86. How Do I Show Up for My Kids AND My Business?

"I wanna be there for my kids, and at the same time I wanna be there for my office, my team…I wanna make a living.” There is true hardship in the struggle to make things happen at your business and to be there for your kids. You do not want to wake up one day and live in a house full of strangers, but at the same time you have responsibilities to provide for your family.  How do we do both well?

Key Takeaways: 

• Ask your child THIS question to help you set the best boundaries
• How to deal with the guilt of being a business owner and father
• The "no fails" that will make your family more intentional with each other
• Do sport events really matter to your kids? 

We discuss practical strategies to set boundaries, like turning off work phones over the weekend and involving family in understanding work commitments. Our conversation highlights the significance of open dialogue, apologizing, and seeking forgiveness when necessary.

Big A and Wall, along with Anthony Witt and Brett Barnhart, dive into the multifaceted challenges of balancing work and family life. We get honest about our intentions with our kids, how hard it can be to make things happen, and the very best strategies for having real relationships with your kids.

Join our conversation on our LinkedIn Group: www.viewfromthetop.com/group
Become a member of the ISI Community at: http://viewfromthetop.com/community

Connect with Anthony Witt:
witthouse.com or anthonywitt.com
Anthony Witt is a professional licensed counselor and a business owner with a deep understanding of how entrepreneurship impacts personal health and those around them. Having bought, sold, and started multiple businesses, he has gained valuable
experience at the intersection of personal health and business. His belief that "a healthy business owner creates a healthy business" underscores his approach to helping entrepreneurs thrive.

Connect with Bret Barnhart:
Bret’s Calendar Link: https://calendly.com/barnhartexcavating/view-from-the-top
Bret’s Linkedin
Bret Barnhart, Jr. is the fourth generation in his family to start his own excavation company. He began Bret Barnhart Excavating (BBE) in 2002 with $1,500, a single backhoe and truck, and a trailer. Since then, BBE has grown to an entire fleet of heavy machinery and trucks, averages just under 20 employees, and grosses $4mil annually.

Connect with Big A and Wally:
View From The Top Website: https://www.viewfromthetop.com/
The Climb Newsletter: https://www.viewfromthetop.com/climb
Big A’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronwalkerviewfromthetop/
Wally’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinwallenbeck/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome back to View From the Top podcast, where we help growth-minded Christian businessmen who desire momentum in their business, their family and their finance get through the valleys and up the mountain to their very own View From the Top. Hey, I am glad you're back listening with us today. Today we've got a pretty cool episode. We've got a couple other guests or co-hosts with us. You've met them before, so we'll introduce them in just a moment. And then Big A is going to join us as well. Hey, we're going to jump into a topic today called From Boardroom to the Playroom.

Speaker 1: 0:33

So, man, any of you guys out there listening that struggle with how to? Maybe balance isn't even the right word. We're probably going to talk about that today. But how do you handle the work-child relationship, whether you go here, do this, how much effort, how much not effort we all struggle with that. We hear it so many times. We're going to tackle it today with Big A and myself on one end of the spectrum, having kids out of the house and having gone through that. And then we've got two other guys we'll introduce them here in just a moment that are right in the middle of it. So we're glad that they're in with us today, so let's get everybody in here. So we've got Big A going to join us in the studio, we've got Anthony Witt back with us and we've got Brett Barnhart with us as well. Welcome guys, back to the top.

Speaker 2: 1:20

Glad to be here, exciting Glad to be in.

Speaker 3: 1:22

Man, good to see you guys. I looked at the picture just a few days ago and it had three of us in the picture from 11 years ago. That was pretty cool. I was like God, where did time go? Like this wasn't even going to be a thing. And now it's like a real thing and three of you guys have been around for that duration.

Speaker 1: 1:42

And Wallyally, I'm sorry you wasn't in the picture, wally- I'm sorry but you wasn't in the picture I wish you had been a long time anymore.

Speaker 3: 1:48

Eight years is a long time but yeah, yeah, I think it was 11 years. We were at social media marketing world and, uh, having a dinner is cool. Yeah, it was really cool. I'm really excited to have you guys, though, man, this is gonna be a fun topic from boardroom to playroom. We we're going to talk here just in a few minutes, but, wally, catch us up, man.

Speaker 1: 2:07

What's been going on? Yeah, it's going to be a little different. Normally we have you guys on the forge, but today we're going to dive into a topic because we value where you guys are at and your opinions and obviously we know where you're coming from and you got a lot to share. So, Looking forward to that, and then Big A is going to introduce a topic here in a second, but before we do, I have a really you might think it's a silly question, but I think we all deal with it.

Speaker 4: 2:37

So the question is do you talk with other strangers in a public restroom?

Speaker 1: 2:41

In a public restroom. Yep, strangers. There's only one stranger that I talk to in a public restroom, but I think it's weird. So but so. But don't you ever, guys, ever feel awkward? You walk in everybody's kind of, standing there, nobody nobody says anything eye contact doesn't happen no like I mean not not that it's a place for social activity, but like so I'll go first.

Speaker 1: 2:57

So for me, for me, I'll walk in and if somebody like gets my eye attention, then I'll be like like hey, how's it going? Right, we'll be on that. Like, that's it. I'm not looking across or anything. And then the but if there's a guy in there that's cleaning the restroom, he's the only stranger that I'll actually like talk to you. I'll be like like hey, man, thank you so much for like taking care of this place, because you make it look a lot better when you're around. How about you guys? You guys are like are you social butterflies in the public restroom? Are you like total silent or like what's the deal? Total silence, yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:33

I'm with you. What's the icebreaker Like? How's your day? Yeah, what's going on? What are you going to say?

Speaker 3: 3:41

Yeah, hey. I was in a public restroom about a month ago and the guy was on his phone at the urinal. I'm like you gotta be kidding me like this guy's carrying on a full-fledged business conversation. 10 guys lined up down the wall and he's carrying on like he's at his desk.

Speaker 1: 3:56

No earbuds right, he's like holding the phone. He's on the phone on speakerphone.

Speaker 3: 4:00

Speakerphone, I see on speakerphone, he is absolutely there and everybody's hearing the whole conversation. All these knucklehead guys lined up at the urinal and I'm like what are you doing? It's the urinal mastermind.

Speaker 1: 4:12

Yeah, the urinal mastermind I guess it was.

Speaker 3: 4:14

Yeah, it's like well, first of all, it's like doesn't he even care that there's a microphone on there? This guy can hear everybody and I'm like what are you A goose? I don't know. Yeah yeah, it's like no, wally. No, there's no way I'm talking to anybody. I don't even know if I'm going to talk to the janitor in there or not. The guy cleaning it.

Speaker 1: 4:33

Maybe I like to make them feel special because they always look at me like I've given them money before.

Speaker 2: 4:46

I've given them like 20 bucks something, but uh, I have to say, though it's probably most awkward at church really, because you know half the people in there.

Speaker 3: 4:49

Interesting and you don't know whether to look at them or say anything, or not right yeah, yeah, hey, how's things going yeah, yeah, yeah, what's?

Speaker 2: 4:57

up how you being and you don't like, you don't want to be rude, but then again it's like no, you just don't do. This isn't the place they can, can get over it if they get mad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 5:08

Or the guy coming out is going to shake your hand as you're walking in. It's like no.

Speaker 1: 5:11

I'm good. Yeah, it's just water. I just did it to dry my hands. Yeah, yeah, I just washed my hands. I'm good.

Speaker 3: 5:19

All right, we got three no's, and one that will talk to the custodian. So, other than that, don't expect any of the three of us to say hello to you in the bathroom. Listen, I want to talk to you about something that's really been a topic on my mind for maybe a decade, maybe longer. I've thought about it, but I've been really dealing with it for about a decade and we've titled it Boardroom to Playroom, and what I'm referring to there is the amount of time that we work versus the amount of time that we're with our kids. And you know, my children, obviously, are grown and married and got kids. And you know I got grandkids and I'm still kind of deal with it, though right, brooke's 40, holly's 38, and I'm still dealing with this thing Like I want to be there for my kids and at the same time, I want to be there, you know, for my office, you know the team, and I want to make a living and it's like this constant challenge and I'll never forget.

Speaker 3: 6:15

A couple of decades ago I came home and Robin came up to me, real solemn, and she put her hands on my shoulders and she looked at me and she said I first want. And when she said I first want, I knew I was in trouble because there was a second coming. But she put her hands on my shoulders and she said I want to thank you for all that you do for our family. Like we get to live an amazing life, like we have a beautiful home we had a vacation home at the time and she said we have nice cars and beautiful furniture and I don't have to work. And I just want you to know how appreciative I am. But I feel like a single mom. And when she said that it just ripped my heart out. It was like I first got defensive. I was like, well, you wouldn't have all these things and wouldn't get to stay at home if I wasn't working. And she said I realized the difficulty, but I don't want to live a life by myself and I want you here to go to Brooke and Holly's cheerleading practice and ball games and just be at home for dinner.

Speaker 3: 7:18

And I was like now I've got a quandary, like now it's been, my awareness has been heightened. What am I going to do? And so I had to really work through that. And it was a struggle because I'm very driven and I know you guys are very driven as well. You got a bunch of kids several of you do and there's this challenge, and I thought it would be really helpful if we would get on and just tell our personal experiences and even find out if that's been a challenge for you and some of the things that you've done that's allowed you to overcome some of those obstacles. Is it still a challenge today? If so, what are you doing about that? And I just thought I'd open the discussion up. So yeah, if you feel good about the topic, jump in and give me your thoughts on it.

Speaker 2: 8:02

Yeah, I'll jump in. So for me, uh, the same thing constant struggle still today. Um, luckily, crystal and I had kids later on. Uh, I had been in business about 10 years before we had kids, so that helped. I can't imagine trying to start a business today with all that I had to put into the business then and still have a family life.

Speaker 2: 8:27

I think it really comes down to it's a choice. It's been a choice for me and I either have to choose growth and huge, or family, if you will, because I can't do both. If I say yes to that, I'm going to say no to this. So I don't know. There's a lifestyle that I said I want to live in my life and to some extent I got to be okay, even as a business owner, wanting to grow things that this may just have to hold back for a while. I've told Crystal that too. Like I went, like I looked the other day in ParentQ, I think I got 300 weeks, 350 weeks left with Cole. I'm like 60% through the time that I have with him, wow. And you said what was that?

Speaker 2: 9:13

You said it's called parent queue Parent queue, and it gives you tips on their age. And then it gives you it counts down the weeks that you have left with each child.

Speaker 3: 9:21

It's pretty depressing when you open it up. Yeah, yeah, that you have left with each child.

Speaker 2: 9:23

It's pretty depressing when you open it up. Yeah, yeah, but it's a good reminder. So, yeah, it's like I can build something huge if I want to after they're gone. I don't know if I would. I'm not saying I would, but I want to be there now as much as I can.

Speaker 3: 9:40

Can we break that down a little further? Because I've been around for your journey ever since your children were born and so I've watched you mature and grow. I don't know that. I totally agree that you can't do both, but it's how you do both and you've got a pretty good size organization now and there's a lot of people in comparison would look at what you're doing and say there's no way I could grow that size and you have what 20 or 30 employees and you run a pretty good. And there's a lot of people in comparison would look at what you're doing and say there's no way I could grow that size and you have what 20 or 30 employees and you run a pretty good size company. And so in comparison to some other people, it's a small organization. In comparison to others it's large. You decide, like, how did you decide this is the place for you in this organization, this size?

Speaker 2: 10:31

where you feel good about the time that you're in the playroom, not the boardroom. Well, that goes back to are you willing to give up profits to hire people, to bring them into the organization to do those things so that you can have that time? But nobody wants to give that up either because they want to make all the money in the world. They want to do both. Right, that's hard and you know what's going to get cut first. Uh, so then, especially as soon as you have it exactly.

Speaker 2: 10:55

Um, I still remember I, I would, I would, I sold the jobs, I worked on the jobs and I bid the job. So then I would bid till 10 o'clock at night. And I remember when we were hiring our first estimator and I figured it out and we needed to go. We need to make another million dollars a year to maintain overhead and cost to stay competitive. So then I got pushed, got held accountable to hire that person and then within a year needed to make a million dollars. Well, we didn't do it.

Speaker 2: 11:26

It took about a year and a half, but then that gave me that freedom to be able to do those things to go to doctor's appointments, to take the kids to school, to be there in the morning with them, have breakfast with them and do those things with them and then go out through the day. So it was even hard in the marriage. Going back to what Robin said, because at first it was hard for Crystal because you bring two different people into a marriage and she grew up and her parents are older, so her dad was home every night at 4.30. I grew up in a family where you got home and you went out and worked on stuff outside and you didn't always eat together as a family, where you got home and you went out and worked on stuff outside, um, and you didn't always eat together as a family. So it even created a whole new dynamic in the marriage, which then turned into the kids, because how she grew up versus how I grew up.

Speaker 2: 12:16

So I I think, going back to what you said about Robin, she respects that now and she understands that. Uh, but I think it's still hard for her sometimes because I don't know. I go home, be honest with you guys, I want to go home and just like read stuff on my phone and check out. Like just check out because I'm totally exhausted from the day and that's just a way of just disconnecting and checking out from everything. And I can't do that. So it's like, how many times do our families get the worst of us and our business or what we do every day gets the best of us? And that's usually how it goes.

Speaker 1: 12:53

So, uh, anthony, Anthony, how about you? What's kind of your been your journey?

Speaker 4: 15:09

Um, I think my journey's quite a bit different than your guys's. I come from a big family and I have a big family, and so there's no what's a big?

Speaker 4: 15:18

family Seven. So, like seven, I'm one of seven, or I was one of six. They adopted one right after I graduated, so one of seven. And so you can't physically go to your parent, your kids events, like that's not possible, because you have one kid in cheerleading, one in volleyball, one in football, one in cross country, one in track. Which kid are you going to pick and when are you going to feel guilty? Um and so we have that same dynamic now, even because we have seven. Um and so that's not. So we don't build our lives. I, I, didn't grow up in a family that built their lives on going to the kids events, and nor do we build our lives on going to our kids events. Now, that also means that my kids don't do travel sports. It's honestly, I think it's travel sports have ruined so many things. It's ruined sport, actually in a lot of ways, but it's also ruined family. It's ruined some community programming. Anyway, we go. That's it's another one of my little. I think it's one of my little things that bothers me.

Speaker 1: 16:24

I'm going to have to grab back for that topic. But travel I get some of these high D dads, that's right.

Speaker 4: 16:33

But that's not. It's not physically possible, right? And so it's not about attending their event, it's about building a relationship with them. So tonight I was supposed to have a client. I'll use tonight. I'll use myself as an example. Now, tonight I was supposed to have a client.

Speaker 4: 16:48

One of my daughters has a volleyball game. I wasn't going to be able to make it. I wasn't planning on making it. She knew I wasn't going to make it. Well, if I can make it, great I'll go. And so I'm planning on going, because my client moved to a different night, no big deal.

Speaker 4: 17:05

But if I didn't make that volleyball game, that's not going to change my relationship with her, because my relationship is not built by sitting in the stands. My relationship is built by building a relationship with her, and so it's doing the things, and so that's what I grew up in, and so that's what we've done more of, which is it's more about growing intimate relationships with them. And the other thing I actually kind of took a little bit of notes or wrote down some. You told us the topic a little bit ahead of time, not much, but a little bit. So I wrote down a couple of notes and one of them was personality.

Speaker 4: 17:31

I've got kids that, like my son, my son wants me to show up to his game. That's what he wants. So I show up to more of my son's games than I do to the daughter that I talked about tonight and she's fine and he's fine if I show up to his games and I don't show up to her games because that's his personality right. So I build a relationship partially the way they want it, and then, secondly, I build relationships by actually building a relationship with them. It's the. You know what's the statistic? I think the statistic is something along the line I can find it, but Pastor was talking about it a while back Families that have dinner around the table two to three times a night. Their kid is like 80% likely to stay in the church as they age, as they age out Some crazy high number, right, we do dinner in our family as much as possible, which honestly, is probably maybe four nights a week with the whole family, maybe five, but that's a like crazy high number.

Speaker 3: 18:34

Anthony, let me tell you a curve in there. What if you got three sons and they all three want you at their ball games and you've got a client opportunity to make some pretty good money? That's what our audience is confronted with today. That's listening right now. What are you going to do? Are you going to nurture those relationships? Are you going to be present? You got seven kids. You need to make a lot of money to feed those kids. You got a lot of expenses ahead of you, by the way, just so you know. You got seven kids but you need to be working a lot to provide for them, right? So how are you balancing that? Let's just hypothetically say you got three kids that want you to be at their game.

Speaker 4: 19:15

You can't. First off, if I live in the angst that I'm going to be able to make it to all three games in three different locations, I'm creating my own psychological discomfort that I can't fix. It's something that can't be fixed. It can't be in three locations at the same time. So first off, I start there, there, or maybe I don't start there, but that is one of the things I start on, like I can't live in the discomfort that I can't change that. So then I work on the relationship with the kids individually, which might mean I get you.

Speaker 4: 19:45

I think games is maybe a bad example. We're probably getting too much of the weeds and in games cause. That's not really your question but I might go to your game next week in the next game, right the next. Yeah, it's about spending. I'm gonna make sure that I make up that time with that kid. I'll make up that time. That's not even possible. I'm gonna make sure that I have dedicated time with that child because that's what that child needs, if that makes sense. Um, but that wasn't your question you asked about. Your question was if there's three games and there's a client, what do I do?

Speaker 3: 20:16

Yeah, now you got to choose. You're going to work, make a little extra money, or are you?

Speaker 4: 20:21

going to go home. So I think there's also I call it a pendulum or I call it swings, right, I think there's hyper-focused times that happen. So that's what we've done in our family is there's times where there's hyper-focused periods and sometimes those periods last a week, sometimes they last a month, sometimes they're maybe even a little bit longer, if I can honestly say. I don't know if they've been longer than that, but there's times where I've got to work a lot and I'm not going to be around and I am going to miss the games and I'm going to miss the things. Because I'm going to be hyper-focused on those periods of time so that I can swing back to the other side the pendulum, to the other side, so to speak. If their only two dynamics is work and family, then I'm going to swing it back to the other side. Of course, there's a ton of other components to that right. There's not just two things, there's more than two things.

Speaker 4: 21:08

But realizing that the business life, it's kind of like inside your business. Sometimes I got to be hyper-focused on sales, sometimes I got to be hyper-focused on operations. Sometimes I got to be hyper-focused on finance. Well, I'm not hyper-focused on all of them at the same time, because then I'm not focused on any of them. And so I've learned that you and I've actually learned like. I've learned it. I've actually learned it. I think I don't remember who taught it to me, but I started realizing wait, I just need to stop and focus hard on this thing, so to do the same thing with the family but the same thing with the work, which is, be more focused on this topic right now, or I'm going to be hyper-focused, which means I am going to miss things. But just living the guilt of the fact that I miss these things, that's not helpful, because then there's the discontinuity. What I see there, the discontinuity is, if you're living in guilt, part of it is probably that you're living in guilt because you don't think what you're doing is right, and if that's a problem, you need to figure that out as an individual. And there's a lot of components of that. It's not just say, figure it out and do it. There's multiple pieces of that. But if you keep living in together, I actually I'll give you a reverse example.

Speaker 4: 22:20

So I'm trying to build systems to myself and one of our, one of the guys in our, my mastermind group he's keeping me accountable and I'm on, I keep him accountable and I wasn't doing some of the systems like for me it was working out and getting up and the different there was like a series of things, right, my morning routine, so to speak. And we sat down, we were talking about it and what he said? He said okay, this is why you're missing it. This is why you're missing those routines right now. So give yourself grace to miss those routines, to live into the family for a minute, cause I was.

Speaker 4: 22:53

I was feeling guilty that I wasn't doing enough work in part of my systems for my business. He said well, wait a minute, you're in a phase right now, right now, I was in a phase at that point. So you're in a phase where it's okay, you don't need to work out at five o'clock in the morning every morning Like that's. You don't need to do that right now. Yeah, you need to be healthy, you need to work out. But he's like, let's move that to a different time of the day, let's move to fewer times of the week, because of where we were getting up.

Speaker 4: 23:17

I was getting up like a ton with kids in the middle of the night, not getting any sleep, and I was having guilt that I wasn't doing my business system stuff, like starting my, because for me, if my day doesn't start correctly, if you will, my business work doesn't start correctly or doesn't start early enough, so I'm not in the business. For me it's early, it's not necessarily late, it's early. And so it was the reverse, which is, you swing sometimes in life, and that's the part that I think a lot of people don't give themselves grace, and I like the word grace here. They don't give themselves grace. In those periods they say, well, I didn't do it, whatever it is, I didn't do the business thing, I didn't do the kid thing, and they don't give themselves grace. And so then they live in this dichotomy of shoot, I'm failing at everything, or I don't know what to do and I'll be quiet.

Speaker 2: 24:09

So at what point I've thought about this in regards to all this is at what point is it also our role to instill in them that you have to go and work every day, say I've built my business, I can set it, I can set it home four hours a day, half a day, work two to three days a week, and then they go and you're not going to support them.

Speaker 2: 24:33

And they got to go get a job and all they know is how they grew up and that they only worked three days a week. So then they want to live that life and they can't do it because you see what I'm saying. Like, like I think there's a healthy balance around it to say, you know, my dad worked six, seven days a week and I don't have any wounds from him working that much because he made the best of it and he took me with me with him and I got to be a part of that Right. So then when I went in to start my business and I had to work 14 hour days, it's all I knew. So it wasn't hard for me because that's what we did. But I would have to think back and if my dad worked 40 hours a week and come home and did nothing, then would I have the courage and strength and grit and determination to push through building a business? If what I knew was how my dad worked every day.

Speaker 1: 25:33

My story backstory with my wife Sonia kind of aligns like that. So her dad owned a business and he's a painter, but his mindset was pretty much like he earned enough to make it right, like that. That was it. Like just barely pay the bills, make it, and then he would take off you know a couple of months for hunting season and and they, they ever and like barely had enough, but they had enough. Now I'm not going to dive into like their family life and all that for a whole different day. It's not, and I'm just going to say like it not, I'm just going to say it. Like he didn't really utilize his the other time for building relationships either. So I had a lot to do with it.

Speaker 1: 26:19

But so what Sonia brought into our relationship when we got married was, very quickly, I was going to become an entrepreneur, tried entrepreneurial things and, and what was her definition of what an entrepreneur did? Right, like he worked just enough. And that wasn't me, like I was all about. Like you know I'm I'm the first last two companies I worked for before I went out on my own. Like I was working 80 hours a week because I was going to accomplish stuff and and and do big things, and it wasn't even about getting a name for myself. But then I quickly realized after they made bad decisions, went under like I could do that for myself and fail just as well. So let's try that next.

Speaker 1: 27:05

But that wasn't, that wasn't normal for Sonia. And then I had through a little bit of traveling and she's like hey, you know, I didn't get married to sleep alone and and you know, and then we started having kids and and it what I did. I'm not saying this was right or wrong. I look back and go, man, I wish we'd done this different. I kind of got caught up in the why do we talk so much about this as, like that, we bring the games into it, the kids act, school activities. I don't know why we do that all the time, but we do so.

Speaker 1: 27:41

That was a thing for me too. It was like, hey, we're going to be at everything. And so I, because I worked, I had my own business, I had employees, but I worked remotely, everybody worked remotely, and so I was able to flex my schedule, which seemed awesome, and I made it to all my kids' stuff. All my daughters had three girls, so I made them. I made it to all their stuff and, looking back, I think we did a pretty good job with leveraging some of that time together.

Speaker 1: 28:03

You know, riding home and riding there, and they weren't sitting in the phone with their head, backseat, with their headphones on on their phones or you know that kind of like. We had conversations, we built relationships around those things, but then you know cause I left at one o'clock, two o'clock in the afternoon to go get to the game and then I'd get home after we had dinner and be home at you know, six or seven o'clock. I go back to work till midnight, so I missed a lot of like them being at home time when I'm in the office from seven till 10 o'clock when they went to bed.

Speaker 3: 28:42

Like I look back and go, I missed that. What would you do?

Speaker 1: 28:43

different today. Knowing what you know today, I would not do. I wouldn't. I don't know why I had that in my head. It was a feather and for some reason it was like this feather in the cap. That was a status thing.

Speaker 1: 28:53

I think, like man, if I made it to every game, somehow, like I was an amazing dad and not that I wasn't, but I can look back and go I would sacrifice some of those things that they did that I went to, especially some of the away games. They went to a private Christian school so sometimes you had to drive two hours to get to a game and then the game and then drive two hours back. So it was like a whole ordeal and you spent a lot of time on the road and uh, and then, while you're driving right, people calling you cause they're trying to do business and you're trying to do a family thing and so that that gets in the way You're not really here, you're on the phone. You know. You guys have heard that before, I'm sure.

Speaker 1: 29:36

Right, so I would, if I could go back, I would definitely be more because what I know now, right, more clear in my communication around what's important, and I would balance those things out better and I wouldn't put some status on getting to every game. I would put the status on what I've seen Brett and Anthony do, which are developing the relationships with my kids, and sometimes that's a game and sometimes that's daddy daughter date night, sometimes that's just sitting and having a conversation in a different way or going on a walk or whatever it is right. So like I would definitely balance that out more if I could go back and do that again wally.

Speaker 3: 30:17

Would it have been easier if you'd had a clear written vision and knew what you wanted when your children were young?

Speaker 1: 30:25

I don't know what the heck I was doing. I didn't have masterminds and, like I had no idea, no one was asking me questions or challenging me it would have been easier.

Speaker 3: 30:32

That's my question it would have been easier. Had you known, I still would have been easier. That's my question.

Speaker 1: 30:35

It would have been easier had you known, I still would have had to make the decisions right, but you would have at least known what you wanted. Oh, heck, yeah, yeah, I mean, I did have vision.

Speaker 3: 30:42

That's where I see people now, but it was like do a lot of work, make a lot of money. That was your vision, right right, much differently than you have today.

Speaker 1: 30:51

Yeah, you have today. Yeah, and I say that and I want to. I want to preface this because it drives me crazy when old guys like me now get on podcasts and say things like, well, I wouldn't have worked as hard. It's like, well, baloney, man, because you've made a ton of money, dude, and like you know, you say that now but you wouldn't say that before. So I preface it with this I do think you can do. When I say both responsibly, if you do both responsibly like Brett was saying, right, like if you work responsibly with what God's called you to do and you raise your family and meet the needs of your wife in a way that God's called you to do, god's going to help you figure that out. He's going to provide the increase where he desires that increase Not necessarily what. I think that should be in a given period of time, but I think it's a both and I don't think it's either or.

Speaker 3: 31:44

Anthony, I want to go back to something you said a while ago that I'm just going to admit it I live in it. My parents or grandparents never came to a single game. I ever played.

Speaker 4: 31:54

Yeah, so you are that boy Like. I know enough about you. My mom's 90.

Speaker 3: 31:57

I still.

Speaker 4: 31:59

I am.

Speaker 3: 32:00

Yeah, and I feel like I need to be there, right.

Speaker 4: 32:06

Yeah, but like what I know about you, what I know about you from your childhood, even like you're the kid that needed somebody to show up, because what does big A need? I mean, this is a little self-disclosure or whatever. You need an attaboy Like that's one of the ways, right? Okay, that's fine, let's know that, let's note that and let's do it Like, yeah, and that's a deep one for you.

Speaker 3: 32:35

How do we take that, as parents and grandparents now to the audience that's listening? How can they reevaluate what they're caught up in today doing and some of it is out of guilt, like you know. I don't know that I've missed a handful of any of my grandchildren's sporting activities or birthdays or anything, and I don't want to, because I look back and think I wanted somebody to be at my game. I wanted somebody to say, man, that was a great hit, that was a great spike. Whatever it is that you're doing, you should ask and there's a sense of guilt, like man, I really need to be here, right, but I really need to go to the game. And there's this dichotomy I live in. Like which one do I choose? And it's one of the reasons I wanted to do this episode is to free some people from that sense of guilt.

Speaker 1: 33:23

It should have been the big A forge.

Speaker 4: 33:25

Yeah, there you go. I was going to say I'm not even masked, blowing them out real quick. Yeah, you might ask. You might ask the grandkids. Or have somebody asked the grandkids what's? What's your favorite memory with big A? Like, what is it? I'm going to put money on it. It's not at one of their games, no it might be one or two right, it might be.

Speaker 4: 33:48

You know what, when I hit that home run, he gave me a high five and we went out for ice cream, and that's what they remember, okay. So that was it, and maybe that's that kid's personality and that kid's tendency, but I'm going to guess it's. It's when we were sitting on the back porch swinging and we were talking about this or knowing a little bit more about you. It's, you know, it's when we were just fishing, just the two of us, but that's. That's probably what it's going to be, is my guess.

Speaker 3: 34:19

You're shooting balloons out of the sky. Yeah, yeah, and I might like shooting balloons out of the sky. I think they loved that. That. That was fun. I never thought about going to ask them what you just said, right, even at my age now, with as many kids and grandkids, it's like going to them and enlisting from them what is it that's meaningful to you, so the audience that's listening to that you may not have to live in a sense of guilt their whole life. Go ask them. Great tip today.

Speaker 2: 34:46

Anthony, it's funny you say that, anthony. I was laying in bed with Cole last night putting him to bed and I just asked him and randomly I'll do this what? What do they love about me and what do they wish I would do more and what do they dislike about me? And sometimes you get told stuff that you don't like or you don't want to hear.

Speaker 1: 35:06

What did he say?

Speaker 2: 35:09

He told me the things that he loves and I play with him and spend time with him and I said well, what do you dislike? And he just sat there for a few minutes. He didn't know what to say and I said, okay, that's good enough, that's good enough.

Speaker 3: 35:20

And he just started laughing.

Speaker 2: 35:21

You don't need to finish, yeah, and honestly, that's where it ended, so I probably need to reconvene that, because we started talking about something else and he said I really don't have anything.

Speaker 1: 35:32

You gave him an opportunity, though, brett, like dude, seriously, yeah, that'll come again. Right, he'll be more prepared next time.

Speaker 2: 35:37

Well, if he thinks about it. So I mean, there's been times. One time I asked him and he told me that he appreciated that I respected the Bible and I swatted him because that's what the Bible told me to do.

Speaker 2: 35:50

He liked Mr Sting, like he brought up Mr Sting, yeah yeah, and then sometimes it will be you know, take me to do this or spend time with me, or Addie may say let's go on a date night. You haven't taken me on a date night in a while. So then trying to get that on the calendar and then going back to what Big A said, this fall we did a family vision together. One of our core values in our family is being an intentionally connected family, and then we went back and tied bible verses to it. So it kind of helps ground you, it doesn't.

Speaker 2: 36:22

I think scott bb said this. But, like core, your core values are your speed. Limit. Signs doesn't mean you have to go that speed, but if you break that speed you may get caught. So you know that. You know that speed is the speed that you need to be running, and sometimes you got to go faster to get around somebody, but then sometimes you need to maintain that speed or eventually it's going to catch up with you. So that just kind of helps us. And then to go back and revisit that and to live by those core values as a family.

Speaker 3: 36:51

Brett, dive into that a little further. Talk about the two children and some of their vision and the things that they're trying to accomplish. It's really out of the ordinary that you've taken it to the level that you have Most adults will do the vision casting. Don't really include the kids. I love how y'all have done that. Talk about it a little bit further.

Speaker 2: 37:10

Well, going into this, I was working on some company stuff and I needed to write company vision and I realized that I've always wrote company and then my family ended up living out of whatever the company decided. So I said I'm going to write my family first and then did the company. Well, then I need you know, I could just write it myself, but let's just involve the family. So we'd sit down, you know, a couple of nights and put the projected, the screen up on the TV and just wrote vision. And it was hard for Addie she's nine to stay focused. But Cole really got into it, like he hooked up his MacBook and was going to town typing and we set a yearly and then we broke it down quarterly and they have some quarter goals and actually it's sitting on our countertop to review what we were supposed to do this quarter and rewrite some quarter goals. And actually it's sitting on our countertop to review what we were supposed to do this quarter and rewrite our quarterly goals.

Speaker 2: 37:59

And then we talked about vacation, we talked about travel, we talked about what are we going to do together, like, what do you want to do with mom? What do you want to do with dad? And just started laying all that thing, all those things out as a family and then trying to live that out. Obviously, you don't hit it perfect, but I didn't have that. We never talked about that. We just did whatever kind of live the life that my family lived. So obviously you can't do everything, because some of those stuff they're like no, we can't do that, that's great, but anyways, so it's been good. And then to revisit that, honestly, this is our first quarter, so just staying focused on it, moving forward as a family Is Crystal in alignment with that.

Speaker 2: 38:41

She loves it.

Speaker 1: 38:42

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:43

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:44

I know there's some. I remember it was probably like four or five years ago my wife. She wouldn't have been like that's a corporate business thing. I'm like creating those thinking vision, and now it's different. Now she's like you know, yeah, like that's important. I get that why? So obviously some some people are like I think a lot of those the approach. I think if you treat it like a business, that's going to come across like a business. But I think you can do that in a way with your family even if your wife is hesitant.

Speaker 2: 39:13

Yeah, you just. I mean, we just took each person, we said what's our family, and then break it down to each person to say what's your personal spiritual?

Speaker 2: 39:21

yeah, financially, like even the kids, like addy wanted to make money. I can't remember what she wanted to buy, so, setting in our vision, I said if you detail my truck every week, I'll pay you three bucks. Well then we could calculate those numbers. She hasn't done it. So when we revisit that vision and she's like child labor law should come I paid 500 if you didn't sit on it it's on the payroll three dollars. I'm gonna tell addy to turn you in. Yeah, yeah, so, uh, anyways, yeah, go ahead we.

Speaker 4: 39:52

We tried something new this year and I started the question. I asked I think, kevin, you asked where I said where do you want to be at the end of the year? So I said the whole family down around the table, all of them even well, I mean the two youngest, it's pointless because they're two and four, but all the other ones, we all sat around the table and we're just talking like where do you want to be? And that gave me the doorway and so they all have their own. Comes. You'll be essentially, and it's really simple because it's just where do you want to be in these five areas? Right, that's what. What is like even even the not at the, pull it up to tell you what it is, but like even the nine year old, she's got a career, something in career. She has something there. I can't remember what it is off the top of my head, but like they've got something in every area. It's just one thing. Some of them had maybe two.

Speaker 1: 40:38

A rabid veterinarian.

Speaker 4: 40:40

Yeah, but it was what we've done with it. It's really helped us to be able to and we haven't done our we need to. I literally just thought about it here. We haven't scheduled our Q2. We should have done our Q2 meeting already. We needed to do it as a family, but it's been really helpful to just say, well, where did you want to be, where do you want to go, and it helps individually give them direction, if that makes sense. It was super helpful to start with where do you want to be? At the end of the year, and they would say something I said well, what about in spiritual? Where do you want to be? My whole goal on the kid's side is mostly spiritual, like, where do you want to be spiritual? But I can't just sit on that, so I sit on all the other ones at the same time. You know where. Where do you want to be financially? Where do you want to be with your relationships? So some of them have goals to like have bonfires at the house with their friends or whatever it might be.

Speaker 3: 41:33

But they've all got you know one thing in each area Anthony, what are some of the boundaries that you've put in place? You and Sarah related to the kids that they're no fails Like we're doing these things and I'm not going to allow work for the most part to get in the way.

Speaker 4: 41:54

So I've got two things working in my. I think they're working in my favor that maybe some of the guys listening or maybe even some of you guys don't have. The one thing I have in my favor is so I ran a public works department. I ran the whole city basically, and I was doing like you talk, 80 hour weeks. My average was an 80 to a hundred hour week every week of the year for five years Every, and then I got paid for it.

Speaker 4: 42:24

I got paid really well for it and I literally got to the point where I I mean I can picture, like it was yesterday where I came home after like a hundred hours straight and it's not a hundred hours straight and it's not 100 hours straight but I took an hour nap twice in the middle of the night, plowing snow, fixing main breaks, all this crazy stuff, right and I said I don't want this life. I like my family. And I literally told her, I said I'm going. I was almost done with my first master's. At this point I said I just want you to know that I'm going to apply at McDonald's tomorrow. Just want you to know that I'm going to apply at McDonald's tomorrow. Like and I'm not even joking nothing against McDonald's workers, but like I was like I'm done because I like my family, and so I got I got hit that burnout period where, like I'm done with this, so I've got that going for me.

Speaker 4: 43:09

The other thing I've got going for me is that the guys that are doing the eight hour weeks, they're the guys that are sitting on my couch and so I see how they mess up a lot. I'm like shoot, I don't want to do that. I better change that thing. So for me, I think your question was what are your no fails? Is that what your question was?

Speaker 3: 43:25

For those that don't know, Anthony is a yeah, Anthony's a counselor, right, so yeah, licensed therapist, and so yeah.

Speaker 4: 43:34

What was your original question? That's good you got it right in front of you it's like don't do this.

Speaker 3: 43:38

Yeah, I was just saying what are your boundaries, what are your no fails? Yeah, so what? I'm gonna do what I've learned to protect my family.

Speaker 4: 43:44

What I've learned is the swings and to identify the swings. So, like I, I'll sit down with sarah and I'll say, hey, I think this is what this is what this looks like for the next week. Like we're going into this and and we both learned to okay, we've got to buckle down on this. Maybe we have to sit down the whole family, right? My oldest is 17,. Almost 18. My youngest is two. I've got kids all in the middle and so sometimes we've got to sit down and say, hey, we're going to need to do this type of work and we're going to do hard. That's the swing, but I don't have a problem.

Speaker 4: 44:17

One of the things that we've I've worked really hard at is the whole phone thing. Actually, I've read I got it from you a long time ago You're like, leave my phone in the car. I don't know if you're still doing that or not. I don't leave my phone in the car, but my phone goes on the charger. Like, my kids turn in their phones I think it's 730 and I got older kids but like, and our 18 year old, you know, she's almost 18. She's getting to the point where she's going to make some of her own decisions. Like I'm trying to train them that we want to have relationships, so that's a huge one.

Speaker 4: 44:47

I also have carry two phones. You might say, well, why you carry two phones? Why don't you just put it all on one phone? You know why do you need two phones? You can even have two lines on one phone. Yeah, well, I can take. I can take the work phone and I can take the work phone. I can set it down and I can leave it all weekend long. I leave my work phone Like it texts me. Go ahead, you guys have all done it. Probably, text me on Friday night on my work phone. I might text you back on Monday morning. I will text you back on Monday morning. I will text you back on Monday morning because that's what I do my Monday morning text with my work clients. But like I've made that separation. That's been huge. When I did that, I only did that like three years ago where I got a separate phone and I made this switch where, like, I can literally put that thing down and a lot of people they don't have that.

Speaker 2: 45:34

That's hard so they don't have that. That's hard, so I don't. I don't disagree with you, but I like talking to people. It's fun. I like work, it's fun. Like it's not. It's not. I mean, it's not a burden, it's not at all. You like it? Yeah, I enjoy it. So that even makes it. I'd rather skip most. That makes it harder.

Speaker 1: 45:56

I'd rather skip most social activities and work.

Speaker 2: 45:59

Honestly, that's my tendency right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4: 46:04

So that's where it gets hard. Or the social activities.

Speaker 3: 46:08

You name it brother or the social activities outside of your house.

Speaker 1: 46:10

Okay, so when you and the kids are at the pool with your wife. My parents were here this weekend. I was like, oh, can I work?

Speaker 2: 46:17

Right.

Speaker 3: 46:21

Wally, what about you when your girls were little? Were there any no fails? You were going to do these things.

Speaker 1: 46:27

Yeah, you were going to do these things. Yeah, so I think it was around the idea of. For me it was around the idea of communication. If there's one thing that I'll say, that God, holy Spirit, whatever you want to say impressed upon me when we first having children, and I don't know if it'd be different with sons or daughters, I don't know any of that. I just know I had daughters and that's what God gave me, and so that's the journey that I've been on and it's really around the idea of communication, like being vulnerable and transparent with them and just about most everything. And I think, because of that, when I say I'm talking about like appropriate, age appropriate, but around finances, around relationships, around struggles in our home not again, totally applicable to age.

Speaker 1: 47:19

Okay, true, the girls. It was so funny. They got to this point when they were like probably five five Jenna must've been five, ashley was probably 10 where they did this on their own. It was the weirdest thing when they were in trouble, when they know they're going to get in trouble, and mom and dad said, hey, you know, after dinner you get your thing done. Can you come meet us in the living room? And we want to talk through something that happened today. They would bring their sisters.

Speaker 3: 47:46

They would bring advocates. They would bring advocates.

Speaker 1: 47:48

They would bring them. You know what the cool, like the total unintended benefit of that. They all started doing that and so they all started learning from each other. It was like their own little, like before mastermind was a thing.

Speaker 1: 48:00

But when they got to be teenagers, a lot of that changed. Right, there was some personal things that were going on and whatnot, but I think the open communication, the transparency and vulnerability like not withholding age appropriate things from your kids, that you're somehow protecting them, like you know, like being willing to communicate forgiveness and asking for forgiveness when they heard you arguing with mom and you try to convince yourself that maybe they didn't hear you and so you don't need to say anything to them. That's a lie straight out of hell. They didn't hear you and so you don't need to say anything to them. That's a lie straight out of hell. Like, like, if you can, if you can own that as a dad that have that open communication, transparency and be like, hey, as the leader of our home, like I it doesn't matter what it was about Like I could have done that different.

Speaker 1: 48:43

I apologize, you had to listen, you had to overhear that in the next room or whatever. And here's how mom and I are working it out right, because they heard everything you said. So don't think that they're not. Don't let them hear what you're fighting about and not let them hear how you fix it. That's craziness, you know. So, anyway that communication and openness and just transparency even related to yeah, sexual things as they get age appropriate and things like that.

Speaker 1: 49:07

Very, very important.

Speaker 3: 49:11

Hey, as we wrap up today in ISI fashion, we always do what's called a full cup, and I'll start I'm going to share a little something that Robin and I were kind of a no fail with, and you guys can do the same as we end up. But before I do, I want to say that our goal here today, as you can see, we haven't mastered this, and so don't think that we're masters at this. We lean into the tension and we want to be better, and we're not going to hit it right every single time. We're not. That's why we have trusted advisors, that's why we're in the mastermind, that's why I need people to help hold me accountable and call me out and, as Anthony encouraged me a while ago, recognize my own shortcomings and then learn to deal with that right, and so that's what we need. That's the reason we wanted to bring this to all of you today.

Speaker 3: 50:02

But some of the things that Robin and I did, I think, served us well. First and foremost, we always had dinner together and there was no this person's eating in this room, that one's eating in that room. I'm not saying those things are wrong, I'm not saying they're bad. I'm saying for our family, we ate together. We ate dinner every night together. The other thing was we didn't allow the children to have TVs in the room. We had one TV. As a family, we would sit and watch TV together in the rooms, and so those are two things that we did.

Speaker 3: 50:29

And then, finally, we all went to church as a family. It wasn't you go, I'll go, I'll take you. It's like that was it was understood. On Sundays, we're going to go to church, we're going to go to small group, we're going to fellowship as a family, we're going to worship as a family. And so, once they got older and they started driving, you know there were some different decisions made, sometimes, sometimes not, but when they were little, they were in the house, they were under our direction. Those are the three things that we did. So, brett, what about you? What are some full cups for you and Crystal? That's worked well.

Speaker 2: 51:04

Well, since they were little, we've taken turns every night. Sunday night is family prayer night and bedtime together. Outside of that it's even odd and the kids know what it is. And, like last night it was my night with Cole, tonight it'll be with Addie and you know, sometimes that's a 10-minute talk, sometimes that may be 30 or 45 minutes. Cole's learning a lot of stuff about life as a young man. Uh, so there's things that come up last night that we lay in bed and we talk about, and I'm there to be that for him. So that's been huge.

Speaker 2: 51:42

I think the kids really, really appreciate that it ends up when they're out of like, we're out of town or they're not with us, whatever that is, we'll end up FaceTiming in the evenings because they're so used to that. The other thing is I don't know how long we've been doing this, but we do family Friday nights and there's four of us, so each one of us get to pick what we do as a family. Nobody can complain, nobody can gripe about what food the other one picks or what activity we do. We go and we have fun together, so they look forward to that. And then, obviously, like Aaron said, we go to church together.

Speaker 2: 52:20

And then just recently, on our Friday nights we said, where I had a night, crystal had a night, her and I decide together, and then that fourth Friday is date night. So each one of us we go back and forth each month and take the kids out and even if the day cause the day is going to get away from you, somehow you can't, you can't make it happen every day. So at least we know every night before we go to bed that we prayed with them, we talked with them and we were there for them. And then, uh, crystal's way better than this at me. But we don't have phones or devices or anything at the table and we usually eat together, uh, every night, unless there's something coming up or I have a late meeting, uh like with an organization or something.

Speaker 3: 53:03

So yeah, it's good Yep. So good Anthony.

Speaker 4: 53:07

Yeah, I'll, uh, I'll say it for you, um, for you, um, I'll say that, yeah, it is wrong for them to eat in the other rooms, in different places. They should be eating at the table, and that includes you and your spouse, in my opinion. Um, I mean, that's what statistics say. Uh, put them at the table, and I don't, I don't care if you're religious or not. For the religious side, there's a ton of huge benefits. But just for the um relationship and function, there's a ton of huge benefits. But just for the um relationship and function, there's a ton of benefits as well.

Speaker 3: 53:34

So, camaraderie yeah, it's huge put them at the table.

Speaker 4: 53:38

But yeah, the phone thing has been huge for us. We introduced phones about two years and two years ago in our family and, uh, that's a whole different topic, maybe for a different day, but don't do it, it's my suggestion. But being able to, we have. We have rules associated with them and we have off times with those. When those things go off is when the communications start. I mean, it's insane. It's like night and day man. It's like turning the light switch on some of our best conversations.

Speaker 3: 54:06

Turning the light switch on.

Speaker 4: 54:07

And some of the best conversations I want to say sometimes all of the best conversations that we have are mostly like from eight to 10 o'clock at night, when I'm trying to fall asleep and the three or four older kids are sitting on our bed just talking. And we've created that space, kind of like you were saying, wally, like all the girls started coming. When there's a big problem and there's a problem that's not going to embarrass the child but it's a personal problem, we'll try to talk about it as a family because we know that the next kid's going to deal with it and so they learn from each other all the time. And that's been huge for us when we started kind of implementing just the ability to have open conversations and one of the things we've learned like I mean, my wife's a therapist too, right, so we read the research and we have the clients is that they already know, so you might as well have the conversation with them about whatever topic it is, and so we're going to have those topics and that has been hugely beneficial for our kids because now they're coming at us.

Speaker 4: 55:05

Even yesterday, coming home, we were driving home I had three oldest in the car with me. I mean the whole time. We had like a two and a half hour deep conversation. I said well, just so you know we're going to have to have this conversation again because your mom's going to be mad that she missed out. And that only happened because we had created the environment where it was openness. And they're like can we talk?

Speaker 3: 55:26

about this. I'm like, absolutely, we can talk about this.

Speaker 4: 55:28

I'm like, absolutely, we can talk about it. I don't care what we talk about. That's good, that's been huge.

Speaker 3: 55:32

That's a full cut for me. For sure, Wally, end us up, buddy.

Speaker 1: 55:38

Yeah, I mean I already mentioned the communication I think is really key. You know, we all I think probably each of us could sit here and I think as parents, we tend to choose something we're going to focus on based on where we maybe felt our parents failed us, and so we all probably have some of those things. That was communication for me and both Sonia as well, so we both brought that into the relationship and so that transparency and vulnerability was very, very important to us. I want to use my full cup here just to challenge Brad on something real quick. I heard you say that, uh, addy asked you about daddy daughter date night and you said you're trying to get it on the calendar. So I'd like to know when you're going to get it on the calendar.

Speaker 2: 56:25

Did I say that? Yeah, that's what you said, okay.

Speaker 1: 56:28

Yeah, do you have it?

Speaker 2: 56:29

on the calendar. Yet Well, we do. We go back and forth every other month with each kid. Yeah, on the fourth Friday, I thought you said, try Iron sharpens iron baby, we're getting it.

Speaker 3: 56:43

Iron sharpens iron. We don't let anybody get away.

Speaker 2: 56:45

I'm going to make sure it's on there though, after we get off the phone, so I can take you a picture of it.

Speaker 3: 56:50

I love it. That is so good. Man. All of our heart's desire is to help each person that's listening right now, and Brett and Anthony and Wally have got great hearts, and I'm so grateful that we got together today to talk about the things that didn't work so well for us and some of the things that are working well for us, and I just want to encourage you to even go back, maybe, and make some notes and say these guys are doing these things. It's working well for them. Just try them in your family. Just implement a few things. Don't try to go do the whole thing right You'll fail miserably but pick a few things that you think may be applicable to your family so that you can grow and have that successful and significant life that we're all trying to live. So thank you so much for tuning in today. I'm excited for you too, so that you can have that view from the top.

Speaker 1: 57:40

Hey, thanks again, as Big A said, for listening in. We're glad that you were here. An easy way to connect with us is if you go to viewfromthetopcom slash group. That's a great place for you to connect with our Christian business owners and entrepreneurs group. Just, you've heard today we carry on conversations just like this in there. It's also a place to network with other guys and really just to expand your knowledge and be able to just encourage and hold each other accountable. So please check that out. That's viewfromthetopcom slash group and I hope to see you there and we'll also see you next week.