EP 474 – Lessons Learned From My Father

This is the no Closer show where you get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property for pennies on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same. Now, here's your host, CEO of We Close notes, Scott Carson.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Nook Closer Show. As always, I'm Scott Carson, your host. Excited to be here today and with it being Friday in the office, especially the Friday right before Father's Day, I thought I'd take a few minutes this morning and share some of the most impactful things and lessons that I have been taught by my father over the last 42 years, even though he's been gone for over the last decade. And my dad growing up William Milton Carson was my hero. A lot of kids have Michael Jordan and Nolan Ryan during my youth years. And I was a very big fan of both of those guys, both sports heroes wise. But when it came to kind of who your hero is, your true hero is, I was very honored to have a really great father and great mother. It's nothing against my mom. Mom's great. Still to this day, great. But my father was my hero growing up. And I thought I'd share a little bit today with you guys about that because Father's Day is this weekend. He's been gone for a while, but I think we all learn something from our fathers, whether they're with us or not with us. And it can be good or bad. But I was very blessed that my dad taught me several lessons along the way that have helped mold me and shape kind of my business ideas, my business tactics and really kind of helped me be who I am as a person. I mean, we are all solely responsible for who we are. It's not anybody else's fault or that we all make decisions along the way of our lives, whether it's in personnel or education or family or business things. We all are responsible for our own decisions. You are where you're at today because of the decisions that you've made on a day in, day out basis. Okay, Well, I still have my father in my ear. I'm here because the fact of I've made some great decisions. I've made some bad decisions along the way. I've had some good deals, I've had some bad deals go a long way. Nobody is perfect. I think Everybody bats, basically goes 500. You have half good, half bad and they average out and just depends the extreme of the good of the bad. Sometimes we have really good ups, sometimes we have really bad downs. And you just have to kind of balance it out and keep working for it. So I'll give you a little bit of background. My father, my dad was born in November 4, 1999, 36, in Minnesota. My grandparents were dairy farmers up outside of Minneapolis in a place called Rochester, Minnesota in Stewartville area. Dad grew up one of three kids and was there working on the farm. And my grandfather and his mother passed early on from sickness. And then he grew up on a farm and his older brother, my Uncle Bob, Uncle Robert, went off to fight in the Korean War. Dad was a junior in high school at the time. Well, my grandfather could not handle working the farm by himself. So one of the things that my dad did is basically for two years he quit school, he quit high school, he quit going to work on the farm to help his dad to be there, to help bring things together, to make sure everything ran well. And that takes a lot of huevos when you do that to leave your high school, to leave that, to go back away. And it's a little bit, maybe more common back then than it is today, but that was a big thing. And then when my Uncle Bob came back from the Korean War a couple years later, my dad wanted to go back to high school. He wanted to finish his degree. He had the goal of becoming a minister, he wanted to go to seminary school. And to do that he had to graduate high school. And his family was actually very against it. I know it's kind of surprising he'd be against going to high school because he's already been out and working on the farm. What are you going to learn there? What are you going to learn? You're here on the farm of the family. Well, against my grandparents wishes, my dad literally went back in and went to high school. He left the farm because Uncle Bob was back. He left and went to Rochester and put himself through his last year of high school. He went from a very small high school to a very large high school where he was just a small guy, but he finished. And can you imagine being that, going to a new high school where you're two years older than the senior class, you're finishing high school at 20, 19, 20 when everybody else is at 18 or 17. And he did that. He got through high school on his own. He paid his way, he rent, he worked whatever he could to do that, to finish up and get his high school degree. Then he Went to seminary school and he did that for a couple years. He wanted to be a minister. And one of the big things that my dad has taught me throughout the years is he's probably a man that has more faith than anybody else that I know. And that's not saying anything bad about people. Just the fact that my dad had faith in himself when others didn't. And that's one of the big things I think I have taken on is I'm not afraid to go on that path less traveled to get something done on my own. So he did that, went to seminary school, went through that for a couple years. He was graduating, but then he went back into farming. He didn't like what some of his buddies were doing in the ministry. Going out and trying to get big churches and big cars. Because that's not what this is about. If you're going to be in seminary, your goal is to help people with their faith walk aligned with Christ. And so he didn't do that. He went back on the farm, bought a farm and went back into dairy farming. But he had his diploma at least and that says a lot about a guy. He didn't stop, he didn't give up. Kept churning and churning and churning. That was one of the big things, like I said, is not to give up. It was one of the big lessons learned from my father. Never give up, keep working, keep working forward and get rock and roll. And then he married, had seven kids with his first wife. They got divorced years later. He ended up marrying my mom. And I'm the oldest of the second leader of three. So my dad had a total of 10 kids. And we moved to Corpus Christi, Texas from Minnesota when I was young, like 2 or 3 because my dad had a bad back working on the farm. Two fused dicks discs, could barely walk at a point, had to get out of the cold. And so he moved, he up and moved in at that time, the four of us, before my brother was born, moved to Corpus Christi, Texas away from everybody else. The whole family was in Minnesota. Moved to south Texas away from everybody else. That takes a lot of huevos. That takes a. You don't have that support systems, you don't have the family around, you don't have the built in babysitters. But he went down there on his own and worked some different odd jobs. Not really odd jobs. He worked in the hardware store because he liked working with his. So he worked for a paint company at first. Sold water heaters door to door for a while. Worked for a big paint Company it was open, didn't work for one hardware company, then worked for another one. And he was working his way up and became general manager of this big company one day. And then a week later, they closed the store. The whole company went out of business. So dad said, heck, enough with that. I remember this is right around my third wrapping up my third year. My mom was working in the hospitals, delivering meals and stuff like that at Spawn Hospital, Corpus Christi. Was familiar with that down off of Palmero Street. Remember I was moving there, big two story house. And I remember my dad giving the idea, driving around there because he was still friends with all the people in the South Texas area. These other hardware companies. You get to know your network of people when you're shipping lumber and hardware from big distributors into smaller mom and pop companies, small institutions. And dad decided that he wanted to open a hardware store. Dad decided that he wanted to open up this company in this little small town called ingleside, Texas. About 3,500 people. And he went out, he talked to people there, he went back and talked to his dad. And my grandparents just moved south, be closer to his grandkids. And took a loan out from my grandfather to launch Ingleside Hardware. And it was on Main street in Ingleside, Texas. And the summer, the three months before we opened up in September, golly, would have been In September of 88, I guess I graduated in 95. And we did this in my fourth grade year. So it would have been, yeah, 87. I can remember that summer going with my mom and dad, driving across the 30 minutes or 45 minutes from Corpus Christi to Ingleside, Texas, and helping my dad and mom in the hardware store, getting everything ready to roll, from pricing to putting up shelves, to putting together lawnmowers. I would slave labor. I was the guy that basically had to do all the projects. Basically because I was young. They were doing a lot of other things, getting stuff ready. And I'm the one putting stuff together, licking stickers, peeling stickers, and putting price tags on everything and making sure everything good. And roughly about nine, 10 years, my dad ran that hardware store. And I worked at that hardware store on the weekends during the summers. I would be there from the time I was in the fourth grade on. I could run a register, cut keys, cut glass. And I learned a lot of my work ethic in those years going on. We would work six days a week at the hardware store. And the seventh day we would do everything in Ingleside. Because when we moved over, we. Yeah, you work Six days a week, seventh day, when you should be going to church or doing other things, when a lot of people are resting, you had to do the stuff at the house and we had a big yard. So I grew up with a push mower, mowing on the weekends and then getting my PhD in post hole digging. I joke about that, but that was one of the biggest things it helped me with. My work ethic was doing all those things on the weekend. And from the time I was in the fourth grade on, I started working for other people too. Odd jobs during the slow times, mowing lawns, putting up fence, clearing brush, all that stuff. And that was a lesson my dad taught me. I was like, hey, make sure you give a good value. Make sure you somebody hires you, make sure you do a good job. If somebody hires you to do something, make sure you deliver. Make sure you do. Go above and beyond. Don't try to get the least amount done for somebody. Try to do the best you can in getting stuff done. And one of the lessons I learned from my dad is that a lot of times little things add up in a big way. And what do I mean by that? Well, last week in December, most companies, that's not usually a favorite time for most people, especially in our hardware store, you have end of the year inventory because you got to figure out what you've got in inventory. You got to do it for your books going forward. And you're counting everything. You're counting nails, your weighing nails, you're counting every nut, bolt, washer, galvanized pipe, threads, couplings. And I was responsible for a big chunk of that. So during Christmas vacation, I wasn't off having fun. I was in a hardware store working, getting my hands all dirty from counting nuts, bolts and washers and having to put a number on it. And I hated it because there was this one big aisle, one big aisle on both sides was just all the hardware. And my dad taught me a lesson early on. He said, scott, this is one of the most important aisles in the store. I think it was just blowing smoke up my tail, telling the kid, hey, this is, you got to do it. Everybody else is running through their aisles fast because they got bigger items. I had all these small things because this is one of the most important aisles in this life, if not the most important. I'm like, what do you mean by that? He goes, well, Scott, do you know how much of this hardware stuff that we sell on a monthly annual basis, this accounts for about 40% of our sales in the store. Is this Aisle alone, I'm like, what? He goes, yeah. Now, in Ingleside, if you don't know, there's Ingleside on the bay. It's just right across the bay from Corpus Christi, Texas. Oxycam, Duke fineries down there. Reynolds Aluminum had a big refinery down there. But it was also the site of a company called Bullwinkle that built these large offshore oil derricks. And you're probably wondering, what the hell does this have to do with notes? Scott, I'm getting to the point here. They would come in and buy boxes and boxes and boxes of nuts, bolts, and washers, divots, welding rods, things like that for my dad. So it was. It was a great account my dad had. He would literally buy a lot of stuff in order for these guys, and they come and pick it up, and millions and millions of nuts and bolts on one of these oil tanks. And that accounted for the thing. So that taught me one thing early on, that a lot of your business is made up of small little things that you want to make sure and get things done. Little things can eat you apart. If you don't have your nuts and bolts tightened on tight, it can loosen away and can break it up. And I think we've all been guilty of letting some of our nuts and bolts kind of loosen up. You got to keep things tight. Little things go, do. Go a long way. They do add up when you don't think of that. So you've got to keep your eye on little things along with just the big picture as well, too. Big picture is great, but you got to keep a look at some of the little things. The little things will add up, and that's one of the big lessons. Probably the second most important lesson my dad taught me growing up is make sure you focus on little things. Try to do the little things really good. Now, you're not going to be an expert at doing something first off, but as you get better, you do it again and again. You'll get better at what you do. You get better at making sure everything's clean, crisp, and nice and tight. And so if you can do that, take a little bit extra time to do that, it'll go a long way. Now, one of the lessons that has always been important my dad would go back to is like the story I talked about going back to high school and starting a hardware store and moving south to take care of. One of the big lessons he taught me was that you have to do it. I mentioned early on that we're all a product of Our decisions we've made from a day in, day out basis. Some good, some bad. But you are responsible and you have to do what you want to do. If you want to set a goal for yourself, nobody's going to do it for you. You have to go out and do it. If you want to open a business or become a real estate investor or get a degree or start a podcast or rescue cats or whatever it may be, there's a broad variety of things there. You have to be the one that does it. Nobody else is going to do it for you. If you want something to accomplish, yes, you can bring on people to help assist you. But if it's your baby, if it's your thing, they're not going to take as much of a interest or be as passionate about it because they're going to learn from me. If you're not passionate about something, your team, your staff is not going to be passionate about it. If you're not doing the things that need to be done and they're not going to do it. And that's the thing that my dad taught me most. Listen, Scott, you are responsible for where you want to go. If you want to go to college, it's up to you. We didn't make a lot of money on the hardware store. A small town of 3,500 people, but they survived. We always had plenty to eat. We always had clothes in our back. We always had things successful. Now, we didn't have the most luxurious things, we didn't have the most new car. I mean, I remember dad driving us to school in a white van, white Dodge van, or the Astro van. Here comes the Carson bus. But my dad taught me that you have to do it. You have to be responsible for your actions. And that was one of the most important things I believe I've done, is say, hey, the buck stops with me, or I've screwed up or I've done things, or when I set myself to doing something, I go out and get it done. I think that's one thing that's always been me, is that I'm the one that's going to have to do it. Nobody's going to be able to really help me to do it. It's something I'm passionate about. People around me will be passionate about it. But it's up to me ultimately to go literally and make it happen. And I tell that to all of you out there. If you're wanting to raise capital, want to close deals, you want to make money, it's not up to your boss. It's not up to your sister, your spouse, whatever. It's up to. Ultimately up to you. And you can't use the excuse. Oh, there's no excuses. You're responsible. So it is up to you. Is one of the big lessons my father taught me. My dad was always accused of not charging enough for his work. There are some slow times in a hardware store, especially in the middle of the summer when it's 100 degrees outside. So my dad always loved working with wood. I can remember from the time before he had the hardware store, he always had a lathe or he always had tools. He was working on his hobby. His hobby was working with wood, making swings and gliders and all those things. So that became part of stuff that was selling a hardware store. And he made these amazing gliders. It's stuff in 50 states and multiple countries from people all over years doing that. And people come in and he could charge a whole lot more for what he did. But people came back and back and back again to him because he was fair. He was fair to people. He's like, oh, yeah, I'm making money on this. It's being profitable for me as it is. I don't need to try to charge through the nose, because then he would sold a whole lot less. And part of what he did was not just the enjoyment of stuff. It was basically a side hustle in the hardware store that made some money. It was passion. He loved working with his hands. He loved the excitement that he saw from people when they come in and order a special thing for their wife or order Christmas decorations, wooden decorations that would go on their lawn. That was one of the coolest things dad would always do, is drive it around Ingleside, Texas, and around the community and other areas. Seeing some of the stuff that he had built in other people's lawn and the pride that they took in, the joy that they took in that. So that's one of the things that I think is important for. I always remember thinking about my dad, be fair. I've tried to do that, and I shouldn't say I have tried to do that with our education, coaching, trying to make sure it's a fair price, not overcharge, but give value, be fair. Have somebody come in, they come in as a student, make sure and give them the tools they need to get done. Make sure you give them the things that you need. None of this blow smoke up your ass or upsell to upsell, to upsell. Don't get me wrong, we do some Upselling on things. But we have obviously a funnel for what we do with our education side. But be fair, and we've always tried to be fair with people. I'm proud to say that I think a lot of our students feel that way, that our stuff is really great. The stuff that we put out is really good. It's fairly priced. We're making some profit on it, of course, but it's fairly priced. And I've always been a believer that if somebody really wants to dig a ditch, if you give them a shovel, they'll go out and dig it. And I can tell you that because I've shoveled enough ditches in my day, dug enough ditches in Ingleside. Around the south of Texas community with different variety of things, but always trying to be fair. I got plenty of calluses from a boy from doing a lot of stuff, but working hard, being fair to your clients, your customers, audience, and go out there and make some things happen. Showing up, oh my gosh. My dad would just. I can remember in my ear, show up, just be there, be on time. And I remember many a time, many a time probably at least once a month, twice a month sometimes, Especially in a small town, when you run the hardware store, if somebody has an issue, they're calling you at night. It was kind of the running joke. Occasionally we get a phone call on a Saturday evening or at night, Sunday, when we're supposed to be off from. People in the town that had an emergency, had a pipe break, their kid ran over it with a lawnmower. They had an emergency that popped up of some sort. And I remember dad and us going into the hardware store in our van, driving the 10 or 15 minutes to get there, opening up for a client on our day off to help them out. And they always appreciate that. People appreciate the little things that you do go above and beyond. But first and foremost, if you show up, that's half the battle. I can only remember my dad taking a few sick days to actually close the hardware store. A few days to close the store. He showed up Monday through Saturday. Even through illness and being sick and struggling with his eyes and diabetes. He and my mom showed up on a regular basis. The only couple days we closed during the week was when my brother was hit by a car, was in the hospital. And then just a couple days when he was sick, mom was traveling and could not be there. He was in for surgery. We either open late a little bit, but most of the time I remember my dad showing up. And you think about that dad didn't have a lot of staff. He brought on a couple people part time. We had a guy that would come in occasionally, but a lot of times they relied on us. If we were sick, mom would be there. If mom was sick, dad would definitely be there. And I can remember I have to give a big shout out to my mom as well because as my dad's diabetes was getting a little bit worse, mom realized that the hardware store was not going to be the answer. And so she started to go back to school. I remember a sophomore in high school, her going back to college 20 years after she graduated high school to become an RN and doing the things to do that and she became the bread earner. After my dad's health got bad, I had to close the hardware store. My sophomore junior, if I remember, it was my junior year. But my dad then opened just a craft store next door and did that and showed up on a daily basis, day in, day out. Showing up is one of the most important things. Being consistent, that's one of the things that we try to do here with the podcast, is just be consistent pretty daily basis, for the most part, as best we can, trying to make sure we crank out things. I would love to say we did it Monday through Friday every day. We average about four days a week that we get some things out. Sometimes we're good, sometimes we've got a bit of a gap as things are getting recorded and other things. But we try to show up. And I can tell you that if you show up, if you show up on a consistent basis to your real estate club, if you show up as a consistent basis to your job on time, not leaving early, not judging the clock, you show up to your audience, you show up to your peers, you show up on a regular basis. That's half the battle. That's half the battle in itself. Wednesday night, I have our Sentex podcasters meetup and I looked on the meetup group. We sent some marketing out throughout the week and there was like one person who was rsvp. I'm like, oh, man, that one person was me. Like, I'm not going to have anybody there. I don't know. Should I cancel it? No, I need to go. There's no excuse. It's just nearby the office. So I went and showed up there and five people show up besides me. So a total of six people. Not the biggest of me, like, but it was such a very productive thing. So that's one of the things I want to show. Make sure to share with you Guys, show up. Show up is so important. Being there is so important. Attending things is important. Yeah, it's easier to sit at home and watch the NBA finals. Yes, it's easier to sit at home and watch Grey's Anatomy or espn, but those things will be there. What, alone? Always be. That there is the opportunity that you're missing if you don't show up. And if you don't show up, what eventually happens? Somebody else will show up in some form or fashion. And as long as you're there showing up, being there, consistent, being there on a regular basis, you're not going to be perfect every time, but at least you're there. That goes such a long way in finding any type of success, whether it's going to school, showing up to your classes. I mean, as long as I would show up to my classes, I'd make a case. If I didn't show up to my classes, I didn't do very well. But showing up, coming to the office, being present, reaching out and showing up as a variety of different things, especially if you have a full time job and you're doing side hustle. Showing up is an email blast out, it's social media posts, it's making offers. Just being there is one of the most important things that you can do with your tribe. And we all have a tribe, whether it's investors or people in our real estate club, your neighbors and things like that. Sometimes you showing up is the motivation that somebody else needs. Sometimes you showing up with a smile on your face, with your hand out to say hi, how are you doing? Is what other people need and that's an important thing. That's one of the biggest lessons my dad shared with me and instantly was just showing up. I can remember years, so many stories of people just showing up at the hardware store to see my dad, see my mom, just to come in and say hello, stop by and same visit. It goes a long way, not just to be there to buy something, but just to be there and say, hey, how's it going? Good to see you. And that's one of the things you want to build in your tribe, you want to build your audience. How's it going? Good chance to see you showing up as a variety of things. These days you don't have to travel as much. You can do things online like this, you can do webinars, conferences, Instagram, tv, Facebook lives. That's one way of showing up in your audience. I have to give a big shout out to people that reach out to me is when I was gone for three and a half weeks. We did have stuff that live streamed that we recorded. It was great. It was great seeing people respond back and say, hey, great to see you again. Good to see you back. Glad to have you back. And that says a lot. And so for those that reached out, Laura Blanc and a few others out there, thank you so much. It does mean a lot that you would appreciate with me being gone for a few weeks for things. But my dad also instilled in me as I remember growing older, getting married and graduating college. I remember how proud my dad was when I graduated college and then I did on my own because they didn't have any money to give to me for education. I mean, I remember my dad well, my mom and dad, they adopted their oldest grandkids and they became part of the family. Tim and Tammy, we were a family of seven. I think from the fifth or sixth grade on. This is a big family. You got seven mouths to feed. That's a lot. You're not going to the movies, you're in big garden. You're doing the things you need to do to survive and put the money to the right thing. So that's a big thing. But one of the biggest things I can remember is when I was riding around my father, it was around the weekend my sister was getting married. We're running around, grabbing the barbecue and things like that for the rehearsal dinner and stuff like that. My dad's health wasn't the greatest. I mean me the oldest and at one time I would think I was the closest. I'm not going to say I was my parents favorites. I was. But anyway, it's just kind of funny, but it's the fact of visiting my dad and talking with him about life, he goes, man, Scott, life is all about making memories. You got to live your life first, but you got to actually live it. You can't just being in the rat race. You got to live it. You got to make those memories because those are what goes with you long term. Nobody remember the bonus you got. Nobody remember the sale that you got and that one extra person. What they will remember is the time that you showed up for your family, you showed up for your loved ones and you actually lived and made memories. And I think that's one of the big things that I want to reiterate to you guys that are listening out there is just show up, show up, show up on a consistent basis to your friends, your family. Show up and live and make those memories, okay? Make those memories. Take the Extra time to smell the roses. Take the extra time to take that walk. Take that extra time to give that extra compliment. You're going to make somebody's life better, but also work hard. If you don't play hard, you're just going to be dull. You're going to run into that entrepreneurial burnout like we discussed with Aaron Young the other day in an earlier podcast. You have to realize, everybody, that life is full of memories. You are not in this alone. All right? If you're in this alone, it's probably because you are hiding out. You're not getting out, talking with people, you're not sharing, you're not showing up. Don't do that. Get up. Live. Make some memories. Laugh. Learn to laugh. Learn to laugh at yourself. It was one of the big things my dad said, look, sooner are you going to learn to laugh at yourself. Be stupid or be silly. Do it. Your life will be so much happier. It will take away power from people that want to make fun of you. Let them make fun of you. Yeah, it was stupid. It was goofy. I get my sense of humor from my father a lot of times. I remember times my. I remember coming home, my dad would just be goofy, walking around the house, boots, throw a wig on my mom's dress over her or whatever like that, and walk around just being silly, being funny, Taking dried silicone and putting up his nose like it was a booger. He had all this sawdust on his thing, just goofing around with people. One of the moments. This is a memory. It's kind of an embarrassing memory. But my senior year in high school, the team captain, we were on a good place. We just won a game. And I was getting ready to go over my girlfriend's house. The game is over. My dad come in the locker room to get me, and I hey, dad, can I get 20 bucks from you to grab some to eat on my way over the house? And he's like, well, I need a kiss. I'm like, what? And that was one of the things us kids always did before we went to bed. We gave our parents hugs, gave him a kiss on the cheek. No matter how old we were, I was always saying, goodnight, dad. Good night, Mom. Love you. And the same thing, vice versa. That goes a long way. That's showing up for your loved ones. But my dad's like, yep, I need a kiss. I'm like, okay. And there's the coaches, my head coach, and all my buddies, like, there. Oh, cars is gonna give his dad a kiss. Sure enough, kiss on the cheek. Whoop, Here comes the 20 bucks. Hey, whatever. You have to laugh at things like that. You got to be able to laugh at yourself. You know what? If you're embarrassed of something, laugh it off. Everybody is embarrassed. Everybody puts on their pants one leg at a time. Everybody passes gas, everybody burps, everybody does embarrassing things. Sometimes it's okay to laugh about life, okay to laugh about the idiosyncrasies that we all have in life and business. All right? Those are fun memories, things to laugh at. And those are some of the things that I probably miss the most about my father. My dad in my ear all the time, things I'm doing good on or things I'm not doing good on or I hear my father when we're making decisions or choosing things. I hear my dad in my ear and it's always a good thing to hear dad and some stuff. I was very blessed to have such a good father who lived quite a while. My dad was 40 when I was born. It's hard to believe that I'm the age. I'm a little bit older. I'm 42 now, but my dad was 40 when I was born and it's kind of interesting. He ended up having two more kids after that. And he passed when he was 69. I was 25. He passed him to sleep, but not really. His heart suffered as he got older in life. Heart was only pumping a little bit. He had a heart attack. And one night he got up to go to the bathroom, which a lot of people with diabetes do at 2 o' clock in the morning and his heart just gave out on him. Mom jumped out of bed, went over, rolled him over. And my dad had made peace with death a long, long time ago. And whenever he said, when God is ready for me, I'm ready. I have nothing to fear. I give up this body and move on to something bigger and better. And when my mom rolled my father over and his last breath went out of him, he had this huge grin on his face because he knew it was his time. I think we all wish we would do that. I think one of the biggest things my dad always told me is don't be afraid to make memories. You can't take those with you. But just live. Live and be ready and do as much as you can on a day in, day out basis. Live each life to its fullest. I've learned so many great lessons from my father. One of the things I think I learned from my father indirectly goes back to the hardware store. I Think that's why I have such a passion for marketing. My dad was great at his job. He had a different timeframe 30 plus years ago with marketing and things like that, the old way of advertising and flyers and things like that. I never thought my dad marketed enough in the hardware store. It's hard to do that when you're trying to do it all and you only have part time things. And as he added people later on the years there it became more successful. He went to a hardware show and I would be running the hardware store for the weekend as a young kid with a an older guy there to make sure I didn't get hold up or rob. But you have to realize that the lifeblood of entrepreneurs easier these days. It's not how good a product you have, it's not how good it works. Doesn't mean anything if you don't know how to market, if you don't know how to sell it, if you don't know how to share that with the world around you. If you've got dreams, you've got passion, you've got things you're working towards in the long run with your business, your real estate, your notes, whatever it might be out there, you've got to learn to market it. I don't care how old you are, whether you're 6 or 66, I don't care what your excuse is. These days we are all learning and the learning curve of new phones and new products. I mean if you think about it, we had the cassette tapes when I was young, when that turned into CDs and it's turned into the ipod now. It's turned into everything. I remember working and getting my first cell phone not until I was in college. The sophomore college is this big brick, Motorola brick basically. Technology is moving so fast and if you want to stay abreast of the situation, you got to learn. You got to learn what's going on. I had to get a new cell phone before we left a couple months ago. I love it. I should have been doing this a long time ago. I was kind of hesitant to it because I had to learn new something new. Oh, it was a new phone. I learned some new where's everything at And I love it. I should have done it a long time ago. I think a lot of people, if you embrace that aspect of always learning and doing something new, yes, you may gripe and bitch and moan about it the entire time you're doing it, but at some point you're going to realize, man, I should have done This a lot sooner. So marketing is one of the biggest lessons that I learned that my father didn't teach me, but I learned from watching my parents working their butts off and their work ethics. Is that a work ethic? It will get you there, but marketing will take you to a whole different level. Quick recap. Hey, nuts and bolts. Little things add up in a big way in your business. You are solely responsible. You have to go do it. Nobody else is going to do it for you. Nobody's gonna give you a handout. You have to go do it. Showing up. Gotta show up on a regular basis. Very critical. Showing up is half the battle. Be fair in what you do. Don't try to squeeze every penny out of everything. If it's not a win win situation, you're losing. If you're on the winning side, somebody's on the losing side, you actually lose. Because the fact is that person, that client, whatever, will not come back to you. They go somewhere else because they think and know that they lost. Nobody wants to feel ripped off. Okay. And then make some memories and live, go out, make some memories, live. And you feel a lot better off that. But those are the five really biggest things that my father taught me that I've taken with me as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a person, as an adult, as a man. And one of the things when my dad passed, full church, two police departments, single side and ransbath. Both wanted to escort my father's hearst to the cemetery. So many stories came in and so many stories trickled in after my dad passed. When I went down, I went down and helped my mom close out the craft store. My dad did close the hardware store a few years ago. Dad opened it right around the corner, Carson's country crafts. And so many memories came out. Projects my dad was working on. People came in and came in when they find out that my dad had passed and share the stories out, you know, hey, he came in and somebody needed a piece of wood and he just basically, oh, here, use this, cut it, sand it real fast, gave it to them. I don't need to charge. And they just doing it over and over for people coming by. I have this boat compass that a shrimper came in one day, needed money and was trying to sell. Need some money for gas or milk and eggs for his family. My dad bought the compass off and I still have it to this day. And it's one of the most unique things that I have, but it always tries to keep me in mind. I always try to keep in mindset of hey, try to stay on your compass. Yes, storms will arrive, storms will come, hurricanes will come, they'll throw you off for a while. You may have to stop what you're doing for a little while to bail water. You may need to go ashore for a little bit before you go back out to see and go fishing again. Just try to stick know where you're at, know where you're wanting to go because eventually you'll get there if you just stick to it. That's one thing that my father gave me before he passed and it's one of my favorite things. I still have it to this day. Just it's a very valuable thing to me of compass and sticking to where you need to go and trying to stick in that straight line if you can. We know it's not going to happen. All off in a straight line. But keep your mind and eye on the prize and use your internal compass, your internal gut to help guide you in that way and you'll eventually get there. It was one of the biggest things I could say, but it's with it being Father's Day this upcoming weekend, if you're listening to this, the podcast, it's probably been a week or so. If you listen on the FM radio, hopefully you've had a great Father's Day weekend as well too to our radio stations across the country. But I just wanted to give a big shout out to all the fathers, the stepfathers out there, the adoptive fathers, the guys that have kids, the guys that don't have kids, whether it's kids that are the two legged or the four legged kind. Happy Father's Day to you all out there. I have to give a shout out to my stepfather, Odell Daughtry as well. Thanks for being a great stepfather as well and a great companion for my mom since my dad has passed. Do yourself a favor. If you've got somebody who's been a big figure in your life, a male father, father figure of some sort, make sure to say thank you to them this weekend. Send them a message, a text message. If you're not on the best of terms with your father, do yourself a favor, pick up the phone, call your dad this weekend. I guarantee nothing will calm a rip in the fabric than a phone call saying, hey dad, just want to call and tell you I love you. Because there's a I wish I could still do that to this day when people ask what would you do if you had an hour with anybody? That's the hour of the day I'd spend just visit my father. Happy Father's Day to everybody. I want to wish you all out there, enjoy it, be safe and God bless. Enjoy it. Go make some memories this weekend and with your business. And once again, thank you for listening to the Nicholas Show. Hopefully this episode wasn't too sappy for you guys, but I just think it's important. Our father figures play an integral role in helping develop who we are. And my dad has had a huge, huge role on the man that I'm today. So thank you for listening, guys and gals. Go out, make something happen, and we'll see you off the top, everybody. Bye.