Life Coaches in Cahoots
Life Coaches in Cahoots
04: Dr. Troy Amdahl - Oola Lifestyle Framework, Finance and Green Gap
Episode 4
Date Recorded: January 06, 2023
Title: Dr. Troy Amdahl – Oola Lifestyle Framework, Finance and Green Gap
Description: One serendipitous relationship led him to start a movement, start multiple companies, write a book, and change his life forever.
Dr. Troy Amdahl (the Oola Guru) is the co-founder of Oola | The Mind and Body Company. He is a world-renowned expert in life balance and a 3-time international best-selling co-author of the book series, Oola: Find Balance in an Unbalanced World.
The Oola Guru, together with his buddy the Oola Seeker, are on a mission to change the world with a word and reach one billion people in seven years by sharing their message, collecting dreams, and helping people find more balance and growth in the 7 key areas of life.
He is especially passionate about finance and sharing his proven Green Gap program with others. What is Green Gap, you ask? Tune in to find out!
Get the book, join the movement, take a free assessment test, buy a program, find a coach, join the community.
Connect with Coach Melinda here: https://linktr.ee/melindasmindfulminutes
Connect with Dr. Troy Amdahl: Facebook: @oolalife and Instagram: @oolaguru / @oolalife
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Welcome to Life Coaches in Cahoots. My name is Melinda Alt and I co-host this podcast with Stephanie Islets. We are certified ULA life coaches, and together with the ULA community, we are on a mission to change the world with a word ula. Every other week we bring you an inspiring coach's story and message is our hope to encourage you to discover how you too can start living your all. If you are excited to start learning how living differently can create a life of
Input channel 1 - Microphone Array (Intel® Smart Sound Technology for Digital Microphones)-1:Less stress, more balanced and
Input channel 2 - Microphone Array (Intel® Smart Sound Technology for Digital Microphones)-1:personal growth.
Melinda:This is the podcast for you.
Henry:abriefed disclaimer, nothing in the podcast is intended to replace the services of a trained therapist, doctor, or health professional or otherwise to substitute for professional mental health, medical advice, diagnosis, Or treatment.
One serendipitous relationship led him to begin a movement, start multiple companies, write a book, and change his life forever. Who am I talking about?
Melinda:Dr. Troy Amda,
the ULA guru co-founder of the Lifestyle brand ULA Life, and the ULA Life Coaching Network. He is a world renowned expert in life balance and three-time international best-selling co-author of the book. Find balance in an unbalanced world. The guru, together with his buddy, the ULA seeker, are on a mission to change their world with a word. Reach 1 billion people in seven years, sharing a message, collecting dreams, and helping people find balance and growth in the seven key areas of life. am Coach Melinda, and we are here today with my co-host coach Stephanie and the ulu guru himself. Hi
Stephanie:everyone. This is Coach Stephanie and
Melinda:Melinda
Stephanie:and I are on a mission to showcase some of our fabulous ULA life coaches and share their stories. but first we're very excited to have the ULA guru here with us today to discuss the ULA lifestyle, ULA finance, and a little bit about the green. Three of his favorite topics. We have also prepared some questions to help our listeners get to know the real. Dr. Troy. Welcome Dr. Troy and thanks for joining us today.
Dr. Troy:Hey, this is so great. Uh, thanks for having me.
Melinda:Since coming back from Ula Paluso where Stephanie and I personally worked on our ULA plans, we have buckled down and ironed out our goals for 2023. So we are hoping now that we're in January that Dr. Troy has ironed his out for 2023 as well. We have some questions. Actually, we're gonna go with the seven year in review questions for 2022 to start off, if that works for you. It does. Question number one. What are your three biggest highlights from the last 365 days?
Dr. Troy:there have been a few, as you guys know as coaches, that we had a partnership and acquisition move that was in play that, has really allowed us. To scale, we had many people over the years very interested in ula, the business aspect of ula because ULA is sticky and people love it. And, um, we were waiting for the right opportunity, that a partnership that really made sense. And it really has. And even to this day, even on this day, I had meetings today, it blows my mind. Like we had offers in ULA over the years. Great. Um, We actually considered'em, but they just weren't a good fit. This fit has been amazing. So the acquisition of ULA and understanding that we can go. Farther together with coaches, with members, but also with this incredible corporate team and the funding publicly traded, billion dollar company owners, we can really take this thing we love called ula, this thing that we know changes lives called ula and scale it, on a global level and literally expanding in a way to have a greater impact as a community. So that was a big one. second one is I had another grandson, they're popping out like crazy now. So I have three grandkids now and the good news is that he's local, so I get to spend time with him all the time. Uh, all the time, which has been a really special thing. And then I would say the third thing is that, my wife and I have really learned to value, um, important things and got, you know, really into this declutter less materialism. You know, this is what works for us. So, I mean, if you want all the nice things, we've done it. So I've done it and I, don't judge my earlier self and I don't judge anyone doing it, but we've reduced our lifestyle by 65% of material things. Including the square footage of our house, the cars, all kinds of things, and it feels clean, it feels light, and it feels like we can now. Spend our time doing things that matters. My wife loves Christmas. Our last house had three or four Christmas trees that required a team to come, set them up. We, literally like we aren't qualified to do that. This house, we did it. She and I, in 30 minutes, it was one tree go and we were done. So, I would say those three things were big wins. Learning to live life with intention and with less, this acquisition that allows us to scale. And then of course, being a grandpa,
Melinda:I love this. That's great. Okay, so now can you tell us what were your three biggest challenges from the last 365 days?
Dr. Troy:at this stage in my life, the biggest one is balancing the impact I want to have. on the world without losing sight of the impact I want in my own family. So truly balancing work and life, that's always the challenge. And when you're building something, you're pouring into something, there's the other side of balance when there's so much opportunity that you have to start saying no, otherwise you'll lose the things closest to you. So it's always this thing I've done in ul. Where I deeply committed to this mission of one BK seven, deeply committed to, to you guys as coaches, to ambassadors, to members, to anybody. Cause I just know that if people understand what we understand, they will embrace it, they will apply it, and they will get positive results in their life. But at the same time, it's very easy. To get pulled away, to go speak here, to go do this, to go run that, because there is so much opportunity in new right now. So that's, always the biggest challenge, for me. We talk about this as we train in the valve, like my valve is, field and finance a hundred percent. I love business, love it. I love the topic of money and the freedom that that represents. So me left to myself, it goes to the same thing, is I will ignore my health. You know, to go do business I will ignore fun because I'll say I'll have fun later because I have this very important thing to do now, really for me, my challenge is always balance. at the end of the day, I always say we built Ula. for me, like ULA is really just to protect me from me. So to remind me to keep my own life in balance. If other people can click on that and resonate with that and do it in their own life, that's great. I do this exercise that you're talking about every year. sometimes there's really tragic things, right? I lost my father, or you lose so many you love, or there's a medical thing or a job thing, or crisis. But when I look at the overarching theme, the theme is really protecting balance in my own life. That's
Melinda:a great answer.
Stephanie:you were already throwing out some of the F's of ULA in that answer. So before we continue, could you share a little bit with our listeners what the ULA Lifestyle Framework is, and the seven F's and how their key components to that?
Dr. Troy:Yeah, and that's really how it started. It started back in the nineties with just a group of buddies getting together and setting a new definition of success. I think society likes to. Put success in a couple silos. Like how much money do you make and what is your career? it's like a bunch of guys on the tee box. They size each other up and go, you know, you're as successful as the amount of money you make. And you're the label on your career. And we identified as a group of guys pretty young that that isn't our definition of success. what kind of husband do you want to be? What kind of father do you want to be? how about your faith walk? What about having some joy in the now rather than the later? So really what it was, was a group of guys getting together, stepping outside of the chaos of their own business and personal lives. and just grabbing some simple note cards and saying, okay, where am I in my life right now? Because sometimes we're at a high point. Sometimes we're at a struggle. we call it a guru season or a secret season, and where do I want to go? and we broke it down into seven key areas because we said success to us isn't just money and career, although those are two very important areas. it's fitness, it's, it is money finance, it's family field, which is your career, faith, friends, and bond. And if you look at traditional goal setting, like people right now, new year setting goals, and it's always like, Hey, grow your business. Hey, make more money. Maybe lose weight. You know, those are kind of where people focus, but they're not talking about a holistic view. our background is in holistic healthcare and when I look at someone who is successful, I would say I look at someone who's holistically successful. I can line up people that have way more money than me and way more money than you can even fathom who are m. Because they don't have a holistic view of success. They have this one piece that's like, wow, look at all that money. Look at that lifestyle. Or they have that career piece, They're very strong in one area, but when I sit down and coach them, they're miserable because they're out of balance. So I think where what came from is really like, how do you define success? I'm very left brained, so I study people. Like if I find someone who just seems at peace, I'll ask them questions and not just the money piece, that they'll impressed me for a moment, but then when I dive deeper, and they're on their fifth marriage and their kids don't talk to'em and they're stressed out and they're having health issues. I'm like, okay, whatever you're doing, that's not what I want to do. But then I'll meet someone who's pouring into their family they spend time in prayer and meditation in the gym, and they're watching what they're eating And then you go to their business and visit. Team and their employees, and they're like, man, that person's amazing. I mean, then I start asking questions like, Hey, what is your key to success? And inevitably it comes to this holistic view. they're not just talking about the dollars, and they're not just talking about the business. They're saying, Hey, I wanna create a culture here in this company, and I have in my family time and okay, that is what I want. It really is an evolution of, a lifetime of observations of what do you want for your life? And studying people who in my mind are, fulfilled. They have this thing that we're all seeking. They have this peace, and they have this passion and they have a clear vision for their purpose. And I'm like, okay, what are you doing? And if you really deep dive with those people, they are. they're living ula. they may not even know it. but they're living ula. And on the contrary, this is the biggest paradox, um, culturally that I see is I've had the pleasure of sitting knee to knee with billionaires and many, many multi multimillionaires, and some are very balancing, very ula. But what I find is when life starts to go sideway, they pour into one thing. They control the controllable and they say, okay, I can't control my kids. I can't control my marriage. I'm gonna pour into my business. And they make a ton of money and that one thing is successful, but they're not taking the energy because it's too painful or too hard to confront. So that is ironically why I think we see a lot of people who are financially very successful, but their personal lives are kind of a mess, is because it's very easy. If you're fighting at home to say, you know, I'm just gonna go work and just go make more money, because that's an easier conversation and something that's controllable than this thing that they know they need to confront. But the problem is, is that if they confronted what they needed to confront, they would feel way more fulfilled than if they just made some more money. So Ola on the surface is very light. It's very seven Fs, very blockers, accelerators. Very cool bus. But man, the deeper eye dive into it, it comes back to the origin of how do you define success. Wow. That was a deep
Stephanie:dive and I heard you say, that field and finance Are your top F's you're most passionate about. I believe fun has been a struggle for you. Is there another one that you'd
Melinda:like to
Dr. Troy:share? Yeah. so field, which is career and finance, are definitely my two strong ones. and I've gotten way better this thanks to Dr. Dave, by the way. They're hard because these are hard conversations. But fun for sure. Like I would roll my eyes at fun. I thought it was just dumb. What a waste of time. I mean, I have more important things to do, and I've learned by hanging out with Dr. Dave. You guys know Dr. Dave, you hang out with Dr. Dave long enough, you can't not have fun. I was really good about bucket list fun. Like, I wanna travel to this country. I wanna do this thing, this big thing. I was really, really good at that, but I wasn't really good. Finding joy in each day, which Dave's taught me that incredibly. the next one is really two, one is family. And anybody who knows me knows I love my family more than anybody on the planet, right? I, I'd stand next to anyone and say, I love my wife and kids. Do anything for any of them. But I think, my wiring. from watching my dad work three jobs, provide for kids and come home from job one, change clothes, give us a hug and go to the second job and then the weekends do another job and not seeing my dad. I think I've started following in that pattern that my way to show love to my family is to put food on the table and, a roof over our heads and. At some point I realized, okay, we've done that and I need to, I need to pull back. So thankfully I've gotten way better at that. over the many years. with all the great things going on in and all the great cool things we can be doing, I gotta remember that. That's super important to me. and it's not money to provide for my family anymore. It's actually they want my time. And they want my attention and they want to know they're heard and they want to know they're supported, and I gotta continue to show up and do that. My other one is Faith, which I have a very, very, very strong faith. but I know that, I could be more disciplined in my faith. more plugged in. Not just go to church, not just say the same prayer we always say at dinner and at night, but really, lean into that and understand it's not me. when I look at ula, you'd have to be crazy to think that this is Dave and Troy doing this. There is some, some power stronger than us that puts things in our path that. Can't be explained any other way, and I have to continue to remember to not take credit for that and give credit where credit is due and continue to. let that be foundational in my life. So Like my life's amazing. I base it in gratitude. Like my life is amazing the way it is. It's not perfect. I got all my stuff. Everyone has their stuff, right? But I grounded in gratitude. I go, man, if I made a couple of these little changes, if I looked at my goals, I go, man, if I did that for a year, what would that look like? If I did that for 90 days, what would that look like? And it's really encouraging for me because I think a lot of people truly do live life by default. They just wake up and they let the world come at them. They check their text messages, they check their emails, and they start responding to what the world brings to them. And ULA is the flip of that. It's like, Hey, I'm gonna tell the world I don't have full control of this, but I'm still gonna control the controllables. I'm still gonna go and put out these actions that are toward meaningful things and see what happens. And That is a paradigm shift for most people. Most people do it just the opposite. Again, they take all this stuff coming in and all of a sudden an email leads to a phone call that leads to an err that leads to a thing and the night's over and you're gonna try again tomorrow. I definitely don't do that. I definitely. Start with the biggies and the biggies now are different by the way. So the biggies is go play pickleball, Cause I need to have fun. before I'd be like, go make some money. so now it's different, but they're biggies. Like my wife likes talk time in the morning, makes no sense to me. Don't get it. But I sit there and she's awesome. And I listen to, how to crochet mittens and the things we're working on right now. because it's what. feeds her and, and me feeding her, is more valuable than me making money right now. so those are kind of the things that I think that as coaches, if we can live in our own lives and we can articulate that, in words, I will encourage others to do it and people will start getting it. So that's
Melinda:terrific. I wanna know if building off of that, is there a blocker that holds you back when you're trying to excel at all those things you just mentioned?
Dr. Troy:the one thing I'm super self-aware of is where blockers. And the framework makes it so easy because it gives you seven areas, and accelerators are kind of fun to talk to, but where goals go to die is in the blockers. So I learned at a very young age that if I can manage those, and if I'm willing to call myself out, which I am very, very, very willing to call myself out, that I'm feeling fear, I'm feeling anger, I'm feeling laziness, then you can overcome that. So, I do a lot of things wrong, but I think the thing I do fairly right is I'm very self-aware, my blockers, and when I see'em, I smash'em. I would say historically, my strong suit on the accelerator side has been disciplined. Like I am incredibly like annoyingly disciplined. Like if I said I'm gonna do something six days a week, or I'm gonna be somewhere at four o'clock, I'm there at 3 58. You know, like integrity and discipline are two big accelerators and I like focusing on the accelerators that trump the blockers. So I would say lately, as I've aged, I would say I'm less disciplined than I once was. Meaning, I would be so focused on a goal it's like a dog with a bone, you know, keep your eye on it, no matter where it goes. And now I'm less disciplined
Stephanie:I love how you focus on the accelerators because when those blockers do come up, We really need to know which accelerators we're going to lean on to push past them. And now if you could pick just one thing. To focus on and in our Oola world, it's called Oola one. What is the main goal that you want to achieve in 2023?
Dr. Troy:I have three that are all important and most of them, are health related. meaning that, again, I study people where I'm in life and where they want to be and many times they're restricted by their health. And I think I'm pretty healthy. I run all the time. I'm active hours every day. but I think things that are gonna sound incredibly. Boring to the average goal setter, I have done a lot of science on my own body to know what my ideal weight is. and that isn't a scale thing. It's based upon body mass, body comp, some testing. And so I can perform best at an ida evaluate. So my ULA one. and I tell, this is my wife and she rolls her eyes. But I want to be at my ideal body weight, and I want to be flexible. because I, I'm at a beautiful chapter in my life. have great kids all doing great in life, all out on their own now producing grandkids. So it's my wife and I, it's a nice little small house and I want freedom to go enjoy this. and in order to have that freedom, I want to have the health to be able to do that. So Three of my top seven are, are fitness related. That's great.
Stephanie:Do you wanna share three action steps that
Dr. Troy:you could take? Well, this is how it gets very practical and very boring. but this is the coolest thing about ULA is the biggest transformations happen with this small, little weird stuff you do every day. So, I'll break this down for you. So you know how there's a guiding dream and there's three goals. My dream is to be, this is very personal, but to be a, a firm fit and flexible and vital 161. Okay. Plus or minus three pounds. That's how detailed my goals are. Cause I know that we retain water and blah, blah, blah. I don't wanna panic. So, affirm, uh, flexible and vital. 161 plus or minus three pounds. Well, what does that look like? Well, I have to stop eating after eight o'clock. that's the thing because I love the ice cream and it's always at about 10 o'clock, so I love sweet things. And Every morning I'm on the floor with a yoga mat for 15 minutes, six days a week. Cause that is one of my steps. I do 15 minutes of this yoga stretching and then I do some pushups and I do some squat. then I control my eating by watching the clock because I know my vulnerable time is in the evening. So these are real practical things because I was over 200 pounds consistently, and I couldn't wrap that in because I just love food too much. I mean, it has more meaning than, Nutrition. To me, it's like it's relationship, it's experience, it's culture, it's all kinds of things. It's travel. So yeah, that's what it looks like. So when I say I want this big goal, it looks as boring as a 15 minute YouTube video and some squats and pushups. I mean, that's what it looks like.
Melinda:I didn't think it was boring at all. I think you did a great job actually just explaining to us how you find balance, growth, and purpose in your life. That was an excellent example. That was a great example for fitness. So I would like for you to give us an example of finance, though. We know finance is one of your favorite things, so we know you have to keep your eye on all seven Fs. But when it comes to finance, how do we actually determine. if we are or are not financially well,
Dr. Troy:here's the hack to that question for you and the people who are listening is when you think about your personal finances, just if I said, Hey, how do you feel about your situation, where you are in life with your personal finances, like right now? I'm at Peace I'm good. Like I wasn't for much of my life, I was incredibly stressed. But if that conjures up images of stress and anxiety, and then you've got an issue with it, and then you have to tactically do something about it. I know statistically 70 percent-ish of America at least is stressed out about money. 40% of Americans have less than$400 saved in a savings. that would stress me to no end. That I am a broken air conditioner from putting more credit into my life, which is just kicking this problem down the road. So the reason that I'm so interested in the topic of money is not a love of money by any means. It's, what getting control of your finances means for your holistic life. This is exactly. because we're usually behind our finances. at my peak, I was$755,000 in debt. I was forced to make a lot of money. I was like sleeping with one eye open because the bills were coming in and I was making the money and I had to pay, but it was very, very, very stressful. But if you can get in front of it, it affects you in a very positive way. On the flip side of that, if you're not, if you're feeling the weight of financial stress, I promise. it affects your key relationships. if you have financial stress in your house, you likely are fighting with your spouse about it. If you have financial stress in your house, when the kids bring up, like, we should take a trip. They don't know what's going on, and all of a sudden you don't know, money doesn't grow on trees, blah, blah, blah. I mean, it creates tension between you and your kids. If you have financial stress and you have a business opportunity to expand your business, but you can. that creates tension and stress in the category of field. If you have financial stress in your life and the dream of your family is to go to Disney World, but you just know that's a fun family goal. You can't do it because it will put it over the edge. So that is why I'm so interested in this topic, because really the best thing money can buy is. And peace of mind. That's it. I bought a lot of cool stuff. I spent the last year getting rid of a lot of cool stuff. so there is some stuff that's really cool and that's unique to you, whatever that is. But man, the thing that you can't replace is, Not having that worry. I had years of worry about money and I've had years of not worrying about money. And I will tell you that if you could go back and analyze my relationships when I was under financial stress, you could analyze my own personal health that's when I was 200 pounds, by the way. every indicator was this isn't good for my holistic health when you get on top of it, which is gonna take some work, but when you take the time to get on top of it. everything benefits, not just the category of money. So
Melinda:when we're talking about kids and talking to them about finances, about 2015 or 16, you did a series of Facebook Lives where you were talking about kids adulting and finances. Can you remember some of the topics that you put out there? Kids that are adulting.
Dr. Troy:So basically what I did was a, more deeper dive into what's called the green gap, which is just teaching them fundamental principles because they're not getting it anywhere. They're not getting it, and if we're really honest, is we have bad money habits we've never been taught. So they just kind of watch what we do and they ask us questions and many times we're giving them. bad answers because we have the wrong answers. really what I was trying to teach the kids in that series was that it's not complicated. the beautiful thing about being young is you don't start off in a hole. Where, here's what typically happens is we just do what everyone else does, which is just go to college, can't quite afford college. Everyone's gotta go to college. They say, so you get student loans and you get out, Hey, I got a job. I bring some nice clothes to go to that new job. I need a car, but I don't wanna have the crappy car, so I better get the nice car. So now you're 25 years old with a car payment, student low payments and credit card payments, and you just dug yourself in this incredible wholesale. Now go enjoy. And what I try to teach kids is, especially if I catch'em young enough, is like, wait a minute. You didn't come to this planet with a credit score in debt. You came to this planet just a little baby and hopefully at 12th grade you have no debt. Why go into debt? Why create a problem you're gonna spend the rest of your life trying to get out of? So I would just like, very seriously. controlled debt, which is a narrative that's different from society, says you need a high credit score. It's just everyone has debt. Don't worry about it. takes money to make money. There's good debt. There's bad debt. This is good debt. I mean, that's the stuff we've been told. But again, when I study people, the happiest people are debt free people. Even if they don't have a lot, they just don't owe anybody anything. So a lot of the focus when I talk to young people is very simple money habits that build wealth over time and try to get them away from the unicorn stuff they're seeing on TikTok and on YouTube on how to get rich like that. Saying that is going to tempt you. I have a son now who's in that age, and he has the privilege of knowing like eight people that he could sit down and have lunch with that are all doing incredibly well financially. And I said, instead of watching TikTok and YouTube of these kids sitting in front of rented Lamborghini talking about how they did in three days, why not sit down with your uncle or my buddy and have a cup of coffee or a lunch and say, If you were teaching me, what would you teach me? Because that's what I did when I was young. okay, you seem to be doing okay. And again, not just the money piece, but your marriage seems good, your health seems good, like these other things seem good too. What can you teach me? And what they find is it's just a grind. It's just about being disciplined. It's about doing a budget every month. It's about making sure that you're bringing in more money than you're spending. It's saying, okay, I'll take this little extra that I have and make sure that I don't have frivolous expenses, and is there anything else I can do next month to make more money? And then now I got a little extra. What should I do with that? Well, I think it's a pretty good idea to give some of it away. So you wanna do that, but then what do you do with the extra still? Then I would invest some, I would reduce debt. Well, hopefully you don't have any. So add that to the investment. And I would take a little piece for fun. And if you did that as a behavior, as a habit, it only goes one way. You can run the math. It is just not complicated. If you make a thousand dollars and spend 900 and you.$45 to reduce debt. Well, there is none.$45 to invest. So$90 to invest every month and$10 for fun. Hmm. Well, you go$10 for fun. Yeah. That's a thousand a month. Well, well, you're making 10,000 a month. Now you you have bigger numbers to deal with. So it's really habits and in breaking this cycle of belief, this false financial narrative that we tell ourselves about money and really teaching people to go against the grain.
Melinda:So that's why you're the ULA guru and you founded the Green Gap, which you just gave us the formula for. But I have another question for you. When you were in high school, you were a real goal setter and was your goal to be debt free and retire at 40 back in high school?
Dr. Troy:Is that right? That's correct. Yeah. And I didn't hit that goal by the way, it took me until 42. But the, thing, about it though, I never lost sight of it. And, people really did think I was weird and crazy. like when we were cutting cable and, we were married with kids and going down to one car and we did weird stuff, right? and I was making good money. Like, you make good money, why would you have to do that? And paying cash for really bad cars, like really bad cars,$500 cars. But we just got serious. And again, it goes back to probably my upbringing and seeing my dad work going, okay. more than those vacations, more than the cool things we got. And I wanted time and I wanted to make sure I was gonna be there for my kids. And I saw getting control of my finances as a ticket. That's the, irony. I didn't see getting control of my finances as, Super cool car I saw the real benefit of getting control of my finances is time with the people I care the most about. Could you
Melinda:explain a little bit the difference between living debt free and living financially free?
Dr. Troy:that's a great question, by the way, that is my favorite question of the day right there. Ding, ding. because they're not the same thing. So debt free, if you take someone who's outta high school and they haven't incurred any credit card debt or any student loan debt or something, they're debt free, but I think we could all agree they're probably not financially free. So financial freedom to. This is my definition of financial freedom is, and this is a big, so we talk about dreaming big. So this may feel like a thousand miles away for you, which it felt like 10,000 miles away for me when I was$755,000 in debt. But financial freedom for me back when I was in that much debt was I want to one day have enough passive income coming in, and we can talk about that, what that is, but I have one enough passive income coming into my own life to exceed my monthly expenses. By 20% so I can invest and save 10% more and give 10% more. So that is free. That is freedom. cuz you can be debt free. But in order to service your lifestyle, you have to be at this job 80 hours a week or 60 hours a week, you're debt free. But that's not freedom. Freedom to me is I could turn my computer off tomorrow, drift off into the sunset, unlock all my social media, and me and my family are still gonna be. That is freedom. So then you find, here's the irony you wanna know. Another crazy hack is when you get that level of purpose where you're like, you actually then have the freedom to do the work you truly love and not do the things you don't. love Ironically, you typically make more money, which is just mind blowing. You know, because your passion comes through. you, you don't watch a clock. you're doing an interview on Friday night, with a couple coaches you do what you wanna do, because you love it. And that is freedom. So financial freedom Is the goal, I'm gonna be taken care of the rest of my life and I can do the work I love and spend my time with the people I care about and the things that I'm most passionate. And
Melinda:I think, ding, ding, yes, that it was a great answer. My favorite answer of the day,
Stephanie:so I've heard you say financial freedom. You know, you can do these interviews with coaches on a Friday night and you can go take off and shut everything down. Would you say that because of your financial freedom and sharing ula, that's your life calling?
Dr. Troy:Yeah, I would say I'm doing exactly what, I'm supposed to be doing. when I did hit that goal of being debt free and retired at 42 I actually could look back at that maybe two or three years before Dave reached out to me. That time he reached out to me in that bad time I was not doing anything in the category. I was traveling, I was playing golf, I was with my family. it was great. it wasn't horrible. but Dave actually stood me up on our own principles and said, Hey, what about this category field? you're just living off your past successes. You're not contributing in any way. And he said, I, I would vet that if you did contribute cuz you have things to contribute, that you would have a more holistic fulfill of life. And he's a good salesman too. So that's how he got me into this. And, he's right that, I've actually worked really hard, harder than I did in my career, so many, many years in. but I'm also deeply fulfilled because I, I feel that everything in my life has led to this and I feel like I'm finding my lane, of doing what I want. And when I say what I want, I want you to understand there are many days in a lot of months that I'm doing things I don't want to do, you know, tasks. So there are a lot of tasks I don't want to do, but what I'm doing that requires those tasks I love it's not this real, like I never do anything I don't wanna do. I do stuff all the time that I'm not comfortable doing but I feel like it's in alignment with my purpose and I have to get over myself and just do these things. I actually don't like being on stage. I actually don't like being on camera. These are things That if I had it completely selfishly, I wouldn't do either of those things. But it feels like when we do that, when Dave and I do Ula Alza, it has incredible impact. We hear about it years later, so I, I get over myself and, and do some of these things. So it's, it's interesting. how
Melinda:do you feel about the Dream Tour and the. Love
Dr. Troy:that. I love that. So like, now we're talking about like, what I love, what I love is, is hopping on a bus, which for those of you who are new, you can Google it. Uh, it's this 1970 VW bus that's covered now 30 layers in individuals, handwritten dreams. Um, and I love that. So what we do, we have formal events. We bring it to Loza, we bring it to these things, we bring it to schools and universities, and we do things with it. But the best thing for me, like what I love doing is having on the bus with Dave, getting to know a city and park in that bus and starting conversations with people in the community because they don't know who we are. We don't know who they are, and by the end of it, they have. More clarity on things that are important to them, and they've made a positive commitment in their life, whether it's for good control, their finances, or heal a relationship, or whatever it happens to be for them. And I think we leave that interaction both better off. Like we're hopeful that the world's gonna be okay. Dave and I, and then they have some clarity because they're, they were living life by default before they met us. And now they go, you know what, if I did this thing? Year from now, my life would be better. So I, I think that is the heart of ula. I think the heart of ULA is what you guys do as coaches, is just having the real conversations about really things that matter and then providing them with a, a framework that can make that dream become a reality. I believe that
Melinda:too. I believe that is those dreams. Yeah, those stories that you guys tell, that I'd have to say that's one of my favorite parts. I'm not great at telling my own story, but I do love to collect other people's dreams and to just see the light bulb go up when they realize. Yeah. That's fantastic. So how many tours have you done in the bus with Dr. Dave? Like how long have it
Dr. Troy:going on? Three engines, that's how we count'em. like we, uh, like. More things that, in fact, every now and then Dave goes way back to pictures and they'll send a picture from a community and like, oh, you totally forgot about it until they send the picture. But it has been an, I mean, it has been a process and it is three engines and it is 30 layers. If you think of 30 layers at, at about, I think it's about 2,400 dreams per layer. It's about what we calculated. So if you think of tho yours coaches, right? So someone tells you one dream. Now you do that 2,400 times and now you do that times 30. So it, it's, it's a lot. No, it's, no, it's 4,500 because 30 is, yeah, we're almost in the 130,000 dreams or 140,000 dreams. I'm crazy like that. So 4,500 comes to the bus once, so 4,500 times 30. Um, that's a lot of, that's a lot of interaction. And sometimes we're not there talking to them cuz they're, we're at an event and they're just putting'em on the bus. But a lot of times it's just talking to people. So the tour Never ending. The tour is ongoing. People send us their dreams. Um, we take, I take, when I have the bus here, I take it out to get groceries sometimes, and it starts a conversation. I mean, it's just an ongoing process because it, it's addicting too, from my point of view. You never know. So it's, you mentioned Coach Melinda that. How like it's fun to share and get people's dreams. The part that is the most rewarding to me is six months later, nine months later, 12 months later, when that person you had that interaction with, reaches back and goes, Hey, we met at a gas station in Texas at 10:00 PM in June, and I wanna tell you, I wrote on a sticker to do this. And that just went down. That just happened. And without that interaction, that wouldn't have happened. And that one thing radically changed my life. and we get those almost daily, but for certain weekly people just randomly DMing us about this interaction that we'd forgotten about that changed their life cuz they saw the bus, they paused for a moment, thought about what was important, committed to that, took a picture of it with their phone, and then they went home and did the phone and that's cool.
Melinda:Stephanie or I were just talking about how we both sought you out at Barnes and Nobles and got dreams on the bus.
Dr. Troy:Yeah, I mean, that's it. Like think of, we've been in Barnes and Noble everywhere, like we've been. It's crazy. it, a fun ride. It, it feels like, that's why I think it's so fun to be a coach because I think you guys get what I get, which is in the category of field or career. At this stage of my life, I wanna make sure I'm doing work that matters. I want to make sure that I'm, and I'm not belittling any job that pays the bills. Cause there's day jobs and there's dream jobs, right. But at this stage, I, I just wanna make sure that I'm doing work. Helps in some way, uh, at a, at a time when, when we need help as a, as a community and as a culture.
Melinda:I think that's awesome. let's just run through some quick questions if you're okay with it. I'm gonna run through the secret and GU questions where all you have to do is answer you or him. Okay? Oh,
Dr. Troy:wow. Okay. Yeah.
Stephanie:Okay. Should I ask the first one?
Melinda:Sure. Okay. Who's the cook? Dave, who is most likely to deal with Spider by setting it free?
Dr. Troy:Neither.
Stephanie:Both gonna squash it. who would win a game of monopoly?
Melinda:Me. Who is more competitive? Me.
Stephanie:Who's more passionate about Ula
Dr. Troy:Oh, this is ongoing. I promise you, you're gonna get me saying me and Dave saying Dave, but it's. It's me
Melinda:who is the tiniest
Dr. Troy:me who talks, oh, oh, Dave talks more as I just interrupted you, and outside of ula, I don't talk much at all, by the way, which is just a weird, side note. we always joke in Ula, by the way, this is a cool thing Dave and I together would make if we could. Like mix the best parts of our d n a, we would make one decent human being like get rid of the worst part because his traits and his strengths are so different than mine, but we have common interests that overlap. Like we're a lot different. Like, he's super extroverted. You guys probably figured that out. Mm-hmm. I think people think I'm extroverted, but I'm actually really quiet. if you go to a get together and I'm. Part of the get together, like I'm, I'll be the guy in the back just hanging out.
Melinda:I think we've done that at a lot of your ULA events. Just shadow in the back. We were both za. Who is more likely to be
Dr. Troy:late? I feel like I'm putting Dave under a bus, but he will answer this the same way. It's gonna be him for sure. Cause we talk about that discipline thing, like when you said tidy and I have to work with a clean desk and, it's not clinical. but it's like I definitely like a tidy office. I respect people's time so much and, and Dave's so heart-centered that he looks at like, he doesn't wanna tell people no. So he'll overschedule. So he's just super sweet we'll go to a city. Yeah, we'll do the talk show. Yeah. We'll do the radio thing. Yeah, we'll go to the school. Yeah, we'll do this. I'm like, that's all happened before nine. I mean, we can't fit a day. So who has more
Melinda:patience, Dave? Who is more likely to take fitness to the next level? Who is more of a d i y guy,
Dr. Troy:Dave,
Melinda:who is more
Dr. Troy:impulsive? Dave These are easy. You can tell my how quick I they're, if they, who is
Stephanie:the bigger daydreamer?
Melinda:Dave, who has grown the most during the past year in Ula
Dr. Troy:Dave, he's at a great year. He's at a great year. He got married. About house. the story starts with him losing everything, including a beautiful home. it's one thing to never have, tasted that and, wonder what it's like, but he had All the markings of success across all categories lost truly everything. And this is the year really. He was crossing some T's and dotting some i's on some things that were vital and I couldn't be more proud.
Melinda:Yeah, it's awesome to see him basically go from being the seeker to being the guru now guru. And I'm his biggest fan, but, but we're still having you on for finance, by the way. Yeah. Good. Do you have any advice for our listeners who haven't found their purpose on the planet
Dr. Troy:yet? I think that's the whole point of the lifestyle framework is just connect with a coach, go through this process, be humble, and just trust a process that has helped countless people around the globe. that's the beautiful thing about it is so many people lack purpose and. it's hard to find it. You've been through Alza. You guys are both coaches, you've been through the framework. if you're open to the process, you can't come out the other side of the process without having clarity of why you're here and what you want for your life. I think that is the secret sauce in ula. That's why it helps so many people and why? It's because it's duplicatable. You can't go, we just came off Ula Puzo, so that's fresh in my brain. The framework is the same way, but you can't go to Aloo and go through all of those exercises and not have some clarity with what you want for your life. So engage, invest in yourself. it matters. I spend more time analyzing my. Framework than I do my business because it's all part of it. Because even if I had a great business, again, if my relationships aren't great or my health isn't great, it doesn't matter. Well, that was
Melinda:fantastic, we can't thank you enough, Dr. Troy for coming on and joining us today, especially for having a little fun with
Dr. Troy:that. That was fun. That, that was fun. I'm gonna have to listen to the follow up interview with Dr. Dave I think we're gonna be pretty close. I think we're gonna be pretty. So
Melinda:before we part ways, we wanna let our listeners know that our next episode will showcase Erica Ramon and the topic of fitness. And I'd like to remind you, we are all designed by God for greatness and with purpose. We want to truly thank you, dr. Troy amda for taking your time to share about yourself, ULA, and maybe a little bit about Dr. Dave. It has been a real pleasure. Until next time, stress less, feel better, and enjoy life a little more. Bye.
We hope you enjoyed this episode and that it inspires you to go get your ULA life a life of less stress, more balance, and greater purpose. For more information, be sure to check out the notes from today's episode. And if you appreciate our show, please leave us a com and let us know. We would really love to connect with you. You can also subscribe to our podcast, share it with a Friend and on your social media. Until next time, be grateful. Have faith and go get your ULA life
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