EXPERIENCE 227 | Navigating Life & Business, Together - Mark & Kathy Rushing Share their Secrets to a Lasting Entrepreneurial Marriage.

In this episode of the Loco Experience podcast, I sat down with Mark Rushing and Kathy Rushing to discuss their entrepreneurial adventures and 45-year marriage.  Mark is the Owner of Portable Restroom Solutions, while Kathy is the Founder of Loadstar Relationship Coaching.  They share their journey from their college days at Texas A&M, and into their early entrepreneurial ventures - which included a failed church plant.   We also delve into their faith journey, how it has evolved, and their struggles with finding the right church community in Colorado.

We discuss the challenges of maintaining a strong marriage in an entrepreneurial setting, and the impact of their business experiences on their relationship. Mark opens up about the difficulties of running multiple businesses, including a challenging assisted living business affected by COVID-19 which found them restarting in business and life in Northern Colorado .

Kathy emphasizes the importance of creating a vision together in maintaining a strong relationship, and Mark credits his experience with peer advisory groups like C12 and LoCo Think Tank, and how these communities have been invaluable in building skills and perspective. Throughout, the focus remains on the dignity of work, the importance of community, and the enduring strength of their partnership. There is strong wisdom from lived experience in this episode, and I know you’ll enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Mark & Kathy Rushing. 

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

Transcript

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In this episode of the Loco Experience Podcast, I sat down with Mark Rushing and Kathy rushing to discuss their entrepreneurial adventures and 45 year marriage. Mark is the owner of Portable Restroom Solutions. While Kathy is the founder of Loadstar Relationship Coaching, they share their journey from their college days at Texas a and m and into their early entrepreneurial ventures, which included a failed church plant. We also delve into their faith journey, how it evolved, and their struggles with finding the right church community in Colorado. We discussed the challenges of maintaining a strong marriage in an entrepreneurial setting and the impact of their business experiences on their relationship. Mark opens up about the difficulties of running multiple businesses, including a challenging assisted living business affected by COVID-19, which found them restarting in business and life in Northern Colorado. Kathy emphasizes the importance of creating a vision together to maintain a strong relationship. And Mark credits his experience with peer advisory groups like C 12 and local think tank and how these communities have been valuable in building skills and perspective throughout. Their focus remains in the dignity of work, the importance of community, and the enduring strength of their partnership. There is strong wisdom from lived experience in this episode, and I know you'll enjoy, as I did my conversation with Mark and Kathy rushing. Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. I'm joined today by Mark and Kathy Rushing. And Mark is the owner of Portable Restroom Solutions, also a Loco Experience, or Loco Think Tank member. And Kathy is the founder of Loadstar Relationship Coaching and potentially a future look of Think Tank member as well. So welcome, welcome to the show. Thanks. Oh, thanks. Thanks for being here. Yeah, thank for having us. Yeah. How many years have you guys been married? Forever and a day. 45. 45 years. Well, that's pretty good credibility if you're like a relationship coach, right? Yeah. Yeah. Who makes it harder to stay married? Oh. I didn't know you were gonna ask that question. Well, I don't know. Like I told you, I just ask whatever questions on my mind. I always tell people that,'cause Jill, and I've been married for 22 years and I say it's a lot easier for me than it is for her. Um, I'll let Mark answer that first. Oh yeah. I definitely make it harder. I would agree. Well, we're boys. That's like part of our, that's part of it. Like place in life. Yep. Oh, well so much of this journey as an entrepreneur when we didn't even know what that was when we got married, we were wide-eyed. Yeah, yeah. Idealistic college students. Can we, you know, I told you kind of the stage we might set talking about business and stuff, but can we go back to that season of life first? Yeah. Um, let's just talk about the setting. Where, where was this at? Where you met and fell in love and you know, eventually got married. We were both at Texas a and m. Okay. Which is, where is that? That's in, that's in Texas. Well, in Texas, I know Big Texas. Which is where, like north and west of Dallas kind of, or something. Northwest of Houston. Northwest of Houston. Kind of. So like north of Austin? Almost between Houston and Austin. Okay. Alright. Yep. So, um, so you're both there going to school? Yep. We were both there. I was in the, um, Aggie band and the Core Cadets did that whole thing. Okay. Um, we were both involved in the Baptist Student Union. Okay. There, and that's where we met Kathy. Went on a backpacking summer doing backpacking ministry in Okay. In, uh, Colorado, which caught my attention. Okay. And so I, uh, like that chick must be pretty cool. She's going backpacking to Colorado. Exactly. I finagled away to, uh, go look at her backpacking pictures and. Then eventually ask her out. Okay. I was very shy, so it took a while. Yeah. And then I wasn't sure, so I dated him and another guy at the same time. Really? Was that allowed in the conservative kind of Baptist, uh, background? Well, you wouldn't think so, but I think she grew, well you weren't officially courting yet. She grew up Methodist, so. Oh, okay. Yeah. Got the rules. That's kind of anything goes over there. Yeah. So, Kathy, tell me what it was about Mark, despite his shyness, that, uh, allowed you to, uh, choose him, I guess, like how were you dating the other dude first? Or what was the scene there that came a little later? Oh, it do. It did. Yeah. Um, well, I, um, my parents had divorced like it was final. January of my senior year. Oh. And so I was So you were freshly traumatized by failed. I was really scared to commit. Yeah. You know, like, gosh, I don't wanna end up like that. And there was just something about Mark that was just, um, we were great friends. We would talk for hours and we would run together and had a few classes together. And, um, it was just, you know, it was dreaming about the future and just what life could be like together. And yeah. It was that friendship really that was the foundation, which, um, is always the foundation of a great relationship or a long lasting Yeah. You know? Yeah. And so, um, yeah, I would say I'm definitely still best friends with Jill. Yes. Like, just nobody I'd rather spend time with. Exactly. Yeah. 45 years later and it's like, this is who I wanna spend my time with. And, um. Yeah. The, the other guy, when I dated him briefly, like for a month, and then I was like, okay, I'm not gonna date anybody and put some limits. And he didn't respect them, whereas Mark did. And I was like, well, that, you know, that tells me a lot. So, you know, we got married our last semester at a and m and, um, so it's, it's, it's been a journey. It has been. We were poor as church. I want to, um, like go into, when did the first entrepreneurial venture start? Like, from there?'cause did you grow up in an entrepreneurial family, mark or, or you Kathy? No, I did not. My dad was, um, in ministry. Okay. Although he initiated a number of ministry things Yeah. That I learned about later. More of like an entrepreneur kind. Yeah. Within that. Yeah. It really was, um, created new ideas that caught traction within that space. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. He taught me how to paint houses when I was in high school and I actually started painting houses. And even then in high school, college. Oh, so you were already an entrepreneur when Kathy was falling in with you? I guess I wouldn't have called it that. Sure. But I, I had a hard time working for somebody else even then. Okay. Um, so yeah, painted houses, did remodeling, did roofing, all that kinda stuff. Yeah. Through summers at a and m. Um, then I went to seminary. Kathy went to grad school. I was working, doing the same kind of thing then. So you guys didn't make a lot much money for, you said, for his church for a long time, years, because you're still gonna school, you're gonna seminary like for a long time. Yeah. And you're still painting houses in the summers and stuff, gonna seminary probably. Well, all year round. Yeah. Right. Not just during the summer anymore. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, did you have kids right away? No. You don't have any kids at all during seminary? Right. Toward the end of my seminary, well, actually Kie walked across the stage with her masters in psychology. Pregnant. Okay. Seven months pregnant. Yep. Yeah. So we had our firstborn, Jeremy. Okay. That summer I was there a little bit longer for seminary. Sure. And then trying to figure out what we were gonna do next. Yeah. Well, so back up.'cause Mark comes from a ministry family, right? That was all he had known. Oh, I came your dad, grandpa. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Both lot generations. Okay. And my dad was an engineer. Very traditional. My mom was a homemaker and I thought that I was gonna have a counseling practice in a church if he was gonna pastor Sure. Somewhere. Right? Yeah. And it was first built in plant base, right? Yeah. Yep. You would think. And the. First, I think it was your first year in seminary that he came home one day and was like, I wanna plant a church. And I'm like, whatever. Does that even mean, you know, it was, it was nowhere in my understanding or experience. And I had actually started at seminary, wasn't a very good program for counseling, and I decided to change to University of North Texas now. Mm-hmm. Um, thinking, well, I think that means we're not gonna have a very big church to start. Right. They won't have a counseling center. Right. And so I was like, I better just get a degree so that, that's where the seed was planted. Oh, interesting. I had no idea what, you know, where this journey was gonna take us as. That's for sure. Church planters. So were you guys like active in a church or was somebody like whispering in your ear, mark, Hey, I think, uh, you know, this was, was a God whispering in your ear, like, I want you to plant a church for me. Like, where, what was this? Coming from? Well, that's an interesting question and one that I, I'm still not sure I have an answer to. Fair. Alright. 25 years later, hopefully. God. Um, it was a part, the seminary I went to was in Fort Worth. It was Southern Baptist. It was very, very mission oriented. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, that's interesting. I don't normally think about the Baptist as being very, like, outreach focused of planting a lot of new churches and stuff like that, but that's maybe just'cause I don't really know. Yeah. You know, like we have Colorado Baptists are a little different there. But, but anyway, yeah. I mean I took classes on church planting and theology and everything and, and I don't know what it was that caught my, I mean I think it was that entrepreneurial bug that was a part of me. Right. Rather than like growing up within an existing baptist church organization kind of thing. Like the idea of starting a new plant was just intriguing. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's just what got me excited, like, so we raised some money, we moved to California, Southern California. When, when I graduated. Like from within your church or your, like how do you Friends and family, just, um, yeah, you're like, Hey, do you wanna give us some money to go plant a church in Cali? Yeah, exactly. We were sponsored, we were church planter apprentices. And I didn't, and I don't know if you don't, if you know much about Southern Baptist, I don't consider myself Southern Baptist any longer and partly for the same reasons that I was always raising as issues. Then why is it women can't preach and women can't teach and women can't do this, but. I have a certificate that says Kathy Rushing Church Planter Apprentice. Right. So it was his calling, but I, I kind of got lumped together. And you were expected to be the, the helper. Indeed. Yeah. And I, you know, I was clearly very supportive if this was what Mark was wanting to pursue, great. But I, I realize that that caused a tremendous amount of stress for me, because we got pregnant with our second one Sure. About a month after we moved there. Oh, wow. So, well, and yeah, like it or not, security is like one of the most important things for most humans, and especially for females and like, yeah. Mark's basically telling you, you will have no security as we raise these small children in the near term. You know, kind of, yeah. It, you know, I didn't think a lot about security at the time because we, as you had some sponsor planters and stuff, had some, we had a salary, but it wasn't enough to live on Southern California. Even in the eighties. This was the mid eighties, but at least you had a base. We had a base and that was market paint houses and stuff, if you needed to. Well that's, that's why we raised additional support was like, we found a house to rent. We're like, it's gonna be this much. Which seems super cheap now. But anyway, it, there was some mis mixed messages and, um, yeah, so we, we did that and, you know, was, we wore several hats. Was it not successful planting or, you know, we, um, talk me about that journey. Yeah. We were just trying to do a church based in small groups and really be a part of the community and gathered. Um, a small group of people. Yeah. Um, you know, I look back and I see that, I mean, there were a number of people that I still can see their faces. Mm-hmm. And remember just some life changing experiences with them. Yeah. Um, yeah, we just, we didn't get that critical mass, you know, that we really needed. And then we had, like, after we were there about two or two and a half years, a couple of real key families actually moved out of town and we just reached the place and they were one of the, some of the bigger financial supporters. I was like, we just can't. Yeah, we just really couldn't keep going and I was probably pretty burned out at that point. Yeah. You know, in those, well, when it's, when it's tough plowing, you know, it's, it's a heavy burden to keep strapping the yolk on the oxen and, and getting out there, you know? Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah. And because so much of it, it was inviting people into our home and just building relationships and we ha now have a new baby. There's so many people. Yeah. And I'm working on my hours, 3000 hours to be licensed in California. So it was a lot. And we had no support system. Now when they send out church planters, all your families out in Texas, everybody was in Texas. Right, right. Yeah, that's what I was wondering to myself is. I guess they do. Typically you don't send out a couple Yeah, no. Like they did in some of the old days, but you send out at least like three couples or something. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes there's whole groups of people, families that move to a community and Right. Plant their lives. Yeah. Yeah. As they're planting a church, which is great. Yeah. Yeah. Our church actually had an attempt to plan a branch out in like Durango. Mm-hmm. I think, and we, we sent a couple out there, we sponsored'em and like two or three other families from our Yeah. Congregation, like moved out there to become part of it. And, and it never, I don't quite, it kind of fell off the vine in some ways and then it kind of continued as a church, but with sponsorship from another More local church. Huh. Like in a next town over kind of thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because it's just too far. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Our church didn't have any juice to, to reach out to Durango. Yeah. Right, right. You know, it was too far outside of our circle of kind of influence Yeah. And support, if you will. Yeah. So anyway, so that was, yeah, we closed it. It was, it was. It was tough, kind of sad, a little bit of a relief, but we, we also just felt kind of lost, like, what do we do next? Yeah. Yeah. I ended up going to work at another local church, fairly new, um, really just in charge of all the small groups. Hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, which was in many ways a great experience. Yeah. We had made some really great friends again, saw lives really changed that, um, you know, I can see faces. Yeah, totally. Um, but there was, or, and there was, the senior pastor was. Uh, pretty narcissistic and that's not good. No, it's not. And not end well. Yeah. So it just didn't end well. Yeah, that's a long story. Requires more whiskey. It's a little bit like Mars Hill, uh, but wasn't quite that, uh, not quite dramatic, but yes. Well, it didn't get that big before it imploded. Right. But many similarities and it ended up actually imploding and, um, which is, was sad. So were you drawn in by this person or by the role? The shepherding? Both. Yeah. Yeah, both. I mean, that's like, you can't really be a cond man unless you're good at it, right? Like it's the kind of, the tragedy of life is like everybody seems, everybody that. Takes advantage of people. Seems trustworthy to those people. Yeah. I guess in a way. Yeah. And you know, the, like if it's your drug dealer, you know, he, you can't really trust him. Yeah. Right. You know, or whatever. You know, he is a guy. You're buying some illegal guns from like, you know, that you're going into a sketchy situation, but Yeah. In a church setting or a, you know, life insurance buying situation. Right. This guy was, was very gifted. Uh, he was a good speaker. He, um, he was very gifted with connecting at people that normally wouldn't connect to a church. Yep. Yep. Which was really awesome. Yeah. Yeah. But he just really struggled with anyone else who was a leader in any sense. Okay. Um, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a long, he was, he was genius with a thousand followers. He didn't, was threatened by anybody else that would actually think and do for themselves. Yeah. Yeah. So let's, uh, let's kind of, this is gonna be crazy, but we're gonna jump right into, back to where we would've started. Yeah. Because we'll circle back to this, but talk to me about portable restroom solutions. Yeah. So, uh, just about four years ago, okay. Um, we were in the process of moving here. We'd been in Granby for a couple of years. Okay. Um, as we transitioned out of Texas, um, our oldest son and his wife were here. And middle son. Middle son, sorry. Our middle son and his wife were here. Um, backstory, you know, with the business in Texas that didn't survive COVID. Yeah. Um, so. I was looking for something else to do. You were, you were starting fresh. Yeah. So, um, yeah. So was it the family connection that was your path back to Colorado after chasing Yeah. Not chasing this girl out to Colorado, but at least becoming intrigued by her. Yeah. Yeah. We had tried to get to Colorado, our whole married lives. Yeah. I mean, and we've vacationed here forever and just really love it. Mm-hmm. Um, but there was, I was looking for an opportunity to buy a business. Portable Rental Systems was a business, a small porta potty business that had been here since, I think, 1996. Okay. And, uh, the owner was ready to retire. He was kind of shrinking it and I came across it on Biz By Cell. Okay. And, um, yeah, we went through the process and bought this business. Yeah. Um, and have been growing it and having fun with it. You changed the name right away to portable restroom Solutions and stuff? Yeah. Yeah. Kept the PRS, um, because a lot of people knew it as PRS. Yeah. Yeah. So we went with portable restroom solutions and rebranded kind of niched down a little bit. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So, and we've continued to expand, um, right. Well you've run a ton, right? Like Yeah. When I bought the business, it was doing about 475,000. And we'll do just a little bit over 2 million this year. Nice, nice. So just super solid growth. Yeah. Yeah. There's some things that people never stop doing, growing a business. I've heard all the junks for you. All the puns. Oh gosh. When we, when he said he was buying this? Yes. The puns. Oh, right. Were never ending. Oh my gosh. We, uh, so we, Jill and I just spent four nights up at by Crested Butte. Uhhuh above treeline. And our, uh, beautiful. Yeah. We took the ambulance camper out there and we were, we were not, yeah. Not above the treeline, but we were in a beautiful spot. And, uh, but the, the number two job is the biggest challenge with remote camping. Yeah, absolutely. And we've got a Luggable lu bucket and we've got a little tent that gives you privacy, but the tent. Took some wind damage was, was forever destroyed. But you know, so like I was literally like, okay, I guess the bucket in this kind of spot here between these trees is the most private it's gonna get for me. Yeah. Um, anyway, I digress. But it is an essential, yeah. You know, everybody's gonna do it and so that is a nice thing. How have you been able to grow it? Like what, what is the, because the marketplace. Ha hasn't necessarily grown much, although you bought it coming outta COVID. So the event business was probably slow. The event business was slow when we bought it, and that's grown tremendously. Yeah. Um, I was telling you earlier, we, we do running events. We did the Colorado Marathon, we do the Rocky Grass down in Lions. Awesome. So a lot of big events like that. We just started working with CSU this last year. Yeah. Tailgating. Um, so we've really focused on growing events. Also focused on growing construction. Yeah.'cause construction is. Just not slowing down here. Right. No matter what else happens. Um, well it's two different things, right? Mm-hmm. Like, but you probably don't move, like the construction restrooms just stay there through the weekends. So you still have to have different restrooms for the We do weekend events. Yep. Yep. We have a different set of restrooms that we use for events. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. So we've just gradually, uh, hired, um, fairly early on, hired a young guy to do sales. That was very, really helpful. Yep. Um, and then just over a year ago, um, hired a guy named Matt that has just been dynamite. He actually moved his family here from Illinois. Oh, wow. When he first reached out.'cause I had an ad on Indeed and I've been interviewing, when he first reached out, I said, Matt, man, you're, you're too far away kind of job. You wanna move from Illinois for Yeah. And you don't. He's like, dude, I'm desperate to come to Colorado, please. He actually said that. He said, no, my wife and I have decided we're moving. We already know we're moving to Fort Collins. Yeah. I think it'll be worth our while for both of us if we can talk. This is all via email first, right? Right. Well then we start talking and we bring him out and interview and, and, um, so we hired him and he worked remote from Illinois until late June. This is starting probably May 1st. Okay. So a couple of months. Yep. He was producing remotely, just working the phones, working emails. So also sales, business development kind of. Yeah. So he has really done, he has done great. Awesome. So we've been able to build our team. Yep. We run on EOS. We're self implementing. Although shout out to Jennifer Lewis, who I know has been on here. Hey Jennifer. She helped us, Scott, get started. Um, but um. Yeah, that. So we've just been, yeah, just figure out the functions and, and locations. Also, I mean, the man who originally owned the business, it was in this crappy little metal building out an alt, a little sheep wool barn. Oh gosh. No heat, if you can imagine. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Employees are washing toilets in the, oh gosh. Cold in the winter. It was terrible. Yeah. Yeah. So that was part of the contract was we had to be there three years, and so then it's just been a little over a year, right. That they moved down to near Johnstown. Oh, dang. So much better. Yeah. Right off I 25. Right. We do a lot of work in Boulder County and so that cut, you know, 45 minutes off the drop and you have to do, do you have people that have to move all this stuff around or do you contract some of that out? No, that's your teams that are, yeah, it's a rental business. Like a, like an event rental business. Right. You gotta go implement all it was smart rushing for part of that first. Right. I'm sure we was doing all I did routes, I did vents and Yeah. Went in the truck. And what, like a flatbed truck with sides and a trailer or what? How do you move that stuff around? We actually have special built trailers that, um, the toilets have Oh, you can pick them up without tipping them over? Kind of. Well, you just, you kinda leverage them up, but they slide into a slot. Okay. And then you're able to strap'em down so we don't have to strap all the individuals. Oh, I see. It's, um, they're specially built to haul porta-potties around. Gotcha. Um, and then we have the service trucks and we had one septic truck at the time. We now have bought. We've got a couple more that we're Oh, so we're expanding the subject. So you have to move them every time. You can just go suck the stuff out of'em a lot too and just keep'em in service. The ones that are right. The ones that are on construction, on construction sites like that. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Okay, cool. Pull the trucks in, pump'em out, wash'em down, refill'em and go to the next one. I'm gonna come back to you'cause I haven't been doing Kathy much air time in a little bit. There you go. But uh, that's all right. His is the bigger story because Well, yeah. It's a Well, and it impacts us both well, but, we'll, yeah. Yeah. But, and, uh, you do some interesting work as well. Yeah. So talk to me about that. So I, uh, while we were in California, I was licensed as a marriage family, child counselor. Okay. As I said earlier, 3000 hours of supervised experience. So it was not an easy license to get. And California was one of the first states actually Gotcha. To do licensing. And then, uh, we moved back to Texas when the church thing after the church stuff Yeah. Happened and whatever. And we moved in with his parents in a, what was it, 1800 square foot house, three kids. Oh, so you guys had a fresh start before? We've had a couple of them we we'll get back to. I told you it was a long story, Kurt. Um, yeah. So we went back to Texas and so I was able to transfer my license. I worked in a couple of different settings and then I had a private practice for about 10 years. Okay. And got to the place, um, our youngest, so we have, um, two sons and a daughter. Okay. So we had two kiddos that were born in California. And, um, I just. I was getting a little burned out. We were in a fairly small town that was not real therapy minded. We were south of Austin. Yeah. Austin's kind of like Fort Collins, right? Denver, you know, a little Margaret Granola, you know, much more progressive. Yeah. Um, uh, new Braunfels, not so much. I love the town, loved a lot of the people there, but in the years that I practiced, I had a two drawer filing cabinet that I had filled up and emptied twice. Okay. That's a lot of clients to see. And I, I would call it emotional vomiting. I, it's like people would come in and just, you know, and I, I tend to be very solution focused. Um, my training is in systems training, so helping people understand that, you know, like if it's a relationship issue, they can make changes some of the things that are going bad in your life. Or your fault? Well, and or nothing changes. Oh, yeah. Well, not your fault. I mean, we're always, you know, everyone adds to the dance, I would say. Sure. But, um, but a lot of times, like the longer I went on, I became more and more specialized in working with couples and marriage and did a lot of postgraduate work and supervision specifically for that, because it's a little bit of a different animal working with couples. And I find that a lot of therapists are like, oh, I do everything. I see kids. I see teens, I see couples. And I was like, well, not any of it. Well, maybe, but Right. Because really working with couples is just, it's a different, it's all different. Really experienced, honestly, dynamic. I haven't, like, I've experienced Yeah. Marriage counseling. Yeah. Quote unquote by somebody that also does individual counseling. Yes. Yes. But, and you can do, I've never, never experienced one-on-one that I, I think Jill's always been there, so maybe I should get some one-on-one stuff. Fix me up better. I don't know. So make you say sometimes that's helpful, you know? Um. But anyway, so yeah. So you were becoming a specialist in this couple area? So I couple, so I specialized more, I mean, I, going all the way back to my graduate school, I did my, um, internship at the Child study center in Fort, uh, Fort Worth, not Fort Collins. Um, so I started with children and families and I wanted to do more marriage stuff, but, um, I remember a speaker at a conference saying that, um, if you're going to work with couples, you needed to be at least 30 years old. And I was like, what do they know? I know everything. Well, there was a lot of learning I needed, you know, and just life experience. And so, um, I just, and I, I've always been interested in business. Like if I had my education to do over, I would probably have at least minored in business knowing that I wanted to work for myself. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, um. So anyway, I just, I was kind of getting bored. Yeah. And I, I decided to close my private practice when our youngest was in high school and, um, thought I would do some business coaching. By that point, mark had started a's care, which was an assisted living for people with Alzheimer's. And you figured you were coaching him up and might as well, uh, like work on some other hard projects. Actually, I asked her at some point as we were growing, I said, sweetheart, is there some sort of assessment we can use to help us in our hiring and do a better job with hiring? And that kind of led her down the path of learning from that and learning the disc. And, um, so yeah, so we, I, we haven't, I don't know if you're gonna come back to when he started AL'S Care, but Yeah, I think we will, but Okay. Um, or do you want, should we go back to right now? Well, this is a whole different chapter, kind of, but it kind of intersects with the point that I am at, of going into the business coaching. I didn't have my private practice any longer. Um, we were empty nesters at that point, and you were probably eight years, you started alls care in 98. Mm-hmm. And so it was probably 20 11, 20 12. I think that, man, it was just, we had several locations and it, it had really taken a toll on us and we didn't know it. Mm-hmm. You know, I think that's the challenge. And so I'm tying this in with the work that I do. Yeah. Yeah.'cause I wasn't actively, um, providing therapy anymore. I still had, I had paused my license. Yep, yep. Which Texas allowed at the time, with the understanding I could come back and get it at some points. And you guys got kind of wrapped up in growing this alls care. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Organization. Yeah. Kind of. I consulted, I worked in the business very briefly, decided that was not a good place for me to be, but, um, we hit a really low point in our marriage. Yeah. Um, we, uh, so kind of as you worked kind of more together on the business, you let the, the relationship kind of Well, I think it was more just the to, because every time we opened a new location, it was like a startup all over again. And we had, what, 12 at some point. Mm-hmm. And every one of those Mark was raising money, new investors. Oh, wow. And, you know, and it was up and it was down, and it was up and it was down. And we, we just never, we had a hard time. I'm looking at your book, traction. We had a hard time getting traction and just stability. Hmm. Um. Um, 2018, the housing crisis, you know, that hit us eventually, not immediately, but we realized. I remember you saying at some point, you know, admissions were down 2008. Yeah, yeah. 2008. Sorry. Sorry Ron. So I think what I might have to do is, um, to set the stage on why you do what you do. Now, we might have to go through that part of the journey mm-hmm. Yeah. Of all's care. Yeah. We do that. So let's, so why don't you bring me back into your career path. So you, you come back kind of a little bit. Uh, I don't know. When did depressed you, you've had some humble pie. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I, I like to tell people it took me 37 years to have humble pie, and then it was all that was on the menu for about five years, you know? Um, but yeah. You were feeling in a tough place. You'd been kind of betrayed by this narcissist dude, after failing at the church lunch and Yeah. So what do you do when you're, you? Well, that's what I was trying to figure out, right? We moved back to Texas, um, moved in with mom. Your mom and dad moved in with my mom and dad. Your dad? Yeah. With kids. Um, God bless em. You love them? Do what? Do you love them? His mom and dad? I do. I, well, that's after, even after that. I love his parents. Yes. His dad has passed, but his mom is still with us. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I was, yeah, I was just really kind of. Unmoored. Um, I, I really didn't know what was gonna be next. Yeah. I couldn't imagine. I mean, I grew up in a ministry family. Right. I had no other framework really to consider. Yeah. Um, but I had a friend around the corner from where we lived, his son and, and Ryan, our son that lives here, um, we're playing T-Ball together. Okay. He taught at, um, a university in San Marcos, just, just north of us, Texas State now. Yep, yep, yep. Um, we were running together one morning and he said, you know, I don't know why hadn't thought about this before, but if you've already got a degree, we have a program within health administration. You can take a couple of classes, do an internship, and become a nursing home administrator. Hmm. I literally said, I've always liked old people. Right. I went and met with the two women that ran the program, went and did that. Interesting. And headed down the path. And became a nursing home administrator. That's interesting. One of my, one of my best college friends, probably still is a nursing home administrator. I haven't seen him in a few years, but his family has kind of built a collection of nursing homes and things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not too different from your own experience in some ways. Perhaps all those years were all de novos. Yeah. So anyway, so you become a nursing home administrator. Yeah. So I spent about, um, I was, I was an administrator six or seven years. Very first home I, I went to, was a small home south San Antonio. It's an hour and 15 minute drive from our house. Okay. Um, but they were gonna convert it to an all Alzheimer's nursing facility. Okay. So I went in, did that, walked through the construction, got it filled up and was twirling my thumbs and bored. Okay. And so I got an opportunity to go into San Antonio to a home that was, I. Yeah, just a mess. Um, so turn that around. Open an Alzheimer's unit in there opened. So it's basically the executive for this Yep. Center in each case, right? Correct. Like the CEO of that facility? Yes, yes. Yeah. Um, that one we opened, uh, hospice unit to care for AIDS patients. Oh, wow. This was in, uh. Mid nineties. Yeah. Johnson years. So just kind of at the height. Yeah, exactly. Sorry, that's kind of rude, but Oh yeah. So kind of like brought awareness to the public in that space. It did. Yeah, it did. Absolutely. Um, yeah, went through several of those and had the good fortune to work for a guy who had owned his own business. Okay. And because these are all big corporations that you were working for time, these big corporations. I got fired from one of'em. When they got bought out, it was just, why'd you get fired? It was just to change. They fired everyone. I was the last one to go. Right. But all the administrators, well, there's so many arbitrary decisions when you come from big corporate like that. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think there were, I think that happened twice. It was a real time of consolidation. Mm-hmm. In the nursing home industry. Yeah. It was not, not fun. And I realized at some point I realized, okay, this corporate thing doesn't really work for me. Yeah. But I didn't know what else to do until I met, um, a guy named Ed Harmon who had owned his own. Nursing home company. Okay. In Georgia. Um, he actually looked like, um, Ted Turner. Okay. Interesting guy. But he said, look, you can raise money. It's not that hard. And assisted living was just starting to take off. Yep, yep. So, uh, good friend there in Texas, um, partnered with me and we bought an old house Yep. And converted it and put in sprinklers, did everything to get it licensed Yep. To start taking care of people with Alzheimer's. Yeah. Put six or 10 or whatever. Yeah. Started out, I think with 10, we ended up at about 15 or 16. Okay. Bought another old house in another town, did the same thing. Then we started building purpose built and we had. Um, at our height we had about, I think we had six locations. And you rounded up investors in each of these cases too, because you were Yeah. Rice money recovering pastor, plant guy. Right. But you were a nursing home administrator for a while, so that was Yeah. But all those peanuts were going to like start retirement account and pay these three ankle biters. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. And, but I did in the nursing home business, I did realize that business made sense to me. Mm-hmm. I'd never taken, I got a distinctive around it. It was, yeah. Um, yeah. So built that business over a number of years, acquired a, a little, um, assisted living, um, then raised some money from some guys, brought in a guy that, this was before EOS days. Okay. So instead of me, a visionary, an EOS speak. Yep. Um, identifying and hiring an integrator. I didn't, I, I sort of understood that, but I brought in a guy actually to replace me as a visionary. Yep. But I wanted him to actually be an operator also. Yep. Um, so that just didn't end well. Um, and this is cir me. Do I now? Yeah. What time, what, when was this along your journey? What? Uh, by that time it was probably 2017 or so. Okay. So that's the long, so you're just kind of growing this thing from the thing mid nineties basically. Yep. Um, and then you're like, it's got be a pretty big thing and my kids are getting older and I wanna spend more time with them and I don't wanna do all the things anymore. Well, they were. I mean, when, when he started it, we had one in high school, middle school and elementary. Yeah. Right. So we were in the middle of the busiest years of child raising. Yeah, sure. All the baseball and I had started my private practice. Yeah. And we thought it'd be a great idea to start a business. We're like, what could possibly go wrong? Yeah. A little house did not know what we did not know. And like I said, neither of us had any kind of experience with entrepreneurship. What goes into it, raising money, all of that. It was just, well, you must have built some of that though. Like even just pitching to investors and stuff. Right. Like understanding your finances. I, I learned it on the fly. Yeah. Yeah. Read, read a lot. Mm-hmm. Um, this was before Traction was published. Sure. Um, and just tried to, but I didn't know any other entrepreneurs, which was interesting. So this will circle back eventually to the peer. Yeah. Yeah. The peer board kind of a thing. But, um, so there were two significant events during that. Period with Alls Care one, uh, when I was asking Kathy, okay, how do we, how do we, are there some assessments that we can use to hire and all of that? Yep. So she introduced the disc, went and got training. Um, and when I took the disc, we all took it, everyone in the team. So you high, high D Oh man. A hundred percent. Uh, low C. Yeah, absolutely. My d my C hardly shows up. It's like, is it, is there still a C down there? Um, yeah. And, but what was so significant about that for me is I really thought there was something wrong with me.'cause I couldn't just stick with a job like everyone else I knew. Yeah. You know, I had all these friends who had jobs, who had careers, and my, I would ask myself, why can't I just be. Happy with getting a job going to work every day. I, I really thought there was something wrong with me. Did Kathy ask you that too? And sometimes, yeah. It was very frustrating for me, like why I think there was some embarrassment, um, on my part when Oh yeah, we're not taking a vacation because, you know, we just opened a new facility and Right. And I'm doing the open house and I'm cooking all the food for it. Right. You know, doing the gardening Well in socioeconomically you're doing pretty good. Not really. Not really. I, I mean eventually, but your circles are a little bit, at least in those places where people are getting vacations and they're sending Oh yes. All of our peers. All of our peers, and as Mark said, we didn't really, we did not have a community of people who were also entrepreneurs who would get that journey. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of it we just kept to ourselves, but I think the years of. Of that, you know, things would be better. Then we'd open a new one or we'd have trouble hiring, or there were somebody quit on you interview wreck. There was so many stories of, you know, just, you know, it, it's heavy, um, uh, labor, you know? Yeah. And so you've got a lot of hourly people who are providing the care and a lot of'em really, really wonderful people. But you also have just people that are different, but lot of'em want a different job. Uh, a lot of'em can't do anything else or can't get a different job. Right. And so they're, they're not happily, not reliably, not exactly. Like either they'd rather be someone else or, yeah. They can't get anything better. Yeah. The other side of that coin is that, I mean, we took care of Kathy's mom for four years mm-hmm. In one of our buildings there in New Braunfels. Right. We took care of the man who was my high school principal. Yeah. And, uh, another man who the major Boulevard in New Braunfels was named after. You still like old people? I can tell. I do, I do, but I, that was the most stressful thing I've done in my entire life. Yeah. Was, and it went on for a long time. It went on for a long time. Oh, so you never, like you built a pretty big organization out of it? When, when I kind of stepped back we had 300, 350 employees. Okay. Um, and it was still how many locations? You know, that was probably a eight or 10 locations. And so you had, this would be CEO that was supposed to be like Mark, but do more operations stuff too? Kind of, yeah. Yeah. It was not a good choice. Yeah. So it, it just led down a path of kind of losing control and, but before all of that, the other significant event. Was in around 2010, I think. I think that was after we started doing the disc. The disc was the time that I said, oh, this is not that. There's something wrong with me. This is actually who I am. Right. This is how God made me. Yeah. This is, all of a sudden all these things started to make more sense. Yep. But the intensity, the pressure, the stress of what we were doing, Kathy calls at the time, we lost, almost lost our footing. We were so stressed. We'd opened, I don't know, building number eight or something at this time. And, um, we, we were in our kitchen and, um, Kathy said to me, I think maybe, maybe we ought to take a break from one another. Oh. And I, you know, I still, it still is, uh, it's still tough to think about. Um, but when she said that I just came apart and just started weeping, you're like, what are you about Much more than I am now. But just started weeping and, and just sank down on the floor. And Kathy, um, from, uh, probably the, the same heart, maybe a different place in the heart, just came over and sat down and put her arms around me. And, and if somebody had walked in that room, you would've thought somebody had died. You would've thought Sarah died. It was just, just sob stir built years of, yeah. Of not even facing it. Yeah.'cause there wasn't anything bad going on. We were just empty. There was just nothing left and we didn't really, so you weren't realize it like. You hadn't got into little habits of digging on each other or being, you know, passive aggressive or? No, I think it was, it was some, some financial stuff. Couples usually do stuff for sure. Was, was financial. There was probably some impatience and I mean, being a d you know, yeah. I mean, I've learned this now. Yeah. Yeah. That red color. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, that first emotion is anger. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, which I never understood until that time. Hmm. Um, the really interesting thing is it, go ahead. In that circumstance was. Anger at yourself? Oh yeah, mostly. Mostly just impatient. Just like he would just have a really short fuse never directed at me. Okay, gotcha. Yeah. But that was part of your data points was like, well, I was always picking up. Suddenly over the last few years I'm living with this guy that's sometimes sp into anger and that's. Or even if it's not at me, it's still, you know, yucky. I'm, I'm picking up a lot of pieces like Yep. His plate was overflowing. Yep. And so, especially when the kids were at home, I'm running my business. Right. I'm helping in that business and I'm running a family. Right. And I'm running on empty. Right. Right. And you know, I mean we always did anniversary trips and that sort of thing, but we just, we really hit a point that was just, well, you weren't running an efficient enough, profitable enough business to get the help you needed. Right. Yeah. Right. And in some respects, and we're just kind of shouldering all that. Yeah. And I didn't understand fully what I needed. I keep for our podcast listeners, I keep pointing to the book track. Yeah. It's underneath the table. Down here on the table. Happens to be. Yeah. It's been sitting there for a few months. But Uhhuh, so one of the interesting things about that particular event is someone had told me about an organization called C 12. Mm. Yeah. I was scheduled to go to a C 12 meeting for the very first time the next day. Hmm. And I was thinking, I, I'm a mess. I can't go do this. And I, I don't remember if you said I should go, if I, I gotta quit being so sinful before I go to church. It's basically the same thing. Yeah, exactly. Straighten up and fly. Right. And I may have reached out to the guy that led it and said, man, I'm, I don't think I can go. And he said, no, I think you really need to. Hmm. So I went the next day and walked into this room and it was, it's all men in this particular group. I sat at a table for the first time and they go through and they do this balance wheel is the very first thing that they do. Okay. And it's physical, mental, spiritual, family, business, you know, just kind of what's the balance in your life? And so I just said, well, I'm gonna be honest. And, and then we go around and talk about it. And again, I said, I've got nothing to lose. I don't know these guys. Right. And so I just. Put it out there and the leader of the group said, man, you're a poster child for Right. For what we do here. And all the other guys were like, yeah, we've been there. Yeah. Or we are there. And Kathy says that when I came home that evening, um, she said it was like Mark was back. You know, you're, you were like, oh wow. There's other men that have experienced things. Kind of like what I've been experiencing. Yeah. Other entrepreneurs, you know, company builders that were in the same place. So I was in that group for almost five years. Okay. Man, it was powerful. Mm-hmm. Just powerful. And you had known for some time and were looking for some sort of a peer group, something they weren't as prolific, I think then as. They seem to be now. Yeah, no, it's definitely was much more secret society thing. Secret society. Yeah. When Loco started here locally, it was kind of the only game in town virtually doing that. But now we've got definitely more people doing it. Yeah. Or you gotta be at a, including club or whatever certain, you know, income level. Right. Right. To be able to qualify. So there's these, you know, in this instance years, which was what brought us to what became a passion for me because we kind of looked around and was like, we didn't find resources for couples like us. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. We could have, you know, people have asked me, well, couldn't you have gone to therapy? I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But would they have understood, so you started kind of imagining this, uh, yeah. Entrepreneurial couples coaching kind of thing. Yeah. I'm I even if you weren't doing it yet? Yeah. Well at that point officially I had a, I started a website. Okay. I wrote blog posts with articles about, you know, how to communicate better. Yeah, yeah. Which applied up. You know, all couples, as Mark starts to get his shit together in parts by C 12, you're like, oh, lemme write about this. Like, he's figuring some stuff out. It must be, I must be fixing it. That's exactly what, well, it's, it's like, it's like, you know the doctor that you know, you, I mean, you can't fix your own, fix your own sick mind kind of. Yeah, no, totally. As people will say, but, but you can still learn from that experience in some ways, but I think, yeah. Yeah. You know, we began to put into practice things that I had been teaching couples. Things I knew to do, but we weren't. And part of it was you kind of need two willing participants. And I think Mark realized what an empty place we were at. Yeah. I, and you know, he starts going to see 12, I start getting notes written on my mirror with lipstick. I'm like, who are you and what have you done with my arms? Right. So we, I mean, I think because of the years we had as a foundation Yeah. We found our footing fairly quickly. Yeah. And really became much more intentional, which is kind of what, you know, began to culminate in, in. Even developing this passion, um, because I launched Loadstar really just two years ago as, as an official, like, yeah, I am gonna make this official. And But you were already that, like when you and I first met, which was Yeah. Well before Mark and I met. Yeah. Yeah. You were already in that space. Well, that was two years ago. Yeah. Is that all? Yeah. Yeah. Dang. Yeah. Time flies. I know. When you're having fun. One of the things that we started doing about that time too, is we, we got to know a bunch of young couples, primarily, I think through our church, most of whom were entrepreneurs. Okay. And so we started doing these dinners about once a month, I think. Mm-hmm. Oh, cool. Yeah. And we would, I'd invite 10 or 12. We had a big farm table and. So usually there would be maybe five or six couples that would make it, each time. Kathy would generally throw a question or two out there. We'd do kind of a potluck dinner. Sometimes she'd just cook dinner. I, which she's an amazing cook. Um, but those were really, really great times of just hanging out together and being able to encourage these couples and love on them, which then helped us. Hmm. It became a very mutual, it wasn't a, yeah, it started as kind of a, let you know, I don't think we said let's mentor them, but we just, we saw these couples that were, you know, at various stages in business. Right. We opened it up really to, well, it takes a lot of trust. You know, and sometimes that's from the, the wife and sometimes it's from the husband. Like, I've met a number of entrepreneurial families where the wife is the entrepreneur and the husband has a stable tech job with the health insurance plan and stuff. And it takes a lot of trust from him too. Yeah, yeah. Right. Either, either way. Yeah. Um, it's in a later chapter like you guys are, where you don't have like kids that need fed every week, thank goodness. Yeah. Even every day. Some of'em need fed every day. These kids. Imagine that. Imagine that. Yeah. Yeah. I just fed you yesterday. Right. But, but it really does matter to have kind of a, you know, a sounding board, a, a place, a community. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So you, so you were in this. This peer advisory, when you hired this not quite right fit, did they warn you? Yeah. And you did it anyway, or no? No. No. Okay. Alright. But I think part of the reason was that I, I actually was in this mode of trying to replace myself. Right. And I mean, literally CEOS you wanted to just a, wanted like retire. I wanted to semi-retire. Yeah. Right, right. And go do some other stuff. Right. And maybe start a church or something. Nope. Didn't wanna do that again. Nope. Um, but EOS had just been written in, published in 2012. Right. So it was not, didn't hit your radar yet. It really didn't hit our radar. Yeah. I don't even remember of hearing about it until much, much later. And C 12, like loco, like Vistage, like none of them are really. Like they don't have like the process or the system necessarily. Like a, an EOS kind of, yeah. At least most of them subjects to do or you know. Yeah. You know, most of them now, I think CC 12, much like loco, much like Vistage, they really embrace EOS as a really good Yeah. Operating system. A good basic standard system. If you don't have nothing, you don't have anything, definitely put this in there. Yeah. Yeah. You can go down this, you can strap stuff on if you want or make some changes, whatever. Right. You know, we're not kind of an exclusive, but Yeah. Right, right. So, so you grab a EOS along the journey or did you only learn about that later? After this? Much later. I think I, okay. It was after we moved here. Yeah. Oh, is that right? So it's been within the last four years. Four years. Mm-hmm. So let's flash us back to this. You, you hired Mark Junior. It didn't like, it didn't catch traction'cause it wasn't the right person starts with and. And and trouble's coming probably. Yeah. Yeah. Trouble is coming sometimes I think when you, part of my experience was that I hired someone who wanted to be where I was. He didn't wanna pay the price and do the reps that I had done. He saw, saw your tax bracket and uh, yeah. A few other things about your life. Your pretty wife with a naturally curly heart. Exactly. And he wanted that. Yeah. You know, maybe not her, not her, but so yeah. Yeah. He just was not paying attention to really the details of running the business and looking back. He was just, he was a long person. The long seat you to, even though it was all your money, all your stuff. Yeah. You, you still, you did it, but begrudgingly on some of those detail work probably'cause of the visionary type thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I would say I am a visionary with more of a. I've got a more of an operational bent. Okay. Yeah. A lot of visionaries will have more of a sales bent. Yep. Yep. Um, so that's mine. Yep, yep. Um, and yeah, so there was some struggles. We brought in some investors when it became clear that he was not the one that needed to be leading the company, then it was a matter of buying him out. And we were in a position where like it was the investor we brought in ended up buying him out in the process. The, my amount of ownership window like this, and that was a separate company. It's a separate company. We had started a separate, oh, some of the properties were in a different holding company kind of thing. So then we had the, I still had the alls care business over here with my, one of my early partners, which leading up to 2020. You know, we'd looked at selling a couple times, just didn't really get offers that we were interested in, and we just thought, well, you know, we're just gonna keep running this thing. Yeah. It does well, makes us a nice 22%. Makes us profit margin. Yeah. And has a pretty stable, provides a nice living for us, so, yep. And then COVID. Yeah. And COVID came along and we have 16 bed memory care units that we operate in several locations when, and people regularly are passing away. Sure. In normal times. And then during COVID, you know, our, our caregivers were in their FaceTiming with families as their loved one would pass away. Sure. Because they couldn't come in as families. Yep. We couldn't move people in during about a seven month period. Totally shut down. Totally shut down. Wow. No new patients. No new patients. Oh, no shit. And so it just went down, down, down. Then once it kind of opened, opened back up. What did the people back that needed your services too? They stayed home. They stayed home. They just died at home. Miserable kind of. Yeah. With no support. Yeah. Yeah. Well, at least their loved ones were there too. Locked up in They were with their families. Yeah. But sorry. That's rude. But No, and anyway, I remember you saying the admissions you did get, like they would die a month later. So families waited just as long, as much, much longer as we So your turnover was super rapid. Yeah. Low. The case intake. Yeah. We became more of a hospice. You know, after that no amount of marketing can fix that problem. No. Right. And the fear, you know, in that first, that year or so. Yeah. The fear that families had that, well, even if it's open now and I move mom in, what if it closes up again? Right. Might as well. I can't in the basement. Yeah. Yeah. Dang. And then to, to get people to come off of unemployment. As caregivers, right? Yeah. Your labor supply goes payroll, very minimal. Up about 30%. Dang. Just like that. Multiple factors that, so in what, like a 12 month span? You're bankrupt, kind of, or We were, we were at the place, yeah. Where we were nearly, we were putting money into it. Okay. We got an offer though. Okay. At that time. And we basically ended up selling it to a guy that, uh, we basically sold what was left. Our, the real estate partners did well, we got a little bit of money, had an operating company and all these real estate partners. Right. So you squared up with your investors mostly. Mm-hmm. We did all our investors. Yeah. Did pretty well, huh? And we were left with, uh, that was our retirement plan, you know. What was that like, Kathy? Ooh. Like you're, I have to think to some extent. You're like, here we are again. Yeah. It was, I will say. So we moved here to Fort Collins. Well, we live in Timnath, um, December of 2020. And so it was that next year of 2021, that things just really, you know. Mm-hmm. So it was, um, oh, so you were already here? Yeah, we were here. Mm-hmm. Oh, right. Yeah. We were here when it actually, like, you know, just shut down. Um, it, it was hard. It was probably the hardest time of our lives. Yeah. Yeah. Because we're not spring chickens. I mean, do the math. I'm 45 years married. Right. You know, and so Yeah. Most of our peers are retiring and we're like, we're starting again. Yeah. So it's, it's been, um, it, it has been rough. And so in the work that I do, I am just beating the drum with people to say, pay attention to your relationship because the business may or may not make it. Yeah. You know, and, um, you might build a great business like Steve Jobs. I've got Apple, everything. I'm so grateful for what he did. Yeah. But his family was a mess when he died. Right. You know? Right. So really trying to help people think about,'cause I think so often entrepreneurs especially,'cause I, I get a lot of people that are like, well why, why entrepreneurs? Why, you know, why is that any different? And I was like, if you know, you know, and anybody listening to this totally will know exactly what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean there are levels of risk, a wide range, I would say, of levels of risk, right. I mean to sure. To do something where I'm in sales and maybe I have a down month or something, but to be in a position like this where we had 300 employees and there was never one pay period. When other, when employees did not get paid, we skipped a number of those. Sure. Paychecks, you know, and, um, so it's just, there's, the bigger it is, the more risk there is and, and you know, and you have to get that, that traction that Mark often talked about. Um, and I think this is part of what got us to that low point back in 20 12, 20 11, somewhere in there he used the analogy of it felt like pushing a huge ball, just trying to get one revolution to get some momentum. But then, you know, we'd open another place and it was like, you know, when one location was down, another one had to carry the weight of that. So it was always, this felt like, um, uh, whack-a-mole. Yeah, you hit one area for sure. And another one. So I, I think that, um, it's so important, and that's part of what I've done, is develop. And I give away a lot of stuff. I mean, if anybody is interested, you can go to my website, kathy rushing.com and I, I give away a good number of tools to like, I just recently did a um, 30 minute weekly marriage check-in template. Oh, that helps couples that. I'm like, I wish we'd been doing this a little more intentionally. Yeah. Would've been helpful. Especially when we had kids like, you know, it's just a way of touching base with all the major areas of the week. Like if you have pets, like who's taking'em to dog daycare or Totally. Ellie has a vet appointment who's doing that? You know, Jill gives Tucker his meds. Unless she's not available, then I have to remember exactly. You have to be able to coordinate that. And we did it, but it tended to be on the fly, and I think a lot of the time I felt like I was carrying. Mm-hmm. The bigger burden at times, which well,'cause a lot of times that's, especially in an entrepreneurial marriage, the visionary is there and he's not the detailed person. Right. Yeah. Right. You know, so basically your job as the helper is make sure Mark doesn't forget anything. Yeah. Yeah. That's important for both of us. Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, let to, well, it feels like you've been stronger, like despite this kind of flame out with the, with the organization, if you will, and, and, and restart refresh. It feels like to me, maybe I'm wrong, but that your relationship is even strengthened through that. Yeah. Well I think that fresh restart again, we'll go back to the friendship. It's like I still like who he is. We still like spending time together. Yeah. We have. You know, this family that we, we love the family that we've raised. Sure. We love our adult children, you know, and now we have a little grandson and we have a miracle little granddaughter on the way too. Oh, congratulations. Yeah. She never expected. Um, so, um, you know, life throws things in. You can't plan for all of it, and there is no guarantee, whether it's health issues or business issues, but you better be solid. Yeah. Because life is gonna throw stuff at you. Yeah. And you can, you know, the, the choices ares in how we respond. And so, but I think, you know, not unlike, I don't wanna liken it to losing a child, because that I think is probably one of the hardest things ever. And we've had a few friends who've lost children. But what I know from a therapy perspective is that couples who've lost a child, there's a pretty high percentage that. Divorce because they cannot comfort each other. Yeah. And they just feel so alone in that journey. Mm-hmm. So that would be the closest I could come to, to losing the business. Yeah. Was it, it was a real grief process. Yeah. Yeah. And there are times when it still hits me, not like it did before, but I focus on gratitude. I have a spiritual life that, um, and I got really regular with yoga and just really centering and grounding myself. Um, we both did some therapy. Mm-hmm. Um, thankful for wise counselors. Yeah. Um, who kind of helped carry us and some dear friends who Yeah. Um, really have carried us at times when, um, you know, when it was hard. Sure. And, um, I. We have hope. We're grateful that we have the minds. Our minds are still pretty sharp as Aggies. I don't very, I would say, I don't know if your listeners know about Texas and a and m, but you know, in Texas they tell Aggie jokes all the time. Jokes. And so we used to say, you know, together, we had a whole brain, I'd say together, now we have maybe a quarter of a brain. Oh, hardly, hardly whole brains. What, what, like where do you think you're going from here, mark? Like what do you wanna run this business for the next five years? Grow it, you know, double it twice more, three times more, and then find a buyer or professional management so you can just kind of, uh, be the boardroom guy or like, what's your, is there an exit? Thoughts? Yeah. There, there will need to be an exit at some point. Right? Um, I actually started doing some coaching this last year and in the process ended up with, uh. A young guy that I was coaching that bought a business here. Okay. He ended up in a place where he said, this is not really, this is not the right role for me to run this. He my business. Okay. So I actually have stepped in, so I'm running two businesses now. Oh wow. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. And what's the other business? Is that Summit Cabinet Coatings? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, refinish. Familiar with the company actually. Yep. Uh, Jen and Jen and Jim were the founders. Jim. Yep. Yep, yep. So a guy named Jeremy bought it, uh, two years ago. Okay. Yep. Yep. Got it. So I am the CEO of that one as well. Okay. And he and I were talking today, and Kathy and I have been talking, I mean, I've always said, I don't ever expect to just stop, but I think three to five years from now, I can't work like this. You know, I'll be. In my early seventies and so it'll be time to really, yeah. Oh dang. I guess 45 years married means you're pretty damn old. You know? I was assuming you got married when you were 13 or something. I don't know. No, we married at birth. No, we're, we're pretty damn old. And, uh, so, um, so yeah. Continue to grow'cause I don't know how to do anything else. Right. And I jokingly, sort of jokingly say, I'm so fortunate this other job opportunity came along.'cause I mean, I'm just not qualified to do anything else. So I can go run this other business, I can run'em both. It takes the pressure off of PRS and that I don't have to have a whole lot of, you can have a small salary as CEO of both kind of. Right, right. Interesting. And that helps. That helps a lot. Yeah. So continuing to grow PRS helping Jeremy Grow Summit. Yeah. And um, and you can focus on the CEO stuff and he can still be. Business development and some of the other, or deliveries. He lives in Denver, so, yeah. Oh, interesting. So he bought it from Yeah, yeah. Kind of as a less involved owner. Yeah. Interesting. But we're implementing EOS in both. Cool. And hopefully that's a great relationship for you. It is. Good. Um, if you were gonna describe like, what your business, uh, kinda outside of EOS, which you've given a huge commercial for already, but what your, what your, your special business sauce is, if you will, mark, like what would you say that is? Um, the same thing would apply for Summit, but for PRS it's really the customer service we provide. Hmm. We have some really large competitors here in this area. Mm-hmm. And we take business from'EM every day. Yeah.'cause of the customer service that we offer, it's like the big ones are like, you'll barely. We'll barely know you're a customer. Yeah. Right. Yeah. We have an actual human being that answers the phone. Yeah. Yeah. They love talking to Jana when they call. Yeah. She sets things up. We just taught to, we try to take really good care of our, of our employees, the guys that are actually out there driving the trucks and, you know, servicing the toilets. I dig it. So that we just really focus on that service aspect of the business. Yeah. And I think that's kind of a secret sauce for us. I'm gonna shift it back to you, Kathy, one of those kind of core questions. Then we're gonna take a break and we'll do some other segments here. Okay. But if, if you were gonna give one like, kind of core piece of either advice or just reflection point for the entrepreneurial marriage mm-hmm. Um, what, like what's the anchor of, of that? Good relationship. Um, I think that being able to create vision together mm-hmm. Like where are we going with this? Yeah. Yeah. We kind of just evolved into it. It was like, you know, let's do the next step and the next step. And we, we talked about the future some, but I, I think having regularly, uh, regularly scheduled, um, times to know where you're going, what are, what are some decision points, because we, we have some friends that, one is someone that Mark met through EOS and not through EOSC 12. C 12, um, he had a business. Board of directors kind of took it away. It was a really ugly thing. So we started another business and there are many years into it now, and it's just, it's just not making it, but there is no stopping point. And so it's becoming a real challenge in their marriage. And um, and I think that's the hard thing about entrepreneurs is, um, and especially if one, like I have a fairly high risk tolerance, I would say. Okay. But we've met other couples where one is like, just show me the check. There was, there was someone on his C 12 four, they ended up divorcing and he shared his story with us later with permission to share the story. Um, I won't show the name. Yeah. Just like, where are we going? Well, she was just like, I don't care what kind of stress you have, just when's money going in the bank? Yep. Mm-hmm. And they just, you know, he felt alone. Yep. She felt alone. So. It's, it is an unusual, I mean, there's other, like military families might share some similar dynamics, I suppose. Yeah, yeah. Um, but they also tend to have really strong communities, so Yeah. Yeah. I think find community, Hmm. Have vision, um, have a way to be very specific about where are we going, what are some markers that tell us to keep going? Right. And, um, and really having some tools, some strategies on my LinkedIn, um, tag is what if your marriage, um, had the same strategic attention as your business? Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting thought. Yeah. So I think having some strategies to make sure that you are in touch with each other, that you are meeting each other's needs as. Partners first, and you know, employees or business owners or whatever next. Um, just keeping first things first. I like it is really important. Yeah. We're gonna take a short break and we'll be back. And we're back. Um, so, uh, thanks for that first, uh, part of the journey here. Yeah. I think what I want to talk about now is because your kids are how old now? Our oldest is, this is gonna make us feel really old. Thanks, Kurt. 40 42. Jeremy 42. Next month, 42, 39, and 34. And what do you got going on in the grandkid department? We have, uh, our middle son and his wife have, uh, this Ryan. This is Ryan. Ryan, all right. Mm-hmm. Ryan and Amy. Alright. Uh, Ryan's a horse trainer. Amy's a realtor. She works with Kittle. Okay, cool. And, uh, they have a son rider, cutest little boy. Oh my gosh. I've ever seen, we're so in love. He is amazing. So he is just over two. Okay. And then, so can we tell it Yeah. That's on, I don't know, social media. That's true. So they, it was IVF, it was I think the third round of IVF. Oh, okay. This first one. Yeah. Long journey. Yeah. Yeah. And then, uh, in January they showed up at our house and, uh. I had Kathy taken his jacket off and he had a big brother t-shirt on. Oh shoot. And yeah, I'm like, is this a hand me down? Oh, so the first one was IVS, but the second one was Oh, natural. Oh, natural. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So they're gonna have a little girl in. Oh, congratulations. Yeah, we're very excited. We are ridiculously crazy crampy. And your, your older son and your daughter? No, uh, no kids? Nope. Okay. Nope. Don't want kids. And then our, oh, not even gonna have any m Right. So you got a couple, uh, a, your, your chapter facilitator, Pete, which I don't know if you know this even, but he's got, uh. Two kids only, but nine grandkids. Oh, wow. So he is got a high yield kind of a environment. Yeah. You had three kids and you've only got two grandkids and no more on the shelf. So, uh, yeah. You know, so it goes sometimes. Right. Yeah. So that was, yeah, that's our family. That was part of the reason that we moved here. We had sold our house in New Braunfels after Hannah got married and thinking we were gonna downsize. We had a house in Granby that was just kind of our dream space and great getaway, great place to gather for us. Bought it while you were making a whole bunch of money during with this Yes. Paris stuff Income. Yes. And we just loved that place. And, um, so when we sold the house in New Braunfels, couldn't find a place, um, that we wanted. And so we, we would stay with his mom when we would go back. And then it was 2019, I think, Christmas that our daughter-in-law, who's the realtor, said, y'all ought to look at. You know, Fort Collins as a place, a lot of people are moving here and they're still very active. We love to hike and mark fishes and camp. We, we just, honestly, it used to be a place where 25 to 35 year olds moved to, now it's mostly a place where 60 to 75 year olds move to that. More our neighbors more. So, yeah, we're in a neighborhood in, in Wild Wing. Mm-hmm. And it's primarily, yeah, our neighborhood is an older neighborhood. It's like us. Yeah, yeah. A little bit younger, a little bit older. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And they're, the people like from, and maybe my lens is distorted from being a part of Rotary Club and stuff. And so I meet a lot of those 60 to 75 year olds that are following their grandkids out here to Northern Colorado. But like, we didn't use to see that as much. Now it's a really common occurrence. Yeah. Yeah. And our daughter and her husband are here still trying to, you know. Get something a little more permanent. It's, you know, the, the cost of housing is just, it's mind boggling. And it went up so much after we went under contract. Oh, right. On the house we're in. Yeah. Just went up so much that year. So, so yeah, we, we moved here with the hope of grandchildren and knew that we wanted to be closer. But yeah, for our son and his wife, it was a 13 year journey. Oh, wow. You know, a lot of tears, a lot of heartbreak and heartache, and we just didn't know if it was ever gonna happen. And, um, um, so, yeah. Well, congratulations on, on. Yeah. Thank you. Second, uh, coming. Yeah. We're excited. Yeah. Let's talk about like the, the workforce. Like you're kind of in a similar situation probably with, with PRS where you're hiring, you know, some of your workers at least. Would like to have a better job. Yep. Um, not too dissimilar from the assisted living kind of environment or whatever. What do you, what do you do to find good people for whom your job isn't a disposable Yeah. Thing. We go through a lot of interviews. Okay. Um, and we go through a fair amount of turnover. Guys primarily so far, guys who come in, um, they just haven't found their place yet. We've got right now a core group of four or five technicians that, well, we actually have one guy that works for us who has worked for this company for 25 years. Oh, cool. He is an amazing guy. Great. He was, he was holding it all together for the owner before you bought it? Yeah, yeah. He really was. He was one of two employees driving a truck. Oh wow. Um. Just has, you know, some, a great heart for ministry. A great heart for all of these guys that work for us. And just a hard worker. Um, his name is Cisco. He is, he's an amazing, so Cisco, yeah. He's an amazing guy. And so we try to pay, well, we do, we try to provide benefits that make sense. Um, one of the things that I love and one of the things that drives me is creating opportunities for people to just provide for their families. So we're trying to build a business that has enough opportunities that someone may come in, they may start out washing toilets in the yard, and then get a route and maybe at some point get their CDL or in another way, get an opportunity to grow, to add value and actually have a career and add value to the company, but also provide value for their families. Yeah. Um. Yeah. So we just, we work pretty hard at that. Um, it's, it's not easy. Yeah. Sometimes I want it for some of them more than they want it for themselves. Yeah. Which that doesn't work. It's been part of my, you know, with the Matthews house, uh, yeah. That journey, you know, they, they instructed their casework, you know, you can't want it for somebody more than they want it for themselves or it's not gonna work. Right. Mm-hmm. Same thing is true of employees sometimes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Two years ago we could not hire people. It was tough. It was crazy. It was tough. Was I think the tail end. I don't, I don't know. We never figured out if it was just still the unemployment piece, but we haven't even touched on the other business that we bought out in Craig, but that one, we had more business. We were turning away business. Literally could not hire people. Yeah. Like, not even answering ads. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I, I was doing a lot of work that summer just trying to keep employees and here, you know, where there's a much bigger Sure. Um, pool and. Oh my goodness. It, it was, it got kind of depressing because some of these people, you just don't know how they survive. You know? They would come and get a paycheck and then not show up and it's like, and they've got six kids at home. Yeah. And it's like, oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. And it does, you know, the whole employment labor. Uh, sometimes when we're going through, we've, we've actually gotten to the place where we'll do open interviews, so we'll just, if you show up, then we'll interview you. Oh, wow. Between these hours. And we did this a couple of weeks ago, and I came home until Kathy, my heart was just hurting because some of these just young, like, and maybe in their twenties, even into their early thirties, these guys who have just not figured out a path for themselves. Maybe there's drugs involved, maybe there's something else, some sort of something in their background. But just watching them come in and not, well really not have a path just to be able to provide for themselves and Well, and I suspect a lot of them don't have families. Yeah. Either. Some of'em probably do, but like the way the culture has evolved is there's like just a lot of 30 something dudes that are single and not barely looking at or eager for the prospects of being in a relationship. Yeah. We, we have men that don't know how to become a man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And my dad even talked to, to my wife and I, to me about that, but with, with me and Jill,'cause we don't have children of our own, so we've hosted exchange students and mm-hmm. You know, we talked about doing IVFA lot of years ago now. Yeah. And I was like, I don't know, you know, I'll be 60 by the time that little career gets out the house at least. Yeah. Um, and, um. But like the, maybe I don't wanna say the purposelessness Yeah. Of it, but of not having, you know, me and Jill, we can live pretty modestly, like put us in the ambulance camper with, uh, three coolers worth of food and at least two 12 packs of beard. We'll be happy for a while, you know, A few days. Yeah. At least a few days, you know, but we don't have that, that, that stress and that, um, yeah. You know, encouragement of, of working for the next generation. And Yeah. In your guys' case, I guess your, your, your grandkids have got like, that's support system and stuff. You're looking more like, what's our retirement look like? Can we have a nice little exit so that we can travel and do more fun things, um, in the future? And it sounds like to me, like in some ways, your return to ministry, mark, is this business now. Like maybe it is eight. Your, your AllCare business and, and whatever else wasn't quite as ministry focused in some ways. Maybe it was. It actually was. It was too. Yep. Cool. Um, but that is still part of what's woven into your Yeah. Not just your family history, but also your business kind of inclinations. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I will describe myself as a former pastor and I have several good friends who will say the former isn't really that accurate. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And we, I mean, just like with the couples that we would gather in New Braunfels and we were still there. Yeah. We really love having people in our home and gathering people, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a religious context. Yeah. But there's always that just loving on people. Mm-hmm. Um, and we do that. You know, I don't put a fish symbol on the business cards for our companies. Yeah. Yeah. But it's pretty clear who I am, what my background is. Um, the values, the values that we really promote, the values that we live out Yeah. Are just around really dignity. Um, good work, family. Yeah. Um, you know, those important things that, you know. Yeah. That's a part of who we are. Like Yeah. Being a company man for PRS should be a positive Yeah. Thing. Yeah. In a way. Absolutely. I think that, yeah. Yeah. There is a, mark has talked for years now about just the dignity of work. Yeah. You know, there are a lot of people that are very involved in social causes and those are good and there are people mm-hmm. That need support. We need a, you know, a, uh, what's the word? Um, oh, like a social care system. We need a safety net. Yep. But there, there is a. Self-confidence and a self-assurance Sure. That people need Yeah, yeah. In working for a living. Yeah. And so not every job, you know, this would definitely qualify as the dirty jobs and Sure, sure. Yeah. Mark said at one point when he was, uh, starting at PRS, he said, you know, all those women that we hired that were caregivers before, he said, I'm hiring all their sons and their husbands. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there is, there is, there is dignity in every single kind of work. I've been reading Tim Keller recently again. Yeah. Yeah. Every good endeavor. Yeah, I've read that. Which I love. I mean the, I just looking to see if it was on my shelf. Yeah. The connection to John Coltrane is'cause I love jazz. But, um, that idea that if we work, well, work hard, work with an attitude. That no matter what the job is, we're serving our customers, we're serving one another. That is, that is a part of the value of work. Mm-hmm. And it's why work is actually important. You know, the idea that, okay, there should be a universal basic income. That's a nice thought. But what you do is you take away that ability of a man and a woman to work and to provide for their families together. For something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And to raise their kids with similar values. Yeah, yeah. And that idea, so I was just imagine to myself, like, like years ago, gosh, probably 12 years ago or 15 years ago or something, uh, my wife and I and some friends went to Costa Rica and spent eight nights there, nine days, and it was just perfect. Amazing. You know, like Costa Rica tends to be, and independently we all came back and researched. Can we move to Costa Rica, you know, and how much does it take to live here? Yeah, exactly. Kind of. But, and I can imagine that life of being like a trust fund kid or something and having a, I mean, if I had a$3,000 a month stipend, me and Jill could live in Costa Rica, like easy peasy and have a, a cook and a gardener. Right. Um, and like, what would my life be in pursuit of Yeah. You know, I'm not really clear, like to be, you know, what, what I was just smiling about is like, it could probably be fun as long as I like, set myself to building like a bamboo jungle gym with a gigantic slide that came out of the big tree over there, you know, to do some productive work, even if it wasn't for money, you know, but it has to be something productive or a, you know, an entertainment item for the kids of the community or some valuable thing. Otherwise what, what, what am I? What am I good for? Yeah. Yeah. And that's one of the things that I appreciate about what you're doing with local think tank. Oh, yeah. You know, is encouraging entrepreneurs who are creating businesses, creating jobs, creating opportunities, and hopefully seeing within that, that purpose mm-hmm. Of doing more than just making money. Making money is great. It's a good scorecard necessary. It's necessary. We need it to just be able to live our lives. But there's more to it than that. You know? There's more to it. There's that, there's that purpose of service. There's that purpose of, I mean, if you're a, if you're a spiritual person, if you're a follower of Jesus, certainly there's this idea that what God has created us for, hmm. Is to be. Active to create his creation. Yeah. Yeah. Imitate him. Yeah. So, man, he's a creator as I'm as entrepreneurs. Wow. I like it. That's what we get to do. I like it. Which is pretty exciting. It is true. It's pretty fun. Let's, let's dip into faith a little bit because, uh, we started kind of talking about your backgrounds. We got a, a Baptist and a Methodist here. Um, so a Baptist and a Methodist walked into a bar, right. The Baptist turned around and walked out. Right. He is like, shit, nobody could see me here. They'd be in trouble on Sunday if somebody notices me. Hopefully they didn't see the pastor there too often. Um, but, but let's talk about your, your kind of faith adventures along the way. Yeah. Like, did you compromise right from the start? Where do you find yourselves participating in the, the faith conversation or community now? Yeah, so I'll speak for myself. We've been on a parallel journey. Not exactly the same, but Oh. Uh, churches become. Challenging, I would say, to find something that kind of resonates with us at this point in life. Yeah. There, there were a couple of situations, churches we were in previously where, you know, again, I don't feel seen and valued for my gifts, which I believe God gave me. You know, so it's like, um, it's always like they, they had to be in tandem with Mark somehow, and I'm like, I, I just don't see it that way. And, um Hmm. So you guys have had some conflict in your faith perspectives or the churches that you've thought about with. Engaging outside of us. Yeah. Not with us, between us, but with more with the organization. So you've navigated some. Yeah. And, and some of that growth is, I mean, I've read several books. Um, I'm rereading Richard Rohrs, uh, falling Upward, which is about the two halfs of life and the first half being, creating a container and tends to be more rule based. And, and we need that for structure and for boundaries and for, you know, society being Sure. Um, the structured civil Organized civil. Yeah. Yeah. But then there's a second half of life where it's a more pure relationship with God. Like, I won't say that. I don't need the church. We very much want to be, I want to be part of a community and we've, um, I mean, part of it, since moving here, I. Is, I, I had mentioned, you know, another business we had bought and there was a season of months where Mark was driving a couple of days a week to Craig to run that business and run PRS. And it was, we literally, Sunday was the only day we had to. Oh. Just, you know, and so for me, nature has always been, um, a way that I connect with God very easily. I love being in the woods. I love hiking, camping. Um, so there were a lot of Sundays we would just drive up into the mountains and especially in the fall, you know, it's so gorgeous here. Um, I, for me, there's never been a time when I haven't believed in God. Okay. Uh, as a child. So you're not active currently in a We're not in a community right now. Church currently. Okay. No. Um, we, we've visited a couple. We go with our son, his wife, to a church and enjoy that. Um, have you been aligned in your faith perspective? Yeah. Like, uh, so the, I think, yeah, the Baptist and the Methodist aren't that far apart to begin with. Right. Well, we were, yeah. Yeah. Not that far. And we met in the Baptist Student Union. Yeah. So really our faith journey has been pretty consistent together. Um, but ultimately you haven't, since you came back to Northern Colorado here, you haven't really found the right place for you? Not yet. We haven't yet. Okay. Yeah. And some of that really has been a function of, of time and energy. Right. Um, and just yeah, if you're Yeah. The, the traveling to Steamboat Yeah. Three times a week, uh, part of the conversation is a pretty crazy thing. Yeah. Yeah. So that was another restroom business, is that right? It was a different, it was a rotator franchise with Okay. Portable restrooms and forest service, fire camp support. It was. Totally different business. Yeah. That's a whole different podcast. Yeah. That one wasn't as easy to fix. It was a hard, it was fixable. It was, yeah. That was an interesting part of our conversation is you started your whole career as a fixer of Yeah. Nursing homes. Yeah. Right. And a maker better of Yep. You know, and, uh, apparently sometimes you just gotta say, yeah, this one's too shitty. Yeah. Sometimes. Exactly. Sorry, that pun. You gotta, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think, you know, and especially like in the last couple years, like when all's care, when we realized that that was done and what should have lasted long after we were gone was no longer, yeah. That's a sad thing. Um, but really, I mean, I think it's those times when you dig down and you find what your faith is really made of, um mm-hmm. You know, there've been some great books. Again. Some, I, I have a dear, dear friend. Well, a couple of dear friends actually, who've just been, uh, so wonderful to listen and to process questions with me or just, you know, be supportive. And I think, um, you know, I just, I, I know that God is with me and with us, and there, you know, it, it has still been hard, but I think part of, part of what I was unraveling from the earlier my earlier faith walk, is this idea of if you do everything right, things turn out right. It's like a. You know, if I do for you, God, you do for me. And that is really not the relationship. It's not an exchange. It's not an exchange. Yeah. God is who he she is. And doesn't change. Circumstances change, health changes, lots of things change, but God doesn't change. And so, you know, to, to trust in that, in times when it was like, I don't see what our next step is. I, I see another church plant. I don't think we've got this, sorry. We've done house churches before. We have done house churches. Mm-hmm. I, I could possibly, you could be persuaded. Do that again. Yeah. Well you have to get plugged in somewhere first. Uh, to be ready to do a plant anyway. Yeah. Or just gather up some neighborhoods. Maybe just start fresh. Yeah. De novo. Yeah. Yeah. Just like each of those, uh, assisted living locations. Yeah. Yeah. I dig it. Um, the, the closing segment is the loco experience. Yeah. So that's the craziest experience that you're willing to share might be a moment, a week, a month, um, yeah. You, you know, which experience you're thinking about right now, mark, especially, I think we, we were talking about this earlier. I, so I have a tendency to explore places not necessarily knowing where we're gonna end up impulsively. Yeah. Yeah. Some might call it that. Let's drive on this road. I, one time I wanted to cross this unknown depth river down by. You Ray and with our friends and my wife was like, you have no idea whether that's 14 inches deep or 44 inches deep. I was like, yeah, but we've got a Lead Rover baby. Like it'll be fine. Yeah. Anyway, continue. So I'm always, I might have some of those instincts. I'm always, I've always driven these big ass Ford, you know, F two fifties. Oh, I know which story you're gonna tell. And so we were over in the Lake City area. Mm-hmm. And I'd read about these passes and we'd been Jeeping and we'd done some of that stuff in different trips. But we were in my truck, Kathy and I, and our daughter Hannah. So we headed up and we decided Engineer Pass over. Engineer Pass. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we discovered why when people do Cimarron Pass and Engineer Pass, they start with Cimarron and then go over engineer. Yeah, yeah. Well, we did it the other way. So that meant in this big Ford truck we were going on the outside. As we went over and then we're out over animus, forks in that area. Yeah. Yeah. And it just drops and these guys in Jeeps were coming the other direction, giving us the thumbs. We are literally on the edge. We are on the edge in that truck. I, I get anxiety thinking about it and to this day, like if we get into a situation that it's sketchy like that, I'm like, Nope. Nope. Right. I'm getting out. In fact, we did that another time. I'm out. But to me it's a really great day if I'm in four wheel drive, if maybe I've got tree limbs stuck in the mirrors. Right. And you know, I've been able to crawl up and crawl over and around. And you made it over engineer down into, or you went over to Cinnamon and then you dropped down. Where'd you drop down into From Cinnamon. We actually, we didn't go to Cinnamon. We actually went over engineer and then dropped down into Animus Forks. Yep, yep. And then went over to Silverton and then back around. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yep. Um. I, yeah, I just love that stuff. I love being out in wild places. I love hiking, hunting, fishing. That's a engineer is a sketchy pa. Like, oh yeah. I've folded on this podcast before, but Kathy, for your sake, uh, on our first anniversary, I took Jill over engineer's pass. Oh my God. You, gosh. And got into a fight. No, like at the very top when you're like, way ass above tree line. Uh, Uhhuh. Yeah. My 88 G Cherokee started sliding and so to not go over the edge, I had to accelerate into this 270 degree. And so I drifted a two 70 degree turn in an 88 Jeep Cherokee with no. Uh, antilock brakes. Oh, whoa, man. And we were probably, rock would've set our chances of dying was 74%, like when I started sliding. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That one has. Wow. That'd be hours. Well, well, yours is scary too. But yeah, I was sliding in a, in looking at going over the edge, uh, so yeah. If anybody looks so I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. Has not been there. It is a sheer, I don't know how many thousand feet then long ways before you start hitting trees. Yes. Because it's just rocks and really steep rocks for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. I think Hannah and I were in the backseat and I had a camera that it broke the lens. That or the over hitting So many tree ranches going No, I think just the bump side. Oh, right. Interesting. The other, uh, experience we were remembering was, uh, so we got married the weekend before school started of our last semester. We're like, heck, why not? Why not? And, um. So we, I'm horny. You horny. Let's get married. Sorry. That was about it. Well, no, we were gonna, we were gonna get married in June after graduation. And Mark found this, there was this retired a and m professor, and they had, they lived right outside of town and they had this cute little red house that they would let a married couple live in free. Okay. You had to be married. Right. And so we moved our wedding up to January. So that, you know, made sense to me. It was pretty much, I kind of nailed it with the, I'm horny. You horny, right. There's a pattern here, you know, let's just do it. How bad could it be? So we took a belated um, um, uh, honeymoon trip, uh, backpacking Oh, cool. In, uh, PE wilderness. And we had a dog at the time that came with Mark pre predated me. Anyway, we're on this backpacking trip. And, um, I, the map is not very good and we've been hiking all day and we're not where we thought we should be. And there was a big storm coming up and I'm really tired at this point. And so Mark went ahead trying to find someplace flat. Like it was a very, it pretty steep, you know? Right, right. The trail comes, there's no place to set up. There was no place to set up camp, so now it's raining. Anyway, he comes back and he is like, I found a place right here. And we found this little flat spot, like between two streams and we pitched the tent and our dog is terrified of thunder. Like this dog lost her mind when And drowning. It turns out. Yeah. The dog doesn't like, but keep going. Yeah. And so it was one of those nights where like, we were so glad to get in our sleeping bag finally, but it was like, you know how things just. They become so magnified in the dark. Right? And, and I kept hearing the, the rivers and all I could imagine was the rivers were gonna rise and carry us downstream course where we were going because we're, we're in the mountains. The water's flowing down. Right? It's got its channels pretty established. But you know, those, and that was probably the same trip too, where we had, um, travelers checks back in the day of travelers checks. Awesome. And so we thought, oh, we're this close to, um, Taos, we'll go into Taos for the day. Thought we had two travelers checks left. Turns out we had one we filled up, we had a red VW bus, and, um, pretty cool. Yeah, pretty cool. We could probably go six hours if we wanted to, huh? Yeah. Yeah. You guys got lots of stories. We've got a lot of stories. Now it's, yeah. Yeah. But we can't, so were you telling us we need to cut off? We're, we're getting, we'll wrap it up to the end here. Um, mark, if people have an event. Yeah, they have a construction site. They can find you at the portable restroom solution.com. Ooh. Yeah, that's a very, could you get prs.com? Probably not. That's been taken. Yeah, it actually was. Yeah. They want$25,000. Yeah, the portable restroom solution. So it's all the standard blue stuff. Do you have fancy things and stuff too there? There's kind of a trend right now. Yeah. Of having like nice bathrooms for weddings and stuff. Yeah. We're starting to be able to bring in the nice bathroom trailers for weddings. Cool. And um, yeah, so we do events and all kinds of stuff, and I dig it. If they've got a septic, they live out in the country, need it, pumped, get Oh really? You do that too? Oh, we do that too. Oh, we did it. Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Kathy? Mm-hmm. If you've got entrepreneur, do you do couples work only or No. I see. I see. Pe, you know, related to any type of relationship. So it might be relationship with the self people that are wanting to grow and, you know, that will benefit their relationships, but maybe people that, especially women who are just wanting to kind of fully, you know, find all the aspects of their life, um, yeah. You know, and, um, um, but I work with individuals, couples of all kinds, but my real passion is working with entrepreneur couples and I have a part-time office with Emory Counseling in Old Town. Well, that's, Josh is the only person that's Yeah. Given me counseling so far. Yeah. There you go. He's done a podcast before. What's up Josh? So great. And, um, and then I see people anywhere virtually, so. Gotcha. Um, but my website is kathy rushing.com. I dig it. Yeah. Yeah. Any questions for me before we wrap this up? You know what, we never actually circled back to think Tank, so, oh yeah. But we can. No. I mean, oh yeah. I, well, let's just, Mark's a member. I'm a member. Eight things is cool. Yep, yep. Maybe not as good as C 12 yet, but we're only nine months in so far. That was a unique experience. Pete's awesome. Yeah. Pete is a great facilitator. He is doing a great job with, well, in that first experience, like you'll, it'd be hard to Yeah. Beat in some ways right's True. Like when you've been alone on an island for a long time. Yeah. And somebody's like, Hey, we all have islands too. You're like, oh, damn. Yeah. Yeah. These guys all have violins too. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, shout out for, uh, Loco Think Tank as a great opportunity to be with a, a group of peers. And, um, yeah. The value of that is just incredible. It's a nice, good perspective. Yep. Thanks to have, thanks for sharing your perspectives here. Yeah. Thanks Kathy. You're welcome. Bye for now. Thanks for having us.