Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 72 - Balancing Business & Family Without Losing Your Mind

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Ep. 72 - Balancing Business & Family Without Losing Your Mind · Big Talk About Small Business

0:03
Speaker 2: hey, everybody you turned on your freaking show.
0:10
Speaker 2: Your show personality like that baby I.
0:13
Speaker 1: We got to get started here that's right eric and I are talking about business.
0:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, before we even start the before, we talk about business, but anyway, um, that's what we do.
0:24
Speaker 1: Um, but we're here on another beautiful day in northwest arkansas.
0:28
Speaker 1: It's gonna be in the 50s, it's gonna be guys yeah, I need a little warmth.
0:33
Speaker 2: Man, I'll be real a little chilly this morning.
0:35
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna lie yeah, I don't doubt it, bud, I slipped on my ass.
0:39
Speaker 1: This is your posture.
0:40
Speaker 1: Another night I walked out of this house that it's that we bought it's next door to next door and I walked down there just to check to see that the front door was locked and I stepped off this walk.
0:53
Speaker 1: Okay, I thought it was one step and it was two and I went down.
0:57
Speaker 2: Dude, I'm almost 67 years old.
1:00
Speaker 2: You know it's funny, but it's not funny.
1:02
Speaker 1: I know.
1:02
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm at the point where, like you, fall down and yeah, die, no, no, no.
1:08
Speaker 1: That's why it's not funny to me.
1:10
Speaker 1: Jill would not died.
1:11
Speaker 1: I think he was like 68 hit his head on the eye, yeah, but uh, isn't it crazy?
1:16
Speaker 1: It is.
1:17
Speaker 1: But yeah, you need to be careful, bro.
1:19
Speaker 1: Ah, anyway, I fell.
1:21
Speaker 1: You know, the first thing I do is I call my wife.
1:23
Speaker 1: I fell, honey, do you need me to come down there to get you?
1:26
Speaker 1: No, I think I'll be okay, but I fell.
1:30
Speaker 1: So anyway, that night I woke up in the middle of the night and my wrist hurts so bad.
1:36
Speaker 1: Oh shit, I was like good God, it's my right wrist.
1:39
Speaker 1: I'm going to be paralyzed.
1:40
Speaker 1: I won't be able to do anything tomorrow.
1:45
Speaker 1: It's just so painful.
1:46
Speaker 1: I got up.
1:49
Speaker 1: When I woke up the next day, I was completely fine.
1:52
Speaker 1: I'm like I cannot believe it.
1:56
Speaker 1: I was in so much pain I thought I'd be crippled.
1:59
Speaker 1: What am I going to have?
2:00
Speaker 1: To?
2:00
Speaker 1: Get?
2:00
Speaker 1: A cast, go through PT or whatever?
2:04
Speaker 1: She woke up and you're good, okay, I was fine.
2:06
Speaker 1: You know it's because you're a freaking machine man, dude, I don't know about that.
2:13
Speaker 1: But yeah, this, this ice, I'm ready, I'm with you, I'm, I'm ready to be warm.
2:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, man.
2:18
Speaker 1: So today's gonna be a beautiful day.
2:20
Speaker 1: We're in northwest arkansas.
2:21
Speaker 1: We were just talking about Eric's new house project, this building, which is exciting.
2:27
Speaker 1: It's more than a house, it's a compound.
2:29
Speaker 1: It's going to be the Howerton family compound and he's up on this hill.
2:35
Speaker 1: It'll be amazing.
2:37
Speaker 1: Every time I go to the airport, I'm going to drive past your house and I'll think of you.
2:42
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to what it's going to look like in a couple years Because we're going to do a lot of trees, tree roll right there.
2:49
Speaker 2: That kind of blocks the road a little bit, knock down the noise, but it's going to be so nice Lots more trees going up, man, and native, native trees.
2:57
Speaker 2: I know you don't get into this much, but I'm a big environmentalist.
3:01
Speaker 2: Weeds.
3:03
Speaker 1: I love weeds, giant weeds.
3:05
Speaker 2: Hey, listen, here's the deal Native species of trees and grasses and plants that are designed for our soil, our temperature.
3:16
Speaker 2: They're hardier, get better erosion control.
3:19
Speaker 2: Great for the insects great for the animals.
3:23
Speaker 2: Great for the water quality.
3:25
Speaker 2: Great for the air.
3:26
Speaker 1: Great for the animals, great for the water quality, great for the air, great for everything.
3:30
Speaker 1: So you're going to have this massive compound in freaking Arkansas with weeds all around it?
3:35
Speaker 1: Is that what you're telling me?
3:43
Speaker 2: There will be some weeds, like there's weeds everywhere, but if you do native, it actually cuts down on the weeds because you know why.
3:48
Speaker 2: Here's the thing.
3:49
Speaker 2: Here's what I realized, okay, after working on this compound.
3:53
Speaker 2: So you say a lot of earth work, a lot of scrubbing and all that type of stuff.
3:57
Speaker 2: What I've noticed is is that if you grub the soil and you go out and you put the fescue or bermuda, the non-native grasses right, the weeds win.
4:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, they come in, baby.
4:12
Speaker 2: No, they do and they dominate because they're native, they're freaking, unless you got some invasive weeds.
4:16
Speaker 2: But if you're the native, invasive weeds or native weeds come in and dominate the cute little grass seeds that we have if you weren't so cheap and you actually bought bermuda sod.
4:29
Speaker 2: One of the great things about it is nothing gets through that stuff well, so I, I have used the bermuda sod in my, in my portions, but no, I have to establish.
4:38
Speaker 2: I understand you're right, though I get it, but the thing is, if you go with native grasses and you see, I mean you can start beating the weeds.
4:45
Speaker 2: The whole.
4:45
Speaker 2: The whole challenge is fighting weeds man.
4:48
Speaker 2: It is, but weeds win because they're, because they're freaking like dude.
4:51
Speaker 2: I love this nasty clay dirt that nothing can grow it.
4:56
Speaker 1: Everything seems to grow here in arkansas.
4:58
Speaker 1: I mean, our variety of plant species is mind-boggling.
5:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
5:02
Speaker 1: You know.
5:02
Speaker 1: Like you go, go to Texas, 200 miles away, and they have about a third of what we have here in terms of variety.
5:09
Speaker 1: Oh, it's fantastic.
5:10
Speaker 1: It's really different and I love the native trees.
5:15
Speaker 2: I mean, all that stuff is just going to flourish.
5:17
Speaker 2: You're going to drive by and it's going to be Arkansas again.
5:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to get out of Arkansas.
5:25
Speaker 2: Dude, listen, I'm different than you.
5:27
Speaker 2: I don't like hearing my wife gets on to me.
5:30
Speaker 2: She's like why don't you do anything around our house that we live at now?
5:36
Speaker 2: I'm like because it's too effing small.
5:39
Speaker 2: It's too cute, it's too small, it's too perfect.
5:43
Speaker 2: Let somebody else come in and weedy, cutely pick up the little fake bark that we have around the shrubs and clip the shrubs and, you know, mow it down to the perfect little inch and a half.
5:57
Speaker 2: I'm out.
5:58
Speaker 2: I love that.
5:58
Speaker 2: I don't do any of that.
6:00
Speaker 2: I love all that.
6:00
Speaker 2: I'm out of that.
6:01
Speaker 2: But you give me a field and a brush, hog tractor dozer.
6:08
Speaker 1: I'm not a dozer, I'm not qualified to be a dozer.
6:10
Speaker 1: I don't know how you drive all the stuff you've got.
6:13
Speaker 1: You bought all that equipment.
6:14
Speaker 1: I love it, dude.
6:15
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm sure you have more fun with that.
6:17
Speaker 2: Oh, dude, I was out there yesterday.
6:19
Speaker 2: All right, dude, it's so escaping.
6:21
Speaker 2: I, dude, it's so escaping, I go out there.
6:26
Speaker 2: You know hard day yesterday lots of meetings, a lot of yip yap and then freaking.
6:28
Speaker 2: I'm exhausted my brain's right.
6:28
Speaker 2: You're in just just driving crazy, even getting pissed off more and more throughout the day, because what we're talking about earlier is nobody can understand what we were saying.
6:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, for over and over again.
6:38
Speaker 2: Anyway, we'll get on that in a second.
6:40
Speaker 2: But so I go out and I'm like I I'm going to take this mound of base rock that I have down here at the bottom, I'm going to take it up to the top of the hill to add a little bit more so I can drive all the way to the edge of the hill in my truck and overlook the beauty of Arkansas.
6:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've got a beautiful site, it's a beautiful view.
6:56
Speaker 2: You're on top of it.
6:57
Speaker 2: I needed like 20 more feet that I had to be able to drive on Sure.
7:01
Speaker 2: So all be able to drive on sure.
7:12
Speaker 2: So all I did yesterday for about an hour and a half pick up gravel, haul it up, go up, go back down.
7:14
Speaker 2: I did, I did like I don't know 10 or 12 loads like that.
7:16
Speaker 1: This dude is so great, oh, he is so wonderful.
7:17
Speaker 1: You know, you don't really.
7:18
Speaker 1: I, I don't think you're gonna have much road noise as high off the road as you are, not when you're up top.
7:23
Speaker 1: Okay, you're not gonna have that much noise, except for the air brakes.
7:28
Speaker 2: Or the rednecks that come by the Jake brakes.
7:30
Speaker 2: Either the Jake brakes or the Billy old Billy Badass comes by.
7:37
Speaker 1: He's got the giant diesel dually with the aftermarket exhaust on it.
7:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the exhaust, it's not the dually and they just on it.
7:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the exhaust, it's not the dually, and they just rev it.
7:49
Speaker 2: He had a dude.
7:50
Speaker 2: The pop-back man came by you love this Came by, picked up one of the contractors at my place that were working.
8:01
Speaker 2: His car or something broke down so he had to get a ride.
8:04
Speaker 2: This dude that comes and drops them off right to get them back.
8:07
Speaker 2: His car or something broke down and so he had to get a ride.
8:07
Speaker 2: This dude that comes and drops them off right to get them back to his car it was like it had to have been, I think it was like 5 o'clock in the evening, it was in the summer Drops them off, no big deal.
8:17
Speaker 2: This dude that dropped them off continues to do just starts peeling out right there on on this on the highway, does like four donuts.
8:26
Speaker 2: It is a souped up hot rod like you know 1990 freaking transam or whatever.
8:35
Speaker 2: I mean just.
8:36
Speaker 2: I mean just just tear it up, just wrap, just for no reason, and then then almost runs off the freaking embankment throwing gravel right in my driveway.
8:46
Speaker 2: Man, totally Complete, completely unnecessary.
8:52
Speaker 2: But at the same time there's a part of me that goes that's awesome.
8:58
Speaker 1: You know, my last house in Boston.
9:00
Speaker 1: I lived in Dover, mass.
9:02
Speaker 1: I was right on the Charles River.
9:03
Speaker 1: My next door neighbor was Pierre DuPont V and the guy across the street from me owned a shopping mall in Bangkok, just to give you the idea of the neighborhood, anyway.
9:15
Speaker 1: So I used to always hang out at this one bike shop, you know, motorcycle shop.
9:19
Speaker 1: I'd go there at lunch and work on my bikes and stuff.
9:22
Speaker 1: They did a lot of stuff it was great with.
9:30
Speaker 1: It would take me back, I could just escape for an hour, yeah, and I had my own stand over there and all it was just awesome.
9:33
Speaker 1: So they had this one guy, chuck chuck was like 28, you know, total screw up, yeah, good motorcycle mechanic, yeah.
9:38
Speaker 1: And so one night it's like 11, 30 quarter to 12, and I hear this in the evening, yeah, yeah in the evening, and I hear this out in front of my house there's some guy out there doing burnouts on his motorcycle, you know.
9:54
Speaker 1: And then like 15 minutes later I get chuck chuck's texting me, you know, did you hear that?
10:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did.
10:02
Speaker 1: Dude, hey, you're not cool, really class in the neighborhood back to old, but kind of cool.
10:11
Speaker 2: Well, anyway, we got to talk about something serious today yeah, our big, our big topic today is, uh, entrepreneurship and family, basically, I mean, I forget what we call it exactly, but yeah, that's what it's all about.
10:23
Speaker 2: It's, uh, the official your family and your business.
10:27
Speaker 2: Yes, okay.
10:28
Speaker 2: So that's a yes, that's a big topic.
10:30
Speaker 2: I got a little history quote here that I think goes along with this, but it's not going to make sense right off the gate, but I think that as our discussion goes on, it'll make some sense.
10:39
Speaker 2: One of my favorite quotes by any entrepreneur of all time was by none other than John D Rockefeller.
10:47
Speaker 2: Right, I know you love him.
10:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he's a champion.
10:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, Period Right.
10:54
Speaker 1: But he said you're the John D Rockefeller of today.
11:03
Speaker 2: Come on, baby.
11:04
Speaker 2: You're just egging me on, dude.
11:05
Speaker 2: He said I have trouble sleeping.
11:09
Speaker 2: I have trouble going to sleep every night with the amount of debt that I owe.
11:13
Speaker 2: Are you listening this morning?
11:14
Speaker 2: Okay, because I know you can't multitask I am listening.
11:18
Speaker 1: He's got trouble sleeping because of his debt.
11:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been there okay.
11:22
Speaker 2: He says I have trouble going to sleep every night because of the amount of money that I owe other people.
11:26
Speaker 2: Right, I think you gave us this quote before I probably did, but then I wake up looking to borrow more.
11:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, isn't that beautiful.
11:35
Speaker 1: I love it, it's true, so but for does does midnight heebie-jeebies that you get, oh 2 am, oh dude it's always during the night time.
11:43
Speaker 1: The other night I woke up I swear, just like you're talking about.
11:44
Speaker 1: It was like 2 am.
11:45
Speaker 1: Oh, dude, it's always during the night time.
11:46
Speaker 1: The other night I woke up I swear, just like you're talking about.
11:47
Speaker 1: It was like 2 am, yeah, and I just started making lists of all the things that I have to do and all the decisions that need to be made.
11:53
Speaker 1: That's a smart move.
11:55
Speaker 2: So did you.
11:56
Speaker 2: Let's just like so.
11:58
Speaker 2: You're sleeping.
11:59
Speaker 2: Of course you're beautiful when you're sleeping.
12:01
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, when you sleep, I know, no, yeah, you know.
12:05
Speaker 1: I mean you're beautiful like, you're an angel, like all 67 year old guys.
12:08
Speaker 1: I got my flannel jammies.
12:08
Speaker 1: Oh, you're looking good.
12:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, obviously.
12:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, the tops at least match the bottoms, but yeah perfect man.
12:15
Speaker 2: So you're looking good, sleeping beautifully.
12:16
Speaker 2: You wake up at 2 am, start thinking about all the stuff you did, like literally what did you do?
12:21
Speaker 2: Did you?
12:22
Speaker 2: Did you get up and out of bed and then go work on your task list?
12:25
Speaker 2: Did you lay there, get on your phone and start adding?
12:28
Speaker 1: tasks.
12:28
Speaker 1: Well, first off, I got up because, you know, being an old guy with a prostate condition, you mean every time you wake up you got to go take a leak, okay, thankfully I've got a urinal in my master bath and I can just kind of lean against the wall.
12:41
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't have to be too precise.
12:43
Speaker 1: Um, so I'm sorry.
12:46
Speaker 1: I'm sorry listeners, one of the questions.
12:50
Speaker 2: Then I went back to bed and sat there that way and did my work and you but on, but on your phone, yeah, yeah, so you just started writing down the tasks of shit.
12:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, get done.
12:58
Speaker 1: Yes, for the next day.
12:59
Speaker 1: Yes, decisions that need to be made and tasks that need to be done.
13:02
Speaker 1: Just a just in a bullet point list.
13:05
Speaker 2: Yep, just on your notes on your phone.
13:06
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
13:07
Speaker 2: No sophisticated AI system.
13:09
Speaker 2: No, just write the shit down.
13:11
Speaker 1: And then last night I just went back through and re-edited my list of everything I got done yesterday.
13:18
Speaker 2: Did you check the things off?
13:19
Speaker 2: Yes, I did, of course.
13:19
Speaker 2: So when you check them off, does it auto go down and that goes down to a completed task thing?
13:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
13:23
Speaker 2: So you just have one note that's just constantly being added to and checked off.
13:30
Speaker 2: That's right.
13:31
Speaker 2: I just always find this so amazing.
13:33
Speaker 2: Like to me, like the hardest thing about business is how do you, how are you organized, how do you do all the things that you get done, plan to get them all done, but you're kind of like this you have this interesting way of doing things, like where you just knock it off, like it's I didn't move fast.
13:54
Speaker 1: I do.
13:54
Speaker 1: I mean I can make a decision and I move fast.
13:56
Speaker 1: I still can be there at 7 30 watching, you know, um the diplomat or the epi, if you haven't seen the Billy Bob Thornton show Landman, oh the Landman, yeah, I've been watching it.
14:08
Speaker 1: Oh, I figured you must love Billy Bob Thornton.
14:11
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean it.
14:13
Speaker 1: But you know, yeah, no, I still have plenty of time to do all the other stuff that I want to do.
14:17
Speaker 2: So but you watch shows and you do your list.
14:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, you just kind of keep knocking shit off, absolutely Dude.
14:22
Speaker 2: I remember one time, a long time ago, when I worked with you this is why I'm white, yeah, and you were.
14:28
Speaker 2: I mean, you'd always come in.
14:30
Speaker 2: It's sitting in your office, right, and I'd already be there.
14:33
Speaker 2: Of course I'd beat you in the morning.
14:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were good.
14:37
Speaker 1: I never should have let you go, but anyway should have chained you to your desk but should have chained you to your desk.
14:49
Speaker 2: That's right.
14:49
Speaker 2: But you come in and you would have your computer, your big desktop here and your laptop and stuff.
14:52
Speaker 2: But then you you'd lean back in your chair like this and you just get on your blackberry and you just sit there and just start cranking off emails.
14:59
Speaker 2: And I remember you'd always like there'd be multiple times this one time in particular you're like oh my God, I have 350 effing emails.
15:10
Speaker 2: What the hell is going on?
15:12
Speaker 2: And you're just killing them off.
15:14
Speaker 2: You're sitting there and you would tell me I don't know how I'm going to get through with this and you're just trying to talk to me as you're doing it.
15:20
Speaker 2: And then I pulled out my phone and I started seeing an email.
15:23
Speaker 2: I was like, does it bother you when you get so many emails?
15:30
Speaker 2: And you get it and you go.
15:31
Speaker 2: You reply back, yes, and I'm like, and you hate it when people respond to you and keep you on reply?
15:34
Speaker 2: You know, reply to reply to all, reply to all.
15:37
Speaker 2: I'll reply back and ask you that.
15:39
Speaker 2: You know like, is this bothering you?
15:40
Speaker 2: I mean more times while we're sitting here, while we're, I have to ask.
15:44
Speaker 2: I mean, you got so freaking, you just got so irate about that.
15:48
Speaker 2: It was hilarious.
15:49
Speaker 2: To me, though, it's funny to watch you react.
15:51
Speaker 1: You know you can get a lot done and I mean we're going to talk today a little bit about balancing family and work and all, but I mean, just like this morning, you know I get a texting with Grant.
16:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, jim is first thing every day.
16:09
Speaker 1: Okay, he's grand.
16:11
Speaker 1: He's the first person I talked to, usually the last person I talked to.
16:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like.
16:15
Speaker 1: We got this resume, check this out.
16:17
Speaker 1: You know, when we're looking for somebody in the business and, um, we ran an ad yesterday and we had a bunch of resumes.
16:23
Speaker 1: They weren't very good, because this one looks really good.
16:26
Speaker 1: I looked at it and like you're right, contact her.
16:34
Speaker 1: He goes.
16:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you want to.
16:34
Speaker 1: So, boom, I immediately sent an email out to the woman like I'd love to talk with you today.
16:36
Speaker 1: And you know she responded and I've got that set up.
16:37
Speaker 1: But I mean that was like in between the time I threw my jammies down into the dirty clothes laundry chute that we have at our house just the greatest feature there ever was.
16:49
Speaker 1: It just drops your laundry right into the laundry room down below.
16:52
Speaker 1: And you know, and I had, and I turned my shower on and waiting for it to warm up, like and you're on your phone tech yeah, I'm not, I was not just on my phone.
17:01
Speaker 1: I mean, I got the resume, I looked at the resume, I asked grant if he wanted me to contact and I sent the email out before I ever even got in the shower.
17:09
Speaker 1: That all took place in about 75 seconds.
17:13
Speaker 1: It's beautiful, okay.
17:14
Speaker 1: I mean people can do more than they do.
17:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, this, this whole idea of you know, well, I do this one job and I can't do anything else.
17:24
Speaker 1: I just had this conversation with one of my former students last night who owns a business.
17:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, and he's's it.
17:32
Speaker 1: So he's had the business for, let's say, two years and he's already trying to get out of it and hire manager and all these other people.
17:40
Speaker 1: It's like, well, I just want to, I just want to be the owner of it while I work on this other thing.
17:45
Speaker 1: I'm like you can't too early.
17:47
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to give you some old man advice right now.
17:50
Speaker 1: You can, can't do that.
17:53
Speaker 1: That's a recipe for disaster.
17:55
Speaker 1: Stepping out that early.
17:56
Speaker 1: I said you need to do both of your jobs.
17:59
Speaker 1: It's just the reality to it.
18:01
Speaker 2: You can do both of them and do them both well, hey, I hate the fact of that, and you've been there.
18:06
Speaker 2: You know how many times I've tried to kind of not do as much.
18:10
Speaker 2: You know how many times I've tried to not be engaged, not participate in decisions and I still, I mean that's like a, that's kind of a, I don't know.
18:18
Speaker 2: It's an interesting thing, seriously, like the thought process that we have.
18:23
Speaker 2: I guess it's baked into our brain through all the systematic education.
18:27
Speaker 2: All the big societal type of the culture, yeah, old type of the culture, the culture, yeah, and you you're beating your head, you know, and your advertisements that you see all the time are people chilling, relaxing, enjoying life, taking the easy path, all is well.
18:42
Speaker 2: You're.
18:42
Speaker 2: Take a pill for that, you take a pill for this.
18:44
Speaker 2: You know everything's good.
18:46
Speaker 2: It's just not the truth.
18:48
Speaker 2: It's not, it is.
18:49
Speaker 2: We are 100 in man From the day you're born to the day you die.
18:55
Speaker 2: Damn it.
18:55
Speaker 2: And whenever I get in that mindset I'm like, oh well, cool, that's how I'm supposed to do it, and so I've learned to go that all the other shit is a lie.
19:06
Speaker 1: But, eric, here's the thing.
19:07
Speaker 1: You don't need to do that you could decide right now.
19:11
Speaker 1: I'm never going to work again.
19:12
Speaker 1: I'm going to live whatever was within my means, and I'm sure yours would be pretty good.
19:17
Speaker 1: Okay, as could I, all right, although I'm not as well off as you are.
19:22
Speaker 1: But we still choose.
19:27
Speaker 1: We still choose to work like that.
19:29
Speaker 1: It's yesterday.
19:30
Speaker 1: I was all day at this house.
19:33
Speaker 1: We bought down the street, unscrewing stuff on walls and cutting into drywall, looking for wires and stuff, and I'm like why am I doing this?
19:41
Speaker 1: I don't need to do this.
19:43
Speaker 1: Why, and we put all this money into it?
19:47
Speaker 1: Should we really put all our money into that?
19:51
Speaker 1: It's a lot of money.
19:54
Speaker 2: Why do we?
19:55
Speaker 1: keep spending money on that, you know.
19:58
Speaker 2: Every time you spend more money on something, it has more work for you to do, but the reality to it is it's the way we're wired, is it?
20:08
Speaker 1: It is, we're going to keep working like that.
20:10
Speaker 1: Look, here's the truth for our listeners, and you know this is true.
20:21
Speaker 1: And there's if you want to be successful, you must be a obsessed with what you're doing.
20:24
Speaker 1: Obsessed, super critical, not just like I do it.
20:27
Speaker 1: If I, you know, I do it because I have to, or I do it because that's what I think I'm supposed to do.
20:31
Speaker 1: You got to be obsessed, yeah.
20:33
Speaker 1: And secondly, you need to put the time in, yeah, okay, yeah, it does take time.
20:40
Speaker 1: And see, there will be trade-offs.
20:43
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know anything else, any other way to do it.
20:49
Speaker 1: I'm going to be obsessed, I'm going to work my ass off and there's going to be trade-offs.
20:53
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, mark.
20:54
Speaker 2: Okay, the reality is you're going to do that till the day you die, because guess what?
20:58
Speaker 2: That's who you effing are.
21:00
Speaker 2: That is who you are, that's what your mark is on the earth, that is your re-gift and your responsibility to your bloodline.
21:11
Speaker 2: I mean, like there's a like.
21:13
Speaker 2: What's the point, honestly?
21:18
Speaker 2: What is the point of living on this earth and not doing everything that you possibly can to contribute, to make things better.
21:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, to make things Like, do you?
21:25
Speaker 2: really think that you're designed and born here on this earth so that you can just chill out bro.
21:31
Speaker 2: Consume consume resources, just suck up air, just chilling man, just chilling, you know, trying to always work hard to find the easiest way and make People aren't happy.
21:43
Speaker 2: No, they're miserable.
21:44
Speaker 2: They're not happy Because, guess what?
21:46
Speaker 2: You're working for something.
21:47
Speaker 2: That's a freaking lie and, by the way, you were designed to struggle just like every other effing freaking insect, animal, weed, sunrise, raindrop on the entire freaking planet.
22:00
Speaker 2: And the truth, that's the truth everything struggle.
22:03
Speaker 2: That's why I love nature.
22:04
Speaker 2: You know what I love about working on the land.
22:06
Speaker 2: You can go out there and you clean this.
22:08
Speaker 2: Now, I'm not talking about freaking shady valley, okay, and I can say shady valley, which, because I live there I call it shallow valley or shallow or no, but it's I see, right, yeah, it's a beautiful gated, you know, whatever nice lawns like, I'm not talking about that, but even then it's still some truth.
22:25
Speaker 2: But you can go out in the woods, clear clean, take off.
22:29
Speaker 2: You know, get limit trees, limit trees, take care.
22:33
Speaker 2: I mean, you look at it's like damn, that looks nice.
22:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I swear to you.
22:37
Speaker 2: And then you come, you come back two months later and it's just like.
22:42
Speaker 2: It's like all the weeds and the tears of branches are on the ground, they're freaking.
22:47
Speaker 1: I mean just so true, it's a constant state that you're in Constant chaos, constant cleanup, constant championship.
22:55
Speaker 2: Yes, he who works harder wins, and there's pride in that, there's honor in that, there's legacy in that, there's satisfaction.
23:05
Speaker 2: There's satisfaction in that Gratification.
23:08
Speaker 2: I get it.
23:09
Speaker 2: It's hard man, like dude, like literally.
23:11
Speaker 2: When we talk about work-life balance here, or integration, this is literally how I kind of think of it.
23:17
Speaker 2: Well, this is just the reality that happens to me.
23:19
Speaker 2: I work as hard as I possibly can until I can't, right, and then I take a break, right, and then I come back and continue to work hard.
23:28
Speaker 2: It's like, exactly, it's kind of like training for a freaking race.
23:31
Speaker 2: You know, do you go out there?
23:33
Speaker 2: Can you really run a good race and win?
23:36
Speaker 2: If you kind of you just walk the mile, or do you have to jog it?
23:40
Speaker 2: And if you can't jog the whole thing that one time, you still have to do as hard as you have to push and push and push and push, yes, in order to win yeah, so you just work until you're freaking tired, right like I've been.
23:53
Speaker 2: I've tricked myself, I've tried to balance things and I've tried to take time off.
23:58
Speaker 2: Only thing that I've found by taking time off is that I become worthlessly lazy and I start falling into this pattern of society that where I start seeing myself I'm like who the hell am I like that?
24:10
Speaker 2: Am I gonna wither and die here?
24:12
Speaker 2: I'm just getting fatter, you get depressed.
24:14
Speaker 1: I get depressed.
24:15
Speaker 1: Just when we had all that storm and everything, I was just laying around the house and one day I like slept later because, of course, I was up in the middle of the night.
24:22
Speaker 1: But I'm like, I'm just like what, why am I?
24:25
Speaker 1: You know what's wrong with me?
24:27
Speaker 1: This is terrible, terrible.
24:28
Speaker 1: Okay, they got my butt back in gear and started getting stuff done.
24:32
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, you have to do it, man, it's, it's so true.
24:35
Speaker 1: So, yeah, I mean you know the the.
24:38
Speaker 1: It's funny you say that because last night in the middle of the night, again, I was up and I was responding.
24:46
Speaker 1: Company I'm involved with, yeah, on the board, one of the owners minor, minor of, but anyway, the CEO is texting me about our banking relationship that we have and you know I'm immediately was sending out emails to respond to him.
25:03
Speaker 1: The CFO and then a guy that's helping us find a new bank out there and uh, and so he's like what?
25:11
Speaker 1: He's just God bless, what?
25:13
Speaker 1: What are you doing?
25:13
Speaker 1: She goes you're always on your phone these days.
25:16
Speaker 1: You know, I'm like this is important, we're down to survival here.
25:21
Speaker 1: Okay, that's when you kick in baby, it's like I'm not gonna wait.
25:26
Speaker 1: What am I gonna wait till I get up and take my shower and then go do my drive to deliver the kid to school, then go to my podcast and then meet my contractors.
25:35
Speaker 1: Then maybe, if I remember, I'll do it.
25:37
Speaker 1: No, this is going to be dealt with now, okay.
25:41
Speaker 1: Boom.
25:42
Speaker 1: It's not going to take me forever, though.
25:44
Speaker 2: No, no, it's not a big deal, okay so, on the balancing with the family, yeah, here you are, crazy train doing work in the middle of the night and your wife like there is something like you have to navigate that I'm getting better at navigating, sure.
26:03
Speaker 1: We're both on wife number three.
26:05
Speaker 1: Well, okay, you're two.
26:09
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
26:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
26:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I get a little bit more.
26:12
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, you're two.
26:13
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
26:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
26:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I get a little bit more.
26:15
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, well, at least you made a better decision on number two, but anyway, I'll leave that alone.
26:19
Speaker 2: But you know, there is something about, like there is this tension between an entrepreneur who is living the life that we're talking about here, of winning, you know, of work for all the things that we talked about.
26:33
Speaker 2: Not because we're trying to make things easier, we're actually complicating things.
26:37
Speaker 1: Exactly On a daily basis.
26:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right.
26:41
Speaker 2: I mean, I can only imagine like I frustrate my wife and like literally all the time.
26:47
Speaker 2: Honestly, if I'm going to be honest with myself and everybody on the planet, if my wife is in this I'm sorry, babe, I know I frustrate you.
26:55
Speaker 2: I cannot help it, though.
26:56
Speaker 2: Sure, I cannot help it because we're always there's sin.
27:00
Speaker 2: Every time I talk to her about any decision I'm making in business like I actually had a conversation with her a couple days ago about some important decisions she's like and her comment was I don't like that idea, because what you're telling, what I, what I, what's going to happen is you're going to do that and that's just going to open up opportunities for more ideas that you have and you're going to start something else.
27:20
Speaker 2: And I'm like no, no, no, babe, that's not.
27:23
Speaker 2: You know that's not going to happen this time.
27:26
Speaker 2: You know that's not what I'm trying to do.
27:28
Speaker 2: But she's right, because that's what always happens.
27:37
Speaker 1: Sure, like anytime that there's a little space, you're going to fill it, and then some, I know, I swear I did, I get it a hundred percent.
27:42
Speaker 1: But you know, I think we talked about this before on the show, though, and we also did with our spouses.
27:48
Speaker 1: You know, your situation with your spouse, and mine is totally different.
27:52
Speaker 1: My wife did own her own business.
27:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, she came out of a family that had multiple businesses, yes, and she, she really understands, like she does not complain.
28:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and she can also make a financial decision very quickly without a lot of delay, which I love.
28:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, like yesterday, I had to ask her about something that it's no big deal, but it was helping somebody out and co-signing for a $200,000 loan, and immediately she said, yes, there was just no hesitation at all.
28:34
Speaker 1: Yes, we need to do that.
28:35
Speaker 1: She has to make sure that there's some language in there that the bank will release us from that guarantee that co-signing when certain events occur.
28:49
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying it helps to be with somebody who had that orientation.
28:55
Speaker 1: Oh for sure I can't say I had prior to yeah, yeah, well, certainly my last one, my first wife.
29:02
Speaker 1: She grew up with me from the time we were 18, so she certainly understood that stuff more.
29:08
Speaker 2: I think that Tara's highly supportive.
29:10
Speaker 2: She's my number one champion supporter.
29:13
Speaker 1: You have been, she is because you proved that you were right.
29:17
Speaker 1: Well, true, that does help you give credibility with her.
29:23
Speaker 2: I do think that there's this difference of personalities.
29:27
Speaker 2: I think that we all kind of go through that.
29:29
Speaker 2: Right, an entrepreneur does have a really different personality.
29:34
Speaker 2: Like I'd have a hard time finding people that I can really relate to in life in a lot yeah, especially in the business sense like, yes, you know, I, like you know, I I'm.
29:45
Speaker 2: I'm not a polished business person, I'm not a financially astute, you know all these different things and so.
29:51
Speaker 2: But that's also the same thing in personal things too.
29:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
29:54
Speaker 2: So when it comes to family and business, you know you have to be.
29:58
Speaker 2: You know, I feel like that I have to navigate quite a bit and and kind of bring myself down to not down, bring myself over to a a realistic type of family environment.
30:15
Speaker 2: I have to see that and that's my responsibility.
30:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I understand what you're saying.
30:20
Speaker 2: If I don't, I'm like I'm way, way, like dude, I just don't, I don't think about it, yeah, ever.
30:26
Speaker 2: That's terrible.
30:31
Speaker 1: I love my girl.
30:32
Speaker 1: No, listen, dude, absolutely, dude, I know you do.
30:33
Speaker 1: I love my girl.
30:33
Speaker 1: No, listen, dude, absolutely I know you do.
30:36
Speaker 1: I love everyone.
30:37
Speaker 1: Listen, and I've thought about that too.
30:38
Speaker 1: Sometimes that's terrible.
30:40
Speaker 1: Am I failing as a father?
30:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, am I not understanding enough?
30:45
Speaker 1: Do I not spend enough time with my children?
30:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:47
Speaker 1: All the things that I think we all are probably going to think at some point.
30:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then I also realized this I had a conversation with my 18-year-old daughter recently.
30:58
Speaker 1: I don't know if I mentioned this on the show, but it was in the last couple weeks and it was all about taking risk and getting ahead.
31:07
Speaker 1: And you know, she was just contrasting.
31:19
Speaker 1: Like, you know, her mom's a teacher and her mom's husband is a teacher.
31:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know they're.
31:21
Speaker 1: They know what they're going to make every month, right, they know when they're off and they're responsible.
31:23
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, they're responsible people.
31:25
Speaker 1: It's not like they don't pay their bills or anything like that.
31:28
Speaker 1: But you know, at the same time, I'm sure there's some level of envy or thought, and not that it's even been expressed to me.
31:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like, why do they have so much?
31:41
Speaker 1: Well for you?
31:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know well, you know they've got whatever.
31:51
Speaker 1: All right, and this sort of comes across to the kids All right.
31:55
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I I had this conversation with my daughter.
31:58
Speaker 1: I guess the point I'm trying to make is I told her that the only way you're going to get ahead is if you take risks and you work really hard.
32:08
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I'm not.
32:10
Speaker 1: You know, I don't have the job where I stop at four o'clock on Friday and then I'm just off until Monday and I don't even engage at all.
32:18
Speaker 1: Okay, you understand what I'm talking about.
32:21
Speaker 1: I said that means you know you gotta stay engaged.
32:24
Speaker 1: You're, you're working.
32:26
Speaker 1: There's things that come up that you have to do, right, yeah, and there's chances that you have to take.
32:34
Speaker 1: You don't take any stupid chances.
32:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, you always think about what happens if this goes wrong.
32:36
Speaker 1: Can I afford to lose that?
32:37
Speaker 1: Or what's my plan B bailout position?
32:42
Speaker 1: You know you're constantly making that decision, but at the same time, you're investing in things.
32:48
Speaker 1: You're planting these seeds.
32:50
Speaker 1: Everything's investing, it's all about the investment and when you have enough of those, something's going to work out.
32:58
Speaker 1: Something works.
32:59
Speaker 1: Something works.
33:01
Speaker 1: It's inevitable.
33:02
Speaker 1: The odds are in your favor.
33:05
Speaker 1: This is what people don't understand.
33:09
Speaker 1: They think we take a lot of risks, but really we don't.
33:12
Speaker 2: Actually we're making a lot of risks, but really we don't.
33:14
Speaker 2: Actually we're making a lot of investments.
33:15
Speaker 1: We're minimizing risks by not being dependent on this one thing.
33:21
Speaker 2: I love that statement.
33:22
Speaker 2: That is such a good topic because that's where a lot of the misunderstanding comes in.
33:26
Speaker 2: You know, I mean like you know, I think from and here we are listeners.
33:32
Speaker 2: We're talking about entrepreneurs, right, we're not talking anything about anybody else.
33:36
Speaker 2: Negative pros, cons doesn't matter.
33:38
Speaker 2: No, exactly Trying to really understand ourselves in the way we think, because I'm with you a hundred percent, every single decision that I make, every day, all day, I'm thinking of investing, right, my time, any resources.
33:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, like people would call me lunatic because of my equipment that I bought, guess what?
33:59
Speaker 2: There are assets, right, you don't say I know, I already know that I'm not gonna get a hundred percent.
34:06
Speaker 2: I'm that's not an F, it's not a a.
34:07
Speaker 2: You know a graduating asset or whatever I'm trying to say, an appreciating asset.
34:13
Speaker 2: I know that, I know that skid steer is not going to return me back more money, but what it will do is it will hold value.
34:21
Speaker 2: I get to use it.
34:22
Speaker 2: I save the money on the time of labor, of stupid shit that I can do myself, like smoothing out, freaking gravel how complicated is that it's not.
34:31
Speaker 2: But it also helps me relax, it reduces my stress, all these things, but I still have active.
34:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, it's productive, it gets things done, and then I have something.
34:42
Speaker 2: At the end there's an asset still there and, by the way, it's freaking 0% financing?
34:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know.
34:48
Speaker 1: Why shouldn't you take advantage of?
34:50
Speaker 2: that, but that's a good example.
34:51
Speaker 2: But everything that I think about everywhere I go, I'm thinking about that investment that's being made to minimize risk in case shit hits the fan, in case that bank goes out, in case this business sucks and fails, or that decision or some.
35:06
Speaker 2: You know, there's always somebody, there's always someone or something coming after you to take what you got.
35:12
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, you it's so true and and you know, and, and it's funny you say that because I was talking to my students about that is the first week of classes and I said don't get confused when it comes to debt.
35:25
Speaker 1: That is for things that make money, as opposed to debt is for things that are just pure consumption.
35:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a big difference.
35:35
Speaker 1: Okay, I've had a ton of debt at one point in my life, but it was all stuff that was making me money.
35:41
Speaker 1: I mean I don't finance my cars, okay.
35:44
Speaker 1: I mean I'm just saying I'm not that.
35:45
Speaker 1: I haven't ever.
35:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, as I have in the past.
35:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't, you know, because the cars don't make any money, right.
35:53
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's a, it's just a cost to appreciate.
35:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean like if you got the cash, use the cash but if you can lease a vehicle for business, that's fine too, because you're just paying for it, whatever.
36:04
Speaker 1: But my point is like stuff that makes you money, yeah is worth going in the hole for, yeah, or could make you money, and there's a big distinction there.
36:14
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good point, Because debt like even to the quote I gave in the very beginning right that debt, that conversation you have one person Rockefeller, the husband who is continuously thinking about new ways to borrow more money and then he has problems sleeping.
36:30
Speaker 2: There is a wife in that story that he didn't talk about.
36:33
Speaker 2: Nobody talks, but there's a wife there that is not understanding what the hell and why he's doing what he's doing.
36:39
Speaker 2: Yes, but he's borrowing more in and you might have to borrow that debt to continue, like I did use credit cards, whatever the hell it took, because it's not because I'm taking more risk in, in, in, in living in debt, it's because I'm investing in my business.
36:57
Speaker 1: You got across the goal line, didn't you?
37:00
Speaker 1: That's exactly, it got you across the goal line, but that right there is for the payday.
37:05
Speaker 2: It is so it can be.
37:07
Speaker 2: That's where the stress comes in between family and running your business, because it really is.
37:11
Speaker 2: How do you you as an entrepreneur navigate that like?
37:15
Speaker 2: It's not an easy thing.
37:16
Speaker 2: Like you, you know you're sitting there, I'm.
37:18
Speaker 2: You know my case.
37:19
Speaker 2: I was investing, investing, investing in business and borrowing, borrowing more money, going more deeper in debt, ridiculous interest rates.
37:25
Speaker 2: But I've got to be able to eat, I've got to be able to do these things that I need to take care of the family myself and survive, and no one can understand that this business that I'm over here just drowning in this blah blah, blah, whatever it might be, and I'm always busy, like what we've been talking about.
37:43
Speaker 2: You're on your phone constantly.
37:44
Speaker 2: You never are off, but you're driving.
37:46
Speaker 2: You know that is not a normal scenario.
37:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, for what we've been taught, how the bankers have educated us on how you run your finances.
37:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, to what the scholastic you mean you don't always have six months worth of operating expenses in the bank account, right?
38:06
Speaker 2: I mean, I love those things For all those Ks and IRAs I love those.
38:08
Speaker 1: It's like how naive is that?
38:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, insurance, who runs their business is a true entrepreneur that's operating with six months worth of cash in the bank.
38:19
Speaker 2: It just doesn't.
38:20
Speaker 2: If I had six months worth of cash, I'd be like what the hell am I going to spend that on?
38:24
Speaker 2: To grow this thing Exactly?
38:26
Speaker 1: You're going to reinvest that Because your return on invested capital has got to be high.
38:31
Speaker 1: You don't want to let sit there and do nothing for you.
38:34
Speaker 2: Let's worthless money, unless I'm getting paid some ridiculous interest rate.
38:39
Speaker 2: But now I'm in the banking business, right, I'm in the lending business.
38:42
Speaker 1: Hey, even the high interest rates, nothing compared to what you'll make on your own business, oh dude, your return on invested capital People don't know it could be.
38:50
Speaker 1: Massive Return on equity, oh capital, people don't have to be.
38:54
Speaker 1: Massive return on equity, oh my god.
38:55
Speaker 1: Return on invested capital is really what matters.
38:57
Speaker 1: But yeah, just looking at return on equity, yeah, I mean, I, the first 13 years of swag white, we averaged over 50.
39:03
Speaker 1: Okay, for 13 years in a row, there's no interest rate that's going to pay you 50.
39:09
Speaker 2: no, that's, that's absolutely no, no, and I don't want to see.
39:13
Speaker 2: If you look at the best investments that have ever been made, it's always been business, sure, you know?
39:18
Speaker 2: I mean like it's always, and it's always the people that are making that, that, taking that sacrifice and driving that as the entrepreneur but again, knowing, you know, just for our listeners they don't know you as well as I do you always live cheap.
39:34
Speaker 1: oh, yeah, not have.
39:35
Speaker 1: You did not have like needs, yeah, for ego gratification or luxury, or you know it's status symbols no, you just didn't spend your money like that.
39:49
Speaker 1: No, I mean, you were extremely thrifty all along.
39:52
Speaker 1: Well, I was just putting it back in the business, yeah, and that's what it takes.
39:55
Speaker 1: Again, we're back to what it doesn't take to be successful balancing stuff with your family, and this is another thing.
40:02
Speaker 1: Talking about family, you know, there's one way to be a good parent, right, is you're always there.
40:07
Speaker 1: You take your kid to every soccer game.
40:09
Speaker 1: You never miss whatever.
40:11
Speaker 1: I think I actually did a pretty good job on that.
40:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks to having my own business.
40:16
Speaker 1: That's one of the benefits Flexibility, man, flexibility, right.
40:20
Speaker 1: However, I'm sure I could have done a better job we all could have.
40:24
Speaker 1: But what we also do as parents is provide an example.
40:29
Speaker 1: What's the value of that to our children?
40:33
Speaker 1: It's the greatest.
40:35
Speaker 1: The example of you can take on difficult things and succeed.
40:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, it takes hard work to get ahead.
40:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, that's an example that I think our children need, and maybe they don't get that from all their other parents, or our siblings, or the culture you know, or their friends.
40:57
Speaker 1: We provide that.
40:59
Speaker 1: So we're not all bad, I guess, is what I'm saying?
41:03
Speaker 1: No, not at all.
41:04
Speaker 1: We're, you know.
41:05
Speaker 1: We're just different.
41:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're different.
41:08
Speaker 1: It's not about the money, it's not.
41:12
Speaker 1: The money is a byproductproduct.
41:14
Speaker 1: Yep, it's absolutely a byproduct.
41:17
Speaker 1: It's nice, but it's a byproduct.
41:19
Speaker 1: But we provide an example to our children and we teach them, um, that they can overcome obstacles and they can achieve whatever they set their mind to.
41:31
Speaker 1: And you don't have to know everything to jump into something.
41:34
Speaker 1: No, you don't you know, just do it, you do it.
41:37
Speaker 1: That's how you learn.
41:38
Speaker 2: Best way to learn Do it Just do it, man, and I mean that's such a good point because you know, I think that when I look at me as a father, you know, and how my contribution is.
41:52
Speaker 2: I mean spending time talking and giving them the real education of life is like my biggest contribution.
42:00
Speaker 2: I mean it's not going to be any money, it's not going to be any assets or whatever it is.
42:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I try to articulate this to the girls I'm like If I would have been told some of these things when I was in my teenage years.
42:16
Speaker 1: My dad was not good with this stuff.
42:22
Speaker 2: I don't think really any parents really are, but my lesson learned is girls, look shit's hard.
42:28
Speaker 2: The hardest worker wins.
42:31
Speaker 2: Work faster, longer, smarter or better.
42:34
Speaker 2: I don't know which one, but one of those four.
42:36
Speaker 2: You should be able to think about it any time.
42:37
Speaker 2: Maybe two or three of those four.
42:38
Speaker 1: You'll really be able to do that.
42:40
Speaker 2: Exactly.
42:40
Speaker 2: Be a hugely exclusive, be a freaking champion.
42:44
Speaker 2: Quit complaining.
42:45
Speaker 2: You're the one that has to face that no one's going to be here to save you is another great one.
42:49
Speaker 2: No one told me those things.
42:51
Speaker 1: Well, that's I know, unfortunately, I think I don't know about your case, but you know my kids, particularly the younger ones, have had too much.
43:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, okay, it's too easy, too easy, that's a big problem.
43:06
Speaker 1: The oldest one, you know, she was there during a lot of the struggle and it's absolutely part of her personality.
43:13
Speaker 1: She totally reflects that.
43:15
Speaker 2: Why are we, as human beings, trying to make it so easy for somebody else?
43:20
Speaker 2: There's some deserving reward for that and there's not.
43:24
Speaker 2: We want love.
43:25
Speaker 2: We want love, we want it easy, we want it convenient, we want to be safe All these things we're trying to act like the fear doesn't really exist.
43:34
Speaker 2: But what the result of a human being with all that coddling is the most is the worst type of person.
43:42
Speaker 2: It's true, there's no honor in them.
43:44
Speaker 2: You know all those types of things, but I mean from a family perspective, though I think, like what you know, what I would, what my experience has shown me is that you have to know, like and I messed up on this for for the first 15, 20 years, I'm still messing up, but what I've learned is is that I am, I do and I am a different thinking type person, which can drive conflict if I'm unaware of who I am.
44:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not about me trying to change who I am or be different or act different or come down from wherever my thinking is Like.
44:25
Speaker 2: Actually, that's why I'm loved is because I'm thinking this goofy shit or whatever.
44:30
Speaker 2: Right, it is real crazy a lot of times, right, you know, I mean I don't understand it a lot of times myself, but it's about being aware of that, that that is like it's okay for me to participate and I need to be more conscious because it's for, you know, it's for my partnership, like my partner is, and my family's supporting me and tolerating me a lot of things, right.
44:56
Speaker 2: I need to be able to return that in some way, right, and I think that, um, well, you know, I think that that's like, if you're unaware as an entrepreneur, you're going to find yourself in a lot of we need to be understanding of them absolutely they need to be understanding of us.
45:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I'm tolerant of this really is what.
45:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, it comes down to yeah, there were a couple other things they wanted us to talk about here, evolving family members in your business.
45:22
Speaker 1: I'm just going to speak about that for a minute because I know I always had a no nepotism policy.
45:27
Speaker 1: The first time I owned my company, yes.
45:29
Speaker 1: The second time around, you hired my oldest daughter as a part-time writer.
45:35
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, yes, she was getting her English degree.
45:38
Speaker 2: Super talented, freaking, hard worker.
45:41
Speaker 1: She got that and then she ended up she had a real estate license and her horse farm and then she went and got her MBA and then she ended up working for the company full-time in an MBA job, all right, and she did that for 10 years.
45:57
Speaker 1: A couple of years ago she left and went full time into her own horse business.
46:01
Speaker 1: But my point of all that is, you know, she felt bad when she wanted to leave, that she was like letting me down.
46:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, what are you talking about?
46:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, like what are you talking about?
46:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think for years, truthfully, I was so conscious of the fact she was my daughter and I never wanted anybody to claim that she got something she didn't deserve.
46:23
Speaker 1: I probably did not treat her or reward her as highly as I should have.
46:27
Speaker 1: Oh sure, I went the opposite way.
46:29
Speaker 1: Some parents do the opposite.
46:31
Speaker 1: They take their kid their kid's an idiot, not a hard worker.
46:35
Speaker 1: They promote them.
46:37
Speaker 1: They make them the boss of everybody.
46:39
Speaker 1: Everybody hates that person.
46:41
Speaker 1: Okay, they're a huge morale drain on the company.
46:45
Speaker 1: Maybe even they ruin the business.
46:46
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do that.
46:50
Speaker 2: I really didn't.
46:50
Speaker 2: You were constantly conscious of that.
46:53
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, when it ends up.
46:54
Speaker 2: Probably like she did not probably did her a disservice.
46:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true and truth, and I had no, when she wanted to leave and do her own thing.
47:02
Speaker 1: I'm like absolute.
47:03
Speaker 1: She thought I'd be up.
47:04
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not upset with you at all.
47:06
Speaker 1: No, this is your life.
47:08
Speaker 1: You have to do what you want to do.
47:09
Speaker 1: You're not letting me down?
47:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, in any way, shape or form, but I do think parents need to think really hard before they bring their kids into their business.
47:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah yeah, I've had, um, a couple of my girls you know work for, yeah, for podcast videos, part-time sure you know, and but but there is like like what I've done in that situation is like I'm you need to go interview with so-and-so, they'll hire you, they work with them 100%.
47:38
Speaker 2: Don't talk to me, I'll see you when I come walking in.
47:42
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying?
47:43
Speaker 2: Right, a lot of space between you and them.
47:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's good, for sure.
47:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, but your girls, they're not going to come in here and start like berating and somebody else or act like, well, this is my dad's company and I'm superior.
47:59
Speaker 1: No, they wouldn't do that.
48:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, some people do that.
48:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's bad and that's really bad.
48:04
Speaker 1: You can't let your kids do stuff like that.
48:07
Speaker 1: It's just very harmful to morale.
48:10
Speaker 1: I think a lot of companies you know the majority of businesses in this country are family businesses.
48:15
Speaker 1: They employ more than one family member in the business.
48:19
Speaker 1: It's like 90%.
48:20
Speaker 1: It'd blow your mind if you realize how high that percentage of businesses are family businesses in the United States.
48:28
Speaker 1: But you know, I do think you need to be thinking hard about what those roles are.
48:35
Speaker 1: Are you putting people in management positions that are unequipped?
48:38
Speaker 1: What's the effect it has on your other employees?
48:43
Speaker 1: At the same time, you know you want to give your kid the chance to learn something from you and be involved with the business.
48:50
Speaker 1: But it's got to be an appropriate role, yeah, and they've got to act appropriate.
48:55
Speaker 1: Or it's got to be an appropriate role, yeah, and they've got to act appropriate, yep, or it's going to be a problem.
49:01
Speaker 1: The other issue is husbands and wives that work together in the business, and I've experienced that too, although really not not until recently, you know, but that can be very challenging.
49:11
Speaker 1: Oh sure, and I think you know what I've learned there about the people who've done that successfully it always means that you have very distinct roles with no overlap you have to, in the inflate of each other, own those roles and trust.
49:25
Speaker 2: Yes, just like having a business partner.
49:27
Speaker 2: Yes, you can't have a business partner and not be trusting and agreeable and accommodating and listening and what all that type of stuff.
49:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it really is.
49:37
Speaker 1: And the worst thing again, I think, is where somebody owns a business and then the spouse comes in and they're not involved with it, but then they start acting as if they're the boss oh yeah, Like they're making the decisions.
49:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very toxic.
49:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be toxic.
49:52
Speaker 2: It is Toxic, toxic.
49:55
Speaker 2: The other one was the emotional impact of entrepreneurship on family.
50:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, I mean.
50:05
Speaker 1: The ups and downs, the ups and downs.
50:07
Speaker 1: I think it's the instability that we create.
50:09
Speaker 1: Sure Is the problem.
50:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure is, is, is is the problem, yeah, and I think that that really just.
50:15
Speaker 2: I mean, like you know, today it's much better than what it was.
50:20
Speaker 2: You know, you know, I don't know, man, part of me is like, I mean, let me, can I be honest?
50:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, please, of course, I think what you know, I think, like in my experience, like in all honesty as an entrepreneur, I would recommend and this is what I have done and I still do.
50:40
Speaker 2: I don't talk about everything.
50:45
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying?
50:46
Speaker 1: Yes, I understand, because it puts a burden on people.
50:49
Speaker 1: They don't have the same makeup you have.
50:51
Speaker 1: I don't walk in the house, I've been guilty of that?
50:55
Speaker 2: No, I have too.
50:56
Speaker 2: I've been guilty of that.
50:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I have too.
50:58
Speaker 2: I figured out that that wasn't, but I don't walk in the house carrying my business shit.
51:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is, and I mean, maybe that's a unique thing, because I don't think that everybody does that.
51:10
Speaker 2: Right, I've gotten better over the older I got.
51:14
Speaker 2: I definitely did that like when I'm around them, my family yeah, I really don't.
51:20
Speaker 2: I don't, I don't talk about it, I don't share things that are going on.
51:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, if I'm asked about, I'm also pretty cautious about how far I go into it.
51:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're smart.
51:31
Speaker 2: Well, because because I, like you, can there's a lot of things that can trigger, first of all, business.
51:39
Speaker 2: The reason why we are so busy and overwhelmed and constantly work is because there's always more shit that needs to be done.
51:46
Speaker 2: There's not enough time to do what we do.
51:48
Speaker 2: And so if you have a little problem seemingly a little problem in business, there's not an easy, one bullet point answer to it.
51:57
Speaker 2: You just need to do A and B will happen.
52:00
Speaker 2: It's never that simple.
52:02
Speaker 2: And so if you're talking about your business or your family and you bring up anything like well, we had to borrow $20,000 more to cover payroll, to you as an entrepreneur, you're okay because you know what you're doing, you're investing all the time.
52:18
Speaker 2: Everything's going to be all right because you're going for it, right, right, but to your partner, they're like holy shit.
52:24
Speaker 2: I know you just borrowed more money for that.
52:26
Speaker 2: When is that going to?
52:27
Speaker 1: I mean like they don't have the same frame of reference.
52:31
Speaker 1: No, they can't have the same frame of reference.
52:35
Speaker 1: No, they can't have the same personality.
52:37
Speaker 1: I've I've been guilty of that before.
52:38
Speaker 1: I mean I think it's a fine line, though at the same time, yeah, you also need to try to educate them, of course.
52:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you totally insulate them and they have absolutely no sense of any of this, then maybe they'll go waste resources, or maybe they won't.
52:53
Speaker 1: They, maybe they won't understand this when they get older.
52:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, I mean I, I, so it is, there's a fine line.
53:02
Speaker 1: I definitely was too far toward dumping everything out when I was younger and and I'd be much less inclined to do that today.
53:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you got to navigate that but, but it is kind of funny, you know, like there was something one of my kids said and I'm like no, we we're just, we can't afford that, we're not going to spend our money like that.
53:23
Speaker 1: And then so we were at the dinner I think it was Christmas Eve or whatever and I had the, my extended family and brother and sister-in-law and I can't remember who all was there, and I'm like you know, give me the bill for it, because I always get the one that gets the bill.
53:39
Speaker 1: I mean, you know that is probably as your kids get older you'll find that's the case.
53:43
Speaker 1: Oh, I get.
53:43
Speaker 1: No, it doesn't matter how many of them there are.
53:45
Speaker 1: No, I get the bills, you're gonna get the bill.
53:48
Speaker 1: And and especially if you feel like you know employees, you know they're struggling to get by or whatever yeah, you know what I mean.
53:56
Speaker 1: So, yeah, you know, and one of my kids, like dad, are you sure we can afford that?
53:59
Speaker 1: You know what I'm like.
54:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I go.
54:03
Speaker 1: You don't want to say that here.
54:05
Speaker 1: First and secondly, yes, we can.
54:09
Speaker 1: This is true.
54:13
Speaker 1: This 400 dinner, whatever five, it's not gonna break us, don't?
54:17
Speaker 2: worry about it was the other thing.
54:19
Speaker 2: For the reason that you're wanting to get it right right, there's no investment to what you're wanting.
54:25
Speaker 2: There is no return.
54:28
Speaker 2: At least you know what I mean.
54:29
Speaker 2: At least, if I buy the family's dinner, there's investment into the family.
54:33
Speaker 2: Right that?
54:34
Speaker 2: That's what I think.
54:35
Speaker 2: I always think an investment.
54:37
Speaker 1: It is, but I'm just saying that's the illustrates kind of what you're saying.
54:40
Speaker 1: It's like you say anything to them.
54:42
Speaker 1: They don't have the full frame of reference and they don't really they could cause them undue stress, absolutely that that you know that the same time, I do want my kids to be conscious of not just wasting and thinking, oh my God, it's just like because again, I mean I go back and I'm not trying to.
55:03
Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to say anything bad about any prior spouse I had.
55:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, sure, with somebody who has zero entrepreneurial background and zero entrepreneurial history or education provided to them by their parents, is that they don't understand.
55:24
Speaker 1: They think, you know, at least my experience was they think you're either rich or you're poor.
55:30
Speaker 1: If you're rich, you buy anything you want, anytime, and if you can't afford that, what are we what?
55:36
Speaker 1: No, there's this huge swath in the middle, you know what I mean.
55:43
Speaker 2: You might be poor today, you may be rich tomorrow.
55:46
Speaker 2: You may be rich today and poor tomorrow, but if the entrepreneur understands that and just basically, you basically adapt and navigate that time period.
55:53
Speaker 2: That's all you do.
55:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, like dude, I love it whenever like it's like it's time for you know, it's like survival time to tighten up.
56:02
Speaker 1: I love the time.
56:03
Speaker 1: I mean, you do better with a deadline, don't you?
56:05
Speaker 1: Oh God, dude, yeah, yeah.
56:06
Speaker 2: I'm the worst.
56:07
Speaker 2: I mean, I understand that, you know it has I have to know that meeting time and then I work right before.
56:14
Speaker 2: But I do really good work.
56:15
Speaker 2: You know it's like holy work.
56:17
Speaker 2: Under pressure, dude, I do man, I'm like holy shit.
56:19
Speaker 2: I got a lot of shit done.
56:20
Speaker 2: You know.
56:21
Speaker 2: Otherwise, I'm just kind of.
56:22
Speaker 2: You know I can flounder, I understand totally.
56:26
Speaker 1: I had our editor this white letter say to me last week.
56:28
Speaker 1: It's like you know.
56:29
Speaker 1: I said I'm sorry, this is late.
56:31
Speaker 1: I got it through at like one in the afternoon instead of like eight in the morning, nine which I typically would.
56:36
Speaker 1: She goes, you know, if you ever have a problem, you can't get this done.
56:39
Speaker 1: You know you can tell me and I'll pull out an old, we'll dust off an old article or whatever, and I said it's not going to happen, I will get it done.
56:49
Speaker 1: I will always get it done, unless I'm like dead or sick.
56:57
Speaker 2: Even if I'm sick, I'll probably get it done.
56:58
Speaker 2: Dude, I've seen you so sick.
56:59
Speaker 2: I was thinking about the other day we went up to I can't remember where we were Chicago.
57:03
Speaker 2: We went to Chicago for that acquisition thing a long time ago and when we fly from there to there, from Northwest Arkansas, you're like man, I don't feel too good.
57:16
Speaker 2: You know, by that evening when we get you were so freaking sick.
57:20
Speaker 2: I don't even remember this, I know you don't, but we were at the hotel and like, I mean, like dude, you were down at like eight o'clock that night and I mean, and then the next morning we had to be there at like you know 6am or whatever.
57:33
Speaker 2: It's's early in the morning and I mean, dude, you were so incredibly sick, like you had full-blown, freaking head flu but you powered through, dude, it was so impressive.
57:44
Speaker 2: Like you were up.
57:45
Speaker 2: I hope I didn't get everybody else sick and you probably did.
57:49
Speaker 2: Oh my God, like you know, that was pre-COVID.
57:51
Speaker 2: That was before we were all aware of how people can get sick from each other.
57:55
Speaker 2: No, kidding.
57:58
Speaker 1: I'm sorry if I did that.
57:59
Speaker 1: No, no, I mean I thought it was beautiful, but anyway, yeah, it's a tricky path we have to navigate with our families.
58:11
Speaker 1: It is.
58:12
Speaker 2: It's just sensitive, right, and I think that you, as the the entrepreneur, being the person you are, if you're a business owner, you're starting, but if you never started one, you're about to start one you need to know, recognize the sensitivity of that and and cooperate and work through that like you can't be ignorant of it.
58:29
Speaker 2: That's the big thing.
58:30
Speaker 1: I was ignorant as shit about it, yeah, how I was behaving and how I think in comparison, and I, and I do think if you're going to have a good relationship with your spouse, you do need to let them know when you're taking risks or making commitments that could impact them.
58:47
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's only fair.
58:48
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no, no, totally.
58:50
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, without.
58:50
Speaker 1: Without is what it?
58:51
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, what?
58:51
Speaker 2: obviously it just says yeah, hopefully you know, like I'm always afraid during the show that I'll say some shit that people you know won't completely understand, yeah, misinterpret, yeah for sure.
59:01
Speaker 2: Like I mean, I absolutely talked to my spouse.
59:05
Speaker 2: I've learned to even become and I'm still getting better but become even more transparent up front about things.
59:10
Speaker 2: That, and mainly because I've recognized like she is a really excellent, she has great perspective 100, and there's been so many times I should have listened and there's, you know I'm trying to I feel the same way about I mean, there's it's just, it's wonderful, such good instincts about yes told, oh dude.
59:31
Speaker 1: Character judgment, yeah, it beyond always better than mine, 100% More skeptical, and again, I hate to generalize about women.
59:41
Speaker 1: People will be upset with me when I say this.
59:44
Speaker 1: They are more skeptical, I think, because they have been hit on for lack of a better way to describe it and they're constantly making that descript, that judgment, that discrimination when they're young.
59:57
Speaker 1: They have to be discerning.
59:58
Speaker 1: Exactly they have to be discerning.
1:00:01
Speaker 1: I was never hit on.
1:00:02
Speaker 1: I know me neither.
1:00:04
Speaker 2: I mean it was like if I was, I would have never known it.
1:00:08
Speaker 2: You know, no, but it's.
1:00:09
Speaker 2: But that's a good, that's a good point.
1:00:11
Speaker 1: They get approached yes, they get approached and they've got to be discerning.
1:00:14
Speaker 1: I think that's a good point.
1:00:14
Speaker 1: They get approached.
1:00:14
Speaker 1: Yes, they get approached, and they've got to be discerning.
1:00:15
Speaker 1: I think that's a very good word and that generally makes them better judges of character than men.
1:00:20
Speaker 1: 100%.
1:00:22
Speaker 2: Okay, 100% yeah, because there's been times where my wife's been like I don't like him.
1:00:28
Speaker 1: Oh, I know my wife's.
1:00:29
Speaker 1: The same way I do not like him.
1:00:31
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say there was somebody, same way I do not.
1:00:37
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna.
1:00:37
Speaker 1: There was somebody, that's cool.
1:00:38
Speaker 1: There was somebody we both know, whose name I won't mention here.
1:00:39
Speaker 1: But my wife said oh my god, don't ever leave me in a room with that person alone.
1:00:43
Speaker 2: Terrible okay, and I'm totally blind evil, evil yeah, I'm like what he said.
1:00:50
Speaker 1: He thought he was okay.
1:00:53
Speaker 1: He's cool as hell man, he's okay.
1:00:55
Speaker 1: We're talking about going into business together my ex-wife too.
1:00:59
Speaker 1: I remember one guy came to visit me he was the chairman of this company and he is pretty much a degenerate, I will admit and my wife said to me afterwards she said, don't ever bring that guy back in our house again.
1:01:12
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, very successful guy, yeah, and you want him back in the house.
1:01:17
Speaker 1: I don't know if I wanted him back in the house, but it's like don't ever bring that guy in the house again.
1:01:23
Speaker 2: Well, I mean not after she said that, yeah, but you wanted it.
1:01:25
Speaker 2: I mean, like you know, because you're trying to do business.
1:01:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was trying to help him out.
1:01:30
Speaker 1: Now, oh it's but.
1:01:31
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, I mean it.
1:01:33
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes our spouses are are good judges of character and we do need to listen to them absolutely and they're intelligent and they see things differently than we do, and that's value some insight I love it and it helps bolster my confidence too in a lot of ways.
1:01:49
Speaker 2: Man, I mean that's, you're right.
1:01:50
Speaker 2: I mean like, especially, like you know, if I have an idea and I tell it to her and she's, she's got some skepticism or or some combat, combative dialogue against it.
1:02:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, not, you know.
1:02:03
Speaker 2: But or I guess what would you say?
1:02:06
Speaker 2: Some, you know, just some response, just challenging, challenging.
1:02:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I'll get pissed off at first, because my idea is always fantastic.
1:02:15
Speaker 2: No, but there's value in that right.
1:02:16
Speaker 2: Then I realize after the car I'm like, yeah, damn, that is really great.
1:02:20
Speaker 2: And then now I'm balanced, I make great decisions, and then I have confidence when I walk up there and I go, this is the decision I'm 100% decisive about, there's like I feel very good.
1:02:30
Speaker 2: And if it doesn't, work out.
1:02:31
Speaker 1: You can always well, you told, well, you told me.
1:02:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
1:02:35
Speaker 2: This is not my fault, this comes into our pure narcissism, you know?
1:02:40
Speaker 1: No, it's true, it's true.
1:02:41
Speaker 1: Well, hey, good show.
1:02:42
Speaker 1: It is a good show.
1:02:44
Speaker 1: We got to wrap it up.
1:02:44
Speaker 1: I feel better about myself and my family.
1:02:46
Speaker 1: Wait, good, I'm glad you do.
1:02:48
Speaker 1: We need to wrap it up.
1:02:51
Speaker 1: I I've got such a busy day today.
1:02:53
Speaker 1: I guess you don't want to spend any more time with me.
1:02:55
Speaker 1: I'd love to spend time with you, but I can't.
1:02:57
Speaker 1: I've got a 1045 AM Zoom call.
1:02:59
Speaker 1: I've got to get on.
1:03:00
Speaker 1: I've got to get back home.
1:03:03
Speaker 1: It's been great being with you today.
1:03:04
Speaker 1: This has been another fun episode of Big Talk about Small-ass.
1:03:14
Speaker 2: Business.
1:03:15
Speaker 2: Thank you, people.
1:03:23
Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
1:03:26
Speaker 3: If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom and click on the Ask the Host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show.
1:03:40
Speaker 3: Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk About Small Business and be sure to head over to our website to read articles, browse episodes and ask questions about upcoming shows.