Father's Day Special! - Darryl Hart

[0:00]  welcome back everybody to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast this one's a special one because Father's Day is approaching and I've got my one and only dad with me today we're really going to be focusing about kind of the heart and hustle um behind being a dad yeah you know I've always been very lucky because you have always been an entrepreneur and I talk about this in other episodes but the fact that you've always kind of led by example has always been something that I've really appreciated and so today we're going to kind of dive into what it really took to be an entrepreneur father and how you kind of balance the heart of having a family and the hustle of trying to make something for yourself but interesting being here today well thank you Keenan it's good to be here yeah absolutely it's funny we call it heart and hustle I think it's more like the heart the hustle that's fair that's a

[0:49]  good one right yeah I like that I like that so here's a question for you so as a father when you first had a child right you had to make some tough decisions when it came to providing for the household right and kind of making some decisions in like the family nucleus of like who is going to be the person who goes out and tries to provide for everybody now let's give everybody a little bit of an understanding of how old you were when you had me so why don't you take us kind of what that actually I was younger than you are today yeah right um so I was 28 um when you were born right so I was 28 when you were born got married at 27.

[1:30]  right so think about that um and both your mom and I both had good jobs and we were working together trying to determine how to eke out a living we weren't making a lot of a lot of money independently but collectively we could get by right we both had steady fixed jobs for organizations that were one was both of them were large organizations so we had some sense of security that we knew we had a place to go Monday through Friday typically you know you'd work the eight to five and go home and have your weekends free and so we kind of got into that whole you know if you will a regiment of going to work every day right which was which is really what it was all about back then right

[2:19]  um and then something happened of course and after we got married about a year later you were born um and so it was um something that we kind of quasi kind of planned we knew he wanted to start a family um mom was ready to um start looking at being a mother um and so we were blessed and all of a sudden next thing you know there's a bun in the oven right and then you were born in 1990 um so that was like a pretty big jump right so huge mom had been together since high school you could have a child right on the way so I'm aware any type of like realization that you kind of had to level up your skill set as like not only um a professional but also a husband was there like a personal development boost

[3:06]  that kind of kicked yeah it was interesting because um you know candidly when you're at that age in your life there's so many things going on around you um a good example would be you know all your friends are making the lifestyle and and life-changing decisions whether it's getting married you know there's a lot of pressure on a lot of folks in the mid to late 20s to get married and to start having families and to partner up with the people that you love and want to spend time with um and so a lot of that's going on right so almost every weekend there was another event where you're going to somebody's house you're you're the barbecuing or you're celebrating in addition to what you may be doing with birthdays and traditional holidays then all of a sudden you look around and you're so busy

[3:54]  um and all of a sudden there's this change coming because you know one and one at that point is still two yeah now it's one and one equals three right I always thought that you know the process of bringing a child into the world from like a man's perspective is like okay I really have to like tighten my up right because like I have to provide for a family now like I'm not just out here by myself and I feel like that's a wake-up call that a lot of people experience did you kind of have that as well um you know I was still pretty active right I rode bike every week yeah I was in the biking um quite a bit I played a lot of basketball even from a mindset perspective yeah so where I'm going with that is I really didn't pay attention right um pregnancy was beautiful it was great um it really hits you um like a frying pan smacking the

[4:40]  forehead when that baby is born the reality is right in front of you specifically when you watch your child come into Earth you know come become a a fully functioning baby coming out of the womb yeah that's scary as hell but guess what it's so exciting that you recognize oh it's time it's time to man up right it's time to get Beyond just you and Mom or you and your significant other it's now redirect right so let's imagine this if you will if I'm looking at you right now we're having a conversation now I'm looking at you then all of a sudden I'm like looking at that too right so all your energy goes from just being singularly focused and from a singular perspective to now your energy becomes I'm focused on Mom and her well-being now I'm focused on this little rascal as

[5:27]  well because that's going to be the future yeah this is a weird question but did you kind of have that I've read and heard and seen a lot about the experience of like when you have a child yeah you're like wow I can see myself in that thing was that like that for you um yeah I think so I I think um where I was from a if you will a maturity perspective I don't know that I was really ready to be the dad I mean I was still growing up myself right yeah and having a lot of fun and having freedom and doing a lot of fun stuff mom and I were traveling a lot together and every weekend we had something planned and then a little monster named Keenan was coming and when he was born we started you know put in some of those things on the back burner and redirecting our energy towards being the effective parents that

[6:15]  we were going to be yeah um and so it's it's a riveting experience when you go through having your your children um because it it redirects it makes you reframe who you are and and re-define what's important yeah so that transition is a big one and that kind of leads me into the next question so what type of things did you realize needed to start changing and then how did you start deploying the tactics to like be a little bit different was it being more organized was it being more attentive to Mom was it saying no to certain situations and social outings what was that like yeah it was interesting I think um more than anything else it was um not just physically

[7:02]  being there but being present you know physically you could be there but being present mentally was a kind of a new learn thing to do yeah um because you know your loved one the person mom in particular has a baby it's not her baby it's our baby right right and so the coaching for me which I'm fortunate because your mom was so good at you know keeping me grounded by saying you don't just need to physically be there but you need to be present and being present was so important um because it it brought us closer together yeah you know so for instance if you you walk in the house at the end of the day and you take your shoes off and you put your backpack down and and

[7:51]  you know you go to the bathroom and change your clothes and you grab a beer and then you sit down and grab that remote control that went away yeah because now now it's like you come home and the first thing you want to do is hold the baby and give Mom a break right because we know or if you're fortunate enough and you're and you're and you're sniffing another stays home with the baby that's a big task it's a big lift to take that that responsibility on 24 7.

[8:22]  so before you were born it was just there wasn't a need to think about anything other than what are we going to do right did you and Mom ever have the conversation about what are the expectations now that we have a baby I was out with my buddy sue the other day and him and his uh his wife Nicole just had a baby and he was talking about one of the things that he wished he could have done better was had a real conversation about or at least he emphasized how important it was to have a conversation about roles and responsibilities and being able to raise a kid right because now Mom has extra responsibility of raising a child you're off working and everything and like the maternal Instinct in itself is a whole different animal sure right you're still working out there so how did you guys kind of balance those early stages of having a baby yeah like chopping up these responsibilities so a valuable

[9:10]  lesson for me was that when when you were born as the first child mom spent some time at home and I continue to leave every morning and go to work and I didn't recognize how difficult that was for her being home with the newborn all day um and then when she ran out of her PTO I took a week off yeah let's have like so let's dive into that a little bit so when you think about mom being home with a baby yeah what would like in your younger Minds going on was Mom just like hanging out it was relaxing do you know what I mean if you didn't fully understand all of the work that went into it because it's difficult for me to even understand yeah what does that really mean well what it means is that your little body snatchers not only snatching their body but it's also snatching your time right so for

[9:58]  instance you uh you assimilate to the baby's behavior so for instance baby's up at 2 am you're up at 2 am baby's down at seven in the morning to sleep until nine you need to try to get down at seven in the morning and sleep till nine right so everything the baby did you kind of had to emulate because if you didn't you would be a wreck right and so when we first started having these conversations about Mom being home on PTO after you were born for for I think four four six eight weeks and then I took over for the week I'll never forget that she went back to work and I took over her role in responsibility I think I'm sure a week or 10 days or whatever and I'll never forget how I it was so impacting that she was gone

[10:49]  and it's my turn yeah no cell phones no Texas uh none of this back in the day no no there was no cell phones no texting um no email no YouTube no YouTube videos it was you the remote control and and a phone box on a wall yeah not a lot of calling going back and forth because nobody did that right and just to check in maybe but I remember when she went back to work and I had you for the first time and she gave me the list of things to walk me through the routine fortunate for me I enjoyed spending that time with you before she went back to work so you'd cry in the middle of the night I'd get up and I go hold you and get you back to sleep and let her sleep let her rest because I was already intimately

[11:37]  involved in what that looked like for for taking care of you as a child as a baby so when she went back to work all of a sudden it's me and the baby she's leaving at 7 30 or 7 15 in the morning gone won't be home until after five then I'm like okay what am I gonna do right there he's on a on an island by himself right so so the routine kind of you want to keep the routine as intact as much as possible because we're all you know we're all you know habit forming by Nature so when you eat in the morning and you know and most babies are one but one bottle babies or so maybe one and a half for some reason little Keenan when he was a baby he was a three bottle baby couldn't get enough couldn't get enough and so it was a constant of feeding changing bathing and then hoping

[12:27]  somewhere in the back of your mind that you've got to go to sleep at some point yeah and then when you would rest then it would kick in now it's time to take care of the house and we had I think we had a dog then and all that so taking care of the dog making sure the house was cleaned up picked up beds were made you know all the things you normally would do and yes I'll admit I did do a little bit of laundry because you have to right um and so assimilating to what your schedule was was really important and then I found out that I recognized that by the time Mom got home first couple days I was equally as tired if not more so by taking care of you than I would have been by going to work so what I hear is brand new territory brand new right

[13:15]  having to go through the ups and downs of being alone and taking on the responsibility of raising little Keenan who drank nothing but milk and Bottles it sounds like right um so the resiliency that it kind of took to like make it through that was kind of eye-opening it was because it so what happens kind of naturally is that your needs and wants become secondary yeah so the little monster called the baby now becomes you know your primary focus and everything that you do right baby's hungry you feed the baby yeah um maybe he needs a diaper change you change the diaper time for a bath you you provide the bath right but you guys at this time are also growing a family so I'm sure that there's a little bit of pressure when it comes to like making ends meet and Mom's on PTO now she's going back to work

[14:03]  you're trading off and stuff like that so how did you like balance the work life balance elements of like there's pressure for us to make it on a dual income household with a child but what techniques did you kind of deploy to be like all right I need to be a little bit more present I love that one that was a great tactic but what uh what other kind of things um I think um redirecting the time allocation for outside activities um I was a you know like I said Avid bike rider and Avid hoop I played a lot of hoop basketball and literally me and my friends we would go anywhere from three to five nights a week playing or doing something around basketball or biking right we were always doing something busy or playing tennis even and so we were always busy doing things and then on the weekend it was like okay where do we go next right whether it was going to go visit you

[14:50]  know friends and family in the other part of the state or going to the beach or you know going to the mountains or whatever we did something every time and even in the winter we did on the weekends it was skiing every weekend right so we did a lot of fun stuff so post baby being born it was like okay well we can do that but we can't do it every weekend right and so all of those all those things started to redirect and then this is something else that's very interesting all of those friends that didn't have babies and kids kind of were doing their thing and then all of us who did were kind of doing our thing and next thing you know you're hanging out more with those people who have something in common in the form of a baby or a child versus those who don't because you're living the same you're living the same cycle of life so that was a change right your friends

[15:37]  change and so I think that's a natural part of kind of the growing up process and like I've even seen that to the day I mean I'm 32 years old now right I see friends who have children and all of those guys and families do things correct the children right and they're still the loan of the lifting the left-standing ones out here who aren't doing this stuff consistently so what was interesting also too is that you know this whole idea of Lifestyle balance right um what did it mean by having you know having children um of course you were more enforced and then second of course your sister and when that all came about it was even added even more Dynamics right um because we had a toddler and you and then we had a newborn right and so now it became all hands on deck it was even more so when we started

[16:25]  figuring out how to manage one child in a in a very effective and kind of um if you will in a simplistic Way by time sharing and and and and splitting our time appropriately for mom to have some time to herself we'd have a little bit of time to myself and then spend all the rest of our time with you as a baby all of a sudden now there's another baby that comes to our family and when Alexa was born it now became okay we had this this Bond of everything that we did was not just around Keenan anymore it was also around Alexa and so then we became like this pod if you will right and the Pod was Mom and Dad and the kids we would do everything with the kids right and so

[17:14]  we were very cautious um because we didn't want to spend time away from the kids we weren't looking to get away from the kids we're looking to do things with the kids you and Alexa so we weren't pawning the kids off we were making sure that we were actively involved in everything the kids needed even as infant and toddler well one thing I also think about today is I hear a lot of people who have families right who start families often talk about how important it is to have the supporting grandparents around speak about your experience with that because I if I'm not correct or if I'm not wrong you guys didn't have that sense of support well we did but we didn't we did that we didn't because um so Lori's brother um Kevin um had kids first and it seems like the first batch of kids or grandkids are always the chosen

[18:03]  ones first because they're the anomaly they're they're the bright star or the bright light on the horizon and it's easy to look to those kids because guess what they're the first right and so from a grandparenting perspective on Lori's side mom's side the energy was more geared towards Kevin's Kids versus our kids in addition to that Lori's sister Anna was also having kids after you were born then you know within 18 months or so 15 months then Monique was born which is Lori's sister's child my niece Monique and then Alexa was born and then all of a sudden you know another one's born Anna has a second child so grandparents from Mom's side were constantly busy on that side of the equation and proximity well to some degree it was right yeah and so and

[18:50]  we didn't live across the street or in the same city so it was a two and a half three hour drive to visit and so there wasn't a lot of time for grandparents to parachute in Parachute out parachute and parachute out and honestly that was okay with us because we enjoyed doing the things that we did independent of what the grandparents doing we we wanted you guys to be close to the grandparents because that's what you should be doing but the grandparents were busy and if you couldn't make it or there wasn't a the ability for us to get together we were fine with that and I feel like that's actually been a big part of like our family identity as well as we've always been okay being uh yes right we've never needed the extra people to kind of feel I guess secure in who we were as a family so you know we talk a lot about you know on balance

[19:38]  right and whether it's um lifestyle balance or or or interpersonal balance between your your husband and your wife or the balance between what the kids needs are versus what your personal needs might be then layer that with all these other um other activities in your life that take up your time right so one example would be where we lived I had relatives brothers sisters cousins family on my side in addition to Mom's side so what we found is we never found time for ourselves because on the weekends we're packing it up we're going to a birthday party or we're going to an event or we're going it got to the point where you couldn't really have the quad time you couldn't have the Laurie the Kina

[20:28]  and the Alexa and the Daryl time because we were always pushing out in a different direction to satisfy somebody else's need or request to be with us and the dynamic is somewhat of a divisive a device divisive dynamic because you really don't get a chance to hone in on who you are as a little family as much as your time is being taken away so there's a birthday there's a baby shower there's an event and so all of a sudden we look around and there was no time for us as a fam right raising a young family was this something that created a little bit of hardship with you guys was this like a time or a challenging kind of like moment that you guys had to recognize honestly I I think Mom and I were so into it that we we came closer versus pushing apart I don't think we

[21:15]  ever had conversations about not doing things with you the kids and roles and responsibilities it was just it was implied and known that this is what we were going to do and so we had to make a couple decisions that were really tough so your mom in and of herself was a successful um um individual in that she had a wonderful job a great career actually made more money than me and she was very good at what she did and then I was kind of that you know green and growing trying to figure out what I was going to do working for a large organization and we had to make a decision so here's here's what the decision was we got to that that point where we had to parent but we also had to provide and so we decided as a as a family as a

[22:05]  couple after Alexa was born and she was probably about six months old maybe a year and we said you know sending the kids to daycare every day so Lori and I could you know feed our own ego and professional career and growth personally we had to make a sacrifice and ask ourselves what made sense for the kids what made sense for our family so even though mom was making a good salary and enjoying the career that she had it was really wearing on us that we would actually leave the house at 6 30 quarter seven in the morning drive a few miles and drop the kids off go our separate ways and then figure out how to pick who's going to pick the kids up on the way home

[22:52]  get home and then start the whole night routine realizing that you really had about four hours with the kids of quality time that between getting home bathing doing the things you have to do get the kids to bed and then you have to put the kids down all of a sudden you look up and it's 8 30 9 o'clock then it's time for Daryl and Lori time only to have an hour and a half two hours and then go back and do it again yeah so who like brings up this type of conversation is this like a shared experience in our case it was shared because there was also the boogeyman right here's the boogeyman the boogeyman was how much are you paying out of pocket to have somebody else watch your kids each day which also like at a young age you know what I mean like the babysitter I remember going to surrender his house that was my first she lived less than

[23:40]  two blocks away yeah but I also remember being raised with her values because she was also raising that's correct we're a similar age yeah and so that's very interesting I don't think a lot of people think about that it's like when you take your children and put them into daycare they're being raised by somebody else's value as a majority well not only that's though it's the mannerisms it's it's all of the behavioral issues it's it's the um it's it's the process and how people go through the day it becomes regimented um and all of that time you'll never get back as a parent so when we got to a point where we figured out that economically right said and done was it worth an additional net net of 500 to 800 a month to have our kids go somewhere else after

[24:29]  paying for all of that or could we just say you know what we'll drive a van and we won't drive a sports car and driving a van gave us more flexibility versus driving the Infiniti Q45 because it was four-door and it was a sports car versus a Mercury Villager and the Mercury Villager came into play because it was more economical it wasn't as expensive but guess what the Mercury Villager allowed mom to stay home and so that's what we decided we decided that collectively mom and I that it was more important to us and the family to have Mom there to to be able to spend that time with you guys in your formative years so you knew that things

[25:17]  were going to be solid steady you didn't have to worry about anything and so as a parent then it became more dynamic in that I had to go hunt every day and when you put that pressure to go hunt every day there's no room for error you can't become unemployed you can't make a decision at work that's going to be detrimental to the family and you need to figure out how to cope get along assimilate and be consistent so that those at home mom the kids are taken care of and insulated against some of those things that you would normally see in the real world as a parent right so let's talk about the mindset that

[26:03]  comes along with that so you guys go from a double income household right now Daryl's the one Sole Provider how much are you making at this time let's see here so this is 1994.90 Ish in 94 I think I was making mono yeah well it depends so because if Alexa was six months old she was born in July so that was 93 she was in July of 93. yep I want to say that at the same time that we were going through this I made a career change I was making about 76 000 or 74 000 working in a bank yes um just you know VP assistant VP getting ready to go up the corporate ladder mom was at home

[26:51]  um we didn't have a lot of assets we didn't have a lot of debt because we were very mindful not to borrow our way into life yeah but we were making it didn't have a lot of savings either but we were okay and then I made a decision we made a decision together to start a business yes and coincidentally by starting that business our income went from you know 70 some odd thousand family of four to over 100 some odd thousand family of four Hells know what I was expecting I thought you were going to talk about the downturn of the first couple years you know interesting enough Keenan um when we started the business adventures in advertising franchise that we had in in the Seattle area yeah I think I sold 740 some odd thousand dollars worth of

[27:38]  promotional products year one oh wow and we had margins north of 40 percent so when you start making better money right one of the things that I hear a lot of people talk about is like once you get your first taste of that level of success it becomes kind of addictive and you want to start doing it more and more and more so you have 700 000 a year you guys are making really good money right does the lifestyle inflate at all are you working more now that you kind of have the pressure like you talked about we were able we were able to run our business outside of our inside of our home we had an assistant that was there at full time working um I would go every day out and go sell something because if we didn't eat unless I sold something and we were fortunate that we had some large large clients that liked me and did business with me and they gave Mom the Financial Security

[28:26]  of knowing that hey we're doing pretty good so she could do the things she wanted to do with you right and that being said um we weren't wealthy at all but we were doing okay and that was kind of the impetus of us saying okay well we can do better because other business opportunities would come along and so forth and so on and and so we haven't looked back since then right but I went from making a salary to creating a lifestyle and that was the transition for the family and this is something that you've always told me you're like you know what when you are doing things correctly and I'm going to paraphrase this like your business starts to take on life and the one thing that you can never quantify is

[29:13]  the lifestyle that your business can create for you and now today topic of discussion is like lifestyle entrepreneur right designing a business that helps you live the lifestyle that you want to so you were doing this in those early days absolutely 100 percent um it was it was something that came about because of the hard work um and having some success allowed us to do that right um so how did you not get caught up in the the hustle of it all because like I today find myself often wanting to work more work harder because it's something that I enjoy doing but I obviously don't have a family so how are you balancing the chase of success in this new lifestyle and the taste of the fortune that you could build for yourself with a business and a vehicle that creates so this is how are you balancing this this is where you have to be be sensitive to where you were as an individual right so

[30:00]  again all of those things around you know body snatcher number one body snatcher number two um times natural one times natural two um redirecting Our Lives to focus on the children that that refocus um was both good and bad good in that the nurturing being there when you needed having mom there being I mean you have to admit at breakfast every day you went to school to clean clothes on you're picked up well I almost say every day on time but but the fact that she was there at your becking call if something happens at the school she's there in five minutes or ten minutes and she was always there for you and she she maintained an incredible household right

[30:48]  I mean everything was always in order and there was never an issue right um that was good for for her because it allowed her to really focus on you as the children it wasn't so good for her and I in that we kind of did this together to make sure that was set and then we kind of did this and kind of went our own little ways because I was over here hunting and she was taken care of at the same time we're going down this path together my role is different than her role and so that kind of pushed us her and I her and I changed the role definition of our of our marriage of our partnership to where it became about you guys at the end of the day and not about us at the end of the day yeah yeah so Looking Back Now all right hindsight is 20 20. what do you think you could have done better in those early days was it communication I

[31:35]  I think you know again hindsight is 2020. I think what the lesson learned would have been a more effective communication Communicator with my partner and sharing some of the intricate details of what I was experiencing building a business with her so she could also live that with me and not having her feeling as though to some degree that she was on the outside looking in well I mean like do you I'm sure in those early days right the stress of trying to build a business if you're successful at the jump or not is still very taxable no doubt right well what it does though it you know so there's the hunter right the Hunter's gonna hunt like you mentioned earlier it's hard for you to turn it off when you're hunting you don't turn it off because you're looking for the next

[32:23]  opportunity and that takes you in different directions right for instance all of a sudden instead of coming home at 4 30 5 o'clock for my normal job I'm getting home at seven or eight o'clock because I had to go meet somebody for a five o'clock meeting or go meet somebody for you know and after after work meeting or entertain someone all those things start taking more and more time away from being with the kids per se again being there or being present I could be there even when I'm when I was there doesn't necessarily mean I was present because I was thinking about a lot of the other things that I was doing in order to provide for the family I think the lesson learned would have been to be a a better Communicator with my partner your mom so she could fully

[33:13]  understand some of the things that I was experiencing out hunting and what it meant for me and how it took me away from her as a partner but knowing that I was doing it in order to support her you and Alexa and the family if we could communicate and learn that early I think we we probably would have um just had a little more if you want more robust relationship versus that separation of me going my way to some degree in her going her way but I think it's a natural thing when kids are born because it goes from Mom and Dad as a partner to all the focus goes to the end game with your children and that happens for a sustained period of time so you were one-year-old you were seven you were 14 you were 18 you were 20.

[34:01]  that 20-year span all the energy that we have towards each other kind of was redirected towards the kids well and then after and then all of a sudden you look up and it's a 20-year span you kind of go what happened now you look and go oh God the good news is I still love my partner I still want to be with my partner and it's been an interesting Journey but you have to recommit to what all that means right and so that that was um that was an interesting experience and that children children do pull the partnership apart from a one-on-one Mom and Dad Lori and Daryl to redirect energy towards the children and then as you get to that point where they all of a sudden later in life you're starting to see the kids are now young adults and they're going to go in

[34:49]  their direction and you need to be careful and make sure that you are willing to accept you still love that person that person still loves you and you're still prepared to give it all to that person because that Journey has gone by and there may be some separation but the next part of your life is going to be another Rich Journey yeah and were you able when you were in it now that you think about it as a Young Man able to kind of future pace and see that nature or was it no I don't think so I I don't care what anybody says you can't because when you're focused on something to be successful your whole being is around that if you really are going to be successful you make that commitment everything that you do and sometimes that commitment is so powerful and so strong that you put your blinders on and that's all you do

[35:37]  yeah you know when you were talking there I think one of the things that when I moved to Hawaii right and me and Malia were together for the first time living together one of the biggest challenges that we had was her understanding of this is my mission right so she wasn't used to me being in the house working every single day being in the office always having something else to do it was a little bit of a different Dynamic and that communication aspect was something that we realized was very important so we really while we were in Hawaii we used to laugh about this all the time but we're like we pride ourselves in having the tough conversations because it's much easier to talk about it and at least get it off your chest the first time because it's less scary coming back to it a second time well now you know what I mean couple that with two babies running around I couldn't even imagine I just mean like a

[36:25]  relationship perspective the communication aspect I just realized was so yeah that's why it's important that when you find that life partner that you commit that that's going to be a life partner now you're going to make some mistakes and sometimes this Road's not going to be smooth and you're going to do some things that you're going to regret in a relationship but at the end of the day if you're fully committed to that person you love dearly then it all comes back and you can still love that person dearly none of us are going to be perfect um but the journey is the journey that's what you agreed to do when you find that life partner and you marry that person you know that guess what sometimes it's going to be messed up and sometimes you're going to slam your hand in the door and you're going to do some things that maybe you shouldn't have done and sometimes you're gonna put yourself in a vulnerable position

[37:13]  but at the end of the day if it goes back to that you know being that hunter or being that father and you come from a good place good things are going to happen it's going to be a journey and it's not always going to be fun but when you look back and you ask yourself could I have done better and you know that you've given it at all given it to all that's the rewarding part about being a good parent is you've given it your all yeah yeah well I mean I think you guys did an amazing job you know looking back of course 2020 but seeing some of the challenges that you guys went through were very interesting now that I'm older and have a better understanding of what life is sure like right not just living in this bubble um you know my hat goes off well don't forget you know we did some things that were to some degree plan good example

[38:02]  we talk about when you were younger and we had no time to ourselves we purposely moved we purposely moved from the chaos around all of those busy things to be a family with our kids we purposely are we talking about the movie we moved to Michigan when we left the Seattle area we had a couple business associates in Michigan it's people that I knew you guys knew no one yeah that was a big job huge jump yeah because it was like we're moving to Michigan it's 1997. and I had no idea was out there I literally just remember you guys packing up the house me being on a skateboard sliding around under on my belly underneath the truck and then everything happening so quickly the next thing you knew we were on a plane and you were seven years old you were seven years old when that happened think about

[38:50]  that 1997 you were seven years old your sister was four just almost four years old a little over four years old we arrived there in September we moved into our new house that we built in October of 1997. we made a conscious decision from 1992 to 1997 we built a business we made a conscious decision that hey because I was traveling a lot and I said to your mom hey this is not good for us we need to be together in order for us to be together we need to move and this is the reasons why and if there's one regret of all of that talk about hunting and being the leader and providing in hindsight one thing I should have

[39:37]  done differently and I and I still believe I should have I shouldn't have said this is what we're going to do and dictated that I should have said what do you think would you like to and that's a different approach but me being that Hunter and just being out there and trying to drive all of this it was a decision that was made and because of her love for me and her love for our family she said okay versus have a conversation let's talk about this it was we're going to sell the house we're building another house and we're moving let's get ready and boom boom boom it happened right but that's learned experience right but that was purposeful because what did that do for us as a family we talk about being parents and so forth

[40:24]  it went back to where we started it's back to the Pod right it was back to Mom Keenan Alexa and Daryl and how we were going to build the rest of our lives together and coincidentally fast forward yeah I mean it really created a sense of um like Independence I know if it wasn't intentional it's that's what it did though because I remember being younger and being like well I mean we guess and I don't know if this was like a negative thought but it was like we really don't need anybody to be happy right and so it's like I always see people who like stay in the same communities and never leave the nucleus of the large family and there's value to that but also I think it's so limiting for some people because it's like there's so much world out there and it gave us different experiences we got around different types of people it also set up a framework for me like when I left for college it was like okay well we've done this before this isn't as scary and it's

[41:12]  helped me kind of catapult around the world really since then what it does Keenan it um what it did for you I think and Alexa it gave you an opportunity to grow yeah and it gave you an opportunity to grow by giving you an opportunity to grow you were prepared and not afraid to do something different you were not afraid to step outside your boundaries and go somewhere else as a matter of fact that's your mom that your mom was like hey you need to experience life you need to move you need to go and be around different people and and learn new experiences and and become more rounded as an individual because you're better off by doing that versus staying in your little Community the kids that you were you played t-ball

[41:59]  with when you were six years old are the same kids you're hanging around with today at 32 years old and guess what there's nothing more outside of that small ecosystem and that's what you know and that's what you do and so when you go see the rest of the world you're not prepared for that because you're a shock and awe and you don't know how to communicate or assimilate to different different cultures societies and people because that's all you know is that neighborhood not in our world we pushed you guys out there so you could become the people that you are and have a rich experience in life and what you've experienced I think that moving process in itself like you said gave us an opportunity to reform our family nucleus which I thought was really important but also created a lot of opportunities for us to kind of bond so let's kind of take it down memory lane now that your son is 32 years old your daughter's 29 she's about to be 30.

[42:49]  she's engaged currently when you look back at our childhood what was one of your favorite bonding experiences was it a family trip was it going on sporting events when you think about kind of the memories that you had when we were younger what were some of those like what was a favorite I think one one thing that I I look back and it was this when we had our young careers working for organizations we were very limited in things that we could do we were bound to the job because of some of the successes that we had as you know entrepreneurs and owning our businesses and doing the things that we were able to do we could always be there with you whatever you did so Thursday afternoon you got to leave and go to a baseball tournament guess what we're there we're going never was it never was a choice there never was a question our mom and

[43:37]  dad going to be there right um so my favorite moments or or what was rewarding for me as a father was that we had the means and the ability to do whatever we wanted whenever we wanted right so for instance we had an opportunity once we jumped on a cruise ship I looked in it I looked I looked on the web I called it back then I looked on the web and found an opportunity for a cruise that was leaving out of Boston it was on Saturday it was a last minute deal you guys didn't have school so what did we do we packed it up we jumped into the Ford Expedition we loaded up our stuff for the crews we drove across the 90 and over on the 80 and went into Boston went on a seven-day cruise to Bermuda had a wonderful time together

[44:24]  for the week turn around and drove back home and those are things you can never take back right because we had the flexibility to wherewithal to do those things had I worked for another organization and been bound by a job I doubt that we would have been able to make those decisions that way to the things that we've done period other things being able to send the kids to school and watch you grow and and and know that when you left the house you were okay you were financially in a good position you knew that you're going to go have a rich experience you'd have to worry about not being able to do what you wanted when you needed to do it and the fact that Mom and I made those sacrifices and worked hard to provide that that's also rich and rewarding for us so what is a piece of advice to all

[45:12]  the new fathers out there right because today in society we find that like the entrepreneurial lifestyle is so glamorized right but it's not as easy as everybody says it is and I think a lot of people find themselves in positions today where they're unhappy with their job every single day they realize that it's a little bit limiting they want to take on the entrepreneurial lifestyle but when they get into it they're like man this is way harder than I thought so what is your advice to the fathers who are just having children how do they kind of balance that heart right and that hustle mentality with the new family would your advice be make sure that you're balancing those early days because they're never going to come back I I think yet you know when you're in an early profession that you have got to have some foundational skills that prepare you to go out into the world

[46:01]  whether it's learning how to communicate effectively in meetings whether it's learning how to win people whether it's learn based on your skill set and refine what those skills are before you can even step out into the world to go to try a business and I've said this to you many times It Ain't Easy what we do as a matter of fact it's kind of scary a lot of folks don't have the courage or the confidence in themselves to expose themselves to the what if they just don't and so they want the sense of the false sense of security that by me having a job working for a company I'm gonna be okay

[46:51]  that's all fine and until you get north of 50 years old and guess what they start they stop valuing your skill sets next thing you know they're downsizing you're the first ones to go and then you wonder what did you you know what did you do right being an entrepreneur is not for everyone it's the 80 20 rule 20 will 80 won't I just happen to be on that 20 side of the equation and that's all I've known is how to how to survive how to produce how to make it happen um not because I'm magical or not because my skills are better than anybody else's it's just what I do not everybody can do what I do not everybody can do what you do not everybody can do what that person does who works for an organization

[47:39]  find out what you do best find out where you're comfortable identify what your tolerance is for risk and reward for me my mentality has always been to some degree no biscuit no risk it no biscuit so I'm not opposed to putting it out there but then again my skill sets and who I am and what I do mitigates the potential for loss but I'm comfortable there not a lot of people do that so as a young father I would think you'd want to make sure that you understand that make sure your foundation's ready make sure your household is ready and that you're in a position where you you know you can win knowing that you've

[48:26]  got the right support from your loved ones your children your wife who's going to make all the difference in the world or your partner who's going to make all your difference in the world and then go do it and do it the best you can and every day burn that bridge behind you because you can't go back you cannot go back I mean a big a big thing that I think about is you know when we kind of think about everything that we talked about today communication becomes a huge component especially when you're going to take on risk to provide for your family it's not just communication about what the expectation is in the Family household but about the mentality that comes around with being an entrepreneur and being the hunter like you've said many times but more importantly that tolerance of risk is something that I talked about with a previous guest on the podcast couple weeks ago he's a part of a family business as well and he

[49:12]  talked about how and I kind of Leverage it this way I was like do you think your life experience has made you more tolerant to risk and he was like yeah now that I think about it because it's been how it's been for my entire life right we have this is all I know and so I've been through the ups and downs and the risky and the scary times but that really does become a part of your family culture you know and those two things really can't be compartmentalized so my advice to people who are starting families is recognize the risk that you're taking and you cannot be half pregnant when it comes to really trying to accomplish this kind of stuff there's no such thing as being half pregnant you're either in or you're out right yeah so and I think for me just Daryl Hart me as an individual I am who I am because of who your mom is yeah honestly I am who I am because of who

[49:59]  your mom is because your mom recognized who I could be before I recognized who I could be and that's that's powerful she she believed in me before I believed in myself and so I couldn't be here today if it wasn't for her commitment to me and to us as a family there's no way yeah I mean there's there's absolutely no way and I can't deny that you know so that whole parenting thing yeah it's one thing to say it's it's your dad but guess what it's your mom too yeah that's understandable yeah well I can't thank you enough for coming on the Pod today yeah talking about kind of fatherhood in general because I know a lot of people out there especially from like an entrepreneurial's perspective right the guy we're always trying to

[50:46]  make the best of ourselves in this world right and a huge part of that is also investing into a family nucleus because it balances us out okay you know what I mean like my goal is to be successful but I don't want to do it by myself the entire time you know and so realizing and learning from people's experiences and their insights like yours and raising a family is very valuable to me plus I'm sure everybody else is listening as well Keenan if you do it by yourself and for yourself you will limit what you can do for yourself and for others yeah so that's that's a good way to look at it don't do it by yourself and make sure that at some point you're doing it for others and that's so rewarding well that's a great place for us to stop thanks guys for tuning in for the heart and hustle podcast this was a Father's Day special with my father the heart of my hustle and or the heart of

[51:36]  your hustle um I just can't you know thank you enough for coming on I really love you kid yeah I love you too