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Explore your curiosity - Interesting people with fascinating stories.
Life consists of three things:
-The stories we tell others
-The stories others tell us
-The stories we tell ourselves.
Mark, welcome aboard to the show. So happy to have you here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:So we we talked we started to talk about the kids, and I was like, no. Stop. Stop. Stop. We wanna record this.
Speaker 1:This is gonna be good. You were saying that the job is the boss. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2:K. You know, my kids started down the path of of being addicted to to gaming. Okay. So just to give you a little background, my daughter, my oldest one I have four kids. My oldest daughter was graduating from a grade school and middle school, then going into high school, but through grade school, middle school, very high honors.
Speaker 2:So she was she was shadowing surgeons at the local hospital in in our town going into high school. Okay. And then I had a parent teacher conference and I normally wouldn't go because I, you know, I work hard. I work eighteen hour days and not I don't look at the clock. I don't think about the time.
Speaker 2:I just know the job is the boss. And essentially, I was, I was asked to, to, to do this parent teacher conference because I was coming through town and I said, okay. And I swung by and I ran into a friend. Our kids grew up together since preschool. I said, Hey, Tom, are you here for the parent teacher conference?
Speaker 2:He said, what are you talking about? And I thought that was odd, you know, and I went to the first teacher and I said, are all parents required to be here for this parent teacher conference? She says, no, only select parents. So I had three meetings back to back with my three boys, and she went on to show me the file, you know, d's and f's. And and not only was my oldest son failing miserably, but he was disruptive in class.
Speaker 2:And, you know, I I went down that path, you know, the Snoopy sitcom where the teacher goes, want want want want want. I went down that, and I knew gaming was a problem. You know? Because I would leave on a Saturday, say, and then come back eight, ten hours later, and I would come back home and see the kids were still in front of the screen. And I would say, hey, have you been here the whole time?
Speaker 2:And they'd look at me like zombies, you know, and and it was very disheartening. I I just turned that off and I'd be this bad guy, this, you know, maniac unplugging TVs and telling them to get outside. It didn't take long for them to hear them running around, playing, and laughing outside. But ultimately, my wife didn't have the the the voice, you of she's like, scream at them. I tell them a thousand times, turn it off and go out, you know?
Speaker 2:And so what I what I realized after this parent teach conference, having three meetings back to back, getting the same message, I was driving home and I was shaking. I was shaking, you know, and and I got home and I ripped the cables out of the wall. You know, I lost I lost my shit. And and my wife's, oh my gosh. You know?
Speaker 2:What are you doing? What's what's going on? And I took all the electronics and I said, if you can't see what's happening here, our daughter's going to be traveling around the world as a brain surgeon and our, and our boys are going to be living at home in their fifties. And so, I called the boys in and I asked my oldest son, what's seven times seven. And he he had to was thinking about it, like, plus seven.
Speaker 2:I said, no, son. You know, you've done long vision, and, you know, you're working harder, not smarter. But the simple solution was this, is that I I went to the dollar store and I got flashcards. And then when they got in the car, turned the radio on, I turned it off and said spelling words. And they all graduated away with, you know, with honors.
Speaker 2:Okay? Now, did they like me? No, they hated me. It is like a drug now when, when they can't get their fix. But I said, you're going to earn the right to play video games.
Speaker 2:Right. And then this was really important. They would race off to other people's houses. Cause if I didn't pick them up from school, they jump in somebody else's car. And then I would get home and say, where are the boys?
Speaker 2:I need to see the homework. You know, we, I tried to get this routine and here, well, you speak about this, this intrinsic motivation. Love that. I really did. You're doing
Speaker 1:is so
Speaker 2:foundational, so powerful, and they may not thank you twenty years from now, you know?
Speaker 1:I'm not expecting them to. I'm kind of planning them that I'm not.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. And so, because we care it's because we don't want to just look the other way and ignore the warning signs. You know, it's like having an idiot, like come up on your car and you're, you just tap on it, go, it'll go away. No.
Speaker 2:It's it's it's destined to be a bigger problem. It's just you don't ignore the idiot lights, you know, in your life. So I I was arguing with my wife constantly and other parents. And I would call and say, I just wanna make sure the boys are doing their homework together before they are in front of a screen. And they'd say, boys will be boys.
Speaker 2:And I'd hang up the phone, get in the car, go over there, get in the car. And my kids would be so angry because they were in the middle of a game, right, a halo game or whatever might be. And then I what I realized is that I I couldn't control their time as much as I I wanted to to see them start to succeed in school. And so I put them in sports, and this is really critical for a lot of parents. I said my kids didn't have to like the sport.
Speaker 2:It was soccer. It was baseball. It was football, whatever it was. But here's what is so foundational to to team sports is the coach is like the manager or the boss or the owner of the company. The teammates are like the coworkers.
Speaker 2:The people in the stands are the customers. See, when those kids enter that field, if they don't give a 100%, everybody lets them know it. And that's life. Right? There's no shortcuts to that.
Speaker 2:You're always on display. Your work ethics are always on display. And, and when people don't, you know, make the cut ticket, you know, they get benched. They get, you know
Speaker 1:There's this there's this philosophy of for their children, let's let them be children. Let's let them be boys, of create this protected environment. What's your philosophy? I mean, should we protect the the children or should we expose them to what life will be so they're ready for it? How do we kind of think through this?
Speaker 2:Okay. This is what I would say is that I, in my personal opinion, I think boys are being raised like girls. Okay, just imagine, put kids in a room. This is what happened to me. I was labeled at a very young age and, you know, I didn't do well in school.
Speaker 2:I was just bouncing off the walls that, you know, ADH, they have all these, you know, terms. And I think young boys are being labeled at the earliest ages because you could you could gather girls and boys in a room, and the girls, they they sit and start massaging each other and doing each other's hair, you know, and they're just totally content in that room where the kids are just you know what mean? They're crawling out of their skin. It's like, get me out of here. They need to get out and, you know, and exert this energy because, you know, the testosterone starts shooting through your veins.
Speaker 2:And, you know, it's just it's it's brutal to be in that environment where you're expected to just sit still and focus. Right? I know what it was like for me. I got labeled at a very, very young age, and I got kicked out of school for fighting. And then I was transferred to another school, and and I was kicked out for selling drugs within a week.
Speaker 2:And, you know, it was it was, I was a feral kid, but then I was introduced to girls, you know, and I was jumping out of a window at two in the morning, stealing my mom's boyfriend's car to deliver powdered donuts to a girl. Was infatuated with. And when you're in that state and then the girls, they just know how to play that, you know, such a, in such a level that you just can't think straight, you know, you can't sleep. And so that's an addiction like drug, but I think we should need, we need to prepare our, our boys and our girls for this time in life that this kind of stuff takes place. And ultimately a counselor came beside me and said, you know, he, he had talked to my fifth probation officer.
Speaker 2:Okay. And just before even entering high school and, you know, I was going to spend the rest of my life in and out of the system. Right. And as most of my family members and friends were, doing. So I thought this is the natural, you know, route that you take, you know, in this environment that I'm in.
Speaker 2:And, he says, you know, school's not for everybody. And he goes, you know, the difference between a job and a career. And mind you, like, he called me out of class on a Friday. Okay. This was the third school that they had transferred me to and said, this is your last stop.
Speaker 2:If you, if, if you're not going to make this work, you're going to, you're going to juvenile hall and, you know, you're going be the warrior court. And I said, okay. And I didn't really care, you know, and the system, you know, honestly, when you're in, juvenile hall, you run into friends, you run into people and you play cards and you, you play basketball and you, you know, you're just navigating life, you know, in an environment that's locked down, but it's not something that really intimidates you not to, to, you know, get in trouble. So anyway, he he's calls me out of class on a Friday and I, and I'm thinking, okay, My probation officer's gonna be there. Law enforcement's gonna be there.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna get handcuffed. You know? I'm checking myself for drugs, and I'm going, okay. Why am I getting called out of class on a Friday? Because generally speaking, the only reason you get called out of a class in my situation is that you're in trouble.
Speaker 2:So I go to the counselor's office, miss Stoferis, I'll never forget. And he says, hey, Mark. How are you? And you just talk to me like a normal kid that wasn't in all this trouble. And he says, know, at this school, we have a lot of electives.
Speaker 2:And he goes, you know, school's not for everybody. Obviously, I was failing miserably like my boys were. And he goes, you know, do you know the difference between a job and a career? And I, I never heard the term career before. I said, why am I here?
Speaker 2:I mean, I was looking over my shoulder because I was a runner. You had to catch me first. And so, you know, I just was kind of trying to figure out why, what are we here for? So he says, look, we have electives that other schools don't have. We have automotive, we have, you know, photography.
Speaker 2:And he went down through the list. He goes, pick something that you that you would be really interested in. See a career, something that you actually enjoy and they pay you for it. And, and, a job is the grind, but sometimes you gotta get through the jobs to get to the career. And so he explained this to me and he says, take this trade publication home and let's talk about it on Monday.
Speaker 2:So I put it in my backpack, finished the day, and then partied all weekend. Okay. I did acid that weekend and I was a somber on Monday. You know, and you know, my, my family and friends were very much into drugs. Okay.
Speaker 2:So I was exposed to it at a very young age and I'm glad that I didn't like it. You know, I'm glad that my body chemistry, you know, I could do a drug and get all the side effects where you could do all the drug and get all the benefits. And so when I was on the drugs, was like, when is it going to be over? You know, the meth and the Coke and the, you know, the pot and all that stuff that you do that you get exposed to in this environment that I grew up in. And so I was thankful for that.
Speaker 2:But on that, that weekend, you know, I come back Monday, he called me out of class and I didn't like, oh my gosh. He gave me that publication, never even looked at it. And then I'm walking down the corridor and I'm just flipping through the pages, not even really taking in what I'm looking at. And I walk into his office, and he goes, so, mister Stofer, what do you think? You know?
Speaker 2:And and I said, I wanna be an electrician. And I have no idea, none, where that came from. I just wanna give him an answer. Right? And he just said, that's great.
Speaker 2:He was so excited. He was, okay. We got a plan. And it and I was like, okay. Alright.
Speaker 2:And I left there telling everybody that I was gonna be an electrician, that I was going to Central County Occupational Center. But what's funny this is funny because I had passed that that vocational center hundreds of times while it was under construction. And I didn't know what it was, but I that was in my route to the ghetto that I would do my drug dealings. You know, and and I would party with friends and, you know, it was it was it was just the ghetto behind, you know, this this trade school pub you know, the the central county occupational center. And I'm like, that's what that place is?
Speaker 2:You know? And it just it it just like, wow. Okay. And then I'm going to that school. I'm going to that because I you know, I'm familiar with it.
Speaker 2:And and and if I was familiar with it when it came to a school, it was that my objective was to break in and, you know, steal food at the cafeteria, cook something, you know, spend the night on the roof, whatever. You know? It was just being a feral kid that had no direction. And and so when he says, look, if you just show up and try, if you just show up and try, I can get you into this trade school that a lot of adults pay a lot of money to, to go to this school. And you can learn a career that you enjoy and get paid well for it.
Speaker 2:And I, it changed my life forever. That moment changed my life forever. And I want to add too that when you live in this environment that I lived in, it's quite depressing. You can get really high on some stuff and then just feel like that, you know, life is amazing. And you come down and you're like, it really is less than amazing, a lot less than amazing.
Speaker 2:And, it's very depressing and it doesn't end well for a lot of folks that continue that lifestyle. And so with, with that, you know, I just separated myself that weekend. After that weekend, I just disappeared. I literally disappeared from my family and my friends because they were such a bad influence in my life. And I took on not only the trade school, but also sports.
Speaker 2:So I lived at the school, you know, I didn't want them to close the doors. I just wanted to keep learning electrical maintenance. I didn't have the math skills to be electrician, but I did take electrical maintenance and I loved it. I just I was the teacher's pet. I was helping other students.
Speaker 2:It gave me purpose, this intrinsic motivation that you talk about, this intrinsic motivation. And how do we reach the heart and mind of these young, you know, adults, young kids that just don't have any direction? And they're sitting in front of that flat screen. My concern right now, my my passion right now is to help seven, eight million men in their prime that seem to wake up every day, having no purpose, you know, and we need them, man. We need them in the trades.
Speaker 2:If you're, if you're in the trades, you're worth your weight in gold. We, we need them. And I think, gosh, what are they doing? And I would say this is seven, eight million men in their prime not working. You know, most of them probably spend way too much time in front of a flat screen.
Speaker 2:And, if that's the motivation that gets you up every day, you know, that's pretty depressing. You know? Really is. No. I can't imagine what that's like.
Speaker 2:And when we need them yeah.
Speaker 1:You touched on some really interesting points. I wanna kind of poke each and every one of them. One is this idea of sports. That was part of your transformation at the trade school. Is that a fair statement?
Speaker 1:What do you feel like you learned from sports? You kind of set up the the structure. I completely agree with that. But what are the actual lessons you learned through it, and and maybe kind of tell us why you learned those lessons?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I I'll never forget. I took on wrestling. I had a friend, you know, and I started academically.
Speaker 2:I was like, I'm trying, I'm, I'm going to pass this class, this test, whatever it was. And it became, you know, very passionate about doing well in school. And although with, when you don't have a foundation, I can study for five, six hours and get a C, a D, you know, and it was brutal. It was absolutely brutal. And having to, because never did my parents ever ask me, did I did my, did you do your homework?
Speaker 2:Never, never. And so it creates a dependency. And that's what I saw in my family was there was this massive dependency. Everybody, you know, it not just so much dependency on how to survive, you know, but also it was like, okay, you're in trouble. This is how we're going to get you out of trouble.
Speaker 2:You know, there was no accountability. You know, it was it was just very toxic. So when when I got into sports, it was like a drug. Okay. So wrestling was my first sport and here I'm going over to, I was thirsty.
Speaker 2:I was going over to, they, back then they had in the vending machines, soda machines on school campuses. Right? And I was gonna put in change in and I heard, Hey, you know, get away from that crap. And it shocked me like a shockwave went to my body. And I I he goes, you don't drink that crap.
Speaker 2:It was my wrestling coach. He goes, Mark, you wanna do well in wrestling? Eat, you know, nutritious food. You don't you feed yourself this toxic garbage, and it changed my life forever. That moment, it was like, I don't eat crappy food.
Speaker 2:I just I eat healthy food. And then I did well in sports, And that gives you a foundation of resiliency to overcome other challenges in your life. And then you you have a purpose. You have a vision. You have a like, I'm gonna do well in my wrestling, in my weight division.
Speaker 2:Right? And then you get turned on to other sports where they say, hey, you're good at that, but can you be good at this? Right? Take take track. And then so then your time is occupied all the time, focused on something that gives you purpose.
Speaker 1:Was was it yeah. Was part of it that, you know, somebody believed in you? Somebody was like, oh, yeah. You're gonna be an electrician. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:You're gonna be an athlete. Oh, yeah. You can do this. That a big part of the change?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And that's what I'm talking about with with young men specifically. They're getting labeled early, early on, you know, and as a troublemaker, as a disruptive kid in class, whatever. And it's because of testosterone through their bodies. Well, let me say this, now I'm concerned that because of the toxicity of our Western culture specifically, the testosterone levels on many young men is so low.
Speaker 2:We wonder why they don't have motivation to get out of bed. I mean, this is concerning. I I'm, I'm writing to, you know, secretary of health, Mr. Kennedy to initiate mandatory blood tests for all kids, for anybody, any male and female for that matter. You know, even females need testosterone at a fraction, obviously, but the bottom line is, is that this is a major issue.
Speaker 2:And I wonder, you know, what is causing that exactly? You know? And I would say that the toxic processed food, you know, culture that we live in, it's just, I think that it's, it's something that didn't obviously happen overnight, but generation after generation of this toxicity, you know, it catches up to you just like drugs, just like drugs.
Speaker 1:What was the moment in trade school where you kind of had this epiphany that you are no longer the same person as you were before? Was it a single moment where you kind of realized that or did you just step on that path on the first day and like, I'm starting a new life? Where, where did that actually happen?
Speaker 2:You know what, it did happen when I left Mr. Ostras's office and I went home and I saw the drugs and the lifestyle of my family, friends that I loved and I cared about obviously, but, know, do a line, have a beer drink. It's like, it's like, you got to partake because you belong to this gang. It's a, it's a crab bucket mentality and it's toxic and sick on on so many levels. And they, you know, they're not willing, hey.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm going to a trade school. I'm excited about this. And there's this crab bucket syndrome, you know, expect you know, hey. We're going out. You know?
Speaker 2:You're either with us or you're not. And, they're cutting school and they're, they're talking about doing things that, you know, breaking into, you know, a convenience store or whatever it might be, you know, There was just a lot of things that that weren't healthy. Now when you find yourself that you're loitering and doing drugs, it's nothing but trouble. Right? So it was in that moment that I just decided I don't wanna be part of this anymore.
Speaker 2:And I I wanted I wanted to I wanted to get I wanted to qualify to get into that trade school, and I knew that my grades were so poor. And he says, all you gotta do is show up and try. We have tutors. We can get you into that school. And that's all I could think about.
Speaker 2:Right? And that the sports came later because then I transferred into high school and, you know, just I I can't remember exactly what it was. It's like, Hey, you should wrestle. You know, somebody just mentioned it. And I'm like, okay.
Speaker 2:You know? And so here's, here's what I tell my kids. I say, you know what? You can try something. You don't have to be passionate about it or love it, but you're going to finish the season or you're going to, you know, and, and then that's where it's like, okay, it's game on, you know?
Speaker 2:And I always, I prided myself in putting my kids in, in every kind of environment where if it was four h raising livestock, they, they learned how to buy at the auction. They, they kept track of their expenses. They took meeting minutes. They did all of this stuff that was just like business oriented. And this was the best part about it.
Speaker 2:I went to the the fair, local fair when they're auctioning off their their livestock to in their marketing to corporations to come and buy their livestock. Right? And they're learning every aspect of business. And so and their the work ethics are extremely high here. And here's what I love in the the livestock area at the fair.
Speaker 2:It says, parents, do not help your children. I loved it. I loved it. Yeah. I was yeah, they had to get up at 05:30.
Speaker 2:They had to clean the stalls and make sure it was presentable to the crowds that were coming in to be inspired by their work. And then the relationships that they they develop in this environment, not just on the field playing baseball or soccer or football or whatever the sport might be. Another one was a amazing one that I highly recommend is First Tee. First Tee is teaching kids not only the game of golf, but core values. You know, hole number one is honesty.
Speaker 2:Hole number two is integrity. Hole number three. You know? And they learn life values, and they're just they're out there. It's better than any daycare that you could put them into.
Speaker 2:If you're, if you're two parents working and, you know, during that period of time in the summer when this happens and, man, it's, it's beyond precious. And a lot of, a lot of parents don't know about these things. A lot of kids don't know about these things. So sitting around loitering, playing video games all day is like, this is my only option.
Speaker 1:You're on this new path, but your friends and family are on a different path. What did those interactions look like when you came back to them? Did they, was that challenging?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, you know, I, I want to say that I inspired a lot of friends. I'll give you one example. I had a different I've known since fourth grade and, you know, he was strung out and he, he was still, you know, very much entrenched in this crab bucket syndrome, you know, gang mentality.
Speaker 2:And I got into surfing and I, you know, I was just like, this is amazing, man. It's better than any drug. And so he I would talk to him and I'd say, hey, come surf him with the absolute. And then he'd be so excited. Obviously he was on something.
Speaker 2:Right. Usually it was crank. Crank was a big issue in our life. You know, if you've ever seen breaking bad, I can relate to breaking bad. Yeah.
Speaker 2:My family members were the kingpin and it was, there was meth labs, if you will. And so basically I would go hunt him down and then he'd just be comatose. I said, okay, come on. You said we're going to go in, in, ah, yeah, another time. So it took me about two years to get him in the water.
Speaker 2:It was the most exciting time, you know, it was like, yeah, this is great. You know, I had great time and alright, let's do it again. And I hadn't heard from him for a while, maybe just about a year. He calls me and he says, hey. You wanna go surfing?
Speaker 2:I said, yeah. Absolutely. How are you doing? How you been? How's Craig?
Speaker 2:How's Daryl? How's Ronnie? All these guys that, you know, you know, just just nothing's changed. You know, it's, you know, I can tell you some horror stories when when we get together. And so we're out there at 26th Avenue in Santa Cruz and and he just looks really good.
Speaker 2:And I said, how you been? And I go, wait a minute. We're going 26th Avenue. That's a pretty advanced surf. You know?
Speaker 2:He goes, I didn't want to tell you I've been practicing. I've been practicing. And I go, how's Craig? How's Rodney? How's Jerry?
Speaker 2:You know? And he goes, I don't talk to them anymore. And I said, what? Are you kidding me? Are you, you know, cause we've known this is grade school.
Speaker 2:He goes, no, I had to get out of that circle, man. I had to get out and I don't smoke, stop smoking, stop doing drugs. And I said, oh my gosh, Are you kidding me? It was a cloudy day. The clouds opened up.
Speaker 2:The beam of lights came through the clouds as we're dropping in on these waves and these school of dolphin come in and surfing with us on this wave. And I was, oh my gosh, you know? And so we were surf buddies for many, many years. You know, he just recently moved to Nevada and I go, you're moving away from the coast. You're moving away from the ocean.
Speaker 2:You know, and it broke my heart really because we had so many amazing memories driving up and down the coast, looking for surf, you know, and it's not just paddling out and dropping in on waves. It's the journey. Right. And I tell people it's the journey that you're missing out on. We could drive for the whole day and not find the surf.
Speaker 2:You know, the conditions just aren't right. And, but it's the journey of that, that the people are missing out on and you can't get that through a flat screen. You're not going to get it.
Speaker 1:Did he ever come back and kind of share with you what attributed the change, why he took that step?
Speaker 2:Oh, no. I, you know, he, he, yeah, he said, thank you for inspiring me. Like Mr. Ostras inspired me, you know, in a simple talk, a simple conversation. It changed my life forever.
Speaker 1:This is this this is to me unbelievable because how can one sentence, one thing change a life? It's it's it's just it's just unbelievable. And my story was I I just went on a I was doing like a counselor thing and I got off the bus at the end of the the trip and I was seeing one of the other counselors. She actually got me into it, so we saw each other after the trip and she's like Ari, when you got off the bus the children started crying.
Speaker 2:Wow wow.
Speaker 1:They realized that that was the last time they would see you I was like, we like, okay, so we climbed a mountain together. I encouraged them. I told them some stories. I believed in them. Like, I did what any counselor would do.
Speaker 1:Like, why why did this have such a strong effect? And I was just in shock that you could have so much impact on such a small thing to what was to me a small thing, but it's totally not a small thing. And I don't know, this kind of shocks me. I still feel goosebumps on what a powerful thing just believing in somebody can be.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Especially those that that are labeled. You know?
Speaker 2:I mean, I went through a lot of a lot of teachers, counselors, and just, you know, basically, one way or another, they said you're a worthless piece of shit, then, you know, you're gonna amount to nothing. So when you find somebody that just like, mister Ostrich just let's just say that as a counselor, you don't know everybody's background or past and and what they're dealing with at home. Right? And if you were gonna be in the inner city and these kids were coming from the inner city no. I I buy, you know, run down dilapidated kennels with my kids and we build out premier pet resorts is what we do.
Speaker 2:And we really enjoy the journey of the before and the after and the work that's involved and the job is the boss, you know, and we just get it done. We worked thirty two hours straight not too long ago. We were in Spark, Nevada, one of our facilities, and a contractor came in and said, hey, you know, we're gonna have to wait till next spring. You know, you're not ready. And I, and the prices were all over the map, you know, 92,000, you know, and then I said, we're going to do it ourselves.
Speaker 2:I'm driving over this mountain to meet with my kids and my son's like, I don't want to do this work. We, we have never installed artificial turf and there's a lot involved. I said, we could figure it out. YouTube it, you know, YouTube it. We're gonna work.
Speaker 2:We're gonna do the work. So I said, just get the equipment, just get the material, just get everything lined up so when I get there, we can just get knock it out. And then this guy came in at 31,000. And I said, okay. And I looked up their company.
Speaker 2:And so that's the disparity in prices when you have supply and demand situations going on. And and I said, did they actually come out to the job site? Okay. And I'm gonna tell you this, is that my kids are in their twenties and they own companies. And they they work on them where they're self run and they're very successful.
Speaker 2:We reach full capacity. So no matter what you're doing in business, the only premise of business is to acquire a client. Then the only other premise is to increase the lifetime value of that patronage, Provide more services and, you know, just increase the lifetime value of that relationship. Be, let's just say, ethically exploit ethically. You gotta be, you know, ethical.
Speaker 2:Like they'd say, oh, I didn't know you did this. I'd love for you to do that, you know, shuttle service for me or the grooming or the training and all these things that you offer. Basically back to my story was that I'm driving over and I said, this landscape construction company is gonna tall tall this turf for 31,000. He goes, yeah, dad. He says, we're not ready.
Speaker 2:And I said, I talked to the guy. I said, please, you know, we bought this facility in 2020. We had COVID. We had supply chain. We had material inflation.
Speaker 2:We had nobody wants to work. Went through, like, 37 employees that just we were just hiring anybody that had a pulse, basically. And so we're doing most of the work. And so this was unprecedented on so many levels with many companies experienced this, but not a bunch of stars, but ultimately in Nevada, there's this massive migration of people leaving California, to Nevada, specifically Northern Nevada. And so you get stuck in this, this, you know, wheelhouse of just curveballs and things that you just didn't see coming.
Speaker 2:And so, ultimately, I I said, look. We wanna get this done. This one year project should not have taken five years, and we just wanna get the resort opened. And we, and he goes, okay, look, I'll give you three days, but you're not ready. There's a lot of work that needs to be done.
Speaker 2:And I looked at my boys and I said, sons, I said, we have the weather on our side. We have the equipment and we have the material. Let's do it. And so thirty two hours straight, my three boy and I, and the guy came back out and he was just, I couldn't believe it. He was okay.
Speaker 2:Okay. All right. Okay. We're, he just couldn't believe that we had done the work. And then he came with his four trucks and his 12 guys and they, they finished the job and they went viral.
Speaker 2:Man, it just went viral. My manager over there says, she called me, says, shut it down, shut it down. You know, people were coming from all over it. They thinking it was like an open park, you know, pet resort for anybody to just show up and hang out with their dogs. Right.
Speaker 2:And, there's a process you, you have to make sure they have all their shots and they're socialized and all these things. But my point is this, is that when you raise your kids to understand that foundation that, you know, like a firefighter, my my brother-in-law is a firefighter, captain. He goes, we've lowered the bar so much because we're so desperate and it's causing dysfunction within our, you know, our unit. And he's on the news saying, Hey, telling people we're doing the best we can. We're short staffed.
Speaker 2:We're trying to get there as soon as we can. And so we have something, we got to turn the boat around. We gotta, we gotta turn this boat around. We got to get into a safe harbor on high ground and that takes, it's not rocket science, right? It's not rocket science.
Speaker 2:And, and I apologize. I hope I answered your question, but you know, it's one of those things where this is, this, this toxic environment that we are faced with right now with seven, eight million men in their prime not working and them being desperately needed. I mean, my my buddy, the surfer buddy that moved over to Nevada, he's a glazer. He says work orders are 12 inches thick. We cannot keep up.
Speaker 2:We are desperate for accountability, for bodies to show up, then, you know, generally speaking, men's are men are the ones that are in the trades. They got to do the work and they're just not showing up. And I propose that we, we can help that migration, you know, get out of this toxic cesspool of life, you know, sitting in front of a flat screen and move them into vocational training, into trade where they're desperately needed and they can do quite well for themselves and, and enjoy it and enjoy the career path that they choose.
Speaker 1:It's hard to point to honestly it's guesswork, We're trying to guess what's causing this situation. We see the problem, we understand the problem, we have the numbers, we don't know if it's the screens, we don't know if it's the culture shift that's happening, we don't know there's like 20 things we can point to and be like, is this part of the problem? The honest truth is we just don't know. So now it's a question of well what should we do? And the question I think is what we can do is what hat are we putting on?
Speaker 1:Are we putting a hat on as a you know citizen that can write to their congressman or woman? Are we putting on the hat of a dad or a mom? And I think that's where it really starts and ends. My question to So you, a lot of dads and moms are listening to us. What are the things that you see that you would change tomorrow in regards to parental behavior that you think is maybe contributing to the
Speaker 2:Well, I will speak to it from my personal life experience that men didn't have a say. They just they they cowered. They just cowered to the pressures of, you know you know, they throw up their hands and, you know, in my life that they okay. I would say this is it. When I would I was I was recently, I was at a restaurant and overhearing a conversation with this gal's laughing because her son's, you know, I learned he was 24 because I had to ask, you know, kids kept calling, phone call, and they're sitting right next to us and I and she's laughing.
Speaker 2:She goes, he's got my credit card. He's got trouble, but he doesn't know what to do. And I, when my kids were at the youngest age, I go, hey, I gotta check. I have to fix this leak, you know, under the sink. I have to we're up over mountain and I'm said, I know how to put snow chains on.
Speaker 2:And a woman, oh, it's cold out there. Leave them alone. Let them, you know, and I said, you have to be this bad guy. I mean, you know, like I had to be the bad guy. And it and it was tough because I'm I'm going head to head not only with my spouse, but I'm I'm also going head to head with other family members and and and other parents and things like that.
Speaker 2:And I'm like, where where's some backbone here? Because I'm like, look. Your kids are gonna be living at home in their fifties, and they're gonna be dependent on you for the rest of their life. And I would say that openly. Like, I see the the writing on the wall here.
Speaker 2:You know? And, you know, you raise your kids the way you want to, I'll raise mine. And I was that, that, that was my, I just didn't have any reservation to be outspoken that way. And in that context, you know, it was, it was like, you know, my father-in-law, Hey, we got to get down the road. We're going to hit major traffic.
Speaker 2:And, and it's like, he's looking at these bins are all labeled. We've to put them in the boat and we've to hook the boat up to the truck and we've to get down the road because fifteen, twenty minutes is you're in gridlock traffic getting out of the Bay Area. Right. And he he's just standing there, and he's just numb to the fact that he goes, well, Gloria, she, you know, my mother-in-law, organizes the bins, and and she wants things done a certain way. And I said, we don't have time for that.
Speaker 2:Right? You know? Man, fuck she says, I, I like, oh my gosh. But the thing is, is that that my family members, men were coddled and pampered. My dad is couch surfing right now, His mom and his sister, they control the finances and they bail him out and they, they financed his whole life.
Speaker 2:I have nine half brothers and sisters, you know, from many different marriages. I got a text. This Mark Stofer? And I said, I don't, you know, how do I answer this? So I said, yes.
Speaker 2:He goes, I think we're brothers. I go, another one, you know? So when you grow up in that environment where men just don't have, say, and women control that environment and they, they coddle and they pamper and they pacify the situation. You know, there's gotta be a man in the house with a man voice that says it's an override. It's like, no, this is not going to be healthy long term.
Speaker 1:I was forced to stay a week with my babies when they were, you know, in breastfeeding age. My wife traveled for her job and you know, here in The States you're, what is it like, six weeks and you're back on the road, right? As opposed to Europe. So here I am with a baby that is you know way you know sleeping three hours, waking up, breastfeeding, all that. My wife sent me milk over.
Speaker 1:I was petrified. I was scared. I you know almost shitted my pants. But you know, here's the thing that surprised me. That event changed my life because in that moment I became the number one parent because my wife just wasn't there.
Speaker 1:Cause when she's there, she's the person. At that moment, I became the person. My relationship with my kids forever changed and I think that's an experience that many men are missing nowadays. They they're not being dads, they're being sidekicks. And, you know, I was in I was, you know, we were living with her parents at the time and I'm sleep training the kid.
Speaker 1:And I hear from, you know, she's Lithuanian, so she has this very heavy Soviet Union accent. She's like, and I'm sleep training, so you know, it's you know, the child will cry. That's okay. And my mom my my Ari, what are you doing to the child? Stop that.
Speaker 1:I'm like I'm like, Leah, I'm I'm I'm being a dad. And then my mom, my wife comes up, and she's like, oh, my mom's upset. And I'm I'm like so so, like, there's all these pressures coming from all these directions for you to shut up. And and then I'm walking down the street with my brother, And I kinda you know, she she's not letting him be a dad. She doesn't listen to him.
Speaker 1:He has no word. It's like anything he says has no value. And I see him walking down the street and a balloon like, that he was holding a balloon, the balloon files off, and he kinda lets go of his child in the cart and chases the balloon. I'm like what the like what where what's happening? Why why is it that that so so here's my my argument and I would I would guess that you would agree but keep me honest to you if you disagree.
Speaker 1:There is intrinsic conflict between how men and women see the world. Sure it's a little stereotypical but there is intrinsic conflict right? We see the world differently, we behave differently, we have different strengths and my argument is that those differences in strengths they create the whole and if one of those sides right basically says well I'm not going to do my job, I'm going to be subservient, I'm not going to bring the value that I'm supposed to bring, it doesn't really work very well And and I I think that's what what I'm personally seeing and my wife, she was traveling for a week, she came back and she was suffering with the sleep of the kids. And she came back and suddenly these kids are going to bed and she's like what the Like, I went away from a week and you fixed a problem that I've been dealing with for for months and months and months, and I can now sleep a whole night? At that moment comfortable.
Speaker 1:At that moment because you just need to do the shit and you need to be consistent and the child cries like, okay. So cries so so what? But she came back and her perception shifted because I think that was one of the moments where she was like dads do things differently but it still has value.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Wow. And this is like, I get so frustrated. I see friends of mine that just don't have a voice and they don't think that what they what they think has any value and the mothers sometimes don't support that because they haven't seen the evidence and the proof. Right? I don't know how to solve this and I don't know how to advise these children, these children, sorry, these these dads except to tell them my story of like look I was terrified, I went through this, it changed my life.
Speaker 1:Like, so I was talking to a friend from one of the communities I volunteer with, participate in, and I told him that story and I'm like, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna send you a text every morning. You're gonna send a compliment to your wife every morning, and then at the end of that week that you've done that, every morning you've complimented her morning, afternoon, and night, you're gonna ask her to take a few days off and you will be the number one parent. And he's like, oh, I've like, this is how you do it. And I explained to him all the sales tactics, and he's a sales guy.
Speaker 1:She's like, oh, yeah. Yeah. That that that might work. That might work. So I need to send that text, by the way, because I I promised I'll send him a reminder every day.
Speaker 1:And, I mean, that's all I can think of, but, I mean, there's gotta be there's gotta be something more that as a society, we can kind of come back to understand that men have a role and it's not bad or evil to say that men are protectors. It's not a bad thing to say that, like that is our job. When did that become an evil thing? And I got a little bit up on a soapbox so I apologize.
Speaker 2:No, it's real life, it's real life.
Speaker 1:Resonates with me very strongly and it kind of pisses me off that we're kind of not doing our job in many cases.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And to that, our first daughter, you know, it was brutal. Like, we were zombies and we were up all night. I was making warm cereal, driving around the block, you know, just pampering, you know, three or four times a night. And we went to a party, and my wife would be like, it's your turn.
Speaker 2:You know? She's just like, don't let her cry. You know? And we went to a party, and we looked like zombies. And it's two years into it.
Speaker 2:And we were creating this monster. And I was allowing because I was I was allowing it knowing that this isn't right, but I couldn't didn't have the courage to say stops. So it had to be somebody that said, you know, is she soiled? Is she hungry? No.
Speaker 2:So we were training her to to get up three or four times a night. And this and then we weren't getting any sleep and then we're not getting along and there's no intimacy and all these kinds of things come to play and then, oh, let's bring her into the bed between us. And it's like, that is not healthy. Okay. So then we sought counsel.
Speaker 2:We went to, it was it it was somebody that was an expert in this area and that she says, you don't you don't encourage it like you're encouraging it. You're creating this monster. And she was a brat, man. I mean, a straight up brat. And, you know, I wanted a blue cup and just threw the cup and the milk spread all over the table and okay.
Speaker 2:I'll clean it up, you know, and and you're just catering to this monster. Right? And so then I said, okay. Enough's enough. Right?
Speaker 2:We're going to follow this program. Then you have to be the man of the house, you know? I mean, and you yeah. Here's the thing I wish I would have learned. I wish I would have learned this.
Speaker 2:Because I grew up in an environment that I grew up in, I could be very harsh. And I think it's important now, I'm in the pet industry, and I remember I was dealing with a very sensitive dog. And let's just think, you know, your wife is sensitive. All women are sensitive. Right?
Speaker 2:And I would just come at them like a drill sergeant. That doesn't, that's not right. And to reach their heart and their mind. So you have to approach them like the most, you know, sensitive dog, which they're, you know, you walk in the room and some dogs that you're trying to train to be service dogs, they submissive pee, just you and your presence as a man, as your size, your voice, they submissive pee. Those are really tough to finish, to train, to be a service quality dog.
Speaker 2:And I wish that I had taken that into consideration with my kids and my relationship with my wife because I was abrupt. And I was like, stops now. And I was just there's no discussion about, like ripping the cables out of the wall and taking all the electronics.
Speaker 1:What's the
Speaker 2:And it was a props.
Speaker 1:This is this is a hard balance to align to kind of get right. On the one hand, the kind of strength, you need that and then to kind of be like, look, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna try this. We're gonna do this experiment. We're gonna learn from it.
Speaker 1:We're gonna make mistakes, and we're gonna keep on going. We're gonna get better. But then you don't wanna cross the line of kind of diminishing the intrinsic motivation in the process. That's a very fine line. I feel like I sometimes tread on the wrong side of it even today and my kids are well, the the two older ones are are doing wonderfully.
Speaker 1:I'll brag about them a little later, but the young one is still on his journey and and he's he's he's showing me he's putting me through the ringer.
Speaker 2:But Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's I fail and keep making mistakes on that line even today. What is the what is the advice? Because it's really easy to just go to the extremes on either side and kind of that's not good, but you wanna be in a good place in the middle. Right? The golden path.
Speaker 1:That How do you do that? What does that look like? When do you know that you've crossed too far?
Speaker 2:Well, I've crossed too far many times. And, you know, I would say that my oldest son is a mama's boy. He always just, you know, ran to mom. Like, we're out there, and I'm working side by side with my daughter and we're framing. She puts the bags on, you know, she she sets the pace.
Speaker 2:Okay? And then she's like, worst Kevin, worst Kevin, worst Kevin, because we gotta finish the job. We gotta finish the project that we're working on. And he would always just kind of just disappear. Like I gotta go to the bathroom.
Speaker 2:And then, so he would always, and they used to having a conversation with mom and I'm like, how are you allowing this? Because you realize that we have to get this done. It's getting dark, all these things. You know, he was, we were talking and that, that just that innocent, holier than now soft spoken presentation makes it okay. No, it doesn't make it okay.
Speaker 2:We're we're on we're we're on a project that you for you that you want done. Your daughter's yelling at me. Where's, you know, her brother who should be you know? So, you know, and I and I I looked and I grabbed him and I I said, stop. You know, disrespect fucking with me.
Speaker 2:You know? I was so angry and the look of his on his eyes, you know, it's like he took this he's sensitive. He's sensitive. And my wife comes, stop, stop. You know, you're like, you know, and I said, man, I just, I'm just, I want to throw my fist through the wall and just say, I need you outside.
Speaker 2:We got to get this done. So that is not the approach to take. And, you know, to keep your frame and to hold your composure, you know, I learned to reach my son's heart and mind, had to say, lower my tone, like, hey, Kevin, you know, we're, we're on a timeline here. We're really struggling and, we, we need your help. You have to be on the other end of the material to install it.
Speaker 2:And your sister's waiting for you. And I'm working on this other end over here and, and she keeps calling me over and it's, it's very inefficient. And I, and I, you know, I was trying to explain that, you know, I don't care if you're going to build a chair, skyscraper or freaking city. There's only four costs involved. There's time cost, there's material costs, there's labor costs.
Speaker 2:The only other cost is frustration and frustration is the biggest cost. It's like, okay, let's, let's synchronize here. So we're not going in circles on let's just stay out of the eye of the storm. We have to synchronize so that we can, we can navigate the storms of life and get to the destination with this least man, least amount of unnecessary pain and suffering. Right?
Speaker 2:So you're, to answer your question, I I'd say this is that I have an alpha kid and that's the way we're drill sergeants. He puffs his chest out and we yell at each other, but that's how we get the job done. Right? That's the environment I grew up in on a construction site. But with sensitive ones, you know, you have to say, you have to slow it down.
Speaker 2:You have to tone it down to reach the heart and mind to start to to build that synchronizing emotion. And the same with your spouse is to say, you know, there's a saying that's, you know, you you do you wanna be right or do you wanna be happy? You know? I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna be both. I'm not gonna argue when I know I'm right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and it's not an argument. It's it's saying, I I see what's going on here. Now there's 78,000,000 men in their prime. Is it the men that are pampering them, coddling them, pacifying them?
Speaker 2:Who who's allowing them to live under their roof, you know, and not be a better, more productive, have a meaningful life with purpose, you know, and, you know, what, what allows that to happen? Like my, a lot of men in my family, my father, my dad, and my uncles, you know, the dependency that it creates is not healthy and it does not end well. When you got to yell at your kids to take out the garbage once a week and they're, you know, 30, 40, 50 years old, you know, that's, that's pretty pathetic, So, and so the thing is, is, is that, I think the answer to your question is really approaching people based on their personality, but the boundaries are the boundaries that, you know, the expectations that are, that are fair and reasonable are fair and reasonable. Somebody's gotta be the bad guy in those situations because for the health of the entire relationship, right? Not, it's not just for you personally to make sure that you're, you're sending the next generation off into a foundation of resiliency to take on the challenges of life.
Speaker 2:It's, it's, it's going to affect their kids and their kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah. One thing that I learned is that the communication between the parents and the support between the parents is incredibly important because if if if the dad's saying A and the mom's saying B and that message is not aligned then the kids are basically gonna be like well I'll do whatever I want but the second that that message aligns it becomes very tough for them not to align themselves. That's a huge frustration that I think we cause ourselves and I always say that you know heaven and earth is you know heaven and hell is on earth and we create it for ourselves 100% and many times parents are doing that to themselves. I think like if if if the dads and moms that are listening today just figure out how to communicate, you know, and align yourselves with each other on how you should behave with the kids, god, you're gonna save yourself so much frustration. So that's a small piece of advice I would give.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the things there was a father that came to me with he was struggling with some some stuff, and he, you know, he realized my stance on things. And listen. My kids are in their twenties, and they're very successful. Okay? My son's 22, just bought a company.
Speaker 2:He got financed. He, he took care of the business plan, the projections, the resume, the, everything that was required to get the SBA loan to purchase this company. And now he says he's doing very, very well and he's growing that company. And he's reaching that full capacity and he understands marketing, right? He understands marketing.
Speaker 2:And so it's not hard to, you know, promote a company. And because they learned that in four h too. Right? They learned that in in all of their sports and everything that the job's a boss, and and they're they're knocking out the details. And I I'm so proud to work beside them.
Speaker 2:And now it's like, they set the pace and I come alongside them and like, where can I help? What can I do? And it's, it's beyond precious. It's a kiss from God. And I think all parents should have that experience now with their children and not a matter of dependency on you for the rest of their life.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like, no, you've, you've done well to pass the wand and to see that they have the foundation in place to do quite well and to tackle the challenges of life. But I would say this is that a guy came beside me and said, man, what do I do? Like, I don't have a say in my life. It's like, and he said something to the fact that like the, it was during 2007 crash. It was like, Hey, the market's gonna crash.
Speaker 2:And I I'm at that age where I can't retire. We've got to sell the house, you know, before it gets any worse. And he's, but his wife says, no, I don't want to sell the house, but that's what they agreed on. They agreed that they were going to sell the house, But then she changed her mind. And I and he goes, but we have a policy in our family that we don't move forward unless we both agree.
Speaker 2:And I said, Clark, listen to what you just said. You don't move forward like you're you're on a boat. You see the the white caps, the cloud formation. You see the storm on the horizon. You're going out to deep water.
Speaker 2:You're screwed. You're you're committed to be in the eye of the storm that's coming. And now is when you turn the boat around, and you're saying, well, we don't we have a policy. If we don't both agree, then we we don't do. And I said, well, you've you've made a decision.
Speaker 2:You've agreed, and you're gonna go in the eye of storm. And you're not gonna retire because you have this massive mortgage and, you know, and it's so obviously it didn't end well, but he didn't have the courage to turn the boat around. He didn't have the courage to say, this is what we agreed on. This is what we're gonna do. And, you know, whatever counseling you have to go to to navigate the details of all of that stuff, you know, it, it, but it, what it was is he was right.
Speaker 2:He was right. They, they should have sold the house. They should have moved on and found, you know, their retirement was their chapter in life where they would then afford a retirement. Right? Because he didn't have the courage or the the courage to stand up to what was happening.
Speaker 2:He was handcuffed to a very unfortunate situation. Now I would say that that's where, you know, men in my life, they they just threw their hands up and just, you know, they just coward, you know, and they didn't know how to approach their, their spouse or lovely other, you know, that we love our grandma. We love our, moms and whatnot, but I'll I'll give you a story. A guy, a police officer comes home and he sees that there's his house is full of merchandise that's his wife and his daughter are shoplifting. And he's a police officer.
Speaker 2:And he says, hey, this has got to stop. Is it enough? No more of this. Right? Well, they just ignore him, and they keep doing it.
Speaker 2:This is a true story. And then there was a a search warrant. You know, they were they were followed. There was a search warrant. We got into the house and his his picture was on the local front page of local newspaper.
Speaker 2:Lost his job. Course. He lost his pension. He lost so what I'm saying is we we all have to think of ourselves as that police officer in our in our lives, raising our family and having a say, because there was no question whether he was right. And so my my grandmother died with four fake IDs.
Speaker 2:My my aunt and my grandmother, they were into shoplifting, insurance scams, identity theft. They were into it big time. My grandfather found some paperwork. It was a social security number, and he flipped out, man. And he's, I just gotta stop.
Speaker 2:You know, my uncle was somebody you did not want to cross paths with. My, it was a shit show. My, my mom, my aunt, my uncle, there's, it was just a shit show, but my brother, my grandmother was at the helm of it all. And my grandfather would just throw his hands up and just, you know, he would go get on a ship and travel and deliver oil. He was a merchant Marine.
Speaker 2:And I think he, he, and it didn't end well. My uncle was murdered, not murdered, but killed by distant relatives, cousins, if you will. And so what, what, what it, what it comes down to is this, is that it could be as simple as the boy, the kids are not allowed to watch video games throughout the week. And on the weekend, if their grades are good, that they earned that right. And then the chores that we do, my kids were on stools.
Speaker 2:This was your week to do dishes. We are all working together. This house has to be clean all the time because we're on display. We have customers coming. We have employees and all these kinds of things.
Speaker 2:And they just, they learned to pick up after themselves. We were not their servants. Their room was clean. And here's the thing I had, I had to quit my job. This is how serious it becomes.
Speaker 2:I'm telling, I'm a testimony to what it takes. I said, I quit. Everything's running amok. You're allowing all these things to happen. The kids are watching TV.
Speaker 2:They're going over to a friend's house. I said, our daughter's gonna be traveling around the world as a brain surgeon and our kids are gonna be living in their fifties over my dead body. So I quit and I became the full time dad And I went military. I got rid of all the stuff. Their overwhelming room was just, you say, clean your room.
Speaker 2:It's like deer in the headlights. It's like, couldn't, they couldn't even imagine. And they could spend hours and then it's still within, it looked like a train wreck. And so I did a military thing. Had shirts, socks, underwear, shirts, pants, three drawers.
Speaker 2:And then in the closet was all their sporting gear for that season. Right? And I said, if I ask you to clean your room, it's going to take you ten, fifteen minutes. And it streamlined everything. And then the house was always clean.
Speaker 2:I'm just, I'm meticulous about keeping the house clean and less is more, less is much, much better. And so, but what here's what I would say is that I had all this extra time when I put them in school. I'm like, oh my gosh. The house is clean. You know?
Speaker 2:All the chores are basically done. And I'm like, I can go surfing? I can I mean, you know, it it was funny because my aunt oh my gosh? My aunt would close all the windows, and she would watch soap operas all day long. Her her husband was a mechanic.
Speaker 2:And, you know, he he loved his alcohol, and he loved women. And, ultimately, my aunt, though, she didn't work. She would stay at home mom. During the summer, she'd watch us. And then, you know, half an hour before he comes home, we would she'd open the windows and we'd be stuffing all the clothes under the bed and make it look like the house was clean.
Speaker 2:And she and she'd be sweating like she'd been working all day. And, you know, she she melted into this couch. It, like, it formed her body. You know what mean? She gained all this weight and, you know, it was just, it was just, it was toxic.
Speaker 2:It was sad and toxic. And she'd be yelling and screaming, like, hurry up and get the vacuum and dah dah dah, you know, all this kind of stuff. And, but it was just a hoard fest of, of stuff in this house. And he'd come home and, you know, like dinner should be ready. And that was, that was the presentation, you know, that if, if you look behind the curtain and solve what it, what, for what it was, it wasn't healthy and didn't end well.
Speaker 2:Right. So I think we should avoid that, you know, in our life is is that I went military. I kept it really, really simple. And it actually made my my that was my wife at the time. It made her really angry.
Speaker 2:Like, like, I had, you know, when you watch movies, sitcoms, men are stupid. You watch commercials. You watch sitcoms. You watch movies, and men are trying to take it like you did, and you took on that role. And it's like, oh, you're gonna fail miserably because there's not a woman in the environment to make it right.
Speaker 2:Come on, man. Really? I guess because I was at a very young age, I would overhear all the stuff that my aunt and my mom and my, and my grandmother and my uncle were into. And then everything, when my grandfather entered the room, everything was staged. Like it, it wasn't happening that the insurance scams and the, all these shoplifting and all this kind of stuff that was happening, and it was a facade.
Speaker 2:And and when you see that so much and then marrying into a family, a Christian family, where I I remember telling my wife, I said, you know, we went through a lot of counseling. And I said, I can't compete with your presentation because your soft spoken, holier than thou innocent presentation isn't truth. You know? It's not truth. You're twisting the fabric of truth to get your way.
Speaker 2:And, and I'm navigating the repercussions of that. And I'm, we have neighbors threatening to sue. We have county officials red tagged on issues. I'm saying, I do not agree. I do not agree.
Speaker 2:I do not agree. And the more I say, don't do not agree. The walls get higher and and thicker. And I'm like, how do I have a say in this house without being this monster? You have to contend with that, but I would say that when you when you're dealing with somebody that is I said, you know, I hear all the worship music.
Speaker 2:It's like you're a bulldozer with a million crosses and, you know, your your worship music's so loud, but they're still it's still doing the damage. Right? It's still doing the damage. And you're you're saying, just look the other way. In my life, it was like, look the other way or else.
Speaker 2:Like that police officer that was coming home to all that that shoplifting, his wife and daughter were saying, look the other way or else. And I'm proposing that men should take the or else and do it in such a way with grace and not with, I made a mistake and I, and I look back and I go, I wish I had the right frame. I wish I had the right presentation. I don't think there's the perfect presentation, but there is a presentation that says, I care too much to look the other way. I love you too much to ignore and deny what is obviously the wrong direction for how to navigate the storms of life.
Speaker 2:And how do you turn that boat around? Like literally, how do you turn the boat around, get into a safe harbor on high ground where you can all agree to disagree? Right.
Speaker 1:I haven't figured out the right answer, but I think that the first step is just acknowledging that you don't know. And if you just acknowledge that I, you know, yes, I need to be strong. Yes, I need to do the right thing, but also, yes, I need to figure out how to communicate this in a way that I'll be heard and that we'll be a team and that I'm not gonna do this right and I need to figure out where when I'm making a mistake, I need to catch that, I need to apologize, I need to acknowledge that I can do the right thing the wrong way. Like, I think as long as you have that mindset that you're making mistakes and that you're not holier than thou. I am not perfect.
Speaker 1:I'm I'm making mistakes right now and tell me and I will try to adjust. As long as you have that mindset, I think I think that's probably the best I figured out how to do. If anybody in our audience has a better suggestion, please call Mark and me so you can learn.
Speaker 2:I've I've done my share of asking for forgiveness. I really have. With my oldest son, he doesn't talk to me. There's things that that I'm saying that I don't agree with, you know, and perfect examples, my middle son and my younger son were tracking quite well. My oldest son had the grunge look, you know, and he's driving a car that's just short of a death trap.
Speaker 2:He's living under his mommy's roof. I said, over my dead body, I care too much, son. You're no. You know? And like, you don't have a say.
Speaker 2:And I said, do you think you don't think I have a say? You know, I was hard on you because I didn't realize, I didn't approach him the way I should have. I was a drill sergeant when trying to approach a very sensitive young man. And, I didn't understand that. And so, you know, I, and I apologized to him.
Speaker 2:I said, you know, I, I did my best and you're going to be a better man than me. You know? And so, you know, but he still keeps his distance, but at the same time, I'm seeing his lifestyle that concerns me. And he got into the THC thing, and he's working with uncle Billy up in the ranch and, you know, they're doing, you know, and I just go, oh gosh. I go, and I said, son, whatever you decide to do, you have to take everything that comes with it.
Speaker 2:When I go up there and see uncle Billy with a pistol on his side, you know, and I'm like, what's going on? You know? And he can saw the the mafia's moving in, you know, the everybody's growing and, you know, it's it was just and I go, son, you really don't wanna go down this rabbit hole. And I know it's attractive because there's money and and all this talk that's going on. I said, I lived it.
Speaker 2:It's not healthy. But ultimately, that venture didn't work out. And then he's moving at home with mom and then he's looking like he's homeless. I said, look, you know, you're not living at home. You're not living off my blood, sweat, and tears over my dead body.
Speaker 2:So I'm coming. The wrath of dad is coming. I I it's just like, don't don't test me on this. Right? Now it wasn't long before he was working twelve hour days, seven days a week on a job and, you know, working with my daughter and her husband built out a pet resort in Hollister, California.
Speaker 2:And I said, you know, what I'm what I'm trying to say though is ultimately is that I care too much to not address something. And and if I don't have the perfect presentation and that's my downfall, then so be it. So be it. Know? My heart's heart's in the right place.
Speaker 2:Period. If your heart's in the right place, I guess that's what the bottom line is. Is it if your heart's in the right place to make a positive impact in the lives of your children or others, and that's, it is not being, you're not being malicious in any way, and there's no personal gain to you that you're like, okay, it's what's my, what's my gain in this situation, this relationship. Then I think that that is the only answer that is the only, you know, solution to moving forward and seeing growth, positive, healthy growth. Is it?
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's my take.
Speaker 1:Mark, we have only one scripted question on this show, but it's a hard one. And I kind of promise this to you upfront. It's our last, our closing question. If you had to go back to the hardest points in your life, whether it five minutes ago, ten days ago, or in your twenties, what advice would you give yourself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, just to be more sensitive to others and approach people based on their personality. Yeah, that's what I would say, that that was my downfall. My presentation it was never quite glamorous. It was, it was too harsh at times and yeah, to, to be more sensitive and to approach people and understand their backgrounds, not my background and their challenges, aren't my challenges. And I can't truly understand the depth of what they're might going they what they might be going through is to be sensitive to that.
Speaker 2:That's the advice I would give if I was to go back.
Speaker 1:Mark, thank you genuinely from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for for being so honest and transparent and sharing your story with our audience today. I hope that, you know, your story will inspire people to, you know, that it's just that five minutes that changes a life. I truly believe that that can happen and I've seen it happen. And that's part of the reason why we do this show.
Speaker 1:So thank you so much for joining today. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2:All right. Thank you so much. It is an honor, really. Enjoy your content very much. Thank you, sir.