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Up Your Average is the “no nonsense” podcast made for interesting people who think differently. Learn to navigate your life with unconventional wisdom by tuning in to Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve every week.
If you're stuck in a a job that is not going to be a the end all beat all and you're just
pressed, like find a way to use the gifts that God's given you first and foremost.
If anybody comes to me in the church and asks me, I'm like, go serve in the gifting that
you've got.
go serve for someone else.
Give give of yourself.
And if that's not gonna work, if that's not scratching that itch, then look and see where
you can adjust and go be entrepreneur.
Welcome to the Up Your Average Podcast.
Where Keith and Doug give no nonsense advice to level up your life.
So buckle up and listen closely to Up Your Avenue.
Doug, is that your phone going off?
Or who's picking off the podcast?
Caroline makes fun of me because I have all these alarms set.
And it could be like, um, I think I've got a clean the trash cans alarm set that's like
it's turned off, but it's still on there to remind me.
Uh but I got the way I use my alarms, like I got pray for people alarms.
So like if if your birthday is uh November third.
And you're going through uh some time a mucky time in your life, uh, I might have a eleven
three.
Now, do you do that s for the say the people that are limited tech wise, but maybe they
have an iPhone?
Do you just push a button and say set an alarm?
Is that how you that's the part my my family gets annoyed with me because I'm always
talking to my phone.
Yeah.
So you'll push the button and say, Hey, Siri, set an alarm for uh
September twenty second at eleven.
No, I don't do that.
I don't think it's do it like on the daily.
I don't even know how it works.
But I just said, hey, Siri, set alarm for uh eleven three, or I like military tonic, you
know, twenty five.
uh pray for Curt.
He needs a lot of prayer.
I do.
So I I just got off the phone with a friend that he was just knocking the ball out of the
park for a high tech company.
Hey, what was the name of that company did it?
Flextronics.
Yeah.
Flextronics.
Yeah.
And so he just burnt out and he went and told the CEO, I'm done.
The guy goes, Well, don't quit.
Just just go find something to do here and do it.
And then just report back to me what you're doing.
And like fix a problem kind of thing.
That's pretty.
And and so it w that that idea was really good to me, is that a lot of times
You get stuck in a way of thinking and this is how it is.
And it doesn't have to be that way.
So Doug, tell us who we're hanging out with today.
Well, that's our good friend Curt.
And and Curt and I have a great beginning to our friendship, great beginning story.
Uh, but he's just he is liv you're you're living a wild life, and I really admire it.
I I love the way that you and Emily have done things, have had a just
hard a truckload of courage to live life the way you are.
So I wanted to share Curt story with everybody.
And if we go back in the way back time machine, Curt and I, uh, you know, we're just dudes
working and our wives were taking care of a bunch of kids.
Curt has four kids.
We have four kids.
And they were part of a thing called creative living, which creative living in
Indianapolis has been an amazing ministry.
Um
It's a ministry for uh for for females and and kids and they get together what once a
week?
Once a week.
And and it yeah, it was really awesome.
And they would put on these like uh our good friend Roxy would put on these um what were
they, Curt?
Like kids programs.
D I mean kids choirs, yeah.
They're acting sometimes.
It was interesting.
And and so do you was it like it was Christmas.
It was Christmas.
It was the Christmas one that we we connected on.
Okay.
So like uh yeah, so uh Caroline and Emily are friends and uh the dads all show up if they
can to see their kids perform.
You did this kind of stuff, Keith.
And uh so I'm sitting somewhere, Curt's sitting somewhere, we don't really know each
other, but we're watching our kids enjoying it, and then what happens?
I come up to my our wives introduce each other and and we start talking and we keep
talking and the wives are going off.
I'm like
Emily said, ask him if he'll take you over, get his car.
Remember my car was at the shop.
At the Toyota dealer.
Yeah, at the Toilet Yeah, I couldn't remember what dealership it was.
So I've had more cars than Yes, you have.
Um, I'm on a different one too.
Um so we went in over there and we were talking in the car and he's like, Let's just go
get coffee 'cause we were just talking for so long.
And I'm like, Okay.
This is kind of weird, but I'll go talk.
I'm enjoying my conversation.
So we sit down and get a cup of coffee, and I thought, What was the first question out of
your mouth?
What was that?
Do you remember?
I don't remember.
You don't?
No, what did I say?
You said I'm going on missions trip.
Do you remember?
No.
I said, Do you want to go?
Yep.
You said do you want to go?
Yeah, I'm like, we're just getting to know each other.
I'm not gonna go any place with you is what I was thinking.
I'm not I think I specifically said I'm go I'm trying to decide if I should go to Ukraine
or not.
Was it that?
I don't even remember the exact word.
And then I and then I said, If I go that's what it was.
Will you go?
Would you like to go with me?
Yeah, I said and this is after forty five minutes
Of talking to each other.
Barely that.
If that.
Yeah, if that.
It was nuts.
So we we did that.
We just talked.
And then he said, I said, all right, so what are the details?
He's like, if we leave in January, um, the war with Ukraine and Russia was starting at
that point in time.
That was twenty fourteen, twenty, yeah, twenty fourteen when we went.
Um, and I said, you know, he's like, it's fifteen hundred dollars.
I'm like, I don't fifteen hundred dollars just sitting around and I've got an appointment
set in January of that time period.
I said, if
I get a discretionary bonus and that appointment is canceled.
I'm in.
He he he said those exact words.
And he said I had to have him I had to tell him in twenty four hours.
Of course.
That's that's the way Doug rolls, right?
Yeah.
Nice.
Nice.
Yeah, okay.
And so what happened?
So the next morning I had to sit down at my desk, seven thirty AM for a uh getting ready
for a call, and the accountant calls me and said, Hey Curt, guess what?
Love you.
I'm not gonna change accounts, so I'm canceling my appointment for January.
There you go.
And I'm like, oh man, seriously.
And then twenty minutes later, we get a invitation for a a emergency meeting for the
company.
I was in sales for an olive company at that point in time.
And they got on, they said, for the first time ever in our company's history, we're
offering a discretionary bonus to everyone on the team, and it's fifteen hundred dollars.
That was exactly.
And so then I called him, I said, I'm going, and my wife's freaking out, No, you're not,
you can't go.
Why are you going?
I don't know.
He just asked me.
I still don't even know why we went.
Yeah.
Well, I think I know why you went.
Yeah.
That was a ragtag group of people that went, right?
It was there.
We talked to Kristen a couple of weeks ago, right?
And she was part of that group.
It was it was great.
And and so what happened at at Mission to Ukraine is where we were in Jitober.
Jitober.
Jitober.
Um Curt and I are hanging out.
In the back row.
Curt's actually a really good singer.
and and we were listening to uh these, I don't know, staff workers sing and praise the
Lord and do all this wonderful great stuff and stuff and stuff.
And I'm not singing, but but but Curt is and and then that this this pastor dude walks in
and um he's from the States.
Yep.
Steve.
Steve.
And Curt does one of these to him.
He's like,
I'd like to do what that guy does or something like that.
And I said, What does that guy do?
What does he do?
I'm gonna be him.
Yeah.
And I'm thinking, I think I even told you you're crazy.
You did.
And I said I was crazy too.
Because because Curt is is is a great salesman.
He he he's very personable.
He gets the job done.
A plus follow up kind of guy.
And so I'm I'm seeing Curt as like this wonderful businessman.
And I I just love businessmen.
And so like I'm thinking, don't throw away your business.
You've got amazing talents.
Don't get rid of that.
Why would you want to be a pastor?
Yeah.
And uh, but Curt, he was dead serious.
And and I remember like the rest of that day, I was thinking, I I think like in my brain
waves, I'm thinking, I think he's serious.
And
You were off to the races after that.
I was off to the races.
And God was orchestrating everything from those that moment on.
It is wild.
I So so you're you're sitting in Ukraine.
I'm just gonna wrap my brain around this.
Emily is sitting in in Indianapolis area.
Not even anything.
How many kids?
Four kids.
Four kids.
Sorry, Emily.
Yeah.
Actually three and she's pregnant with that's how I was trying to get to this isn't just
like a
20 year old making a decision that I'm gonna change my career.
So go ahead.
I Yeah, no, it's that's exactly what it was.
And so my brain was I how am I gonna do this?
Where am I at?
I can't do this.
I'm in sales, but I feel like God's calling me to be a a campus pastor.
And so sales job transitions on, I end up getting fired out of the blue.
I was a top producer, beaten through the region by six million dollars plus twenty six
percent.
I was one of two people fired.
Um
And so when that happened, I'm sitting there, all right, God, close every door I'm not
supposed to go through.
I will pound through my I can make it through.
So you have to make sure I can't get through.
I used to get phone calls for everything.
Every week I'd get at least three or four phone calls.
Hey, will you come work for me?
Will you come work for me?
This recruiter's out, this one.
Um I was just in there and every silence, phone calls went silent.
A guy called me and said, Send me your resume today.
I will have a job.
You'll be hired tomorrow.
I went through six email accounts and three computers trying to send it to them and it
never went through.
I went to the library, I went to the my neighbor's house, I used my cell phone, I used my
internet.
Nothing.
It would not go through.
Sounds right.
Yep.
And God was just closing every door for me.
And then I got a call from the the senior pastor saying, Hey, um, your name came up.
I think we'd like to hire you as a campus pastor.
We pray about it.
And so I'm like,
All right.
I think so.
Money's depleting out of my savings account during this time 'cause we're still spending
at a unreasonable amount.
You lived in the big house?
We lived in the big house and ice.
Yeah.
So so how how you you return like this in February, roughly you return.
Yeah, and now what I lost the job.
I lost the job in May, the end of May, beginning of June, somewhere around there.
Um when he came to me that would have been in August.
And so the baby was born.
She was born in September.
Okay.
Yeah.
So he called me in the office to talk to me about this on September twenty third.
She was born September twenty fifth.
To think Emily's really grateful about and thinking this is an amazing idea is absolutely
no.
Um taking a massive pay cut to go do this.
And so And Curt says massive.
It was an eighty six percent picture massive.
Eighty six percent paid.
Yeah.
That was the math, and she held on to that number forever.
And she still knows that number.
But it was God was just making it clear.
Like we laid our fleece, we prayed about the opportunity, saying, Hey, you gotta do this,
this, and this, God.
And if it's done by December twenty-fourth or December thirty-first, then I'm in.
And God showed up in amazing ways.
Do you remember that whole transaction?
Like just talking to you, because I was going through like,
How do I pull money out of my account?
Doug, I'm I'm bleeding alive.
Um, but we just kept making it through.
And in the middle of all that, we're going and remodeling the house and um that house that
we inherited.
How am I gonna fund all this stuff?
I have no idea.
It is just it was been an amazing adventure all the way through that.
And so God showed up and gave uh like with the estate, one of my prayers was an extra
hundred and forty thousand dollars over the top of the state value.
And didn't tell Emily and I was praying for it and we got the hundred and forty thousand
dollars extra to the penny that the judge gave it to us in our favor.
And we got the keys to the place.
It was just like bam, bam, bam, all these little things.
Every time I'd stop and pray and just say, God, if you're doing this and it's you're in
this, it's meant to be.
So I was where it went.
I was listening to a podcast this weekend and and the Lauren Delano, I think is her name,
and she is talking about
the process of anxiety and depression and things.
Is this the singer?
No, she is a that's Lauren Daigle.
Yeah, yeah.
And so the the idea is that coping skills are kind of missing a little bit in culture
today because people haven't been pushed hard enough.
But what what occurs to me that it that maybe faith and anxiety are two sides of coin that
that that
there's real no faith that there isn't a unexpectable outcome right like that.
Yeah.
So a hundred percent.
So so so you can lean into the anxiety and and start doing things about that, or you can
say, you know what, maybe there's something interesting coming.
And that's all I'm saying is that I could see it would be easy for you to go a lot of
different ways.
Or Emily, even like we're pregnant
Right.
And we don't have any work and th and that could have been a lot of anxiety, a lot of
stress, a lot of conflict.
Yep.
For sure.
For sure.
It was it was an adventure, to say the least.
So I became a pastor and was a campus pastor for four and a half years.
Um and God met every single need.
Like the the first couple of years, like when he had nothing, I would go and ballet cars
on the side.
You know, I'd I'd make a hundred and fifty, two hundred dollars cash just valleying cars
on a Friday, Saturday night so our kids didn't miss anything.
Um, and so I did that for the family.
We never missed a anything.
Literally.
It was crazy.
Just how God would provide.
Our bus driver showed up one day when we had nothing in the in the account, like and she
gave us seventy five dollars to get Christmas breakfast.
Like that was literally man from heaven for us.
It it it couldn't believe it.
It was just that whole ride was
Well, something more worth it.
That's one of the things I love about your guys' story.
uh And also the tremendous amount of doing.
And uh I think my f my favorite um missionary type people are the ones who are are
following in faith, they're taking courage, they're walking by faith, walking by the props
of the Lord.
Um and they're also
doing stuff.
They also got businesses going.
And this is this is where Curt, I think your story is so fantastic because uh today you're
a pastor.
Tell tell us about your church.
Okay.
well after those four and a half years, it should probably kind of yeah transition.
I I transitioned away from the church.
It was God, hey, you provide a job, get me out of here, you're calling me.
I went on a missions trip again.
To India and when was in India, that's where God showed me like you're supposed to be
leading this church.
I was scared to death.
Um I didn't have anything to do with that one.
You were not, thankfully.
uh You don't.
Yeah.
Not at all.
But I was thinking of you when I when it came to mind, I'm like, oh man, what's Doug got
to do with this one?
Um but it it was just a a transition then, uh again, just with prayer and making the
transition.
I stepped
out and away from the church twenty nineteen with the vision of the church coming into
play.
So that was like October of twenty nineteen.
Um, and God has said it's clearly that you're going to be leading the church next year and
you need to step away.
And so in my prayer and process is all over a bunch of cups of coffee that things happen.
Um and thinking that I'm gonna be doing a certain job when I got out.
No, I sat down with a guy that had been counseling for a long time having coffee and he's
like, I need to hire somebody just like you.
Who do you know?
I'm like
It's me.
So it was the job to transition out of the church.
I worked with him, helped him get loaded up for COVID.
Um, so he got funds up and I stepped away in the middle of COVID to start the church.
April January nineteenth, twenty twenty, or January fourth, twenty twenty is when I
started in the in the living room.
Uh, and then April nineteenth, twenty twenty was the launch date.
And and just say reminder, wasn't it like February first or March first when
The lockdown happened that yeah.
It was around March first.
Okay.
And so we're in lockdown and um we're supposed to launch a church.
And so said to the team, we're not gonna do it April nineteenth.
We're all on on Zoom right now.
No need to launch a church.
And I just felt God just say, I told you and you're supposed to do it.
And I was burning like I had to do it the eighteenth the night before.
And so I launched online.
It was a complete train wreck.
Zoom went down.
I was singing crazy.
It was it was
I wanna erase that one from my mind and from the world, but it's still out there.
If you really want to go see it, I've got a hidden one.
Um it's still on our YouTube channel, but it's hidden.
Uh I think.
I don't know, but they probably released it by now.
But it was unbelievable.
But the whole process of I launched the church with only four thousand dollars.
Um, and that's all I had.
I didn't have anybody financially backing us.
Um, and God was just clear that this is what you're supposed to do.
These are the people who are gonna be around you, and um just stepped into it.
So I went from salary position to zero when I started that.
And then I started doing yeah.
And then I started doing side gigs from there.
And that's where the business side of me just kicked in, did real estate deals, that sold
a hundred and sixteen did a hundred and sixteen flips of wholesaling homes in less than a
year.
Uh Wow.
Yeah, I I was cruising.
I
I'm I'm good at what I do and that sales and connecting with people and um it was a blast.
Made it made just enough money to survive as a family and that kind of propelled us on
through.
And so I've been very entrepreneurial since that moment specifically.
Your wheels are spinning, so I'm listening Well, I'm just I'm just thinking that uh a lot
of church organizations they teach you how to keep rules and things, but to actually how
to live by faith.
To have a leader that actually actually jumped up out of the airplane, right?
Like the I'm hoping the parachute opens kind of thing.
Like that seems to be more appropriate to somebody sitting in a pew than me reading a
speech to you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For sure.
And jumping in and doing it and learning and going.
Yeah.
And bringing people alongside of you and sharing what's actu actually happening, how
you're navigating through life.
Man, that's f it's so cool to
To have the history to go help other people.
So instead of maybe them coming to you and saying, Man, I just got fired from my job and
being depressed about it, mm-hmm.
It's like maybe there's a way of reframing this.
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Just taking a look and see where you are and allowing God to really speak into it.
That's that's been the key for me from day one.
just relying on him.
And sometimes there's silence, but usually it's other people that'll be speaking from the
outside.
That you just have to listen to that discerning voice and hear.
Um, how do we transition to how many different vans you own?
Different vans?
I don't have any vans.
What are you talking about?
Trucks?
Vans.
All kinds of are they vans?
They're vans.
How many vans do you own?
let's see.
Eight.
Eight vans?
Yeah.
Eight.
Do you know anything about this, Kiki?
I don't.
I don't do.
Um, so in my entrepreneurial moves.
I've done a few things along the way.
Became a sales consultant, and I'm still doing that on the side.
Makeup.
I saw in makeup.
I wouldn't tell anybody of No, I'm still am rep and still rep.
Derma Blend is a brand.
I call an Alta Macy's big retailers across the nation.
What does Derma Blend do?
What does it do for you?
It's foundation.
It's it's a foundation to basically high coverage so that ladies can, if they have
rosaceous.
Primarily it covers it up and no one ever sees it.
Um, so foundations, powders, all kinds of stuff.
I could show you how to apply it if you really want to know today.
Um, but that's not that's just a a part, it's a widget in my world.
Like whatever I sell, it's a widget.
So I've sold pickles and olives and I don't like those things, but makeup is the same.
It's building relationships.
That's all I'm doing.
Um, because and and knowledge.
So I have a knowledge base and and building relationships.
I don't know how to use a product or care about the product.
But I mean somebody else.
Yeah.
I I think what we're talking about is revolutionizing people's thoughts on financial
planning or retirement or things, because for for decades you've been told you work and do
something and then you retire, right?
Which our friend Mitch Anthony said that's not necessarily how it should be.
But if you realize that you're gifted with a lot of widgets, that maybe it's just a
turn in the road versus a straight line like the financial services industry has told you.
And I I think what you're describing is a lot of a healthier way of living than what most
of us have been told.
Sometimes it depends on your health and what's happening around it.
But but there's a perception that your financial plan's gonna work and it may not.
Yeah.
And if you realize I need to be able to twist and turn as part of your financial plan, it
may be a healthier way of um taking the journey.
Than thinking everything's gonna work out.
Yeah, I like that, because that's a lot of what Doug and I talk about is like, hey, I'm
gonna do this.
Where can we move money around and adjust?
How can we grow this?
Because I'm not gonna be adding any money for a while.
Um so if we like we went through all those conversations.
I do.
Let's hear let's hear about the vans.
He's he's intrigued.
He's intrigued.
I love this part of your story.
This I mean, I don't have a favorite, but this if I did, this one's probably
This is probably it.
Yeah.
So, back when I was at the church that I was at originally as a campus pastor, um, I had
the honor to baptize these three kids.
And the gentleman's name is Sean and his three kids, I baptize him and he owns Kona Ice of
Indy.
And um Yep, was on there.
he's the never know about that at all.
oh
I got my feeling joke board.
That's not on purpose, thanks.
uh Let's get the ratings up here.
so I baptized him and I've just remained connected to him.
I reached out to him uh to help my dad, because my dad does a pallet business and he had a
lot of pallets at his company.
So I'm like, hey, can he's like, come up and look at my wood shop.
And so I sit down and have lunch with him, and he's like, I'm thinking about the selling
cone ice.
I said, Okay, keep talking.
I I just started listening what he's got to say and then like, all right.
And so I go back and talk to the family.
And you know, one of the things like with our kids, you want I want them to be involved in
decisions like this that's gonna impact the whole family.
And so I said to the all three of the kids, or actually all four of them they're all
around at that time, and I said, Hey, um, if we were to own one business, what business
would it be?
All four of them said Kona Ice.
Wow.
I'm like, not Starbucks or something else, like, no.
Kona Ice.
I'm like, all right.
So we're we're cruising in the right direction, I think.
Um, and so we kept kept talking, put some money into it.
So we're partial owners of it right now.
And um, I'm running that whole business.
we have seven Kona Heist trucks, one traveling Tom's coffee truck, and then we have
basically seven other trailers and kiosks, all throughout the area.
And so I I employ around a hundred employees over the summer.
Um
College and high school kids, you're talking about fun and headache all at the same time.
Um, I've got broken fins.
We've hit so many buildings because kids driving.
It's just amazing.
We hit the same basketball goal two days in a row, yanked that thing down, had to buy them
a new one.
you're talking about blood pressure rising, kids sleep oversleeping, and but it is so much
fun.
It is a ministry on top of a ministry.
I've got um
Bible study that's running on the backside um in there.
I've got kids coming and asking faith questions because they know a little bit about my
background.
We have every um religion and ethnicity in our in our whole ecosystem right now, which is
pretty amazing.
Um, and they're asking questions and they're talking to each other.
And I've got some really strong believers that are feeding into them, and we're all
working together as one cohesive unit.
And I've got
Two people that are going to be baptized here shortly just because of it.
Um, so it's just, it's, it's amazing ministry on wheels, literally.
Um, and it's it's a blast.
And what's what's interesting, I think, about the Kona business and the pastor business,
those are both weekend heavy.
Very much.
So how does that work with your time?
I have no time.
No, I'm just getting if you ask Emily, I don't have any time.
Um, but I am
I use ADHD for my superpower.
I bounce like a rubber ball between everything.
I can I think on the fly.
I do best.
You throw something at me, I've got a solution for you before it comes out of your mouth.
Um, so I'm able to just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, go, go, go.
And I've got a team in place.
So I've trained and equipped.
So I've got lower level employees that do well.
And then I've got openers and closers that are my first level management.
And I have two other adults that are part of it that
They jump the last minute if there's anything.
I took a sabbatical over summer.
I ran it from across the the world while I was doing an open summer.
So, um and we did pretty well.
We fell on our face a few times because I just wasn't there.
Some of the processes fell through, but I'm only a year and a half into this, so that's
that'll happen.
So Curt, i if someone's listening and they're in their forties or maybe their son or
daughter's in their forties, um, you you really shook it up in your forties.
Very much.
I'm only f I'm forty eight.
And so forty nine shortly.
And so like what's your advice to someone who's just uh just stuck?
Go.
Literally.
Follow your dreams.
Like chase it.
Go after it.
Of course with prayer and discernment.
Um, because if you're stuck in a a job that is not going to be a the end all beat all and
you're just pressed, like find a way to use the gifts that God's given you first and
foremost.
That's the
That's if anybody comes to me in the church and asks me, I'm like, go serve in the gifting
that you got.
go serve for someone else.
Give give of yourself.
And if that's not gonna work, if that's not scratching that itch, then look and see where
you can adjust and go be entrepreneur.
I've got like seven or eight people come to me, like, Can I do what you're doing?
Can I do?
Can I come along?
And so I'm I'm bringing people along as I can.
Um, but I only have so much resources.
So it's a part of the if I had more money
It would it would all work a lot better.
If you had more money, none of this would've happened.
No.
Because I wouldn't be as happy as what I am.
That's right.
And I I just get in, get it done, figure it out, do it all on the fly.
It seems like prosperity, and and I'm not I'm not cursing prosperity.
I'm just saying it can get in the way of living by faith because money can answer the
problem.
And yeah, if you have what you do, the mind of Christ that he can give creative solutions
on the fly.
Then it would seem like that's a lot of encouragement to even a thirty year old that's
just saying, I thought by now my career would be doing this and it's doing this.
Yeah.
But that doesn't even really matter which slope you're on because they c they both can
turn that quickly.
Correct.
And since I left the original sales job back before I started in ministry to where I am
now, I'm making just about as much, if not more, depending on where everything's coming
through.
So
I've been able to buy real estate.
I I buy and invest in real estate.
It's I I but what if you could what if you didn't?
Would that change the story at all if you didn't?
No, it wouldn't change the story for me.
I don't think so.
Yeah.
I'm I I'm a modern day Paul, is how I kind of look at it.
Like I'm going out, I'm a tent maker.
That's a gift that God gave me.
I can gather people, I can teach them, I can lead them.
Um, and who knows?
I may have another church in my sleeve and hand it off to
The guy that's there, oh, it's being recorded too late.
It's coming out of the mouth.
Um, but that's ultimately like I'm either gonna start another church myself or he's gonna
take it over.
Um, and then because of what I'm doing right now is completely a hundred percent a
ministry within Kona Ice and Tom's.
Like that is a ministry of itself.
And it's just absolutely coded as a business.
And we get to go out and do good, be good.
That's what one of those sayings for him.
Do good, be good for the good.
Caleb, Libby, and I had a great opportunity yesterday.
We were with uh Emmy.
I don't know if it's Emmy or I I.
Oh yeah.
Up in Westfield, Indiana.
And great company.
My goodness, what a great company.
And um their whole goal is to make the world safer.
And they do it with seat belts and all kinds of stuff.
But they brought in Coca Cola Consolidated yesterday, the executive team, the CEO.
This is a publicly traded company.
And they were talking about how their company principles are making a difference in
people's lives.
And and yeah, it's it's front lines of ministry type stuff.
And I think it was the head of HR.
Uh he was just he was a Jewish guy and just a great guy.
And he gave such good perspective on what it's like to work for an organization that is um
what they say, guys, not fake base.
uh faith friendly.
Faith friendly.
Faith friendly.
Faith forward.
And and to have a culture that's faith friendly where you can bring your entire self to
work.
What a gift that is to that person.
What a gift it is to their family, their neighbors, to you.
Mm-hmm.
And so I just I just commend you on everything you're doing.
Thanks.
I'm not looking for that, but thank you.
Uh I now I've got one more question for Curt but do you do you have any more Pete?
I think
Not necessarily questions, but what I what I'm really encouraged by is we're in a time and
season in history where culture has been told that socialism is the solution.
And I think a lot of that has to do with uh large, large capitalistic companies have been
what people perceive capitalism as and and I know no economic system is gonna be a savior,
but I know socialism does
Great damage to people.
And so the idea that what you're doing is bringing capitalism to places and bringing hope
to those people at that ground level is is just a huge deal.
I think I can't think of a better ministry than bringing life to ordinary people in spite
of big corporations, maybe sucking the life out of people.
Yeah.
That's cool.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
It's a blast to be able to do it.
Just to invest in these kids too.
The f next generation, it's bright.
There's there's a lot of really strong kids in there.
And there's also a lot of lost kids.
Yeah.
And so, um, just invest in it.
That's really cool.
So, when we're driving past, we're at the next event, uh, festival, whatever, and we see
the Kona ice truck out there.
Uh, what what is the number one purchased item?
Number one purchase item?
Yeah.
A classic shaved ice.
That's the number one.
The main flavoring.
that's right now number one is blue raspberry.
Okay.
You get to put your own flavor on so we don't see it all, but by the sales on our side,
blue raspberry.
We're always restocking blue raspberry.
Yep.
And then tiger's blood shortly after it.
Those are kind of neck.
Strawberry and a little bit of coconut flavor in it.
But it's pretty good.
You you don't want to know how that's made.
How much sugar is in that?
Uh you know, I have two pallets of sugar delivered each week.
so you make the you make it.
We make it.
okay.
So that's how I employ and so I'm doing also like an exceptional learner program through
HSE.
We're bringing in kids with special needs that they're trying to employ and I'm teaching
them life skills.
So I had them come in and bag ice.
I had her make some flavors.
I one task at a time.
She just washing j but jugs last week.
I'm trying to get her to a point that I can employ her.
It's so amazing and so crazy at the same time.
But a lot of sugar is in that product.
I won't tell you how much is I won't go that far.
Well, uh track Curt down on his YouTube page.
How how do people find you, Curt, if they if they want to hear more of you or your latest
sermon?
Go out to Emerge Church.
Emerge three one seven dot church.
That's where everything is.
You can find me all over the place or Konais of Indy.
You can see me out there too.
All right.
What a fun time.
Thanks for hanging out with us this morning.
Yeah, thanks for inviting me.
I can't believe you let me sit in here and talk.
All right.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
We'll see you soon.