Creating a Family Culture of Impact and Hospitality - Tim Schmoyer

Today's guest is Tim Schmoyer.

We go deep today, talking about:

• How to start taking fatherhood and family leadership as seriously as it deserves
• Family as a vehicle for multi-generational impact
• Building a family culture and seeing the kids as contributors to the mission
• Why we should take hospitality seriously
• How to start building connections and relationships with local families as a host (with both small and huge opportunities, depending on your situation)

Tim Schmoyer lives in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area. He homeschools his seven kids and together his family spends their free time developing a little homestead farm on their property.

After starting a popular YouTube channel in 2006, Tim become the first person to educate marketers and creators on how to successfully grow YouTube channels.

Later, in 2013, Tim started a YouTube growth agency, Video Creators, and did YouTube strategy for Disney, Warner Brothers, eBay, Budweiser, HBO, and more. His team earned over 20 billion views and 100 million subscribers for thousands of clients.
In 2022 vidIQ acquired Video Creators and today Tim is their Chief Creator Coach where he’s building a YouTube coaching program to work with millions of creators.

Find Tim online at:
Instagram: @timschmoyer
Youtube: Tim Schmoyer
Website: timschmoyer.com
Podcast: Family-Centered Business

Resources mentioned:
Website: VidIQ
Book: Good to Great by Jim Collins

---

Welcome to the Dad.Work Podcast, where men are forged into elite husbands and fathers by learning what it takes to become harder to kill, easier to love, and equipped to lead.

Get ready to start building the only legacy that truly matters - your family.

[Free Resource] Family Leadership Blueprint

https://dad.work/blueprint/

Resources, Links, Show Notes:

https://dad.work/podcast/

Follow Dad.Work:

https://instagram.com/dadwork.curt/
https://youtube.com/@dadwork/

Transcript

0:00

Hey guys, it's Curt Storring welcome to the Dadwork podcast. And before we get into today's episode with Tim Schmoyer, which is an excellent episode on hospitality and family leadership, I want to tell you about a new opportunity to become an elite family leader with us here at Dadwork. We have just launched our new training community, which is called Dadwork Legacy. Inside Dadwork Legacy, you will find Access to every single dad work course right now. There's seven on marriage, leadership, fatherhood, emotional mastery, communication, and more with more courses being added every quarter. You get access to our workshop recordings. Plus there is a community forum so that you can get support, be challenged, build relationships, network with. Other Christian fathers. This is basically the answer to everyone on Instagram and through the podcast and the emails who has been asking, where do I go to just do dad work? Where do I get everything you guys talk about in one place? This is it. So if you're a married Christian father and you want to lead your family better, if you want to build a thriving, intimate marriage, if you want to confidently Raise great kids and maintain your influence with your children. If you want to wake up every day, feeling purposeful and confident and like you're the one in charge, like you're the one setting the tone and leading the family, like you're doing this all for the glory of God, I would love for you to apply to join us at dad. work. Again, you'll get full access to every course that we have. And as long as you stay a member, you will get access to every future course, every future workshop, all of the bonus content we'll be doing, eventually events, meetups, masterminds. Plus, of course, you get access to a community forum filled with other men, just like you learning to become amazing role models and great family leaders. So join us over at dad. work slash legacy. And now let's get into this week's episode with Tim Schmoyer. All right, dads, welcome back to another episode of the dad work podcast. My name is Kurt Storing, your host and the founder of dad work. And today I am pleased to be joined by Tim, Tim Schmoyer. And I met in Colorado at the integrated mastermind. And if you guys have been listening to the last, like, I don't know, two months worth of content, you'll know that I've had so many guys on from that because it's a great group of guys. So Tim, man, thank you very much. Uh, I really wanted to talk to you. About hospitality, intentional fatherhood, but you want to just give us like a very quick, uh, just background about who you are, where you're at in terms of your family life, especially, uh, because I know you've got a larger family, you guys homeschool like us. How do you describe what the Schmoyers

Tim Schmoyer: 2:35

Yeah. So, I was a youth pastor at a church for 12 years. I thought I was going to be doing that for most of my life. It turns out that's, that didn't end up being true, for better for worse. I got married in 2006. And so we've been married for 17 years now as youth pastor at the time. While we were dating, I started using YouTube to introduce my girlfriend to my family back home across the country. People started watching us and we weren't really sure why, but we kept making videos and, and, we grew a community around that, people around, after we married, we had about like a million people watching us a month and people are like, how are you doing that? Like, that's unheard of back then. And like my space days, right? Like that wasn't like a thing. And so I didn't, I didn't really know, but like, here's how I'm doing it. You're like figuring it out. I ended up, being fired from a youth ministry gig and a few years later started a, agency doing a YouTube growth strategy for brands and creators. Did three deals with Disney and did Batman for Warner brothers and eBay Budweiser, HBO, even YouTube themselves was a client for a while. So a lot of big brands, but also beginning creators and influencers really helping them, Growing YouTube because I thought it saw it as an amazing platform to reach more people and change more lives at scale like in ways the church couldn't and wouldn't do and so We my wife and I somehow during this time managed to have seven kids in eight years and I homeschooled them is what I do in the morning before I start work and Yeah, we live here in Cincinnati, Ohio area. I sold my agency last, last year. And so, I had an exit from that, which is great. And now I'm, the chief creator coach at, the parent company that bought us, called VidIQ and, working on building out a scalable one on one human coaching program for creators and influencers. So, still in that world, but, Yeah, instead of, our agency work with about 630 clients per year and, now we get to impact potentially, they have 2 million weekly active users of their software. So, much bigger mountain to climb now in terms of impact and scale reaching people and changing lives with messages that we're trying to spread online. So,

Curt Storring: 4:46

very cool.

Tim Schmoyer: 4:46

Yeah, we have a couple, we got like 30, some chickens, a little homesteading here in our property as a family. We, have a goal of growing, all of our meat and produce for the year for our family, just here on our property. And we're closer now than we've ever been. I think we have all of our meat now is a hundred percent source from our property. Produce. We're still trying to figure out that's a little harder than animals, but, I don't know. There you go. Is that what you're looking for?

Curt Storring: 5:09

there's so much. Yeah, no, that's awesome. There's so much in there. I appreciate that. And, I'm curious if there's a story behind being fired

Tim Schmoyer: 5:15

Oh yeah, there is. Yep. There's a big story there. The story, the short version is that, I don't navigate church politics very well. I'm more of a call it as you see it. And, I'm not a big fan of, Christians just trying to be their own closed little club. And that, did not. That's the very, very, oh, almost overly simplistic version to the point where it's unhelpful. But that's what it came down to. The church was declining and I was like, we gotta reach more people. Like, is this mission even working or what is our mission? Are we even accomplishing it? And most Christians just, that's like entrepreneurial talk. That's not like most Christian type of And, And so, yeah, I found I do better growing a business. We, stopped counting, but we could take credit for over a hundred million subscribers and 20 billion views on YouTube that we, for, through our clients, I'm like, no church is ever going to have that reach or impact. So if they don't want to go that big, will on my own. So,

Curt Storring: 6:15

Yeah, no, and well, that probably speaks to a bit of a personality than a because one of the things I wanted to talk to you about Was your intentionality and I know that it might be Obvious for you from where you're at. You've got the kids. You've had the business you you have like family values I saw on your Instagram you posted that You know the the woodwork or whatever it is that you put on your wall with the family values I saw all of that And the thing you posted about your son getting his email account where everyone sent him like what they liked about him is his first email. Like, dude, that is so intentional and unusual. And also entrepreneurialism is fairly unusual and being the guy who doesn't really want to get along to get along, but to actually do good work. Also unusual. Where does that come from? Is that a learned thing? Did you struggle before? Is this just always?

Tim Schmoyer: 7:02

yeah, we might get into some therapy zones here too, because a lot of it's rooted in some, issues growing up and stuff too, but the, the, high level is, I think, and I'll just speak for myself personally, I don't know how well this applies to other people, I am driven by mission, I am driven by impact, I am driven by, Like the thing we say it needs to do, it actually needs to do that thing and do it well. And. And, and so when we say something supposed to be a certain way, but we're not actively trying to make it actually do that thing. I get really frustrated really quickly. And so, when it comes to family, for example, if we say. That family is supposed to be the most important thing to us. Most people don't live like that's actually true, especially dads, right? Like they actually live as if their work is the most important thing to them and climbing a ladder or making more money is important. So no one disagrees with me when I say that your family is most important, but if I looked at your calendar and your wallet, it might prove otherwise. And, or, or your checkbook. Who uses checkbooks these days? So I don't but. Yeah. And so I think that's what drives me. So by, by mission, I mean like my business, I wasn't really interested in starting a business. What I was interested in, like, I'm not a YouTube fan boy. I'm like a chain, I'm a change lives fan boy. And I just thought that YouTube was like a really great, platform to do that. And a great opportunity to reach people at scale with people who had never stepped a foot into a church and they weren't all religious messages like, Disney, for example, but, but for example, we, I could work with, I better not say the brand, but let's say. It's a pair of jeans that most people wear, that brand. And, and, and they could go into this with like a mindset of just like, how do we use our advertising campaign to extract money from people and make money. But by the end of our time working together, it's like, how do we make content that reaches people and changes our lives? And that ends up being good for business. So I love, I love that type of thing. So our family is no different. Like what, what is our mission and our vision for our family? family that compels me to make decisions that we make and to prioritize our time and our money, the way and our resources, the way that we do and, relationships and that mission. Yeah, everything's got a flow out of that. I don't really know how to operate well without like a big picture of where this is supposed to go when it's supposed to look like one day for business or for family. So did I answer that question?

Curt Storring: 9:36

And how are you making that vision for your family? Is it obvious to you, or do you have to like work and write it down?

Tim Schmoyer: 9:43

So, I get this question a few times. I'm never really sure how to answer it. I'll just answer by saying, I don't know, there's smarter people than me who would maybe have better responses to that. I guess in terms of our story, the way it worked is, my wife and I felt like we, like we saw common themes naturally developing in our family. And we thought like, there's something here. Why has God created us the way that we are? Why has he literally put these kids into our family with this personality trait and that giftedness and, and that interest and things. And, and how do we take all of that? All nine of us in our family? And what does that suppose? What is God trying to do here? What does he want for our family based on the people who are here? And, and so that's, I think where it started, it was very kind of fuzzy. We just leaned into the things that we felt like our family was naturally good at and enjoyed. But over time we were like, we have too many different directions. We could go with our time and resources. How do we. We need a filter through how do we make decisions on where to invest and not to invest. And so that's when writing something down, making sure we are more aligned on what our family vision mission is and what those core values are. And using them as a rubric through which we make decisions and choices about how we. How we spend our time and what we do together, and forcing ourselves to come up with other solutions that maybe don't exist yet because the solutions that are out there for certain things, like just don't work for this vision or work for this, family of nine something. So, so we went through a, there's a guy in, in integrated make Mark Parrott. Do you know Mark? Mark Parrott is, okay. He was there in Colorado. He and his business partner who were not there, his business partner wasn't, but his business partner put together, Course called family vision or something. And it's at, outposts advisors that net, I believe not sponsored. feel like as a YouTuber, I have to do the disclaimer. I'm not sponsored. It's just, so we went through that, course. And it was me and my wife and our older. Two kids and at the time and, we did spiritual gift inventories, we did a personality trait stuff and, went through the process and we got to a place that was clear. It wasn't quite totally clear, but we got to a much better place as a result of the process in that course. And then after that, we spent more time just stewing on it, talking about it. My wife, it was a topic at date night for my wife and I pretty commonly to continue, just kind of processing and talking and negotiating and like, well, what about this? And this is a better way to, and then what we kind of got to a spot where like, This is pretty good. This is at a place where we've, it's not perfect. And this is some things that overstates some other things, but this is kind of like, we feel like is the most accurate place we're going to get to be as a tool to use for how we manage time and resources. And then, And then we decided just to own it. And, but the thing is, especially we have young kids, like our youngest right now is five. Our oldest is 14. The, what our family looks like and what we're good at changes pretty rapidly as they get older. And so we feel like it's, it's stuck for a few years, but we're probably getting to a point where we need to, need to revisit it again and kind of fill in some gaps that have some holes that have been like, things are, things are, kids are good at that. They, that have not reflected and. vice versa. So I don't know. I don't think it really answers the question. It was just more of like a lot of the conversation, a lot of discussion, a lot of back and forth, over the course of me about six months.

Curt Storring: 13:13

Yeah, no, that, that actually is helpful because it's putting you as someone who's taking that so seriously that you're willing to put the intentional work into, and that is maybe the underlying question is you said at the start, like not a lot of people are taking this seriously. What was it about you that you're like, dude, family, like, obviously. And I look around at the same sort of thing. And I'm like, why isn't everyone giving this like 120 percent nothing could be more important. And everyone's like, Oh, well, I'm just like working and I'm on my phone and I'm like, I'm here. So I'm a good dad. And I think we need to like raise that standard. So I don't know. Was it like something deeper for you that you're like, man, I'm never

Tim Schmoyer: 13:49

thought I, I think I caught a vision for, if, if I get excited about impact in people's lives and in the world, I think the best way to have the biggest impact is through having A lot of kids who are good, godly citizens, of their communities who raise kids who are good, godly citizens of the community who raise kids like that's the best way to have a multi generational impact. So if I really deeply care about what the world looks like, not just in my lifetime, but in a hundred years from now. And I don't mean. Like Tim Schmoyer gets some sort of credit for, having kids or whatever, like not in that sense. Like when, when we help creators grow on YouTube, like we don't get any credit for that other than by it from our clients. Right. But if we help someone reach a million people a month on YouTube, those million people aren't coming. Thank you, Tim, for helping that creator reach me. Like that doesn't have, I don't care. We call it the ripple effect internally at our company where. We impact this one person and then they, their lives are different. In our, in our context, that's the influencer, the creator, and then they impact their people. Now their lives are different and impacted people around them. And all these spheres of influences are being impacted. And so I think of that happening on one level with creators, but happens on a multi generational level with family. but the only way that's going to happen is if I intentionally raise kids. Who have a vision for family also, and I'm equipping them through example of this is how you disciple children. This is how you disciple your kids. This is why it's important to, uh, make a lot of money and, and get assets because it fuels the family vision and allows us to do this work better, And, and so on. So, so I think, yeah. That's where I got excited about family because I caught that vision for the, the impact it would have potentially on the world one day, if it actually goes on and continues after I pass.

Curt Storring: 15:59

Did you have that growing up? Is that a vision that you saw or was it something that you had up

Tim Schmoyer: 16:04

I, I don't know where I picked it up, so I moved here to Cincinnati cause, you and I both know a guy named Jeremy Prior from that same integrated group. And so he hired, I worked for him for a year and I think that's where I started. Being introduced to some of these things, but I think they started take root, more through the community that's around here in Cincinnati of spending time with other people and, and their families and Shabbat and having conversations and then just, as we continue to have kids, we're like, we need to, we didn't, when we had our seven kids, that vision wasn't as strong as it is now. So, so it's not like we had a strong vision and decided to have seven kids that was more rooted out of, a bunch of different things. One of them being that, um, our third kid, we had a miscarriage likely due to birth control that my wife was taking. And so then at that point, she's like, I'm not taking birth control anymore. And I'm like. I agree. So that'll, that'll help you have seven kids in eight years. But, even with trying to plan and such. So I think I just caught it through, I don't think there's like one person or one story I can give you. I think it was just being around different people who were kind of thinking about this and valuing this around the same time we were in growing into that around the same time.

Curt Storring: 17:18

It's a testament then to showcasing that for other people. You see your kids watching you, but you picked it up for someone else. And who knows who else in your community is now picking it from you by making this look awesome. And that's part of what I want to do is like. There's too many people who scoff at fatherhood, too many people who scoff at Christianity even like, Oh, you believe that wasting your time, man. Like, Oh, you've got kids. You can't come out on the weekend, wasting your time. Part of what I want to do is turn tables. They're like, Oh bro, you don't have a family. That's tragic. You're you don't believe this? Like, yikes. And so I think that what I'm seeing there is yeah, man, you got the bug and now you're giving the other people the bug because it was really inspiring to me. To hear you talk about hospitality, and that's what I want to dive into in a moment. But just before I do that, I want to have one last sort of thing on this family culture, because I could talk about this for a whole hour. You're talking about seeing what your kids are good at and how they contribute. To the family. That's a very unusual thing. I would say for most modern Western families to consider how the children can bless and be part of the family mission. Could you give some examples in terms of like, how are your kids doing this? What are they good at? How are you

Tim Schmoyer: 18:28

got this from a good to great who read the book, Jim Collins. It's like, yeah, it's a classic business book, not a family book, but in there he talks about, one of the things that separates good, good families. Well, it is families, but in this context, first good businesses. From great businesses and companies are the way they hire people and grow their team. A great, a good company will have a job description and fill someone who, fits the job description. A great company will look at, who is a good culture fit for us, who needs to be on this bus. And then you hire them and then you're like, what seat do they take on this bus? And sometimes that means you create a seat that doesn't yet exist. Other times it means like they've got some good overlap and they came in through a job description because they're a good fit for that seat. But over time, they're not as good as a fit for that seat anymore. Their interests change, they get a little bit bored and things, right? And so, a great company gets the right people on the bus and then figures out what seat to put them in. And so I took that and just apply it to a family. Like I didn't get to choose who's here. God did. And I think he chose better than I would have chosen. And so what does he want to do through our family? As a result of the people who are here, we're on this bus, but what's the right seat for each person on this bus? The, the normal. Approach is for parents to say, well, is my, my choice to have these kids, they're my fault, so to speak, and now they're my responsibility to take care of and do everything for them. And, but I think that one doesn't train them to be good adults, people who take responsibility, have good work ethics and can, raise good families. But two, it also makes them feel like they're the center of the story in terms of that family. Like this family exists to make sure that I feel fulfilled, and that is a very bad place for any person to be, let alone a kid who grows up in that type of environment. So when we look at like, what's the job to be done by this family in our community, in this home, in the world, just like you would ask that job about any good business, or product. Then it's a, it's a different question. Like, how do we work together? We all play roles. So to talk about hospitality, for example, that's one of the, one of the ways we really started leaning into hospitality is because we noticed that that's one of the things our family does naturally. Well, because of the. Skills that we, and the talents we have here. So for example, we, we host an open house Sabbath dinner every other Friday at our place. And there's around 70, some people who show up for it. Some of them, most of them religious, not all of them are, some are just curious and other people are just like, friendly to it, but aren't really, they're more curious if anything, I guess, than anything else. and I guess to cut to it, like one of the things we'll do is I will, do a quick, like little teaching because one of my skills, I like teaching, I, don't mind doing that part with all the families gathered together in our, in one of our rooms of our house, we do a quick, it's like 15 minutes and it's more of a discussion, a dialogue, we call it a midrash where we're kind of talking back and forth, but like a Like 13 families together. And so we'll have this. I like leading that thing. So my strengths, my wife really loves sitting down and connecting and having good conversations with people. I have a son who really likes to cook. I have a daughter who just loves greeting people at the door, making them, she's so excited. People are showing up. She makes you feel like a million bucks. I have another, daughter who loves. Crafting like little name tags, who's coming in and crafting loading tags with the seating where they're going to be right. And so we have all these different roles that everyone in our family plays. So when we, host, this is like our family operating together at a 10 to serve other people and everyone feels fulfilled. Everyone knows their role. Everyone feels like they're a part of this, even our five year old. So, that, that hosting became and hospitality became, it was something we were doing naturally, but then we noticed like, oh, that's because we have these players on the bus, these team members on the bus, and then we leaned into it more intentionally with creating roles and defining the seats, so to speak. So I'll stop talking because I feel like I'm rambling, but there you go.

Curt Storring: 22:36

No, no, that's awesome, man. I love that. That's a great example of that. And I think just a perfect segue, because it was so like, dude, it was shocking to me when we were in whatever group that was, and you're like, man, I'm struggling with this particular way that we're hosting. Is it right for us? Like, how do we want to change it? And for me, I was like, that is so awesome, but Oh my goodness. That sounds like a lot. And so can you just like, give us quickly an idea? Like, first of all, what do you mean by hospitality? again, we're this whole conversation is like. So unusual. So what is hospitality? Where did it start How

Tim Schmoyer: 23:06

at the beginning and I won't go too far in here because I think we'll probably spend more time on the practical implications. But, from a biblical argument, hospitality, if you look for it is a really big theme in scripture from it is, and I'm not trying to make, uh, an issue here necessarily, but most people when they look at the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible, they jumped to some conclusions about what was going on there and why it was destroyed. But the book of Ezekiel actually clears that up. And it says that they were destroyed for their lack of hospitality. So those people came into the city. Courtyard and the traditional custom of the day would be that there was no hotels and you would be embarrassed. Like whoever wasn't, if you took too long to get to those guests and not invite them into your home where you had food, wine, drinks, you're ready. You're always ready to host. And. And it was an embarrassment to, to a town if some travelers came and they weren't whisked away within, very quickly. But instead, in this story, what happens is these guys come to the city, the town square. Not only do people not whisk them away to host them, but they come to rape them, right? And, and so Ezekiel says that God destroyed them for their lack of hospitality. God takes us pretty seriously of like how, and you don't have to go very far to like the, the traveler, the sojourner, the orphan, the widow, like all these people who, need, need support and and what God, how God feels about them. And So I, so I forget where I was going with that, but that's the, maybe where it starts in the Bible when it comes to them, the, the practical implications of this. We heard a family, maybe over, over a decade ago. They just mentioned on the off, kind of offhandedly that, they always have. A really good rack of ribs ready to go in the freezer. They always have, uh, some wine ready to go. and they always have some bedrooms, available for anyone who needs a plate. Like for whenever they just need to host. And that kind of stuck with both my wife and I and kind of took root. And over time that became a bigger part of our bar vision as well. What is hospitality? There's one level where it is literally like being a hotel for people. Like travel, and we have done that. We've another family here in Cincinnati called us. This is just a few months ago actually. They're like, Hey, there's a, I just found, met this family of... Nine, seven kids also, and, I just learned that they are traveling through the area and they're sleeping in their van because they don't, they can't afford a hotel. Like, do you mind if we send them or like, absolutely not send them over. So within like an hour and a half, they were at our house and they spent the night there and it was awesome. We had a great time hanging out with them and all of our kids and our whole family, like we know how to turn on that gear cause that's a muscle we've exercised before in the past. And we practice, everyone knows the roles and positions, so to speak. And, and we just, we jump right in. And so we bought a house to help fulfill part of that family vision. Our house, we have, nine bedrooms, seven bathrooms. It's, Big house, we have three kitchens, five car garages, a bunch of acreage, a pond and a ground pool. Like it's a nice place, right? And we didn't buy that just for our own usage. We actually only live in half of the house and the other half, the downstairs where it's his own. It's got its own living room, it's got its own entrance, washer, dryer, it's got its own kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, everything. We leave that open for, just those types of situations so that when the opportunity arises, we can say yes. And so hospitality is the overnight. Thing and it is the traveler in the showjourner, but it's also just the opening our homes our home to To like open house Sabbaths to like hey, this is a rhythm that our families are doing for years We had we have a I think a pretty strong culture of that and then when that culture was strong enough Then we invited other people into it because we learned the hard way that if you invite people into something like hey this We're really excited about this. Come join us. What ends up happening is you're The culture at home isn't strong enough to withstand other people coming into it. And now the culture shifts to like, now we're performing for these other people, or now we're here to serve those other people instead of them joining us in what we already do naturally really well anyway. So we did Sabbath on our own for a few years. And really it's our open house started because we had a long list of people we wanted to invite over. And we realized that if we do this every other week, cause we still want to maintain a strong family culture of like, Just our family having Sabbath. So we did every other week and we're like, it's going to take us a year to get through all these families. So my wife's like, well, let's just invite a bunch of them over at once. And let's do it by groups or something instead, or let's just invite them all. And then it turned into, let's do it, invite them all and do an open house and whoever comes comes. And so that's kind of how it started. And then, we shut down for COVID and then opened it up again. And, and that's when the swimming pool during COVID became a great community building piece. Cause we could. throw the kids in the big bucket of chlorine bleach, to, keep the COVID away and we can social distance outside and, and still build community and things. So, but yeah, so then it turned into open house, and now, like I said, yeah, there it got, it's now up to the point where I have to figure out what do we set. What is the goal of this gathering time? Cause it's larger than some churches and most churches in America are now like, at our house and we love it. We bought the place to be able to host bigger parties. We got the parking for it and everything. But, but what, what does God have here? Does he want us to continue growing this thing? Does he want us, it's already launched. It's already kind of split another family caught the vision for it. And now they're doing this in their home. And so, which is great. We love that. It was like the best, if you want to call it church in the sense of churches, like a gathering, a faith gathering of believers, the church launch into that home without a single, any budget without any paid staff, it was in, it was only like a half hour conversation about it. And then boom, it was like, we're like, yes, go do that. And then boom, it, it is, it launched another expression of this. Right. So I was like, This is like not only sustainable, but this is reproducible for other people. And, there you go. I just gave you a whole bunch. So there you go. I feel like I'm just rambling.

Curt Storring: 29:26

yeah, no, that's that's that's awesome. When you started this, presumably you didn't have the or did you have the house when you

Tim Schmoyer: 29:33

started in 900

Curt Storring: 29:34

Okay, so what was that like then? Right. Okay. So can you talk about that? Like how, let's say someone's caught the vision. Like you just said, they're like, now what, what would you suggest beyond once they've got that family culture? Cause I have heard that from so many guys, who are in this integrated, they practice the Sabbath. We just started about two months ago. And I'm excited. I'm like, do we bring in? And you're like the third or fourth person who's nobody for years. So, so what would that look like then if they want to do Sabbath hosting or even just like after church lunch, what are some of the ways that guys can get into this very practically? Would

Tim Schmoyer: 30:07

Yeah. Our first, our house, when we started doing this, it was a small three bedroom, one and a half bath, 900 square feet house. And that's where I started my business in that. That place and we we met with people outside in the carport we couldn't really fit even our family couldn't fit around the table in the kitchen in that house So yeah we met outside and we did at first we were kind of like a little bit embarrassed because it wasn't it was an old house and A lot of quirks and we didn't have room for people. There was like no parking and so it Yeah, but, but we felt like let's not wait for, like, if this is what we feel called to do and what we feel like is part of our family vision, like let's not put that off just because we have some sort of Western Americanized standard of what a hosting house should look like. I've been to Ukraine. I've been to, Haiti. I've been to other countries. We're families just who have much less than a 900 square foot house invited in our entire team of like our short term missions and stuff with, and probably in this zone, we were fine. So I like, let's just, let's, put aside that idea that we need to. So that's where it started and that's where I'd encourage other people to start, like, start with what you have, start with whatever makes sense for you and your family. And that's like how many people you invite. Do you just go out to a restaurant? And one of the things that our family does is we have, we budget every month for a generosity fund and that's something we started doing before I started a business. Like W2 employee when we did that. Right. So that's, this isn't all like. Oh, I need to start and sell a business in order to do the six. No, like you, you start with the values. And I think God, as you lean into those, God chooses to bless the things that you're already doing. It's not like I'll wait for resources and then do this. It's like, no, we do this. And then God provides resources as you, as he sees that you're being a faithful steward of these things, that he blesses you with more. So you don't wait for a nine bedroom house. Yeah. To do this, right? Or, for generosity fund, like anyone can start a generosity fund it requires sacrifice just like anybody else. But so anyway, we have this generosity fund. And, where was I going with that? We're talking about, starting with, Oh, and so it could look like for you is like you genuinely cannot host in your house for one reason or another, which is fine, but in a generosity fund, you're like, Hey, we are going to take one family out to dinner each month and we're going to start a generosity fund or we're going to put to get put a hundred bucks or whatever it's going to cost away and we're going to start using those, that resource to, to develop relationships, to invest into people and to, Yeah, host in a restaurant if needed, right? And that's fine. So I think it can just look like whatever it needs to look like for different people. That's the first thing. The second thing is I think is important that people often don't think about this is the the the idea of hosting and hospitality feels daunting and overwhelming and really stressful, especially when you have 50 or 70 some people coming to your house. So in order to make something like this sustainable, you need to have really good systems in place, as a family to pull this off. So business context, first of all, cause this is kind of usually where I start and then I apply it to the family. My brain just works. Better that way for better for worse. when your business is growing and you're having more and more opportunity and no one's like too much, we got to cut this off. This is too much revenue. This is too much opportunity, too many customers, too many clients. This product is selling too well. No one does that. Right. But when it comes to using our home or having children, like if we really believe children are a blessing, you're like, Hmm, too many kids, like, I don't know, is it, or is it, and that's a, that's a personal thing for a lot of people. So I don't mean to poke at that too hard, but, but in the home, like if, if the hospitality thing is going well, people are coming and you're, you're enjoying it. But the part you don't enjoy is the cleanup and the prep beforehand and the meals and everything, in a business, what you would do is like our systems are breaking down. We need to create better systems. To, to keep up with the growth and demand of what's of, of the positive thing that's happening here. And so that's the same thing we do in our family, which is there's something positive happening here. Let's not just throw our hand up and say like, we can't do this. Let's figure out a better system that would, that will allow us to do this and do it sustainably. So for, so it's easier to do a smaller, but as our group grew and more and more, now we have better systems in place. So for example, we have a system, in place where, another family comes over to our house early on Fridays and helps us quickly just, we don't clean, we don't scrub, we just pick toys and dirty socks up off the floor, right? And just throw them in the hamper. So another family comes over early and helps us do that and they come over a half hour early and when our family's doing it and their family's doing it together, they're in our laundry, they're, we don't care. It's like, like, they just come over doing this together. We're linking arms and so, it takes a half hour. Everything's cleaned up. Tables are set up for guests and everything's ready to go. And then we have a pretty good system for a meal. We just do the same meal every single time. It's just taco bar because it's gluten free. It's, sugar free. It's like all the different things, dietary stuff that, that people need. And it's really simple. So we, we just throw the meat into a crock pot, turn it on, and it just goes for the, for the chicken and beef. And then other people, when they sign up RSVP online. We use a site called punchbowl. com again, not sponsored, but that's what we use. And they, they signed up for what they're going to bring. And it's all stuff they can stop at the grocery store and pick up on the way. It's like a bag of salads, a bag of cheese. It's a jar of salsa. It's a tub of sour cream. It's like that type of stuff you can all bring. And sometimes there has been one time where we didn't have any taco shells and it was like, no one signed up for that. And we're like. Now you're making nachos. He just put the chips down instead. So, we don't feel responsible for filling in gaps. No one brings cheese. Sometimes we just don't let you use that time and it's fine. And so everyone brings their stuff. We set it out, on the, we have like a buffet type of counter in our kitchen and, and then. We hang out and then for cleanup before people start leaving everyone kind of knows now That we come make a quick announcement like hey, all right before people start leaving let's clean up real quick And our kids then get all the other kids together and they clean up the they fold the wipe down the tables fold the tables up the chairs. They carry them out to our garage the moms kind of quickly clear off our counters put food in the fridge everyone pitches in and it takes like Less than 10 minutes and our house is cleaned up. Then we hang out forever, much longer. But when people leave, when the blast person leaves, we close the door and our house is done, we just go straight to bed houses all cleaned up, ready to go. Right. So it just, comes down to good systems. I think that makes it sustainable. So

Curt Storring: 36:58

man, that, that is so awesome. By the way, like just hearing that vision. I'm like, wow, perfect. And tacos, by the way, like our favorite

Tim Schmoyer: 37:06

Who doesn't like

Curt Storring: 37:07

so easy. Yeah, exactly. But I think I saw something on Instagram. It might have been you and your wife talking something about like I think you just kind of alluded to that which is you're not You're not entertaining. You're just like there with people and I think that's an important distinction because I often feel Responsible for people coming into my space. I now have to make sure they have a good time. And what do you think about that?

Tim Schmoyer: 37:31

good. Yeah. So I forgot. We just, my wife and I sat down, I have my, a personal podcast called the family centered business. And, our latest episode is my wife and I talking about this hospitality stuff and yeah, I forgot. One of the things that we talked about. There's some, there's a, and I forget how we worded it. Cause I listened to that clip that you were referring to my Instagram. I'm like, Ooh, that was good right there. My, I have a, that's just a, who edits all those and puts them up for me. But, so I won't get it as good as I did there. But the idea is that. For most people hosting, they feel like they need to perform when they're doing that. And when you feel like you need to perform really, what you're saying is, I care deeply what these people think about me. And in that regard, like the hosting becomes more about you than about the relationship. And I, and our perspective now. Is it's not about how do we look, it's more about like the focus is on the people who are coming. So I, I get that it's important to clean up and we do the cleanup, not because of how it reflects on us, but because we want to honor our guests and make them feel like they're in a welcoming, relaxed environment. But sometimes it doesn't all get cleaned up and people come in and there's still dishes on our counter or, and there's still junk on our stove. People don't care, if anything, it's like, Oh, I feel like I, I can, put my feet up on the coffee table and, and, and feel more relaxed here. And we're like, we're like, great. That's awesome. That's actually how we would prefer that you feel. So yeah, the focus needs to be less on like, what do people think about me and more on how do I serve this person really well. And, build the focus on relationship, not on

Curt Storring: 39:13

That's really good. Yeah. That takes the sort of selfless sacrificial angle, which I think is important in all things. But how have your kids done with this? Have there ever been a time where they're like, no dad, this sucks. Like we don't want to do this. What is that like with

Tim Schmoyer: 39:25

can we do, are we doing a past about, are we doing this week? We're doing this week. Or, after, like our homeschool co op, sometimes, a bunch of families will come over to our place to eat lunch together after that. Thanks to, so now our kids love it and it's, I think there's something. Let me say it this way. When I look at biblically, how are people supposed to form community? Most people today form community inside of a church building, inside of a gymnasium, on an athletic field. And those are all fine ways to build community. But biblically community happens in the home and it's led by fathers. You look at like Passover, for example, this is a meal where there's a father leading this. In the home with the Children, breaking the bread, which then Jesus took on to symbolize himself right now. We know it is communion, but it started as Passover. And still is Passover. We just called it communion. But, Yeah. And so I think like the home, there's something intimate about being someone's home, there's something vulnerable about being in someone's home. And I think that's why a lot of people don't do it is because it feels risky. In some way, these people are going to get to know me a little bit better. I don't have an exit plan. I can leave someone else's house or I can leave the soccer field if I want, but when they're at my house, I don't have an exit, right? So it feels a little scarier, but I think that's what makes the relationships go deeper and become more meaningful is. using your home at that type of, as a tool for that type of thing, for building community, building relationships. And also maybe as an entrepreneur, I'm the kind of guy where it's like, well, if I want to have good, meaningful, deep relationships and it's not happening, I'm the guy who's going to be like, I'm going to go out and figure it out. And I'm what I want. I'm going to make it happen, right? And as other people I know, and it's a personality thing. There's nothing wrong with it. Like, all right. Some people who come to our place just need, they wait for someone else. Some of them drive over an hour to be here each week or every other week. So, because they, they don't. I don't have the personality to start it, but hopefully people, the guys listening to this might feel a little bit more empowered to be like, no, I can do this in my home. And, rather than the waiting for the, some church organization to start it, I'm going to go start it. And it starts small, like any business, right? Any good endeavor starts small. You make a lot of mistakes, you learn a lot of things, you improve your systems and processes along the way. You build relationships with other people who come and partner with you, whether you call them employees in a work environment or. I don't know what we call them in our home, but, this, this family that comes early, and helps you fulfill this mission that, you guys were linking arms on together. So

Curt Storring: 42:08

Yeah. Man, that's so good. That's it. That's something that I have found in myself too. I'm like, where are all the other dads? Why hasn't anybody done anything about this? And I'm like, Oh, that's me. Okay. Well, I better get to work. That's one of the things I'm trying to do right now with my boys is figure out how to lead something that men and their boys can come to kind of like a. Trail something, almost like a Scouts or a Cubs thing, but trail Yeah, someone was telling me about that. It's not in Canada. So I emailed them. I'm like, can I do this? Otherwise, I'm just going to do it So anyway, that's on my heart as well, but at the same sort of personality thing, I think probably last question just for your time. How are you guys finding people? And I know it's probably easier now that you've got this network and there's been so many people at your house for a number of months or however long it's taken. For someone who's in that church environment or is in that soccer field, do you just be like, Hey, do you want to come for dinner? And then that's it. And you just like, even if you're not great friends, or how are you reaching out and finding these people to actually

Tim Schmoyer: 43:00

basically it. Yeah. We just are, involved in a local church, jiu jitsu gym, homeschool co ops is the places where we already are. And when we, we usually don't offer blind invites to just everyone. We kind of build relationships with some people there first. Cause I think maybe part of this, I didn't really talk about this. Not everyone connects naturally with everyone, and I think that's okay. And so we don't, it's not just a blind open invite to whoever. It's the people that we feel like we have some connection with, or could have deeper connection with if we spent more time together. It's the people our kids enjoy being with. And it is open house and we do have people who invite friends and come and things, and it's at a size right now where that's kind of okay. Cause I don't even have 70, some people, I don't even connect with everyone there anymore, which is part of the, and that's what I'm trying to evaluate. If that's part of a problem or if that's an okay thing or. But I don't sure I think about how I feel about that, but yeah, so it ends up like we're going to co op and not everyone at co op gets an invite, but it's like, Oh, our kids are naturally connecting. Our wives are connecting or I'm connecting, it's just like, Hey, we'd love to hang out with more, like come over to our house. And it's a natural, like, we've got this family rhythm where. It's not like let's get together someday and it's like this big event. It's like, we already do this. Just kind of come join us when we're doing here. And there's a natural on ramp to building a deeper relationship there. So yeah, there's some people from church, some people from co op. Some people it's probably like. Six different congregations all represented here. So it's not like a church thing or whatever. It's just people from the area. I also lead a thing called story formed life, which is like 11 week Bible study. That tends to draw people from around the area too. And we connect with people there. And so some of them who live closer by end up coming. So yeah, just wherever build, build some connections in those places and then invite the people you're like, I feel like this could be a fruitful relationship and think like there's something here. Let's spend more time together. Yeah. Yeah.

Curt Storring: 45:02

Nice. So just take action and be the guy who's putting yourself out there and building those relationships and then bringing them back over when it's the right time. Imagine that. It's all about taking action. Man, guys will not be surprised to hear that. They might be annoyed to hear that, but that's how you do anything in life in my opinion. So I want to make sure you're at your next appointment on time. Where can people find more about you if they would like

Tim Schmoyer: 45:22

Yeah, you just go to timschmoyer. com. It's my, just a generic site has links to my podcast there and, do some personal, business and, coaching on the side for creators and things too. So, yeah, you can find me at timschmoyer. com.

Curt Storring: 45:36

Sweet. Okay. Well, I'll put that in the show notes. Dad. org slash podcast. Tim. Thank you, man, for being here. I really appreciate this. It's been ton of wisdom. Thank you, man. Take care.