Revolutionizing Mortgage Lending ft. Alex Kutsishin | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 60

0:03What's up everybody and welcome to another episode of Coffees for closers where we're going to dive deep with some of the industry disruptors who have shaped the entire future of the mortgage industry. Today's guest is no stranger to game-changing ideas. After a successful exit from Sales Boomerang, a top borrower intelligence platform, he's now back with a brand new venture that's setting the industry on fire. Fuel, designed to revolutionize how businesses grow and scale. Tune in as we explore the strategies behind his success and what's next for this powerhouse entrepreneur. Please welcome Alex Kutchen.

0:48Joe? I butchered that last name. That's all right. Everybody does. Typically, my last name becomes the name of the company I'm in right now. Alex from Sales Boomerang. Alex from Fuel. That's it because the last name is too hard. Pronounce the last name. Kutchen. Kutchen. Kutchen. Yeah. I knew the pronunciation. There you go. I'm good at pronunciation. I'm telling you like this. In high school, they stopped saying my last name. There were several Alex's, but my name got called a lot. And at some point, it was just Alex, come to the office. And the teachers were like, even if there was another Alex in class, they knew exactly who they were talking to.

1:24Go. I was like, okay. All right. So I'd like to start this show off with the same question I ask everybody, which is, what is your morning routine? Oh, I love this. Oh. Man, my morning routine is special because it just transformed recently. So I am, I, for the longest time, didn't like routines at all. I loved the truly following the flow of anything that's happening, which is why I have a jellyfish tattooed on my arm because jellyfish can't fight the current. They go with the flow, right? It's going with the flow. And so, which is a good lesson in life in general, go with the flow. So my morning routine is I wake up.

2:06Every morning I have breakfast with the kids. Every morning. It doesn't matter if I'm in town, of course. So breakfast with the kids. My wife then takes them to school. While she takes them to school, I do about an hour of breath work and meditation, followed by a shower, usually some yoga. And all that happens before 9 o 'clock in the morning. And that's how that happens. And sometimes I go for a walk. Sometimes I go for a run. Sometimes I'll just do some kind of workout. But it is a physical activity that follows a breathwork meditation session. That's how I start it, every morning. Every morning.

2:42For the last going on year. And that breathwork meditation, you're doing just deep breathwork. You're doing like, what is your breathwork routine? So it is about just being present. Just coming right here into this moment. Because we know tomorrow never comes, right? Right. And since we are only here, my breath work typically is just noticing my breath. Nothing else. Just noticing it. And then affirmations. I am here. I am here now. I am present. I am safe. I love myself. All these things. Start to bring yourself down into a place where you are exactly where you're meant to be, which is always the case.

3:26You're never in a place you're not supposed to. You're always exactly where you're meant to be. and so in that moment it's after like 10 15 20 minutes of just breathing there's an out-of-body experience nearly every time because you're so present you're no longer thinking about anything you're just right here and so all the possibilities become possible because the power is in the unknown and so when you just breathe and thoughts come in oh you got to make a phone call to joe thank you thank you for that not right now i don't tell him not i don't stop thinking i don't want the thoughts to stop coming in.

4:00Please come in. That actually is a recognition of what is truly important to your psyche and your body. Those things will come in, but sometimes it's just the ego. Sometimes it's just a fear, and it's great. It's nothing wrong with it. Don't make it wrong. It's, oh, you forgot to send out that contract. Okay, thank you very much. Thanks, but not the right, awesome, not right now, because I'm just starting to be here. I'm not trying to think about anything, and after like a good 10, 15 minutes, sometimes it happens in three minutes, what happens is that's it all the noise is gone just quiet and all of a sudden you start hearing things that are not part of your daily trying to predict the future or remembering the past which is what we're stuck in most people are stuck in trying to predict the future right the predictable future like for instance you can predict that you're going to leave here and go to a meeting with sam soon right predictable future so your mind will be thinking about that do we have time do i have gas in the car do i look good all that good stuff once you quiet that down then the universe starts to talk to you right and then that's where the magic is it's just you're so present and you're starting to just hear your self without the filter of the ego trying to tell you something is more important than where you are right now and so that's where all the the beauty lies is in this moment but to get to this moment you got to shut out the future and the past and so that's that's my morning practice wow yeah yeah it's a deep thank you well it's uh yeah deep but yet simple yeah but it's deep but it and it's hard to do it takes years of mastery so yeah over a decade i've been practicing breath work go yeah Yeah.

5:43So next question for you. I would like you to basically give like a 20 ,000 foot overview of what you do currently and what Sales Boomerang is still doing. Yeah. So Sales Boomerang is Trust Engine now. It's a borrower intelligence platform. You know, the platform, we kind of let the cat out of the bag in 2017 in inventing a category called borrower intelligence. today there probably isn't a lender in the united states that isn't using a version of borrower intelligence in their platform getting notifications and all kinds of things so that we're no longer selling but serving like in mortgage and finances i believe salesmanship is overrated because i believe there is something that's valuable for a consumer and something that's not valuable for a consumer and if it's valuable for a consumer you don't really need to sell it you just need to make sure they understand it and you serve it up properly.

6:39And so fuel, fuel sales boomerang was invented to, um, decrease the number, the amount of spam and just salesman stuff. Like, I don't need, you don't need this loan, but I'm going to sell you on why you do. We don't need that. Like that's why in 2019, over a billion dollars a month in overpaid mortgages were in existence over people were overpaying by over a billion dollars a month because somebody sold them something rather than serving them what they need. So fuel sales boomerang was invented to help bridge the gap of trust, which is why the new name is Trust Engine because all consumers want from their financial friends, and I don't know if you ever saw me wearing this shirt.

7:18I had a shirt that said financial friends with benefits, right? I saw that. You saw that? Okay, financial friends with benefits. Why did I say that? Because you don't want to just be a financial friend. You want to be a financial friend with benefits for your consumer, and your consumer actually wants that too. They want the benefit. What's the benefit? The benefit is you're going to give me what I need, not what you want to sell me, right? That's the benefit. And you're starting to see this more and more where the consumer, it's about making it clear and transparent for the consumer to make the best decision.

7:50There's lots of little companies coming out now to make sure that the consumer feels like they understand the decision that they're making and so they can be confident and trust the decision they're making. So that's Trust Engine. It's, you know, we merged with Mortgage Coach in 22, again, to just continue to fulfill the mission of making it very easy for the lending institutions to provide extreme value to the consumer at exactly the moment they needed and then be able to walk them through. And Mortgage Coach, as you know, makes it very clear what their options are and things like that. So Trust Engine, it's continuing to expand and grow and doing great and very excited, very proud, very, very proud that we took something in one of the biggest industries in the world and presented an idea.

8:38And people were like, oh, my gosh, no borrower left behind. I'm in. That makes sense. I'm in. So that's Trust Engine and Sales Boomerang. Currently, Fuel. So look, I have a tattoo, a few of them. I have a tattoo in my body that says always doing what I love always dwelling is what I call it always dwelling anyone out there highly recommend it if you always love doing what you love get the tattoo dwelling always dwelling on yourself we'll have a whole dwelling party one day so in fuel the reason I brought that up is I get a phone call from Todd Todd Duncan in April of 22 just moved to Colorado and he calls introduces himself which I was cracking up I was like, thanks for the introduction, Todd.

9:21I know exactly who you are. I said, what's the reason for the call? And he's like, look, Sue Woodard said, hey, you should talk to Alex. You have an idea? You should talk to Alex. And I said, great, let's talk. And we got on a call like a few days later and he shared this vision for me. And he started by saying education is broken. He's like, Alex, I've been doing this for 30 plus years. It's broken. I get off stage. People run to me and say, are you coming back next year? And my only thought is, this is what Todd is saying. He's like, my only thought is, what are you gonna do tomorrow? You're asking about next year.

9:53How are you gonna implement? What are you gonna do tomorrow? And he's like, I have a responsibility to figure out how to help people on a daily basis rather than once a year when I come to their conference. And so that's where Fuel was born. Fuel is the first performance as a service platform. It is the Netflix of personal and career development. and it sits on top of a performance analytics platform that is the most profound approach to understanding who on your team is a habitual underperformer, who on your team is a rising star and who you should be putting your efforts into and who you shouldn't.

10:30Because one of the most devastating situations we find in business is we put our efforts into the wrong people. and then it's like i know i felt something i didn't know but i felt something and this person's been here for an extra four or five months and i knew it five months ago but you didn't know it you had a feeling yeah fuel makes it clear it makes it tangible who's habitually underperforming and who is going to be rising that's the analytics platform it's built on but it's designed specifically for performance so what's very important for everybody to understand is that there is an unlimited amount of knowledge and information out there.

11:13Unlimited. I mean, as much information as you want to consume, it's available to you. We don't want to give you information. We want to give you the ability to build a skill. The only way to build a skill is by performing it. So everyone that's listening here, 5 % of everything you and I are going to talk about today, 5 % they're going to remember from this show. Just 5%. 10 % of what people read, they'll remember. 10%, just 10. 75 % of what you practice, you retain. This is a practice platform. Practice the skills and fuel is a platform that puts out, we learn from the best. We learn from TikTok.

11:53We learn from Instagram. Why are they such great platforms? Why are so many people addicted to them? Fuel is a positive addiction. We'll talk about that in a second. But why are they addicted? Two reasons. Number one, novelty. TikTok and Instagram realized that if they're not producing novel content every single day, people are going to stop being interested. And so what do they do? Every day, new content goes up every day. The other thing that they've mastered is if I grabbed your Instagram and I used your Instagram, Joe, for 45 days, when you'd come back to it, you'd be like, what the heck is this?

12:26EDM and tattoos and soccer and what is all this stuff? I'm not interested in any of this because it's not designed for you anymore. Instagram is like, oh, Joe changed his mind of who he is. Okay, let's recalibrate to make Joe happy. He seems to like tattoos all of a sudden. And then when you came back 45 days later, it would recalibrate. When I got there, I'd be like, oh, I'm not interested in any of this stuff. So what makes them special? Novelty and hyper-customization, hyper-personalization. That's fuel. Every week, new content. And every day, the system is recalibrating based on the learner and where they are based on their performance analytics.

13:00How are you getting new content every single day? You know... Yeah, tough thing to do when it's like performance content. I got to tell you something, Joe. You know, most people want to hear a struggle story. Like, oh, he struggled. And of course, it's a challenge. But, not but, and, you know what? When there's serendipity involved, if you've ever had this experience like this was meant to be, I'm sure you have a million times. Like, oh, I'm meant to be here, right? Whatever that moment was. that's how fuel has been from the very from the first phone call in april 22 everything just started to the world oh my gosh the entire way so how do we have over a hundred instructors our goal was to have over just 25 this year that's all we wanted was 25 instructors this year we have over a hundred 62 contracted and another 50 something sitting we're trying to figure out what we're going to do with them.

13:58How did this happen? One person who is, his name is Mac Anderson. He was a founder of Successories plus a few other things. And Todd, he had published two or three of Todd's books. Todd just called him, said, Mac, here's what I'm getting into. Meet my co-founder, Alex, check out our vision. And Mac was like, I got to help you here. And so we said to Mac, we're looking for people who are heart forward they have wisdom that they want to leave here they don't want to take it with them they want people to have what they know and they have proven content and max like i got it very first intro brian biro the breakthrough coach incredible uh don yeager one of the most recognizable people in sports writing uh it's just incredible right and John Murphy.

14:50Those are the first three. And then it became a snowball. They were like, those people were like, I know people. And that's it. Literally, in a matter of months, we got the first introduction on March 13th. And by May, I think we had over 50 instructors. And they all want to produce this content. So it's been a blessing. It's been a blessing. And they keep referring people. They keep referring. I just spoke to somebody from Indonesia yesterday. They got referred by Anne O 'Neill. Anne O 'Neill is a WNBA star with a focus on neuroscience of performance. And so she gets called by NBA, literally NBA teams, come in and do your neuroscience of performance practice and courses with us in the NBA.

15:38We need more of that. So she does, besides being an analyst, and she's on ESPN and other places as a commentator as well. Well, she finished a course and she shared it with someone and we get a phone call like, hey, I have courses. Here's what I do. I'm helping, you know, this one guy, Paul, is helping kids all over the world get education. He's found a way to lower the cost of education for third world countries to$10 a year, a year per student. It's remarkable. And so we're excited to work with him and give him fuel to give to those people as well. but that's how the content is that's how we have so much access to content is we have hard forward people and so they're not in it for themselves they're not ego driven they're driven by giving and they're just amazing amazing partners in wanting to do this it's been beautiful and that's how the content's coming together and we have content already created all the way through April of 25 it's just rolling it out okay so So let's take a step back here because you entered the mortgage industry.

16:46You're a tech guy. You were a tech founder. Yeah. What made you want to get into the mortgage space? So I'm a serial entrepreneur. So my parents came to the States. They brought me from the Ukraine when I was seven in 1990. by 1993 both my parents had their own businesses learned a language found doubt that you can actually make a living here and no one's chasing you don't have to look over your back it's like you can make a living and I saw them grow their businesses and at age 20 I launched my first business which was in a medical space completely different then the printing supply space. Then I own a couple nightclubs, an apparel company.

17:33And so I've never repeated an industry, not once. Everyone has been in a new space. That's part of the artistry. We talked about art before. That's my art. That's my sport. I don't want to just be pigeonholed into one place. I've always been inspired by people like Richard Branson from Twitter and Square, Jack Dorsey, right? Right? Twitter, square, completely opposite. Mega success. And so I've always been inspired by that. So why mortgage? It's a very easy thing. I had a friend of mine, my mentor come to me. And after I had sold my shares in the mobile software company, I opened up a consulting practice so I can watch the kids grow up.

18:19One of my things I didn't want to be as a CEO that said, if I could only change one thing, I would spend more time with my kids when they were younger. I didn't want to be that CEO. So I took the next two to three years to build a consulting practice so I can watch both the kids grow up and I can be there for the first words, first steps, all that good stuff. And my mentor, Ken, contacted me and said, hey, I need you to do some consulting for my mortgage marketing business. They own monster lead groups or monster technologies. I don't know if you ever heard of them. Yeah, I was supposed to have a call with the CEO of that company as well.

18:48Brandon or Ken, one or the other. It was Ken. Ken, Ken Bartz. Yeah, that's my buddy. co-founder of sales boomerang uh is ken and brandon um and so we got together and i'm looking at at their platform helping them make changes to the monster brand and and and changing some things there and brandon is like hey we're working on this new thing uh where if you don't close a deal you should come back to it later because there's a reason why you didn't close a deal it's not like they don't want a mortgage it's just their equity isn't where it needs to be or their rates are already low so it's not that they don't want to do a mortgage it's maybe not the best time now and i want everyone that works with monster to know that they have all of these later leads that's what he called him and i said hey does this only happen with monster or does the industry have this oh my god it's an industry-wide problem and right before i was consulting for them i consulted for a company by the name of rain king you ever heard a company rain king out of Bethesda, Maryland.

19:46They were acquired by ZoomInfo for over 100 mil. Rain King would make it rain. Okay. What did they do? They were able to predict with such high accuracy when a Fortune 500 company, a department in a Fortune 500 company was going to be needing a new piece of technology. Wow. Before the RFP went out, before the RFP. Mind-bottom. Talk about data predicting models there. It was incredible. And so I land here and I'm like, this guy can predict when an accounting department in Microsoft needs new accounting software. Why can't we tell when a borrower needs a loan and is actually qualified for it? And that's how we got into the mortgage industry.

20:26Curiosity. It's like, you're telling me everyone, this is broken for everyone? Yes. Why are we fixing it for Monster? Why are we fixing it for everyone? Yeah. And so that's how I got into the mortgage industry. That wasn't the plan. You're not a mortgage guy. No, no. But I understand I'm a people guy. I understand people. I understand what drives change, what inspires people, what would make me enjoy an experience better. It probably is going to help millions of others have that same experience. And so not a mortgage guy, but I'm also not a – I wasn't a printing supply guy. I wasn't a medical guy.

21:04I wasn't a nightclub owner. I wasn't an apparel guy, right? it's I'm a person that likes to build teams that build businesses together and the more we just talked about this too the older we got the more successful we got our life started to change and my dreams got bigger that's all you know helping thousands then tens of thousands now we're on a mission to help millions or maybe a billion can can fuel impact a billion people love it uh what do you think inspired you to become an entrepreneur my parents 100 percent I just saw, you know, I see two people that as refugees take their two kids and 18 pieces of luggage and travel across the world to an unknown place and within a few years they are owning their own businesses.

21:52And you know what I saw? I can articulate it now. Hopefully I don't cry. I can articulate it now, although crying maybe get good views and repeat and shares.

22:04I saw joy in their life first time I think I ever saw that was when I was probably 10 it's like they look happy all other times of their life I think they were stressed or at least it felt that way to me and within three years of being here I'm seeing my parents with bigger smiles on their faces less and I'm like wow what changed and only now I realize they put their destiny in their hands they started building their own businesses and they said we're gonna do this and so my very first business was a spinoff of my parents business i asked him i said why don't we open a medical office in dc because my uncle who came to the united states after us uncle-in-law because he married my uh my aunt and so when they came to the states my aunt told my mom like hey my my husband is genius with his hands he's a physical therapist but he can't he can't talk like he's not good at that part but magician with his hands and so my mom's like well i'm i'm great at communicating to people why don't we open up a practice you do the medical i'll bring the patients the clients they built a huge practice that way and so when i was helping my mom with sales in that practice i met an attorney that said do you have a a business in any business in washington dc because we're living in baltimore at the time um and i we said no why he's like three times more business in dc so i went to my mom i was 19 at the time i said ma let's open up an office in dc and she's like we can't we have a partnership here we we have a you know we have to stay within a certain range you can't drive to this it wouldn't work and i said but there's so much business there and she goes look we actually have somebody that's been wanting to open up an office with us but because we're in this partnership we couldn't if you're willing to be the person that runs that office we'll make the introduction but this is this is what you're doing now.

23:54So I became a 33 % partner at 19 years old, um, in a medical practice, three years later, three offices later,$3 million a year later, we're running a business. Um, and, uh, and that was my first entrepreneurial kind of experience. And then it just went off from there. Like literally every three years, something new, you know, you're so driven and you got such like such an allure about you and your personality. It's just very captivating. Thank you. Um, what do you think like really is the source of your mindset? it that's a great great question i i don't i just love life man i can't even say it any other way yeah um i think i'm just super grateful for to even be here in this in this country and having this kind of opportunity because when i asked my parents did you ever imagine this they're like imagine this i didn't imagine leaving my town imagine this they're like village my exactly Exactly.

24:49We didn't even imagine for a second that we'd ever leave wherever we were. So this every day is a gift because we didn't expect to be out of there, right? My mom tells me all the time, and she does this through tears, like, you would have been in the army. You would have been in war at 18. You would have been gone. I don't know if I'd ever see you again. So she's like, I'm just happy that I get to see you at 40 and see my grandkids and all that good stuff. So I'm just, I'm just inspired by life. I like, uh, uh, I I've just recently adopted a new way of, of, of thinking about life. And that is instead of expectations live with curiosity, no expectations, expectations, uh, is what is a driver of stress, um, as a driver of disappointment, but curiosity is just openness.

25:37Yeah. When you're curious, we talked about this, the powers in the unknown. What does that mean? It means if you can predict it, that's limiting. Watch this. This is something I bet nobody's ever heard or some, maybe some people. Your imagination is limiting. Think about that for a second. Your imagination is limiting. Why? Because the only thing you can imagine are things from the predictable future or the past. so I ask everyone look back at your life Joe did your life turn out exactly how you planned it you know I would have never imagined the amount of success I've attained I never even dreamt of it never even think that's because your imagination is limiting trust in the unknown allow the unknown to unravel that's all I always trust in well that's why you are where you are yeah I just roll on fate dude and you're so chill and you know like cool joe i don't know if that's a thing anyone's ever called you like you're you're you are fast-paced get things done but you're just cool you're just like what's what let come on like the jellyfish you are you're going with the flow yeah and that's it and and you're we're vibing bro that's what we vibe that's what we vibed instantly yeah like yeah it's like because i immediately recognized a very similar personality you know and that's why i i love these circles these panels that we had, these people that are coming on my podcast.

27:05Yeah. We all kind of suffer from the same problems and have the same personalities. And, you know, it's a pretty, pretty unique circle to just associate yourself with other founders and CEOs because it's like a bunch of like long lost siblings. Yeah. A bunch of artists. Yeah. Right. A bunch of artists. Crazy artists. Crazy artists. Yeah. Who are a passionate work ethic. Like it's not like. and they're all poverty like came from dirt yeah most yeah right right right every story every i haven't had one rich founder what's the what's the worst poverty story you've had on the show so far that's like what you came from that uh man everyone comes from like you know whether their parents beat them or they're abused or they you know uh it was clinton sparks who said you know he was you know that was the hardest one it was clinton sparks when he was like as he said it's okay because i get he said it on my podcast yep he was abused as a kid he was molested as a kid his father was a drunk and beat him and so and now here he is multi-grammy nominated you know uh dj yeah yeah and sparks yeah yeah uh and then but it's not just that that's just that's the beginning you know he's completely sober never drinks never nothing and he you know he's produced for m &m 50 He sent everybody.

28:25And he's got multiple businesses, has multiple exits, multiple IPOs. Now he's starting the Global Gaming League. And he came from nothing and abuse and molestation and just crazy. And he uses that as his power. Yes, of course. And he's a very thought-provoking intellect. He is. And for a DJ to be at that level, a world-renowned, you don't think like a DJ. Just like Greg Leso when he came on our panel yesterday, he gets up. You got a world-famous skateboarder just talking about real estate and investing and LLCs and property acquisitions. He's like, that's a skateboarder up there? That's amazing.

29:07And that's, again, we go into the unknown. There's no way he could have predicted that he would have been standing on that stage and had the success he had when he dropped out of high school and said, I'm going to be a skateboarder. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And so that's an important, you know, with your show, I think that's such an important takeaway for people is be okay with the unknown. Don't try to control and predict everything that's going to happen. Just get curious. Here's a question that you can ask yourself every single day, possibly every moment. I said it right before I sat down here.

29:38I'm curious what the most fun, most enjoyable podcast experience can be like. That's all I asked. I didn't come in here like, oh, I got a plan. I'm going to kill it. I'm just curious, right? I'm curious what the best possible conversation could go like with my borrower. I'm curious what the best possible outcome could be with all the follow-ups I'm gonna do today. I'm curious what the ultimate referral partner relationship could look like. Just curious. Instead of trying to make it, just be curious and then watch what happens because the universe comes to you. You don't have to do anything, right?

30:11We're just observers here, right? We're looking through these lenses, but life is happening just like I asked you. Could you predict to be here? You said no. So life is happening anyway. Just be curious. Now, Alex, I want to dive into this because we're both immigrants. We both grew up poor. We both grew up with a fire under our ass to just act. Now, we both have kids. How are you as a father instilling that same level of grit that you had to build everything you've built, Knowing that your kids are growing up in total abundance and affluence. Their dad had big exits. How are you instilling that same level of grit in your kids?

30:54That is such a beautiful question and such a difficult question. My son, 12-year-old, told me just the other day when we were in an argument about something, about grit actually. He said to me, he said, Papa, why do you keep comparing your upbringing with what is happening here? me and my wife are like whoa and he's absolutely right why are we comparing he's like you keep telling me your parents you have to clean the house all the time you have to do things all the time and every time you ask me to do one thing and I don't want to do it you tell me oh my gosh when I was your age I was doing a meal he's like why do you do that and he's doing it he's telling he's asking this question through tears he's crying because we were just in an argument about something that had to do with grit like we're asking you to do this we don't ask you to do a lot of things just do it and we of course compare like why don't we were it happened there and so how do we instill grit it's a very interesting question the way uh we started to do it recently is i heard a story about this project called the biodome too look it up it's really interesting project it's a project that wanted wanted to prove and has proven that they can create the perfect living environment for vegetation all vegetation how can we perfect it right and they did it they things grew faster more lusher it's all of it but trees the trees would grow faster and taller than trees outside of this dome but the minute they hit full maturity fall what fall what why this is weird no adversity there was no wind no rain no hurricanes no crazy conditions the bark was weak the roots weren't going down low you look like a beautiful tree and then you just tumble over because you've had no adversity you've had no reason to be strong you've been in perfect conditions and so i shared this with the kids and it really hit them and now we say this all the time we're like this is the wind to get your roots to go deeper this is the adversity to experience that is a fascinating story so true and we just need to somehow put adversity in these spoiled kids lives right and it's not their fault that they're spoiled we we actually growing up i bet you said i'm gonna give my kids a better life yeah of course and here we are and now we're punishing them for it because we're giving them a better life we're like i had to do so much stuff and you have to do nothing how no what's a mantra in your mind that plays like what is your mantra for your life dwelling doing doing doing what i love and doing what i'm good at so like i i'm always looking for reasons for joy uh curiosity my mantra is just truly um being being joyful because that is a choice right pain is part of life suffering is optional right Right?