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Robert Bouchard - From Executive Decisions to Dad Duties · Quarterback DadCast | Intentional Fatherhood & Leadership at Home

• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Riley and I'm Ryder, and this is my dad show.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, it's Casey Jaycox with the quarterback dad cast, and, as I promised, we do finally have a new and exciting sponsor that's going to be joining us over the next 13 weeks or so, and they it is called the authentic edge podcast, which is going to be launching very, very soon.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: It is a podcast that is led by the fantastic and successful Jason DeLuca and executive sales and people leader at Dexian, as well as with a Paul DeFrancenzo, who is a global sales leader at indeedcom.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: This podcast, authentic edge, as I mentioned, is, is launching in the next month and it's really about a journey into the heart and genuine relationships into the workplace.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: So they're going to talk about uncovering the profound impact that authenticity has on establishing instant trust, fostering long-term partnerships, as well as creating serendipitous connections that evolve into endearing business and personal relationships, which is exactly how I would describe my relationship with Jason and Paul.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: So, without further ado, let's get right to the next episode, and I hope that you check out the authentic edge wherever you consume your podcasts.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Well, hey, everybody, it is Casey Jaycox with the quarterback dad cast.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: We are continuing this journey of talking to some fantastic dads, and our next guest is going to be filling that spot as well.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: We are in season five and this gentleman I worked with way back in the day back in 2007-ish for a few years.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: He was a great teammate of mine, based out of the Atlanta region.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: I then reconnected with him at a conference Actually, I reconnected with him before that, but we reconnected in person at this fantastic conference called the TechServe Executive Conference Shout out TechServe and I met his fantastic boss, betsy Robinson.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: But all that stuff.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: He's also the H-1B guy we're learning about that.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: He's the COO of Tier 4.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Pretty cool.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: He's also a Georgia Southern Eagle, but that has nothing to do with why he's going to be on this podcast.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: He's on this podcast today to learn about how Robert Bouchard is working hard to become that ultimate quarterback leader of his home.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: So, without further ado, bobby Bouchard, welcome to the Quarterback Dadcast.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Hey, Casey, Glad to be here man, first take baby.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: How'd we do Beautiful?
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: I mean Mic drop Perfection, oh shit.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Well, this is shit there's.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to put the E on the podcast.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: It's dropped my first ass bomb minute 13 into it.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, al, we always start each episode gratitude, so tell me, what are you most grateful for as a dad today?
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Well, I, uh, I have an eighth grader and a fourth grader and a few weeks ago, uh, my wife and I had an opportunity to go to parent orientation for high school and I looked over at my wife, casey her name's Erin and I said you're old.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: And it made me realize that, man, I'm in this part of my life now where my kids are self-sufficient and you know, you go through these iterations as a parent and when you get to a point to where your kids are actually self-sustainable, self-sufficient you can go out to dinner and enjoy one-on-one time with your wife and come back and the house is still there and everything's still in place, that there are evolutions of being a dad and I'm in the self-sustainable mode with my kids right now and I'm very, very excited and graciously in this spot now where it brings a lot of gratitude to me as a dad.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Love it, Love it.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah it's.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: I remember eighth grade, ninth grade, orientation, and now I have a senior in high school.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: I'm like he's going to college in the fall.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: I'm like what in the F had that happen?
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Um, but I'm like.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, dude, a hundred percent.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: I'm grateful this week.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Um, my daughter, um, we, she and I had a good moment this week.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: She is, so we're recording in end of March, so we'll come out maybe a month or two ish.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Um, and I'm grateful for uh, she's been wanting to get um some basketball training and I love it.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: She's driving and she's like I want to get some training to work on this and that I'm like, okay, cool.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: And so um had an opportunity to to get uh her training with a very, very talented guy, who's beast and a great dude and um, we also she got to train with her cousin as well and then one of the best players in our state and uh, when I and but the bad thing was it was like late at night, it was like a nine o'clock at night, which is not ideal to do a basketball training.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: But I, I told my wife, I said I'll listen, I'll take him for the team, I'll drive her up.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: There's like a 30 minute drive, um, and I always tell my kids you'll never regret working out, you'll never regret working out.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: And uh, she's like I don't want to do it.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, seriously, these two people.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I'm like yeah, and she's like, oh, my god, I'm so excited.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: She was so excited and just the time.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: So, like I dropped her off and I hung out, listened to a podcast, caught up with my brother-in-law, and then just um, uh, listened to a podcast and then it was like a 10 30 night.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: We're driving back.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: We didn't get to bed till like 11 15 school night.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: But she's got straight A's and she works her ass off and she's super driven, like why wouldn't I do that for her?
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: And so I'm just grateful for that moment, that one.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: It's her journey, she's driving it, um, we've found her passion where she's found her passion, and now we're just supporting it.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: And um, it was so fun just to like see how happy she was and um, it's, it's.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: It's a super, super fun moment.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: You know, hearing the story about Riley, you know, and I know you shared with me the game winning shot a few months ago and always think about, like it's, these steps along the way and you think about as kids develop, when they have that drive and passion, like as a parent, I'd be willing to drive anywhere if they're that motivated.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a blast dude.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Well, bobby, I'm going to call you Bobby Robert, we might change it up.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Bring me inside the Bouchard huddle, talk about how you and Aaron met and talk a little bit about both each children.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: So Aaron and I met at Georgia Southern University.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: We were college sweethearts, we worked in a shoe store together and she lived above some of my fraternity brothers at the time and I definitely pursued her and I think she finally gave in to my persistence and we, you know, we've had a really great journey and I moved to Atlanta following her.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I always wanted to live in the big city and you know Atlanta is, is, is everything that a big city should be.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: We started our careers, got married in 2007.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: And you know the country song, got a dog, bought a house, had kids, right.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: But we have a really humble 13, almost 14-year-old son that's in eighth grade, plays competitive baseball.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: We have a 10, soon-to-be 11-year-old daughter that's in the fourth grade and swims competitively.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: But man, we're just a normal family, casey, and I know that that's not always the most exciting thing to say, but it is.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: We live the American dream.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: We live in a great neighborhood, we have a great family, we have great friends, we have great occupations and we have kids that look like us and act like us and challenge us and push us every day.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: And I think that you know the inside the house is that you know, we just live day to day.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Live day to day, casey, and I think that that's the thing as a parent is yesterday.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: We can't go back.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Live today, in the present, and I think our kids are catching that from us, like our work ethic, our presence, and I think that's one of the things that if you were to ask the kids hey, tell us about your parents, were to ask the kids, hey, tell us about your parents Uh, we're different, but we're present and we're available, and I think that that's really the peak behind is that we're just a normal family of four with good balance and, um, yeah, I think that's really what.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: What it is.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: That's the peak behind Love it.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Um, okay, so now I like going a little more back in time.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Quote share, turn back time yeah, that's hell yeah I remember thinking that song.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: I think about uh, uh, will and grace oh yeah, sean hayes oh my god, so funny when he did that.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: Um, okay, completely random.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Now we're going serious.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Tell me about what was life like growing up for you, and I'd love to understand the impact your parents had on you Now that you're a dad.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I grew up in Brunswick, georgia, which is a coastal tourist town about an hour South of Savannah and an hour North of Jacksonville.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: My parents were both college educated.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: My dad was in the Air Force before going to the University of Illinois.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: My mom went to David Lipscomb University in Nashville, tennessee.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: They got tired of the cold winters in Illinois and when my mom was pregnant with me, they moved south to Brunswick and I grew up in Brunswick my entire life.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I've never lived out of the state of Georgia.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I had a very normal childhood.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: I played competitive sports.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: My grandparents were very involved in my life, in my life, and I grew up in a really loving house, very open, an emotional family, blood, sweat and tears and, I think, a lot.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Parents spend most of their time now in South Florida and they're still involved in our lives and in my children's lives and I think, just you know, seeing my parents go through the ups and downs of marriage, through the eighties, nineties and then their retirement years, has definitely molded me to to be the dad that I am, which is, I'd like to think, really loving, firm but loving.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: What sports did you play.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Loving Firm, but loving what?
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: sports did you play?
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: So, casey, I was above average in a lot of sports, but I've mainly excelled in golf, baseball and football and that's what I played in high school.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: When I was younger I played a little bit of soccer and basketball.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: As I've gotten older, more of the country club sports still golf, a little tennis and I definitely have had some interest more recently in pickleball.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: That's definitely taken on the tennis community by storm Was one of those things.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: When it comes to sports, I always hated losing like hated it, terrible loser, and I think a lot of that has carried over into my adulthood, where I still struggle with losing and stomaching the losses.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Tell me more about mom and dad.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: What did they do for work?
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: So my dad was a social worker and also an assistant principal for a period of time.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I was a social worker and also an assistant principal for a period of time, but social worker for the school system Glen County schools that I grew up in.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: My mom was a high school teacher.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: She actually taught me I was in her economics class as a senior in high school so both my parents were educators and I think that through that learn the importance of how important education is.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: My dad was the first college graduate in his family, my mother was the second, her older sister being the first, the first, and so you know it's that first generation education and how important that was for them and instilling that in my life.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: And when you think about teachers right, the whole aspect of teachers are underpaid.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Generally it's a pretty common theme out there.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Educators are underpaid but the retirement systems for teaching are incredible.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: So when you think about, yes, they may be initially underpaid during their professional career but in their afterlife my parents talk about, they make more now in retirement than they did when they were working full time and that's because of the retirement system here and I think that's enabled them to do a lot of things in their life, that in retirement, that a lot of other people don't get the opportunity to do.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Now do you have any brothers or sisters?
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: So I grew up in an only child household, but later in life I found out that I actually have a half brother and a half sister and, you know, working through the dynamics of what that is like was definitely something that was very interesting at the time.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: But I'm much more comfortable in talking about that and being open with that now, because I have relationships with both of them that I didn't have growing up but I do now.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: When did you find out that you had half brother, half sister 2019.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, pretty recent, last four or five years.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Wow, more happy to keep going there.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: We can shift gears and not keep going there.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that you know this is one of those things where technology right has opened up a lot of relationships that individuals like myself didn't know existed.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: And the point that I will make is you have to be careful what you ask for, casey, because during 2017, 2018, my wife were on a journey where we were getting some things in place life insurance will and while we were writing our will, I had this moment where I'm like, wow, I don't have any immediate family in my life outside of cousins or friends, and then, literally a year later, I find out that I have a half sister and then, a little later than that, a half brother.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: So it's funny how our paths are woven for us, and I literally had this moment where I was like, wow, I don't have anyone.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: And then I did, and so you know, I choose to embrace it from a positive perspective and know that those were things that are outside of my control and you know very grateful to have relationships that I do with them, that I have now.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: How did you find out you had a half brother, half sister?
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: I'm curious.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Ancestry DNA.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Mm, hmm.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: And so what did?
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: What did you?
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: Do you research it?
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Then how did it?
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: I'm getting curious guy here, so yeah, um, it was a a moment of shock and surprise.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: A moment of shock and surprise, that's for sure.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah and um, you know, recently, over the last couple of years you know this is from from my, my father's side uh, recently over the last couple of years, um, you know, to see my father embrace it and be public with it, yeah, has allowed me to be more public in an understanding of it, right, um, and you know, it's like one of those things where it was like, hey, this was a cool sounding Christmas present that then turned into a Whoa, you have a half sister and a half brother and the reality that my family grew.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: How did you learning that you had a half brother, half sister impact you as a dad?
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Hmm, um, well, I think it makes you realize very quickly that, um, what is in the past you can't change and you can only choose to address the here and now and how I respond to future situations that are going to come up right, where my kids may mess up.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: How am I going to react to it?
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Or we make mistakes in our lives as as adults that you know have repercussions, and how, how we choose to handle those, which, for me, I chose to look at it from at first confused and surprised to it's a positive.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I have other folks that I share DNA with that I didn't know, you know, for really the first three, fourths of my life.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: And how, uh, how did you, how did you share with your kids when you found out?
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they, um, they got to meet their cousin this was back right before the pandemic for the first time and, um, you know, kids don't understand a lot of the adult mistakes or past transgressions, right, and so they immediately hit it off with their cousin and they were best friends, right.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: And for me as an adult, and seeing that that also allows you to kind of let down some of your guard and be real, right.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: It's crazy how much our kids teach us how to work with people.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: They're forgiving, they're accepting, they don't judge.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: They're open.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: They're curious.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they catch that from us later in life, right.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they, they catch that from us later in life, right.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what?
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Um?
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: So, as you think about growing up, well, actually real quick, before I go on that, how, how often do you get to see your stepbrother and sister?
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Um, not often.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: They both live in separate parts of of the country and, um, you know, I think the pandemic created a gap for a pretty significant period of time.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: But you know, the good thing on for my parents is that they are building relationships with them, and for me that's a really positive to see, and so I'd like to say I'd love for it to be more, but you know, distance and and time has has put some restrictions on that Totally.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, growing up played sports.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: A couple of teachers in the house I mean social worker and a teacher talk about the values that were like super important in your house that you've now applied in your family.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Hmm, yeah, I think definitely work ethic is one for sure.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: That was just instilled in me very early on, but also in my wife's family too, like my, my in-laws, particularly my father-in-law like a very strong work ethic.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: That was instilled in my wife very early on.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Not only was, you know, I playing sports and going through high school, but I also worked part-time.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: As soon as I was 16 and could drive, I was working.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: I wanted to have that 5.25 an hour in my pocket, right, so I could do something with it.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: But definitely work ethic, I think, also a lot of love and generosity.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: My parents are both very loving and they're both very generous and I think that those with the work ethic and the love and the generosity is something that you know I've really tried to bring to our house, our household, and my wife as well.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Erin is amazing at her work ethic, her love and her generosity.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: So I think it's really those three things that I picked up from my parents.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: How did they teach work ethic?
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: And that example is no matter what you did the night before or how bad you feel the morning you wake up, whether you're not feeling well due to a variety of reasons, you've got to get up and show up every day.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: You have to Party hard, work hard.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and just in general right, Like you know as well as I do, Casey, some days we wake up a lot more disciplined and motivated to go slay it.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: But I think just the consistency of my parents getting up my mom is a multiple cancer survivor, has had rheumatoid arthritis.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: My entire life has been through multiple surgeries, surgeries and that never impacted her showing up into her classroom to teach, and I think, just seeing that sheer determination and will, that I've got to show up every day, no matter how I feel from a health perspective.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: And the same for my dad, who he coached early on in high school sports, but as I got older he scaled that back because it was taking away his presence for me and my life, and so I think that that really is the biggest thing that I took is that you know it's catching the behavior right.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: You know it's catching the behavior right.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Experiencing the consistency of it is, I think, what I take away from their work ethic in my house growing up.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: That, to me, talks about mindset having the right mindset.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Out of curiosity, describe where your parents developed that mindset that taught you these habits.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think for my dad it's that he.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: He grew up really poor.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: My grandfather was a World War II veteran and very mechanical.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: He grew up in the Northeast Fall River, westport, massachusetts area and you know my mom was blue, very blue collar, midwestern.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: My grandfather on my mother's side, also World War II veteran but was a lifer for General Electric, worked in the factory at General Electric as part of the union there, and so I just think that those things when you think about you know, growing up in the late 40s, 50s and 60s, you know a lot of folks worked for the same company their entire lives and now that's so different, right?
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Most people are working for, on average, 12 to 15 different companies over the course of their career, different companies over the course of their career.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: And so I think the consistency and what it takes to get out of growing up poor on my dad's side and then on my mother's side, growing up more in a Midwestern middle class family but had a lot of consistency from her dad and showing up every day and working for the same company for 30 plus years- yeah, it's funny how um these moments make us think as parents, and so I was.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: I was traveling a few weeks ago and I was on the east coast and I like exercising in my fitness goals sarcastic but yet true.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Don't get fat, don't get hurt.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: So I'm a hard no on pickleball.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Hard no, because that's an Achilles waiting to blow and I know my competitiveness.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: I'll probably start laying out.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: I might play light, maybe some couples where I don't get too crazy, but I want to be able to play golf and not get, and just you know, some light exercise, but anyway.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: So I'm on the East coast, I fly out on a Monday, I have to wake up early Tuesday 615, which is 315 Seattle time and I have to be like am I going to work out or am I going to say oh, you know, case it's, it's.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: You.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Take the week off, dude your East coast, sleep in with your body.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: And immediately, what I thought of, as I always tell my kids, you'll never, ever regret working out, you'll never regret working out and so then that's what motivated me and once I got in it, you know, I gave me juice for the day, felt better about myself, my mind was clear and then I could tell my.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: Now I had another story to tell my kids when I got home about mindset and making choices.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: When I got home, about mindset and making choices and um.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: So it's funny how you said this story about your mom and you know the arthritis and I'm sorry that she had cancer and good, good, good for her, for keep fighting that fight.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: Um, this cancer sucks.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, it just.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: It's like these moments are like every moment to teaching, moment in life that we can share a story with our kids, if you, if you really get curious with it, I think.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I, I just I go back and I think about like what it took for her to get up every day, to show up and be in a classroom of 17 and 18 year old high school kids and literally not feeling well every day.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Um was something that I observed, right, I mean, I observed that for years and I think that that that you know if I look at like that and how there are no excuses and not showing up to work when somebody like that in your life is showing up every day carrying the mail.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Um about the Achilles, though, so I tore my go go ahead real quick on that.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: I want to go back and just like first for the listeners at home I was being a little sarcastic, they weren't idiots, she was teaching, they weren't morons.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: I just say us, as boys, we're, we're not the sharpest tools in the shed.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Uh, girls, you're smarter species.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Us boys we're not that bright, but we become smarter in life later.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: So that's's what I meant.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: So I don't want to offend anybody, but a little context.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: All right, talk about your Achilles.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: So February of 2018, I'd been playing church basketball pickup and went to box out under the rim and blew my right Achilles and could not drive for three months.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: And you want to talk about testing your marriage and your wife's metal when she has to drive you to work a couple of times a week and you are reliant on her to get you from point A to point B other than a Lyft or an Uber.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Let's just say we got a lot closer, a lot faster, and it was very humbling for me when I went through that injury, because you know, I think a lot of times, casey, we think we're invincible, and once you experience a crippling injury like that, it has an impact on your mindset.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: It really does.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: It makes it's made me a little bit more cautious as I've gotten older, that's for sure.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: So I can relate to uh to the comments on on pickleball.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Love and generosity.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Tell me, how did they show that and how are you sharing that with your kids?
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, um, I think from a a love perspective I know I keep talking about it's, it's presence, but it's also reinforcement, both in verbal reinforcement and behavioral actions.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Right, and I think when we look at love as a word, it can mean a lot of different things to different people, but for me it's about being present, which they always were.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: They were always.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: My parents were always there for me in my life.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Wherever I needed them, they were there.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: If I messed up, if I did, great, it was.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: How can we address this and move forward?
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Or hey, good job, let's keep going.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Generosity this isn't just about financial giving, but it comes to time and talent, and I know I mentioned, you know, my father is a social worker One of the things we used to do every Thanksgiving was deliver turkeys, and so from when I was in elementary school all the way through high school, we delivered turkeys around Thanksgiving to the poor, to the less fortunate, those that weren't going to have a turkey unless we delivered those turkeys, with the canned goods and the stuffing and everything that went along with that.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: And I think every year I would look forward to the impacts that we were making when we'd show up with bags of food for these families and I never went without anything.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: And so I think generosity yes, there's a financial aspect to it right, donating and contributing to charities and good causes but it's more about time and talent as well, and that time component comes back to presence, and I think just learning and being around that, where every year I'd look forward to the turkey drive delivering the food and some of these homes that I would walk into, casey made me realize how fortunate I was and the things that we take for granted.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Growing up in, you know, middle class household, like I did, I see others that are much less fortunate in how they're living and growing up, and you quickly realize I'm spoiled, I got it pretty good, and so I think that's where the generosity comes in.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Um, it really is about, uh, spending time and contributing to those that that are less fortunate than than we are, and contributing to those that that are less fortunate than than we are.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Do you, uh, do you guys have a tradition now where you, you and your family, provide generosity, whether it's turkeys or it's something else?
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so one of the things that, um, that that we do here, um, we've we've been pretty involved, uh, over the past with, um, with food drives from us ministries, and so that's just a.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: It's a food pantry here, local um, for a while we were involved in a church that would make uh sack lunches and, uh, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for for camp kids that would otherwise not have that, and so, um, we've done that in the past and I think you know now, when you look at coat drives and how important those are, having an opportunity just to get out and things that are trash can be others' treasures, and so, yeah, I'd say that's really the extent of our involvement right now.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: We need to be more involved and, you know, unfortunately excuses can come into play here, but it is about the power of you know I will right, you know I will Right, and and and saying like, look, hey, um, as, as we talk about it now, like how do we increase our generosity?
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Well, it, it comes back to time and talent and making a dedicated commitment to that.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: I think you might've just accidentally quoted a Macklemore song Another man's trash is another man's come up with killer Mike too, or uh, I don't know.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know, but that's, that's whenever I hear.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Sometimes people say things and it's like triggers a song I have to get out of my head or I just I go random on people.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: But we, I learned this thing called um rack friday um random, which stands for random acts of kindness and I learned from from a friend named Travis Thomas in this journey.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Shout out, trav.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: And so, like, over Thanksgiving, we'll get, like you know, each kid will get, you know, 50 bucks of Starbucks cards, $5 Starbucks cards.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: And we just go and we sing, we just go up to random people and saying, hey, have you been racked before?
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: They're like what?
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: Like I hear random acts of kindness, happy holidays, they're like what you know?
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Um, where we play golf I, that's where Ryder did it he went and like, went up to everybody like random people and um, it just, and you see the joy in people's face.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: There's a security guard at the gate, it's a gated community we have to go through to get to the golf course, and so this lady goes.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Every time I see her and she's like nice, I go.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: And I gave her and the look on her face when she got a Starbucks card five bucks blew her mind, you know.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: But it's like, how often are we slowing down?
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: A to give it doesn't have to be, you know, financially, could be time or treasures, like you said, but like, think about slowing down to teach these, our kids, these lessons.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: You know, cause, you know, just like anything, you want to find it.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: You want to leave it better than you found it.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: You want to give your kids a life better than your parents gave you.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: Nothing against our parents, but, like, that's what our goal is.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: It's like you, hopefully, that our kids learn mom, dad worked their ass off.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Look at them.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: And now, how can I make sure?
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: Because, like sometimes you know I have really good kids, they're grounded.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Um, and we've been very fortunate through the consulting staffing industry.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: We both, we both work in and worked in and it if you, if you, if you're really good at it, they pay you well and it gives you, it gives you a life that you didn't anticipate.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: No, and so I don't feel guilty about that.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: But I want to make sure my kids I don't make them feel guilty about it.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: But I used to teach like, hey, we don't have like a money tree, you don't just plant it and stuff, or a blimp just drops cash out of the sky.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: It's like you know.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: And so, like when I was prepped to come speak at you guys, I purposely would hey guys, dad's going to go practice.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to practice my speech.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: So it's so, I'm ready to go.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: So, like they when I asked them to go, if they're going to like go to the golf course or shoot or lift, or it's like, listen, I'm doing the same, I'm asking you to do the same thing, I'm asking myself.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: So I think it's like I'm super important.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: continue to walk the walk as dads yeah, yeah, we're not doing it enough here, and you know, putting this out into the, the podcast verse, has brought that realization to me, right?
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: That, um, we've sat good examples in the past, but you've got to be consistent with those yep, totally yeah.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: And then that's the power of grace.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: So we got to give ourselves grace.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: But that's like one of my my quotes, my boy, johnny Kaplan.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: He says it's okay not to know, but not okay not to do something about it.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: So once we find a gap, we got two choices rationalize the excuses in a manner that makes sense when really it doesn't.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: No well, we love to be the hero of our own story or the victim, that's true.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Both you know right, we're really good at convincing ourselves, all these things.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: Hello everybody, my name is Craig Coe and I'm the Senior Vice President of Relationship Management for Beeline.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: For more than 20 years, we've been helping Fortune 1000 companies drive a competitive advantage with their external workforce.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: In fact, Beeline's history of first-to-market innovations has become today's industry standards.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: I get asked all the time what did Casey do for your organization?
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: And I say this it's simple.
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: The guy flat out gets it.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: Relationships matter.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: His down-to-earth presentation, his real-world experience apply to every area of our business.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: In fact, his book Win the Relationship and Not the Deal has become required reading for all new members of the Global Relationship Management team.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: If you'd like to know more about me or about Beeline, please reach out to me on LinkedIn.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: And if you don't know Casey Jaycox, go to CaseyJaycoxcom and learn more about how he can help your organization.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: Now let's get back to today's episode.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: As you think back to the things you learned about in life and you think, and you think and you think about, like the journey you've been on, what, what's been like an area of your dad game where you're like man, not, not, not my best, and here's an area that I I know I have to get better at.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: What would it.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: What would that?
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Be, oh, casey, this is a tough one because you gotta be honest with yourself when you answer this question and it hurts to put this out in the universe, but it's the truth and that's projecting my own insecurities on my kids.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how, how um, I think it goes back to what I said about hating losing right and whether that's in school or in sports or in cred or status, right, um, we've got to let our kids be who they're meant to be, not who we want them to be.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: And my insecurities of never being the best or the fastest or the smartest or the funniest right.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: You can't project those insecurities on your kids.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: I'm getting better at it.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: I will get better at it as I've gotten older, I've gotten calmer, but I still have a very quick trigger when it comes to the patience, and I think that that's the thing that for me and how I'm wound is really challenging is to have that patience and not project my own insecurities on my kids.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, shout out.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Brother, that took strength to say that.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: I know every parent at home.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: You're lying to yourself If you don't be honest with yourself.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: We've all done it.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: I've learned some tricks along the way that helped me, kind of one.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: I think gratitude practice helps with that, and I joke with my kids.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: I would say dad's got zero eligibility left.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: So I like, using the phrase I got taught, I taught you guys to tell me what's changed.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: I used to say if my kids aren't working hard like I think they should, if I tell them they need to work hard that's my idea I just say, hey, tell me what's changed.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: Like, what do you mean?
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: Like, I'm just curious, have your goals changed?
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not manipulating them, I'm just asking them a tough question to make them think.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Like, cause, you told me you wanted to do this.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Have your goals changed?
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Like, oh, do you think what you're doing now is going to help you achieve that?
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: No-transcript to.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go play, but though, yeah, 100, I don't want them to do something they have to love it they don't do it for us.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: I think it's okay to teach our kids that, like I told, hey, don't don't do this sport because of us.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: And we have to remember too that, like one of the great quotes in life, tony bennett, basketball coach for washington state and also virginia yep, only 16 seed, only once he'd ever lose to a 16 seed in the history of the ncaa tournament and he said adversity is life's golden ticket.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: He told his teammate team next year they won it.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, sometimes we as parents, guilty as charged early, when I was early in the journey, we'd like, when they'd fail, we're like, oh, no, yeah, but that's what they learn, that's the growth, that's the best, the best like.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: I think back to, like an injury I had in high school that dramatically changed who I was as a person.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I learned so much about humility, vulnerability, curiosity.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: Then I was learning it then.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Now, as I look back, but if I don't have that injury, none of this happens right, and my parents could have protected me, like you know, but they they didn't.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: They just said, hey, sorry, life sucks, figure it out.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: We love you.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you've got to let your kids fail Right, and that's as a parent.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: The hardest thing to do is to see them fail and what those repercussions of those are.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: And looking back on it like now, I realize some of the facial expressions and emotions that I received from my parents when I was failing, you know, yeah.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: But if we don't fail, we don't set them up for success.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: That's right, Because I've yet to see someone have the perfect life, perfect stuff for you know, and we have to give ourselves them grace that, yeah, you can get on them, but we're not perfect either yeah you know, it's like it's a journey of like, holding them accountable, inspiring them, but meeting them where they are.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: That realize that like, and you know, but it's so, uh, it's so.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: It's so hard sometimes.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: Um, have you ever heard about the car ride home article?
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: No, so shout out to bruce brown, one of the most fantastic coaches in the state of washington.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: He's done talks all over the world, um, he's a former guest in the podcast, he?
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, he spoke on stage with a guy named.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: Um.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, john wooden heard him.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a little little, not nice.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: That pretty good career wizard of westwood yeah not too bad, right so, but but john um coach brown wrote article um and gave a talk, which is about the car ride home as parents, and so he interviewed hundreds of high school pro uh athletes and said what's the number one uh worst memory, what's the thing you love most about high school sports and what's the number one?
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Or grown up and what's the number one worst thing you'd liked about growing up?
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: And the number one, resounding answer was the car ride home.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: Because mom and dad would just torch them.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: And what they loved was when grandma and grandpa would go, because their grandma and grandpa would say, man, I love watching you play.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: And what he teaches.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: It's like if your kid cares, if they're doing the sport they love not because you want them to do it, but what they love and like if they make an error at third base, you get them in the car.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: It's like oh, what are you doing, dude?
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: How did you?
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: Make that play you suck, god dang it versus man, I love watching you play.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: It's so fun watching you compete.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: And if your kid cares about that, they'll say dad, what are you talking about?
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: I made an error.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: I'm like, but did you try your best?
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, did you mean to do it?
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: Did you tank it on purpose?
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Okay, well then, keep working.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: And when I learned to do that and let that go and just like want to get in the car because it's when you have a bad day at work, are your kids riding home with you and just torching you like hey, dad, you're you suck at typing today.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: Your speed was really low and that interview, you really did not ask the right great, ted-based questions.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: And what are you doing about this?
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: I mean you, I saw the look on your team's face.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: You didn't inspire them.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Like, imagine if they did that to us.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: How do we feel?
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've gotten better at this as I've gotten older.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: The car ride home yeah, I still have my weakness breakdowns, but for the most part I've gotten a lot better at this, lot better at this.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: And my son this past weekend he plays outfield and pitches on a top academy team here in the Atlanta area and we played another really top regional team and he pitched in three innings and held them at bay, but he also struck out three times in that game.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: So we got in the car and we said, hey, there was some really good you shut down one of the top offenses in the area and some really bad you didn't put the bat on the ball and three at bats.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: What can we learn from this?
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: Right, and knowing when to have that conversation it isn't immediate, it's now.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: I let him open up and start to talk about it.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: And then, hey, what did we learn from that?
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: What will we do again next time?
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah Well, and I think the sooner I think about baseball, the sooner kids who play that sport realize you're going to fail more than you're going to succeed.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: You know, Seven out of ten times right.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: Right, it's like that is, you know, and Ryder, he plays golf.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: So it's like that's a sport of failure and a mental just just kicks you when you're down and you know, sometimes the golf guts say you know you're gonna have a blow up round today.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: We're gonna test you.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: That's right, it's gonna be fun.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah well, and that's because the ball doesn't move right, you move it.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: That's the funny thing about golf that you know, if you think about all the sports we play, it's one of the fewer.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: The the ball is is is idle, it does not move, you move it.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: And that's where things can get sideways pretty quickly in that sport.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: So the wide world of staffing found you way back in the day and I think we both were.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, we grew up with sports heroes and we had guys staffing guys on our wall right.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: We always knew we wanted to get into staffing.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Right, exactly, I'm having sarc staffing Right.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly no.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how the hell did you find it?
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I, um, I always like to joke that, uh, there's no degree for staffing, right, we don't go to school and get a staffing degree?
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Um, I was working for a technology company at the time here in Atlanta that did IT support outsourced for small to medium sized businesses, and they were struggling to identify system administrators, engineers, network engineers, and came to me and said, hey, robert, do you think you can find us some candidates?
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: And I was like I don't know, sure.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: So I self-taught myself how to write Boolean.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: I used this website that is no longer around called computerjobscom, and started posting jobs, started talking and screening candidates, and from there I jumped over into the agency side about a year and a half later.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: And I quickly realized, Casey, that the more phone calls I made, the more people I talked to and the more candidates I submitted to jobs, the higher the probability I had to make placements and make money.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: And so recruiting for me fulfilled two characteristics that I possess, and that is, I'm driven by competition and I love to win and make money.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: And so those two things when you think about recruiting, whether you're on the sales side of the house or you're on the recruiting side of the house sales side of the house or you're on the recruiting side of the house.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: It literally can become an uncapped occupation where the more placements you make, the more folks you have working for you, the more perm hires you make.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: You can watch your W-2 go up and up and up.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: And I had the opportunity.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: You know we were colleagues at K-Force.
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: I went through some incredible training Shout out to Paul and Rich and.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Dave and all the folks from K-Force that had these incredible training programs, and I learned to do things the right way from a staffing perspective very early on.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: And it's the other side to that Casey is.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: I've always been a connector and so I think that that fulfilled this like desire in me from a professional aspect of oh yes, I know this person.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: I think he'd be a good fit for this job, or I know her.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: I think she might be a great fit for this job.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: And so my memory and my names and faces not going to say photographic, but ability to remember people from 10, 15, 20 years ago in my life and what they did or do has what's kept me in this industry, as long as it has is that I just have a knack for the business and I say on my LinkedIn profile recruiting is life, because it's provided an amazing life for me and I know it's done the same for you and many others in our life, where we get to not only change people's careers and lives, but we get paid to do it you know, it's pretty, pretty cool and I mean, I remember I first got into I was like what wait, what am I doing?
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: like it didn't even make sense, like wait, so we're gonna help people find a contract job, like what the hell it's like.
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: But you know, you great grateful for a time, met a lot of great people, you included, and um, uh man, you think about adversity.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: I, I mean, think about the adversity we face in that industry.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: What's you know, sports prepares us for that.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: So, um, talk about everyone's like I joke in the beginning the H1B guy like what the hell is that?
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Like, talk to people about H1B guide, your website, the channel and how you're helping um solve some problems there.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: So, um, I learned very early on when I moved to the agency side of recruiting that there is this thing called an H-1B, and I didn't know what this thing was.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: I knew it was a work visa, but, just like most average Americans, casey, they think folks go down to the DMV to get a work visa, and that's not how it works.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: It's, in fact, extremely complicated.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: And so over time, I learned that if I was going to play software engineers or if I was going to place very high tech niche skill sets and contract based roles, that I needed to figure out what the heck this H1B thing was, and so I committed to understanding it and building partnerships and relationships with folks that were living and working in the US on H-1B visas.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: And over time, my experience expanded and I had an opportunity to build a very large immigration program for a staffing firm here in Atlanta.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: We had identified very early on that there was a lot of opportunities we were missing because the skill sets were only H-1B visas, and so from there I became known as hey, go ask Robert, he's the H-1B guy, he can answer that question and my ability to kind of connect dots in terms of how complicated the H-1B visa is employment-based green card sponsorship, and when we start to look at what that means in tech, I became a subject matter expert for you know, a $225 million staffing firm and over the course of the next four, four and a half, almost five years, we built a program from literally nothing to over $5 million, with almost 50 individuals working on RW2 as our own H-1B visas.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: And then the climate changed in 2014, 2015, when the Trump administration came into office, and so I pivoted a little bit to become more of a delivery leader over a very large enterprise account here in Atlanta, become more of a delivery leader over a very large enterprise account here in Atlanta, and then COVID hits March of 2020.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: And that account goes from 32 consultants billing to 12 overnight and, like a lot of folks in staffing, my role was impacted right before Memorial Day of 2020.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: So, coming up on almost four years now and I took some time off, casey, because the industry is tough, right, staffing is a grind and a lot of folks that we know burn out, and I was teetering on that place in my staffing career and the vision of the H1B guy came to me that I knew there were staffing firms and tech startups that needed consultative help and how to not only employ H-1B visas but how to have compliance and build programs and talent acquisition around it.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: So I decided that I'm going to launch a consulting practice and I'm going to target staffing firms that are in my network and tech startups that I know and, through iterating on that, I decided that for credibility sake, I needed a website, and I always.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: I've been on YouTube for almost 20 years now and follow a lot of different folks on YouTube, but I decided that I'd go out and look and see who's talking about employment-based immigration on YouTube, and it was a lot of attorneys and immigrants.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: There wasn't me, right, a guy from a staffing background that is a normal, everyday American, and so I launched the channel on June 29th of 2020.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: I got my first client day one and it took off from there.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: Now, I'm not a mega YouTuber, I'm a very small.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: I'm not a mega YouTuber.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: I'm a very small, organic channel, but I have a little over 6,300 subscribers on the channel, 25,000 plus views a month.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: The website averages about 15 to 20,000 views a month, and so folks come to me because I'm not an attorney and I'm not an immigrant and I provide a very real opinion and a lot of information and really advice surrounding H-1B visas and this thing called the green card backlog, and that the green card backlog, along with the H-1B visa, allow me to marry my political interests along with my professional interests, and I think because of that, that's why I've had the success that I've had with the platform is that it's a passion project for me and so it's a COVID baby was born in the height of COVID and going to be celebrating four years here in a couple of months.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: But through that I've had an opportunity, casey, to meet people all around the world it's a global platform and also have the opportunity, through my network, to get introduced to the great people at Tier 4 Group.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: And I met Betsy Robinson in February of 2021, when the staffing world was really starting to take off and the post-pandemic emergence.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: And Betsy said hey, rob, I know you do H-1B visa, but can you help me on the staffing side?
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: And I said sure, what do you need help with?
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: Then she said I don't know, but I need your help.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: And what was supposed to be part-time a few hours a week quickly led to full-time, which led to me then, over the next year and a half serving as what I call a COO in training, and in January of 2023, I became a full-time employee and in my time with Tier 4 Group, we've tripled our internal team size, doubled our revenue and expanded our reach across the lower 48.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: And it's just been a really wild ride.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: And the um you know the H1B guy.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: That platform is one of the reasons why I am where I am, because of the opportunities that it's open for me.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: So cool, so cool.
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: Well, I, I, it's, it's.
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: We'll make sure a that every that tier four, uh, which is a fantastic, a diversity owned staffing company in Atlanta doing great things.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: I had the luckiness to go speak, thanks to you, robert, and fell in love with your guys' culture, fell in love with the people, fell in love with Betsy.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: I think she's fantastic and we'll make sure that's linked in the show notes.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: We'll make sure the H-1B page is linked in the show notes so people can research.
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: If you're on a visa, if you want to try to get a visa, if you're working at a company you have no idea about immigration and sponsorship.
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: I've worked with this guy for years.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: I've seen an action and I've seen him as the grown-up dad, as a COO, and it's been impressive to see the growth I've seen from the sidelines.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: So good on you, brother.
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, as we wrap up here and we think about summarizing things we've talked about that dads at home can take to, to put into actionable tasks, to to become that ultimate quarterback or leader of their home, tell me a couple, two or three like things that come to mind that dads can take from a our conversation, from an advice perspective.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: So the first thing that I have is kind of like, when we type that email up and we go back and delete it because it's with emotion, it's play it back in your head before it happens, and so it isn't necessarily a think before you speak, but it's a what are my actions going to cause in terms of a reaction?
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: And is it better for me to instill an environment that is positive and reinforcing versus negative and obliterating?
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: And it's very tough to find that balance, and so I think the action item that I have for myself and for other dads that are that are listening is um, is BU.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: But make sure that if you before you BU, play that back in your head and try to determine what's the cause and effect of, of what's about to go down here and what my reaction is going to cause from a, from an actionable standpoint.
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: Love it.
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: Simple, powerful it's like.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Like Stephen Covey says, begin with the end in mind.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: Um my good friend Bert on the East coast.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: He always says what's your outcome?
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what's your end game.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: The call to action right.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like what do we want to do?
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: So one of my best piece of advice I got early in my career you can.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: the guy said you want to be right, or do you want to get what you want?
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: We use that in our environment too, casey and and the answer is always we want to win, so we want to get what we want, and that's when.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, love it.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, it's now time, uh, to go into the lightning round.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: Where I go?
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: I go completely random.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: I ask you questions, I show you the, the hit, the, the negative effects of taking too many hits not bong hits, but football hits in college.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: Your job is to answer these questions as quickly as you can.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: My job is to try to get a giggle out of you.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: All right, all right, okay, true or false?
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: The reason why your daughter's so into swimming is because you are a speedo around the house.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: False.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: False false, false.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: You're trying so hard not to laugh.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: It's impressive.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, you almost got me.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: Almost Okay, true or false.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: You're known as the Dale Murphy of Tier 4.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: No, we have a shout out to my boy, Peter, but he's the Dale Murphy on our team.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: If I was to come to your house for dinner tonight, tell me what we'd have.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: All right, Casey, this one's going to hit you all in the feels, but it's shrimp and grits man.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: I love some shrimp and grits.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: I told you I had it first time with Charleston, so good yeah.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'll whip up that, that gold N old Niles flavor of of shrimp and grits for you.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: There we go, maybe some chicken and waffles after that.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, talking my language right there, man.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: Chicken and waffles, so good, okay.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: Um, if I was to go on your phone right now, what would be the one song that the people at tier four be like?
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: What, robert, you listened to that song.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: What would surprise them?
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Well, we just got back from uh, from Costa Rica was listening to this Shakira and Kathy G song.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: I think it is called TQQ.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: I have no idea what they're saying because it's all in Spanish, but it was one of the songs that stood out while we were in Costa Rica listening to their top 100.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: That surprised me.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: I thought you were going to say hips don't lie, but maybe, maybe not.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: If you were to book a vacation right now with you and Aaron, tell me where you'd go without kids.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: Well, aaron wants to go to Greece, so that's the answer.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: I want to go to Hawaii.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: I've not been yet she's been, so I think Greece is the answer, casey.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: I would love to go to Greece.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: Uh, not to make jealous, but I'm going to Hawaii in like six days.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: Well, you did.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: You made me jealous.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: You send me a text while you're there.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, I will.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: I will Tell me the last book you read.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Last book I read um parenting get it right by Get it Right by Andy and Sandra Stanley.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: Andy Stanley is a pastor here in Metro Atlanta and it talks about the four phases of parenting and it breaks it down like the first phase is discipline, years 0 through 5.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: The second phase is training years 5 through 12.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: Third phase is coaching years 12 through 18.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: And then the last phase is friendship and that's 18 plus, and the biggest takeaway from that is we want to raise kids that want to spend time with us when it's their choice.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: Gold Love it.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: Favorite comedy movie.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: I knew you were going to ask me this, man, but it's got to be Dumb and Dumber.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: Lloyd and Harry.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: Fantastic, you're telling me there's a chance Tell me there's a chance, silly Swansonite.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, if there was to be a book written about your life, tell me the title.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: Driven by Determination.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, and, as a loyal listener, you know where I'm going.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: Next, hollywood's going to make a movie out of this fantastic book that's turned into a real-life movie, and now Netflix, hulu, they're all fighting for it.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: But I need to know first you as a casting director, who's going to star Bobby Bouchard in this new hit movie.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: Jason Sudeikis is the only answer, right, Casey.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: So good, there you go.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: Believe baby.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: Okay, and then last question Tell me two words to describe Aaron.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: Amazing and dependable.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: Here we go, lighting rounds over I, I'm going to.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: I got a teeny giggle but I'm going to give you the W because you were just stoic and competitive and, uh, just a beast to interview.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: But this, this has been fun, dude.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm grateful for our friendship.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: I'm grateful that we had a chance to work together.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: I'm grateful for the chance that you guys brought me back into your culture to let me speak a little bit.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: Um, so much fun.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: Um, I'm grateful for all the support that all the dads at home are continuing to give.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: And, um, who would have thought five years later we're solving a podcast?
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: And who would have thought this?
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: Uh, it's doing what it's doing, but it's, it's everybody at home.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: I get therapy out of every data interview.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: So, uh, I hope that you're taking notes.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: I have full page of notes and, uh, I asked you that if there's a dad at home that you think could get some out of our conversation today, please share the episode.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: Just go into your phone, you click on the three dots, you hit share episode or copy link and you just text somebody, because I think the more dads we can get who are focusing on the emotional intelligence side of fatherhood, we're going to make this world a better spot together.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: So thank you to the Authentic Edge podcast, who has jumped on to become a sponsor for us this year.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: Big shout out to them.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: Well, paul DiFincenzo and Jason DeLuca, but, brother, this has been a blast.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: Thank you again.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: So much for your time, and I know our paths will be crossing again soon.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: Casey, you're the best man.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: I appreciate everything you've done for me and my career, what you're doing for our teams at Tier 4 Group and I'm just going to give a little plug as someone who's read Winning in the Relationship Not the Deal two times now.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: It's absolutely a repeatable book.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: Out the deal two times now.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: It's absolutely a repeatable book and whether you're in staffing or business in general, the impact that it's had for on me as well as our teams I can't recommend the book enough and I'm just so glad you got to take the time to put pen to paper and put that out into existence, casey, because it's a manual man it really is and it's powerful.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: It talks about mindset and how important habits are, and so I wanted to make sure before we closed out today that I just plugged that for you and know that the impact that the book has had on me and our teams is just absolutely it's unmeasurable.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: That's what it is.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: That's humbling to hear.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: Appreciate it, buddy.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: I did not pay him.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: Everybody at home to say that Did not.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: That is organic gratitude, so appreciate it.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: But all right, brother, be good on you, have a fantastic weekend and we'll be talking to you soon.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: All right man.