. Tristin Brisbois has spent her whole career, in wildly different settings, chasing the same underlying question: what makes people well? It started with her PhD at the University of Alberta, a clinical trial giving cannabis to cancer patients to see if it could restore something chemotherapy had taken from them: the simple pleasure of tasting food. From there, she spent over a decade inside PepsiCo's Global R&D organization, climbing from scientist to Chief of Staff to director, optimizing that same pleasure at a global scale.
Then, this April, just five months after winning a seat on Red Deer's city council on her first try, she left PepsiCo to focus on civil service.
In this episode, we go back to the beginning and walk the whole arc:
🔹 THE SCIENCE — What her cannabis-and-appetite research actually taught her about pleasure and quality of life 🔹 THE CLIMB — PepsiCo Canada to New York, and the version of success she was chasing along the way 🔹 THE LETTING GO — What it means to continue adapting to a career
This isn't a policy interview, and it isn't a résumé. It's a conversation about ambition, appetite, and what's actually left once you stop chasing the next rung.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – A hometown kid who climbed a global ladder — The PhD: cannabis, cancer, and the pleasure of eating again — The climb: PepsiCo Canada to New York — The five months of carrying both worlds — The week she chose to serve her community — What happiness looks like to her now
If this conversation meant something to you, subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
You're Running Two Races Every Day (And You Only Trained for One)
14 Sep 2026
00:07:46
Are you actually done when you walk through your front door, or does it just feel that way because you're exhausted?
Justin Whitmel Earley finished a 10K Tough Mudder dead last among his peers, sixty seconds behind a twenty-two-year-old who collapsed into a chair the moment he crossed the line. But Earley didn't get to stop. His kids ran up. One of them said, "Now it's the kid race, Dad," and he picked his son up and ran the whole course again on his shoulders.
In this episode, we unpack why that image says something uncomfortable about most driven men: we've trained our whole lives for one race: career, deadlines, deals, spreadsheets, and completely neglected the second one waiting at home. Somewhere around 6 p.m., we cross what feels like a finish line. But to our families, that front door was never the finish line. It's the starting gun.
We talk about why "work-life balance" is the wrong framing from the start, because it treats work and family as competitors instead of what work was actually supposed to be: the tool you use to invest in the people you love.
🔹 THE SIXTY SECONDS — A short driveway practice to transition from producer to servant before you walk inside 🔹 THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES — Why picking up three things off the floor teaches your kids more than any lecture on leadership 🔹 THE REFRAME — Why "I'm too exhausted" is often immaturity dressed up as fatigue, not the truth
By the end, you'll have one small, concrete practice you can try tonight — before you even walk through your own door.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – The Tough Mudder finish line — The two races every man is running — Why "balance" is the wrong goal — The 60-second driveway prayer — The first five minutes set the tone — This week's practice
If this episode resonated with you, subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
Our Filmmaker Breaks Down Every Step of Making Currency of Happiness - Behind the Scenes Dion Wiebe
07 Sep 2026
00:24:55
Ever wonder what actually happens before and after we hit record on this show?
For this episode, I sat down with Dion Wiebe, the filmmaker behind The Currency of Happiness, to pull back the curtain on how this podcast really comes together. Dion isn't just running a camera. His whole approach starts with something he calls Storyfinding, a process of listening and understanding before a single frame is shot. That mindset shapes everything about how this show gets made, from the questions we ask in prep to the way an episode gets cut together at the end.
We walk through both sides of the process: what it takes on the production side to plan, shoot, and edit an episode, and what it takes on my side as the host to prepare, show up, and have a real conversation instead of just reading questions off a page.
🔹 STORYFINDING - Why Dion refuses to pick up a camera until he understands the story space and finds the right people to carry it 🔹 THE PRODUCTION SIDE - What goes into planning, shooting, and editing an episode before you ever see it 🔹 THE PREP SIDE - How I get ready to host a conversation that actually goes somewhere, instead of following a script 🔹 WHY IT MATTERS - The difference between a podcast that just gets made and one that's built to mean something
If you've ever been curious about what's happening off-camera, or you're thinking about starting something like this yourself, this one pulls back the whole process.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - Why we wanted to show this side of the show - Storyfinding: listening before creating - The production side, start to finish - The prep side: how I get ready to host - What makes an episode actually work
🔔 Subscribe for more conversations on purpose, meaning, and building a life worth living.
Why Successful People Are Secretly Unhappy (3 Questions That Explain It)
31 Aug 2026
00:19:04
Are you happier now than you were ten years ago? Not richer. Not further along. Happier.
Harvard professor Dr. Arthur Brooks has spent years studying that question, and his research reveals something uncomfortable: the people with the best jobs, the nicest homes, and the most real accomplishments are often privately struggling the most. Not because they lack success, but because they're missing the third "macronutrient" of happiness that success alone can never provide: meaning.
In this episode, we break down Brooks' framework into three questions that can change how you see your own life:
🔹 COHERENCE — Why did things happen the way they did in your life? 🔹 PURPOSE — Why are you moving in the direction you're moving in? 🔹 SIGNIFICANCE — Why does your life actually matter?
We start with the story of Leo Tolstoy, a man with more wealth, fame, and legacy than almost anyone in history, who nearly ended his own life because none of it answered the one question underneath it all. Then we walk through what these three questions look like in real life: in your career, your marriage, your parenting, and the moments that felt pointless at the time but built something you can only see now, looking back.
We'll also cover the four "idols" Brooks says people mistake for real meaning: money, power, pleasure, and fame. And why were none of them ever built to carry that weight?
By the end, you'll have three questions to actually answer for yourself. Not in your head. Written down.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – Are you happier than 10 years ago? — Coherence: The Tolstoy story — Purpose: Following the next rung vs. choosing your direction — Significance: Who has your life actually mattered to? — The four idols: money, power, pleasure, fame — This week's exercise
If this episode meant something to you, subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
Addiction Recovery in Canada: What Actually Happens Inside a Treatment Centre - Darryl Wilkie CEO
24 Aug 2026
00:55:43
What do you do the night you've decided this is either going to be the night you get help, or the night you don't wake up?
Darryl Wilkie is the executive director of the Red Deer Dream Center, a residential addiction recovery facility built inside a former downtown nightclub, the same kind of building where many of his clients first tried the drugs that would go on to define years of their lives. With over 35 years of experience as a mental health and addictions therapist, Darryl has spent his career studying why some people get free from addiction and others don't, and he brings a perspective most professionals in his field can't: he's lived it himself, and he's currently walking through it as a father watching his own son fight the same disease.
In this conversation, Darryl breaks down what actually drives addiction (it starts biologically, long before the first drink or drug), why "it's just a choice" is both true and dangerously incomplete, and why the average person goes through seven treatment programs before recovery finally sticks. Andrew shares the story of an addict who loaded a gun and set it on the table the night he decided to get help, what it was like to sit across from his own son during a relapse, and why he believes the addiction that nearly destroyed his life turned out to be the thing that taught him how to love himself.
🔹 THE DISEASE — Why the predisposition exists before someone ever uses 🔹 CHOICE — What "it's just a choice" gets right and where it falls apart 🔹 THE BOTTOM — Why rock bottom looks different for every single person 🔹 HIS STORY — Growing up unseen, hitting public exposure, and rebuilding from zero 🔹 HIS SON — What it's like to apply everything you teach to your own child 🔹 RECOVERY — Why it's a process, not an event, and why relapse isn't failure
Connect with the Red Deer Dream Center: Website → rddc.ca Instagram → instagram.com/rd_dreamcentre Facebook → facebook.com/rddreamcentre
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - Inside the building that used to be a nightclub 02:12 - What actually introduces addiction into someone's life 06:55 - Can you find out you're predisposed before you ever use? 08:17 - Why "it's just a choice" is dangerous half-truth 13:18 - The client who loaded a gun and gave himself one night 16:24 - Can other people show you where your bottom is? 22:05 - How his own son's addiction changed his work 36:54 - Darryl's story: growing up unseen and hitting rock bottom in public 48:06 - The one message he'd leave his kids 50:17 - What does happiness look like to you? 51:01 - How to support the Red Deer Dream Center
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
Brandon Turner's Story: How He Left BiggerPockets and Built Something Bigger
17 Aug 2026
00:15:39
What do you need to let go of to get to the next level of your life?
There's a kid in Washington state lying in the dark, listening for the sound of the front door. Waiting for his dad to come home from work. His dad was a good man who worked hard and provided for his family. But the job owned him. The schedule owned him. And that kid made himself a quiet promise, the kind you make before you're old enough to know how hard it is to keep: I will be there for my kids. Whatever it takes.
That promise became the engine behind everything Brandon Turner built next.
He graduated with a history degree, got accepted to law school, and was on track for a life he could already see the shape of. Then a former high school bully sent him a Facebook message asking if he'd read Rich Dad Poor Dad. He hadn't. He read it anyway, and something cracked open. He called his parents to tell them he was quitting law school. His dad told him people lose money in real estate. He bought a duplex at 21 anyway, lived in the smaller half, and rented out the rest while working three jobs to make the math work.
That duplex became a portfolio of thousands of units. A podcast that reached 100 million downloads. A firm managing close to a billion dollars in assets. And then, at the peak of it, he walked away.
🔹 THE TEACHER - Why learning from someone before they're famous creates a different kind of trust, and how Brandon's voice showed up for me long before I ever met him 🔹 THE QUESTION - The question his performance coach asked that changed everything: not what do you need to add, but what do you need to let go of 🔹 THE LETTING GO - What it actually looked like to step away from the biggest thing he'd ever built, and why the identity attached to it had to go first 🔹 THE MISSION - How Better Life became a wealth-building platform with one goal: donate a billion dollars to organizations fighting human trafficking, not through charity, but through capitalism
This episode is my telling of Brandon's story, and what it opened up in me personally, including why this podcast films at the Child Advocacy Center and where our sponsorship revenue goes.
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - The kid waiting in the dark for his dad - The Facebook message from a bully that changed his path - Buying a duplex at 21 with no money of his own - Building Bigger Pockets into the #1 real estate podcast on the planet - The question that made him walk away at the peak - Better Life and the billion-dollar goal - What do you need to let go of?
Subscribe on YouTube → [The Currency of Happiness](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEfIZonPF7EJIJpyIuZinGQ) Instagram → instagram.com/thecurrencyofhappiness Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts → Search "The Currency of Happiness"
If this episode hit home, share it with one person who needs to hear it.
Small Business Marketing Strategy: Why Your Marketing Isn't Working and How to Fix It - Peter DeWit - Edge Marketing
10 Aug 2026
00:34:51
Most small business owners aren't bad at marketing. They're doing random acts of marketing, spending before strategizing, chasing trends, trying things without a plan, then wondering why none of it sticks. The problem almost never is the budget. It's that the strategy was never there to begin with.
Peter DeWit is the owner of EDGE Marketing and Design, a strategist with 25 years of experience working almost exclusively with small and medium businesses, and a marketing instructor at Red Deer Polytechnic and Burman University. He built EDGE in 2008, during the global financial crisis, which tells you something about the kind of person he is. He now sits at the intersection of marketing strategy, digital execution, and AI adoption, and he has seen every version of what works and what quietly drains a business dry.
In this episode, Andrew and Peter get into why most businesses skip strategy entirely and what it costs them, how to define your ideal client when the instinct is to say everyone, where businesses are losing customers they almost had, and why referrals are the cheapest form of marketing that most businesses still leave to chance.
🔹 STRATEGY FIRST — Why jumping into tactics before identifying your ideal client wastes time, money, and effort 🔹 THE CUSTOMER IS THE HERO — Why talking about your own business instead of your customer's problem is the fastest way to lose someone's attention 🔹 RELATIONAL OVER TRANSACTIONAL — Why a simple follow-up system with past clients often beats chasing brand new leads
We also cover what AI actually does for a small business right now, not in theory, and the hardest marketing truth Peter has had to tell a client after 25 years in the room.
If you've ever felt like your marketing is busy but not working, this conversation is for you.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – Why marketing and sales are more connected than most owners think — Random acts of marketing and how to avoid it — Strategy first: identifying your ideal client, your message, and your channel — Branding versus building the business — The power of personal brand over corporate brand — Follow-up systems and staying relational with past clients — Where AI actually helps in marketing today — The hardest truth Peter tells clients — What happiness means to Peter
Connect with Peter → edgemarketing.ca | peterdewit.com
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
Subscribe on YouTube → /@thecurrencyofhappiness Instagram → instagram.com/thecurrencyofhappiness Connect with Peter → edgemarketing.ca | peterdewit.com Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts → Search "The Currency of Happiness"
Walt Disney Lost Everything and Created Mickey Mouse: The Leadership Lesson Nobody Talks About
03 Aug 2026
00:12:07
What is the one thing you would not give up, even if it meant losing everything you have built?
In February 1928, Walt Disney sat across a table in New York from Charles Mintz, expecting to negotiate a bigger budget. Instead, he learned Universal Pictures now owned Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, his hit character, and that Mintz had already signed away most of Disney's own animators behind his back. He had two options: take a pay cut and keep working on Oswald under someone else's control, or walk away with nothing.
He walked away. On the train ride back to Los Angeles, with no plan and no guarantee of anything, he started sketching. That sketch became Mickey Mouse.
Most people tell this as a resilience story: Disney lost something, then bounced back. It fits neatly on a motivational poster. It also isn't quite what happened. Disney didn't lose Oswald. He traded him, on purpose, fully aware of what it would cost. And that specific refusal is what made everything after it possible.
🔹 THE FALL - Bankruptcy in Kansas City, a broken promise, and the meeting where Disney lost his only successful character 🔹 THE LINE - Why he turned down a deal that most people would have taken, and what he refused to compromise 🔹 THE BUILD - How that one refusal led to Steamboat Willie, Snow White, and Disneyland, each one built against experts who said it couldn't work
This episode uses Disney's story to ask a harder question: what happens when something you have built is on the table and someone is asking you to choose? Most people don't find their line until they are already in the room and the pressure is on. By then it is too late to think clearly. Disney knew his line before he got there.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - The meeting that cost Disney everything - Kansas City: the bankruptcy before the breakthrough - Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and the deal he refused - The train ride and the sketch that became Mickey Mouse - Steamboat Willie, Snow White, and Disneyland: built against the odds - What is the line you would not cross?
If this episode resonated with you, subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
Kettlebell Keith: The Action Comes Before the Motivation
27 Jul 2026
00:53:14
Have you ever waited to feel motivated before you did the hard thing? Keith Weber says that's backward.
Keith Weber, known to most as Kettlebell Keith, found his first kettlebell in a bodybuilding magazine before the internet existed. He ordered a VHS tape and a book, waited months for the bells to ship to Canada, and taught himself the basics before becoming one of the first people in Canada to travel south for Russian kettlebell certification. That early obsession turned into a physiotherapy career, a Wednesday night class he has run for years, and kettlebell training videos that have reached thousands of people around the world.
In this episode, Keith walks through the full arc: growing up in a campground, the boarding school that reshaped how he approached hard things, meeting his wife April right before finishing physiotherapy school, and the accidental phone call that turned a homemade DVD into a business. We also get into the parts most people skip past, like why nutrition alone will never replace physical stress on the body, why walking is a better starting point than kettlebells for most beginners, and why he has never been able to outthink a bad mood, but exercise has never once failed him.
🔹 THE ORIGIN - How a magazine article and a mail-order VHS tape started a career 🔹 THE COMMITMENT - Why showing up for a Wednesday class removes the need for motivation entirely 🔹 THE BALANCE - How he built a fitness life that never took over being a present husband and father 🔹 THE PHILOSOPHY - Why action always has to come before motivation, not the other way around
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - How kettlebells found their way to Canada - Growing up in a campground and the day he found his first natural high - Boarding school and learning that hard things are rewarding - Meeting April and the surprise that decided his career path - Turning a homemade DVD into a worldwide kettlebell business - Where to actually start if you are new to fitness - The link between joy, challenge, and daily movement
Connect with Keith Weber: 🌐 Website → keithweber.ca 🏥 Clinic → weberphysiotherapy.com 📸 Instagram → instagram.com/kettlebellkeith 🐦 X (Twitter) → x.com/weberphysio
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
Ambition vs Ego: How to Know Which One Is Actually Driving You
20 Jul 2026
00:11:24
Have you ever worked as hard as you possibly could for an entire year and ended up exactly where you started?
I was staring at a spreadsheet at the end of the year, twelve months of work laid out in rows and columns, and the ranking hadn't moved an inch from where it sat twelve months earlier. My response was to work even harder. Not because I had a new strategy. Because I needed to prove something to the people around me, and to myself.
That decision cost me a year of joy before it taught me anything useful. It also forced me to name something I think most people confuse: ambition and ego are not the same drive, wearing different clothes.
In this episode, I break down the difference and why it matters more than almost anything else in how you build a life:
🔹 THE DIFFERENCE - Ambition is drive rooted in purpose. Ego is drive rooted in how you appear to others, and it gets louder, not quieter, when validation doesn't come 🔹 THE COST - How ego-driven ambition quietly burned through my joy until it turned into burnout that didn't look like a breakdown, just an empty tank 🔹 THE SHIFT - The one honest question I now ask before every decision, and why character, not confidence, is what actually holds up when results don't move
This isn't a story about fixing the problem once and being done with it. I still feel the pull of ego. The difference now is that I notice it, and noticing it is what gives me a choice.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - The spreadsheet that hadn't moved in a year - Ambition vs. ego: what actually separates them - Why ego-driven ambition always ends in burnout - The question I ask before every decision now - Competence, confidence, and why character is different - This week's exercise: what would you stop chasing if no one was watching?
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
How the Red Deer Food Bank Became a Social Enterprise Nobody Saw Coming - Mitch Thomson
13 Jul 2026
00:31:41
What happens when you stop treating a food bank like a food bank and start running it like a business?
Mitch Thompson has spent five years turning the Red Deer Food Bank into something most people wouldn't recognize. What used to be a dusty stove and a handful of community barbecues is now a food distribution hub with three Red Seal chefs, a 40-foot hydroponic growing container, a mushroom farm, a culinary kitchen, and a fleet of food trucks that generate revenue to fund the mission itself. Today, the food bank serves over 30,000 people with emergency food each year, another 45,000 with supplemental goods, and supports 38 community agencies and 17 rural food banks across the region.
In this episode, Mitch walks through the full transformation: why he started with a food truck instead of asking for more donations, how a $185,000 grant turned into a 40-foot hydroponic seed can that grows the equivalent of three acres of land, and why 40 percent of the people walking through the door are children. We also get into the personal side, including the years he and his late wife spent fostering kids, the shame and fear people feel walking in for the first time, and why he believes a food bank can be an economic driver instead of just an organization with its hand out.
🔹 THE TRANSFORMATION — Why Mitch treats the food bank as a food distribution hub, not a handout 🔹 THE SOCIAL ENTERPRISE — How a food truck, a culinary kitchen, and a hydroponic farm turned into a self-funding model 🔹 THE NUMBERS — 30,000 people fed emergency food a year, 40 percent of them children 🔹 THE FUTURE — Why Mitch believes food banks can become economic drivers instead of relying on handouts
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – Five years in, and just getting started — Walking in the door in 2021 and what needed to change first — Why they bought a food truck before anything else — The $185,000 grant that became a 40-foot hydroponic farm — What it means to shop with dignity instead of shame — One in four Albertans are food insecure — What the next five years could look like
Connect with the Red Deer Food Bank: 🌐 Website → reddeerfoodbank.com 📸 Instagram → instagram.com/reddeerfb 📘 Facebook → facebook.com/reddeer.foodbank 🐦 X (Twitter) → x.com/ReddeerFoodbank
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
A 3-Year-Old Asked Why. Her Father Spent 3 Years Answering. This Is What Happened. - Edwin Land
06 Jul 2026
00:11:40
In 1943, a three-year-old girl asked her father why she couldn't see a photograph right away. He didn't have an answer. So he spent three years finding one.
Edwin Land grew up the son of a scrap metal dealer, dropped out of Harvard twice, and snuck into labs at Columbia at night to test his own theories because no one would fund them. He had no degree, no institution, and no financial backing. He also held 535 patents by the time he died, built the optics used in the U2 spy plane, and invented the instant camera after his daughter Jennifer asked why she had to wait to see her picture.
This episode uses Land's story to ask a bigger question: what happens to the problems you've stopped noticing because you've already accepted "that's just how it works" as the final answer?
🔹 THE QUESTION - Why a three-year-old's curiosity became a door that a billion photographs a year eventually walked through 🔹 THE STANDARD - Land's own bar for what was worth building: manifestly important and nearly impossible 🔹 THE FALL - Why being pushed out of the company he founded never stopped him from working 🔹 THE LESSON - The difference between people who ask complicated questions and people who take simple ones seriously enough to answer them
This isn't a story about genius. It's a story about what happens when someone refuses to let a simple question go unanswered.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - A father, a daughter, and a question with no easy answer - Who Edwin Land was before Polaroid - Why "that's just how it works" is the most expensive phrase in human history - The standard he held every invention to - Getting pushed out of his own company at 71 - What question have you stopped asking?
If this episode made you think, share it with someone who needs to hear it.
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
Grief and Losing a Brother: An Honest Conversation About What Remains - Stephen Van Santen
29 Jun 2026
00:56:57
What do you say to someone who just lost a brother, when you've buried one yourself?
Almost a year after losing his brother Simon, host Andrew sits down with his friend Stephen VanSanten, who lost his own older brother Phil to addiction in 2022. Instead of a typical interview, they flip the format and interview each other, asking the questions they wish someone had asked them.
Stephen shares what it was like watching Phil, once the captain of his high school basketball team, slowly lose himself to addiction, and the phone call that came while Stephen sat in a client's living room finishing an estate plan. Andrew shares what it meant to grow up alongside his older brother Simon, who lived with a severe disability from birth, and the guilt of moving provinces away from him as a teenager. Together they ask the harder question underneath both stories: is a person who struggles, whether with addiction or disability, a drain on the people around them, or does caring for them teach something society can't get any other way?
🔹 THE PHONE CALL — Stephen on finishing a client meeting the same day he learned his brother had died 🔹 THE ROLE REVERSAL — Why Andrew became the older brother to his own older brother 🔹 THE HARD QUESTION — What Phil's wife wrote a year after his death, and why Stephen carries it with him 🔹 THE ENCOURAGEMENT — What to actually say, and not say, to someone who is grieving
This isn't a conversation with easy answers. It's two friends being honest about loss, guilt, faith, and what it means to keep showing up for the people who can't always show up for you.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - Why this episode exists - Losing Phil: the phone call and the years before it - Growing up with Simon and the guilt of moving away - Is someone who struggles a drain on society? - What Phil's wife wrote a year after he passed - How to actually support someone who is grieving - What "happiness" means to two brothers who buried their own
If you've lost someone, or you know someone who has, share this with them.
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
How to Set Goals That Actually Change Your Life: The SMARTER Framework
22 Jun 2026
00:12:15
What would you find if you dug up a list of goals you wrote down ten years ago and forgot about?
I was cleaning out a closet and found a notebook from my early 20s. Inside was a list of things I wanted before turning 30. Some practical, like owning a home. Some specific, like a certain net worth. Some personal, like writing a book or owning a Jeep Wrangler. Every single item on that list had happened, including the real estate goal everyone told me was out of reach for someone my age.
What that notebook taught me isn't a story about how great things turned out. It's about something most people never get to see about themselves: you're more capable than you believe, and the goals that feel impossible when you write them down have a way of becoming normal by the time you get there.
In this episode, I walk through the exact framework my wife Emily and I use to set goals that actually move our life forward:
🔹 THE SIX F's — Finances, family, friends, faith, fitness, and freedom. Why setting goals in only one area while ignoring the rest quietly wrecks the others 🔹 SMARTER GOALS — Why the standard SMART framework is missing two letters, and why a goal that doesn't excite or scare you probably isn't worth setting 🔹 THE PROCESS — Three non-negotiables, process goals over outcome goals, and why writing it down turns a wish into a plan
This isn't theory. It's the actual system we use, including the messy and imperfect parts.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – The notebook I found in the closet — The six F's: finances, family, friends, faith, fitness, freedom — Smarter goals: adding exciting and risky to the SMART framework — Three non-negotiables and the difference between process and outcome goals — Why writing goals down and sharing them changes everything — This week's question: what would be on your notebook ten years from now?
If this episode gave you something to think about, subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
America's #1 Parenting Coach on What Most Parents Don't Know | Pastor Jonathan Brozozog
15 Jun 2026
00:52:31
What if the biggest gift you gave your kids this year wasn't a toy, but a letter telling them exactly who you see them becoming?
Pastor Jonathan Brozozog and his wife Joanne are raising eight children, ages 5 to 20, and have spent years teaching parents around the world how to lead a home without losing themselves in the process. His book Raising Parents flips the usual parenting question on its head: instead of asking how to raise good kids, he asks what kind of future parent you're actually raising. That question shapes everything from how he handles anger in the home to why he believes friendship, not money, is the real currency kids remember.
In this episode, Pastor Jonathan walks through the mistakes most parents make early on, why he believes "time doesn't heal, Jesus heals," and the practical, sometimes awkward habits his family practices on purpose, from a nightly no-phone hour to teaching young kids to salsa dance in the living room. We also get into the tradition that changed his family forever: a Father's Day letter of prophecy over each child that has become bigger in his home than Christmas.
🔹 THE OVERCORRECTION - Why so many parents swing from one extreme to the next, and how to stop the cycle before it reaches your grandkids 🔹 THE WORDS THAT WORK - What changes in a home when a parent's words carry weight instead of frustration 🔹 THE FATHER'S DAY TRADITION - The letter of prophecy that became his family's most anticipated day of the year 🔹 THE REAL WIN - Why he measures success by whether his kids love each other and Jesus when no one is making them
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - Meet a father of eight - What most parents get wrong early on - Raising Parents: why the title means more than it sounds - Healing generational patterns instead of overcorrecting - Why a parent's words have to be "anointed" to actually land - Making prayer, confession, and worship normal at home - The Father's Day tradition that beats Christmas - Why friends aren't where kids get their identity - What Pastor Jonathan wants his legacy to be
Connect with Pastor Jonathan Brozozog: 🌐 Website → jointheometeam.com 📸 Instagram → instagram.com/jonathanbrozozog 📚 Book → Raising Parents
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
Meaningful Father's Day Ideas: How to Make Your Kids Feel Truly Seen
08 Jun 2026
00:11:42
What happens when a beautiful idea for your kids completely misses who your kids actually are?
A few years ago, Andrew heard a speaker describe a Father's Day tradition that stopped him cold: writing each of his kids a letter every year, reflecting on who they were becoming. Andrew decided to do the same. He wrote from the heart, got emotional as he put the words on paper, and gathered his family on Father's Day morning, ready to read them aloud.
His audience was a four-year-old, a two-year-old, and a baby. The four-year-old lasted ninety seconds. The two-year-old was never in it at all. By the time Andrew looked up, nobody was left to listen.
In this episode, Andrew walks through what he learned from that failed moment, and the completely different tradition he built instead: a full Father's Day awards ceremony, complete with printed invitations, Oscar-style music, homemade certificates, and categories like Courageous, Compassionate, Caring, and Charismatic, with his kids' stuffed animals nominated right alongside them. He breaks down why the format that works for one family can fall flat in another, why Father's Day has quietly become a day about the dad instead of the kids, and the one question he thinks every father should sit with this year: not what do I want, but what does my kid need to hear from me?
🔹 THE LETTERS THAT DIDN'T LAND - What happened when Andrew's plan met a room full of toddlers 🔹 THE AWARDS CEREMONY - How he rebuilt the idea into something his kids actually received 🔹 THE REAL POINT OF FATHER'S DAY - Why the days kids remember are rarely the days their dad rested 🔹 THE ONE WORD EXERCISE - A simple practice to find what your kid needs to hear this year
This isn't about grand gestures. It's about whether your kids know you're paying attention.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - The letters that didn't go as planned - Why one dad's idea doesn't fit every family - Building the Father's Day awards ceremony - The four categories and the surprise nominees - Why Father's Day has become a day about the dad - The one-word exercise for each of your kids - What legacy is actually built from
If this episode meant something to you, subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
Red Deer Mayor Cindy Jefferies on Leadership, Loss, and the Long Game
01 Jun 2026
00:44:11
What does it take to run for the same job twice, lose the first time in front of your entire community, and come back twelve years later to win it?
Cindy Jefferies is the mayor of Red Deer, elected in October 2025 after nearly three decades of public service. She served nine years on the local school board, nine years on city council, and ran for mayor in 2013, a race she lost. In this conversation, she walks through what that loss actually felt like, the shame and grief she carried for almost two years afterward, and the question a friend asked her before she decided to run again that changed how she saw the whole thing.
Cindy also opens up about raising three sons while serving in elected office, caring for her husband Dan through two cancer diagnoses before he passed away in 2019, and the lesson he left her with that she still leans on today. Plus the story behind 100 Women Who Care Red Deer, the giving circle she co-founded in 2014 that has since raised well over $600,000 for local charities, one meeting at a time.
🔹 THE LOSS — What it actually felt like to lose the 2013 mayoral race, and the two years it took to name the shame and grief underneath it 🔹 THE QUESTION — What Ken Johnston asked her before she decided to run again in 2025 🔹 THE LEGACY — The lesson her late husband Dan taught her that she still returns to as mayor 🔹 THE MOVEMENT — How a radio interview turned into 100 Women Who Care Red Deer and over $600,000 raised for local charities
This is a conversation about leadership, loss, second chances, and what it means to keep showing up for a community even after it says no to you once.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – Sitting beside her former opponents on election night 02:43 – What she looks for in a leader 03:34 – Giving Red Deer a seat at the economic table 05:20 – From a lost class president race to nine years on school board 10:37 – Balancing early motherhood with elected office 15:50 – Losing the 2013 mayoral race 18:17 – Naming the grief and shame that followed 21:12 – The question Ken Johnston asked before she ran again 22:27 – The lessons her late husband Dan left her with 25:58 – Starting 100 Women Who Care Red Deer 31:00 – Her leadership superpower 31:48 – Her vision for Red Deer's future 35:44 – Why municipal politics matters most 41:30 – What happiness means to Cindy 42:22 – Her closing advice on leadership
Connect with Mayor Cindy Jefferies: City of Red Deer profile → reddeer.ca/city-government/mayor-and-city-councillors X (Twitter) → x.com/CindyJefferies
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
I Failed at 6 Businesses Before This One. Here's What Each One Built in Me.
25 May 2026
00:12:57
What if the years that feel like nothing are actually the years doing the most work?
In 1948, David Ogilvy arrived in New York with $6,000, no clients, and no advertising experience. Before that, he had been expelled from Oxford, cooked meals for dogs at a Paris hotel, sold stoves door to door in Scotland, tried farming with the Amish, and failed at that, too. At 38, broke and uncertain, he opened an agency anyway. Eleven years later, he had signed every client on his wish list and became known as the father of advertising.
In this episode, Andrew walks through his own version of that story: a string of business attempts over the last decade that mostly didn't work. A merchant services company built on booklets that were unusable. A finance blog that stopped at five articles. A solar panel domain deal that earned one $100 deposit and a ghosting. A car wrap advertising business with a hundred people signed up and no businesses willing to trust their logo to a stranger's bumper. An email business that actually worked and still got shut down. Two Amazon bestselling books that felt significant for a moment and then faded.
Andrew breaks down what each failure actually taught him, why his wife Emily shutting down bad ideas early was a gift and not an obstacle, and why this podcast, the thing he's least attached to out of every business he's tried, is somehow the one most woven into who he is. The real question underneath it all: what season are you in right now that feels like a detour, and what if it isn't?
🔹 THE OGILVY STORY - Seventeen years that looked like failure and became the foundation for an empire 🔹 THE FAILED ATTEMPTS - Six businesses, six lessons, and why none of it was wasted 🔹 THE CORRECTIVE VOICE - Why Andrew is grateful his wife killed most of his ideas before they started 🔹 CHARACTER OVER OUTCOME - What it looks like to know who you are before the results arrive
This isn't a highlight reel. It's an honest look at what actually gets built during the seasons that don't look like progress.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - David Ogilvy's seventeen lost years - The merchant services booklets that didn't work - The blog that stopped at five articles - The solar domain deal and the hundred-dollar lesson - The car wrap business nobody would trust - The email business that worked and still wasn't right - Two bestsellers that faded after the moment passed - Why Emily shutting down ideas was the real gift - What season are you in that feels like a detour?
If this episode meant something to you, subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
96% of Abused Kids Know Their Abuser. This Building Was Built to Stop the Cycle. - Mark Jones CEO of Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre
18 May 2026
00:38:48
What do you do when a child discloses abuse, and the next step is making them repeat that story to four different people?
Mark Jones is CEO of the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre, now housed inside the Sheldon Kennedy Centre of Excellence in Red Deer. After the 2015 suicide of Lindsey Moore, a close friend of his daughter, and years of watching kids get passed between police, children's services, and the courts, Mark helped build something different: a single building where every partner, from RCMP to Alberta Health Services to the justice system, works under one roof so a child only has to tell their story once. What started as three staff in a 1,500 square foot office has grown into a 65,000 square foot facility handling five to ten cases a day, funded in a way that keeps the doors open without leaning on government forever.
In this episode, Mark walks through how the centre actually works: the forensic interview process, the quilt every child wraps around themselves on their way out, and the business model that turned government leases into funding for the centre's own operations. We also get into the harder parts, including the reality that 96 percent of victims know their abuser, the warning signs parents and teachers often miss, and how a school principal's decision to act after Lindsey's death became a $29 million building that other provinces are now asking him to help replicate.
🔹 THE ORIGIN — Losing Lindsey Moore and the disclosure that made Mark say "we have to do something" 🔹 THE SYSTEM — Why kids used to repeat their story four times, and how one building fixed it 🔹 THE WARNING SIGNS — What changes in a child's behavior parents and teachers often miss 🔹 THE MODEL — How government leases fund a self-sustaining building instead of endless fundraising
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - What the Centre of Excellence actually is - How Lindsey Moore's death started the movement - Going from one shared office to a 65,000 sq ft building - Why 96 percent of victims know their abuser - The signs parents should watch for at home - Sheldon Kennedy's role from day one - The significance of the quilt every child takes home - Building a self-funding model instead of relying on donations - What restoration and healing actually look like - What happiness means after years of this work
Connect with Mark Jones and the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre: 🌐 Website → centralalbertacac.ca 📸 Instagram → instagram.com/centralabcac 📘 Facebook → facebook.com/CentralABCAC
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
How to Retire Your Wife Before 30: Real Estate, Sacrifice, and Keeping Your Promise
11 May 2026
00:10:24
What does it actually cost to keep a promise you made on your wedding day, years after everyone stopped expecting you to?
When Andrew and Emily got married, Emily had a goal: financially free by 23, done working for money on her own terms. Her 23rd birthday came and went, and the dream got quieter. Watching that happen did something to Andrew he didn't have words for at the time, so he made a decision. He was going to retire his wife.
They had just paid off $70,000 in debt. Nobody handed them anything, and they didn't want anyone to. So they lived beneath their means for years: no restaurants, secondhand clothes, side hustles, delivering food after full days at the bank, all while raising a family. Slowly it turned into a down payment on a house with a legal basement suite, then another house, then another, until Emily's salary became optional instead of necessary.
In this episode, Andrew walks through the full story: the MLM years that taught them real financial principles even when the business model wasn't right for them, the season of watching Emily's dream feel like it was slipping away, the exact strategy they used to build income outside a paycheck, and the day he surprised her with a limousine, her parents, their kids, and a sledgehammer. He also asks every husband listening a direct question: what did you promise her, and are you still keeping it?
🔹 THE PROMISE - What Andrew committed to privately, without telling Emily how serious he was 🔹 THE STRATEGY - How a basement suite rental became the first proof the plan was working 🔹 THE RETIREMENT DAY - The limousine, the alarm clock, and the sledgehammer that said "freedom" 🔹 THE QUESTION FOR HUSBANDS - What dream is your person carrying that you haven't taken seriously enough?
This isn't a story about money. It's a story about a promise, and what it costs to actually keep it.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – Emily's goal: financially free by 23 01:41 – What the MLM years actually taught them 02:24 – The private promise: retiring Emily 03:45 – The house with the basement suite 04:08 – Buying more houses and letting compounding work 05:04 – Planning retirement day 06:17 – The limousine, the flowers, and the parking lot 06:59 – The sledgehammer and the alarm clock 07:10 – Why this was never really about money 09:50 – A question for every husband listening
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
Stop Fighting About Money. Fix the Order You Spend It In. - Ryan Gaunce
04 May 2026
00:50:21
Most people don't feel stuck with money because they're lazy. They feel stuck because they're overwhelmed and afraid of making the wrong move.
Ryan Gonce is the founder of Bridgeline Wealth Strategies, a financial planner who has spent his career helping people build a plan instead of guessing their way through money. Ryan started investing at age 10 under his uncle's direction, and years later paid off $140,000 of debt with his wife Kathy before launching the career that grew out of that struggle.
In this episode, Ryan breaks down why the most common thread among people who are winning with money isn't income, it's that they don't overspend. He explains the pay yourself first framework, why setting up separate bank accounts removes the need to track every purchase, and why most fights about money aren't really about the money at all, they're about the order it leaves your account. We also get into pensions and whether they're actually as secure as people assume, the difference between a market fluctuation and a real loss, how much the average person actually needs saved for retirement by generation, and why people who work with a financial planner tend to retire three times wealthier than those who don't.
🔹 THE ORDER OF MONEY — Give, save, then live, and why this order prevents most financial fights 🔹 THE HOUSEKEEPER STORY — A budgeting negotiation between Ryan and his wife that says more about money than any spreadsheet could 🔹 THE DEBT PAYOFF — Seven years, $140,000, and the phone call that changed everything 🔹 CORE PLUS EXPLORE — Ryan's philosophy for how much risk is actually appropriate in your portfolio
This isn't about becoming a finance expert. It's about building a plan so your money stops being the thing you fight about and starts being the thing that gives you peace.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – Why people feel stuck with money 01:22 – What the average person coming in for help is feeling 02:53 – The one common thread among people doing well financially 07:00 – Getting a budget and paying yourself first 09:28 – The housekeeper negotiation 13:58 – Watching debt actually get paid off 18:05 – How Ryan's financial planning career started 19:38 – How much to actually be investing 23:04 – Why systems create peace in a marriage 26:26 – Is your pension actually safe? 32:18 – Silver, gold, crypto, and how much risk to take 36:26 – How much money you actually need for retirement 41:36 – What happens after you hit a financial goal 46:56 – Time in the market versus timing the market 48:23 – What happiness looks like to Ryan
Connect with Ryan Gonce: Website → bridgelinewealth.ca
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
He Lost the Ship, the Mission, and Still Brought Everyone Home (Shackleton's Story)
27 Apr 2026
00:14:18
What if the thing falling apart in front of you right now is actually what saves you?
In November 1915, Ernest Shackleton stood on the Antarctic ice and watched his ship, the Endurance, get crushed and swallowed by the frozen sea. He had 27 men with him, over a thousand miles from any other human being, no radio, no rescue coming. The mission he'd spent years planning, the first overland crossing of Antarctica, was over before it began. All he said was: "Ship and stores have gone, so now we'll go home."
I open this episode with my own version of that moment: the biggest real estate deal of my life, a $2 million apartment building, falling apart one hour before closing. It took me a year to understand why that collapse actually protected me. Shackleton's men waited almost as long to understand the same thing about their own disaster.
In this episode, I walk through what happened after that ship went down, and why it might be the greatest leadership story in history that nobody remembers correctly:
🔹 THE COLLAPSE — Why Shackleton threw a party the night his plan fell apart, and what he understood about morale that most leaders never figure out 🔹 THE VOYAGE — 16 days in an open lifeboat, 800 miles across the most violent ocean on Earth, and a 36-hour climb over mountains no one had ever crossed 🔹 THE REDEFINITION — Why Harvard Business School studies a man who never completed his mission, and what that says about how we measure success
This isn't a story about achieving the goal. It's about what you do when the goal is gone and people are still watching to see if they can follow you.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – The ship goes down — My $2 million deal and the year it took to understand why it fell apart — Who Shackleton was before the Endurance — Patience Camp: 4 months adrift on the ice — The James Caird: 800 miles across the Drake Passage — Why Shackleton is ranked above leaders who actually finished what they started — This week's question: who's on your ice, and are you still leading them?
If this episode gave you something to think about, subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
How to Rebuild Your Life as a Single Parent When Everything Falls Apart - Steve Moser
20 Apr 2026
00:34:08
What do you do when life hands you a season you never signed up for?
Steve Moser was a single father raising two toddlers alone, working midnight shifts so he could spend his days with his kids. No plan beyond the next week. No mother figure in the house. Just survival, grocery runs that drew judgmental looks, and a quiet decision to keep showing up.
A decade later, Steve is married, has adopted three children, runs a successful business, and describes his life as an abundance he couldn't have predicted if you'd told him back then. In this episode, we talk about what actually changed and why joy, in his words, was never about circumstances being easier. It was a choice he had to keep making.
🔹 CHOOSING JOY IN THE HARD SEASONS — Why Steve separates joy from happiness, and what that distinction meant while working nights and solo parenting two toddlers 🔹 A GLOBAL WAKE-UP CALL — Time spent in Thailand, Jordan, the West Bank, and Baghdad, and how witnessing extreme poverty and conflict reshaped his perspective on his own struggles 🔹 REBUILDING THROUGH COMMUNITY — How committing to a local church, mowing a lawn when he had nothing else to offer, and his father's humility about his own parenting mistakes became the turning point 🔹 THE LEAP INTO BUSINESS — Getting laid off, a government adjudicator telling him his side hustle was too well run to collect benefits, and the partnership that turned into the business he runs today
This is a conversation about fatherhood, faith, and what it actually looks like to choose joy when life doesn't go according to plan.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – Choosing joy when life gets harder — Becoming a solo father overnight — The stigma of being a single dad — His father's humility and what it taught him about parenting — What Thailand, Jordan, the West Bank, and Baghdad taught him about perspective — The church, the lawn mower, and finding his value — Getting laid off and the call that pushed him into business — Rapid fire: the book, the quote, and his definition of happiness
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
We Bought a House While My Wife Was in Labor. Here's What It Taught Me About People.
13 Apr 2026
00:10:57
What if the way you look at a rundown house is the same way you should be looking at people?
While Emily was in labor with their third child, Andrew got a text from his realtor: a property that fit exactly what he was looking for. He ran the numbers in his head, turned to his wife between contractions, and asked if she was okay putting in an offer. She said yes. They bought the house sight unseen. When Andrew finally walked through the front door days later, he found a stained carpet, layers of wallpaper stacked like sediment, a bathtub straight out of 1974, and a basement that needed serious work. Most buyers would have seen a problem. Andrew saw what it could become.
In this episode, Andrew breaks down the BRRRR method (buy, renovate, rent, refinance, repeat) not as a real estate strategy but as a philosophy he now applies to every part of his life, including the weekly coaching sessions he runs with his team. He explains why most people never reach their potential because they've absorbed a story about themselves that underestimates them, why cutting corners always costs more later, and why the messy middle of any renovation, whether it's a house or a person, isn't a sign something went wrong. It's just what growth looks like from the inside.
🔹 THE PHONE CALL — Buying a house sight unseen while Emily was in active labor 🔹 THE WALKTHROUGH — What Andrew found behind the front door, and why he loved it anyway 🔹 THE FIVE STAGES — Buy, renovate, rent, refinance, repeat, and what each one means for people 🔹 THE QUESTION — What in your life have you been walking past because all you can see are the surface problems?
This isn't a real estate episode. It's a challenge to stop judging what something is right now, and start asking what it's capable of becoming.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – The phone call during labor 1:00 – Buying the house sight unseen 1:07 – What was actually behind the front door 2:01 – Why Andrew saw potential instead of problems 2:23 – What the BRRRR method really means 3:09 – The same eye applied to coaching his team 3:44 – Why people underestimate their own potential 4:47 – Quick wins versus compound value 6:00 – Buy: training your eye to see past the surface 6:56 – Renovate: why the middle always looks worse 7:34 – Rent: the return reflects the quality of the work 8:09 – Refinance: capturing the value that was already there 8:38 – Repeat: why consistency turns a moment into a legacy 9:59 – The question to sit with
If this episode made you think differently about someone in your life, share it with them.
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
A Child Psychiatrist on the Age Kids Stop Listening to Their Parents (It's Not What You Think)- Dr. Kene Ezeibe
06 Apr 2026
00:38:47
More kids are anxious, overwhelmed, and struggling than ever before. What if the real issue isn't just what's happening to our kids, but what's happening around them?
Dr. Kenechukwu Ezeibe, known as Dr. Kenny, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who has spent the last decade working with kids, teens, and families in Red Deer. In this conversation, he breaks down what it actually means to be a good parent, starting with a question most people never stop to ask: are parents even necessary, and what does nurturing a child's potential really require?
Dr. Kenny walks through the role grandparents and community play in raising resilient kids, why some children start tuning out their parents as early as age five (not just the teenage years), and how to tell if your child has been exposed to something they shouldn't have. He gets specific about the hardest conversations parents avoid, including when to introduce technology and social media, how to talk to kids about sex before a friend or a screen does it for you, and why he is personally cautious about kids and AI after hearing what one chatbot was willing to answer. He also opens up about the Sheldon Kennedy Centre of Excellence in Red Deer, the one stop facility where kids who have experienced abuse can meet with a psychiatrist, a therapist, and police in a single visit, and why a simple treasure chest in that building says more about hope than almost anything else in it.
🔹 THE BLANK CANVAS — Why Dr. Kenny believes every child is born with "preloadings," and how parents can identify them early 🔹 THE AGE THEY STOP LISTENING — Why it can start as young as five, and what to do about it 🔹 THE SCREEN TALK — When to introduce phones, social media, and AI, and the answer a chatbot gave that alarmed him 🔹 THE TREASURE CHEST — Inside the Red Deer centre built for kids who have experienced abuse, and why it inspired this episode's location
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – What makes a good parent 02:00 – Every child is a blank canvas with preloadings 05:00 – Why two parents makes it easier, and support for single parents 06:30 – The role grandparents play in a child's success 09:00 – The age kids start tuning out their parents 12:30 – Breaking cycles from your own upbringing 16:00 – Discipline, boundaries, and avoiding both extremes 21:00 – Talking to kids about sex before someone else does 22:30 – Signs a child may have been exposed to something harmful 25:30 – The right age for phones, social media, and AI 32:00 – When to step in on someone else's parenting 34:00 – Inside the Sheldon Kennedy Centre of Excellence 39:00 – The treasure chest, and why it hit home 46:50 – Dr. Kenny's closing advice and what happiness means to him
Connect with Dr. Kenny: 🏥 Sheldon Kennedy Centre of Excellence → albertahealthservices.ca (search "Sheldon Kennedy Centre of Excellence Red Deer")
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
Why Reading Is the Highest-Leverage Habit You're Not Taking Seriously
30 Mar 2026
00:16:06
What if the years that feel like nothing are actually building everything?
Years ago, Andrew spent a summer repairing windshields in a parking lot, sitting under a neon orange tent waiting for cars to pull in. To pass the slow hours, he started bringing books. Sales books, communication books, entrepreneurship books, whatever pulled at him that season. He didn't know it then, but that parking lot was the start of a reading habit that would eventually shape a business, a marriage, and this podcast.
In this episode, Andrew makes the case for reading as one of the highest leverage things you can do with your time, and he means it practically, not as a platitude. He walks through the book that helped save his marriage, Uprooting Anger, and the single question it gave him for handling frustration: would God be angered by this? He breaks down the real reasons people stop reading (time, guilt over unfinished books, and not knowing where to start), and the exact habits that actually work: keeping books everywhere, mixing audiobooks with physical copies, writing in the margins, and screenshotting timestamps that matter. He closes with seven book recommendations that changed how he thinks about relationships, ego, fatherhood, money, and creativity.
🔹 THE PARKING LOT - How a summer job with nothing to do turned into a lifelong habit 🔹 THE ANGER FRAMEWORK - The one question from Uprooting Anger that changed his marriage 🔹 THE REAL REASONS PEOPLE QUIT - Time, guilt, and not knowing where to start 🔹 THE SYSTEM - Practical habits for reading more without carving out extra hours 🔹 THE RECOMMENDATIONS - Seven books, from Dale Carnegie to science fiction, and what each one taught him
This isn't a list of books to feel guilty about not reading. It's a case for why reading consistently, even in small stolen minutes, compounds into a different life over time.
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
What happens when the very thing you worked hardest to build starts breaking you?
Garret Cook is one of the top performing realtors in central Alberta and the founder of Elevate Collective, a team he built around collaboration over competition. From the outside, his life looked like proof that hustle works. On the inside, comedy and performance had become a trap: something he leaned on to connect with people that slowly turned into a standard he couldn't stop measuring himself against, at work, at church, at home.
In August 2018, that pressure caught up with him. Standing in line at a pizza restaurant with his wife and four kids, Garret collapsed without warning. He was rushed to the hospital, where his vitals came back completely normal. His body was healthy. His mind wasn't. An ER doctor told him he wasn't allowed to leave until he agreed to see a counselor, a moment Garret now calls one of the clearest times God has shown up in his life.
In this episode, Garret walks through what came next: the six months he sat in silence every Sunday while his family went to church without him, the moment on his kitchen floor when he felt God speak the words that became his tattoo, "faith through the fire," and the slow, uncomfortable process of unlearning an identity built entirely on performance. He also gets honest about a recent moment, just two months before this recording, when he hit every business goal he'd set and still felt completely empty, proof that this isn't a problem he solved once and moved past. We talk about the wife who protected him through a season she didn't fully understand, the kids he chose not to shield from his struggle, and why he believes counseling isn't a sign something is wrong with you, it's often the thing that finally shows you what's been wrong all along.
🔹 THE COLLAPSE — What happened in a pizza restaurant line that changed everything 🔹 THE ULTIMATUM — Why an ER doctor refused to let him leave without seeing a counselor 🔹 SIX MONTHS OF SILENCE — Sitting alone every Sunday while his family went to church without him 🔹 THE EMPTY GOAL — Hitting every target he set for himself and feeling nothing at all
This isn't a story about weakness. It's a story about a man who looked like he had it all together, and what it actually took to find peace underneath the performance.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - Why success can amplify what's already broken - The comedy that became a trap - August 2018: the collapse and the hospital - The doctor's ultimatum on counseling - Six months of silence every Sunday - Faith through the fire: the moment on the kitchen floor - Showing up as a dad without hiding the struggle - Rebuilding identity away from performance - Hitting every goal and still feeling empty - What happiness actually looks like to Garret now
We Paid Off $60,000 in Debt in 7 Months. Here's the System, Not the Hack.
16 Mar 2026
00:07:13
What actually changes when a couple decides they're done carrying debt, and how do you make that decision stick past the first hard month?
Andrew and Emily carried $60,000 in debt early in their marriage. It didn't happen from one bad decision. It built up the normal way: a student loan, a car payment, a line of credit that was supposed to be temporary, a credit card that slowly became routine. They were paying the bills and making the minimum payments. Technically fine. Emotionally exhausted. Every unexpected expense felt like a threat, and somewhere along the way Andrew started believing that pressure was just what adulthood felt like.
In this episode, Andrew breaks down exactly what changed, and what didn't. The decision to get out of debt wasn't the part that paid off a single dollar. What mattered was the system that came after it: getting honest about every balance and interest rate, treating payoff as the priority of that season instead of a side project, choosing one strategy and sticking with it, and automating everything so the plan didn't depend on motivation. Seven months later, the last payment cleared, and what came with it wasn't just relief. It was confidence that carried into how they save, invest, and plan today.
🔹 THE NUMBER - Why $60,000 built up quietly instead of all at once 🔹 THE DECISION - The line between "let's try harder" and "we're done carrying this" 🔹 THE SYSTEM - Clarity, one strategy, and automation that removed emotion from the process 🔹 THE SHIFT - What changed internally once the balances started dropping 🔹 THE REAL QUESTION - Not how fast can I do this, but what needs to change so it actually sticks
This isn't a story about intensity. It's a story about alignment, and what it takes to build margin instead of just surviving the month.
Why So Many People Are Searching For God Again? - Jachin Mullen
09 Mar 2026
00:52:27
What if the thing you call "church hurt" actually has nothing to do with the church at all?
Pastor Jachin Mullen leads Home Church, a multi site congregation with locations across Canada and roughly 110 more sites spread across 14 countries. He and his wife Becca oversee a community built on the phrase "everyone needs Jesus, everyone needs a home," and in this conversation he opens up about what it actually takes to lead with integrity when trust in leadership, spiritual and otherwise, is at an all time low.
In this episode, Pastor Jachin walks through why he believes there's a renewed spiritual hunger showing up mostly in young people with no church background, the safeguards he's built into his own life to guard against moral failure, and the difference between real church hurt and simple people hurt getting mislabeled. We also get into covenant relationships, what genuine reconciliation looks like after a falling out, and why he thinks cancel culture has made its way into families in a way that runs completely opposite to the gospel.
🔹 SPIRITUAL HUNGER — Why young people with no faith background are the ones showing up and asking the deepest questions 🔹 INTEGRITY — The daily safeguards Pastor Jachin uses to protect his faith and his family 🔹 CHURCH HURT — Why most of what gets called church hurt is actually unresolved people hurt 🔹 COVENANT — What it means to walk through life in real covenant relationship with others 🔹 RECONCILIATION — How to come back after a falling out, and why waiting is often the hardest part
By the end, you'll walk away with a clearer picture of what it means to build a genuine, transformed life instead of a divided one.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – Where does today's spiritual hunger come from? 04:16 – Leading with integrity when trust in leadership is low 08:39 – The safeguards that protect against moral failure 10:43 – Unpacking "church hurt" versus people hurt 16:19 – What covenant and reconciliation actually look like 23:01 – Cancel culture inside the family 39:54 – The cost of living an "all in" faith 49:41 – What happiness means to Pastor Jachin
Connect with Pastor Jachin Mullen and Home Church: Website → myhomechurch.ca Instagram (Pastor Jachin) → instagram.com/jachinmullen Instagram (Home Church) → instagram.com/myhomechurch
Your First Deal Won't Make You Feel Like an Investor. It'll Make You Feel Like a Fraud.
02 Mar 2026
00:06:43
Most people wait for a moment of confidence that never actually arrives. What if you started before it did?
When Andrew and Emily bought their first rental property, Andrew didn't feel ready. He didn't feel experienced, and he definitely didn't feel like an investor. What he felt was excited and quietly terrified at the same time. They had just come out of a heavy financial season, paid off debt, and created some breathing room for the first time. But even with the numbers in better shape, his mindset hadn't caught up. He still felt behind, like everyone else had gotten a head start he somehow missed.
In this episode, Andrew walks through what actually changed things: the honest, unemotional conversation with Emily that finally pushed them past years of research and spreadsheets, the standard they used to pick a boring, stable first property instead of chasing something flashy, and the sleepless night before their offer was accepted. He gets specific about the unglamorous reality of owning that first place, from tenant issues to feeling like an impostor with a mortgage, and why competence showed up slowly through solving problems rather than through some moment of finally feeling qualified.
🔹 THE RESEARCH TRAP - Why learning had quietly turned into a sophisticated form of procrastination 🔹 THE CONVERSATION - The simple, honest talk with Emily that ended years of waiting 🔹 THE STANDARD - Why they chose boring and stable over flashy for their first property 🔹 THE FIRST MONTHS - What owning a rental actually felt like, and why it wasn't glamorous 🔹 THE SHIFT - Why the change wasn't about money, but about who they became
This isn't a real estate strategy episode. It's a case for starting before you feel ready, because that feeling almost never shows up on its own.
⏱️ What's Inside: 0:00 – The moment everyone waits for that never comes 0:26 – Buying the first rental without feeling ready 1:19 – What he noticed in people who had already started 1:53 – When learning becomes procrastination 2:12 – The honest conversation with Emily 3:21 – The offer is accepted, and reality sets in 3:44 – Owning a property means owning other people's problems 4:33 – Where real confidence actually comes from 5:52 – The question worth sitting with 6:10 – Free goal setting guide at thecurrencyofhappiness.com
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
Leading When There Are No Perfect Options with Chad Krahn
23 Feb 2026
00:36:54
What does it actually take to love a city enough to change it?
Chad Krahn moved to Red Deer at 27 to plant a church. That church never came together the way he pictured it. What did come together, over the next decade, was a life he never planned on: eight years of foster parenting, the adoption of two of those foster children, a byelection win after the sudden death of a beloved city councillor, and a men's devotional book, Welcome to Monday, built from years of text messages he sent to a small group of friends.
In this episode, Chad walks through the tension between vision and reality that defines local government: why he believes Red Deer is a genuinely great city that most of its own residents don't fully believe in yet, why he once said the two things a pastor could never do were politics and foster care, and why he ended up doing both anyway. He breaks down the difference between influence and control on a nine-person council, what it was like knocking on doors to tell people a beloved councillor had died while asking for their vote in the same breath, and how he and his wife decided, after fostering six children over eight years, to adopt two of them permanently.
Chad also gets into the harder parts most people never see: voting against a 10 percent tax increase he still couldn't fully stop, the toll public criticism takes on his family, and why he believes loving a place, the way his GK Chesterton quote puts it, arbitrarily, because it is yours, is what actually makes a city great.
🔹 THE QUOTE ON HIS WALL — The GK Chesterton line that shaped his entire run for council 🔹 THE BYELECTION — Knocking on doors to deliver grief and ask for a vote in the same conversation 🔹 INFLUENCE, NOT CONTROL — What one vote on a nine-person council can and can't do 🔹 THE FOSTER CARE JOURNEY — Eight years, six kids, and the two they adopted for good 🔹 CHOOSE JOY — The final devotional from his book, read in full
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – Why local government actually matters — The move to Red Deer and the church plant that didn't work — Growing up in a political family while wanting to be a pastor — Running in, and winning, Red Deer's first ever byelection — Influence versus control inside city council — The 10 percent tax increase he voted against anyway — Eight years of fostering and the decision to adopt — Reading the final devotional from Welcome to Monday
Connect with Chad Krahn: Website → chadkrahn.ca Facebook → facebook.com/ChadKrahnRedDeer Book, Welcome to Monday → available on Amazon
If this episode gave you something to think about, subscribe so you don't miss what's next.
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
The 5 Places Every Dollar Goes (And Only One Makes You Happy)
16 Feb 2026
00:06:43
Have you ever wondered why some people with far less money seem to sleep better at night than people who have more than they ever imagined?
After years of sitting across from thousands of people, and living through it in his own life, the host has noticed a pattern: almost every dollar we earn goes toward one of five things. Most people default to the same one without ever choosing it on purpose, and it rarely makes them happier. This episode breaks down what those five categories actually are and why shifting even one of them can change how money feels in your life.
In this episode, we walk through the five places money can go and what each one actually builds:
🔹 STUFF — Great for convenience, terrible at creating lasting contentment 🔹 EXPERIENCES — Why moments with people you love pay emotional dividends for decades 🔹 TIME — Buying back time isn't lazy, it's strategic 🔹 GIVING — Why generosity flips the relationship you have with your money 🔹 SAVING AND INVESTING — The quiet, unsexy category that builds peace
We also get into a simple question worth sitting with: where is most of your money actually going right now, and is it building the kind of life you want?
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – Why money can feel like a trap 0:29 – The real question: what is your money for? 1:29 – #1 Buy stuff 2:29 – #2 Buy experiences with people you love 3:19 – #3 Buy time 4:11 – #4 Give money away 4:54 – #5 Save and invest 5:37 – Can money actually buy happiness? 6:04 – The question to sit with 6:17 – Free goal setting framework
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
Leadership Has a Cost: Responsibility, Stewardship & Legacy (Mike Bolton)
09 Feb 2026
00:55:11
Can you lead other people if you can't lead yourself first?
Dr. Mike Bolton has spent over 25 years in ministry as a pastor and college instructor, and today works as a leadership coach, executive advisor, and board member for organizations around the world. In this conversation, he breaks down what actually separates a real leader from someone who just wants the title, starting with a question most people never ask themselves before chasing a promotion.
Mike walks through the litmus test he uses for leadership: not how many people you manage, but whether you can lead your own life first, your faith, your health, your relationships, your finances. He shares the story of a real turning point in his 42 year marriage, a moment he describes as a directive from God to stop holding his wife Debbie back from who she was created to be. He also gets honest about a night early in his parenting when he broke a chair and put a hole in the wall, the three question process he now uses to get underneath his own anger, and why he had to forgive his father, an active alcoholic throughout Mike's childhood, before he could lead his own family well.
We also get into what Mike learned watching his longtime mentor John Maxwell up close for over 25 years, the difference between servant leadership and control, why most men have never actually seen real leadership modeled at home, and how to have a difficult conversation with someone and still walk away with them liking you.
🔹 THE LITMUS TEST — Why leading yourself always comes before leading anyone else 🔹 THE MARRIAGE SHIFT — The moment 15 years into his marriage that changed everything 🔹 THE THREE QUESTIONS — Mike's process for figuring out what's really underneath his anger 🔹 THE MENTOR — What 25 years of watching John Maxwell up close actually taught him 🔹 THE FOUR PILLARS — Faith, family, friendships, and meaningful work, the checklist Mike still uses today
This isn't a leadership theory episode. It's a case for dealing with your own baggage first, because the people watching you, at work and at home, will follow what you actually do long before they follow what you say.
⏱️ What's Inside: 0:00 – Why leadership looks appealing from a distance 1:00 – Introducing Dr. Mike Bolton 2:02 – Why does leadership look so sexy? 3:05 – What true servant leadership looks like 4:34 – The litmus test: can you lead yourself first? 6:35 – Mike's early struggle with being a people pleaser 9:14 – How to have a difficult conversation and still be liked 16:24 – The marriage shift 15 years in 19:02 – Why most men never see real leadership modeled 21:53 – Evaluating who you let mentor you 33:04 – Arthur Brooks' four pillars of happiness 44:18 – Mike's three question process for anger 51:44 – Book recommendations for growing as a leader 52:48 – The upcoming Live2Lead event in Red Deer and Sylvan Lake 53:26 – What happiness looks like to Mike today
## Connect with Dr. Mike Bolton
Website → liferekindled.com Instagram → instagram.com/life_rekindled Books → Search "Mike Bolton" on Amazon, including Ignite Your Mission
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
We Had $5 Left Over After Bills. Here's What We Did Next.
02 Feb 2026
00:07:05
What happens the month you finally do the math and realize you have five dollars left over?
Early in their marriage, Andrew and Emily were living in a basement suite that was too big for them, paying bills every month that seemed to multiply on their own. One night they sat down and went through their budget line by line. Rent, insurance, debt payments, groceries, gas. When it was all accounted for, they had five dollars left. Not five hundred. Five. They were already cutting everything they could, down to replacing meat with chickpeas because it was the only protein they could afford night after night.
In this episode, Andrew walks through what that season actually taught them: why trying harder was never going to fix a financial system built to guarantee stress, the moment they realized nothing would change until they changed the structure underneath it, and the shift from asking "how do we survive this month" to asking "what are we actually building." He breaks down the exact system they built afterward, from tracking every dollar without judgment to picking one debt payoff strategy and sticking with it, to automating everything so their worst moods could never derail their progress.
🔹 THE FIVE DOLLARS — The night the budget finally told the truth 🔹 THE CHICKPEA SEASON — What real financial sacrifice actually looks like, without the poetry 🔹 THE SYSTEM SHIFT — Why proving where the money goes matters more than judging it 🔹 THE REAL QUESTION — Where is your money currently leading you, and is that where you want to go?
This isn't really an episode about debt. Debt is a symptom, a season, a chapter. This is about whether your money reflects your values, or whether your life is just being maintained by default.
He Flipped a House at 14. Now He Owns 34 Doors With None of His Own Money. - Bryce Kander
26 Jan 2026
00:34:46
What if the first six months of your career made you no money on purpose?
Bryce Kander got his real estate license at 18, already owning three houses, trained by his mother Penny, a realtor for 47 years who never spent a dollar on advertising. His first months in the business, he sat with homeowners who were losing their houses and helped them restructure their mortgages instead of selling, work that made him nothing at the time but built a client base that keeps referring him years later. By 14, he had already flipped his first property, one he co-owned through a joint venture agreement with his mother after inheriting $30,000 from a family friend. Today he owns 34 doors, just closed on a 27-unit apartment building bought at roughly half its after-repair value, and founded the Central Alberta Real Estate Investor Network, now one of the largest investor groups in the province.
In this episode, Bryce walks through the full arc: growing up doing joint ventures before he could drive, the season of doubt and drifting that a 30-day Bible reading challenge interrupted, and the philosophy of "give to get to give again" that shaped how he does business. He breaks down the BRRRR method in plain terms, using a real example from one of his own investors, and explains how he analyzes deals, works with appraisers, and structures creative financing like seller carrybacks and private RRSP loans. We also get into the $100, $10,000, and $100,000 challenge, where Bryce walks through exactly what he would do with each amount starting from scratch, and the conversation closes on what he actually wants his legacy to look like.
🔹 THE FIRST SIX MONTHS - Why he sat across from homeowners and talked them out of selling 🔹 THE $30,000 INHERITANCE - How a stranger's gift turned into a joint venture at 13 and a flip at 14 🔹 THE TURNING POINT - The 30-day Bible challenge that changed the direction of his life 🔹 THE BRRRR BREAKDOWN - A real deal, dollar for dollar, from purchase to refinance 🔹 THE CREATIVE FINANCING - Seller carrybacks, private RRSP loans, and buying a house for $5,000 down 🔹 THE BRIEFCASE GAME - What he'd do with $100, $10,000, and $100,000 starting from zero
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - The kid who owned three houses before he could get licensed - The first six months making no money, and why that built his business - Growing up in real estate: a $30,000 inheritance and a house flip at 14 - Navigating the perception of being young in the business - The 30-day Bible challenge that changed everything - Building the Central Alberta Real Estate Investor Network from 25 people to a province-wide voice - The BRRRR method broken down through a real investor's numbers - Seller financing, private RRSP lending, and buying a house for $5,000 - Debt, risk, and why he says he needs more of it to retire - The $100, $10,000, and $100,000 challenge - Buying a 27-unit apartment building at 49% off - Legacy, rapid fire questions, and the books and people that shaped him
Connect with Bryce Kander: 🌐 Website → whatsmyreddeerhomeworth.com 🔗 Linktree → linktr.ee/BryceKander 📸 Instagram → instagram.com/brycekander 👥 Facebook → facebook.com/bryce.kander 🏢 Central Alberta Real Estate Investor Network → search "Central Alberta Real Estate Investor Network" on Facebook
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
He Was Dying at 33 With Everything He Wanted. Then He Asked One Question.
19 Jan 2026
00:08:45
If your self-worth collapses the moment you stop achieving, you don't have a performance problem. You have an identity problem.
Before John D. Rockefeller became one of the richest men in history, he was driven, ambitious, and afraid to fall behind, chasing achievement like it was oxygen. Every deal was another brick in the identity he was building around one belief: if he achieved enough, he'd finally feel like enough. By age 33, he was a corporate giant and a personal disaster, losing weight, sleep, hair, and peace. Doctors told him he was dying. The man who had everything had no capacity to enjoy any of it.
That collapse became a forced reset. Rockefeller had to ask the question most people spend their whole lives avoiding: what's the point of succeeding at things that don't make me whole? He shifted from what can I get to what can I give, and that's when his real influence began.
In this episode, we break down the four ways performance quietly becomes identity, and the simple framework for catching it before it costs you your health the way it nearly cost Rockefeller his.
🔹 ACHIEVEMENT AS VALIDATION — Why needing a constant win to feel okay is dependence, not ambition, and the shift from validation to stewardship 🔹 COMPARISON AS DIRECTION — How measuring yourself against everyone else destroys clarity and points you toward a life you don't even want 🔹 PRODUCTIVITY AS IDENTITY — Why believing "I am what I produce" keeps your brain running and your body guilty for resting 🔹 IMAGE AS PROTECTION — What happens the moment you start managing perception instead of building character 🔹 STOP, SEE, SHIFT, STEWARD — The four-step system for interrupting the autopilot before performance takes over again
Achievement may create opportunities, but only character sustains them. Performance may build a reputation, but only alignment builds an identity.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – Most people think they have a performance problem 0:23 – Rockefeller's rise, and the body that broke before the business did 1:36 – The forced reset and the question that changed everything 3:28 – Pillar one: achievement as validation 4:15 – Pillar two: comparison as direction 5:00 – Pillar three: productivity as identity 5:44 – Pillar four: image as protection 6:30 – The Stop, See, Shift, Steward framework 8:13 – Where in your life are you performing instead of becoming?
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
The Artistic Director of The Chosen on Why Nothing With God Is Wasted - Steven Schwartz
12 Jan 2026
00:48:28
How do you know when you're actually called to something?
Steven Schwarz is a biblical teacher at Home Church and the artistic director for The Chosen, the most watched show about the life of Jesus ever made. Before any of that, he was leading a young adults ministry in Red Deer that grew into one of the largest in Canada, running a wedding photography business with his wife Stephanie on the side (over 100 weddings shot across Alberta and BC), and figuring out, piece by piece, what it actually means to be called to something rather than just good at it.
In this conversation, Steven walks through the full arc of that calling: the "still small voice" and the practical signs that pointed him toward ministry as a kid who wasn't cut out for the traditional classroom, the moment he felt God tell him a season was ending before he knew what came next, and the entrepreneurial itch that has moved him through three major transitions in his career. He gets honest about the years spent shooting weddings every Saturday while also serving at church on Sunday, the realization that he only had 10 summers left with his oldest child, and the "sacred things" he and Stephanie built into their week to reclaim that time.
We also get into the deeper stuff: why Disneyland works as a metaphor for real happiness (and where that metaphor breaks down), the thin line between mourning and joy after losing someone close, what it's like to help shepherd a project as weighty as The Chosen, and why he believes nothing with God, not the failures, not the random branding gigs, not the hundred weddings, is ever wasted.
🔹 CALLING — The mystical and practical signs that pointed Steven toward ministry 🔹 ENTREPRENEURSHIP — Why he gets a "five year itch" to build something new 🔹 FAMILY — The 10 summers realization and the sacred rhythms that followed 🔹 SUFFERING — What a year spent on the crucifixion story taught him about grief and joy 🔹 CALLING, PART TWO — How every past season, good or bad, prepared him for The Chosen
Connect with Steven Schwarz: Home Church → myhomechurch.ca The Chosen → thechosen.tv
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - What does a season of life look like for you? 02:00 - The current dichotomy: quiet homeschool mornings and flying around the world 05:00 - How did you know you were actually called to ministry? 08:00 - The switch that made him dig into scripture academically 11:00 - Building one of the largest young adult ministries in Canada 13:00 - The entrepreneurial itch and the move into a creative pastor role 21:00 - Running a 100+ wedding photography business with his wife 27:00 - "You only have 10 summers left": reclaiming family time 30:00 - Why Disneyland works as a metaphor for happiness 38:00 - Grief, joy, and the thin line between them 39:00 - Joining The Chosen and the phrase "nothing with God is wasted" 44:00 - Preparing for the crucifixion season 46:00 - What does happiness look like to you?
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
My Wife Stopped Talking to Me for a Week. It Was the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Us.
05 Jan 2026
00:08:06
What happens when the life you're building on the outside stops matching who you're becoming on the inside?
Early in his marriage, Andrew found out the company he worked for was on the verge of collapse. No one knew if paychecks were coming. So he took the first job available: a warehouse position that came with a $5 pair of thrift store steel toe boots, a full size too small. Every day his toes went numb within fifteen minutes. He hated almost every minute of that season. But the boots weren't the real problem. He was carrying ego into a life that couldn't hold it, obsessed with how he looked to other people instead of who he actually was at home. Emily paid the price for it. Then one day she gave him an honest wake up call, and stopped speaking to him for an entire week.
In this episode, Andrew breaks down what that week taught him about the difference between reputation and character, and the three questions that pulled his marriage, his finances, and his identity back into alignment: what am I actually chasing, who am I becoming while I chase it, and are my systems supporting the life I want. He also walks through how he and Emily rebuilt their communication, brought in accountability, and paid off over $60,000 of debt in under seven months once they finally got on the same team.
🔹 THE BOOTS — Why a $5 pair of thrift store boots became a symptom of a much bigger problem 🔹 THE WEEK OF SILENCE — What happened when Emily finally stopped letting it slide 🔹 CHARACTER VS. REPUTATION — Why one impresses people and the other impacts them 🔹 THE THREE QUESTIONS — A practical framework for figuring out what you're really chasing 🔹 THE DEPOSIT — Why happiness is built the same way money is: through small, consistent investments
This isn't a story about a job. It's a case for checking whether the life you're building matches the person you're becoming, before someone you love has to be the one who tells you.
They Both Lost Everything, Then Built a Family Neither of Them Planned For - Garth & Melanie Mitchell-Epp
05 Jan 2026
00:57:20
What does it take to rebuild a life twice, once alone and once together?
Garth and Melanie Epp both walked through seasons that broke them completely. Melanie lost custody of her two-year-old son after a two-year court battle. Garth found himself separated, then homeless, working a solo night shift in a sawmill while raising his kids every other weekend with no place of his own to put them to bed. Neither of them expected to end up where they are now: married over 11 years, running a coaching business together, and raising a blended family that looks nothing like the life either of them came from.
In this episode, Garth and Melanie walk through the full arc of their individual healing before they ever met. Melanie shares how a stranger naming her "victim mentality" at a workshop changed the direction of her life, and Garth explains the mindset shift that got him out of survival mode and into a season of real growth. They also open up about their first date, where they laid out every hard fact about their lives before ever asking for a second one, and how that honesty let them move fast without the baggage most people carry into a new relationship.
We also get into the reality of blending two families: the years it took to build trust with Garth's kids, the Christmas they threw out every tradition and replaced it with a Mexican fiesta, and the advice they'd give anyone trying to merge two households into one that actually works.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – A two-year custody battle and losing everything 05:00 – Melanie's path to faith and confronting a victim mentality 11:00 – Garth's separation, homelessness, and rebuilding from a sawmill night shift 21:00 – Choosing who to surround yourself with in a season of despair 31:00 – Their first date and the radical honesty that made it work 36:00 – Blending two families and the Mexican fiesta Christmas 45:00 – Building Your Limits Lifted together 52:00 – What happiness actually looks like for both of them
Connect with Garth and Melanie: 🔗 Website → yourlimitslifted.com 📘 Facebook → facebook.com/yourlimitslifted 📖 Book → I Don't Think So by Melanie Mitchell-Epp, available at yourlimitslifted.com/book-bootcamp
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.
Welcome to Episode Zero - Why I'm Starting This Podcast (And What "Currency of Happiness" Actually Means)
05 Jan 2026
00:04:18
A few years ago, Andrew Rocha was buried in debt, overwhelmed, and convinced his value came from performance. He and his wife paid off $60,000 in seven months, bought multiple rental properties, and built the systems that led to financial freedom. But somewhere in the middle of raising kids, leading teams, and walking through loss, he learned the real lesson: money alone doesn't create happiness. Systems do. Alignment does. Purpose does.
That's the idea behind The Currency of Happiness, a podcast for anyone who knows life has more to offer than stress, bills, and constant striving.
In this first episode, Andrew, husband, father, real estate investor, and banking leader, lays out what this show actually is and who it's for. You'll hear why finances, parenting, leadership, and faith aren't separate categories but one connected system, and why fixing one area without the others rarely works. He walks through the two kinds of episodes you can expect: solo sessions built around practical tools and frameworks, and interview episodes featuring real conversations with business owners, community leaders, and everyday people building intentional lives.
🔹 THE BREAKDOWN - Why finances, stress, parenting, and leadership all feed into each other 🔹 THE TWO FORMATS - Solo teaching episodes and real interviews with people building meaningful lives 🔹 THE PROMISE - Every episode leaves you with one thing you can actually apply, not just think about 🔹 THE AUDIENCE - Built for the young parent, the early leader, and anyone chasing something more than success
This isn't a podcast about money. It's about what actually holds a good life together.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 - Welcome to episode zero - Why this podcast exists - The $60,000 debt payoff and what it taught Andrew - Solo episodes vs. interview episodes - Who this show is for - The one promise Andrew makes every listener
If this episode gave you a reason to stick around, subscribe so you catch what's coming next.
This Is The Currency of Happiness (Official Trailer)
31 Dec 2025
00:01:50
Most people think happiness is something you chase, something you buy, or something you stumble into if life finally goes your way. What if it's actually a currency, something you build, protect, invest, and multiply?
I'm Andrew Rocha. Husband, father, real estate investor, and banking leader. But before any of that, I was drowning in debt, overwhelmed by life, and convinced that if I just performed better, I'd finally feel fulfilled. It took paying off $60,000 of debt in 7 months, buying multiple properties, raising a young family, and walking through seasons of loss and growth to learn the difference between happiness and joy.
Happiness is transactional. Joy is deeper. We're not chasing a temporary feeling. We're pursuing excellence, knowing we'll never hit the mark perfectly, but choosing to show up anyway. Because real freedom doesn't come from money. It comes from the systems that support your finances, your leadership, your faith, and your life.
That's what this podcast is built on.
🔹 THE MINDSETS — What actually holds us back, and how to name it 🔹 THE HABITS — Small, repeatable actions that move us forward 🔹 THE STORIES — Real people, real setbacks, real growth 🔹 THE TOOLS — Simple frameworks you can use starting this week
No hype, no shame, no pretending to have it all together. Just honest conversations about stewarding what we've been given, our money, time, energy, family, faith, and ultimately, our happiness.
If you're a young professional, a parent, a leader, or someone who knows life has more to offer than stress and survival, welcome. You're in the right place.
⏱️ What's Inside: 00:00 – Is happiness a feeling or a currency? 0:19 – Who I am, and who I was before this 0:36 – Paying off $60,000 in 7 months 0:42 – Happiness vs. joy: the real difference 1:02 – Where actual freedom comes from 1:18 – What this podcast is all about 1:42 – Welcome to The Currency of Happiness
Money isn't the main currency of a good life. This podcast gives you the tools to build a life of meaning and fulfillment.