Ep #8: The Great Mentor to Great Men: Dick Foth

Welcome back to the Advisor Summit podcast, where top voices come together to share powerful insights, real world strategies, and the stories behind industry defining success. Today's guest is a true statesman of wisdom, someone whose influence spans politics, education, entrepreneurship, and leadership at the highest levels. Dick Foth is a storyteller, connector and mentor whose career has taken him from the halls of Washington, D.C. to the President's office of a college campus, and into the hearts and minds of business leaders and entrepreneurs around the world. He's worked alongside influential politicians, guided countless leaders through complex challenges, and continues to speak into the lives of those who build organizations, communities, and legacies. Highly insightful and deeply intelligent, Dick brings a perspective that is both rare and invaluable. And in this episode, we're digging into the kind of wisdom that transcends industries and speaks directly to the human side of leadership, influence and purpose. Welcome, our friend, Dick.

I am joined today by a very, very special legendary guest. This is Dick Foth. And I can't even find words to describe who you are or what you do. You have been a president of a college. You are a grandfather to 12, a great grandfather to five. You have been my father's mentor. You have mentored tons of politicians in D.C. you're an author. So I guess the best question, Mr. Dick Both, is how would you introduce yourself to our audience today?

Oh, Lord have mercy. I would say, I would say I'm on my 84th trip around the sun, and I never thought I'd be this old. And if you do the math, on that one trip around the sun is 584 million miles. If you multiply that out over 83 times, that's somewhere over 47 billion miles. And if you add to that 15 or 14 pounds per square inch of atmospheric pressure. I used to be young and slim with dark hair, and you look at now, this is what I look like. And I just came to bring you all hope, you know.

A lot of longevity there.

I just think I'm, I'm grateful for, for these years and the relationships that I have been given and just what that adds to my life along the way. Whatever role, whether it's as a college president or life coach or whatever it is, that's what, that's what sort of makes my world tick. So that's, I guess that's who I am at some level.

Yeah. And so we, I, we were laughing before this because I've known that you've been my, my father's mentor, and my father is one of my heroes, and I've Known that for years. And it's one of those things that you don't know how legendary someone is until you realize how legendary they are. And so I'm sitting here reading a book a few months ago, right? The Wine Chaser by Mark Batterson. And all of a sudden he starts talking about Dick Fo in the book. And I'm sitting here like, I've had this guy in front of me this whole time, leading my father, leading these amazing, amazing mentors. And that's why we've kind of titled this. You are, you are the great mentor of great men. And you want your title to be Friend. I said, what would you like your title to be for this podcast? And you said, just, Just friend. And I think that's really powerful. It goes into the relationship side of things. And talk to me about why your title is Friend. I mean, you've done so many amazing things, but why do you like to go by that now at this season?

Yeah. And it isn't something I'd have on a calling card, but I went from being a college resident with a card and a staff and a team and a car and all that back in 93 to Washington D.C. for 15 years, where we didn't have titles on cards. We just came alongside leaders to encourage them in whatever arena they were. And it could be anywhere. I mean, it could be, well, name the agency or the place. It could be that. And the idea of being a friend is that friend is a function or a title that will get you into anywhere in the world. You can work. You can sit with kids under a bridge in Yemen, or you can sit with a head of government someplace in, in the, in Europe or the Middle East. If, if anybody on this, on this Zoom or on this podcast would, would call somebody on Capitol Hill, Congressman, Senator, the first question that will be asked by some freshly scrubbed graduate of an Ivy League school or Stanford who oftentimes work without pay for six months just because they want to be in that arena. They will say, well, Mr. Foth, who, who are you with? Because there are 20,000 plus lobbyists in, in Washington D.C. and when you say, I'm not with anybody, I'm just a friend of the, of the congressman or the senator, they will say, please hold. And that's a whole different thing. And one of the things there's a, there's a terrific study done, started in 1938 by some doctors at Harvard, which is now called the Harvard Study on Aging or the Study on Happiness. It had different titles where they selected 260 plus 19 year old sophomores, men only from Stan, from, from Harvard back in 38. One of them was Ben Bradley, who was the publisher of the Washington Post. Later that broke the Watergate story. Another one was this fellow named John F. Kennedy. They were in this group the next year, 400 and some inner city Boston non delinquent guys were added to the group. So 720some men studied over the last however many years. I think maybe all of them now are dead. But they asked him this question, what do you think would make you happy in your life? And they all said the same three things pretty much. Achievement, fame and money. They met with them every two years. They did every two years, physical, emotional assessments, all this kind of stuff. After about three decades they came to this conclusion that none of those things were true. That the thing that made people happy were good relationships. Period. That was it. Alone by yourself was toxic. You died sooner, you died by yourself. But it's relationships. So looking back over my years, and I'm rambling a bit, but that's what I tend to do, I love it, is that looking back over the years, I have this assessment that there are two things that we have to deal with our whole lives, whether we're 6 years old or 96 years old, and that's relationships and money. And one of those will make us rich. And I'm talking to an audience who deals with both of those. Money's not bad, but man, it can go away in a hurry. Quality relationships don't do that. Nobody on their deathbeds. Could you just bring me my credit card bill one more time? No, nobody does that. And this. But, but here you have people who work on both pieces of that equation that it's powerful because you know, I've got, I'm reaching down in my pocket, I get a $20 bill, I'm holding up to the screen. This is my life the second time around. I get to decide whether I hoard this, bury it, spend it, invest it, give it away, you know, whatever. And so the folks I'm talking to are dealing with the lives of people in ways that, that are profound.

So anyway, that's, I love that. And we say that a lot in our industry. I love, I love the idea of only one will give you. We don't say that, but we say all the time we're in the relationship business like we are in a trust building business. It's yes, we kind of are salesmen or my clients are salesmen, but not really. Like at the end of the day they're building trust and they're building authority and people are handing over their life savings to these people. And a huge reason why I want wanted to interview you. And the whole point of the kind of my next questions is, is leadership and relationship. And you've seen it all. I mean, you've not only have you been around the sun a few times, but you've worked with the highest level of leadership and you've seen really, really good leaders and you've seen leaders who haven't done such a great job. And I guess that leads into my next, my next question. Not necessarily attributes of a good leader or a poor leader, but more about longevity. Like what attributes do you see in the leaders who've lasted decades? Like, what makes them stand apart from the ones that are just a quick in and out? Can you speak to that a little bit?

Yeah, I think, I think the best leaders are the best servants. They don't call it public service for nothing. A lot of times today around the world, the public part stands out, but the service part, not so much. And one of the things about being a congressman where you have to be chosen every two years is that you have to stay in your district, you have to go back because One congressman represents 700,000 people about, give or take, changes over time. But, but they got it. So a good leader finds ways to serve and a good leader. Well, let me just stop there for a moment. I have the privilege of speaking every now and again to university commencements and I say I'm bringing you two gifts because you'll get gifts today. Some of you, some of you will get your school bill and some of you will get the keys to a BMW, depending on where you are in the structure. So I'm going to give you two questions that will, that will change your life if you take them seriously. The first one is where were you born and brought up or where is home for you originally? That's the least threatening question you can ask somebody. When I'm on a plane with people, I used to say, so what do you do? Well, if you just lost your job or as, as we say in D.C. you're in transition, that's a terrible question to ask. But, but so now I ask people on plan, so are you leaving home or going home? If I choose. And, and you get into some very interesting conversations with that question. So, but, but what you're asking, when you ask me where I'm born or brought up or where it's home for me originally, it makes me Start thinking you might really be interested in me because where I'm born, brought up, shapes my whole world. Okay? And then the, the, the second question is, is there anything I can do for you? If you ask that question of anybody authentically, it will do three things. It will, it will always give your life meaning. Your life will always have meaning if you ask that question authentically. That's that service question. The second thing it'll do is you will always have friends. And the third thing is you'll never be out of work. You may not get paid for it, but you'll never be out of work. So that idea of a leader, a leader at his or her best is always looking for ways to serve the other. Okay, that's, that's true in business. That's true in a marriage. That's, that's true in a teaching student relationship. That's true in a mentoring relationship. And by the way, I, when I think about your dad, right? And, and you say, well, I know you've mentored my dad. And in my head I'm saying, really? I thought I was getting mentored. I, you know, it, this, the, the, the person who feels mentored is the only one, I think, who can say that. I don't go to people say, I'd be your mentor, you know that. But, but I have 20 year olds, this is a hoot. 20 year olds that come and say, would you mentor me? And I say, well, what do you mean? They said, well, you know, kind of. Because when you're talking to old guys, they're thinking curriculum, they're thinking times and places and content and info. And the, and the younger person, my grandchildren, our oldest grandchild is 33, right. They'll say, well, you know, hang out. And I mean, I say, you mean like going to Starbucks or hiking horse toothpick. They say, yeah, that's what I mean. And the truth is that's how mentoring really works. Mentoring is not a class. Mentoring is walking together like that. So anyway, serving, I think in all the books we'll say this, Listen, you don't know effectively or you cannot lead effectively with listening to whatever it is. And in order to listen, you have to go where they are. You know, books back in the day used to say management by walking around. But when somebody takes the time to come to where you are again, what they're doing is validating you. And, and it, and it doesn't mean when you ask for ideas, they're going to use every idea or any of them for that matter. It, you Know, depends on the moment in time. But when I think, when I look at the people who I consider leaders, they tend to be people of vision. They tend to be people who can make decisions, and they tend to be people who have a capacity for anticipating what's coming over the next hill. And, you know, I just, I have a friend who defines leadership this way because servanthood would be one servant, but the other piece is sacrifice. And again, there are different kinds of leaders and different kinds of constructs, companies, whatever. And I have a friend who's high in government some years back, and he was in government work for almost 40 years. Leadership kind of. Or governorship and that kind of stuff. And his definition of leadership, you know, the basic idea of leadership is influence, right? Yep. And today we talk about thought leaders or influencers. We use that language now. But his, his definition has, is something like this. It has variations. A leader is a person who selects noble objectives and pursues them with such intensity and sacrifice that they carry other people with them. Leader is a person who selects noble objectives and pursues them with such intensity and sacrifice. Second, third mind that they take other people with them. Well, I'm, I'm talking to folks who haven't, who have a noble objective. It's to help that person who's giving them, handing them their lives and their trustees. They have fiduciary responsibility to help guide in, in lots of ways.

So I think that's huge. And that's, that's one of the common gaps that we're seeing is they originally got into this business as sales, right? They're, they're, they're, they're fun people. Like them, they are attractive to people because they just have a boisterous, fun, you know, personality. But now they're leaders, right? They're, they're leaders of teams, not only like their staff, which is a new role for them. And I think a lot of them, naturally, what you had said was anticipators, like, they can anticipate. A lot of them naturally have this gift or this talent to anticipate that sort of a thing. But I think that they feel like they have to have it all together or they feel like they have to have the answer. And I mean, to, to your point, that's really not what a leader is. Right. Like the leader is someone chasing a noble cause and just sacrificing whatever they need to, to get there. And then the people follow them because of that. Right. Like, they don't have to have all the answers.

Yeah. And, and the, the Converse of that is that I think leaders are the people. And of course, in some roles that I've been in, your dad have been and so forth, especially when they see the public side of you more than they see the private side of you, you tend to get put on a pedestal as the answer person. Now, when I talk to my financial advisor, I do want, I do want some answers, you know, it's true. But I also love it when they ask me questions. And I think leaders are people who can frame good questions that, that take you different places. Like what, what do you want? What do you want me to do for you? Or there's this ancient saying, what will it profit a person if they gain the whole world and lose their own soul? You know that those are like big questions. And the, the, the, the capacity to ask questions that are informative but not intrusive, which is sometimes a fine line. Yep, that's, that's just a big, a big deal. I, when I was getting my master's degree 100 years ago, well, maybe I had a teacher who was 34 years older than I. I'm a, I'm a freshly minted grad student, 18 months married, and she's 34 years my senior. She's a single lady. Best teacher I ever had. Best profit ever had. Her name was Dr. Lois Lavar, and she helped teach me how to ask questions. And she would say, if you want to have a conversation, do not ask questions that could be answered yes or no. Ask to what extent questions or how long has it been questions? What do you think about questions? And that capacity for conversation, especially for younger people coming up today is a huge challenge. I sat 10 years ago with several students from here at Colorado State University, which, you know, Erica, and they had come and helped me with something. And they're college guys and they don't give them cash. You take them to a huge breakfast. So I went, took them to a huge breakfast and, and I said, give me a word. And this is 10 years ago, so we're talking 20, 14 or 15. I said, give me a word that characterizes your generation. And this one junior immediately said, overwhelmed. He said, really? Like when I think of overwhelmed, I think of my parents generation. My mom was born in 1910, my dad in 1913. They went through the great flu, epidemic, Depression. Yes, Great Depression, stock market crash, World War II. That's what I think of over. I said, what are you overwhelmed by? And he said, information. I said, well, I get that because 10 years ago, information was doubling every two every two weeks or every two years, whatever it was. And now with AI, it's doubling every two hours, maybe every two minutes. And I said, I, I get that, but isn't. Isn't that a good thing that. That you get? He said that, that is. My problem is with all the info coming in, my. My problem is I don't know how to start a conversation. Because when you're always in conversations that are not really conversations on social media, and this is not about young people, it's about any of us, those aren't real conversations. Those are. Those are tidbits. Those are bits and pieces, as my Brits friends would say. And I just find that a fascinating statement because if you can't start a conversation, you know, I have a quote. Ruth and I wrote a little book sometime back and have a quote as one of the epigrams. It says something like this. It says, we need to stop communicating so we can have a real conversation. And I'm saying, well, that's some influencer from today. Who wrote that? No, that was an influencer called Mark Twain. Who wrote that. Wow. Yep.

Yeah, it's. I mean, we. We find that with our kids. Right? I mean, we homeschool our kids. And one of the biggest things we are preaching to them constantly is looking people in the eye. Even our son struggles with that. And so we worked with him and said, okay, let's come up with four questions that you always have in your head that you can have to start talking to people. Because he would sit there awkwardly and he didn't. He. You have to be taught that. Sadly, I mean, I don't think that I was really taught that back before there was all of this. But I think the fact that Mark Twain is even saying it shows that the listening aspect has, has really shifted a lot. And there's not a lot of listening. There's a lot of talking happening. And to your point, that builds trust and that builds friendship and that builds relationship by just talking and listening.

Right?

Yeah.

Well, speaking of what you got by osmosis at the dinner table, the American dinner table. And this is not my. Sherry Turkle is a psychologist at mit. She's written some wonderful books. One is called Alone Together. And she said that the American dinner table has gone away. That's the place where you can have ongoing conversations to learn how to talk. And you just put a comment. You don't have to solve everything over a burger. But. But you come back to it three nights from now when you're talking about whatever else it is, it's a, it's a huge, this is a huge challenge for culture because, and we're seeing it if, if you cannot talk, if you can only shout, because you take polar places to land anyway, politically, culturally, religious, whatever it is when you land in polar places that, that capacity to, to learn each other is, is. I mean when, when you ask somebody the question, and again, this is a hobby horse, you can tell this when you ask somebody the question, where is home for, for you originally? It's amazing the answers you get. And, and they say, well, do you know, do you know where your parents were brought up or your grandparents? Where did they come from? What, what was, what did you do for fun as a kid? That simple. I've asked that of senators, I've asked that of that question changes the whole atmosphere in there. I've had, I've asked heads of state that question, what did you do for fun as a kid? And I asked it. Can I tell one little anecdote here real quick?

Yes, because we're going to go into the fact that you tell stories. So you tell it, you tell your anecdote and then we'll go into you telling stories. Go.

So years, years ago, when Ruth and I had been married for, I don't know, 20, 25 years and we knew some stuff. Now we've been married 62 years and we're, we don't know as much, but we knew more back then. So we used to do like marriage retreats and stuff. And I, and I asked the question to a group of 200 in Virginia. I said, what you do for fun as a kid? People started calling stuff out. You know, they start same baseball. You know, I was, I was a hunter, I was a fisher, I played ice hockey. And this lovely blonde lady in the front row said I rode pigs. I said, you rode pigs? She said, yes. I said, now I'm a guy from Oakland, California, where pigs have a whole different connotation. But where were you brought up? She said, I was brought up on a farm in Iowa. I said, how do you ride a pig? She said, well, you climb up on the trough and wait for one of those 400 pound sows. You don't want ones, just have a litter because they're mean. But they stick their nose in the trough, you jump on their back, grab their, and off you go. And, and everybody's laughing. And I said, this is crazy. I said, and just for fun, anybody else here ever ride a pig? And five guys came out of the closet. Five guys who Growed pigs. I have asked that question all over the world and except in the Middle east and so forth, where they're unclean stuff. And almost every time, especially with older folks, somebody. There's a whole fraternity and sorority of Swine Sitters Anonymous around the world who've written. And some of the folks listening could ask their grandparents who brought up on farm rural, did you ever ride a pig? You'll find out stuff. And you say, well, what does that have to do with anything? That's a stupid question. Well, it's not a stupid question. If you want to know me. If you want to know me, what was the coolest place in town that you went when you were a teenager? That's an interesting question. If you want to know me. I asked that once to some folks in Oklahoma, and one guy said there was no cool place in our town. We had to go to the next town to find a cool place when we were a teenager. That's the fabric of relationship. Because. And you were going to ask me about story. Can I segue to story?

You can.

It isn't just, it isn't just that we have stories. We are stories. And, and I bring. When I sit with somebody, I'm. I'm 83 years worth of story. And when you inquire about that, like, when were you most scared in your teenage years? Because we're a lot of stuff in our teenage years. Where were you most? Or what. What was the. Who was the person in your life when you were small that left their fingerprints on your soul in terms of how you see the world or how you see relationship? I asked that once in a room of six guys, if I named some of the names, folks would know who they were and they were all older than I. It. This is 20 years ago and I asked that question, who left their fingerprint? And five of the six said, my grandmother. Because grandmothers love grandkids usually, and they have time. Whereas a mom running from pillar to post trying to get meals and get. And anyway, those kinds of questions about one's story, when. And I, I have a favorite way of saying this. I believe that when I walk into a room, whether it's a. Whether it's a boardroom with C suite people or whether it's a congregation or a retreat setting or a university classroom, which is my favorite, I'm not walking into just any old room. I'm walking into a library because I have 30 or 50 or 100 walking books sitting in front of me. Each of us is a walking book. We have sentences and paragraphs and chapters and sections in our story. And we have two parts to our story. We have the diary, which. These are the events. These are the things that I remember that, let's say, that shape me. These are the things either that happened to me or around me or I created whatever those are. So that's the diary and then I have the journal. And the journal is how I read those events, how I interpret those events. And the feelings I have that I carry in me come out of my journal that. So, you know, I can. I can look at. For, for example, when, when I was a little boy, I was born into a pastor's home like you. And. And my. When I was three, it would have been 1945, right at the end of World War II, my parents enlisted as missionaries to India, missionary educators to India. And at three and a half, I'm sailing out of New York harbor on a Swedish liner. First ship, I'm told, out of the harbor after the war, right at the end of August 1945, and sailed to. To Egypt, Alexandria, catch another ship with 2,000 Rafael pilots on it. Going to India, go to India, stay four years, come back on a Danish freighter called the Johannes Maersk. Just a tub, eight passengers, 1600 going out, eight passengers coming back. Played Monopoly every day. I'm seven years old, I win once. I hate Monopoly. Five weeks on the Open. But two things I learned in those four years. One is that life is a great adventure. This is the lens through which I see life here. Life is a great adventure. And two, because I was in a British boarding school up in the tea plantation starting at 4 years old with my sister. And it was a British girls boarding school. And they let little boys go there till they were 10 and figure out those are girls and they ship the guys. Something I have no idea, but. But here I am in this colonial environment surrounded by a totally different culture. We are a white sort of little bubble in this large, multifaceted, brown culture. The two things I found is life is a great adventure. And two, you don't have to be afraid of different. Well, everybody has not that story, but they have those, that kind of thing in their early lives, whether they were foster kids, whether they were adopted kids, whether they grew up in a cool home or a hellish home. You know, all of us have those pieces. And it's hard to be friends with somebody if I'm unwilling to share my story. We can be colleagues, we can be co workers. But unless I'm willing to share my story. Over time, because you can't sit down and do our share story. We can't have friendship.

Yeah. There's so, so many points on what you just talked about that could go so many ways for our listener. I mean, one of them I'm just thinking through of, of this, this, the. The journal and the diary aspect, right. Like, our advisors sit down with prospects who are potential clients, and it's very, very easy for them to jump into product. It's easy for them to jump into investment strategies which have to be covered. But to your point, they have these stories that are walking into their office, and if we can crack open that book and talk to them and hear what they were like as kids and what they did, they know you're listening, right? So the advisors listening. I mean, that's a huge takeaway on just. We call it building authority, but also building trust and hearing. Hearing these stories with people and connecting with them on a deep level. And then the second tie to that is, I mean, what, what do I do at track? That advisor is I do data storytelling. And I'm thinking of it through the lens of, you know, I go into these advisors offices and I'm looking through all of their data and I have to come up with a story for them. And, and you've kind of just kind of done a paradigm shift in my head where I can sit here and say, what I'm doing is I'm reading the, the, the titles and the chapters and the paragraphs of what they've just been through this whole year. That was a story. Right. Like they lived it. I'm just explaining what, what the data is telling me of what they've done in their firm. So I think, I mean, it's so multifaceted what you just said. So I would have to sit with that and digest and percolate on all of that to continue. But I think, I think that's huge. And story. So you tell stories. I've known this since I've known you. We've already gone down, down story lane. And you know, even psychologically, people connect with story. I mean, I've, I've studied storytelling, right? And it's. People become more alive, they remember more details, they will pass it on to friends, and they become more vulnerable when you use story specifically. So I think it's just a very, very cool way that you communicate. And I've never actually heard you talk about why. So I think that was very cool for me. So thank you for sharing that.

Well, it's only, It's Only in the last. In the last few years that I've actually paid attention to why I. I tell stories or I like them, I like telling them, I like listening to them. I like. And the. From a scientific point of view, your brain is wired for story that's all connected to memory. That's why dementia and Alzheimer's, such a killer. Because this story goes away. And, and if you're 2 or 92 and somebody says once upon a time, all of a sudden I'm there, right? That's. That's how it works. And the. There's something about that. You know, I. I've had the privilege of speaking to groups and in places for the last 60 years. And there's something about telling somebody else's story, a great story, parts of your own story, that invites people in. I would submit that your story is a Velcro ribbon to which other people can attach. A Swiss engineer went hiking in the early forties in the Alps. Came back, he had his Irish pointer dog. Came back, and there were burrs stuck to his wool pants and all over the dog. And he took those burrs and put them under a microscope. Took him several years to work this out. And he found that the burrs had hundreds of little hooks on them. So anything that had a loop, a fur or wool, it would connect to it. And he created a product from two French words, velour and crochet. And he made the word Velcro. And you use Velcro on space shuttle flights to attach things. You, you have them, you know, you've got zippers that are Velcro, you got bags that are. And your story is. That way, when you start telling your story, it's a Velcro. So I was sitting, I was doing. Do we have time for this? For me to just ramble here?

Yes. Okay, I'm gonna. It might. I have one question left for where you're tracking, but you go, let's do it.

So. So. So years ago, several of us went to Japan to meet with members of the Japanese diet, that's their parliament, and with some industrials. And there was a retreat with 50 people in it, mostly Japanese, some from Nepal, some from Russia, so forth. But. But I said. They said, you know, we've worked with these folks in this culture for 10 years, but we can't seem to break through because of the way Asian culture, certain Asian cultures are. It's hierarchical, and you play your cards close. I said, well, why don't we try small groups? They said they'd never do that said, well, let's just try. So they had a friend, his name was Koji. Koji was high in their economic system. He was PhD in economics from Edinburgh and all this. And so we're standing in front of these. We're surrounded by groups of six. So about eight groups of six. And I said, koji, where were you born and brought up? He said, I was born in Tokyo. Brought up in Tokyo my whole life. And where were you born? Said, I was born in Alameda, California. Alameda, California, is adjacent to Oakland and across from San Francisco. And when I said that, a Japanese man in a loud voice from over on my right, in perfect English, said, that's near Oakland, isn't it? And I said, yes. How do you know that? He said, that's where IBM trained me. And at the end of that session, this man walks up to me and I'm speaking to the president of IBM Japan, and we're buds because he knows where Alameda, California is. You say, it's crazy. It's not crazy. Your story is a Velcro ribbon. And think about it. When you're listening to somebody's story, you're sort of listening for some place to connect in there, because they might be very different kind of background than you do. So anyway, that's.

Well. And that ties it all back to friend. Right? And then you become friends. Right. I mean, that. What a perfect way to just like, wrap this up with a bow. So thank you for your time. We have one last question, and then I want to hear just ways people even could get in touch with you, or, you know, just the podcast that you do, your books, anything like that. But where. We always end the podcast with, where are you trekking this year? It can be personally, professionally. Where are you headed? We're curious.

Well, Ruth and I, as I mentioned, will be married 62 years this summer. Congratulations. Thank you. And so when you're older, you start finding out that you're older. And for her, she has a. She has a thing that her father passed on, which is a heart condition. We almost lost her 11 years ago and so forth. So she has ongoing things with that. So that's part of our trek. She. And, you know, it's. It's like when people have been together a long time, you say. You say Dick and Ruth, you know, it's like Darian, Bonnie, you know. Yeah. And that. So that's a part of our trek. And the challenge is when you can't do as much as you used to, it really sort of gets to You. She's a wonderful quilter. She, she writes a journal for every grandchild when they're born. Every time she's with them, she, she goes on the computer and does what they do. And when they graduate high school they get 18 years of travels with grandma in a hardback book.

Whoa, that's cool.

I couldn't do, I don't have the discipline to do that. That would make me crazy. But she has the discipline and the kids say that's the best high school graduation present they've got. And so she's done it 16 times. She's trying to hang on long enough for a 15 year old to graduate and an 8 year old. We have two adopted grandchildren so we don't know if we're going to get there, but she's staying up to date on it. Also for each grandchild she makes a personal quilt and she has a group of ladies who are shut ins. Most of them, 12 of them. She writes every Sunday night. And so you do what you can do at this end. And so I'm tracking with that the other place I'm trekking. Is that an extreme extrovert? You know this and, and she's introvert. A few years ago she said I found my mantra dick on the Internet. I said what says introverts of the world unite everyone to his own room.

That's me. I could go there. That's amazing. Ah, that's awesome.

So, so, but, but this once you're a public figure in some way that piece of wanting to continue to tell, tell the big stories. And the big story is it's still there, right? And so two years ago we were working on a little book and again and I was stuck and my son in law Van said here's the deal. You, you can write, people will read it. But, but you're at your core, you're a speaker and within that you're a storyteller. I think you should do an evening of storytelling with a live audience and record it and make it into an audiobook. So five times in the last 18 months we have done that. And so it looks like it'll be a multi volume thing. And so we've created an audiobook recorded in Washington D.C. and we did this at a church at a congregation that, that sits right off Capitol Hill on a Sunday night. 250 people were there and I just sort of like a stand up comedian just went from thing to thing for an hour and 40 minutes and we created a book called Stories I Love to Tell. And the subtitle is to to give us hope, to help us do hard things, and to bring us back together again. And so that's available on Audible and Amazon. Stories I Love to Tell. And then we did it three other times. We did it out here with some students from Colorado State and then we did it at University of Virginia last October with 300 plus university students and then went back to the congregation we helped plant back in the 1960s near the university of Illinois and did it there. And tomorrow night here at Timberline, we are doing it again. And we just record this on audio and video. And the video is used sort of like for little blurbs on Instagram and stuff. But it's an audio book. But. But the piece with the live audience I think makes it interesting. So that's the, that's the place I'm trekking at the moment.

And then I love that.

So and all of this, any of the podcast and any of that stuff can be found@dickfos.com and it's a website that has the. And if folks are interested in this, have a thing that I talk about in terms of building relationships that's not original with me. I believe originality is the art of concealing your sources. And so but years ago I found this template and if they scroll down on the website, they'll find a 2 1/2 hour presentation. So an hour presentation that was done at the university, Colorado State University for the. The provost had a program called Colloquium on the provost. Colloquium, big word gathering on ethics. And I just did this four part thing that I call relational baseball for building relationships. And first base is your story and, and second base is affirmation. When I start hearing your story, I know where to serve you best. So second base is affirmation, third base is covenant. When we start hanging out and doing stuff together and home plate is dreaming. If I can trust you with my history and trust you with my now, maybe, just maybe I can trust you with my dreams. Anyway, that's the context.

I love that. I wonder if we could even get our hands on that and give as a resource in this podcast. So you are up, you're just busy, you're doing, you're doing all the things and you have no intention of slowing down. And I love that for you. And you're doing what you are so gifted in is just, is the storytelling. I mean anytime you tell a story, I am in, I'm immediately with you. And it's been that way for, you know, over a decade that I've known you. But again, I've said it once, but I just. I so appreciate you taking the time to just invest in me. Invest in me, in my father, in my audience, in the advisors that we serve at Track. That advisor. And there's so much that they can take away from, even just from the sales side, but even just as leaders within their. Within their platform. So thank you so much for being here.

I love this. I'm honored. Anytime. We'll see you.

Bye.