Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: You're listening to Selling the Dream. This isn't an interview, and we're not journalists, but each week we'll ask our guests to open up and share their secrets to business success.
Let's have a conversation and have an
[00:00:20] Speaker B: episode of Selling the Dream podcast where we dive into success, failure, sales, entrepreneurship, leadership. And as always, I am joined by my co host in California, Joe Iredell.
Joe, what's up, my man?
[00:00:40] Speaker C: What's up, kj?
Another See you. Yeah, man. Excited.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: So it's Wednesday.
Your week's going well.
Got some things popping off there. AJ's episode of the Jennifer Hudson show airs Monday.
[00:00:58] Speaker C: It'll air on Monday. Man. This is.
It was funny. I can't give up too much, but it was.
He's a. He's a legend, dude. It was.
I'll tell you this. I'll share this about him. So he's not really saying much. I know he's nervous. I'm off the side of the stage with, like, basically, like, the publicists and the agents who are watching their clients and. And they're like, oh, who's your client? I'm like, nah. I'm like, I'm just his dad. Like, all right, cool. So he's off with the producer, and he's being real quiet, and I was like, there's me, like, oh, is he nervous? Is he nervous? And he wasn't saying anything, and he's really nervous.
So I look over, I just kind of give him, like a. And I can hear him, like, starting to do the announce. Like, he's going to go, you know, walk out to the audience. And he, like, looks over and he gives me the thumbs. He's like, he hadn't said anything real quick. Just, like, gives me, like, nods. His head goes like. Mouth's like, watch this. And he goes out, dude, I'll just. I'll leave it at that. You have to see what happens when. When you watch the show when it airs. But the kids. Ridiculous, dude. It was really funny.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: So I heard the producer where you said you were giving off, like, Joe Jackson vibes. What's that all about? Dude,
[00:02:19] Speaker C: I want names.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: I'm just kidding, man.
[00:02:22] Speaker C: It was funny. It was cool. It's a. It's a trip, dude. Like, the whole. We were on the war, you know, like, we showed up to the Warner Brothers lot, and they, like, picked us up in a golf course, and we had to go through, you know, a golf cart. Yeah, rather. And the security there was like, 10 times that of the. The border here in California. So we actually had to show ID and all that stuff, so it was cool. And then they drove us around and
[00:02:48] Speaker B: now we don't know when the show, we don't know when this is going to air. So it's very obviously by the time this airs. AJ's show. For those of you who don't know, AJ was a guest on the Jennifer Hudson show. He's just a charismatic little character and, and I, I imagine he killed it. You know, I just. When last time we visited Joe, he. The kid walked around in a suit the whole week. It's just a weird. He's 12 years old.
The weirdest thing. 11 years old. So that's cool, man. We're excited. We leave for Miami tomorrow. I'll be down there for four days. I'm excited about that taking, you know, me and Amy and my brother in law. My brother, my sister in law going down there for a wedding.
[00:03:30] Speaker C: So.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: So it should be good. Hopefully it's not gonna be too hot.
[00:03:33] Speaker C: Nope. It's the humidity, bro.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: I know it's.
[00:03:36] Speaker C: That's not the change of draws.
Swampy down there, man.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Well, listen, we're having a great show today. I am super, super excited to have very, very, very successful individual. But, but more importantly, just I've. I've had a. The pleasure of having a handful of conversations with Eric and he is. He might be one of the nicest guys I ever met. I don't know if we're waiting for that other shoe to drop. Find out he's a total jerk. But so far, so good.
Founder of center for Victory, Chief Victory Officer. I love that term.
And an author of the Life of Victory, Mastering the Secret of Choosing Love Over Fear. And again, just, just an overall great, great guy. Just so happens his name is Eric Guy. So, Eric, thanks for joining us today.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, thanks for having me, guys. I'm excited for this. Yeah. Appreciate it.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: So, Eric, you are.
Tell me a little bit about the center for Victory and how all that came about.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: Well, yeah, it's interesting and some of it's in the book.
Even so I didn't. Most of our work today is with companies and businesses. That was not what we set out to do.
I was actually.
But I still have my license as a therapist. Right.
Set out to do that. Got.
Had three offices and I was, I think I was 25 years old, was doing really well. 25, 26 years old. And my wife unfortunately had a stroke with our, Our second child and we lost everything and had to, you know, tuck my tail between my Legs move home right next to my in laws, which, yeah, would seem like a nightmare, but it was. Was quite pleasant. But, you know, started.
Started back from the beginning again and I got sick and tired of doing the insurance bit. I mean, you know, I billed just the same way as a doctor would bill, and it got extremely frustrating. And it was hard to work with the insurance companies, especially the more I got to be an expert in, you know, attachment relationship type of things.
And I just said basically, screw it. You know, I started taking private pay and started doing what I wanted to do, which was going in and actually embedding myself in people's homes for a period of days, which my wife still calls to this day the super nanny on steroids. I mean, I had tremendous success with it. I mean, I have families that I still am in contact with today, still visit them that were just, you know, had spent. Some of them had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And, you know, we. We're just walking them through, you know, correcting some things. And why I'm saying all that, why I'm telling you guys all that is because that's what led to the next step. Those people that were kind of out of pocket were typically a little bit higher up in their companies, and they're like, hey, look, if you can, you know, if you can work this magic in my home, come work your mojo in my company.
And at first I was like, nah, I don't really want to do that. And I was thinking, oh, yeah, probably kind of the same stuff. And it really was. It was just the people dynamics that I didn't realize, you know, how well I could observe that even back then, right? How well I could observe that. And here's, you know, here's what we should do. And so we, you know, we incorporated assessments and things of that nature into that so it wasn't totally guessing. So we could actually train people and empower people to do the same thing.
But then, you know, one thing led to another, and here we are with, I would say probably about 92 to 94% of our clients are now more business.
You know, we still work with families and things. It's not something we necessarily advertise. But if somebody called me and said, hey, can you come work with my family? I would say yes. But a lot of the times it is our business clients who are struggling, because we do a lot of family companies as well who are struggling. We'll go in and intervene that way as well. But, you know, to this, you know, it's just it's amazing what it is. It is broadened out to.
And, you know, it all started because I needed to get over my stuff, right? I needed to learn. I wanted to. To be a better husband. I really wanted to be a great dad. I mean, that was.
That was really important to me, which I think I've been pretty successful at that.
But it was working out that story.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Joe, again, you forgot to remind me. Oh, so before we said. So. That's a great intro. We're gonna unpack it all. We're gonna unpack it all. But we gotta start with two truths and a lie, right? We gotta get three facts from Eric.
Two of them are supposedly true. One of them is supposed. One guy gave us. All three were true. We're like, come on, that's not how the game works. Right?
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna do that to you guys.
[00:09:10] Speaker B: So we're gonna ask you for three facts in the. And Joe is gonna do his best by the end of the episode, listening for clues to which ones. Which one's the lie? So let's jump off with that guy
[00:09:21] Speaker C: that had the three truths. Like, he lied to himself because two of the truths were actually true.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: That was actually a very good episode. It turned out to be a very good episode. Yes, it did.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: You ready, Joe?
[00:09:35] Speaker C: I'm ready. I'm always.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: All right, so.
So you got three. Two truths, one lie.
First one, I was in the juvenile justice system before I was a teenager.
The second one is I shot my first bear when I was only 12 years old.
And the third one, I was the first person in my family to go to college and graduate school.
[00:09:56] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: Are those good ones?
[00:09:59] Speaker B: They're good, man.
Again, all three
[00:10:06] Speaker C: for shooting a bear. I think we're good.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: Maybe. Did you legally shoot that bear? Because that really could give a lot away.
All right, cool. So, yeah, so. So let's jump into your backstory here, Joe. You're getting ready to ask a question. Why don't you take the first one?
[00:10:24] Speaker C: All right, so.
So what I wanted to kind of understand is you went from helping individuals, you know, like. Like personal to business.
Was that more of because of your passion to help the business, or more of you saw a greater need, or was it basically your business model dictated that it's easier to have business clients?
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it just evolved. It was a lot easier. It was a lot easier to get better. Better client paying clients.
It was. For me, it was quicker. Like, there were quicker results, you know, so it. It kind of, you know, you might be with somebody that's really struggling in their, in their personal life with, you know, with their kids, and it might take them like years where, as opposed to like going in and solving a problem within a couple, couple months in a business. You know, that gave me, you know, it was more enthused about, about doing it that way.
And then I gave, it gave me more time to build out the family piece as well. So I didn't have to do as many of those. So I got better at doing that as well.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: I want to take a step back because we kind of glossed over something that I took for granted because I remember when we first, we first spoke, you, you were embedding yourself with families. Tell us a little bit about that. That's pretty wild.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Yeah, because I mean, I just think, you know, if you're gonna address the problem, then you gotta, you know, go into the situation and you know, staying with somebody for a period of days and seeing how they interact with each other. Because a lot of these were the identified patient or the identified client was the child right A lot of times and it's like, no, I'm not going to even pay attention to that child. We're going to deal with the leaders in this home. Like, if I can't correct that behavior, what makes you expect me to change? Your 16 year old if mom and dad are constantly fighting or, you know, struggling with this, or have been traumatized because of this kid being traumatized, whatever it might have been, you know, there was just a lot of things to unpack there. But you have to the same way you would do with a company. You can't expect every, all the employees to do better if there's horrible leadership.
We had to work with the leadership in the household. And once that got fixed and once that got regulated and there was balance, almost naturally the child comes into that. It just, you know, and I'm talking about getting kids off gross amounts of medication too. Not just. These aren't just, you know, a kid with one diagnosis. A lot of times it was multiple diagnosis, multiple issues at home, with the police, in school, in and out of residential facilities, care facilities, all that kind of stuff. This wasn't like, I hate to compare, but these were like, these were difficult cases.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: So go ahead.
[00:13:26] Speaker C: So, well, two things, like, number one, I can't imagine that's like a comfortable situation to just embed yourself into somebody's house, like, and then like kind of on a light note, all that when you're saying this, I'm thinking of Like, Chris Farley. Like, van down by the river skit. So, like, how does that. How does it. Like, how does that work out? The parents are, like, cool with that, and the family's like, yeah, come on in. Like, we're gonna. Where you go? I go and hear it. Like, is that how that goes?
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Or.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's. You know, I'm upfront with people.
You know, I had to learn early on. I mean, I remember being picked up from Chicago one time, Chicago o', Hare. And the. The mother who had come to one of my retreats had met me. Hey, look, I want you to come in and work with our kids.
Yeah, I made the assumption that she had communicated that to her husband.
And we were about halfway to their home, and she said, oh, by the way, my husband doesn't know you're coming.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: He thinks it's wife swap.
[00:14:37] Speaker A: And I'm thinking. And then I met the dude. I mean, he's not a little dude.
I mean, we're. We're friends. We're. We are friends now. Like, I. I love the guy, but, I mean, holy crap of missing that little detail.
And he's like, what the f. Is this? What are you doing? And, like, I mean, it worked out, and we became friends, but, like, that was the one that I was like, hey, you know, we need to do a little bit more research up front here and tell people what they're getting into.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: Can you imagine how messy that bike is?
[00:15:09] Speaker C: I get mad at my wife if she grabs extra stuff at the grocery store. You know, like, imagine.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Hey, by the way, I brought a therapist home.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: Can we keep him?
[00:15:21] Speaker C: I swear to God, he was on sale.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: Yeah, he'll be here for three days. I'm like, yeah.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: I'm like, man, how often.
How. You already touched on a little bit. Like, you walk in, and they're like, hey, we need help with our child. And then you're like, fine, and you show up.
How quickly did they realize that? And. And how surprised. How often were they surprised at the fact that it. You know, nine times out of ten, it. You know, it's the stuff they got to work on that's. That's impacting the family? And. And like you said, previous trauma or inability to. To. To cope, things like that.
How quickly did it.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: Did.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: Did they realize, wow, you know, Eric's here as much, if not more for us than for. For the child,
[00:16:04] Speaker A: you know, usually about a day and a half in. So the first day, they're pretty skeptical, Especially, like, the first half of the day and then when I tell them what we're going to be doing and like, you know, it could, it's, it's pretty emotional. Like we're trying to change things quickly. So I'm, I'm not trying to dilly dally around issues and sit there and talk and they're not used to, a lot of people aren't used to people pushing them, you know, that far.
And. But after they come out of that, it's the same thing. The same thing I'm doing with them is the exact same thing I want them to do with their child. Like if they can be like, I'm not asking them to do anything that I haven't done myself.
Right. And once they understand that, and once they understand how that connection. Because a lot of them will say after the first day you feel like a family member.
Right.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: And is that, Eric, is that a skill? Is that something you've practiced other tactics? Like, I mean you gotta, you gotta garner an immense amount of trust in a short amount of time. Are there things that you as, you know, a trained therapist, are there things that you. I'm not saying manipulative or tricky things, but are there actual skill sets to garnering that, that amount of trust and such a short amount of time?
[00:17:25] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I think the one thing is just giving somebody that's, that has spent that much money, that much effort with no results, giving them hope is huge. And just letting them understand like I am a person too. I've gone through all this.
Like I know what it feels like. I know what this, this feels like to not be able to connect with your kid or like mom and dad, to not be able to connect with one another anymore. To have that attachment and to just call the challenge, to have that attachment challenge and call it what it is and normalize some of this and not say. Because when I get, you know, when I'm walking into somebody's home, a lot of times they've been ostracized because of their, you know, their kids behavior, their behavior. So now they're, they don't have the resources as far as people wise and so that now they're feeling even more isolated, which just makes it that much worse.
They've tried to follow all the experts, you know what they're telling them and it's like it doesn't need to. One, it's tough to get into, but it doesn't need to be that complicated either. Like you just need to be able to open yourself up and be real with your own crap. Really?
And once you're able to open that up, you know, that's how, that's how you get that point.
We all are. The thing that I go in with, one is hope, two is knowing. Knowing that we're all hardwired to connect.
And the only thing that stops us from doing that is a presence of fear.
So the less afraid I am when I go in, the more that just opens up. When I myself am that kind of vessel of light, people will just naturally come into that. It's, you know, and it's, you even see it with their pets. You know, a lot of families will, will joke that their pets, you know, will just eventually, after a couple hours, will just come up to me. I remember one time I was going up to Connecticut, I was in a home up there, and again, the family didn't tell me this, they didn't warn me. I walk into this house and this literally 185 pound dog look like a polar bear, like a miniature polar bear, you know, and I'm just like, okay, you know, I didn't think anything of it, but after the first day, you know, I sat down on one of their couches and the dog just comes up and lays right next to me. And the mother's like, well, that's strange. And I didn't think anything of it. And then the second day, the kid who didn't want to participate at all says, I'm not sure why this dog likes you so much. Like, you know, he's our pet and this dog would just follow me around.
And, you know, we, we got, you know, we did a lot of things with them in that three days. But finally we're driving back to the airport and the mother, you know, she was thanking me and she said, oh, by the way, you are actually the first male other than my husband and my son that has come into our house that, that dog has not bitten.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: Wow. Whoa.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: And again, good to know before I go in, but I think it's, you know, it's resetting your physiology when you, you know, when somebody's stressed. Right? Yeah, you can feel that, you know, but we, a lot of times we don't call it out and we don't work on our own physiological state.
So you can actually, I mean, they've shown they could do this through the brain imaging at the things where you can actually calm somebody down just by your own physiological state.
So when we get people like that, that's how I, you know, soon as the quicker you can get somebody to a safe place Then they can access more of that logical part of their brain. Then they can be taught. A lot of our old therapy model just keeps them in a dysregulated state and a stressed out state and then you can't remember anything.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: I don't want to go.
Sometimes tangents are a good thing or a bad thing. But you just said something that I want you to expand on. The current therapy mod model keeps them in a stressed out state.
Talk about that for a minute, if you don't mind. Expand a little bit on what, what, what is the current therapy model and why, why is that the practice? Why is that the, the, the common practice?
[00:21:47] Speaker A: Well, it's, it's a lot like our medical model. Right? You, if, if you're not sick, the doctor doesn't get paid.
Yeah, right. If we cured cancer, which you know, I think we have, you know, again, I'm no doctor, but if we had the resources to do that, which I think some we do, but we're watching people suffer because the cure doesn't pay.
Being sick pays.
So the traditional therapy model is you come to me, can for years and years, an hour a week or every other week, and you do therapy and you eventually think you're going to get to this place of nirvana somewhere 10, 15, 20 years down the road where you're going to so called be better. Well, what if we could just address that in three days and hit it real hard and start to work on it and empower you instead of enable the same behavior?
And a lot of people struggle with that. I had a young lady, this was years and years ago, came into my office with, you know, a diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar.
And before she went off to college, she was Sigma, you know, she was valedictorian. It was in college to be like sigma cum laude.
And then what had happened? This was years ago. So 9, 11 happened. That traumatized her for some reason, I don't know why, and then she just spiraled down.
Well, she came in and she started getting, you know, she actually had to have people from her, from the home she was staying in bring her because she couldn't function enough to come in on her own.
She came in and after about three or four months she, she got so much better.
She came in, she was coming in on her own, doing a lot of great things, finally was going out looking for a job, but then came in one day and she said, everything I read in these books tells me I can't get better, I got to stop seeing you because it shouldn't Happen. I feel like I can get off my meds. She was so stuck in a framework that told her she couldn't be whole again.
And that's what's wrong with our therapy model. It doesn't, you know, when I, when I was doing things on attachment and things like that, when I was first learning, I remember, you know, attending lectures where I actually challenged one of the people that said, hey, look after, you know, after somebody, after a young child reaches the age of 13, 14, 15, there's no hope. That's all locked in. You can't change the behavior. And I remember challenging him because I was sitting in the front row and I said, how are you? How do you expect me to work with people over the next 30 or 40 years and tell them that message?
That's pretty grim, right? There has to be a way to correct this, right? We know a lot of. And that's when I really started and really when my wife had to stroke, that's what really pushed me to look into the mind and the body and how that's all attached. Because when you could fix that, you know, there's a lot we can fix on our own. And one of the keys to almost everything, you know, when you're looking at how do you have better mental health, how do you have better physical health, how do you have better psychological and emotional health? It's relationship, you know, that's when you look at all the blue zones, the people that are living to, you know, 90, 100, 110 years old, one of the main pieces of there is they have good community, they have good connections with one another because that heals.
So that was a long answer.
Great answer.
[00:25:37] Speaker C: It was great. You know why? Because I, I've always had this thought about therapy and about, you know, counseling and that kind of stuff and sort of goes along those lines. Not exactly, but I, I've always been a bit cynical about it and simply for the fact that I. When you talk about something over and over and over, it becomes almost like self fulfilling. So if I'm going every week to a counselor and maybe I'm having the greatest week ever, but then it's like, all right, well, let's talk about how things are bad. Like, that can't be a good practice.
And that's what I feel like a lot of, A lot of this, you know, counseling and things are conditioned to do for people. It's like, dude, just put it. Let's go. Move on. Next. Like, you know, so that was really refreshing to kind of hear your take on that because I think it's, you know, a lot of stuff can just get fixed and move on and we don't need to dwell on it and, you know, focus on the positive. But that's.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: Or just at least deal with it. What's funny about this is there are a lot of other therapists out there that are even, that are better than me that you don't know about that are doing this kind of work.
You know, they're just not out there marketing themselves and everything like that. People know, like if you look there, there are some fat fantastic people that will address it at the core issue, get you on and on your way.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: It's.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: And you don't hear about it.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: I want to, I'm going to transition in a few minutes to the other side of your business as you, as you, you grew into the corporate space from, from a, you know, from a consultation standpoint. But, but I think that the, there's a, there's a, I think there's a similar theme in the coaching industry now as well, where business coaches, life coaches.
First of all, I'm a believer in, in, in, in coaching, but I also think that there are some that they are not trying to actually get you to peak level. They're trying to get you to next level maybe, and then they keep you there and, and they enable and maybe it's out of ignorance, maybe it's out of, maybe it's out of, you know, maybe it's not out of ignorance if it's not out of ignorance and it's pretty, kind of pretty messed up. But you know, they don't, they, they don't try and fix the, the core issues that are holding you back from achieving things that you, that you want to achieve in life. So I love hearing that, that that's your philosophy from a therapy standpoint, because I imagine it also translates into your philosophy when you're helping these businesses, right, where you're not there to be there, know to, to get them to a level and hold them there, hold them up for, for, for a gen. You know, for, for a decade. You're there to get them fix some things and, and, and in a lot of ways move on. Right.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Or, or just be on the sidelines as their bench to empower the people inside of the company to do those same things, to learn to teach.
You know, they don't have to wait on me to make a decision.
You know, the same way with the family go now it's more lucrative to do it that way.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: Sure, yeah, it's a cash cow.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: But.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: But yeah, I think that. I think that it happens. And you gotta. As a business owner, you gotta be weary, and as a father, you gotta. Especially in what, you know, with stuff you were doing. So. So speaking of father, how. How has.
How has becoming a father changed your perspective? And Joe, I want to spend at least a handful of minutes on this because it's a topic that is important to me. I know it's a topic that's important to Joe and Eric, I know it's a topic that's important to you, and I don't think it gets talked about enough.
And that is how your role as a father also impacts your role as a leader in business. And what are some of the things that, as a father, you should be doing that are going to make you better as a leader in business? So I just threw out a bunch of stuff that we could kind of just pick apart.
[00:29:42] Speaker A: Yeah. I think, you know, you have to understand that your kids are going to live out what they see.
Right. And it's. It's always been important to me. Well, let's. Let me back up.
I have somebody who's got my back 24 7, being my wife. I mean, she. We work together. She runs the show at the company. Right. She's behind the scenes doing everything, making me look good.
Right.
And it's that dynamic.
Right. And it's. It's. How do I work complimentary with her. Right. Because every relationship you come into, you're unconsciously competitive because you all. You both see things differently.
So it was really getting on the same page with her. I mean, the first year, you know, why she didn't leave, I still. I don't know. Right. Because I was, you know, as she says still nowadays. And I think I laughed at you, Ken, when you're. You said this about what your wife says to you, because I hear it all the time, too. You're a lot.
All right. Yeah, you're. Yeah, I know, babe. Like, but I'm. You're a lot. And I love you deep, deeply. And, you know, I think we bring into that relationship a lot of wounds, and if they're not settled, it translates over to our kids. Like, if you look at, you know, the sins of the father, the sins of the son, you know, I had to do a lot to correct some generational curses and some generational conditioning, and it was very important that I be there for my kids. Right. And so we have core values in our family.
Right. If you ask our kids, they'll rattle them off. We have core values in our business. They just happen to be the same.
All right, One of the kids that, you know, the kids always heard growing up, you know, don't whine, shine, you know, and that's of course, the, you know, center for victory. It's not center for victims. It's not center for mediocre. Like, don't be a victim. Don't be a whiner. And when you're complaining at the dinner, the dining room table, and your seven year old looks at you and goes, dad, you're being a victim, it's like, whoa.
Yeah, you're right. Right. I hate to hear it. I was complaining.
But it's when you're crying when the
[00:31:59] Speaker B: Steelers lose and he says, dad, you're being a victim.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: Yeah, no, he understands that one. Yeah. Because it's not supposed to happen.
Yeah.
[00:32:08] Speaker B: What are your other core values? You said there's five of them for your family. If you don't mind me asking.
[00:32:12] Speaker A: Absolutely.
More cowbell.
All right. Which is just, you know, again, it's not you. You don't. We don't compare to ourselves to one another in the family. Right. We look at our gifts. There are our talents and then there's our non talents. I don't expect my wife to behave like me. She doesn't, you know, she doesn't expect me to behave like her. And when, when one wins, everybody wins.
And we do that with the ringing of the cowbell, right. We actually have a huge one in our office and we have little miniature ones for the company, but we have a huge one in our office.
And you know, we just rang it today a couple hours ago. My daughter in law just got a job offer. She just got her doctorate two, two weeks ago. It's got her. Got a job offer. That, that's the job that she wanted. So, you know, everybody's in that chat going, yeah, yeah, yeah, right? Cowbell, Cowbell, cowbell. That's great.
Second one. And because we're near and dear to Pittsburgh is be like Freddie, right? Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers was about people. He was about loving on people. He was about loving them first. Figuring out their story, you know, and just being where they were at, you know, in their situation. So that's the second one.
GSD is the third one, right. Which is near and dear to my heart. You guys probably, you know what I'm talking about. Gsd.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: It's funny, my wife's name is Amy and just earlier today I gave her a new acronym and it Was always makes. But I couldn't figure out what to do for why, so I just said always makes. Why happy?
Just put it all together into one word, you know. Yeah, but, but yeah, man, I love that. Get done. Let's go.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And yeah. And then we have don't want shine. And then the, the other one is be an eagle. You know, be a winner. Don't, you know, don't, don't be a pigeon. Because pigeons, all they do is crap on everything. Be an eagle. Soar high and act like it. Like, I don't care what you're doing, act like it. You know, I could think back of when my daughter, you know, she was a big gymnast. She ended up being a level 10 gymnast. Broke her back and then came back and won states the next year. It was like, okay, like, get it done.
You know, you know, it's those kinds of things that, and you know, that's, that's my idea of success is when I can go home.
And it was lovely because I had a discussion with my son. It was really hard because he was.
They both went away to college at the same time, they both graduated at the same time, even though they're not the same age.
My daughter graduated high school when she was 16, and so they both left at the same time. So half our family was gone and we were empty nesters in our early 40s.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:35:10] Speaker A: Okay. And, you know, both, you know, two of my great friends left and my daughter went even farther out than, than my son. My son went to Penn State as well.
And, you know, my daughter ended up moving back after her first semester, which was great. But, you know, I just love the fact that they decided that, you know, my daughter bought a house four miles from us, so she lives real close to us. And then, you know, on the way to where I'm at today, in the office that I'm sitting in, I had a conversation with my son. You know, he doesn't live that far away. He's 50 minutes away, but he's like, dad, we had that conversation. How do I get closer?
Right? And that, you know, when your kids want to hang out with you, I think you've done something right. And I hope they always do. I hope I don't blow that.
But I just, I love hanging out with them. I love, I love helping them with their goals. I love helping them achieve, you know, those things. It, I love ringing the cowbell for them. I mean, that was.
That. That's just a great thing to have. And I just love watching Them grow up and make a difference in.
In society and not, you know, be it being a giver and not a taker like we see a lot of people doing nowadays.
[00:36:36] Speaker B: You work with. You work with your daughter, right?
[00:36:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, she's. She's a teacher. She's a teacher. She teaches at a school district, but she does our, our. What we call our Monday morning Mojos. So we call her our Chief Joy Officer. She is just a absolute ray of sunshine. And if you knew all her backstory, all the surgery she had, you know, everything that she's gone through, to be able to. She has dyslexia as well. To be able to graduate with a 4.0 when she's 16 years old. She graduated college before she was actually even 21.
Had a school, a teaching job before she was 21. She's, you know, two years out now, and, you know, she's just.
[00:37:24] Speaker B: Joe didn't graduate until he was 24. You believe that?
[00:37:29] Speaker A: One day.
[00:37:30] Speaker C: One day, KJ. One day. I'll get there. Yeah, they said that's in the mail.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
What. Where can people just. If for. I always love saying this around the 40 minute mark. If anyone's still listening, God bless them. But where can people get some of your daughter's content? Because I've, I have heard it.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: She.
[00:37:50] Speaker B: She has a. Does she have a podcast where she does that Monday morning Mojo, or is it just on YouTube or is on Twitter, Social media? Where. Where, where could people hear. It's. It's really great, Joe. It's like, she's just. She is like, like Eric said, a bundle of energy, super positive. And it's not like real deep stuff. It's like, it's like, yeah, you're right. Like stuff, you know, but you forgot, you know, because the day sucked. You know, that kind of thing.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: It's.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: I, I think it's really cool. Yeah.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: And it's a minute or less. And like, she's so good at it. Like, she's always been good at. She's done that for years. Like, we just ask her to, hey, look, do this, tape this for us.
And yeah, so the easiest way to do it is to get it on our YouTube channel, which is center for Victory.
You know, you'll see all of our stuff there. She's done podcasts with us. She actually just did a podcast by herself that just got released last week, which was.
Yeah, I had to hold back the tears on that one. Right. You know, I'm usually the one that's hosting the podcast and Hopefully I can have you guys on, on our podcast too because I think they would enjoy. Our folks would enjoy you. But yeah, people can check that out. You know, we've, we, you know, all my kiddos, even my daughter in law has been on the podcast and in February we finally got the, the boss on there, which is my wife and we talked. You really want to tune that in. But if you, if you watch that one, I'm going to tell you, even as a guy, you better have some tissues ready. That was a tear jerker.
[00:39:17] Speaker B: Now she's a behind the scenes kind of personality, right? Like getting her into the upfront role like that was probably a challenge, right?
[00:39:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Because she knows I'm always going to go off script. Even if I have a script in front of her. She's like. And you do it all the time. I'm like, baby, just it's in the moment. I love you. Just that we have people need to know because that one was about. She went through the canyon with me last year.
All right, so remember I told you she had a stroke when she was pregnant with our daughter.
All right.
And we we researched a lot of different things. They, you know, she had to quit her job, which she was really great at. She was a fantastic teacher herself.
You know, had to, you know, get her, you know, really get a new identity, you know, as a mother and a very strong mother. She, because she has her graduate degree as well in organizational leadership, helping me out, you know, behind the scenes when I was traveling all the time, you know, people don't see all that stuff.
She's super kind and you know, she was finally got off all her medication. But that Grand Canyon and hopefully both of you guys, we can get you to go. Both of you guys to go. Maybe after Joe watches that podcast he'll commit.
But you know, it was just for us to go through that together even after being married for 27 years, because that's rim to rim. It's all one day. It's 25 miles. It was 122 degrees down in the canyon.
We had to do it together.
And those last three miles, you know, there, there were some tears. I'm glad it was dark because there were some tears. It was like, you know, I looked at her and I said, we're going to do this. We came in the canyon together. We're going to leave the canyon together.
And we grew through that. And I didn't know how that was possible because I mean we put a lot of attention on our marriage and in Those things, but it.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: And I.
[00:41:17] Speaker A: You know, if she goes again this year, I think we'll grow again. I don't know how, but it just. It has a way when you get out in nature, like I always say, you know, I've heard this several times. Change of pace, change of place, change a perspective.
And.
God, you know, we were in that podcast and she starts talking about it, and I couldn't even. She starts crying, and I couldn't even. Like, I knew if I reached out and touched her arm that the podcast would be over, right? Because I just. I felt all that emotion again of how hot it was that day. And, you know, you're dropping into the canyon, you can't see anything, and you're just relying on that little light that's on the top of your head, and you're like, what the heck did we just get into? We're going to go 25 miles, and am I really going to be taken off all this clothing in another hour or two? And it's like, oh, yeah.
And it just, you know, you're halfway through it and, like, there's no elevator up, you know.
[00:42:13] Speaker B: Yeah, you gotta.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: If you got 20 grand, you can get, you know, the helicopter ride out, but it's not an option. But getting through together and just back and forth, just talking to one another because there's. There's nothing to do because you. There's no cell service. You're present, you're in nature, you're with each other.
And we make great friendships. I mean, the actual office that I'm sitting in, one team network.
I met these guys in the canyon that. We became friends and love them to death, but, you know, seeing their leader take them through and all those guys rally around their leader when he came out, because he came out with us, it was just amazing. They got so excited. They waited up for us to come out, you know, because they had. They had gone. They had gotten through, you know, three, four hours prior to us.
But, you know, 16 hours in the canyon with all that heat works on your mind. And, you know, there was. There were times towards the end I was like, am I going the right direction? There's really. There's only one direction, right? It's just. You got all these switchbacks, but, like, your mind really starts playing tricks on you. But it was an amazing thing for us to just do that together and being able to. Like, our kids stayed up for that. They waited till we got through the canyon. So we called all of them when we got out, and, you know, they're they're kind of rooting for us. You guys could do this. You know, way to go.
It was awesome.
[00:43:48] Speaker B: We, I mean on a much smaller scale, but certainly I can relate to the connection that my wife, who I was never a runner growing up, became a runner in. In a very loose terms in the last couple of years. And, and Amy and I ran the, the Broad street run just this past or two weekends ago.
[00:44:09] Speaker A: Two weekends ago because we ran it. I ran it the same day as I ran the, the Pittsburgh half.
[00:44:15] Speaker B: Yep. So we did 10 miles and, and it was her longest race ever or her longest run ever. And she was so full of doubt all the way up to even the week of where she didn't even want. She. She hadn't even told anybody she was doing it because she didn't know she wanted to leave the door open in case she wanted to back out. But it was awesome, man. It was awesome running with her the whole time, you know, like just running at her pace. And, and, and I don't know, I'm not gonna lie, maybe it was my pace too, but, but it was great taking pictures and just know it was just. It was really cool. And, and, and I think you're right that I love that line you used earlier. People are hardwired to connect.
Hardwired to connect. And, and I think that, you know, the health of a human, big time tied to the amount of. Of of quality connections they have with other humans. You know what I mean? And, and the value of, of a spouse that you're connected to, the value of brothers and sisters or siblings that you get along with. One of my, One of the biggest tragedies I think in, in life is siblings that don't get along. You know, it should be ready made friends in my world. You know, that's what it is with me and my brothers and then best friends. Like, you know, if you're lucky enough to say I have a best friend or I have a couple of guys that I consider and Joe, you know, for sure, you know, you know, our connection and our friendship has been. It's been huge for me in times where I had, you know, we've all gone through some. Right. But having those human connections has always been such a positive force in, in sometimes pulling you forward when you don't have the energy to push. Right?
All. All really, really good stuff.
So my, the, the last thing we got about five more minutes and we'll get into the two truths and a lie. But you know, as we talk about families, we Talk about fatherhood. And. And now we. We. You know, you're in this business world.
How many similarities are there between being a leader and a father? Or do you have to kind of, like, take your father hat off when you become a leader of an organization? Or do you kind of wear the same, you know, cape when you go from fatherhood to leader of a corporation? In your experience or in your.
[00:46:31] Speaker A: That's a good question, because I think I initially came in especially, you know, early on I was, you know, I was traveling all around the nation, and then I went worldwide with lectures. So I would have, you know, people lining up, you know, to talk to me after these lectures and things like that. And, you know, when I came home, I would expect, you know, my wife to wait on me like that. That didn't go over too well.
Yeah. And my kids didn't care. Like, we don't care. We don't care, you know, who you are, what you're doing. We just want you to be dad. And I can't come home and do those things that you do in work. You can't start ordering people around.
But I learned that because I learned that. The other thing that I learned was being a little bit better with my kids and my wife at home.
Having those skills translated to a better work environment. You know, being more patient, listening more, asking more questions instead of giving advice. It's easy to give advice when you're the top dog, but, you know, I learned it didn't work well at home. And then I was like, well, maybe this will work better if I don't order everybody around at work. Like, what if I ask questions? What if I care? What if I have concern?
[00:47:50] Speaker B: Very good answer. Very good answer. Joe, you got any questions here before we jump into the next. Next segment?
No.
[00:47:57] Speaker C: I mean, I second what Eric just shared. And I know for myself, like, being a dad in business, if you treat the people you work with like your kids, in the sense that, like, you actually give a shit, you care about them, and you understand that they're all really different, and they bring different skill sets and different personalities and things like that, then being a leader, it's a breeze, really, because, like, you're doing it, you know, from love, not for love. And it's. It really helps, and it shines through as authentic. And people, you know, they'll open up to you. You'll. You'll get the best out of them because you actually, you know, as cliche as is, you care. You treat them, you know, like you would treat your Kids, like, I don't let my kids get away with shit, but they know that I love them and that accountability comes from a place of, you know, because I want. I actually care for them. So I know that in my business, dealing even with clients that I have and things like that, it's like, I'm gonna tell you how it is, and I hold you as accountable as you should help me and so forth. So, you know, it's definitely. I think it's easier when you can see it on, like, a microcosm level with your family unit, and you say, okay, like, this is.
We're in practice of this 24 hours a day. So when I'm doing it on a work level, it's like, I've already been doing this day in and day out. So it's. It's. I. I like. I like what Eric said, because it's definitely rings true.
[00:49:32] Speaker B: I. I think we should. I think we should have a podcast with us three and one of our. One of our children. You check. You choose which one you want to bring on. But I think. I think that would be cool as hell to have me and. And either Caitlyn, Liam, or Bella. Joe, I mean, you got five to pick from, but only three can talk. And. And Eric actually.
[00:49:53] Speaker C: Actually would be monumental to get four of them not to talk while one talk. I'll tell you that.
[00:49:59] Speaker B: That is.
[00:50:00] Speaker C: Don't hold your breath.
[00:50:01] Speaker B: I think maybe you should bring Rocco. Rocco on. He's probably your best bet.
[00:50:05] Speaker C: Even him, man. I don't know.
[00:50:07] Speaker B: Joe doesn't like to share the spotlight, you know, so. Awesome stuff, man. All right, get down to it. We've had 45, 50 minutes or so to chat, and when we started, you gave us three facts about you. Two of them are true, one of them is not true. First is, you were in the justice system before you were. While you were. You were in the juvenile justice system before you became a teenager.
You shot a bear at the age of 12. We're not sure if those two items are tied together.
Your first bear, all right? And then you're. You're the first person in your family to go to college and finish grad school. Joe, which one is the lie?
[00:50:51] Speaker C: See if it could be tricky, because if shooting the bear got him arrested and then that blew a shot of college, then we're like, all bets are off.
So by. By process of a.
Of elimination here, I'm gonna say anytime that someone gets specific to about an age of something that could. That opens a door of much more variation so I'm gonna say there's truth in shooting the bear, but that ultimately is the lie.
[00:51:25] Speaker A: That is the lie.
[00:51:29] Speaker B: Good work. So. So what's this? Did you shoot a deer? What did you shoot?
14.
What happened? Tell us.
[00:51:35] Speaker A: No, I've never shot a bear. I just made that up. I just pulled that out of my head.
[00:51:41] Speaker B: I never shot a bear, legally or illegally. You never shot a bear? You want to go on record?
[00:51:48] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:51:48] Speaker B: All right, that's. Good work, man. Good job, Joe.
All right, so. So last but not least, Joe, you have been publicly and personally and on the podcast, you've been challenged to the canyon hike the north side to the south side.
So I hope that there's enough influence here that. That you'll see yourself to that challenge. We'll see.
[00:52:14] Speaker C: Well, let me just say this.
Eric is a much better salesperson than Kenny, and it all has to do with. With this dissemination of information that I got about said hike. He said, hey, you want to hike the Grand Canyon? It's going to be really hot. We're going rim to rim. So when's that, man? I don't know. Sometime September. I'm like, ah, I don't know. Maybe.
I don't know. Certainly wasn't the experience that you just described from. So I'm much more.
Much more open to. To that prospect. Wonderful was prior to.
[00:52:55] Speaker B: But yeah, it's funny when. When Eric made that comment, it was when I told Amy about the Great.
[00:53:01] Speaker A: She.
[00:53:01] Speaker B: We were getting ready for bed. She's brushing teeth, and I woke up like, I'm going to hike the Great from the North Rim to the South Rim. And she just started cracking up laughing, and she's like, I can't even with you. Like, can you just take it down a notch for a second?
[00:53:17] Speaker A: You're a lot.
[00:53:19] Speaker B: You are a lot. Yeah.
Good stuff.
[00:53:24] Speaker A: I told that to my wife, and she's laughed, too, Ken. I was like, hey, I got another guy who said his. His wife told him he was a lot. And she's like, yeah, you are. Then she turned it on me.
[00:53:37] Speaker B: We all are. Right? That's what makes us special.
[00:53:40] Speaker C: That's it.
[00:53:41] Speaker B: Eric, thanks for joining us. We can't wait to have you on again. We can't wait to be on your podcast. We can't wait to just continue having really cool conversations with really cool people. And. And this was a ton of fun, and I hope you enjoyed yourself, and we will see everybody next time.
