"You're Not for Everybody" with Steve Van Diest

[00:00:00] But really I think the powerhouse is what if I could put Walter with 13 other men and women that run companies? Because now your shit can't be hidden as much. That's where the soul comes back, right? It does. We poke him in the chest. I love it when someone in a council, we call a monthly council, will call someone and he goes, No, your issue is not this. Your issue is you're afraid. Somebody's talking about an exit and this is what I want to do. And someone in the room just goes, I don't think you're going to be able to do that

[00:00:27] because your identity is so wrapped up in what you do and you're so good at it. That's a calling of the carpet that's poking in the chest. That doesn't happen with a bourbon buddy or even a cigar buddy sometimes. Here's a question, Walter. Will your daughter sit and have a cigar with you? No. She is not down with the smoke.

[00:00:52] She's very, she'll sit with me in the outdoor area. Like, so she lives in Lexington. There's a distillery district. So there's a great pizza place there that we love. So we'll sit out on a picnic table. After we eat, I'll go across the little aisle. There's a picnic table right by the creek, right? The little river that goes through. She'll sit there and just have a conversation with me because she knows that everybody else is going to leave me alone because of the cigar.

[00:01:21] Sort of an idiot repellent, if you will. But she doesn't partake. And, you know, she doesn't eat meat either. She's a vegetarian. But she's, she doesn't care for the smell. But as long as we're outside, we're fine. I have four kids. And my oldest does. He actually has a whole collection of pipes.

[00:01:49] He's got, he's, he's artsy. Like I was saying, old soul, artsy. He likes the tinkering. He's mixing his own blends. Oh, okay. My second son's had a couple with me. Doesn't prefer it. He's got a CPA brain. My daughter, she actually has her own little humidor. My wife and her have our own little humidor, the sticks that they prefer. The flavored ones? Drew Estates, Deadwood Series. Sure. Yeah. They're not horrible. No. But, and it just came out with New Connecticut.

[00:02:18] So I'm excited for one of them to try those. They're not commingling with your humidor. Because I will probably steal them every once in a while. They're not my favorites, but. Yeah. Every once in a while. A little short. They're like my shortest stick. So if I need a 15 minute cigar, perfect. There is a, there's a little box that come in, I think it's six. Might be seven. They're little miniature cigars. They're hand, handmade. The end is cut. They're ready to go.

[00:02:47] And they're like 10 to 12 minutes. Oh, perfect. Right? That's my wife's, like if we're sitting down here and we're ending our day and I'm having a real stick and she'll go, hey, can I have a cigar? I've got a little cigarillo for her. Yep. A little tabac cigarillo. Yep. And she's like, perfect. So these are a little bigger than those. Okay. And they're, they're, they're really well made. They burn great. But it's like that, like if you're just cooking a burger on a grill. Oh yeah. Right? Can't commit.

[00:03:16] You don't want the whole Robusto because it's going to, it's going to go out. That's the perfect little stick. No, he didn't need that for his father-in-law. Yeah. He likes, my wife and I were talking yesterday. I go, uh, we have a dry bar. I like bourbon. I didn't drink for four and a half years. I could realize it was becoming a stress reliever. So I was like, I'm going to stop for a while. And I came back and I came with a different perspective. And we were just talking last night. I go, you know what?

[00:03:41] I think I like the idea, kind of the, the romance of having a bourbon. Do you do them by themselves or with, with, in a social situation? Um, both, but my wife and I will sit, we'll sit down here and have a drink. And I think I like the idea more because the older I get, the more headaches I get. And I don't like that. And so I was thinking about my father-in-law as well.

[00:04:05] I think he loves the romance of having a bourbon and a cigar, but I've learned, I give him Robusto. He'll smoke 15, 20 minutes of it. So what's the name of that, that cigar? Do you remember what it is? The one that comes in the six pack? They're a Davidoff little, little blue box. Okay. So they're, they're really well-made and I can't remember the, the name they give it. Okay. But they're, it honestly looks like a cigarette box. Old school that's, that's got a cardboard.

[00:04:34] That's what I need for him. Yeah. Cause I'm committing them to a large stick and he's like, it's the experience. And then you, you hate to see that, right? Yeah. You just killed my best friend. Yeah. Then my, my youngest, Bo years. Oh gosh. If he's 19, he was probably middle school and I didn't use, always have this lounge. This is only six months old. And then he'd come home from middle school and I'd be sitting on the porch having a cigar and working and. That's what the chairs are. Yeah.

[00:05:04] Yeah. Yeah. It's my outdoor space. There you go. Now it's a hundred. I like this better in the winter because in Colorado gloves, hat. Yeah. I got a more hot box or hot box in the group. Yeah. Michigan's even worse. Cause we don't have any sun. Yeah. But in the spring I will still probably not sit in here and I'll sit out there cause I just outside and. Yeah. Cause it's the air. It's natural. But he people, he would walk home from school and I think oftentimes public schools only teach recycling.

[00:05:34] Don't do drugs. Uh, and, and maybe don't smoke. Uh huh. And so. Drugs are bad. Yeah. Um, mad. And so he'd say one day, he goes, dad, stop the cancer sticks. And he's probably 13, eighth grade. I'm like, Jacob, do you know who Charles Spurgeon is? And he goes, no. He was one of the most famous preachers. He called them prayer sticks. I go, do you know who C.S. Lewis is? He's like, yeah. Chronicles of R.

[00:06:05] And I go, yeah, these guys used to just ponder thoughts. And I go, uh, and so I think that hit him. I go, this is my prayer sticks. This is kind of my time to be and still and pray and meditate, get some work, be alone. I'm a trained expert, but I love being by myself. Mm-hmm. And he was eight, no, he's 17. I think it was my birthday. And one of my cigar smoking buddies, um, Jacob couldn't go in a cigar lounge and buy.

[00:06:31] He's like, mom, I want to buy dad a cigar for Father's Day or birthday. Right. And he drove all the way, about 30 minutes away to my buddy's cigar lounge and bought some cigars off my buddy. Because he could. Yeah, friend. Friend, yeah. Yeah, I think the Statue of Limitations is run, so he's probably not getting arrested by Colorado. Oh, okay. But he won't. Since we're not naming the cigars. I do order a ton of cigars online, and Colorado's got one of the worst. You've seen the prices?

[00:06:57] I went into the cigar shop the other day, and I'm like, you know, I don't want to say anything, because, you know, the guy was really helpful. Yeah, I want to support him. Yeah, I mean, I love brick and mortar stores, especially the one I was in at Edwards. Yeah, they were spectacular. And it's got the old stuff all over the place. It is cool. But when I looked at the price for, you know, a cigar, I pay $15, $17 back in Michigan. $25, $30? Yeah. Uh-huh.

[00:07:23] And I know it's the same stick, because it's got the same label, or it's in the same box. Yeah. Right? And the only thing difference is this state wants a piece, a bigger piece of it. So if I'm in Edwards or my old, I was a member of Smoking Cave, they're wonderful. I'm buying them there. I'm buying during the year. I'm paying for my locker. I'm paying for my membership. But at the volume that I go through, and now that I have this, I'm buying hundreds online. I'm going, I'm still getting hammered with tax. Yeah. All places. My kids.

[00:07:53] My daughter is just graduated from Grand Canyon University in Phoenix. Almost zero tax in Arizona. I'm going to, I don't know if I'm going to get in trouble, but this is what we do. And then, so last year, my son's a freshman there. I'm like, hey, Jacob, I know your sister's suitcase is full. You're coming home for Christmas. Can I send it with you? He goes, dad, I'm not muleing home your cigars. He goes, I'm 18. I think it's illegal. And I started laughing, going, hmm. Is it? I think it is. Until you're 21.

[00:08:22] My daughter's been muleing. Is it where you buy them the rule, or is it where you're taking them? I don't know. He was in possession. So funny thing is, from 18 to the time she graduated, she turned 21. She's been muleing me hundreds of cigars home in her suitcase every trip home. She's like, dad, I got to check in luggage again. Never thought of it. But it's still my plan. It's a good plan because it is illegal to ship them UPS or USPS, right? Because of the, if you don't have the license to do it.

[00:08:51] And I did it a few times because I would have guests, you know. Carrying them. Probably not. But an 18-year-old, that's probably the kicker. Well, but. So, well, I guess, yeah. I was in Salt Lake City. My son used to play college football. So we went there and he was playing the Utes. And so met some friends there. He's a big cigar smoker. Because it's Mormon land, there's zero. But there's a couple speakeasy hidden places.

[00:09:16] He goes, but most Utah folks that smoke, there's a UPS store just north of the Utah border that would drive a couple hours, order hundreds, and ship them to, what's the state north of Utah? South Idaho, maybe? I think they're. This is a great job. This is really good geography. This is really sad. It's really sad. I should know this. I think it is Idaho. Okay. Or Montana. Yes. Depending upon what part of Utah. Yeah.

[00:09:44] And so they'll drive to collect their hundreds of cigars in their UPS box and bring them back home. But, I mean, it's what you got to do. Yeah. I'm committed. I have. There's a. I buy. I buy some online. Right. Just because I like to support one online company. They got great stores. Right. So if I go someplace where they have a store, I go to their store. But I buy stuff online.

[00:10:11] But there's a place down in near Tampa Bay, Nibor City. Oh. It's called Long Ash. And I probably buy 150, 200 cigars a month from him. He does his own blending. Ooh. Does his. They roll them in the store. They got a little bar. Right. Where they make the best Cuban coffees. Right.

[00:10:41] Just super strong. If you have two of those, you're like. I had one recently with a client. I'm coaching him. We're finishing a Cuban sandwich. And the lady goes, hey, do you want some Cuban coffee? And we're like, sure. I had a sugar and caffeine. I came home. And it happened to be my wife's good friends, my functional doctor. First time I ever met her. I knew online. She's doing all my blood work. And she looks at me. She goes. Or she looks at my wife. She goes. Is your husband okay? I was racing.

[00:11:11] Racing. You can't get them without the sugar. You can just drink them black. Just for future reference. Yeah. That was like four months ago. I'll go black only. Yeah. But they're so good. And like when we go to visit, our deal is there's a Cuban Spanish restaurant down the street called Colombia. They've got great salads. They've got great empanadas. Right? It's just an amazing place. They make everything at the table. So that's my wife's thing. She wants to go there and get the sangria.

[00:11:40] And then we walk three blocks down the street. And we sit outside. And she has her Cuban coffee. And I have a cigar. And she'll tolerate the whole thing because she's having it. That's actually one of the places I want to go. I've got a client, another business owner. He was telling me he's vegan. He doesn't drink. So he's kind of really boring but amazing. But he goes, oh, yeah. He said, I've got this old cigar press from my grandmother. She used to roll cigars in Ybor City. And I'm like, I'll be your child.

[00:12:08] You can just heirloom that to me. Sure. Since you don't smoke, you don't drink, you don't really eat anything fun. I mean, have you seen it? No. Those are really cool. That would look really good in your cigar lounge. Can we talk about your cigar lounge? Yeah. I mean, one, I appreciate you hosting this and the other podcast we did. This is incredibly cool. I have my own little cigar lounge. But it's probably half the size of this. It's not in my house.

[00:12:38] So hell of a sales job to be able to get that done. Well, there's a story. Because we thought about moving. We emptied nesters about a year ago. And we just looked at the idea of, no, I'm a grandpa. He's like 12 minutes away. If I move down south, we downsize. We had four kids. We don't need this. This was an old teenage wasteland of trash from 2016. I think there's a teenager that one of my kids forgot to take to school. It's still laying in the corner. Electronics laying all over the place. Oh, my gosh. Wires.

[00:13:08] Monitors, computers, a broken Wii, all sorts of stuff. A Wii. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Wow. And it was... Do you have a Pong? I grew up with a Pong. I'm a 1970s, 80s kid. I had a Pong. That was my first technology. I think that was my last one. Okay, that's good. I never got into the whole video game thing. I did Atari a little bit through college. My kids have all played. And they're like, Dad, can we make the...

[00:13:36] I call it the Shalom Lounge, the Peaceful Lounge. I wanted to play, so not just entertainment focused on sports. I wanted pockets of community and talking. Well, it's set up just that way, where you could have 10, 12 people in here, and you could have four conversations. Yeah. My wife hosts a monthly Cocktails with Christine. It's a midweek pause for women. They don't smoke cigars, but I'm their bartender for about 10 minutes. Get them started. Yep.

[00:14:03] And they'll have just deep conversations and just helping women kind of process all that they've got going and being moms and wives and business leaders. But yeah, my wife, we were sitting here, it was about a year ago, last summer. And then we kind of just realized, you know, let's not move. This is where most of our clients are. We're in South Denver. It's Central. There's a story here. We have history here. We've been here about 12 years. And she goes... One kid's still here? At that time, no. He was just taken off to college. And so I just kind of started nerding off.

[00:14:33] I'm like, I got some buddies that have got cigar lounges in their basements. And they're more utilitarian, maxed for people. I'm like, no, I want... Sports-themed? Yeah. Sports-themed a lot. And I want soul. And there's a couple of my friends that had some soul. I'm like, they've got a story in it. So I just started nerding out on YouTube. And I found this great designer. I don't even know where he's from. Masculine Home. Masculine Home. Okay.

[00:14:59] And I bought his $50 PDF that created different styles and paint colors and themes. And I'm like, I want dark academia slash bourbon lounge. But that was after my wife says, why don't we put in a cigar lounge in the basement? She was all for it. That's cool. She saw the community that our friends had with cigar lounges in their homes. And that's an important thing in your life, in your business, which we'll get to. But yeah. So this has become a gathering place? Fair. Fair. Yeah.

[00:15:28] If we opened it up seven months ago, I bet you 500 people have rolled through. I think today, before we started filming, there's been, I've had two clients here doing coaching sessions. And almost every day, one to 10 people are here every day, non-family. And so it's become a safe place for a lot of clients. It's become a place where every once in a while, my older son, who's an entrepreneur, I'll find him down here smoking a pipe, working on his computer when he's got some time in the middle of the day. That's cool.

[00:15:57] He's like, I'm in an office here, not in my truck or in the office. I'm in an office here. Yeah. And so it has, it's become a really, we want a place where people can tell their stories, be safe. It was really fun. About three weeks ago, commercial real estate guy came in, all buttoned up and suited and bougie and really successful. Came in. As soon as he walked in and we let cigars, he pulled his shirt out, kicked his feet up. And then it was just real.

[00:16:25] It was, it wasn't safe. It was safe. The kimono was open. It was talking about life and brokenness and hardships and marriage. Yet it was initiated through a business kind of conversation. Yeah. But it was real. And so I found them to be their prayer sticks, their true sticks. Sure. Very different than bars and alcohol. But you sit down with somebody with a cigar, the conversation's completely different than if we just sat here with bourbon.

[00:16:52] And I have a theory and I'm, you know, you've, you've got a lot of experience coaching with people and working with people at a much deeper level than me. I think it starts when you, when you pull out the cigar, Robusto, Churchill, doesn't matter. You're going to be there. Mm-hmm. So you have, you've made a commitment in time to the stick and then to the person that you're talking to. Yeah.

[00:17:21] And I don't think it's something that people acknowledge. Mm-mm. But I think there's, there's something there that you're, you're, you're committed to it where, you know, if you meet somebody on the subway or you're, you're sitting at a bar, right? It's almost transitory. Mm-hmm. But when you, when you, when you got this, like you're gonna, you're not going anywhere, you know, for like an hour, hour, 15 minutes, maybe, depending upon how hard you work. I think that's a big piece of it. It is. I walked back in, it's been about six months.

[00:17:50] I walked back into the cigar lounge. I was a member at for about four years. And a guy I hadn't seen in a long time, he's like, I thought something happened to you. And it was immediately, we could sit down and have a conversation. Yeah. Uh, I don't even know if you remember my name. It'd been a while, but there was something about just sitting because there'd been many a times he's working and I'm working and we stop and we'll just have a conversation. Yeah. And so it's a, it's a community that's drawn me in because I feel like people are opening up

[00:18:20] their soul a little bit quicker than, Hey, let's meet and have a drink or a cup of coffee. And so oftentimes people are like, Hey, you want to meet? It's either prospecting or a coaching session. You want to meet in a coffee shop and I'll, I'll give them the vision for this. And then I'll ask them afterwards, do you want to meet back here? I'm like, yeah. So for me, it saved me commute time. I love hosting people. Um, we have quite, we'll have a happy hour of just usually about once a month, my wife and I will just say, let's have a happy hour on a Friday night.

[00:18:47] We don't know on a Monday who's coming, but somehow on Friday, there's always nine to 12 people that come. Perfect number for this room. Yeah. Does it ever spill out into the other? For my women's, my wife, my women's events, my wife's events, they're not smoking. It will spill out and there's, we call it Christine's area. And it's another set of chairs as well. It's built around communication and talking and conversation. Colors are a little lighter and brighter. On purpose? Uh, no, just because we didn't want to repaint the room.

[00:19:20] And the lighting in here is intentional, right? Where you have this, it's bright enough, but it's got a softness that kind of takes you back to the forties and fifties. It does. We kind of like feel waiting for it to flicker. All the can lights, cause it was just a suburban basement. All the can lights were taken out. Um, even the, we had to figure out a solution cause it was drywall.

[00:19:43] I said, I want the molding, but my GC, a Latino guy goes, no, we've got to put up some paneling to make it look kind of old and it's going to have some flaws in it. You're going to see some knots and things like that. I'm like, that's what you want. Yeah. But the lighting was, we stripped all the can lights. I wanted chandeliers, but the ceilings were only about eight and a half feet. So I'm like, I can't pull off a small. You're too tall for that. Yeah. I've hit my head just in the doorway once, but the sconces behind you, cool story. Um, I'm in the brainstorming.

[00:20:12] Um, those are from Mexico and they're about 45 years old. My mother-in-law. You went antiquing in Mexico to find out? No, we're in Mexico quite a bit, but my father-in-law is Mexican, his wife. And she's like, oh, um, my mom has these sconces that for some reason I've had in my basement forever. And she goes, you think you'd, I saw them. I'm like, done. They're old. They're classic. Thank you. And, um, they were better than the Amazon ones.

[00:20:39] I had to go by on the other side, but there is a, there is a feel and they're all, they can be on dimmer. So oftentimes I know we're at full tilt right now, but I'll bring it down just for my eyes and to go, okay, let's slow down the day. Well, it actually can bring you down just a little bit. So like as you, as you wind down an evening, right. Or you're having a different level conversation. Lighting's, uh, you know, I could, we could talk to Mark about this, but lighting is probably one of the most important parts of video and photography. Right.

[00:21:09] I mean, camera is important and lenses, but. I thought it was the podcaster is the most important part. No, no, it's usually the guest. No. The guest is what saves the day. But lighting is really, I know I'm not supposed to look at you and I'm not supposed to talk to you, but am I wrong? It's like the office. Now we're talking to the office person. And because of the spaces are so small, like even yesterday, you know, the lighting in there was like just that real like orangey. It was orangey. Amber.

[00:21:36] Like, you know, this has a very pleasing, like the way it falls on, even you, like your, your eyesetting in your shot looks really cool because the light is kind of like, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's got that. It's like a, it's a softer light that just reminds me of like a 1930s, 40s, you know, setting you see on television or a movie, right? Where they're trying to bring back a era. Right. You're not, we're not wearing the hats with the ties and the things like that, but the

[00:22:06] lighting reminds me of that. So, I mean, as we're talking about the relationship with cigars and we're in the relationship with people, and you've mentioned soul like multiple times. Like how the hell did you get into a debaucherous item as this? A bit of a vice. Yeah. So growing up in a Christian home, Christian school, Christian church, the whole gig. Did you rebel at some point? Um, yeah. I still remember the last day of my freshman year in high school.

[00:22:36] I'm 15 years old just, but I'm 6'4", toothpick, 160 pounds. Three of my buddies, we get on our bikes. 160 pounds? At 6'4", as a freshman. I ended up at 245 pounds. So I, I thickened out. Yeah. But so we get on our bikes because yeah, we didn't drive. And we drove, we rode our bikes to the liquor store. It was probably my first alcohol experience. And they're like, you look 21.

[00:23:05] I go in, we, everybody knew on Belfalau Boulevard in Alondra, there was a liquor store that sold to miners. And then... Every town had one. Yeah. In 1984, probably. In Southern California. And so we walk in, I buy four packs of Bartles and James. And we were hammered on our bikes. Just hammered. They didn't have California coolers? It was probably... But I remember it was Bartles and James, but we had them then too.

[00:23:33] There was a bunch of those sugar-filled alcoholic things. Those were the thing that... In the 80s. I drank those in college. Yeah. And so about that same time is probably after I got my driver's license. Did I have a rebellious stage? Yeah, because I'm still trying to figure out who I am. I'm in this conservative world. And I do remember after I was 16 going... I played varsity football as a sophomore.

[00:24:00] So I was surrounded by a bunch of 18-year-olds. They're great influence on younger kids in a bad way. And so I remember two Sundays in a row at church, I threw up in the back of church from being hung over. And you're questioning whether you had a rebellious... It was short-lived because I was so overwhelmed. How did you pull that off without being completely... My older sister knew. She just knew. She was four years older than me.

[00:24:29] She's like, yeah, you're partying with the guys that are just a year younger than me. I know. Because I'd seen her at parties. And I'm 16 and she's 20 and she went to school in town. But a gal in my high school goes, you're a hypocrite. And it hit me for some reason. But it was the same time we'd go to drive-in theaters back in the day in Southern California. And we'd sit in the back of a pickup truck or whatever in someone's old station wagon. And we'd go buy Swisher Sweets. That was probably the first time I smoked something.

[00:24:56] Clothes were a cool thing back in the 80s, which were like fiberglass in your lungs. Yeah. And smelled awful. And smelled awful. Never got into weed. Especially when you were wearing tweed. Never got into weed. But it was probably in college because then I started... I pressed into my faith. I really grew up. I put myself through school. Because you were called a hypocrite. Yeah, it hit me. And this person who did that was... Just a friend and a peer? Yeah. Okay. Glenn Rebecca.

[00:25:27] I forget her last name, but her first name was Rebecca. It still sticks with you. But my faith kind of took off. And in college, I was surrounded by just guys. And so it was like the first time I was surrounded by really healthy guys that were mature and trying to figure out life and purpose. Some were dating. And that's probably the first times I had cigars. But it really probably took off when I got into... I went into full-time ministry. My wife and I, our marriage just completely tanked. And we had to kind of restart. We had four kids. It was horrific.

[00:25:57] After you started ministry? We were in ministry 14 years. Yeah. We moved to... We lived internationally a bunch. We worked out... You moved all over? Of course. All over. But one of our stops in Mexico City was just... We were arrogant. Mid-30s. Four kids starting the same big nonprofit in Mexico City. And my wife really became lonely and fell into an affair. And so we ejected to go get healthy. And I was a mess. I had my own issues.

[00:26:26] And so we spent about two years just getting healthy. A lot of my time... It was in Northern Colorado. A buddy of mine lived down the street. I wasn't working. It was mostly just get healthy. Massive intensive counseling. Go through depression. We're homeschooling. She's trying to figure out where she is in life. Are we staying married? And I put my daughter... She's about two. We had a... Almost born. Yeah. Our fourth was almost being born. I'd sit on the porch and just... I'm here.

[00:26:55] I'm running big old projects around the planet. Now I'm sitting in Northern Colorado on Greeley on my porch. And a neighbor buddy of mine would bring over cigars and a glass of wine. And it would just start... That was kind of probably the first time... Not Swisher Sweets. Not Swisher Sweets. He was a big cigar smoker. And then two years later, I'm going into partnership with him and another neighbor. And we're opening up mattress stores all over Colorado. And then we launched a franchise. And it was his franchise. And I was on franchise development.

[00:27:24] And we just launched another 13 stores in about four... So I think we had 17 stores. But a lot of our leadership meetings were in cigar bars and... Or on our porches. Talking about... Well, it started from the porch with cigars. Uh-huh. And so it continued in those conversations. And then when I exited the two businesses that I launched about 13 years later, that's when I bumped into a group of guys. I forget how I was invited.

[00:27:52] Oh, is that some fundraiser? This is when I wasn't drinking. The guy next to me goes, hey, do you like bourbon? I'm like, nah. I'm actually not drinking them probably three years in, four years in. And he goes, do you like cigars? I go, yeah. Just not normal. And he goes, oh, you got to check out this group called Holy Smokes. It's guys that love God and love cigars. Holy Smokes. Uh-huh. And it started here in Colorado Springs Castle Rock probably 20 years ago.

[00:28:21] I looked it up on Facebook. And I'm tracking it on Facebook for a couple months. I'm like, this is kind of lame. You just take pictures of yourself on Facebook and go, hey. I'm like, do people actually sit with each other? And so I found out there's actually a local chapter in Castle Rock just about 20 minutes. And so I bump in. And it was this thing. You light up a cigar, 20 or so guys on a Friday at noon. It started at noon. I walk into the cigar lounge. And there were 20 guys in there already.

[00:28:50] I'm like, does this really start at noon? They're like, nah, we all get here like at 10 a.m. And they've been there for two hours and for another three or four. And it became a good rhythm of just guys being real. And that's when I kind of started getting back into it. But they all had the same, they had two things in common? Mm-hmm. The faith and the. Yeah, and cigars. And then I find out there's chapters all over the planet. And I'm like, what? And so I've been into Kansas City for work.

[00:29:15] And I remember going to Outlaw Cigar, one of my favorite cigar shops and lounges in Kansas City. And I just posted on the Facebook group, hey, anybody from Holy Smokes? I'm here for a couple days of work. And I've got some nights. I'm going to watch, I think it was March Madness. And some guy's like, yeah, I'll meet you there. And a great conversation. And it's just a group can be formed just by reaching out. And there's some cities that have chapters, Springs, Colorado, or Castle Rock.

[00:29:45] There's one in Nashville. There's one in Seattle. They're all over. I've heard those guys have started one in Rome. And so that's when it really became. And I started sitting in some of these guys' lounges in their basement. I'm like, that would be heaven to be able to gather people. And that's really when it took off for me. And then clearly when you have your own cigar lounge, you smoke more than one a day.

[00:30:10] Being an executive coach and leading peer groups of CEOs, yes, I'm out. I call it out in the wild in the city meeting people and prospecting. But a lot of my time's here. I'm 55. My rhythm is slowed down. I've had somebody go, why don't you go start a business? You coach all these people. I go, I've done it. But my calling's different now. I want to help others be successful. So my pace of life is a little slower. I want to be able to share experiences and wisdom instead of just doing.

[00:30:40] And so cigars has been a big part of it. And when you're facilitating a group. So let's kind of like talk a little bit about the group. Yeah. Because there's a lot of groups similar. And I'd like to understand the structure. I work with a lot of companies that run EOS. There's people that do, what's Vern Harnish's stuff? Vern is. Strategic coach. Yeah.

[00:31:10] Strategic coach. And there's Jack Stacks. The whole better game of business. And then I have a friend who does like a CEO forum, right? Yeah. Things. But what's your, like what do you look for in a CEO? Like what is it, what's the requirement? What's the criteria? That's good. Well, when I was exiting, founder of Acumen, that's who they're founded in Kansas City about 15 years ago. Heard about me. We were introduced. I wasn't looking. I wasn't sure what I was going to do after my second exit.

[00:31:39] But, and he's just kind of building a relationship. And he goes, yeah, Acumen's a peer advisory group. And we're looking for business owners of a certain demographic. There's all the demographic pieces. We want them this size. We want complex business issues, larger companies. And he goes, but it's also a faith valued set. And I said, tell me more. Because it's a pretty important part of my life.

[00:32:04] He goes, yeah, but we are, he used this phrase, we are plain glass versus stained glass. So we don't start with, hey, this is a kingdom entrepreneur. This is a Bible study for business owners. This is a teaching time. It's kind of a business, Christian businessman light. But this is a business heavy forward. So I think of one of the powerhouses is Vistage. Take Vistage, but then have everybody in the room that shares the same value set of faith. Do they? Yeah, most of them.

[00:32:34] Some will come in and I'll say, this is what we are. We're not a Bible study, but there'll be prayer. There'll be God talk. We'll ask, hey, what does maybe the scripture say about your P&L issue, your balance sheet, your cap rates, hiring, firing? Because we're talking nuts and bolts of business. So it has to be operationalized into their business? No, not at all. Let me rephrase that. What's the underlying values?

[00:33:00] What the faith represents? I would say kind of, because it's all different varies. I would say at the base level, are you God Jesus friendly? They say yes, they're in. And if they can work as a professional business owner, CEO, and now we have groups for entrepreneurs, smaller businesses. We're launching a professional advisor. You may not even be a business owner. You could be a W2 person.

[00:33:27] But for those that are in the biz dev world, sales, it's a lonely world too. Because really the key demographic is there's all these things that are, okay, I'm 3 million, I'm 1 million, I'm 20 million, 30 million, I have 100 employees, 10 employees are great demographics. It's all face to face. So yes, they have to be in Colorado. But I started learning, I really want the psychographic. Are they humble? Are they hungry to grow? And are they smart relationally and intellectually? And so- What does smart relationally mean?

[00:33:56] Smart relationally? They can read people. They can- No, because some are really bad. Business owners are so in the weeds, we just miss sometimes. Smart relationally is, are they willing to open up, pull down the imposter, open up the kimono? And to realize in this room, the power of it, yes, you're going to get smarter. You're going to grow your top line revenue. You're going to optimize your bottom line, all these efficiencies, because you're going to learn from a room that's really got 200 to 300 years worth of business owner.

[00:34:26] Experience in the room. You're going to learn all that. But really, are you willing to learn your, we call it, we're going to grow your top line, optimize your bottom line, and enrich your storyline. So are they willing to get into their story? Because what's in here and what's in here affect all that stuff that we're doing in tactics. It really does. It does. And so we partner, actually, some of my greatest referral friendship partnerships are EOS, Strategic Coach, Jack Stacks.

[00:34:53] That is a system every business should have, some sort of operating system. And they're like, oh, we don't have one. You have one. It's just, it could be dysfunctional or not. That might not be great. Yeah. And those are, I would call, really good consultants. I partner with a lot of them. But if Pure World is, ultimately, I'm a business owner, and I was one of them. So I'm the perfect target audience. I had some of the Christian groups find out, here I am, a former pastor missionary. He ought to be in one of our Christian peer groups. But they marketed it to me as Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian. We're going to learn principles of Christian business ownership.

[00:35:23] And really what I wanted was like, can you help me with P&L's balance sheets? Are we dealing with our debt ratio? Should we expand to four stores? Can I kill my business partner and get away with it? Can he kill me? And how do we do it? Can I fight legally? I wanted the business tactics, but I wanted to. And so when Acumen was presented to me, I started interviewing the others and going, yeah, this is the home for me. I love and love the marketplace.

[00:35:50] I think it's one of the most, if you look in a society, I think it's one of the few places that can really impact a city for good is the marketplace. Well, because the entrepreneur and the sizes you're talking about, they have the most impact on the community, right? And the community is not just their company. It's their families. Yeah. Their extended families. The dry cleaner. Yes. The place you stop for coffee in the morning. All of those things. And that trickles out.

[00:36:19] But I want to go back to something that you said that I want to understand. Plain glass. Stained glass. Stained glass. I get the stained glass piece, right? Where there's a little bit more structure, a little bit more focus, a little bit more. And I'm thinking of, because I studied religions when I was in college. And I can explain that to you one day.

[00:36:48] But the Catholicism, I always think about it as pompom circumstance. Okay. Right? So cool stuff. Liturgical. Traditions. The things. Icons. Yeah. Stained glass. All of the stations of the cross. Yeah. On the way. And the confessional. Like, those are things that are reference points. That's the stained glass piece of it. But explain the. And I still think those are very important. They are.

[00:37:15] I still remember I grew up in a Dutch dairy family. I would have said Grandpa was a dairyman until I got as an entrepreneur. I'm like, no, he was an entrepreneur. I had to kind of reframe Grandpa as a dairyman that just milked cows. Thousands of them back in the 80s. But he had nine drive-in dairies. He had his own processing plant. I'm like, oh, he's actually an entrepreneur that happened to just produce milk. And so I grew up in a Dutch reform. I still remember the stained glass as a kid.

[00:37:42] It was this religious stained glass. And as you kind of look, in North America, you've got Catholic, Protestant, and there's beautiful buildings, maybe a little bit more stained glass. Very important as well. Then you've got the kind of the mall church. Or the roadside. The roadside church. Or a home church. That's how I think the analogy, the metaphor is. It's plain glass. You actually don't know what it is.

[00:38:08] You walk in and maybe they're serving coffee, donuts, and there's a bunch of music going on. You're not really sure. And then you find out there's deeper values that actually share. And so I think both are important. We just lead more with, hey, we're going to lead business. But we can't separate your business from your faith. And so, but we're not going to lead with that. So I think there's different denominations, if you will. Oh, yeah. All the spectrum. From Catholic to Protestant, evangelical to liberal, conservative.

[00:38:37] All of them are in our acumen world. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, but it's interwoven. Mm-hmm. And when I think of it being operationalized, I think of it this way. Core values are something that a lot of EOS companies work off of. And very few of them build them well. Yeah. They don't really think about them from the way you're talking about that structure about

[00:39:04] who we are, who we want to be, who we want to maintain, or who we want to grow into. Right? Whatever that is. They don't think like that. Those are cool words. And they all match. Look. We do this. And we can spell it an acronym that spells our company's name. Yes. Love it. Those are our values. Yeah. There you go. But as Lencioni says in one of his books, I can't remember which one it was. He goes, you got values on the wall, on a plaque, on a sword. It's on your cool marketing material. It's on your website. Yeah. What are the hidden values?

[00:39:34] The unspoken values. And so you walk into a company and everyone's a gun-toting, conservative, bourbon-drinking, beer-drinking. Cigar-smoking. Cigar-smoking. And you're like, hmm. It's not one of your values. Your value says love, mercy, kindness, customer service. And you're like, no, you've got to own a firearm. Or if you go into another one in Boulder, they're all vegans. And they all love trees. Sure. And there's plants all over. And you walk in there and you go, the meat lover guy that's totally passionate about smoking

[00:40:03] his meats in his backyard. He's never hired there. Mm-hmm. Because of these things, right? Whether it be faith or cord balance, right? You can kind of move around. They need to be the filter.

[00:40:30] If I'm going to take a decision or whatever I'm going to do, the values have to uphold whatever we're going to go forward in. And it has to balance out without any hypocrisy. Yeah. And without any bending of the rules, right? We should just, those are the things that shouldn't change. And if they do need to change, then we need to look at them to see if it's legitimate or if it's just a one-off thing and a situation and go back and revisit. That's the part that's hard.

[00:41:00] It is. And you can have an executive, I think the trifecta that every, I think with one of them, I'm kind of starting to remove because I think AI can pull off one of these. And no offense to my predictive index, Colby, culture index friends, but I think that one's going to get removed by AI a little bit. You can trick those assessment tools. You've been able to trick those for a long time. Yeah, exactly. But I think having some sort of assessment tool for people, a people analyzer for your company is crucial, small or big.

[00:41:29] If you're going to hire somebody, you got to figure out if you're not good at it. Another one is you got to have an EOS. You got to have an operating system as strategic coach. You got to have either an EOS consultant or you got to be running on some sort of system. And I think the third is you got to have either an executive coach. It's great. Walter, you're my executive coach. Wonderful. I get your years of experience. That's super helpful. And I do that. I have a few clients that are just one-on-one executive coaching clients.

[00:41:54] But really, I think the powerhouse is what if I could put Walter with 13 other men and women that run companies? Because now your shit can't be hidden as much. And that's where the soul comes back, right? It does. We poke him in the chest. I love it when someone in a council, we call a monthly council, will call somebody and goes, no, your issue is not this. Your issue is you're afraid. Or last, somebody's talking about an exit. And this is what I want to do.

[00:42:23] And someone in the room just goes, I don't think you're going to be able to do that because your identity is so wrapped up in what you do and you're so good at it. That's a calling of the carpet that's poking in the chest. That doesn't happen with a bourbon buddy or even a cigar buddy sometimes. Right. Because you're at a different level in that relationship. You've opened it up. You've shared things and there's some rules there that allow you to do that. Yeah.

[00:42:51] If my business partner was in a peer group and I was in a separate peer group, we probably wouldn't have ripped up a million dollar check mistake. I ripped up a million dollar check mistake in 2016. We probably would have not been at each other's throats. I think we were able to navigate some of the human difficulties, cash flow, tension, marketing. Because you would have been talking to each other instead of another group. Yeah. Right. And our only advice was each other. But when we became the problem, I became the problem to him and he was the problem to me.

[00:43:20] That's when our attention solved. But if I had you and Mark and Jack and all these other men that are running companies in the room going, hey, I'm struggling with this. Yeah. This is what I'm hearing. I remember it was about three years ago. One of my first clients was processing breaking up with a business partner of 20 years. And it took him about three sessions to kind of get some advice. This is the right thing financially, relationally.

[00:43:46] And then the next month he shows up and he goes, I think it was March of 2023. He goes, okay, I'm going down to Texas tomorrow to break up. And this is what I'm going to say. And the room just stopped. And one of our female business owners goes, you can't say that. And he goes, well, what can I say? He's a bull in the China cabinet. Right. Typical entrepreneur. And she just coached him and the room coached him on what to say. He gave us an update the next month. He goes, that was so helpful because I would have gone in there and said, we need to break

[00:44:16] up. Right. And he goes, I just had almost like a, they just put words into my mouth and we both mutually agreed to part ways in a healthy way. Way better. Way better. Just because she caught something that he was going to say. Because it hit her ear and that group allowed. Her strength was, she was a better listener. Empathy. Yeah. And she has a business partner. So she understood. She's got a 50-50 business partner.

[00:44:42] So she already understood some of the complexity of having a business partner. That's gold. And I had a business partner once. And I kind of vowed that. Never again. I mean, you have a partner with a spouse. Right? That's a little bit different. Mine and I run a business together. She's got a coaching business. But I can make her laugh and get her naked. So usually that helps solve a lot of our business. That does solve a lot of problems. It's hard to be mad at somebody when you're looking at them like that.

[00:45:11] In that situation. That's one of our old... Because we were a mess in our marriage multiple times. About seven years of complete disaster. And we'll celebrate 33 years in a couple months, which is a miracle considering all that's gone in our life. But one of our old counselors, he made us practice staring at each other and then hugging sometimes. Just practicing. Because you can feel if someone's drawing from you or stealing from you.

[00:45:39] And the staring thing, you can break intimacy because you're like, oh, your brain's somewhere else. And then he goes, as you graduate, I just want you guys to do it naked. It was the oddest thing. But man, it cracks you. I can only imagine. Vulnerability. But now, see, this is funny. I read a quote by John Deloney. He wrote How to Build a Non-Anxious Life. And I put this quote up on our CEO Council. And one of the lawyers goes...

[00:46:03] Because it said something like, you need to be in a room with people that get you shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee and blah, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, okay. Do you know what knee to knee means? I knew what shoulder to shoulder is because my son played college football in Boulder and their fight song is shoulder to shoulder. We'll fight, fight, fight. Go see you or F them up, F them up. Right. And so he goes, you want to do the knee to knee? So what do you do? And so literally, we won't turn our chairs, but he pulls up his chair. And you're like literally... Knees are touching. Close. Grown man.

[00:46:33] This is a year ago. I'm 54. He's 50. And I can smell his cough drop. I think I even got a cold from this. And we go knees to knees. And he's now kind of coaching me in this. And he goes, Steve, how are you doing? And we're... How is to know? And I immediately lied. I'm good. And I caught myself lying. I said, okay, hold on. And I just started talking about it because I'm leading this group. So I'm like, oh, I've got to hold posture.

[00:47:02] And he called me out. The vulnerability. The shoulder to shoulder is good because, hey, we're together. But man, you do this with another business owner. With our spouses is even sometimes hard. Yeah, I'm trying to picture that in my head right now. Uh-huh. That would be... It's intimate. It's intimate, but it's also incredibly vulnerable. It's... Yeah.

[00:47:29] And you have no choice but to catch yourself tipping, lying, not being truthful, not being honest. First time someone did that to me in a face-to-face, John Eldridge. He's a famous author and speaker. He's like a soul dude. He just cracked your soul. And so I'm 30 years old. I was in campus ministry in CU Boulder. One of my students get married. John is officiating the wedding. And I'd met him one time before. And I was teaching some of his material to students and something like that.

[00:47:58] And I'm bloviating about how great I am. And John, at this wedding, gets close. I don't think he has any personal space issues. And he goes, how's your heart? And I remember I lied to him then. And I didn't catch myself. I just lied. I'm like, oh, it's great. It's great. It's great. It's great. And then six years later when my marriage fell apart, I remembered. I'm not seeing John yet again. But I need to say, hey, 25 years ago, I lied to you when you asked me a question. And he probably said, no.

[00:48:28] Oh, guarantee he saw through my soul. And so it's become a piece of me of going, I can tell when a business owner is lying. And the room can tell too. And they know as well. Oh. It's just they can't open up the kimono, as you said. We're all lying. Until we find a room that's safe. So that's part of this room. It's part of what I was so grateful to be entered into this acumen experiment.

[00:48:56] I was the experiment going, can you actually pull this off in Colorado? Really grateful. I'm riding on some giants that have done it before me. I'm learning a ton. So how many chapters are there or councils around the country? Colorado's three. And then Kansas City's got 10 to 15-ish. St. Louis just launched. Wichita just launched. And Phoenix just launched. And I think we're in talks with another one somewhere.

[00:49:24] Ultimately, it's not about are there business owners that will join us? It's about who is, we call them growth catalysts. That's our chair, coach. Who is the growth catalyst? That's the hard part. It's the hardest part of my product. Because part of my job is to raise up business owners to say, would you consider joining a team? It'll change your life. It's a hard sell because I'm not saying, hey, join EOS. There's six sessions this year. By the end, we'll have this, this, and this. I'm saying more of join a group that's going to keep you from blowing your life up. And they're like, hmm.

[00:49:54] I've never seen it. Yeah. It's never been. I hadn't heard about it until I did a little research for this conversation. And I don't think we have any of that in Michigan. We got Vistage. We got EO. We got all that. But they're different. EO's got the forum. Yeah. Where you can put 10, 12 people in a room.

[00:50:24] And it's supposed to be safe. And you're all business owners. Right. And what stays in the forum. Yeah. Season four. But there's, there's always that piece. I mean, because I've gone into those and it's not, there's something missing. They do. This is what one of my members of Acumen said. He had 3000 employees. He goes, EO does cool shit. Acumen gets shit done. He goes, they're adventure trips. He goes, they're, he goes, it's the best stuff in the world.

[00:50:54] He goes, but this gets us at a level that we actually get stuff done personally, professionally. And it gives you the time to go do those things with your family and friends rather than with a bunch of yahoos from your group. Good point. I shouldn't say that, but good point. And so, yeah. And it's only six hours a month. We're saying, can you take away six hours a month to work on your business with some other people that are committed to you and to their business? And they're willing to be honest with you. So I'm having a ton of fun learning, but you're exactly right.

[00:51:23] The hardest part of my job is now looking for other growth catalysts. Former business owners that just didn't say, I got my exit, private equity came calling, and now I've got my pile of cash. I'm going to go live in the BVI. I'm going to golf or I'm just going to smoke cigars. What I'm trying to say is, no, I don't want you to work at that pace you did for 30 years, but I'm willing, gosh, this younger generation. I think the Z's and the A's are clamoring for wisdom. A's? Yeah, it's like, what do we got? The boomers, the X's.

[00:51:52] I'm a boomer. Yeah. We gave our middle fingers to the boomer. We didn't want to listen to you guys. And then came the millennials. You guys were a bit of heathens, right? Because you were raised, like, just like, go out there and just go do your own thing. MTV raised us and Bartles and James. And Boone's Farm. Yeah, exactly. Bartles and James, those commercials, all. They were. Those old dudes. Dads, I still remember taking my dad's Jack Daniels bottle and drinking it and filling it with water and always making sure I have a pencil mark so I can get it pretty close.

[00:52:24] And he never noticed? I don't know. My dad's so loving and forgiving. Yeah, he noticed. Yeah. There's always a bottle of Jack Daniels around my place. If somebody put water in it, I would. I remember I had to get a Spanish bottle of wine for a Spanish project. I asked my mom to get me a bottle of Spanish bottle of wine. And it was years later. I'm now mature and growing up. And she did say, whatever happened to that bottle of wine? I'm like, oh, I drank it in the backyard by myself. Kind of a mess.

[00:52:53] And the fact that my kids have turned out really well is a miracle. But the growth catalyst piece is going down the Zs and the As, I think, are after the millennials. Millennials were just be passionate. Follow your heart. Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's okay. Try managing them. Wear skinny jeans and a flannel. It's okay. Work from home. Everybody didn't help it. But the Zs and the As are going, I really do think they're clamoring after the wisdom.

[00:53:20] And so my call to the generation of former business owners that want not necessarily to work full time is to go, can you just help the next generation not make the same mistakes you made? Wouldn't that be great? Oh, that'd be awesome. There's a, I always talk about this. There's a quote from Oscar Wilde that said, you know, experience is the name I give to my mistakes. And it's a solid quote. It's great.

[00:53:45] And I kind of created this corollary that I usually start off like a workshop or a group. I start to coach with that idea. And here's my corollary. I am a really experienced guy. Yeah. Because I've made more mistakes. I've screwed things up more times than you ever will. And, you know, I'm not coming at you from a theoretical perspective. Everything I'm talking about, I've done. I've done really badly. I've done really well. And it works.

[00:54:16] So I'm not giving you just, you know, this professorial deal from. No, I'm not a Harvard Business Review article. You can go read a blog. Those are still things. Read a sub stack. Go listen to a video. We have this thing. Maybe it's stolen from EO. Or I mean, it's just a good coaching principle. But the gestalt method, I think is. That's an EO thing. Is it an EO thing? Well, I mean, it's a gestalt thing. But EO uses. Share from experience. Really, as I'm trying to facilitate.

[00:54:46] Because if you just drop advice on people, then go down to the local bar. That guy will give you advice. He might not be solid, but it'll be advice. And he'll say it with passion. And I love the coaching anthem should be, stay in awe. A-W-E. And what else, Walter? And what else, Walter? So I had a new client this morning. He goes, what are we doing these things? A one-on-one coaching session. And I go, well, what do you want to talk about today? He's like, I want to process this.

[00:55:15] And why I'm, I feel like I'm detaching from family and life and soul. And I'm going to give a little bit of advice, but I'm scratching. I'm looking for that scab. And where is it, where's the rope attached to? Right. I see the end of the rope. Trying to find the thing that's really there that he hasn't, he hasn't verbalized. Yeah. Put his eyeballs on. Right. And it's usually done through questions in the facilitation, the coaching session.

[00:55:43] That, I mean, the gestalt thing is real because you got to deliver it in a way that they will hear it. Yes. And sometimes it has to be varied depending upon the individual. Got to be a safe space. Yeah. And I think when I lead now with a broken marriage story, infidelity, recovery, business failure, business success, killing, I didn't kill my business partner. We wanted to. Then you lead with that. They're like, okay, safe.

[00:56:10] And now it's a place where they can feel safe. And that's where transformation happens. If there's no true broken, you can go to, I went to college. You went to college? Yeah. I got my master's. I did not. I got a, yes. Yeah. I don't, I think, I don't know. I got a nerd degree in math and computer science and then a business degree and master's in social and civic entrepreneurship. But I really learned by doing. And, um.

[00:56:39] Because the guys that were teaching us in college never really did. No. And this generation, I feel like they're getting a little bit more. But now granted, all four of my kids went to college. But there was times that's like, hey, you don't have to. Let's go start a business. Want to go start a window washing business or whatever? This will sound really sexist. Because it is. Right. When my daughter was going to go to school, I'm like, what do you want to do? Right? I mean, we've got all this money set aside for you to go to school. But I'm not sure it's a great idea.

[00:57:10] Right? Right. I don't know that there's an ROI out of it. Yeah. Um. I think when I went to school, I had to put myself through school. I was the first one who did it. I, I got to school and like, oh, I don't have to go to class. There's nobody paying attention here. Like I, I'm, I'm, they pretend, they think I'm an adult. Right? And that first semester was eyeopening because I went to the university of Michigan. So I was in the top 5%. Go to Ohio State. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry.

[00:57:39] Um, there's a, uh, uh, 5% at my high school. I was in the top five. When you get there, the top 1% of everybody is there. Oh yeah. So I was still setting a curve. I was just on the other side of the bell. Oh yeah. Right. And I got, you know, I've, and I can tell this story publicly, but let's do it anyway. Vulnerability.

[00:58:02] My first semester at the university of Michigan, my grade point at the end of that semester was 0.333. Isn't it crazy? It was kind of sad. Um, so the, at, at Michigan at the time, they had a department called academic actions, right? Where they wanted to take some action because you weren't being academic.

[00:58:25] And the lady that ran that department, Helen Johnson, she has a five by five, right? Five foot by five foot. And she looked like, you ever read the book, um, the shack? Oh yeah. Okay. So God in the shack. Oh, especially in the movie, the Holy Spirit one was five by five. I like the book. Oh, because you can picture it. Yes. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

[00:58:53] Because when I, when I read that, it's like, oh, that's Mrs. Johnson. Yes. And you just wrote another book. I haven't read that one yet. Return of the shack. Return to the shack. Comes out in October. Interesting. I know. How the hell is he going to follow that up? I don't know. Um, anyway, that was her. And it's where I started to learn how to sell. Right? Because she said, you know, Walter, we're not sure your Michigan material. And I'm giving you no reason, Mrs. Johnson. I have absolutely given you no reason.

[00:59:23] You know, three F's and a W and one D at, uh, cause I took 17 credits my first semester. It just didn't make any sense. Um, like what, what do I have to do to prove it? So I'm not sure you can. Okay. I know. But what would I have to do? She's like, you know, an integer would be great if you, I'm like, okay, which one? She's like. At least you knew what that is. Yeah. Maybe that helped. I said, maybe a three point.

[00:59:53] Cause if you could get a three point, that would be amazing. Okay. So a challenge. She didn't think I could do it. So I got a three, five. That's just a sure. Um, and I came back in and she was like, this is great. Do it again. I said, all right. If I do it again, can we be done? I want no more action. There. She's like, if you do it again, we'll be done. Perfect. At three seven. She came around her big ass desk. Right.

[01:00:22] I mean, it's a huge desk. She came around the desk, gave me a hug. Mr. Crosby. Never want to see you again. I love you. Have you ever seen Mrs. Johnson again? Love her. That was, but I mean, she did her job. She took really serious interest in me. I know she looked things up as during the semester because a professor said to me, like, who's this Mrs. Johnson in academic actions? Why do you ask?

[01:00:47] Well, you know, she was inquiring if you're, you know, participating and like, uh-huh. What'd you tell her? Yeah. You're doing great. Thank you. Right. And we all need Mrs. Johnson's in our lives. She gave me a chance. Yeah. If we could help young kids. Well, in sales. If you could be Mrs. Johnson to a young guy trying to figure out sales. Mm-hmm. That's what I try to do. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that is a world. Because she couldn't do it for me.

[01:01:18] All she could do was tell me what I needed to do and give me the motivation, right? Yeah. That, because she knew I wanted to be a Michigan man. She knew I wanted that piece of paper. She caught your identity piece of who you wanted to be. She did. She spoke into you. This is not you, Walter. This is actually your identity. I'm not sure you can be, but she gave you a vision. You actually could be. It was identity coaching. That's phenomenal.

[01:01:47] And I don't know that she did it on purpose and it doesn't really matter. Right? But I think it came from a place of empathy and she cared enough to have the conversation because she could have just whacked me right there. Yeah. Right? I'm glad she didn't. Yeah, me too. Because I don't know what I would have done. Because it's completely changed my life. So cool. That whole thing, right?

[01:02:10] And the Ohio State thing, I would say probably 30% of my really good friends that I care about, fuck on us. God has a sense of humor. There's one Saturday and a couple of times during the year where they like to talk a little shit. We had a good run for a couple years. We're taking our medicine these days. Yeah.

[01:02:37] But to me, it's like they have passion. I don't have the passion I had anymore because I don't really care. It's become profession. Yeah. At that level. So I don't like live or die anymore about what happens on a Saturday. I don't even watch the games anymore. Haven't been inside that stadium probably a decade. I didn't know what's that.

[01:03:03] My mom was born 81 years ago in Grand Rapids, Michigan. West side of the state. Dutch reform country. Yeah. If you're not Dutch, you're not much. Yeah. Well, back then, the sidewalks used to roll up around 6 o'clock. There was like nothing going on over there. It's a completely different world now. Like south of Grand Rapids, there was like that whole strip of Dutch reform. I've only been there twice. I was there as a kid that was trying to figure out his way with Barles and James. My freshman year, I was in band.

[01:03:33] The only B I got in high school was a B plus because I never practiced. But we did get a march in the Tulip Time Parade. There you go. In Holland. In Holland. That's Holland machine, right? Okay. And then I quit band because I'm like, I don't study for these other classes. I get A. My freshman year, I didn't have the gifted GPA you did. But I got it. I'm a mechanical engineer. You had an integer? I had an integer, but I got a D in calculus. Wow. As a math major? As a mechanical engineer. Oh, okay.

[01:04:03] Retook it. And Professor Hood was my Mrs. Johnson. Professor Hood, my second semester, I retook calculus. Got a straight A. Didn't get one problem wrong. How did you get a D last semester? What happened? I go, I don't understand. I told him the professor. That professor was put on probation. Professor, I actually changed to mathematics and computer science because of my Mrs. Johnson was Mr. Hood. Because he believed him. He goes, no, your brain thinks properly. We just needed to unpack it. Wow. And that was really cool.

[01:04:32] Now, I wish he was a business professor and said, get rid of this. I just didn't have any. I think either little grandpa was a businessman. That puts you on a path to getting where you are today. Mm-hmm. Right? I mean, change of going back and changing things. I don't know. My youngest was laboring. The month before starting at Grand Canyon University, I'm going to be a mechanical engineer. And then I said, how was AP physics? He goes, I got a five, but I hated it. I go, don't be a mechanical engineer.

[01:05:00] So then he went to finance, econ, double major. And then right away, like October, he's like, I'm going to add pre-med onto my major. So he's triple majoring. Second semester, and he was always worried in high school because he was surrounded by all these kids that were on track to Ivy League. They're all 4.7 GPA kids passing 15 to 20 AP courses. There's so much pressure. I just kind of said, Jacob, don't worry about it. Your major's not going to make a difference. And really, he just kind of soaked on it.

[01:05:27] And this year, he dumped all three of those majors and he enrolled in nursing. And it's the first time I've seen him come alive. Passion. Yeah. It matched his call of who God's made him, his giftings of the sciences. But he goes, I don't want to go to med school because what I try to do with my kids, I always surround them by older people that are in those industries. So when my son was in high school being recruited in every conference in the country, I had him surround himself by college players and NFL players. And they gave him a great advice.

[01:05:55] Don't pick a university because of a coach or a winning tradition because it can end overnight. So instead of all these... Really sounded good. Yeah, it was really good. Especially these days. And so he chose CU Boulder and it wasn't a great career. He had five surgeries and it was up and down. He had four coaches. But he goes, you know what? I graduated from CU Boulder. I'm an alumni. I'm glad I went. And so I've always surrounded him. So my youngest was processing pre-med and so I hadn't talked to some young doctors. I'm like, no, don't do it.

[01:06:23] You don't start earning to literally like 30, 35. Start a family late. We don't make as much money as we used to think. And then so it's a completely different animal. It is. And so he's like, I want to be a nurse. And so here's a kid two years ago. It's doing a tough job. It is. So two years ago, he's bussing tables. And he goes, I don't want to. He didn't want to bus. He's like, I'll just do expo and host this. I make a lot less money. I don't want to touch people's food.

[01:06:48] This summer, he's a caregiver at a senior retirement home, wiping excrement off people's rear ends on a regular basis, sitting. And he was telling me. Unappreciative. Yeah. He was telling me the story of this old guy, Dale. And they're talking about faith. Dale's 45 or 94 years old. That was last Tuesday. He goes, Dad, I don't think he's going to make it to my next shift on Saturday. And so yesterday I go, hey, did Dale make it? He goes, no.

[01:07:15] But the empathy and the caretaking, if we can have this next generation, if it's sales, if it's entrepreneurship. I saw a great thing, Gary Vaynerchuk. He goes, we got to stop epping honoring and worshiping entrepreneurs. It's like, we honor that instead of just doing good work. Doing good work. Yeah. There's somebody else that's... There's a podcaster guy in Southern California, Raul. That's his tag. Do good work.

[01:07:45] Doing good work. That's his whole... How do you help someone that's in biz dev sales do good work? It's so hunt and kill and eat... No, it's a simple mindset shift that's really hard because of the pressure that's put on them. You're there to help people. That's the essence of sales.

[01:08:13] And if you get that right at the beginning, you got to have some skills and you got to have some... That's the easy part. But if you don't have the will and commitment to do the work, right? To go wipe the butts. Yeah. Right? To have the empathy for that guy. Have the conversations with him. That's the will and commitment, right? Responsibility to do the job well. Not to make excuses.

[01:08:38] To look in the mirror when I was taught, if you lose a job you should have won, you screwed up. Someplace. And that message was hammered home in my head in the two mentors I had. Coaches and mentors. So you got to have that will, right? You got to have the responsibility. And then you have to have the mindset.

[01:09:04] And I think the mindset that's really hard to measure is that I want to help people. Right? I want to get paid. Don't get me wrong. But if you really care about the craft and you really care about helping people, you will do it. Zig Ziglar used to talk about it all the time. You know, help as many people as possible and you're going to have success. You'll get paid. Yeah. So, but if you go into it thinking transactionally, if you go into it thinking, I'm going to make some money here.

[01:09:34] I got this one. It's hard at the beginning because when I started at 50 years old, my third venture, you're going, okay, I'm prospecting. I think one of the hardest demographics of people to prospect, business owners, they don't network because they send their people and they're kind of untouchable. They're isolated. They try really hard to stay in that little ivory tower. And so it was really hard. And I remember talking to my business partner and he was in this out of Kansas city for a while. And I felt like he was tweaking my golf swing. I'll put your pinky here and then move your foot here.

[01:10:03] And I was like, and then my executive coach about that same time, he's like, Hey, I want you to hire this gal. I think she'll unpack you. Cause I'm like, stop tweaking my tech tactics. Cause I'm overthinking everything. And I remember on a zoom calls probably four and a half years ago, right after I started Lindsay, my wife walks by. I'm on a zoom call. She's coaching me. And my wife over here is Lindsay saying, Steve, stop being a pussy. And I, and I direct, not very gestalt. No, not very at all.

[01:10:34] And I was afraid of being me. Cause I thought I had to perform in a certain way tactically, but also behaviorally. And she goes, no, God made you this way. And if you're this way, you'll change the world. But if you morph yourself, you're going to do something you're not a hunt. You're going to piss some people off. And my other mentor, um, two or three years prior to that, he goes, Steve, you're a fork in the road. People are going to love you or hate you putting that with Lindsay's words and his words. I'm like, I gotta be me. I may not have all.

[01:11:04] I still have to have some skills. Oh yeah. Gotta have the, you gotta have the, that's table stakes. But it's like a, it's like a wolf that can smell fear. A CEO can smell if you're, you're doing an act. And I think that was my first year, year and a half. I think people are sniffing out going, he's trying, he's trying, but it just seems slightly inauthentic. And then she unpacked me and I was like, it was like, but it's, it's okay. I'm not for everybody.

[01:11:33] And that's okay. I'm perfectly fine with that. There's one of the things we measure is your need for approval. Right. So in sales, if I need you to like me, I am going to have, I'm going to struggle. Right. If I have a high need to be liked, I am going to struggle because I'm going to have trouble asking you that question that makes you go, oh shit. That's a tough one.

[01:12:02] I'm going to have trouble pushing back on you saying you're going to do something that I know is the wrong thing to do. Right. I get it. I know you want to do that, but why? Yeah. Right. So if I, if I need you to like me, I'm going to have a hard time doing that. Cause I can't poke you. So I'm trying now to actually coach people as I'm prospecting. Hey, if you were my client, I'd actually challenge you in this mindset, thought, tactic. It's actually a, it's actually a tactic to, to be able to, to do that.

[01:12:31] And I'm going to take off my sales hat here, put on a consultant hat for a second or a coach hat. Um, you know, that was one of the things I was taught early on. And if you use that as a weapon, you get yourself in trouble. But if you use it being truly trying to help somebody, that reminds me about three years ago, young, talented, good looking, athletic, rich. It's already sold a company. He was 27. He's on a second growth one. And he's like, yeah, I'm part of this other group.

[01:13:00] And we meet online. And I'd never used this before. I saw my old self in him. Not as good looking, not as talented, not as rich. But the bravado. And I lean over at a coffee shop. I go, if you don't join my group, you're going to become a grade A asshole. Godly man. He joined. We've become very dear. He sold the second company. Now he owns part of six and he's loving his life. And he left the other group and stayed in ours.

[01:13:27] And so, but I could be myself. But you felt that. I did. Cause I saw him. And it was on him. And I'm like, oh, I still want to help him. And, uh, there's a Psalm end of Psalm 72. I think it is. It's talking about King David. It says he had skillful hands and a tender heart. I think the key of, of prospecting and biz dev, you have to add a third one too. You have to have skillful hands. You have to have a tender heart, but you also have to have a thick skin. That's true.

[01:13:57] That's true. That's not in the Psalm though. No, I just added that one. That's good. It's an apocrypha book or something. And go the one of the books that didn't get put in. It's in my wisdom book. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. She checked. Yeah. Sales is fun and horrible and amazing. My wife, who's now started launching her coaching business. I hate sales. I hate sales. I hate sales. And right before you came, she's seen an explosion of clients the last three weeks.

[01:14:24] And we had to work on some of her mindset a year ago. Then we started creating some framework for some simple marketing, teaching her some simple sales funnel, how to track. And really when we, it was first it was mindset. And then we installed some systems and operations to help her. And she hates that stuff. Sure. She's learning it because it's got to be part of your job. And now six, seven months later, she is just, she's like, I think I'm full. It went from, oh my goodness.

[01:14:53] Now what I'm going to do. And if she was in tears. Go to group. Yeah. Leverage her time. She has a group, but now she's thinking, now I got to raise up other coaches. And so she's now thinking for another generation. And it's really cool to see it come to fruition as someone that's, I'm like, it's not sales. It's just being you and authentic. You're so real. Some people think of that as like, I'm born that way.

[01:15:20] No, I don't, I don't think it's, I don't think it's like you have, you are who you are. Right. And you have, you know, maybe you have a mission that you're, you're supposed to go on and you have no idea what it's supposed to be. But I think it's in, inside of you that you're, do you want to help somebody or you don't. Right. Yeah. So there's lots of, I've said this before, Grant Cardone. Yeah. Right. The guy for the Wolf of Wall Street. Jordan, whatever the hell his name is.

[01:15:50] Or DiCaprio. Yeah. DiCaprio. So, but those guys to me are the, the opposite of what sales is. Yeah. Right. And Cardone, I mean, he had, he just lost his jet, but he, you know, had a jet. Right. So you can't argue with his success, but I don't want to do that. That's not, I don't feel good. I wouldn't feel good about that.

[01:16:15] Um, and I think, I think, you know, with, with, with Christine's enjoying is she's just found a way, a framework to do what she wants to do. Do. Yeah. Do it well. And when you do that, you know. Yes. The planets aligned. It was fun. It brought her to tears. I'm like, I'm so proud. That's awesome. Yeah. But that, that, that's the next step.

[01:16:43] How do you, how do you leverage that and how do you help it to help more people? Yeah. Right. Uh, maybe she needs a podcast or something. Gosh, she has said Steve, cause of our marriage story. She goes, can you, can, can we do a podcast? And I'm probably the one dragging his feet. It's a lot of work. It is a lot of work. You got to pay producers to do stuff. Oh, those guys are horrible. And then you got to find, you got, then you got to find venues that are. Like this. Right.

[01:17:11] But this is like the third. You don't have to find it. You have it. No, this is the third podcast that's actually, uh, recorded down here since December. That's awesome. I've had, I've had a client going, Hey, can I do my state of the union address as well? Can I videotape from here? Last year I did it on my porch. So my guess, here's the garage code. Go for it. That's cool. That's, that's awesome. Yeah. It's been a lot of fun. All right. So Steve, I have one question before we wrapped this up. There's a sword over there. There's a sword over there.

[01:17:42] Could I get the story? Yeah. We used to live in Spain in 98, 99. And Toledo happened to be one of my favorite cities outside of Madrid. And I think it's in one of the, it's either Braveheart or Robin Hood. Somebody goes, Hey, where's your sword from? Oh, Toledo. It's the best swords are made in Spain. And then 98, that stuck in my head. And so I bought Richard the Lionheart over there just because I liked it. It had leather, it had gold, it had silver. It looked cool. The one behind you is actually the Templar sword.

[01:18:11] That's what I was going to ask you. Yeah. Thank you. And so we've taken, I've walked the Camino de Santiago. It's not a Templar sword that you dug out of the... No, I didn't win. Yeah. I don't have that. But the Templar sword is because rumor says on the Camino de Santiago, the way of St. James, a spiritual pilgrimage that's in Northwest Spain, walking into Santiago on the French route. So we carried my son, he was nine months old in a backpack, about 105 miles. We walked it over seven days.

[01:18:39] And then two years later, we pushed he and his brother, three in one in a baby jogger, 105 miles. And then 11 years later, I wanted to have some rites of passages for my boys, different things I'd taken them to. And so my wife and I took John and Ben when they were 14 and 12, we walked 105 miles. And then four years later, took my daughter and my last son, they walked it. So all the boys, and now my wife runs trips to Spain. We ran our first couples trip last year.

[01:19:09] We took four couples and we walked 75 miles from Portugal up into Santiago. But all my boys, my oldest son, that's his, it's the gold version. My second son has the bronze and my third son has the silver. No, gold, silver. It's gold, silver, and then bronze. For some reason, John goes, dad, I want to leave it here for now. It just feels right. But yeah, that's the story. It does. That's a cool, that's cool. And they do look, they do, but they're both swords.

[01:19:38] They're both swords. This one's sharpened. This one's sharpened. So in high school, my son used to live in the basement down here. He's like, dad, I don't have a weapon. He goes, what if, what if something happens? I'm on this floor, I need a weapon. So he actually took one of my knife diamond stones and he started sharpening that one while he's in the basement. So his sword was not, they're still metal, but he sharpened his. So he goes, now I have a weapon to defend the family. Does he know how to work a sword? Probably not. But he now, yeah.

[01:20:07] In college football, it was COVID, his fourth year. And he found a forge studio outside of Boulder that was open during COVID. And so he started forging knives. So he now is, he looks like Jason Momoa. He's a long haired, jacked middle linebacker, tattooed, tender hearted kid. But now he forges knives on the weekends. He made buddies that won the show, forged in fire, and they've mentored him. And so I think it was knife number two that he made. It's in my kitchen block.

[01:20:36] But he's made some, and they're all getting prettier. So now I need to. Does he have his own forge? He doesn't, but he has a buddy that does. And so just, they, he borrows him on Saturdays. He'll go down there and. They're not doing that in the 99 degree. No. Because you're sitting over fire. Yeah. Because forges are hot. Yes. But it's really cool. Some of the artwork that he's done on these. Oh man, they're beautiful. So it's a, it's a cool hobby. That's actually utilitarian. Practical.

[01:21:02] So Steve, I don't know how to thank you for the, for the venue, for the conversation. I mean, just amazing. I truly appreciate the passion. It's really been fun. Thank you. Thank you for the cigar. My pleasure.