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Ep. 128 Beyond Woo Woo Positive Thinking: The Twofer Strategy

by Torie Mathis | Smart AF Show

Beyond Woo Woo Positive Thinking: The Twofer Strategy

Challenging times come up for everyone and how you react and move through them makes a huge difference in your attitude and outcome. Can you actually make difficult times easier? Beyond woo-woo positive thinking?

In this episode, Torie Mathis and her cohost Sean talk about how to use the twofer strategy to get past tough times and come out on top. Whether it’s an unexpected move or change of career, not being able to afford college or travel or just needing to get through chores the twofer strategy will work.

Listen or watch the full episode below:

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION –

(transcription is auto-generated)

SAF 128

[00:00:00] Torie: You have these things that kind of come up and seem like a drag or seem like, like, well, that’s not how I wanted it to go. Like, I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to have to drive to Michigan. I didn’t want to have to do these things, but you can either not do them because we’re do, or you can figure out like, how can I pair this with something? So it ends up being awesome.

Hey, what’s up. It’s Torie Mathis, your host. And I am here with the one and only Sean Mathis, founder of Miles Through Time Automotive Museum.

[00:00:34] Sean: What’s happening?

[00:00:35] Torie: So we’re always talking about different ways that we can be better at reaching our goals. I think Sean and I, and pretty impressed sometimes looking. Some of the things that we’ve been able to do. And I think one of the cool things that we’ve done is we have been able to twofer our goals. I love the idea of a twofer, you know, getting more than one thing done with the effort of one.

[00:01:01] Sean: Yeah, it’s a bigger bang for the buck, for sure.

[00:01:03] Torie: It really is. And the one that I thought of that was like my very first, like super twofer was I wanted to travel when I was younger and I wanted to go to college and you know when you’re 18, when you’re 19, when you’re 20, those things are not as easy as they seem like. It seems like, oh, this will be great. I’ll work. I’ll go to college. I had a hard time with it. And so I joined the Army and so I got money for school. I was able to travel the world. There were a lot of things that I got out of that, that I don’t think I could have done as easily on my own.

[00:01:38] Sean: I joined the military specifically to pay for school as well. And so I got to make money while going to school. And that was pretty cool. I didn’t get to travel quite as much as you, but in the end I did, I did get to awesome because of how we win. You know, I got to see a bunch of places in route to Afghanistan and on the way back home, obviously, the route back home was a much more about a trip on places that we got to stop. But without doing that, I would have been, you know, I wouldn’t have been able to say I’ve been to all those places today if it wasn’t for that.

And I’ve got my bachelor’s degree, you know, so.

[00:02:24] Torie: You know, I think travel is one of those really great ways that you can to, for things a lot. We’ve taken quite a few trips even for our marketing agency, when clients have one, certain things like we’ll come visit, they’re like really. Yep. We’ll come see you.

And we have traveled, I went to New York and visited with a preschool to help them set up their registration software.

[00:02:47] Sean: To Boston.

[00:02:48] Torie: We’ve gone to Boston several times to talk to.

[00:02:53] Sean: Australia.

[00:02:54] Torie: We went to Australia. Yes, we, and we actually took the kids with us on that one. We went to Australia for like 12 days, 10 days in order to, you know, help a client, set some things up, and kind of build that relationship a little bit more.

[00:03:06] Sean: And that came from a business trip to Las Vegas, where we then got to see the grand canyon and all that kind of.

[00:03:14] Torie: Yes. I wanted to join a group, you know, we did another episode on how to like talk with people and network with people in your actual industry. And because I work from my laptop, a lot of times I worked from home. I, all of my correspondence lifetimes are through email. I don’t really get out and see a lot of other people in person. And so I want it to be able to join up with some type of group, some type of community. And I found this coaching group that not only did everybody kind of get together and kind of support each other online, but they also had an annual conference every single year. And the first one was in the Dominican Republic. And I was like, sign me up. And it actually, so, you know, to, for right there, you get to travel, you get to meet other people. It also gave us some really great business opportunities and some really big projects that we’ve gotten to work for to work with.

And it got us to poop Cana. It got us to the grand canyon. It got us to Mexico a couple of times. It did end up. Yeah, we’ve got to do a lot of things from those business decisions. You know, I could have chosen some local group. I could have found something, you know, just join the chamber or, you know what I mean? There’s other things that I could have found, but I think it was really great that we were able to think like, well, what other types of things do we want to get out of this?

Especially since it’s a paid group, it’s not something that’s free. And so if you’re wanting to join something like that, or if you’re going to be putting your money, you figure out like, what other things. You’re getting from it. And if you can align more of your goals, then it kind of makes it a little bit better.

[00:04:44] Sean: Yeah. I mean, travel is definitely one of those things that we wanted to do all the time. And if we had the opportunity to, to travel like we want, but then also benefit from it on a business standpoint. I mean, that’s a no brainer really, you know, even with all this Automotive Museum Guide stuff, you know, We could travel all over the country, visiting all these museums, but then we’re also doing it from a business standpoint and growing the network and you know, who knows, who winds up becoming clients and like it, you never really know, but until you actually go up there that then that’s the only way to find out.

[00:05:26] Torie: Well, definitely with Automotive Museum Guide, we’ve made quite a few. Out to other museums, and it’s really nice that we’ve been able to do some family trips and then go at the same time and visit some of the museums. Kids are still in school. Kids are still kind of young. So I think that that’s something that we can grow into. But I think knowing that we have a plan, like how can we grow this part of our business and travel and make, communicate, you know, communicate with more people and network. And then there’s all these different levels that we can do rather than. Thinking of it on a linear type of level.

[00:06:00] Sean: And sometimes, you know, you’re, you’re not even going to expect it, you know? When I got my grandpa’s Cadillac, I had it for, I think it was two years, I think. So Just like, what can we do? Cause immediately I tapped into Torie’s resources. I’m like, I need a website. I need a Facebook page. Give me a logo, all this stuff without any real plan. You know, I just like this car is so cool. It deserves this stuff. Right. And as the hooked me up with all that, and then, but really all of us doing was going to car shows.

[00:06:29] Torie: Which was fun for the first couple of months until the heat in the south, during summer.

[00:06:35] Sean: And then, you know, we each have daily driver cars and always have, so in most, in most cases we always has had a two car garage. So now adding this third car, that’s a humungous car boat. It created a whole nother set of issues that neither one of, we don’t want to leave anything outside. Like they need to be in the garage and to keep them clean. And if it’s cold or hot or all that kind of.

[00:07:02] Torie: Also that one of the garage doors, we had to halfway disassemble in order to get from the garage door to shut because the car is giant. Yeah.

[00:07:12] Sean: So, you know, in trying to think of what else. I can do with this car.

[00:07:19] Torie: Well, it’s funny because some people would think we could just put the car in storage.

[00:07:23] Sean: Like think we have the, I mean, really that, that was going to be the only other option was to put it in some storage.

[00:07:32] Torie: But we’re more like, how can we have our own storage? The first we were like, well, if we’d had it, cause you know, the marketing agency was the only business that we had. And so we thought, well, how come somehow get the car in with the business. And so that was kind of like what we were trying to work.

[00:07:49] Sean: Now, we were looking for a loop. We went to a downtown area that we were never, we’d never even been to. And we were like, how can we, how can we get this car in here as well? That has nothing to do with anything we’re talking about. But it gets out of the garage.

[00:08:04] Torie: Right? And so from that, it opened up all of these amazing opportunities and then ended up starting Miles Through Time that we had storage, not just for Sean’s Cadillac, but for whoever’s car, you know, and Miles Through Time started as a storage option and with the idea of a museum with the idea of some other things and as morphed in the last year, since 2017 has morphed more into a museum. And now. The car is a centerpiece of the museum. Along with all of these other cars, it’s really grown into something. That’s, that’s quite amazing.

[00:08:40] Sean: Yeah. That plus has become a movie star, you know, so I could have a wait and put it in a storage unit and probably would have forgotten about it to some degree, you know, cause it becomes a hassle to go do anything with it. So if I’m not going to drive it as much as it would, if it was at our house, I might as well have it where it can be seen. And that’s really my, my thought on it. It’s not like I still want to drive the cars as often as possible, but you know, while it’s not being treated. It’s, you know, it gets shown and treated the way it should be.

[00:09:15] Torie: It was crazy. Every time we would take this car out like we would have to wait to get back into the car because people would be having these photo shoots with the car. It’s a beautiful car and people really like to see it. And so it’s nice that it does get shown off. Because if you were to just put it in storage, it would have been like all of these other people that Sean has made this opportunity, that people are able to pull these cars out of storage and these different collections out of storage and other people’s basements and sheds and garages and everything that nobody was ever seen in these cars.

And it’s crazy because these guys love these cars so much and love to show them off, but they’re just hidden away. So who would have known that this is?

[00:09:54] Sean: That’s actually a good point. You know, that miles of time isn’t full of. Cars that you’d see at car shows and really anywhere they, they, for the majority, they were all cars that were tucked away somewhere that weren’t being driven. Weren’t being seen. A lot of them have family heritage and I mean they mean something to the owners. And now they are displayed in a climate controlled environment, kept clean and viewed by you know, thousands of visitors to here or not millions yet.

[00:10:26] Torie: That’s where we’re aiming high. So I think any goals that you, that you have, if you try to figure out how you compare two of those goals together, you know, like the travel in the school. Like, those are two totally different things, but if you compare them together and then you’re, you’re going towards two of your goals with one focus, I think that that’s a way that you can make really big things happen. Can I tell that with the kids too like with Riley, he was going to join a club at school and he ended up picking one that was about being a business owner, which, you know, us being business owners was perfect. And one that he got to go to Six Flags for the day. And so it was a good opportunity for us to know.

Yeah. He knew there was going to be a trip to Six Flags. And so that was a good twofer for joining FPLA, but it worked and now he’s, you know, active in the club and he’s able to learn from that and do all the other things and he’s committed and so I think that’s a good way that, you know, to, to push your kids into doing things. If there’s something like that.

[00:11:35] Sean: Get them to do what you want them to do, but then have them find the that’s the two further, that’s the benefit for them. So, you know, it’s two things, but one is more important to, you know, to us. And the other one is more important to him, but essentially he’s accomplishing both.

[00:11:50] Torie: It’s like at the gym, the gym that we go to has the 60 day program and they do it several times a year and it is called 60 days. It’s a 60 day program where you kind of jumpstart and work with their trainers and it’s a contest essentially. And so it’s a way that you can, I think you win a bunch of swag and I think you actually win some money and stuff like that, but that’s a way that somebody that’s competitive could, you know, do this contest.

Plus they’re getting taught plus they’re, you know, trying to kind of jumpstart, you know, getting into working out and eating better and those kinds of things. And that’s another really great way that. You’ll reach those types of goals, especially if it’s in that kind of thing, where it’s a group that’s doing it. Cause I think anytime you do things in a group, you can get a lot more accomplished if you’re around other people. And excited about doing the same thing. That was the one thing I really liked about the coaching group. And I like to hang out with people that like want to go for bigger things and are business owners and have like these big ideas and stuff.

And so joining that group again was another way that we could your network with those types of people because those are the kinds of people that I want to hang out with. I don’t want to hang out with people that aren’t dreaming big and wanting to do big things and kind of have those same types of goals that we have.

That’s who I want to hang out with.

[00:13:00] Sean: For sure. It really, I think, you know, it could get hard to think of like, how can you just do it too for goal related? But I could see how you could struggle on, on trying to think of how to do it. So really, if you just thought of, I mean, maybe things that you’ve got, you need to do it anyways. You know, whether it’s going to the gym or, you know, you gotta do taxes or whatever the, you know, in doing that. What else can you do? That’s that is kind of the same direction that you can get another perk out of it, a benefit or something like that. You know, I’m trying to think of an actual example that would make it make more sense.

[00:13:41] Torie: Like if I go to the gym and I get a smoothie after, because the smoothie places inside the gym, right. You’re thinking bigger than that.

[00:13:50] Sean: I’m thinking bigger than that, I was trying to think of something that you were going to do anyway. Like it needed to happen, like. Like we were, we need to find a new rental, you know, a new place to live.

So we might as well, I was thinking that.

[00:14:07] Torie: So I think that moving is definitely one of those things. And so if you’re like, I need to move for a job. Well, what other goals do I have? And how can I combine some of those things? So that. Not only are we just moving, which can kind of seem like a drag. But if like, when we were able to move, once Sean stopped working corporate and we were able to move anywhere that we wanted to because we were both business owners, we weren’t tied to anything.

All we had to have is our laptop. We were like, let’s move on a lake. So not only were we moving because we had to, our rental contract was at the house that we were living in, the owners decided they were going to sell it. And so we had to move. So we’re like, let’s like really move, like why not? And so. Sean, like literally like looked at a map and was like, dude, there’s a lake, there’s a lake. There’s like, we went, I made some trips to some different lakes. We looked at a bunch of houses and we ended up picking one. And so we could have just said like, oh, we have to move out of this house. And we kind of moved down the street.

We could have, did like a lot of different things. But the choices that we made were based on bigger goals and trying to combine some of those like we wanted to live like on the lake house. Before that, we lived like on a little finger up the lake. So we got like a little taste of it. We had a dock in the neighborhood and things like that, but we wanted to legit live on the lake.

[00:15:21] Sean: We had a boat that we were keeping, you know, at the neighborhood dock. So we had to go a little ways to actually get to the boat and then get onto the lake. If we were there, but not, not like really. And so that was like, the main goal was to really experience what it was like to be, you know, to live the lake life.

[00:15:41] Torie: Well, if we end, if we were going to have to move, how can we make this the best move possible and how can we figure out how to reach the most goals that we want? Unfortunately, that goal involves living near like a great restaurants, and grocery stores. So we learned a lot about ourselves during that move that I don’t think we really knew.

We thought like we could live small town life and as it turns out, we can’t, once we were ready to move, we did, we applied it to the next one and we decided, well, these are the things that are important for us now. And so since we need to move again, how can we make it so that, you know, we get the most out of it.

[00:16:23] Sean: And then we applied it again till the day you got to a neighborhood where like a neighborhood pool and all that stuff would be so great. And then all those stupid rules and they closed the pool down and all the other people there you’re like, I don’t want that. I want my own pool want to be in a place with our own pool.

[00:16:44] Torie: That was kind of a bonus though. We weren’t really looking for it.

[00:16:46] Sean: Yeah, it wasn’t making a break it, but it wasn’t. It was, you know.

[00:16:51] Torie: If you have to move in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, move into a house with a pool like that definitely made the move a little bit better, man. What timing we had, we, our landlord again, like how do we live in these houses that they decide they want to. sale. We like being a little like mobile, we want to be able to, you know be able to move or make decisions and things like that and not feel locked down, especially while the kids were young. And so we’ve rented and we’ve had three houses that the people wanted to sell while we were living there. Like, I don’t know.

So we did end up having to move right in the middle of like beginning, middle of the pandemic. And so yeah, if you’re going to move, moving into a house with a pool of definitely. Was it a bonus because the kids were home they had to learn from home the whole time, that whole first summer and the whole first part of the year. So that definitely worked out in our favor. Let me do bad. Did you think of any other two for type things? Travel is always a good one.

[00:17:57] Sean: Yeah. Travel ones are the easiest ones.

[00:18:00] Torie: You know, it’s funny. There’s this guy I saw on Facebook that I was in the military with and. If he got out of the military and had a regular job and he’s like, man, if I could just have a job where I could work out and shoot guns, he goes stuff that like, that’s what he wants to do yet.

[00:18:17] Sean: That’s like what you do in the military and army, it was like that, all the same stuff, but he got out and now that’s what he wants to do. She just stayed in.

[00:18:27] Torie: Nothing so crazy right now. Like all these people that I was in the military with are retiring right now. Like they’ve all put in there 20 years and are getting out now. It’s pretty crazy.

I have 20 years in February.

Really, man, you old crazy. I think the going to college too for is a big one, because I think that there’s a lot of people that want to go to school. And if you’re going to be paying for college as an adult, or even if it’s your kids or whatever, like aligning those with other things that you want to do is probably a great thing. Maybe that’s why kids move away for college. They’re like, I want to live by the beach. Well, if I can go to school and live by the beach at the same time, it’s probably a good time to do those. Except for my children. I’d like them to stay close. That’d be better.

[00:19:20] Sean: Or they may join the military to pay for school.

[00:19:22] Torie: They two will not join the military. They don’t seem like the military type. Maybe they will. I don’t know. They’re still young. Yeah. It’s hard to tell. Only time will tell it’s kind of like aligning half twos with twos. Like if you have to do something, one of those have to do some things seem like kind of a drag to do so if you can align those with want to I think that that’s a good way to go, especially when you have to pay for money for both like different trips and stuff like, like your trip right now. Like you want to go to these museums, you have to go pick up this.

[00:19:58] Sean: On this turntable. The cheapest transportation quote I got was still like 2,500 bucks. Then I still had to rent some forklift and to get it off at, at our side of the transport. And it. I mean, that’s, it’s the whole thing sounded like it sucked. And so to look for alternatives, it’s actually a pretty much comparable and I get a trip out of it and get to meet people and see things and do all this kind of stuff. Yeah. It’s I mean, I didn’t necessarily want to do it this way initially. I think it is. That’s the thing too, is it may not always be the first thing you think of. And sometimes it’s just the way things work and then you turn it around and you’re like, well, damn, why didn’t I do that in the first place? Cause that’s obviously. The best scenario.

[00:20:51] Torie: I think maybe that’s like the point that I’m trying to make is that you have these things that kind of come up and seem like a drag or seem like, like, well, that’s not how I wanted it to go. Like, I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to have to drive to Michigan. I didn’t want to have to do these things, but you can either not do them because I don’t want to do them. Or you can figure out like, how can I pair this with something? So it ends up being awesome. A lot of people don’t want to go to the gym, but you can buy like the most awesome shoes ever. Then it makes it worth it.

Yes. I have bottom gym, top bays news.

[00:21:26] Sean: We just got paid 10 grand for it.

[00:21:31] Torie: You know what I mean, though? Like, there are ways that you can. Put these things together so that it makes whatever these like draggy tech. Cause I think people complain about like, oh, I gotta do this and I gotta do this. And always thinking of like, how can you make like this? I gotta do thing. How can you make it something that’s not bad because it’s just, everything is just how you look at it. And that’s one way of like, Ugh, I have to do this. There’s always a way that you can make things fun. There’s always a way that you can pair it with something else and be like, You know, if I have to eat my broccoli, let’s put cheese on it. Cause I love cheese. I love broccoli and cheese, but cheese on.

[00:22:11] Sean: I think that’s what I was trying to say. It’s like, if you got to do taxes, you know, then get the most out of it, get the refunds and you know, pay as little as possible. Like you have to do it anyways. Find the good in it. You got to do it anyways.

[00:22:27] Torie: And I think that there’s always those, I hate to be cliche and say like silver linings and those kinds of things, but man, you know, it’s cliche is cause it’s, it’s true. There’s always a good that can come out of whatever. As things are that you have to do. And so if you can align these things or if you can just be creative and try to come up with these other ways, I got the kids, the kids were always bombed on like these stupid things that they have to do. And I’m like, well, let’s figure out how to make them fun.

Like, what else can we do? Like if you got to do this. Let’s at least with the fun way. I think everything can be like that. Whether it’s some business tasks or household items or, you know, chores or moving, or, you know, whatever it is, there’s a way that you can get your twofer and align it with stuff that you do, like align it with with goals that you have so that you’re going for things and that your energy is going towards things that you really want.

And if you can hit two things out at one time, like, man, that’s the best thing.

[00:23:26] Sean: For sure.

[00:23:26] Torie: Knock that shit out of the park. Every time it’s got to be creative, you get to buy cool shoes.

[00:23:40] Sean: You can always get shoes. If they’re watching on YouTube.

[00:23:46] Torie: Watch on YouTube, look at my shoes.

They’re worth it!