Faith, Tech & Timeless Lessons | E26 – Hard Refresh – An ISSA Podcast

Sa.

Welcome to the show, everyone. We have an incredible guest today, David Lee. Man, I've known David for several years, maybe even a decade beyond several. David and I met long, long time ago. Cleaner service master, franchise technology, software. He's done it all. And we have a boatload of experience to uncover today. David, my man, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. Good to talk to you again. Karina, it's nice to meet you. And I have. Thank you. I have watched Yalls previous podcasts and they're really good. I like them and I'm sure you're going to have a good following with that. And so I hope I can do as good a job as the others and in the past. But thank you so much for giving the honor to me to ask me to do this.

I know.

You bet.

Yeah.

So David has chosen to do some Two truths and a lie. And that's how we like to kick things off here on Hard Refresh. And Karina is about to be stumped.

So.

No, I'm kidding. We're both. So let's, let's dive in. David, what do you have for us?

I'm already nervous because I don't like to lie and so I'm already nervous and tell you guys a lie. You just got to figure out which one it is. So I'll start out with the first one. When I was 18 years old, I decided at 18 I wanted to buy a brand new home. And so I got it all clear, went through a lot to do it, then got it all cleared up, got to the bank, got it approved. The day before I was to close on my home, I got fired and I had no job. That's the first one. Second one is been to Hawaii and I know that you have too. Caden and I went to the Big island and we went snow skiing up on the whatever mountain that that's called now. It's actually, I think it's pretty cool. It's actually a vault, an inactive volcano. But you go up there, you rent a four wheel drive and you go up to the top and snow ski down. Then you go down to the beach. So that was a lot of fun.

That's crazy.

The third one is this. Years ago we was at my, in my home after church watching a football game. And it was about to start. It was the New Orleans Saints. And the New Orleans Saints had a celebrity singing the national anthem on tv. Well, our friends had a daughter who sings like an angel. And I said, tracy, you want to do that? She said, yeah, I'd love to do that. And her mom looked at me and said, you're crazy. You can't do that. I said, you watch me. And so I got in touch with the New Orleans Saints and they told me I was crazy. And they said, we don't do that. We only use celebrities. And I said, well, I understand. Denny said, but send me a tape acapella. I said, okay. So I sent it and I thought, we're going to really get this done. The whole season went by. Did not happen. I thought, okay, I look like a fool. Now lo and behold, the very next season, he called me and he said, is she available? We just had a celebrity to cancel. And I said, absolutely. We went right down there. She marched right out on the 40 yard line in front of 73,000 people and sang the national anthem. So that's my three.

Oh my gosh. Okay.

That is so much detail. That one has to be true.

Has to be true. That was.

But the other two. Yeah. Okay, well, let's do this first. So what's crazy is, so I went to Hawaii. I treated my parents lifelong dream. Did it last November. And when we got there, someone told me about skiing in Hawaii. And I was like, that is not a thing. Yes, but every once in a while it is.

Yeah.

On the Big island, there's snow at the very top of it. So now I'm like, well, that is true. Otherwise I would have been like, there's no snow in Hawaii.

That's what I was going to say. There's no snow in Hawaii. That's got to be alive. You just completely. It is in fact possible.

Okay, you can Google it real quick.

Okay, so then the first one. Okay, let's say. I'm gonna say he, David, you did buy a house. You did not get fired. You bought a house at 18, but the lie is that you didn't get fired. That's what I'm gonna say. Kayden, you just proved the second one is true. And then the third one, most people would be like, let's go with the first one. We're doing it.

I'm go with the first one as well.

Okay. You kind of split that first one. I was 18. I had to go before a judge and have my minority removed to be responsible for my debt. And a judge signed off and gave that to me and I took it to the bank, they accepted it and I did get fired. I didn't tell the bank and I went ahead and closed on that house because I did it and made it happen.

Wow.

I have not been snow skiing in Hawaii. But it is a thing.

That's. That was so good because it's such an. Most people would be like, that's not a thing. But that's such a unique thing to bring up. Then I'm like, nobody knows that. So you have to have done it. Dang it.

And it is true. Tracy. They called me back the next season, said, hey, can you get her down here?

When?

Absolutely. They gave us eight tickets and we got to park down with the players and that was the pay of coming and doing it. But she nailed it in front of 73,000 people.

Wow.

In school now.

Well, now that's celebrity status.

Yeah. They sent her a bunch of memorabilia for it and sent her a picture with her out there and all that kind of thing. And so I took it and had it all framed in for her with official letter and gave it to her for Christmas. It was really neat for all that to happen.

That's cool. Well, I'm a New Orleans Saints fan just because of Taysom Hill. Played for byu. Love the gay guy.

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

Well, gosh, that's. That's gotta be one of the best, two truest.

Yeah. Yeah. That really was.

You told me to make it out. Just get out there somewhere. So I did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was awesome. Doesn't for some quick control. Karina. Let's go over a couple things and then we'll dive into our exciting topic today.

Yes. So we are getting ready to do and announce the CLX topic for the trade show. So stay tuned on that. We're going to have the in person CLX cohort, learning experience from the technology and innovation committee. And we're nine weeks away from the show. Isn't that crazy?

Holy crap.

Right around the corner. Yeah. So on our next episode, I'm sure we'll announce what the actual topic is. Start introducing some of the facilitators to get people to sign up because it's always one of our highlights of the show. So we're excited.

And actually to add to that, Karina, we the tech. We're also doing another session. I forget.

We.

We should bring these up as well. We're doing an AI Rapid fire roundup. I don't know if that's the actual name of it, but yeah. Sounded cool. You should rebrand AI session is. Yeah, we should rebrand the. You know, everyone's got to be in a cowboy hat and everything.

Yeah, there you go.

But the AI Rapid fire Roundup, like we're. We're taking sales contract management Marketing members of the committee are taking like 10 minutes and there'll be six of us and we're going to show you like dive in real things that you were using or can use AI for that. You can literally walk away from the session and go do yourself with these LLMs.

I love it.

None of us are talking about our own products. We're just saying, hey, if you aren't aware, we're gonna. It's like AI101, but it's gonna be in hands on workshop. So like bring your laptop to that session because you're gonna be able to like follow along in the session.

Yeah.

On how to use some of these AI tools. So don't miss that. And then we actually, there is a third one. It's probably not actually technically an Innovation Technology committee, but. But myself, Tony, and then actually Matt from Orange qc, he's the CEO. All three of us, and we're like direct competitors, but all three of us are coming together and also doing a session together on all of our learnings in technology.

Yeah, I love it.

Collectively, we have over 60 years in software business. Like between the three of us, David, if you were added to that, you would double that. But yeah, there's a lot happening at Issa educationally from the Issa Technology and Innovation Committee. Gonna be super fun. So make sure you register and be there. I know Karina doesn't agree, but Vegas is a good time, so just come.

Yeah, I agree on the content and this is what I love about you.

Okay. Okay.

It's like you always have this very, just intentional manner in terms of like the information that you're producing in that session specifically. I'm so grateful for you leading that. Bringing together competitors and like putting our guards down and having you guys speak to what is best practices, what you could expect from a provider, I think does an enormous amount for the association. Kudos to you and I'm really looking forward to that session. It's going to be a good one. Those are. You guys have powerhouse platform, so you better bring it. No doubt.

It's. It's going to be fun. I mean, if, if Tony and Matt weren't so far away from me physically and then they didn't work for like competition, I think the three of us would actually probably be friends in life. And that's okay. Not saying we're not friends because we're, we're. We're good acquaintances, you know, call that a friendship.

So.

So anyways, it's going to be super, super fun. So come say. But this is hard refresh. And we have some things that we need to refresh our minds about today, but it's going to be taking a look back on David's experience. So today we're going to dive into the 30 years of experience and then some. So, David, let's start off like. Tell us how you got started. Give us a little bit of the story of these past few decades in the cleaning industry and technology as a whole.

Okay. All right. Back in 1988, December of 88, I bought a franchise from Servicemaster and started from scratch. I was the first employee also. At the same time, I kept my full time job. I was an office manager for an oil company and I kept that full time job and I started working, getting contracts, things of that nature. So that went on real well. I did that for five years full.

Time, plus dueling it.

Yes. Wow. Yes. Plus coaching my boys in little league baseball, taking them to golf tournaments, my wife as well. But I mean, we had our hands full. The reason I'm saying all that I want you to know is God first, family and work. Now it's not Amen. It's not God over here, family over here and work over here. It's here. It's all of it right here. It's just God's first and it all is together. It's one living organism. And that's the way we treated our family and our business and everything else about it. Having said that, the reason I selected Service Master, a lot of people don't know this, but the real name is Service to the Master. And if you look at Service Master, the M is capital. And that's what called me, that's what caused me to go with them. I looked at all kinds of businesses when I did this. I looked at stores, retail, anything. And when I heard that story, that was me. I wanted, I wanted a part of that. And so I did that for, for five years, continuing to work full time during the day. And during that time, I was able to pay for Servicemaster through itself without me having to pull a salary. And so that made that work, you know. And so about two years into that, I had already grown it to 30 employees. And I was absolutely pulling my hair out of my head because I am the type person, I mean what I say and I say what I mean. And so when I go to my clients and I tell them, hey, here's what I'm going to do, I mean it. And all of a sudden I have 30 employees and I'm still working a full Time job during the week. And I'm trying to figure out how on earth do I do this now, this is 1992. And so it just so happens, the.

Year I was born.

Hayden, don't do that to him.

I'm just saying, that's awesome.

It's fine. And so anyway, what happened was at the church we were going to, I had met a guy and his name was Bob Tucker. Come to find out, he was an unbelievable programmer, but on top of that, he's an unbelievable business person. So I went to him and I said, bob, I don't know if this is even possible. I said, is there a way for me to keep up with my employees in a computer? And he said, well, let me look at it. And so the first thing we did, we went out there and looked at the other companies. And at the time they were two, and because they had started just a couple of years earlier, and we got to looking at them and he said, david, they seem to be okay, and I'm not knocking them. Don't. Don't think I am. He said, they seem to be okay, but they're not doing what you say the way you want it done. And of course, we hear that every day. Now everybody said, I'll do it my way, you know, but back then we had the luxury of saying, okay, we might can do that. So I said, well, Bob, should I go ahead and just contract to them or should I create my own? He said, well, I can create it for you. And I said, okay, that'd be great. Now you're gonna love all this. I said, what do you think it'd cost me? Oh, about $4,000. It's 92. And I said, okay, do it at $4,000. He said, you can't even see it. I said, well, what is it gonna take? He said, probably another $4,000. And I said, well, okay, do it. I still had my other job, so I was allowing Servicemaster to pay for the technology. But $8,000 don't work. $12,000. We did get it to answer the phone. So we said, okay, we can do this. So millions of dollars later. But think of it, though. See, I never created that. I never in my mind thought that this was a business. I did it for myself, and here's why. I knew if I had that, I could corner my market where I was at. And I did. At one point, we had 43% of the cleanable in our area. Totally.

Wow.

Crazy. But it was because what I was doing and the way I was doing it and doing and you know, development of software and, and say what I mean, mean what I say. And so we finally got it done in that manner. Was not easy. There was a. Many a night we was up two or three o' clock in the morning, he was programming and I would be testing and all these other kinds of things and so but we found, we made it work.

Gosh, those, those early stage founder stories, especially in tech, but I mean just in business in general. And what an inspiring. You know, like I want to go back real quick just because that is super cool and Service to the Master. Correlation.

Yeah.

When, when I first was working with Service Master, when I first met you, there was like that culture we would do like train the trainer events and everything was like, hey, let's start off with a prayer. We're gonna. And I was just like, this is amazing. I mean I grew up at Christian as well, but it was just like it was so cool to see it in the business context. So like not, not just the name, but in corporate interactions that I've had with Service Master, like it showed up.

It was living, it was there. It's right. It wasn't always, that's cool. 100% that way all the time. Every now and then someone try to move it a little bit. But God always brought it back. He always said, no, that's not what we're doing, guys. Get it back. So that's what we do. And our CEO now, he is fabulous. One of the best Christian guys you'll ever meet. He's just fabulous. And he guides all of that now. And so it's, it's really nice to have.

Well, that's awesome. Well, amazing story, amazing start. So I want to dive into. I mean we could, we could pick apart already what you've shared and like go deeper. But like let's, let's talk about in maybe the early stages of software development in the 90s, as you were going in, already investing tens of thousands which later turns into millions over the years. But you know, can you share a moment where, you know, you were over complicating things and ended up backfiring? Talked to you about, hey, how do you keep things simple? How do you keep things centered? Because in technology it's very easy to spiral. So how did you mitigate that over the years?

Well, in the software side of it, I was very guilty of letting it spiral because when I would hear someone, a client say, hey, I need this or I need that, we'd be in the middle of development. We'd go, hey, stop. That is so cool. Let's do that right now. You done run that rabbit down the road, you know, and then all of a sudden, you don't have the other ready, and you already told clients this is coming. And it just makes it really complicated when you start making all these promises to everybody and their brother. And I was guilty of that. My partner at the time, Bob, he's not. I bought him out years and years ago. But he kept saying, david, you can't make this a monster. You make it a monster, and nobody's going to use it. And I've always tried to keep that in the back of my mind. And there's still. Sometimes I think we about made a monster, but. But that was the one thing that. That I always. We tried to do. Stay focused on what you're doing now. Now I'm just now learning all that since I've sold it to my son. And I look back and go, you need to focus. And he does. He does a really good job of that, Brian. He really does. Because he'll say, dad, I'm not doing that over you. Don't even talk to me about that, because I got to get this done. And that's the right thing to do. But you. You can get out of control real, real fast, a hundred percent.

One of the best. My favorite Cadence story is when we first started working together with tech innovation. He said something to me that just stuck with me. It's focus, follow one course until successful. And it just reminded me, David, as you're talking, when. And I've had. I've been guilty of it as well. You get distracted by something shiny and you want to please. Because I think we all have this desire to serve our clients and serve our employees. It's like, okay, that's a great idea. And also it'll help them. So we get distracted very quickly. And I think when you talk about technology, one thing that it has been very prominent in my specific journey is the discipline that it requires to really lead a team in technology and build is discipline, execution, expectation, alignment. Like, it's very. It has to have that. Otherwise you can go down and spend millions of dollars and millions of hours and time and energy. So I appreciate you bringing that to the forefront. I think that hits home for me.

That's the hardest thing in software, in my. My opinion, is if you can't focus and can't follow your roadmap, you're in trouble.

Yes. Yeah, we. Yeah, definitely been there, done that, still have done that, unfortunately.

Yeah. I know. You know, sometimes it just shines so much, you know?

Yeah. Especially with AI. It's. You know what's interesting with, like, the principle here, David, that you just shared, which is so critical, is that, you know, people. People are trying to go build their own solutions, and there. There is this lie out there with like, AI vibe coding that, like, hey, I can. I can do it myself. And there are certain pieces where that can happen. The problem is, is that people enter into this commonly with the same mistake. Well, I. I can just go build that feature. Oh, I can just go build that feature.

Yep.

To the point where, yeah, you're in the same problem as every software founder has ever done and ever known and sing the. The exact same mistake and they build too many requests and they. Anyways, it's. Yeah, it's a very common thing. And it's actually the. The speed that AI will allow people to develop. Most people will just get to that mistake much faster. Yeah, and exactly. We're gonna, we're gonna create. Unfortunately, the software space is gonna become saturated with a lot more garbage because of it.

I agree.

Whereas, you know, we have, you know, these decades of experience where we're just like, man, how do we say no a thousand times before we say yes? I know. And that is such a hard. And it's, like, working out for me, at least. Karina, I know you're, like, so disciplined and you stick to it.

No, no, but I've definitely. Guardrails. I think that's one of the things I learned. Right. Like, you have to have guardrails to prevent you because it is easy to get distracted. And I'm, I'm very like, number one, I have severe adhd, so let's just be honest about that. But also, when it comes to building technology, the thing that I learned within Pioneer is the prioritization matrix for us really helped guide us because it gave us those metrics of saying, okay, we're going to wait a project and see based on our. Our principles of financial impact, client impact, and employee impact. If this is an important thing, then it's going to have a weight. And then we can park it, put it in our parking lot. And then once we're ready for the next thing, it's like, okay, which one has the highest score? And then it wasn't so subjective and it wasn't based on, like, my personal feeling, because that was a lot of times in the early stages, it was, I believe in this, I believe in this, I believe in this. And it was like, does that gonna make us more profitable. I don't care if you believe in it, but, like, what's moving the needle for us. So I think that really helped in the beginning. Understanding the prioritization and staying true to it and being consistent about grading it.

Well, see, it makes it twice as hard on me because I am in the janitorial business. What happened last night happened to me too.

Right.

So when I hear something or when I have lived it myself, I go, that shines real big. Let's go and do that shiny object. And it's. And you still can't do that. But we. You ca. You catch yourself. Yeah. But you. You know, it happens because it just happened to us. And so let's do it.

Yes.

And it. And so it really makes it hard. And I know my giftedness is serving anyway, so I want to serve that client better. I want to give them something better. But it goes back to what you said, Karina. Is it really profitable? Is it really going to work for everybody? Is it just for the one person? And I'm sorry, I can't do it for just one person. That will never get me anywhere. You know, Got to do it for all. Look, I don't intend on. I wasn't never intending on trying to make a lot of money doing this. I want to serve people and do my very best.

Yes.

But to do that, I got to have a good product. And so you got to. You just got to stay focused on it.

But here I'm going to be Switzerland a little bit too, because one of the things that I really. I appreciate you saying, David, in the beginning was the. The God part. Right. Like to have this center focus of faith, and that really guides you. And when it comes to building technology, I think it's. It's easy to be thinking from a lens of profitability and understanding. Like, it moves the needle and you have to be innovative and all these things. But one of the things that I always appreciated it is you lead with heart, you lead with purpose, you lead with faith. And when we were doing things from operational, everything that I built with Pioneer was really with the frontline team members and operations. And I remember to this day they were producing these nightly reports. It gives me chills because for me, this is like very familial. I've cleaned buildings, my parents have cleaned buildings, and these are the people that I essentially grew up with. They were producing these nightly reports that were taking approximately anywhere from two to three hours a night, every single night. And that means that they would have to go and be there until well into the, you know, one o', clock, two o' clock in the morning. And so I was like, no, we have to do better by these people. We have to help them because it's not okay. And so when we changed that, that feature within the platform, what took them two to three hours went to seven minutes, six minutes. Because we created templates and we automated and we integrated. And so while the ROI from a profitability perspective was not there, I would argue that the people, purpose and leading with heart was there because it improved their, their well being and their culture within the organization. So I think you have to play this game, this balance of what is driving you, what are your core values? Is it faith, is it people, is it purpose? And then also understanding the business aspect of it as well.

Yeah, yeah. I always said with, with the express time side, you're saving them money. You are. Because if, if they're using time sheets, you're saving them buchools of money. My idea of it was hopefully they would use that money strategically in their life by tithing more, giving back to the community more, all these various things, because they're going to have more money to give back. And that's what I was always hoping would provide for the people, you know, and help their employees as well. But I always felt like it was a ministry. I took it as a ministry to help people to get these things done. And so it worked for us because of that. And in fact, my son Brian that owns it now, he actually is an ordained minister. He was a full time youth pastor for 15 years before he came back. And that's another God thing because I didn't know what I was going to do express time, other than sell it to somebody at some point. And he called me one day, he was in Houston as a youth pastor and he said, dad, God's released me and I can come home. I said, well, good. Well, when you get a job, let me know. I was not going to be the influencer. You know what I mean? If, if a man says God's telling me to do this, well, you and God figure it out. Because I don't want to be the influencer and say, okay, dad will take care of you. That went on for a year. Then a year later he said, here's wine, here's the scripture. And I said, okay, I have a job for you then. And then it moved from there. And I had no idea that he was techy. I'm not, I had no idea that he was techie. And he gets it and he runs it better than I did. And so that's, that's amazing. That's a cool thing.

Sometimes you have to be willing to listen to it though. You know, I think that that's been a resounding message for me is like sometimes you have to pause and listen to God because there's always, he's always talking to you. And sometimes we are moving so fast we don't. And I'm so guilty of that as of late, like I move very, very fast. And even this conversation right now, David, I appreciate it because it's, it has the, this like grounding moment of like, okay, what, what are we all doing and what's the purpose? And I think that is really important to just remind us of what the real purpose is.

Yep. No want God.

You got mate.

Yeah.

I'll say this since we're, we're on this topic. I also do things kind of like a youth pastor, but do things with youth. One of the things that in the space of technology on this topic, technology can be so powerful and in the day and age of AI, there's a lot of warnings out there. Like, I'm a huge advocate. I use AI literally every day.

Right.

I use technology every day.

Yep.

But I, I just, I said, hey guys, remember this that, you know, AI actually doesn't stand for artificial intelligence. It stands for artificial influence.

Yeah.

Because true intelligence comes from a creator. So I said it's artificial influence versus eternal intelligence. So eternal intelligence is where intelligence comes from and then artificial influence is what it should stand for.

Kayden, you need to drop your mic right now. That was amazing. I love that mic drop. I'm read writing that. Yeah, just, you know, I just love this guy so much. I'm like taken back. What an incredible comment. Seriously. And it speaks volumes too though, Kaden, because you're the president of a tech company and for you to have that is really, it's change. It's life changing. For your team to understand that there is an enormous amount of power within technology, but does not replace the people and the influence. There's a greater purpose and that's really, it speaks to your character. So kudos.

Well, thank you. It reminds me of the fact that in this pursuit of finding out what technology can do, it's never gonna outpace us as I'm, I'm a firm believer it's never gonna outpace us as our God given abilities to create as human beings. And so, you know, there might be things that resemble or replicate and so in all the pursuit, David, I. I guess we can kind of towards, you know, end on this note. You talk about having this influence and being this. Not about the money, not necessarily about the technology, but trying to. To serve people around you. I love that. So if we could end on this note. If you were mentoring someone, getting started in the industry today, whether they wanted to create technology for the industry or whether they wanted to buy a franchise or just start their own cleaning business from boots on the ground, like, what's the one piece of advice? And I think I already know what you're going to say, but what's the one piece of advice you would give them that really matters?

Number one, honor God in all that you do. Love him with all your heart, your soul, and your mind, and. And allow him to guide you. Understand, God doesn't necessarily care how you do it. There's many different ways to do things. But do it that honors him and he will bless that, and you will be fine with that. And then the next thing, I wrote down a couple other things here. I said it a moment ago. Say what you mean and mean what you say and keep that simple. And. And I actually repeat that to my employees a lot. I don't. I don't say, say what you mean. I say, here's what I want to go do. Do you understand? In a conversation, make them repeat it back without him and realize not. I'm trying to make sure you understand that. Mm. But there's so many different things. Don't give excuses. Just get it fixed when it happened, you know, just don't say, well, it was somebody else. It was something else. It was part of the technology went down. No, they don't want to hear all that. We used to be really bad about saying, I'm sorry, but the phone lines are down. They don't care that the phone lines are down. They won't know what you're going to do about the phone lines and say, right, so be honest about all that. Take care of everything that way. And another thing is be willing to be the hardest worker in your company. That went so far with me on both sides, actually. In the cleaning side, I would be the first one there and the last one to leave, no matter where I was. And they saw that. And then as I grew and pulled myself back, they had my back. They went, he'll do it. I'll do it. So just being that example and that really, really went a long way for us in our cleaning side and then on our. On our technology side. I had to admit to my guys, I don't know. I'm hiring you. I'm going to, you know, I'm. I'm too dumb to do what you're doing. I got the concept. Let's talk about how you're going to do that. You know, but admit I don't know, but I am depending on you to do that. What, What, How. How we're going to do that. And so that worked for me. And so that's the way it worked.

I think those are really great tips. I think the. One of the. When you. I just posted this the other day, Right. I remember a coach in college, she always used to say, act a non verba. Act a non verba. Right. Actions speak louder than words. And that's the same principle. I. I kind of connect it with what you're saying. David is like in a. In an environment that is inundated with. I wish I could. I may have perhaps one day. Like, the people that can actually get the words and execute the words or take action are what essentially puts you in a different level. It's. You have to be able to, what you said, say what you mean, mean what you say, but execute, be consistent, show up for people, and it's all about the actions that you perform day in and day out. That's what sets you apart. And it's going to be very hard. But if you can keep that principle true of actions and execution, I think it propels you in a completely different category. Honestly.

Yeah. If I may share one other story about that. You made me think of something. Yeah. I had a mentor. His name was Mr. Eford. And I actually rented two little bitty offices behind his retail clothing store. And he was super nice, and he loved me, and it was obvious. So when I first started the business, that's where I took it. And everybody that I hired, I would bring them in and I would interview them, and I would immediately tell them, hey, I'm a Christian. One day, Mr. Eferd came to me and he made me mad. He offended me. But he was right. He said, can I talk to you about something? I said, yes, or whatever. And he went, you just don't need to be telling everybody that you are a Christian.

He.

He said, they see it. He said, I've already seen some employees who were not that come through here and are taking advantage of you because you are. And he said, if I was you, I would just make sure I lived it. But don't just say it all the time. In my mind, I'M supposed to tell everybody I'm a Christian. You are. You can say it all you want, but until you live it, it hasn't done anything. And so, yeah, he offended me and it. And it took me a long time to figure that one out. But I did stop telling them. But it was just obvious I was telling them where I wanted to be.

I love that.

Another story about that is one long after that I had told one of the guys about it that I was a Christian. He said, I'm surrendering to the ministry. He said, I'm going to William Carey College over to be a minister. And I said, now that is cool. If I can help you, let, let me help you.

Yeah.

This is not a lie. This is not one of these lies. Two days later they on, on the news that they were chasing this guy in a car that had robbed something and it was him, but wow. But he made me believe he was going to be a preacher and that I was going to pay for part of his school. And it's because I told him, oh my gosh.

That story took a turn. Is that man okay? Is he still in jail?

Is wild.

That's crazy.

That is crazy. My gosh. David, what a pleasure. This is so fun.

Thank you. Thank you.

I love this.

I hope it was something listening to.

Absolutely 100%. This is some, my, this is going to be one of my top favorite episodes recorded. So, you know, if, if you're listening to all of our listeners, you know, you've been well fed today and multiple, multiple, yeah references to that. So the, all of the things that are happening, you know, reach out to David. We'll put him, his social medias on, on the descriptions connect with him. But man, David, what a pleasure it has been to have you on the show today. Thank you for taking the time. I honestly, I hope this, this episode does the best out of all of them because what an awesome foundational message and living by example that, that you've done. The last thing I'll say, there's so much technology advancements that constantly push, especially younger generations. Like, gosh, I was Talking to a 19 year old yesterday and I was like, dude, he made me feel old. And I was just like the amount of speed in which they can execute the way they've grown up. Like I grew up before, you know, cell phones were even a thing. Smartphone wasn't a thing. You know, T9 texting. My wife and I were talking about doing that in the early 2000s, like T9 texting. And you know, people don't know what that means. My point is, is that in all of this speed of technology, there is wisdom in those who have gone before, who might even still be here. But man, like, the. The amount of wisdom, I. I guess I would share that. The amount of wisdom you shared today can only come with time and experience. And so if you're a young lad trying to enter into a space, it's. It's people like David that you should be listening to.

Yes.

And that there is an incredible amount of wisdom here that should not be overlooked as. Oh, that's not relevant today. Technology is different today. No. There are some principles here that David taught that are so.

Amen.

That is a wrap on today's episode. Thank you for tuning in, everyone. We'll catch you next time on Hard Refresh.

Thank you.

Yes.