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Brandon Held - Life is Crazy
This is a Podcast of perseverance, self-help, self-Improvement, becoming a better person, making it through struggles and not only surviving, but thriving! In this Podcast the first 25 episodes detail my life's downs and ups. A story that shows you can overcome poverty, abusive environments, drug and alcoholic environments, difficult bosses, being laid-off from work, losing your family, and being on the brink of suicide. Either way, I hope anyone can listen and find a place to share life stories and experiences. Allow everyone to learn from each other to reinforce our place in this world. To grow and be better people and help build a better more understanding society.
My podcast is a story of the journey of my life. The start from poor, drug and alcohol stricken life, to choices that lead to success. Being raised by essentially only my mother with good intentions, but didn't know how to teach me to be a man. About learning life's lessons and how to become a man on this journey and sharing those lessons and experiences with others whom hopefully can benefit from my successes and failures. I've led a fairly unique life with some highs and very low low's. I believe listeners would find my experiences worth listening to and learning from and take them with them on their own journey.
Brandon Held - Life is Crazy
Episode 23: Life Across Continents
Brandon continues his journey of meeting, marrying, and working to reunite with his Brazilian wife Juliana, detailing the challenges and triumphs of maintaining a cross-continental relationship. From navigating Bahamian bureaucracy to passing crucial visa interviews, this episode captures the emotional rollercoaster of building a life together while physically apart.
Please start with Episode 1. Go to my site BrandonHeld.com
• Getting married in the Bahamas proved challenging due to bureaucratic inefficiencies and Brandon's previously unknown stress fractures in both ankles
• After marriage, they developed a rhythm of video calls and texts that made their long-distance relationship feel like a true partnership
• Both focused intensely on fitness during their separation, with Juliana's expert nutrition knowledge helping Brandon's training goals
• Juliana's legal background proved invaluable in navigating the complex visa application process
• Brandon traveled to Brazil to meet Juliana's divorced parents separately and attend her all-night law school graduation party
• While in Brazil, Brandon interviewed for and secured a work-from-home VA position that would allow him to care for his children
• The emotional high point came when Juliana passed her visa interview, finally clearing the way for her to come to America
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Welcome back. Brandon Held, Life is Crazy, episode 23. Last episode, I went into great detail about how my wife and I were ending up meeting in the Bahamas to get married. And I'm not sure if it was too much detail, if people care about this detail, but it was a pretty... significant part of my life for me and so I guess I'm gonna trim the fat a little bit this episode and talk about more stuff on our journey together without getting so deep down into the details because if people express interest in stuff like that I can always do that at a Later time on a different podcast. And don't forget if you're listening to this for the first time, don't listen to this podcast. Start at episode one. This is a podcast that needs to be heard from the beginning to understand what's going on. So please go back to episode one and start from the beginning. And visit BrandonHeld.com if that's not where you're listening to this. podcast from please go check out my website and donate if you can that would be greatly appreciated so I can keep this going and I would love to do that if you know there's an audience and people are interested and eventually someday who knows this could go into something else and maybe take guests or whatever the case may be But check out my website, brandonhell.com. So last episode, I had landed in the Bahamas with a little bit of a mixed situation where it was a struggle to get there on time. The hotel, the resort is what it was called that we were staying at felt a little cheated by what they showed online versus what we actually got in person. But I was with Juliana and we were going to get married and we really had to focus on that part, right? This was a vacation together so we could be with each other and enjoy each other's company for the limited number of eight days. But also we had to get married. It was something we had to do while we were there. If you ever want to get married in the Bahamas, I wouldn't recommend it unless you want to just pay out the wazoo. If you have an unlimited income and you want to go to the Bahamas and you want to just spend an insane amount of money, then power to you. It would probably be a much better experience than we had. But we had a struggle. We had a struggle trying to get a marriage certificate. And a little bit of luck was involved in that. The government workers in the Bahamas make our American government workers look like, like they are the best workers in the world because they're just really slow and really lazy in the Bahamas. I think it's a culture thing. I think it's an Island thing in general. That security of that government job. Probably makes it even worse. It was really tough to get a certificate. It was tough to try to get married. I'm walking around and what I would later learn after I returned back home and went to a doctor on two stress fractured ankles for an eight day trial. I'm trying to make the best of this thing, just in super incredible pain in my ankles the whole time, barely walking. Every step was painful. Like someone was stabbing me with needles, but we were able to get it done and we were able to meet some nice local who gave us a hookup on a photographer at a reasonable price. And it was a little rough because I thought you had that little tinge of doubt that you were getting taken by a photographer because he took our pictures on the beach for our wedding photos and it wasn't that many it was really like a dozen or at least that's what we ended up with but it wasn't a lot that he took when we were there maybe 20 and it just took him weeks and to get those to us weeks. It just, there was just no logic or reason behind why it would take so long for that to be done other than just the cultural difference in work ethic there. So all in all, the Bahamas is an incredibly beautiful place to look at. And being with my now wife was great because I always loved being with her. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and it certainly did. But the Bahamas itself was not an enjoyable trip, and I didn't really care for it, and I would be hard-pressed to ever want to go back there again. I never say never, but it certainly wouldn't be any type of priority on my list. The only problem is that's where we got married, so... Is there some time in the future we want to recapture that memory by revisiting? I don't know. Who knows? Maybe after time passes. But so far for now, I don't have the best of feelings of the Bahamas for multiple reasons. It wasn't easy to get. Some certified documents that we needed for her spousal visa that we absolutely needed from them for her to get here to America. There's just some stuff in the future that we also had to rely on the Bahamas to provide and they provided it with the same slow. We do things on our time efficiency that they just do in the Bahamas. So I wouldn't recommend that for anyone. And that's all I'll really say about that trip. We had a good trip together. It was great for us, just like the two of us as far as our chemistry and how we get along and our love for each other and our husband and wife, which for her was a first, right? I'm the first man she ever married. But for me, it was my fourth wife. But I knew this one was special. I knew it was different. It didn't feel different. like my previous marriages it didn't it just had this i really love this woman and i'm gonna be with her for the rest of my life feeling to it and so that's where we were and so obviously of course we had to depart again and go back our separate ways and While it was still tough, it didn't hit the same way the first time did, where we were just sobbing at the gates, realizing we were going to be apart because we were a little more mentally prepared for what we were going through. But not to say that doesn't suck, because it does suck. The whole thing sucked, being apart from each other and loving each other so much and really only being able to rely on video calls to see each other and of course after we were married and she was done studying for her tests and what she had to do she had more time so now we had more time to text we had more time to video call and it was just easier to be in touch and even though it was long distance it really felt like it felt like I was growing with a partner and we were making decisions together and we were planning future decisions together. And we were discussing all aspects of our daily lives together. And it was a long distance marriage, but it was a marriage nonetheless. And so we were working through the process. I had to change the visa from a fiance visa to a spousal visa. So I had to go cancel the fiance visa and submit a spousal visa in its place. And so we got married in September and I was still working at my old job before. And I had fast forwarded a bit about the new VA work from home job that I was going to get. Because that wouldn't happen until July of the following year. So we still had me working during this time on site, not being a full-time father, missing my kids, now missing my wife. And all I really had was work and fitness. So I really used that time to try to focus on fitness. And my wife, who was... into it as well and now she had more time to really study on it and she has insanely fit her mom has been into fitness her whole life and so she had a great role model for fitness so it was a big deal to her and my wife and had a much better grasp on nutrition and the knowledge of nutrition than i did and i had been a personal trainer for years and years which i tried skipped over in my storytellings of how much personal training I actually did in my life because there's no need to get into all those details. I told you one of the significant stories and that was good enough. I could tell you others, but I don't know if you're interested in that. So I decided not to share all that, but I had been into fitness and working out and being a trainer and I did what I thought was best from stuff I had read and learned for nutrition. But she, again, is just an incredible researcher. And when she wants to learn something, she learns it and she gets a lot of information about it. So she was actually helping me with my nutrition. So while we were apart, we were focusing both of us on getting in more better shape for me it meant becoming more muscular becoming more ripped and trying to shed fat loss and i wanted to be strong i was approaching 50 it was just outside of 50 and i wanted to be as strong as i could be and she was Wanted to be strong, but she cared more about the physical aesthetics of it. And her being a Brazilian, she wanted bigger thighs, bigger ass, and the things that go along, six-pack abs. And that's what she was focused on. So that's what we did. We spent our time working and going to the gym. While I worked, she didn't. Because she was... How could she apply to go be a lawyer somewhere in Brazil and say, I'm going to have to move to America pretty much at a moment's notice because whenever my visa is approved, that's when I'm going. It's not fair to any company to do that to them. She was my wife now, so I was helping her out. A little bit financially, not much. I offered her more than she took. So that should tell you a lot about her. She genuinely tried to use the minimum that she needed to get by. And so she could really just focus on fitness and other things like our visa. And she really focused on the visa and she did a lot of research and she learned a lot. And that made a huge difference. She is a lawyer. A lot of people hire lawyers to go through the visa process when they're trying to get a significant other into America from another country. And even American lawyers make mistakes all the time. When we went through our process and we put in our documents and we did the things we thought we were supposed to do, but she was constantly finding mistakes we had made and we were able to correct those mistakes and update our documents and put in better documents. And we could only do that through her hard work and research. So she really did an amazing job with that. From September until January, the end of January, we weren't able to see each other. That was, I think, the longest period to that point that we had not seen each other. And it was tough. It was super tough. This time I decided to go all the way to Brazil and meet her in Sao Paulo, Brazil, because I wanted to know what Sao Paulo was like. It was the biggest city in Brazil, I think. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is. And it's not on a beach or anything, but I wanted to mix it up. Our first two trips had been beaches. She loves beaches. So it took a little convincing on my part to do a more city oriented vacation. And I tried to explain, it'd be like, if you were in America and we went to New York city or something, you do the city thing. So we did it and I loved it. I had a great time in Sao Paulo. I thought it was great. I enjoyed it. And we had another great eight days together. And we were husband and wife from the beginning this time. So we were meeting as husband and wife. And that's really all I'm going to say about Sao Paulo. I loved it. There's not a lot to talk about it. I could go into detail, but again, it's the same. Not sure how interested you are, but Brazil's beautiful. The food's great and the people are great. So I enjoyed it. the trip to Sao Paulo. And so then we depart at the end of that trip. And I probably would have gone back earlier to see her, but she had a huge, I would have gone back in April, but she had a huge party that they had been planning literally for four years for her law school graduation. And it was like nothing happened. We do in America, at least not anyone I know. And that graduation party is the entire class of her law school graduation, which wasn't a lot of people, but the whole, the idea is it's the gathering of that group, right? I'm not sure if it was like a dozen or whatever it was. And this was all their entire graduation party. And it started at 8 PM. or 10 PM. I'm not sure. It started sometime that night and went until the next morning, like 8 AM the next morning. It was an all night part. And I certainly wasn't used to staying up all night. And I, one, I was being impatient as I am. Impatience is my biggest weakness. It's something I've been struggling with and working on my whole life. A lot of things in life that I struggle with I've been able to adapt and overcome for the most part or at least be better but impatience is one of those ones that I've just never gotten a grasp on and I still struggle with to this day so I would have been impatient and I would have came a month earlier more than a month earlier because this was at the end of May I would have not gone to her graduation party, but she wanted me there for her graduation party. That was more important to her. She thought she would enjoy it more if I was there. It was going to be a good time, lots of food and friends and family and everything else. So she just wanted me to be a part of it. So I waited till the end of May to go there for that. I flew to her hometown area this time and I stayed there and this was for the first time after we were husband and wife I was going to meet her mother and her father who were not together they've been divorced since she was nine and her mother does not like her father at all so I was not going to see them together because they literally haven't been together in in the same room since they broke up when my wife was nine years old or divorced, whatever, when my wife was nine years old. It was going to have to be separate visits, separate things to do. And I met her mother first and I could tell she was skeptical about me, staring me up and down. Who's this guy that married my daughter that I never got to meet? I don't know anything about. And I get it. Totally get it. Being a parent, I wouldn't be happy about the way we went about this too, because they didn't learn. Her mother didn't even learn we were engaged till much after the fact. And she knew that we were getting married and we didn't bring her to the Bahamas with us. So she was probably a little upset by the fact that she didn't get to attend her one and only daughter's wedding. I'm not probably, she definitely was as anyone would be. And then conversely, her father didn't know about any of it until it was done. She didn't even tell her dad that we got married and everything until after it was all done. We were already husband and wife. Her dad didn't even know I existed until we were already husband and wife. So I knew that I wasn't stepping into the greatest situation, but it was time to face the Piper. It had to happen at some point. That was the time, and I'm a confident person. I know I'm a good person, caring, kind, easy to get along with. Of course, if we don't have any problems, if I don't like you, if I don't like you or you don't like me, that's a different story because I'm not a pushover, right? You can't. Mistake kindness for weakness. So I'm definitely not someone who is fun or you can mess with just because I'm kind and if we don't get along. Because that's not how that works. But anyway, I met her mother. It went well. Eventually I met her father. It went well. And that all worked out and it was great. And I went to her party and it was long. I'm not used to staying up all night. It was really tough for me. When I'm in a country where everyone speaks Portuguese, so I couldn't exactly flow the conversations with other people. My wife had to be a translator for me, but frankly, she wasn't even trying to do that. She wasn't trying to They were her friends and her family and she was busy in her own conversations and she wasn't there to be a translator for me to speak with her friends and her family and that stuff. So she didn't do that a whole lot. So it was most of the time was me talking to her or not really at all, which is fine, but it just makes for a longer night. So we got through the party and it was cool. Some great pictures. And then at the hotel where we were staying, I had to have my interview for the VA job. So while I was in Brazil, I had to do a video call for my interview for the job with the prime contractor that my company is the subcontractor under. And I was totally unprepared for that. And what I mean by that is I thought I was interviewing with my company and And they were going to hire me and then I would get a position. What I didn't realize is they were just a bridge. They were okay. Yeah. Okay. We like you. We want to hire you, but now you have to go talk to the prime contractor and the leadership there and they have to like you and they have to hire you. I don't know if it was better or worse that I didn't know that until the day that it happened, but that's exactly what happened. I Got put on an interview while in Brazil in my hotel room, video call. And it was an interview that I didn't know was coming. But it went very well. It went so well, as I stated before, that later that same day, they gave me a job offer, which was ecstatic news because now I knew I could get out of this job where I was driving far away every day. And wasn't able to see my kids. Now I could go back to getting my kids and making sure they got to and from school while working from home. So that was exciting. And so I spent my time in Sao Paulo and my wife had her, finally, her upcoming, we had gotten through two steps of the process to get her visa to come to America. And they went smoothly. And I can't emphasize enough how much that was due to her diligence and making sure that our documents were done right. Our passports were scanned properly. Just all the things that we had to redo as she was learning why other people were getting rejected and just the minor things that you think wouldn't even be significant, was significant enough to delay people's processing for several months. And so we got through that smoothly. And she got the appointment to visit the US immigration office. I forget what it's called in another country. People are probably screaming in there, in there, whatever you're listening to right now, telling me the name of it, but I forget what it's called. When your government is in another country, Gosh darn it. Anyway, she had her interview coming up after I'd left. And that interview was a make or break interview. That interview was where they were going to approve or deny her visa request. And she was very nervous about it, obviously, because she's the one that has to get interviewed. Her English is terrible. really good in my opinion, but still a work in progress and her confidence in her English wasn't as high as I thought it should be. So yeah, we were both really nervous about it. So I flew back to America and she had to go to her visa interview and she went to it and voila, she got approved and she got approved and We were so excited when she told me she was approved. I started crying. She started crying. And it was a very emotional moment of all the tense unknowing how this process was going to go. Was it going to work out? Was she going to get in the country? Would it be soon? Would it take years? It's just really, it's really a huge strain on your mental health. and your anxieties. And so finally we had an answer and finally we could prepare for that. I'm going to leave this episode and I will pick up from there next episode. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time.
