Aligning Heart-Math and Pencil-Math with Clint Jasperson, CFP and Managing Partner of Purpose Driven

In today's episode of the LOCO Experience Podcast, I welcome back Clint Jasperson, founder and managing partner of Purpose Driven Weld, a thriving financial wealth management office. Clint has been a member of LOCO Think Tank for nearly five years, and shared in part the blessing of his membership is a safe place for diverse opinions, rather than the crazies yelling at each other from the corners of the internet. Clint and I spoke more about mindset than toolkit in this one, and especially how we can reconcile our heart math with our pencil math. With intentional conversation and reflection. We also touched on how a planning office can add the most value to a conversation far ahead of a liquidity event, i.e. the sale of a business, and how protection and wealth building must both be considered. And what the next chapter of growth looks like for his business. He's a philosopher not just a CFP, and I'm thankful to have Purpose Driven Weld as a sponsor of the LOCO Experience Podcast. Clint faces down his very own Purpose Driven questions segment in this one like a pro, so tune in and enjoy my conversation with Clint Jasperson. Welcome to the LOCO Experience Podcast. On this show you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories, and through it all you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw, and no topics are off limits, so pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest. Welcome back to the LOCO Experience Podcast. My guest today is a returning guest, Clint Jasperson. Third time on the show? We had two times right, so far. Two or three times, I can't remember. We talk so much, you know, detox. Well, we do. I mean, when we have a five minute phone call, it turns into a 27 minute phone. That is true. Always. Clint is a certified financial planner board of standards center for financial planning, Inc. Owens and licenses the certification marks CFP certified financial planner and CFP with plaque design in the United States of two certified financial planner board of standards, Inc. Listeners, you can fast forward for another 30 seconds or so, which authorizes individuals who successfully complete the organization's initial and ongoing certification requirements to use certification marks, thrive in financial advisors and professionals do not provide legal accounting or tax advice, consult your tax attorney or tax professional, thrive and provides guidance and advice through its financial planning framework that it generally includes the review and analysis of a client's financial situation. The client may choose to further the planning engagement with thriving through its dedicated planning services and investment advisory service that requires results in written recommendations for a fee. Thrive is the marketing name for Thrive and Financial for Lutherans insurance products issued by Thrive and not available in all states securities and investment advisory services offered through Thrive and Investment Management Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC and a subsidiary of Thrive and Thrive.com forward slash disclosures. Incredible job. That's my favorite part of preparing for this. I actually switched up. I said guidance and advice instead of advice and guidance. Do you think that matters? It might, but I think you're okay. I think your intent was good and it's clear. It is a former colleague. We were peers when I was a Thrive and Representative circa 2015, I guess. Yeah, 2015, late 2015, after my members at local think tanks at Bear, you need to park that stupid food truck in your backyard and go get a job. You were the younger than most of us but kicking our asses and all the production quotas and stuff like not quotas per se, but results. I've been very fortunate. I have had a lot of people trust my advice and stick with us. They've benefited and we've benefited. Yeah, your advice has been so. Because frankly, you know, they spend a lot of time when I was at Thrive and trying to help me believe I was called into this industry and craft and stuff and they told every way that. Yeah, sure. But you kind of were. Yeah, it is a calling for sure. At least it has been for me. And what I really enjoy is that you've retained a lot of humility. You know, you've been through a ton of complex transactions, you know, sometimes humility is forced upon us in ways that we didn't foresee. Amen. Yeah. And but you've eaten that that humble pie with grace and become stronger and wiser. Thank you. Thank you, man. I appreciate that. You've gotten to see a lot of it. So that means a lot. Well, you know, and thanks also for long time membership and local think tank and for sponsoring the purpose driven segment of our podcast. The purposeful questions, purposeful questions. Hopefully people enjoy those. Give us feedback. Let us know. It's been really interesting. I my most recent guest, even I. I he didn't want to talk about politics or anything divisive kind of thing. And then when we get into one of your purpose driven questions, he really unfolded about his faith journey and how important. He's a seventh day Adventist. And we had a number of seventh day Adventists in my community that were farmers and stuff. And it was kind of mysterious to me. And they have it's kind of like they're they're they have eating codes that are different. It's not just the Saturday church thing, but he really unfolded on all of that. And it just really surprised me. And I don't think I would have went there with him because without that question, they're the prompt. And yeah, I think a lot of our culture. There's a number of sensitive topics. And ironically enough, there's a there's a paradox or attention that exists where people want to have all call it intimacy where they feel deeply known. And yet don't feel that they have the permission to be vulnerable or the safety to be vulnerable and expressing areas that my other people might disagree with. And my personal observation is this having seen a lot of people inside of client meetings express a lot of the same views. But we have 20% difference is the vast majority of people have the capacity to appreciate other people's differences and have conversation reasonably. And I would say it an overall loving way. And yet we're discouraged from doing that sometimes based on the loud signal. And that noise is 10%. Yeah, exactly. Most people have the ability to kind of relate and understand that people have different journeys and whatever different perspectives. How's that changed for you since becoming a member at local think tank? I was already kind of baked into the pie and that was a place to see it expressed. And actually one of my favorite parts of local think tank is the ability to have, you know, meaningful deep conversation with peers that can relate a lot to the same challenges. Whether we agree or not in terms of a lot of other things, there's a lot of commonality, you know, as an example, you know, I'm Christian, my faith is important to me. I'm a theological world view informs a lot of who I am. And at the same time, there are plenty of other local members that make very value oriented decisions inside of a business and highly ethical, highly ethical, etc. And so we can find common ground on that to have conversation about and navigate moral dilemmas because as a business owner, there's ultimately ultimately multiple stakeholders that you're trying to balance. As you try to offer the value proposition to the world, so it's been fun to navigate that. You know, I would also say there's been times where I would hope I've been helpful and at least healing, you know, inevitably most people have been hurt by someone that's religious, whether it's an institution or a person. And so there have been times where people have appreciated my willingness to sort of go there and respond on a loving way and my hope would be that it makes them curious. Maybe that's Lord working through me. Who knows? I think it. What we do have a bit of a framework. Yeah, sure. Sure. We submitted some make sure to thrive. Oh, yes. Yeah. We will chase a lot of squirrels as well. Amen. It starts really with a proper deduction since your, you know, the last time you were on the show was quite a while ago. And the first time when you really introduced yourself was, gosh, four years ago. Yeah. I was one of your earlier guests. Yeah. Second year maybe or something like that. So talk a little bit about that journey for you, both education wise and then especially finding your kind of pathway into the investments world with, with driving. Yeah. So there's the, there's the how I found myself here and then in hindsight, maybe the footsteps and the sand of why I think I'm here. The how is I, so I grew up in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, literally in a log cabin. And enjoyed that way of life. I went to school at the University of Wyoming. I got my bachelor's degree and I was considering and I, you know, studied psychology. I spent some time in the school of business and I had a, I had an interest in going and getting my MBA. And I applied to various schools, you know, at the time. Morton was a top school, Harvard was a top school, but they were all really expensive. And there were no merit based scholarships for people in my, you know, I, I wasn't like a 4.2 GPA, which, you know, you kind of need. At that space and it was also relatively early for like younger MBAs to going in. And so I was looking at the cost of that, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars at that time. This is right around the 2008 financial, it was 2007, no one was hiring. And I knew that I didn't want to go into debt, the size of a mortgage that I couldn't live in. Especially into an uncertain economy. Yeah, it just, I didn't know that at the time, but that's what was going on. And so I had a mentor of mine that encouraged me to go get my master's in education where, you know, his sort of pitch to me was, you'll get all the leadership training you would get in school, you'll be way better working for people. And they'll get some of the business experience because you'll essentially get insight in how to run a, you know, 30,000 person organization, where you have students as customers, et cetera. There were parts of that that were very true about that experience. And I'm very thankful for it. It was also, it really brought my horizons because as a, as a guy that grew up in rural Wyoming. You know, I had some hardships. We'll talk about how that transitioned into my why. I think I'm doing what I'm doing. But I just wasn't exposed to a lot of things outside of my world view, right? Yeah, so exactly or just like even, you know, like I would say there's a, there's a little bit of like a Latino population in Wyoming because there's agricultural industry there. But I just hadn't been exposed to a lot of perspective, different than mine. And so ironically enough, there were think like cultural conversations like pluralism, et cetera, that were really appealing and broaden my intellectual rigor in terms of thinking through and having empathy for different perspectives. All that to say, I also knew that like while I loved the heart side of that, I didn't really want to do that for a living coming out of it. And for brief period, it's so prior to that I had weighed about 250 pounds. Yeah. Chew tobacco, you know, just not living my good life and healthy. You don't healthy. In early college years, I really prided myself on how much I could drink, which is, that's just a sad truth. You don't like weight, no? Yeah, exactly. Now I have like one drink and I'm like, I'm tired. Or like, you know, we were talking earlier, I have still getting over layer and gytus, which is the first time and it's like my throat's still dry and I cough ran and leave and though I don't have a cold or whatever. But all that to say, I got my, I got my master's degree at the University of Vermont, which is a very different environment in many ways from Wyoming. Came back to the state of Wyoming briefly. I had wrote this, wrote up this business idea. This was right around the time of the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, et cetera. And I saw an opportunity where I believe that health insurance companies were going to need to take and had an opportunity to take responsibility for trying to help encourage their, the folks that they serve, the insured folks, get healthier. And so I wrote up this business idea. It was adopted and it was really a behavioral intervention protocol. We'll call it to enable people to make better decisions. Yeah. Because I remember I was in banking at the time and there was a lot of initiatives, not just within our organization, but you know, gym membership things and people coming into the talking to us about just simple things you can do to be healthier. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that beyond just the informational side of that, most people self-actualized through relationship in these domains of self-actualization. Finance is one of them. That's how I found myself there. Health is one of them. Marital relationship is one of them. Friendships are one of them. There's just all these domains that where I think that for the, my belief is that for the most part, God didn't design us to self-actualize on our own. That's the gift of our vulnerability. And you know, if you're coping with sin or just fallibility, the beauty is like it gives you the ability to be vulnerable and that and say, I need help. I am better with others. Yeah. And so I saw that practice, you know, that idea took off. It was very successful. I'll go ahead. When you, when was your health journey? Like you were your chubby kid going into college, got bigger. And then like did you get like put on the hat? I'm going to be Mr. Fit. No, it's okay. Yeah. Well, oddly enough, I think that a couple things converged in hindsight. The first was I wanted to be healthier and I started taking steps towards that. And like a typical guy in college, I was interested in dating. And I noticed that I was not enjoying most of the relationships that I, you know, most of the women that I encountered at the bar. And I was like, that's weird. Like, why am I showing up here? What do I actually like doing? I like going to coffee shops. I like reading. I like deep discussions. I play the guitar. You know, I start showing open open mic nights. And I realized that one of the, one of the realizations was part of the reasons why I was drinking alcohol was because it made it easier to meet somebody. And so that, and I met somebody that was less interested in those experiences, which then I'm like, oh, great. So I learned how to snowboard. And I, I think in once my senior year of college, because I saved my PE credit that I had to do for my last semester, I snowboarded like 25 times as a satisfying PE credit, right? And so it was, in hindsight, interesting, because I sort of started that work before. I also entered a romantic relationship that helped with that. And I was going through this existential questioning of, okay, what happens when I graduate? Who do I want to be, et cetera? And I think all of those things, you know, that was trying to quit tobacco, chewing tobacco specifically, which I think about now is like so gross. But there was a period of time where, for like years afterwards, as someone was chewing, and I would, I would like salad. See the can in the back of their pocket. Yeah, and now I'm like, oh, God, it's so gross. And I'm good. I'm thankful. So that, that. I've always thought I was gross, but. Yeah, I mean, it, that's a rational thought. So at any rate, I kind of went through that towards a ladder stage of my... Well, I imagine if you turn off the spiket on the alcohol consumption and the bad food choices and turn up the spiket on working out, walking, snowboarding, three times a week. Yeah. The weight melts right off. You're pretty quick in those days. Well, it definitely makes it easier, right? Because there's all these things to converge. And, you know, I'd say at my worst, there was a period of time where I would drink, oh, man, this isn't embarrassing, but like a case of 40s throughout the week and then a case of 40s over the weekend. And I was proud to brag about that. Case is 12 or 24. 12. Okay. That's a lot either way. That's a lot. That's a lot either way, right? Yeah, that's like two a night. Oh, my God, it was terrible. You know, I mean, it was... I look back at that. I'm like, it's wild, my perspective, right? And the ironic thing was, my dad was an alcoholic. And he passed away, part of how he passed away was that. So it's ironic that even though I had a lot of anger and all these other kind of things toward him, I was on a self-destructive path to sort of repeat that until making some of these changes. And a lot of, you know, again, looking backward, there were people in my life that really extended to me the benefit of the doubt or believed in me when I couldn't or helped me kind of maintain upper name. That's actually one thing that's different. I joined a fraternity, criticized attorneys all that you want, but like I would not have become the man I am today without men in there choosing to believe and help remind me to maintain upper name despite my circumstances. And that is one thing that I think is different about fraternities or men versus women's sororities, at least at that time, which was men would look at a guy and see his potential, and they would try to bring him up. Whereas a lot of women, it's like, oh, if they don't at least meet this minimum standard. And so it's just, that's a fascinating side topic. But don't be better than me. Right, yeah. There's all of the thing there, right? It's just the, but I thought that was really interesting. And I still observed that about men today. You know, men, no one really as a side top, you know, we go in many ways. I need to continue into your question, but if a man is helpless, no one really comes to help that man, except for other men. You know, and I think that that's a tremendous privilege and a responsibility as other men. Because, you know, if a woman is helpless, you've got men and women that will kind of step in and same thing with children. Chris Rock has a bit about, I think it's Chris Rock, who's like, you know, the only people that get unconditional love is women and children. And you know, that my biblical perspective on that is like, we all have unconditional, you know, worth as human beings. Sure. But this is this interesting challenge as a man. So anyway, went through all that stuff, health transformation, was exiting out of my master's degree. I knew I didn't want to go into that, had some personal life experience that I reflected on, built this business plan. It was adopted by a local health insurance company. I was there for about nine to 12 months. The short answer of why I left was that right as I started a new leadership step into place. And within the first two weeks, he sat me down and he's like, I don't believe in anything that you're doing. And he's like, you have to, you have to, in order for you to convince me, you have to meet these outlandish goals. And only then will I support you. And then I met the goals, and he just kept moving the goalposts. And so I, you know, I think in my short tenure there within nine months, it was about a 48 person organization. There was an employee turnover of new employees and prior employees of 22 when I left. So almost 50% turnover of existing in people he hired that just, that was the environment. Yeah, I mean, almost everybody, when they leave a job, it's literally a boss. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's like 75% of departures. Yeah, it's a leadership issue usually. Yep. Yep, for sure. So anyway, long story short, I did that. Then I was recruited down at SIGNA. I did employer benefits consulting. We're in with Taff Tartley Trust funds. They have like, they'll put all, they'll pull all this money together and Taff Tartley Trust to self-insure with their health insurance, or put money into pensions. And I was kind of working on the business to business side. Exactly. Yep. Did that for a period of time, how to, even this person that I referenced before, like, he was just an older guy that didn't, we just didn't agree on where the future was. That's fine. I, I ended up getting a new, I was there for a year Excel was promoted several times. And then I got a new boss in a division who, I don't think I've ever met anybody in a professional setting that was literally narcissistic or didn't have a conscience. And it was, it was so bad that like, he was recommending that I do things on ethical and I just couldn't do it. And yet, I was having panic attacks and working. I was like, I gotta get out of here. Is there a person's name? No. Okay. It's okay. I, you know, the, it's like, don't do it. I thought, you know, I've since, I think they've since been, they might even be barred from the industry at the time, but, or now, but, um, anyway, I just had to get out. And at the time, I just remember thinking this isn't the way it should be, if it is, I'm not a cut out for the business world. Right. And my, uh, then girlfriend, but now wife, Lindsay had experience with Riven. So she was an advisor there. Her pastor, Don Johnson. Well, he transitioned out of being a pastor was an advisor for a bit. She tried a year to add a college there. She did really well for being a young woman that launched during the financial crisis. Right. Um, but she ended up going to work in H, at HP, um, and technology sales after that experience. And she still had wonderful things to say. Guaranteed, upper five figure income with great benefits. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you'll make 40 next year. Yeah. Exactly. And so, um, but she had nothing that I thought it would be, so she looked at the school and told her, somebody contacted me, the organization, in addition to her pastor who, uh, father passed away a week after we got engaged. So relocated up to Northern Colorado, moved in with her mom for nine to 12 months after her dad passed away. And that just decided that it was worth planning the flag up here. And so the rest is kind of history in terms of just being in Northern Colorado since then. Did you like growing up in a log cabin and then, you know, Cheyenne and then Denver Town? Do you ever regret that you had to leave Denver Town? Would you like the flash in the lights? Yeah, I mean, I think Denver is fun as a dink, you know, dual income, no kids. We are interestingly enough, I was fortunate enough to have saved up some money. I lived very humbly when I was a bachelor and so I had saved up some money to buy a condo in a neighborhood called Jefferson Park. At the time, I bought a condo there. There had someone that had literally been shot and died in that park. But for me as a bachelor, I was like, I need a place to live. This is cheap. It's close to where I'm, you know, downtown area. And I bought it like at the literally the bottom. I think it was like, like, to the month, maybe even the day of the Denver market. So we still own that. We rented it out for a couple of years, but just recently we've decided to turn it over for personal use so that when we go down there with our kids, we like we did this over spring break this year for a couple days. We went down there. We did the Denver Zoo, etc. I don't miss Denver, but there are parts of it that are offered that way, especially with like two young girls. I mean, I was walking around and I definitely like my dad sort of husband, I will protect my tribe vibe is definitely elevated in those settings because there are sketchy scenarios. And so I don't I don't want that at all for them, but there's there's ways to access that, you know, so. So what was that first introduction to thriving? Yeah, I had breakfast with my wife's for pastor, you know, who since became mentor for me. And it's funny at the end of it, he kind of basically convinced me that I wasn't a good fit for it. And I just remember thinking, like, I think I thought he was going to like, you know, like, oh, you'd be great, etc. And they actually came back and he's like, yeah, it's really, really hard. Most people flame out, you know, they can't do it. So yeah, you probably shouldn't try. And I think in hindsight, like he didn't say it that directly, I just remember being like, that was really strange. But I think he just felt a responsibility to be honest with me about how difficult it is. And it is, it is very difficult. And I slimmed out. Yeah, I mean, I just, I think it, you know, if I'm, you almost have to be delusional to try because of the statistics, right? So for someone to look at the statistics and say 80% of people that start off trying to do and build their own thing are going to fail out of the industry. But I'm going to be the exception. You know, whether it's grandiosity or a maturity or just full hardiness, you know, believe that you had a wife with a decent income. You were accustomed already to living humbly so that you could save and stuff like that. You'd been demonstrating and you had a, and you had a wife and we haven't really touched on your wife too much. Yeah, so I'd say the why that thank you for circling back there. So I'll respond to two parts of that. One, one financial principle that I would encourage is it relates to risk taking if you're like younger. If you can learn to live on very little, your ability to be aggressive with your time and conviction for the financial resources that you do have when you need to pivot, you know, I think in hindsight, I was very fortunate that I chose to enter financial services kind of right in the beginning of a lot of the what's called the baby boomer generation retiring. And so, you know, as much as I'd love to think, oh, you know, my success was due to hard work and I definitely did work hard. There was also a wave of people. Yeah, like I got very fortunate that there was this sort of secular trend. Just like if you'd been in the Bay area, you know, during the days of Apple or, you know, the HP campus. And so I was fortunate that way and that was enabled by living very modestly. But to connect back to the why, you know, when my father passed away, the situation was my parents had recently separated. The divorce wasn't quite final, but the marriage was over. And I was in my teenage years and my dad was really struggling with the drinking problem. So all that's kind of the paint the color of the context. But when my dad passed away, there was a there was a debt that was still owed on the house that we lived in at the time. And I remember in that environment, your neighbors are basically like family. Sure. You know, and they're just they become yeah, absolutely. And you know, literally I grew up 45 miles away from a grocery store. So it's like, hey, can I borrow a cup of sugar? In their situations where there's a neighbor of ours whose wife needed to get to the hospital, we showed up with snow shovels and dug them out. So the ambulance could get there, right? That's just what you do. So all that to say, I remember one of my neighbors sitting down with a couch with me and I was grieving my dad and I was like, you know, as the as the, you know, man of the house now, which is a talk you get a lot as the older son, you know, I started to think worrying about all the ways like my brother gonna be okay, my mom gonna be okay, whatever we're gonna do. And I remember my neighbors being like, your dad was a really smart man. You know, he's very thoughtful. My dad was very intelligent, very intelligent. And she was like, there's this insurance that you can buy that it pays off all your debts. When you pass away, I'm sure he had it. And he didn't. And so it was a very financially devastating event for us. And I remember going to a process deciding internally, I will never be in this situation. I don't have to care if I have to live on rice and beans. I will never. And so it really made an impression on me. Even way back when you were somewhere. Yeah. And if you ask my mom, why, why didn't they do some of these things that in my eyes seem pretty basic? It's because what she'll say is, know whatever talked to them about it or know when they trusted, ever talked to them about it. And so with my dad being a teacher or formerly a teacher, I try to, you know, act with the heart of a teacher in that and try to have that conversation with people really leading with, you know, hopefully enabling them to have the same insights that we do and enabling to take responsibility for a strength in their financial position. So that's that's in high. I didn't understand why my dad passed away or how that might transform my life for the better and able me to serve others until again, footsteps in the sand. You look back and you're like, oh, maybe that's why this happened. So in many ways, I think that God was uniquely shaping me to do this type of work for folks. And talk to me about the purpose driven wealth element was that I assume that wasn't when you were a red card, thriving rep or whatever that was not already part of the notion or where did that evolve as your practice. Like the name and sort of the idea of it. Yeah. Kind of the why of it even a little bit like. So there's a lot of financial planners out there that are Bob Jones or whatever, you know, and Bob Jones and associates if they have people to the team. Yeah. So there's a couple of really transformative pieces of my life that I've really informed almost everything that I do. The first premise that I've lived personally having degree with all this, you know, when I coped with my dad's passing, there are many mistakes that I made and there was a dark enough period of time where maybe not seriously, but I was contemplating like, do I even deserve to be here anymore? And one of the thoughts and beliefs that helped enable me to get out of the shame and the victimhood that I felt by a very unjust experience. But, you know, part of that I was doing myself with self-destructive behaviors was if you know your why, you can bear almost anyhow. So, you know, if you know your why, you can bear almost anyhow. And that premise was really established by Victor Frankel in a book called A Man Search for Meaning. Yeah. The modern version of that is Simon Sinek. Yeah. And the modern version of that is Simon Sinek. I suppose. You know, know your why, right? Yeah. So that's a really important piece of who I am. Yeah, and start with, yeah, start with why, yep, exactly. Sorry, we don't want Simon Sinek coming after a long time. Yeah, exactly. Sorry, Simon. You know, all under to your name kind of thing. But, you know, that was really important. And so the idea of purpose has always been important to me. I would also say that knowledge is not enough, meaning I think if knowledge was enough, most people would have six pack abs and be millionaires at this point because the internet is essentially democratized most knowledge. Totally. So there's an element of this of like, well, what does wisdom look like? What does it look like applied in my life? How can I be encouraging in helping you get there? And so this word encouragement is also important, which I was actually sitting in a church service at Timberlain church back when Derry Northrup was pastor. He's a pastor for a long time. Yeah. And I remember there was a service where he had taught me about this person named Barnabas. And Barnabas in the Bible was known as the sort of simple story there is that based on how he showed up, he was originally kind of known as like maybe someone that was skeptical or unoptimistic. There's not fun to be around. And his actions so changed by him finding hope in Christ that he was literally renamed by people as Barnabas and became known as the encourager. So originally, I wanted to have our, yeah. And so originally, I wanted to have our practice name be the Barnabas associates because I just thought, wow, that is literally what we do for a living. And if you understand where the etymology of the word courage comes from or being an encourager, the Latin read of the word courage comes from heart. And so to be an encourager literally means to help tap in and walk with someone in their heart or to connect language like we use their heart math with their pencil math. So I really wanted to use Barnabas. There was a foundation that had already chosen it, reached out, I was like, hey, can we use that? And so Purpose River Malth's kind of where we landed on. But that was the start. Well, it's probably a good thing because most people would be like, what the heck is Barnabas? Yeah. There's a lot better metaphor for people to understand, I think, for the most part. Yeah. So we try to, we try to drive forward and discover people's purpose and then be encouraging of that. You know, through financial conversations, really providing clarifying and confidence in that experience of sort of getting to walk with them, connecting the heart math and the pencil math. Yeah, yeah. So I certainly, one of the reasons I resonated with this was, you know, I had my, my motto, which is still Locos model, the ask of your needs and share of your abundance. And yeah, Thrive and Scott, some level of tagline, you know, plan well and be smart so you can live generously. Yeah. Ultimately and trying to inspire that, you know, build financial security because then when you do have financial security, you can be generous in your community with your time and your treasure and everything else. Yeah, you get the vibe. The, I think there's a responsibility we have, you know, even so the framework that we use stewardship, there's kind of three elements of good stewardship. And stewardship first, it's a, it's grounded biblical principles, but it's a universal concept, which is I have a more, do I, I have a moral obligation to steward what I've been blessed with because ultimately I don't get to take it with me. And the Christian perspective is it's really not mine to begin with. Sure. And so if that's the case, how do you put that into practice? Well, part of the reason why we have a responsibility to save and invest for our future isn't just to compile a whole bunch of hammers or other, you know, if money's a tool, right, a whole bunch of stockpile tools. Right. It's to, it's to provide for ourselves when we're no longer able, willing, or have the capacity to work. And we've got a moral obligation to do that right to try to do our best. At the same time, we all know someone that's got more than enough money that isn't happy. Yeah. Right. So a good steward also tries to balance contentment and provision as part of that conversation. Contentment, we believe, is the best way to do that is by giving, right? Sacrificial giving. And so that can be financial resource, but one of the toughest things as an owner of a business to give is your time and your talent, right. So there's an element of that that really kind of breaks the power that money has over us or really any finite resource and not place our identity and things that are finite versus infinite. Like in my view, that would be God, but also if you're, you know, a non-Christian perspective would say in the values that I hope to embody in the world, right? So contentment is a part of that. And then the third piece is enjoyment. I think it's really important to celebrate what you've been blessed with. And for most people, that involves doing it with other people. If you combine all those things and you do it in a very either prayerful or meditative way, a very conscious way, it's just tremendous. The cascading effects that can have in someone's life because finances touch every aspect, right? It touches your marital relationship, it touches your relationship with your kids. If you're a business owner or your team member of of an employer group, you're working with people every day. And so there's a sort of relational spiritual transformation that I think really does enable us to make the world a better place through pouring into people by helping them be a better steward. Yeah, yeah. I just said a bit of a rant of thought, but yeah, sure. There's a scroll chase part. I love the random part. Yeah. And it's a carry. I have no idea what your tax bracket is, but I suspect you make significantly more taxable income than I do, right? Sure. Have you been attending? You go to church, I assume? Yeah. Have you been attending the same church this whole time? Or do churches kind of try to recruit the high income or people to there? I personally, I personally not experienced that. Like, my church doesn't care if I'm there. They know I vote. Yeah, no, I've teasing a little bit, but it's that's one of the other things about even having a church or planning a church or growing a church, right? Yeah. I've very consistently, my wife and I have attended Timberline. There was a period of time when we went through the stage, young kids were just candidly going to church was less frequent. I'd loved to, you know, on paper, say I was there every Sunday, but throughout, he was, it was very intermiss. And even now we try to mount like candidly, it's a practice. It's something we aspire to do. All that said, we still attend Timberline church very regularly, but there was a period of time where we attended Mountain View because during that stage of life, which, you know, mutual friend of ours, Dr. Yancey goes there, there's more of other folks there. Sure. I go to a cousin church, the crossing. Oh, okay. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. And so, there's a period of time where we did that. Love the communal aspect. That was a piece that we were really attracted to. Smaller churches, you could kind of see people. But we just really love the services at Timberline. You're there for the rock band. No, I mean, I actually think, I think the music at Mountain View is fantastic. I love their Spotify list is incredible. And I, oh, my favorite black, my favorite black Friday or good Friday service that I've ever really, that I've ever been to is the one at Mountain View. There was this acoustic guitar player that really felt the summer and soul and vibe of what was going on. My favorite so far. But I think Timberline is the best blend for us currently. They actually Pastor Derry just retired recently. I saw that. Yeah. And Pastor, and I think it's doing a great job. It's just, you know, it's time, right? Transitioning like that's a difficult thing to do. But candidly, one of the things it's very appealing to us about that, they have a 5 p.m. Saturday time, enables our family to go. Right. We went there instead of Easter Sunday. Well, and honestly, not to go back to the original question of, like, in a bigger organization, you're one of 200 members that are high-income members, you know, kind of a big fish. Yeah, I mean, but even even the small churches, like, I've never felt like, oh, you know, there's someone that cuts a larger check. Yeah, I wonder what it was, like, yeah, I mean, maybe that happens to folks. I've never felt that way. And I, I suppose it's possible, but I haven't personally experienced it. No, it's okay. I mean, it's what I love about you, Kurt, is if you have a question, you're going to ask it. I've talked about the business of churching a lot with my pastors and stuff and the launches and things like that. It's good for whales in your in your congregation right away. It makes everything else easier. Sure. Amen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. One of the things I wanted to make sure, what I'm sure we talk about is you've been through a lot of fairly complex business disposition transactions and the planning and, you know, tax avoidance that goes into that. And obviously you can't give any advice on the past. We heard from the disclosures. But like, what? I guess contrast to me like the first time you had an opportunity to work with somebody in a situation like that. And now I don't know, you've probably been through some dozen or more fairly sizable endeavors. So you probably learned a lot as well. Yeah. And probably there's differences in similarities and every case is different would be probably a good. Yeah, I mean, every case is different. They're also similarities. So the first time I was very fortunate that everything went well, everything went smoothly. Okay. And I say that because that's not always how it goes. So, but, you know, a little bit about what's your role in a situation like that really? Well, so ideally, yeah, ideally, we're involved a couple years prior to the transaction and even partnering with in the industry, it would be called, you know, a value accelerator where there's a business coach or someone inside it. So there's really three elements of a business owner's life. There's their personal life, their personal finances and the business. And the reality is if for most midsize business owners, it all kind of feels like the same thing, you know. And there needs to be very intentional steps taken to make sure that like the perfect, the business that's going to command the highest price in the market is also the best business to own. Right. So if I, if I were to go up to a business owner and say, hey, you want to attend my exit planning workshop, the answer would be like, what's that? I'll deal with that later. But if I was like, hey, do you want to, do you want to help understand, you know, how to grow the value inside of your business and grow EBITDA more? And the reality is they're the same thing because the best business to own is also the best business to sell. Right. It's going to command the highest total. So ideally, we're involved many years ahead of time partnering with multiple stakeholders as part of that process to help, you know, we're blending the personal, the personal financial, but we're partnering with other professionals along the way. Technicians like CPAs, yeah, attorneys, yeah, bank lending relationships in addition to anybody else, you know, some members of their leadership team who often become clients as well as part of that. So that's really we're kind of wrapping our, our whole arms around that. And I will say we don't just work with business owners as kind of an area that I've differentiated. We also work with people making the transition to financial independence, you know, the retiree stage. But, you know, I'm in a point where a lot more of my clients look like that because I've been so established with other members of our team or as gifted or more so as I am in doing that. So, but they haven't been through the nearly the number on the business owner stuff. No, yeah. And that's the one that's relevant for this podcast and even kind of I didn't realize how different you what we did here locally was versus because there's not a lot of people that do it. So all that to say, the first transaction we walked through was a very large one. And it was not the primary owner, but they had a very large stake in it. And it was, it was north of $20 million pre-tax. And they were acquired by private equity group. And and actually we three years, this person had been asking me sort of on the fence of engaging her help. And after he kind of knew what we got involved. And there's really little we could do at that point to help, you know, do some education on what tax efficiency could look like on that transaction. But on the planning side, everything came together. Like he, because we'd spent so much a bit of even more effective if they'd started a couple years ago. That's the ideal. That's the ideal. But what I mean by that is like, there are no issues with like the buyer, there were no, they're plain transaction. It was, it was, it was very smooth once the deal, once things were signed on the dotted line. And he actually had a lot of clarity with what he wanted already. A lot of times though, when folks are working towards that, so much of our identity can be tied into being a business owner, right? And I'm not saying that's even a bad thing. It's just if you don't have some element of a personal plan to start exploring other aspects or practicing what that looks like, you might have a very large bank deposit and not know, you know, you're sitting downstairs in your box or at the pool to be like, I'm miserable. You know, I don't know who I am anymore because our most valuable asset, the most finite one is actually our time in our talent. I know that might seem kind of like guru-esque, but it's actually true having walked people through this. So there's an element of this that when people start to go through it, they'll start, if we're doing good question asking and we've earned enough trust to be direct, we're sort of thoughtfully holding up a mirror and saying, well, you're saying this, but you're doing this. Help us understand. You know, what do you want? Do you want, you know, there's, there's dissonance there, right? And ideally, we're doing that, you know, two to three years before it anticipated transaction because, you know, one of the things we first do for folks that engage our firm is we calculate what's called their wealth gap. So the simple understanding of that is, hey, this is what your liquid assets look like, right? So let's take IRAs for one case, which is oftentimes not very much for the owners because we put so much back into the business. Yeah, they got 600,000 in retirement accounts and they're 20, 20 people in our business. Yeah, which I know that that's exactly like, it's the proportions, right? People might hear 600,000, not a lot and be like, oh, you know, but the reality is, people, 600,000 isn't retirement money. It's not for them, especially if they're used to having some perks for the business where, yeah, you know, they go and do their continuing education, but they'll simultaneously extend a day and it's all, it's all legitimately attacks right off, right? Well, you know, you don't get to do that anymore, but yet if you want to do that, you got to build that into your budget, the business thing kind of cut the check when you're gone anymore, right? So you kind of go through a process and say, hey, what is your needed income and what, you know, what is your needed income? What are the sources going to be after the transaction? A lot of times there's commercial real estate involved. So we try to understand. And oftentimes it's beneficial to the existing owner to sign some sort of lease as part of that transaction. So at least for a period of time, they can, so we combine all that, figure out how much income they need, what their total wealth needs to look like to get there. And then we sort of reconcile that to say, hey, here's what the value of the business is, here's the sum of all your other assets, here's the gap. How are you going to close that gap to get to your intended goal? And, you know, there's a couple of different ways they get there. One is to save more. And at the same time, they can also grow the value of their business. Right. So now suddenly that becomes a very actionable thing because if we're partnering with the business coach, a good one, we have, we happen to know several Drew's account, we work with him a lot. These folks are actually very involved in helping bring that to life. The simple math would be this, if you have a business, you know, has a million dollars of EBITDA. And let's just say the multiple in that industry, that's the, that's how you estimate the value of that business. Yeah, let's just say it's five freezing math, right? Okay. So one million dollar business in this sector gets a five multiple when they sell pre-tax, right? That's five million dollars. Yep. Well, if they take steps in their business over three to five year period to double the EBITDA, right? Not only is that going to help the business owner have a better bottom line in terms of net profit most of the time, right? But they've also just with this math, two million times five is 10. Yep. So that's, that's doubling their total now. Exactly. So there's a double account pounding, right? Yep. Yep. So now I'm looking at two million of EBITDA times five. Oh, no, not just five because there's now a better buyer's marketplace for that. And it's viewed as less risky because better structural capital, customer capital, technical team when you leave all that stuff. So now you've got two million of EBITDA times maybe a seven multiple. Well, that's 14 million versus five. That's almost a three X in this example. Where else are you going to get that in the market in the same let's just say that there was someone willing to buy like Tesla call options or something just crazy speculative, right? Right, right, right. Oftentimes the business owner is going to see that and be like, yeah, but I can manage the risk more and have this industry perspective, all those other kind of things. Right. This feels safer to me whether perceived is real. We've got a six percent market share. All we got to do is get to a nine percent market share. And they start to understand how to do that. And so because for them, that's what they do all day long and it's very empowering. And what's the right balance of that because something can inevitably go wrong. So how do we gradually also say, yeah, we're going to make sure that that yeah, you're going to do everything can and we're all humble enough to know that we do our best and we've all had rough years. Is your life insurance paid up? If you've been an owner for a long enough period of time or you've talked to people that have been through it, there's inevitably the unexpected, right? For better, for worse. So even if you like on the on the for better side, it's like, well, are you ready to are your books cleaned up enough? If there was a thought to play to say yes or no to an offer, like let's just say you got an offer today. Yeah. Would you be prepared enough to know how to contextualize where you should say yes or no? Yeah. Right. Most owners don't have an answer to that. Same thing. If something unexpected happens, they missed the number. What's their backup plan? And so it's dialing in the right, okay, well, we take some chips off the table with reinvest back in the business and this is the right portions of us to get it to our intended state of goal over X period of time. And we do that in an ongoing way because COVID was a very different business environment than 2025. Totally. Right. Different than hey, you know, the straight hormones is or isn't shut down. Right. We're hormones are on or terrible. Yeah. I mean, it's yeah, exactly. Like if you're still a manufacturer, okay, what impacted the heaven, you know, it's different year in 2025 than it was in 23. Yeah. 100%. And so do you charge quite a bit for all this planning that's associated and then, you know, because in the end game, then you on the financial investments, you manage that. I'm part of I don't want to talk about kind of what are the income products available these days. I know one thing that I've observed in my career in banking and after is that when people have built up a lot of assets over time and you know, they've lived on this income from the business many time with perks and stuff like that. And then I've got these assets. But I don't want to sell my stocks to live on. And I don't want to try to decide which ones to sell every month and stuff like that. And so what, what are the, you know, there's certainly commercial real estate if they keep that and stuff. But what are kind of some of the income financial assets that are common? And is there a yield out there in that space these days? Yeah. You've asked several questions. No, it's great. I want to try to respond to them accordingly. So, you know, one of the things that's unique about our practice for a lot of the industry is people can just pay us a fee for advice. And so that fee is based on the scope of work. I would say, you know, for most of the owners that we work with scope work, the fee starts are in 10,000. You know, it kind of varies based on the scope of work, etc. And the duration. Yeah, I mean, yes. But it's, I would just say that's a good starting point. And we kind of go through, you know, all the aspects of that. And I digest the situation, give kind of a rough plan based on what we know now. Yeah. And I think sometimes it's just a one-time engagement for many, though, that are going through the successive planning. You know, we might, you might have a 401k that's through Gusto or ADP, through their payroll. And there's, there's just not a lot of assets to manage, but they still want advice, valuable advice. And so they're willing to and want to pay us the fee for that scope of work to sort of walk through side by side. And I would say the vast majority of our clients start that way, including folks that are within five years in retirement or pre-retirement, because it's very hard to make the decision to say, hey, I'm going to turn over everything to you, you know, before trust is established, you're even really understanding that. So I'd say the link will start a lot of relationships with the majority, the vast majority. Yeah, I would say almost, almost exclusively, like this year, I don't think there's been one client that's onboarded with us that didn't start first with that with a with a paid plan. Yes. Yeah, because I just think that the different model than there kind of was in the past. Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, I think that for and it's our firm too, you're more comprehensive with everybody. That's yeah, I would say I would say it's been trending that way. I'd say even five years ago, at least 60% of folks kind of started that way, honestly. So all that to say, you know, that's there's three ways they can work with us. They can pay a fee for advice. If there's a product that they need, we can broker at forum and usually that's compensated the form of commission, or we can do investment management for them as a percentage of investments. Sure. Are are are are are are yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So those are kind of the three ways that unfolds. Yeah. And so then your second question, which is, okay, they do, they have realized this event. They've done planning. I got a bunch of money, but I don't have. Yeah, what do I do with it? Right. And so there is an an element of income planning. I think there's a couple of ways to think about that framework. The first is, do I want to transfer the risk to creating the income or do I want to keep it on my side of ledger? And what do I mean by transferring the risk? So social security is not a product that anybody can sell you, but it isn't and I'm using this as a simple example because most people have like social security or parent Colorado. Yeah, yeah. When you elect to turn on social security, you can have a significant benefit in terms of the total dollar amount to receive over your lifetime. Yeah, start at 62. It's this start at 70. Right. So how do I make that decision knowing that it could make $100,000 of difference and receive distributions over the course of my lifetime? Well, I should probably make the right choice for me, right? When I'm looking to maximize my social security benefit, I'm transferring more and more risk to the federal government to make that obligation right, meaning it's the federal government's job. They are ensuring that and saying, I will backstop this. Now in theory, could the federal government go under? Yes. Is that likely? Probably not. I mean, it depends. It will happen first. Yeah, most likely, right? And so the reason why that's important. You're other investments will have suffered too. The reason why most likely, right? There's no guarantee here. I got to be careful with the language. Yes, directionally, that's probably a wise. You're not wrong to assume that. So the first concept to sort of think through is like, do I want to transfer who do I want to be responsible for creating the income? Right? Because if I transfer the risk to an outside entity, they're insurance products that enable that. Anuities basically combine a risk transfer or insurance element and an income and an income component to that. And there's a whole host of annuities beyond the scope of what, you know, probably appropriate today. But you're basically combining insurance or transferring risk plus an investment component from aggressive to conservative. Yeah. So then the other question of that is, okay, so let's just say you don't want to transfer the risk and you want it to be on your side. Well, you know, retaining commercial real estate is a way of keeping the risk on your side of the table, right? If it goes under, there's no one backstopping that. You can manage it more, et cetera, right? And there's a certain amount of concentration risk, meaning it's all, you're all, you're a strong one basket on that side. 40% of your wealth right there. There's policy risk, you know, if that, if Larry Moore County has a different tax property in the tech center, that you need to partner with me. Right. Okay. Right now it's a little bit, a little bit sketchy, but I'm sure if we just get a couple more tenants in there, it'll break even. Exactly. Exactly. Sorry. No, it's okay. So I mean, you think through all of these things, right? And like I think, I think a challenge with real estate a lot of times is you really don't get liquidity, unless you like borrow against it, because it's kind of hard to just sell like a bathroom or like, you know, for $10,000. So I think it's looking at all those elements to say, what's the right mix for you and what you're comfortable taking? Now, I will just say and experience a lot of owners feel very, very comfortable because of taking risk in their commercial real estate, at least for a period of time, if they sell, because they're already kind of taking risk that the buyer is going to pay them. So let's just say they get acquired by a private equity company. A lot of times they're going to have signed disclosures and stuff like that to say, if you misrepresented things, and there might even be an urn out element, where it's like you have to perform it. So, so in their mind, right, fully wrongly, a couple of years, yeah, they're going to look at that and be like, I'm already kind of comfortable taking an equity level of risk, what's what's the worst case of taking credit risk to? And that's kind of how they look at it oversimplification of the commercial real estate, but they could have residential real estate. And then even beyond that, you know, because if you've got residential real estate and you bottom near, you know, either without mortgages or very small mortgages, then you've got a pretty little risk investment with a pretty moderate yield, you know, the cash on cash return is terrible. Yeah, it depends. It's terrible if it's old town court Collins. Well, that's what's interesting, right? Because even that's market contingent. And I think a lot of people make those assumptions. And so let's just say your cash on cash return, you know, let's just say your cash on cash for your real estate was 3% and you're assuming that residential real estate averages at the inflation rate. You can say whether those assumptions are right or wrong, but let's just say it's around 6%. Well, and right now you can reinvest that cash on cash return inside of a cash yield savings account at an actual higher rate. So at least as of today's stating, right? Like most money markets are paying 3% or up. So then it's like, well, that's really not efficient from a cash flow perspective. Now I'm not saying that's right or wrong. We talk numbers all day long, but the point is are the decisions that you're making intentional and they do align with your expectations and if you thought through these things. So we will take people step by step through creating this, you know, basically to kind of come together in a way that works for them, understanding all the trade-offs and obviously if they're like, hey, what would you do if your army will say, well, here's what I would do, but it's oftentimes strange. Here's what I do in your situation is here's what I've understood is important to you. And so much of that is not just making sure that we listen to them, but they feel listened to. Right. Right. Because honestly, like, do most business owners really want to focus on this? If we're being honest, no. Like they've already got enough things going on. A lot of people trying to call in and sell to them xyz thing. So just the ability to simplify to say, hey, once we've sort of mapped this out, you can just say no to everything else. You have a very simple framework because most of the time if they're growing business owner, they're primary wealth creation vehicle where they're going to get the most potential for upside is their business. So okay, all these other kind of fancy things that you thought you had to do, they're frankly not necessary. You can do them if you want, but stay focused there because your talent happens to have a really good ROI there right now. At least, you know, for most businesses, they're going. So it can be tremendously freeing and clarifying even just how they spend their time beyond how all the, you know, Excel sheets and financial planning software works out with the pencil map. And then that can be incredibly freeing on the heart mass side because, you know, sometimes people actually start to dream a little bit more once they feel assured they're like, oh, what do I want to do now? Oh, actually, I do want to do consulting. Oh, you know, they just, it starts to free them up to do that a little more. Want to be a facilitator for local thing. Exactly. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Mr. Pete Gasley. This episode is sponsored by LOCO Think Tank. LOCO Think Tank provides superior collaboration for business owners. We build smart, safe places to help business leaders navigate every stage with a business journey and we love what we do and who we do it with. Our model features gift-back-minded business veterans and the role of LOCO facilitators. We're always looking for abundance-minded individuals to add to our membership, facilitator team, LOCO community, or to feature on this podcast. Listeners of this podcast who go on to become members of LOCO Think Tank get their sixth month of membership for free. Just mention the LOCO experience podcast on your application. To learn more, visit our website at LOCO Think Tank.com. That's LOCO Think Tank.com. This in your soon to be in your right hand is from our spirit sponsor and this is perhaps a drink you haven't had before. It's called Wiz Cal. Last time I was here, it was like the century thing or something. Oh, the infinity bottle. And there is still that opportunity. I've already ridden the infinity experience. So I'm sure this will delight as well. This is kind of a hybrid of whiskey and mezcal. So it's got a smoky, so it's part of govinector and then part kind of traditional bourbon made by seasoned spirits stilling and kind of their flagship and one of their differentiators. 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Okay, so habanero isn't it? That's good. Peach is the number one ingredient. Uh huh. Peach's bell pepper, habanero, carrot, vinegar, ginger, garlic, ghost pepper flakes. Oh, okay. All right. So if I don't if I don't survive this podcast, you know where to find me. I didn't bring any napkins, but okay. No worries. We'll be fine. All right. So you're tasting notes on on the hot sauce. All right. I'll have it noted that I'm I got a big one. You took a fairly bold one. Yeah, good job. Smells really good. I'm scared. Should I be? No, it's very friendly. It's just got some heat. The heat builds a little bit over time. Okay, but I think it's nice. So far so good. Yeah. Sometimes there's sometimes there's there's heat where it like. Yeah, it hits you right face. I don't like heat that's like in the back. You're a throat and chokes you. Yeah, you know, like the bomb hot sauce. If you've ever tried that, it's like a trying to be nice to eat that. Yeah, trying to be nice. But this is this is delicious. Yeah, kudos. Thank you, Matador. Yeah, so this is a Locos crazy ginger hot sauce available at Matador, Mexican Grill. By the time this podcast is out, this is actually this is in the gray area. He's got it up for like testing and stuff. The meal's been approved and stuff, but he can't really deliver me a full batch yet. Matador, my personal opinion, they make the best breakfast spritos in towns. Love it. And they have a maple jalapeno sauce. It's a combination of maple syrup with jalapeno for the light heat people out there. They actually have a ghost pepper with honey, which is also good. But like that sweet heat on a breakfast sprito. Really nice. So big fan of Matador. You should try the pattern. Take you past there a lot or so I can sometimes with my girls over the weekend, I'll take them to the Matador and there's like I love they're just very nice, but they have those little surprise things where you put a quarter and get a treat like little toys. So that's kind of a thing. Sometimes before like I'll take I used to drop our kids off at the harmony school, which is kind of right in that area. That's what you fell in love with Matador. Yeah. Well, actually I had never had a breakfast sprito there. And at our next level chapter meeting, Drew had brought some and I was like where are these from? These are so good. Right. So really. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I need to go as another place now, but it's all good. All good. So one of the things we're talking about a little bit of break is sometimes the even when somebody's working towards selling a business or even if they're just retiring from a long time career and they're trying to figure out what that income profile looks like and you're getting in deep with people and the husband and the wife start fighting in front of you about what each of them wants and like does it feel like a counselor job sometimes? Sometimes. How do you navigate those kind of conversations? Yeah. So I think all these areas of self-actualization, marital dynamics, your health, your finances, they all they all can catalyze one another. So not on like for example, if someone gets a terminal health diagnosis, it can bring everything to the table that needs to be said right or wrong, right? It's a catalyst to accelerate things. And if anyone's ever been through a personal health event, that can that it can be like a crisis where it provokes a sense of urgency, money can act like a catalyst that way too. And both for the better and for the worse, meaning that if someone if someone's business starts to fail in a major way and they go through hardship that can catalyze things, it can also catalyze it in a sense of abundance because now suddenly I don't have this distraction to deal with these issues that I've needed been addressed for a long, long time, right? And so one of the things that's challenging about my line of work, you know, I'm not a licensed therapist, but I believe what we do is a helping profession. And so there's an element of this that just my bias is always that you'd rather be relationally and spiritually wealthy and that financial wealth is a catalyst to those things. The scriptural support for that would suggest both wisdom and inheritance are good thing and benefits to those that see the sun, but if you have to air in one side around wisdom, the principle of that is, you know, like we've heard this phrase, you know, would you rather give someone a fish or teach him how to fish? Sure. Right? So I think I'm always a fan of trying to help people make the most loving decisions whenever they're in challenges like that. It's very challenging to navigate those. And so it's not necessarily us telling them what to do, when oftentimes being a good listener and saying, hey, here's what I'm hearing and asking them questions that sort of help them understand how to maintain their own dignity and in their own eyes, what what maintaining upper name looks like for them in these challenging moments. Use that language, maintain that upper name kind of thing. Whether it's relational or business growth or relationship orientation, things like that. Yeah, it's the last year or two, I spent a lot of time reflecting on some personal things that I've gone through, but also why the story of Christ, even for non-believers, is still compelling. And I think one of the most attractive qualities about Jesus, even if you don't believe in him, just let's just say it's a story is you essentially have someone that went through just a tremendous suffering, a tremendously trying circumstance, and he chose consciously to maintain upper name voluntarily, and he did so without resentment. Yeah. You know, so if you think about how Jesus responded to Judas, he cried first for Judas because ultimately Jesus betrayed himself or Judas betrayed himself. You know, I think we'd all like to understand that when we go through a crisis in our life and hope that we can do that, I think Jesus as a story gives us that potential. It also, I think, you know, to get down a bunny trail here, if AI is in a world where it makes objective truth, let's just say that you thought that AI was going to make objective truth more possible, which I'm not even saying that's your conclusion, but there's the ability to reconcile facts more. There's an element of our human experience, forgiveness and grace, that depending on your worldview can seem really irrational and unproductive. And yet, if you believe that you have, I believe that we all have fallibilities, and so what happens when our fallibility causes suffering to another person that they ultimately didn't deserve? You know, it's the act of finding forgiveness and sort of going through that and extending grace, it's, if you're in a situation like that, it doesn't always feel like it's the right thing to do 100%. You know, if it's a really trying circumstance, maybe for some people, but I've definitely, you know, I've definitely had situations in my life where I'm like, is that the right thing? What is the most loving thing? And so inevitably part of why now in my career, why, and you know, in my business, one of the things that I feel most privileged is a lot of time to be get to hear people open up these really vulnerable parts of their life and not necessarily tell them what to do, but to help be there in it with them. You know, and the role that empathy plays in that and sort of just saying, you know, trying to encourage them to maintain their own dignity and enable that for other people that they care about in very tricky situations. You know, like, take a business owner who's, let's take another scenario, a business owner has a key person that commits fraud. Yeah. Okay. So, so you might think, oh, okay, the smart thing to do is to send that person to jail, but what happens if they've been in for 12 years and all of the relations stuff? What is the right thing there? Like, and you know, that's, I'm using that example because there's an element of a trail with that. Right. So it's relevant. So there are all these kind of things and I think what's wild about right now is I think people are going to start paying attention to this more internally. Like, well, beyond just the objective truth, again, if AI helps us do that, like, what am I actually searching for? I don't know. I think COVID started. AI told me that a Trek Verve 2 bicycle was an e-bike and we've been looking online on Facebook marketplace for a secondhand e-bike for my wife. And so I had it all lined up. I had a great deal and then my wife starts looking at she's like, where's the battery pack? And I was like, oh, well, Google's AI summary told me it was an e-bike. It lied. 100%. And so, so here's the interesting. Not intentionally. I'm sure. I'm sure it's very ethical. Let's not attribute intent, right? We don't know. But here's what I, so most people have seen this ad where it's like, well, I'll kind of create a visual. So imagine a very scrawny five foot one dude that says, you know, that, and there's a, and he's here and he's the chat, the LLM call chat, GBT or clot or whatever is personified as a gym trader. And this five foot one guy says, hey, you know, I really want to become an NBA basketball player. All right. And this five foot one, you know, I'm really exaggerating this. But it's like, oh, and this coach responds, oh, absolutely. You can totally do that. Right. They're so encouraging. Yeah. So encouraging like it's this endless validation. Look up my skirt again. Clothes and this validation, right? Yes. And so, and then, and then the, the other joke on this was, okay, and then it paused like for 1995, get your 12-step plan to self-actualize, right? And so there's an element of this that's going to start feeling really strange to people and kind of icky, like how we've all had an experience where is my phone listening to me in terms of how the ad is shown up. Sure. So this is going to get exaggerated. But I say this because there's also spiritual spiritual stories or just, you know, fables that have described who's most of the time the antagonist in the story, you know, Satan in the Christian, in the Christian worldview is someone that just endlessly validates you and tell you what you want to hear. Right. The deceiverer. Uh-huh. Right. And so I think, again, like part of why I'm so privileged to walk with people in these moments is when they're opening up their vulnerabilities and like we have the space to sort of develop trust, then it's having the conversation which is, hey, there's there's how you're telling me you see yourself and there's your behaviors. I'm not here to say which one is right. What do you want to choose? And I think part of the reason why people trust us is because I'm willing to lean into that discomfort after trust is established and I feel like I have a keen understanding. Yeah. Well, and that's part of, I didn't really think about that part of your practice, but that's part of the experience in a local think tank chapter as well. It's like telling people stuff that they might not want to hear, but that is nevertheless true and holding to it, you know, holding them accountable to react into. I had a conversation with a client the other day. They trying to think so they have they run a business and they're they're thinking about succession planning. And they've they've been complaining about it and I say complaining because complaining for me is defined as continuing to highlight the same pains with unwillingness to do anything different. Right. And at the same time expecting it to be different. Right. Which some people define that as insanity. Right. And so I finally said, Hey, I've noticed you've mentioned this over the last year and a half. What have you done since we last talked to try to resolve this? Because here's some things we talked about, you know, not I'm like, okay. And I said and I said this in love. And I was like, okay, so what it sounds like is there's what you're telling me you want versus what you did. Is this still a priority for you? Are you going to give up on it? You know, and it kind of forced the question and like it was a little uncomfortable. I can't give up on it because succession. Well, I mean, it's a perfectly reasonable question because because I'm just trying to clarify what is it here that you want? Because if you're telling me, it's not a priority. Okay. Then my job is going to be listening to me like, okay, I get it. You know, it's we all have stuff that we, you know, I think there's a YouTube channel skit out there where it's like there's a there's a romantic partnership and one of the partners has like a nail in their head. It's a she and she's like, no, it just feels like he's fixed it. And the husband in this incident is like, no, just take the nail out of your head. And she's like, no, you're not listening to. So it's kind of one of those things like, well, what do you want right now? Do you want me to just listen? Cause I can. But if you want it, what is your priority? And I think once you've got enough relationship with people, you can lean into that. Someone say, hey, I'm noticing a distance here. Or maybe I'm misunderstood. So if you do with humility, they're like, oh, no, actually, and there have been times. I'm the right. I do need to do that. Yeah, no, actually, I actually misunderstood. Thanks for clarifying that. You know, but I would say usually there's there's probably an 80% chance that there's a distance there. And I think that's what's really helpful about the relational aspect of the work that we do. Yeah. Um, couple in, yeah, I assume we can talk about this a couple years ago, you were talking about like maybe buying a franchise, starting another business. Yeah. Um, is that kind of doing something other than the financial planning space still compelling to you? What I've learned about myself is I'm, I'm kind of like an endless. I love personal growth and personal development. And the second that I start to feel constrained, I will oftentimes go, I will start exploring other things to sort of figure out what's going on with the dissidents within me. So, uh, so, so I think at the time that was really an expression, you know, my, my wife, she, she was really trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. And so like, hey, we're trying to choose to do this because she was trying to like reinvent herself and sort of cool. Yeah. Well, and the kids had kind of gone off. Yeah. Yeah. And she tried to stay at home parent thing for a bit and it just wasn't, it just wasn't her truth, uh, at that time. And so, you know, that was something we were exploring. But I will say to kind of continue on that vein, one of the things that I am, uh, experimenting with right now inside is I think that all these areas of work are going to start to converge. So I think we've talked about this before, but you know, I think people's desire to sort of lean into these areas of self-actualization, I see all the overlap that exists there. And I think at least for a period of time, and LLM is not going to be, there's going to be a period of time to where people sort of naturally seek out the dissidents. You know, what we've seen with like Facebook and Instagram, these other things is, they'll just kind of choose like the dopamine cycle and like it'll probably be gamified to get you addicted to it and we'll have to cope with that. And then there will be suffering that comes from that and then people will respond to that suffering. Um, COVID really kind of tees some of that stuff out, right? In terms of what people cope with and some people responded while others didn't. So I see all these areas of like mirrored relationships, friendships, relationships, spiritual dilemmas. Uh, what is the meaning of life? Who am I? How does this show up in everyday stuff, especially because if AI does truly replace, let's just say it does cut an eight hour work day down to four hours. Four hours is a lot of time. And if, if it is, if the stat is true, I heard this. I don't know if it's true, but let's just say it's directionally correct where, you know, the average adult spends 11 hours a day scrolling their phone. Okay, let's just say it's half that. Yeah. Okay. Uh, and I did hear that stat. I don't know the source. I'm sorry. You know, maybe I'm just 11 hours a day. Now this could be passively during a Zoom meeting. You're not really paying attention to you. It could be maybe your customer service representative. Maybe from 7 p.m. to 10, you're sitting in your bed, right? All that time I added up throughout the day. Oh, I'm in traffic. I mean, I hit the five hours a day kind of range usually sometimes just under sometimes a little over, but it's a lot of podcasts. So let's just take. Okay. Let's just got something in my ear hole for a couple of hours. Let's take five. Let's take five hours. Okay. Now you have another four hours, right? Is the answer really that you need more nine hours of scrolling? Right. But that's that that's the temptation, right? Because like during COVID, what what? Sure. Did some people use that to like reinvent themselves? Yeah. Go hike. He happens. Etc. Yeah. Like most people didn't choose the more dignified route. They fell into the habit of their fallibilities until they suffered enough where the pain of that was enough to sort of cause it turned around and now like two out of three people don't drink alcohol anymore. They come on the podcast. They're like, no, I could drink in after COVID. And many people. Yeah. Yeah. Which bars of alcohol stores are suffering and others like not alcohol. Of course. Hang out bars and stuff like that. And there's generational things with that too. Sure. Sure. All that to say that I think that that is going to continue because I don't know that people know how to bear the weight of existential crises. And like there's a lot of beauty and gift that comes with that. And people I'll say this, I've had to go through moments of my life where I had to learn how to suffer well. And that first starts with being so so crushed by it that you have to do something different. Yeah. That's move on. And what's wild about that is most people don't just want to feel unconditionally love. They want to know what they're willing to suffer for. And the only thing to truly know that about yourself is to actually encounter experience like that. Interesting. And yet most people don't challenge themselves enough or actually know what they're willing to suffer for because they're more interested in being comfortable. Right. Right. Which if all you pursue is comfort, you'll probably suffer lightly all of your life kind of depends on your worldview. Yeah. Well, I mean, maybe it feels really, really good for a period of time to be endlessly validated. But inevitably, I tend to believe that most people have this deeper yearning of well, but is that really annoying? You know what these LLM coaches being like, I know you didn't get your workout in today, but tomorrow you'll get it. Tiger. Sure. Anyway, well, there's an element of that, right? And so I don't know what the right answer is. I do see a lot of those areas of work converging. And if I want to, if my life's calling is to sort of help people self-actualize, I think that that's something I get a lot of deep meaning from. And I hope I am relevant enough to journey with them to do that. Finance is one lens to do that, helping people make more confident, clear decisions in their money. But there's there's overlap in all these other areas. Do you think do you think people would actually I guess like work shorter work days like if AI actually does decrease the need for human involvement and work? Would it be such that like everybody gets four hour days instead of eight hour days now or would it be that half of the people are laid off and the other half of people are job. I think what I've learned is some combination. I don't think anyone really knows. I think if I don't know that I would have had the wisdom to say, hey, if we ever go through a pandemic where we have these situations, this is how people are going to respond. What I feel confident saying is that there will be suffering. I think people will be pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised and people will when we don't when we fall short of our own expectations when we're willing to look like that, the gift is the compost that can come from that reflection if we choose to do things differently. And how people respond to that will be more important than what actually occurs. One of the things that you mentioned earlier, I think you used the term like denigrate or something like dignity, dignity, dignity, but there was also something about doing hard things. Oh, I forget what the context was, but I wanted to reflect back to the faith element of conversation just a bit. And I've been listening to an Eastern Orthodox pastor from Saint Spirit on for several years now. And as it turns out, he's the father of my good friend's son's girlfriend. Oh, wow. So I just saw his daughter the other day and was asking her more things about Greek Orthodox stuff and whatever. But Greek Orthodox churches all across the country are blowing up because it's very it seems harder. It's black and white. So I think when I think it calls for a higher level of, you know, here's our calendar versus the other one we got all these things. Yeah, in the business world, the advice here is like if you can niche down and say who you're for by the fault it makes easier for those people to find what I see going on and these things are historical pattern. Here's how I respond to that, what provoked in me. One of the benefits of fundamentalism is you know what absolute truth is. The downside of that is nepotism and sort of incestuous thought. That's the shadow side of that. There's there's folks that would interpret things with the historical context or relativism. The problem is that the shadow side of that is more relativism and the issue is both sides each other as the enemy when the reality is their paradoxes that can only be embraced with grace forgiveness and a framework to accommodate differences and wisdom to discern that I am more than my idea or philosophy my values are more important. How do we practice that most? That is a art and a human experience but that is the tension that I see there right now. I think people are trying to there's a draw towards fundamentalism because they want to understand what is true. That's what I see that is. There's also a draw to more relativism as well because they're like well there is no truth. It reminds me of that old metaphor of the king that wanted to know what the economy was going to do and he's like I'm sick of all these economists being like on the one hand this and on the other hand that like find me somebody that can tell me exactly what's going to happen and they searched the kingdom and they found two yeah but they were diametrically opposed to each other yeah you know they just couldn't survive together and whereas everybody else was a more rational approach I suppose. We wanted to do some purpose driven questions to our purpose driven wealth and thank you to purpose driven wealth of thriving for sponsoring our purpose driven question segment. At purpose driven wealth they believe financial clarity leads to a life of contentment and purpose their mission is to help guide clients using a values driven stewardship based approach focused on provision contentment and enjoyment with more than a century of experience thriving helps individuals and families navigate life and business transitions and prepare for the future while creating space to live generously and give back meaningful ways to learn more about purpose driven wealth please call 970 330 741 for a complimentary initial consultation and now onto the questions I like this one when someone gives your eulogy one day do you have an idea of who you'd want it to be and what you'd hope they'd say your children are fairly young yet so even choose it you too yeah I have to you it's one of them the better speaker for such a circumstance sorry they're pretty good for no that's okay and is the is part of the question like if I like if I passed away this week or today or maybe are 20 years from now with that's more fun to imagine really or 40 years from now call it so you're at least pretty old hmm the answer is probably different in the future but where I felt called the answer that was if I passed away right now so what I tend to see that is like through the eyes of my daughters and the eyes of my wife you know yeah I don't know one of the better I've been to a fair number of funerals if they give me the chance to talk I will know yeah I don't want the main gig but I'll be a side piece I've actually been to a fair number of funerals in part because we'll oftentimes go to funerals of our clients we get that coat like a lot and feel like a Santa family some of the funerals that felt the way that I would like them to are not just one person giving the eulogy but several people that can tell the arcs of the life and really if it's clear who the person was not just who they were but why they chose to be that way so I would probably pick some I have if I had to name some people in the first arc of my life I would probably choose one of my closer friends that I've still connected to but to speak to that part of my life say from like kindergarten to call it college years which his name's Aaron but we're still friends I literally have known since kindergarten grew up in the middle of that way I would love to hear him speak to that and just who I was at that time the next couple I have some friends from graduate school there's one in particular name Jesse we're still friends to this day even though he doesn't live here that would speak to that growth I actually think if if my wife could bear it the period of time from when we got married to like the early stage of kids like you know kind of young parenthood like when our oldest was like two to three it luck step yeah there's just a lot of there's a lot of we'll just call catalyst to part of our life that I think our daughters would really benefit from hearing and would honor her contribution and loss as part of that and then honestly I've developed a really good friendship with Drew and he's got a theological background yeah he'd be strong and he's seen some of the he's known about some of the personal stuff that's going on and seeing the business stuff that feels like and I would say from a theological perspective one of the things is a complimentary about him he's so he's so much smarter academically than I am I mean he's very highly studied highly studied right and so there would be an element of that with I think that this would provoke enough of an emotional response it'd be really beautiful to hear him speak because it would probably be a neat tension there yeah and I think that would serve the broader audience because I know he would prepare well for it yeah right so you know I'd say like the last kind of two to five this year's because and that's a kudos to you by the way because like I I really got to know Drew a lot deeper through next level facilitation like it's all there so like to know that you played a part in someone that I'd want to like speak to an arc of my life is well as to you my I wanted to give you a kudo for having a super thoughtful like four person on tray and reasons why that was really uh you get a b plus at least for that we've been we've been we've been judging people's answers okay all right questions that's okay right yeah totally sure you can grade him how you want it's your show uh I'm gonna do another one okay can you just grab a business decision you made you've made over time historically that didn't make sense on paper but what was the out and what was the outcome when a couple years ago still a close friend of mine former business partner Jeff and I decided to part ways okay it was a financial step backwards in this short term because what I decided to err on was I I wanted to I err on the side it was a financial step backwards I'll kind of simplify that and you're generous with him on the terms of the yeah well just because I kind of let him pick and choose things and I really kind of prioritize like what would enable the transition to go smoothly why I did that was and uh it wasn't like I it was like a major thing but I could have been a lot more scrupulous and I chose not to I think the benefits of that were positive in the sense that it really because I was for lack of better terms sort of the more powerful person and that what I mean by powerful is I really could have exerted force you had leverage I leverage and I didn't I didn't you could have virtually pushed him out I I could have been very I could have been not just unfair but just cruel and I didn't I didn't want anything to do with that but what I this is weird I you know what I thought about I oftentimes try to think things through like my kids' eyes you know knowing that I'm even limited to do that because we're all biased and I'm like okay you know how would I think through this like like what's fair what feels good et cetera and I I aired on the side of trying to try you know hey I'll get some sort of relational dividends this way and I'm really glad I did that number one because I would say the Jeff and I are still friends we don't talk as often because there's a completely different life he literally eight hours away now uh the relationship was there it enabled the relationship to stabilize and mature in a different way with that that that's great it also though got to see the team got to see me essentially role model you know it enabled trust with all of them because I kind of certainly when you go through that stuff like it this is an exaggeration but it was almost like a divorce right and it it it's like there's ways to do it well and not yeah right and so that was good and kids are watching and it also when you when you lean into when you lean into making decisions on that let's just call based on faith or as much as you can because you you know to make really good decisions as an owner sometimes you only have 20 to 30 percent of the information you think is most relevant to pay attention to it also strengthens your conviction to continue to prioritize that and unfortunate that sorry my throat's getting dry it's okay with in a relatively short period of time after that it was very clear to me that we would also be rewarded financially for it after the fact and so if that hadn't occurred we would I would still say it was the right decision but it was unclear to me at the time that it was even more right decision yeah and it it it it it it it helped confirm that you don't always get that confirmation right sometimes you make what you think is the right decision and you actually pay a price for in fact again the beauty of the the the Christian story is that like sometimes that's how you know it's the right decision yeah yeah right is you're actually dishonored for doing the right thing like Jesus was so and that's a head trick to guide them the people's unpunished is the phrase I used more than a few times yeah yeah but in this circumstance that would be it and I'm really grateful I did that it's actually given me the another thing as a side benefit when you treat people that way it instilled your hope that you might be treated that way too if the situation were flipped so it just there's just a lot of compounding benefits but at the time it was not you know I could have been tempted to not treat everyone with dignity or what you know so I'm thankful for that particularly young men yeah and I would just say that for the men listening to this podcast that feel like they are in a place of abundance in some way you could make a tremendous difference in the world by choosing to find someone that is not as well established or as well resourced as you and showing a level of investment in them that's beyond what they can whether they can do anything for you in the future or not you know because this year irrespective of politics they saw you know Charlie Kirk was was assassinated killed and what what a lot of young men experienced was someone that for the I don't know I didn't listen to Charlie I knew some of Charlie Kirk stuff but essentially he saw someone that spoke in a nonviolent way and the message that some of those men could have internalized as it could have hardened their heart to say well it doesn't matter if someone brings a gun and I think that's a very dangerous thing for young men to experience when there's a there's a there's a lot of people are coping with loneliness etc and when men are struggling the only people that come for them are other men yeah and I I love women as a group but for the most part that's true most women do not rescue men that are helpless it's other men that do that yeah and when we do that for one another not only is it a gift to that man but it's a gift to us so I would just be encouraging of that to be a man or a mentor or a mentor relationship with a teenager or whatever it looks like I just think that you can get a lot out of that and what I I just I know that there are a lot of people that are looking for that and I you know I just would encourage folks to do that if they have something to give like to lean into that well thanks for sharing that I was thinking we would do a local we always do a local experience and you shared a few already though what I was thinking is I wanted to put it on a faith bent a little bit sure do you have kind of a a local a crazy experience as it pertains to providence or your faith or seeing outcomes to prayer or you know no speaking in tongues anything like that in your history right no speaking in tongues but I will say I'm I'm coming up off the anniversary of two years ago of experiencing a really tremendously painful event and during that period of time I basically started the experience of this event on Black Friday on Good Friday and I through that heard the voice of God and it scared me so much that I thought I was going crazy that's how painful the experience was and I'm just really thankful to know that I have a depth of conviction that God is real in a way that would not have been possible without that and I'm thankful for that because for so much of my life I even having lost my dad and all those other kind of things and being so fortunate that I've somehow been blessed enough to know that the suffering I did incur as a kid is able to serve other people through my vocation like thank God for that opportunity because sometimes people just experience suffering and you're like why and I've been gifted with the ability to do that through my work but I just tend to truly know I just thankful for that. You look at back at it as a blessing despite the pain. Well I would say that I always had the mentality due to my experience with Victor Frankel's writing and and really the spiritual transformation that God's up in my life sort of gradually but I just I didn't even know what I was missing in terms of the depths of my soul meaning meaning at times this experience was so painful that I I felt like I had lost every aspect of my identity to the extent that the only thing there was literally a prayer that I had really properly suffered before. Yeah I mean well I mean you think a 15 year old that loses their dad is proper suffering but here's the reality when I'm not here to do is compete on my suffering what I am here to say is that when you I have experienced personally many times and I'm grateful for the reminder that it's oftentimes in our darkest moments that God works in ways that we don't expect and it's through our hermility and vulnerability that God will show up in ways that we are pleasantly surprised by if we pray for it and I and I'm always sensitive to this because I I know that inevitably someone out there has probably been hurt by evangelization and for that I'm sorry and I would just say please don't let that pain get in the way of whatever your relationship with God needs to look like. Yeah but you were talking about kind of that dichotomy from fundamentalism to the nothing is real anyway and I was just reflecting to kind of that season of COVID nation when people were scared at various levels from basically zero to a hundred kind of and the people that I mean not to talk smack or whatever but the people that didn't freak out as much were the Christians they were like this this didn't surprise God and he's got it going on he's got it figured out I'll trust. Yeah I think when you can truly be held by God it's a gift and you can describe it as weakness vulnerability whatever it is I'm not ashamed to admit that in fact I'm thankful that I know what it's like to need God and to rely on him you know and to have personally sort of experience that and in ways that like you know sometimes you pray for things and you get things that you thought you wanted and you're like oh boy there's also things that sometimes when you pray for things and you don't get what you want but you end up encountering what you need and I I'm just thankful to have personally lived that and have have not become bitter or burdened with I just I personally experienced healing that can occur that you would think was impossible and I'm super thankful for that. We've got well Clinton Jasperson, Purpose Driven Wells, fine young man and member of local think tank and future author I suspect it looks like you've got a book in there somewhere. Thanks man I appreciate that you're you're you're challenging my humility virtue right now. Hey I can write it for you yeah exactly my avatar all right it will be great yeah well Godspeed thanks for coming on again. Thanks sir appreciate you guys thank you. Hi this is Kurt Bear host of the local experience and I wanted to let our listeners know that beginning in June of 2026 we're going to be releasing podcast episodes on Wednesday mornings instead of on Saturdays. So we've tested Saturdays for a while may honestly we were better on Wednesdays before so we're heading back to that and I hope to see you there every Wednesday with a new episode of the local experience.