 Hello, I'm your host Alex Freeberg and this is the Alex the Endless show. Thank you so much for joining me today. I have brought my beautiful wife, Christine back on the show. It's been maybe six or seven months. It was like last September, October, so maybe even more than that. And it was just really great to have her on. A lot of people like seeing her and hearing her thoughts, especially about me, because a lot of people don't get the full view of me because I just talk about myself, but you guys get to hear her perspective, which I think is pretty unique. And so she's back and we're going to be asking you tons of questions today. I hope you're OK with that. Did you want to say anything before we started? No, I'm ready. Awesome. I'm excited to be here, though. That's super great. And I love you, baby. That's really sweet. OK, so you guys asked a bunch of questions. I put a community post this is months ago. I thought I was going to do this earlier, but, you know, we have a life in kids and stuff, so it didn't work out. But we're finally getting to it. So we have tons of questions and before we get into some of these, one thing to know is that one, she is my wife, two is that she is a counselor. That's what she does as a profession. So some of the questions pertain to that like mental health. So, you know, just to be aware of another thing to notice is that I have to slash to get in here because Christine's part of it shorter than I am. And so if I sit up tall, as you can see, I'm off screen. I know Shrimpy, though. No, well, so anyways, we get started. This is the first question. This is from my good friend, Sergio. He is one of my mentees that I've been working with for like six or seven months. He just got his first job. Congratulations to you. Super, super proud of you. So this is just a shout out to you. So you're going to get to go first. The question is, and this one is to you again, most of these questions are almost all these for her. But you should you should tell them, too. I don't know any of these questions yet. Yes, I haven't told her any of these questions. She doesn't know anything. Well, she knows a lot, but she doesn't know anything about these questions. No, it's not what I was trying to apply. All right. He says, what to expect and how to take care of your mental health while making a career change? How to study effectively when learning new skills without overdoing it? So I'm going to let you hold if you need to reread it. That's totally fine. And then we'll go to the next question. But it basically was how to take care of your mental health and learning new skills without overdoing it. Yeah, well, I mean, good for you, Sergio, for asking this because not a lot of people have this on their mind. So kudos to you. I'm not surprised that you got a job. You sound very intelligent. I would say, you know, give yourself a lot of grace. Be really patient with yourself. It's a big deal to change careers. I think a lot of people don't think is that big of a deal. They're like, I just switching careers like, you know, make it work. Well, it's a big deal. I mean, if you look at, you know, statistically, the biggest changes in people's lives that cause the most, you know, stress, the most anxiety, it's going to be married, divorced, having kids, loss of loved ones, changing careers, you know, job related stuff. So that's on the list of things that can cause a lot of anxiety and can be very anxiety-provoking and producing. So I would say, yes, be very patient with yourself. Maybe manage your expectations well. So I talked to a lot of a lot of my clients about basically, you know, being aware of are your expectations too high? And this is advice for myself as well. You know, are your expectations too high? Are you, you know, giving yourself enough grace to where you can manageably meet the goals that you've set for yourself? So I would say that to the first part of the question. And then it says, how to study effectively when learning new skills without overdoing it. This is where you got to know yourself. So if you're the kind of person that like you love to pull all-nighters and that works for you, then great. But try not to cram it all at once. If you're the person that you know over time, you've just got to consistently study, then do that. You know, just you've got to know yourself and you've got to know your sweet spot. So I would say that. That's smart. Yeah, I think, well, just to add on to that, you didn't ask me, but you don't really care what I think. But, you know, what she was basically saying was is, you know, when you're having these huge career changes, don't have the expectation that you're going to land a data analyst job in three months. You know, make realistic goals, you know, get some interviews at the three month mark, et cetera. So, you know, make it realistic. I think that's good advice. Yeah, I mean, we've all started somewhere. We've all had to start at the bottom and work our way up to the top. So. I think there's a popular song about that. The next one is, how do you manage? And this question is pointed at me, I believe, but I'm going to let you answer it for me because I want to hear your perspective. That's dangerous. It is. How do you manage to balance your work, community help and family hats off to your dedication and also a special mention to your wife and supporting you in all of your endeavors? So how do I balance everything that goes on in my life? I mean, you balance enough. I mean, you probably have more on your plate than I do, but speaking for me, from your perspective, you know, how do you think I balance it all? What do I do? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you make a good point that we each have our own things that we have to balance. Definitely teamwork as it relates to making the household run. So he has his lane, I have my lane. I stay in it. Yeah, and I think we try not to like invade each other's lanes because we respect that and we honor that. And I fortunately married a very driven man, a very task and goal oriented man who really values the work that he puts into stuff. So I don't have to worry about you not getting your work done. I mean, if anything, I have to remind him to stop and slow down. So I would say maybe I ground you in that way by saying like, hey, you're working, you're overworking, you're doing too much, you're staying up too late. You're working too hard, Alex. You're just working too hard. You're doing too good for the family. Well, I mean, it's true, right? Maybe because there are many nights where you could work till two or three AM in the morning, but we have kids and they're up at five AM. So it's like, sometimes I have to say to him like, hey, stop burning the midnight oil, get yourself some rest. So I think all that to say is it's hard to find a balance, especially in the early days of starting a YouTube channel or starting off in a career as Sergio was talking about. So it's hard. It's hard to find a balance, but you have to find someone who's willing to talk to you through it and keep you grounded, keep you in reality check if you're working too much, not enough, you know, that kind of thing. You're a rock, baby. So thanks. I don't know that I fully answered that, but I think you just work a lot. You really do. People don't see it in the background, but you work a lot and I'm very thankful for that. Yeah, no. I think a lot, I genuinely, I mean, I think people have seen enough of my videos to know that I work pretty hard, but you don't, I mean, it is constant. I don't think I, I don't take many breaks. I really wish I had more Netflix time, but yeah, no, I mean, I think you're right. I think, you know, it's just about communication and figuring it all out. Next question, and there's two parts to this question, but I really am only interested in the second part. And so the question is from Ryan. It says, how long does it take you to learn all the skills to career switch and how did that transition affect your marriage? And to answer that first part, it took me like four months. And I have a full, yeah. Wow. And I had like, I have a full video talking about how I did that, the skills I learned, et cetera. So you can, there's different videos for that, but how did that transition affect our marriage? Remember when I was transitioning into data analytics? Just to remind you, you had gotten a job offer in Oklahoma, we almost moved there. Then I took that other job. So how did that transition during that time affect our marriage? I was happy. I did not know that. I, when I married Alex, I knew that he was absolutely the right person for me. And I knew that you were incredibly intelligent. And you could do anything you put your mind to. I knew that without a shadow of a doubt. But at the same time, I also knew that you were not being utilized to the best of your abilities. Your intellect and your skills were kind of being put to waste in the career field that you had chosen at the time. Keep it coming. So for me, you know, when you pivoted and you transitioned to a whole different career field, I was like, yeah, baby, go. Because I knew- Make that money. Come on now, because I knew that you could do really good. And if I just let you go and you know, you could transition, make that transition easily, you would do really, really well. So I personally was very excited and very happy that you had switched careers because I knew that was better for our family. I knew that was better for you and your skills were being put to the test. And it was a challenge for you too. And you're the kind of person that needs a challenge. You can't stay stagnant. So I personally was very excited for you. I don't think it negatively affected our marriage in any way. That's good. What if I hadn't made the transition and I was still in that like $36,000 an hour, or, wow, $36,000 an hour, we are killing it. Wow. That's a good job. Would you have left me? No, stop. I would not have left you, but it would have been really hard. I mean, we probably would not have had as many kids. That's true. We would not be in the situation that we're in now financially. So, you know, it just- Lily would, we couldn't have afforded Lily. No, for sure. I mean, it just would have been a totally different situation. Yeah. No, you're right. We're very blessed. You're right. No, I agree. Another one from Sergio. I'm giving him extra love this week or on this episode. You're digging Sergio. Yeah. He said, I think you mentioned her working as a therapist before. How can someone pick a good therapist? This is not related to data analytics at all. So, just kind of- Yeah. Well, it depends on what's important to you. That's true. To me, I think the most important thing is how well you vibe together, as silly as that sounds. It's absolutely true. It's a relationship. It is a relationship. It's an important relationship. You have to feel trusted. You have to feel valued. You have to feel like you're not being judged. You have to feel like you can be open and communicative and that that other person will value what you have to say and give you very valuable feedback in return. And so, the relationship is really important. Yes, they need to have a degree. They need to have some experience. But I'll be honest with you. Some of my cohorts, when we were just starting out in our practicums, some of them were fantastic counselors and that was their very first semester of counseling. They had the skills, they had the drive. So, it's not so much about necessarily, my belief is like this abundant wealth of skills. So-and-so has this degree and has been counseling for this many years. Like, yeah, that's great. But at the end of the day, the relationship matters. So, you need to go to someone who you feel comfortable with and who you trust that has the credentialing, of course, and some experience. Really hoping on the credentialing piece, huh? Well, you don't wanna go to someone who, you know, didn't go to the right schooling and isn't licensed. So, that's important. But assuming that has happened, you know, you wanna find the right fit. And I think that's much more important. Now, having said that, if you have a very specific therapeutic need, then you do need to find someone who has experience in that very specific need. And I'm talking more so like for trauma, maybe suicidal thoughts, you know, very specific stuff. But outside of that, what's important that the relationship works. Good advice. Let's go on to the next one. And I will say there's a few questions in here that I'm like really excited to get to because I'm curious as well. But this one is from Daniel. It says, yes, how many, well, I had, I said to you guys have any questions. He's just saying yes. How many hours per week does Alex actually work and how many does he spend with the family? Yeah, you work a lot. So I can't emphasize that enough. I mean, you work a lot. And I would say you definitely, that the free time that you have, you have sacrificed personally, any free time for yourself. And so you spend your free time with the family. Fortunately, you are mostly a family man and you love to spend time with family. But yeah, but I would say you maybe have, I don't know, baby. In terms of like how many free time hours you have like, I feel like I have a good amount. Decent, decent, but not a ton. Yeah, I mean, you are the primary caretaker of the kids. I do, I go to work, or I don't actually go to work. I just like do work. So I mean, yeah, you're kind of answering it, but I'll, I mean, how many hours do I work per week? I typically work about 40. Well, for your regular job. For just my regular job. And then I have YouTube, my YouTube, my YouTube job is what I'm calling it, in which I spend many hours per week replying to comments, LinkedIn comments, or messages, creating the videos, editing. It's another part-time slash full-time job. It's for sure, at least another part-time job. Yeah. So, but then I have plenty of time. I just work really late. So I wake up at 5 a.m. and then I go to sleep around like 12, 30 to midnight every night. Sometimes more depending on the week. So yeah, I mean, I don't answer the question for you. But here's the kicker to that for people who are watching having, being really good about your scheduling and really good about prioritizing your time, prioritizing things that are important to you and things that aren't so much, maybe they can go on the back burner. That's really, really important. So I think you've gotten really good at scheduling and kind of juggling all those balls that are in the air. But that's key is when you've got lots of stuff like this, you've got to be able to schedule and prioritize time when time needs to be prioritized, prioritize, excuse me, with certain things. That's a good point because when I'm not working, I am spending time with my family, right? So I went during the day, I had my meetings, I have a little bit of work that I do during the day. The rest of the time I'm with my family, like I'm helping put them down for nap, the kids down for naps, helping feed them, taking them out to the park, like stuff like that. And then once we put them down to bed at night, we have our time and with Kennedy, our oldest. And then I have my work time after they all go to sleep. So I have more work time at the end of the day. So I get plenty of family time in. Plenty of family time, but that's where it's important to have a significant other that will remind you to take care of yourself too. Like just the other day, I was, you were saying that you needed some you time and you wanted to go golfing. And so I was like, yep, go do it. And so, you know, if you were married to someone who was like, no way, you know, you gotta be at home. Like that's not gonna work. So you gotta find a balance, it's a balance. Yeah. And for anyone who's interested, I didn't do that well. I did okay. I hit a few, I hit a few pars. I hit no birdies, a ton of bogeys and then quite a few double bogeys. So it wasn't my best round, but I hadn't played in like four years. It had been a long time. So I know that a lot of people were wondering. But the next question is from Rhea. It says, what do you do on weekends as a family would love to see your cute kids? We do have extremely cute kids. I might. I'm biased, so I agree. You might see some photo. I don't know if I'm gonna do that or not. What do we do on the weekends as a family? We love to be outdoors. It's the weekend right now. So I mean, what do we do this weekend? Well, we love to be outdoors. Our kids love to be outdoors. We're an outdoorsy family. So if the weather is good, then we're outside. We're going on walks. We're going to the park. We're going on outings. Costco. Those are outings these days. Honestly, Costco is true. But I mean, I think, you know, during COVID we've been trying to be respectful of not really going into super crowded places and all that. But, you know, we love being outdoors anyway. So that wasn't tough for us. Yeah. And then, you know, we like to dance. We like to sing at the house. Oh, I was like, we don't go dancing. Oh, you mean just like dance like with the kids? Yeah, with the kids. Yeah, we do, we do. We're a sing-songy, dancey family. And so we like to do that. And we go to the bookstore, the library. Our kids love to read, so we do library. I mean, we're pretty wholesome, you know, pretty basic stuff. Just the best family. We're just so wholesome. Oh, nothing too exciting going on over here. Yeah, no, it's pretty true. That's not crazy exciting, but we love, I mean, we love it. I love it. Another one from Ria says, I remember that she does all the cooking for the family. That is true. Thank you, Ria. I tried cooking for myself three meals a day. It takes forever and I don't have much time left for other stuff, sad face. Ria, I feel that. Any meal prep tips, let me just preface this. I don't cook at all. Actually, that's not true. I cook a lot of breakfasts. I do scrambled eggs. So I cook lots of breakfasts. And Christine cooks the rest. Christine cooks everything. She cooks like hot dishes and real like just meals all the time. Hot dishes. The camera, no, the camera, the thing just shook or shook. So she cooks all like spaghetti, like all these different meals. You spend a lot of time doing that. How do you do it? Any meal prep tips is what she's asking for. Yes. For a family of five, three kids, two adults. Well, she's talking about herself. Well, ignore that. Just meal prep tips, because we got a family. Like what's your tips for getting meals done? Yeah, I do a lot of prep work behind the scenes when the kids are in bed or when they're taking naps. I'm doing a lot of research on recipes that will work for us, listing all of our ingredients, getting everything like prepped and ready to go so that if I do need to go to the grocery store with them or on my own that I can get it done. I don't have a lot of free time as well. And so I don't have like hours to spend at the grocery store. And I don't know very many people who want to do that. Anyway, so unless you're that kind of person, this is helpful to just beforehand in your free time, you really have to prep. I have a lot of friends who pre-portion out their meals, like if they're on diets or they wanna eat really healthy or maybe it's just them. They do a lot of like pre-portioning, putting it in containers and then putting it in the fridge so that throughout the week they have it. I do a version of that where I'll spend a couple days, probably three days a week like really cooking while Alex is playing with the kids. And then we have two or three like casseroles or meals to last us throughout the week. So you just gotta be smart about it and do your behind the scenes work. That's really true, you cook big casseroles and then we eat as the meal for that night, put it in the fridge and then it's like still like two or three or four meals for the next couple of days. And you make three or four of those casseroles, I say casseroles, just big dishes. Deep meals, yeah. And we just eat off of those for like the whole week. But Rhea is right, am I saying that right, Rhea? Okay, but Rhea is right. It takes a lot of work and there's no getting around that. So you know, unless you wanna be eating out all the time and killing your food budget, then that's how it is. Yeah, I mean, we haven't, I don't think we've ever talked about budgeting, but maybe we'll do an episode on that one time. Yeah, we should. You're the budget man. I am the budget man. That's what they- I should call you that. No, that is what they call me. Alex the analyst, the budget man. No, Alex the analyst is secondary. I prefer the budget man. Here's another one from Cesar. He says, how did you guys meet? I will let you take this one. Okay, well, both of us had just moved to Texas for various reasons and we were, I was already a part of a church, a big church here in Texas and you were looking for a church here in Texas. So you were doing a bunch of research and of course, research minded. You figured out the highly rated churches and the ones that you that fit really well with what you wanted. And so you found one and I happened to already be going to their singles get togethers at the time. And so, you know, I was, I think I'd gone to like maybe two or three of these singles events. You were single, I was single. Unfortunately, we were both single. It was Kismet. Yeah. It was meant to be. And I saw you, I saw you, I think before you saw me, I don't know that I ever told you that. I saw him and I was like, ooh, we, that's a handsome man. I'm just not finding out that I had a stalker before. You were stalking me. And I was like, ooh, okay. But you know, I wasn't going to talk to you or anything. I was just going to just admire and move on about my way. But at the end of the night. It was so really creepy. I was just going to admire, ooh. At the end of the night, we were walking back to the garage where we parked our cars. It was like a parking garage. Not just like somebody's garage. Anyways, when you started talking to me, because apparently you were noticing me too. I was the only creeper you noticed me. I don't think I remember you in the actual service that we were at. I held the door for her going into the parking garage and we just happened to get on the same elevator. I was like, hey, did you just go to that singles event? And then we started talking and ended up talking for like what, two hours? Right. He didn't get my number, so I just assumed he was not interested. But I thought, oh, what a really nice guy. Again, very attractive. Just a nice guy. Very. Okay. And I thought, okay, well, he's really nice, but maybe I'll see him again. I don't know. He just doesn't seem very interested in asking for my number. So call it a night, whatever. And then I think the next time we were talking, then you asked for my number. Yes, I met up with you. I said, hey, let's sit together. The next time I found her, the next time sat next to her, as we were going out, I said, hey, let me get your number, just like chat and talk. We were both in the healthcare field at the time. So it made sense for me to get her number. If I'm looking for a job or something, it's all a ruse to get her number. So, all right, I think that answers that question. And then we started dating, got married, had kids. That's history. All that good stuff. Let me see how many, oh, this is our last question. This is fantastic timing. A very important question, this is from Anton. A lot of people have asked this. So this is like super interesting. Now they really know I'm curious. A lot of people. Okay, I'm curious. A very important question. What color beard would she say, or what color would she say is your beard? Because someone said to me a while ago that it looks kind of ginger and now I can't stop wondering. And she comments on that all the time. All the time. A lot of people have said that. So go ahead. Okay, this is really interesting. And I feel very validated now because Alex swears that he has a certain color of hair and I swear that he does not have a certain color of hair. I say his beard is red. Okay. It has red-ish in it. No, he says it's brown. It is brown with red in it. No, no. I'm like Dexter, have you seen that show? No, listen, when we first met, your head was shaved. Watch the previous one with us. There's a whole thing on that. And I was like, this man has red hair. I'm marrying a red head. A ginger, right? Yes. Not that that's bad. I just thought this is who I'm marrying. And he was like, no, no, no, baby, I have brown hair. I have my whole life. And I said, I don't believe you. I did not believe him at all. Based on this beard right here, I said, this man has red hair. And so I had to see picture proof from when you were younger. That's true. And his hair is brown on his head. But I feel very validated secondly because Lily has a tinge of red to her hair. That's true. And I wasn't saying ginger in like a dragatory way, but this person was saying ginger. And so I was just repeating. There's nothing wrong with red head. No, no, no. And OK, so I like to compare my hair when I used to have hair up here to Dexter on the show, Dexter. He has brown hair. And then he has that auburn reddish beard. That is very similar to what I have. And I think it has a much lighter. Like mine is not as red. But I definitely have that in it. Yeah, your beard is red, baby. Yeah, that's fine with me. OK, well, with that being said, this is nearing the end. I'm looking at how much time we have left. We only have a few minutes. At the end of these episodes, I always choose a vegetable that they can write and say they made all the way to the end. I feel like this was one of the best episodes ever. Whoa. And so we have to choose a vegetable. I would say you could choose. But most likely you'll choose one that I've already chosen. No, I don't think so. Go ahead. Brussels sprouts. I've done Brussels sprouts. What? Yes. Oh, all right. OK, do that. No, you do that. Zucchini. If you are watching to this part of the video, comment down below. Zucchinis that we know that you watched this episode. And this was just a super fun one. Thank you for coming on the show. I think people really appreciated that. Some people had some very fantastic questions. I really appreciated it. They brought it. They brought it. They brought great questions. They brought it. Good conversation. Yeah. Thank you for coming on the show. You're welcome. I had fun. All right, everybody, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for joining us. If you liked this episode, be sure to comment and subscribe below. And we'll see you in the next episode. Bye.