Episode 9 Trevor Current Talks Web Development, Business and Health with Rob Cairns

Episode 9

 

00:37

Hey everybody, Rob Cairns here. Today's is the SDM Interview Show with just with my good friend, Trevor Current. Trevor is a professional web designer who runs an agency. And in today's episode, we're talking about Trevor starting your own business. And Trevor's health journey, and the creation of a Facebook group to help web professionals with their health needs. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride, said talk to Trevor occurrent.

 

01:12

Hey, everybody, Robert Cairns here with my friend, Trevor current. Today, we're gonna just talk about a little bit about Trevor's business, his journey in life and a little bit more. Hi, Trevor, how are you today? I'm doing great. Rob. How are you? doing? Good. Thanks. So I know, you know, you and I've talked to a while we're talking a little bit before we did this recording. And we've talked, I guess, on Facebook for some time now. Shout out to our friend Kimball for having the amazing content creators group because that's where you and I first met, so that's right. And, and you sent me a pretty short bio and an extent bio, why don't you just kind of summarize it? And tell us a little bit about yourself what you do? How you do? Yeah, sure, sure. So I am a professional graphic designer, I've been in the design industry for over 28 years, I have primarily focused on print, you know, brochures, collateral packaging, we've done a lot of consumer packaging work.

 

02:18

That was probably for 20 years of my career. And in 2010, I actually got laid off from my job. After 17 years, the economy, as everyone knows, kind of took a dump there. And, you know, as somebody with 20 years of experience, it's not super easy to go out and find a job. Because at that, at that point, I'm at the same level as a lot of agency owners, you know, and they are not looking to hire somebody with 20 years of experience. So, took the lemons made some lemonade, I started my own agency. And, you know, as with all new businesses, you know, it's a little slow, go for a while. And, you know, it's been picking up really nice over the years in 2018 was our best year ever in business. And it's definitely been been a journey. Sometimes it's struggle, but we're feeling good now. Good. That's a good thing. And and it's funny when you mentioned 2010, because that's about the time I started my own agencies. So there's a lot of similarities there. That's when a lot of layoffs happened in the public and the private sector and things change.

 

03:28

You know, sometimes when you have to grow their money, you do what you got to do like this just the way it is, right? Yeah, that's right. That's right. I mean, I, I had already been dabbling in the WordPress space. Starting in 2009, I had created a photography blog, it was basically something where I could, you know, share my thoughts and ideas about the industry, some, you know, some tips and how tos because I you know, I've also have professional training as a photographer. So it was kind of a little hobby thing. And as I'm dabbling in WordPress, this is pretty cool. And, you know, I started learning more about frameworks, because frameworks are really kind of just starting to come into play then. And I started with one called, I think, builder, yes.

 

04:13

And it was really kind of revolutionary for what I could do. And the flexibility I had, I'm like, Wow, this is great. I can actually now design a homepage or design a website and Photoshop and then take that layout and actually build it in WordPress. I mean, this was like, earth shattering because everything else was pre made templates. And you, you know, you could change some logos and some colors and stuff and that really was kind of it so so, you know, that's kind of how the whole website of it started. I you know, I pretty much transition to 100% Digital now. I really don't do any print work anymore. Other than my own stuff. And, you know, and yeah, we still do design obviously for the site. We'll do a logo design, if you know if someone has the

 

05:00

for it, and we will create other graphic elements as needed. But yeah, we're pretty much 100% websites now. It's funny how you how you mentioned, I think they've gone through some transition

 

05:15

they recently had was liquid web bought them in the last year. And as of last month, many of us know Corey Miller quite well. He's been in the community for a long time. And he's pretty been pretty helpful to people in the community. And he's actually no longer with liquidweb as of, I guess, last month now, it's Yeah, I think he did his one year transition. And then he was out. Yeah, I actually, it's funny. You mentioned you started with I think is built or the framework I started with back in 2010, was a framework called headway, which is, yep, kind of gone by the wayside. And they went through some mismanagement issues, we'll call them a, I think what they had their issues was they got into too many people with grandfathered in lifetime licenses, maybe. And they the revenue screen became

 

06:06

interesting to say the least. But they were kind of the really the first one as we go into the Gutenberg era, there have mentioned blocks, and they they were all based on the concept of blocks back then. Right. Right. For anybody else wants, interestingly enough, so yeah, you know, they had the model, they just didn't have the marketing and the business behind the model, if you know what I mean. So, yeah, yeah, there's, you know, a lot of these SaaS companies that come out with these, you know, lifetime deals and stuff like that, I mean, they really need to control that, because that will come back to bite them, at some point, if they can't convert these, these people that own these licenses into, you know, upsell them into another product or something there, you know, a big chunk of their their customer base is done, they're done and paid. And now they have to continue to support them for indefinitely. So as we move on to WordPress, we all we all know, security has become a big issue in the last year, more than ever before. And I hate to tell people, it's going to be getting worse. I mean, we and we've seen some hits with some big plugins, the big one being back in November, if you recall, the GDPR plugin that went kind of had all the got pulled from the repository with over half a million installs, because it got hacked. If you recall that one.

 

07:28

I unfortunately, for the first time in eight years got hit by a hack because of that one. So I have European clients. So I had major issues there.

 

07:39

How do you guys handle security? Do you see going away? Do you see it being?

 

07:45

You know? Yeah, yeah, security is huge. And that is definitely something that we, we make our clients very aware of, you know, it's not WordPress is not just to set it and forget it, you know, you really have to stay on top of it, you really have to keep your core updated, you have to keep the plugins updated. And you have to be using plugins from reputable developers and people who are constantly updating, or constantly, you know, keeping not just for features, but for security, they, the developer needs to understand security. So when there is a problem, they know how to fix it. And there's so many plugins out there that just they're not of that caliber. So that's first and foremost, we stay away from any questionable plugins, we only use, you know, you know, we've we've got memberships for several different companies, and they have a business model, you know, they're making money because they have a business model. So I put my trust in them that they're going to continue to develop and maintain, you know, these plugins, and, you know, and then, you know, relying on a security plugin solely, you know, within your WordPress site is not good, either. You know, the, you know, wordfence is great, I theme security is great, and they have their place, and they do their certain duties. But I also think it's important to really look at your server level security, you know, make sure you've got your firewalls in place, make sure that your patches are always done. And this is where managed hosting comes in. Because a lot of people that just go grab a VPS on GoDaddy or something like that, you know, they're not necessarily patching the servers, they're kind of putting it on you is the server, you know, the partition the VPS owner, to to do this type of work. And if you're not on top of security, daily, you will get breached. It's not It's not an if it's a matter of when, and I agree with you, I I kind of have a philosophy of my business. And one of the things I offer is security care plans and knows how I don't use them.

 

10:00

Work maintenance plans. Yep. And and to be honest with you, my slogan is, it's not that you will be hacked, it's when you'll be hacked. And how do you recover from that? And that, to me, is kind of the key out there these days, because everybody's gonna get hacked sooner or later, I hate to tell you. And the other philosophy I go via and you sort of talk about the server side is your web host, especially if you're on the server, or especially if you're on shared hosting has to be part of the solution, as far as right. Absolutely, absolutely. You know, and this is where, you know, I find concern with some of the providers that are out there is, you know, they are selling a pseudo managed solution. And that solution for you know, it's kind of, I think, a little misleading to develop designers, let's say, and developers who are using these services, who are not fully aware of what their, what their duties are, what they need to do. And then, and then they learn real quick when there's a problem and they contact support and support says, Oh, well, we're not responsible for that, you know, you need to take care of that. And then they're left behind the eight ball, you know, and if it's their own personal site, that's bad enough, but let alone a bunch of client sites that you have problems with. So yeah, we don't we don't we don't put our eggs in anybody's basket. They can't. They can't deliver results. That's for sure. Who I know, everybody's got their favorite web host, who is your host of choice?

 

11:44

Do you have one? Well, I mean, obviously, we have our own system. But I mean, if I were to, to recommend somebody suggest somebody I would definitely lean more towards WP engine or flywheel. Because I think they are truly good managed solutions at a premium cost, no doubt. But to that, I say that if you're in business, and your business, your website is important enough to your business, then it's worth making the investment to secure that business to secure that website and to make sure that it's protected. I must admit, over the years I've and I've used both wrench WP and fire engine are both well known. I think it's flywheel not on the recommended WordPress page. If you if you go there for hosting my belief, as of recently, I tend personally to lean towards siteground just but I'm I don't mean on a shared hosting. I run it I run several dedicated boxes. So I yeah, for me, that's and I and the reason I throw them out there is I've had nothing but good support out of them over the years. They Don't slouch off all the little stuff and say oh, by the way, if you want help with this is 50 bucks if you want right right. At five I there's no question that the two you mentioned have the same reputation.

 

13:09

Yeah, no, they in in WP Engine and flywheel are definitely on that premium side, they are more expensive, you can definitely get a really good solution with siteground a lot of people use siteground a lot of people are very, very happy with it. I don't have personal experience with them. But you know, it is a good solution. I know a lot of people are using cloudways right now. Yes. cloudways is becoming like the, the the new buzz term and a lot of our groups that we're in and Yeah, um, you know, some people have great results with them. And some people have horrible results with them. You know, the one my biggest concern is read the fine print. I agree. Because, you know, a lot of their, you know, my understanding their tech support can be fantastic if it's the right problem.

 

14:06

And if it's a problem that their tech support is not ready to handle. I've heard people getting very rude and Curt responses and that Oh, that's not our problem. And yeah, you need to figure that out. And so if you're going into cloudways I you know, again, I think it's a great solution, but you better be prepared to do the work. No, no question and you know, the caveat I would throw out there for anybody listening and I've been touting this one for about four years now is if endurance international group is involved in the hosting, probably want to find somewhere else to go if you're serious about your business website and, and the other company I to like throw in the middle of that and I have a couple friends that work for them. So sorry, guys is GoDaddy is another as far as I'm concerned. And then the third one that I

 

15:00

Kinda throw in there for hosting. Yes, I've been through problems over the years. Is that big monster called one on one calm? Is there another one that I would kind of avoid like the plague if I if I had a choice, but yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. Um, okay, so you talked about giving a WordPress development shop? And what is the most interesting project that you've ever been involved in?

 

15:25

Hmm.

 

15:28

Well, yeah, we just actually, we just redid a website. We completed it last year, for an organization called news media Alliance. They are an organization here in Virginia. And they basically catered to the the news print industry. So whether it be newspapers, magazines, what have you. So they produce a ton of content, a ton of content, the Rebuild of the website required us to basically reformat around 800 posts in Pages Wow. Because they their previous site was built using visual composer. And if anybody's used visual composer, before, you know, that visual composer uses proprietary shortcodes to format the pages. So every page had broken shortcode on it. And it just it was, it was kind of a nightmare. But now the site is rebuilt, it's much faster, it's much cleaner, it's more consistent. And and we're we actually built it using by things builder for the base framework,

 

16:51

which solved most of the page formatting issues. And then for the more complex pages, we dropped in Elementor, and did some really beautiful design work. But what's cool about this is it's a membership site. Okay, so we had to integrate a single sign on with the net forum, Association management system. And that, as you can imagine, has its complexities. As you know, you're trying to make WordPress, you know, a CMS talk with, you know, this database driven application. And there's always some challenges in there, plus, they have other websites, you know, other entities, third party services that they use, that all need to integrate the single sign on. So that was definitely a challenging project, it was a massive project, it took, honestly, what it really should have only taken about two months to complete. But because of approvals and delays and all of the different parties getting involved, they wound up taking like eight months to complete. So, but it was, it was a nice paying project. And it was totally worth doing. So and in fact, we're actually working on a business directory right now, for them, it'll be a sub domain. So it'll be a separate physical site, but it will have the same basic graphic look. And that's going to be a whole directory listing page where vendors can go in and create their listings and stuff. So it's, it's good, it's great stuff. Now, is Elementor, your page builder of choice in your agency? Or do you kind of switch depending on what you're doing? You know, I try to not use a page builder unless we have to. And the reason being is we can, you know, with our framework, we're able to create a lot of the layouts we need without the overhead of a page builder. And it does help to keep it a little bit leaner a little bit faster.

 

18:50

But yes, when we do need a page builder for that extra formatting, we will use Elementor.

 

18:57

I mean, everybody's got their favorites, right. It's either Elementor Beaver Builder WP bakery, choose one. I mean, there's half a dozen. And then yeah, and then you toss in something like Aveda, which has the page builder built into the theme and away you go, right? I mean, right? Everybody's got their own options. The only thing I would say is I tend to develop with the page builder, I would say if performance is an issue, it's probably on the server side, not the page builder site. So go gets real hosting and and fix that problem. We kind of already talked about that.

 

19:32

Yeah. Um, so I want to move on to something. Now, one of the things I really wanted to talk about today was you recently started a group for health issues for web designers on Facebook, which was a great idea. Thank you for starting that. You want to talk about a little bit about your health journey and what you've been through and why you started that group. Yeah, yeah. This is a kind of interest.

 

20:00

Interesting story.

 

20:02

When I was when I was younger, I had just gotten out of college. And, you know, I got my first job at my agency or you know, had an agency and I, you know, I was still single and I had money and time.

 

20:17

Saved no money inside there. Yeah. So, you know, what do you do? Right? So, you know, I was like, Alright, well, some of my friends, they're still in school, you know, I'm, I'm out working. So I went, I joined the gym. You know, I started working out all the time, I, then, you know, now that I've got my own money, I'm like, you know what, I've always wanted to

 

20:39

try karate. So, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go try that and see, see what I see if I like it, you know? So I started training in karate, it was actually October of 1990. Never Forget it. And that, that changed my life. really did.

 

20:59

You know, I was always a thin kid, a little kid, you know, when I, I was just actually telling my son this the other day, when I when I graduated high school, I was five feet nine inches tall. And I weighed 135 pounds at seven at 18 years old.

 

21:17

So, you know, I, I obviously I was little I kept growing, of course in height, but I wasn't getting real big, you know. So it was important to me to start working out. So I started working out I started training in karate, karate, built an incredible amount of confidence. But also with my body type. It allowed me to do a lot of stuff that, you know, I might not have been able to do, you know, under different circumstances. So I really took the karate I trained and trained, I trained diligently for six years and got my I earned my black belt, my first degree black belt. And during that time, I had now grown to be six foot one inch tall.

 

22:08

And 185 pounds of solid muscle.

 

22:11

And I had the endurance, I had the strength and the ability to kick ass. Yeah.

 

22:20

It was good stuff. So you know, then years go on dating, you get married, you buy a house, you have a couple of kids, you have the happy fat sets in, you know, and I put on a couple pounds and everything. But you know, I was still active. I was still doing stuff. I was still training often on, you know, more intermittent for the next 10 years or so.

 

22:44

And you know, and that was pretty good. But you know, it was getting a little heavy. Then

 

22:51

the kids came along. And in 2013.

 

22:57

I had it was like, I was October of 2013, I had a sinus infection. And it was that time of the year of the fall, the cold weather was rolling in. So I went to the doctor to get an antibiotic. And during this time, I've been sneezing a lot. I kept biting my tongue. And it was it was irritating. I kept putting stuff on it to try and numb the pain and whatever. But it really wasn't working. And I said to the doctor, Doc more matter of factly. I said, oh, by the way, it said, you know, look at this thing on my tongue. Yeah. Do you have any thing you can prescribe a little stronger to numb it? He looks at it. And he said, that doesn't look right. He said you need to you you need to go see an oral surgeon. I said, Well, what do you mean? I said, I've just been biting I've been sneezing. And he says, Now he said if you were if it you know, if you were just biting it, it would still heal itself, but it's not healing.

 

23:51

So I went to an oral surgeon. He didn't like the looks of it. He did a biopsy. And a week later I found out it was cancer. And I had been diagnosed that 44 years old with oral cancer. never smoked, never chewed tobacco. Social drinking, right, you know, so no, you know, hard alcohol intake. You know, there was no reason for me to get oral cancer. And my doctors always all said, you know, you're just unfortunately one of the unlucky ones. And apparently this is becoming more prevalent in men in their mid 40s who are getting it for no reason. So, went in for surgery in December. It started radiation in January and

 

24:38

went through six weeks of that. And probably about week three. It was like I ran into a brick wall. I could barely get out of bed in the morning. It was it I was in pain. It was the most horrible experience I've ever gone through. And and you know to say it's

 

25:00

That would be an understatement. So, you know, I made it through I, you know, finished my radiation, I slowly started healing. But because of radiation, it often gives you some wonderful, long lasting side effects.

 

25:19

One of which, for me is severe neck issues. During the radiation, it had contracted all of the muscles in my neck to the point where it was restricting all my esophagus. And my esophagus actually shrank to the point where I was choking on an Advil, Oh, God, um, I had to go in for a procedure to actually have my throat stretched. And the doctor said that my throat was the diameter of a baby, you actually had to use a baby scope to try and stretch it. So needless to say, I couldn't eat right, you know, I was on a liquid diet. So at the time, when I was diagnosed, I was 207 pounds. At six, one, you know, you could see a little around the middle, but I didn't look too bad.

 

26:12

I wound up getting down to 153 pounds. Wow. And if you can imagine somebody of my height at that way, I did not look good. So, you know, a year goes by my metabolism, you know, is still really fast. I'm still burning through food, I'm able to eat more, I had a couple procedures done. And that really helped. So I was slowly putting weight back on. But I'm also getting older right at the same time. So when you get older, you don't heal from things as quickly you don't recover. That's why you you hear all the guys that are, you know, older when they go to the gym, and they pull muscle and it takes like a month for it to heal, you know.

 

26:57

Yeah. So, you know, a couple that on top of it, you know, so it was it was difficult. But I am happy to report that, you know, I'm five years cancer free.

 

27:09

My, for the most part, I'm kind of back to normal. It's never normal. It's the new normal, the new normal, the new normal. And, you know, and I'm doing well, I'm back up to 185. So I really don't have a lot of extra on me, which is good. You know, I feel I feel good. I have a spring in my step. You know, I feel in general, I feel really good. But

 

27:35

the desk job is what has been taking a toll 28 years of sitting in front of a computer or sitting at an artboard you know, applies so much pressure in the low back. it you know, you get the computer neck where you're like leaning in towards the keyboard, you're leaning in towards the the the monitor just like the way you're sitting right now.

 

27:59

I know. You know, it's it's funny because it does take its toll. And absolutely. I've got right now I've got a new chair on order. I actually ordered the gamers chair this week. So that's excellent. I got one on order.

 

28:15

I do go out and stretch more than most people every couple hours I go for a walk.

 

28:20

I've got three little dogs that exist. They go out all the time, or they start barking at me so good. They're like my Savior. I mean, I work from a home office. And I've been so similar. I mean, I had I'm 51 at 41 I

 

28:37

think found that I was diabetic the hard way.

 

28:40

I had been thought well for a long time for about six months, locked into a walk in clinic concerned run diabetic test now. And they ran tests. And in between getting results of those tests. I ended up in the ER almost in a diabetic coma. Wow. I've been through some almost died. Actually, I spent my

 

29:02

41st birthday in critical care. Wow, wonderful me for a day. And then I you know, I kind of looked at them in their big mistake in the hospital. My case was they made the mistake of IV on Windows IV poles on wheels.

 

29:19

So I just kept walking all day.

 

29:22

And I kind of looked at the doctor and doctor said to me you're gonna hurt yourself. I said, No. I want to. I don't want to feel better. Yeah, and yeah, that was that it was in my family really bad. And not only was it in my family

 

29:38

I was in a relationship. The relationship at the time when I was living with somebody was not lost. I had health issues but

 

29:48

the health issues I think some of it was in our head if you know that.

 

29:53

It was dragging my lifestyle down. And I absolutely ya know, I'm out of that.

 

29:59

It

 

30:00

The been outed for three years now, please, I just got, I got married for the first time at 49. And I've gone from 295 to 180 pounds. So, wow, you're, and you're not talking about Justin, I do mine by strictly walking, Yo, I go. The gym, unfortunately for me is boring. If I don't have a ball to chase or somebody to go after, it's doesn't work for me. So I walk every day, and I probably walk five kilometers a day on a daily basis, but you have to do something, you have to do something. That's absolutely right. And, and that really is what my problem has been. So, you know, again, kind of come, you know, compounded with this starting my business in 2010. Kind of having, you know, a slow growth 2013 was looking really good. I landed a couple clients I was doing pretty good on I was like, finally, you know, we're starting to see some some real growth here. Yeah, then I get sick, I basically lost the year of 2014. You know, because between recovery, and just kind of rebuilding, you know, this first six months of the year, were horrible. But the last six months that better. You know, it started with our family summer vacation. You know, and that was kind of a turning point for me to have a better outlook. And that positive energy, you know, think what you will about energy in the universe and all but you know, that positive energy I think started to make a difference. I disagree. I mean, if you, if you hang around people that are negative, you will become negative. I mean, if you hang around negative energy, you become negative. I'm a big believer that I'm a big mindset person. And I really believe 90% of what we do is in the brain, the other 10% is just kind of doing it. So yeah, that's it. They say mind over matter, right? Yeah. So

 

32:03

yeah, so the group, Yeah, yep. So the beginning of the year, this year, you know, everybody was posting their, their new year's resolutions, you know, in our Facebook groups, and everybody was like, This year, you know, I'm gonna get more fit this year, I'm gonna start losing weight this year, you know, all these things? And I'm starting to, you know, sense like, wow, you know, we're really are all in the same boat. I mean, anybody that's been, you know, sitting in a desk for any length of time, you know, we do have a lot of young people in these groups that we're in who haven't gotten there yet. Yes, yes, but the word is yet, they will, if they don't change their lifestyle, they don't change their habits. So I, I saw, you know, I looked around, actually, to try and find a, like a fitness oriented group, that would be more for the desk jockey, not for the bodybuilder, you know, not for the cross trainer, you know, not for somebody who's like, ridiculously fit, and I didn't really find anything. So I'm like, you know, what, I'm going to start a group. And I want it to be a place where all of us like minded, and like situation, people can kind of commiserate. And encourage each other. You know, share your stories, you know, share your your goals, share your successes, with your goals, and share your failures. Because we all learn from failures. If you're not learning from your failure, failures, you're you're not learning, you're not moving forward. You have to fail to succeed, absolutely have to fail to succeed. And, and I am a perfect case with that, you know, I need to you know, I try to make myself get up and at least move around and stuff. And actually, as we're on this call, I have a stand up desk, it's in the upright position. And I've got this awesome floor mat with these raised edges on I know, you know, and I'm, well I'm fidgeting around on it right now. And honestly, I feel really good. You know, Nothing hurts my low back doesn't hurt, my neck doesn't hurt. And, and I have more energy. So true. I mean, I don't use a stand up desk. I've tried them. It's not for me, but what I will do is, if I'm on an apple long call, and I'm not the one presenting, I'll often mute my mic and get up and walk in the middle of the call, or absolutely, there's all kinds of ways. And it's something they miss in the corporate world. And I'm by that I mean, we all deal with corporate clients, but in the in the strict corporate world. They don't get this. And I worked. I worked for one of Toronto's biggest hospitals. And they didn't get this because what they really want is what I call bums in seats kind of deal. They don't care. They just want production, and they haven't realized, and it's one of the things the Japanese and the Chinese have way ahead of us in North America.

 

35:00

Is that they give their employees rest breaks, time breaks, whatever. I mean, I know when I worked in the corporate world, I take an half hour on my lunch break, and I take a nap many days and people would look at me and say, how can you do that? And I felt great in the afternoon. Absolutely. People don't get stuff like that. They don't get the taking care of yourself. And that doesn't mean you're physically emotionally to like, yes, read the right stuff, hang around the right kind of people.

 

35:30

house clean your life. I've done this in a four year period where I've taken all the negative people in my life, and I've gotten rid of them. Yeah, we're friends. At one point, they served a purpose at one time. There's a reason they were there. And then I just kind of often said, Is this really a beneficial relationship? No. Okay. And we've all done that. And I think you got to keep going. And the older you get, the less taller you got to know. I know, we're getting old and crotchety. Right. Yeah. I mean, but you got to look after yourself. And the one thing I like about your group is it's kind of very, we all talk about health reasons and help and nobody's judgmental, and nobody know. I mean, now, it doesn't surprise me because a lot of the people are from a couple other groups that you and I are both part of. Right. And, and,

 

36:22

and those groups are judgmental. I mean, we're really lucky and just being around the right people makes a difference. And we all have bad days. I had one yesterday, I terrible witness. Yeah, and we all have bad days, but it's how you deal with that mentally and how you move on kinda?

 

36:40

Yeah, I agree. I agree. And that's if if I have a day, that I'm not in the right frame of mind, to be interacting with people, whether it be in real life or online, then I don't, because I don't want my negative energies to come off onto other people. Nor do I want other people to think, man, this guy's in ADS. Yeah.

 

37:05

You know, and so I don't want to do that. So then I will try and change my focus and do something else. And you know, luckily, you know, being in our own businesses, sometimes it's a nightmare, but it definitely has a lot of benefits as well. And if I need to step away for a little bit, then I'll step away for a little bit, you know, if I get off a call with a client, and it was frustrating, and I know that I'm not going to be able to concentrate for a little bit, you know what, I'll go outside with the dog. And I'll throw the ball for a little bit, and she always makes me feel better. I come inside, I've got a big smile on my face. And I'm like, Alright, let's go, you know, and then then you move on to one of the things I do, believe it or not, if I'm having a tough day, I'm a big Tony Robbins guy, I always have been in Tony is all about mindset. I've seen Tony speak numerous times, I've done walk on fire with Tony a couple times his group. And I'll go to a Tony Robbins podcast for and he does his short little 15 or 20 minute ones. And he doesn't talk about just business, he talks about relationships and life and mental health and all kinds of stuff. And then I feel but so you have to find what works for you. And and do it kind of thing. Like not everything works for everybody doesn't know it doesn't, you really need to find something that's going to work for you. And, you know, for me, like like what you said, I'm not really into the gym anymore. You know, I've got weights here at the house that I can use for that toning stuff. But really what I want to do is get back into martial arts, I and I want to start training my son, you know, My son is 11 years old, and he's going to be going into Junior High next year, a lot is going to change. He's going to be in a completely different school with a lot of different people he doesn't know. And you know, he's a little guy like I was too. So I think this is going to be a great opportunity. I said to him the other day, I said, we're going to start training together. I want to get back into it, and I want to teach you, he's resistant to it. He heard stories about my black belt test, and I think he's afraid of getting hurt, but I'm like, you're not gonna get hurt. So, you know, one of his other buddies, I'm going to bring him into, and we're going to, we're going to train the three of us, and I want to get I want to work towards getting my flexibility back. Rob, if you could have seen some of the stuff I did. I mean, it was just nuts. I mean, I'm doing jumps, spinning kids, like, you know, seven feet in the air. You know, it's it's, I don't expect to ever get back to that. Yeah. But to have that flexibility again, you know, to be able to, you know, just to be able to do a full split again, not that I'd want to or really have any reason to but

 

39:54

just to be flexible, to be able to be strong and to have the energy you know

 

40:00

At 50 years old, I want to have energy. I don't want to be the guy sitting in the chair. You know, I want to have the energy I want to keep moving. I want to keep doing because when you stop doing is when you stop living. Oh, no, no question. I mean, you know, I'm, I'm not a big TV watcher. I'm big sports fan, but I'm not big TV watcher. So I could watch maybe an hour night. Now, if I have time. That's the other thing. Right? And if I'm watching stuff, I'm usually watching it with my wife. But I mean, I like to, I like to get out and do stuff. And that's the key is to get out and do stuff for me night. For a long time. I actually I haven't, I don't wear it in winter. I have a Fitbit. I have two of them.

 

40:44

They're a good barometer to help you wear an apple watch or or do something they whatever motivates you. And it was funny because Fitbit basis,

 

40:56

there default on 10,000 steps, I change my default to 20,000 steps. Because I find on an average day, I'm probably 30 to 40,000 steps, which is high, by the way, from Right, right. Yeah. And it was funny because how I started walking wasn't even to lose weight. It was because I was having issues going back to that bad relationship. I used to walk to clear my head. Yep. And what I do is, I had a client that was I was with at that time, three days a week. And I used to take the subway home, so I'd walk five subway stumps, then I'd walk six subway stops, and I'd watch seven subway stops. And it was all uphill.

 

41:41

So not only did I clear my head, yeah, it took me an hour and a half. Who cares. But it was good for me. But I also started to lose weight. Yeah. And I just realized how much I like walking again. I just keep walking like my wife and I don't own a car.

 

41:57

I'm 51 and I don't even carry a driver's license. People will ask but I don't my wife. I don't. And and I and I want and I don't mind walking. I like to walk and in our community where we live, and Trump does a lot around here. So I walk.

 

42:12

And you know, and people said, What do you do when it's winter? Unless it's a bad day, like last Monday? Because we know what last week was? Right? Yeah, I walked when it's cold. I don't care by last night. It was icy and freezing. I went for a walk. First thing my wife said to me is be careful. You know, like, I just keep doing it. Right? throw on some cleats and go on out? Well, yeah. And make it part of your routine. So it's not it's not even.

 

42:39

Well, that's what it's about. It's about building new habits. Yes. You know, you can't you can't say I'm going to go on a diet. diets don't work. I agree. diets don't work. You need to view it as I'm going to change my eating habits. I don't know. I haven't even done that. Would you believe

 

42:59

I was diabetic. I still see an endocrinologist. I am the only member of my family ever don't come off diabetic medication. 100%. That's awesome. So that's good. It's my dad, my endocrinologist looks at me and says, Do you still have a bowl of potato chips every night? And I look at my say yes. And he said good. Don't stop.

 

43:21

And I looked over the six years and he said if he stopped he stopped judging. Don't stop. That's right. That's my snack every day without notice how we say ball not bag.

 

43:32

That's right. That's right. It's small. a modest bowl is fine. Well, that's it. It's moderation. Right? If you deny yourself the good things in life, right. Then a What do you have to live for? What do you have to look forward to? But it will make you resent what it is we're doing? And you can't do that. I love chocolate chocolate is my weakness chocolate ice cream. My wife, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I mean, m&ms. I love it all. But obviously I can't just sit there and eat it. You know, handful after handful. But, you know, I don't want to not eat it either. You know, because then I'll crave it and then then binge on it. Right. And the bingeing is the problem. You don't want to do that. I have a little bit of day, you know, I need to send you some real good whole Canadian Smarties. By the way.

 

44:23

For the Smarties it Oh yeah, you can't get there with us.

 

44:28

But yeah, it's so true. And it's moderation. And it's taking care of yourself. And it's doing the right things. And it's I mean sleeping, right. I mean, I tried to get eight hours of sleep a night I like you. I don't know what your work habits are like, but occasionally I'll get on a roll at nine o'clock at night and I'll just, if I have nothing on the next day, I'll get into a project and then before you know it, it's 130 in the morning, you know, that's what we do. Right? So right well I try not to do that. You know, I do have to

 

45:00

younger kids at home. So I, I do try to wrap up my work day at, you know, six or 630, you know, dinner time. And I try not to go back to it if I can. Obviously, if I had something pressing, of course that I need to get it done. But I really do like to take that those evening hours and spend it with the family. You know, my kids, they're 11 and 13. And the four of us still jam on the couch and watch TV for a few hours together. And then the dog climbs up on top of us our 85 pound shepherd. Yeah. And, and honestly, I want to change that for the world. I mean, I, I enjoy that. And that is kind of where I draw the line with business work. I'm like, nope, whatever needs to be done. If it's mission critical than find it. Otherwise, it can wait till tomorrow because you know what, it's a website, nobody's going to die. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I say go back at it. But my wife actually works two jobs. She's a property manager for the building the working, which is kind of Believe it or not a part time job. And then she works part time in a flower shop. And she comes in anywhere from four to six, depending on how busy they are. And I will stop what I'm doing. It's after she goes to bed, because I'm not ready to go to bed. And then that's, that's where I get caught. But I do the same thing. I stop and because family time is important. And it's part of your how you feel and part of your health. And people don't realize that they did just work work work same as the kitchens are the same, essentially going off to grid on a weekend and ignoring your phone for a weekend. That simple.

 

46:37

You know, I've been you know, when I lost my job in 2010. And I started my own business, I worked from home, like a lot of us do. And my kids

 

46:51

really don't remember me working a day job. I've been home ever since they were in kindergarten. And I've been able to get them on the bus every morning and get them off the bus every afternoon. And, sure, did we have those tougher financial times for a little while? Absolutely. But looking back, I don't think I changed it. You know, if I didn't get laid off, I would probably still be at that job today, it was an awesome job, we had great clients, amazing work. But, you know, life gives you things for a reason. And what you do with them is up to you, you can either embrace them, and and, you know, make the best of it. Or you can close down and be mad at the world. But, you know, it's what you do with it. And that's how you're gonna move forward. I agree within you gotta kind of, you kind of got to do the best you can. And that's and the other thing that helps, too, is having a family that supportive. I mean, my wife is amazingly supportive of what I do and how I do it.

 

47:59

If your family's not supportive, and you're in business for yourself, that's part of the health equation too, then it becomes a push pole, and it becomes really, really, really hard.

 

48:10

And I you know, I have to admit, I'm pretty lucky and you sound pretty lucky. I am my wife is a nurse. And she she basically, you know, had that steady job with the benefits and everything. So that was a massive plus. And she was supportive of me doing my own thing because of the family benefits with So, you know, we we have a, I would say a relatively modest lifestyle. I mean, we don't live extravagant. We don't live beyond our means. You know, we tried to make money. So we were able to weather that storm of the loss of income initially. And and now, you know, we're in a much better position, but we're still not going extravagant. You know, we're putting money in the bank. We're putting money towards our future, you know, towards retirement, which is horrible to say, but you know, again at 50 I mean, you have to seriously be thinking and planning for those retirement years. Oh, no, no question. And I and I, I don't know, like, I think my wife will retire long before I do, because I can't sit still. So that's no, I'm the same way. Yeah. She said to me, we're talking about this yesterday, and she says I think she'll retire at 65. She turns 50 this year, so I think she'll be done in 15. I don't think I will be done in 65. I can't see it happening.

 

49:36

Well, I love what I do. So I actually I actually had somebody asked me one time.

 

49:43

If you had the opportunity or the ability to do anything else, what would you do? And I stopped and I had to think about it for a little bit and nothing else came to mind. There's nothing else I wanted to do. I said

 

50:00

You know, I'm already an entrepreneur, I said, I've already got a design background, I have a technical background, if I were to do anything else, I would start another business, building a website, creating a product, creating a service, something like that. I said, I don't see myself wanting to do anything else. And so for me, I love this stuff. You know, I, I stay in the mix of it, you know, I want to keep up on it. I want to evolve with the industry and the way it's changing. And yeah, I mean, I can see myself doing this too. I'm seven years old or more, you know, I look at guys you know, it's funny to them. My favorite TV shows and you know, it's kind of way for now to have it is Shark Tank in us. short timeframe.

 

50:46

And in Canada, we have a show called Dragon's Den that started before Shark Tank, same, same idea. Okay. And one of the guys on Dragon's Den is gentleman by the name of Jim traveling, Jim is the founder of Boston peace, pizza, Mr. Ruby's a franchise guy. And, and he's 72 years old. And he's still investing money and still out there. And now people say to him why, and somebody said, why he said a lot further to, it's not about money after a point, money is a means but it's about doing what you want to do. And then what you want to do, and staying active, keeping your mind sharp, keeping it moving, keep doing you know, that's what he's going to keep you young. And that's what's going to allow you to enjoy life. Yeah, not the monetary part of life. But the just living being being able to be outside with the dog on a beautiful sunny day and, and breathing in the fresh air and enjoying it, you know? Yeah, it's so true. This has been like a great chat. I just hope some people, you know, kind of sit down and think about their health, think about what they're doing in life. And think about the career during and say, Is this what I really want. And I think that's really important. And if they do that, I think the average person will be much better off.

 

52:10

I agree. I agree, you really need to not take life for granted. Yeah. Because anything can change at any time, whether it be with your own personal health, or a loved one.

 

52:24

You know, your whole world can get turned upside down really quick. And, and you need to make the best of it. And, and yeah, it's mind body spirit, you know, work, relationships, all of that. It's so important, you know, people get mad at people, they hold grudges, and they go to the grave with those grudges, you know, and it's, it's, in my opinion, it's just not worth it. You know, there's, you know, it's just bad. It's negative energy. It's bad juju, you know, and it's like, I just don't want any of that, you know, I would agree and what people need to realize this, sometimes the best things come out of nowhere. And I really mean that. And I'll give you an example. I got married at 49. They married a lady I'd known for 19 years, we had been friends actually dated 19 years ago, and then got back to seeing each other circumstances in life change, then

 

53:23

we got married and, and life hasn't been better. So those people that sometimes, you know, things aren't worth waiting for. That's, that's a classic example. I mean, you got to sometimes things just take time, and sometimes things come out of nowhere. If you had asked me

 

53:41

10 years ago, if I ever thought our friendship would go anywhere, I would sit down with great friends and

 

53:47

sometimes instinct, so that's right. Anyway, thanks for joining me. How do people get ahold if they want some web stuff done?

 

53:56

where's the best place to get you besides Facebook? Because Yeah, yeah, obviously, I'm all over Facebook. Yeah, over at my website, current Media Group dotnet. You can see all of the services that we offer some portfolio of some work.

 

54:14

You know, the fitness group. I mean, if this is your cup of tea, I would love for you guys to be a part of it. You know, you go on to Facebook, you can search for web dev, fitness, or actually just go to web dev fitness, calm the domain forwards over to the group. So

 

54:33

now I put a website up for it. Oh, so you and I need to get busy is that?

 

54:39

That's right. Yeah. But But thanks again, Trevor. and have an awesome day and people. YouTube is great chatting. Thank you. Yes team interview show has been brought to you by stunning digital marketing comm website agency based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that works worldwide to help your business and

 

55:00

your marketing digitally succeed. If you want more information, please jump on over to our website at stunning digital marketing.com or Facebook page@facebook.com slash stunning digital marketing. Feel free to tweet at our CEO at Rob Cairns on Twitter, or

 

55:20

feel free to contact us in any way via the contact form on our website.

 

55:27

We'd be glad to answer any questions or help you in any way we can.

 

55:33

This show has been dedicated to rob Karen's his late father Bruce cans that he misses very much and keep working and make your business succeed. Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars. Have a great weekend. Bye bye for now.