Hey everybody! Flip and Dani here, founders of the Freedom Real Estate Group Family of Companies and welcome to another episode of our podcast, which is called Freedom Through Passive Income. That's right. And actually, this is not another episode. This is? Well, it is another episode, but it's the other half of our previous episode because it took so long for us to get through this story, we decided to split it in two. Somebody was a chatty cathy. So tune in and enjoy.
So I did that gig, you know, that year and by the way, she was in it for three years. Then the year that she stopped being in it was the year that I was there. Yeah. And so then about four or five months later, another friend of mine called me and says, Hey, I need a lead trumpet player on a cruise ship. And it was like a Monday afternoon I said, oh, cool when you need them? He was like Friday. I'm like, Ooh, okay, so I was in Jacksonville. So I just loaded up the car, drove down to Miami, got on a cruise ship. So there I am on a Saturday walking. It was, the date was actually May 11. It was 1996, was it only 96 or 97? 96. Anyway, and there's a reason why I'm saying this. I got on. And I think it was a Saturday anyway, but somebody else got off. *Points at Dani* A.K.A me. Yeah, that same day. And so I got on the cruise ship. And the reason why I know the date actually is because a tornado went down Biscayne Boulevard right behind the cruise ship and I've got a picture of the cruise ship with the tornado. I'll find it and so that way AJ can put it on this episode because it's really cool. Yeah, and the imagery though of that too. Right? Yeah. I think I was getting off like a deck above you getting on, right? Yeah. I think of that all the time. Anyways, go ahead.
And that was all on the Carnival Ecstasy, which unfortunately, wahh wahh, just got decommissioned? Yeah, decommissioned. Yeah. It's no, it's no longer a cruise ship. It's in a scrap yard now. But anyway, so I got on the cruise ship in the very first night, literally the very first night, the trumpet player next to me says, Oh, you went to North Florida. You played at Disney? Oh, so you know, Danielle? And I'm like, Who the heck is this Danielle? Right. And so. So what happens is that. Sorry the story has gone for very long, it was like another year and a half later that there was a hurricane that came into the Caribbean. And when that happens, all the cruise ships go where the hurricane's not. And so there was about seven or eight cruise ships in the port of Nassau. And if you've ever been to the port of Nassau, it handles maybe three or four good. But there was eight and it was just shared.
There's people everywhere, but the cruise ship I was on had to do a cocktail set, dance band set, you know, the old 40's and 50's dance band music for the captain. And so we got our tuxedos on and we're sitting there and five o'clock in the afternoon, a curtain goes up and we're playing, you know, Glenn Miller, whatever. And the trumpet player next to me goes, hey, remember that Danielle I was telling me about? I said, yeah. That's her in the front row. I was like, no way! This is awesome, right? And so we play the whole hour long, whatever and the curtain goes down. And so I quicked threw my horns away and well, I didn't throw my horns away. I put them away. And I opened up the curtain and she's gone, the whole band because she had come over with her band over to our ship to listen to us play. They were gone. They didn't hang out, they didn't stay to hang out or whatever. I was like, uh-uh, so I quickly ran and got my cruise ship ID, ran downstairs, got off the ship. Now mind you at 6pm in Nassau, sunny, about 120 degrees, and with 100% humidity. And I'm running down the pier in my full tuxedo yelling, Danielle! Danielle! Right? So now this has been two or three years that I've been following her. And I know all about her. I've heard all the stories. She has no idea who I am. And so she turns around and she's like, Who the heck is this guy? Choice words too. And so that is literally how we met and so then they're both your band and our band went out that night and we hung out all night and got into, I'm sure, loads of trouble. I'm sure.
And then it was just a few months after that, that I got moved over to the Carnival Destiny. And then for some reason you got moved over to the Carnival Destiny. I'm not sure how that happened. Well, you have to know that he was the band director. Oh right, I was the musical director. Yes, that's right, I forgot. He's in charge of, you know, the main band, but also all of the acts around the show. All of the musicians. Yeah. So he's over a lot, quite a lot of people and he needed a second trumpet player. And he got to choose who that second trumpet player was, so. Yeah, I don't know how that happened. What's Danielle doing? It was so bizarre. Yeah. But that was all on the Carnival Destiny, people saying like, Oh my gosh, you can't even make this up. And I'm like, we're not making this up, that's literally how it happened. And so this was colleges and cruise ships. And so I want to lead into the last thing that we were doing on cruise ships before we got off, which is going to lead into the next episode. The next part of our Docu drama. Like that? Docu drama? Yeah.
But anyway, so we were playing and we played for a couple more years, and it was halfway through the year 2000. And there's art auctions on board the cruise ship, and we were starting to work with the art auctioneer, helping them out or whatever. And they said, oh, you'd make a good auctioneer. And then Danielle found out how much art auctioneers make and then she said, you're going to be an art auctioneer. I literally flew open the cabin door and said, you're gonna be an art auctioneer. She interrupted me playing Playstation, it was so rude. It was that money motivation coming out, right? That we talked about when we were younger. So we got to the point where we're both, we've met, we're playing trumpets. That's not like a high dollar career. I was actually studying while we're on cruise ships, to figure out what I wanted to do. Yeah, you were studying computer, MCE or MCSC. I wanted to make money. And I didn't know, you know, how to do it. And so yeah, but when I saw that, I was like, oh, you can be an art auctioneer. No, there was no can, it was you are going to be.
But you pointed out something on about without the passion, what's the purpose? You know, and playing trumpet for me, always came easy. I mean, I practiced, but I didn't practice like everyone else. And it was very easy. And I was blessed with this natural talent, but it was always easy. And it was getting to that point where I didn't have the passion anymore. And so we actually in the middle of 2000, we actually put down our trumpets for professional reasons. We put them down and you've never touched yours again, I still play, not professionally.
But anyway, we changed positions to art auctioneers, and we became art auctioneers, we got to go on a lot of other different cruise ships, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Crystal, you know, so we had a real good time, Holland America. And so we got to go on a lot of other cruise ships, we got to travel a lot more of the world. With that, and then that led to us moving on land doing these art auctions and traveling twice a week, twice a month, you know, every month to different cities all across United States doing these art auctions, which led to 2008, which when 2008 hit and not only affect the real estate market, it affected all of the markets and being someone that was selling decorative pieces of artwork like this behind me that cost a lot of money. That really didn't entice people at that point. Yeah, you know, people were like I'm losing my house. I'm not gonna buy something for a house that I don't even have anymore. And so that was when we both made the shift immediately. And that pretty much ends our college and cruise ship story. That's right, it does. I love it.
So that was a longer episode than the other ones, probably will be, but that really was like the, it's the story that everybody wants to hear. Right. Everything that I think in our life has happened like it happens for a reason, there's a reason why you and I say that so much because there's nothing of this we could control or we could, we'd never, our life is perfect, it's exactly how it was meant to be. And we are in like I don't know, what should be our superpowers, right? And for how far we've come and you know us getting together on the Destiny was, it's one of those crazy stories, right? Yup. That people are like you gotta be kidding? We're like no and our lives have just done that. Yeah. And it's just been kind of crazy.
Yeah, I remember at our wedding in 2004. My brother said if they can work together and live together in a 6 foot by 10 foot cabin for eight years then they got this down. Yes, for sure.
Well, we hope you enjoyed this episode. We know this was a super long and went ,Oh, geez man. I know. Anyway, make sure you're heading on over to our website, www.FreedomCapitalInvestments.com to join the investor club. We got a lot of things going on before the end of the year. So again, make sure to check that out.
But we'd like to end all of our episodes with Invest Smart, Live Happy. Bye everybody!
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