Win at Home First with Brandon Colbert

Rod Richard: Alright, welcome back to the Forfeit Fatherhood Podcast, the podcast for Fathers by Fathers. And today I'm sitting down with Brandon Cobert, founder of Diapers, Dumbbells, and Deeds. Brandon is a husband, father, and real estate investor, and a man who's serious about building legacy the right way. In this conversation, we talk about fatherhood, marriage, communication, investing, international real estate, and what it means to win at home first. This episode is for fathers that want to build something bigger than money, because legacy is not only what you leave behind, but what you also leave inside your children. Let's get into it.

Roderick Richard II: And you know what, it's funny, I say this almost every time I have a guest. like, yo, I love having a guest on. Sometimes I like to have these episodes where I just talk about myself or talk about something that maybe came up in my own fatherhood journey. But it's always really good to have the perspective of another leader, right? Because... I could think I'm doing everything right until I hear somebody else's journey. like, damn, I missed that one. So I'm excited to talk to Brandon Cobra today. Brandon, brother, tell us how you're doing.

Brandon Colbert: Right, right. I'm doing pretty good, man. A lot of things has happened for me and my family within the last couple of months. my name is Brandon Cobird. I'm CEO of Diapers, Dumbbells, and Deeds. Here at Diapers, Dumbbells, and Deeds, we believe in empowering men to be devoted fathers and loving husbands through a foundation of presence, integrity, and just overall helping that aspect to enrich families to come for generations.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah, I love that mission, man, because obviously we all are trying to have some kind of legacy that we build, right? We want to, I think most of us, I don't want say all of us, most of us understand that, you know, we can do a lot of amazing things during our time here, but at the end of the day, it's what can we leave behind? Not necessarily what we leave behind, but what we leave with them, right? So,

Brandon Colbert: Exactly. Right, right.

AR Wellness Consulti: What is it exactly that you're doing to help guys with that?

Brandon Colbert: So that would be through real estate investing. So I've been a real estate investor for going on six years now. So we started, of course, with the property. We bought our first investment property during COVID. A lot of people weren't looking to try to invest because of everything going on, but we took the chance and say, let's go ahead and try to see how it works out. And that jumpstart past few years. getting our real estate investing experience. And now we actually have four more properties that we have in Atlanta. And we just sold two condos that we had since 2022 in Costa Rica. So I'm not only, you know, domestically an investor, I'm actually an international investor as well.

AR Wellness Consulti: wow. Yeah, yeah, no, you big time. I wasn't gonna say you big time before, but you invest in other places. That's big, right? Because just being a real estate investor or just being somebody that's purchasing real estate is a big enough thing, right? But then to take it past that and start to get non-residential properties, like properties you aren't living in, you're getting them just strictly for investments. And then to take that outside the country, that's real next level. So I definitely wanna salute you on that.

Brandon Colbert: You Exactly.

AR Wellness Consulti: What kind of got you into it? Well, let me back up. All right, so obviously, fathers, right? We're fathers. Give us your fatherhood resume. How long you been a dad? Boys, girls, what you got going on?

Brandon Colbert: man, so I have a son, Royal. He is really the light of my heart. You know, especially when as younger, we thought about getting married, starting a family of our own, but to actually experience that is a whole nother level. To see somebody, a human being that you made and is a direct reflection of who you are, that is very, very powerful to and I take that to heart. As a kid, know, just being disciplined from my father, I didn't agree with it. And, you know, based off of his teachings of how he was disciplined by my grandfather, I wanted to do something different. So it's, you know, as far as discipline, I try to talk to my son first before any type of discipline is put in place. So I make sure that he, if he does something wrong, I talk to him, I make sure that he understands, you know, this is not something that you do. I make sure that he understands and comprehends what I'm saying before. we move forward to anything else. And based off of how he receives that, I say, okay, hey, you know, we're not going to do this no more, right? We're going to move forward. This is something that you shouldn't do in the future, right? If you do this, you're going to get in trouble. And he understands that. I didn't necessarily get that from my father. It was basically you do this, you know, this is your prenticement and you're going to understand, know, you're supposed to do this somewhere instead of talking to us. So that's the thing that I'm changing with my own son and make sure that first all communication is key. that goes for your marriage, that goes for being a father, that goes for being a husband. Communication is the biggest part of that family foundation.

AR Wellness Consulti: I 1000 % agree, man. was raised in a household where, I mean, I think most of us, I'm not ageing myself, I'll be 43 in a couple of weeks. And I was raised in a black household, kids would speak when spoken to, seen and not heard. If your reply came too quickly to something that they said, it was considered talking back. If you breathe the wrong way after words are spoken, you might catch a shoe.

Brandon Colbert: Okay.

AR Wellness Consulti: You know what I mean? So I fully understand it. I take that same thing with my daughters, right? It's like I want them to have I want them to feel like their their voice matters because it does I want them to have some agency and kind of what's happening in their world doesn't mean that they're gonna change it right like I may say some this is the way things are gonna happen and I allow them to have an opinion because I value their opinion now at the end of the day, I'm still judge jury and executioner so

Brandon Colbert: Exactly.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah, that's a really cool idea that you have, but now we still gonna do it the way I said it. But thank you for sharing, you I think that gives me some information on how I can approach it the next time. But I was just telling my wife this the other day is like, hey, we, cause I have a 13 year old. So she gets a little, she's getting a little, she's starting to feel herself a little bit, right?

Brandon Colbert: Right, right.

AR Wellness Consulti: Not really with me, but more so with my wife. And I'm like, hey, we've we've up to this point, we've been teaching them to advocate for themselves, right? Like to have the ability to talk about how something made them feel or, you know, not necessarily whether it was fair or not fair, but just kind of like, OK, this is what's going on for me personally. And I'm like, they got to practice it somewhere like, you know, I mean, if they're going to advocate for themselves, this is probably the safest place for them to do that. So we kind of have to like.

Brandon Colbert: Okay.

AR Wellness Consulti: guide them in it, right? Like there is a right way and a wrong way to advocate for yourself and like, hey, babe, this is the wrong way to do it. Like I understand what you're trying to do and what you're trying to say, but you know, my mom would have punched you in the mouth for you to say that to her. So let's, let's, let's reel that back in. Let's try that again. This is how, how I would have said it if I actually wanted to be heard. And I think that's a really important thing to teach our kids.

Brandon Colbert: Exactly. Yeah, and I think that's key too, because one of the things I want my son to understand is he can come and talk to me about anything. I don't want to be that dad where he's scared to come and say, I did this because of how I may react. So that's one of the key things I make sure like, hey, no matter what you do, I'm always going be in your corner. You can talk to me about anything. And I made sure I instilled that in him like right now at four years old. So when it comes to me, Say, daddy, I did this. Or I ask him, hey, did you do this? He'll look at me and he'll kind of hesitate because he knows he knows it's coming. But I ask him again, like, hey, did you do this? Yes. And then from there, we can have a conversation of, OK, hey, this is something that you don't do. This is the reason why. So I always want to make sure that he doesn't have to hide anything from me, regardless of what it is.

AR Wellness Consulti: Thank you. Right. Yeah, that's an awesome way to do it. Right. Like I'm not a fatherhood expert. I'm still in the, I'm still in the Muck and Meyer of it. Right. Yeah. And I, one of the things that I firmly believe is that like, we really won't know how well we've done until our kids become parents. Right. Because that's going to be the first time we get to see them kind of replicate what we did. And so like I try and every day to do the best that I can at the end of the day. I'm

Brandon Colbert: Right, we learn as we go, right? Exactly.

AR Wellness Consulti: self-assessing. I kind of sucked a little bit today, let's try again tomorrow. And I think that's kind of what allows me to kind of continue to move the way I'm moving is like, all right, I know it's not perfect, but I'm okay with the intention behind what I did today. So, okay, all right. So I wanna get back into real estate and I'm trying not to jump into that because I'm really, really curious. And me and my wife have been talking, because we can talk about retirement, right? We wanna split our time. So we wanna be half in the country, half out of the country. And Costa Rica is one of the places that we've been talking about. Cause she went on like a retreat a couple of years ago and fell in love. So we're gonna get there. Just put a pin in there.

Brandon Colbert: Alright. Okay, we can dive in. We can dive in.

AR Wellness Consulti: is tearing me up right now, but because this is literally just the conversation we had. So I get back to it. All right. So 2020, you invest in your first your first property. What was that journey like? And kind of like, had you had you already been in real estate at all? Or this was just like you were butt naked jumping in.

Brandon Colbert: So I would say that real estate doesn't necessarily mean that you own a property yourself. So what actually jump started our situation with us starting to invest in 2020 was that I can't remember. I believe it was 2018 where the Super Bowl was here in Atlanta and we owned a condo where basically we just said, you know, let's put it on Airbnb and see how much we make.

AR Wellness Consulti: Mm-hmm.

Brandon Colbert: That was the first experience or first thing we wanted to do. So as soon as we went ahead and got some pictures and put it on Airbnb, I would say within three days, we had a booking for three days for $3,500. And that's after tax. So it could have been more because you have Airbnb fees and taxes and all that, but we ended up getting $3,500 for a three-day weekend.

AR Wellness Consulti: Mm. Mm!

Brandon Colbert: for the soup bowl here in Atlanta.

AR Wellness Consulti: That's a blessing.

Brandon Colbert: So, and other thing that kind of helped us out was my wife, she is a former mortgage loan officer and banker. So her background and her experience behind the scenes learning the ins and outs of loans and potentially having loans going to different people that's looking to invest or looking to have a personal loan. She knows the ins and outs of that. So that kind of helped us say, okay, we wanted to purchase this property. How much can we get for this? How much commission do we have to pay? What are the fees and taxes? HOA, whether it's an HOA community, all that. I was new to that. So it was great having that background and having her to go with me during that process because as we got our first rental, I learned the ins and outs of how real estate really works. So I think from there, that kind of... Let's say, jumped in and say we're going to do something different.

AR Wellness Consulti: Okay, okay. All right, so I mean, 3,503 days sounds amazing to me. I'm jumping in right along with you. So you had that Airbnb and then what was like your next step or how did you get from, all right, we got a property, we're just gonna Airbnb it to like now. you Airbnb and everything or are you like, what's going on in this situation?

Brandon Colbert: Oh man, so I can, we would probably have to do a part two. So we changed the strategy based off of what we wanna do during that time period. So I'll give example. In 2020, we wanted to purchase a property just to see if we can make money on it. So that doesn't necessarily mean that it's just on Airbnb or Verbo. That means short-term rentals or midterm rentals or long-term tenants.

AR Wellness Consulti: I'm down. I'm down.

Brandon Colbert: So from our strategy, we wanted to do short term because we didn't think about having people in our property for a year because in that year, a lot of things can happen. You can have holes in the walls. They can be bad tennis, whatever the case may be, and it's going to cost you in the long run. So our strategy was let's do short term and see how that how that works out. So we went ahead and put it on Airbnb and verbal. We got some some hits and have a couple of stays. But the thing that really drove us to say, well, we want to get more properties. There was a person that was looking for a midterm stay. They ended up working for one of the companies, I think it was Home Depot or the Atlanta Braves, where they had a program where they came in and said, okay, we're going to work here for a couple of months, maybe three months at the most, but we need a place to stay. So they reached out to us and said, hey, we looked at your property on, we put it on Zillow, we put it on apartments.com, we put on all of the rental website platforms and we got a hit. So they said, hey, we're here for 90 days, we need a place to stay. And from there, we found out that there was a program that was going on that allowed international students to come here and work and get that experience and then actually have a work visa and potentially have a visa to stay here. So. we ended up getting in contact with their manager. And from there, we had a lease in place for 90 days and we was making six grand.

AR Wellness Consulti: Okay, that's, okay, all right. I love that, I love that, right? Cause that's just like God's timing, right? Everything kind of just lines up the way it was supposed to. You were just, you just kind of set up everything. Okay. So that was in that particular instance. And then you start branching out and doing more. Was it more of the same or more just kind of like whatever, whatever, how we found an opportunity. Let's see what works with this opportunity.

Brandon Colbert: That joke started. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So it was both. So we wanted to see what opportunities or what real estate investments were out there. And then based off of that, we said, okay, depending on the price range and what we could afford at a time, we said, okay, let's move forward with this. So our first rental property that we bought in 2020 was a two bedroom, bath. It's not small, but it's not that big either. So from that rental property that we bought in 2020, we jumpstart. to 2022 and 2022 is actually what changed everything. So to give a little bit more background, my wife got laid off at her six figure job while she was pregnant with our, oh, while we actually, no, I'm sorry. She got laid off at her role as a, she was working in sales and that was while we was pregnant with our son. So she ended up getting, she was pregnant. She was on maternity leave, had our son, and then she came back two weeks ahead of her maternity leave and still got let go.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah.

Brandon Colbert: Yeah, so that happened and then my father-in-law passed away a month later and this was actually before we was planning to go to Costa Rica. So we had everything planned out, our flights and everything planned, scheduled and then two or three days before we was actually headed to Costa Rica, my father-in-law passed away. So just everything in general, was, you know, it was heavy. So...

AR Wellness Consulti: Mm-hmm.

Brandon Colbert: Our trip to Costa Rica was more so a reset, know, let's see, you know, how we can, you know, move from this terrible situation. And also my father-in-law developed dementia. He was a vet shortly after retiring. I wouldn't say probably about maybe a year or two later, that's when he got diagnosed with dementia and everything just went downhill from that. So one of the things that my wife and I talked about was how can we create a legacy for him to have or to move on to our son. So we was in Costa Rica for three weeks, right? We went and saw three different properties, but we fell in love with one. We saw some in where you would call a Playa Hermosa, which is a little bit kind of the city town feel. And then you have Playa de Coco, which is basically a city. And then you have Potero, which is an hour away, but that's sort of like a town, a city as well. So we set our frontal to go place in Playa de Coco where we actually purchased those two properties. And we reached out to just one agent who's like, okay, she said, I have the perfect location for you. We saw... one property in Playa del Coco instead of seeing multiple. And that was the first property we went to and we was on a contract within three weeks of leaving.

AR Wellness Consulti: Okay, it was love at first sight, huh?

Brandon Colbert: Yeah, so I don't know how to explain it, there is something about being by water. And especially when you're going to Costa Rica, it's like once you get off the plane, once you get into the country, it's like this weight on my shoulders just kind of just relax. You know how sometimes, and especially in the United States, you have to be on edge because you have to be aware of your surroundings. You know, you got to be aware of where things are. And Costa Rica is more so like, like a decompression. And from there, we was like, you know what? I think we have something, something very, very real here and something like this. That's going to be a gym that will allow us to jumpstart, get our equity up, get our capital up, get Airbnb, rent and all that. And then from there it was, it was, it was love. Like we traveled with our six year old, six month old son.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah.

Brandon Colbert: And he was traveling back and forth to Costa Rica to the United States and there in Atlanta six times. And people were very shocked that, you know, we had our son in Tote and he was coming everywhere with us. Because the biggest thing for me is not only having our son experience the things here in the United States, but I think what drives humanity in general is us being able to see different cultures, have different experiences. And from there he can learn that, hey, Everybody's different. You don't have to have the same culture here in the States that they have in, let's say in Costa Rica or they have in Dominican Republic. Everybody is different. And I think you can learn from others on how they their culture is. So I wanted to instill like, hey, you're going to you're going to be diverse. You're going to experience different cultures. You're going to know what's out there. You're going to know, understand, you know, how how people treat their families, what their traditions are. It's not just gonna be one sided. You're gonna have an open mind and see the world further than what's here in the United States.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah, yeah, we have we have a similar idea here with my wife and I we travel a lot and we always want like because people the same thing right you're taking your kids Absolutely, like if 1000 % like they you know, they got passports and we we hit the road like we got to go see the world and I agree with you, man Once you get outside of America as an American, I don't know what it's like for other people

Brandon Colbert: Exactly.

AR Wellness Consulti: and you know, as they move around, right? Because they may be more accustomed to what's going on in the location that they're at. But there is like this weight that's lifted, you know, because there's just a natural pressure here in America as a person. Then you compound that as being a man and being the leader of a family and then you compound that. And then I'm just calling the spade a spade. That's probably not the wrong term. That's probably the wrong term to use right now, but.

Brandon Colbert: You

AR Wellness Consulti: being a black man, right? Like there's another added level or layer of pressure that you feel. And then once you get to these other countries, people aren't even like tripping on me like that. Like, you know what mean? I'm not ignorant. I'm not game goofy. So I do have my head on the swivel a little bit, but it's not the same. Like I'm not expecting somebody to take advantage of me or, you I encourage guys all the time, man, if you can travel.

Brandon Colbert: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hi.

AR Wellness Consulti: Like, it may not be out the country, it may be just out of your state, right? Just go to another state and see what that's like. Because there is a whole world of opportunities and experiences out there that I think we miss a lot. And we don't share those with our kids because of our own, maybe our own apprehensions or fears of going to these places. But there's a lot to be learned culturally in a lot of places in the world, just like how they treat work. or how they treat life or when you know, taking a siesta like, yeah, we shutting down for the next two hours. I don't know what y'all gonna do, but we finna go take a nap. you know, we'll be back to work later. Like you, you know what mean? We spend our time in America trying to work, work, work, work, work. And other producers are like, hey, yeah, we're going, we're gonna take a holiday. We'll be back in about a month. We'll see y'all.

Brandon Colbert: Right. And that's one of the things in Costa Rica, they are a family-oriented country. They make sure they spend time with their family. So it really allowed us to kind of slow down, because here in the States, you're on the run, you got to do this, you got to do that. In Costa Rica, one of the phrases they have is pura vida, it's a simple life. So when they say pura vida, that means that Hey, I understand, you know, I'm supposed to be over there to quote you on, you know, a contract, contract or, you know, see about, you know, renting or whatever the case may be. They say, okay, if they feel like this, this is going to take away from the family time, they say, hey, I can't make it. And they will tell you the reason why they don't sugarcoat anything. It was like, no, I'm here with my family. So I'll have to, you know, meet up with you later. And that kind of allowed us to say, okay, hey, we can't have that same mentality that we have in the States and take, try to put that or take this over to Costa Rica. Everything is a little bit different here. It's slow pace. They value time with family. They don't stress. Costa Rica is, I guess you can say the, the is by the equator. So the average life over in Costa Rica is, I want to say it may have gone down, but it was at one point, 89 years old.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah.

Brandon Colbert: That was the average life.

AR Wellness Consulti: Wow, that's, wow.

Brandon Colbert: Yeah, so that that lets you know that hey, we may want to pick up some a few things that we can learn from other countries because you know, here in the States, it's a little bit different, know, basically and you know, cancer, we have all type of diseases over here. So that also jumped us start to in 2016, we got off a beef, or pork. So that also allow myself, of course, you know,

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah.

Brandon Colbert: being a former D1 athlete, me trying to compound and be this muscular big person, it's norm. But that's not gonna do anything for my body in the long run. So I had to really come to terms with, this is not just something that you wanna keep on your joints for the rest of your life, but also in black families, we have high blood pressure, we have... you know, all type of other diseases. So if I can go ahead and change my diet now to make sure that I live a fulfilling life to be there with my son, then that's what I'm gonna do.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah, that's what it's all about, man. This is trying to make sure that we do everything in our power to be as present and available to them for as long as possible. Right. I say all the time, like the health part of it for me is yes, I like working out and yes, strength conditioning coach and all that stuff. Right. Like those are all cool aspects of it. But at the end of the day, I like working out and staying healthy because I really enjoy being a father.

Brandon Colbert: Mm-hmm.

AR Wellness Consulti: And I know if I do those two things, I get to be a father for longer and I get to be a better quality father for longer. like, yeah, I lean into it because I haven't yet given up meat. I don't know if I am just someone I said yet just because there's a possibility. Right. But I like me a good, you know, I like I like a little flesh every now and then. And so it would be tough for me to give that up. But I do understand. Right. And I can relate. My wife's a vegetarian. So.

Brandon Colbert: No.

AR Wellness Consulti: She don't, know, me and my daughters eat all the animals in the house. And she, but I fully understand that urge to do what you need to do to make sure that you're present in a way that you want to be present. We talked a little bit about the deeds part of it. And there's more that I want to get into, but let's get back into, okay, diapers, dumbbells and deeds. What made you start that in particular?

Brandon Colbert: Yeah so, okay, dumbbells has always been a part of my life. I've been working out, you know, athlete since I was 14 years old. So that's, that's always been a part of me, but I always wanted to, to incorporate that on not only with just, you know, myself in general, but my family. So right now my son is doing push-ups right now, you know, as a four year old. And the other thing is too, I feel like, especially when my wife, we work out together. There may be days where I go to the gym myself and she's here on elliptical or doing her less meals body pump But we also have that time set apart where we actually working out together because I feel like this is you know What's the what's the term? Cliche that you know you work out together, you know you prosper us together But I think that is that is so key because we could definitely feed off each other And it feels good to look at my sexy wife and she's working out and we working out and we want to keep that thing going. For diapers, it was more so becoming a father, which is, I would say, the greatest accomplishment of my life. I knew that I wanted to be a father. I didn't know how that was going to pan out. I didn't know that I was going to have these multiple real estate investments. and also being a father and also being a stay at home dad now. That is probably one of the greatest moments of my life because there are a lot of men that have children, of course, but we're not able to see those milestones that the kids have. I saw every milestone my son has had. So that means from him walking, his saying his first word, just playing in general. throwing all that, I witnessed everything. one of the things that I was thinking about, know, how is it that, you know, we need to see more of this. I feel like, you know, we don't have enough representation of dads that are out there that are really, really striving at this, you know, being devoted fathers, are really being devoted, loving husbands. They're that marriage, their marriage component. is real out here and I feel like there is not enough light being shed on that.

AR Wellness Consulti: Okay, all right. Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with you. It's kind of similarly to why I started forfeit fatherhood is like when I became a father, I was trying to find all of I was just trying to figure out how I can be the best dad I could be right and a lot of the books at that time and there's maybe somebody obviously there's tons of books, right? So I couldn't have possibly seen them all but a good majority of the father fatherhood books were like what to expect when expecting or it was more about mom.

Brandon Colbert: Hmm.

AR Wellness Consulti: Right. And just how you navigate mom and baby, but not like how you become a better version yourself. And obviously there's personal development stuff that was out there, but that's not the same. Yeah. You get some leadership tactics from, from Tony Robbins and things like that, but it didn't have the same thing. Right. And so I just, I started talking to guys who are actually fathers and I started sourcing fatherhood content for kind of all over the place and like shining a light on what I felt was like you mentioned that being a father was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

Brandon Colbert: Right.

AR Wellness Consulti: It's the best title that I'm ever going to hold no matter what I do, no matter who I become. Being these two little girls' dads is the best thing that's ever going to happen to me. And I think every father should feel that way. So here I am out here in the world sharing that and putting that out there and trying to push that narrative because it's amazing when you look at adults now because the honest... The honest part of it is we're raising adults. So if we look at adults now and we look at the majority of the problems with adults, they typically stem back to childhood, right? And I'm not just talking about like, you know, we kind of quote daddy issues, but like how they were raised, how they were socialized, how they experienced the world from both genders, from mom and dad, a lot of the adult problems come from that. And so if we talk about changing the world, we got to change adult problems. We got to change adult problems.

Brandon Colbert: Right.

AR Wellness Consulti: We gotta change kid problems and kid problems are parent problems. like starting there and like hopefully creating a ripple effect, right? Just throwing that pebble out there. Like this is how we're a good dad. This is some stuff that dad should do. Like it's kind of how I got into this. And like I said, I feel like my kids are my individual purpose, but outside of them, the more light I can shed on fatherhood, the better with the world is gonna be for them.

Brandon Colbert: I agree. I agree. I agree. Can't agree with you more. That's the thing, right? You know, we want to be that great dad and that great father and also, you know, put it out there like, hey, I know I'm not the only one. I know there's awesome other dads out there, you know, trying to get everybody in the same room and build that community to actually, you know, not only, you know, share experiences, but keep each other accountable. Because, you know, being a dad is tough. It is tough. And I think... that the more that people or other men either see that we're not perfect, there's gonna be some things that you don't like doing or you've done in the past that you want to change, but that's what that community is for. I'm not the only one that's dealing with this problem. There's other dads or other men that's dealing with the same thing. And if I can say that I've done this to help combat my situation that happened before, then that can actually... be sent to other men or other dads and say, let me try that and see if it works. And then from there, it's up, you know?

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in all honesty, like, in all of the things that we do, and this is something that I'm taking from you and I want you to kind of expand on is that we got to win at home first, right? I think a lot of us are outward focused. You know, we got to get out there and make money. We got to protect our family from the world. And those are like all external things, but. Even in what I just said in terms of like, yeah, I'm gonna be the best dad in my home and I'm gonna be the best man I can be in my home. But like ultimately my kids have to go out into the world. So if I don't win at home first, man, we're fighting a losing battle. when you say, I was saying when you say win at home first, like can you kind of lay that out for us? What do you mean by it? I just kind of gave my interpretation, but what does that mean for you?

Brandon Colbert: Yeah, so that I'll give you examples. So my son, right, he's going to grow up to be his own man one day and hopefully, you know, have his own family and own children someday. So when I say it starts at home, that means he sees exactly how I love on my wife, how I love on his mother, the conditional love that we have for each other, what we can, how we communicate with each other. We don't yell if we have a disagreement. He comes in there and say, If we actually start talking too loud, he's like, hey, hey, hey, hey. And we had to tell him, like, whoa, like, hey, we're okay. Daddy and mommy's communicating. But just to have him do that and know that, you know, this is how you communicate. We don't raise our voice. We don't curse at each other. We may have disagreements, but we always have a cool head and we always communicate to the point where we get our, you know, beliefs or how we feel across, but also be receptive to what our significant other is telling us. So he sees the dialogue that we have around our home. He sees the affection that I give my wife and I also give him. There is nothing, there is nothing wrong with being affectionate with my son. One of the things I feel like as men, and this is something that may have been back in the day with how my father grew up. He had to be tough during that time. He couldn't really show his emotions like that. So for me, I don't have to necessarily be that same way. I can show my emotions and show my son that, you know, affection is this is how, this is how men, you know, handle themselves. Vulnerability is not a weakness. Vulnerability is not a weakness. I feel like as men, vulnerability is probably one of the greatest strengths you can have. Because if you can be open and be direct with how you're feeling, you don't have to keep that in. And I feel that as men sometimes, We keep that in and then that kind of triggers out to certain things where we have outbursts or we actually try to, or we say things that are not meant in that situation because we keep everything bottled in. I feel like if men, just men just in general, if we are comfortable and vulnerable enough to express how we truly feel, regardless of whether we feeling sad, mad at the time, whatever the case may be, but just to say that and acknowledge that. I think that's powerful, especially for men.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. I usually use like a superhero analogy with that when I'm trying to talk to guys about it and vulnerability, right? Because I'm like, vulnerability is kind of your, to some degree, your superpower. And the way I say that is like, if we look at all of the superheroes that we know, like Superman, Batman, just to name a few, they all have a weakness, right? There's all they all have a thing, right? Like, and the only reason why we resonate and we connect with them is typically because of that, right? Like Batman lost his parents when he was young, right? We can associate with loss. We may not have lost the parents, but we know loss, we understand like, okay, so now he's going out to fight the world and he's not hiding that from anybody. Superman, Kryptonite, just take him out, right? Like he just, he can't do nothing when Kryptonite is around.

Brandon Colbert: Thanks. Right.

AR Wellness Consulti: But that endears you to them, right? Because a superhero with no weakness is like, I can't be anything like that. I don't even know how to associate with that. was like basketball, for example. People connected with Steph Curry so well because he's not the biggest guy, he's not the fastest guy, he ain't jumping out the gym. He's just shooting the basketball. He shoot the basketball. I may not hit 23s in a row.

Brandon Colbert: Right, right. Mm-hmm. Right.

AR Wellness Consulti: I could throw whatever, you know what I mean? I'm definitely not jumping from the free throw line in Duncan. That's the problem for me. I'm not 6'8". You know what I mean? I'm not as fast as, or physically gifted as LeBron. So I can't connect with that. But Steph Curry, he's like a regular dude, right? You put him in some regular street clothes, like he can just walk around with the rest of us. So we connect with that. And I think that same thing happens inside of our family. And we don't, we shy away from it because society tells us that vulnerability is weakness. But in our house,

Brandon Colbert: Yeah. Yeah.

AR Wellness Consulti: it endears our family to us. Like, man, dad's a real person. Like he has a full range of emotions. Like my husband is a real person. Like I can talk to him and he can be open and honest with me and I can be open and honest with him. And like, then you kind of get this family unit that's unshakable because everybody is willing to support each other and be open to the support from each other.

Brandon Colbert: Exactly, exactly. That's the goal, right?

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah, 100%, 100%. I think a family unit, we're all on the same journey. We all have the same or similar goals. My goal as the leader of this household is for each individual to be the best possible version of themselves. And I sincerely hope that that's their goal for themselves as well. And we're working together towards that. Sometimes we may not agree on what's the right step. I might tell my daughter to do this, and she's like, But like I'm doing this for you. I don't have no, I'm not doing it because I want a certain thing to happen. I want you to be the best version of you. And this is what I think as your leader. And so let's take that action, right? And then the same thing with my wife. Like my job is to protect and to cover her and to lead and guide. And in same breath, she has some of those responsibilities for me, right? Like I'm gonna step out in the world and do some stuff and she's gonna be amazing and help me multiply it.

Brandon Colbert: Exactly.

AR Wellness Consulti: or give me some game that maybe I wasn't thinking about, a different perspective, or, you know.

Brandon Colbert: That's the key. That's the key because we don't know everything, right? We don't know everything. So when we actually get that kick or that extra push from our wives, it's only going to push us in a trajectory that's going to only go up.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah, yeah. And we have to be open to it, right? Like I think, oh, you talked about earlier in this, is extremely important. And I think that may be one of the things that we get wrong is like, communication is a two-way street, right? Like if I say something, I have to be able to say it in a way that it can be received or else it doesn't land the way that it's supposed to. And at the same time, I have to be open enough to receive what's coming back.

Brandon Colbert: Exactly.

AR Wellness Consulti: And a lot of times we aren't as open to what's coming back to us and we aren't emotionally intelligent enough or maybe just socially intelligent enough to say things in a way where they can be received. Right. That for me, I think is one of the things that men get wrong in communication in a marriage. Is there anything that you maybe see in your experience that maybe men are stumbling or blocking themselves with in terms of communication?

Brandon Colbert: I would probably say definitely receiving feedback is probably the biggest thing. Of course, you know, we can say, you know, how we feel and, you know, this is not, you know, this is not the way I want it to be done. We can say all that, but until we are able to receive what our significant others are saying back to us, we can't say our piece and then, you know, when our significant others say something to us, then we just either shut down or we don't receive it or just block it out entirely. That's not how it's going to work. If you can't express yourself, but also receive what your significant other is saying, then things are not going to change. And then once those things don't change, you get resentment, you get more fights, you get shutting down. She's not as open as she may have once been. That communication that could have expounded or made that marriage, bringing that marriage a little bit better, it's not going to happen.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah, yeah. And I think it's something that maybe is a lost art, not lost art, but maybe we're getting further away from because of social media and society is the ability to take constructive criticism. Right? Like, you know, as an athlete, there were times where your coach got on you about something and he was right. Like he was in the wrong. Right. But maybe he had to coach you in a way that was uncomfortable for you to get it. And that's just constructive criticism. He don't hate you.

Brandon Colbert: Yes. Thanks, guys.

AR Wellness Consulti: Right? He ain't really even mad at you. He just has to say it in a way or put it in a way that you can receive it and understand the gravity of the situation. Right. But I think social media and just the societal climate is like, somebody says something to us, they are hater or, you know, they're trying to hold us back or, you know, everybody's so sensitive and constructive criticism is like, it's like an indictment. Right. Like if I could criticize you.

Brandon Colbert: Exactly.

AR Wellness Consulti: I'm a hater, I don't like you and all that kind of stuff. But in the reality is, it's like sometimes a person outside of you can see what you're doing and saying and be like, hey, I don't know if that's the way that you intended that. Or like maybe if we tweak it this way a little bit, maybe that'll help get it going in business, right? Like my wife is coming, we'll talk about some business stuff or some ideas and she'll say something. I'll be like, damn, I thought I had that.

Brandon Colbert: Right.

AR Wellness Consulti: Bringing it to you like I know all the information you are you gonna come back at me with some? all right. I didn't even think about it that way. You're absolutely right Let me see. Let me see how I could work that in there, but I had to be open to that right because Sometimes like I said, I'm bringing you the idea. I know everything. Hey, don't tell me what I know So that's something that I think that that all of us can continue to work on as communicators, do you you said you guys don't argue do you have a

Brandon Colbert: Yep. Exactly, exactly.

AR Wellness Consulti: de-escalation thing or is it just because you guys communicate so often and so well that that doesn't really happen?

Brandon Colbert: No, there's still, we have our moments where there's times where we can actually, we can agree that, hey, this topic is a little bit hot right now, let's cool down and then come back. I honestly feel like, you know, can talk about, I can talk about anything with my wife at the same time. I understand that there's a time and a place for everything. So just because there is a situation or argument that's going on right now. doesn't necessarily mean that we have to discuss it right now. Especially when you know, there's tensions are high, you can see exactly how, know, your sonica another is or how you are. They may not, that may not be the necessary, the right time to talk about it right now and kind of let it cool down and then come back to it where everybody can talk with a level head. You know, there won't be anything that's missed and you know, in communication, you can hear exactly. what that person is trying to say to you or try to tell you and then you will be able to receive it because you actually are kind of cool down from the original time that, you know, the conversation of our, you know, argument happened.

AR Wellness Consulti: Was that something that you always kind of had or is that something that you guys kind of worked on?

Brandon Colbert: No, no. I would tell you, and I keep, I want to really shine a light on this because my wife is the person that made me change. And when I say made me change was I grew up, you know, as an athlete, as you know, even with me growing up where I was told that, you know, show no emotions. So that's exactly what I did. So as a football player, I kept things in. When I got angry, I lashed out. Me, that's one of the things that I want to say that probably changed me the most was I was, you know, being a football player is physical. You're a physical guy. So that was my identity. I was physical with people. So when I finally settled down and I knew that she was the one, she challenged me. to communicate. there was things where I did in previous relationships where like, nah, I'm not talking about that. I'll shut it down and I'll go on. I'll walk off. There won't be no discussion. And that's how it was. But my wife, my wife made me change where she's like, no, I'm not doing that. We need to talk about it. We don't have to talk about it right now, but we will talk about it. So having her to constantly reiterate that and say, hey,

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

Brandon Colbert: we still need to talk about this. She held my feet to the fire. And I think from that where she made me feel that it was okay to be vulnerable. So when I say vulnerable, she gave me the space to tell her exactly how I was feeling. It didn't feel good because I felt like it would not say, you know, that hurt my feelings or, know, kind of that ego is what kind of drives that communication not being, you know, there. So if you have that ego where you're like, nah, man, that's that's soft. I'm not saying that. I think that's that's the downfall. But if you have that space where you're sitting picking up that gives you the space to be vulnerable, allows you to to express how you are truly feeling. And from there, there's no judgment. My wife did not judge me when I said, you know, what was on my mind or what hurt me. And I think from there, seeing that and how she react to that.

AR Wellness Consulti: Mm-mm.

Brandon Colbert: that shifted in me. Because typically when in my previous relationships, anytime that I express, you know, this, this pissed me off or I was mad about this, it was like, but why are you doing this? Or, you know, why are you upset about that? And then from there, that it shuts down. But my wife gave me that space. And then I think from there was when there was multiple times where she was like, Hey, we need to talk about this. Like, all right, all right, we'll talk about it later then. And every time we had a conversation about it. So I think that kind of opened the door for me to be where I am right now, where I understand exactly how communication can make, not only make you a better father, but also bring that marriage in that may be missing that component because of lack of communication.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah, man. Yeah. I think the tough part for us as men with this vulnerability thing is trusting someone with information that could hurt us, right? Like, I'm giving you my softest parts and I'm typically putting on some armor to protect myself from, you know what I mean? But now I'm gonna take this off and this is where you can hurt me. Here it is. And a lot of times we've been burned in previous relationships when we did that.

Brandon Colbert: Exactly. You

AR Wellness Consulti: We, like you mentioned, even as athletes, right, we're told at a very young age, right, if you start playing ball, like Pop Warner or, you know, Little Leagues, whatever, you're like eight, eight, seven, eight years old, people are telling you, you're just learning how to be a human at this point. And they're like, hey, no emotions, right? Like you meet aggression with aggression. You, know what I mean? Like you, everything is, as you said, far charging. Like it's all, all this, right? There's never any retreating. It is no turning back.

Brandon Colbert: Yeah.

AR Wellness Consulti: Once you start something, you finish something like you get all these things and none of those are great for relationships. None of those are great for communication, but that's the identity we've had for so long, right? Like we are receptive to situational and I use sports analogies, right? In a situation we are able to adjust as a ball player, right? We're playing football. Like I understand my responsibilities in my position.

Brandon Colbert: Exactly. Mm-hmm.

AR Wellness Consulti: I understand the guy next to me. I don't need to know all the details, right? But like if he tells me, you know, we got a different coverage now coming. OK, I can adjust. I'm going to move within that. I'm going to turn around and I'll be with him. Right. Like, no, man, what you talking about? I'm blitzing on this plate. Like, I'm not going to drop in the coverage. know what mean? Like, we're not going to do that in that situation. But then we'll get into a relationship and we'll go, she'll be like, hey, this is what I noticed. What you talking about? Like, I didn't. You know what mean? Like, we're completely flipped.

Brandon Colbert: Right. Right. Great.

AR Wellness Consulti: And what I'm saying is we have the skill set, right? But it's maybe the mindset that's holding us back, right? Because we have the ability, we're playing hoop, just three on three. We ain't even talking about like we playing real game. Three on three, I'll dish you the ball and then I cut. Like you understand, right? I'm not arguing with you if you open, take the shot. I'm not gonna be like, you know what I'm saying? yeah.

Brandon Colbert: Yeah. Right.

AR Wellness Consulti: You understand, but we understand that we have that in us. We just don't use it in the right scenarios, right? We get into a relationship and we feel like there's these dynamics in a relationship that we're supposed to uphold and I'm the head and not the tail. And if she's saying something to me, then well, as the leader, she can't be telling me what to do because I never told my coach what to do. You know what I'm saying? Like we, we, we formed this hierarchy of how conversation is supposed to work. And typically that ain't it.

Brandon Colbert: Right, right.

AR Wellness Consulti: You know, in the real world, in most situations, that's not how it works.

Brandon Colbert: And I think that is key too, especially as a father. You want to make sure that you, you your arm, your children, where you tell them exactly when the time is to be aggressive or what that case may be, but also being able to dial back in and like, hey, this is not the appropriate time to do that. And I think as fathers, that is one of the key things that I think we need to instill in our children, where they have the capabilities of... being able to take care of but also in certain situations like, you know, like you said, relationships, this is, let me dial back a bit. That's not the right way to handle this particular situation. So we give them the tools to be successful, not only in, you know, sports where you need to show that aggression, but also in everyday life, business, relationships where you can't have that same, you know, aggressive mentality that you have on the field or on the court. that you have in the workforce, business or relationship.

AR Wellness Consulti: Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the things I loved about like martial arts and that kind of like that field of things, maybe not MMA because it's kind of gotten into something different, but like old school martial arts, right? Where it was like you were physically capable of fighting if fighting needed to happen. But what they taught you was de-escalation, right? Like using your hands was the last thing you wanted to do. Right. And that's kind of that's kind of opposite of football, right? Because I played football and I did karate when I was little.

Brandon Colbert: Exactly. That's for sure.

AR Wellness Consulti: And I stopped doing karate and just play football. football is like, hey, man, when the whistle blows and we step in between these lines, I'm trying to kill you. And matter of fact, not only am I trying to kill you, but every opportunity I get to embarrass you and make you feel bad about yourself, I am. And I had to learn like outside of the lines and outside of the game, we can be normal. Like, I don't hate you.

Brandon Colbert: yeah. Thank you.

AR Wellness Consulti: I was plenty of times where like, you you play youth ball or you play high school, right? When you get to high school, you start playing your friends at other schools and we'd be hanging out on the weekend, but Friday night, bro, I'm trying to rip your helmet off. And then I'm gonna talk to or talk about you on Saturday. you know what mean? And that was the thing, but we have to understand that like, as we get out of that, it's probably more of the other side, right? It's probably more Saturdays than it is Friday nights.

Brandon Colbert: Yeah. Yeah. Right.

AR Wellness Consulti: Right? It's more of the interactions and the intangibles of the relationship than it is me versus you. Right? In a relationship, an argument is never, never, never, never, never you versus her. Right? Because you guys are a team at the end of the day. Right? And know, Ye and J, no one wins when the family feuds. Right? Like we all end up losing. So if your goal is to win, yeah, your goal is to win an argument. You just lost, brother.

Brandon Colbert: Yeah, we've seen that. Right.

AR Wellness Consulti: Well, yeah, okay, all right. So we talked about that. I want to get back to Costa Rica just for my own selfish personal reasons, right? But I do want to, I'm a tight end. I'm not going to be completely selfish. So using real estate as a vehicle to kind of create legacy, you get out to, guys choose Costa Rica. What is the real estate landscape like out there? Like, what is that?

Brandon Colbert: Hahaha

AR Wellness Consulti: Is that like a good investment place or was it just kind of like, we like Costa Rica, we can go to Costa Rica.

Brandon Colbert: So prior to us actually investing in Costa Rica, we've been there maybe once or twice, but it was more so we went on the resorts where we stay. You you have all inclusive where you don't have to pay for pay for food is everything is included with what you pay what you pay. I think for Costa Rica, it was more so we went to see if, know, there was a chance that, you know, we could live over here, you know, what the lifestyle was like, you know, everyday life, buying groceries, you know, work. working here, like what does that entail? So I think we went in with the open mindset, like, could this potentially be somewhere that we can live? If so, then, you know, how will we get around? What are the day to day activities that we need to do? How will we be able to feed ourselves over there essentially? Because I actually, had a W-2 job where I was actually able to work remote. So us going back and forth to Costa Rica was fine. I was working over there and I was working here in the States. But Typically that's not going to be the same situation for somebody that does want to stay over there. So we're going to open mindset like, could we make this our second home essentially?

AR Wellness Consulti: Okay, okay. And Costa Rica was a place that you guys figured like that we could we could try to make it happen here if we needed to.

Brandon Colbert: Exactly. So we've been to other countries. We've been to Thailand. We've been to Japan. We've been to Dominican Republic, but we essentially settled on Costa Rica because of that family oriented lifestyle that they have in the country. So one of the things that kind of is funny now, but I didn't think out of time was, of course, you you have your son and you don't really allow anybody to get real close to or even, you know, allow them to... to hold them or touch them in a case like that. So I had to get used to Costa Rica being that family oriented country where randomly we went to, when we went to Costa Rica before we bought our properties, we was at a restaurant where the waiters were very nice. They spoke English. They say, you know, our son was so beautiful. And then they actually went in to touch them. So my antennas went off like, hold on, what's going on? And then my wife had to say, you know, just relax, because my wife, she's a military brat. So she's been all over the world, seeing different cultures. So that was new to me. So I was on edge and she was on edge a little bit because, you know, that is our first son. He was like, hold on now. We don't want to go to jail in a foreign country. But, you know, if it comes to that, especially with our son, I'll take that. But it was just more so like they were just in love with babies. They love children. So we had to get in that mindset like...

AR Wellness Consulti: Mm-hmm.

Brandon Colbert: Okay, hey, this is a little bit different over here. know, everybody loves children. You have other families having their child come over and play with our son. That was different to me, especially in the foreign country. So when I got out of that mindset of, you know, the states where, you know, you have to be, you know, protective of your children, you can't let them get out your sight, I was able to kind of like let him venture out a little bit to see how it was interacting with, you know, other children in different countries.

AR Wellness Consulti: Okay, all right. mean, listen, Thailand was on the list. Costa Rica is on the list. It's like two other places that we visited that we're like, man, we could probably make it happen here. Bali, I think was on the list. But yeah, so hearing that, like I'm big family guy. By the time we do it, our kids will be grown and kind of, you know, doing their thing in school or whatever. But yeah, I like that. I like what I'm hearing. So Costa Rica might have just moved up on the list a little higher.

Brandon Colbert: Yeah, we are. So we again, we sold our property this this early this year. And what we actually are now doing is we are trying to venture out more to see what other markets we want to invest in. So one of the three countries that are on our radar within the next couple of months is we definitely want to see Dubai. We've heard that Dubai is actually a great market to start investing in Spain. Portugal is the other one and we actually are going back to Japan now We won't be investing in Japan, but just going to Japan in general I would say that my wife she was actually she lived in Japan for Plenty of years, so she's familiar with the culture in Japan my Her her brother's wife is Japanese so she knows about the country about the culture My mother-in-law was over and stayed in Japan for 15 plus years working for the DOD. So me going over there with them was definitely eye-opening. And when I say that I did not want to come back from Japan, I did not. I did not. It's different over in Japan. And you can see like just in general, everything that's over there when it comes to transportation, you take the train.

AR Wellness Consulti: Okay. Yeah.

Brandon Colbert: So everything is still in Japanese. There's no English, you know, where you can tell exactly which station to get off on. And when I say that we went over there trying to understand and, you know, do the Google Translate, to try to see exactly where we need to go, there were plenty of people that came up and said, do we need help? That right there in itself, I was not used to that. Here in the States, you know, if you lost, it's like, well, you need to find out.

AR Wellness Consulti: Mm-hmm.

Brandon Colbert: exactly where you need to go. You don't have too many people coming up and being helpful with, you need to take this route, you need to go here. In Japan, it's different. They are very welcoming. The food is very authentic over there. The place is clean. It is an experience to really go over there to see. And this was prior to the Olympics being over in Japan. So we saw the infrastructure that they was building.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah.

Brandon Colbert: before the Olympics got there and we saw how this was just going to just bring everybody here to see exactly how Japan is.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah, I agree, man. We spent a couple of days in Japan. We did like a tour of Southeast Asia a couple of years ago. And so we're in Hong Kong. And it is it is super clean. It was it was July. So maybe not the best time because it was sweltering. But like the people were super nice and everybody was it didn't feel I don't know. It just felt it didn't. I won't say it felt like home, but it just felt like everybody was welcoming.

Brandon Colbert: Mm-hmm.

AR Wellness Consulti: You know, people treated us nice. It was a good experience. So why not invest there? Is there a reason?

Brandon Colbert: Yeah. So I'm not typically sure about the ins and outs of that, but in Japan, I don't think they allow investments to be outside of people that are not Japanese or residents of Japan. Yeah.

AR Wellness Consulti: Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. All right. So there's some bureaucracy or something going on there. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. Well, I mean, I think the other two places, Spain, I've been to Madrid. Spain's a great place, I think. I I felt like, right? I've heard some different things in different pockets and different places that maybe aren't as receptive to travelers and foreigners, but I had a good time. All right. Let's get back.

Brandon Colbert: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

AR Wellness Consulti: You get back to the pot because I know we're getting close on time. So I had a couple of questions that I want to kind of just fire at you. And maybe these are these are one one answer quite sorry, one word answers or maybe you expound on them a little bit. But just kind of leaning into your experience as as a father, what is the best habit that you've built as a dad?

Brandon Colbert: Okay. Hmm, the best habit. Well, I can say that I'm still still building right now is patience. There's going to be a lot of things. And of course, you know, you have kids, they're doing kid things, they're exploring, they're becoming their own person. So you have the attitudes, you have the talking back. That's just, you know, part of kids growing up. So as a father, I need to be more patient like I was a kid once.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah.

Brandon Colbert: I probably did the exact same thing, if not worse, with my parents. But I need to have, you know, give my son a little bit more grace because he's doing what kids should be doing right now. Getting to things, you know, being, having this little strong men mentality or personality where he's saying, you know, no, or, you know, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do that. And just really just having the patience to say, okay. He's becoming his own person. The hormones are growing and developing. So just taking that into consideration that what he's doing is he's supposed to be doing it right now. You don't need to really lash out or really fuss at him like that because of him jumping on the bed or doing things that could potentially hurt him. He's gonna have to get his bumps and bruises like just like anybody else.

AR Wellness Consulti: Mm-hmm.

Brandon Colbert: So it's just a matter of being there if that comes to fruition, but also having that understanding like, this is something that he's going to be growing out of soon, but risk right now, he's going to go through that process.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's all a process, your first time as a parent, like you're learning how to be a parent while they're learning how to be a person. Like it's all happening at the same time. And so, you you got to give him grace and you got to give yourself grace as you both are learning, right? What's maybe one, I think we kind of touched on this a little earlier. What's one belief you had to unlearn?

Brandon Colbert: Yes. Exactly. Mm-hmm.

AR Wellness Consulti: from how you were raised. Like now as a father, maybe something that you know that you wanna change or something that you decided you didn't wanna repeat the cycle, I guess.

Brandon Colbert: oof, this is, this, may hit, hit home with, some people, but I think, for me, the biggest thing was having those family secrets. I don't want, how do I want to touch this? There are certain things where family or adults or parents feel like their children don't need to be, know, privy to. I get that. At the same time, if it's going to be something that they're going to potentially be dealing with as an adult, I feel like there are a certain time and place or even an age where... I think it is reasonable to have that conversation with your son or with your daughter that, hey, you know, this is what happened. This is what we're trying to combat and the reason behind that. One of the things that I hate hearing about black families is that there were family secrets that ultimately hurt the family or hurt family members because of it being kept under wraps for so long. And then when it finally came to the surface, it just spread it like a disease. And then eventually it separated the family. So I feel like there is a time and place for that conversation to happen. And I get it that you want to just kind of your children for certain conversations, certain things. At the same time, you can't really protect them if you can't basically give them the tools to

AR Wellness Consulti: Thank you.

Brandon Colbert: to make their own decisions because of what the family or what the family situation was.

AR Wellness Consulti: Right. Yeah. It's one of those like you can protect them, but you also got to prepare them. Right. Because eventually it's eventually everything comes to light at some point. Right. And it may typically is not going to come to light the way you want it to. Right. So the idea is that, you know, time sensitive and appropriately at the appropriate age and time. Right. You definitely want to open up and be like, hey, this is what's going on. This is what's happened in our family. This is just so you know.

Brandon Colbert: Exactly, exactly. Mm-hmm.

AR Wellness Consulti: Right? As you get older, these things may happen. Or this is why we don't talk to Uncle Ricky no more. You know what I mean? Like why we don't come to the family reunion, like, you know, that kind of stuff. Right? And I think we are culturally very guarded and protected in that sense. It's like, you don't know about it, then it can't hurt you. Right? And we feel that, but that's not really true.

Brandon Colbert: exact. Right.

AR Wellness Consulti: Right? Like we feel like we're protecting you from something by not telling you, but eventually it seeps out and when it comes out, it's going to be worse. Right?

Brandon Colbert: Exactly. And it's not, may not necessarily come from the person that knew about it. So you got to think about that situation too. If, if you're trying to show, show the child from some, from a certain situation and then they find out from somebody else or from another source, that's only going to hurt the situation even worse.

AR Wellness Consulti: Right. Yeah. 100%. 100%. Yeah. You know, I hadn't thought about like, I try to be honest with my kids and share things like time sensitively as I can and try to get them involved. But I didn't. There are some, some things that, and then maybe not secrets, right? But it's just like, I don't know when I'm going to broach that conversation, you know, when I'm going to up. and I definitely don't want it to be a situation where it just, it stays so long in my like Rolodex of things to tell them that I never get to tell them.

Brandon Colbert: Right. Right.

AR Wellness Consulti: So I'm glad you said that because there's a couple of things that like, okay, we're getting a little older. Maybe it's something that, I don't know, can take a car ride and we talk about this, talk this through. But I think there's a lot of those things that just get lost, right? It's like, I'm gonna protect you from it, something I'm gonna tell you. And then a bunch of life happens.

Brandon Colbert: Yeah, and then it doesn't come up. So yeah, there's certain situations where you're not going to be able to have that conversation based off of like, it might not be the right time to do that. And then of course, like you said, goes on, different things, other different things happen. And so it's like, you know, it falls back to the line.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah. Yeah. All right, man. We talked about a lot of a lot of different things in this podcast. We talked about, you know, real estate investing. We talked about relationships and communication. We've obviously talked about fatherhood. I want to bring it back to fatherhood. If you could in one sentence explain what is what does fatherhood mean to you?

Brandon Colbert: man, that's a deep one. I will keep it short. In a nutshell, I want my son to be able to make decisions based off of his experience, not what society says he should do. I want him to be able to have his own mind and With that being said, because we live in a world right now, social media is driving everything. So what you see on social media is not necessarily true, but then you have to do your own research and kind of figure out, you know, how are you going to move in life or how are you going to make certain decisions based off of your knowledge, not necessarily what society tells you that you should do or what you should have. So I think, one, that's one of the biggest things why I want my son to have that experience outside of the states where he's able to have the experience and saw other coaches like, you know, how certain situations were approached from people that were in Costa Rica or people that was in Dominican Republic versus, you know, how people are making those decisions here. you know, just within the climate that we're in right now, I feel like that's probably the biggest thing right now is being his own person, being confident and being comfortable within himself to make those decisions and don't. second guess himself because of what society says or what anybody else says. He's going have the tools to make that decision and stand on his own.

AR Wellness Consulti: I I love that. All right. So he's young now, right? But at some point, he's gonna wanna know more about dad, right? And so he's gonna go out, he's gonna look at your Instagram, social media is gonna continue to progress, right? So eventually he's gonna go look at the Instagram and he's gonna go see all the stuff you posted. And maybe he stumbles across this podcast, right? And he listens all the way through and he's hearing dad say all these good things and he gets to this part of the podcast. What is it that you want him to hear?

Brandon Colbert: Yeah. man, that I pray for him, that I want him to have the best life possible. The goal is always to have a better life than what your dad has. So I think that is probably the biggest thing that I want to instill in him is that, you know, hey, I've achieved this. You have the world on your shoulders. You can achieve anything. but also having things in place where right now with our real estate investing, that he has the opportunity to do exactly what he wants to do. If he wants to become a business owner, he'll be able to do that because of what his parents were doing while he was a kid. We started real estate investing, have that, using that tool to drive generations to come. So because of mommy and daddy investing in real estate and making decisions based off of stocks and life insurance and all this other things that could potentially be left for our son. This is the reason why we do what we do because we want our son to be able to live life like he wants to, but also have the tools to be able to make those decisions based off of, you know, whether this is a good investment, whether I want to do this, being being confident in his decisions to again, make his kids and his wife and his son's sons or daughter's daughters from generations to come. This is what we're building, that generational tool where our family is going to be able to live off of what decisions that me and my wife made while we was here on.

AR Wellness Consulti: I love that man. I love that. And I feel like just based on my limited experience with you looking at your social media and watching the videos and even talking to you now, I feel that deeply he's going to be set up. Like not only with like the tangible things and financial things, but like just in the way that you move as a person, as a man, right? Just hearing how you talk, talk about him, talk about your wife, talk about yourself. talk about the world, you are setting a young man up to go out and be special. So I wanna thank you for putting a great young man out into the world because there's not a lot of us, right? There's a lot of men in the world, but not everybody is set up in the way that you're your son up. And so I wanna commend you on that and also thank you for that because that's important, right? Like the more young men, young boys we have, that are being guided and led by men who have their things together, the better our world's gonna be in the future, right?

Brandon Colbert: Exactly. Exactly.

AR Wellness Consulti: So if guys are listening to the podcast and they want to reach out, they want to maybe learn a little bit about you, or they want to just give you a virtual high five and say, hey, thanks for doing the episode. What's the best way for them to do that?

Brandon Colbert: Just DME, diapers, dumbbells and these. Me and my wife really say that we're open book. I want to leave this with you as well. There's this persona that you have to keep certain things to yourself that there's not enough money or anything in the world that we can't share. And I feel that's the downfall of certain people just because I tell you exactly what to do and how things, what real estate investments we made on our own to actually, you know, lift our portfolio. I can tell you it, but this is up to you to do the work. If you don't do the work, then you're not going to get at the level that you should get there. So just because I'm an open book and I share my tips and my experience and my background, my knowledge. doesn't necessarily mean that I'm hindering myself from elevating. It just means that I know exactly what worked for me and I want to make sure that I tell the next person the same thing, but they have to do the work themselves. Just because I tell them what to do doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to expound from there or be better or do better than what we are. Everybody has their own uniqueness, have their own decision-making. So it's really up to what the person does once we give them the tools or give them the game to how real estate investing changes our lives.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah, and I appreciate it, right? I appreciate you being willing to share. And that's a mindset, It's scarcity versus abundance. Just because I tell you something or I share with you doesn't mean my opportunities become any less, right? Because individually, my superpower is on me and nobody else could be me. Okay, like I can tell you all the things that I do, but you aren't me. So you're to do the things the way that you do them. And what's for me is for me and what's for you is for you.

Brandon Colbert: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

AR Wellness Consulti: And I think that's important to remember. So I'm glad you said that because there's a lot of a lot of what they call it gatekeeping, right? Of like, got it right. And so I'm gonna keep it to myself so nobody else can, you know, take that from me. But they can't man, you're you and that's that's your superpower.

Brandon Colbert: Yeah, yeah. I couldn't agree with you more.

AR Wellness Consulti: Yeah. All right, brother. Well, listen, man, I said this at the beginning. I sincerely appreciate you joining me on the podcast. I understand how important time is to all of us. We have some little technical issues at the beginning. You stuck with me and rock with me all the way through. Thank you so much for joining us. I look forward to talking to you soon. And I'm definitely going to be in your ear or in your DMs about these real estate investments.

Brandon Colbert: chorus.

AR Wellness Consulti: Because I definitely see that as an opportunity, a gateway to freedom. And like I said, at some point I want to split my time and retire in some different places with some tropical, some water. I had some water next to me.

Brandon Colbert: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Okay, yeah, I appreciate you having me on the show, man. It's wonderful seeing other fathers and other husbands doing the same thing and just really propelling fatherhood out there. So you're doing an amazing job yourself, man. So I salute you.

AR Wellness Consulti: Thank you, brother. Thank you. All right, bro. I'll talk to you soon.

Brandon Colbert: All right, take care.

Rod Richard: That was my conversation with Brandon Cobra from Diapers, Dumbbells, and Deeds. I appreciate this one because we touched on so many parts of fatherhood that matter. Marriage, communication, patience, vulnerability, money, travel, real estate, and building a life your children can grow from. The biggest takeaway is simple. Win at home first. Your kids are watching how you lead. They're watching how you love. They're watching how you handle pressure, and they're watching how you build. Make sure you connect with Brandon at Diapers, Dumbbells, and Deeds on Instagram. and as always, thank you for listening to Four Fit Fatherhood Podcast. If this episode helped you, share with the father who needs to hear it. Until next time, keep showing up.