S3:E2 Gene Rice Author of Grad to Grown Up join Interviews with Dads Podcast

Welcome to the 100% Dad podcast with Townsend Russell. We've got Gene Rice today. He wrote the book Grad to Grown Up. Uh, it ended up being a great podcast. We start off talking about, uh, the student loan issues in college. We, we get into topics of the career, uh, of being a business owner, into inheritance issues, uh, teaching money skills and investing, as well as purpose and Gene's charity and a bunch of other things. Uh, we're gonna jump right into it. We had a few technical difficulties, so we had to cut out some of the audio, but we're going to get right into it talking about, uh, colleges. Here we go.

And the out-of-state tuition cost was so much higher, and I would say to my wife, I have no idea why they're sending this. I mean, it annoys me every time I write the check because my kids had gotten into Penn State and they could have went there. But I guess University of Maryland took 70% of the kids from in-state, and they wanted to show the in-state parents what a great deal they were getting. You know, it was a great school.

Yeah, so my brother went there, um, during this whole COVID thing, and, uh, they basically transitioned everyone to online school and then kept, kept regular tuition prices. So you didn't, you didn't get online tuition, you got, uh, you got normal, and then none of the amenities, of course. Of course, you know, that was— it was interesting. Um, now your kids didn't have to go to— you didn't have to write that check. You could have told them, you know, tough luck, you're going in-state.

I could have, but they were great students and they worked hard. But you know, you and I have something in common. Uh, I listened to one of your podcasts. I have a whole chapter in the book around college loans and what these kids take on, you know.

Yeah.

And I am 100% in agreement with you. Go to community college for 2 years. And, you know, and here's the piece a lot of them don't even realize. You go and you graduate from a 4-year school. You don't even have to put the community college on your resume. All they care about is where you graduated from, you know? And, you know, and it's funny, like I would take into my, my company every summer 4 college interns. Townsend Russell Russell, right? These are all kids going into their senior year. And these were kids, they were bright kids from great schools, right? And once a week I'd spend a couple hours with them. It started off with Gene's life lessons, just things I wish I knew when I was going into my senior year in school. They all had college loans. They all knew how much they borrowed every year. They all knew they had to start paying it back in 6 months. What they didn't know is how much they were going to owe every month.

Right?

Because it— you don't figure out the 4 years and how much you're borrowing until you get out, and then they add it all up and this is how much you're gonna have to pay.

Oh, so they didn't know— they didn't know the monthly payment?

They didn't know the monthly payment.

Okay, got it.

These kids, some of them had $1,000, $1,100 a month, and, you know, they had a mortgage payment for 10+ years, you know. So it was crazy. So I'm a firm believer in that community college Yeah, and I'm not sure—

obviously there's, there's certain degree tracks, um, that, that are very viable, but man, most people that I have met that have a 4-year degree aren't even using it, not in their, not in their career field. And, uh, it makes you wonder if, if there's any real reason to spending that money to attain that piece of paper, um, other than there's a lot of jobs out there that for some reason say you need a 4-year degree just to filter the candidates, even though it doesn't actually apply.

You know, it's very true, Townsend. You know, back in my day, you didn't need that 4-year degree to sit in the chair and interview. Now I would say 90% of those jobs, you got to have that 4-year degree to actually have a chance to sit in the seat, you know, which, which I don't have.

I don't have a 4-year degree. I dropped out my sophomore year, after my sophomore year. So I never, so I never attained it. So there's, I mean, there's positions I could not get, even though hand over fist, I could do way better job than 99.9% of the candidates.

I left, I went to St. John's. I, they were paying me to go there. I mean, you know, I left after my junior year to buy my first business, always thinking in the back of my mind, I would go back. I never went back, never held me back. You know, and I was with corporate, you know, before the search firm. I spent 7 years with Alcatel, which was at that time an international Fortune 100. You know, I ended up after 7 years running East Coast operations for them, and that 4-year degree didn't hold me back, you know.

Yeah. But, but so what was the business you bought your junior year?

Uh, I bought a rock and roll club, my first business. So My, you know, back then was 18 was the drinking age in New York, right? I'm originally from Long Island. The best part-time job while you were going to school was a bartender, right? You got to meet people, right? I happened to work in this bar that started off as a very small bar and it kept expanding. And then I started managing the club. I started booking the acts. We came up with an idea, Townsend, and it just took off. You know, we were the first club to only book original music, meaning I didn't care what music you played, but it had to be your own music.

So no cover bands?

No cover bands. And so 7 nights a week we had bands, and once a month I'd bring in a national recording act. I got them on the way up or the way down, you know, but I had great people like Bo Diddley, the Ramones. I had, uh, you know, uh, the Stray Cats started off in my club. It was a great career. It was great. I wouldn't trade it for anything. And then I bought a third of it, and then I left and opened up my second place with my, with my brother. And that was the biggest failure of my life. But, you know, you know, you learn from that, you know.

This, this was in New York City?

This was in Long Island. So, okay, Long Island is a suburb of New York City. So Billy Joel came from Long Island, you know, Pat Benatar, Cyndi Lauper, acts like that. So they had, they had a lot of talents And I got the idea. I listened to a Billy Joel interview and they were asking him, you know, why did you have to go out to LA to get your record deal? And he said, well, you know, every club owner on Long Island said you play top 40 or you're not playing here. We don't want to hear your stuff, you know. So we just tried to give him a place. Now, that was a great— now, my wife, I got engaged. The only way she would marry me is if I chose to get out of that business. And thank God I did.

Because, yeah, probably a smart move.

Yeah, I probably wouldn't be married 38 years, right? I might not even be alive, right? Yeah.

But so what happened? What was the, uh, the reasoning behind the second one failing?

Let me tell you. So the first club was in a small incorporated village called Freeport, Long Island. Had its own police department, 23 cops on the police force. I knew them all. I sponsored their softball team. They did their Christmas party in my club, and they watched out for me. The second club was in a town called Massapequa Park. It was upper middle class. I opened up right on Main Street, right? And I bought the club for one reason and one reason only: it had, back in those days, a legal cabaret license, Townsend which meant you were allowed to have live music, right? Very few places had that. Now, the reason why they got it, it was like an old man's bar. It was a small bar, but next to it, it had like a catering room. And the Long Island Fire Marshal drank there in the afternoon, and live cabaret to them meant an organ player on New Year's Eve, you know? I open up, I knock the wall down, open up, you know, this big club, and I open up with some heavy metal band and the neighbors went absolutely bonkers. They put in these noise violations and it was just a race, you know, and you would have these acts you'd have to advertise. The police would be there saying, take the band off, we got a complaint, you know, if they come back on, we're going to give you this noise violation. So it was just you know, the wrong town at the wrong time.

Yeah. Wow.

But I learned from it. I mean, you know, it got to the point where it was that one really big failure. I never took success for granted again. The first club happened to be at that time one of the most popular clubs that had a unique idea. It was crowded every night. The bands were calling me constantly, wanting to play there. I had an older partner that I just didn't get along with and I just walked out. And I just took success for granted. And the second club, success was out of my control. And, uh, you know, and from every failure, you know, you, you get a chance to start again with better information, you know.

So I think people underestimate the ability that outside forces have on, uh, you know, the trajectory of your life sometimes, where it's not always your talent and skill. Sometimes it's just, it just comes down to you know, outside situations and dumb luck like that. You know, if you were a real estate investor in '05, '06, '07, getting started then, building up a, you know, a nice leveraged real estate portfolio, you know, that did not work out well for you. So because '08, '09, '10, '11 crushed you, and it was just timing. It's not because you were a bad investor, um, although, you know, you could argue the merit of that, uh, it was just timing and outside forces, uh, Yeah, you know, same thing would happen to you. You had a good idea, good club, but you know, you had neighbors who wanted to, uh, well, who just didn't like what you had there and, you know, found ways to make your life a living hell, it sounds like. Yeah.

So, and listen, you know, and I took that opportunity to go into corporate America, you know, started in sales. I gotta tell you, I just, you know, I would not allow failure to happen. I was just married, my wife was pregnant with the first kid and I was gonna make it work no matter what. And, uh, I started in sales and then went into sales management, then general manager, then district manager. Then for Alcatel, I ended up running the whole East Coast operations for them.

So what is Alcatel?

Alcatel was at that time, it was, it's a French telecommunications company.

Okay.

So what they did back then, they were international Fortune 100. If you went to Europe back then most of the phones that you were using was an Alcatel phone. But they did—

they're like— so they were like AT&T, Comcast.

Yeah, they did giant PBX systems. So that, you know, the Chinese PBX system, it was an Alcatel. I worked for a division of theirs that was the number one competitor to Pitney Bowes at the time, right?

Okay.

But, uh, listen, you know, and what happened at the end, I was running East Coast operations I had 2 young kids. My wife was pregnant with number 3. I was never home. I was on an airplane every day. And I made a decision to go into executive search. And this is a big risk. I was back in the 1980s. I was making 6 figures, but there was no work-life balance, right? So I took my number 1 GM for Alcatel and we opened up an executive search firm. And I did that because I had used a bunch of search firms myself in building my staff. I thought we could bring some value to it, and we would have been happy if we made the same money we were making just to be home at night. Thank God it worked out a little bit better than that, you know. So it grew to be at one time one of the 25 largest retained search firms in the world. It was the largest one at one time out of one location. We had like 70 people. Uh, I, I sold it to a billion-dollar company in 2001. I reacquired it back in 2003.

Yeah, you know, I love those stories.

Yeah, yeah, because I missed it. I missed it, you know, non-compete, and I wanted the name back. The name was Rice Cohen International, you know. And, uh, you know, what's unique is I had an opportunity to, uh, to really work with some great clients and some great executives over my career.

So in the '80s, totally different world on how business works, uh, than today. Yeah. So I'm curious. So you were using executive search firms. I feel like you decided you could do it a little bit better, more efficient, or better in general. So you started— how do you find executives in that era? I mean, now you go to LinkedIn, you put out mass emails, you, you know, you find them online. What are you doing back then to find the talent?

Yeah, we opened it up in 1990, right? So here's the key thing. I think you talked about this in one of the podcasts. What me and my partner did, right, is we went to the CEO of Alcatel and we said, listen, we know how much you spent last year on search fees. No one's going to be able to sell the opportunity better than us. Let us take over all the recruiting for your, you know, for the company.

So you had client day one?

Day one, they sent us a check on the first of every month, and we were placing people all over the country. Back then, to answer your original question, it was all on the telephone.

You picked up the telephone and you reached out, you know, calling executives, cold calling, you know.

And, and the neat thing is we figured out quickly Recruiting. A lot of people hear about recruiting. There's all different types of recruiting firms, right? Probably 95% of them are what they call contingency recruiting firms. So XYZ Company Townsend Russell Russell has an opening. The talent acquisition or the HR person calls 2 or 3 or 4 recruiters and says, hey, I have this opening I need to fill. If you have anyone with these skills, please send them to us. So you have 3 or 4 different firms, and then they're looking themselves, and it's a race to get the candidate. And whoever they hire, that firm will get a fee. Executive retained is a little bit different. It's very different. Executive retained, you specialize in a vertical market. You get to know all the talent in an industry that you specialize in. My firm is to this day is still probably the largest search firm placing the senior partners in the large consulting firms. So we put the senior partner into McKinsey, a lot of the senior partners into the Big Four. We do an awful lot of work in the edtech space. All the private equity firms that invest and buy edtech companies, they'll come in and we'll put their new executive staff in. But the relationship is different with the client. They come to you. It's an exclusive arrangement. You work as a consultant to them. So then at that point, the only way anyone can hear about the position is through you. You interview their internal candidates, you interview the external candidates, you get paid whether they hire someone or they hire no one. So it's more about it being a good match. And that's one of the things I prided myself on in my firm. You know, a lot of these senior-level positions, Towns, and the family is picking up from one city and moving to another city. They got kids and they're picking up roots. I wanted to make sure it was a good fit on both sides, and there's things that we did to help that, you know. And I placed over 1,000 of these senior-level people. I've interviewed tens of thousands. My firm has placed thousands. So we bring a different perspective. I built this firm, but I never left the trenches.

I—

what I was passionate about, what gave me purpose, was talking and building relationships with the executives and the clients and putting the match together and making that work.

And you're still doing that to this day?

Well, what I've done in the last year and a half is I've transitioned to my son-in-law and my son the day-to-day operations. I'm more involved in the strategy piece, Townsend. Now they'll come to me and they'll say, hey, we got this big client, meaning we could use some gray hair in the room. And I'll say, well, I can bring no hair if you want no hair in the room, right? No hair, you know. So I'll still help them with that type of stuff as well.

Okay. Yeah. And I go, yeah, do you, do you own the company 100% or is it, do you have partners?

Well, right now I am transitioning it. I'm allowing my son and my son-in-law to pay, to buy it from me over the next couple of years.

Okay, and so that was a tax strategy, I assume?

Yes, yes. Okay.

And then is there any, I guess, how many kids do you have?

I have 4 kids and 4 young grandkids.

Okay, so I assume a good chunk of your net worth is in that business.

No, no, unlike you, my friend, My net worth, I've kept for very many, many years. Once a month, on the first of every month, I do it manually. But in the book, there's a whole chapter on an app. I've kept my net worth from the first of every month for over 25 years. So right now, my net worth, you know, it's a lot. It's a lot.

Yeah.

But it's—

I don't have any.

I don't believe in debt. I don't have any debt. You know, I was at a very young age, uh, I, I believe, you know, one of the biggest fallacies that's been sold to the American people is, hey, you buy a house, you own the house. Yeah, you own the house as long as you keep making monthly payments, right? You stop making those payments, you know what happens? The bank comes in and owns the house, right?

Yeah, taxes, taxes are always fun.

Yeah, you know, no, so I've been very blessed financially. You know, like I said, you know, it's, it's, it's done well.

Well, so I was going to ask, so with that type of, of, I guess, portfolio, how do you— what's been your approach on inheritance? You know, we assume you're going to live another 60, 70, 80, 2,000 years, but inevitably there's a time where it maybe gets divided between your kids. Are you trying to do equal division? Because something like the business I know it was always tough. Farms are the same way, whereas, you know, some kids are cut out for the business, some aren't. So do you give them all equal shares of equity, and then some get to run it and make the decisions and have, you know, and be on the payroll as well? Or do you only, you know, do you only include the ones that are interested in working in the business for ownership of the business, for the opportunity to buy it out? Um, and then do you, do you take that portion value out of maybe some other cash and investments you have elsewhere? What's been your— what's been your thought process on that?

You know, it's funny because, you know, the last chapter in this book we wrote, right, is create a will, right? You know, my kids, when I sat down with them, right, they call it the death talk. Townsend Russell, uh, I separated the business out from the will. The business is being run. My son-in-law, who's married to my oldest daughter, and my son, they're taking the business and they're paying me and my wife back for the next, you know, a fair amount of money.

Sure.

The will for us, everything is— and, and you've seen this, right? The way we decided it, everything will be divided equally amongst my 4 children, right? I want everything sold right? Everything sold. Uh, so the cars, unless they can agree amongst themselves— I don't want people fighting over anything materialistically, right? Uh, there's only one thing that's not being sold. I have, uh, we have a beach house that we have down in the Jersey Shore, and that's where they've all gone, and, uh, they love it. And that money has been left aside to pay all the bills for that. And one of the kids is, is in charge of dividing the weeks amongst the 4 families, right?

Okay. Yeah, you know, and that, that's just a family holding, it's not an investment property. You're not renting out to other people?

No, no, no. Now we have a bunch of, you know, you know, all the investment properties will be divided, you know, equally, and, and they'll divide it up, but I don't want anybody fighting, and they know God forbid you guys are fighting over anything, uh, you know, we'll be rolling over in our graves. Yeah, I can haunt you, right?

And you had— and you, you've had this discussion with them, which is the smart thing.

Absolutely. And they all have a responsibility. So to give you an idea, my oldest daughter is going to be the executor of the will. I have, uh, my— the, the daughter, my youngest daughter, who I wrote the book with She's a high school English teacher. So we have done— I've kept journals for 20-something years where every, you know, I write in these journals and pictures and, you know, things that are going on in our lives and our family. At some point, I would hope maybe the grandkids or the great-grandkids might want to look through them. She's in charge of the journals, managing the journals. And also we've written these Christmas notes, my wife and I, on Christmas Eve from the first year we got married 38 years ago. If you read the first Christmas note, you would think I was a moron, but it's really progressed. And she's in charge of that. And if anyone in the future generations wants to read any of this stuff, they have to go through her. The, uh, my middle daughter is in charge of the beach house, dividing it. My son, who's a good financial guy, Uh, we have a charitable trust we established, my wife and I, for our charity and other charities that we invest in, uh, that has a lot of money in it. He's going to manage the charitable trust, you know, and that money will be divided amongst, you know, the four of them. But hopefully one of them wants to take the charity on and continue it going forward.

Okay, that's interesting. I like the thought of, uh, just liquidate it all and, and split. That way there's no fights.

Um, because I've had friends, I've seen it, you know, and I've had friends, I've talked to them about wills. I had one friend, right, very interesting, Townsend Russell Russell. He had two sons. One son, a very wealthy guy, one son was a workaholic, you know, worked his tail off. The other son didn't have that same drive, and the father was very, very concerned about, you know, I don't want to give him a reason not to go to work. So basically, in his will, he set it up in such a way that each one of the boys are only entitled to pull out annually out of their inheritance an equal amount to what their W-2 is.

That's not a bad idea. So I have something similar. Mine's— mine, you have to have gainful employment. So you can't just be sitting around being lazy or, you know, at resorts every weekend. But I didn't want to put— that's actually not a bad one. I just didn't want it to be tied to if they wanted to do something they're really passionate about that's maybe less financially into it because they can, you know, if it's in the welfare system or the charity, you know, spectrum, then, you know, I'd be okay with that. Um, but yeah, that's a good way. That's actually a clever little tool. You get to double your income, uh, as long as you have it, right? I like it. One that I've always thought about, and you know, everyone hopes that they don't have that, is because he was kind of hitting the nail on the head there with he doesn't want to encourage laziness, right? Um, I've always felt someone who— if you have a child that's, you know, an adult child that's not good at managing money or has addiction issues or just trouble with the law, I feel like, especially if you're not having these conversations like you're having with your kids, like kind of regular conversations of expectations and process, you might send them to an early grave by throwing a huge chunk of money at them, even a mild chunk of money at them with those kind of habits.

Um, in Townsend, it's funny, uh, one of my daughters has a real issue with managing money. And the executor, my oldest daughter. And we've told the one, she's going to manage— she's, she's not going to get this lump sum of money. She's going to have to talk to her sister, and if everything's going well, then they'll figure out how much she needs and how much she can take, because we are, we are very concerned. She's a spendaholic, you know.

And that's just the reality to a face. It's not like an insult, just, you know, we don't want you to be harmed and get a big chunk and then 3 years later be, you know, depressed and sad. Either that you blew it all, or, you know, the addiction issues, things can really concern you. So if you're borderline alcoholic or, you know, have cocaine issue, whatever it is, you get a big chunk of money that you've never had before and all of a sudden— absolutely, that's a recipe for disaster. Absolutely.

You know. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it sounds like you give it a lot of thought, which— what? That's probably better than 99% of the inheritance issues I hear about.

You know, you have to do it. I mean, you know, and I mean, now we do have a, you know, a small amount for each one of the grandkids, you know, that I want them to get something. And I want— I want their parents to know I want this to be something that they can get whatever they want. You know, we have 529s we've set up for the grandkids. We make contributions to them. My oldest grandson's turning 9 this month, and I'm gonna buy him his first stock and sit down with him. You know, I did this with my kids, Townsend. You know, when they got to a certain age, I let them each buy a stock, you know, a certain amount of shares based on— and it was, it was certain parameters. It had to be something they knew a company they knew of and they wanted to invest in. And I wanted something that paid a dividend because I wanted them to get a check so we could talk about it every 3 months, you know. And, uh, it was funny, uh, each one of them bought different things, you know. My son bought McDonald's. He was back in the days of his Happy Meals. He was young. Uh, my, my middle daughter, she loved Kraft macaroni and cheese, you know. But that was all— that was owned by Philip Morris, you know. Uh, my oldest daughter, we, uh, we lived in a Toll Brothers house and she bought a Toll Brothers, you know. My youngest daughter was wearing Limited clothes. Now, the only mistake I made, if they had taken that money and not taken the dividends and just reinvested it, it would have been worth so much more down the road. But it led to some good discussions, you know. And I'm gonna do it with my grandkids too, you know. And my oldest one is into, uh, uh, I wish, you know, I wish Legos was a, uh, you know, was a publicly traded company because the kid's a Lego kid, you know. But he's also in—

are they not?

They're not.

They're private.

They're private. They're a Dutch private firm. But he loves the Mario and Luigi, so we're gonna That's a Japanese— trade on Japanese, uh, stock exchange. So I'm gonna get him that one, you know, and it pays a dividend.

Interesting. Yeah, I remember my— so I had the opportunity to do that like in when I was 12 or 13. I think me and my sister each had like $300, $400 we were allowed to invest. And, uh, we were given like— I think the options were— gosh, I think it was like a store called Ames that was up in the north back in the day. Okay. Um, gosh, maybe like AT&T. There was some like This is the early '90s, some like budding, budding like security camera company. They put cameras in like cop cars. And then, uh, there was BAT, British American Tobacco. And my sister, you know, my dad was hyping up the tech stocks, and my sister got the tech stock, and I ended up getting the tobacco stock because we have an uncle that has been in my grandmother's basement for 30 years smoking, you know, one of those giant packs, well, I guess a case, like every day. I was like, well, that seems like a— at 10 years old, I think I knew that seems like a safe bet. Yeah, a product that you cannot quit.

Oh my God.

Oh gosh, I have no idea what happened to that. We never stayed in, but it was kind of fun to like— you bought it and it was done. And so like you had exposure to the stock market, but gosh, we never looked at that again. I think when I was married, I was handed over, uh, an Ameritrade account. It had like $1,200 worth of stock in it, and he had sold and re-bought different stuff. So, um, yeah, I never saw the performance of that one stock.

But see, my kids, they got to take it out when they graduated from school and they moved into their first place, you know. Then they, they were allowed to— they wanted to cash it out and buy furniture and stuff with it, you know. I set them all up with $2,000 of originally. But listen, it grew, you know.

So, and that's— I mean, it's a great thing. It just gives a little bit of exposure, especially if you're staying on top of it like you were. It's really clever. Uh, yeah, that helped us when we started our business. We got real broke real quick, which we weren't used to. And I know property taxes were due, and the amount of our portfolio, that Ameritrade account, was just about the amount of the property taxes. And so we ended up cashing out and paying those property taxes. And my wife's grandmother, when she found out about that, like a year or two later, was so upset that we didn't come to her and ask to borrow money and that we sold those stocks. And it was just like the thought of borrowing money from family just does not occur.

Like, you know, with me, I couldn't, you know, Townsend, I'll tell you, like when I went to Alcatel, right, I ended up one year winning the Executive of the Year Award. Right? So they're interviewing me for this award at their convention, and they said, you know, everyone we talk to about you, you talk— they talk about how well you handle the pressure of business. Would you like to comment on that? And I said, the pressure of business? I said, you pay me a salary, I get bonuses if I do well. If I go out to lunch, you reimburse me, you pay for my gas. I said, let me tell you what pressure is. The pressure is you own a rock and roll club and you have a $3,000 light bill and it's due on Monday and it's Friday. You have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to make $3,000 in profit or they turn your lights off. I said, that's a little different type of pressure. I said, so I really, I don't feel the same pressure here, you know? And that's how I really honestly felt.

That's small business world. So I used to think small business was for everyone. Like, it's crazy that not everyone's not in small business because it's such a solid investment. I mean, you can buy a lawn mower used for $50 and your ROI on that when you just get behind it and pushing over people's lawns is insane. And then I quickly realized as I was talking to people and I was kind of networking more and, you know, you learn more about other people's failures and the struggles they're having that that, um, not every personality is built for that because there's so much going on at the same time. Like you said, those pressures are real, but then on top of that, that was just one pressure. You had 4,000 other things you had to deal with as well. So that incredible amount of multitasking, uh, and what, 10 billion up and downs every single day of so excited and super scared, uh, not every, not every personality is built for for it. If you are, it's superb.

And it's funny, Townsend, you know, when I— before I opened my search firm, my partner and I looked at a million different businesses. We looked at everything, right? And, you know, I remember there was, there was this Chinese, uh, uh, medical supply company called Shanghai Medical Supplies, right? And they were looking for some, a couple of aggressive guys to open up distribution in the US, and it seemed like a great deal, and we looked into it, and then we realized, you know, we weren't going to buy a big warehouse and store this stuff. We'd have to order it and have it come in. That I said, listen, we can go and get a big, a big sale from a big hospital, but if we can't get the product there on time, we're going to have one sale and we're out the door. I'd rather have a business which is more in success and failure is more in our control. In executive search, the only thing limiting us back then was picking up the telephone and calling the executive or calling the potential client. And what I loved about it, Townsend Russell Russell, it was a service business. So, the cost of entry wasn't great. You know, what was the cost? The cost was salaries, right? Maybe the original computer system. You know, we bought it to get all the original equipment to rent, but we didn't have to, you know, we self— our belief was the business is going to grow when it can self-fund the growth. So we're not going to hire 2 more people until we have the money in the bank that can afford to pay those 2 people. You know, we're not going to use the credit line to do that. You know, we're going to have this business self-fund itself. And that worked for us, you know.

And, uh, you know, which 99.9% of the time is the way to go. I think everyone's got a lot of business— younger business people now see like the Facebook and Twitters and, and all that, the tech ones, where it's all about raising money, raising money, raising money, not making money. So build, build, build, build, build, then beg, beg, beg, beg, beg. And that's how you build a great business. And, uh, I Yeah, so I've never been in that mindset. It's just like you, practicality. You know, this thing has to— this baby has to take care of itself, stand up on two legs, and then provide for itself, or that's it.

So, yep, you know, but I mean, you know, the sad thing I want to talk to you about, Townsend, is, you know, the one thing I've learned is, you know, all these executives that I placed, right, The ones that are most successful are the ones that wake up in the morning and have purpose in their lives, and they're going to something they love doing. You know, there was a recent study out, they interviewed 2,000 executives, right? 81% of them, 81% of them said they had no job satisfaction. They were going to work every day for a paycheck. Right. And that's one of the things that most disappoint me about the younger people and the interns. When I bring these college interns in, I would ask them, why are you going in that direction? Why are you going in that direction? Right. And a lot of times it was because a family member— money, money, right. Or family members said you can make a good living. There's a job doing that.

Right.

But when you peel the banana, you peel the banana, a lot of them had things they were passionate about. But they had no idea how to get a job. And I think one of the goals in life is to find something that you sincerely love doing and then figuring out how you can do it well enough to make a living doing it. Because if you can figure that out, you don't wake up in the morning and go to work or to a job. You wake up and you go to something you love. Your health is better. Your personal relationships are better. The glass isn't half full, it's overflowing. And one of the things I try to do in this book is I walk them through, you have a passion, don't give it up. Do everything you can to try to figure out, can I get a paycheck here? Can I make a living doing this? 'Cause I think it's really, really important. And I see some of these executives that I've placed, these are not only 6-figure, these are 7-figure guys, Townsend. And they're not happy in what they're doing, you know. And I think that's something that's really, really critical. So what I do in the book is I give them a roadmap on how to do that, and I give you a couple examples of what I've done with kids. And then I give them— I think the other thing that these colleges don't do a good job on, I think one of the skills that need to be developed, and if you can develop it, a lot of times you can, you can control your own destiny. Become an A+ interviewer. Learn how to really interview. You know why? Because when that job that you really want and you're competing against other candidates, the better you interview, the better chance that you'll get the offer. And no one's preparing these kids for how— what a professional interview is, what they have to do before the interview, after the interview, how to conduct the interview. And one of the things I do in the book is I walk them through, you know, so You know, I walk them through step by step. How do you, first of all, how do you expose yourself to get opportunities to interview for something you're passionate about that you have no clue about, right? And then once you get that interview, how do you win the job? And that's something, and I'm at a place in my life, I just want to help as much as I can. Any money I make from this book is going to the charity to help more kids pursue their passions. You know, I can tell you a little bit about the charity and what it's done. But I think that's something that needs to be developed.

Okay, so I agree with— if you can have a career that you're passionate about, in a field that you're passionate about, that's like, that's like hitting a home run. That's amazing. Like, I do think a little bit of luck plays into that. So I have a little, little different take on it. I agree with you need to have passion in what you do and you shouldn't just be drudging along because life's, life's long and to spend every day working, being miserable is not going to be fun. So, so my take on it is more about perspective because I was in my businesses were coffee distribution and then we got into contracting and vending machines. And none of them, you know, I, I was never passionate about coffee, didn't really even drink it before we started distribution company. I just knew that was— there was a void in that market. Um, you know, same thing with contract. I wasn't passionate about that and never been passionate about vending machines. You know, I like them and all, and I learned I like working with my hands and all, but it's not like, you know, if I was truly chasing passions, especially in my early 20s, I probably would have had to go into some sort of sports field because I really liked sports back then. So that would have been my passion, which I'm glad I didn't because I really don't care about sports anymore. And it was more the outtake, uh, you know, what I do day to day isn't maybe exciting and sexy in any way, shape, or form, but the end result is. Same thing with maybe You know, someone's got to manage the sewage, the sewage plant and the sewage line. Someone's got to climb in the gutters and do the hard work, the disgusting work, the work that a lot of people don't want to do. It's the result that is maybe the driver. So changing your perspective on it a little bit, we knew that our industry was very underserved. And so if we could take out our competitors that weren't as good, we were improving other people's days. So it's kind of changing our perspective on it. You know, in the vending machine world, how many, how many movies and TV shows have referenced somebody kicking, shaking, just otherwise getting pissed off at a vending machine for stealing their dollar or for being out front? I mean, those are real things that happen in the break room and in companies. HR executives were constantly frustrated with their vending machine provider, with their coffee service provider, because they were out of products or the machines weren't working right, or when they called in a repair, it was taking 3, 4, or 5 days, even a week to get it fixed. So there was a lack of responsiveness, and when they could hire a company that got it done in a few hours, like, there's a problem with the machines and the guy's out there within an hour or two versus a week, or we just don't run out of product as often, machines are actually filled well, they're clean, they're working right, uh, we've eliminated those frustrating scenarios, we've eliminated the, the angry workers, the aggravated HR reps, we've made the world a better place in that sense. And so It wasn't so much that the job was sexier, that the job was— there was passion in that. There was passion in the result. It was fulfilling. It was contentment. It was all about the perspective of what you're doing. And I think there's same thing with the sewage plant. I mean, listen, someone's got to clear that crap out of here, and that's you. And it's not— you don't enjoy the smell, you enjoy the result.

But Townsend Russell Russell, I would venture to say that you looked at your company, you were making a difference with clients, you were giving people an opportunity to make a living, right? And you woke up and you were excited about maybe, maybe doing things a little bit better in your industry. It's like, let me give you a perspective. It's two guys that own a, a lawn service company. You ask one guy, what do you do for a living? I cut lawns. You ask another guy, what do you do for a living? I make people's property beautiful. It's the perspective of how you look at something, right? Now I'm gonna take it a step further. Let me give you an example about what I really mean about these kids. Couple years ago, I had a charity reach out to me, you know? And the charity, it was a charity that helped foster kids that never knew their parents get into college, right? Right? And then once the foster kid graduated from college, if they were struggling in finding that first job, they would reach out to mentors that might help them. So I get a call from this charity, and she says, would you help this young man? He just graduated from Temple. He's having a really difficult time getting that first job. Now, I believe myself, and those calls I always respond to, right? Townsend Russell Russell. So I get this young man on the phone and I said, okay, what's the first question? What was your major? You know, sports management. And I'm like, okay, what have you done? Well, I sent my resume to the Eagles and the Phillies and the Sixers and the Flyers. And I said, what's happened? No one's gotten back to me. I said, okay, let me explain the first thing. If any of those franchises are looking for someone with absolutely no experience, they're going to call you and the other 1,000 kids that sent their resume. You're never going to get a job that way. I said, I will help you, but I'm going to have to— you're going to have to commit to a couple of things. How passionate are you about this industry? Because I said, most people in sports management, they get their first job because they know someone. There's an entry point.

Right?

It's very hard to break into. I said, so how passionate are you? I mean, are you so passionate, if we get lucky on this journey together, are you willing to pick up and move to Des Moines, Iowa, and work for a single-A baseball team? And he goes, I'll go anywhere. I said, okay, number two, I'm willing to help you, but we might and most likely are going to strike out, okay? And if we strike out before we start this journey, I want to know what plan B is. What are you willing to do? And he came back, he says, okay, if I can't break in, I do something in sales. I said, okay, then let me take you through this process. In my business, because I ended up being on some of these top executive recruiters, I would get Townsend Russell, 80 to 120 resumes sent to me a week, right? When I tell you I couldn't even read them, but 99.9, I couldn't help these people. You know why? They could have been the greatest executive in consumer products, but we specialize in very specific industries, you know, management consulting, corporate training and development, edtech. But once or twice a year, I would get an email from a young person saying, I'm graduating from so-and-so school. I have a passion for the human resources executive search industry. I was wondering if you'd spend a few minutes with me and give me some guidance. Now I'm telling you, Townsend Russell Russell, I always responded to that. And I'm telling you, I think most senior executives would respond to that. You know why? You'd want someone to do it for your kid, right? Right. So I spoke to this young man and this is what we did. I said, I want you to identify— we're going to start in a 50-mile radius of Philadelphia because you want to stay in Philadelphia. And then once we strike out here, we're going to start with the major leagues, AAA, AA, single-A. We'll expand out in 200-mile radiuses. And you're— if we get lucky, you'll end up in Des Moines, Iowa. You need to do the work. You need to identify every C-level executive. Let's go back to those 4 franchises: the Phillies, the Sixers, the Eagles. I want you to identify every C-level executive. I'm gonna help you write the email, okay? And in the book, I actually, you know, give them the email, right? And, uh, how to reach out and what to say. He sends it out to us, to the Flyers and all, and, uh, he gets an email back from the chief marketing officer of the Philadelphia 76ers saying, I'd be happy to spend a few minutes with you, here's my schedule, you know. And they make a call on Friday. I helped prepare him for how to handle that call. I said, call me when the call's over. Call's over, he calls me back. I said, how did it go? He goes, he's invited me in on Wednesday to meet with 4 people. And I'm like, wait a second, he invited you in to meet 4 people? It's got to be a job. He's not going to waste 4 people's time and have you come in. Let me prepare you for how to handle the interview. Bottom line is the kid was offered a corporate sales job for the Philadelphia 76ers. He got his foot in the door. Now I think he's in corporate management for the LA Kings, right? But he didn't know how to approach it. He was going to give it up, you know what I mean? And I think I want to encourage young people not to give that dream up without really trying. You know, because I have too many people that I know. I got, listen, two family members, my brother-in-law and my son-in-law, went to two prestigious law schools, NYU and Boston College, graduated in the top 25%. My son-in-law had six figures in loans. He practiced law for a couple of years and hated it. Absolutely hated it, right? You know, now thank God I had that when my youngest daughter thought she wanted to be a lawyer coming out of Lehigh. And I said, listen, before you do that, I'm going to get you an internship this summer. All right. And I got— I had a friend of mine on the little— a little law firm. She went all summer and he exposed her to everything, everything with being a lawyer, took her to the courtroom, took her here. She finished that summer and said, Dad, I don't want to be a lawyer, you know. And her passion is teaching. And now she's a high school English teacher and she loves it, you know. But That's, that's what I want to encourage these young people to do. Now, what are your boys into? What do they enjoy doing?

Ah, that— I've— I have 3 boys, um, and they are each unique and completely different from the other, yet somehow they get along most of the time. Um, although sometimes we have royal rumbles in our, uh, in our RV. So the oldest one is constantly changing. Right now he's really into, um drawing, which we have no artists in our family, but his entire bed is filled with Sonic drawings. Um, so, you know, part of homeschool is you just kind of figure stuff out. We don't know how to teach art, so we get on YouTube and find some like art drawing lessons. And, um, and he's really picked it up and done really well, which I'm, I'm super impressed about. Um, and so he's, he just draws like crazy. He loves to read and loves to draw. Um, and he's, he's pretty into sports. Uh, the middle one is really into Sonic and music, really, really into music. Learns lyrics, learns the beats. And I think he's into Sonic because his brother's into Sonic. You know how that goes, he's always trying to keep up and catch up. And we've caught him drawing a few times, but he's, he doesn't seem to have caught on to that quite yet. And the youngest, the Youngest is, I guess, your typical— yeah, he's, he's the absolute wild one. Gosh, there was a show called The Wild Thornberrys or something like that, um, like 20 years ago. It's a cartoon, and there's a family that, uh, lived in Africa, and the, the third kid was basically a wild chimpanzee and just, you know, couldn't speak English, just made chimpanzee noises, jumped on everything, climbed. Like, that's basically him. He jumps, attacks, loves to fight. I mean, like, legitimately, I have to wrestle and fight him for probably 20 to 30 minutes a day, or he just becomes a crazy person. And we just like— he has to get it out of his system, um, which I don't mind because I love— you know, I was a wrestler, so throws hard punches and wrestles, has really good movements. I mean, he has no idea what he's doing. He's not thinking about it. It's just natural instinct of like how to keep his balance and adjust his weight. And there's some talent there. Um, then, you know, loves his cartoons and stuff like that. And, you know, uh, he's We don't do a lot of screens. We— and in our home, uh, we only had one TV, and that was covered by a mat most of the time. We just didn't do a lot of TV.

Good.

And there were no Kindles. And, you know, I had my phone, my wife had her phone, we had one computer in the house, and then, you know, everything else basically done at the office. And now we're in an RV, and the RV comes with a TV every 3 feet. I mean, that's just how they build these things. Um, So we have more TVs here than we've ever had before. And because we're always out doing stuff, kind of when we come back, it's just our decompressing scenario. So, you know, life was just different at home. Now we're out like hiking and doing stuff. When we come back, um, you know, we don't immediately go to a board game. A lot of times the kids just want to lay in their beds for a little bit and watch TV, or it's cold so they want to turn on the heater in their room and turn that into a hot box and, you know, watch a cartoon or something. And so we watch a lot more TV now. Um, not a lot compared to most families, but a lot for us. And, uh, man, that little one loves the screen, man. Like, we can't let him have it too much. And then, like, if he starts to watch too much, like, and you turn it off, or it's time to go to bed, whatever it is, um, or, hey, your hour's done, and he starts getting mean, then we go like 5, 6 days without screens because he just— he gets addicted to that thing quick, and it changes his personality. And it's, it's very, very tangible.

You know, it's funny, Towns, I look back on things I would do differently as a father, right? And one of the things, you know, when we moved the first time, right, I moved to be closer to my office. The kids were young, they didn't want to move, so we agreed to put a TV in each one of their rooms, right? And it was the biggest mistake we made because it gave them a reason to isolate, right? We used to have one TV in the family room. You had to negotiate when, you know, for the show, but you were always together. You know, and my wife and I have talked, that was a mistake. But once you gave it to him, it was too late, right? And I gotta tell you, it's one of the things I'm concerned about. The iPhones and the screens. Oh my God. You know, it's—

So aside from like the screen and the eyes and the brain conversation, 'cause that is a different conversation. I think different people handle that different ways. I notice a very tangible difference when they do a lot of screens in their personality. Versus when we take them off and we're outside more, they, they're just— the behavior is actually is much, much better versus when they have screens. They're much more irritable. They talk back a whole lot more. They're a lot sassier. They're just, they're kind of more annoying to be around. Um, so there's a very real difference there. My biggest fear with screens, because we now— the two oldest ones got phones last Christmas, um, and that way they could talk to their friends on Facebook. Has a Kids Messenger, so that's a pretty good program that keeps them out of trouble. And then they can text their friend— not their friends, their, their family members— grandma, grandpa, um, you know, uncles, aunts. And so, and then like, I have strict controls on all that stuff. Like, they can't access internet, they can't download apps, they, you know, all that kind of stuff. So it's— but there's still backdoor ways to get into things. Um, and you know, the, the oldest one has gotten clever about it a couple times. Like the app that, um, tells you the temperature on the phone, like that built-in widget. Um, he's learned if you click into that, that has, uh, just see the weather is, but that has some advertisements on it. If you click that advertisement, it opens up in Samsung's browser, which I've disabled the ability to get to it, but he can backdoor into there, and then that has no controls on it. So he could— I looked at the history, he's not doing anything bad, he's looking up Sonic characters. Um, or, you know, you know, actor— he gets into actors' names and what are the movies they've been into, um, like from the credits. Uh, but I'm like, man, it's— you can't seal it off completely. So my greatest fear is exposure to the wrong things at too young of a time and kind of protecting their innocence. Whereas I know some parents don't care about that. They don't mind the cursing, they don't mind, um, violence and drug and alcohol and sexual content or, um you know, crude jokes, those kind of things. And I just— I'm trying to protect that innocence as long as possible. So that's my biggest fear with screens, specifically telephones, because even— we just found last night he had made a friend somewhere in an RV park, and I guess he's memorized his number and gave that friend his number because he doesn't carry his phone around with him. He's only allowed to have it, you know, an hour every few days. And, uh, you know, that kid was texting and then sent him like a— called him gay. For something. Nothing that was gay, it was just a kid saying, "You're gay," and then sent him a picture of two dudes kissing, like a GIF, like one of those moving pictures. I'm like, now I've got to explain this to my kid. He's like, "Dad, what does this mean?" So luckily he, you know, he even says like, you know, he responds to the kid, "Well, like, that's weird. Don't send me that stuff." Um, but yeah, now I gotta have that conversation. So it's just same thing what happened in the school systems, I guess, you know. You just get introduced to all these. I'm just trying to protect it as long as possible. And the phones, uh, you know, the phones are not, um, not helping that cause.

Yeah, I take it a step further. I'm really concerned about this generation and the communication skills they're gonna have, you know. And I'll, and I'll give you an example. I mean, I remember, you know, I used to coach my son's AAU basketball team, Townsend Russell Russell, right? And my wife and I would go in these tournaments on the weekends, and I'd take the kids out for dinner, right? I remember going into a restaurant once, and we sit down at the table, and all 10 of these kids, what they do immediately is take out their phones. There's 10 teammates all at a table, and they're all looking at their phones individually. I look at my wife, and finally I say to everyone, listen, Mrs. Rice and I have every intention of buying each and all of you dinner tonight, unless you feel that we're so boring that you need to take your phone out and look at. And if anyone feels that way, then we'll just give you your own separate bill for your dinner, right? Everyone's phone went away. The only one who got an invoice was my son, right? But the conversation completely changed. Sure. We were talking, talking about college, talking— one kid tried calamari for the first time. It was a whole different conversation when they weren't allowed to pull those phones out, you know. And I just— you walk into a restaurant these days, you see people walking in, you see people at tables with their screens out, you know, their phones. And I'm just concerned that the communication skills are going to be lacking.

So I agree with you, when you take them away, the conversation changes and it's different. I'll disagree with you that it's just different. Because I think they have— they are learning the communication skills of the future. I think so much of how they interact with their boss and their co-workers is going to be on that screen in the future. So it's not like they're going to be social pariahs. They're just— it's, it's so different for you, um, and even for me, uh, it's just a different generation on how they talk. They're probably more communicative than we ever were because You know, in school we had to pick up the phone, our mom was on it, and she yelled at us to hang up the phone. You know, maybe we convinced her to get a second line, but you know, or we had to wait till after 9 o'clock when friends and family— you know, you used to have to pay for minutes and you got in trouble for that, but weekends were free. Or you had to meet your friends down at the ice rink or the mall, but then you had to meet at a certain spot at a certain time. And if your mom was late or something like that, we all moved on and like we never caught up with you again, or we met at the wrong entrance of the mall so we never saw each other. And now they're just— so I mean, everything's just totally different versus, uh, you know, now they know exactly where they are, when they're— and they probably communicate way more, way more than we ever could. You know, we had to pass notes in school. They can text each other. Um, you know, they can call and talk anytime. And we, you know, we had to wait for the weekends and wait for mom or your sister. My gosh, my sister, she was always on the phone. I could never call a friend because my sister was always on the daggum phone.

So Listen, back in my day, right, we had one phone in the house, 6 kids, right, a real long wire. And if you wanted to ask a girl out, you knew you, you got to talk to her mother or father because they're going to answer the phone, right? And I would take this long wire, Townsend, and it was like a little closet, you know, outside of my kitchen. I closed the door and tried, you know, and my sisters would be listening in, you know. Yeah. But now these kids go to a mall, they meet someone, they exchange numbers. I don't know, I, I think a little healthier back in those days, you know.

Yeah, it, it was different. I, I, I think they're more, they're more social now, just in a different way. Um, and that, that has its pros and its cons, certainly. Uh, you know, but, you know, as protective as I am of being of my kids, you know, if they were in public school, they'd probably be exposed to the same things that I'm, I'm worried about in the occasional text conversation. You know, you're just getting exposed to people with different values that, you know, have had different lives. And, you know, you know, all it takes is one kid in third grade to get exposed to pornography. Uh, you know, you don't want your third grader exposed to it, but now he's talking about it to all the third graders in his class. And, you know, that's—

yeah, it's— I'm more concerned about the sitting down and having a conversation one-on-one with a person, looking them in the eye. That's the skill I think they don't have the same.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. But how relevant is that? I mean, how many, how many interviews are happening on Zoom now? And how many, you know, now, now your bosses, your sales meetings, your, your monthly conference calls, whatever, it's all me staring at the screen, not looking you in the eye, where, you know, a salesman probably needs that if he's in person. But, um, you know, I agree with it. And those are skills I certainly teach my kids, how to shake a hand strongly and look someone square in the eyes and you know, enunciate your words and speak clearly and, you know, consider your word choices. Whereas, you know, the through-the-screen world is not that way.

So, well, it sounds like you're doing a wonderful job, you and your wife.

So tell me about this book you guys wrote, because we're what, about an hour into this thing? Some of that's technical difficulties, but so tell me about this book you decided to write, the, you know, the reason you wrote it, you know, some of the highlights of it, and let's hear about it.

If you look at— I wrote the book— if you look at what's going on in our country right now, right, $1.4 trillion in college loan debt, right, over a trillion dollars in credit card debt, right, 35% of adult children living with, with their parents, right, 37% of the U.S. population— if you believe the statistics, Townsend Russell Russell, they lost their job would be in dire straits and on the poverty line within 90 days. Obesity increasing every year in our country. Divorce rates close to 50%, right? And this is in a, in a country that spends more money on education and spends more money on healthcare than any other country in the world, right? So I wrote the book It was based on basically helping some young people, maybe all the mistakes I made in my life, maybe outlining them so maybe they can see the potholes and maybe they can avoid a couple of them, right? So it's 68 chapters, 68 small chapters. It starts from every— chapter 1 is understanding your foundation and your values and what is really most important to you and, and life. Then it goes into the career stuff. It goes into not only How do you, you know, find that job and your passion? But how do you interview and get it? Once you get the offer, how do you negotiate it? How do you resign effectively? And how, how you should manage yourself in the workplace. Then it goes into relationships and health. You know, my greatest success in my life is the woman I married 38 years ago and the life that we've created and all the things that we've learned that I like to pass on. And it's all based on— I told you, for 25 years having these 4 college interns and them asking me, can you talk about this, can you talk about that? So in the finance section, it goes into what's a credit score. If you got a bad one, how do you fix it, right? It goes into college loans, you know, and things you have to learn. It goes into how important it is establishing your monthly budget as soon as you can. It goes into showing you, you know, your first job out of college and your company's offering you a 401 with a 25% match, why it's critical to immediately invest in that 401 and what to do with it, you know, and understanding a little bit about stocks and health. And, you know, one of the last sections— it's 5 sections— it's life, it's job search, it's career, it's finance, And then it's health and relationships. You know, the last section was the hardest to write. And I'll tell you, Townsend Russell Russell, every publisher wanted me to do the whole book on the career because of my background. And I said no. I said the one thing I want this book, and I want people to understand with this book, is you, in my opinion, you can't have professional success without having personal success. So one of the chapters I write about is, hey, leave your baggage behind. You know, understanding we're all raised, all raised a certain way. We all bring baggage into a relationship. The earlier you can recognize what that baggage is and not pass it on to the next generation is a really good thing. I talk about some of my baggage and what I learned from that, you know, and, uh, I go into, you know, even therapy and counseling. You know, I came from a family that if you went to a therapist, you were crazy, you know, and, and why it's so important. And, you know, in relationships, I heard one of your podcasts, you know, my wife— I'm Irish-Italian Catholic, I was raised very Catholic. My wife is Jewish, right? Oh yeah. Now, and my parents, very Catholic. Marrying a Jewish girl back in those days, that wasn't something they were really excited about.

Right?

But let me tell you, I knew at a young age what was important to me, what my foundation was, and that was family, kids, giving back, work ethic, continual learning. And I knew the girl I was dating was the person I could build that life with, you know, and, uh, and we had the same values. And listen, I raised my You know, my religion is still very, very important to me. But my kids got the best. I raised them Catholic, but they were exposed to the Jewish holidays. They, you know, we had the menorah and the Christmas tree.

Right. So now, is that something you and your wife talked about prior to getting married or that just kind of evolved through time?

You absolutely have to talk about it, you know, and you absolutely have to talk about it and you have to realize you're on the same page, you know, and we talk a little bit about about in the book. One of the things that really helped us is back in those days, years ago, if you wanted to get married— I wanted to have a priest at my wedding. To marry someone outside of the Catholic religion, you needed to go through this thing called pre-cana, right? But one of the things that was great about pre-cana is it was a weekend retreat. And one of the episodes, you know, one of the exercises they gave you, Townsend, is they gave you list of 10 things, and they said, go in opposite corners of the room, and we want you individually to rate those 10 things from most important to least important, right? Now we came back, my wife and I, and we're looking around the room and we hear these couples yelling and screaming at each other. We, we were all within one thing, you know, maybe we're off one, maybe my 6 was her 7, maybe my, you know, family and kids were at the top of the list, right? And, uh, so we knew, we knew we were on the right, the right road together, you know. And we did some of the things early on, you know, you know, finances is, is a really big deal, right? And one of the things that, that we talked about up front, and every year I still did it— my wife never wanted to know about the finances. I came from a family where you saved every dime, Townsend Russell. She came from a family where Her father did well and she spent a lot. You know, it was okay to spend a lot of money and just figuring that out and how we were going to manage it. And then on the first of every year, I would write her a letter because she never wanted to know where the finances were. And God forbid something happened to me. It was a little bit of a love letter, but then it said, here's where all the money is buried. This is what you need to know. This is who you need to— this is who you need to call. And, you know, that made her feel very, very comfortable. So, I talk in the book about things that we did on our journey that helped our relationship grow. And like I said, in my life, it's not the financial independence I've established, it's my kids and my wife and my relationship is my greatest success. So, and even in the book, we talk a little bit about that.

That communication and being on the same page is so not discussed for some reason. It is in certain faiths because we're married as Catholics too.

So back, you know, you called it Cantana, I think, uh, it was called pre-cana.

Pre-cana. So they called ours, uh, in the Catholic, Engaged Encounter, I think is what they called it. And it was like a 3-day off in the, you know, some Catholic camp somewhere. Um, and it was, uh, we'd kind of already we had some mentors in our life that kind of already had us discussing those things, discussing, you know, how many kids we wanted, how we wanted to raise them in our faith, and how important faith is to us, you know, how, you know, our feelings on how to raise kids and, you know, live life together, that kind of stuff, which they cover in there. But that kind of like— it's almost pre-marriage counseling. Yeah, uh, it's, it's so smart. Uh, the, the, the most common thing I get messages about is from dads that are um, in fights with their baby mamas or their wives or their ex-wives. And so much of it is about how they're talking about how crazy the other person is and how terrible of a person they are. And just in my head, every once in a while I'll actually say it, but in my head I'm like, you knew this person before, you should have, or you should have. Um, yeah, I want to scream to the world. Part of me is like, stop procreating with crazy people. Like, get, get to know someone a little bit better, and then they'll commit to that relationship. But maybe the next generation should be a little bit more selective over who they're having sex with, because that's how you make kids.

And, you know, and the key thing for me— I don't know about you and your wife, Townsend Russell Russell, but the best thing, or the thing that really helped my marriage grow, is you had to figure out communication with each other, right?

Yeah. And it's different for everybody.

It's different for everyone. I was somebody that, you know, I, I talked about everything. My wife kept everything inside, and then all of a sudden something would explode and she'd be bringing things up from 3 months ago, you know, and figuring out how we were going to communicate together so we didn't hold any of those hostilities, you know. I think a lot of couples go through that and they have a hard time with that, you know. It's just learning how to communicate and And what is your communication style, you know, and the importance of going to bed at night, you know, and never going to bed angry and saying I love you, you know, and showing affection, you know, and those types of things. So, and you know, and the one thing, so on the book, it's 68 chapters. If you want to learn, you know, any of those financial things, any of those things around marriage, relationship, my health, health, the things that have helped me from a health perspective, but also job search. I wrote the book in such a way— I call it— my favorite books have always been bathroom books. You go in the bathroom, you read a chapter, you put it down, maybe 2 weeks later you read another chapter, but you, but you can pick it up anywhere. If, if someone can get 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 things out of this book that might help them, then it's been worth me writing it, right?

Sure.

So, and the other thing I want to share with you, because I know you have a lot of dads and a lot of single dads that, that listen to you, right? I want them to understand the charity my wife and I started because maybe we can help them if they have a need. You talked about your kids and what your kids are interested in. You know, my kids growing up, my oldest was into acting, my son was an athlete, uh, one of them was into animals. And then our charity, we got exposed to some kids who were families were financially challenged, and their kids had the same passions as my kids did, but they didn't have the money to have the kid go to the guitar lesson once a week, or they didn't have the money for the kid to play travel volleyball, you know. And if you take those passions away from a young person— because I don't know, with my kids, what those passions did is it gave them positive role models. It built their self-esteem. Depending on the passion, Townsend Russell, it gave them like-minded kids and friendships developed. My son's getting married in April. His best man and 3 of his ushers are kids he played travel basketball with in 4th grade. You know, he made these friendships. And the charity is Plant a Seed, Inspire a Dream. If a family is having a hard time financially, and their kid is passionate about something, that we'll step in, we'll find them the mentor, we'll find them the singing teacher, the art teacher, the coding teacher, you know, the cheer instructor. We find the right one, put them together, and then we pay for it for a year. We check back with the kids, we meet the families, we meet the mentor, we check every 30 days. If it's going well, we renew the scholarship after a year. We've had kids going through things 6, 7, 8 years, and I just don't want— if you have any single fathers who are having a hard time raising their kids and they need some help and their kids have to step away from karate or drum lessons, they can look at the charity and, and reach out to us, and if we can help them, we'd be happy to do that.

Okay, that's a great idea. Uh, now is that geographically limited? Like, is that just around you in your region?

Well, we started off and we were doing it throughout the whole United States, and then it got a little difficult, right?

A lot of people.

It was a lot of people, and we were doing kids in Texas and LA. And, uh, we try to focus Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, but if there's an isolated situation, we'll step out of the box and help kids in different areas.

That's good.

And it's plantaseedfoundation.org is the website. They can go to it, they fill out an application, and, uh, it's all grassroots, you know. It's— I fund it. So, uh, we just, you know, it's something— it's another way that we give back. And all the proceeds from this book, for me personally, are going to the charity to help more kids.

Great. Uh, how long has the book been out?

The book is being released April 12th, so it's not out yet. You can pre-order the book, you know, and, uh, we're doing some things, uh, you know, if you go to the website gradtogrownup.com, we're giving some t-shirts out. There's going to be a drawing. I'm going to select a couple of people that if they want for themselves personally or a family member, I will become their career coach behind the scenes and work with them from start to finish during an interview process, you know, to try to help them.

So, uh, are you bribing— are you bribing people to buy your book?

I'm bribing people to hopefully get something that might help them. I hope, you know.

I like it.

Um, I would say I'm going to send you a book when it comes out, and I would love your feedback because like I said, I listened to a couple of your podcasts and I was impressed. We think along the same lines, you know, the no debt. I'm very bullish on marriage myself, you know, uh, so we have a lot of things in common. So I would appreciate any feedback you might want to give.

That's the one thing, every time I'm pro-marriage, everyone, all the single dads yell at me, uh, and then every time I give the single dads some sympathy and some tips, all the pro-marriage dads yell at me. I can't win.

You can just be yourself and keep sending the right message.

Yeah, that's what we do.

Hopefully a single dad meets someone that they want to spend the rest of their life with.

And so I assume you decided to write this with your daughter because you had some information and she knew English because she is an English teacher.

She was a great writer. I had recorded every chapter, right?

Uh, like audio.

Yeah. She came in and she had her first child, uh, 2 weeks after COVID hit, and she wanted to take a year off, and we had an opportunity to work together, and, uh, it was a great experience. It's one of the real positives that came out of, uh, of the book, the opportunity. And she keeps me honest, you know, she'll give me a hard time, she'll call me out, but then she'll give examples of things I talk about that she experienced as a kid.

You know.

And, uh, so it's unique, it's a little different.

Good, I like it. Uh, looking forward to that being released. I hadn't realized it wasn't released yet. So pre-sale, and if you buy— if you pre-order, you get a— you said a shirt, and then they want a lottery opportunity for coaching?

Yeah, well, not everyone. I think we're gonna give a shirt to every 10 or 20 person that calls in, because otherwise it could be a lot of shirts, right?

Okay.

That we're going to be selecting. But, uh, and they can go there, they can get a couple of free chapters they can read, you know. They go to the website, they'll get a couple of free chapters. And if they see something that inspires them, you know, I'd love their feedback, you know.

Cool.

Listen, I— can I share one last thing with you? Because I know your audience are dads.

Yep, yep.

And having raised 4 kids, you know, if I can give them some advice that I've learned on my journey, uh, You know, the— I think the, the most important responsibility human beings given in their life, Townsend, is being a parent. And what training do we all get? There's no formal training to be a parent. Most of us, it's how you're raised, you know. And I, I was a little dysfunctional, you know, in myself, right, and how I was raised. And the first thing I want to share is Whatever your child is into, it's okay to expose all of your interests to your kids. They're going to embrace some, maybe they won't embrace some, but whatever they're into, if it's a positive thing, as a dad, embrace it, support it, encourage it. You know, love them for who they are, right? Love them for who they are. Uh, I look back on my own time You know, I had 3 teenage daughters at the same time. I felt like I was running a taxi service, driving them everywhere. You know, I look back, I should have been more responsible. That one-on-one time in the car, that's really, really special, precious time. Listen to them. Learn to listen, listen to learn. Look at that time alone when you're just in the car with your kid. And maximize it, you know, get something out of it, you know. That's— that's because once they start driving, it all changes. Yeah, it all changes once they, you know, they get the keys to the car.

And that goes a little bit back to that perspective conversation we were having of, you know, those moments in the car, we're not just getting them over with. They can be used to enjoy life, to further enhance life, to have those conversations, to have those moments. They hit the nail right on the head there.

And the last thing I would say to them, don't encourage their dreams, you know, let them, let them pursue their passions, their dreams, not your dreams. Yeah, their dreams. You know, I think Muhammad Ali said it, he said, you know, someone without an imagination has no wings. Let them fly as long as they want to fly, you know, and help them any way they can. And I just wanted to share that because I look back, I probably could have maximized some of those things a little bit more.

And while you were bringing yours up, did you ever step in because you did not like their social circle? I know you mentioned that the travel, you know, your son that traveled, they're still lifelong friends and in his wedding. Was there ever a time where you kind of had to interject yourself and say, this isn't the crowd, this isn't the, the value system I want you hanging out with. Because you know, who you hang out with is an important part of your exposure and your influence.

Yeah, I'll tell you, Townsend Russell Russell, in all the years, only once, and my daughters can tell you this, only once I had to interject myself in the middle of a boy and one of my daughters. And this kid came over, and he was coming over to the house. And he walked in and I said hello to him. I wanted to greet him. Couldn't look me in the eye, right?

Just—

I just got a very bad feel.

Okay, so it wasn't like a shy, awkward, couldn't look you in the eye. It was different.

Bad feel.

Yeah.

I'm sitting with my wife, said, wow, this— something's not right here. And they were downstairs in our basement, and after about 10 minutes I walked down. I still remember it. The kid's name was Tyler. I sat there, I said, Tyler, uh, look at me. And I said, no, no, I need you to look at me. And I said, that's my daughter. She is really, really important and really, really special. And if you treat her with respect— and he turns away— look at me— you deal with her with respect, you and I will never have any issues. Do you understand what I'm talking about? And I went up and I left, and about 2 minutes later he left the house and never came back. And my daughter was furious at me, Townsend, but I said to her, if he was here for the right reasons, he wouldn't have left. I didn't say anything to him to chase him away. Yeah, and I've never done that before, but for whatever reason, I just, you know, And I'll tell you one last, one last thing I'll share with you. That's one of my golden rules that I established early on, is if you lose it, you lose. There's going to come times with your children, especially when they're teenagers, Townsend Russell Russell, where you're going to get frustrated. It's going to be stressful. If you lose your temper in any way or raise your voice, no matter what's going on in your child's life, You lose because all they remember is their dad was stressed and frustrated and lost his temper.

You took the focus off the issue and made it about you. Yes.

Yeah, absolutely. So I used to listen, my stomach would be going nuts, but I keep reminding myself, if you lose it, you'll lose. Keep, keep your cool, keep your cool. And it's hard.

It's a hard skill. Yeah, that's staying calm in that— yeah, in that chaos. Um, but yeah, I mean, that's— I mean, most of us remember that as a kid. Yeah, you remember, you remember your parent losing it. You don't remember what for.

Exactly.

And that's, that's the biggest thing. You just, you took all the focus, that learning opportunity to not do that thing again, and now it's all about your reaction and not whatever it was. Um, yeah, that's a great, that's a great thing to bring up. Um, so also, so you've done— so I don't have to kind of— I don't have daughters, so I don't— it's a different scenario in the dating relationship. Um, I still want to raise my boys to be respectful and all that, but you know, it's just different roles. Um, I've always felt it is, uh, what is the word, counterintuitive, counterproductive, uh, to be the dad that tries to scare all the boyfriends and to pretend to be hard and a jerk. I, I feel that's counterproductive, and there's a much better approach. Would you like to give insight on someone who's raised two daughters?

Three daughters. Three daughters.

Okay.

Uh, yeah, I always tried to include them, and one of the things I learned, especially with my middle daughter If I got a bad feeling about someone in a relationship, a boyfriend, if I was negative anyway, it just pushed them closer. You know, I just tried to include them in as much as I could. You know, if one of my daughters was dating someone, Townsend Russell, I wanted them over for dinner. I wanted to invite them down to the beach house. I wanted them there. I wanted to be exposed to them as much as I could.

Right?

And, uh, you know, it's just— you try to, you try to pull them in. And I have two son-in-laws now that I, you know, I consider them sons, you know, you know, great young men. And got to know them through the whole process and really, really happy with my daughter's choices, you know. I will tell you one thing, you know, I— it's different between boys and girls. My son He'd have a problem or a fight with a friend. The next day it was like water off a duck's back, Townsend. They were best friends again. With the girls, the girls would have a little squabble over something that you would think was the smallest thing in the world. It became the biggest thing, you know. I had a friend of mine who was a basketball referee, and he said to me in 8th grade once when the kids were in 8th grade, because here's the difference between boys in 8th grade and girls in 8th grade. Because I coached a game back and forth, you know, one after another. The boys before the game, the adrenaline's flying, you know, we're going to kick your butt, we're going to do this. You know, the girls before the game, the one girl looks over at the other girl and says, I really like your sneakers, you know. So there is a difference. There's a difference in them, I will tell you that. And let me tell you, I'm bald now, but I had a full head of hair like you before the girls were teenagers together. I lost all the hair during those teenage years.

I bet. Right. So they were all close together, all close together, 2 years. That makes it fun.

Oh, it was, it was my wife and I had to— I lose it, I lose. I tried to stay very calm.

You know, I think having them involved, I think that's a great tip, you know, be as involved that way, you know, you get to know them better. And, and if you disagree with that boy that person they're dating, uh, I would think it's not you can't date them, or it's not I don't like them, and kind of forcing your will. It's more of— it's, it's a business tact. You know how you, as a business owner and with employees or with customers, as a salesman, it's learning how to frame the conversation of, hey, what do you think about, you know, so-and-so's values in this sense? And like having that conversation and trying not telling them that, you know, they're not a good fit for them, but kind of helping them figure that out on their own and be able to answer questions and, and engage in that conversation so that they come to the conclusion you hopefully want them to, right?

Absolutely.

Versus dictating.

Yeah, you can't dictate. Doesn't work.

Yeah, well, no, it does the opposite.

Yeah, it pulls them to— pulls them closer together.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember that there were things, you know, my dad would— especially if he said it in a way that was, you know, pompous and demanding and I have to do it— that was pretty much a guaranteed, guaranteed that I would do exactly the opposite just because it's the opposite.

So, you know, I'll, I'll share one last thing with you, Townsend. You know, my oldest daughter, her first boyfriend, right? She probably was like 15 years old maybe, right?

Right?

And we were driving down to our beach house. I had all the kids in the car and her and her boyfriend. And I had a cousin who was a police officer, and he gave me a PBA card. I don't know if you ever saw them, you know. And basically, a policeman will get a certain amount of these PBA cards, and their shield number's on it, and they sign it on the back, and they put their phone number on, right? And he said to me, Gene, if you ever get stopped by a policeman, just show the card. And even though we're cousins, I want you to tell them that your brother is on the job, and there's a certain respect we have for each other that you'd want another policeman to give your brother or your mom or dad a break, right? So I get pulled over. I had never— I've had the— I had the card for a bunch of years, but I had never pulled it out before. And I pull it out and I said what he told me to say. And I gotta tell you, it was one of my biggest regrets in my life because later on my daughter said to me, I can't believe you lied to that policeman. Hmm, what are you talking about? Me and Tom, her boyfriend, he doesn't have a brother on the job, he lied? And I remember saying to my wife, oh my God, what lesson did I teach here? You know, and having to sit all the kids down and say, explain it to them and say, I'll never do that again. You don't realize the little things you do, Townsend, and the impression it makes on your children, you know.

And what a, what a response to actually sit everyone down and admit that.

Yeah.

And clear the air, not just, you know, have a little guilt about it and hide it because you don't want to be embarrassed in front of the family, or you don't want to show weakness, or whatever it is. I know we're wrapping this up. Uh, with daughters, you would bring boyfriends to the, uh, beach house. I assume there were rules. Absolutely. Yeah, rules on, uh, I would assume where the sleeping arrangements are, um, rules in how you could be alone and how you cannot be alone, you know. I think in my head growing up, I know my wife had some, like you were never allowed to share a blanket, you know, you couldn't be in the same room without anybody else in there, especially with the door closed. Trying to think of the, you know, you couldn't be in the house by yourself if everyone else went out to the store, things like that. And certainly sleeping quarters were, you know, not in the same room.

Listen, I had a lot of rules. Unfortunately, I had a wife who was a little bit more liberal. We've had to come to terms with that, you know.

Yeah, well, yeah, you know, the truth is we were all kids. Even the best kids with the best intentions, um, will have raging hormones at times. And, you know, it's— that's just a reality of life that you try and protect against, I guess.

Yeah, yeah. You know, you know, I'll tell you one last— I keep saying last stories, but I think you would enjoy it. My oldest daughter, so she goes University of Maryland, then she goes to Boston U grad school. She's a speech pathologist. College, right? And she's graduating end of May. A week later, she's starting her job. And my wife and I had given her a cell phone, uh, a credit card, an Easy Pass. And she said to us, Mom and Dad, I want to give this all back to you. I've gotten the job. I don't need it anymore. And I said, Shannon, wait a second. You got 3 younger siblings, right? You just can't hand this back to I said, we wanna have a little presentation, right? So we assemble all the kids in a room, right? I have a scissor, a hammer. My wife says a few words. She cuts, you know, the credit card. I have a hammer. I break the E-ZPass. I take the phone and I say, we're so proud of you. We both give her a hug. And I look at the other 3 and I say, this is how it ends. You know, this is the rite of passage, right? This is one of the most, this is one of the most enjoyable things for a parent. Shannon is now off the payroll. So I want you all to realize this is, this is how the journey ends. And I had one of my daughters staring at me like, but it's a message you had to set.

Yeah, what a great way to kind of make that a tradition and set an expectation at the same time. That's, that was, that was clever to do that. That was a good idea.

So if you've got any dads listening who had an older kid getting that first job, do the rite of passage, right?

Yeah, no, that's great. That's a good idea.

Yeah.

Oh, cool. Well, it's a pleasure talking with you.

I really enjoyed it, my friend. And, uh, listen, when the book comes out, I'll send you a copy. Love to get your feedback on it. I sent you 9 chapters.

They're really— yeah, so I skimmed them real quick. So I skimmed the chapters, then I went, I went to jump to a couple chapters and I couldn't find them. I'm like, oh, I got sections of it. I don't have the whole thing.

You want us to resend it?

I will.

Well, like I said, it's a bathroom book, Townsend. Yeah, you can reach out, put it down, come back, you know, 2 weeks later.

All right, there you go. Perfect.

Listen, I started the show off and I want to end it this way. I listened to a couple of your podcasts. I love what you're doing. You got a message, you got a purpose. There's a need out there, my friend, and I encourage you to keep doing it.

I appreciate that. Thank you.

You take care of yourself.

All right, Gene, it was a pleasure.

Best of your life.

Thank you. Bye. This is 100% Dad. Find our current tour schedule on 100dad.com, 100dad.com, on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and more @100dad, 100dad. Email Townsend at 100dad.com.