74: Chuck Carstensen, Pivot, Progress, Prosper (transcript)

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74: Chuck Carstensen, Pivot, Progress, Prosper (blog post)

Chuck Carstensen 0:00
For a lot of businesses, like if you’re a restaurant, like you have to pivot, are you? Is there a restaurant probably doing better now than before? Probably not. But there couldn’t be one that pivoted enough that is getting enough prosperity to get through this.

Curt Carstensen 0:29
This is People I Know Show. I’m Curt Carstensen Episode 74. Today, my guest is Chuck Carstensen. Chuck is my only brother, older brother. And this is his third appearance on the podcast. He was my guest way back in Episode Two, in a conversation mostly focused on personal growth. And then he made a cameo in Episode 37 when most of the podcast was with his son Chase shortly After Chase and I did our first Spartan Race last June. In this conversation, Chuck will help us better understand what he means when he says pivot progress prosper. Chuck has been in real estate for approaching 20 years. Currently teaming with my sister and a few others with the Carstensen team at RE/MAX Results, and Chuck will explain how COVID-19 has impacted how he operates in real estate. Besides that, we’ll have a few fun stories to share, including one right at the beginning of the conversation, and one right at the end that you won’t want to miss. We did record this conversation as a part of a live video podcasts on Facebook on April the 23rd. Links are in the show notes. If you want to watch back the video. You will notice that occasionally there is some audio glitches as I’ve edited it somewhat but it can’t be totally corrected. But fortunately it does. don’t happen that often. I’m intending on doing some more live videos on Facebook for future podcasts. Be sure you’re following People I Know Show on Facebook and or Instagram to learn about when the future live recordings will be happening. Now let’s go to my conversation with my big brother Chuck Carstensen.

People I Know Show live today Curt Carstensen and Chuck Carstensen, social distancing, of course, Chuck. Good afternoon.

Chuck Carstensen 2:34
Good afternoon, Curt. Sorry, I got my the share, share active I’m watching myself on another screen.

Curt Carstensen 2:42
Well, good job. We’re testing out all the technology I think that’s gonna work into the title of today’s episode, pivot progress in prosper. As I’ve been trying new things lately. You’ve been trying some new things lately. And we’re gonna get into that conversation. Hopefully For everyone that catches the the live talk today and the the podcast in the future that what people can get from this is right now things are different but we can do different things and make good use of that time. But I want you to share a story Chuck, I heard that very recently, I guess not so recently there’s no snow on the ground now. You went skiing for the first time. I was gonna go skiing for the first time with your stepdaughter, Samantha. That was the plan and then I went on a trip things got busy the snow was melting the pandemic started and it never happened but then I heard that you got to go so please explain that little adventure for you.

Chuck Carstensen 3:45
Oh, sure. Yeah, so for spring break this year, instead of traveling far away. We went up to Lutsen and, and my stepdaughter she loves skiing and she’s very good at it. You know, we had so as Melissa myself and Lukas and her and she brought a friend And basically there. We were there for a couple days, you could check in at nine or 930. Get your equipment if you rented and can ski till about 430. And then they shut it down. So I thought I should maybe try skiing. And I went to check what lessons are there. I mean, it seemed expensive for somebody who’d probably just try skiing it was had to be 100 bucks or something. But it was like maybe 90 bucks if you go a little bit later, but that was between one or two. And I was like, Okay, then then someone’s Done, done with the day. So I thought, okay, I’ll try. I’ll just, I’ll just watch videos on YouTube and figure out how to ski by by watching all these beginner tips on YouTube. It’ll look pretty easy. I mean, you probably watch YouTube to set up some of the stuff you’re doing now and I know you know, like my kids and especially Samantha she wants YouTube she wants YouTube to learn how to cut her hair. You know if people stay in there I did a video earlier today with my hair like after workout standing up like six inches, like thinks it’s six.

Curt Carstensen 4:59
It talks about my new haircut which we can talk about a little bit. I want to know about know about your your skiing and your YouTube education.

Chuck Carstensen 5:06
Yeah, so it sounded all good and then they took me they got my you know, got my equipment takes seemed like forever got it Lucas got his we went to what she said, Oh, this is the easier heel there. If you look at lose if you ever go there and look up the hills, there are some big hills so guy who’s never skied and maybe that hill was okay. And I got all geared up like I’m ready for this. And then she’s like, wait, don’t go straight down the hill, you’re gonna go too fast. And I started going I’m like, Oh my god, I’m gonna die down and then it took a while to get back up because she said I shouldn’t get the sticks like I don’t need them. But I think when you fall down a lot, you’d need your sticks if you go skiing to help you get back up. So I figured out how to like mangled my body to get up and then I started again and then I go sideways. She started to say how to shift the weight and I saw that in a video just harder doing in real life. So I go sideways like into like the embankment where there’s trees, but I fall down into I don’t hit a tree like this is that kind well please just get me off the hill having to do that so but by that time Lucas does dip down there like like he’s been skiing all his life and he’s Lucas is your eight year old eight year old and he skied like a couple times maybe maybe three and he does and Samantha was helping me to her credit she was trying to help me in it maybe your friend went ahead with Lucas and and she tried not to get frustrated I’m sure she did because I’d get up and I’d fall down I’d get scared that I’m gonna go too fast and then like if you get closer I loosen to wherever you’re at there’s like cliffs like if you didn’t know how to ski and just kept going you just you know fall to your death I think or maybe fallen off snowbank and just break a few bones. Just to summarize so I got down to more level ground at one time I literally had to like I created a new move but it was a good workout like I crab ski down where I was kind of on my back with you know legs elevate it, you know, there’s different workout moves or I don’t know I can’t do it on this video. But I got down there. I was like skiing but My butt butt kind of butts skiing but kind of lifted myself up. That’s what I did. So I got down the hill. Then when I got on kind of flat ground, I stood up and I was just a little decline and I skied a little bit and then it’s like, okay, but then when I got to flat and I had to get on the ski lift because she’s like, the only way is you got to go up the ski lift and get ski patrol to come and get you in. Take Take. So some lady had to borrow me her stick so I could get through the like the pass. Gotta like, show your patent not showing you got to just like, you know, yeah, go through it. And I got on there. And it was that was the best part of skiing being up there looking at all the hills. And then Lucas, my eight year old when we had to get off. He said, Okay, dad, you got to kind of lean forward so when you get off the sun, you just ski right off. Okay, I think I can do this. Sure enough, we kind of lean forward, I just white back out on my back and there goes, Lucas. I was like, Okay, I’m done. Oh, so thankfully, there were workers working on that ski left. And I just sat there for a while and I’m like, hey, how did We call down and some some guy was going to go down anyway probably for lunch or coffee breaks, okay, you can ride down on my snowmobile and then you know when you get down to the chalet everybody’s looking at you like you get hurt. No, I’m just a big buffoon who can’t ski. So yeah, that was it. That was my skiing experience. I think I will try again and I’m more bunny Hill like locally, but I don’t know it was I did not have a good experience.

Curt Carstensen 8:23
Will you watch more YouTube videos to learn how to see before the next time you ski?

Chuck Carstensen 8:27
I would just go to like Taylor’s Falls is our closest ski place. And I would probably go there and practice they have more smaller hills for somebody like me there or I’ll just like say I’ll never go again. I don’t know one of the two.

Curt Carstensen 8:42
So you can’t just give up

Chuck Carstensen 8:44
I could

Curt Carstensen 8:45
Oh, maybe. let’s get into the the man topic… No, I haven’t. That’s you, I was planning to do it this winter. And then you had that experience before I did. So I want you to share that story because I’ll try to learn from you. And be a little more prepared.

Chuck Carstensen 9:02
So maybe I should cross country ski. I don’t know. We’ll try it again. Yeah.

Curt Carstensen 9:09
Pivot, progress and prosper. Those were the three words you You did a live video today preparing but you know we’re gonna be doing this right now. And I want you to know I want to know what you mean by that and really relate it back to someone else what can they use those three words right now pivot, progress prosper to make use of this time that I think for a lot of us we’ve been out of routines and we don’t know when or if we’ll ever get back into that old routine.

Chuck Carstensen 9:42
Yeah, so I actually stole that from Michael Bernoff. He did a live podcast kind of like we’re doing now but I think it was just him and people are asking questions. And he did that a couple weeks ago on his average sucks community page. And I’m like, Yeah, that sounds good because they’re talking about the pee pee pee plan. If you’re a small business and you know what the COVID-19 going on, you could, you know, apply for government loans. And then like earlier this week or last week, they ran out. And now maybe they’re passing a bill for the PPP plan where you get some kind of assistance. And anyway, he was talking about his PPP plan as pivot progress prosper. So it’s gonna mean different things to different people. But most somebody who’s got a business, somebody working on a business, probably somebody who’s, you know, wanting to make a shift based on everything that’s going on. A pivot is just, you know, changing directions, obviously. So, for me, and I mentioned this a little bit on the video I did this morning for real estate, we didn’t pivot much because what’s happening in real estate is like, Hey, you got to do video, got to do 3d tours. You got to do live virtual tours at your houses, which we do like if you’re on our Facebook page. I couldn’t figure out how to get this to my team page right now, but we’ll maybe figure out how to copy it over later. On. There we go. We do YouTube videos touring the house, we do Facebook, live videos, tuners, we do 3d tours, we can meet, you know, remotely on a zoom conference, we already did that. So there wasn’t like a pivot for us to do in real estate. We’re already doing that. But what I was trying to pivot on mostly is like working on my mindset even more like you know, me and I work on that all you know, for several years, but even when you’re working on things like that, you’re can always probably tweak it or pivot a little bit. So my biggest focus during COVID-19, which I was already doing before I heard this video from Michael is really my pivot was really trying to get to the fundamentals of, of getting my mindset, my overall mental, emotional, physical, spiritual health all like the most aligned I can be during this time, because otherwise, it’s really easy to get down. So my pivot is, you know, again, that somebody’s doing but to do it even deeper, to be stronger and better at it. That’s basically my Pivot to help me continue to make progress. Because when you get knocked down, especially if you have a business, it can be like super detrimental. And I’m sure that’s something we’ll talk about throughout the whole plan. But you can ask any questions. Yeah, based on what I said so far

Curt Carstensen 12:15
with the real estate. Let’s just go into that now, specifically, you’ve been able to keep on doing as much as he can maybe tweak it a little bit. But are people still really interested in buying houses right now? Or do they feel like they can’t, like, how has that changed? You can? You can do it, you’ll do but are people really into it?

Chuck Carstensen 12:37
Yeah, so a couple things. I think if we’re live streaming and I can’t see it, but maybe I don’t have my Facebook page open up. I don’t know if you do if people have questions. They could probably just type a question and you can ask the question like when it pertains to real estate specifically, like hey, what should I do or what’s happening? I think there’s just a lot of misinformation. Now real estate is local. So there is probably some local areas, states, counties or whatever. That probably probably can’t go look at a house. You know, I think that’s probably the case in some areas in New York. And again, I’m gonna mostly focus on local but most areas Real Estate’s an essential service so we can show houses sellers can sell people can move buyers can buy, um, as far as like the early part of COVID, I’d say you know, that second week, third week of March, it was almost normal activity like as many showings year over year as many sales and then they started talking about more, whatever quarantine lockdown shut down, stay at home we prefer stay at home and enjoy family over quarantine shut down like that. I try not to use those words too much. But with that, then the showings dropped about 50%. So year over year, last year that this year probably 50% less showing starting that you know later part of march up until now which is almost about the last month sales though pending sales are probably down 30% year over year. I’m getting Seeing when the statistics come up for April they were down 15% year over year in March. And what that means, because people hear percentages and they think well real estate went down 15% and 30% know that many less sales went under contract. The reason for that isn’t that the markets poor in fact year over a year, in Minnesota in most areas, the markets up 3% 5%, which is technically the history of real estate, normal appreciation is about 3%. So we’re seeing normal appreciation even in March and April, but the reason for it, just less people are in the market. Some people are scared of COVID they don’t want people coming through their houses. So they’re not on the market yet that delayed some of our sellers from going on the market and we’re slowly getting some of them to go now or some of them are waiting a few more weeks. I think the people we were talking to coming into this that we’re going to do it before you know we talked to him, whatever last fall, January, February, they’re all listing their house. They had a plan move. They’re almost Moving forward, but maybe a little bit slower. Not as many new people are like, Hey, I’m gonna decide to move now. So I’d say a lot of those people have decided that those people who probably weren’t deciding now didn’t decide and that’s the reason listings are down. But but but economy, you know, is different than real estate right now as far as the economy is probably poor, for a lot of people are headed into a recession, but real estate because it’s supply and demand. People do need houses or wine houses. It’s just less listings, but there’s still a decent amount of buyers. So supply and demand is pretty equal. And that’s keeping the values were they were so people aren’t losing values on their homes, if that’s what they’re worried about. So that’s, that’s a main summary of it and we’ll see if it upticks more and may it seems like right now it’s starting to uptick a little bit more in the showings but April typically April’s like a huge booming month for sales for us but yeah, it’s a it’s a down month for sales just as people are adjusting.

Curt Carstensen 15:57
And do people contact you concern that like He shouldn’t be going out. And you have to have conversation with him to explain some of the things that that they can do right now. How are you? What’s the mentality of people that you’re coming in contact with? Because I know you’ve talked to a lot of people.

Chuck Carstensen 16:12
Yeah. So I reach out, obviously, past customers, people we know, very often and I post a lot of videos, there’s content on YouTube, some of the videos that you know, we share out in our blogs, and it doesn’t show how many people viewed them, and some people might find them on YouTube. So I’ve done a ton of content on this. And, and that’s, that’s one way I get the message out as far as past customers who I proactively reach out to. Yeah, sometimes they have questions like no, I’m not I’m not in the market anyway. There’s people I’d say that were, you know, for lack of a different word leads that come in throughout the year like re questing, real estate information and then on my reach back out, many people are on hold. So I’d say a lot of people who weren’t certain about Moving in the business we like to call tire kickers. They’re they’re not they’re pulled out but people who are serious like I said that people we talked to before planning, buying and selling, they just move forward and wasn’t a concern other than they are concerned like is the market going to go down? And how should I buy now Should I wait and and honestly, if you talk to the wrong realtor, they’d give you the wrong advice. And I feel solid and confident by advice, but I’m sure there’s other realtors giving different advice and and they you they might be, you know, it would be bad to give you the wrong advice. Like we saw somebody I think a Minnesota real estate or a realtor on his Facebook page posts like a couple months, there’s gonna be all kinds of foreclosures because of this. That would not make any sense to see you know, if you live in Minnesota and own a house, it takes 12 months for a foreclosure process in the bank normally doesn’t list them for another four months. So maybe in 18 months, those houses would be out there. But also if people are getting unemployment and can pay their bills during this time, they’re not gonna going to leave their house like, like they’re not letting go. So there, there’s not going to be all that sort of current because of this because they just are staying up. And a lot of people are still getting an income one way or the other. Maybe the commercial real estate will be hurt if business owners don’t pay their leases or you know, sell their properties or lose their business that could be commercial could go down. But residential, yeah, I wouldn’t be so worried about losing the value and I wouldn’t be so excited that hey, maybe finally a little go down and I’ll be able to buy a house in six months or 12 months. Because it doesn’t it doesn’t seem like that’s gonna happen currently. So yeah, there’s people who have different ideas on this. So

Curt Carstensen 18:41
I want to go back briefly to the term tire kicker. So I the first time I ever heard that or we probably heard that was on the farm. Our dad would often be selling something something we parked in front of the barn for sale, and people would come over and be they’d be classified as a tire kicker because they just want to come And and see how much someone wants for something. So does do all realtors use that term? Or is it just former farmers like you?

Chuck Carstensen 19:06
Probably former farmer farmers, I don’t know if there’s another real estate agent out there listening they can type and see if they say they use that term and if they were a farmer or not, it could be something else. But I so what we started doing to say one other adjustment when people came in, like we still we have all kind of websites and people call about properties. We were way more diligent and pre qualifying whatever way it is like we won’t just run out and show anybody house we’d like to ask questions, but basically saying not the sellers don’t want you in the house unless you’re like really 100% you’re going to be buying a house and one way of knowing that is are you pre approved or not pre approved. I just want to kind of look well, we’d say we won’t do the showings. I think that’s changed a little bit. I think some realtors are not doing that. We’re doing that because over the years of doing this, like it has helped us to meet some people you get face to face Meet people like I like that Michelle, you know Michelle or sister or Stacy on my team or Chuck they seem nice. I’ll work with them in three months, six months when I’m going to buy so it does help me get face to face it just to us it’s not essential to show a house to somebody who’s buying in six months. So we’re going to have to take our chances that maybe they call us but chances are there’s somebody out there one of those Yahoo realtors I’m just kidding it that that will take the take them and maybe they’ll just stick together but they really shouldn’t be showing houses to people who are just, you know, just not gonna buy now. I get some people need to look to know but if you and your mind are like and just want to look I might buy later. Yeah, those people shouldn’t be looking now while we’re in stay at home for sure. But some of them are and they call us all the time and every day.

Curt Carstensen 20:49
But you’ve been in business long enough to kind of sift through that as you as you decide. If someone does want to leave a comment that you’d have to do that from the people I know shows live feed. No, I shared it. I think Going to watch party to my page. And you might have done something similar to yours. So for the comment for me to see it right now and put it on the screen, which we have the capability of doing, you’d have to do that from the actual People I Know Show page. And while you’re there, if you haven’t already, you can like the page.

Chuck, let’s get back to the pivot, progress and prosper. There’s been some things that even with this, like the live video, this is for instance, one of the pivots I’ve made with this ongoing podcasting project. I’ve been integrating video now for months, but I really hadn’t done live videos. Because that takes there’s an extra barrier there that before I thought I’d probably better just to pre record it, and then put it up later. But now I realize by doing this now with you and us sharing it to our personal pages, it’s gonna catch a couple people. So the person right now that’s tuning in right now, that would have never maybe listened to a podcast the old fashioned way. I realize I can put up a live video live Have one every once in a while. And so that’s been a pivot for me. And even with this today, I still plan to do more things. And we were having a conversation yesterday. And we one of the things we’ve done as a family, knowing that we’re kind of all just at home all the time, we’re connecting once a week, and continuing to work on our personal growth and different things. And, and it seems like every week, so far, there’s been a different person has had the bigger issue. I didn’t realize that I had an issue. But it seemed like yesterday when we were talking about this and what I’m doing with my podcasts right now, you know, maybe I do and I think that can relate back to everybody. We’re all we’re all doing what we’re doing right now. And a lot of it works and some that maybe doesn’t work that well. But I think sometimes we get inside of our own heads and we maybe need to bounce some ideas off of other people that might help us pivot to the next thing.

Chuck Carstensen 22:49
Well, I think the other several things to pivot on, like there are certain things you know, we each do well and like we’re trying to improve and then when you’re improving there, there’s something else you’re not doing. doing to get better. So I’m gonna do and you’re trying to make a work, but there’s obviously only so much time in the day. So you don’t want to start in trying to do 10 pivots like that’s a traveling and basketball, traveling, you want to be like one, you know what I mean? So, so I don’t know, I just I come up with this stuff. So that’s, that’s the downside of doing a live video with me. I’ll normally say two or three things that are like not that are, you know, maybe I probably shouldn’t say and then I don’t mind it, but there’s probably somebody that I could offend out there. Maybe maybe I won’t do that today. Except if there is a Yahoo realtor out, there they go. They don’t know that. So they’re like, Hey, I’m great.

Curt Carstensen 23:35
You mentioned basketball. And I think it was last week. So we have the call. We’re talking about me different things with my podcast the way I’m using my time. I have way more time right now than I normally have. And I’m using some of it very effectively, I think and some of it less effectively. Your oldest son Chase. He, he had his basketball season his team was about to go To start in the state tournament, and then the season was canceled, and now it would be baseball season but there’s no baseball season. So thinking of individuals like athletes like an our, my nephew, AJ as well, both of them have been on previous episodes of the podcast. They, they and the kids in the college athletes in the professional athletes are a great example that can I think, bring back to all of us that right now their seasons aren’t happening. And I guarantee you, some of the individuals are still working really, really hard so that when the season happens again or their next season, they will still be in prime condition and they’ll be ready to go. And there’s going to be some of them that are just hanging out not doing as much because that’s a trap we can all fall into when suddenly something changes and maybe we feel bad about ourselves or something we that happens that happens to me. I’d have to Everybody, I, I totally get it. But I think it’s to recognize it, then when you’re in that situation and try to pull yourself back out of it.

Chuck Carstensen 25:09
Yeah, that’s a great point to bring up. I think when you’re talking about pivots, progress prosper. I don’t I don’t know what people are doing. And that’s where if there are people listening, or they watch the recording of this, when we post it, it’d be cool to hear a couple comments to get some interaction. because it’d be cool to hear if somebody feels like Yes, I’m doing a pivot, meaning I’m changing what I do to make my life a little bit better, even though there’s things that are challenges and struggles and I don’t like or something taken away from me. So when you look at athletes, you look at our nephew, Ashton, who is a great football player, recruited, you know, very recruitable football player. We know he’s out there work and he’s lifting weights every you know, every morning he showed I don’t know his exact schedule. He’s doing what he does, needs to do agility wise or Strength wise he’s working hard. And then like my son chase who’s not as is a good athlete, good kid, not as superior as AJ is. He is he loves baseball that’s his favorite sport. So it’s kind of sad it’s done like the basketball team won the section was going to be state for a probably wasn’t going to win state but I felt like they could win one or two game whether that would be lose the first game and win the next two and win constellation or, or win a game surprise somebody and, you know, take third or fourth place like they were playing really well. Towards the end of the season. They had a great team and then one superior player that was just super fun to watch. And that was kind of sad. He got pulled out he just played when they’re up by 30 at the end of the game, so he wasn’t like one of the main players on it. But baseball is more of his sport, so he’s been working like eight hours a day on his grandpa’s farm which is good so that’s a pivot for him like he’s doing his schoolwork you know distance learning. He’s taking college courses. doing it online like the students are. And instead of sitting around playing video games like my eight year old is now I guess a good babysitter so but and he’s playing with his cousins and I don’t know, maybe some random shows that that we don’t know. But But normally it’s people he knows he’s doing that and I do try to get about we did. I’m bouncing back and forth we did he did 20 jumping jacks 20 push ups 20 sets with me this morning. We did that yesterday. Then we went for a 20 mile a 20 mile 20 minute walk run. So a little guy did get out. We’re getting some exercise, buddy, you know, at different so my son’s working all day doing schoolwork. And then like a couple times a week like last night when it was nice. We went to the baseball field. He went by himself for a while did some he’s got a tee a couple nets does some hitting drills. I went out there to catch them and pitch and help them where I could help them. And I’m like, isn’t there other kids that you can play with like, like, I want to do that but I also don’t want to do that and meaning I got it. Like, my wife could always, you know, talk to more people to make sure we get enough business. But so I want to do that. But else like, Where’s the other kids? Like, I don’t think anybody’s doing anything so so to answer, there’s a long winded answer to your question. I think a lot of kids are not doing anything, which is kind of sad. That’s one of the sad things about this. If they’re not in a structured, organized thing, I think a lot of kids are taking it easy, and certainly some are working on they’re working on getting better. But I think the majority of kids just like the majority of people, when things get ripped away, they don’t do much and that’s a not a pivot, a pivot would be finding a way to make the usage of the time you got get better.

Curt Carstensen 28:41
And I think we all are allowed opportunities to relax and enjoy ourselves and mentally reset. And as for me, I think I’ve done enough of that. I’ve been off of work now for five weeks or something a long time. And I feel as the Time keeps passing, I just want to use Use it in different ways more effectively and just keep on getting better at something. And I’m certainly like, yeah, you’re mentioning Chase. He’s in school, but not in school, but working all the time. There’s a lot of people who have no extra time right now. In fact, like you, I think you mentioned to me previously that your time is just being spent differently. Like Lucas, the eight year old, you’re now homeschool teacher for a part of the day, most days or every day. So there’s, there’s people right now that are working their jobs still and suddenly are also teachers. So I keep that in mind. Totally. I have way more time than normal. Some people have way less time than normal. But if it’s not right now, there there are times in our lives where things happen like for me, and I guess for you personally, the pandemic hasn’t hit me hard in some way because, like for us we’re not. We’re not damaged too much. I know the world is a lot of people are, but I tend to think there are going to be times My life when something awful happens to me or to someone else. And when that happens I’m, that’s when I’m going to allow for whatever I need to do to deal with it in times like right now I know what’s happening. But for me not really then I need to use this time well, because at some point I’m going to lose time to some traumatic thing that might happen to someone and I’m just I know that’s a part of life.

Chuck Carstensen 30:27
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re right with Not, not everybody has more time now some, as you know, but you can also obviously get sucked in and doing things that don’t benefit you and it’s not for us to say what’s good for you What’s bad for you. I haven’t been a person who’s who relaxes a lot that’s I can name like, 10 things my wife gets upset me about one of them’s that like I’m normally always working or doing something and, and I don’t even that I’m on social media profiles. You see me post stuff I’m not on there, like going through a whole lot of stuff, to see what’s happening in the world. I just kind of plug away because it’s just hard for me to keep up yes I yeah the homeschooling things been a little bit frustrated but i think i think we’re starting to get it last week I found a dial in the Lucas was a bear cat or something vicious the early in the week and then now he figured out like, okay, Daddy’s not gonna let me do what I want unless I get my stuff done then he flip the switch and like okay like I’m gonna do this really well and as fast as possible and then I’m going to get to go do what I want to do and then then it goes better and then I’m doing this and he’s doing what he wants to do right now. So yeah, so to kind of open it up on your in your your you’ve got a lot of stuff going on to prove your podcasts or get to know different things about your podcast and, and you this is your third time you did one of these lives, right?

Curt Carstensen 31:48
Yeah. Live to Facebook. I’d previously dabbled a little bit on YouTube with people that were already like professional YouTubers, basically. But on Facebook I decided to bring it over here and and Try it differently, and each time trying to do a little bit better and learn from it.

Chuck Carstensen 32:04
Yeah, and I think, you know, when we talk about people have more time, there’s less outside of the house entertainment to do you know, you can’t go to a restaurant, you can maybe go to some of the parks and walk around, can’t go to a sporting event, and there’s not going to things you can’t do. So people’s entertainment could come from something like this and, and things like this, I think are are, you know, hopefully it were interesting or funny or enough people notice like, oh, let’s see what they say. But I don’t know. You know, I know some people are more in the news than I am and I don’t watch news much and I haven’t even looked at it for a few days because it just seemed for a while I check it for like nine minutes and be all the same stuff. I go to CNN, go to Fox News and see what they’re both posting. Like that’s I don’t think that’s where people I get they post. They do what they do to get people to watch it. Like people should probably get their media from each other from what’s really happening in the world. Instead of having all their entities dictate their mindset. That’s why when I talked about all the stuff I do mentally, emotionally, spiritually to kind of build my mindset, you can’t have one of them as much of them otherwise it’s going to be harder. And I think this kind of media, which we’re doing now, you get to know people and you can find out what’s really happening. Like if somebody was on there earlier watch the recording was wondering about real estate, they could talk to 10 different people and get 10 different answers. Now, they might not know who to trust, but they could, if they really wanted to, they can look up, you know, numbers, statistics reviews on us, and then look up one of their buddies that doesn’t do much business and things like that guy probably knows what he’s talking about more, but at least they have different feedbacks to try to make their own decision based on their situation intuition. Or if you just watch the news media, they would post pending sales down 30% people think well, that means houses are down 30% No, that just means less people when you know listed and sold and are moving, which makes sense. Why would you know it’s only down 30% that’s not bad when you’re supposed to say so. So that’s that’s one thing I wanted to I don’t know just came to

Curt Carstensen 34:01
Thank you. It’s something that came to me is I think we all are at risk of being very inactive with like, we have an idea but then we don’t do anything about it. I’m I just noticed myself on the screen again, like, my hair has not been this short in 15 years at least. And hair salons have been closed for coming up on five weeks, maybe something like that, at least in Minnesota and no in a lot of places. And it wasn’t like I desperately needed a haircut. But for the first time in ages, I had the thought like, maybe this is a good time to shave my head. The problem was that thought stuck with me for almost a week. And every time that thought came back to me, I had to like think about the pros and the cons. Why should I do it? What if it looks awful or whatever, right, the things that I was concerning myself with, and I realized I’m gonna do it anyway, at some point I really

Chuck Carstensen 34:57
I think you look a little more badass with the short hair, so you should have done it early,

Curt Carstensen 35:01
I should have done it early. That’s the other thing about it is I’m very pleased that oh, this is actually a style I could wear in the future. But the point is, and Me, me rambling on about the point, I think serves as a good point as well, when we think about doing things, and we just keep thinking about it, and thinking about it, and keep thinking about it. And every day Think about it. That’s time wasted. I ended up shaving my head anyhow. I could have just made the decision and been done with it. And would have been happened a week earlier. And I wouldn’t have had to like spend time debating to myself whether or not I should do it. And that was just a good reminder to me that I need to decide and do I need to take action. And for some reason that took me too long to just do it.

Chuck Carstensen 35:44
No, that makes sense. So one of the things and we can we sure we can jump around on pivot progress prosper so years ago, like when pretty much right you know, right after I got divorced into working with Remax and then into like the market shift back then when real estate did go down like real estate led the recession back in you know 2008 basically, I got into you know, like personal development way more spiritual growth way more those kind of things and years ago and I did that I wanted to like you learn it I was applying it went alright like even that years ago back 2008 when I was just really getting going in real estate and things went down I actually year over year got better most years other than like 2010 and 2011 were a little tricky. And I attribute a lot of that to my the things I picked up on doing more now again that personal growth spiritual development type of thing. And there was years ago I wanted to want to have classes on it and you know, speak on it do a speaking on and all kinds of things, you know, people get those kind of ideas. And it’s just like every time it would come up like that who’s gonna listen to me and and And I don’t have I’ll figure it out my life still not that you know, it’s a little bit of a mess yet here is not working well or whatever. And I just always kind of like retract that every time and then just recently like my main pivot I think I’ve done this whole time is recently I started getting up like at 5am I was resting a little bit I sleep to like 7am before my cough I’m gonna get everything done get Lucas on track, I gotta get up at five. And we work out now like 630 as a family, we might we might even mention that. So I wanted to get it done before working out. I basically got a journal from Darren Hardy he’s a well known speaker author, personal development guy very, very into like goals and stuff. I got his journal wrote out a bunch of goals. Some of them are quarterly monthly, and I’ve been reviewing every day like okay, what am I doing? What am I not doing? So I do that. Then I have like a book I read that’s like my spiritual development journey and I read it and then it’s like, what I’m gonna do each day and doing like to like, I’m almost writing my own book. Like I read a devotional every day on my own that somebody else wrote like I’m gonna write my own based on kind of what I’m reading what’s going on how I’m feeling that I think would help people and I just started doing that like putting some stuff to pen and paper I don’t know I’ve got like 12 days down or something. And then I thought, well, if I ever wanted to, you know, I do videos a decent amount of time quick on whether it’s about real estate on the real estate page or sweaty Chuck videos on my personal page or other videos. I’ve been doing other videos that that Well, why don’t I actually have this content more written out. So if I ever want to pull from one I, I just have it written out that I’ve ever wanted to do actual course I would have all this stuff written out. I won’t have to rethink it. I could like in six months to a year from now or three months, I would have material ready to go. So one of my pivots. Is, is doing that and the progress is each day, writing some stuff out that I may use to teach share. Who knows it might be a devotional book someday And I’m just sharing this now nobody even knows that my wife I told her, but she doesn’t really listen to what I’m saying. So she she’ll hear this and be like, you’ve never told me about that. But which I did. But I’m just starting that process doing something I, and everybody has this, like, doubted I would ever do. Like, who cares? Who would care, but I’m doing it for myself. Like when I reread what I wrote, like, as a devotion, like, this is pretty good. Like I should read that I should do like, it’s good. Like, it’s good for me. And then it’s like, well, if I do this consistently, I’ll actually have the material to actually use have ever wanted to teach the course, like I thought about 1314 1213 years ago.

Curt Carstensen 39:41
Yeah, I think a lot of our ideas end up tying together if we can, if we can find a way to put them together. And I totally relate to what you’re saying. For one of the things on my wall and the wall over here I have posts, it’s because these are things that I want to do. And like a daily journal, that Someone told me and so I guess I should do it. Now since I’m talking about it. Like just I could do it instead of if I don’t feel like writing a daily journal, I could record it, like, just record my thoughts and then they’re there. And then I could repurpose those in some other way. If they’re actually a good thought maybe one turns into a podcast, maybe one turns into a blog post, maybe I start implementing those onto Instagram or Twitter, whatever I feel like using it or never, I never do, but at least it like exists. I’m capturing my thoughts at a certain time. And maybe there is used for that in the future. And I think we all have, we all have so much to give. And for me before the podcast, I was afraid of like talking and telling my story and now I don’t I don’t concern myself with that anymore. And there’s a hurdle there’s a box, there’s a hump, whatever you want to climb over or get out of. And it’s important to just once you get once you cross over, it seems to just come easier.

Chuck Carstensen 40:55
Yeah, and I think I think the hurdle for me on doing this little thing Shared, which is something that was on my mind years ago, and like I never mind wasn’t that I’m worried if I ever share it with anybody. Or if I ever teach a course, it’s like, if I were to teach a course, the only way I could ever do that, if I actually had the content down in advance, I could like come up with it and spend like 50 hours preparing for it, you know, a month ahead of time, I’d have to do it over time and just be ready for it. So for me, it was like, it’s at worst, it’s helping me grow. It’s kind of like journaling. And at best I got material if there’s a need because with what’s happening in the world and what might happen seven years from now or two years from now, or whatever different thing that happens. There’s going to be skills needed, that just aren’t out there as much as they’re needed. So what skill desire value do you think you can bring to the world that you’ve been prepared for Because opportunity only comes if you’re prepared. And it’s like well yeah, I know that so I should actually be prepared for the opportunity that’s probably more on my heart like somebody else’s thing is different. And that’s what you got to be ready for it. And most people don’t put in the work they just want the results

Curt Carstensen 42:16
and the results results sound nice but every day that I’m I’m working on something new as I’m staying at home it’s like this some of this really takes some work in it. It feels good though to accomplish something and I think that’s that’s a human feeling that most people a lot of people everybody can can feel is like I did that and that that was something I can be proud of that I’ve actually pushed forward and accomplish this thing.

Chuck Carstensen 42:43
And I think some of the downside of a like a social media or stars on YouTube or whatever is you see that these young people or whoever in a year or two years built up a following you like you think it’s gonna take to be a star but no YouTubers have done to get there quick. They probably only haven’t taken a few years. But like, if you’re a professional athlete, you’ve probably been working on that most of them, since they’re a little kid, that was your best thing you always played more than the other kids. And for 1517 years, it was your favorite thing to do. You worked on it. So by the time you got old enough, you could be the best at it. 17 years later, when it was your time to get drafted or get a scholarship or whatever, most people don’t realize it actually does take 13 to 20 years of real work to get where you want to go on some of these other things that aren’t, you know, aren’t publicized, just your normal getting better. It takes a while, which probably is discouraging when I tell somebody to take a long time. But if you actually look into it, most people successes actually come way far into trying things that work, don’t work failures falling down, get back up failing again. And then finally, because they were consistent, learned growed and advanced and and then they finally get where they want to go.

Curt Carstensen 43:59
The word is obsessed or obsession, individuals that many of them that end up being like the greatest in the world, that’s something they’ve just been obsessed for years. Yeah, they’re naturally gifted in some ways, but they it is their obsession to keep getting better and to be the best and, and that’s how they get there. Chuck I want to transition to, as I’m thinking about about Austin, some of the funny things that were involved in because I did promise some more laughs So, here’s, there’s probably a difference between me and you and me and a lot of people I’ve recognized one of the opportunities that I’ve taken advantage of, like I travel a lot, normally once every month, once every couple months, is one of the ways the two ways that I realized that I’m able to do that is I have pretty affordable rent and my renting situation is is pretty low. And then also when I travel, I I tend to stay places that are like very affordable. And that’s just the way I do things. I think if I can Sleep for cheap I gets us to do so much more I did the math earlier figure between if I would feel like I need my own nice apartment and have that myself or have my own house compared to my situation now which is actually pretty good and if I’d say a nice hotels when I travel I’d be spending $10,000 a year or more more on all these things which some people can they can do that if they have the money fine. I feel like that 10,000 goes to all my travels and everything else that I do and I you know I really like that strategy for myself and maybe someone else can pick up on that as well but when it comes to you traveling with me like this is my habit all I’ll find an Airbnb This place looks pretty nice good reviews. So we’ve now gone on three Minnesota Vikings road trips, and more recently we went to a Michael Bernoff event to see when I together got an Airbnb so I think maybe four times we’ve gotten Airbnb together and maybe I’ve picked them out every time thinking back three times you and I shared a bed Some of the times the bed hasn’t been that big. And one other time we ended up in like single twin beds. So

Chuck Carstensen 46:08
like for seven year olds,

Curt Carstensen 46:09
yeah seven year old so I can sleep anywhere. Six, five plus, I forget I’m kind of selfish in that way. Okay, I can sleep anywhere. This will be fine. So I asked Chuck Is this okay? And maybe you’re too kind of those moments you just say yeah, you’ll deal with it. But you are six five and much bigger guy and probably don’t sleep as easy everywhere. So what which of these Airbnb ease is was the toughest for you?

Chuck Carstensen 46:33
Um, I don’t know, I can adapt a lot. I mean, we’re only going for a couple days. So we do enough activities during the day that I probably sleep better. They’re walking far using our mind and it’s like, Okay, I’m tired. I’ll sleep so I’m capable of sleeping in those things. But yeah, wouldn’t be my favorite. You know, when we stayed in Los Angeles in those little kids beds, basically. That was probably the worst one. You know, the ladies there. She was fine but her house was a mess like and you know had a pool so that was nice It was not too far from the stadium that was that was okay so I see what you picked that wasn’t complaining and it looked nice yeah and online but that was one of those like um yeah, I don’t know.I don’t know. So it worked out fine

Curt Carstensen 47:21
it worked okay yeah that sometimes you got to do a lot of research I thought that was closer to the statement was and the photos didn’t show the like the the hoarder that she was living there and you know, whatever we survived and we had a fun time out there

Chuck Carstensen 47:35
Pittsburgh I think I that was fine. I think the bed was bigger there and we’re right down the road from the the busing and or whatever train thing you took in I thought that was cool. I mean, it to me that was like the first time I stayed at Airbnb and I thought okay, I could do this again. So that one wasn’t too bad. It was a nice old house and works.

Curt Carstensen 47:53
Occasionally I freeze, you’re freezing. You’re if you’re freezing, I’m waiting for you. Maybe you think that I’m freezing too and

Chuck Carstensen 47:59
and I Well, hopefully The audio comes through but I’m sure the videos like me still shots every once in a while so

Curt Carstensen 48:03
the the people that make these video and audio streams they do a good job of or I don’t know if they build it in this way but every time you freeze at least to me then like your voice goes really really fast after to catch up to the video. So it’s pretty slick we just kind of be patient and then and then you come through

Chuck Carstensen 48:18
Yeah, so and then the last one we stayed at was a nice house nice area but that was a smallest bed basically. We I mean, I don’t I was when we go to burn offs I sleep well so it works fine because we it’s you know, go all day mentally, normally exhausts you in a good way. But yeah, we were pretty much I couldn’t even sleep that close to my wife Curt so and, and I sleep at that close to you.

Curt Carstensen 48:48
Well, in the future you can we can do something different. You can definitely just tell me they don’t wanna share a bed with me every night.

Chuck Carstensen 48:55
At least you’re not like Lucas. Lucas is like I did a speech years ago. might remember kung fu Lucas he if he doesn’t much come in our bed but he’s eight years old sometimes he will he’ll sleep upside down he’ll kick us in the head he’ll like Landon or midsections he’ll lay on top of us now that’s horrible. Yeah, I was like a huge kid so

Curt Carstensen 49:20
when I’m sleeping next to someone like like you I don’t know that I really move at all I somehow I don’t want to I just want to like take my space and I sleep and it works out okay for me. I’m gonna put something on the screen here because we mentioned Michael Bernoff a few times. We’ll see if this works. I don’t know if it’s working. It’ll pop up in a moment if it does it does

Chuck Carstensen 49:41
for the listeners who are listening to the recording after this what do they do?

Curt Carstensen 49:44
Yeah, so theactioncall.com that’s what Michael Bernoff has been promoting for weeks and I know I’ve gotten a few people to go to the action call calm and do the the call his call to action which I did for the first time. Several years ago, and that was we talked and we ended the previous podcast episode way back Episode Two. For me. This is Episode 74, I think, where I’ve been in Toastmasters now for the last three years working on my public speaking trying to be aware of my speech patterns and how I can be more effective or be more entertaining or any combination of those things. And that was one of the things also I ended up volunteering for a couple years. I don’t do it anymore for the time being. But I got into volunteering because I took this call to action. Normally it costs hundreds of dollars, but as a way to as they pivoted at the human communications Institute, they’re doing this for free like every week or two, it’s five days in a row just on your phone an hour so each either Morning or night. I think they may have changed it a little bit but go to that website and theactioncall.com as a way to promote something that’s obviously been a very important thing to us is getting involved with our personal growyh, maybe there’s all kinds of ways to do that. But the one that we found together and shared as a family is working with Michael Byrne often in his organization.

Chuck Carstensen 51:08
Now, yeah, I’ve done that twice and it’s helped me. You know, you mentioned volunteering and going to Toastmasters. I would say that stepping outside of your comfort zone, typically you have to do something you don’t really want to do or step away outside of your comfort zone. When you’re doing a pivot. If you don’t have to, that’s fine. But a lot of times it’s not even really the stepping out of the comfort zone is the actual thing it’s the get you to now be better at just doing other things that are uncomfortable. So that was one of the big things I got out of it. You know, a few years ago when I did it is doing things outside of my comfort zone that I outside of my routine and and just trying them and playing around and having fun with it.

Curt Carstensen 51:50
And you build on your past experiences like those are the two things that directly did in the weeks following the call to action that I did a few years ago, but the podcast came from that and other things I’ve done came from that. And it was just that little push that I needed to start doing things that maybe had considered, but was too afraid to do so it was great for me and the fact that he’s offering and free to basically whoever can sign up and do it. If you have any interest in personal growth, go to that website, the action call comm and check it out a little information there and sign up totally free. No strings attached. So absolutely do that. It’s NFL Draft night tonight, jack. So I figure we can talk about that briefly. Not that either one of us, I don’t think follows it closely anymore, but it’s relevant to the world that we’re in like there’s not been live sports in this country for four or five weeks now. And there might be I think in June PGA golf is gonna start but the biggest moment in American sports in it’s normally one of the bigger things of the year but right now it’s probably me so huge night it’s, you know, it’s gonna be all the coaches and genomes from their own basements or whatever they’re doing. So that’ll be interesting to see a little bit of that how they do that with so many people and teams involved. But the NFL draft is happening. But that’s about it because no live sports and for me, Chuck, you know, we you, if anyone Did you got me into sports years ago and I love all sports. I watch a lot less now than I used to. But I’m finding I’m okay. Like, I’m not in control of anything. But if there’s no sports for a while, to me, that’s, that’s okay. Because it’s one less distraction so I can focus my time elsewhere. And then I’ll enjoy sports again later whenever they come back.

Chuck Carstensen 53:38
Yeah, I think we talked the other day I haven’t missed it. You know, I’m a big sports fan all my life, huge sports fan. And then you know, when you get kids like I have, you’re watching their sports and that kind of takes precedence over the other sports and then my wife wants my time and, and if I watch sports instead of spend time with her like she gets she lets me know about So, over the years I’ve not watched as much sports but it’s my choice. And now I I’m not actually missing it too much. I thought the twins would win the World Series this year. Maybe they’ll have a season. That was going to be my pick. I was going to pick that and then it’s like, well, this happened and there was nothing, nothing to pick. yet. I just thought some things were lining up the Astros were having, you know, whatever they’re going through with their cheating the Yankees had a bunch of pitchers hurt, their hitters keep getting hurt and cash. You know, we made some sneaky little moves that don’t seem great. But if if somehow and we have young players, they got a little bit better and some of the other guys stayed the same and the pitchers got a little bit better, we’d be really good. So I missed the fact that the twins would probably be good, but I don’t have a ton of time to watch them. Like you said, I have split season tickets with the Timberwolves. I was getting sick ago and those games are just horrible. Lucas loves to go and I love to go but it just is. And I thought about watching the draft tonight. And that kind of shows I haven’t watched sports forever. So watch the draft. I don’t know if I will just because I say my wife up for an extra job and she’s at the job today. So I won’t see her till later. And I I want to spend time with her so, so I probably won’t watch that. But yeah, I haven’t missed him that much. I will be glad when they’re back. But just when you prioritize the kids, sports and other things going on, it is busy. There’s a lot there’s, there’s a lot of stuff to do out there a lot of choices.

Curt Carstensen 55:27
And even though it’s so different right now, no sports, there’s, there’s you can fill that time you’re going to fill, we’re always going to fill the time with something there’s 24 hours of the day. Regardless, we’re filling it with something when something goes away. So let’s circle back to the pivot progress and prosper. We I think we spent a lot of time talking about pivot. And I think alluding to progress in prosper. But is there anything else involving either one of those two that you wanted to point out here as we we get close to the end and that we We get into the being wrong segment here in just a few moments. Um,

Chuck Carstensen 56:05
yeah. So hopefully we gave a couple examples of pivoting. And it’d be cool again, if people watch this video on YouTube in the future when we tag it to Facebook, you know, name common now about what you’ve done to pivot doesn’t there’s no right answer here. Just a little change of direction you’ve done to keep things going or to feel better or get healthier. I mean, a little, I guess, pivot we’ve done as a family I mentioned before, about 623. We’re getting on zoom by 630 current. My sister Michelle, myself, my wife, Melissa and Chloe’s joined us, the other kids haven’t we kind of like live live video work that we do our own workouts, but we’re working out together. And that was to help get us up at a certain time and that that’s a subtle pivot and then the progress is you get big muscles, right Kurt? You’re getting big muscles, yet.

Curt Carstensen 56:59
bigger muscles I need to stop overcompensating with my eating. I think that happens a little bit too. But that for me, it’s partly the exercising I was already exercising in some ways but to put that at the start of the day, and to be to be done with it to accomplish that by 738 o’clock in the morning, every day that’s big and I’m my sleep schedule is adjusting and my normal, normal non stay at home life. I work overnights and everything’s, everything’s kind of different right now trying to just get on to a normal sleep pattern. But by doing this everyday now for over a week, we go on zoom. We don’t like watching each other workout, really. But we all know that we’re there. We’re counting on each other to be there. And it’s important for me because especially it’s on my zoom, so I’m supposed to be the one to wake up and start the thing. It’s important to have that structure. So I think for someone that’s not quite doing something they want to do, maybe it’s that maybe you do something from a distance with your family that allows you both to accomplish something you’ve wanted to work on.

Chuck Carstensen 58:01
Yeah, so then the prosper thing, which we probably haven’t defined that. So, for me, that’s been one of my favorite words. In fact, years ago when I was, you know, talking about the thing I was talking about earlier about doing stuff. I had this website called the prosperity leader where I post a little bit to a blog, like a reason you know about building your mindset and prosperity for some people as they hear that word is like that means you’re well off financially. And that’s true, but it’s also like a wholeness word. Like you know, I’m into spiritual aspects. There’s a couple of my favorite scriptures mentioned the word prosper. But it says a wholeness word where things in your life are better you’re living the way you want to or on, you know, on the path to living the way you want to, and accomplishing what you’re meant to do. And so prosper and health would be, you’re getting you’re, you’re taking care of yourself, you’ve came from where you’re at currently, or a few months ago. To get to a different goal setpoint and we know with COVID-19 going on, for the most part, healthier, people are going to be less affected by themselves. If you’re in good shape, it’s taken down very, very few people. Now there’s athletes here, get it and they’re struggling here and there. But you know, if they were not in good shape and they get it, they they could be worse worse out, though, in general, you want to have a very prosperous health life that like if you want more years on to the end, good and be able to overcome certain situations, certain illnesses that come up, and you want to elevate your prosperity in health and that’s what we’re doing when we work out. When you pivot in a business or something like that. You want to find ways to keep the economy your economy going, based on the pivot because what for a lot of business like if you’re a restaurant, like you have to pivot Are you Is there a restaurant probably doing better now than before, probably not. But there could be one that pivoted enough that is getting enough prosperity to get through this. And then the other thing is and Michael Burnham talks about this a lot, you if you’re going through this now and it’s something new to you, you now want to change your active actions. So that the next time something like this comes along, you are in a position to prosper. Like the next time real estate goes down. Wouldn’t everybody like to have lots of money to buy houses low so they their higher and the new sell them later? Yes. Or buy in the stock market when it’s low. You want to be in a position but most people aren’t in that position. They’re more check to check. Like, like you said earlier like, you know, I think you said like, well Chuck and I aren’t that affected by it. I’m guessing from April to June. Let’s say this is like our re on leash in July. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. But let’s say that is I’m guessing my income from potential income from April to juwan three months, probably would go down $100,000 like, literally, I’m going to lose $100,000 over what it would be if this didn’t happen. Now most people if they said I lost $100,000 that’d be like crazy, lots of money to lose. And I still have a good attitude about it. I’m not even worried about it. But I worked hard enough and did all right, where I can not earn $100,000 and still make it through it and be alright, not where I want to be. But I can do that. Because I’ve learned from other times, that it didn’t go well to be a little bit better position. But then I also realized when I met this mission, and now like, wow, I have to tweak these things. So I like like, you like I like I’m in a different position next time. So there, there is a lot of stuff to understand when we have these things like COVID-19 happen. How can you get yourself in a better position for the next time this happens, so you’re not as effective by everything going Or whatever happens that time. And you that’s what you want to work on what you need to work on now and find a way to be prosperous, and be able to utilize what you’ve learned the next time this happens or whatever it is that happens. Does that make sense? Or am I totally, it makes

Curt Carstensen 1:02:16
sense because something’s always going to happen. This is affecting more people at one time, in ways than anything in maybe world history. I possibly because it’s a global thing that almost every country is dealing with. And it’s impacting people either directly with a health reason, or their finances or work or home situation. It’s impacting everybody. So we’re all kind of doing it at once. But when this when we get through it, whenever it is, when things are back to a new normal, whatever the new normal is, individually, stuffs always gonna happen. So when that next thing happens to each one of us, can we sustain it and what can we do to be prepared to get through it and if You know, we can’t wait maybe we don’t know how that’s when you need to keep on finding a way to learn to do different talk to people. Listen, read, do the the action call, like whatever, because we’re all in the mindset that we’re currently at. And that that that’s our average. And that’s Michael burn off does average average sucks. We’re all we’re right where we’re at right now. And that’s, it’s okay. But it’s still average. And if you just stay right where we’re at, what’s gonna happen to us in the future is just going to keep on being similar to what’s happening now. So if you’re okay with what’s happening now, then I guess good. But if you’re not, then there’s more that needs to be done.

Chuck Carstensen 1:03:39
So one of the things I used to do when I worked out at a gym I would when I run, maybe I’d just walk I don’t know I get so sweaty. Now the earbuds fall out I gotta find a new system for that. But I would watch little videos on my phone for inspiration and maybe have my earbuds and this is a few years ago, and one of the videos I play over and over Quite often, I don’t even know the title. It was like five minutes I play music show different pictures of like movie star like movies, overcoming stuff. And the thing that stuck out and I say to chase and chase repeats it back to me all the time. You do what hard if you do what’s hard, your life will be easy. If you do what’s easy, your life will be hard. And if your life isn’t going the way you want is because you’ve been taking an easier path. And and then when things happen, it gets hard. If you do what’s hard, your life gets easy. Like I don’t feel like I’m all I’m to the easy spot. At least I was to the spot where I can get hit hard and get back up and be totally fine. Like we were doing. We had like nine months of really good month. So it was like okay, I can take a couple, two three months blow here and we just were back to back to back to even par and here we go again. And then you I could go longer so then you have to be ready to pivot on other things, too. So. So the thing is, most people don’t want to do what’s hard to work. I’m not even saying people should do because it is kind of hard like, getting up at 5am going through my goals, then reading an inspirational book, then getting my own inspiration, and writing down stuff that nobody may read. or several weeks from now, I may post a video on and 13 people watching somebody will give me the middle finger, I don’t know. But that’s, I’m just doing it for myself. And then we’re doing a workout. And then it’s like distance learning with Lucas and then I’m calling a bunch of people and trying to make sure we have a decent amount of business going with everything going on. And then there’s something I forget and normally it’s my wife reminding me that I need spend more time with her and then and then I gotta get better at that. Yeah, when am I gonna? When are we gonna get better at that so you know, we all got our stuff and and we need to work out And we I guess we need to limit distractions. I think the big thing about COVID like entertainments kind of distraction and a lot of the entertainments been ripped away, but it hasn’t affected me much because I don’t do entertainment that much so I know you want to last on this curve but I’m not very funny and work hard and don’t do fun stuff like like you do although I do have one funny story I’ll share for fun if you want me to at some point.

Curt Carstensen 1:06:23
Yes, you want to do the being wrong segment and we’ll close with a funny story. So Chuck, is there since Episode Two that was October of 2018. You appeared in The New York cameo when chase your son was on with me? That was last June when we did the Spartan Race. What What can you add? I know you’ve listened to many or most or all of my podcast episodes. What something now that you’re looking back that you were wrong about? He changed your mind about that sharing that particular story you think will be useful?

Chuck Carstensen 1:06:54
Do you remember my being wrong the first time What was that about? Did you lie

Curt Carstensen 1:06:57
I do kind of remember it was Like judging other people, based on just observing people and being kind of negative about, you know, because you don’t know what’s going on in their life, but you can’t use it again.

Chuck Carstensen 1:07:11
Yeah, no, no, I wasn’t gonna bring that I’ve gotten better at that. I’m not perfect at that. But that’s, that’s a big one. I would say the biggest thing that I was wrong about that that’s what I’m making the adjustment now is even with doing all this personal development, spiritual development, I could still have a negative mindset. So that’s not I’m wrong about what other people are doing wrong about how I’m I was handling like, so the reason I’m more prepared for COVID-19 and some off months is because a little over a year ago, we hit like, several last months, it was just bad. And what I realized is I was my mindset wasn’t where it needed to be even negative self talk. And, and probably that was, you know, around around the time when I shared not judging other people. So a lot of times What I would catch myself doing and what a lot of people do is you’re doing the work to improve during doing the work to improve segment of your day, but then you go on your rest of the day and do the normal way of being or your old way of being way more often than you want to. So I think that’s a safe time for some people to get traction. Some people can do it right away, and it goes well. So to make it more clear is like even that now I’m getting up at 5am and then working it out at 630. I’ve got it more it’s worth I’m working on it. I’ve got a more dialed in that is just a natural part of my DNA. Now maybe not natural because I’m almost reprogramming myself. You know, if you talk about reprogramming that doing the work is not the same doing the time and the studies going to the class is not the same as being the class being The material practicing the material. So what you learn personally spiritual development workout wise, you have to also continue to be that during the day more often than not instead of just okay I did that part I put that book down I read about something and they go on and be a dickhead. So now just so you know my wife and I say still jacket sometimes but but I’m better at most things that I get I feel like my mindsets way higher like I think of this happened a year and a half ago I’d be like out of the business or something it would be really bad. So it takes a lot of awareness to understand your whole my whole thought process. So what I was wrong about would probably be how I approached personal and spiritual development before and how I segmented out and then went about my day and some days just forgot about it. I made it more part of my you know, minute to minute moment to moment. Experience now

Curt Carstensen 1:10:01
So you’re saying even though you’ve made a point to get really good at these things and work hard at it, you’re wrong about thinking that it’s going to come easy all the time and you’re wrong about not keeping it a priority as often as you could.

Chuck Carstensen 1:10:15
Yeah, I would say so it doesn’t come naturally. For me, none of this stuff comes naturally. For me, I’ve had to do it. So I’ve had to, like I’ve had to basically like, okay, so they say, you know, and you go all over the world, right? And you know, you don’t know different languages, right? But if you had to live somewhere for years, you know, the language if you just do it in a classroom for an hour and your Spanish class and then do it a couple semesters and then go away, and no practice, it’s gone. That’s not that extreme. But if I just practice writing gratitudes out for 10 minutes and go around, doing the opposite of writing gratitudes or if I practice like You know, read something that that’s really good. I’ll do that some other time and then go about I read that book about gold. I read that book about improving my business. I read that book about improving my health. I, I did the video. I did one workout, like, like, you have to make it part of your being, I guess, is what I’m saying. And I’m not saying I wasn’t trying to do that. I just, I think it’s something that um, I thought I I thought I had it more figured out than I did like, Hey, I’m this guy who does all this stuff. So I’m farther ahead but I probably might have been a little bit farther but it really wasn’t had to be more part of me. So I know that’s a weird being wrong segment. That’s the only thing that came to mind because you asked me earlier I couldn’t think of anything and then I was like, yeah, you know what, I’m really wrong about how how I did this not in a negative way in a way that it probably just slowed down my progress.

Curt Carstensen 1:11:54
What you’re saying that is all this talk about this positive self growth, personal growth, talk to me Doing for most of the last hour or so that we’re still not that good at it. You’re not as good as you want to be as you think you should be. And I know I’m not but I it is a focal point of my life getting better. And I’m glad I do it.

Chuck Carstensen 1:12:14
Yeah, maybe like being wrong segment fit the segment isn’t perfect. So it’s not wrong about doing it. It’s just wrong about just doing it for 30 minutes and then doing the rest of the day, like, practice it throughout the day, any way you can is what I’m saying. And that was probably if I had to explain it in less than 30 seconds. That’s probably what I should have said. But then, I don’t know if anybody got it anyway. But maybe that

Curt Carstensen 1:12:36
hopefully, Chuck, what’s the story that you were thinking about one one fun story to close, and we’ll see what I think of it.

Chuck Carstensen 1:12:44
Well, this this is definitely like a truly being wrong. So so you travel up to the north shore once a year with my wife’s family and just a few years ago, I think she had an appointment when she was working at like pine county or a meeting and like, hey, we’ll meet you will park at the casino they probably won’t tow our car because there’s 24 hours and there’s cars always there. So I’ll just park it there. So we parked it there did our three, four days up on the North Shore. You know, stopped at a brewery on the way back andyeah, I had a couple 13-14 and probably a couple I don’t know now that bad anyway, or at least I did. Anyway, she drove down to Hinkley and then you’d have a few drinks from Hinkley, from Duluth to Hinkley. You have to go to the restroom. So if anybody’s ever been to Grand Casino Hinkley, you’re going to know what I’m talking about. I think a couple people are probably done this. But especially after having a couple beers and Emma lightweight, it doesn’t take me much. I go and I have to pee really bad. I go in and the door I went in there’s like men’s and women’s bathroom sign right? But it’s almost like they go opposite way. So I just looked into them in men’s here and I just walked in. I’m like God, there’s a lot of stalls in this bathroom. I’m like, I must be in the wrong section. But I have like there’s the stalls here and then maybe the urinals On the other side, but I had to go bad I just walked right into a stall I had to go bad. So I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll say here women in the bathroom. Oh my god, I’m in the wrong room. These ladies are like, oh, we’re gonna check out my hair in the mirror and there’s a couple there’s only a couple in there, thankfully, so I ducked out, and I’m like a gigantic guy in the stalls I probably stuck outside duck down and I don’t think anybody saw me and I’m peeking out like they’re gonna leave. Sure enough this little lady comes right next to me. It’s like 12 stalls right next to me. Like oh, no, she’s gonna see my feet so I just don’t move and I sit there. I think I sat down inside there. So I got it like size 14 feet. It wants to not look down or you know, old ladies get into their gambling. And okay, so finally she’s done. No, no, I know what happened. She sat down. And there’s somebody like at the mirror washing their hands while she sat down. That person left I quick open the door, Sprint out, hoping Before she gets out of the stall about the time I turned the corner she got out of the stall there’s a man in your Oh my god, there’s a man in here. And I just ran straight out the door straight to my car drove them to Cambridge and I didn’t go back to the casino for like a year and a half because of that, because I thought they probably have me on camera like, wanted sign.

Curt Carstensen 1:15:22
You’re probably banned from there.

Chuck Carstensen 1:15:24
No, I went back after that. nobody did anything after a year and a half, but oh,

that’s hilarious, Chuck. Well, that’s a good one to end on. I don’t know. I’ve actually walked through the door of the wrong bathroom. I’ve never actually went into the stall, unknowingly and then realized in the wrong bathroom.

Yeah, yes. So yes. And this long enough where I long enough ago where i don’t i don’t think it’ll have any repercussions.

Curt Carstensen 1:15:50
Chuck. Thanks for doing this with me today. And I will post links to all of your real estate stuff and some of the Michael burn off topics that we talked about. So people listening back or watching back can find some of that. And any any final thoughts before we go and get back to the rest of your day?

Chuck Carstensen 1:16:10
You know, I appreciate you watching. Definitely I’ve listened to every one of Curt’s podcasts. But one, there’s one I haven’t listened to that, you know, I haven’t really listened to mine. But I, you know, I listened to him once, basically. But I, I there’s only one other 74 this is number 74. I haven’t listened to it. And then a lot of times I do it when I’m driving around. So he has a lot of different unique guests, different backgrounds, and different different adventures. And there’s people you’ll learn about different cultures, different ways of being different thought processes. And it’s just it’s entertaining from the standpoint of you get to meet different people and you get to open up like Curt’s a cool guy that he has a lot of people he knows and pretty cool that he has a diverse, diverse sphere sphere of people that he talks to, so I recommend tuning into other ones. Even if there’s not a super funny guy like me, which which again, I couldn’t be funny if I did less work and more fun stuff like Curt, I’d be super funny advice, Curt.

Curt Carstensen 1:17:09
I think so you’d be way funnier than your Chuck. Thanks, Chuck. Of all the people I know on the world today. Hey, my brother was my guest. So thanks a lot.

Chuck Carstensen 1:17:18
Yep. All right. Bye, everybody.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai