The Dailey Edge Podcast
Join hosts Trent, TJ, and Todd Dailey as they explore the intersections of technology, culture, fitness, and personal growth. Through engaging discussions and personal anecdotes, the trio dives into topics ranging from childhood gaming nostalgia and cutting-edge fitness tech to the pursuit of happiness and lifestyle choices. Whether reminiscing about epic gaming marathons, sharing tips for staying on the forefront of fitness trends, or unraveling the complexities of modern life, The Dailey Edge delivers thoughtful insights, lively debates, and relatable stories for listeners of all walks of life.
The Dailey Edge Podcast
🎙️Episode 11: Nature vs. Nurture: A Family's Journey Through ADHD, Academics, and Finding Purpose
Three brothers explore how their different personalities and paths emerged despite being raised by the same parents, examining how nature, nurture, and birth order shaped their development and successes.
• TJ, the oldest, struggled with severe ADHD but eventually transformed it into a "superpower" for problem-solving and intense focus on interests
• Despite academic challenges including a 1.7 high school GPA, TJ's self-taught computer skills led him to Microsoft
• Trent, the middle child, found his identity through sports and social connections
• Todd, the youngest, excelled academically after realizing it brought positive feedback his brothers hadn't received
• Their mother's patience and father's drive created a complementary parenting balance that addressed each child's needs differently
• Birth order significantly influenced how each brother developed uniqueness to avoid competition
• All three developed different skills at different times – TJ's technical aptitude, Trent's social skills, Todd's academic discipline
• The competitive nature they shared manifested in memorable challenges, from childhood games to an 11-hour Vegas slot machine marathon
• Having an "open door" home policy created lasting lessons about inclusivity and community
• Building strong underlying relationships with children makes guidance and correction much more effective
Welcome to the Daily Edge, where we bring you the latest insights, opinions and thought-provoking conversations to give you that competitive edge in life, business and beyond. Let's go, welcome back to the Daily Edge, episode 11. Today we are going to talk a little bit about how we were raised. There are obviously three boys. There's birth order differences. You know, when you parent kids and all of us have kids you realize they're just so different, right? You're like, well, I parented them all the same. Well, kind of right. I think there's some learning along the way, and so we thought it would be fun to kind of share some stories, how we grew up, the things we were exposed to. So, yeah, let's just kick it off. Tj, you're the oldest. I'm going to let you kind of maybe dive into a little bit and we'll go from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think maybe this could help parents, because I think one of the things that has become with me, one of the things that's become very prevalent in today's society and you hear it talked about actually politically is the prevalence of ADHD and that seems to be a pretty common diagnosis today, amongst even adults really. So I think you know, to start with me, that was something that our mother had to figure out and this is going to be I'm just going to kind of call it how I see it I was severely ADHD. I was on Ritalin in 1986. Like that wasn't prescribed much. I was on Prozac in high school Veritable zombie when I took my medicine because it was so difficult to control and it was very interesting how our parents dealt with that and how ultimately it helped me build life skills. I think, you know, I think that's something that's very unique is that as long as you know the intention is good, I think, from the parent, as long as you have the eye on the, your eye on the prize and you're consistent and you're reinforcing the right morals and values, the child will learn to harness things that may be initially looked at as weaknesses and that are ultimately strengths when you get there. So for me, you know, I think I could go in depth. We've got plenty of time here.
Speaker 2:These podcasts aren't short, so I'll talk a little bit more about my early journey and then we can kind of shift. Um, but when I was young, uh, I struggled again mightily. The stories of mom spending two to three hours a night with me on homework in third grade because I just couldn't sit down and focus are numerous and I remember those just sitting there at the counter in the kitchen and writing out my assignments longhand and it taking absolutely forever, because every 30 seconds I had myself focused on something different. And then as I grew up, and then as I grew up, you know, I would come to her in classroom situations and say mom, it's really hard. I'm trying to pay attention to the teacher, but I hear every conversation going on around me and I'm overhearing this kid whispering to this kid and I'm overhearing this kid whispering to this kid and I'm hearing the air conditioner in the back. We had those old giant like heater units in the school we went to and I would hear it crackle and pop and I could never pay attention to it. She at the time this speaks to like her effort to solve the problems, and we talked in earlier episodes about putting the time in to figure it out. And as long as you're doing that and you're spending that time giving that time thinking about your kids' issues I remember her doing research and you're spending that time giving that time thinking about your kid's issues I remember her doing research and you're just now seeing this repopulated.
Speaker 2:This is, 40 years later, about how people with attention deficit disorder have a unique ability to lock in on something and to hyper, hyper focus when it's something they're interested in. And I remember her telling me this when I was a kid that this was a valuable personality trait in the hunter-gatherer days being able to lock on and follow an animal for a long period of time and have absolutely nothing take away your focus and that the hunters, they, embodied this. And so for me, as I learned to control it and I will tell you those parents dealing with this there is light at the end of the tunnel. I figured out how to control it, probably towards the end of high school, maybe even into my mid-20s, but where I could use it kind of as a superpower, if you will. I could focus enough to pay attention to different conversations when I was in social situations, so that I would have topics to broach with people if the social dance, so if I was talking to somebody, I could carry on a conversation with them while listening to another conversation. Then if I had to talk to that person I'd have a point of reference when it came to engaging with them. So it became kind of a superpower and then understanding that, being able to utilize focus on things that I was interested in, well, then, later in life, that led me to really be able to excel when I'm passionate about something.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think early, early life for me was our mom never losing faith, you know, continually doing things like sitting at the table constantly.
Speaker 2:And I was thinking about this. Yesterday my daughter texted me and said daddy, I need my science fair board. And it was like the second or third time I'd been to school in the last week and a half to bring something my kids forgot. And my mom, our mom, was constantly doing that. Dad was on the school board so they could get into the school at night if I forgot a book in my desk and they'd go in and they'd do that, and so you would think that they were go in and they do that, and so you would think that they were setting me up for failure by always providing solutions to the problem. But, looking back, I appreciate them recognizing that I was trying to, you know, gain my faculties in terms of being able to, you know, be a better person, and then their support and their focus on, um, you know, wanting me to be a good and contributing member of society in the longterm really helped me get through that when I was young.
Speaker 1:Can you expound a little bit? Adhd is super prevalent, right, and you said ADHD is a superpower. Can you explain that and I mean a lot of people out there that may have kids that have ADHD and how that has translated into being more of a superpower for you as you've gotten older?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I would say that for me again. I think I want to say this I think when I got into high school, I want to say this I think when I got into high school this is something you need to be careful about with kids in that regard is I learned how to use it to manipulate people, and I think this is going to be maybe a little bit controversial. And then I'll get back to the superpower thing. For any kid who deals with something at a high level, I would utilize that, like I knew by the time I was 13 or 14, I knew that I could get through the day. I knew that I could figure out. You know, you learn how to find silver linings in topics that will pull you in. Let you lock, but if you know you can get around that and you can use your ADHD as an excuse.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I forgot my medicine. I mean, that was my whole high school career and I know we'll get there at some point. But, like, if I got in trouble, that was you know. Oh, I didn't take my, my, my, my Prozac. Today it's. I'm sorry, you know.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're, you're cutting up in class, and so there was always this ripcord I could pull, but I began to figure out how to again, and so, for me, what it's allowed me to do and I think this is um been really beneficial is, again, like I said, you know, with being able to focus on pat, focus on passions, uh, it's, it's really helped me dive deep on certain subjects and really helped me feel fulfilled.
Speaker 2:Uh, as it relates to just my own self-confidence, that's been a big thing, you know, from a from a um focus perspective. And then, like I said earlier, on the social side of things, um, it kind of allows you, once you, once you get to the point where you can, where you can juggle, juggle it, it allows you to kind of pay attention to your broader surroundings. And so this is good, again, like I said, in social settings. It's good in settings where you may need to, you know, adjust from a physiological standpoint, quickly, like you need to get, you need to. You know, when I'm in a situation where there's a crowd of people, I've kind of already figured out you know how I'm going to get through that crowd and get out of whatever location I am more quickly so that I can get home and save that kind of time. So those are the different ways that you can use it, but I would caution you it is easy to manipulate if you have people that think it's this debilitating disease. In my experience it's not.
Speaker 1:One of the examples I remember. I don't know how old you were when you took the computer apart. Dad and mom bought it was a Mac in big boxes. It was one of the first Macs out. It was the hard disk, wasn't the floppy disk drive, and at that point in time it might have been late 80s, and these things are two or three grand, which is probably the equivalent of 10 or 15 now, and you know you can play solitaire on and there wasn't a whole lot you could do with it. But um, I remember mom and dad came home and opened tj's door and the computer was in pieces. He completely dismantled the computer and dad looked at him and said something like oh, he lost it.
Speaker 2:He's like are you serious? And I was, I don't know nine, but that was something I to this day I'm wearing a shirt for the company I work for and I'm a run product for them Like to this day that fascination with electronics and how things worked at that level. Unfortunately for us, we grew up in an age and I wouldn't say unfortunately it is what it is. You learn a lot through school but there weren't a lot of options. It was a pretty straightforward standard curriculum and you see a lot of days, a lot now today, where curriculums are adjusted for kids with different and I think there's good and bad there.
Speaker 2:But for me, I didn't get to explore that in school, so I'm learning about things I'm not interested in. I'm totally tuned out. But man, electronics and how those things worked like it just allowed you to pay attention to the most minor details and I mean to finish your story. Dad comes in, he loses his mind and I put it back together in 10 minutes because I had. As I was exploring this and looking at this, I'm understanding, okay, what goes where and trying to develop a logical picture of why things go there and it's always been that way. While I'm not the most handy around the house, I will take anything apart electronic. As recent as a month ago, I had to rebuild my daughter's Nintendo Switch Lite because the thumb controls weren't working, so I have no problem doing that, but that's a good example of being able to lock in and utilize that.
Speaker 1:That's great. Why don't you go ahead? You're next In the birth order, I think. For me I was also. I'm more social, I'm the middle child and I think one of the things that we all figured out was how to seek attention differently. Tj was always in trouble, which I got a great. I got a couple of great stories around that, but I wasn't.
Speaker 1:I was okay academically but I found sports was my kind of way. It was my path. Very young I wanted to belong to a group. I wanted to be liked a typical salesperson. I've got a lot of that in me and so I also adapt to situations. I still do it to. You could put me in any room and I would find a way to just kind of blend in. So that's been something that I think has been innately wired into me to some extent. Our dad was a salesman.
Speaker 1:As far as, like you know, sports being the where I found a lot of my identity and I got a lot of my acceptance. I was, you know, I hate to say this because my kids I expect more from them, but you know I graduated with like a 3.3. I didn't take all weighted classes. I did struggle, but I found my way to navigate and I had an unbelievable friend group, and I still do to this day. So I got a lot of my satisfaction growing up, building relationships with people, figuring out how to navigate social situations, and then I think some of that comes through sports.
Speaker 1:You know, um, one of the benefits that I had is my dad played basketball for a year at ball state and um, he played basketball his whole life. He played for for been at high school and he coached me. And when your father coaches you, it could go one of two ways, but I think you had a different experience, as we talked about. A lot of times you learn and practice on your first kids I apologize to my oldest all the time like oops, you know, I, I, you push them in a different way or you want more for them. But um, dad coached me and I have so many memories of him sacrificing all kinds of time.
Speaker 1:Um, he sponsored our teams. We had AAU Back then. It was a lot. It wasn't as what it is now, and he also put me in different environments. I think that's part of the reason why I can talk to just about anyone is, you know, I played basketball at the Boys and Girls Club, I played basketball just about everywhere, with every different type of person, and I didn't know any better, and so dad exposed me to a lot of different situations, learning how to deal with adversity, learning how to deal with all different types of people, and I think that's continued to play out in my adult life, and so I still, to this day, I find myself yearning for acceptance, finding ways to communicate and connect um, and just doing that any way I can as as the one who was practiced on and failed.
Speaker 2:Um no, I wouldn't call it a failure by any means. Dad, you know I'm in athletics heavily now but, as you know, I've always wondered what it was like, um, growing up being you had natural gifts as well and kind of I always wondered what it was like growing up that way because I didn't you know. So, like being the one that was kind of the focal point as it related to athletics all the way through high school. Really, yeah, what was that like?
Speaker 1:Well, you kind of adapt right, like you kind kind of expect it. It's one of those things where your identity gets tied in it, um, but you know, if you set expectations for yourself, if I wasn't scoring 15, 16, 17 points, I was, you know, scoring a lot of points and playing really well in middle school. And I got to high school and, uh, as, as a freshman I was, you know, they had me run on the baseline and said anytime you can pull the trigger. You know, um, we had really good run my sophomore year and I don't know I, I just it just was like you, probably getting good grades, and I know that that was something where you found your, your identity. I, I, I don't know if I thought about it much, it was my way to relate. I'll tell you what it did do. It gave me confidence and I think confidence is so important in kids these days and I've tried to find ways to instill confidence in my kids, because if you're confident, you're going to figure everything else out, and confidence, when you carry confidence, it carries into a room and so, being somewhat successful.
Speaker 1:Now I say that I played basketball on Zach Randolph's team and Zach, you know he went on to. You know he was a, he played in the NBA, but then his Jersey was retired and so forth and so on. So there was unbelievable basketball talent around me, um, so I fit in with that crowd but I wasn't by any stretch a standout, um, but we had some really really good basketball teams and I I just I found that, you know it took when I went to Purdue and I played co-rec basketball. I could compete, I could relate to people. I think that's another thing is like.
Speaker 1:Then I went to Seattle and we were on the pro sports club team and it was like I didn't know anybody but all of a sudden I show up and I can hit a few shots and throw some passes. I'm like, everybody likes me, and so it was like it was an easy way into, you know, crowds. It was an easy way into meeting people and they want, oh, they want the basketball player. We went from the C team to the B team to the A team and we just cleaned house and that wasn't all because of me, but it was just a matter of like. That's how I think I gained acceptance so I could join circles a little faster through athletics and I think that's true for any type of person in any type of situation. You know, if they're good, they can find a way to transition into different situations easier.
Speaker 2:When you were in high school. I want to, I want to understand how this helped you, how you think this helped you. You ran into a scenario and we're going to be biased, but having watched you play streetball, having watched you play at the pro sports club and anybody who's played in our driveway there was this scenario where in high school, for whatever reason, your skill set didn't align with the team to the level that a lot of people thought it should have. There was a lot of and again, this isn't throwing shade at other players on the team. There are a lot of them are still are really good friends, but there was, there was a lot of tension, especially your junior and senior year, you know my sophomore year was was my favorite.
Speaker 1:We went 18 and two. I was just talking to coach Blackman about it. Last week I saw him on there. He's like man. That was the team. The grade above me was so talented. I mean so talented Kyle Chen, andre Betts, jojo McPherson and then you throw in, like you know, zach was a year younger than me, but we're the same age. We played AU together. There's just so much talent and there was a lot. There's only a couple of us that play. That was my. It was me and Rob, rob Acord, and then there was the kind of the group below me.
Speaker 1:But I learned a really hard lesson and I held a grudge for a really long time. I'm going to tell the story today and I don't really talk about it much, but as a senior I started for six games. We got to Lawrence North and I was subbing in and out with a good, a good friend of mine now, and I kept. I would go in. I started and then he took me out two minutes later and then coach put me back in and he took me out to Moses and I finally said coach, what am I doing wrong? And he looked at me he goes. That's what you did wrong and I went from starting to probably ninth person on the team and they would call me instant offense. I would come in and I would score a lot of points in a very limited time. But that one line in my life summed up my basketball career. Now I could have gone and played D2, maybe D3. I wasn't interested at that point, but the thousands of hours summed into that and so I think about that often. And I did hold a grudge against coach for quite some time and I saw him recently and we and it's water under the bridge and he doesn't remember it the way I do. But that was a life learning lesson that I'll never forget and I think it has helped me as I navigate difficult situations to kind of keep of keep my cool and understand how that worked out. So whether it was fair, whether I played or not, I could play with those guys I did. James Blackman knew what I was capable of and he was the one helping me kind of get into colleges and try to get different looks. I don't believe I got the full fair shake to kind of live out my senior year like I wanted to, but I really don't have anyone else to blame but myself, and I hated that it went down that way. But I look back and the lesson that I learned from that and to where I am today. I don't think I would be here if that wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1:You guys, I mean you talk a little bit just about how some interactions with others influenced you. I'd love for you guys to spend some time on that with mom and dad. What do you think? What characteristics and traits of theirs did you exemplify? What ways did they influence your overall personality or kind of what you turned out to be?
Speaker 1:I think for me, the dad and the salesman side I picked up on that and I was with dad a lot because we played a lot of sports together, well, together. Dad coached me and we were gone all the time. You guys know that and so I really got to see dad kind of working. He still works the crowd right. So that salesman and that loving to talk to people was something that I really learned from him, and I would say from mom.
Speaker 1:For me was just the willingness to listen, and I think about that now that she's gone and I wonder in certain situations what mom would tell me or how she would advise me. But dad we always joked would be like because I said so, you can't do that. Why, dad? Because I said so, mom would come to your room and sit down and have a 15 to 20 minute conversation about this. Is, this is why this is what we're trying to do, and she'd be very learning and it like I appreciated that. Um, I get why dad said because I said so, because I say that now and I'm just like I don't want to talk about it, um, but those are two. Two things that I really appreciated is dad sacrificed a lot to pour into me during the athletic time and I picked up a lot of his mannerisms, and then also mom and just being a really good listener and just really dialing in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think for me again, I spent more time with mom when you were with dad was and this is something I've recognized about myself over the last couple of years was the desire to make sure everybody else is happy. Mom did everything for everyone else, like you said, she, you know, we don't know why her disease manifested like it did, but there's a good chance that it was, you know, or there's at least somewhat of a chance that it was because she ran herself like she did, and so I remember having this conversation I don't talk about this ever either. I was a sophomore in college and I was talking with a good friend of ours, matt, and I was having this breakdown because I had focused so much of my life. I mean, if you look at our house in high school, um, it was all about other people being here having a good time, creating this awesome environment for people, making sure there were smiles on their faces. And I realized, as a sophomore in um college, I had no idea how to be happy without that, um at all. Uh, now I you know, and I've worked on that over the years, but, um, I think that's led to a lot of what I've done professionally, you know, throwing parties in Seattle for a decade.
Speaker 2:It was about people having a good time, and one thing we prided ourselves on is, you know, when you think about nightclubs and nightlife, a lot of times there's this stereotypical, spray-tanned, plasticky, you know type person, and our crowd was the exact opposite. It was the person who may have not have been popular in high school, could come and get in, um through the vip line and feel like they're the most important person in the world in this environment. You know, and that was what gave me gratitude. And then the same thing I think happens with with the races we produce now is that my whole goal is to make in life still, and I think a lot of what she did is to make other people happy and ensure that they have a good time.
Speaker 2:We all have moments in life where we're selfish, and I have those as well, but the overwhelming majority of what I do isn't. I wouldn't be producing races if it was to make money, so you know it's to create these really amazing, fulfilling, value-filled experiences. That's what I learned from her, and then I would echo you as well, trent. I spend an inordinate amount of time having longer discussions with my kids every night or when something doesn't go their way. Once the emotions have subsided, sitting down and explaining why things occurred the way they did.
Speaker 1:Now you're, this is a little different. You're four years younger than me and six years younger than TJ, so we kind of somewhat went through a little bit of this together. I'd love your take on the separation and just your life and, you know, probably felt like a single child at some points, like kind of talk us through that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's I would say for me. I mean, you guys have already talked about it. I'll kind of hit on some of the things you've hit on. Academics were wide open in terms of.
Speaker 2:I graduated with a 1.7 to 3.3.
Speaker 1:So I think Trent hit on this and I'm more of a behavioralist. I feel like a lot of behavior is learned and just through kind of your environment, and I quickly learned that if I got good grades I was a hero around here because mom and dad hadn't had that yet, and so I got a lot of very positive feedback and I think that certainly shaped who I was. So I would also say I became a bit of a perfectionist in that regard because I sought that attention. It was positive, it felt good. I think the other thing that was interesting about this is my standard of excellence had to be so high to be able to even compete in the same stratosphere as you guys when it comes to video games or other things. So I learned real quickly and for those that don't know, this has been fun for me because I have three boys who are the exact same spacing as the three of us.
Speaker 1:So it's been really fun to watch my youngest grant kind of go through the same thing. But in order to keep up your standard of excellence and your uh, level of, um, attention to detail just had to be so high. So again, whether it was video games or even sports, I had to find really unique ways to be able to even get on the court when you guys were playing, let alone be able to compete. You know, being so much younger. So yeah, I would say, certainly academics was a focus for me. And then what also is interesting you guys haven't talked about is even in sports we all kind of fell into our own sports because those were different ways for us to kind of have our own identity and not be stuck in someone else's shadow. So you kicked for the football team. You also ran a little bit. You were basketball and soccer. I was predominantly golf, played basketball for a little bit.
Speaker 1:But that also is interesting, I would say for me. You know, I would say one of the things I guess to answer the earlier question, in terms of mom and dad, I think probably from dad that standard of excellence. You know he was extremely competitive and we've talked about at times when he was younger. He had some things that he went through, where he was kind of on the outside that I think he still wears to this day. We can talk about a little bit, you know, at a high level. There was a family that lived next door that were members of the country club and you know the Daly boys and girls, which was my dad and his siblings, usually had to go home when this other family went to the country club and I think he wore that and you know, as he grew in his career and was able to be successful enough to join that and for our family to be able to join that, I feel like that standard of excellence and competitiveness kind of carried through. It was always go big or go home. It was always like, you know, win, win, win and not like win at all costs kind of thing. But uh, you know, I think he knew how fun it was to win. He had won in different aspects of his life. He had to keep played college basketball and excelled. Um, he had done done well for himself professionally. So that standard of excellence I felt like he really did a great job of emphasizing. But I think mom, the balance was just brilliant. Her mom was a humility I took the most. I mean she was extremely humble. I mean she checked us a lot, just of like you know that's great, you did well, but you know you need to make sure you're fitting through the door when you come back home. So you know, I think those two things I would say I embodied, in addition to some of the characteristics that I had to develop being super young.
Speaker 1:The other thing that's really interesting that I have noticed as I've gotten older is I have a hesitation to be the face of things, and Trent knows this. I work with Trent at Insurance Management Group and we've got a very complimentary skillset Trent likes to be the face he talked about in sports and developing that confidence. What was awesome for me growing up is I was always able to kind of lurk in the shadows, I kind of hung back and then I would just kind of I would shine in different ways, but I wouldn't need to necessarily be out there being the face of it, and so naturally, um, I enjoy more of that kind of second uh role where I don't have to be out there, you know, schmoozing or casting a vision, or you know, I like to be kind of behind the scenes, problem solving, working, thinking Uh, and it's interesting, as I've just unpacked, that even in the last few months, I think some of that comes from being able to, you know, at a young age, coming up and being in the shadows. I mean, I was. I just kind of followed your guys's lead. I followed your lead in video games and different things and running, and so I continue to do that. I will follow in your lead and in others lead, and then I a way though to excel at that in some sort of unique way with that standard of excellence.
Speaker 1:That's just kind of a pattern I've developed and you know I try to lean into that.
Speaker 1:There are times where I'm like you know I need to, you know I need to be the guy, or you know, or, but I think it's, you know, it's something that I've tried to lean into and embrace and I've really enjoyed playing that role One of my favorite things about Todd is very sneaky good when you play that role almost to a point of there's been several times where I don't want to say unexpected, but people would just assume something and you're in your closet doing a thousand pushups or whatever and you show up and it's just like people are like where did he come from, whether it's running or whatever, but like you still carry some of that.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's the humility side, but what drives you to kind of work in silence or to kind of be the silent assassin? I would say you know it's changed over time. Early on it was competitiveness and it was a way for me to get attention. When you guys came home in kindergarten we talked about this in a previous episode and I had, you know, done that. I had gotten a few of the guys the 99999 guys and baseball stars. It was like, you know, I just kind of quietly went about and it was kind of. I learned about that delayed gratification and I learned at a young age to master that because it took so much work to get to a level that I could compete. I would say that is probably the main skill that's allowed me to do. That is, mastering delayed gratification and know it's coming.
Speaker 2:What do you think? You know? You see, there's this dichotomy, there's this two sides of the coin. When it comes to the youngest kids, sometimes you see a situation where the youngest kid is you know the parents and I'm just going to say it, say it again, call like I see it where maybe the parents are burned out and they just placate the kid. You know, here's a tablet like just get just whatever. You know, we, we are definitely. You know, all the sentences are senses are heightened and dialed in on kid one and you're you know, know, oh my gosh, they fell on my kid three. You're just like whatever. So in a lot of instances you see child three not as developed or lacking in certain skill sets, and then on the flip side, there's a child three like you that came out guns blazing. Is that? What do you see as being the main things? Is it inclusion with your older siblings? Is it your parents still being like? What do you see as the main things? That kind of puts you on the path that you're on.
Speaker 1:I think it's a combination of both. I think in general it's positive feedback and a way for you to successfully have a unique identity. Because I think in some cases where if there hadn't been a gap in academics and you had had academics and you had had sports and there was enough going on there that mom and dad were leaning into you and there wasn't really a way for me to find a way to have a unique identity that I got positive feedback on and I kind of you know there was a level of excellence that I was able to achieve and feel. I think that's where it could have gone very much the other way. So I think some of it's circumstantial but at the end of the day is what space is there left in the third kid to be unique and be able to have and embody and feel a level of excellence in some form or fashion, whatever that is so looking we've all kind of talked about up, maybe through high school to some extent, but when you talk about I'll call it worldly success or just how we've, we've all taken different paths and this is one of the things I love is like when you look at someone that's been successful or that has kind of found their purpose either. One of those I said would be important. We all took way different paths to get there.
Speaker 1:Yours is probably the most interesting and you've talked about it a little bit on some of the prior episodes. But kind of summarize like you leave school, you could have gone a thousand different ways. You could have turned out a thousand different ways. How did you and one of my favorite stories here, as I hope you touch on, is just the one decision to go to that camp or to go and apply for a job in West Lafayette Talk me through the micro decisions that have changed your life? Just to preface that you said you graduated from high school with a 1.7.
Speaker 2:Yes, I almost didn't graduate.
Speaker 1:This is what makes this, I think, so interesting. I wanted to preface this and then you left Ball State. I mean, you were in a similar situation academically at Ball State. Similar situation academically at Ball State. Like you were on a path that I think people who saw you at that moment and then saw you at this moment would be very surprised.
Speaker 2:So I think it's a testament to parenting and to never giving up and to understanding that there are different paths. Looking at our mother, you talked about academics. She was a teacher, she was a guidance counselor, she had multiple degrees when she was, you know, at that time, you know, it was very commonplace to get married in your early 20s. She didn't, and so she was going back to get her master's like. So everything around her was academic. So you would think that in her mind, that would be the only path forward. Um, and she continued to push me until her sixties to to do some other things academically. But she did keep an open mind, and I think dad did too. You know, for me I did barely graduate and when we had children, our mother gave us these books that she had written. She had journaled for us growing up, and the last page of mine was that she would pray for me because I was so out of control in high school. And I wasn't out of control in like a traditional criminal way. I wasn't going out and robbing people or getting locked up or in juvie or whatever, but if it was within the lines of legality, I pushed him as closely as you could and I was very disrespectful. So if you're dealing with this, if you're dealing with a child who is just out of control is out of control and it wasn't constant. It wasn't throwing temper tantrums at 16 or 17 years old, but it was just little things and it was just constantly. I spent most of my high school career grounded, but I would figure out ways around it. Like we talked about having kids over and doing things like that. So I'd figure out these loopholes, which I think ultimately at the end has helped me professionally.
Speaker 2:But anyways, back to the kind of the academic side of things. So graduating with a one seven, and then, of course, the next traditional thing was all right, go to ball state. So I get into ball state, um, and I think I'd gotten accepted my junior year, because I think had they seen my senior year transcripts, I don't know if I'd have gotten in. But anyways, go to Ball State and immediately I fall into the same pattern that I fell into my entire life. I was really interested in computers and so that's all I did Again, utilizing that superpower to learn everything I could, whether it was the hardware side of things or the software side of things, um, just spending 10 to to 15 hours a day um sitting in front of a screen. I was the basement kid right the mom's basement kid in college drinking 10 to 15 sprites, I would drink?
Speaker 2:yeah, I would drink half a case of sprite a day. I would get subs from the um. They had these subway sandwiches from the, the dining hall across the way. I'd have people bring them to me. I was working at the time on pirated software, so I was illegally pirating software. I was working for the largest and this isn't like an official job but I was part of the largest piracy network in the world and so I ran their illegal ROM site which, for those that aren't familiar, you all remember Nintendo, super Nintendo. Well, those systems, by this time, had been coded into emulators. So an emulator is a software program that would live on a computer and you could load games into a software program that would live on a uh computer and you could load games into said software program and play your games. The problem was those games were still owned by the creators and the licenses were still with the creators of the games.
Speaker 1:So, um, you had to make them similar to like arcade games now, where they build the arcade game and you can go in and play every nintendo game. Like those are, and they've obviously figured out licensing now but it's the same thing, very similar.
Speaker 2:And so that's all I did. And I went through my first year and again similar right Like just barely over a two grade point average, and I think it was my first semester of my sophomore year. I was in, I want to say, maybe a geography class or something like that, and I'd gotten in trouble for plagiarism and they were kicking me out of the class. And I think at that time, you know, even though mom had been as frustrated as she could have been in high school with me and dad was at his wits end, you know cause they helped pay for school. They could have written me off. They recognized that. Oh wait, this, you know he really loves computers and at that time Microsoft certification was in its infancy. And so they're like you know what, if you want to go do this different thing, there's this Microsoft certification program at this place called Network Services Group in Indy. Let's just figure this out. So I'm like, okay, I would love that.
Speaker 2:So I go to Network Services Group and I started on this program and, of course, typical me Next thing, you know, I've ingratiated myself with this group because I'm reprogramming their satellite cards for free satellite service, and even the instructors got free satellite service in the class and I did a great job, um, after that, I went right into working for that company, cause, you know, they prided themselves in placing you with different opportunities. They couldn't place me right away, so I went to work at their front desk. Of course, I was still a complete maniac, so I ended up falling asleep, um, at their front desk multiple times and it was time for me to move on from there. Uh, found a job locally, um, you know, repairing and selling computers again. Um, you know, I did my best, but I was way out of my depths at 19 trying to and I was basically running the business.
Speaker 1:So, um, computer systems computer systems unlimited. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:The things that happened there, but I was still really enthralled with computers and so I think it was sometime during my employment there, there was a job fair at Purdue and I don't know if you were going to it or mom encouraged me, but I'm like I'll just go. And I went there and I visited a handful of booths. One I visited was Microsoft and I just said you know, um, I'm, I'm interested, you know here's. I don't know if I had a resume with me or if I gave him my contact information, but it was kind of like whatever, you know, um, and I went back to Ball State, um, cause I was still living at Ball State and commuting and working whatever.
Speaker 2:And I remember, like three months later I just got a random call from Seattle and I picked up the phone and they were like we'd like you to fly out for interviews. This is mid 2000. And I'm like whoa, you know, again, I think I was also A plus certified, so I had all these different certifications and I think back then they carried so much more weight because not a lot of people had them. Now it's almost like you have to, um. And so I flew out to Microsoft, um, um, my gosh end of 2000 I had seven interviews and I was hired um and they moved me out to seattle. You know, in early 01 I started in early 01 at the systems, or at the sock systems operation center which was the operation center for msn, which was a massive website at the time.
Speaker 2:For those of you who were around then, it was the default website for Internet Explorer and had a huge amount of traffic I believe in the top five and so we monitored those servers and things.
Speaker 1:Can you pause for just a second? And then I want you to continue. I'm trying to think of this through mom and dad's vision as a parent. Graduates with a 1.7, has a high SAT score, gets into Ball State still 1.8, 2.0, getting kicked out of classes. Just trying to figure it out, I'm trying to just imagine where my head would be at that point in time. But you still found a way to persevere. So I, just, as you were talking, I just I had that note of like I wonder how I would have thought, I wonder how I would have reacted, I wonder what I would have said. I mean, the level of discouragement had to be high, you know, at that point, you bore 18 years, 19 years, Like well, we got two more.
Speaker 1:We just hope the next two work out Right, and not that I mean it was almost by your own standards, like, I think, had you a state of computer systems unlimited. Not that that would have been an issue. It's just with your expectations and the expectations you know of whatever graduating from college or whatever, I think.
Speaker 2:I think they gave. They also gave you the comfort and the confidence to try. So it wasn't like and and again. I think we've talked about this prior. You know we had a different context to life because, you're right, computer systems unlimited. There was. You know, I remember early on thinking how can I build this business into a reputable business in the area? I just didn't have the skillset at 19. I just didn't know how to do that. I didn't understand customer service. I didn't understand value. I didn't understand the meaning or the value of being consistent and upfront and all of these things. And there were other social skills that I didn't have at that time either.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I mean. So back to Microsoft. You're in the sock.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so do you guys want me to go through it all?
Speaker 1:I mean you can stop wherever you see fit. I think for me, you getting from where you were to Microsoft and I know in a prior episode you kind of covered from that on but as a parent, I think launching your children is really, really hard to do, especially today. I have a lot of friends, you know, you graduate high school and you either go to college or you don't. And I think it's it's probably even more now in 2025, where there's not as much stigma. I think there was a 10 year run or so where it's like you, everyone needs to go to college, even though, like, only 40% of jobs out there require a college degree, and then if you didn't go to college, there was nothing for you.
Speaker 1:I think now we're in a timeframe even more so that it's like no college might be for you, but if it's not, that's not a big deal. There's a lot of different other options. I don't think that was the case when we were coming out in early 2000s or late 1990s. It was kind of go to college at that point in time.
Speaker 2:So Well, I mean, I think that you know again, until I was in my late thirties, mom would always say well, and I think that comes from maybe a place of scarcity, like a scarcity mindset that you know at some point in time in their upbringing, like if you didn't go to college, there was this definitive line Right, and I think they saw a lot of high paying jobs when they were coming up, were in manufacturing and they lived through, especially in Marion, those manufacturing plants shutting down and then those people being jobless because they didn't have college degrees. And I think mom saw that and was like oh my gosh. And so even in my thirties she would say are you ever going to go back and get your degree, even after multiple successful endeavors and getting to the level that I'd gotten to? I think that was always a topic of conversation with her, but I'm glad that.
Speaker 2:I think one thing that's very important to focus on is that they kept pushing. There was never a. They didn't allow you and they set a great example too to be satisfied with mediocrity, because they could have just as easily been like this isn't working for you, just come home, we'll give you the rest of the money that we have saved up for college and then let me on my merry way. But they always provided some guidance and even some last minute support in Seattle to get me over the hump, to kind of get me progressing down the right line, and then all of the things that I had learned kind of snowballed. But you know, I think from a traditional path perspective I was probably the least traditional, but you weren't traditional either, like and so I think that's important because while I took probably had the rockiest road to get there, yours was not necessarily smooth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had no clue what I wanted to do. Right, I was your typical athlete. I had a 3.3. I joke again. I hate that my kids will hear this at one point, but I had a 990 on the SATs. I didn't break 1,000. And part of that was because I just didn't care. I'm similar and so I had just to quantify that, that the scale, I think, is different. Now it's not a 2400 as opposed to sick.
Speaker 2:It was 16 then it's 24 now, I thought. I think it's back to 1600 16.
Speaker 1:I think so yeah well, my son came home doing the psats and he's 12 or 1300 and is a sophomore and I'm just like, okay, so at 990. And so I applied to Purdue and IU and I'm like, yeah, I'll go to one of those. And it's kind of like I wonder where are my friends going or who am I going to have a roommate? But still, tj was into computers and I think about this now. I tended to do a lot of things that you did like I. There was a comfort and and and my story will obviously go that that route. But thinking about it, so, um, I decided to go to purdue. I had a roommate, uh, and I had several friends that went to purdue. I had several that went to iu, but again, there was no like strong pull of like I want to do this or I want to be this. It's like, well, computers are a big deal. Tj's into computers and he would teach me things like a little bit here and there. So I felt like I, but I mean he'd basically spoon feed me and then I would rinse and repeat. I didn't really have any skillset there.
Speaker 1:So the first couple of years I took general classes and then I started to get into some of the more technical classes, but in true fashion I was there for the social party, I was there for the life and I didn't find my identity in grades. I didn't find my identity in grades. I didn't know what I was going to do and so I joined a fraternity my second semester and I also got a 1.3. That second semester I started out the first semester, got a 3.0. I felt really good about it. Looking back, I'm not sure you should feel really good about a 3.0 your first semester, because half your classes are orientation of being an adult. And so my grade I had a three, oh, and then I had a one three, uh.
Speaker 2:I would like to cut you off because I want to qualify something here. Todd and I in high school and college were straight edge neither no substances at all which is crazy counter to my and there was a part of me even though I wasn't a drinker, um, that really appreciated your social skills. I remember coming down to Louisville, um, and going to one of those parties and it was, like you know, I've done a lot, I do a lot of like behind your backs, um, just admiring you guys and like complimenting you and telling your stories to other people. So, um, I maybe expound a little bit on the social stuff and I mean because it was as a guy who didn't have that skill set and was the mom's basement guy in college. It was pretty, pretty cool to watch.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we all try to find ways to fit in. So I'll go back to high school. So I had a buddy where you could, you could drink at their house, and so when I wasn't in basketball season then we would have beers at his house and that was kind of okay. And so you know, you'd sit down there at that point and you'd be like a Miller light or whatever. You drink it and it would be awful and you'd just be like, yeah, you just kind of really tough it down and you know, you go through those things Cause you, I just wanted to be accepted. So bad Right, I just I wanted to be part of the cool kids I wanted, you know I had. So I was trying to fit into that persona, cause I needed that affirmation, I needed to kind of be with that. And so I started, you know, drinking when I was in high school and that really became a focal point of my life.
Speaker 1:In college I did take an. So one of the things I learned in college is it's and it still carries true today. Who you know is just as important as what you know. And I met a guy I'm going to give him a shout-out Mark Weaver and his dad was a professor and somehow we got an internship. I think they looked at my first semester grades and it panned out and so literally after my first year we went down to Louisville and we're working for GE Appliances and in true fashion I join a club, I meet some people and I think to round off that summer summer at the place we were staying we had I don't know 400 people we rented out and like cops came. It was crazy. You know there's 30 people in our apartment with the door shut Just absolutely crazy. But that's just what I think.
Speaker 1:We both got jobs at Abercrombie and Fitch and we just met people and we were social and we liked to have fun and so that kind of became my identity in college. So we did that down at Louisville, which was crazy. We got thrown out of that apartment complex and then eventually I was there eight months, I did a co-op. So then I came back to Purdue and I was back in the fraternitynity and things didn't get any better academically. I take that back. I may have like a 2.5 that following semester, but I still had a good time and I met a ton of people and I built a ton of relationships. I met my wife there, but I wasn't going anywhere, and so I often think back of like I could have easily dropped out of college and I could have been doing something very, very different when you went to Microsoft. I came out one summer and I worked at UPS.
Speaker 2:With Mark Weaver.
Speaker 1:At. It was like 10,. The shift was 10 pm to 2 am. It was awful. I mean, they figured out a way where you couldn't really do anything but you only worked four hours and got paid for four hours. But we were sorting packages at night. I was one of the roughest jobs that I ever had. And then me and you, you would get off and we'd play AOE for five or six hours and we were making money at the time, but I still just kind of just doing whatever. And even out there I was having a good time. We were going out building the team party down, having a good time. We were going out building the team party down, meeting people, playing basketball, whatever.
Speaker 1:Come back to school. I'm there for the fall semester and then the spring semester I had applied for a job at Microsoft and I was hired as a contractor. So they hired me and I left school and moved out with TJ. I'm like, well, I want to be an it and this is like a dream job for me. Like let's go. So that was 2001 and I would have been 20. So here, me and TJ are living in his. He had an apartment. I moved in with him and when it all started, we were like really introverted, right, like we would play a lot of video games. I think you were still at a. I got a. I saw a picture the other day.
Speaker 2:We're still at a bigger phase of life.
Speaker 1:And you were kind of like you would typical work and go home and silo yourself. And I found and we were making decent money at that point I was working at Texas Roadhouse in college making $ dollars and 13 cents an hour, plus tips, and my first contract was 27 an hour and I was averaging 20 hours of ot. I remember one time getting a paycheck that was for like one week. That was five grand and after taxes was like 3400. And I just remember we went out and bought like a two thousand dollar receiver, like for like speakers, stereo receiver, yeah, like a denon 5800 with all the speakers and I found ourselves buying DV. We had a DVD collection that we kept buying stuff to try to like. Yeah, we were just, we just felt empty. We were lonely, right, like we think back on that time we had each other, which was great, but I think, more collectively, we didn't have community and we were lonely and at some, something triggered and it was probably my, my socialness that kicked in and we just started meeting people and doing things and going out and that that spawned a lot of relationships. We started playing basketball relationships. We started playing basketball. We started doing a lot more things I was there for from 2001 to 2004,. Probably the difference when I showed up and when I left was kind of night and day from everything that we had experienced and from where you were and what you were doing and what you were involved in and what I was. And so what happened for me over those three years was maturity, where I think it's like when you get out of high school, it would be good for everyone to spend a couple years maturing. So I grew up, I learned enough technically working for Microsoft over the last three years that school. I was able to go back to Purdue, so I went back in 2004, and I got back in and so I left Seattle. I think it was December that I left and I think I in, and so I left Seattle. I think it was December that I left and I think I started January of 5. It might have been.
Speaker 1:I got back into school, I was mature, I was focused, and from 2005 to 2007 in May, me and Todd were in together. So, todd being four years younger, we actually graduated college together, and so I got to spend as adult. One of the probably one of my greatest memories is regardless of where we were and what we were doing. I got to live with TJ as an adult. I got to live with Todd as an adult and I have so many good memories of the achievements and the games that we played. And I think about us running routes. I mean, think how many routes we used to run Like we'll hike, someone would take a sprint and do a thing and we throw the football. So I have so many great memories with both of them.
Speaker 1:But when I got back to school, I just took a different approach. I sat in the front of the classroom, I went to class novel idea and I went to office hours and I spent time, and so I didn't have a GPA that was under a 3.5. My last couple of years it wasn't as much a capability thing as it was a focus or a care thing. You had to come clean on finance. Well, so there was a finance class that I may or may not have been mistaken for my brother.
Speaker 1:So it was a struggle for me because at the time, was it finance? Was it some type like calculus? It was finance, it was finance. Okay, so we get our report cards and I got an A in finance and Todd got a C. So we get our report cards and I got an A in finance and Todd got a C and I'm like man, I got real, I mean I think that one. I had a 3.9 that semester or that period. So Todd contacts the professor. I mean I liked him, he was my brother, but I didn't like him that much to take his C. So I was like, hey, I think you got this mixed up and he acknowledged it, but he ended up leaving your yeah it was too much paperwork for him to change, so I actually got the a and todd got the a so
Speaker 1:thank you for that. Uh, 20, 20 years later. So, um, so I graduated and at that point in time I had a real unique resume. I had all this experience for microsoft. Um, very technically savvy at that point in time, I could do anything on windows xp or from a command prompt. I was was pretty strong, but I didn't want to be so technical. I realized that I did enjoy people. I wanted to kind of be this business liaison. I'm like I want to be a project manager, have the IT, have the business. I'm going to pull them together. And so I graduated and I had a lot of different job opportunities Bank of America, allstate, there were several others, liberty Mutual I always joke with Todd because Liberty Mutual came to campus and they had a TDP program, technical development program, but you had to have a certain GPA to get in and I didn't qualify, but Todd did. So that still burns me to the day. I had all this experience and whatever, but I did not qualify for the TDP program. So the job I was going to take was going to be Bank of America. That was it. And, mind you, this is May of 2007. The crash of the whole market and the world falling apart was August of 07. They were right in the thick of it, too Right in the thick of it, and so this is where I was going to go.
Speaker 1:Then I met a local entrepreneur I grew up with. His kids had come and visited me at Purdue and wanted me to come sell insurance. And I'll tell the story. It's funny to me, but we went to. He took me out at it's funny to me, but we went to.
Speaker 1:He took me out at bro, wasn't brothers scotty's scotty's brew house at the time at purdue? And the other guy that was present at the time. And we sat down and I remember him saying, well, how much are they going to pay you? And I'm like, well, it's like 60 000, you know, with move and bonus. He's like, well, I can't do that. He's like, I'll pay you 40, you don't want to go work for them anyways. And I'm sitting there thinking and he's like, okay, now we've got that figured out, we're just going to. And so in his mind this whole deal was done.
Speaker 1:And I was sitting there like, do I really want that? But my fiance at the time, soon to be wife, she's local and her dad used to joke with me and say, hey, it's going to be a really long commute if you end up in North Carolina, charlotte, where Bank of America was. So he was putting it to me to stay and I've just always been big on community. So I think one of the main reasons I said is I just wanted to be around family and we were really lucky when TJ decided to come back, because when you live that far away, it's just it's really hard to have a with that two and three hour time change. It just felt like eternity, like we didn't ever talk to anyone back home. We were completely disconnected. So I chose to go sell insurance as a sales guy at insurance management group in 2007. I got hired on at $40,000. And I didn't really love cold calling, but my whole journey and everything that I experienced, that's where I kind of started my professional career.
Speaker 2:Well, you did mention in there, uh, About the TDP program, which I think speaks to Todd's very traditional academic approach and path towards where he is today. So you have a very rocky road, a somewhat rocky road, and maybe he perceives it as rocky, but from my perspective it is a four lane highway the whole way.
Speaker 3:So let's get after it. Well, I mean, I didn't kind of finish in high school. Uh, for me.
Speaker 1:I kind of talked about some of the early days. But high school I was it was just me and dad and we played golf and um that was.
Speaker 3:It was kind of an only child.
Speaker 1:Favorite son.
Speaker 3:I worked on that.
Speaker 2:It sure isn't me, so it's one of you two that it sure isn't me.
Speaker 1:So it's one of you two. And then I I did. I excelled academically. I ended up going to Purdue, studied business and MIS and it was a. It was, I mean, it was just something that I was wired to do. I was a little more introverted. I didn't have.
Speaker 1:I did join a fraternity my first semester of my sophomore year. And I will tell you just, we've talked a lot about community and you become the five people you spend the most time around. That is so true. In my freshman year I had a 4.0 and a 3.8. My first two semesters when I pledged, I think I had a 3.0 and a 3.8. My first two semesters when I pledged, I think I had a 3.0 and a 3.2. My sophomore year. And what's so fascinating about that and you talked about, you joined the fraternity and got a 1.3.
Speaker 1:When I was in the dorms and I would come back and some, maybe this is just our competitiveness that drives this so much and makes it so exaggerated for us. But when I would come home or come back to the dorms with like an 80, 85 on a test, like you know, you compare right What'd you get? What'd you get? What'd you get. That didn't fare very well, like you had to be getting something. In the 90s, if I came back to the fraternity with anything over a 75, people were looking at me like I had four heads Like it. People were looking at me like I had four heads. It was like that's unbelievable.
Speaker 1:How did you get a 75? Now, most of these people hadn't been sober for about three months, so it was a whole different animal. But my GPA dropped almost a point just by being in that setting. So for those that are not yet bought into the idea that your environment and who you spend your time with impacts who you become and what you accomplish, 1,000% the case. So I joined a fraternity.
Speaker 1:I kind of faked that for a while and then you came back and we did the last couple of years together, which was a lot of fun, running routes, and we had drilled a hole in the wall to play AOE I think you may have brought that up and I spent a lot of time playing age of the empires. Um, I blame trent for why I didn't get honors. We played so many. I got a c in art appreciation because I must have went to half of the. I mean, art appreciation had to be one of the easiest classes at purdue, but I went to about half the classes because we were busy playing age of the Empires on Purdue's network, by the way. So I did that and I did get accepted. I did qualify into the TDP program. It was local, it was about an hour away, paid well in technology, had a little business flavor. It was right up my alley and I think I used a lot of the skill sets that I had grown up with. A lot of that delayed gratification and discipline that I had to embody and exemplify, to kind of be able to fit in, came in real handy at a Fortune 100 company because there's a lot of red tape and there is a lot of things you can't control, and I was really able to parlay that into quite a bit of success there at Liberty and then obviously came to IMG shortly thereafter.
Speaker 1:So that's the short version of it, but it's certainly the least interesting. So we'll keep it at that, unless there are any follow-up questions. I think it would be fun to maybe each kind of go through some some fun memories or stories that we remember. Before I do that, I want to mention one thing that mom did. That was really good. This place always had an open door policy. I mean, malachi lived with us basically for three years and I think about those things. I call those refrigerator friends, someone that can come over, that can get in your refrigerator, and this house was always open no matter who came over and what time, and I just thought that was really, really impactful for all of us.
Speaker 2:And I mean you have a group, you know the Sid, the Sid Posse like Mom would come home to my friends cooking food in our kitchen without me here, like multiple times. They'd get you, you know, schwan man or texas toast. We would make texas toast. Or, you know, I do have a friend who cheese bread cheese, bread, bagel dogs oh yeah, you know all those things, the heartburn, yeah schwan's went out of business just like this year, yeah really disappointing.
Speaker 1:We were still using them.
Speaker 2:We lived off of that yeah yeah, I did, I really processed food at its finest I would like to really quickly, before we get into the memories, to just expand on your story a little bit. How was that as it related to because your relationship with mom, because of your academic success, because there was always friction with me, so like, how was that with you?
Speaker 1:It was good. I mean a lot of positive feedback. I mean mom was still good. She didn't take it for granted, always kind of encouraging me to and expressing her appreciation for it, and it just kept me fueled to continue to do more of it. I think in some cases, especially as parents, we can start to take things for granted. That's just who that kid is and we don't always provide the reinforcement to keep them motivated to continue excelling in whatever they're excelling in. And she did a really good job of that. And even when I didn't do well there were times where I didn't do well she was encouraging and supportive.
Speaker 1:You guys feel like in parenting, sometimes less is more At certain times. Absolutely, I don't know that that's a blanket statement that I would make, but I would say certainly there are times where that's the case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I think if you get close enough to your goal. I mean what think if you get close enough to your goal? I mean what's interesting to me is that we've all developed these skill sets at different times in our lives. You've mentioned a bunch delayed gratification and discipline and you kind of had that in high school Newsflash. If you don't remember from earlier episodes, I got fired from Microsoft because I had zero discipline, intellectually gifted enough, and again, I think this has changed over time. But we see this politicized kind of now today a little bit.
Speaker 2:You know we all have different working styles and I was very optimized. So you know I wasn't someone who wanted to do work to work. But I went through seven different managers at microsoft and the last one that was ingrained in their culture was that you were busy. If you were at work, you were in front of your computer doing something. Um, I didn't understand the value there. I had zero discipline in that regard and so, um, I was like go for microsoft twice for the same reason. Both times I was getting things done quickly and and and, um, you know, the second time not as much. I didn't do a whole lot, played a ton of party poker um at that point that was fun that was great.
Speaker 2:Um, so sorry, microsoft, uh, but. But it's interesting that we all seemingly developed some of these skills. You know, discipline for me came through fitness in my 30s and 40s and through a number of different professional opportunities. So I think it's I just wanted to call that out it's kind of unique that you developed that then and and we all kind of brought these different elements of our being, you know, and, and largely without the guidance of parents, so kind of the less is more. You know it was done, but I think they got us to the point where they were confident enough. We had enough of the foundation. We're 40%, 50% of the way there. We'll figure out the rest.
Speaker 1:I think one of the hardest things as a parent, though, is like when you're on Todd's path and the path Todd took. As a parent, you're feeling good about yourself the whole way. When you have children that don't maybe take a standard path, the rollercoaster ride of worry and like I just I can't imagine and I'm sure all parents do it Our kids aren't old enough yet, so they're not post high school yet but that rollercoaster of wanting them to and it's not just career, it's wanting to find someone that they can fall in love with and raise a family with One of them, to have spiritual connection and find meaning in God and faith, and you yearn for your kids to have the things that you believe are going to. I want to say, drive value or make them happy, but as a parent and what I think is really interesting about this is, all three of us took completely different paths, right, and we've all kind of somewhat come back to a similar ground, even though the path there was way, way different.
Speaker 1:I think one of the things that I've heard in both of your stories is and I would encourage other parents to do is instill the right values. To me, you said foundation, and that's what jumped out to me when you said foundation is the values were still instilled. You had a certain standard of excellence that you were committed to for the things that you were passionate in, and I think, for you know, we've heard the different things we've picked up from mom and dad of the humility or the listening or some of those things. I think, instilling the right values and continue to encourage and support in the best way you can and hold accountable right. I think it's important. Uh, all of those pieces and you talked about that too mom and dad never really got complacent and said, okay, hey, here you go. There was still some accountability to continue to find your path and I think that, combined with instilling the right values, can go a really long way, even though I think in some cases the fruits might take longer to bear.
Speaker 1:One of the things I would like you to talk about we've all played different roles within the family. I would put you as the community builder of the family. Like since you've been home, even more so. You have continued to find ways to kind of bring at least us three together and dad, and like, what drives you there? Like what, why do you? Or is it just your inquisitiveness and sharing it Like do you see yourself as that role for, for the family you know as being the oldest? I don't know if that correlates. Kind of talk me through how you see that.
Speaker 2:For me, it's just what I referenced earlier. It's it's this insatiable appetite to make people happy and to, and part of that is sharing things that I think they will find exciting. So that's a lot of um, you know, whether it's these different experiences that that I, you know, in in being so close with you guys and understanding like, okay, here's the type of pushback I might get from Trent, here's the type of pushback I might get from Todd. So I need to present this in this manner and at least get them looking over the ledge, because I know when they get there, that they're going to be excited and happy with that experience, whether that's something we're doing and achieving and accomplishing physically or um. You know, part of the reason that I consume, the level of content that I do, is I get so excited when I'm able to send you guys a text with something that I think is specifically going to. So it's like what people do with memes, but it's on steroids. It's like I mean, I called you to come to my house to play Bellatro. I'm like you have to see this, this is right up your alley. And then, and then you know, knowing that you have a little bit of affinity for that as well and presenting it to you.
Speaker 2:And now we have this game that we've referenced three, three different podcasts, um, that we can all like sit down and talk through and and um. So I'm always looking for things that I I just I don't know, I'm not saying I'm better or that I'm selfless, but I'm always looking at things or looking for things that, um, I think other people would be really interested in and that they would find value in. In that, um, you know, like we've talked we've talked in the first and you're still doing them, by the way about the races this year, uh, and I know they're tough, but like I can't wait because I know, after accomplishing both of those, um, you know you're going to really be excited, uh and so. So that's the big thing for me is is just.
Speaker 3:I it's going to suck. It's got this look on his face Like I'm not sure I'm doing those yet Well, I haven't started training, yet When's the first one?
Speaker 2:May 31st, first one may 31st, um, and then september 6th. But yeah, uh, that that for me is is what drives me um, and I like I don't know. You know, obviously this christmas was different because I was in a lot of pain, but like I'm the kind of guy I think you guys are too, I know you are. We're like, if we ended up going up to the lakes and spending 10 days there, I'm totally cool with it, just like hanging out. I mean, I wanted to get home this year because I was miserable. But yeah, I think it's a combination of those two things, but specifically the former.
Speaker 1:That's the I mean. So the role I like to play now is like bringing us all together, like I want to find ways to bring all of us together to make memories for our kids and for us and the lake will be part of that. But that's important to me to create those broader memories with cause. I remember our cousins and you know we just we did that a lot. I remember it. We still try to get together once a year with the broader group, but I really enjoy finding times where all of us can come and spend time together as a family, and the more we can do that and we're all taking on different roles. Now you know, because mom's gone and you know whether it's cooking or whether it's what, whatever, or the way that we approach that. But I feel like if we don't make it important, it'll be one of those things that just continues to fall by the wayside.
Speaker 2:Well, we've definitely gone roundabout, but you did mention earlier reflecting on some of our most fond memories from growing up. I won't start, but I'd love to hear some of yours.
Speaker 1:I would say one of the things where I feel like we got our standard of excellence from and you know we've talked about this in prior episodes I think mom and dad actually gave us the space to achieve these rare levels of excellence and that's the video games. We would just play for such extended period of times and achieve such unique things. I mean, I remember the summer and maybe we've talked about this in a prior podcast or we were playing a bond, uh, james Bond 007 on the Nintendo 64, or Arnold Palmer tournament golf, uh, and we had happy Gilmore on the TV right next to it. Tj had concocted some sort of thing and we would be down there for like 12 hours at a time, and maybe we would go up and play basketball for an hour or so, but we would just continuously, and I think some of that, I think it's interesting. I do feel like the standard of excellence that we achieved in those games did stick with us, because I feel like that was something that we took pride in and, uh, it was, uh, something certainly we collaborated on together. But it's hard not to think. Video games girl.
Speaker 1:I've got a couple of fun stories just to give you the different personalities between these two. So they both worked for dad um at his prior business and tj when he would work in the warehouse. I remember a story once where they would find him hiding in that puff box Peanuts, peanuts, yeah, the little peanut packing things. The box is this big. They come back looking for TJ and he's completely submerged himself. He's nowhere to be found, and I always remember that. And then Todd after we left him and dad Todd would go back when he didn't have anything to do and he completely reorganized the warehouse, took all the pallets down and alphabetized them or whatever you did, and so when TJ got bored he decided to dive and hide, and Todd was more. So I've always remembered that story. Can I ask a question on that story, because this is interesting?
Speaker 1:We've touched on this a little bit, but I think it's a broader thing that a lot of parents think about Nature versus nurture. Are we born? And I think the easy answer is well, it's a combination of both. But I'd love to hear you guys expound on that a little bit, because some people would say okay, like you said, parents would say two parents raising kids, generally the same way. They're the same people. We've got one that's hiding in a peanut box and one that's actually reorganizing the warehouse, because they've got this perfectionist, you know, like something going on neurologically. I'm not sure what the disorder is. I'm sure they'll figure it out that I have, but do you think it's more nature or more nurture?
Speaker 2:I would say our story proves that it's more, in my opinion, more likely nurture, because, from a nature perspective, we're all born with significantly different personalities and skill sets that led us down particular paths, up on relatively similar playing fields. Because those values, that foundation, was established, albeit via different mechanisms with the three of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know when I'm sitting here thinking about that. Your drive for academic success, my drive for academic success, my drive for social acceptance, your drive to.
Speaker 1:Do whatever I ended up doing yeah, fit in, or whatever that is, Make people happy. I don't know if that is our yearningness to belong We've talked about wanting to belong to things and if that would be called nurture or nature. I don't know that. You could argue that we were nurtured into those channels right, Because we saw an opportunity. I don't know how much of that's like. If you had the same and I know you're really strong on this If you had the same exact experiences that I had, we would turn out very similarly. I don't know if I believe in that. I believe that there's some uniqueness to our soul and to our being, and I believe nurture plays a big part in that. But I think if we all had the same exact conversations and upbringing, that we wouldn't be identical. We would be slightly different.
Speaker 2:I agree with you, but I'm saying like the results relatively speaking, looking at this globally, are relatively. We're all wildly different people but we're all kind of like on this relatively similar plateau. It's like it's not that and it's not. You know, you work in the service industry and you have no kids and whatever. And I work in another industry and I have 15. We're not wildly different.
Speaker 1:That makes sense.
Speaker 2:We all have what we consider, I think, white-collar jobs-ish, and we all have three to four kids and we all have. You know, we all live in in similar whatever. So that's that's where I was kind of going with. It Makes sense.
Speaker 1:I think it's uh, I would say, before I had kids I was a. I was 100% nurture and nurture just that. Your environment and your experiences shape who you are. I had been in a lot of cases where I felt like nature is used as an excuse. Right, well, they were just born that way, or oh, that's just how I am, or that's just who I am, or that's just how I'm wired, and so I don't know what situations rubbed me the wrong way. Where that particularly, I developed such a strong opinion after having a few kids, and I do believe kids come out with different wiring.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think birth order would be interesting to spend a little bit of time on, because I think that's really interesting and I've more and more people I talk to is like super spot on. But I do believe that kids come out with different wiring, but I ultimately believe probably 90. I think it's a very, very high percentage is the environment and their experiences. And and that includes other kids you can't like if you have the first kid who has full attention from both parents and no siblings. It's an extremely different environment, even if those parents are parenting extremely consistently, the fact that there's another human being in the house and that dynamic like that drastically changes the environment and what that older sibling excels in. And we've talked about kind of filling in the gaps and things. I think people underestimate the extent to which small variables in an environment can change how someone turns out. But I personally believe a lot of it's nurture or environment.
Speaker 2:I want to go back to the rest of your stuff.
Speaker 1:One of my other favorite stories is and so this would have been like 1997, 98, and we were full into CDs at that time, right Like CDs were basically the only thing you could put in a car TJ arguably built one of the world's first MP3 players and put it in the PA the Park Avenue. So he took a speaker and you know a big, tall standing bookshelf not a bookshelf speaker, but a floor standing speaker took the insides out of it and had this open case and he built a computer inside of it that had, I think it was like 10,000 MP3 songs on it. And the craziest part was there was this keypad, that up front, where he would have to like, you know, if you wanted metallica, you would like okay, m, that's about 6,000, and he'd have to try it in to kind of figure it out over time. But what like? How did you even figure that out? And like, for me that's just crazy to even think about.
Speaker 2:mp3 players weren't even really a thing at that point in time yeah, you know it came out of frustration for wanting to have as much music as possible, and again, I had already started, I mean back then it was. That was when napster was like in its infancy, so we were finally for the first time exposed to peer to peer file sharing. So we could have like, if you put enough time in and I'm sure we've all downloaded songs it ended up being something completely different because there was a lot of trash on those systems back in that day. But, um, I'm like man, how cool would it be to have thousands of songs with me. And how could I do this with the knowledge that I have at the time? So you know it was like okay, I know I can get a system to run without a monitor, that's not a problem. You see that in industrial implementations all the time, and I know Windows I think was 98 at the time, or 95 even will run in that manner.
Speaker 2:And the software we used back then, if you guys will remember, it was called Winamp, and so I'm like you know, when you boot Windows you boot into the launcher, right, that's the graphical interface. And so I'm like well, what if it booted into Winamp, the graphical interface? And so I'm like what if it booted into Winamp? And then all I would need to find is a plugin that would allow me to interface with Winamp through a number pad. So I would load it up with Windows 95. I would load it with Winamp, I would load it with the songs, I would set the path in Winamp, I would change the config file to boot into Winamp and then I'd install a plugin in Winamp that would allow me to control it.
Speaker 2:And then what I would do is I would use a mass file namer to name the files in a way that because what I ended up doing was I printed out a huge pamphlet booklet of all the songs, in a way that made sense, and then if you wanted a song, you would flip the booklet. You'd find Metallica, uh, inner Sandman, and you'd hit enter and then you'd hit the number and you'd hit enter, um. So it was kind of a pain, but the way it worked was I had a power supply. It was a DC power supply, because it needed to work off of the cigarette lighter in the car, and so it's kind of like an inverter style. No wait, I had an inverter, so I had an AC power supply to an inverter. I can't remember it's been sorry guys, it's been 25 years, but anyways. You turn the car on. It would boot up every now and then you'd have to restart it if it didn't boot right, but that's how it worked.
Speaker 1:And to think, you know, at that time there had to have been hope for mom and dad, where you were, you know, almost failing out of school and you're creating and building, and like just to hear you describe it now like I couldn't have done that, like there's just no way you were 18 or 17. One of the other funny stories about TJ is he was not a morning person, so when we were in high school together, he would wake up like literally seven minutes before we had to go. We'd hop in the car, he'd drive up about about half a mile to the gas station and he'd throw it in park and say Trent, you're driving Well, which was fine, except I was 14 at the time, and so I remember driving to school as a 14, 15 year old several times because TJ was just, he couldn't, he put his contacts in and he couldn't see and he was so exhausted over there. But those were some of the things that that we did.
Speaker 2:That was I would wake up in the morning and I would go in the bathroom Cause mom was like, can you take a shower? And I would turn the shower on and lay on the floor.
Speaker 2:So she thought I was showering, like all I needed to do was step in the shower for five minutes and rinse up. Nope, just lay on the floor, turn the shower off and get out like I showered, and I might've even as gone far as to put like water on my hair out of the faucet just to be defiant. You know, I have a lot of memories, um, and a lot of them are so. They were, they were stressful, because I mean so. One of the things that I realized early on growing up with trent was that I was definitely inferior with sports. I learned that pretty young, and two times stick out was.
Speaker 2:We were in Florida and I told the story a lot. We're shooting threes, we're having a three point contest, and I was up and this is like monumental Cause, I think by the time I was 12, I was like there was Trent was destroying me and I was winning and Trent kept pushing the limit. Oh, that's best of 20, best of 25. Well, finally, trent catches up and passes me and he's like nope, game over. And I burst into tears. I was probably 14, um, sprinting home from the basketball courts in Florida because he had once again bested me. And then again, this is not to condone this types of behavior. But this will maybe paint a picture as the type of child I was, so the fast forward, probably.
Speaker 2:He's probably a sophomore in high school, and so dad was very when Trent was in season, as he alluded to earlier, with going to his friend's house out of season. When Trent was in season it he alluded to earlier with going to his friend's house out of season when Trent was in season. It was home at this time not doing things on the weekend. Dad was really focused on Trent's basketball and we were outside playing in the driveway. It was Trent and I and it was one of our friends and his dad, I think. And Trent pulls up, trent beating my butt again, and Trent pulls up from a baseline jumper and I grabbed his ankles and he y and Trent pulls up from a baseline jumper and I grabbed his ankles and yanked him out from underneath him because I was so sick of getting beaten and my dad flew out of that house and chased me around the pond next to our house.
Speaker 2:But it was a good lesson, you know, in humility, for me realizing that. And the funny thing was, even during that time and since then, you know, I've always kind of uplifted and told the stories. When we talk about things that either of you are gifted in, I love telling people about those particular things. So those are two sports stories that I remember as it relates to you and I just you know Todd and I were pretty significantly different in age, but I do remember him playing basketball with us when you know I'm 15 and he's nine, and he did put like the work in and the effort in to actually make a difference.
Speaker 2:It wasn't like we just let this kid out there to play basketball with us and he was a complete liability which led to you, you know, making a national AAU appearance and being a really good outside shooter, because obviously you spent the majority of your childhood playing against guys who were two feet taller than you. So I'll remember those games in the, in the, in the driveway that we set on fire, um you know um, or were you?
Speaker 3:was there anything?
Speaker 2:else you want to cover there.
Speaker 3:I I mean, we've talked about some of our memories and we didn't spend as much time together in high school, uh, or before that, Um, but the stuff at college and obviously a lot since then, the two that jump out to me was the party poker night.
Speaker 1:We would stay up all night and one night we were playing. I don't have I told my? Did I tell my party poker story?
Speaker 2:You did, but I know where you're going with this Cause. This is going to relate to last week, but, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 3:I am going to go to that. And we were in way over our heads playing table limits on online poker.
Speaker 1:I would have been probably 19.
Speaker 2:It was right before I left for Seattle and you would have been 13.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this was live money.
Speaker 3:Live money, live money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe I was 14.
Speaker 2:Might have been 14 and 20.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyways, Somehow we got money in there and we started to kind of, we got a little bit of money and I think we jumped to a 510 limit table. So that means the small blind is $5, the big blind is $10. And this is in 19.
Speaker 1:This probably would have been early 2000s. Okay, so the year 2000, like I mean back in the day, 20 went a long way. This was just you, if you were the, you know, each time went around the table you had to put in 15 just to be able to contribute to the hand, but the hands were being, you know, it was it was not unusual for a hand to be worth 150, 200 and so tj and I would be playing this, you know, a lot of times. It fun, we would lose 50 bucks and be done, and we got pocket aces in this hand and we were at this 5-10 table and long story short, so I don't even remember exactly what happened, but we won this hand. It was $492. And I remember pocket ones $492. It was a username of something for a very, very long time, but this does.
Speaker 2:And to remember that it was in the middle of the night, it was probably 2 or 3 in the morning and we were so excited we woke mom and dad up. Yes, we're like yo, we just won $492.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're in the living room up here and, yeah, we totally woke them up.
Speaker 1:But I think what's interesting about this? We I think there's no challenge.
Speaker 3:Uh, there's very few challenges we would back down from and so this just parlays into probably going to be an all-time memory. That happened this past week. Um, we were in las vegas. It was a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 1:Anyhow, wehow, we were in Las Vegas and you know where they're really really good at Las Vegas at making you think you're about to win. They've got these side games on the machines and it's like the things are filling up and they're ready to burst.
Speaker 2:I think I want to just expound on that a little bit, because I think a lot of people when they're in Vegas they see these slots, and especially if you're our age, I know. For me, I didn't go out to Vegas a lot and so I was always drawn to the original three wheel slots because they were easy to comprehend. And when I saw these penny slots or whatever, where you have a lot of denominations and a lot of multipliers, it's like this is way too overwhelming. Well, we figured out really that the point of these slots is there are these secondary. Imagine filling up a jug of water and every X number of bets, this jug of water gets higher and higher and higher. So continue.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great. I'm glad you shared that. So until the jug of water empties out right, which is a win, and so we had played these games.
Speaker 1:We happened to be there a couple of months ago. We're not in Vegas every couple of months. This is just a weird string of events. I turned 40, my wife turned 40. And we had played some of these games and we thought we'd learned our lesson.
Speaker 1:But we found this one when we were out there where because with some of these games you can't actually tell when it's actually going to overflow, right, it looks like it's going to get full, you know, and it just keeps getting fuller and fuller, and fuller and fuller. And next thing, you know, you've put way too much money in this machine and it hasn't emptied the jar. So TJ and I found this one though that actually showed you specifically, accounted, it counted, it said like hey, this is at 199 gems and when it hits 200, or 198, when it hits 200, it's going to burst, right? So TJ and I sit down at this thing. We get there, and I'll try not to draw the story out.
Speaker 1:We get there on a I don't know what day, friday, and we see this machine it's got 196 gems and at 200, it bursts. Now we've been warned to take several hours, you know. So we played it a little bit, got it to 197, but we were winning on this machine, we weren't really sitting down to do that. But two days later we found it at 198. We're like, oh, let's just play this for an hour or so and see what happens. We get it to 199. This is at like 8 PM. We get back from dinner and we get this machine from 198 to 199 and at 200, it bursts Right, and so and we'd had a conversation earlier.
Speaker 2:We were walking through a casino and I looked at him and he goes. I was like what if we get it to 199? I'm like you know what's happening if we get to 189? I said I'm in for at least a grand, like let's go, and so we're going all in, so we're playing this thing, and at about 10 o'clock we ended up playing a little longer.
Speaker 1:We anticipated at 10 o'clock we hit 199. And it's like let's go. And these are the things where, just like, there's a innate competitiveness I don't know what it is, it's some sort of dysfunction where it's like, okay, so we start playing this machine and it's 11 o'clock and we don't hit it. And we're thinking, you know, we hit one of these just about every two hours. So far, right, two and a half hours. So we're thinking about, you know, midnight or so we should be hitting this. So midnight comes and goes, we haven't hit it and we're just continuing to pump in, because he had mentioned what he was putting in.
Speaker 1:I was matching that and we're just pumping money in this machine. Is this where I enter the story when I call you? Not yet, but yes. So 1am comes and goes, 2am comes and goes, 3, 4am comes and goes. So we've been sitting at this slot machine for eight hours and we are just like I mean, this isn't like hey, let's hit it, and kind of wait. It is like go, go, go, go go. And I don't know what's going on because again we've hit this thing and there's other color ones that we're hitting, but this diamond one was like the biggest one, right, I mean let's talk about the physical difficulty.
Speaker 2:So not only is there the mental and the staying awake, this machine happens to be right in front of the doors, yes, and it's like 40 out. So every time the doors open, which is probably at one point every 90 seconds, I mean, it was open almost constantly there From eight until two Until at least midnight, and then once they close it, they come over to shampoo the carpet and they turn on a carpet fan and point it right at us. So it's like holy cow.
Speaker 3:That was a sign from God. God gave us every excuse to get out of there, but we were hell bent on hitting this machine, and so 4 am, 5 am, 6 am, and now it's 6 am and 5 am I left?
Speaker 2:because I had to travel the next day. So I'm like man, we've got to get up and get on the plane. I got at least three hours of sleep, so I said I'll wake up in three hours. I'll come down and take over, if you haven't got it yet, which was at 5.
Speaker 1:At 6 am. I'm still going and again, at this point it's been 10 hours and I'm starting to worry, like I had made my last run to the ATM, like financially, this was going to be like we had to draw the line somewhere and it was approaching quickly. 7am came and went and then I dialed into a call at IMG at maybe 6.45 yeah, 7.15 your time at IMG at maybe 6.45 yeah 7.15, your time.
Speaker 1:Well, no, I didn't dial in until the next meeting because I caught the very tail end of that because you were like, hey, we'll say a prayer, yeah, 7.45 so then about 7.15 I hit this machine and I don't know if I was on mute or what happened, but I just I completely lost it.
Speaker 1:And I don't know if I was on mute or what happened, but I just I completely lost it Cause I had been there I mean the sleep deprivation, freezing all night. I mean we literally sat at this machine for over 11 hours hitting and people had come by and warned us, but it didn't matter, we were all in.
Speaker 2:It was rough, man. I mean there were the first guy that came, we had three main people that hung out and the first guy came and just was spinning yarn like the wildest stories you'd ever imagine. And Todd and I aren't necessarily very confrontational, so I'm sure you've been in those conversations where somebody is talking and not a word they're saying is honest, but you're just like trying to be kind and he was there for like an hour and a half.
Speaker 1:Just keeps building and keeps telling more, almost like he's just saying to himself what else can I say that they'll believe? And so I mean it was unbelievable, the people we ran into. One guy had told us yeah, I had a buddy, this was about 930 or 10. He's like, yeah, I had a buddy, it was at 198, took him 17 hours and he put in you know X amount of thousands of dollars. And yeah, we were like, yeah, you know, I get it Like, but I mean I don't think we had any idea what we were getting into. The long and short of it is we finally hit this and let me tell you that jar of water which basically should have been a pond, a small pond or a lake full of water basically turned over a sippy cup of winnings and it was good because there was closure there, but certainly we were way upside down.
Speaker 3:But I think that's one of the things that just all three of us, I think collectively, we have taken on some very unusual challenges from one of the things that I think.
Speaker 1:I mentioned this on a previous podcast when we at 10 pm decided we're going to go to Best Buy and wait in line all night to get the PlayStation 3.
Speaker 2:So there's just some things that I think it's fun to it's fun, um, to don't ever lose those things, right, because it was. It was, you know, when we were 14 and 20, and then the next thing that we became known for was going into an arcade with the dailies, if there are tickets to be won. We are going to. We are going to win the largest well relative.
Speaker 1:You know we're not going to stay there and see if we can find a couple of those pictures, yeah, from the arcade, and then you know here we are in our 40s, still doing the same thing and still having fun what other the those are great stories. What other things could we add that we feel like contributed as a whole to our environment through our parents?
Speaker 2:I would go back to what you said about the open door policy. Um, I think that we were exposed and I've seen this Right now there's a lot of politicized things out there and not really seeing division, whether that be in religion or race or creed or whatever. We were exposed to and appreciated every type of person and we never saw our parents treat anybody differently. We still, to this day, have all types of different friends and we still, I think, all value their opinions and them as humans as much as anyone else, no matter what it is that they do, no matter what it is that they believe. And that open door policy it wasn't like, oh, these people, and I didn't even really know. You know you always think it's like, oh, racism, it's in the deep South, you never really think it's there. And I remember I had a job at one point and I had a friend that was a really, really good salesman and I remember recommending this friend to an executive and seeing a response. I wasn't expecting they didn't say anything, but like there was this reaction where I could see fear, and it was like I didn't know, even know that type of thing existed. So the fact that our door was open to anybody at any time and things, things even happened.
Speaker 2:You know, I really struggled. I went from a class of 12 to a class of 400. And we talked earlier about wanting to fit in and wanting to make people happy. I was at a crisis point because I was going into this situation and I was just really hellbent on being accepted because I had come from such a sheltered space in terms of schooling.
Speaker 2:And I remember utilizing something you mentioned, which were athletes to kind of ride their coattails into popularity, and we had had a couple of them over here and a particular person stole some, some money, um, but that didn't change anybody's perspective. It was just. It was just an incident with something that happened. You know, there were circumstances, it was what it was and that didn't change and I, I still I know that person is still friends with that person to this day like there were circumstances that were, you know, outside of our control and it was cool, but I, I would say for me, that is really um been something that has has, uh, stuck with me over time and will stick with me forever I would say for me one of the things I've tried to body and I think we could probably do a whole another episode on parenting stuff.
Speaker 1:Because, um, I would say one of the things that I've embodied the most that I appreciated is you know, they say people don't know, people don't care what you know until they know how much you care. Right, I think that very much applies to kids, uh, in that if you don't have an underlying relationship there, they are not going to take course correction very well If they don't know that you're on their team. And unfortunately, like the way kids' brains processes, if you tell them that you're on their team, I don't think that necessarily registers. They need to see and feel that they're on your team, or I don't think they take course correction really well. And so for me, especially in high school, where it started to you know, more significant guidance started to come into play. I played so much golf with dad, I had a really good relationship with dad, and so it allowed him to be able to provide me with a lot of guidance that I heeded to and listened to. That probably helped me get on that four lane highway. Not that things weren't difficult on that, it was, but it certainly was a more predictable path. And the same with mom. Mom was just naturally super intentional and understanding and listening and that relationship I've found with my boys and that's why you know we've talked about this a little bit One of the things I try and do with them is a quarterly trip where I spend it's kind of an immersive day or two with each of them every quarter to make sure that relationship, that underlying relationship, is there, because I find when that's there and I even find that it actually is different, like shortly after that my ability to provide guidance and course correct and explain things and their response to my consequences is much, much smoother than it is like six, eight, 10 weeks later, because that relationship's there. So for me as a parent, making sure that underlying relationship there and they are not not just you've said it, but they're actually feeling that you're on their team and they know that you care it makes it a thousand times easier to tell them. Here's why I'm doing this Clearly I'm on your team. This would be a lot easier for me to let you sit there and play on screens all day, but I'm taking this extra time because and then I would pair that with staying close enough to them and observing them to identify the needs and the areas that they need coached on and providing that support.
Speaker 1:I think that's the beauty of parenting is it's obviously impossible to be a perfect parent, but with a little bit of effort it's something that, because of the nature of the world, it's doable to be a good parent. You don't have to do all these exceptional, unbelievable things to be a good parent. You don't have to do all these exceptional, unbelievable things to be a good parent. There's a lot of pros and cons of how different people raise their kids and I think that's part of the beauty of it. But to me those are two foundational things is having that relationship and then staying close enough and engaged with them, where you can see and observe those deficiencies and those areas that are going to potentially cause for a bumpier path down the way and get ahead of it.
Speaker 1:And I think mom and dad did really good at both of those. They were a very unique balance, weren't they like they both, because you really can't have one one without the other 100. You can't have the drive for excellence without humility. You can't have the stubbornness without the ability to listen, and one way or another we had two parents that complimented each other very well from that skill set and I know when you and your spouse if you guys are a lot alike in certain circumstances there can definitely be gaps there in certain parts of parenting are going to be harder for certain people, just depending on how how they're wired. But what's been really interesting is each one of us has taken an experience from our childhood from either mom or dad and they've and it we're applying it to the way that we parent, parent our kids now. So you guys have anything else you want to add?
Speaker 2:No man, I think that about does it. I had some other stories popping in my head, but we'll save those for another time.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, thank you all for joining episode 11. Today has been a lot of fun reminiscing about the stories, about some of the key things that our parents have provided us the environment they provided us and kind of the way they've leaned in. So it's been fun going down a memory lane. So we'll see you next time, thanks.