The Man That I Would Become: Lessons from a Life of Hard Work, Faith and Purpose by Victor L. Bretting

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Hello, my name is Jesan Sorrells, and

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this is the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast bonus.

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There’s no book reading on these bonus

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episodes. These bonus episodes feature

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interviews, rants, raves, insights, and other audio musings and

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conversations with interesting guests around

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leadership, around life, and around all of the other areas that

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impact how we think and how we engage with leadership.

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Because listening to me talk to an interesting guest, or even just listening

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to me ramble incoherently by myself, is still

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more interesting than trying to read and understand yet

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another business book.

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Now, today on the show, we are welcoming to,

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uh, to our conversation here, Victor Bretting.

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Victor Bretting is an 8th-generation Texan, part of the original Old 300

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settlers who received land grants from Stephen F. Austin.

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He has been hunting since his early teens. His uncle took Victor on his

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first deer hunt when he was 13 years old. He shot his

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first Texas exotic over 25 years ago,

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an axis, blackbuck, and a fallow deer.

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He and his wife started hunting internationally over 20 years ago and

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have harvested over 140 different species of animals from

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across 6 continents. His love for the sport led him to acquiring

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the Bretting Texan Ranch, which is

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designed to help preserve the hunting heritage for his grandchildren

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and for the generations to come.

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Victor is the author of The Man That I Would Become,

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a Texas rancher memoir and hunting memoir book, raw and

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honest about growing up without a present father, learning grit from a

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relentless mother, and building a life through sweat,

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sacrifice, and faith. And those of

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you who are regular listeners to this show know I talk

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absolutely nothing about hunting, not because I don’t know anything

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about it, but because what I know you could probably put in a thimble in

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comparison to our Our guest today.

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Also, I know very little about ranching. As you know, I

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live in Texas, not going to disclose where, but I live in Texas. And

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those of you who are listening know, and I’ve talked about this before, I own

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a little 5-acre plot. I am not a rancher by any stretch of the imagination,

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but I am raising my children to take care of chickens. And

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I think that that’s a good beginning, at least, to learn some of the

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things that Victor has spent time, well,

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has been doing for so long that he’s probably forgotten all of these things. So

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I come into this conversation as an amateur, and we’re

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going to take a walk through this conversation with Victor today.

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Welcome to the podcast, Victor. How are you doing today? Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you

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having me on. All right. So let’s start off with this. I gave

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you that introduction, which I pulled from your website, but sometimes I

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noticed that website introductions don’t I note that website

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introductions don’t always do justice to what— to our guests. And so I

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always ask this question. I always start off with this one for our listeners.

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What is it that you do exactly?

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Well, still, I retired at one point in time from construction. So I’ve, I’ve

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got 50 years in, in construction. I

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bought the ranch. The ranch was really supposed to be about our retirement and continuing

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the hunting heritage like you talked about for my, you know, my grandkids in the

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future. And We met a couple of folks at a, a show

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that totally changed the ranch into about what legacy

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I’m going to leave. And that is the legacy of giving back because we’ve

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donated 64 hunts in the past 3 years to faith-based children

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group, to terminally ill kids, to veterans group, Purple Heart

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group. So it kind of, it morphed, you know, my, my life now and

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what do I do? My life is I work to support the ranch and the

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ranch supports the You know, the charity work and the donations that we do,

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hopefully helping folks, you know, going down the road.

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So when you talk about hunts, again, I have a number of

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listeners from all across the globe. People, you know, listen to this

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show who, who live in large cities, both

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in, both in the United States and in Europe, who probably

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haven’t ever hunted for their food ever other than standing in line at whatever

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their local grocery store is. And we also have people

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who listen to my show who might have some familiarity

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with hunting. So why don’t you walk us through some of the

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basics? Why is hunting important? Why is it important for

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ecosystems and for management and for wildlife management? And why is it important

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for human beings to even be engaged with this? Well, I

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think, you know, it says in the Bible we’re in charge.

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So we’re in charge of the ecosystem. So, you know, part of that is

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balance. You know, on the ranch, that’s, that’s what we do. We’ve,

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we’ve got 2 animal species right now on the ranch that are

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extinct in their native land. If it wasn’t for ranches like us and other

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ones, those animals would not be around. And some of the animals that

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we have have been reintroduced back into their natural habitat and

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now are, you know, are starting to, you know, thrive a little bit. So, you

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know, we’re, we’re supposed to be the keeper. So to me, you know, the,

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the idea of hunting is, is not about what you hear all the time on

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this kill. It’s not. That’s, that’s not what this is about. I’ve never had

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anybody come to my ranch at any point in time and brag about the 1

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second they pulled the trigger was so fun, man. That was just the greatest thing

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since sliced bread. You know, it’s what happens before and what happens afterwards.

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It’s the camaraderie. You know, I’ll give you one a little bit about conservation.

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You know, my wife and I just came back from Africa. Well, I, I green

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darted my rhino. Okay, so what’s a green dart? We tranquilized the

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rhino, paid the man a fee to do it, took a picture with it.

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But nobody ever talks about what the ranchers do as far as

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conservation. Yeah, that rhino’s being preserved, but at what cost to the

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rancher? All the fences they gotta put up, all the vet bills,

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all the food, right? Everything that they do to keep that

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animal alive comes outta their pocket. You know, so to me,

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conservation is a lot bigger than what people think. You know, some people think it’s

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just an ad on there that makes you feel bad and wanna donate. That’s not

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what it is. It’s about what we do, which is we, we literally are

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in charge of the animals, and that’s our job. So

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conservation. So I understand this through the lens of— you talked

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about it in the Bible. As a Christian fellow, I understand it

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through the lens of stewardship, right, of a creation

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mandate. But when you talk in those kinds of

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terms, right, people who aren’t familiar with the biblical corpus or aren’t

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familiar with what we’re talking about, they have no commonality to that,

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right? So when you use the term conservation, I like that you’re using that term.

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What are we conserving? Let me ask you that question. What are we

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conserving and for whom are we conserving it? Why, why is

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it important to engage in that process? You mentioned that, you know, you have

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animals that have been reintroduced into, into their native species who

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are their native habitats, who were, who are on your ranch.

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But what are the other, what are the other reasons for that? Like, what are

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the human reasons for that? What, what benefit is there to human beings from

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conservation? Well, one, you know, I believe us as

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parents are always wanting something better for our kids. So do you want to

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sit and sit and tell your kid that there’s no more whitetail left in the

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world because we all shot them out and we didn’t care about them? So part

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of conservation is why do I do what I do? It’s for the next generations

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to come. All right. We always want what’s better for that next generation. At least

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that’s what we always try to do. So that’s, that’s the one part of conservation.

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And the other part is, you know, we weren’t, we weren’t put on this earth

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basically, you know, just to take. We’re put on this earth to give. So part

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of giving back is to the animals as well. Keeping them alive, keeping them

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healthy, making sure there’s enough stock, you know, enough breeding stock.

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So to me, that’s that whole loop of conservation is I

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want to leave something better for my kids than what I came into this world

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with. Absolutely. Okay. So

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you wrote a book, The Man That I Would Become. That’s initially

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sort of what got us connected, right? Talk to us

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a little bit about the history of the book and sort of where that came

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from and why you believe that now is the time

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to publish that memoir. So it was originally

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just supposed to be for my kids and my grandkids and their kids

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going forward, because, you know, they, they don’t necessarily understand what I went

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through, you know, growing up. You know, I didn’t have a dad. My memory of

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my dad is literally sitting in a, in a recliner with a Falstaff or

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a Schlitz beer and an unfiltered Salem cigarette with an ashtray running over,

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you know. So my mom was always the port of my life. So she’s the

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one that taught me the perseverance, the drive, the determination. You don’t give

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up. So Part of all the understanding to my

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kids is they need to understand perseverance is important. They need to understand

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faith is important. They need to understand, like, you know, you’re from Texas, so you’ll

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understand. Cowboy up. You got bucked off. Okay. Okay. Get dusted.

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Dust your chaps off. Get your ass back on the horse. Right? That’s right.

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So they need to understand life is not going to be given to you. Right.

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I remember my mom at a really early age teaching me this one that

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I’ve, you know, I respond to all of my life is God’s going to

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provide to you and he’s not going to put anything on you you cannot accomplish

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yourself. But you got to get off the couch. And that’s

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so problem with so many people in today’s world. So this book has morphed into

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a lot of different things instead of just being a memoir about me and what

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I’ve come from. And the book is not about my success. That’s not it. It

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is about the journey, what you have to go through, the dark days you’re going

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to come through, and the silver lining at the end of the tunnel because of

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that perseverance and that faith and that belief that you got. So it’s kind of

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led into leadership book because 50 years being in construction

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It’s led into suicide awareness. I, you know,

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because of the veterans that we have on, you know, here at the ranch that

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we provide the hunts for, you know, everybody talks about the 22 or

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23 suicide deaths that happen a day, you know, in the veteran community.

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What they don’t realize, and I did not realize this, is there’s 50

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deaths in the construction industry. We are the 2nd leading cause of

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suicides based on any type of work. So,

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that led to me saying, well, maybe there’s a platform too that I can help

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somebody or they can understand. Because, you know, you know this, we don’t, we

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don’t talk a lot. We’re men, we’re macho, we take care of it. You know,

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we’re gonna, we’re gonna be in the bar fight and be the biggest one. And

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so part of, part of this journey, right, the man that I would become, is

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about being raised without a dad that— with no feelings, right? Mhm.

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There was no room for crying. There was no room for anything other than get

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your work done. Because I watched my mom Well, you have a couple of failed

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marriages because I couldn’t— there was nothing to give. It wasn’t like I

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wasn’t trying, but there just wasn’t that heart, right? So this journey

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is really what this is about. How do you become something and how do you

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persevere through it? And how do you continue with your life to try to be

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a better person? Now, it’s interesting that you talk about failure

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because one of the things we talk about on this show is

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what books can teach us, right? That’s, that’s what the core

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show is really, is really about. Um,

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and, you know, I got that idea of

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what literature could teach us from— you talk

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about, you know, your father being, being absent or maybe being bodily there, but

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not being emotionally there. And, and, you know, in a lot of ways, my

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father was, was the same way, right? Um, and so I picked

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up a lot of what I have

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cleaved to over the course of my life

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from, um, from my mother and from my grandmother, right? And I think a

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lot of guys who grow up in those kinds of environments and grew

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up in those kinds of environments, and you and I are probably separated by 20

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years, probably.

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There’s been a generational shift, right, in

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how masculinity, I guess,

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is thought of and how we, how we talk about it both

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as men, but also just as people walking around,

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you know, in the world. Now we can argue if that is a good thing

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or a bad thing. But ultimately,

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at the end of the day, having these kinds of conversations

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is critically important. Books can help us get to those kinds of

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conversations and open up those kinds of doors. At least that’s what I found in

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my life. I guess the question that I have for you

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is, you know, you said you started out in construction.

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Construction’s really hard. My father put on roofs in New Mexico for years,

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right? My father did construction work, right?

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The closest I’ve ever gotten is being an amateur carpenter. Don’t ask me to put

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together a house. I, you know, I can

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hammer a nail in straight, but that’s about where it begins.

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Hey, that’s at least good. You could do that. I can do that. I have

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mastered that. That’s good. But

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beyond that, well, everything is, you know, YouTube University, and we’re gonna take this an

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inch at a time. Like, this is how this goes. But what

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were some of the things you learned? And you probably have this in your memoir,

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but I’m not asking you to tip your hand because I want listeners to go

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out and get the book. But how did you, what were some of the things

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you discovered in construction in that space? And what was

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it that kept you in that path other than maybe money and success over the

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course of, over the course of, like you said, a 50-year career?

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Well, one, I love construction because we see a product of what

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we do every single day. It’s kind of neat. You know, the next thing is,

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you know, when I built a stadium, I never built a stadium before. When I

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built a nuclear power plant, I never built one before. So it challenges your

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mind. You’ve got to figure things out at all points in time because you’ve never

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done it before. So that was— that’s what kept me there. And, and yeah,

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I’ve led a good life. I’ve been paid well. Um, but

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you know, construction— that the positive and the negative of construction, right? We’re all

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A-type personalities. You know, you take the hill, get out of my way.

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You know, so Victor’s learned a saying in my leadership: it’s tens and ones. You

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know, God gave you So if I can take the hill and, and get out

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of my way, and I’m going to make it happen no matter what, my 1

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is I don’t have any empathy, I don’t care, and I probably don’t listen really

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well. And there’s a whole bunch of things that go on the 1 side. So

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part of my transition in my life was to understand that I was

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feelingless at one— at some point in time. I just couldn’t connect.

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And the other thing, then realized, okay, if you’re really going to be a well-rounded

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person, the 10 does not become a 5. ‘Cause I tried that, lost money

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on the only job that I have ever lost money on in construction in my

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entire life ’cause I changed what God naturally gave me. Yeah.

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So you learn to be a better person in life.

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You take your 1s and you just pick ’em up a little bit. 2, take

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’em to a 3, and if you get lucky, take ’em to a 4. I’m

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still inside, take the hill, get outta my way. But we can sit down and

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have a conversation and I can listen to you about what you believe before

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we take the hill. So to me, it’s your transition in your life, which

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goes back to the book again, How are you transitioning in your life to

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be a better person? It’s interesting that you talk about being a

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10 and being a 1, um, and, and, and transitioning those 10s,

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you know, or maybe not the 10s, but transitioning the 1s to, you know, maybe

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3s or 4s or 2s even, and moving those up. Um,

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because we talk a lot in our culture about empathy, right?

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And, uh, you know, I’ll, you know, lay my cards on the table here.

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I’m a white collar guy. Right? I, you know, do things with my brain.

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90% of the work that I do is with my brain. This is why carpentry

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is so interesting to me because it’s the other 10% of my life where I

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actually get to do something physical. And to your point, build something in the real

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world I can actually see, you know, oh, I built that, that’s there.

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Or if I failed miserably, oh, I failed miserably, there that is, right?

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So it’s immediate feedback, right? And I like things where I

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get the immediate feedback because So much of white-collar work,

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you’re not getting that immediate feedback. You know, you file the paperwork or you,

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you press the keystroke on the, on the computer, right? Or

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you move the numbers around in the file and then you email it to somebody.

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And then there’s a long, there’s a long stretch before you get any feedback about

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that. And so, there are many days in the kind of work that I do

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where the conversations are full of

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People management stuff around empathy, around listening,

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around courage. And we talk a lot about that on the show because I do

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think those are important things for leaders. But what does empathy

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mean when, when you talk about it? What do you mean when you talk

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about that? And let’s frame it in the context of something that people think of

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as being hyper-masculine construction or hunting, right? You talked about

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hunting and stewardship and hunting and conservation. Stewardship is

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the word that I use, but conservation. Now we’re talking about empathy and

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construction. How this is going to mess with some people’s brains,

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but how does that show up in practical ways? Because we also are

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practical on this show, in practical ways on a construction site. How does that

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show up when you’re managing people? Well, you know, it is an

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oxymoron, just like you talked about empathy and, I mean, construction,

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the two don’t go well. And I’ll be honest, empathy probably does

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not have a lot to do in construction. Empathy, me, really is more in my

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family life, you know, being able to put yourself in somebody’s shoes, seeing

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somebody, you know, go down the road that’s homeless. And instead of just bypassing,

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maybe sit and ask them a question. Because, you know, let’s face it, you need

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to ask a question because half of them are fake and half of them aren’t.

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So, you know, and I’m one of those kind of guys that I’m going to

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give you an olive branch. But if that sucker comes back and you’ve taken all

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the flowers and the petals and the leaves off and you give me thorns, the

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fight’s probably fixing to be on. So. Yeah. But I’ll earn your trust, right?

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That’s one thing about a leader that I’ve done. I will earn your trust. It

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is my job to earn your trust as a leader. So, I wouldn’t say that

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I have much empathy basically in construction. There will

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probably be individual circumstances. I think my

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model is more, you know, lead from the front. If I’ve— if

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you have failed, then it’s my fault because I either hired the wrong person or

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I didn’t train you, teach you, put you in the right position, put you on

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the right seat of the bus, you know, all the things we read about. So,

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I would say there’s probably some. I’m sure there’s something come up and the guy

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comes to me and says, you know, I, I, I’ve I’ve got an issue. I

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just don’t know if I can make it to work tomorrow. Well, how come? Well,

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my wife’s fixing to have a baby. I don’t have money to pay the doctor.

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And I think I might miss a day or two. That’s probably where empathy would

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come in that I can at least understand your situation and say, buddy, you’re not

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going to lose your job. But you need to come back as quick as you

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can because we need you. So, I would say that situation. But

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other than that, it’s probably more of that oxymoron.

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Well, and I divide it up into kind of

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2 different types of empathy, right? I classify it in 2 different types

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of ways, right? Because it’s like, for me, the analogy

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is we use the word love in our society and culture,

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but the way I love my dog and the way I love my wife are

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not the same way. You know, if I love my wife like I love my

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dog, that’d be a real problem, right? I think I say, I hope that, hope

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you don’t. Yeah. Yeah. It’d be a real problem for me, right? It’d be a

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real issue. Yeah, it would be. Not for the dog, but— No, no, for

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you and your wife. That’s right.

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So, you know, English is this funny language where we use one

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word and the context is what we actually are trying to cover. That’s the

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waterfront we’re trying to cover with that one word.

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And I kind of divided up, and I wrote about this in my

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leadership book, 12 Rules for Leaders. There’s what

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I call marketed empathy, which is the empathy that you see like in

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marketing advertisements and you should feel this or you should feel that.

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And it even shows up in business communications and things like that, and even sometimes

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in business books. But then there’s what I call hard-headed empathy.

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And hard-headed empathy is where, to your point about the example of the guy,

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um, with who, you know, having a baby and I need to take a couple

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days off and I gotta be here, I gotta be there. What do I do?

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Help me solve this problem. That’s hard-headed empathy. That’s not,

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oh, I’m just going to feel your pain because that’s not helpful to that guy

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at the moment. Um, what’s helpful is Recognizing

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that you could have been in his shoes or, or even recognizing, you know,

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what would I want done for me at this moment? Not how is it going

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to come back, but what would I want done for me in this moment if

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I were in that space or I have been in that space? And now I

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can extend that to him and we don’t have to hug it out at the

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end and I don’t have to invite him over for a barbecue. Um, but I

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can, I can extend that. I can extend that to that other human being and

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see his humanity. And to me, that’s a lot more

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challenging and nuanced, which is why I call it hardheaded empathy, than kind

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of the blanket sort of way we talk about empathy. And, you know, in the,

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in the, in the leadership field, you know, or in the field of leadership development.

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Well, I agree with you. And I agree with you for 2 reasons. One is,

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one is I’m going to try to make you feel something. And the other one

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is how I feel. You know, and that’s what marketing is. How can I make

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you feel compared to what’s inside of me? So I think that’s a, that’s a

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00:21:21,273 –> 00:21:24,025
great analogy. You just got to give it. I’ve never heard it that way, but

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00:21:24,025 –> 00:21:27,741
that’s a great analogy. Yeah. Um, there’s some other

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terms that you used in the description of your book, um, The Man That I

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Would Become. Um, you talk about, you know, grit, sweat,

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sacrifice, faith. These are other terms just like empathy that get thrown

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around. Um, I want to talk about 2

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of them that I think are critical in and important for us to, to have

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a conversation around. So this idea of grit, right?

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Perseverance, right? How

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have— how do you, how do you talk about that in the book? How do

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you address that? I mean, yes, you know, having a tough upbringing,

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that’s one way. But then what are some of maybe some of the other spots

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where grit has popped up in your memoir that, that you talk about?

361
00:22:06,861 –> 00:22:10,600
Well, one, one started really early because I

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came back from my freshman year with a 1.6 GPA, and the University

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of Texas decided they didn’t want me anymore. So I’m kind of sitting on

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my couch, you know, with, with my mom, and about 2 weeks, and, you know,

365
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I see the, uh, I see my luggage wheeled by. Oh,

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00:22:24,660 –> 00:22:28,180
okay. Next thing you know, she comes and said, can I borrow your keys?

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Well, maybe just mom doesn’t have gas or something, right? No big deal. So

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20 minutes later, she comes back, said, can I, can I meet you outside? I

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said, yes, ma’am. Walked outside. She handed me the keys, handed me $20, and said,

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tell me where you land. What? No. Tell me where you land. You’re not sitting

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on my couch. I got your little brother and little sister you got to take

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care of. You need to go figure this out, son. So I grabbed a buddy

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of mine, and he needed to, uh, to have a job to pay for his

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next year, you know, in college. So we ended up down at Bay City at

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the South Texas Nuclear Project. And I think we were on day 6, and I

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remember the hiring manager came out and said, son, you can’t stay here. And I

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said, sir, I don’t have a choice. I said, I’m down to bread, water, and

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cheese. I don’t have any gas. I said, the only way you’re gonna get rid

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of me is you have to hire me. So come Monday morning, he come outside

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and he said, if you let me down, so help me God. So

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there’s the start of 50 years. So there’s your grit. Yeah. You know, you

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00:23:20,418 –> 00:23:23,960
gotta, you gotta suck it up, buttercup. You know, it’s not gonna be

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00:23:23,960 –> 00:23:26,749
simple and it’s not gonna be easy, but you have to have a plan. And

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I’m not saying that first plan’s gonna work, but you gotta continue with

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the plan. And my plan was you were going to hire me.

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That idea of you have to have a plan, and even if your

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plan is terrible, it doesn’t matter. At least you’ve got

388
00:23:42,642 –> 00:23:45,739
something. Um, that

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idea of even how your mom set that up for you, right? Like,

390
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it doesn’t sound as though she just sort of was like, you know, get

391
00:23:53,680 –> 00:23:56,344
out and I’m not going to give you anything, like get out the door. No,

392
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I mean, she gave you the car and $20. and the keys.

393
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And I’m sure if she had more, she would have given you more. But that

394
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was enough, right? And the 18 or 19

395
00:24:09,096 –> 00:24:12,692
years of raising that she put behind

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00:24:14,018 –> 00:24:17,836
that, that was valuable enough, right? You knew the value of

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00:24:17,885 –> 00:24:21,057
hard work. You knew the value of presenting yourself in a particular way

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to a person in authority or a person in a hierarchical position.

399
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And you understood, you know, how to

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negotiate. And, you know, I have a background in

401
00:24:34,640 –> 00:24:38,397
negotiation and in conflict resolution. I understand the

402
00:24:38,397 –> 00:24:42,138
power of negotiation. And a lot of young leaders, and when I

403
00:24:42,187 –> 00:24:46,008
say young, I mean the 18 to 34-year-old age bracket, a lot of young leaders

404
00:24:46,040 –> 00:24:49,813
who are just coming into work now or who are, who are hitting in

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00:24:49,813 –> 00:24:53,426
their first, starting to be groomed for their first roles, you know,

406
00:24:53,506 –> 00:24:57,055
moving forward in their careers. Some of the

407
00:24:57,103 –> 00:25:00,893
listeners to this show, and a lot of them will email me, will talk to

408
00:25:00,893 –> 00:25:04,458
me, they are struggling with that resilience. They’re struggling with that

409
00:25:04,570 –> 00:25:08,344
grit. Why do you think that is? Because what the

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00:25:08,344 –> 00:25:11,266
kind of experience you’re talking about, if we dropped any of those folks into that

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experience, I’m not

412
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quite sure they would make it. I would make it, I think, but

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00:25:18,541 –> 00:25:22,025
I’d have to be my age now, jumped into that

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experience. And then I’d be fine. I’d be like, oh yeah, give me the $20.

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Like, I got this. Not a problem. I’ll come back with $500

416
00:25:27,920 –> 00:25:31,440
and with bells on. You, I’ll be right, I will be right

417
00:25:31,440 –> 00:25:35,200
back. You just, you hold it right there. And I don’t, I don’t

418
00:25:35,200 –> 00:25:38,580
got to drive 6 hours. I’ll be right back. Just give me 10 minutes. You

419
00:25:38,580 –> 00:25:42,320
know? But I chalk that up to the

420
00:25:42,320 –> 00:25:45,860
maturity of 20 years, right? The maturity of being in my

421
00:25:45,860 –> 00:25:49,380
late 40s. I don’t know that I would have been able to do that

422
00:25:49,380 –> 00:25:52,640
in my, in my early, in my, in my late teens and early 20s.

423
00:25:54,719 –> 00:25:58,021
Um, and I think it’s even less so now, right?

424
00:25:58,361 –> 00:26:02,051
So how are we— I guess maybe the

425
00:26:02,051 –> 00:26:05,494
question is, how are we to sort of get that resilience

426
00:26:05,623 –> 00:26:09,349
into, uh, into these, uh, into these younger folks? Because that is the question of

427
00:26:09,349 –> 00:26:13,160
our, of our era. Well, you know, I’m gonna say something people

428
00:26:13,160 –> 00:26:16,200
might like or don’t like, but it’s the way I feel. You know, we become

429
00:26:16,669 –> 00:26:20,260
a very soft nation. I still believe you have to protect your

430
00:26:20,260 –> 00:26:23,859
family. I still believe you need to get up and work. And I never said

431
00:26:23,859 –> 00:26:26,683
that was easy at any point in time. I said, I never said you liked

432
00:26:26,683 –> 00:26:30,358
what you were doing, but— Right. You know, in America, we have an

433
00:26:30,438 –> 00:26:34,033
opportunity to do whatever we want to do. You know, I’m living

434
00:26:34,145 –> 00:26:37,723
proof of coming out. I was literally a water boy delivering

435
00:26:37,836 –> 00:26:41,543
water to 10,000 people in a nuclear power plant, okay, to an

436
00:26:41,543 –> 00:26:45,378
executive and owning my own company at one point in time. So you can do

437
00:26:45,522 –> 00:26:49,341
anything you want to, but you’ve got to get off that couch. So I

438
00:26:49,373 –> 00:26:52,839
think we’re soft. Right. I, I, you know, it’s like I’m going to

439
00:26:52,839 –> 00:26:56,642
relate it to— and this is a parenting thing, right?

440
00:26:56,995 –> 00:27:00,622
There’s a timeout bench and there’s a belt. Okay. At the end of the day,

441
00:27:00,702 –> 00:27:03,639
there’s a spanking, there’s a timeout bench. Okay. Well, we had 2 twins.

442
00:27:04,409 –> 00:27:07,746
Okay. If you, if you put the belt in front of one and

443
00:27:07,987 –> 00:27:11,774
spanked him, he’d look at you like, is that all you got? You’d put him

444
00:27:11,838 –> 00:27:15,064
on a timeout bench and, oh my God, I’m so sorry. I mean, he’d just

445
00:27:15,064 –> 00:27:18,562
be a freaking wet noodle. I can’t be helped. Right. The other one,

446
00:27:18,979 –> 00:27:22,011
you know, you put him on a timeout bench and he’d find a piece of

447
00:27:22,027 –> 00:27:25,492
thread or something and he’d figure out how to tighten 50 knots. I mean, you

448
00:27:25,492 –> 00:27:28,700
know, and you hit him on the belt. Oh, don’t hit me, please. I’m so

449
00:27:28,700 –> 00:27:32,133
sorry. I didn’t mean it. You know, so I do understand the

450
00:27:32,133 –> 00:27:35,726
parenting structure of it. Not everything works for every child.

451
00:27:36,560 –> 00:27:39,993
But at the end of the day, what happened to discipline?

452
00:27:40,153 –> 00:27:43,939
Meaning if you do something wrong, you’re going to get disciplined because

453
00:27:43,939 –> 00:27:47,115
I just taught you a lesson. What’s the lesson I just taught you? That you

454
00:27:47,212 –> 00:27:50,356
can’t go do anything you want to and think there’s no consequences in life because

455
00:27:50,356 –> 00:27:53,724
there’s consequences to every answer you say, yes and no. Right.

456
00:27:54,189 –> 00:27:57,959
So that’s where I believe the soft has come from. Oh, it’s okay. And

457
00:27:58,216 –> 00:28:01,071
we talked about this already. I want my kids to have a better life than

458
00:28:01,167 –> 00:28:04,792
I do. Right. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give it to you. Even

459
00:28:04,792 –> 00:28:08,610
my kids today, they know the inheritance of the ranch means one thing.

460
00:28:09,284 –> 00:28:12,973
You will continue the legacy that we’re doing, which is giving back. And if you

461
00:28:12,973 –> 00:28:16,422
don’t give back, I’ll sell the ranch tomorrow because why am I working right now

462
00:28:16,422 –> 00:28:20,271
at 67 years of age trying to do something for you if you don’t understand

463
00:28:20,271 –> 00:28:24,040
what life is really about? So, I would say that’s one. I mean, we can

464
00:28:24,040 –> 00:28:27,168
get into many discussions, but to me, I think we’re soft. I really do. I

465
00:28:27,168 –> 00:28:29,862
think we’re soft. Well, and I also think that

466
00:28:30,937 –> 00:28:34,706
the more you get, right, the harder

467
00:28:34,706 –> 00:28:37,898
the struggle. And we don’t actually talk about this too often, but I think it’s

468
00:28:37,898 –> 00:28:40,448
worthwhile because it actually ties into the other thing which I want to talk about,

469
00:28:40,480 –> 00:28:44,309
which is faith. I think that, you know, so

470
00:28:44,357 –> 00:28:48,150
I look at, I look at my own upbringing, right? My mother and father

471
00:28:48,150 –> 00:28:51,977
both worked hard. I don’t think my mother made more than $50,000

472
00:28:51,993 –> 00:28:55,714
in a year before she was 50 years old. You know, I

473
00:28:55,714 –> 00:28:59,467
don’t think my father did either. And yeah,

474
00:28:59,483 –> 00:29:03,090
my mother was a little more white-collar oriented,

475
00:29:03,267 –> 00:29:06,712
you know, in her career and in her life, but it took her a long

476
00:29:06,808 –> 00:29:10,259
time to get into a spot where in her work and in her position in

477
00:29:10,327 –> 00:29:13,827
life, where she was able to be quote unquote comfortable,

478
00:29:13,939 –> 00:29:17,640
whatever that may mean. So, you know, there were

479
00:29:17,640 –> 00:29:21,003
times we did without, there were times we didn’t have, there were just, that was

480
00:29:21,070 –> 00:29:24,778
part of my upbringing. Fast forward to myself with

481
00:29:24,827 –> 00:29:28,596
my 4 kids, each one of my children, because they’re separated

482
00:29:28,709 –> 00:29:32,285
by many years, but each one of my children has had a fundamentally different experience

483
00:29:32,961 –> 00:29:36,761
with being raised because they were separated by many years. And so, you

484
00:29:36,777 –> 00:29:40,557
know, the difference between, you know, the 21-year-old and

485
00:29:40,557 –> 00:29:44,262
the 9-year-old, right? Or the 16-year-old and the 29-year-old. Like, that’s,

486
00:29:44,310 –> 00:29:48,031
that’s going to be, there’s going to be differences, right? Because I’m at a different

487
00:29:48,031 –> 00:29:49,844
stage of my, my wife and I talk about this a lot. I’m at a

488
00:29:49,844 –> 00:29:52,555
different stage of my own life, right? And

489
00:29:53,870 –> 00:29:57,351
I think that the real challenge becomes not in

490
00:29:58,842 –> 00:30:02,612
disciplining, although that’s, I would agree with you. There is, there are

491
00:30:02,612 –> 00:30:06,429
some, there are definitely challenges there. I think the real challenge comes in

492
00:30:07,104 –> 00:30:10,898
for the parent anyway, figuring out what the degree of discipline

493
00:30:10,898 –> 00:30:14,643
is that’s appropriate to this particular thing, because the nuance

494
00:30:14,643 –> 00:30:18,271
increases the more resources you’re getting into the game,

495
00:30:18,367 –> 00:30:20,642
right? Yeah. And so, you know,

496
00:30:22,384 –> 00:30:25,530
I opened up with talking about raising chickens, right? We do. We raise chickens and

497
00:30:25,530 –> 00:30:29,291
turkeys, right? And my boy who’s 9, every morning

498
00:30:29,565 –> 00:30:32,406
you got to deal with the turkeys and the chickens. And, you know, just a

499
00:30:32,406 –> 00:30:35,318
basic thing, right? Like if they don’t have water and they, they, they perish because

500
00:30:35,334 –> 00:30:38,909
they don’t have water and we live in Texas and it’s 110 degrees in the

501
00:30:38,909 –> 00:30:42,729
shade until like November, right? If they, if they

502
00:30:42,777 –> 00:30:46,549
die, that’s on you, right? You

503
00:30:46,662 –> 00:30:50,278
failed, right? Yeah. And so he’s a kid where

504
00:30:51,121 –> 00:30:53,715
I don’t need the belt or the bench. I can just talk that kid into

505
00:30:53,715 –> 00:30:57,316
like, into a thing, right? And yes, at a certain point, we’re going to turn

506
00:30:57,348 –> 00:31:00,075
the corner and you just have to do the thing, but

507
00:31:01,072 –> 00:31:04,734
that’s going to work with that kid right now. The

508
00:31:04,798 –> 00:31:08,312
gap between the 9-year-old and the 16-year-old, 16-year-old’s a little

509
00:31:08,344 –> 00:31:11,281
different. She’s going to require a little bit of a different, a little bit of

510
00:31:11,329 –> 00:31:14,474
some different pressure points, right? I know who that kid is, right?

511
00:31:15,871 –> 00:31:18,486
And so it becomes nuanced, right?

512
00:31:19,321 –> 00:31:23,028
And I always think about it in this way. I’m not

513
00:31:23,028 –> 00:31:26,350
raising children for my legacy, although that’s

514
00:31:26,414 –> 00:31:29,912
important. I’m raising children so that they can go out and work with folks like

515
00:31:29,912 –> 00:31:33,408
yourself and your sons. So they could be supervised by your children, right?

516
00:31:33,652 –> 00:31:35,634
Because I know my 9-year-old’s going to eventually have to show up and do a

517
00:31:35,682 –> 00:31:38,898
job at some point for somebody that they may not be interested in doing.

518
00:31:40,245 –> 00:31:44,034
And he’s going to have to flash back to the chickens. I remember.

519
00:31:44,358 –> 00:31:48,179
Exactly. Exactly. He’s like, oh, I didn’t want that. So I’m

520
00:31:48,244 –> 00:31:50,931
going to go, I’m going to go do this. And that I think is the

521
00:31:50,931 –> 00:31:53,381
challenge for a lot of, a lot of folks.

522
00:31:55,544 –> 00:31:59,341
I think what mitigates this is faith. So, talk

523
00:31:59,341 –> 00:32:01,944
to us a little bit about faith. Talk to us a little bit about how

524
00:32:01,992 –> 00:32:05,093
that has impacted your life and your experiences,

525
00:32:06,572 –> 00:32:10,187
how that helped you get through hard times. You know, what does that actually

526
00:32:10,203 –> 00:32:13,401
mean? How do we practically walk— how have you practically walked that out?

527
00:32:14,365 –> 00:32:18,061
Well, you know, Mom again grounded me in

528
00:32:18,061 –> 00:32:21,708
faith. I was in a faith-based school until I was in 6th grade. So, you

529
00:32:21,708 –> 00:32:25,532
know, the fundamentals were there. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and like every

530
00:32:25,532 –> 00:32:28,745
young man, you know, you, you go left, you go right, you go left, you

531
00:32:28,745 –> 00:32:32,439
go right, and you try to stay in the middle, you know. And I’m not

532
00:32:32,439 –> 00:32:36,102
going to tell you that I was extremely strong in my faith

533
00:32:36,230 –> 00:32:39,427
in the middle part of, of my years. I knew where I was going. I

534
00:32:39,427 –> 00:32:42,977
knew I believed. I knew I didn’t steal. I didn’t, I didn’t hate, didn’t kill

535
00:32:43,042 –> 00:32:46,495
people, blah, blah, blah, right? I knew that, but I wasn’t really strong in my

536
00:32:46,576 –> 00:32:50,383
faith. And I’ll be honest, the, um, the faith started coming

537
00:32:50,431 –> 00:32:53,851
back You know, with my wife, you know, because she’s very strong in hers.

538
00:32:54,606 –> 00:32:58,283
And then the ranch, the ranch just totally turned it, you know. So, so

539
00:32:58,283 –> 00:33:01,269
here’s a funny story I always tell everybody. I didn’t know what my path was

540
00:33:01,269 –> 00:33:04,513
until I was 64 years old. And I woke up one day

541
00:33:05,027 –> 00:33:08,623
and God said, you’re going to— your legacy is going to be that you’re going

542
00:33:08,655 –> 00:33:11,610
to help as many people as you can on this ranch. And all of a

543
00:33:11,610 –> 00:33:14,644
sudden I went, okay, I know what my path is.

544
00:33:15,319 –> 00:33:19,069
So I believe that you’re

545
00:33:19,069 –> 00:33:22,722
put on a path on this earth and you might not understand where that

546
00:33:22,770 –> 00:33:26,119
path is, how it goes, and when you get there. But man, when you get

547
00:33:26,119 –> 00:33:29,868
there, there’s something, there’s just something that goes to your heart

548
00:33:30,204 –> 00:33:33,745
and, and the, and your head and the pressure that just seems to come off.

549
00:33:33,809 –> 00:33:37,590
Like, I got it. You know, I understand. And you know, the only person can

550
00:33:37,590 –> 00:33:40,810
do that to you is God. You know, I just was a little stubbornheaded. Of

551
00:33:40,810 –> 00:33:44,479
course, you’d have never imagined that said I’m an A-type personality in construction. You would

552
00:33:44,479 –> 00:33:48,262
have never have known that, but. I’m shocked. Hey, I know, but

553
00:33:48,425 –> 00:33:52,107
here I am. So that’s what I

554
00:33:52,155 –> 00:33:55,617
would say is we, we, you know, you need to have a belief.

555
00:33:56,280 –> 00:33:59,564
I do believe that. Yeah. But at some point in time, it’s gonna kind of,

556
00:34:00,001 –> 00:34:03,618
the key’s gonna turn the switch and you’re gonna start the truck instead of just

557
00:34:03,618 –> 00:34:07,412
sitting and listening to the music, you know? And I think I started

558
00:34:07,460 –> 00:34:11,214
the truck when I was about 64. I went, okay, I’m driving straight. I’m

559
00:34:11,214 –> 00:34:14,105
not going left. I’m not going right. Hey, look,

560
00:34:14,987 –> 00:34:18,837
don’t worry about it. In the Book of Genesis, Abraham, you know, he

561
00:34:18,837 –> 00:34:22,367
didn’t get kicked out of— he didn’t get kicked out of his father’s house until

562
00:34:22,367 –> 00:34:25,784
he was like 70. And, you know, you know, he was old. He was an

563
00:34:25,880 –> 00:34:29,602
old man, you know, and, you know, kept right on, you

564
00:34:29,602 –> 00:34:33,003
know, kept right on going. Right. Yeah. And,

565
00:34:33,901 –> 00:34:37,447
you know, it’s, it’s interesting because I’ve

566
00:34:37,671 –> 00:34:41,441
always been strong in my faith. Yes, I had wavering moments

567
00:34:41,441 –> 00:34:44,670
in my 20s and in my early 30s where there were things that happened where

568
00:34:44,670 –> 00:34:48,206
I was just, to your point, going left, going right, trying to stay in the

569
00:34:48,206 –> 00:34:52,017
middle, right? But I’ve always had that

570
00:34:52,147 –> 00:34:55,963
pillar of— and on this show, and I’ve said this before, this comes as a

571
00:34:55,963 –> 00:34:59,444
surprise to no one who’s listening. I believe in

572
00:34:59,444 –> 00:35:02,968
Christianity. I try to walk out Christianity. I believe in the power of

573
00:35:03,000 –> 00:35:06,837
Jesus’s resurrection. I believe that all the things in the Bible are true. And yes,

574
00:35:06,949 –> 00:35:10,404
even the uncomfortable parts that you think are weird and

575
00:35:10,404 –> 00:35:13,490
obnoxious in the world that we have in the modern secular world that we have

576
00:35:13,490 –> 00:35:16,998
today. I think those things are absolutely defensible. I think an

577
00:35:16,998 –> 00:35:20,609
apologetic for, for your faith is something that every good Christian

578
00:35:20,641 –> 00:35:23,947
should, should have. And to your point,

579
00:35:25,633 –> 00:35:29,457
we, we need to believe in something because we’re not, as G.K. Chesterton

580
00:35:29,522 –> 00:35:32,671
said once infamously back in the day, the Catholic

581
00:35:33,298 –> 00:35:37,072
writer, he said, you know, we’re not going to believe in nothing. No one ever

582
00:35:37,072 –> 00:35:40,863
believes in nothing. There’s always something. So we

583
00:35:40,863 –> 00:35:43,626
have a lot of people in our world today who either believe in themselves,

584
00:35:44,766 –> 00:35:48,460
they believe in the marketing, they believe in whatever the

585
00:35:48,460 –> 00:35:52,283
messages are from their family. Sometimes if

586
00:35:52,412 –> 00:35:56,010
they’re churched, they believe in the church. But even there, there might be

587
00:35:56,010 –> 00:35:59,797
challenges and struggles. But the book is what you

588
00:35:59,797 –> 00:36:02,603
got to get in you. Even if you don’t believe in the book, the book

589
00:36:02,603 –> 00:36:06,131
is what you got to get in you because, as I, as I always say

590
00:36:06,131 –> 00:36:09,980
on this show, it lies at the foundation of all of Western

591
00:36:09,980 –> 00:36:13,717
civilization, all of the assumptions that we’ve made, even the ones

592
00:36:13,733 –> 00:36:17,582
that led to you being in construction. The idea that, you know, you would do

593
00:36:17,598 –> 00:36:21,126
an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wage, that has a

594
00:36:21,126 –> 00:36:24,551
biblical basis, like period, full stop. It just does.

595
00:36:24,907 –> 00:36:27,899
And we don’t even think about it. It’s, it’s the fish swimming in the water,

596
00:36:27,980 –> 00:36:31,781
right? But it’s only when we talk about that and we engage with

597
00:36:31,781 –> 00:36:35,597
that out loud that we keep it renewed for every

598
00:36:35,662 –> 00:36:38,361
generation, every generation going forward. And so I would say,

599
00:36:39,656 –> 00:36:42,066
you know, just like yourself,

600
00:36:44,316 –> 00:36:47,754
you know, hearing that, that direction and following it is

601
00:36:47,851 –> 00:36:51,678
huge, right? Because God could have said, hey, you know, go do this

602
00:36:51,678 –> 00:36:54,533
or go do that. And you’d have been like, well,

603
00:36:55,769 –> 00:36:58,977
I just, I don’t know, I may have some bad, some bad lobster, or maybe

604
00:36:58,977 –> 00:37:02,185
that, that whitetail that I had, that venison I had last night, sitting kind of

605
00:37:02,185 –> 00:37:05,875
weird, right? And there are a lot of people who do this, right?

606
00:37:06,661 –> 00:37:10,303
And, you know, I’ve often, I’ve often said, you know,

607
00:37:10,704 –> 00:37:14,554
in, in other conversations with folks that I think

608
00:37:14,602 –> 00:37:17,636
God talks to a lot of people. But I think a lot of people don’t

609
00:37:17,652 –> 00:37:21,041
hear. That’s a lot of people, or a lot of people say no.

610
00:37:21,522 –> 00:37:24,783
Right. And God will work things out

611
00:37:25,441 –> 00:37:29,232
and there is free will. So you’re free to say no. You’re absolutely free

612
00:37:29,232 –> 00:37:32,861
to say no. And God will just move on to somebody else because

613
00:37:33,231 –> 00:37:36,427
God’s infinite. Like, that’s just it. Um,

614
00:37:37,905 –> 00:37:40,892
when we think about earning trust, we think about leading from the front. We think

615
00:37:40,892 –> 00:37:44,645
about faith and grit. And perseverance, all these kinds of things you talk

616
00:37:44,645 –> 00:37:46,856
about in your, in your memoir, in your book.

617
00:37:48,977 –> 00:37:52,683
What would you say maybe are the, the top 3 things that someone would

618
00:37:52,699 –> 00:37:56,518
get from this, from this memoir of yours if they were to pick

619
00:37:56,518 –> 00:37:59,005
it up? And then I’m going to ask you about some books of yours that

620
00:37:59,005 –> 00:38:01,817
you might be, you might be interested in as we, as we round the corner

621
00:38:01,817 –> 00:38:05,000
on this episode. So what are the top 3 things in your memoir that, that

622
00:38:05,659 –> 00:38:09,450
you think people would, would want to pick up if they were, if they were

623
00:38:09,450 –> 00:38:13,240
to read it? Don’t quit. That’s one. You know, it

624
00:38:13,240 –> 00:38:15,870
talks about a lot of things that happened in my life. I could have sat

625
00:38:15,886 –> 00:38:19,607
down and cried in my, you know, my Postos or my Wheaties, you know, and

626
00:38:19,607 –> 00:38:23,343
I’m not telling you I didn’t behind closed doors. And then you kind of get

627
00:38:23,343 –> 00:38:25,829
it over with. You kind of go, okay, I got it, got to go. So

628
00:38:25,829 –> 00:38:29,245
grit and perseverance, you know, 2 different words of almost the same meaning, depends on

629
00:38:29,341 –> 00:38:33,078
where you’re at. So I think you, you, you have to continue to try.

630
00:38:34,169 –> 00:38:37,777
Part of the, part of the other thing, again, every, everything I

631
00:38:37,777 –> 00:38:41,625
do, my website, everything talks about faith. You know, I, I,

632
00:38:41,930 –> 00:38:44,799
I believe you’ll, you’ll see it. So part of faith

633
00:38:45,697 –> 00:38:49,544
and leadership has to do from show me, right? I’m, I’m gonna— I’ve adapted

634
00:38:49,544 –> 00:38:53,375
a, a really quick saying, toes and tongues. If my mouth is wagging, my toes

635
00:38:53,407 –> 00:38:56,822
better be following. So you can’t, you can’t go to church,

636
00:38:57,158 –> 00:39:00,877
right, and do things and talk about how wonderful you are and leave the

637
00:39:00,877 –> 00:39:04,404
next day, you know, go rob somebody. I mean, right? So you gotta

638
00:39:04,404 –> 00:39:08,123
lead, right? So hopefully they’ll pick up that again. If you’re, if you’re going to

639
00:39:08,155 –> 00:39:11,121
be a good leader, you need to lead from the front. You need to set

640
00:39:11,121 –> 00:39:14,124
the pace and the tone, you know, and need to do it. And I think

641
00:39:14,173 –> 00:39:17,933
the, the other portion of this is just you’re not where you’re

642
00:39:18,013 –> 00:39:21,228
at yet, and you might not know what that is until

643
00:39:21,389 –> 00:39:23,889
someday you’re going to wake up and God’s going to talk to you, or you’re

644
00:39:23,889 –> 00:39:26,066
going to hit the wall, you’re going to break your neck, you’re down there on

645
00:39:26,066 –> 00:39:28,437
the floor going, what do I do, God? And he said, this is your path.

646
00:39:29,315 –> 00:39:32,445
So perseverance of who you’re going to become

647
00:39:33,114 –> 00:39:34,875
and what legacy you’re going to leave behind.

648
00:39:37,233 –> 00:39:41,028
It ain’t over till it’s over, you know. The, the town that I

649
00:39:41,076 –> 00:39:44,769
live in, in, in Texas has a lot of folks who are retired,

650
00:39:45,010 –> 00:39:48,751
right? A lot of retirees. And it’s been interesting living

651
00:39:48,768 –> 00:39:51,610
here in the sort of the middle part of my career and the middle part

652
00:39:51,610 –> 00:39:54,981
of my life, because I get to see a

653
00:39:55,608 –> 00:39:59,028
microcosm, a wide swath of examples

654
00:39:59,766 –> 00:40:03,251
of how people, quite frankly, live out their,

655
00:40:03,540 –> 00:40:06,862
their waning years. And in our

656
00:40:06,862 –> 00:40:10,642
culture, I was just talking with, with my wife

657
00:40:10,642 –> 00:40:14,245
about this the other night in a different kind of context, but it applies

658
00:40:14,357 –> 00:40:18,064
here. In our culture, we don’t talk too much about what do people

659
00:40:18,064 –> 00:40:21,274
do on the back end of their lives. We don’t, you know, we sort of

660
00:40:21,274 –> 00:40:23,031
have this image of retirement as a sort of—

661
00:40:25,321 –> 00:40:28,321
you work for 40 years, we still have this Industrial Revolution idea in our brains.

662
00:40:28,788 –> 00:40:32,607
You know, you work for 40 years and then You sit around and, I

663
00:40:34,620 –> 00:40:38,291
don’t know, play canasta or backgammon and, you know, have a steak at 4

664
00:40:38,339 –> 00:40:41,126
o’clock and your first drink at 3, and you’re in bed by 8.

665
00:40:46,387 –> 00:40:50,033
That’s not biblical. That’s number one. That’s

666
00:40:50,033 –> 00:40:53,554
number one. So number one. Number two, the Bible only

667
00:40:53,587 –> 00:40:57,327
talks about— I’m gonna borrow this line from, uh, from the

668
00:40:57,343 –> 00:41:00,804
old Zig Ziglar back in the day. I love Zig. But, you know,

669
00:41:01,253 –> 00:41:05,003
the Bible only talks about retirement as a punishment. So let’s

670
00:41:05,019 –> 00:41:07,855
not, let’s not, let’s not engage with that, right?

671
00:41:08,304 –> 00:41:12,021
Everybody in the Bible, everybody you read about in that book

672
00:41:12,550 –> 00:41:16,300
worked until they died. Mm-hmm. And it wasn’t just because they were in

673
00:41:16,332 –> 00:41:20,146
an agrarian society or an agrarian culture. It’s because work is built into

674
00:41:20,178 –> 00:41:23,870
the mandate. You have to be doing something. Now, you don’t

675
00:41:23,870 –> 00:41:26,470
have to be doing the thing that you were doing for 40 years where you

676
00:41:26,470 –> 00:41:29,470
had that bloodsucking boss and you hated him. You don’t have to do that,

677
00:41:29,990 –> 00:41:33,670
but you do need to be doing something. And so in the town that I

678
00:41:33,670 –> 00:41:37,090
live in, and I think we talked about this on the pre-interview, I’m not going

679
00:41:37,090 –> 00:41:39,540
to say the name of the town, but you know the town I live in.

680
00:41:40,070 –> 00:41:43,890
I see a lot of folks who are struggling with what do

681
00:41:43,890 –> 00:41:47,670
we do with this end stage of our lives? But then I

682
00:41:47,670 –> 00:41:50,830
also see some folks who are really, you know, involved in volunteer work. They’re involved

683
00:41:50,830 –> 00:41:52,610
in the community. They’re really hyper-engaged. They’re hustling. They’re doing the exact same thing.

684
00:41:55,122 –> 00:41:58,569
And they’re vibrant and they’re engaged and they’re, they’re, they’re moving

685
00:41:58,633 –> 00:42:02,048
forward. And so it’s, it’s interesting for my kids to be here,

686
00:42:02,721 –> 00:42:06,392
um, in this space, um, because seeing those

687
00:42:06,424 –> 00:42:10,192
examples shows them exactly what you’re talking about, that the work doesn’t end and you

688
00:42:10,192 –> 00:42:13,077
can be called at any point in time and you don’t just have to just

689
00:42:13,077 –> 00:42:16,252
sit and, and wait for the end to come. So I think that that’s,

690
00:42:16,925 –> 00:42:20,757
I think that’s great. Well, it’s, you know, you, you hit that That, that

691
00:42:20,757 –> 00:42:24,273
nail on the head. I remember a couple things. One, I can’t remember, it’s 10

692
00:42:24,305 –> 00:42:28,079
years ago or something. I was watching, um, some show of, of show

693
00:42:28,079 –> 00:42:31,194
and they were asking 80, 90-year-old actors, you know, well, how do you live so

694
00:42:31,274 –> 00:42:34,790
long? There’s 2 themes that was to every single one of them. You have to

695
00:42:34,790 –> 00:42:38,259
have a purpose. You have to have something to love. Mm-hmm. You know, and what

696
00:42:38,259 –> 00:42:41,406
you just described is that, what’s my purpose, right? You know, I, I know what

697
00:42:41,406 –> 00:42:44,665
my purpose is, you know, in my life, you know, and what do I love?

698
00:42:44,842 –> 00:42:48,151
I, I love what I do. I love my family. I love trying to leave

699
00:42:48,151 –> 00:42:51,172
something behind. And, and what I’m— so I’ve kind of

700
00:42:51,204 –> 00:42:55,012
changed my approach on, on what you and I are

701
00:42:55,140 –> 00:42:58,740
talking about, what on any podcast, anybody I talk to.

702
00:42:58,981 –> 00:43:02,612
And that is, what legacy are you going to leave? Nobody

703
00:43:02,612 –> 00:43:06,436
talks about it. And you’re exactly right, nobody talks about it. You

704
00:43:06,468 –> 00:43:08,942
know, I’m not— my name is not going to be on the side of a

705
00:43:08,942 –> 00:43:11,786
hospital or stadium. It’s going to be on a tombstone. And I’m okay with that.

706
00:43:11,835 –> 00:43:15,221
Yeah. But what legacy did I leave, and what did I pass on to the

707
00:43:15,221 –> 00:43:18,752
next generation? That’s what people don’t talk about. And, and if you, if you get

708
00:43:18,752 –> 00:43:22,492
that understanding at the end of that road, it’s not so bad.

709
00:43:23,102 –> 00:43:26,697
I’m okay with where I’m at. I know my roller coaster is going downhill pretty

710
00:43:26,777 –> 00:43:30,019
fast, gonna crash at the bottom sooner or later, and I’m okay with that. Why?

711
00:43:30,613 –> 00:43:33,679
Because I’ve got a purpose, and I’ve got a family, and I love what I

712
00:43:33,679 –> 00:43:37,274
do. Yep, yep. All right,

713
00:43:37,290 –> 00:43:40,608
so So as we’re wrapping up, as we’re coming around the corner

714
00:43:41,441 –> 00:43:44,791
of our, of our episode, our bonus episode here today, I always ask every

715
00:43:45,223 –> 00:43:47,964
guest who comes on and does a bonus episode where we don’t read a book,

716
00:43:48,012 –> 00:43:51,762
we talk about their book, we talk about their experiences, we talk about whatever their,

717
00:43:52,018 –> 00:43:55,560
their, their, their challenge or issue of the day is, or, you know, just what

718
00:43:55,560 –> 00:43:59,181
points they’d like to make. I always ask them this question because our core

719
00:43:59,790 –> 00:44:02,691
show is about literature and leadership.

720
00:44:03,652 –> 00:44:06,441
You know, we, we read books on that show and then we try to find

721
00:44:06,441 –> 00:44:10,288
lessons in them for leaders. We just came off of a month of Shakespeare. We

722
00:44:10,288 –> 00:44:13,434
just read, you know, Macbeth and Henry V, great play,

723
00:44:13,835 –> 00:44:17,415
Coriolanus, you know, and really trying to pull from those

724
00:44:17,527 –> 00:44:20,817
plays relevant lessons for folks in

725
00:44:20,817 –> 00:44:23,610
contemporary leadership with contemporary challenges, right?

726
00:44:24,669 –> 00:44:28,505
And so the question, that’s a preface to this question. What would

727
00:44:28,505 –> 00:44:31,619
you say are some books that you’ve read outside of your own

728
00:44:32,132 –> 00:44:35,744
that you would recommend for leaders to

729
00:44:35,808 –> 00:44:39,452
read or just for listeners to this show to read? Books that have maybe made

730
00:44:39,452 –> 00:44:43,048
an impact on you, maybe made a really

731
00:44:43,129 –> 00:44:46,790
good or a really deep impact on you that you

732
00:44:46,822 –> 00:44:50,450
would recommend folks pick up? A couple of them always

733
00:44:50,450 –> 00:44:54,224
stick with me. Good to Great and then The Five Dysfunctions

734
00:44:54,224 –> 00:44:57,981
of a Team. Every team I’ve been to, we go

735
00:44:57,981 –> 00:45:01,722
through The Five Dysfunctions. And it’s so funny because me again,

736
00:45:01,899 –> 00:45:05,684
coming from the non-empathy side, that how you become a better

737
00:45:05,684 –> 00:45:09,529
team member is to be able to be vulnerable, because then all of

738
00:45:09,529 –> 00:45:13,358
a sudden you’re natural and everybody sees, oh God, this, this, you know, Victor’s

739
00:45:13,358 –> 00:45:16,963
not little Hitler. He really, he really is kind of a genuine kind of a

740
00:45:16,963 –> 00:45:20,729
guy. But, uh, those 2 have been a big important part in

741
00:45:20,729 –> 00:45:23,933
mine. And I can’t remember the other name of the book. And, and really what

742
00:45:23,933 –> 00:45:26,833
I picked— and I’m like you, I try to pick up different things from different

743
00:45:26,833 –> 00:45:29,957
books. Maybe it’s one thing, maybe it’s 2. The other one, I can’t remember where

744
00:45:29,957 –> 00:45:33,129
it comes from, if it’s Six Sigma or whatever, but it’s hire the right person.

745
00:45:33,698 –> 00:45:36,664
Then figure out where they go on the bus. And that’s really the key to

746
00:45:36,761 –> 00:45:40,533
any business is hire the right person. You don’t have to know where they’re going

747
00:45:40,630 –> 00:45:44,378
right now, but if they are a fit for the team, you’ll get it

748
00:45:44,378 –> 00:45:48,150
figured out. There you go. Well, Victor,

749
00:45:48,311 –> 00:45:50,676
I would like to thank you for coming on the show today. This has been

750
00:45:50,676 –> 00:45:53,650
a great conversation. We’re going to have links to

751
00:45:54,230 –> 00:45:57,995
everything everywhere where you are, you

752
00:45:57,995 –> 00:46:01,681
know, online. We’re going to have We’re going to have links to the Breding Texan

753
00:46:01,713 –> 00:46:05,071
Ranch. We’re going to have links to your book. We’re going to have links to

754
00:46:05,345 –> 00:46:08,316
previous episodes of previous podcasts you’ve done in the show notes that are going to

755
00:46:08,332 –> 00:46:11,590
be below the player where folks will be

756
00:46:11,590 –> 00:46:15,397
listening to this show. Before we go,

757
00:46:15,623 –> 00:46:19,363
last question. What would you like to promote today? What would you like

758
00:46:19,427 –> 00:46:22,232
to, what would you like to have the listeners end with?

759
00:46:23,832 –> 00:46:27,502
What are you going to become? What legacy are you going to leave behind?

760
00:46:28,392 –> 00:46:30,979
Everybody needs to start thinking about it. And that doesn’t mean you have an answer,

761
00:46:31,383 –> 00:46:33,680
but you need to start thinking about it. And if we do that, we can

762
00:46:33,680 –> 00:46:36,812
make this world a better place. Awesome.

763
00:46:37,553 –> 00:46:41,095
Thank you, Victor, for coming on the show. Thank you for taking time to talk

764
00:46:41,095 –> 00:46:43,381
with us today. And, well, with that,

765
00:46:45,201 –> 00:46:45,571
we’re out.