Hello and welcome to Choose a Fire. Today on the show we have Brandon the Madfientist back for his third guest appearance here on Choose a Fire.

This is the first time in a couple years we've had him back. So I'm curious to hear about his evolution personally and I'm also really fascinated to talk through the evolution of fire and the fire movement generally.

Because I think a lot of us have intuitively felt that the messaging has shifted over the last couple years and a lot of us are focused more on what we value and how to spend wisely to enjoy our lives.

And I think that is an incredible, incredible shift and I think Brandon is the perfect person to talk this through with. So with that, welcome to Choose a Fire.

Brandon, welcome back. I'm so happy to have you here. Yeah, thanks for having me back. Always good to talk to you and yeah, it's been a while this time. Yeah, it has been a while. It's crazy. Obviously we used to keep up pretty often via our Skype calls and things but life in the world clearly have intervened over the last couple years. Yeah, big time. Lots of big changes. Yeah, my son, I think has a lot to do with my lack of

Skype up all time. Yeah, that was what I was going to say. Man, that's awesome. Well, first congratulations. Thank you. I'm really so happy for you and Jill. Yeah, no, we were over the moon. He just turned eight months yesterday. So that's been fantastic eight months and it just keeps getting more and more fun. Yeah, oh, man, eight months. That's incredible. It's funny because I still think of myself as, oh, I have young kids and my daughters are now 14 and 11, which is just absolutely wild. So yeah, it's one of those things, right?

You hear it's the cliche and it's like the days are long. Yeah, but the years are short. The years are certainly quick. And so the beautiful part though, I guess about the lives we built. And I don't know frankly, like if you guys, I've never asked you this. Obviously it's pretty personal. But if even kids were part of your plan when you started pursuing fire, I don't know necessarily that they were. Yeah, I think Jill wanted them probably before I started pursuing fire. But no, I definitely didn't. I didn't see myself ever becoming a father to be honest.

And it was only probably during that journey that I still was like coming around to the idea and yeah, Jill was getting more and more into the idea of becoming parents. And I was still like, I don't know.

And yeah, actually, by to be honest, actually helped me come around because I started taking off all these things I wanted to do. I always thought that yeah, once you become a parent, that's like your life over as far as your own individual goals is concerned. And I was thinking, you know, like I'd so much I wanted to accomplish and wanted to do.

And it was only once I started taking a lot of that stuff off that I was like, well, actually, yeah, I think coming a parent would be a lot of fun.

And so yeah, I actually, oh, if I a lot for me coming around to the idea and yeah, I couldn't be happier now.

Yeah, that is so cool. And that ticking off things to do really the last time you were here, which was yeah, easily two plus years ago, was when your album came out. Yeah, right.

I know. Yeah, exactly that was a big one of the ticks that I wanted to tick off. And yeah, having done that, I was just really happy that I fulfilled that lifelong goal. And there wasn't too long after that that we really started to try to get pregnant and everything. So, yeah, that was one of the one of the final things to tick off among many others. But yeah.

Yeah, that's why they so okay, first you got to update the audience because for anybody who's been listening for years, they heard before the album is coming out. And hopefully we helped maybe sell some of those early albums.

If memory serves correctly, didn't you make like the Billboard list or something crazy? Yeah, it was ridiculous. So, see how the album was released. And then I made it to number 39 on the top current album sales chart, billboards top

current album sales chart. And then number 85 on the top album sales chart. So top current albums is like recent stuff, but the top albums chart is like Michael Jackson's thriller and princess

purport rain and like I was right next to Nirvana never mind on that chart. So Nirvana never mind was 84. And I was number 85. And it was just mind blowing because Nirvana was a huge influence when I was a kid.

That is why please tell me you took a screenshot of that. Oh, I got so many screenshots, PDFs I made. And then since I was on the charts, I was able to get a billboard plaque. So I've got a plaque. That's just waiting for a studio to put it up in. And it's yeah, it's got the platinum disc in the album cover and everything. And it, you know, says what I got on to the chart within everything. It's just it's wild. So say I once we finally buy a house and settle down a little bit more. That's going to go right up on the wall. And I will enjoy looking at that every day because it's absolutely ridiculous.

I have no business being on the charts. But I have to say and I told you this and I wasn't be asking the music was really good. I mean, it wasn't. And you went out of your way. I think maybe almost to a fault to like warn people like a little bit different. This might be a little different. But it was genuinely enjoyable. Like I unfortunately only listened to it like twice when it first came out. And I haven't I haven't gone back to it. But like, damn, this is really, really good. And I have no experience with that type of music. What's the way? Well, that's good. I'm glad. Yeah.

I tried to make it a slightly less weird as the stuff that I like to listen to because I was too. I don't think I could go full out crazy like the bands that I really love. But yeah, I'm glad that you enjoyed it. And it was a huge thing to take off on my list. So I'm still to this day. I'm so proud of it just because I know all the personal struggles. I had to go through to get to the end of that. And yeah, it's still one of my biggest accomplishments just for that reason. Yeah, that is amazing.

I do want to actually talk a little bit more about that. But first for people who are listening or like, what are you talking about? Can people still buy the album or find it on Spotify or any?

What's it?

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