Thriving Under Pressure, Navigating Personal Challenges While Running a Company

All right, welcome to another episode of the High Gear Podcast. This week's topic, Thriving Under Pressure, Navigating Personal Challenges While Running a Company. We're gonna talk today with some great guests about how they've overcome adversity while running a big business. And you're probably driving in your car listening to this thinking, I've got a company, I'm dealing with personal issues. This is gonna speak to you today.

We've got four great guests. I'll include myself as one of them. Three great guests and me, something like that. Anyway, Derek Spain, my good friend, the owner of Derek Spain Realty. He does residential church property, land sales. He's in the Atlanta area like me. He also serves Baptist churches as an interim pastor. I like to say Derek is an ordained minister, which he is, and he has a master's degree from seminary school. Amazing guy.

knows lots about adversity. Rick Kersey, owner of Accurate Auto in Oregon, five locations. We've had him on High Gear TV, so you can probably find that episode and learn a lot more about Rick. We had a long episode there because it was so awesome. He had so much great information. And Thomas Hayes, the vice president of Leeds Near Me, my right-hand man, and an amazing podcast host in his own right. Gonna be lots of great Thomas Hayes shows in the future. Former New Business Development.

head of ShopFix Academy. did all the onboarding of new clients as well as a lot of other cool things. He was a shop coach over there, knows his stuff. And he was a former T-Mobile rep. I thought that was just so- I threw that in the trash. And worked at McDonald's at one point. No, he didn't work at McDonald's. I Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel. Good enough. All right, we're to get this thing going today. We're going to start off with Rick Kersey. Rick.

You run a big business. think you're going to kiss 11 million on the cheek this year in business. That's a lot of money, a lot of revenue. You've got a lot of miles to feed. You've got a beautiful family. We got a lot going on. Let's let's let's let you start off. And again, there's no rules to this thing. It's adversity. We want to really help that listener. Sure. Yeah. And thanks for having me. It's great to be here with all of you.

I really thought a lot about the title because it's thriving under pressure, right? I can tell you there's pressure. Thriving? I think it's a fluid situation. Sometimes we thrive and sometimes we dive. And you have to understand that. There are many times along the journey when we start to kind of get in the ditch and then we start entering into a time where

It's almost like, my God, what am I doing sort of thing? You know, whether you're one store, two stores, three stores, four stores, there's all these different levels, you know? I read a book years ago called The Seasons of Life, and I'm glad I read it in my 30s. I don't think I fully grasped it, but I got the concept. Now that I'm into my 50s, I certainly understand it. Because things change, right? As we grow and go. So like you said, Ryan, I...

I have my wife, Nicole, and my daughter, Noelle. just turned, she's about to turn 15 and she's in high school and my son Mason, he's 10. And these are tender ages in their lives when they require more from us. It's no secret. Nicole is my third wife. The first marriage was very short-lived. The second marriage, I was married to my business partner and that's all we really had in common was business.

I adore Nicole. Nicole is like the most important person on the face of the planet. And much like every person who is probably listening to this, when you grind hard at your business and that is, you know, your sole focus, I am super guilty of neglecting the one person who means everything in the world to me, right?

this last year has been a challenge for me. I've been kind of starting to elude the story. I talked about it with my, peers and my mentors and you know, I, it's great that we've built a great business and it's great that we've built this culture and we're still, we're still working on it, but I just didn't have a lot of gas in the tank. When I came home, I think it was about a year, year and a half ago, my wife said to me, you know, you might want to talk to Mason about X or you might want to talk to Noel about this.

And I said, why don't they just talk to me themselves? I hadn't realized that my children weren't comfortable talking to me. Dad's stressed out. Dad's tired. Dad's got big problems. They had actually felt that they were so low on the pecking order. And then I felt like a complete loser, like a complete failure, right? $11 million in sales is a great number. There's plenty of people who'd love to hit that number.

You know, all it is is the thing that we produce. It is the fruit of what we've built. But look at what I tore down to do it. So life is about about balance. And I understand those as those seasons of life happen, then you want to try to achieve balance. You need to understand which season you're in, what's important. And you need to make those things as equally as important. I run my life with this big whiteboard of all the things that I want to do that I want to accomplish. Never once was

you know, take Mason to karate on that list. Never once was spend time with my daughter, right? So I had to deal with that. And I do every day. I take my daughter to school and I pick her up because she's at a high school now. And at first I remember thinking, God, what a drag, right? I got to stop everything I'm doing. Well, she's going to drive next year.

This is probably the last year that I'm going to have to have conversations with her where we're going to be trapped in a car together for a half hour each day. And I actually kind of re-looked at it and went, this isn't something I have to do. This is actually kind of something I get to. This is an opportunity. know, God gave you this time. Use it. So I am. And I enjoy it. Everybody knows I don't get into my office now until probably 730 because I got to drop her off. But they know that my day stops.

Even if I'm still in the office, my day will stop around 1.30 so I can get on the road to go get her. But then remember, I talked about my wife and I started realizing, so you've cut out time for her, for my daughter, but what have you done for your wife? So my wife's not a complex person, but lunch. She wants to have lunch every now and then or just have some time. So then I started cutting my day back to like noon.

you know, somewhere in there. So from if I can make it happen most days I can from noon to like one or one thirty, that's my Nicole time. And then with Mason, I take him to karate every day, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and there's a couple hours on Saturday. So I'm making sure that I am balancing out what I'm doing with with my family as much as I'm balancing out with what I'm doing in the company. So that that's.

That's my first foray into balance. And I hope that that does help. I will tell you, you've got to learn time blocking. You've got to learn prioritizing. And then you've got to understand that the world's not going to burn down without you. It's not. But you have to do it. Nobody wants to be the richest divorcee. So that's not what I want. I think, you know, what you're saying is you're you're in a season, not so much of hardship, but but management of family and even like oversight. Right. Like you talked about how

Your kids didn't feel incredibly comfortable talking to you and you didn't even notice because you're so dialed in doing your thing. And that's dangerous, right? Because this is very important, it sounds like you're becoming a little more self-aware and you're dealing with those things, is amazing. And after we go around everybody, I we can just talk kind of freely. can suggest things to each other, but Derek.

You know, mean, look, you know, I know one of the hardships you went through, one of the things you went through and you, I mean, I think about you from time to time, I would say often, but that'll get a little weird, right? You'll get a crying, what's up, bro, right? And by the way, Derek was our pastor at High Gear. The guy drove 45 minutes each way to come and talk for 90 seconds and do a prayer at High Gear. mean, this is a quality, great human being right here we're looking at. So great guy, would do anything for anyone. And I think he lives a life.

that represents that as well. Many people love this guy in our local community and know this guy and he's kind of a local rock star here in Gwinnett. But Derek, what you went through and what you did and your faith and your belief, just what you went through and where you are today, what's going on with you today is amazing. I don't know how much you wanna talk about that, if that's appropriate, if that's...

anything but I mean you're this what you what you went through is really again I think about it and I go man that's what what you did is is inspiring and whenever I think of that I go okay I can pull this one off too you know what I mean I hear you so yeah so I was 27 years full-time as a pastor 10 years was a student pastor here in the Atlanta area at Hebron church and then for 10 years led Lake Placid Baptist Church up in Lake Placid New York where they had the Winter Olympics

and spent about half my time there with winter sports athletes, trying to be a spiritual encouragement to them, sort of a chaplain kind of thing. So I oversaw and led that ministry for 10 years. Then I was married and we had two kids when we moved to New York. We had our third child when we were in New York. But my wife was not happy in New York and I thought it was just the...

being out of the South, being away from family, those kinds of things. So after being there 10 years, had opportunity to move back to the Atlanta area, actually the same church that was at before to serve as executive pastor. It was a big church at the time, about 25 pastors and about 25 support staff. So I was the number two guy. So my, my buddy was the lead pastor and I was the number two guy. And I was heading up and serving and leading those guys.

And all of sudden, after being married for 22 years, my wife said she wanted a divorce. And that's a difficult thing for anybody here, but it's really, really hard for somebody who is a pastor for church because in most cases, the churches are not interested in you being a pastor if you're divorced. And that's just a reality of churches in America, especially Baptist churches, honestly. And so.

Did everything I could to save the marriage, but she had determined that she did not want to be married anymore. So from the time she told me she wanted a divorce until the divorce was final was about two and a half years. During that time, I did step down from the church and had to figure out how am I going to feed my family. And it was during that time that through some just a amazing journey and some conversations with some really wise men. All of a sudden, one day this guy goes, Derek, I've known you for a while.

Why in the world are you not in real estate? And it was like a light bulb hit and was like, that's what I need to do. And so I began to pursue it and it was just a tremendous fit for me. Just sort of spiritually speaking, I just said, the Lord just gave me great favor and getting involved in it taught me the, you know, obviously the classes and the training and all that, but taught me the business and provided a business and, it's just been very wonderful for our family. and so I was a single dad.

I was leading a real estate business that I know a lot of guys when they step in real estate, they do it part time and it takes them, I don't know, six months, a year before they have the first sales. within a few, I mean, within a couple of months, had a first sale within the first year, it was already full time salary and more than I'd ever, mean, I didn't step into it to make a lot of money, but it was more money that as a, I'd ever earned before, you know, as a pastor and to finish the personal side of it then.

A few years later, met while I met, I got to know Mary and Mary is now a wife and when she, when we got married, she was a single mom of five kids and I was a single dad of three. And so the day we got married, had eight kids living at home. And so you talk about a busy family. Two of them are now grown and not living at home, but the other six are still touring college and the other four still in elementary, middle school, high school.

And so we have a busy, But I mentioned the churches and so the ministry leaders in Atlanta area, they reached out to me. said, hey, as you know, because you're divorced, there's some churches that would not be interested in you being the pastor. But because of the circumstances, we realized that you personally didn't do anything that should, from the Bible standpoint, disqualify you. And they said, when you get trained, we want you to be available to serve churches part time. And so that's what I do. So

Generally in the Atlanta, North Georgia area, I have gone outside that a little bit from time to time, but for a few months at a time usually, or maybe a year or so, I help a church that's in transition as their interim pastor, like an interim head coach would do for football. I do that for churches and help step in from time to time. Yeah, but in terms of, if you want to talk about the difficult days, my faith grounded me. I believe that God never left me.

I I don't mind saying, I've said it as a pastor before and I didn't know it was so true until I experienced it. But I said, when God is all you got, or if you said this, when Jesus is all you've got, you realize Jesus is all you need. I had great friends that were there for me. I would call them. And I remember my one buddy, Kip, and I called him like pretty much every day when I was going through the divorce and trying to run the business and get it started and all this stuff.

And I said, I know I'm wearing you out, man. And he said, Derek, that's why I'm here. And he just graciously listened. If I need to vent, he a lot of times taught me off the ledge of something foolish I was going to do. So a good friend. then, and then as far as, you know, just the business side, I mean, there's obviously daily tasks that have to be done. And sometimes you just have to suck it up and do it. You just got to focus on it a bit at a time, even when your mind's wandering and being distracted.

and believing that good days are gonna be ahead. So those are just some initial thoughts. And I'm grateful to be where I am now. Hate what I had to go through. Hate what my kids had to go through. But grateful that I have a great relationship with my kids. And one of the reasons I think is that is because even during that time, I never neglected them, right? And always kept them close and was trying to be everything, be where they needed me to be at any given point. So yeah.

Hey, Derek, did you did you meet Mary before or after you started the real estate business or was it somewhere in between? So we knew each other from a distance from church. So I didn't know we didn't we like begin to pursue a friendship that ultimately led to marriage. I was already in real estate at that point. But she she actually so it was weird for her because she knew me as Pastor Derek first. Right. Yeah.

You know, it's interesting guys, you know, it's one thing that I was reflecting on is he was talking about a story and I was thinking, remember I was talking about seasons and seasons were different, you know, when I started with Nicole and probably different with Mary as well. And a big part of thriving under these pressure situations, we're trying to achieve a goal, right? But man, having a partner, having a partner that's on board that understands the mission and the drive and, know,

I can say from my own experience, mean, Nicole sacrificed, right? When Mason was born, I was still in the Coast Guard. I was doing weekend duties. I was running stores. I was doing all these things. And then she allowed me that timeframe to work these 12 hour days and then run off once a month and do these things. Mary probably is the same way. She realized that you've got this business to build and you've got these things to do.

people that support you. mentioned friends, but your partner as well. It's a big deal, Without that, I don't know that I could have built what I built. Yeah, no doubt about it. Mary, she loves me unconditionally. She loves the Lord as much as I do. She's very supportive of me as a full out on real estate and as a part-time pastor as well. She's super supportive. I try to reciprocate and be supportive of her goals and aspirations and stuff like that and help her out.

when needed, you talk about carpool for the kids and things like that. And yeah, so it is very important for me. I'll tell you a couple of little pieces of background there too. Derek worked so hard to save his marriage. I he lived in that house for a couple of years, believing he stayed and he like men, we men know,

We want to get out of there. We want to you he fought and fought and fought for about two years guys I mean this is that it's amazing like amazing amazing like I almost feel a little emotional talking about that and then think about it like he is a minister a pastor of a church and Basically lost his job, you know, like I mean this this is heavy stuff and this and being a pastor is not a job man mean, that's your that's your heart. That's your life. I mean, that's

or it's huge and then to rebound and the things he's doing and again like and by the way I'm sitting in my office here which which one of your kids carried my stuff up the stairs here we moved in who he's doing it he's the yeah the older yeah he's a weightlifter and he's huge by the way guys he is a specimen you don't want to get in the wrong side of this kid if he still is he was huge a few years ago but literally

I'm stuck. The moving company lets me down the day leads near me moved and I called Derek and his son shows up and does things. Derek came to my house to help build my treadmill when it showed up. I Derek is this is the and I'm sure I don't I'm at maybe I've been there once for you. I don't know what the deal is, what I've delivered to you. But this guy is living embodying everything and that hardship I'm telling you like I remember when I we were at a Starbucks one day talking and I was probably there to complain about my problems or something. And he told me that I just was like.

It really is, it's one of those things that, to stay there with a woman that wants to divorce you and to stay and keep fighting, as men, we, I'm gonna use the word demasculating. mean, like you're sitting, you wanna be back, and she's like, no, it's, you know what I mean, guys? You know what I mean? But his belief, his faith, he thought through that, imagine that, what faith can do, but seeing how well he's doing now, what,

The Lord has provided to him and as well, what he's accomplished. I'd love to see Derek go way further. I'd love to see him have whatever he wants, but that's inspiration. I'm telling you, whatever you go through, what he did, those nights, imagine those nights going to bed, thinking about this, doing this and that thing. So I hope I didn't share too much there, Derek. I hope you're okay with that, but a real inspiration. I kind of want people to know that. We'll circle back to everybody and talk about anything. Thomas, you know,

Is there some dark secret? I don't know about about hardship and pain that you haven't told me in our personal conversations, but you've been through Things yourself, please share as well Yeah, I mean As i'm sitting here reflecting on on your guys's stories I just want to say like there's so much wisdom That both of you guys have because of what you've gone through the character that you had and that was further developed through What you went through?

And I mean, I don't think any of us are any different than that when we go through hard things it develops that in us I actually I wanted to ask a question Derek, you know you were talking about You know you had these guys that you're relying on people that are in your corner that You know you could call on you were like man. I wonder if I'm wearing you out. Did you have those friendships?

Before this was a something where people were like seeing the need and they went after you How did you get those people in your court? Yeah, great question. No, they were friends for years Before that they were the guys that yeah, you know, we hung out together. We played ball together We yeah. Yeah and and some some of them were were friends where it was like a couple like my now ex-wife and I were friends with you know him and his wife but yeah, those were guys that I

I had known for a long, long time and just leaned on them during that time. Yeah. You know, when you go through tough times, one of the things that you realize you need is you need to people to defend you when you're not in the room. Because I realized that I couldn't go around trying to explain the situation and defend myself everywhere I needed. Cause you know, I was, I mean, obviously ministry pastor, you're in the

people business, connecting people to God. And then real estate, you're in a people business. And so your reputation on both of those means everything. And so I had to just trust that my character I had established through the years. And then these people, you know, there were conversations I had to explain enough the situation to help somebody who took the time to ask me. But sometimes, and I'm still learning today, somebody said, yeah, I heard about what you were going through. And so and so filled me in or somebody will say, Hey, yeah, so and so had a problem. And I told him what was going on.

I mean, they defended me. They had been friends for a long time. Yeah. How do you get those friendships? And I'll, I'll tell a bit about my story in a second, but I just, I want to keep chasing that for a second. Was that something that's natural to you? I mean, cause like, you know, we're talking about, you know, Jesus, one of the jokes that, know, I've heard before, which is super accurate is, know, the real miracle of Jesus is that, you know, he had a group of 12 friends in his thirties, you know, so like,

It's pretty uncommon, at least in America, for guys to have close friends. And so what's the story on how you you accomplish that? Yeah, I mean, one of the things. Hebrew in church was the center of our friendship during that those that period of time we would go to church together, but we also we served like we were all I was on staff as a student pastor, but these guys were volunteers.

I recruited them to help me lead the teenagers. And so we would go on like youth retreats together. So we were leading younger. So it's almost like, you know, if you take it to like scouting, like boys guys or something like that. So we did we, but we, was, you know, spiritually, but we also, we enjoyed playing ball together. we played travel softball together. We played flag football together. We played basketball together. So we competed together. And so we had that. mean, I know other guys that go hunting together, they go boating, whatever.

But for us, so we had common interests. And so it was that it was sort of all that. So church being involved in community and doing stuff together. Yeah, that's great. So in that same vein, you know, one thing that I've been going through, you know, last year or two is really, you know, looking at different areas of life and like how how can I improve this? And, you know, one of those things that I've been honestly praying for for a long time is, man, I really do want a group of great people around me.

And and I you know to frame that like I've always had amazing people around me, you know when I was with you know shot fix and all that incredible But but I'm talking about like personal, know people that are in my you know personal life outside of you know professional things and And it was very interesting, you know how that ended up, you know unfolding one of the things that I've really struggled with over the years is my health and my weight and things like that and so

I was looking at kind of what are some root causes, things like that. And one thing that's been a hard thing for me is to be consistent in exercise, stuff like that. And I was talking to somebody, sort of a mentor and the recommendation for kind of killing a few birds with one stone is getting a hobby, something active. And he said specifically something active with other men. And I'm like, okay, so being the weird researcher I am,

Okay, I researched all these different hobbies. Like, okay, we can't do that, we can't do that. And I finally landed on cycling. Cycling. And I hadn't ridden a bike probably since I was a kid, you know, I have coworker at ShopFix, he was an avid cyclist and it looked like they were always pretty cool and also pretty fit. So I bought a bike, which was great. And then I was like, I need someone to ride with. And my wife was still his best friends with...

this woman that that she met who's in our community and that Her husband was a cyclist when he lived in California and then they moved here and she's like hey And I was saying hey, I need to find somebody my wife's like hey, you know Jose He actually, you know cycles you should call him and so I ended up reaching out to him didn't know him I actually helped him get a bike. He didn't have a bike and I we started writing and

It was so amazing to a, know, find this new capability in my body. This is after I had weight loss surgery, I've lost, you know, about 90 pounds. And so finally, like I'm exploring these things my body can do, which was amazing. But what, what God did in that relationship was very interesting. one, I really learned that in, being able to have deep connections, you know,

I think a lot of times at church, especially in men's programs, we just throw a bunch of guys together and expect them to all connect. But that's not reality. That's not how things work. And so by doing this active thing, you know, with this person, you know, over a period of time, I started to get comfortable enough that I could open up and I could, you know, talk about things that were going on with me. He did the same thing. We ended up forming this close relationship. And God really, you know, healed a lot of things through that for me.

And so, know, going through hard things, having those people in your corner, you know, what I want to say, you know, to anyone listening is, you know, don't, I would say don't go about it a different way than maybe the direct path. Like, you know, find something that you have common ground with and make some friends. And sometimes it's just that awkward of, hey, I literally was like, hey, I'd like to ride, you know, I'd like to cycle. I'd like you to go with me. Didn't know the guy. It was awkward.

We did it, but we ended up being really good friends. And some people are introverts and that's scary for them. It was a little scary for me, but that gives so much life. So a little bit of a rabbit trail there, but man, that's such an important thing that I know in my life, if I didn't have those guys that I could call on when I'm struggling or having a problem or whatever, it's really freaking lonely. And so to have that as a game changer. And I'll just mention quickly too, you sort of touched on things.

During that period of time, I was eating healthy. looking back on it, like, dude, I don't even know how, when I cooked meals. you know, it's such a blur. But also, I went to the gym every day. And so was consistent in health. And so because I was, I remember talking to a counselor friend during that time, and I would lean on, he was one of those guys I leaned on. And I told him, said, Dave, I've never felt more

spiritually strong, more physically strong, and more of an emotional basket case in all my life. But the others, because the emotions were all over place, everything else, the spiritual side, the physical side, the friends helped me stay grounded. so yeah, yeah, because I know people can get, you know, bad habits and alcohol, drugs, other self, you know, stuff, they're going to destroy their bodies during those times. And you can't do that.

Well, and I think that's the other thing is, you know, the people in your life that you are, you know, doing life with, they need to have permission to call you out on your crap and say you are doing something stupid. You should stop, you know, and not just having people that, you know, would would go along with whatever you want to do. Rick, you know, reflecting on what you were saying earlier, one thing that was just like really struck in my head, you you're talking about seasons of life. I've

I've worked for entrepreneurs my whole life. I love entrepreneurs. The thing that I see the most with entrepreneurs is, you know, the business is such an integral part of who you are. That is the core being an entrepreneur is your business is part of your heart. And I've seen business owners that pour their life into that business. And like you, you know, really walked through, there is a cost.

There's a cost to your family, to your relationships, to your health. There's a lot of things. And so now you're in the season of, you know, really finding balance. But I'm torn on this idea of, you know, even in the growth season, how much should you be giving up? You know, and it's, you know, am I going to work, you know, 15 hour days for years and miss a good chunk of my kid's life? Or is it, you know, do I need to choose to maybe not grow as fast or maybe is there another path?

I'd love to hear from your perspective and your experience what you would say to that. Yeah, it's unfortunate that I didn't have children with my second wife because I think the outcome would have been vastly different, right? You know, so I, you know, I.

You're gonna give it up. You are. And I swallowed that hook line and sinker. I don't know whether I the right answer or not, but I can tell you this. There's always, you know, everybody has this mantra, know, family first, family first, family first. I have adamantly said for many, many years, no, no, no, it's not family first. It's the business first. And here's why. Can't take care of this family without the business, right? I think I even said that to my now wife on our first date. You know, it's just like, hey, careful what you're getting yourself into.

you know, cause this is where I am. you know, I was not good at balance for the really longest time. It was all about the business. and that's just, that's the way it was, you know? So I'm fortunate now that, it's, it's a little later in life and I figured it out. but I would be willing to bet that there's plenty of listeners out there that haven't figured it out or they're stuck in that rut. Or like many entrepreneurs, we actually, this is what we don't want to admit.

We're addicted to the thing that we do. You know, I was just on my tribe meeting the other day and we were trying to decide what people are doing when they go into their office and half of them are screwing around. They're on social media, they're at Facebook marketplaces, doing all this stuff. And you're like, my God, we're not even being intentional about how we're spending our time. Right. So, you know, I don't know Thomas to answer your question. I don't know if you can be conscious enough to realize that you were sacrificing.

Right. You are so almost mesmerized or hypnotized by the growth season, right? You know, acquiring a store is, you know, there's a little bit of a gamble there's a little bit of excitement, you know, and you're just go, go, go, go, go. I, know, my mom from when I was a child, she's like, you got a one track mind. That's all you can see. I am 53 years old and I still have a one track mind. Right. You know,

You know, it only came down to where you start realizing that there's pieces of you falling aside that wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you can't do this. You know, we don't want to break it. I would love to talk to somebody who did it better than me. I, you know, maybe I could learn something, but yeah, we're still doing it, right? We're still growing. We're still cruising. We're still doing that thing. So it's, it's, it's gotta be a hard conscious effort to go. I'm only going to do this much. I can tell you this.

When people ask me how many stores or how much revenue or anything, here's my new answer. Cause it used to be, there used to be some sort of number. said, it's gotta be profitable and it can't take away from my family or my, or my life. It just can't. Right. So that's how much, I don't know what that looks like. Derek, I think you have to bounce from the show. Love you, meet you. We'll keep your, your, message alive here. And thanks for being on the show. We're going to wrap up here in a second, we'll let you know. Thanks, Derek.

Thank you for that Rick. I want to be for the sake of time I'm gonna share some thoughts. Maybe we can talk about these the three of us and And take this bad boy home a little bit First off this thriving under pressure idea Was one that I had over the last few days navigating personal challenges, obviously It's something close to my heart right now. This has been a very rough year for me Got divorced in March

And that's obviously very difficult after being married for 12 years, moving out of our marital house, leaving everything behind. It's a huge thing to do. And then in the last five months, a custody battle has erupted. And without getting too much into details or pointing fingers or anything, I haven't seen my daughter in quite a while. So I did see her this week, coincidentally, but that was the first time in five months.

This is a big deal to deal with and try to imagine not seeing one of your kids for an extended period of time. And on the flip side of it, I have been seeing my son a lot more and I'm a single dad all by myself over there, but I pick him up from school every day. I take him to school every day and if he's not in school, he's looking at my face every day. So I'm always there with him and that's been a very positive thing, I guess, in light of everything.

But anyway, that's, know, and everybody, Derek talked about going through that. Rick, you've been through that too many times. We've, you know, we've, we've all developed or been through hardship of relationships ending. This is incredibly difficult, but I want to share some advice to people going through these things because I'm going through it right now. I didn't sleep well last night. I haven't slept well in months and life is very hard right now, but I'm not asking for anybody's sympathy.

because I believe that hardship is the price of admission for success. And I believe all the things you go through teach you valuable lessons and you have to take them for what they are. And the first thing I'm gonna talk about is catastrophizing. And what catastrophizing is, is when one bad thing happens and then another bad thing happens and then another bad thing happens, you link them all together into one big problem. You've got...

The world is out to get you, but really, the car broke down, needs to be fixed, you lost a customer at work or something, that get better. It's all individual things and you don't stick them together. It's something we all do, don't do it. Life is not bad. There's bad days. There can be multiple bad things that happen in one day, but they're each individual things. So break them up. Don't let 10 bad things turn into...

My life's awful, everything sucks. No, it's just 10 bad things that happen. A year from now, in one day, there'll be 10 good things that happen. And when 10 good things happen, what do call that? You're gonna be walking around, and by the way, don't get too caught up in the bad times, and don't get too caught up in the good times. Run right up the middle, and keep going with it. Take care of your people. Be humble, like our good friend Derek Spaine we just met. Another kind of little lesson is my rock band was touring.

And it was so bad, all I could see for 10 hours was that little white line in the center of the road. And I had to drive, because I wanted to go on tour with Sue Medley, damn it, right? I'm a little young rock and roller. All I could see was that line. In times of trouble and storms, look for that little line on the road. Find a marker up ahead and follow that thing. It's going crazy, but squint your eyes and find it and stay with it.

And you're gonna get through that storm. You're gonna get where you have to go. And again, if you're not catastrophizing and pulling all these, just look at that little line and keep going. The other thing I would say that I do a lot of right now is I'm not lying about my situations to myself. I'm not making someone else out to be a villain and me a good guy. This is life, you know? In my situation, was two people that didn't work. And that's the saddest of all, right? Because it's like, like, damn it.

You know, you can't blame somebody and vice versa. It just doesn't work. Don't lie about the situation and try to improve it, you know, from it, try to learn from it and try to get better. Because again, all of these things will make you better. And I think to what Thomas was saying a minute ago, and there's a couple lessons from Ryan, because every day I show up and especially with my son at the house, I've got to wake up in the morning, even when I haven't slept and get him ready and get him out and be, you know, this strong parent when it's not there, when it hurts like hell.

every day and there's nothing that can fix it other than time. think if they say, by the way, I did some Googling early on and they say it takes 18 months before you start feeling better. And I did this in the beginning. I'm like, well, that doesn't work. That's like, what month am I on? Yes. And I'm counting now. like that, that, that's no good, bro. That's not, that's not the, that's not, but it's so God, it's got to be true. I'm in a bit of a forgiveness phase now where I'm kind of going like I'm forgiving and just sort of letting go of things and going.

But there's all these things to go through. But Rick, you were talking about business and trading off. I gotta be honest, I don't believe there's any other way to be successful in business other than 10, 15 hours a day. I think anybody that tries to really start and erect and build a true enterprise, is, and it will, and again, here I am right now. You're talking about with your kids and everything. I realize...

You know, my second year of high gear, my kids have never seen it still. This year was a technicality, we'll call it, but last year, nobody in my family came. That's awful. I mean, they should have all been there running around, setting up booths. That's my fault. The trips I've taken, all the places I've gone, I should have pretty much gone nowhere. I should have stayed with them or brought them with me or something. it's, you know, and I think I knew those things. I just didn't do it. And I made several, several mistakes and I paid.

the final price. But at the end of the day, I don't think there's another way to grow a business. I think that if you try to balance and build a multi-million dollar enterprise, you are lying to yourself because this takes everything you have. And in the early days, I would take new client calls at 10 p.m. from the East Coast. I'd be sitting there on my couch. I would do them. And again, my now ex-wife helped a lot with the kids and helped me to allow to do those things. Right. So I was able to do it. But still, it was a disconnect. Right.

And again, to your point, which you've been through Rick, I'm going through it now too. And here we are and there's no turning back, right? But the point is, is you don't catastrophize and look at everything and get down on yourself. Again, like this has been a great year of business. Thomas has come into my life, it leads to me. Rick, we have a relationship. All these things are going on that develop and when you learn and you work your way through, you can improve from it. But I think by being honest with yourself when you go through things too, that you can...

You know, like Derek, for example, he's got a great, you know, marry, he's remarried. Rick, which you've been through and, you know, your great family. You know, there's hope. And I think that part of that is forgiveness, is allowing the other person or, you know, that you're going through that with to be happy and have great things too. But I'm optimistic about the future and I've got lots of forgiveness to spare. And hopefully there's some for me, you know, in the process through others. But

But I think that those are critical things. I think you gotta keep showing up every day, keep doing it no matter what it takes, and know that when you change one thing, everything changes. know that you don't change, in the early days I used to change everything and then change everything. I'd change my girlfriend, my job, my city, all at the same time and try to figure out why I was emotionally devastated, right? But you change one thing and the whole, and I think that might be a Chinese proverb, to change one thing, change everything. Everything will be different.

So sticking to routines, getting to normal as quickly as possible when you go through tough times to try to normalize it, you will get through it. But yeah, but tough times will happen and they will make or break you. And quite frankly, unfortunately you look at a lot of really successful people and really talking to business owners right now, I think that's who's listening to this. And I don't think balance is the answer. I don't think telling them to go and balance things out because...

Unfortunately, you're probably gonna have a mediocre business, but everything you can get your family involved in, you can, but if you have adversity, look for that little line in the middle of the road as you're driving in that storm and stick with it, you will get through it. And again, really, if it's a divorce, I mean, it's about the kids. Make sure that they're as good as possible and take care of them. And I don't know if I should be preaching on that or not at this juncture. I'm having a rough ride of it in my first phase of it, but.

But yeah, that's a couple thoughts from me. Thomas, you have any, or Rick, any thoughts? Or we can wind this up? And doesn't have to wind up right away, you guys, any thoughts? Ryan, I'm, you know, walking with you, you know, over the last year and seeing you go through, you're going through, which I have to say, I was, I'm really grateful that I could, you know, walk that out with you on the business side of things. But one thing that,

that I really learned from you in this period, I was so surprised how transparent you were with what you were going through with staff, with others around you. You're not sharing inappropriate details, but they knew that you were going through the major, the big parts of the story. And you also were really honest about how you were day to day. You didn't put on a mask and say everything's fine like,

If you weren't fine, you know, we knew you weren't fine, but you still showed up and we, know, you still did what you had to do, which even more speaks to character. You know, you're showing up even when you feel like absolute garbage. and so that, that taught me a lot of, man, you can still be a great leader and be going through hell and be honest about that and still have a great business. and, and I know that you're, you know, continuing, you know, to, heal in this process and, I'm sure there'll be.

you know, more things, you know, that you can teach others and that you're learning in this process too. But that's something from my end that I watched that just over and over and over stuck out with me or stuck out to me being with you during this. Thanks, bro. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Final thoughts on the matter, Rick, we want to give you the we'll give you the last thought on this. Any inspiration for our guy looking out the window right now? Maybe he is driving in a snowstorm up in the.

Up in your area, it snowing up there in Oregon yet? Only up in the mountains, only up in the mountains, not in the valley, but we're praying for it. No, I just go back to, I'm glad I started this off with talking about seasons because when you listen to everybody, everybody went through different things in different seasons, right? But when we're dealing with that adversity, that's a tough season. And I actually agree with you, Ryan, where I have a balanced life now, but remember, I'm not in growth mode, not hardcore.

like I was before. And man, when you are, this is where the other side comes out. When you're going through the tough stuff, grind, baby. Put your nose down and grind. I literally just had a young employee sitting in front of me yesterday who's going through much of the same stuff, the divorce, the kids, all the things. And I said, listen, you know, I can't tell you what's going to happen, you know, but I can tell you that through my career, the one salvation I've had is to put my nose down and get some wins. Like, let's go.

Let's crank. You've got good people around you. You do have people. You're right. Not everything sucks. Just this thing sucks. You know, and I think it's important to say to realize we need some wins. Maybe you don't feel like you have wins in that particular, you know, scenario that day, but there are wins to be had. So let's celebrate and get ourselves going. You know, that's what it takes. We're all going to go through bad stuff. Hopefully I pray that nobody goes through a divorce, God forbid, or loses a child or anything. I the bad, bad things, but still doesn't mean

Bad things can happen. You know, I didn't even get into the times when I got sued. You know, that's a whole other podcast, right? Well, let's have a podcast on what to do when you're because, you know, I think I think that, you know, the other gentleman was talking, he says divorce took like two and a half years. Yeah. Look, your lawsuit, right? That'll drain you for a few years, too. So bad things are always going to happen. You know, you've you're not going to just say, I agree. You're not going to, you know, sing kumbaya and be like, let's just balance it out. We got to some strategies for for.

you know, kicking some butt and taking some wins off the table. And then Rick, thank you for your time. Derek Spain, who had to jump. Thank you for his time, Thomas. Thank you for all your insights. Thomas, you want to wrap this bad boy up? Any thoughts as we walk out of here? Yeah, I really love this episode because, you know, everyone can relate to this, whether you're, you know, an owner, an employee, you know, whatever, you know, your role is in life.

We all go through stuff and I think the lessons that we talked through were really important. And I think that anyone listening is gonna get tremendous value from this. beautiful episode. Yeah, and just one last thought before we turn off and say goodbye. If you've listened this far and you've gone through this, however good or bad this episode was, if you're going through tough things right now, you're not alone.

You other people are doing it. You got this. You can do it. You can make it. You will win. It's going to be okay. And just remember that. Sometimes I say that to myself to kind of get through, but I really know this. know, Rick, you and I are both 53, you know? And so we've been around the block. We know this. We know it. I wish I could have known it a few years back. That would have been fun. could have really...

valued from being this wise at this point, but we know it's going to be okay. So I'm telling you, if you think it's not as bad as it is, if you're breathing, if you're walking, you've got a shot, you got another day, you got one more day, you're gonna win this thing, it's gonna be okay. Thank you for listening and watching to the High Gear Podcast, to all of our guests today. And thank you very much. We'll call that a show. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Appreciate it, guys. Thanks. See you guys.