Best of: Our Story – Chapter 1: Love at First Sight

In this Best of Episode, we re-visit Chapter 1 of the "Our story" series. We'll be sharing our entire "Our Story" episodes in the Saturday "Best of" releases over the next few weeks. You don't want to miss these!  We'll be giving you all the juicy details of who we are, where we began, and how it all happened! This episode was originally published on October 10, 2017.  You can check out the original episode here:  https://flippedlifestyle.com/podcast164/ FULL TRANSCRIPT Shane: Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast where life always comes before work.  We’re your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. We’re a real family who figured out how to make our entire living online.  And now, we help other families do the same.  Are you ready to flip your life?  Alright.  Let’s get started. What’s up, everybody? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast.  Great to be back with you again today.  This is going to be a solo show with just me and Jocelyn.  We are not going to have a guest on the program today.  As we continue to tell you a little bit more about our story, about how two normal people from Kentucky were able to start an online business with no money, no time, while working full-time, raising kids, and basically, how maybe you can do it, too.  That is what we are doing today, we are talking about the next chapter in our story. Last week, we told you a little bit about our early life about where we came from, where we grew up, before Jocelyn and I knew each other.  The next chapter in our story is actually about how we met in college at the University of Kentucky. Jocelyn: Alright, in our last episode, we were talking about how young I was when I went to college.  At the time, I thought I was all grown up and independent but looking back now, I realized how incredibly young and naïve I really was. Shane: You technically were not even legally of age.  You are not even 18 years old when you moved away from home.  But could not even vote when you moved out of your hometown and moved to the big city in Lexington. Jocelyn: And the scary thing about that is I think about how my son is eight.  I was nine years older than him when I went to college.  That is just scary.  I can’t even picture my son being that age.  I know there is a big difference between 8 and 17.  But still there is not as big of a difference as you think. Shane: It is scary.  There is no way we would ever let our kids– like Jocelyn, her birthday is on March 27th.  My birthday is actually on March 28th.  Funny story about that, we will talk about that soon.  I will tell you about that later.  Jocelyn was born on March 27th.  She turned 17 on March 27th of her senior year.  Did you move in June? Or when did you move? Jocelyn: I think it was probably like early August of that year. Shane: Yeah, okay. Jocelyn: When I moved into the dorms.  I could not wait, I was counting down the minutes.  I was just a very independent person.  I knew that it would not be a problem.  Honestly, I never even really went home.  I went home sometimes.  You know how sometimes people in college, they will go home every single weekend?  Yeah, that was not me.  I went home maybe once a month if I had to.  Again, it is not because I had a bad home life or anything like that. I was just that fiercely independent.  I just wanted to do my own thing. Shane: So you graduated in 97? I had already been in college a year then, right, when you came to college? Jocelyn: Yeah, you were a sophomore when I got there. Shane: I graduated in 1996, and I was kind of the same way.  I had a dream my whole life to go to the University of Kentucky. Jocelyn: And I did, too. Shane: Which is hilarious because I didn’t really work hard enough in school to actually get the grades to go to college anywhere.  But I wanted to go to the University of Kentucky.  I refused to go anywhere else, on any college visits, I didn’t go look at any other schools, didn’t go anywhere.  I just wanted to go to the University of Kentucky because I love Kentucky basketball, I loved Kentucky football, and I just really wanted to go live in Lexington. Jocelyn: For me, I just really wanted and escape from small-town life.  Most people where I am from, they went to either Western Kentucky University, which is actually where I had my Master’s degree from.  They went to Murray State University; both are fine schools, nothing wrong with the schools, nothing wrong with them at all.  It is just I did not want to go there.  I wanted to get away.  I wanted to get out of small-town life and experience something new.  Funny story is, I even got a scholarship to Murray State University.  I had applied to two places, I applied to Murray State, and I applied to UK.  I wasn’t able to apply for scholarships for UK because you had to have a 28 on the ACT. Shane: So she was just a little shy. Jocelyn: I took it four times, and the highest I could get was a 27. Shane: But she could’ve went to school for free at Murray.  It was like dorms and television, or something. Jocelyn: Part of it was covered.  I can’t remember exactly what it was. Shane: Would have been a lot cheaper though. Jocelyn: Yes, it would have been a lot less expensive but I talked to my parents and they basically said, “Look, you worked really hard all through school.  You should do whatever you want to do.”  And so I did. Shane: Thank goodness she did. Jocelyn: I felt like that was just where I was supposed to be. Shane: I wonder if it was because I was there.  The fates were telling you, “The love of your life, the shining star of your universe, is waiting for you at the University of Kentucky.” Right? Your knight in shining armor riding the white horse.  But I actually wanted to go to UK really bad, too. To when I graduated high school, I had no scholarship offers, I had absolutely nothing. Jocelyn: How’d you even get in? Shane: I barely made it in.  Like seriously, I had the exact GPA where you could barely every once in a while apply and get in.  Actually, I did not go straight to the University of Kentucky.  I did go live in the dorms my first year and I lived on campus.  There was a community college that was attached to UK– Jocelyn: So you could still live in the dorms. Shane: Yeah, you could live in the dorms, you could go to UK, but you went to the Lexington Community College part which was over by the football stadium.  I actually went to that first.  That was my first year.  My shining principles as a student, and just the excellent student I was, of course, I did not barely ever go to class.  I had a crazy roommate who ended up failing out of school which was a whole other ball of acts.  I was around some people who were not the best examples of human beings that you could probably hang out with in your life.  I did not go to class very much, and I almost failed out. My first semester, I made all D’s and one C or something.  I actually dropped a course instead of failing it, so I only ended up getting 12 hours that semester.  I actually came home, and one day, my dad put me in his car, and he goes, “Hey, come up to the office with me.”  And I’m like, “Alright, I’m home for Christmas or something.  I will ride up there with you.”  My dad gets of the car and then he goes by his office, and I kind of look over at him and I’m like, “What are you doing?”  He didn’t say anything, did not say a word. He just goes and gets on the interstate.  And I’m like, “Oh man, he got my report card.  He knows my grades were terrible.  This is what this is all about right here.”  He takes me 30 minutes south to this really teeny, tiny town in the middle of nowhere that has this little, bitty NAI college tucked over in the mountains.  It was probably not a thousand, maybe at this time a thousand people went to the whole school.  He just pulls off the interstate, and he starts driving around campus.  For like 20 minutes he wouldn’t say a word to me, and finally looks over at me and goes, “Pretty campus, huh?  If your grades aren’t better next semester, you are going to be going to school here.  So get used to it.”  And then he just drove me home. I literally almost screwed it up before you even got to college and would have never met you in the first place.  And you almost went to Murray.  Our paths, legit, we were almost that Ships in the Night song, just crossed.  I got my act together, I met this girl that helped me get through algebra the second semester, and then I actually studied as much as I could, and did a lot better my second semester.  Not my best semester ever, that was when I met Jocelyn. But that got me through my freshman year.  You lived in the dorm next door to me when you were a freshman and I was a sophomore, right? Jocelyn: Yeah, I lived in the building that was like adjacent to where Shane lived. Shane: We looked back on it now, but we didn’t meet until Jocelyn was a sophomore because we ended up both moving dorms, and we lived in the same dorm.  I can think back, and I think there were two places where our paths kind of crossed.  One night, I was over at another girl’s room.  A friend of mine from high school, and Jocelyn lived next door to her.  I was sitting on the bed, and– Jocelyn: This story dates us a bit. Shane: This story dates us a bit.  There was a knock on the door, there was a bunch of us in there, and this beautiful girl came to the door.  I was like, “Who was that?” I just caught a brief glimpse of her, and she was coming to borrow the phone book. Jocelyn: That’s right. Shane: That’s right.  An actual, like, the phone book, like you had to flip through. Jocelyn: Some people listening to this podcast probably don’t even know what a phonebook is. Shane: Yeah, some of you may not even know what a phonebook is.  But we had phonebooks, okay? She came by to borrow the phonebook to call a pizza place or something, I don’t know what it was.  But I remember just asking my friend.  I was like, “Who’s that?” And she was like, “Oh just the girl who lives next door.” Didn’t think anything of it, and then that winter, there was a huge snow.  It was the only time our entire college career. Jocelyn: Classes actually got canceled, which was unheard of. Shane: Yes, classes got canceled at UK.  People were everywhere having snowball fights.  Me and some buddies were outside having a snowball fight and a bunch of girls walked out of your dorm.  I think you were one of them, and I think we started throwing snowballs at you guys or something, trying to get you guys to join us. Jocelyn: We’re not 100% sure. Shane: But something like this happened, but we were pretty sure that our paths kind of crossed a couple times.  What really happened was the second year Jocelyn was there, my 3rd year, I moved to a dorm that was called, “The Wellness Dorm” because it had a gym in the basement. Jocelyn: And I also moved to that dorm because it had a gym in the basement and because there was no smoking allowed, because at that time, smoking was still allowed at dorms. Shane: That time, you could smoke right out in the dorms in the college.  We ended up moving into the same dorm.  We were there for a little while, and I was still kind of wild, and I was actually going out one night with my friends.  We would drive down to Richmond, KY to go hang out and you know– Jocelyn: Dance clubs. Shane: Dance clubs and college stuff.  Me and two of my buddies were getting ready to go out.  I lived on the second floor, Jocelyn– I didn’t notice it at the time, but she lived on the third floor– and my buddies lived on the first floor.  I was getting dressed up, sprayed my $10 Walmart cologne on so the ladies would be smelling good– Jocelyn: That is what stopped me in my tracks.  I’m just saying. Shane: That’s right, that $10 Walmart cologne, baby.  I think Gravity is what it was.  It’s, like, Gravity.  Go get yourself some of that Gravity, guys, I’m telling you.  Brings the ladies in like crazy.  Flies to honey, I’m telling you.  Anyway, I go out of my dorm, I will never forget this moment in my life.  I walk down the stairs, and as I’m going down to go with my friends to chase women, basically, Jocelyn walked in.  She was coming up the stairs.  Where were you coming from? Work? Jocelyn: No, I had just come from the gym.  I had been working out. Shane: Okay.  Jocelyn was coming up the stairs.  I had to talk to her.  I had to stop her.  There was something about that moment was just like, I had to stop her.  She walked up the steps a little bit, and I kind of walked a little bit past her.  I turned as I passed her, and I said, “Hey, what is your name?” And Jocelyn turned around and said– Jocelyn: “My name is Jocelyn.” Shane: Jocelyn what? Jocelyn: Jocelyn Hyravi. Shane: Here name was Jocelyn Hyravi.  And I said, “Whoa, where are you from? Is that foreign?” And she is like, “Kentucky.”  I thought like ‘Hyravi’ sounds like some kind of foreign, exotic name. Jocelyn: And it is, it’s Czechoslovakian. Shane: Czechoslovakian, yeah.  I thought to myself, whoa, I got this exotic foreign woman walking into my dorm, but it turns out she was just from Western Kentucky.  Anyway, I was going out with my friends, and I didn’t have time to talk to her and I don’t really remember exactly what happened after that.  We just kind of exchanged names, and said, “Hey, kind of hope we run into each other at some time.”  She went up, and I went down.  Did you think anything of that first encounter lesson, like, at all? Jocelyn: Who is this creepy guy talking to me at the stairs with the terrible cologne? Shane: “Man, that guy smelled terrible.  He buys his cologne at Walmart.  What a cheapo.” Jocelyn: No, I mean, I remember it but I don’t know.  I guess I didn’t– Shane: It was kind of passing and passing, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.  But it definitely left an impression on me because I went to my friend’s room, they were downstairs, and I was looking down at the ground shaking my head like, “That girl was awesome.”  And I sat down on my buddies bed and they were like, “Dude, what is wrong with you?” At that moment, just knowing Jocelyn’s name, I looked at my friends, and I said, “I just met the girl that I’m going to marry.  I know it, I don’t know how I know it, I don’t know when it is going to happen, I don’t know what is going to happen, but I just met the girl that I am going to marry.”  And they’re like, “All right, shut up, let’s go.” So, we go on, we go out.  We come back, and I don’t know how long it was between we ran into each other again. Jocelyn: Probably like a week or maybe two, I don’t know. Shane: Yeah, it was pretty good.  I was standing in the lobby talking to a buddy of mine who was working at the desk. Jocelyn: It was a mutual friend. Shane: Yeah, a mutual friend.  Jocelyn comes in the door on this day, and she comes up and she says something to the guy.  I was like, “Hey!” And she was like, “Hey!” And we kind of remembered each other.  Jocelyn and I started talking.  We did the classic, ‘What’s your major?’, ‘What are you studying?’ And Jocelyn says, “Computers.”  She said she is studying computers.  I’m like, “Really? Because I am having some computer problems and since you are a pro at computers, maybe you can totally help me with that.”  I’m like, “I have a printer.  I cannot get my printer to print.  Could you come up to my room and check out my printer, maybe?” Jocelyn: And being the nerd and the nice person that I am, I said, “Sure, I’ll be happy to help you.” Shane: Did you go back to your room first, or did you come straight up with me? Jocelyn: No, I think I just came up there.  Because that’s smart. Shane: That is smart, right? Strange guy inviting you to his room in the dorm to fix his printer.  We go up there, it was the darndest thing. My printer worked. Jocelyn: It worked with no issues at all. Shane: Jocelyn sat down– Jocelyn: That’s shocking. Shane: — And basically hit to print, and the thing printed.  But I swear that there was a problem at one time with a printer, and I was not just telling you that so you would come hang out with me, I promise. Jocelyn: Right. Shane: Yeah.  Jocelyn comes to my room and we discover that the printer isn’t broken, and she has probably at this point now thinking, “Okay, this guy just totally lied to me to come up to his room, and hang out with him.” So I’m like, “Okay, let’s talk.  What are we going to talk about?” So we started doing the other things, we start saying ‘Where you from?’  And Jocelyn is like, “I’m from Western Kentucky.” And I’m like, “I’m from Eastern Kentucky.”  And then we started talking– Jocelyn: And he was like, “How old are you?” And I’m like, “Well, I’m 18.”  Oh, goodness, I was 18. Shane: Yeah, barely legal, barely legal. Jocelyn: He’s like, “Oh, when do you turn 19?” I’m like, “March 27th.” And he’s like, “No way, my birthday’s March 28!” And I’m like, “Okay, buddy.” Shane: Alright, you lied to me about the printer, you tell me your birthday is the day after mine.  Jocelyn literally– and this is like a window.  I should have seen this window into her pragmatic, logical lifestyle.  She literally made me show her my ID, like right there.  Conversation didn’t get to go one minute further until I actually had to pull out my driver’s license and prove to her that my birthday actually was the day after hers.  That was weird. Jocelyn: And then we started talking about like what kind of cars we had.  I’m like, “Well, I drive a Buick.”  And he’s like, “I drive a Buick, too!” I’m like, “Yeah, I don’t know, man.” Shane: “This is not right.”  But it was so crazy how everything just totally lined up, and I was like I knew it.  I knew I was going to marry this girl.  Then, you know that awkward moment when you start a relationship where you kind of, that first time you’re together? You’re like okay, what do I say next, what do I do next? And I was sitting there, like, “I’ve got to ask this girl out.  I have to ask her to go with me.”  Well, as fate would have it, and for those of you who are long time listeners of the Flipped Lifestyle podcast, you know that I am an enormous pro wrestling fan.  I go to WrestleMania, I go to pay-per-views, I watch wrestling every week still and I always have since I was a little kid.  Me and my brother is to sneak and turn on wrestling and at 11 PM on USA.  Monday nights, my mom would be in the next room and we would have the volume off, and we would just try to read their lips and watch them do their wrestling.  I had ordered three tickets to WCW professional wrestling at Rupp Arena.  They were doing a television taping.  This was like a big wrestling promotion.  I looked down, and my buddies had sold me out.  I had bought these tickets, and the two guys that were going to go with me had totally sold me out, and said they couldn’t go.  I looked down, and I said, “That’s what I’ll do.  I’ll ask her to go with me to wrestling.”  So I looked over at Jocelyn and I said, “Hey, do you like pro wrestling?” And she just looked at me– Jocelyn: And I’m like, “No.”  And I’m still like, “No, I don’t.” Shane: And I was like, “Well, look.  Listen, even if you don’t like it, you’ll have a good time.  Come with me.  My friends sold me out.  Why don’t you come to pro wrestling with me?  We will go, it will be awesome.” I have no idea why she said yes, but you did, and you said yes, and it was incredible. Why did you say yes to that? Jocelyn: I have no idea. Shane: It was the cologne.  That’s what it was.  I was like, “Man, I’m going to sit by this guy for six hours at a wrestling taping because he smells good.” Jocelyn: Well, I didn’t realize it was six hours. Shane: Neither did I. Jocelyn: Me, knowing nothing about wrestling, I don’t know anything about it. Shane: We get there, and I thought it was like a two hour show.  But they did a double taping of wrestling, and it was six straight hours of professional wrestling.  This huge, enormous dude sat beside us.  The dude weighed probably 500 pounds.  Every time one of us would get up, and climb around him, he would be like, “Hey buddy, could you bring me back a hotdog or a beer or something, man?  I’m just so big, I can’t get up.” This is Jocelyn’s first date: six hours of pro-wrestling, sitting by me in my Walmart cologne and this 600-pound guy who was asking her to bring him hotdogs.  It was the best first date ever, and that is why you are still here with me today, right? Jocelyn: Right, that wrestling really sealed the deal, let me tell you. Shane: But the funny thing was, really, after that moment, we’ve never left each other’s side for any extended period of time since then, not being a couple moving toward living our life together.  It was just a really, really cool deal. Jocelyn: I just think back on those times now; I just think about how young we really were.  Shane was 20 when we met, and I was 18.  Just think back on that. Shane: Kids, man. Kids. Jocelyn: I mean, it was crazy that we made it this long.  It was not without any bumps in the road, of course.  Everybody has them.  But, it has been kind of crazy.  I think back to college, and just some of the things that happened along the way that helped us, I think, to be where we are today.  The first thing for me is I started college with the intention of being either a computer programmer or a systems analyst.  That is what I wanted to do when I grew up.  Nerd alert! Shane: Most people dream of, “I want to be a famous athlete.  I would love to be able to be a movie star.” Systems analyst: Jocelyn. Jocelyn: That’s a total shock to long-term listeners.  I’m sure.  But like I said, in the last episode, I didn’t really know what I want to do for sure, but I knew that I really liked working with computers and programming and other nerdy stuff like that.  I was like, “Okay, you know maybe that will be a good thing.”  At the University of Kentucky though, the systems analysis department was in the business department. So, I kind of got a little bit of business because you had to have some business classes in with your systems analysis.  My plan was to be a business major and a computer science minor.  Well, in the middle of one of my first programming classes– it might have been my second one, I can’t remember.  The instructor basically accused me and my roommate of cheating in programming.  We did not.  I will maintain that to this day 20 years later. Shane: Jocelyn does not cheat at board games or anything at all, ever would cheat at anything, it’s hilarious. Jocelyn: If I did it, I would admit it.  But we honestly did not.  It was just kind of a weird situation.  My roommate and I, we were working on something together.  We were in the same class.  Basically, the timestamp on the assignment was exactly the same, like even down to the millisecond.  While I admit that that is unusual, it was totally innocent.  We did not do any cheating.  We did work together, but that was not what she was trying to say. Anyway, this lady accused me of cheating and that just sort of really affected me.  I was just really upset about that.  Honestly I just didn’t want to continue on in the program.  That is how much it just really affected me.  I decided, okay.  This programming thing, I don’t know about.  But I think I still want to stay in business.  I ended up getting a job at the computer lab in the chemistry and physics building.  I had two jobs in college: I worked there as a computer lab clerk and I was also a salesperson at the fitness center.  I worked at an all-women’s fitness center and I did sales those experiences sort of got me thinking a little bit broader. I started becoming interested in sales and marketing because I worked in sales at this gym, and something I had never done before, but I actually kind of liked.  I started thinking, okay, well, what if I could maybe open a gym one day? That would be cool.  That got my entrepreneurship wheels spinning a little bit. Shane: When I first met Jocelyn, she was building bikes at Toys “R” Us and I would go and pick her up at Toys “R” Us when she would get off work, and then it’s so funny.  Jocelyn and I, we were just broke in college, and we would always kind of try to pay for things at the first.  Jocelyn is not the let-the-dude-pay-her-way kind of gal.  But, what we would do is we would get our paychecks on opposite weeks. I would pay for dinner one week, and then Jocelyn would pay for the next because we were so broke.  Jocelyn was working two jobs one time.  I would go sit in the computer lab with Jocelyn and she would be at work, and I would be just go and hang out at one of the computers while she was there.  I’ve heard you tell that story for a minute, something just clicked to me, too.  Later on in our story, a lot of you know why we got into this.  We had a terrible experience with our child– Jocelyn: Which we are going to get into in future episodes. Shane: And we had a boss that was, you know.  It was just awful.  Anybody out there who’s ever dealt with a bad boss, you know what that feels like, or if you’ve got something happen to your child, you know what that feels like.  We will get more into that, but in this micro chasm of the story that you just told, Jocelyn dealing with someone totally out of her control, who accused her of something stupid, you kind of realize that someone could affect you. No power of your own, that was higher up than you, and you just said, “Screw it, I’m just going to go do something else.”  You left the program.  It is amazing for me to even, now, to hear that connecting that dot that that is also not just a seed of your entrepreneurial bug, or whatever.  But of our mentality that was forming even at the time, we are not going to let other people ruin our life or dictate our life, and you just said, “I’m going to go a different direction.” It is so hard.  I know that a lot of people listening to this, it is so hard to change directions, you get inertia.  You’ve got people at home telling you, “Oh, yeah, you should be a computer programmer.”  But you are like, “No, this is not going to happen, I’m not going to deal with this.  I’m going to remove this bad thing from my life and move on.”  That’s something that we did later on in a very huge scale when we left our jobs. Jocelyn: Yeah, I agree with that.  It was something that happened, I didn’t like it, so I did something different.  It definitely has, I think, some implications for things that happened later on in life.  But as I was starting to do the sales job, I started becoming more interested in sales.  I even took an entrepreneurship class because it was required in business to do.  Once I took that class, I even have a business plan.  I will see if I can find it. Shane: You still have it.  I’ve seen it recently. Jocelyn: I do still have it, I’m not sure where it is at.  But I even created a business plan for this entrepreneurship class, and I could remember doing that so vividly.  At that moment, I was like, “Okay, do I really want to design systems my whole life?”  Not to mention, that program was a master’s degree program.  I was like, “I do not want to go to any more school.”  At the time, I was like, “This is it. I’m going to do four years, and I’m done.”  So what I decided to do, this systems analysis thing, I don’t think it is going to work out either. What I’m going to do is I’m going to look and see what can I finish in four years? With the courses that I already have, what can I do in four years?  I started looking at all the programs.  What I settled with was management.  I actually have a bachelor of business administration in management.  That was the program I could finish in four years. Shane: Which is hilarious, because Jocelyn hates managing any people at all.  Like, period.  Like, she hates it with a passion.  It’s funny when we did, ‘What is your major?’ thing.  I have a degree in education.  I was a history teacher and the reason that I did that was basically because my dad told me to.  I think the grand plan for him was to have all of his sons working for him and his insurance agency– Jocelyn: Much more to come on that. Shane: Much more to come on that.  I actually had my insurance license already.  I got it when I was 18 years old.  I will never forget him telling me.  I’m like, “Dad, what do I major in, what do I do?” Man, I didn’t know what I wanted to do.  He said, “Be a teacher.  Worst case scenario, you will always have a job.  They always need teachers somewhere.  It is a steady paycheck, with benefits and worst-case scenario, at the end of the day, no matter what happens, you will be all right.” Shane: And, I was like, “Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.”  I liked history, I like political science.  I hated math, so it got me as far away from Math classes as possible once you go through your basics.  And I was like, yeah, it sounds like a great idea.  I did some business classes, but did not want to do businesses.  I just was not even interested in doing it.  Accounting almost made my head explode.  I took an accounting class, I got a D, and I was like, “I’m out.” Jocelyn: My accounting has never been very great. Shane: I look back on that, and I’m really glad that I’ve got my teaching degree.  It opened doors for me to coach football, it opened doors for me to make money online eventually, but one thing that I really look back on, and I look at that, was my mentality and the mentality that the world teaches to survive.  You can survive, plan for the worst-case scenario.  Worst-case scenario, you won’t starve to death. I’m so blessed that my dad gave me that advice.  I’m glad that I’ve got my degree.  That is not the mentality that we have any more.  I want a mentality of abundance and success and drive and striving for something more.  That is something that I picked up even coaching football, is let’s get better.  Let’s win the next game by two touchdowns, by five touchdowns. I just don’t want to live life ‘good enough’. I don’t want to live life planning for the worst case scenario, or, “This is the worst thing that could happen, and that is not that bad.”  I feel like that is why I picked my degree in college, was I was trying to set a bar that I could not fall below, but almost like a ceiling that I could never really rise above either. Jocelyn: And we know, that looking back, at the time, it seemed like a good idea.  But now, looking back, we’re like, wow.  Maybe that was not– Shane: The right mentality, basically.  I think it was from my dad, like he was an entrepreneur, he went through the ups and downs of rollercoaster of struggling with his own business.  It was a great thing, it was a bad thing, and I think he just wanted a very stable job for me.  He wanted to know I was okay.  I think that that was just, now looking back, knowing what we know now, knowing that anyone can do this online business thing, knowing that you can make everything happen in your own life, you can control your own destiny and if you just to go get it, that there is unlimited potential in all of us. I mean, there is no cap on what any of us can accomplish, knowing that now, I wish I could go back in tell my 20-year-old self that you don’t have to plan your life around the worst case scenario.  You don’t have to be scared about what happens if I take a risk, or take a chance or chase a dream instead of just picking that nice, safe, railroad-track stable path back in college. So basically, Jocelyn goes through, and we actually graduated in the same year, even though I started college before her because I was on the five-year plan, and I may have had to retake a “few classes,” so we actually graduated in the same year. Jocelyn: Not the same month. Shane: Not the same month, though.  I walked graduation, but I had actually gotten mad at a teacher because, oh, she was terrible.  She wasn’t teaching, the class was out of control, and I just stopped going to the class because I was like, “This is ridiculous.  I’m not wasting my time here.”  She totally failed me, and I try to argue it.  She was terrible, and it didn’t work. Anyway, I had to go to summer school to finish my degree that year, but we did graduate in 2001.  Is that right? Yeah, 2001.  Jocelyn and I graduated school, and some people are like, “Propose, get married!” And things like that, but Jocelyn and I didn’t really work on anyone else’s timetable.  We were not ready to get married.  Or maybe, Jocelyn didn’t want to marry me because I was– Jocelyn: Probably.  No, I’m just kidding. Shane: A little immature at the time. Jocelyn: No, we were just super young still.  I was 21, you were 23. Shane: I kind of had it in my mind, too, that I did not want to get married until I was 25.  I wanted to work a little bit and do some things. Jocelyn: We just kind of felt like we needed to just explore the world a little bit– Shane: — Figure out what we wanted to do with our lives. Jocelyn: Be real adults. In college, you are not a real adult. Shane: Just part-time adult. Jocelyn: You are still kind of with your mom and dad.  So we wanted to live on our own for a while in see how that worked out. Shane: Basically, what we did was we actually moved back to my hometown.  Jocelyn rode around with my dad, and he introduced her to everyone in town, trying to help her find a job. Jocelyn: I got my very first apartment, living all by myself. Shane: That’s right. So did I. Jocelyn: That was super exciting. Shane: I went to work for my dad selling insurance, which we are going to get into and the next episode and how fun that was.  Jocelyn got a job.  Where do you work first? Jocelyn: My very first job ever was selling commercial dishwashers. Shane: Like big dishwashers in the back of restaurants, basically. Jocelyn: Yeah, it was my first ever real job and I have a lot more to say about that.  We will get into that more in the next episode. Shane: That gives you a little bit more background about where we come from, or education, how we met, how I tricked Jocelyn into being my girlfriend.  Like coming to wrestling with me.  We are about to take the next step in our journey, that’s really going to push us toward where we are today. This is where we start growing up, start settling in, and start moving into our careers, and we start experiencing those adult things that really, most of you listening have probably felt like, “Should I be doing this? Why am I giving so much control of my life to people? Why am I working for someone else? Can I do something on my own?”  We are going to take you through that journey that led us to not only turning our backs against society and getting out of the world’s view of what we should do, and moving into online business, and really flipping our life upside down. That is all the time we have, for next week to then we will go into our first careers, and when we really started pursuing our dreams.  I’m going to tell you the story of my romantic storybook proposal to Jocelyn and how I convinced her to be my bride. Jocelyn: #nomance. Shane: There is no romance in this story, so you’re going to want to tune in next week, and I had actually upgraded my cologne at this time.  I wasn’t doing the Walmart cologne anymore, so maybe that had something to do with it.  Tune in next week, and we’ll get into that, and we will take you to the next step of our Flipped Lifestyle journey. Links and resources: Podcast 164:  Our Story - Chapter 1:  Love at First Sight Flip Your Life LIVE 2019 Tickets & Registration Information Flip Your Life community PROLIFIC Monthly Enjoy the podcast; we hope it inspires you to explore what’s possible for your family! Join the Flip Your Life Community NOW for as little as $19 per month! https://flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife