EXPERIENCE 227 | Navigating Life & Business, Together - Mark & Kathy Rushing Share their Secrets to a Lasting Entrepreneurial Marriage.

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In this episode of the Loco Experience Podcast, I sat down with Mark Rushing and Kathy rushing to discuss their entrepreneurial adventures and 45 year marriage.

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Mark is the owner of Portable Restroom Solutions.

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While Kathy is the founder of Loadstar Relationship Coaching, they share their journey from their college days at Texas a and m and into their early entrepreneurial ventures, which included a failed church plant.

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We also delve into their faith journey, how it evolved, and their struggles with finding the right church community in Colorado.

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We discussed the challenges of maintaining a strong marriage in an entrepreneurial setting and the impact of their business experiences on their relationship.

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Mark opens up about the difficulties of running multiple businesses, including a challenging assisted living business affected by COVID-19, which found them restarting in business and life in Northern Colorado.

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Kathy emphasizes the importance of creating a vision together to maintain a strong relationship.

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And Mark credits his experience with peer advisory groups like C 12 and local think tank and how these communities have been valuable in building skills and perspective throughout.

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Their focus remains in the dignity of work, the importance of community, and the enduring strength of their partnership.

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There is strong wisdom from lived experience in this episode, and I know you'll enjoy, as I did my conversation with Mark and Kathy rushing.

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Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast.

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I'm joined today by Mark and Kathy Rushing.

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And Mark is the owner of Portable Restroom Solutions, also a Loco Experience, or Loco Think Tank member.

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And Kathy is the founder of Loadstar Relationship Coaching and potentially a future look of Think Tank member as well.

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So welcome, welcome to the show.

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Thanks.

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Oh, thanks.

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Thanks for being here.

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Yeah, thank for having us.

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Yeah.

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How many years have you guys been married?

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Forever and a day.

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45.

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45 years.

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Well, that's pretty good credibility if you're like a relationship coach, right?

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Who makes it harder to stay married?

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Oh.

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I didn't know you were gonna ask that question.

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Well, I don't know.

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Like I told you, I just ask whatever questions on my mind.

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I always tell people that,'cause Jill, and I've been married for 22 years and I say it's a lot easier for me than it is for her.

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Um, I'll let Mark answer that first.

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Oh yeah.

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I definitely make it harder.

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I would agree.

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Well, we're boys.

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That's like part of our, that's part of it.

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Like place in life.

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Yep.

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Oh, well so much of this journey as an entrepreneur when we didn't even know what that was when we got married, we were wide-eyed.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Idealistic college students.

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Can we, you know, I told you kind of the stage we might set talking about business and stuff, but can we go back to that season of life first?

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Yeah.

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Um, let's just talk about the setting.

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Where, where was this at?

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Where you met and fell in love and you know, eventually got married.

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We were both at Texas a and m.

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Okay.

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Which is, where is that?

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That's in, that's in Texas.

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Well, in Texas, I know Big Texas.

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Which is where, like north and west of Dallas kind of, or something.

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Northwest of Houston.

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Northwest of Houston.

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Kind of.

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So like north of Austin?

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Almost between Houston and Austin.

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Okay.

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Alright.

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Yep.

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So, um, so you're both there going to school?

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Yep.

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We were both there.

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I was in the, um, Aggie band and the Core Cadets did that whole thing.

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Okay.

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Um, we were both involved in the Baptist Student Union.

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Okay.

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There, and that's where we met Kathy.

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Went on a backpacking summer doing backpacking ministry in Okay.

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In, uh, Colorado, which caught my attention.

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Okay.

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And so I, uh, like that chick must be pretty cool.

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She's going backpacking to Colorado.

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Exactly.

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I finagled away to, uh, go look at her backpacking pictures and.

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Then eventually ask her out.

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Okay.

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I was very shy, so it took a while.

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Yeah.

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And then I wasn't sure, so I dated him and another guy at the same time.

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Really?

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Was that allowed in the conservative kind of Baptist, uh, background?

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Well, you wouldn't think so, but I think she grew, well you weren't officially courting yet.

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She grew up Methodist, so.

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Oh, okay.

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Yeah.

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Got the rules.

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That's kind of anything goes over there.

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Yeah.

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So, Kathy, tell me what it was about Mark, despite his shyness, that, uh, allowed you to, uh, choose him, I guess, like how were you dating the other dude first?

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Or what was the scene there that came a little later?

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Oh, it do.

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It did.

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Yeah.

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Um, well, I, um, my parents had divorced like it was final.

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January of my senior year.

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Oh.

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And so I was So you were freshly traumatized by failed.

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I was really scared to commit.

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Yeah.

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You know, like, gosh, I don't wanna end up like that.

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And there was just something about Mark that was just, um, we were great friends.

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We would talk for hours and we would run together and had a few classes together.

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And, um, it was just, you know, it was dreaming about the future and just what life could be like together.

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And yeah.

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It was that friendship really that was the foundation, which, um, is always the foundation of a great relationship or a long lasting Yeah.

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You know?

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Yeah.

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And so, um, yeah, I would say I'm definitely still best friends with Jill.

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Yes.

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Like, just nobody I'd rather spend time with.

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Exactly.

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Yeah.

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45 years later and it's like, this is who I wanna spend my time with.

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And, um.

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Yeah.

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The, the other guy, when I dated him briefly, like for a month, and then I was like, okay, I'm not gonna date anybody and put some limits.

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And he didn't respect them, whereas Mark did.

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And I was like, well, that, you know, that tells me a lot.

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So, you know, we got married our last semester at a and m and, um, so it's, it's, it's been a journey.

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It has been.

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We were poor as church.

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I want to, um, like go into, when did the first entrepreneurial venture start?

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Like, from there?

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'cause did you grow up in an entrepreneurial family, mark or, or you Kathy?

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No, I did not.

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My dad was, um, in ministry.

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Okay.

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Although he initiated a number of ministry things Yeah.

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That I learned about later.

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More of like an entrepreneur kind.

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Yeah.

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Within that.

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Yeah.

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It really was, um, created new ideas that caught traction within that space.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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He taught me how to paint houses when I was in high school and I actually started painting houses.

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And even then in high school, college.

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Oh, so you were already an entrepreneur when Kathy was falling in with you?

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I guess I wouldn't have called it that.

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Sure.

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But I, I had a hard time working for somebody else even then.

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Okay.

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Um, so yeah, painted houses, did remodeling, did roofing, all that kinda stuff.

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Yeah.

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Through summers at a and m.

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Um, then I went to seminary.

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Kathy went to grad school.

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I was working, doing the same kind of thing then.

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So you guys didn't make a lot much money for, you said, for his church for a long time, years, because you're still gonna school, you're gonna seminary like for a long time.

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Yeah.

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And you're still painting houses in the summers and stuff, gonna seminary probably.

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Well, all year round.

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Yeah.

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Right.

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Not just during the summer anymore.

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Mm-hmm.

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Right.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And then, um, did you have kids right away?

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No.

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You don't have any kids at all during seminary?

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Right.

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Toward the end of my seminary, well, actually Kie walked across the stage with her masters in psychology.

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Pregnant.

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Okay.

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Seven months pregnant.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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So we had our firstborn, Jeremy.

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Okay.

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That summer I was there a little bit longer for seminary.

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Sure.

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And then trying to figure out what we were gonna do next.

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Yeah.

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Well, so back up.

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'cause Mark comes from a ministry family, right?

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That was all he had known.

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Oh, I came your dad, grandpa.

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Mm-hmm.

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Yeah.

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Both lot generations.

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Okay.

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And my dad was an engineer.

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Very traditional.

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My mom was a homemaker and I thought that I was gonna have a counseling practice in a church if he was gonna pastor Sure.

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Somewhere.

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Right?

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Yeah.

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And it was first built in plant base, right?

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Yeah.

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Yep.

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You would think.

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And the.

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First, I think it was your first year in seminary that he came home one day and was like, I wanna plant a church.

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And I'm like, whatever.

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Does that even mean, you know, it was, it was nowhere in my understanding or experience.

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And I had actually started at seminary, wasn't a very good program for counseling, and I decided to change to University of North Texas now.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, thinking, well, I think that means we're not gonna have a very big church to start.

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Right.

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They won't have a counseling center.

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Right.

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And so I was like, I better just get a degree so that, that's where the seed was planted.

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Oh, interesting.

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I had no idea what, you know, where this journey was gonna take us as.

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That's for sure.

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Church planters.

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So were you guys like active in a church or was somebody like whispering in your ear, mark, Hey, I think, uh, you know, this was, was a God whispering in your ear, like, I want you to plant a church for me.

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Like, where, what was this?

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Coming from?

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Well, that's an interesting question and one that I, I'm still not sure I have an answer to.

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Fair.

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Alright.

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25 years later, hopefully.

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God.

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Um, it was a part, the seminary I went to was in Fort Worth.

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It was Southern Baptist.

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It was very, very mission oriented.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And so, um, that's interesting.

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I don't normally think about the Baptist as being very, like, outreach focused of planting a lot of new churches and stuff like that, but that's maybe just'cause I don't really know.

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Yeah.

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You know, like we have Colorado Baptists are a little different there.

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But, but anyway, yeah.

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I mean I took classes on church planting and theology and everything and, and I don't know what it was that caught my, I mean I think it was that entrepreneurial bug that was a part of me.

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Right.

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Rather than like growing up within an existing baptist church organization kind of thing.

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Like the idea of starting a new plant was just intriguing.

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Yep.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And then it's just what got me excited, like, so we raised some money, we moved to California, Southern California.

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When, when I graduated.

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Like from within your church or your, like how do you Friends and family, just, um, yeah, you're like, Hey, do you wanna give us some money to go plant a church in Cali?

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Yeah, exactly.

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We were sponsored, we were church planter apprentices.

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And I didn't, and I don't know if you don't, if you know much about Southern Baptist, I don't consider myself Southern Baptist any longer and partly for the same reasons that I was always raising as issues.

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Then why is it women can't preach and women can't teach and women can't do this, but.

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I have a certificate that says Kathy Rushing Church Planter Apprentice.

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Right.

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So it was his calling, but I, I kind of got lumped together.

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And you were expected to be the, the helper.

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Indeed.

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Yeah.

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And I, you know, I was clearly very supportive if this was what Mark was wanting to pursue, great.

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But I, I realize that that caused a tremendous amount of stress for me, because we got pregnant with our second one Sure.

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About a month after we moved there.

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Oh, wow.

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So, well, and yeah, like it or not, security is like one of the most important things for most humans, and especially for females and like, yeah.

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Mark's basically telling you, you will have no security as we raise these small children in the near term.

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You know, kind of, yeah.

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It, you know, I didn't think a lot about security at the time because we, as you had some sponsor planters and stuff, had some, we had a salary, but it wasn't enough to live on Southern California.

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Even in the eighties.

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This was the mid eighties, but at least you had a base.

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We had a base and that was market paint houses and stuff, if you needed to.

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Well that's, that's why we raised additional support was like, we found a house to rent.

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We're like, it's gonna be this much.

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Which seems super cheap now.

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But anyway, it, there was some mis mixed messages and, um, yeah, so we, we did that and, you know, was, we wore several hats.

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Was it not successful planting or, you know, we, um, talk me about that journey.

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Yeah.

00:12:46.416 --> 00:12:54.666
We were just trying to do a church based in small groups and really be a part of the community and gathered.

00:12:55.280 --> 00:12:57.591
Um, a small group of people.

00:12:57.681 --> 00:12:57.890
Yeah.

00:12:58.400 --> 00:13:05.120
Um, you know, I look back and I see that, I mean, there were a number of people that I still can see their faces.

00:13:05.150 --> 00:13:05.360
Mm-hmm.

00:13:06.260 --> 00:13:10.370
And remember just some life changing experiences with them.

00:13:10.431 --> 00:13:10.671
Yeah.

00:13:11.571 --> 00:13:16.910
Um, yeah, we just, we didn't get that critical mass, you know, that we really needed.

00:13:17.390 --> 00:13:31.221
And then we had, like, after we were there about two or two and a half years, a couple of real key families actually moved out of town and we just reached the place and they were one of the, some of the bigger financial supporters.

00:13:31.610 --> 00:13:32.900
I was like, we just can't.

00:13:33.245 --> 00:13:38.135
Yeah, we just really couldn't keep going and I was probably pretty burned out at that point.

00:13:38.166 --> 00:13:38.495
Yeah.

00:13:38.885 --> 00:13:47.676
You know, in those, well, when it's, when it's tough plowing, you know, it's, it's a heavy burden to keep strapping the yolk on the oxen and, and getting out there, you know?

00:13:47.681 --> 00:13:48.961
Yeah, yeah, it is.

00:13:48.966 --> 00:13:49.086
Yeah.

00:13:49.086 --> 00:13:56.586
And because so much of it, it was inviting people into our home and just building relationships and we ha now have a new baby.

00:13:56.676 --> 00:13:57.480
There's so many people.

00:13:57.750 --> 00:13:58.041
Yeah.

00:13:58.046 --> 00:14:03.125
And I'm working on my hours, 3000 hours to be licensed in California.

00:14:03.125 --> 00:14:05.405
So it was a lot.

00:14:05.405 --> 00:14:07.385
And we had no support system.

00:14:07.385 --> 00:14:11.735
Now when they send out church planters, all your families out in Texas, everybody was in Texas.

00:14:11.765 --> 00:14:12.696
Right, right.

00:14:13.355 --> 00:14:15.081
Yeah, that's what I was wondering to myself is.

00:14:15.681 --> 00:14:16.431
I guess they do.

00:14:16.431 --> 00:14:19.311
Typically you don't send out a couple Yeah, no.

00:14:19.400 --> 00:14:23.480
Like they did in some of the old days, but you send out at least like three couples or something.

00:14:23.485 --> 00:14:23.566
Yeah.

00:14:23.571 --> 00:14:23.811
Yeah.

00:14:23.811 --> 00:14:29.510
And sometimes there's whole groups of people, families that move to a community and Right.

00:14:29.571 --> 00:14:30.681
Plant their lives.

00:14:30.686 --> 00:14:30.696
Yeah.

00:14:30.711 --> 00:14:30.921
Yeah.

00:14:30.921 --> 00:14:32.931
As they're planting a church, which is great.

00:14:32.936 --> 00:14:33.125
Yeah.

00:14:33.130 --> 00:14:33.380
Yeah.

00:14:33.380 --> 00:14:37.130
Our church actually had an attempt to plan a branch out in like Durango.

00:14:37.280 --> 00:14:37.431
Mm-hmm.

00:14:37.730 --> 00:14:43.341
I think, and we, we sent a couple out there, we sponsored'em and like two or three other families from our Yeah.

00:14:43.370 --> 00:14:45.951
Congregation, like moved out there to become part of it.

00:14:45.951 --> 00:14:56.120
And, and it never, I don't quite, it kind of fell off the vine in some ways and then it kind of continued as a church, but with sponsorship from another More local church.

00:14:56.150 --> 00:14:56.301
Huh.

00:14:56.360 --> 00:14:57.926
Like in a next town over kind of thing.

00:14:57.926 --> 00:14:58.326
Mm-hmm.

00:14:58.461 --> 00:14:58.551
Yeah.

00:14:58.581 --> 00:14:59.390
Because it's just too far.

00:14:59.571 --> 00:14:59.780
Yeah.

00:14:59.785 --> 00:14:59.846
Mm-hmm.

00:14:59.931 --> 00:15:03.051
Our church didn't have any juice to, to reach out to Durango.

00:15:03.110 --> 00:15:03.410
Yeah.

00:15:03.410 --> 00:15:03.765
Right, right.

00:15:03.770 --> 00:15:07.100
You know, it was too far outside of our circle of kind of influence Yeah.

00:15:07.160 --> 00:15:07.941
And support, if you will.

00:15:07.941 --> 00:15:08.181
Yeah.

00:15:08.660 --> 00:15:11.120
So anyway, so that was, yeah, we closed it.

00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:11.961
It was, it was.

00:15:12.740 --> 00:15:19.581
It was tough, kind of sad, a little bit of a relief, but we, we also just felt kind of lost, like, what do we do next?

00:15:19.610 --> 00:15:20.000
Yeah.

00:15:20.005 --> 00:15:20.046
Yeah.

00:15:20.811 --> 00:15:29.150
I ended up going to work at another local church, fairly new, um, really just in charge of all the small groups.

00:15:29.240 --> 00:15:29.390
Hmm.

00:15:29.395 --> 00:15:29.605
Mm-hmm.

00:15:30.230 --> 00:15:33.770
Um, which was in many ways a great experience.

00:15:33.801 --> 00:15:33.860
Yeah.

00:15:33.890 --> 00:15:43.130
We had made some really great friends again, saw lives really changed that, um, you know, I can see faces.

00:15:43.701 --> 00:15:44.000
Yeah, totally.

00:15:44.091 --> 00:15:50.510
Um, but there was, or, and there was, the senior pastor was.

00:15:50.556 --> 00:15:54.365
Uh, pretty narcissistic and that's not good.

00:15:54.365 --> 00:15:55.176
No, it's not.

00:15:55.581 --> 00:15:56.796
And not end well.

00:15:56.826 --> 00:15:57.186
Yeah.

00:15:57.186 --> 00:15:58.775
So it just didn't end well.

00:15:58.985 --> 00:16:00.216
Yeah, that's a long story.

00:16:00.485 --> 00:16:01.326
Requires more whiskey.

00:16:01.326 --> 00:16:06.365
It's a little bit like Mars Hill, uh, but wasn't quite that, uh, not quite dramatic, but yes.

00:16:06.426 --> 00:16:08.255
Well, it didn't get that big before it imploded.

00:16:08.255 --> 00:16:08.676
Right.

00:16:09.125 --> 00:16:15.186
But many similarities and it ended up actually imploding and, um, which is, was sad.

00:16:15.605 --> 00:16:19.296
So were you drawn in by this person or by the role?

00:16:19.296 --> 00:16:20.196
The shepherding?

00:16:20.316 --> 00:16:20.855
Both.

00:16:21.005 --> 00:16:21.275
Yeah.

00:16:21.336 --> 00:16:21.576
Yeah, both.

00:16:21.725 --> 00:16:27.125
I mean, that's like, you can't really be a cond man unless you're good at it, right?

00:16:27.125 --> 00:16:34.296
Like it's the kind of, the tragedy of life is like everybody seems, everybody that.

00:16:36.186 --> 00:16:37.206
Takes advantage of people.

00:16:37.206 --> 00:16:38.706
Seems trustworthy to those people.

00:16:38.706 --> 00:16:38.765
Yeah.

00:16:38.946 --> 00:16:39.995
I guess in a way.

00:16:40.145 --> 00:16:40.235
Yeah.

00:16:40.505 --> 00:16:43.716
And you know, the, like if it's your drug dealer, you know, he, you can't really trust him.

00:16:44.645 --> 00:16:44.706
Yeah.

00:16:44.706 --> 00:16:45.306
Right.

00:16:45.306 --> 00:16:46.326
You know, or whatever.

00:16:46.326 --> 00:16:46.926
You know, he is a guy.

00:16:46.926 --> 00:16:51.966
You're buying some illegal guns from like, you know, that you're going into a sketchy situation, but Yeah.

00:16:52.025 --> 00:16:55.655
In a church setting or a, you know, life insurance buying situation.

00:16:55.655 --> 00:16:55.956
Right.

00:16:56.316 --> 00:16:59.706
This guy was, was very gifted.

00:17:00.635 --> 00:17:01.985
Uh, he was a good speaker.

00:17:02.225 --> 00:17:10.326
He, um, he was very gifted with connecting at people that normally wouldn't connect to a church.

00:17:10.326 --> 00:17:10.476
Yep.

00:17:10.476 --> 00:17:10.715
Yep.

00:17:11.135 --> 00:17:12.000
Which was really awesome.

00:17:12.151 --> 00:17:12.441
Yeah.

00:17:12.605 --> 00:17:12.816
Yeah.

00:17:13.205 --> 00:17:19.205
But he just really struggled with anyone else who was a leader in any sense.

00:17:19.566 --> 00:17:19.865
Okay.

00:17:20.346 --> 00:17:20.766
Um, yeah.

00:17:20.766 --> 00:17:21.411
Yeah, yeah.

00:17:21.411 --> 00:17:21.570
Yeah.

00:17:21.570 --> 00:17:24.276
So, yeah, it's a long, he was, he was genius with a thousand followers.

00:17:24.276 --> 00:17:28.415
He didn't, was threatened by anybody else that would actually think and do for themselves.

00:17:28.441 --> 00:17:28.730
Yeah.

00:17:28.955 --> 00:17:29.256
Yeah.

00:17:29.346 --> 00:17:36.306
So let's, uh, let's kind of, this is gonna be crazy, but we're gonna jump right into, back to where we would've started.

00:17:36.546 --> 00:17:36.635
Yeah.

00:17:36.635 --> 00:17:41.076
Because we'll circle back to this, but talk to me about portable restroom solutions.

00:17:43.026 --> 00:17:43.266
Yeah.

00:17:43.266 --> 00:17:45.935
So, uh, just about four years ago, okay.

00:17:46.445 --> 00:17:51.036
Um, we were in the process of moving here.

00:17:51.096 --> 00:17:53.195
We'd been in Granby for a couple of years.

00:17:53.375 --> 00:17:53.645
Okay.

00:17:54.125 --> 00:17:59.615
Um, as we transitioned out of Texas, um, our oldest son and his wife were here.

00:18:00.336 --> 00:18:01.776
And middle son.

00:18:01.836 --> 00:18:02.976
Middle son, sorry.

00:18:03.306 --> 00:18:04.836
Our middle son and his wife were here.

00:18:06.006 --> 00:18:12.425
Um, backstory, you know, with the business in Texas that didn't survive COVID.

00:18:12.635 --> 00:18:12.905
Yeah.

00:18:13.086 --> 00:18:13.361
Um, so.

00:18:14.151 --> 00:18:15.740
I was looking for something else to do.

00:18:15.740 --> 00:18:16.461
You were, you were starting fresh.

00:18:16.490 --> 00:18:16.790
Yeah.

00:18:17.510 --> 00:18:18.861
So, um, yeah.

00:18:18.865 --> 00:18:22.701
So was it the family connection that was your path back to Colorado after chasing Yeah.

00:18:22.790 --> 00:18:26.151
Not chasing this girl out to Colorado, but at least becoming intrigued by her.

00:18:26.570 --> 00:18:26.901
Yeah.

00:18:26.901 --> 00:18:26.902
Yeah.

00:18:27.351 --> 00:18:30.141
We had tried to get to Colorado, our whole married lives.

00:18:30.141 --> 00:18:30.411
Yeah.

00:18:30.621 --> 00:18:34.490
I mean, and we've vacationed here forever and just really love it.

00:18:34.941 --> 00:18:35.030
Mm-hmm.

00:18:35.451 --> 00:18:39.621
Um, but there was, I was looking for an opportunity to buy a business.

00:18:40.596 --> 00:18:48.425
Portable Rental Systems was a business, a small porta potty business that had been here since, I think, 1996.

00:18:48.486 --> 00:18:48.875
Okay.

00:18:49.566 --> 00:18:52.326
And, uh, the owner was ready to retire.

00:18:52.326 --> 00:18:56.736
He was kind of shrinking it and I came across it on Biz By Cell.

00:18:57.066 --> 00:18:57.395
Okay.

00:18:57.786 --> 00:19:02.645
And, um, yeah, we went through the process and bought this business.

00:19:02.736 --> 00:19:02.915
Yeah.

00:19:03.546 --> 00:19:07.685
Um, and have been growing it and having fun with it.

00:19:07.685 --> 00:19:10.740
You changed the name right away to portable restroom Solutions and stuff?

00:19:10.810 --> 00:19:11.101
Yeah.

00:19:11.105 --> 00:19:11.586
Yeah.

00:19:11.586 --> 00:19:15.516
Kept the PRS, um, because a lot of people knew it as PRS.

00:19:15.516 --> 00:19:15.517
Yeah.

00:19:15.546 --> 00:19:15.875
Yeah.

00:19:15.875 --> 00:19:21.246
So we went with portable restroom solutions and rebranded kind of niched down a little bit.

00:19:21.306 --> 00:19:21.576
Mm-hmm.

00:19:22.026 --> 00:19:22.415
Yeah.

00:19:22.415 --> 00:19:22.416
Yeah.

00:19:22.596 --> 00:19:27.365
So, and we've continued to expand, um, right.

00:19:27.365 --> 00:19:28.881
Well you've run a ton, right?

00:19:28.911 --> 00:19:30.036
Like Yeah.

00:19:30.576 --> 00:19:33.846
When I bought the business, it was doing about 475,000.

00:19:34.701 --> 00:19:37.191
And we'll do just a little bit over 2 million this year.

00:19:37.250 --> 00:19:38.181
Nice, nice.

00:19:38.181 --> 00:19:39.891
So just super solid growth.

00:19:39.951 --> 00:19:40.310
Yeah.

00:19:40.641 --> 00:19:40.851
Yeah.

00:19:40.881 --> 00:19:45.800
There's some things that people never stop doing, growing a business.

00:19:45.800 --> 00:19:47.121
I've heard all the junks for you.

00:19:47.121 --> 00:19:47.990
All the puns.

00:19:48.050 --> 00:19:48.830
Oh gosh.

00:19:48.830 --> 00:19:50.901
When we, when he said he was buying this?

00:19:50.901 --> 00:19:51.201
Yes.

00:19:51.201 --> 00:19:51.621
The puns.

00:19:51.625 --> 00:19:51.935
Oh, right.

00:19:51.935 --> 00:19:52.816
Were never ending.

00:19:53.391 --> 00:19:54.111
Oh my gosh.

00:19:55.580 --> 00:20:00.471
We, uh, so we, Jill and I just spent four nights up at by Crested Butte.

00:20:00.711 --> 00:20:01.911
Uhhuh above treeline.

00:20:01.911 --> 00:20:03.230
And our, uh, beautiful.

00:20:03.230 --> 00:20:03.381
Yeah.

00:20:03.980 --> 00:20:07.615
We took the ambulance camper out there and we were, we were not, yeah.

00:20:07.796 --> 00:20:09.951
Not above the treeline, but we were in a beautiful spot.

00:20:10.371 --> 00:20:17.691
And, uh, but the, the number two job is the biggest challenge with remote camping.

00:20:18.050 --> 00:20:18.681
Yeah, absolutely.

00:20:19.131 --> 00:20:23.871
And we've got a Luggable lu bucket and we've got a little tent that gives you privacy, but the tent.

00:20:24.201 --> 00:20:29.270
Took some wind damage was, was forever destroyed.

00:20:29.270 --> 00:20:38.361
But you know, so like I was literally like, okay, I guess the bucket in this kind of spot here between these trees is the most private it's gonna get for me.

00:20:38.570 --> 00:20:38.871
Yeah.

00:20:38.961 --> 00:20:40.881
Um, anyway, I digress.

00:20:41.361 --> 00:20:43.520
But it is an essential, yeah.

00:20:43.671 --> 00:20:48.740
You know, everybody's gonna do it and so that is a nice thing.

00:20:48.740 --> 00:20:49.881
How have you been able to grow it?

00:20:50.151 --> 00:20:53.780
Like what, what is the, because the marketplace.

00:20:54.141 --> 00:20:57.590
Ha hasn't necessarily grown much, although you bought it coming outta COVID.

00:20:57.590 --> 00:20:59.901
So the event business was probably slow.

00:21:00.260 --> 00:21:04.820
The event business was slow when we bought it, and that's grown tremendously.

00:21:04.851 --> 00:21:05.090
Yeah.

00:21:05.270 --> 00:21:09.290
Um, I was telling you earlier, we, we do running events.

00:21:09.320 --> 00:21:15.111
We did the Colorado Marathon, we do the Rocky Grass down in Lions.

00:21:15.111 --> 00:21:15.351
Awesome.

00:21:15.740 --> 00:21:17.810
So a lot of big events like that.

00:21:17.810 --> 00:21:20.451
We just started working with CSU this last year.

00:21:20.601 --> 00:21:20.871
Yeah.

00:21:21.020 --> 00:21:21.891
Tailgating.

00:21:22.580 --> 00:21:25.641
Um, so we've really focused on growing events.

00:21:25.760 --> 00:21:28.040
Also focused on growing construction.

00:21:28.250 --> 00:21:28.520
Yeah.

00:21:28.611 --> 00:21:29.901
'cause construction is.

00:21:30.576 --> 00:21:32.046
Just not slowing down here.

00:21:32.076 --> 00:21:32.435
Right.

00:21:32.496 --> 00:21:33.996
No matter what else happens.

00:21:34.536 --> 00:21:36.425
Um, well it's two different things, right?

00:21:36.425 --> 00:21:36.516
Mm-hmm.

00:21:36.756 --> 00:21:41.796
Like, but you probably don't move, like the construction restrooms just stay there through the weekends.

00:21:41.796 --> 00:21:45.546
So you still have to have different restrooms for the We do weekend events.

00:21:45.605 --> 00:21:45.846
Yep.

00:21:46.026 --> 00:21:46.296
Yep.

00:21:46.296 --> 00:21:48.816
We have a different set of restrooms that we use for events.

00:21:48.846 --> 00:21:49.326
Yeah.

00:21:49.326 --> 00:21:49.326
Yeah.

00:21:49.385 --> 00:21:51.006
Um, yeah.

00:21:51.006 --> 00:21:55.955
So we've just gradually, uh, hired, um, fairly early on, hired a young guy to do sales.

00:21:55.955 --> 00:21:57.455
That was very, really helpful.

00:21:57.546 --> 00:21:57.726
Yep.

00:21:58.236 --> 00:22:06.726
Um, and then just over a year ago, um, hired a guy named Matt that has just been dynamite.

00:22:06.786 --> 00:22:09.635
He actually moved his family here from Illinois.

00:22:09.756 --> 00:22:10.145
Oh, wow.

00:22:10.266 --> 00:22:11.496
When he first reached out.

00:22:11.766 --> 00:22:20.105
'cause I had an ad on Indeed and I've been interviewing, when he first reached out, I said, Matt, man, you're, you're too far away kind of job.

00:22:20.105 --> 00:22:22.056
You wanna move from Illinois for Yeah.

00:22:22.056 --> 00:22:22.536
And you don't.

00:22:22.536 --> 00:22:24.726
He's like, dude, I'm desperate to come to Colorado, please.

00:22:24.726 --> 00:22:25.836
He actually said that.

00:22:25.865 --> 00:22:29.405
He said, no, my wife and I have decided we're moving.

00:22:30.006 --> 00:22:32.346
We already know we're moving to Fort Collins.

00:22:32.405 --> 00:22:32.705
Yeah.

00:22:32.796 --> 00:22:36.935
I think it'll be worth our while for both of us if we can talk.

00:22:37.086 --> 00:22:38.976
This is all via email first, right?

00:22:38.976 --> 00:22:38.977
Right.

00:22:39.516 --> 00:22:51.726
Well then we start talking and we bring him out and interview and, and, um, so we hired him and he worked remote from Illinois until late June.

00:22:51.726 --> 00:22:53.826
This is starting probably May 1st.

00:22:53.826 --> 00:22:53.855
Okay.

00:22:53.885 --> 00:22:55.056
So a couple of months.

00:22:55.115 --> 00:22:55.296
Yep.

00:22:55.385 --> 00:23:00.875
He was producing remotely, just working the phones, working emails.

00:23:00.905 --> 00:23:02.826
So also sales, business development kind of.

00:23:02.826 --> 00:23:03.185
Yeah.

00:23:03.185 --> 00:23:06.365
So he has really done, he has done great.

00:23:06.455 --> 00:23:06.756
Awesome.

00:23:06.846 --> 00:23:08.586
So we've been able to build our team.

00:23:08.615 --> 00:23:08.826
Yep.

00:23:09.006 --> 00:23:10.296
We run on EOS.

00:23:10.296 --> 00:23:11.705
We're self implementing.

00:23:11.976 --> 00:23:14.526
Although shout out to Jennifer Lewis, who I know has been on here.

00:23:14.526 --> 00:23:15.036
Hey Jennifer.

00:23:15.125 --> 00:23:17.165
She helped us, Scott, get started.

00:23:17.256 --> 00:23:19.655
Um, but um.

00:23:20.121 --> 00:23:21.290
Yeah, that.

00:23:21.441 --> 00:23:25.371
So we've just been, yeah, just figure out the functions and, and locations.

00:23:25.371 --> 00:23:35.391
Also, I mean, the man who originally owned the business, it was in this crappy little metal building out an alt, a little sheep wool barn.

00:23:35.480 --> 00:23:35.750
Oh gosh.

00:23:35.750 --> 00:23:37.490
No heat, if you can imagine.

00:23:37.851 --> 00:23:38.211
Oh my goodness.

00:23:38.240 --> 00:23:38.480
Yeah.

00:23:38.480 --> 00:23:41.931
Employees are washing toilets in the, oh gosh.

00:23:41.931 --> 00:23:42.471
Cold in the winter.

00:23:42.471 --> 00:23:43.070
It was terrible.

00:23:43.131 --> 00:23:43.641
Yeah.

00:23:43.641 --> 00:23:43.642
Yeah.

00:23:43.730 --> 00:23:50.631
So that was part of the contract was we had to be there three years, and so then it's just been a little over a year, right.

00:23:50.631 --> 00:23:52.790
That they moved down to near Johnstown.

00:23:52.851 --> 00:23:53.300
Oh, dang.

00:23:53.300 --> 00:23:54.441
So much better.

00:23:54.770 --> 00:23:55.040
Yeah.

00:23:55.040 --> 00:23:56.451
Right off I 25.

00:23:56.451 --> 00:23:56.901
Right.

00:23:57.500 --> 00:24:07.580
We do a lot of work in Boulder County and so that cut, you know, 45 minutes off the drop and you have to do, do you have people that have to move all this stuff around or do you contract some of that out?

00:24:07.851 --> 00:24:10.520
No, that's your teams that are, yeah, it's a rental business.

00:24:10.526 --> 00:24:12.020
Like a, like an event rental business.

00:24:12.020 --> 00:24:12.230
Right.

00:24:12.230 --> 00:24:14.780
You gotta go implement all it was smart rushing for part of that first.

00:24:15.441 --> 00:24:15.711
Right.

00:24:15.711 --> 00:24:19.221
I'm sure we was doing all I did routes, I did vents and Yeah.

00:24:19.550 --> 00:24:20.151
Went in the truck.

00:24:20.165 --> 00:24:25.280
And what, like a flatbed truck with sides and a trailer or what?

00:24:25.461 --> 00:24:26.540
How do you move that stuff around?

00:24:26.631 --> 00:24:32.871
We actually have special built trailers that, um, the toilets have Oh, you can pick them up without tipping them over?

00:24:32.871 --> 00:24:33.201
Kind of.

00:24:33.381 --> 00:24:37.520
Well, you just, you kinda leverage them up, but they slide into a slot.

00:24:37.760 --> 00:24:38.090
Okay.

00:24:38.090 --> 00:24:41.840
And then you're able to strap'em down so we don't have to strap all the individuals.

00:24:41.961 --> 00:24:42.621
Oh, I see.

00:24:42.740 --> 00:24:46.191
It's, um, they're specially built to haul porta-potties around.

00:24:46.340 --> 00:24:46.641
Gotcha.

00:24:47.211 --> 00:24:51.740
Um, and then we have the service trucks and we had one septic truck at the time.

00:24:52.611 --> 00:24:54.230
We now have bought.

00:24:55.026 --> 00:24:58.806
We've got a couple more that we're Oh, so we're expanding the subject.

00:24:58.830 --> 00:24:59.671
So you have to move them every time.

00:24:59.826 --> 00:25:03.790
You can just go suck the stuff out of'em a lot too and just keep'em in service.

00:25:03.816 --> 00:25:04.986
The ones that are right.

00:25:04.986 --> 00:25:07.415
The ones that are on construction, on construction sites like that.

00:25:07.445 --> 00:25:07.986
Yeah.

00:25:08.076 --> 00:25:08.286
Yeah.

00:25:08.286 --> 00:25:08.705
Makes sense.

00:25:08.736 --> 00:25:09.455
Okay, cool.

00:25:09.516 --> 00:25:14.766
Pull the trucks in, pump'em out, wash'em down, refill'em and go to the next one.

00:25:14.766 --> 00:25:18.605
I'm gonna come back to you'cause I haven't been doing Kathy much air time in a little bit.

00:25:18.605 --> 00:25:18.816
There you go.

00:25:18.816 --> 00:25:19.631
But uh, that's all right.

00:25:19.770 --> 00:25:21.875
His is the bigger story because Well, yeah.

00:25:21.875 --> 00:25:24.726
It's a Well, and it impacts us both well, but, we'll, yeah.

00:25:25.145 --> 00:25:25.415
Yeah.

00:25:25.566 --> 00:25:29.076
But, and, uh, you do some interesting work as well.

00:25:29.556 --> 00:25:29.796
Yeah.

00:25:30.215 --> 00:25:31.506
So talk to me about that.

00:25:31.506 --> 00:25:37.955
So I, uh, while we were in California, I was licensed as a marriage family, child counselor.

00:25:38.346 --> 00:25:38.375
Okay.

00:25:38.375 --> 00:25:41.796
As I said earlier, 3000 hours of supervised experience.

00:25:41.796 --> 00:25:44.316
So it was not an easy license to get.

00:25:44.316 --> 00:25:47.556
And California was one of the first states actually Gotcha.

00:25:47.615 --> 00:25:49.056
To do licensing.

00:25:50.151 --> 00:25:57.830
And then, uh, we moved back to Texas when the church thing after the church stuff Yeah.

00:25:57.830 --> 00:25:58.611
Happened and whatever.

00:25:58.851 --> 00:26:03.471
And we moved in with his parents in a, what was it, 1800 square foot house, three kids.

00:26:03.471 --> 00:26:05.300
Oh, so you guys had a fresh start before?

00:26:05.691 --> 00:26:07.945
We've had a couple of them we we'll get back to.

00:26:07.945 --> 00:26:09.891
I told you it was a long story, Kurt.

00:26:12.230 --> 00:26:13.340
Um, yeah.

00:26:13.340 --> 00:26:17.391
So we went back to Texas and so I was able to transfer my license.

00:26:17.391 --> 00:26:22.010
I worked in a couple of different settings and then I had a private practice for about 10 years.

00:26:22.040 --> 00:26:22.131
Okay.

00:26:23.030 --> 00:26:29.030
And got to the place, um, our youngest, so we have, um, two sons and a daughter.

00:26:29.211 --> 00:26:29.421
Okay.

00:26:29.661 --> 00:26:31.760
So we had two kiddos that were born in California.

00:26:32.570 --> 00:26:35.211
And, um, I just.

00:26:35.691 --> 00:26:38.151
I was getting a little burned out.

00:26:38.151 --> 00:26:42.230
We were in a fairly small town that was not real therapy minded.

00:26:42.230 --> 00:26:43.641
We were south of Austin.

00:26:43.671 --> 00:26:43.851
Yeah.

00:26:43.971 --> 00:26:46.161
Austin's kind of like Fort Collins, right?

00:26:46.161 --> 00:26:48.141
Denver, you know, a little Margaret Granola, you know, much more progressive.

00:26:48.381 --> 00:26:48.530
Yeah.

00:26:49.310 --> 00:26:52.671
Um, uh, new Braunfels, not so much.

00:26:52.671 --> 00:27:03.111
I love the town, loved a lot of the people there, but in the years that I practiced, I had a two drawer filing cabinet that I had filled up and emptied twice.

00:27:03.351 --> 00:27:03.621
Okay.

00:27:03.711 --> 00:27:06.290
That's a lot of clients to see.

00:27:06.921 --> 00:27:09.651
And I, I would call it emotional vomiting.

00:27:09.651 --> 00:27:15.080
I, it's like people would come in and just, you know, and I, I tend to be very solution focused.

00:27:15.740 --> 00:27:25.580
Um, my training is in systems training, so helping people understand that, you know, like if it's a relationship issue, they can make changes some of the things that are going bad in your life.

00:27:26.026 --> 00:27:26.605
Or your fault?

00:27:27.195 --> 00:27:28.526
Well, and or nothing changes.

00:27:28.665 --> 00:27:29.006
Oh, yeah.

00:27:29.036 --> 00:27:29.925
Well, not your fault.

00:27:29.931 --> 00:27:34.070
I mean, we're always, you know, everyone adds to the dance, I would say.

00:27:34.070 --> 00:27:34.161
Sure.

00:27:34.280 --> 00:27:50.631
But, um, but a lot of times, like the longer I went on, I became more and more specialized in working with couples and marriage and did a lot of postgraduate work and supervision specifically for that, because it's a little bit of a different animal working with couples.

00:27:51.111 --> 00:27:55.371
And I find that a lot of therapists are like, oh, I do everything.

00:27:55.371 --> 00:27:55.971
I see kids.

00:27:55.971 --> 00:27:57.230
I see teens, I see couples.

00:27:57.230 --> 00:27:59.000
And I was like, well, not any of it.

00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:00.500
Well, maybe, but Right.

00:28:00.711 --> 00:28:03.530
Because really working with couples is just, it's a different, it's all different.

00:28:03.530 --> 00:28:04.885
Really experienced, honestly, dynamic.

00:28:04.885 --> 00:28:06.441
I haven't, like, I've experienced Yeah.

00:28:06.441 --> 00:28:07.310
Marriage counseling.

00:28:07.310 --> 00:28:07.431
Yeah.

00:28:07.641 --> 00:28:10.760
Quote unquote by somebody that also does individual counseling.

00:28:11.211 --> 00:28:11.631
Yes.

00:28:11.631 --> 00:28:11.721
Yes.

00:28:12.111 --> 00:28:18.770
But, and you can do, I've never, never experienced one-on-one that I, I think Jill's always been there, so maybe I should get some one-on-one stuff.

00:28:18.770 --> 00:28:19.580
Fix me up better.

00:28:19.671 --> 00:28:19.911
I don't know.

00:28:21.256 --> 00:28:23.875
So make you say sometimes that's helpful, you know?

00:28:24.655 --> 00:28:24.875
Um.

00:28:25.746 --> 00:28:27.306
But anyway, so yeah.

00:28:27.365 --> 00:28:29.230
So you were becoming a specialist in this couple area?

00:28:29.230 --> 00:28:39.576
So I couple, so I specialized more, I mean, I, going all the way back to my graduate school, I did my, um, internship at the Child study center in Fort, uh, Fort Worth, not Fort Collins.

00:28:40.145 --> 00:28:54.155
Um, so I started with children and families and I wanted to do more marriage stuff, but, um, I remember a speaker at a conference saying that, um, if you're going to work with couples, you needed to be at least 30 years old.

00:28:54.155 --> 00:28:55.385
And I was like, what do they know?

00:28:55.596 --> 00:28:56.435
I know everything.

00:28:56.435 --> 00:29:01.026
Well, there was a lot of learning I needed, you know, and just life experience.

00:29:01.596 --> 00:29:07.955
And so, um, I just, and I, I've always been interested in business.

00:29:07.955 --> 00:29:19.026
Like if I had my education to do over, I would probably have at least minored in business knowing that I wanted to work for myself.

00:29:19.026 --> 00:29:19.236
Really?

00:29:19.236 --> 00:29:19.296
Yeah.

00:29:19.296 --> 00:29:19.355
Yeah.

00:29:19.655 --> 00:29:19.865
Yeah.

00:29:20.135 --> 00:29:21.425
And, um.

00:29:22.010 --> 00:29:24.530
So anyway, I just, I was kind of getting bored.

00:29:24.651 --> 00:29:24.770
Yeah.

00:29:24.861 --> 00:29:34.131
And I, I decided to close my private practice when our youngest was in high school and, um, thought I would do some business coaching.

00:29:34.131 --> 00:29:42.445
By that point, mark had started a's care, which was an assisted living for people with Alzheimer's.

00:29:42.590 --> 00:29:48.681
And you figured you were coaching him up and might as well, uh, like work on some other hard projects.

00:29:48.681 --> 00:29:58.221
Actually, I asked her at some point as we were growing, I said, sweetheart, is there some sort of assessment we can use to help us in our hiring and do a better job with hiring?

00:29:58.250 --> 00:30:03.351
And that kind of led her down the path of learning from that and learning the disc.

00:30:03.351 --> 00:30:14.480
And, um, so yeah, so we, I, we haven't, I don't know if you're gonna come back to when he started AL'S Care, but Yeah, I think we will, but Okay.

00:30:14.871 --> 00:30:16.520
Um, or do you want, should we go back to right now?

00:30:17.346 --> 00:30:24.215
Well, this is a whole different chapter, kind of, but it kind of intersects with the point that I am at, of going into the business coaching.

00:30:24.215 --> 00:30:26.556
I didn't have my private practice any longer.

00:30:27.125 --> 00:30:36.846
Um, we were empty nesters at that point, and you were probably eight years, you started alls care in 98.

00:30:36.996 --> 00:30:37.086
Mm-hmm.

00:30:38.766 --> 00:30:42.276
And so it was probably 20 11, 20 12.

00:30:42.276 --> 00:30:50.855
I think that, man, it was just, we had several locations and it, it had really taken a toll on us and we didn't know it.

00:30:50.855 --> 00:30:50.856
Mm-hmm.

00:30:50.911 --> 00:30:52.506
You know, I think that's the challenge.

00:30:52.506 --> 00:30:55.205
And so I'm tying this in with the work that I do.

00:30:55.236 --> 00:30:55.476
Yeah.

00:30:55.480 --> 00:30:55.550
Yeah.

00:30:56.016 --> 00:31:00.096
'cause I wasn't actively, um, providing therapy anymore.

00:31:00.096 --> 00:31:02.465
I still had, I had paused my license.

00:31:02.496 --> 00:31:02.911
Yep, yep.

00:31:02.945 --> 00:31:07.510
Which Texas allowed at the time, with the understanding I could come back and get it at some points.

00:31:07.510 --> 00:31:10.806
And you guys got kind of wrapped up in growing this alls care.

00:31:11.195 --> 00:31:11.796
Yeah.

00:31:11.800 --> 00:31:11.990
Mm-hmm.

00:31:12.070 --> 00:31:12.191
Yeah.

00:31:12.671 --> 00:31:13.471
Organization.

00:31:13.540 --> 00:31:13.830
Yeah.

00:31:13.865 --> 00:31:14.226
Kind of.

00:31:14.226 --> 00:31:24.155
I consulted, I worked in the business very briefly, decided that was not a good place for me to be, but, um, we hit a really low point in our marriage.

00:31:24.155 --> 00:31:24.215
Yeah.

00:31:24.365 --> 00:31:40.655
Um, we, uh, so kind of as you worked kind of more together on the business, you let the, the relationship kind of Well, I think it was more just the to, because every time we opened a new location, it was like a startup all over again.

00:31:41.046 --> 00:31:43.506
And we had, what, 12 at some point.

00:31:43.566 --> 00:31:43.655
Mm-hmm.

00:31:44.165 --> 00:31:48.125
And every one of those Mark was raising money, new investors.

00:31:48.276 --> 00:31:48.875
Oh, wow.

00:31:48.965 --> 00:31:52.566
And, you know, and it was up and it was down, and it was up and it was down.

00:31:52.596 --> 00:31:56.076
And we, we just never, we had a hard time.

00:31:56.645 --> 00:31:58.326
I'm looking at your book, traction.

00:31:58.326 --> 00:32:02.405
We had a hard time getting traction and just stability.

00:32:02.405 --> 00:32:02.465
Hmm.

00:32:03.125 --> 00:32:03.756
Um.

00:32:04.340 --> 00:32:11.721
Um, 2018, the housing crisis, you know, that hit us eventually, not immediately, but we realized.

00:32:12.320 --> 00:32:16.566
I remember you saying at some point, you know, admissions were down 2008.

00:32:16.836 --> 00:32:17.205
Yeah, yeah.

00:32:17.205 --> 00:32:17.726
2008.

00:32:17.871 --> 00:32:18.171
Sorry.

00:32:18.171 --> 00:32:18.770
Sorry Ron.

00:32:18.830 --> 00:32:24.621
So I think what I might have to do is, um, to set the stage on why you do what you do.

00:32:24.621 --> 00:32:27.471
Now, we might have to go through that part of the journey mm-hmm.

00:32:27.711 --> 00:32:27.770
Yeah.

00:32:27.770 --> 00:32:28.461
Of all's care.

00:32:28.550 --> 00:32:28.730
Yeah.

00:32:29.145 --> 00:32:29.605
We do that.

00:32:29.605 --> 00:32:34.161
So let's, so why don't you bring me back into your career path.

00:32:34.161 --> 00:32:37.101
So you, you come back kind of a little bit.

00:32:37.476 --> 00:32:39.306
Uh, I don't know.

00:32:39.935 --> 00:32:41.556
When did depressed you, you've had some humble pie.

00:32:41.556 --> 00:32:42.276
Yeah, absolutely.

00:32:42.276 --> 00:32:49.806
You know, I, I like to tell people it took me 37 years to have humble pie, and then it was all that was on the menu for about five years, you know?

00:32:50.465 --> 00:32:51.185
Um, but yeah.

00:32:51.185 --> 00:32:52.655
You were feeling in a tough place.

00:32:52.655 --> 00:32:57.695
You'd been kind of betrayed by this narcissist dude, after failing at the church lunch and Yeah.

00:32:58.115 --> 00:32:59.405
So what do you do when you're, you?

00:33:00.395 --> 00:33:02.135
Well, that's what I was trying to figure out, right?

00:33:02.135 --> 00:33:05.256
We moved back to Texas, um, moved in with mom.

00:33:05.256 --> 00:33:07.236
Your mom and dad moved in with my mom and dad.

00:33:07.236 --> 00:33:07.520
Your dad?

00:33:07.520 --> 00:33:07.521
Yeah.

00:33:07.527 --> 00:33:08.526
With kids.

00:33:08.586 --> 00:33:09.760
Um, God bless em.

00:33:09.760 --> 00:33:09.843
You love them?

00:33:10.476 --> 00:33:10.776
Do what?

00:33:10.836 --> 00:33:11.645
Do you love them?

00:33:11.766 --> 00:33:12.336
His mom and dad?

00:33:12.336 --> 00:33:12.816
I do.

00:33:12.965 --> 00:33:14.915
I, well, that's after, even after that.

00:33:14.915 --> 00:33:15.846
I love his parents.

00:33:16.086 --> 00:33:16.236
Yes.

00:33:16.296 --> 00:33:18.965
His dad has passed, but his mom is still with us.

00:33:18.996 --> 00:33:19.266
Yeah.

00:33:19.266 --> 00:33:19.326
Yeah.

00:33:20.316 --> 00:33:24.965
Um, I was, yeah, I was just really kind of.

00:33:25.820 --> 00:33:26.631
Unmoored.

00:33:27.201 --> 00:33:29.661
Um, I, I really didn't know what was gonna be next.

00:33:29.661 --> 00:33:29.721
Yeah.

00:33:29.721 --> 00:33:30.500
I couldn't imagine.

00:33:30.891 --> 00:33:32.601
I mean, I grew up in a ministry family.

00:33:32.871 --> 00:33:33.020
Right.

00:33:33.020 --> 00:33:35.121
I had no other framework really to consider.

00:33:35.121 --> 00:33:35.211
Yeah.

00:33:36.530 --> 00:33:45.681
Um, but I had a friend around the corner from where we lived, his son and, and Ryan, our son that lives here, um, we're playing T-Ball together.

00:33:45.921 --> 00:33:46.250
Okay.

00:33:46.820 --> 00:33:52.851
He taught at, um, a university in San Marcos, just, just north of us, Texas State now.

00:33:53.240 --> 00:33:53.506
Yep, yep, yep.

00:33:54.201 --> 00:34:04.971
Um, we were running together one morning and he said, you know, I don't know why hadn't thought about this before, but if you've already got a degree, we have a program within health administration.

00:34:04.971 --> 00:34:10.101
You can take a couple of classes, do an internship, and become a nursing home administrator.

00:34:10.161 --> 00:34:10.311
Hmm.

00:34:11.061 --> 00:34:14.121
I literally said, I've always liked old people.

00:34:14.510 --> 00:34:14.811
Right.

00:34:14.900 --> 00:34:18.945
I went and met with the two women that ran the program, went and did that.

00:34:19.306 --> 00:34:19.465
Interesting.

00:34:19.471 --> 00:34:20.630
And headed down the path.

00:34:21.170 --> 00:34:23.001
And became a nursing home administrator.

00:34:23.240 --> 00:34:23.811
That's interesting.

00:34:23.811 --> 00:34:28.460
One of my, one of my best college friends, probably still is a nursing home administrator.

00:34:28.460 --> 00:34:33.440
I haven't seen him in a few years, but his family has kind of built a collection of nursing homes and things.

00:34:33.440 --> 00:34:34.400
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:34:34.400 --> 00:34:36.471
Not too different from your own experience in some ways.

00:34:36.471 --> 00:34:38.360
Perhaps all those years were all de novos.

00:34:38.365 --> 00:34:38.516
Yeah.

00:34:38.931 --> 00:34:41.240
So anyway, so you become a nursing home administrator.

00:34:41.300 --> 00:34:41.601
Yeah.

00:34:41.601 --> 00:34:47.661
So I spent about, um, I was, I was an administrator six or seven years.

00:34:48.530 --> 00:34:54.050
Very first home I, I went to, was a small home south San Antonio.

00:34:54.440 --> 00:34:56.661
It's an hour and 15 minute drive from our house.

00:34:56.690 --> 00:34:56.960
Okay.

00:34:57.530 --> 00:35:01.550
Um, but they were gonna convert it to an all Alzheimer's nursing facility.

00:35:01.581 --> 00:35:01.911
Okay.

00:35:02.331 --> 00:35:09.740
So I went in, did that, walked through the construction, got it filled up and was twirling my thumbs and bored.

00:35:09.860 --> 00:35:10.371
Okay.

00:35:10.880 --> 00:35:14.960
And so I got an opportunity to go into San Antonio to a home that was, I.

00:35:14.960 --> 00:35:17.106
Yeah, just a mess.

00:35:17.795 --> 00:35:20.135
Um, so turn that around.

00:35:20.465 --> 00:35:22.445
Open an Alzheimer's unit in there opened.

00:35:22.445 --> 00:35:24.576
So it's basically the executive for this Yep.

00:35:24.576 --> 00:35:25.896
Center in each case, right?

00:35:25.896 --> 00:35:26.045
Correct.

00:35:26.045 --> 00:35:27.666
Like the CEO of that facility?

00:35:27.666 --> 00:35:28.596
Yes, yes.

00:35:28.626 --> 00:35:28.956
Yeah.

00:35:29.286 --> 00:35:34.266
Um, that one we opened, uh, hospice unit to care for AIDS patients.

00:35:34.295 --> 00:35:34.565
Oh, wow.

00:35:34.565 --> 00:35:35.351
This was in, uh.

00:35:37.101 --> 00:35:38.271
Mid nineties.

00:35:38.271 --> 00:35:38.510
Yeah.

00:35:39.021 --> 00:35:39.771
Johnson years.

00:35:39.771 --> 00:35:40.400
So just kind of at the height.

00:35:40.400 --> 00:35:41.300
Yeah, exactly.

00:35:42.050 --> 00:35:43.221
Sorry, that's kind of rude, but Oh yeah.

00:35:43.311 --> 00:35:47.150
So kind of like brought awareness to the public in that space.

00:35:47.300 --> 00:35:47.630
It did.

00:35:47.630 --> 00:35:47.666
Yeah, it did.

00:35:47.670 --> 00:35:48.201
Absolutely.

00:35:48.380 --> 00:35:57.021
Um, yeah, went through several of those and had the good fortune to work for a guy who had owned his own business.

00:35:57.380 --> 00:35:57.740
Okay.

00:35:58.280 --> 00:36:02.811
And because these are all big corporations that you were working for time, these big corporations.

00:36:02.811 --> 00:36:04.280
I got fired from one of'em.

00:36:04.280 --> 00:36:07.251
When they got bought out, it was just, why'd you get fired?

00:36:07.911 --> 00:36:09.110
It was just to change.

00:36:09.110 --> 00:36:10.280
They fired everyone.

00:36:10.280 --> 00:36:11.630
I was the last one to go.

00:36:12.081 --> 00:36:12.380
Right.

00:36:12.440 --> 00:36:16.610
But all the administrators, well, there's so many arbitrary decisions when you come from big corporate like that.

00:36:16.610 --> 00:36:17.331
Yeah, absolutely.

00:36:17.871 --> 00:36:19.190
Well, I think there were, I think that happened twice.

00:36:19.190 --> 00:36:20.840
It was a real time of consolidation.

00:36:21.110 --> 00:36:21.201
Mm-hmm.

00:36:21.201 --> 00:36:23.106
In the nursing home industry.

00:36:23.106 --> 00:36:23.106
Yeah.

00:36:23.106 --> 00:36:23.871
It was not, not fun.

00:36:24.201 --> 00:36:28.701
And I realized at some point I realized, okay, this corporate thing doesn't really work for me.

00:36:28.791 --> 00:36:29.090
Yeah.

00:36:29.960 --> 00:36:36.231
But I didn't know what else to do until I met, um, a guy named Ed Harmon who had owned his own.

00:36:36.891 --> 00:36:38.061
Nursing home company.

00:36:38.150 --> 00:36:38.420
Okay.

00:36:38.451 --> 00:36:39.141
In Georgia.

00:36:39.831 --> 00:36:43.820
Um, he actually looked like, um, Ted Turner.

00:36:44.061 --> 00:36:44.510
Okay.

00:36:44.630 --> 00:36:45.561
Interesting guy.

00:36:46.130 --> 00:36:48.110
But he said, look, you can raise money.

00:36:48.110 --> 00:36:49.010
It's not that hard.

00:36:49.400 --> 00:36:52.311
And assisted living was just starting to take off.

00:36:52.670 --> 00:36:52.972
Yep, yep.

00:36:53.661 --> 00:37:01.940
So, uh, good friend there in Texas, um, partnered with me and we bought an old house Yep.

00:37:02.061 --> 00:37:06.351
And converted it and put in sprinklers, did everything to get it licensed Yep.

00:37:06.351 --> 00:37:08.331
To start taking care of people with Alzheimer's.

00:37:08.331 --> 00:37:08.391
Yeah.

00:37:08.481 --> 00:37:10.641
Put six or 10 or whatever.

00:37:10.791 --> 00:37:11.001
Yeah.

00:37:11.001 --> 00:37:14.786
Started out, I think with 10, we ended up at about 15 or 16.

00:37:14.791 --> 00:37:15.050
Okay.

00:37:15.800 --> 00:37:18.621
Bought another old house in another town, did the same thing.

00:37:18.621 --> 00:37:22.670
Then we started building purpose built and we had.

00:37:23.346 --> 00:37:26.916
Um, at our height we had about, I think we had six locations.

00:37:26.945 --> 00:37:30.576
And you rounded up investors in each of these cases too, because you were Yeah.

00:37:30.576 --> 00:37:34.175
Rice money recovering pastor, plant guy.

00:37:34.175 --> 00:37:34.686
Right.

00:37:34.746 --> 00:37:37.565
But you were a nursing home administrator for a while, so that was Yeah.

00:37:37.806 --> 00:37:43.115
But all those peanuts were going to like start retirement account and pay these three ankle biters.

00:37:43.115 --> 00:37:43.356
Yeah.

00:37:43.411 --> 00:37:44.315
Right, right.

00:37:44.405 --> 00:37:44.916
Yeah.

00:37:44.916 --> 00:37:50.045
And, but I did in the nursing home business, I did realize that business made sense to me.

00:37:50.076 --> 00:37:50.166
Mm-hmm.

00:37:50.166 --> 00:37:52.775
I'd never taken, I got a distinctive around it.

00:37:52.985 --> 00:37:53.856
It was, yeah.

00:37:54.335 --> 00:37:56.106
Um, yeah.

00:37:56.106 --> 00:38:12.606
So built that business over a number of years, acquired a, a little, um, assisted living, um, then raised some money from some guys, brought in a guy that, this was before EOS days.

00:38:12.726 --> 00:38:12.996
Okay.

00:38:12.996 --> 00:38:18.275
So instead of me, a visionary, an EOS speak.

00:38:18.306 --> 00:38:18.576
Yep.

00:38:19.445 --> 00:38:21.936
Um, identifying and hiring an integrator.

00:38:23.030 --> 00:38:29.570
I didn't, I, I sort of understood that, but I brought in a guy actually to replace me as a visionary.

00:38:29.601 --> 00:38:29.751
Yep.

00:38:30.231 --> 00:38:34.400
But I wanted him to actually be an operator also.

00:38:34.460 --> 00:38:34.701
Yep.

00:38:35.451 --> 00:38:37.641
Um, so that just didn't end well.

00:38:37.911 --> 00:38:39.231
Um, and this is cir me.

00:38:40.340 --> 00:38:40.760
Do I now?

00:38:40.880 --> 00:38:41.061
Yeah.

00:38:41.061 --> 00:38:42.951
What time, what, when was this along your journey?

00:38:43.326 --> 00:38:43.606
What?

00:38:43.626 --> 00:38:48.231
Uh, by that time it was probably 2017 or so.

00:38:48.291 --> 00:38:48.650
Okay.

00:38:48.740 --> 00:38:53.391
So that's the long, so you're just kind of growing this thing from the thing mid nineties basically.

00:38:53.451 --> 00:38:53.570
Yep.

00:38:54.141 --> 00:39:04.521
Um, and then you're like, it's got be a pretty big thing and my kids are getting older and I wanna spend more time with them and I don't wanna do all the things anymore.

00:39:04.521 --> 00:39:05.210
Well, they were.

00:39:05.615 --> 00:39:10.175
I mean, when, when he started it, we had one in high school, middle school and elementary.

00:39:10.175 --> 00:39:10.235
Yeah.

00:39:10.235 --> 00:39:10.326
Right.

00:39:10.326 --> 00:39:14.436
So we were in the middle of the busiest years of child raising.

00:39:14.436 --> 00:39:14.550
Yeah, sure.

00:39:14.550 --> 00:39:17.615
All the baseball and I had started my private practice.

00:39:18.096 --> 00:39:18.155
Yeah.

00:39:18.155 --> 00:39:20.166
And we thought it'd be a great idea to start a business.

00:39:20.166 --> 00:39:21.996
We're like, what could possibly go wrong?

00:39:22.085 --> 00:39:22.326
Yeah.

00:39:22.326 --> 00:39:25.056
A little house did not know what we did not know.

00:39:25.056 --> 00:39:31.536
And like I said, neither of us had any kind of experience with entrepreneurship.

00:39:31.896 --> 00:39:34.146
What goes into it, raising money, all of that.

00:39:34.146 --> 00:39:35.706
It was just, well, you must have built some of that though.

00:39:35.706 --> 00:39:37.925
Like even just pitching to investors and stuff.

00:39:37.925 --> 00:39:38.195
Right.

00:39:38.195 --> 00:39:39.485
Like understanding your finances.

00:39:39.485 --> 00:39:40.865
I, I learned it on the fly.

00:39:41.016 --> 00:39:41.615
Yeah.

00:39:41.615 --> 00:39:41.617
Yeah.

00:39:42.635 --> 00:39:43.835
Read, read a lot.

00:39:44.255 --> 00:39:44.525
Mm-hmm.

00:39:45.275 --> 00:39:47.376
Um, this was before Traction was published.

00:39:47.376 --> 00:39:47.525
Sure.

00:39:47.556 --> 00:39:54.306
Um, and just tried to, but I didn't know any other entrepreneurs, which was interesting.

00:39:54.306 --> 00:39:56.615
So this will circle back eventually to the peer.

00:39:56.740 --> 00:39:57.030
Yeah.

00:39:57.036 --> 00:39:57.335
Yeah.

00:39:57.335 --> 00:39:58.746
The peer board kind of a thing.

00:39:59.255 --> 00:40:03.215
But, um, so there were two significant events during that.

00:40:03.726 --> 00:40:14.286
Period with Alls Care one, uh, when I was asking Kathy, okay, how do we, how do we, are there some assessments that we can use to hire and all of that?

00:40:14.346 --> 00:40:14.496
Yep.

00:40:15.365 --> 00:40:18.306
So she introduced the disc, went and got training.

00:40:18.456 --> 00:40:24.996
Um, and when I took the disc, we all took it, everyone in the team.

00:40:25.896 --> 00:40:28.266
So you high, high D Oh man.

00:40:28.266 --> 00:40:28.835
A hundred percent.

00:40:28.896 --> 00:40:30.065
Uh, low C.

00:40:30.126 --> 00:40:30.996
Yeah, absolutely.

00:40:31.536 --> 00:40:33.186
My d my C hardly shows up.

00:40:34.896 --> 00:40:36.365
It's like, is it, is there still a C down there?

00:40:37.686 --> 00:40:38.615
Um, yeah.

00:40:38.795 --> 00:40:47.976
And, but what was so significant about that for me is I really thought there was something wrong with me.

00:40:48.126 --> 00:40:53.556
'cause I couldn't just stick with a job like everyone else I knew.

00:40:53.735 --> 00:40:54.036
Yeah.

00:40:54.186 --> 00:41:02.346
You know, I had all these friends who had jobs, who had careers, and my, I would ask myself, why can't I just be.

00:41:03.650 --> 00:41:07.490
Happy with getting a job going to work every day.

00:41:07.880 --> 00:41:09.920
I, I really thought there was something wrong with me.

00:41:09.920 --> 00:41:11.030
Did Kathy ask you that too?

00:41:11.030 --> 00:41:12.110
And sometimes, yeah.

00:41:12.201 --> 00:41:24.530
It was very frustrating for me, like why I think there was some embarrassment, um, on my part when Oh yeah, we're not taking a vacation because, you know, we just opened a new facility and Right.

00:41:24.951 --> 00:41:27.681
And I'm doing the open house and I'm cooking all the food for it.

00:41:28.340 --> 00:41:28.791
Right.

00:41:28.851 --> 00:41:32.510
You know, doing the gardening Well in socioeconomically you're doing pretty good.

00:41:32.900 --> 00:41:33.530
Not really.

00:41:33.530 --> 00:41:34.130
Not really.

00:41:34.130 --> 00:41:40.221
I, I mean eventually, but your circles are a little bit, at least in those places where people are getting vacations and they're sending Oh yes.

00:41:40.226 --> 00:41:41.016
All of our peers.

00:41:41.315 --> 00:41:51.170
All of our peers, and as Mark said, we didn't really, we did not have a community of people who were also entrepreneurs who would get that journey.

00:41:51.170 --> 00:41:51.231
Yeah.

00:41:51.416 --> 00:41:51.536
Yeah.

00:41:51.541 --> 00:41:56.360
So a lot of it we just kept to ourselves, but I think the years of.

00:41:57.365 --> 00:41:59.916
Of that, you know, things would be better.

00:41:59.916 --> 00:42:04.266
Then we'd open a new one or we'd have trouble hiring, or there were somebody quit on you interview wreck.

00:42:04.266 --> 00:42:14.735
There was so many stories of, you know, just, you know, it, it's heavy, um, uh, labor, you know?

00:42:14.735 --> 00:42:14.885
Yeah.

00:42:14.976 --> 00:42:20.885
And so you've got a lot of hourly people who are providing the care and a lot of'em really, really wonderful people.

00:42:21.215 --> 00:42:25.085
But you also have just people that are different, but lot of'em want a different job.

00:42:25.806 --> 00:42:29.856
Uh, a lot of'em can't do anything else or can't get a different job.

00:42:30.096 --> 00:42:30.396
Right.

00:42:30.606 --> 00:42:35.405
And so they're, they're not happily, not reliably, not exactly.

00:42:35.405 --> 00:42:38.885
Like either they'd rather be someone else or, yeah.

00:42:38.885 --> 00:42:40.025
They can't get anything better.

00:42:40.115 --> 00:42:40.385
Yeah.

00:42:40.445 --> 00:42:47.016
The other side of that coin is that, I mean, we took care of Kathy's mom for four years mm-hmm.

00:42:47.436 --> 00:42:49.686
In one of our buildings there in New Braunfels.

00:42:49.686 --> 00:42:49.775
Right.

00:42:50.271 --> 00:42:52.701
We took care of the man who was my high school principal.

00:42:53.001 --> 00:42:53.331
Yeah.

00:42:53.570 --> 00:42:58.161
And, uh, another man who the major Boulevard in New Braunfels was named after.

00:42:58.161 --> 00:42:59.210
You still like old people?

00:42:59.210 --> 00:42:59.630
I can tell.

00:43:00.471 --> 00:43:04.760
I do, I do, but I, that was the most stressful thing I've done in my entire life.

00:43:04.791 --> 00:43:05.090
Yeah.

00:43:05.096 --> 00:43:06.530
Was, and it went on for a long time.

00:43:06.530 --> 00:43:07.701
It went on for a long time.

00:43:08.001 --> 00:43:11.990
Oh, so you never, like you built a pretty big organization out of it?

00:43:12.710 --> 00:43:18.831
When, when I kind of stepped back we had 300, 350 employees.

00:43:18.860 --> 00:43:19.221
Okay.

00:43:19.971 --> 00:43:23.001
Um, and it was still how many locations?

00:43:23.001 --> 00:43:27.981
You know, that was probably a eight or 10 locations.

00:43:27.981 --> 00:43:35.030
And so you had, this would be CEO that was supposed to be like Mark, but do more operations stuff too?

00:43:35.061 --> 00:43:36.005
Kind of, yeah.

00:43:36.081 --> 00:43:36.440
Yeah.

00:43:36.501 --> 00:43:37.911
It was not a good choice.

00:43:37.940 --> 00:43:38.150
Yeah.

00:43:39.260 --> 00:43:47.630
So it, it just led down a path of kind of losing control and, but before all of that, the other significant event.

00:43:48.606 --> 00:43:51.516
Was in around 2010, I think.

00:43:52.085 --> 00:43:54.365
I think that was after we started doing the disc.

00:43:54.365 --> 00:43:59.135
The disc was the time that I said, oh, this is not that.

00:43:59.135 --> 00:44:00.306
There's something wrong with me.

00:44:00.306 --> 00:44:01.775
This is actually who I am.

00:44:01.925 --> 00:44:02.195
Right.

00:44:02.195 --> 00:44:03.396
This is how God made me.

00:44:03.400 --> 00:44:03.550
Yeah.

00:44:03.815 --> 00:44:07.295
This is, all of a sudden all these things started to make more sense.

00:44:07.356 --> 00:44:07.596
Yep.

00:44:08.465 --> 00:44:17.856
But the intensity, the pressure, the stress of what we were doing, Kathy calls at the time, we lost, almost lost our footing.

00:44:18.965 --> 00:44:21.606
We were so stressed.

00:44:21.606 --> 00:44:26.076
We'd opened, I don't know, building number eight or something at this time.

00:44:27.036 --> 00:44:46.085
And, um, we, we were in our kitchen and, um, Kathy said to me, I think maybe, maybe we ought to take a break from one another.

00:44:46.775 --> 00:44:46.925
Oh.

00:44:48.831 --> 00:44:56.001
And I, you know, I still, it still is, uh, it's still tough to think about.

00:44:56.240 --> 00:45:06.081
Um, but when she said that I just came apart and just started weeping, you're like, what are you about Much more than I am now.

00:45:06.951 --> 00:45:11.510
But just started weeping and, and just sank down on the floor.

00:45:12.291 --> 00:45:25.760
And Kathy, um, from, uh, probably the, the same heart, maybe a different place in the heart, just came over and sat down and put her arms around me.

00:45:26.956 --> 00:45:30.170
And, and if somebody had walked in that room, you would've thought somebody had died.

00:45:30.170 --> 00:45:31.335
You would've thought Sarah died.

00:45:31.335 --> 00:45:34.735
It was just, just sob stir built years of, yeah.

00:45:34.916 --> 00:45:36.260
Of not even facing it.

00:45:36.260 --> 00:45:36.440
Yeah.

00:45:36.471 --> 00:45:38.541
'cause there wasn't anything bad going on.

00:45:38.541 --> 00:45:39.771
We were just empty.

00:45:39.891 --> 00:45:45.175
There was just nothing left and we didn't really, so you weren't realize it like.

00:45:45.635 --> 00:45:52.806
You hadn't got into little habits of digging on each other or being, you know, passive aggressive or?

00:45:53.315 --> 00:45:55.300
No, I think it was, it was some, some financial stuff.

00:45:55.300 --> 00:45:56.420
Couples usually do stuff for sure.

00:45:56.481 --> 00:45:58.146
Was, was financial.

00:45:58.175 --> 00:46:03.996
There was probably some impatience and I mean, being a d you know, yeah.

00:46:04.115 --> 00:46:05.346
I mean, I've learned this now.

00:46:05.376 --> 00:46:05.795
Yeah.

00:46:05.795 --> 00:46:05.797
Yeah.

00:46:05.885 --> 00:46:06.996
That red color.

00:46:07.565 --> 00:46:07.715
Mm-hmm.

00:46:07.775 --> 00:46:10.865
Um, you know, that first emotion is anger.

00:46:11.016 --> 00:46:11.405
Yeah.

00:46:11.411 --> 00:46:11.420
Yeah.

00:46:12.065 --> 00:46:15.396
And, and, which I never understood until that time.

00:46:15.425 --> 00:46:15.726
Hmm.

00:46:16.565 --> 00:46:21.275
Um, the really interesting thing is it, go ahead.

00:46:21.456 --> 00:46:22.385
In that circumstance was.

00:46:22.911 --> 00:46:24.891
Anger at yourself?

00:46:24.981 --> 00:46:26.150
Oh yeah, mostly.

00:46:26.331 --> 00:46:27.831
Mostly just impatient.

00:46:27.831 --> 00:46:30.920
Just like he would just have a really short fuse never directed at me.

00:46:30.920 --> 00:46:31.791
Okay, gotcha.

00:46:31.820 --> 00:46:32.061
Yeah.

00:46:32.331 --> 00:46:35.570
But that was part of your data points was like, well, I was always picking up.

00:46:35.570 --> 00:46:40.791
Suddenly over the last few years I'm living with this guy that's sometimes sp into anger and that's.

00:46:41.411 --> 00:46:44.025
Or even if it's not at me, it's still, you know, yucky.

00:46:44.025 --> 00:46:46.570
I'm, I'm picking up a lot of pieces like Yep.

00:46:46.601 --> 00:46:48.731
His plate was overflowing.

00:46:48.760 --> 00:46:48.851
Yep.

00:46:48.851 --> 00:46:53.440
And so, especially when the kids were at home, I'm running my business.

00:46:53.445 --> 00:46:53.545
Right.

00:46:53.550 --> 00:46:56.260
I'm helping in that business and I'm running a family.

00:46:56.291 --> 00:46:56.561
Right.

00:46:56.590 --> 00:46:57.760
And I'm running on empty.

00:46:58.150 --> 00:46:58.481
Right.

00:46:58.481 --> 00:46:58.630
Right.

00:46:58.630 --> 00:47:12.311
And you know, I mean we always did anniversary trips and that sort of thing, but we just, we really hit a point that was just, well, you weren't running an efficient enough, profitable enough business to get the help you needed.

00:47:12.340 --> 00:47:12.641
Right.

00:47:12.670 --> 00:47:12.940
Yeah.

00:47:12.945 --> 00:47:13.025
Right.

00:47:13.090 --> 00:47:15.851
And in some respects, and we're just kind of shouldering all that.

00:47:15.851 --> 00:47:15.971
Yeah.

00:47:15.971 --> 00:47:17.800
And I didn't understand fully what I needed.

00:47:17.800 --> 00:47:21.025
I keep for our podcast listeners, I keep pointing to the book track.

00:47:21.385 --> 00:47:21.545
Yeah.

00:47:21.545 --> 00:47:22.065
It's underneath the table.

00:47:22.096 --> 00:47:22.865
Down here on the table.

00:47:22.865 --> 00:47:23.465
Happens to be.

00:47:23.465 --> 00:47:23.666
Yeah.

00:47:23.666 --> 00:47:25.065
It's been sitting there for a few months.

00:47:25.166 --> 00:47:33.340
But Uhhuh, so one of the interesting things about that particular event is someone had told me about an organization called C 12.

00:47:33.550 --> 00:47:33.760
Mm.

00:47:33.971 --> 00:47:34.181
Yeah.

00:47:34.840 --> 00:47:38.650
I was scheduled to go to a C 12 meeting for the very first time the next day.

00:47:39.005 --> 00:47:39.155
Hmm.

00:47:39.815 --> 00:47:42.545
And I was thinking, I, I'm a mess.

00:47:42.576 --> 00:47:43.686
I can't go do this.

00:47:43.686 --> 00:47:48.786
And I, I don't remember if you said I should go, if I, I gotta quit being so sinful before I go to church.

00:47:49.056 --> 00:47:49.896
It's basically the same thing.

00:47:49.896 --> 00:47:50.885
Yeah, exactly.

00:47:50.885 --> 00:47:51.911
Straighten up and fly.

00:47:51.911 --> 00:47:52.110
Right.

00:47:52.115 --> 00:47:56.675
And I may have reached out to the guy that led it and said, man, I'm, I don't think I can go.

00:47:57.186 --> 00:47:58.896
And he said, no, I think you really need to.

00:47:59.195 --> 00:47:59.315
Hmm.

00:47:59.976 --> 00:48:07.146
So I went the next day and walked into this room and it was, it's all men in this particular group.

00:48:07.146 --> 00:48:14.135
I sat at a table for the first time and they go through and they do this balance wheel is the very first thing that they do.

00:48:14.346 --> 00:48:14.735
Okay.

00:48:14.856 --> 00:48:22.715
And it's physical, mental, spiritual, family, business, you know, just kind of what's the balance in your life?

00:48:23.556 --> 00:48:26.945
And so I just said, well, I'm gonna be honest.

00:48:27.036 --> 00:48:30.215
And, and then we go around and talk about it.

00:48:30.275 --> 00:48:32.795
And again, I said, I've got nothing to lose.

00:48:32.856 --> 00:48:33.905
I don't know these guys.

00:48:34.085 --> 00:48:34.445
Right.

00:48:35.045 --> 00:48:35.766
And so I just.

00:48:36.335 --> 00:48:43.271
Put it out there and the leader of the group said, man, you're a poster child for Right.

00:48:43.291 --> 00:48:44.195
For what we do here.

00:48:44.735 --> 00:48:47.675
And all the other guys were like, yeah, we've been there.

00:48:47.675 --> 00:48:47.735
Yeah.

00:48:48.126 --> 00:48:49.146
Or we are there.

00:48:49.565 --> 00:48:57.606
And Kathy says that when I came home that evening, um, she said it was like Mark was back.

00:48:58.536 --> 00:49:00.456
You know, you're, you were like, oh wow.

00:49:00.456 --> 00:49:02.766
There's other men that have experienced things.

00:49:02.766 --> 00:49:04.775
Kind of like what I've been experiencing.

00:49:04.775 --> 00:49:05.045
Yeah.

00:49:05.766 --> 00:49:13.146
Other entrepreneurs, you know, company builders that were in the same place.

00:49:13.175 --> 00:49:17.016
So I was in that group for almost five years.

00:49:17.045 --> 00:49:17.465
Okay.

00:49:18.065 --> 00:49:19.655
Man, it was powerful.

00:49:19.661 --> 00:49:19.951
Mm-hmm.

00:49:20.141 --> 00:49:20.911
Just powerful.

00:49:21.130 --> 00:49:31.985
And you had known for some time and were looking for some sort of a peer group, something they weren't as prolific, I think then as.

00:49:32.181 --> 00:49:33.190
They seem to be now.

00:49:33.190 --> 00:49:35.856
Yeah, no, it's definitely was much more secret society thing.

00:49:35.856 --> 00:49:36.695
Secret society.

00:49:36.755 --> 00:49:37.175
Yeah.

00:49:37.175 --> 00:49:41.376
When Loco started here locally, it was kind of the only game in town virtually doing that.

00:49:41.376 --> 00:49:43.476
But now we've got definitely more people doing it.

00:49:43.655 --> 00:49:43.925
Yeah.

00:49:43.931 --> 00:49:47.016
Or you gotta be at a, including club or whatever certain, you know, income level.

00:49:47.021 --> 00:49:47.110
Right.

00:49:47.315 --> 00:49:47.646
Right.

00:49:47.646 --> 00:49:48.306
To be able to qualify.

00:49:48.485 --> 00:50:03.576
So there's these, you know, in this instance years, which was what brought us to what became a passion for me because we kind of looked around and was like, we didn't find resources for couples like us.

00:50:03.635 --> 00:50:03.666
Mm.

00:50:03.666 --> 00:50:03.755
Yeah.

00:50:03.760 --> 00:50:03.911
Yeah.

00:50:03.916 --> 00:50:06.516
We could have, you know, people have asked me, well, couldn't you have gone to therapy?

00:50:06.516 --> 00:50:08.525
I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:50:08.556 --> 00:50:12.726
But would they have understood, so you started kind of imagining this, uh, yeah.

00:50:12.786 --> 00:50:16.896
Entrepreneurial couples coaching kind of thing.

00:50:16.896 --> 00:50:16.956
Yeah.

00:50:16.985 --> 00:50:18.576
I'm I even if you weren't doing it yet?

00:50:18.726 --> 00:50:18.996
Yeah.

00:50:18.996 --> 00:50:22.775
Well at that point officially I had a, I started a website.

00:50:22.865 --> 00:50:22.985
Okay.

00:50:22.985 --> 00:50:28.505
I wrote blog posts with articles about, you know, how to communicate better.

00:50:28.505 --> 00:50:28.626
Yeah, yeah.

00:50:28.686 --> 00:50:29.885
Which applied up.

00:50:30.231 --> 00:50:36.740
You know, all couples, as Mark starts to get his shit together in parts by C 12, you're like, oh, lemme write about this.

00:50:36.740 --> 00:50:38.811
Like, he's figuring some stuff out.

00:50:38.811 --> 00:50:40.101
It must be, I must be fixing it.

00:50:40.101 --> 00:50:49.340
That's exactly what, well, it's, it's like, it's like, you know the doctor that you know, you, I mean, you can't fix your own, fix your own sick mind kind of.

00:50:49.820 --> 00:50:50.871
Yeah, no, totally.

00:50:50.871 --> 00:50:54.351
As people will say, but, but you can still learn from that experience in some ways, but I think, yeah.

00:50:54.351 --> 00:50:54.351
Yeah.

00:50:54.641 --> 00:50:58.061
You know, we began to put into practice things that I had been teaching couples.

00:50:58.061 --> 00:51:00.610
Things I knew to do, but we weren't.

00:51:00.610 --> 00:51:04.510
And part of it was you kind of need two willing participants.

00:51:04.510 --> 00:51:07.690
And I think Mark realized what an empty place we were at.

00:51:07.840 --> 00:51:08.021
Yeah.

00:51:08.050 --> 00:51:13.331
I, and you know, he starts going to see 12, I start getting notes written on my mirror with lipstick.

00:51:13.331 --> 00:51:15.791
I'm like, who are you and what have you done with my arms?

00:51:16.255 --> 00:51:16.257
Right.

00:51:17.771 --> 00:51:23.050
So we, I mean, I think because of the years we had as a foundation Yeah.

00:51:23.141 --> 00:51:25.721
We found our footing fairly quickly.

00:51:25.721 --> 00:51:25.811
Yeah.

00:51:25.811 --> 00:51:33.760
And really became much more intentional, which is kind of what, you know, began to culminate in, in.

00:51:34.490 --> 00:51:45.231
Even developing this passion, um, because I launched Loadstar really just two years ago as, as an official, like, yeah, I am gonna make this official.

00:51:45.800 --> 00:51:49.311
And But you were already that, like when you and I first met, which was Yeah.

00:51:49.311 --> 00:51:50.630
Well before Mark and I met.

00:51:50.661 --> 00:51:50.931
Yeah.

00:51:50.931 --> 00:51:50.931
Yeah.

00:51:51.110 --> 00:51:52.820
You were already in that space.

00:51:52.851 --> 00:51:53.840
Well, that was two years ago.

00:51:53.990 --> 00:51:54.110
Yeah.

00:51:54.110 --> 00:51:54.561
Is that all?

00:51:54.561 --> 00:51:54.831
Yeah.

00:51:54.856 --> 00:51:55.146
Yeah.

00:51:55.340 --> 00:51:55.610
Dang.

00:51:55.820 --> 00:51:56.121
Yeah.

00:51:56.121 --> 00:51:56.721
Time flies.

00:51:56.840 --> 00:51:57.440
I know.

00:51:57.440 --> 00:51:58.340
When you're having fun.

00:51:58.490 --> 00:52:10.400
One of the things that we started doing about that time too, is we, we got to know a bunch of young couples, primarily, I think through our church, most of whom were entrepreneurs.

00:52:10.431 --> 00:52:10.460
Okay.

00:52:11.360 --> 00:52:15.920
And so we started doing these dinners about once a month, I think.

00:52:15.925 --> 00:52:15.945
Mm-hmm.

00:52:16.025 --> 00:52:16.385
Oh, cool.

00:52:16.731 --> 00:52:17.090
Yeah.

00:52:17.150 --> 00:52:19.251
And we would, I'd invite 10 or 12.

00:52:19.251 --> 00:52:20.900
We had a big farm table and.

00:52:21.425 --> 00:52:26.315
So usually there would be maybe five or six couples that would make it, each time.

00:52:26.916 --> 00:52:29.376
Kathy would generally throw a question or two out there.

00:52:29.376 --> 00:52:31.025
We'd do kind of a potluck dinner.

00:52:31.025 --> 00:52:32.646
Sometimes she'd just cook dinner.

00:52:32.646 --> 00:52:34.326
I, which she's an amazing cook.

00:52:35.766 --> 00:52:47.001
Um, but those were really, really great times of just hanging out together and being able to encourage these couples and love on them, which then helped us.

00:52:47.440 --> 00:52:47.521
Hmm.

00:52:47.556 --> 00:52:59.195
It became a very mutual, it wasn't a, yeah, it started as kind of a, let you know, I don't think we said let's mentor them, but we just, we saw these couples that were, you know, at various stages in business.

00:52:59.195 --> 00:52:59.525
Right.

00:52:59.585 --> 00:53:02.615
We opened it up really to, well, it takes a lot of trust.

00:53:03.621 --> 00:53:07.251
You know, and sometimes that's from the, the wife and sometimes it's from the husband.

00:53:07.431 --> 00:53:17.541
Like, I've met a number of entrepreneurial families where the wife is the entrepreneur and the husband has a stable tech job with the health insurance plan and stuff.

00:53:17.541 --> 00:53:19.311
And it takes a lot of trust from him too.

00:53:19.490 --> 00:53:19.851
Yeah, yeah.

00:53:20.090 --> 00:53:20.300
Right.

00:53:20.990 --> 00:53:22.101
Either, either way.

00:53:22.221 --> 00:53:22.431
Yeah.

00:53:22.911 --> 00:53:32.840
Um, it's in a later chapter like you guys are, where you don't have like kids that need fed every week, thank goodness.

00:53:32.900 --> 00:53:32.960
Yeah.

00:53:32.960 --> 00:53:33.740
Even every day.

00:53:33.831 --> 00:53:35.271
Some of'em need fed every day.

00:53:35.271 --> 00:53:35.811
These kids.

00:53:37.550 --> 00:53:38.181
Imagine that.

00:53:38.186 --> 00:53:38.746
Imagine that.

00:53:40.255 --> 00:53:40.545
Yeah.

00:53:40.610 --> 00:53:40.880
Yeah.

00:53:42.266 --> 00:53:43.610
I just fed you yesterday.

00:53:43.610 --> 00:53:43.701
Right.

00:53:45.771 --> 00:53:52.251
But, but it really does matter to have kind of a, you know, a sounding board, a, a place, a community.

00:53:52.431 --> 00:53:52.610
Yeah.

00:53:53.030 --> 00:53:53.585
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:53:53.811 --> 00:53:54.710
So, yeah.

00:53:54.740 --> 00:53:57.530
So you, so you were in this.

00:53:58.266 --> 00:54:03.306
This peer advisory, when you hired this not quite right fit, did they warn you?

00:54:03.545 --> 00:54:03.876
Yeah.

00:54:04.146 --> 00:54:05.885
And you did it anyway, or no?

00:54:06.001 --> 00:54:06.221
No.

00:54:06.280 --> 00:54:06.501
No.

00:54:06.666 --> 00:54:06.846
Okay.

00:54:06.936 --> 00:54:07.356
Alright.

00:54:07.565 --> 00:54:12.815
But I think part of the reason was that I, I actually was in this mode of trying to replace myself.

00:54:13.085 --> 00:54:13.445
Right.

00:54:14.405 --> 00:54:19.141
And I mean, literally CEOS you wanted to just a, wanted like retire.

00:54:19.746 --> 00:54:21.306
I wanted to semi-retire.

00:54:21.485 --> 00:54:21.666
Yeah.

00:54:21.670 --> 00:54:22.021
Right, right.

00:54:22.025 --> 00:54:23.496
And go do some other stuff.

00:54:23.496 --> 00:54:23.795
Right.

00:54:24.396 --> 00:54:26.255
And maybe start a church or something.

00:54:26.405 --> 00:54:26.735
Nope.

00:54:26.916 --> 00:54:27.876
Didn't wanna do that again.

00:54:28.266 --> 00:54:28.655
Nope.

00:54:29.496 --> 00:54:33.516
Um, but EOS had just been written in, published in 2012.

00:54:33.965 --> 00:54:34.266
Right.

00:54:34.326 --> 00:54:37.476
So it was not, didn't hit your radar yet.

00:54:37.476 --> 00:54:38.646
It really didn't hit our radar.

00:54:38.706 --> 00:54:38.976
Yeah.

00:54:38.976 --> 00:54:42.155
I don't even remember of hearing about it until much, much later.

00:54:42.155 --> 00:54:46.056
And C 12, like loco, like Vistage, like none of them are really.

00:54:46.550 --> 00:54:50.871
Like they don't have like the process or the system necessarily.

00:54:50.871 --> 00:54:53.090
Like a, an EOS kind of, yeah.

00:54:53.240 --> 00:54:57.260
At least most of them subjects to do or you know.

00:54:57.260 --> 00:54:57.262
Yeah.

00:54:57.262 --> 00:55:07.280
You know, most of them now, I think CC 12, much like loco, much like Vistage, they really embrace EOS as a really good Yeah.

00:55:07.400 --> 00:55:08.300
Operating system.

00:55:08.300 --> 00:55:10.340
A good basic standard system.

00:55:10.340 --> 00:55:12.411
If you don't have nothing, you don't have anything, definitely put this in there.

00:55:12.411 --> 00:55:12.650
Yeah.

00:55:12.800 --> 00:55:13.130
Yeah.

00:55:13.135 --> 00:55:16.820
You can go down this, you can strap stuff on if you want or make some changes, whatever.

00:55:16.820 --> 00:55:16.911
Right.

00:55:17.001 --> 00:55:19.280
You know, we're not kind of an exclusive, but Yeah.

00:55:19.371 --> 00:55:20.240
Right, right.

00:55:20.240 --> 00:55:24.710
So, so you grab a EOS along the journey or did you only learn about that later?

00:55:24.771 --> 00:55:25.251
After this?

00:55:25.251 --> 00:55:25.880
Much later.

00:55:26.115 --> 00:55:26.596
I think I, okay.

00:55:26.596 --> 00:55:27.530
It was after we moved here.

00:55:27.650 --> 00:55:27.951
Yeah.

00:55:28.041 --> 00:55:28.820
Oh, is that right?

00:55:28.820 --> 00:55:30.396
So it's been within the last four years.

00:55:30.465 --> 00:55:30.956
Four years.

00:55:31.135 --> 00:55:31.556
Mm-hmm.

00:55:31.641 --> 00:55:33.681
So let's flash us back to this.

00:55:34.161 --> 00:55:37.400
You, you hired Mark Junior.

00:55:38.780 --> 00:55:44.240
It didn't like, it didn't catch traction'cause it wasn't the right person starts with and.

00:55:44.300 --> 00:55:46.791
And and trouble's coming probably.

00:55:46.791 --> 00:55:46.851
Yeah.

00:55:48.320 --> 00:55:48.740
Yeah.

00:55:48.740 --> 00:55:58.760
Trouble is coming sometimes I think when you, part of my experience was that I hired someone who wanted to be where I was.

00:55:59.510 --> 00:56:02.842
He didn't wanna pay the price and do the reps that I had done.

00:56:02.847 --> 00:56:05.751
He saw, saw your tax bracket and uh, yeah.

00:56:05.751 --> 00:56:07.070
A few other things about your life.

00:56:07.161 --> 00:56:08.931
Your pretty wife with a naturally curly heart.

00:56:09.110 --> 00:56:09.681
Exactly.

00:56:09.771 --> 00:56:10.731
And he wanted that.

00:56:10.851 --> 00:56:11.121
Yeah.

00:56:11.121 --> 00:56:16.610
You know, maybe not her, not her, but so yeah.

00:56:16.670 --> 00:56:17.030
Yeah.

00:56:17.030 --> 00:56:25.731
He just was not paying attention to really the details of running the business and looking back.

00:56:25.731 --> 00:56:27.376
He was just, he was a long person.

00:56:27.476 --> 00:56:31.311
The long seat you to, even though it was all your money, all your stuff.

00:56:31.400 --> 00:56:31.731
Yeah.

00:56:31.755 --> 00:56:38.210
You, you still, you did it, but begrudgingly on some of those detail work probably'cause of the visionary type thing.

00:56:38.210 --> 00:56:38.211
Yeah.

00:56:38.240 --> 00:56:38.481
Yeah.

00:56:38.481 --> 00:56:41.295
And I, I would say I am a visionary with more of a.

00:56:41.780 --> 00:56:44.030
I've got a more of an operational bent.

00:56:44.090 --> 00:56:44.300
Okay.

00:56:44.300 --> 00:56:44.360
Yeah.

00:56:44.451 --> 00:56:46.490
A lot of visionaries will have more of a sales bent.

00:56:46.521 --> 00:56:46.670
Yep.

00:56:46.670 --> 00:56:47.030
Yep.

00:56:47.481 --> 00:56:48.951
Um, so that's mine.

00:56:49.025 --> 00:56:49.400
Yep, yep.

00:56:49.550 --> 00:56:53.661
Um, and yeah, so there was some struggles.

00:56:53.661 --> 00:57:02.150
We brought in some investors when it became clear that he was not the one that needed to be leading the company, then it was a matter of buying him out.

00:57:03.141 --> 00:57:13.400
And we were in a position where like it was the investor we brought in ended up buying him out in the process.

00:57:13.400 --> 00:57:17.960
The, my amount of ownership window like this, and that was a separate company.

00:57:17.960 --> 00:57:18.891
It's a separate company.

00:57:18.891 --> 00:57:24.231
We had started a separate, oh, some of the properties were in a different holding company kind of thing.

00:57:24.231 --> 00:57:33.650
So then we had the, I still had the alls care business over here with my, one of my early partners, which leading up to 2020.

00:57:34.476 --> 00:57:44.255
You know, we'd looked at selling a couple times, just didn't really get offers that we were interested in, and we just thought, well, you know, we're just gonna keep running this thing.

00:57:44.885 --> 00:57:44.945
Yeah.

00:57:44.945 --> 00:57:46.621
It does well, makes us a nice 22%.

00:57:46.911 --> 00:57:48.036
Makes us profit margin.

00:57:48.036 --> 00:57:48.905
Yeah.

00:57:48.905 --> 00:57:52.056
And has a pretty stable, provides a nice living for us, so, yep.

00:57:52.835 --> 00:57:53.556
And then COVID.

00:57:53.945 --> 00:57:54.335
Yeah.

00:57:54.485 --> 00:58:08.226
And COVID came along and we have 16 bed memory care units that we operate in several locations when, and people regularly are passing away.

00:58:08.405 --> 00:58:08.826
Sure.

00:58:09.516 --> 00:58:10.596
In normal times.

00:58:10.835 --> 00:58:19.505
And then during COVID, you know, our, our caregivers were in their FaceTiming with families as their loved one would pass away.

00:58:19.746 --> 00:58:19.835
Sure.

00:58:19.835 --> 00:58:22.235
Because they couldn't come in as families.

00:58:22.356 --> 00:58:22.536
Yep.

00:58:22.835 --> 00:58:27.215
We couldn't move people in during about a seven month period.

00:58:27.485 --> 00:58:28.025
Totally shut down.

00:58:28.025 --> 00:58:28.271
Totally shut down.

00:58:28.275 --> 00:58:28.565
Wow.

00:58:28.686 --> 00:58:29.585
No new patients.

00:58:29.646 --> 00:58:30.576
No new patients.

00:58:30.786 --> 00:58:31.231
Oh, no shit.

00:58:31.235 --> 00:58:33.365
And so it just went down, down, down.

00:58:34.146 --> 00:58:35.351
Then once it kind of opened, opened back up.

00:58:35.351 --> 00:58:36.905
What did the people back that needed your services too?

00:58:37.056 --> 00:58:37.715
They stayed home.

00:58:37.715 --> 00:58:38.286
They stayed home.

00:58:38.315 --> 00:58:39.335
They just died at home.

00:58:39.335 --> 00:58:40.686
Miserable kind of.

00:58:40.775 --> 00:58:41.045
Yeah.

00:58:41.045 --> 00:58:41.766
With no support.

00:58:41.766 --> 00:58:42.126
Yeah.

00:58:42.755 --> 00:58:42.876
Yeah.

00:58:42.876 --> 00:58:44.766
Well, at least their loved ones were there too.

00:58:44.885 --> 00:58:46.806
Locked up in They were with their families.

00:58:46.806 --> 00:58:47.346
Yeah.

00:58:47.346 --> 00:58:47.916
But sorry.

00:58:47.916 --> 00:58:48.516
That's rude.

00:58:48.516 --> 00:58:53.675
But No, and anyway, I remember you saying the admissions you did get, like they would die a month later.

00:58:53.675 --> 00:58:58.806
So families waited just as long, as much, much longer as we So your turnover was super rapid.

00:58:58.940 --> 00:58:59.231
Yeah.

00:58:59.530 --> 00:58:59.751
Low.

00:59:00.210 --> 00:59:00.951
The case intake.

00:59:01.115 --> 00:59:01.356
Yeah.

00:59:01.356 --> 00:59:03.365
We became more of a hospice.

00:59:03.425 --> 00:59:06.231
You know, after that no amount of marketing can fix that problem.

00:59:06.275 --> 00:59:06.576
No.

00:59:06.755 --> 00:59:07.025
Right.

00:59:07.686 --> 00:59:12.425
And the fear, you know, in that first, that year or so.

00:59:12.695 --> 00:59:12.965
Yeah.

00:59:13.266 --> 00:59:20.525
The fear that families had that, well, even if it's open now and I move mom in, what if it closes up again?

00:59:20.525 --> 00:59:20.706
Right.

00:59:20.766 --> 00:59:20.990
Might as well.

00:59:21.150 --> 00:59:22.416
I can't in the basement.

00:59:22.686 --> 00:59:23.076
Yeah.

00:59:23.465 --> 00:59:23.706
Yeah.

00:59:23.795 --> 00:59:24.005
Dang.

00:59:24.005 --> 00:59:27.545
And then to, to get people to come off of unemployment.

00:59:27.876 --> 00:59:29.556
As caregivers, right?

00:59:30.186 --> 00:59:30.456
Yeah.

00:59:30.456 --> 00:59:32.945
Your labor supply goes payroll, very minimal.

00:59:32.945 --> 00:59:33.815
Up about 30%.

00:59:34.206 --> 00:59:34.536
Dang.

00:59:34.536 --> 00:59:35.106
Just like that.

00:59:35.106 --> 00:59:38.346
Multiple factors that, so in what, like a 12 month span?

00:59:38.346 --> 00:59:42.936
You're bankrupt, kind of, or We were, we were at the place, yeah.

00:59:42.936 --> 00:59:45.485
Where we were nearly, we were putting money into it.

00:59:45.786 --> 00:59:46.115
Okay.

00:59:46.115 --> 00:59:47.315
We got an offer though.

00:59:47.465 --> 00:59:47.885
Okay.

00:59:48.096 --> 00:59:48.815
At that time.

00:59:48.815 --> 00:59:54.545
And we basically ended up selling it to a guy that, uh, we basically sold what was left.

00:59:54.545 --> 01:00:01.715
Our, the real estate partners did well, we got a little bit of money, had an operating company and all these real estate partners.

01:00:01.715 --> 01:00:01.865
Right.

01:00:01.865 --> 01:00:05.226
So you squared up with your investors mostly.

01:00:05.226 --> 01:00:05.226
Mm-hmm.

01:00:05.233 --> 01:00:07.476
We did all our investors.

01:00:08.195 --> 01:00:08.465
Yeah.

01:00:08.496 --> 01:00:10.266
Did pretty well, huh?

01:00:10.865 --> 01:00:15.335
And we were left with, uh, that was our retirement plan, you know.

01:00:16.206 --> 01:00:17.436
What was that like, Kathy?

01:00:18.755 --> 01:00:18.786
Ooh.

01:00:18.846 --> 01:00:21.545
Like you're, I have to think to some extent.

01:00:21.545 --> 01:00:23.240
You're like, here we are again.

01:00:23.240 --> 01:00:23.436
Yeah.

01:00:24.005 --> 01:00:26.376
It was, I will say.

01:00:27.155 --> 01:00:29.585
So we moved here to Fort Collins.

01:00:29.585 --> 01:00:32.706
Well, we live in Timnath, um, December of 2020.

01:00:32.766 --> 01:00:37.981
And so it was that next year of 2021, that things just really, you know.

01:00:38.201 --> 01:00:38.621
Mm-hmm.

01:00:38.721 --> 01:00:40.661
So it was, um, oh, so you were already here?

01:00:40.851 --> 01:00:41.541
Yeah, we were here.

01:00:41.541 --> 01:00:41.780
Mm-hmm.

01:00:41.860 --> 01:00:42.101
Oh, right.

01:00:42.101 --> 01:00:42.380
Yeah.

01:00:42.380 --> 01:00:47.255
We were here when it actually, like, you know, just shut down.

01:00:47.766 --> 01:00:49.206
Um, it, it was hard.

01:00:49.326 --> 01:00:51.666
It was probably the hardest time of our lives.

01:00:51.670 --> 01:00:51.780
Yeah.

01:00:51.786 --> 01:00:52.025
Yeah.

01:00:52.085 --> 01:00:53.585
Because we're not spring chickens.

01:00:53.585 --> 01:00:54.936
I mean, do the math.

01:00:54.936 --> 01:00:56.106
I'm 45 years married.

01:00:56.226 --> 01:00:56.376
Right.

01:00:56.376 --> 01:00:58.686
You know, and so Yeah.

01:00:58.686 --> 01:01:02.675
Most of our peers are retiring and we're like, we're starting again.

01:01:03.155 --> 01:01:03.215
Yeah.

01:01:03.815 --> 01:01:08.556
So it's, it's been, um, it, it has been rough.

01:01:08.615 --> 01:01:20.195
And so in the work that I do, I am just beating the drum with people to say, pay attention to your relationship because the business may or may not make it.

01:01:20.210 --> 01:01:20.271
Yeah.

01:01:20.570 --> 01:01:26.061
You know, and, um, you might build a great business like Steve Jobs.

01:01:26.061 --> 01:01:27.411
I've got Apple, everything.

01:01:27.411 --> 01:01:29.090
I'm so grateful for what he did.

01:01:29.150 --> 01:01:29.541
Yeah.

01:01:29.721 --> 01:01:32.030
But his family was a mess when he died.

01:01:32.391 --> 01:01:32.481
Right.

01:01:32.481 --> 01:01:32.483
You know?

01:01:32.487 --> 01:01:32.675
Right.

01:01:33.021 --> 01:01:41.061
So really trying to help people think about,'cause I think so often entrepreneurs especially,'cause I, I get a lot of people that are like, well why, why entrepreneurs?

01:01:41.061 --> 01:01:42.860
Why, you know, why is that any different?

01:01:42.860 --> 01:01:48.440
And I was like, if you know, you know, and anybody listening to this totally will know exactly what I mean.

01:01:48.440 --> 01:01:48.501
Yeah.

01:01:48.755 --> 01:01:48.996
Yeah.

01:01:49.101 --> 01:01:55.581
Um, I mean there are levels of risk, a wide range, I would say, of levels of risk, right.

01:01:55.581 --> 01:01:56.155
I mean to sure.

01:01:56.215 --> 01:02:07.400
To do something where I'm in sales and maybe I have a down month or something, but to be in a position like this where we had 300 employees and there was never one pay period.

01:02:07.746 --> 01:02:12.246
When other, when employees did not get paid, we skipped a number of those.

01:02:12.246 --> 01:02:12.335
Sure.

01:02:13.056 --> 01:02:25.266
Paychecks, you know, and, um, so it's just, there's, the bigger it is, the more risk there is and, and you know, and you have to get that, that traction that Mark often talked about.

01:02:26.166 --> 01:02:43.025
Um, and I think this is part of what got us to that low point back in 20 12, 20 11, somewhere in there he used the analogy of it felt like pushing a huge ball, just trying to get one revolution to get some momentum.

01:02:43.505 --> 01:02:50.976
But then, you know, we'd open another place and it was like, you know, when one location was down, another one had to carry the weight of that.

01:02:50.976 --> 01:02:55.266
So it was always, this felt like, um, uh, whack-a-mole.

01:02:55.565 --> 01:02:57.215
Yeah, you hit one area for sure.

01:02:57.215 --> 01:02:57.876
And another one.

01:02:58.416 --> 01:03:05.976
So I, I think that, um, it's so important, and that's part of what I've done, is develop.

01:03:05.990 --> 01:03:08.690
And I give away a lot of stuff.

01:03:08.690 --> 01:03:22.371
I mean, if anybody is interested, you can go to my website, kathy rushing.com and I, I give away a good number of tools to like, I just recently did a um, 30 minute weekly marriage check-in template.

01:03:22.760 --> 01:03:24.170
Oh, that helps couples that.

01:03:24.170 --> 01:03:27.411
I'm like, I wish we'd been doing this a little more intentionally.

01:03:27.501 --> 01:03:27.561
Yeah.

01:03:27.561 --> 01:03:28.010
Would've been helpful.

01:03:28.010 --> 01:03:34.400
Especially when we had kids like, you know, it's just a way of touching base with all the major areas of the week.

01:03:34.400 --> 01:03:38.871
Like if you have pets, like who's taking'em to dog daycare or Totally.

01:03:38.871 --> 01:03:41.030
Ellie has a vet appointment who's doing that?

01:03:41.030 --> 01:03:42.320
You know, Jill gives Tucker his meds.

01:03:42.320 --> 01:03:45.565
Unless she's not available, then I have to remember exactly.

01:03:45.905 --> 01:03:47.510
You have to be able to coordinate that.

01:03:47.510 --> 01:03:54.110
And we did it, but it tended to be on the fly, and I think a lot of the time I felt like I was carrying.

01:03:54.115 --> 01:03:54.286
Mm-hmm.

01:03:54.800 --> 01:04:03.891
The bigger burden at times, which well,'cause a lot of times that's, especially in an entrepreneurial marriage, the visionary is there and he's not the detailed person.

01:04:03.896 --> 01:04:04.146
Right.

01:04:04.146 --> 01:04:04.346
Yeah.

01:04:04.610 --> 01:04:04.701
Right.

01:04:04.701 --> 01:04:10.041
You know, so basically your job as the helper is make sure Mark doesn't forget anything.

01:04:10.101 --> 01:04:10.431
Yeah.

01:04:10.431 --> 01:04:10.490
Yeah.

01:04:11.271 --> 01:04:12.740
That's important for both of us.

01:04:12.831 --> 01:04:13.311
Yeah.

01:04:13.311 --> 01:04:13.371
Yeah.

01:04:13.371 --> 01:04:24.621
Which, you know, let to, well, it feels like you've been stronger, like despite this kind of flame out with the, with the organization, if you will, and, and, and restart refresh.

01:04:25.161 --> 01:04:32.210
It feels like to me, maybe I'm wrong, but that your relationship is even strengthened through that.

01:04:32.300 --> 01:04:32.661
Yeah.

01:04:32.871 --> 01:04:35.811
Well I think that fresh restart again, we'll go back to the friendship.

01:04:35.811 --> 01:04:38.960
It's like I still like who he is.

01:04:38.960 --> 01:04:40.911
We still like spending time together.

01:04:41.121 --> 01:04:41.181
Yeah.

01:04:41.510 --> 01:04:42.351
We have.

01:04:43.085 --> 01:04:47.045
You know, this family that we, we love the family that we've raised.

01:04:47.045 --> 01:04:47.135
Sure.

01:04:47.135 --> 01:04:54.726
We love our adult children, you know, and now we have a little grandson and we have a miracle little granddaughter on the way too.

01:04:54.755 --> 01:04:55.476
Oh, congratulations.

01:04:55.476 --> 01:04:55.536
Yeah.

01:04:55.536 --> 01:04:57.755
She never expected.

01:04:57.786 --> 01:05:02.766
Um, so, um, you know, life throws things in.

01:05:03.275 --> 01:05:12.876
You can't plan for all of it, and there is no guarantee, whether it's health issues or business issues, but you better be solid.

01:05:13.056 --> 01:05:13.356
Yeah.

01:05:13.925 --> 01:05:16.565
Because life is gonna throw stuff at you.

01:05:16.775 --> 01:05:17.045
Yeah.

01:05:17.135 --> 01:05:21.036
And you can, you know, the, the choices ares in how we respond.

01:05:21.306 --> 01:05:30.695
And so, but I think, you know, not unlike, I don't wanna liken it to losing a child, because that I think is probably one of the hardest things ever.

01:05:30.695 --> 01:05:33.036
And we've had a few friends who've lost children.

01:05:33.846 --> 01:05:41.766
But what I know from a therapy perspective is that couples who've lost a child, there's a pretty high percentage that.

01:05:42.081 --> 01:05:44.811
Divorce because they cannot comfort each other.

01:05:44.811 --> 01:05:44.871
Yeah.

01:05:44.871 --> 01:05:46.820
And they just feel so alone in that journey.

01:05:47.001 --> 01:05:47.090
Mm-hmm.

01:05:47.360 --> 01:05:52.070
So that would be the closest I could come to, to losing the business.

01:05:52.101 --> 01:05:52.161
Yeah.

01:05:52.221 --> 01:05:54.561
Was it, it was a real grief process.

01:05:54.565 --> 01:05:54.646
Yeah.

01:05:54.650 --> 01:05:54.800
Yeah.

01:05:54.800 --> 01:06:03.621
And there are times when it still hits me, not like it did before, but I focus on gratitude.

01:06:04.190 --> 01:06:13.731
I have a spiritual life that, um, and I got really regular with yoga and just really centering and grounding myself.

01:06:14.300 --> 01:06:16.161
Um, we both did some therapy.

01:06:16.400 --> 01:06:16.521
Mm-hmm.

01:06:16.760 --> 01:06:19.371
Um, thankful for wise counselors.

01:06:19.376 --> 01:06:19.485
Yeah.

01:06:20.030 --> 01:06:25.010
Um, who kind of helped carry us and some dear friends who Yeah.

01:06:25.101 --> 01:06:30.951
Um, really have carried us at times when, um, you know, when it was hard.

01:06:31.521 --> 01:06:31.760
Sure.

01:06:31.760 --> 01:06:33.201
And, um, I.

01:06:34.731 --> 01:06:35.420
We have hope.

01:06:35.420 --> 01:06:37.641
We're grateful that we have the minds.

01:06:37.641 --> 01:06:40.880
Our minds are still pretty sharp as Aggies.

01:06:40.880 --> 01:06:48.385
I don't very, I would say, I don't know if your listeners know about Texas and a and m, but you know, in Texas they tell Aggie jokes all the time.

01:06:48.436 --> 01:06:48.786
Jokes.

01:06:48.791 --> 01:06:54.346
And so we used to say, you know, together, we had a whole brain, I'd say together, now we have maybe a quarter of a brain.

01:06:54.726 --> 01:06:58.161
Oh, hardly, hardly whole brains.

01:06:59.030 --> 01:07:01.311
What, what, like where do you think you're going from here, mark?

01:07:01.311 --> 01:07:06.650
Like what do you wanna run this business for the next five years?

01:07:06.650 --> 01:07:17.960
Grow it, you know, double it twice more, three times more, and then find a buyer or professional management so you can just kind of, uh, be the boardroom guy or like, what's your, is there an exit?

01:07:18.320 --> 01:07:19.130
Thoughts?

01:07:19.251 --> 01:07:19.550
Yeah.

01:07:19.550 --> 01:07:21.891
There, there will need to be an exit at some point.

01:07:21.891 --> 01:07:22.161
Right?

01:07:22.311 --> 01:07:30.561
Um, I actually started doing some coaching this last year and in the process ended up with, uh.

01:07:31.521 --> 01:07:33.860
A young guy that I was coaching that bought a business here.

01:07:33.981 --> 01:07:34.311
Okay.

01:07:34.371 --> 01:07:41.121
He ended up in a place where he said, this is not really, this is not the right role for me to run this.

01:07:41.121 --> 01:07:41.266
He my business.

01:07:41.271 --> 01:07:41.541
Okay.

01:07:42.201 --> 01:07:45.561
So I actually have stepped in, so I'm running two businesses now.

01:07:45.740 --> 01:07:46.101
Oh wow.

01:07:46.130 --> 01:07:46.490
Yeah.

01:07:46.670 --> 01:07:47.121
Interesting.

01:07:47.780 --> 01:07:47.840
Yeah.

01:07:47.840 --> 01:07:48.465
And what's the other business?

01:07:48.465 --> 01:07:50.391
Is that Summit Cabinet Coatings?

01:07:50.451 --> 01:07:51.740
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:07:51.831 --> 01:07:52.880
Uh, refinish.

01:07:52.880 --> 01:07:54.771
Familiar with the company actually.

01:07:54.771 --> 01:07:54.920
Yep.

01:07:55.010 --> 01:07:58.670
Uh, Jen and Jen and Jim were the founders.

01:07:58.791 --> 01:07:58.880
Jim.

01:07:58.880 --> 01:07:59.090
Yep.

01:07:59.271 --> 01:07:59.512
Yep, yep.

01:07:59.690 --> 01:08:02.420
So a guy named Jeremy bought it, uh, two years ago.

01:08:02.481 --> 01:08:02.601
Okay.

01:08:02.661 --> 01:08:02.871
Yep.

01:08:02.871 --> 01:08:02.871
Yep.

01:08:03.081 --> 01:08:03.471
Got it.

01:08:03.530 --> 01:08:05.931
So I am the CEO of that one as well.

01:08:05.960 --> 01:08:06.380
Okay.

01:08:07.101 --> 01:08:18.051
And he and I were talking today, and Kathy and I have been talking, I mean, I've always said, I don't ever expect to just stop, but I think three to five years from now, I can't work like this.

01:08:18.171 --> 01:08:19.025
You know, I'll be.

01:08:20.030 --> 01:08:23.990
In my early seventies and so it'll be time to really, yeah.

01:08:24.320 --> 01:08:24.831
Oh dang.

01:08:24.831 --> 01:08:27.650
I guess 45 years married means you're pretty damn old.

01:08:28.220 --> 01:08:28.490
You know?

01:08:28.490 --> 01:08:30.801
I was assuming you got married when you were 13 or something.

01:08:30.801 --> 01:08:31.100
I don't know.

01:08:31.100 --> 01:08:32.421
No, we married at birth.

01:08:33.291 --> 01:08:34.791
No, we're, we're pretty damn old.

01:08:35.511 --> 01:08:38.480
And, uh, so, um, so yeah.

01:08:38.480 --> 01:08:40.820
Continue to grow'cause I don't know how to do anything else.

01:08:40.850 --> 01:08:40.940
Right.

01:08:41.810 --> 01:08:48.621
And I jokingly, sort of jokingly say, I'm so fortunate this other job opportunity came along.

01:08:48.621 --> 01:08:51.320
'cause I mean, I'm just not qualified to do anything else.

01:08:52.131 --> 01:08:55.640
So I can go run this other business, I can run'em both.

01:08:55.640 --> 01:09:02.780
It takes the pressure off of PRS and that I don't have to have a whole lot of, you can have a small salary as CEO of both kind of.

01:09:02.836 --> 01:09:03.650
Right, right.

01:09:03.916 --> 01:09:04.036
Interesting.

01:09:04.041 --> 01:09:04.911
And that helps.

01:09:04.911 --> 01:09:05.511
That helps a lot.

01:09:05.511 --> 01:09:05.570
Yeah.

01:09:05.600 --> 01:09:10.011
So continuing to grow PRS helping Jeremy Grow Summit.

01:09:10.190 --> 01:09:10.490
Yeah.

01:09:10.671 --> 01:09:14.451
And um, and you can focus on the CEO stuff and he can still be.

01:09:14.900 --> 01:09:17.451
Business development and some of the other, or deliveries.

01:09:17.525 --> 01:09:18.905
He lives in Denver, so, yeah.

01:09:18.926 --> 01:09:19.305
Oh, interesting.

01:09:19.405 --> 01:09:21.320
So he bought it from Yeah, yeah.

01:09:21.320 --> 01:09:23.631
Kind of as a less involved owner.

01:09:23.690 --> 01:09:23.961
Yeah.

01:09:24.110 --> 01:09:24.470
Interesting.

01:09:24.470 --> 01:09:27.230
But we're implementing EOS in both.

01:09:27.291 --> 01:09:27.530
Cool.

01:09:27.530 --> 01:09:30.261
And hopefully that's a great relationship for you.

01:09:30.261 --> 01:09:30.530
It is.

01:09:30.530 --> 01:09:30.740
Good.

01:09:31.161 --> 01:09:49.070
Um, if you were gonna describe like, what your business, uh, kinda outside of EOS, which you've given a huge commercial for already, but what your, what your, your special business sauce is, if you will, mark, like what would you say that is?

01:09:50.480 --> 01:09:56.511
Um, the same thing would apply for Summit, but for PRS it's really the customer service we provide.

01:09:56.841 --> 01:09:56.990
Hmm.

01:09:57.171 --> 01:10:00.650
We have some really large competitors here in this area.

01:10:00.655 --> 01:10:00.685
Mm-hmm.

01:10:01.305 --> 01:10:02.990
And we take business from'EM every day.

01:10:03.320 --> 01:10:03.560
Yeah.

01:10:03.560 --> 01:10:08.780
'cause of the customer service that we offer, it's like the big ones are like, you'll barely.

01:10:09.140 --> 01:10:10.911
We'll barely know you're a customer.

01:10:10.970 --> 01:10:11.390
Yeah.

01:10:11.390 --> 01:10:11.391
Right.

01:10:11.725 --> 01:10:11.966
Yeah.

01:10:12.140 --> 01:10:14.690
We have an actual human being that answers the phone.

01:10:14.695 --> 01:10:14.845
Yeah.

01:10:14.961 --> 01:10:15.110
Yeah.

01:10:15.140 --> 01:10:17.331
They love talking to Jana when they call.

01:10:17.390 --> 01:10:17.751
Yeah.

01:10:17.841 --> 01:10:19.161
She sets things up.

01:10:19.161 --> 01:10:28.161
We just taught to, we try to take really good care of our, of our employees, the guys that are actually out there driving the trucks and, you know, servicing the toilets.

01:10:28.341 --> 01:10:28.640
I dig it.

01:10:28.970 --> 01:10:35.541
So that we just really focus on that service aspect of the business.

01:10:35.541 --> 01:10:35.600
Yeah.

01:10:35.600 --> 01:10:38.211
And I think that's kind of a secret sauce for us.

01:10:39.020 --> 01:10:41.990
I'm gonna shift it back to you, Kathy, one of those kind of core questions.

01:10:41.990 --> 01:10:44.211
Then we're gonna take a break and we'll do some other segments here.

01:10:44.211 --> 01:10:44.240
Okay.

01:10:44.240 --> 01:10:55.190
But if, if you were gonna give one like, kind of core piece of either advice or just reflection point for the entrepreneurial marriage mm-hmm.

01:10:56.060 --> 01:10:59.690
Um, what, like what's the anchor of, of that?

01:11:00.320 --> 01:11:01.371
Good relationship.

01:11:02.421 --> 01:11:09.591
Um, I think that being able to create vision together mm-hmm.

01:11:09.921 --> 01:11:11.690
Like where are we going with this?

01:11:11.690 --> 01:11:11.751
Yeah.

01:11:11.895 --> 01:11:12.055
Yeah.

01:11:12.291 --> 01:11:14.751
We kind of just evolved into it.

01:11:14.751 --> 01:11:17.780
It was like, you know, let's do the next step and the next step.

01:11:17.780 --> 01:11:42.831
And we, we talked about the future some, but I, I think having regularly, uh, regularly scheduled, um, times to know where you're going, what are, what are some decision points, because we, we have some friends that, one is someone that Mark met through EOS and not through EOSC 12.

01:11:42.831 --> 01:11:47.331
C 12, um, he had a business.

01:11:48.020 --> 01:11:49.850
Board of directors kind of took it away.

01:11:49.850 --> 01:11:50.990
It was a really ugly thing.

01:11:50.990 --> 01:11:59.631
So we started another business and there are many years into it now, and it's just, it's just not making it, but there is no stopping point.

01:11:59.631 --> 01:12:03.350
And so it's becoming a real challenge in their marriage.

01:12:03.921 --> 01:12:17.631
And um, and I think that's the hard thing about entrepreneurs is, um, and especially if one, like I have a fairly high risk tolerance, I would say.

01:12:17.751 --> 01:12:17.900
Okay.

01:12:18.110 --> 01:12:21.921
But we've met other couples where one is like, just show me the check.

01:12:21.951 --> 01:12:29.631
There was, there was someone on his C 12 four, they ended up divorcing and he shared his story with us later with permission to share the story.

01:12:30.110 --> 01:12:31.190
Um, I won't show the name.

01:12:31.190 --> 01:12:31.251
Yeah.

01:12:31.251 --> 01:12:32.690
Just like, where are we going?

01:12:32.810 --> 01:12:37.251
Well, she was just like, I don't care what kind of stress you have, just when's money going in the bank?

01:12:37.280 --> 01:12:37.400
Yep.

01:12:37.551 --> 01:12:37.820
Mm-hmm.

01:12:37.881 --> 01:12:39.711
And they just, you know, he felt alone.

01:12:40.100 --> 01:12:40.251
Yep.

01:12:40.251 --> 01:12:41.541
She felt alone.

01:12:41.541 --> 01:12:42.051
So.

01:12:42.636 --> 01:12:50.435
It's, it is an unusual, I mean, there's other, like military families might share some similar dynamics, I suppose.

01:12:50.555 --> 01:12:51.020
Yeah, yeah.

01:12:51.636 --> 01:12:55.261
Um, but they also tend to have really strong communities, so Yeah.

01:12:55.261 --> 01:12:55.421
Yeah.

01:12:55.536 --> 01:12:57.966
I think find community, Hmm.

01:12:58.595 --> 01:13:08.046
Have vision, um, have a way to be very specific about where are we going, what are some markers that tell us to keep going?

01:13:08.105 --> 01:13:08.496
Right.

01:13:08.765 --> 01:13:24.876
And, um, and really having some tools, some strategies on my LinkedIn, um, tag is what if your marriage, um, had the same strategic attention as your business?

01:13:25.055 --> 01:13:25.326
Yeah.

01:13:25.770 --> 01:13:26.060
Yeah.

01:13:26.060 --> 01:13:26.820
That's an interesting thought.

01:13:26.820 --> 01:13:27.020
Yeah.

01:13:27.025 --> 01:13:35.645
So I think having some strategies to make sure that you are in touch with each other, that you are meeting each other's needs as.

01:13:36.291 --> 01:13:42.860
Partners first, and you know, employees or business owners or whatever next.

01:13:43.400 --> 01:13:45.470
Um, just keeping first things first.

01:13:46.131 --> 01:13:47.511
I like it is really important.

01:13:47.570 --> 01:13:47.690
Yeah.

01:13:48.560 --> 01:13:50.930
We're gonna take a short break and we'll be back.

01:14:41.061 --> 01:14:41.811
And we're back.

01:14:42.051 --> 01:14:47.391
Um, so, uh, thanks for that first, uh, part of the journey here.

01:14:47.692 --> 01:14:47.752
Yeah.

01:14:47.752 --> 01:14:51.652
I think what I want to talk about now is because your kids are how old now?

01:14:52.582 --> 01:14:55.341
Our oldest is, this is gonna make us feel really old.

01:14:55.612 --> 01:14:56.002
Thanks, Kurt.

01:14:56.006 --> 01:14:57.231
40 42.

01:14:57.862 --> 01:14:58.612
Jeremy 42.

01:14:58.612 --> 01:15:03.801
Next month, 42, 39, and 34.

01:15:04.011 --> 01:15:05.872
And what do you got going on in the grandkid department?

01:15:06.952 --> 01:15:11.122
We have, uh, our middle son and his wife have, uh, this Ryan.

01:15:11.362 --> 01:15:12.021
This is Ryan.

01:15:12.051 --> 01:15:12.921
Ryan, all right.

01:15:12.926 --> 01:15:13.207
Mm-hmm.

01:15:13.292 --> 01:15:14.002
Ryan and Amy.

01:15:14.362 --> 01:15:14.631
Alright.

01:15:14.721 --> 01:15:16.402
Uh, Ryan's a horse trainer.

01:15:16.492 --> 01:15:17.362
Amy's a realtor.

01:15:17.362 --> 01:15:18.322
She works with Kittle.

01:15:18.442 --> 01:15:18.952
Okay, cool.

01:15:19.162 --> 01:15:23.931
And, uh, they have a son rider, cutest little boy.

01:15:23.962 --> 01:15:25.042
Oh my gosh.

01:15:25.042 --> 01:15:26.543
I've ever seen, we're so in love.

01:15:26.548 --> 01:15:27.471
He is amazing.

01:15:27.862 --> 01:15:29.362
So he is just over two.

01:15:29.452 --> 01:15:29.841
Okay.

01:15:29.931 --> 01:15:33.617
And then, so can we tell it Yeah.

01:15:33.617 --> 01:15:35.176
That's on, I don't know, social media.

01:15:35.332 --> 01:15:35.752
That's true.

01:15:35.752 --> 01:15:40.131
So they, it was IVF, it was I think the third round of IVF.

01:15:40.282 --> 01:15:40.761
Oh, okay.

01:15:40.761 --> 01:15:41.421
This first one.

01:15:41.421 --> 01:15:41.481
Yeah.

01:15:41.481 --> 01:15:42.322
Long journey.

01:15:42.412 --> 01:15:42.862
Yeah.

01:15:42.862 --> 01:15:42.863
Yeah.

01:15:43.311 --> 01:15:47.692
And then, uh, in January they showed up at our house and, uh.

01:15:48.067 --> 01:15:52.806
I had Kathy taken his jacket off and he had a big brother t-shirt on.

01:15:52.867 --> 01:15:53.436
Oh shoot.

01:15:53.676 --> 01:15:56.226
And yeah, I'm like, is this a hand me down?

01:15:56.256 --> 01:15:59.617
Oh, so the first one was IVS, but the second one was Oh, natural.

01:15:59.617 --> 01:16:00.396
Oh, natural.

01:16:00.487 --> 01:16:00.817
Yeah.

01:16:00.817 --> 01:16:01.296
Oh, that's cool.

01:16:01.327 --> 01:16:01.386
Yeah.

01:16:01.386 --> 01:16:02.796
So they're gonna have a little girl in.

01:16:02.796 --> 01:16:04.296
Oh, congratulations.

01:16:04.356 --> 01:16:06.096
Yeah, we're very excited.

01:16:06.157 --> 01:16:10.567
We are ridiculously crazy crampy.

01:16:10.957 --> 01:16:14.226
And your, your older son and your daughter?

01:16:14.226 --> 01:16:16.207
No, uh, no kids?

01:16:16.266 --> 01:16:16.627
Nope.

01:16:16.777 --> 01:16:16.987
Okay.

01:16:16.987 --> 01:16:17.167
Nope.

01:16:17.256 --> 01:16:18.277
Don't want kids.

01:16:18.277 --> 01:16:20.587
And then our, oh, not even gonna have any m Right.

01:16:20.587 --> 01:16:28.087
So you got a couple, uh, a, your, your chapter facilitator, Pete, which I don't know if you know this even, but he's got, uh.

01:16:28.657 --> 01:16:31.447
Two kids only, but nine grandkids.

01:16:31.567 --> 01:16:32.016
Oh, wow.

01:16:32.167 --> 01:16:34.537
So he is got a high yield kind of a environment.

01:16:34.537 --> 01:16:34.657
Yeah.

01:16:34.686 --> 01:16:38.947
You had three kids and you've only got two grandkids and no more on the shelf.

01:16:38.947 --> 01:16:39.907
So, uh, yeah.

01:16:39.966 --> 01:16:41.317
You know, so it goes sometimes.

01:16:41.317 --> 01:16:41.587
Right.

01:16:41.591 --> 01:16:41.681
Yeah.

01:16:41.681 --> 01:16:42.846
So that was, yeah, that's our family.

01:16:42.936 --> 01:16:44.886
That was part of the reason that we moved here.

01:16:44.886 --> 01:16:51.067
We had sold our house in New Braunfels after Hannah got married and thinking we were gonna downsize.

01:16:51.067 --> 01:16:57.306
We had a house in Granby that was just kind of our dream space and great getaway, great place to gather for us.

01:16:57.306 --> 01:17:00.037
Bought it while you were making a whole bunch of money during with this Yes.

01:17:00.396 --> 01:17:01.162
Paris stuff Income.

01:17:01.327 --> 01:17:01.867
Yes.

01:17:01.867 --> 01:17:04.596
And we just loved that place.

01:17:04.627 --> 01:17:11.587
And, um, so when we sold the house in New Braunfels, couldn't find a place, um, that we wanted.

01:17:11.587 --> 01:17:15.216
And so we, we would stay with his mom when we would go back.

01:17:15.247 --> 01:17:22.957
And then it was 2019, I think, Christmas that our daughter-in-law, who's the realtor, said, y'all ought to look at.

01:17:23.421 --> 01:17:28.282
You know, Fort Collins as a place, a lot of people are moving here and they're still very active.

01:17:28.282 --> 01:17:32.811
We love to hike and mark fishes and camp.

01:17:32.811 --> 01:17:45.136
We, we just, honestly, it used to be a place where 25 to 35 year olds moved to, now it's mostly a place where 60 to 75 year olds move to that.

01:17:45.136 --> 01:17:45.981
More our neighbors more.

01:17:45.981 --> 01:17:48.891
So, yeah, we're in a neighborhood in, in Wild Wing.

01:17:49.131 --> 01:17:49.221
Mm-hmm.

01:17:49.462 --> 01:17:52.521
And it's primarily, yeah, our neighborhood is an older neighborhood.

01:17:52.521 --> 01:17:53.242
It's like us.

01:17:53.247 --> 01:17:53.721
Yeah, yeah.

01:17:53.721 --> 01:17:55.341
A little bit younger, a little bit older.

01:17:55.346 --> 01:17:55.497
Yep.

01:17:55.582 --> 01:17:55.851
Yep.

01:17:56.091 --> 01:17:56.301
Yeah.

01:17:56.362 --> 01:18:02.511
And they're, the people like from, and maybe my lens is distorted from being a part of Rotary Club and stuff.

01:18:02.511 --> 01:18:08.841
And so I meet a lot of those 60 to 75 year olds that are following their grandkids out here to Northern Colorado.

01:18:08.841 --> 01:18:11.631
But like, we didn't use to see that as much.

01:18:11.631 --> 01:18:13.492
Now it's a really common occurrence.

01:18:13.551 --> 01:18:13.792
Yeah.

01:18:14.032 --> 01:18:14.271
Yeah.

01:18:14.271 --> 01:18:18.681
And our daughter and her husband are here still trying to, you know.

01:18:19.027 --> 01:18:20.497
Get something a little more permanent.

01:18:20.497 --> 01:18:23.947
It's, you know, the, the cost of housing is just, it's mind boggling.

01:18:23.947 --> 01:18:26.556
And it went up so much after we went under contract.

01:18:26.737 --> 01:18:27.037
Oh, right.

01:18:27.067 --> 01:18:28.296
On the house we're in.

01:18:28.356 --> 01:18:28.537
Yeah.

01:18:28.567 --> 01:18:30.067
Just went up so much that year.

01:18:30.067 --> 01:18:38.617
So, so yeah, we, we moved here with the hope of grandchildren and knew that we wanted to be closer.

01:18:38.662 --> 01:18:42.337
But yeah, for our son and his wife, it was a 13 year journey.

01:18:42.846 --> 01:18:42.936
Oh, wow.

01:18:42.936 --> 01:18:49.146
You know, a lot of tears, a lot of heartbreak and heartache, and we just didn't know if it was ever gonna happen.

01:18:49.146 --> 01:18:52.957
And, um, um, so, yeah.

01:18:53.046 --> 01:18:54.282
Well, congratulations on, on.

01:18:54.282 --> 01:18:54.442
Yeah.

01:18:54.442 --> 01:18:54.641
Thank you.

01:18:54.641 --> 01:18:56.322
Second, uh, coming.

01:18:56.322 --> 01:18:56.323
Yeah.

01:18:56.402 --> 01:18:56.881
We're excited.

01:18:56.952 --> 01:18:57.242
Yeah.

01:18:58.327 --> 01:19:01.926
Let's talk about like the, the workforce.

01:19:02.287 --> 01:19:10.716
Like you're kind of in a similar situation probably with, with PRS where you're hiring, you know, some of your workers at least.

01:19:11.466 --> 01:19:12.697
Would like to have a better job.

01:19:12.966 --> 01:19:13.237
Yep.

01:19:13.506 --> 01:19:18.487
Um, not too dissimilar from the assisted living kind of environment or whatever.

01:19:18.487 --> 01:19:25.117
What do you, what do you do to find good people for whom your job isn't a disposable Yeah.

01:19:25.117 --> 01:19:25.476
Thing.

01:19:26.856 --> 01:19:29.192
We go through a lot of interviews.

01:19:29.197 --> 01:19:29.827
Okay.

01:19:30.216 --> 01:19:35.016
Um, and we go through a fair amount of turnover.

01:19:35.827 --> 01:19:41.976
Guys primarily so far, guys who come in, um, they just haven't found their place yet.

01:19:43.296 --> 01:19:56.436
We've got right now a core group of four or five technicians that, well, we actually have one guy that works for us who has worked for this company for 25 years.

01:19:56.527 --> 01:19:56.917
Oh, cool.

01:19:57.667 --> 01:19:59.167
He is an amazing guy.

01:19:59.676 --> 01:20:00.157
Great.

01:20:00.157 --> 01:20:02.556
He was, he was holding it all together for the owner before you bought it?

01:20:02.587 --> 01:20:03.577
Yeah, yeah.

01:20:03.636 --> 01:20:04.296
He really was.

01:20:04.296 --> 01:20:06.457
He was one of two employees driving a truck.

01:20:06.606 --> 01:20:06.966
Oh wow.

01:20:07.296 --> 01:20:08.046
Um.

01:20:08.587 --> 01:20:12.817
Just has, you know, some, a great heart for ministry.

01:20:12.817 --> 01:20:16.117
A great heart for all of these guys that work for us.

01:20:16.266 --> 01:20:17.766
And just a hard worker.

01:20:18.367 --> 01:20:19.837
Um, his name is Cisco.

01:20:19.837 --> 01:20:21.546
He is, he's an amazing, so Cisco, yeah.

01:20:21.606 --> 01:20:22.716
He's an amazing guy.

01:20:23.676 --> 01:20:29.676
And so we try to pay, well, we do, we try to provide benefits that make sense.

01:20:30.426 --> 01:20:40.567
Um, one of the things that I love and one of the things that drives me is creating opportunities for people to just provide for their families.

01:20:41.046 --> 01:21:04.537
So we're trying to build a business that has enough opportunities that someone may come in, they may start out washing toilets in the yard, and then get a route and maybe at some point get their CDL or in another way, get an opportunity to grow, to add value and actually have a career and add value to the company, but also provide value for their families.

01:21:04.596 --> 01:21:04.777
Yeah.

01:21:05.106 --> 01:21:05.766
Um.

01:21:06.742 --> 01:21:06.921
Yeah.

01:21:06.921 --> 01:21:08.811
So we just, we work pretty hard at that.

01:21:09.021 --> 01:21:11.181
Um, it's, it's not easy.

01:21:11.391 --> 01:21:11.692
Yeah.

01:21:11.931 --> 01:21:15.681
Sometimes I want it for some of them more than they want it for themselves.

01:21:15.681 --> 01:21:16.131
Yeah.

01:21:16.192 --> 01:21:17.127
Which that doesn't work.

01:21:17.511 --> 01:21:21.202
It's been part of my, you know, with the Matthews house, uh, yeah.

01:21:21.261 --> 01:21:28.282
That journey, you know, they, they instructed their casework, you know, you can't want it for somebody more than they want it for themselves or it's not gonna work.

01:21:28.341 --> 01:21:28.761
Right.

01:21:28.851 --> 01:21:28.942
Mm-hmm.

01:21:29.181 --> 01:21:30.952
Same thing is true of employees sometimes.

01:21:30.957 --> 01:21:31.447
Yeah, exactly.

01:21:31.881 --> 01:21:32.181
Yeah.

01:21:32.481 --> 01:21:36.561
Two years ago we could not hire people.

01:21:36.561 --> 01:21:36.921
It was tough.

01:21:36.921 --> 01:21:37.731
It was crazy.

01:21:37.731 --> 01:21:38.421
It was tough.

01:21:38.542 --> 01:21:39.652
Was I think the tail end.

01:21:39.652 --> 01:21:40.402
I don't, I don't know.

01:21:40.402 --> 01:21:49.792
We never figured out if it was just still the unemployment piece, but we haven't even touched on the other business that we bought out in Craig, but that one, we had more business.

01:21:49.792 --> 01:21:51.021
We were turning away business.

01:21:51.171 --> 01:21:53.091
Literally could not hire people.

01:21:53.212 --> 01:21:53.362
Yeah.

01:21:53.572 --> 01:21:55.582
Like, not even answering ads.

01:21:55.612 --> 01:21:55.702
Oh, wow.

01:21:56.032 --> 01:21:56.091
Yeah.

01:21:56.091 --> 01:22:03.292
And I, I was doing a lot of work that summer just trying to keep employees and here, you know, where there's a much bigger Sure.

01:22:03.412 --> 01:22:05.692
Um, pool and.

01:22:06.216 --> 01:22:07.207
Oh my goodness.

01:22:07.212 --> 01:22:14.077
It, it was, it got kind of depressing because some of these people, you just don't know how they survive.

01:22:14.077 --> 01:22:14.287
You know?

01:22:14.287 --> 01:22:19.117
They would come and get a paycheck and then not show up and it's like, and they've got six kids at home.

01:22:19.176 --> 01:22:19.356
Yeah.

01:22:19.686 --> 01:22:21.631
And it's like, oh my goodness.

01:22:21.782 --> 01:22:22.072
Yeah.

01:22:22.141 --> 01:22:22.431
Yeah.

01:22:22.686 --> 01:22:27.067
And it does, you know, the whole employment labor.

01:22:28.657 --> 01:22:36.577
Uh, sometimes when we're going through, we've, we've actually gotten to the place where we'll do open interviews, so we'll just, if you show up, then we'll interview you.

01:22:36.787 --> 01:22:37.266
Oh, wow.

01:22:37.296 --> 01:22:38.646
Between these hours.

01:22:39.396 --> 01:22:55.176
And we did this a couple of weeks ago, and I came home until Kathy, my heart was just hurting because some of these just young, like, and maybe in their twenties, even into their early thirties, these guys who have just not figured out a path for themselves.

01:22:55.657 --> 01:23:01.266
Maybe there's drugs involved, maybe there's something else, some sort of something in their background.

01:23:02.527 --> 01:23:14.317
But just watching them come in and not, well really not have a path just to be able to provide for themselves and Well, and I suspect a lot of them don't have families.

01:23:15.037 --> 01:23:15.367
Yeah.

01:23:15.367 --> 01:23:15.787
Either.

01:23:15.787 --> 01:23:31.837
Some of'em probably do, but like the way the culture has evolved is there's like just a lot of 30 something dudes that are single and not barely looking at or eager for the prospects of being in a relationship.

01:23:32.077 --> 01:23:32.136
Yeah.

01:23:32.141 --> 01:23:34.386
We, we have men that don't know how to become a man.

01:23:34.631 --> 01:23:35.737
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:23:36.037 --> 01:23:44.442
And my dad even talked to, to my wife and I, to me about that, but with, with me and Jill,'cause we don't have children of our own, so we've hosted exchange students and mm-hmm.

01:23:44.521 --> 01:23:47.497
You know, we talked about doing IVFA lot of years ago now.

01:23:47.497 --> 01:23:47.556
Yeah.

01:23:47.556 --> 01:23:51.997
And I was like, I don't know, you know, I'll be 60 by the time that little career gets out the house at least.

01:23:52.237 --> 01:23:52.506
Yeah.

01:23:52.596 --> 01:23:55.056
Um, and, um.

01:23:55.957 --> 01:24:00.726
But like the, maybe I don't wanna say the purposelessness Yeah.

01:24:01.027 --> 01:24:13.447
Of it, but of not having, you know, me and Jill, we can live pretty modestly, like put us in the ambulance camper with, uh, three coolers worth of food and at least two 12 packs of beard.

01:24:13.447 --> 01:24:16.117
We'll be happy for a while, you know, A few days.

01:24:16.207 --> 01:24:16.686
Yeah.

01:24:16.686 --> 01:24:22.327
At least a few days, you know, but we don't have that, that, that stress and that, um, yeah.

01:24:22.657 --> 01:24:25.356
You know, encouragement of, of working for the next generation.

01:24:25.356 --> 01:24:25.716
And Yeah.

01:24:25.987 --> 01:24:32.407
In your guys' case, I guess your, your, your grandkids have got like, that's support system and stuff.

01:24:32.407 --> 01:24:34.506
You're looking more like, what's our retirement look like?

01:24:34.686 --> 01:24:41.077
Can we have a nice little exit so that we can travel and do more fun things, um, in the future?

01:24:41.077 --> 01:24:49.537
And it sounds like to me, like in some ways, your return to ministry, mark, is this business now.

01:24:50.212 --> 01:24:51.801
Like maybe it is eight.

01:24:51.801 --> 01:24:59.152
Your, your AllCare business and, and whatever else wasn't quite as ministry focused in some ways.

01:24:59.542 --> 01:25:00.381
Maybe it was.

01:25:00.381 --> 01:25:01.042
It actually was.

01:25:01.042 --> 01:25:01.731
It was too.

01:25:01.822 --> 01:25:02.032
Yep.

01:25:02.061 --> 01:25:02.481
Cool.

01:25:02.872 --> 01:25:07.881
Um, but that is still part of what's woven into your Yeah.

01:25:07.881 --> 01:25:11.362
Not just your family history, but also your business kind of inclinations.

01:25:11.481 --> 01:25:12.981
Yeah, yeah.

01:25:12.981 --> 01:25:20.631
Sometimes I will describe myself as a former pastor and I have several good friends who will say the former isn't really that accurate.

01:25:20.692 --> 01:25:21.487
Yeah, yeah.

01:25:21.492 --> 01:25:21.801
Yeah.

01:25:21.801 --> 01:25:27.742
And we, I mean, just like with the couples that we would gather in New Braunfels and we were still there.

01:25:27.771 --> 01:25:28.101
Yeah.

01:25:28.341 --> 01:25:38.841
We really love having people in our home and gathering people, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a religious context.

01:25:38.902 --> 01:25:39.112
Yeah.

01:25:39.351 --> 01:25:42.712
But there's always that just loving on people.

01:25:42.712 --> 01:25:44.002
Mm-hmm.

01:25:44.002 --> 01:25:44.841
Um, and we do that.

01:25:44.841 --> 01:25:49.162
You know, I don't put a fish symbol on the business cards for our companies.

01:25:49.162 --> 01:25:49.341
Yeah.

01:25:49.341 --> 01:25:49.612
Yeah.

01:25:50.271 --> 01:25:55.311
But it's pretty clear who I am, what my background is.

01:25:55.971 --> 01:26:02.332
Um, the values, the values that we really promote, the values that we live out Yeah.

01:26:02.811 --> 01:26:06.502
Are just around really dignity.

01:26:07.162 --> 01:26:09.652
Um, good work, family.

01:26:09.771 --> 01:26:10.072
Yeah.

01:26:10.311 --> 01:26:14.027
Um, you know, those important things that, you know.

01:26:14.032 --> 01:26:14.362
Yeah.

01:26:15.202 --> 01:26:16.072
That's a part of who we are.

01:26:16.072 --> 01:26:16.551
Like Yeah.

01:26:16.612 --> 01:26:20.002
Being a company man for PRS should be a positive Yeah.

01:26:20.002 --> 01:26:20.481
Thing.

01:26:20.511 --> 01:26:20.752
Yeah.

01:26:20.811 --> 01:26:21.292
In a way.

01:26:21.351 --> 01:26:21.981
Absolutely.

01:26:22.101 --> 01:26:22.827
I think that, yeah.

01:26:22.832 --> 01:26:23.152
Yeah.

01:26:23.152 --> 01:26:28.641
There is a, mark has talked for years now about just the dignity of work.

01:26:28.671 --> 01:26:29.032
Yeah.

01:26:29.032 --> 01:26:34.506
You know, there are a lot of people that are very involved in social causes and those are good and there are people mm-hmm.

01:26:34.511 --> 01:26:35.631
That need support.

01:26:35.631 --> 01:26:40.011
We need a, you know, a, uh, what's the word?

01:26:40.162 --> 01:26:42.442
Um, oh, like a social care system.

01:26:42.442 --> 01:26:43.731
We need a safety net.

01:26:43.942 --> 01:26:44.152
Yep.

01:26:44.481 --> 01:26:46.971
But there, there is a.

01:26:48.322 --> 01:26:53.122
Self-confidence and a self-assurance Sure.

01:26:53.122 --> 01:26:55.193
That people need Yeah, yeah.

01:26:55.731 --> 01:26:57.412
In working for a living.

01:26:57.412 --> 01:26:57.471
Yeah.

01:26:57.681 --> 01:27:02.782
And so not every job, you know, this would definitely qualify as the dirty jobs and Sure, sure.

01:27:02.902 --> 01:27:03.051
Yeah.

01:27:03.051 --> 01:27:13.221
Mark said at one point when he was, uh, starting at PRS, he said, you know, all those women that we hired that were caregivers before, he said, I'm hiring all their sons and their husbands.

01:27:14.061 --> 01:27:14.152
Right?

01:27:14.152 --> 01:27:15.381
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:27:15.771 --> 01:27:22.282
But there is, there is, there is dignity in every single kind of work.

01:27:22.822 --> 01:27:25.252
I've been reading Tim Keller recently again.

01:27:25.256 --> 01:27:25.337
Yeah.

01:27:25.341 --> 01:27:25.582
Yeah.

01:27:25.582 --> 01:27:26.542
Every good endeavor.

01:27:26.662 --> 01:27:27.532
Yeah, I've read that.

01:27:27.532 --> 01:27:28.341
Which I love.

01:27:28.341 --> 01:27:30.712
I mean the, I just looking to see if it was on my shelf.

01:27:30.712 --> 01:27:30.921
Yeah.

01:27:30.921 --> 01:27:34.101
The connection to John Coltrane is'cause I love jazz.

01:27:34.101 --> 01:27:42.412
But, um, that idea that if we work, well, work hard, work with an attitude.

01:27:43.131 --> 01:27:47.962
That no matter what the job is, we're serving our customers, we're serving one another.

01:27:48.862 --> 01:27:54.381
That is, that is a part of the value of work.

01:27:54.381 --> 01:27:55.192
Mm-hmm.

01:27:55.221 --> 01:27:58.252
And it's why work is actually important.

01:27:58.462 --> 01:28:02.152
You know, the idea that, okay, there should be a universal basic income.

01:28:03.051 --> 01:28:04.011
That's a nice thought.

01:28:04.042 --> 01:28:11.737
But what you do is you take away that ability of a man and a woman to work and to provide for their families together.

01:28:11.737 --> 01:28:12.292
For something.

01:28:12.327 --> 01:28:13.462
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:28:13.462 --> 01:28:16.671
And to raise their kids with similar values.

01:28:16.671 --> 01:28:16.733
Yeah, yeah.

01:28:16.761 --> 01:28:33.652
And that idea, so I was just imagine to myself, like, like years ago, gosh, probably 12 years ago or 15 years ago or something, uh, my wife and I and some friends went to Costa Rica and spent eight nights there, nine days, and it was just perfect.

01:28:33.652 --> 01:28:34.282
Amazing.

01:28:34.282 --> 01:28:39.381
You know, like Costa Rica tends to be, and independently we all came back and researched.

01:28:40.131 --> 01:28:45.322
Can we move to Costa Rica, you know, and how much does it take to live here?

01:28:45.322 --> 01:28:46.101
Yeah, exactly.

01:28:46.101 --> 01:28:46.582
Kind of.

01:28:46.851 --> 01:28:59.572
But, and I can imagine that life of being like a trust fund kid or something and having a, I mean, if I had a$3,000 a month stipend, me and Jill could live in Costa Rica, like easy peasy and have a, a cook and a gardener.

01:28:59.572 --> 01:28:59.782
Right.

01:29:00.652 --> 01:29:05.421
Um, and like, what would my life be in pursuit of Yeah.

01:29:06.322 --> 01:29:34.492
You know, I'm not really clear, like to be, you know, what, what I was just smiling about is like, it could probably be fun as long as I like, set myself to building like a bamboo jungle gym with a gigantic slide that came out of the big tree over there, you know, to do some productive work, even if it wasn't for money, you know, but it has to be something productive or a, you know, an entertainment item for the kids of the community or some valuable thing.

01:29:35.511 --> 01:29:36.652
Otherwise what, what, what am I?

01:29:36.801 --> 01:29:37.492
What am I good for?

01:29:37.521 --> 01:29:37.761
Yeah.

01:29:38.542 --> 01:29:38.752
Yeah.

01:29:38.752 --> 01:29:44.181
And that's one of the things that I appreciate about what you're doing with local think tank.

01:29:44.362 --> 01:29:44.511
Oh, yeah.

01:29:44.811 --> 01:30:00.997
You know, is encouraging entrepreneurs who are creating businesses, creating jobs, creating opportunities, and hopefully seeing within that, that purpose mm-hmm.

01:30:01.256 --> 01:30:03.112
Of doing more than just making money.

01:30:03.112 --> 01:30:04.072
Making money is great.

01:30:04.101 --> 01:30:05.481
It's a good scorecard necessary.

01:30:05.511 --> 01:30:06.471
It's necessary.

01:30:06.471 --> 01:30:08.902
We need it to just be able to live our lives.

01:30:09.591 --> 01:30:10.851
But there's more to it than that.

01:30:11.122 --> 01:30:11.391
You know?

01:30:11.391 --> 01:30:12.322
There's more to it.

01:30:12.561 --> 01:30:18.891
There's that, there's that purpose of service.

01:30:18.891 --> 01:30:30.771
There's that purpose of, I mean, if you're a, if you're a spiritual person, if you're a follower of Jesus, certainly there's this idea that what God has created us for, hmm.

01:30:31.252 --> 01:30:32.417
Is to be.

01:30:33.051 --> 01:30:34.792
Active to create his creation.

01:30:34.881 --> 01:30:35.301
Yeah.

01:30:35.306 --> 01:30:35.386
Yeah.

01:30:35.452 --> 01:30:36.141
Imitate him.

01:30:36.171 --> 01:30:36.471
Yeah.

01:30:36.471 --> 01:30:39.141
So, man, he's a creator as I'm as entrepreneurs.

01:30:39.141 --> 01:30:39.561
Wow.

01:30:39.652 --> 01:30:39.921
I like it.

01:30:39.921 --> 01:30:40.942
That's what we get to do.

01:30:41.002 --> 01:30:41.421
I like it.

01:30:41.421 --> 01:30:43.101
Which is pretty exciting.

01:30:43.402 --> 01:30:44.122
It is true.

01:30:44.212 --> 01:30:44.931
It's pretty fun.

01:30:45.051 --> 01:30:50.872
Let's, let's dip into faith a little bit because, uh, we started kind of talking about your backgrounds.

01:30:50.872 --> 01:30:53.027
We got a, a Baptist and a Methodist here.

01:30:54.046 --> 01:30:57.546
Um, so a Baptist and a Methodist walked into a bar, right.

01:30:58.851 --> 01:31:00.322
The Baptist turned around and walked out.

01:31:00.747 --> 01:31:01.067
Right.

01:31:01.087 --> 01:31:02.811
He is like, shit, nobody could see me here.

01:31:03.351 --> 01:31:06.112
They'd be in trouble on Sunday if somebody notices me.

01:31:07.942 --> 01:31:09.862
Hopefully they didn't see the pastor there too often.

01:31:10.702 --> 01:31:14.811
Um, but, but let's talk about your, your kind of faith adventures along the way.

01:31:14.811 --> 01:31:14.872
Yeah.

01:31:14.931 --> 01:31:18.292
Like, did you compromise right from the start?

01:31:18.292 --> 01:31:23.481
Where do you find yourselves participating in the, the faith conversation or community now?

01:31:24.202 --> 01:31:26.511
Yeah, so I'll speak for myself.

01:31:26.511 --> 01:31:28.402
We've been on a parallel journey.

01:31:28.402 --> 01:31:30.082
Not exactly the same, but Oh.

01:31:30.112 --> 01:31:31.792
Uh, churches become.

01:31:32.947 --> 01:31:40.356
Challenging, I would say, to find something that kind of resonates with us at this point in life.

01:31:40.381 --> 01:31:40.671
Yeah.

01:31:42.306 --> 01:31:54.247
There, there were a couple of situations, churches we were in previously where, you know, again, I don't feel seen and valued for my gifts, which I believe God gave me.

01:31:54.247 --> 01:32:04.266
You know, so it's like, um, it's always like they, they had to be in tandem with Mark somehow, and I'm like, I, I just don't see it that way.

01:32:04.266 --> 01:32:06.127
And, um Hmm.

01:32:06.127 --> 01:32:12.171
So you guys have had some conflict in your faith perspectives or the churches that you've thought about with.

01:32:12.606 --> 01:32:13.567
Engaging outside of us.

01:32:13.567 --> 01:32:13.777
Yeah.

01:32:13.777 --> 01:32:17.556
Not with us, between us, but with more with the organization.

01:32:17.676 --> 01:32:18.846
So you've navigated some.

01:32:18.997 --> 01:32:19.417
Yeah.

01:32:19.417 --> 01:32:22.657
And, and some of that growth is, I mean, I've read several books.

01:32:22.957 --> 01:32:35.256
Um, I'm rereading Richard Rohrs, uh, falling Upward, which is about the two halfs of life and the first half being, creating a container and tends to be more rule based.

01:32:35.256 --> 01:32:42.487
And, and we need that for structure and for boundaries and for, you know, society being Sure.

01:32:42.546 --> 01:32:45.457
Um, the structured civil Organized civil.

01:32:45.457 --> 01:32:45.606
Yeah.

01:32:45.756 --> 01:32:46.146
Yeah.

01:32:46.266 --> 01:32:52.926
But then there's a second half of life where it's a more pure relationship with God.

01:32:52.926 --> 01:32:54.997
Like, I won't say that.

01:32:54.997 --> 01:32:55.896
I don't need the church.

01:32:55.896 --> 01:33:04.176
We very much want to be, I want to be part of a community and we've, um, I mean, part of it, since moving here, I.

01:33:04.716 --> 01:33:17.766
Is, I, I had mentioned, you know, another business we had bought and there was a season of months where Mark was driving a couple of days a week to Craig to run that business and run PRS.

01:33:17.766 --> 01:33:21.247
And it was, we literally, Sunday was the only day we had to.

01:33:21.396 --> 01:33:21.426
Oh.

01:33:21.426 --> 01:33:28.176
Just, you know, and so for me, nature has always been, um, a way that I connect with God very easily.

01:33:28.447 --> 01:33:30.306
I love being in the woods.

01:33:30.306 --> 01:33:32.676
I love hiking, camping.

01:33:32.827 --> 01:33:39.756
Um, so there were a lot of Sundays we would just drive up into the mountains and especially in the fall, you know, it's so gorgeous here.

01:33:40.447 --> 01:33:46.476
Um, I, for me, there's never been a time when I haven't believed in God.

01:33:47.077 --> 01:33:47.167
Okay.

01:33:47.226 --> 01:33:48.546
Uh, as a child.

01:33:48.577 --> 01:33:51.681
So you're not active currently in a We're not in a community right now.

01:33:51.681 --> 01:33:52.146
Church currently.

01:33:52.356 --> 01:33:52.386
Okay.

01:33:52.386 --> 01:33:52.686
No.

01:33:52.987 --> 01:33:55.716
Um, we, we've visited a couple.

01:33:55.716 --> 01:33:59.106
We go with our son, his wife, to a church and enjoy that.

01:33:59.827 --> 01:34:03.367
Um, have you been aligned in your faith perspective?

01:34:04.101 --> 01:34:04.282
Yeah.

01:34:04.282 --> 01:34:10.341
Like, uh, so the, I think, yeah, the Baptist and the Methodist aren't that far apart to begin with.

01:34:10.341 --> 01:34:10.641
Right.

01:34:10.822 --> 01:34:11.872
Well, we were, yeah.

01:34:12.261 --> 01:34:12.561
Yeah.

01:34:12.561 --> 01:34:13.402
Not that far.

01:34:13.402 --> 01:34:15.921
And we met in the Baptist Student Union.

01:34:15.921 --> 01:34:15.981
Yeah.

01:34:16.551 --> 01:34:22.372
So really our faith journey has been pretty consistent together.

01:34:23.596 --> 01:34:30.202
Um, but ultimately you haven't, since you came back to Northern Colorado here, you haven't really found the right place for you?

01:34:30.202 --> 01:34:30.203
Not yet.

01:34:30.208 --> 01:34:30.832
We haven't yet.

01:34:30.862 --> 01:34:31.252
Okay.

01:34:31.492 --> 01:34:31.822
Yeah.

01:34:31.822 --> 01:34:35.631
And some of that really has been a function of, of time and energy.

01:34:35.902 --> 01:34:36.442
Right.

01:34:36.532 --> 01:34:40.192
Um, and just yeah, if you're Yeah.

01:34:40.192 --> 01:34:43.612
The, the traveling to Steamboat Yeah.

01:34:43.641 --> 01:34:47.332
Three times a week, uh, part of the conversation is a pretty crazy thing.

01:34:47.362 --> 01:34:47.542
Yeah.

01:34:47.546 --> 01:34:47.657
Yeah.

01:34:47.752 --> 01:34:50.152
So that was another restroom business, is that right?

01:34:50.157 --> 01:34:53.301
It was a different, it was a rotator franchise with Okay.

01:34:53.332 --> 01:34:57.921
Portable restrooms and forest service, fire camp support.

01:34:57.921 --> 01:34:58.341
It was.

01:34:58.942 --> 01:35:00.141
Totally different business.

01:35:00.171 --> 01:35:00.471
Yeah.

01:35:00.471 --> 01:35:01.881
That's a whole different podcast.

01:35:03.171 --> 01:35:03.322
Yeah.

01:35:03.322 --> 01:35:05.752
That one wasn't as easy to fix.

01:35:05.752 --> 01:35:07.402
It was a hard, it was fixable.

01:35:07.402 --> 01:35:08.091
It was, yeah.

01:35:08.091 --> 01:35:12.921
That was an interesting part of our conversation is you started your whole career as a fixer of Yeah.

01:35:13.192 --> 01:35:13.851
Nursing homes.

01:35:13.881 --> 01:35:14.212
Yeah.

01:35:14.362 --> 01:35:14.841
Right.

01:35:14.841 --> 01:35:16.612
And a maker better of Yep.

01:35:17.091 --> 01:35:21.442
You know, and, uh, apparently sometimes you just gotta say, yeah, this one's too shitty.

01:35:21.591 --> 01:35:21.952
Yeah.

01:35:21.952 --> 01:35:22.671
Sometimes.

01:35:22.671 --> 01:35:23.301
Exactly.

01:35:23.721 --> 01:35:24.502
Sorry, that pun.

01:35:24.502 --> 01:35:26.896
You gotta, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:35:27.471 --> 01:35:39.976
So I think, you know, and especially like in the last couple years, like when all's care, when we realized that that was done and what should have lasted long after we were gone was no longer, yeah.

01:35:39.976 --> 01:35:40.617
That's a sad thing.

01:35:40.837 --> 01:35:50.662
Um, but really, I mean, I think it's those times when you dig down and you find what your faith is really made of, um mm-hmm.

01:35:51.186 --> 01:35:52.686
You know, there've been some great books.

01:35:52.686 --> 01:35:52.987
Again.

01:35:52.987 --> 01:35:54.846
Some, I, I have a dear, dear friend.

01:35:54.877 --> 01:36:06.037
Well, a couple of dear friends actually, who've just been, uh, so wonderful to listen and to process questions with me or just, you know, be supportive.

01:36:06.697 --> 01:36:37.237
And I think, um, you know, I just, I, I know that God is with me and with us, and there, you know, it, it has still been hard, but I think part of, part of what I was unraveling from the earlier my earlier faith walk, is this idea of if you do everything right, things turn out right.

01:36:37.716 --> 01:36:38.407
It's like a.

01:36:38.902 --> 01:36:41.091
You know, if I do for you, God, you do for me.

01:36:41.601 --> 01:36:44.841
And that is really not the relationship.

01:36:44.841 --> 01:36:45.766
It's not an exchange.

01:36:45.952 --> 01:36:47.152
It's not an exchange.

01:36:47.362 --> 01:36:47.421
Yeah.

01:36:47.452 --> 01:36:50.242
God is who he she is.

01:36:50.692 --> 01:36:53.032
And doesn't change.

01:36:53.572 --> 01:36:59.542
Circumstances change, health changes, lots of things change, but God doesn't change.

01:37:00.202 --> 01:37:09.532
And so, you know, to, to trust in that, in times when it was like, I don't see what our next step is.

01:37:09.646 --> 01:37:11.002
I, I see another church plant.

01:37:12.801 --> 01:37:15.167
I don't think we've got this, sorry.

01:37:16.377 --> 01:37:18.502
We've done house churches before.

01:37:18.502 --> 01:37:19.702
We have done house churches.

01:37:19.881 --> 01:37:19.971
Mm-hmm.

01:37:20.301 --> 01:37:23.931
I, I could possibly, you could be persuaded.

01:37:24.051 --> 01:37:24.712
Do that again.

01:37:25.971 --> 01:37:26.481
Yeah.

01:37:26.511 --> 01:37:28.731
Well you have to get plugged in somewhere first.

01:37:28.731 --> 01:37:30.591
Uh, to be ready to do a plant anyway.

01:37:30.712 --> 01:37:30.921
Yeah.

01:37:30.921 --> 01:37:32.181
Or just gather up some neighborhoods.

01:37:32.181 --> 01:37:33.112
Maybe just start fresh.

01:37:33.112 --> 01:37:33.442
Yeah.

01:37:33.502 --> 01:37:34.162
De novo.

01:37:34.167 --> 01:37:34.457
Yeah.

01:37:34.462 --> 01:37:34.702
Yeah.

01:37:34.761 --> 01:37:37.612
Just like each of those, uh, assisted living locations.

01:37:37.641 --> 01:37:37.702
Yeah.

01:37:37.966 --> 01:37:38.256
Yeah.

01:37:39.457 --> 01:37:39.846
I dig it.

01:37:40.056 --> 01:37:43.777
Um, the, the closing segment is the loco experience.

01:37:43.957 --> 01:37:44.136
Yeah.

01:38:27.952 --> 01:38:37.881
So that's the craziest experience that you're willing to share might be a moment, a week, a month, um, yeah.

01:38:37.881 --> 01:38:43.702
You, you know, which experience you're thinking about right now, mark, especially, I think we, we were talking about this earlier.

01:38:44.002 --> 01:38:55.372
I, so I have a tendency to explore places not necessarily knowing where we're gonna end up impulsively.

01:38:55.546 --> 01:38:55.707
Yeah.

01:38:55.707 --> 01:38:55.867
Yeah.

01:38:56.542 --> 01:38:57.952
Some might call it that.

01:38:57.981 --> 01:38:59.752
Let's drive on this road.

01:38:59.782 --> 01:39:04.131
I, one time I wanted to cross this unknown depth river down by.

01:39:04.551 --> 01:39:12.801
You Ray and with our friends and my wife was like, you have no idea whether that's 14 inches deep or 44 inches deep.

01:39:13.761 --> 01:39:15.952
I was like, yeah, but we've got a Lead Rover baby.

01:39:16.192 --> 01:39:17.212
Like it'll be fine.

01:39:18.652 --> 01:39:18.801
Yeah.

01:39:18.801 --> 01:39:19.612
Anyway, continue.

01:39:19.702 --> 01:39:22.042
So I'm always, I might have some of those instincts.

01:39:22.042 --> 01:39:27.231
I'm always, I've always driven these big ass Ford, you know, F two fifties.

01:39:27.622 --> 01:39:28.877
Oh, I know which story you're gonna tell.

01:39:28.877 --> 01:39:31.731
And so we were over in the Lake City area.

01:39:31.822 --> 01:39:32.002
Mm-hmm.

01:39:32.332 --> 01:39:38.692
And I'd read about these passes and we'd been Jeeping and we'd done some of that stuff in different trips.

01:39:39.082 --> 01:39:41.662
But we were in my truck, Kathy and I, and our daughter Hannah.

01:39:42.771 --> 01:39:46.252
So we headed up and we decided Engineer Pass over.

01:39:46.252 --> 01:39:47.032
Engineer Pass.

01:39:47.061 --> 01:39:47.391
Yeah.

01:39:47.396 --> 01:39:47.407
Yeah.

01:39:47.721 --> 01:39:55.912
Well, we discovered why when people do Cimarron Pass and Engineer Pass, they start with Cimarron and then go over engineer.

01:39:55.917 --> 01:39:56.301
Yeah, yeah.

01:39:56.362 --> 01:39:57.532
Well, we did it the other way.

01:39:57.952 --> 01:40:03.231
So that meant in this big Ford truck we were going on the outside.

01:40:03.891 --> 01:40:08.662
As we went over and then we're out over animus, forks in that area.

01:40:08.662 --> 01:40:08.662
Yeah.

01:40:08.667 --> 01:40:08.782
Yeah.

01:40:08.782 --> 01:40:14.572
And it just drops and these guys in Jeeps were coming the other direction, giving us the thumbs.

01:40:14.867 --> 01:40:16.686
We are literally on the edge.

01:40:16.907 --> 01:40:18.681
We are on the edge in that truck.

01:40:18.766 --> 01:40:25.792
I, I get anxiety thinking about it and to this day, like if we get into a situation that it's sketchy like that, I'm like, Nope.

01:40:25.851 --> 01:40:26.061
Nope.

01:40:26.481 --> 01:40:26.662
Right.

01:40:26.662 --> 01:40:26.926
I'm getting out.

01:40:26.931 --> 01:40:28.402
In fact, we did that another time.

01:40:28.462 --> 01:40:28.671
I'm out.

01:40:28.926 --> 01:40:35.872
But to me it's a really great day if I'm in four wheel drive, if maybe I've got tree limbs stuck in the mirrors.

01:40:35.902 --> 01:40:36.292
Right.

01:40:36.622 --> 01:40:41.362
And you know, I've been able to crawl up and crawl over and around.

01:40:41.542 --> 01:40:46.492
And you made it over engineer down into, or you went over to Cinnamon and then you dropped down.

01:40:46.551 --> 01:40:48.231
Where'd you drop down into From Cinnamon.

01:40:48.231 --> 01:40:49.881
We actually, we didn't go to Cinnamon.

01:40:49.881 --> 01:40:53.061
We actually went over engineer and then dropped down into Animus Forks.

01:40:53.122 --> 01:40:53.782
Yep, yep.

01:40:54.112 --> 01:40:56.332
And then went over to Silverton and then back around.

01:40:56.362 --> 01:40:56.631
Gotcha.

01:40:56.631 --> 01:40:56.992
Gotcha.

01:40:57.141 --> 01:40:57.412
Yep.

01:40:58.192 --> 01:40:58.761
Um.

01:40:59.212 --> 01:41:01.087
I, yeah, I just love that stuff.

01:41:01.146 --> 01:41:02.947
I love being out in wild places.

01:41:02.947 --> 01:41:05.676
I love hiking, hunting, fishing.

01:41:06.096 --> 01:41:08.016
That's a engineer is a sketchy pa.

01:41:08.167 --> 01:41:08.646
Like, oh yeah.

01:41:08.676 --> 01:41:16.716
I've folded on this podcast before, but Kathy, for your sake, uh, on our first anniversary, I took Jill over engineer's pass.

01:41:16.867 --> 01:41:17.617
Oh my God.

01:41:17.617 --> 01:41:17.766
You, gosh.

01:41:17.827 --> 01:41:19.837
And got into a fight.

01:41:20.466 --> 01:41:25.056
No, like at the very top when you're like, way ass above tree line.

01:41:25.146 --> 01:41:25.237
Uh, Uhhuh.

01:41:25.386 --> 01:41:25.506
Yeah.

01:41:25.506 --> 01:41:34.657
My 88 G Cherokee started sliding and so to not go over the edge, I had to accelerate into this 270 degree.

01:41:34.657 --> 01:41:40.056
And so I drifted a two 70 degree turn in an 88 Jeep Cherokee with no.

01:41:40.716 --> 01:41:42.216
Uh, antilock brakes.

01:41:42.546 --> 01:41:43.266
Oh, whoa, man.

01:41:43.266 --> 01:41:50.256
And we were probably, rock would've set our chances of dying was 74%, like when I started sliding.

01:41:50.947 --> 01:41:51.367
Oh my gosh.

01:41:51.372 --> 01:41:51.652
Yeah.

01:41:51.652 --> 01:41:52.011
Yeah, yeah.

01:41:52.011 --> 01:41:52.613
That one has.

01:41:52.777 --> 01:41:53.527
Wow.

01:41:53.766 --> 01:41:54.516
That'd be hours.

01:41:54.846 --> 01:41:56.886
Well, well, yours is scary too.

01:41:56.886 --> 01:42:02.556
But yeah, I was sliding in a, in looking at going over the edge, uh, so yeah.

01:42:02.631 --> 01:42:04.747
If anybody looks so I know exactly what you're talking about.

01:42:04.777 --> 01:42:05.077
Yeah.

01:42:05.167 --> 01:42:05.886
Has not been there.

01:42:05.886 --> 01:42:10.806
It is a sheer, I don't know how many thousand feet then long ways before you start hitting trees.

01:42:10.867 --> 01:42:11.136
Yes.

01:42:12.457 --> 01:42:15.426
Because it's just rocks and really steep rocks for a long time.

01:42:15.426 --> 01:42:15.907
Yeah.

01:42:15.907 --> 01:42:15.908
Yeah.

01:42:15.912 --> 01:42:21.337
I think Hannah and I were in the backseat and I had a camera that it broke the lens.

01:42:21.396 --> 01:42:26.292
That or the over hitting So many tree ranches going No, I think just the bump side.

01:42:26.351 --> 01:42:26.692
Oh, right.

01:42:27.292 --> 01:42:27.452
Interesting.

01:42:27.966 --> 01:42:35.917
The other, uh, experience we were remembering was, uh, so we got married the weekend before school started of our last semester.

01:42:35.976 --> 01:42:37.476
We're like, heck, why not?

01:42:37.476 --> 01:42:37.957
Why not?

01:42:38.497 --> 01:42:39.697
And, um.

01:42:40.252 --> 01:42:41.122
So we, I'm horny.

01:42:41.122 --> 01:42:41.601
You horny.

01:42:41.877 --> 01:42:42.247
Let's get married.

01:42:43.372 --> 01:42:43.851
Sorry.

01:42:44.212 --> 01:42:44.962
That was about it.

01:42:45.561 --> 01:42:49.671
Well, no, we were gonna, we were gonna get married in June after graduation.

01:42:49.671 --> 01:43:01.042
And Mark found this, there was this retired a and m professor, and they had, they lived right outside of town and they had this cute little red house that they would let a married couple live in free.

01:43:01.131 --> 01:43:01.492
Okay.

01:43:02.122 --> 01:43:03.141
You had to be married.

01:43:03.141 --> 01:43:03.502
Right.

01:43:03.681 --> 01:43:05.992
And so we moved our wedding up to January.

01:43:05.992 --> 01:43:08.207
So that, you know, made sense to me.

01:43:08.266 --> 01:43:11.181
It was pretty much, I kind of nailed it with the, I'm horny.

01:43:11.181 --> 01:43:12.051
You horny, right.

01:43:12.051 --> 01:43:15.202
There's a pattern here, you know, let's just do it.

01:43:15.202 --> 01:43:16.011
How bad could it be?

01:43:16.492 --> 01:43:23.002
So we took a belated um, um, uh, honeymoon trip, uh, backpacking Oh, cool.

01:43:23.002 --> 01:43:24.771
In, uh, PE wilderness.

01:43:25.011 --> 01:43:29.721
And we had a dog at the time that came with Mark pre predated me.

01:43:30.171 --> 01:43:31.851
Anyway, we're on this backpacking trip.

01:43:32.572 --> 01:43:40.612
And, um, I, the map is not very good and we've been hiking all day and we're not where we thought we should be.

01:43:40.612 --> 01:43:45.261
And there was a big storm coming up and I'm really tired at this point.

01:43:45.261 --> 01:43:49.221
And so Mark went ahead trying to find someplace flat.

01:43:49.221 --> 01:43:51.532
Like it was a very, it pretty steep, you know?

01:43:51.537 --> 01:43:51.862
Right, right.

01:43:51.921 --> 01:43:53.782
The trail comes, there's no place to set up.

01:43:54.292 --> 01:43:59.301
There was no place to set up camp, so now it's raining.

01:43:59.631 --> 01:44:02.362
Anyway, he comes back and he is like, I found a place right here.

01:44:02.362 --> 01:44:10.042
And we found this little flat spot, like between two streams and we pitched the tent and our dog is terrified of thunder.

01:44:10.042 --> 01:44:13.011
Like this dog lost her mind when And drowning.

01:44:13.011 --> 01:44:13.912
It turns out.

01:44:14.002 --> 01:44:14.271
Yeah.

01:44:14.271 --> 01:44:15.561
The dog doesn't like, but keep going.

01:44:15.622 --> 01:44:16.162
Yeah.

01:44:16.252 --> 01:44:23.032
And so it was one of those nights where like, we were so glad to get in our sleeping bag finally, but it was like, you know how things just.

01:44:23.617 --> 01:44:26.167
They become so magnified in the dark.

01:44:26.167 --> 01:44:26.527
Right?

01:44:26.556 --> 01:44:37.686
And, and I kept hearing the, the rivers and all I could imagine was the rivers were gonna rise and carry us downstream course where we were going because we're, we're in the mountains.

01:44:37.686 --> 01:44:38.707
The water's flowing down.

01:44:38.737 --> 01:44:38.947
Right?

01:44:38.947 --> 01:44:40.386
It's got its channels pretty established.

01:44:40.567 --> 01:44:46.926
But you know, those, and that was probably the same trip too, where we had, um, travelers checks back in the day of travelers checks.

01:44:47.377 --> 01:44:47.646
Awesome.

01:44:47.796 --> 01:44:54.277
And so we thought, oh, we're this close to, um, Taos, we'll go into Taos for the day.

01:44:54.457 --> 01:44:56.917
Thought we had two travelers checks left.

01:44:57.006 --> 01:45:02.622
Turns out we had one we filled up, we had a red VW bus, and, um, pretty cool.

01:45:02.622 --> 01:45:02.823
Yeah, pretty cool.

01:45:03.006 --> 01:45:05.136
We could probably go six hours if we wanted to, huh?

01:45:05.141 --> 01:45:05.341
Yeah.

01:45:05.346 --> 01:45:05.466
Yeah.

01:45:05.527 --> 01:45:06.606
You guys got lots of stories.

01:45:06.667 --> 01:45:07.537
We've got a lot of stories.

01:45:07.537 --> 01:45:08.527
Now it's, yeah.

01:45:09.091 --> 01:45:09.381
Yeah.

01:45:09.636 --> 01:45:13.867
But we can't, so were you telling us we need to cut off?

01:45:13.867 --> 01:45:16.207
We're, we're getting, we'll wrap it up to the end here.

01:45:16.596 --> 01:45:19.702
Um, mark, if people have an event.

01:45:20.317 --> 01:45:21.546
Yeah, they have a construction site.

01:45:21.636 --> 01:45:26.707
They can find you at the portable restroom solution.com.

01:45:26.827 --> 01:45:27.277
Ooh.

01:45:27.577 --> 01:45:30.546
Yeah, that's a very, could you get prs.com?

01:45:30.546 --> 01:45:31.027
Probably not.

01:45:31.027 --> 01:45:31.716
That's been taken.

01:45:31.777 --> 01:45:33.152
Yeah, it actually was.

01:45:33.181 --> 01:45:33.471
Yeah.

01:45:33.756 --> 01:45:35.407
They want$25,000.

01:45:35.766 --> 01:45:37.537
Yeah, the portable restroom solution.

01:45:37.747 --> 01:45:39.367
So it's all the standard blue stuff.

01:45:39.367 --> 01:45:41.917
Do you have fancy things and stuff too there?

01:45:41.917 --> 01:45:43.327
There's kind of a trend right now.

01:45:43.356 --> 01:45:43.476
Yeah.

01:45:43.476 --> 01:45:45.801
Of having like nice bathrooms for weddings and stuff.

01:45:45.801 --> 01:45:45.912
Yeah.

01:45:45.912 --> 01:45:49.296
We're starting to be able to bring in the nice bathroom trailers for weddings.

01:45:49.327 --> 01:45:49.567
Cool.

01:45:49.837 --> 01:45:53.287
And um, yeah, so we do events and all kinds of stuff, and I dig it.

01:45:53.796 --> 01:45:57.667
If they've got a septic, they live out in the country, need it, pumped, get Oh really?

01:45:57.667 --> 01:45:58.176
You do that too?

01:45:58.327 --> 01:45:58.832
Oh, we do that too.

01:45:58.832 --> 01:45:59.073
Oh, we did it.

01:45:59.256 --> 01:45:59.587
Okay.

01:45:59.646 --> 01:45:59.737
Mm-hmm.

01:45:59.737 --> 01:45:59.886
Yeah.

01:45:59.976 --> 01:46:00.846
And Kathy?

01:46:00.907 --> 01:46:00.997
Mm-hmm.

01:46:01.146 --> 01:46:07.207
If you've got entrepreneur, do you do couples work only or No.

01:46:07.207 --> 01:46:07.896
I see.

01:46:07.896 --> 01:46:07.987
I see.

01:46:08.271 --> 01:46:10.851
Pe, you know, related to any type of relationship.

01:46:10.851 --> 01:46:27.412
So it might be relationship with the self people that are wanting to grow and, you know, that will benefit their relationships, but maybe people that, especially women who are just wanting to kind of fully, you know, find all the aspects of their life, um, yeah.

01:46:27.681 --> 01:46:42.622
You know, and, um, um, but I work with individuals, couples of all kinds, but my real passion is working with entrepreneur couples and I have a part-time office with Emory Counseling in Old Town.

01:46:43.072 --> 01:46:45.051
Well, that's, Josh is the only person that's Yeah.

01:46:45.082 --> 01:46:46.912
Given me counseling so far.

01:46:47.091 --> 01:46:47.212
Yeah.

01:46:47.212 --> 01:46:47.542
There you go.

01:46:47.542 --> 01:46:48.801
He's done a podcast before.

01:46:48.862 --> 01:46:49.521
What's up Josh?

01:46:49.612 --> 01:46:50.271
So great.

01:46:50.271 --> 01:46:54.021
And, um, and then I see people anywhere virtually, so.

01:46:54.027 --> 01:46:54.127
Gotcha.

01:46:54.146 --> 01:46:56.931
Um, but my website is kathy rushing.com.

01:46:57.442 --> 01:46:57.832
I dig it.

01:46:58.011 --> 01:46:58.431
Yeah.

01:46:58.431 --> 01:46:58.432
Yeah.

01:46:59.002 --> 01:47:01.162
Any questions for me before we wrap this up?

01:47:02.872 --> 01:47:06.322
You know what, we never actually circled back to think Tank, so, oh yeah.

01:47:06.771 --> 01:47:07.282
But we can.

01:47:07.867 --> 01:47:08.197
No.

01:47:08.256 --> 01:47:09.516
I mean, oh yeah.

01:47:09.516 --> 01:47:12.032
I, well, let's just, Mark's a member.

01:47:12.372 --> 01:47:12.594
I'm a member.

01:47:12.997 --> 01:47:13.896
Eight things is cool.

01:47:14.046 --> 01:47:15.096
Yep, yep.

01:47:15.997 --> 01:47:20.317
Maybe not as good as C 12 yet, but we're only nine months in so far.

01:47:20.497 --> 01:47:21.667
That was a unique experience.

01:47:21.697 --> 01:47:22.447
Pete's awesome.

01:47:22.506 --> 01:47:22.567
Yeah.

01:47:22.567 --> 01:47:24.426
Pete is a great facilitator.

01:47:24.426 --> 01:47:29.646
He is doing a great job with, well, in that first experience, like you'll, it'd be hard to Yeah.

01:47:29.707 --> 01:47:31.027
Beat in some ways right's True.

01:47:31.027 --> 01:47:33.157
Like when you've been alone on an island for a long time.

01:47:33.157 --> 01:47:33.216
Yeah.

01:47:33.216 --> 01:47:35.587
And somebody's like, Hey, we all have islands too.

01:47:35.617 --> 01:47:36.546
You're like, oh, damn.

01:47:36.606 --> 01:47:37.117
Yeah.

01:47:37.117 --> 01:47:37.176
Yeah.

01:47:37.987 --> 01:47:39.127
These guys all have violins too.

01:47:40.627 --> 01:47:41.377
Yeah, exactly.

01:47:41.377 --> 01:47:48.636
So yeah, shout out for, uh, Loco Think Tank as a great opportunity to be with a, a group of peers.

01:47:49.266 --> 01:47:51.186
And, um, yeah.

01:47:51.186 --> 01:47:53.827
The value of that is just incredible.

01:47:54.157 --> 01:47:55.266
It's a nice, good perspective.

01:47:55.417 --> 01:47:55.627
Yep.

01:47:56.016 --> 01:47:58.176
Thanks to have, thanks for sharing your perspectives here.

01:47:58.837 --> 01:47:58.896
Yeah.

01:47:58.896 --> 01:47:59.436
Thanks Kathy.

01:48:00.277 --> 01:48:00.966
You're welcome.

01:48:00.966 --> 01:48:01.476
Bye for now.

01:48:01.657 --> 01:48:02.676
Thanks for having us.