From Green Gas to Financial Freedom A Fathers Guide for New Adults with Rob Finlay
Are you a young adult navigating the choppy waters of adulthood? Or perhaps you’re a parent wondering how to prepare your children for the real world? In this enlightening episode, I sit down with Rob Finlay, a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, successful entrepreneur, and father of four, to discuss his new book “Hey Dad: Everything You Should Have Learned About Life But Didn’t.”
Rob shares his journey from struggling student to accomplished businessman, and how his own parenting experiences inspired him to create a practical guide for young adults. We explore the challenges of transitioning to adulthood and the importance of developing essential life skills.
Key Takeaways:
- The value of mentorship and learning from experts in various fields
- Why understanding personal finance is crucial for young adults
- How to balance entrepreneurial ambitions with practical work experience
- The importance of developing a strong work ethic and adaptability
Bridging the Knowledge Gap
Rob explains how he interviewed over 30 experts to provide well-rounded advice on topics ranging from car maintenance to emergency preparedness. We discuss why many young adults struggle with basic life skills and how parents can better prepare their children for independence.
The Power of Personal Finance
Discover why Rob believes financial literacy is fundamental to a successful adult life. We explore:
- The concept of “good interest” vs. “bad interest”
- Why budgeting is a tool for freedom, not restriction
- How to teach young people about the power of compound interest
Balancing Ambition and Experience
Rob shares his perspective on whether young adults should pursue traditional employment before starting their own businesses. We discuss:
- The benefits of understanding both sides of the employer-employee relationship
- How to explore entrepreneurship through side hustles
- The importance of developing a strong work ethic in any career path
This conversation is packed with practical wisdom for young adults and parents alike. Whether you’re just starting your adult journey or looking to guide the next generation, you’ll find valuable insights to help navigate life’s challenges.
Don’t miss this opportunity to gain a fresh perspective on adulting and the essential skills needed to thrive in today’s world. Tune in now and start giving a heck about preparing for a successful, independent life!
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Website: https://robfinlay.com/
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robjfinlay/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Robjfinlay
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Chapter Summaries(Full Unedited Transcript follows):
00:00:02
Introduction to Rob Finley: Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author and Entrepreneur
Rob Finley, a successful entrepreneur and author, is introduced. His background in commercial real estate, technology integration, and agriculture is highlighted. The host emphasizes their shared interests in farming and parenting, setting the stage for an engaging conversation.
00:06:27
Rob’s Origin Story: From Immigrant Roots to Entrepreneurial Success
Rob shares his background as the son of an immigrant airline pilot. He discusses how travel and exposure to different cultures shaped his worldview. Rob describes his journey from struggling student to Wall Street professional, and eventually becoming a successful entrepreneur and father of four.
00:15:17
The Challenges of Transitioning to Adulthood
Rob discusses the difficulties young adults face when transitioning from dependence to independence. He shares personal experiences and emphasizes the importance of preparing children for adulthood. The conversation touches on the need for practical life skills and the value of mentorship.
00:24:23
The Importance of Mentorship and Communication Skills
The discussion shifts to the significance of mentorship and developing strong communication skills. Rob and the host share experiences of teaching their children to network and interact with adults. They emphasize the value of genuine conversations and active listening in personal and professional settings.
00:39:24
Rob’s Passion for Sustainable Agriculture
Rob explains his interest in sustainable farming practices. He discusses his journey from conventional farming methods to focusing on soil health and regenerative agriculture. Rob shares insights on the importance of understanding where food comes from and the value of hard work in farming.
00:50:03
“Hey Dad”: A Guide for Young Adults
Rob introduces his book “Hey Dad,” explaining its purpose as a practical guide for young adults transitioning to independence. He discusses the process of interviewing experts for the book and highlights key topics covered, including job hunting, personal finance, and essential life skills.
01:13:46
The Importance of Personal Finance Education
The conversation focuses on the critical role of personal finance education for young adults. Rob and the host discuss budgeting, understanding good and bad interest, and the power of compound interest. They emphasize the need to teach financial literacy early and its impact on long-term success.
01:22:30
Key Takeaways from “Hey Dad” and Closing Thoughts
Rob shares the main lesson from his book: to relax and approach adulthood with confidence. He encourages readers to use the book as a foundation for independence. The host and Rob discuss the target audience and the importance of personalizing the book when giving it as a gift.
Full Unedited Transcript:
[00:00:02 – 00:01:31]
Good day and welcome to Give a Heck. On today’s show, I welcome Rob Finley. Rob is a Wall Street Journal best selling author, seasoned entrepreneur, renowned speaker and father of four. He is a successful entrepreneur and commercial real estate investor. He has built and sold four companies. Rob’s success is providing innovative solutions for his clients. Constantly thinking ahead of the curve, he brings strategic insights and inspires the next generation of leaders with his commitment to mentorship, education and integration of technology. When Rob is not at his day job, he is passionate about agriculture, exploring new practices and sustainable methods to enhance environmental stewardship in farming. Despite his success in the corporate world, Rob’s most important role has always been as a dad. As the go to source for his kids late night hey dad, how do I calls? He realized that young adults everywhere needed a resource to navigate adulthood. Enter hey Dad. A practical and entertaining guide filled with real world advice, expert insights and hilarious personal stories to help young adults survive and thrive in the real world. I’d like to welcome you to the show Rob. Thanks so much for agreeing to come on and share with us some of your life journey.
[00:01:31 – 00:01:35]
Well, thanks Dwight. Thank you so much for having me. That’s quite an intro. So, so, wow.
[00:01:35 – 00:04:21]
Thank you. You’re welcome. I, I looked at your, at your, your one sheet and I looked at Pod Match and when I went onto your website and I was researching you and I thought, you know, wow, there’s a lot I can really grab on and hold onto when it comes to communicating with you. I’m a dad, five kids, right. Based in agricultural. My dad owned a farm equipment dealership. He’s been retired now for quite a few years. I grew up in that industry. Most of my relatives are farmers and the agriculture industry. I’ve heard it all, I’ve seen it all. Listening to the farmers that come in and talking about, you know, yield of what they’re growing, if they’re growing wheat or oats or whatever it is. And so I thought it was quite interesting. And I honestly believe for myself I’m faith bearing as a Christian, I believe God puts people in my path, that I’m designed to communicate with where we can resonate and there’s connection before we even connect. Right. If that makes sense. Right. Somebody, somebody that I can just relate to and, and have that wholesome open conversation and you know, when I have conversations with people or it focuses on younger audiences like you and I are talking about, I’ll literally reach out to some of my younger adult kids, I’ll tell them about it or I’ll reach out to parents and I’ll say hey maybe your kids should listen to my podcast. And you know, you asked about age range and I’m going to add, add this in for your own information before we get rocking on your origin story. One of my earliest listeners she was in high school and I, I released my book in 2020 or 2021. Pardon me. And in March I released my book and her dad bought two books and he lives down in Alton, I believe it’s in Texas. And listening to he sent me and said I bought two yearbooks. I bought one for my daughter, she’s in high school. Well here’s where this story goes. She, he sends me pictures. Days later she’s sitting in the basement on their big screen TV because my podcast is also on YouTube and she’s in high school and she’s watching my podcast. He says, you got a fan. She likes your show. And then he sent me a message or showed me, sent me a picture and she’s reading my book in the airplane. They went on a trip together. Then he sent me a link. Months later he says she wrote an article about her two favorite authors. You and this other person are two favorite authors. And she wrote this for the high school newspaper.
[00:04:21 – 00:04:22]
That’s fantastic.
[00:04:22 – 00:05:18]
If you want to know is my show impact people? The analytics aren’t like I said, they’re only so accurate. How is it going to gauge somebody in high school that listens to my show? My one grandson’s 12 years old and he list he listens to my show the odd time because he says he likes hearing papa’s voice, right. I said do you actually, do you actually get anything out of it? He says, oh yeah, grandpa. He says I do sometimes I think I should ask you about what that meant. Right. He’s 12, right. So, so we tracked people but anyway I thought I might just popped in my head I thought I should tell you that story because you asked about the analy so that was a person in high school and she’s still a friend of mine. We’re friends now. We message one another and she’s, she’s a young lady that’s owns. She’s a part owner of a yoga studio and she teaches yoga and she’s like you know what, let’s say she’s 21, maybe now 22.
[00:05:18 – 00:05:32]
Yeah. Well look at what you’ve done. You’ve impacted a life. I think that’s even bigger than any any analytics, right? You’ve if you’ve helped a young person become an Adult and so well done to you. So obviously your book is. Is impactful, so that was great.
[00:05:32 – 00:06:27]
Yeah, no, she loved my book. She. She said it really set her on a path and a course that she didn’t realize that she could achieve because it’s really easy, it’s easily digestible. Right. Give a heck how to live life on purpose and not by accident. And guess what? It focuses like my pod. Like my podcast starts out with the origin, builds, takes you through hills and valleys, and wraps up to where I started my podcast. Right. So it was. It was a journey, just like for yourself. We’re going to talk about your books though, too. So that being said, Rob, as I mentioned, I really like understanding a person’s origin story. Like, I just shared a little bit about mine. Tell me what your origin story is. You know, things that happen, key things that happened. Whatever you want to be, whenever, wherever you want to start of me is fine. Bimbi, you know, from your earliest recollections to where you are today, please.
[00:06:27 – 00:10:37]
Sure. So my father was a immigrant from Bermuda, traveled to this country and had myself and my brother and became an airline pilot. And so having a father that’s an airline pilot, you get sort of a unique perspective on the world. First of all, you get to travel, which is really nice, because back then, airline, you know, airline pilots would, Would be able to fly their, their families around. And so, so from that standpoint, I was able and had this, this great appreciation to travel and see other places, other. Other countries. I think more importantly, I think one of the early things that I learned was about respect for all others and, and other cultures and having respect for, for people and societies that are different than your own. And living in my years, even though I grew up in different places, but my younger years, I remember living in rural Connecticut. Well, when you live in rural Connecticut, and I shouldn’t say rural Connecticut, I mean Fairfield county, so it’s still a very populated area near New York, but we lived in the country. But I was able to take that microcosm of a place and expand it and see different perspectives. So an early age, it was. It was about understanding different people. I also saw from my dad’s perspective that if you’re an airline pilot, you’re not traveling all the time. You’re. You’re having different things. So I learned my entrepreneurial spirit from my dad. My dad was not only an airline pilot, but he would do things differently. He would have businesses here and there, try to sell things from, from Timberline, stoves, wood Burning stoves to. He was. Wanted to be a lobsterman. So all of these things sort of built me as a character of becoming an entrepreneur. Fast forward. The one thing I wasn’t very good at, though, I wasn’t really a good student. And so the perspective of wanting to be something and having options wasn’t really afforded to me because I was not a good student. I didn’t apply myself. I really struggled with school and I struggled with the learning that though, taught me that I needed to learn if I wanted to be successful in life. And I wanted to do different things. I needed to learn and I needed to figure out a way that I could learn. And so a lot of things I Wish I had YouTube back when I was growing up, because I think I would have learned a heck of a lot more than I had. But that being said, I was able to get through college. I was able be by sheer will and sheer determination, actually go to Wall street, work on Wall street, where I realized that that really wasn’t what I wanted to do. I actually wanted to go back to my. Go become an entrepreneur. So I started a business. And for the last 25 years, I’ve built and sold multiple businesses. I’ve been known as an entrepreneur, as a real estate investor, but that’s not really who I am. That’s just part of me. What I’m really most proud about is I’ve been a father. I’ve raised four. Four kids. I’ve gone through this, this time. And I think a lot of it is, you know, the goods and the bads, the sacrifices you make as an entrepreneur, the sacrifices that you think are important. I. I thought my kids wanted money and they wanted to be able to travel and have all the things that, that all the trappings of success, when in reality what they really wanted was a father. Right? They wanted somebody who gave them the time and attention. And. And so the book that I wrote was really almost a. A thing for me to say, you know what? I didn’t teach my kids everything I should have. Right. I was more focused on building on what I thought was important, which was building businesses, than making sure, are my kids ready for adult life? And so that is my backstory. So now I spend my time providing advice to my kids, providing advice and mentorship to young adults. But also. So the other things that you said, I still run businesses, I still do all these other things.
[00:10:37 – 00:12:20]
Oh, wow. So you, you’ve had a full plate, full life, but you’re still on the climb, which I find with many Successful entrepreneurs, they’re always out searching and for knowledge. They’re always growing. And I find many entrepreneurs are like yourself, even myself. I wasn’t a great student. I didn’t apply myself. The, the best I could have possibly applied myself. You know, I got through high school, went into college, and if my first go around a college, I was in the partying stage. I was in the like, you know, I moved away from my small rural community of like how a city went from back then it was 10,000 people to, you know, Edmonton at that time. Now it’s one and a half million. But back then it was probably what, 800,000, 700,000. It was a shock, right? All of a sudden I’m out doing whatever. And then my second go around when I went to college for electronics engineering, I had more skin in the game. I had responsibilities that I had gotten because I had already been out of school. And I got. It was in a career putting in alarm systems and. And commercial camera systems and stuff. And then I went back to school. But it was like a switch turned on and I just decided I needed to be. I needed to apply myself and to learn. And personal development really wasn’t introduced to me immediately, but by 1993, shortly after I got out of college, it was. And I’ve been a lifelong learner ever since and, and still have it in the back of my mind that I wasn’t a great student.
[00:12:21 – 00:15:22]
Try not to live in the past. Yeah, well, you know, it’s interesting though, you had that. That aha moment that a lot of people have, which is that. That moment where you’re now an adult, right, when you weren’t applying yourself. There is a point in people’s times where they have to face that. That. That perspective that they are now an adult and they now have to get out of the dependency of. Of what they’ve been used to for their entire life and be able to be independent, be able to go on their own and be able to. To do the things that they need to do. I had a very similar story my first year in college. The college I went to, the only reason I went to it was because you didn’t have to fill out any essays, they didn’t require any standardized tests. It was like almost like a postcard. Now, in similar to you, I grew up in rural New Hampshire. So New Hampshire, in the state, it doesn’t have. I mean, my graduating class, I think was maybe a couple hundred people. I went to a college from rural New Hampshire to the College of Boca Raton in Boca Raton, Florida. So clearly ill prepared for any type of just open, you know, free, free for all. Right? So that lasted about a semester before they said, you’re not coming back. And so I, at that moment I had to face reality of becoming an adult because my parents were like, okay, you just failed out of college. You cannot just come back here and live here. Don’t think you’re just coming back here and living. And you have, you have really have three choices. You can either go join the military, you can go back and get a job and go support yourself, go get away and do that, or three, go to college. Otherwise you’re not just staying around here, you’re not going to stay in our basement and just mooch off of us. And so I was very fortunate. Where I do believe also that life is, is a balance of. There’s, there are things that happen in your life that are very special that are somewhat considered luck. Some will think they’re spiritual. There’s a lot of, a lot of stuff, but things in your life that happen for a specific reason. And I met a gentleman at an admissions in admissions at a local college back in New Hampshire, New Hampshire College. And I, I went to go see him and I begged him, I said, listen, I really screwed up, but if you accept me, I will promise I will get good grades and I will graduate. And so he said, okay, well, this is Mike de Blasi, who is, who is a great person up there. And so I went, took summer classes, said, okay, if you get Bs or better, I’ll accept you. I got Bs are better. And I ended up graduating in about three years. I worked full time, went to school full time. Never really had that great funds college experience like so many people have, and I wish I had in some cases, but I was able to do it and get on with, with my life. But that comes back to every person has that point where they have to come to reality to be an adult.
[00:15:23 – 00:16:12]
Oh, absolutely. And, and for those out there that are helicopter parents, let your kids grow up great. You got to let people make mistakes. And I’ve been guilty for it. I’ll be honest with you. There’s Adam, you know, four daughters and a son. And I’ve, I’ve been guilty of it where I, you know, should have just nodded my head instead of giving advice. Sometimes advice isn’t required, right? Sometimes interaction isn’t required. But it’s, it’s tough when you want to be that caring individual. You want to stop your kids from getting the boo boos. But I find the best lesson is getting that boo boo. It’s tripping, falling, getting up, putting a band aid on and moving forward.
[00:16:12 – 00:19:57]
Yeah. One of the things that I’ve seen and, and you know, I know we’ll talk about the book in a little bit but, but you know, I went out and I interviewed 30 experts in all sorts of things when I wrote this book. Hey dad. Because I didn’t want just my perspective. But one of the things that we really focused on in the first chapter of this book, because the book is really about foundational building blocks of being an adult. It’s not a, you know, it’s not like how to tie a tie and all that kind of stuff. It’ why you should wear a tie. And you know, so it’s, so it’s foundational components. But the first part of it, which was actually the most difficult was the point. And I know you help a lot of people in your, in your job with this is helping people through these unknown of life transitions. And it really was impactful. When I saw my daughter, one of my daughters, she started going to college and she had a technical major and when she was doing it she was very excited because when she started the major was in high demand. And unfortunately when she graduated those jobs were all offshore. And so the poor thing was like graduated thinking for the last four years she was going to get this great job and she was going to move on and she was going to go do this and all of this. She had already had her life planned for her but in reality when it didn’t happen, she became lost. She became sort of what is her purpose. And I think a lot of young adults go through this, this transition where I think you and I were talking about like traveling before, you know, those, those walkways at an airport that are like motorized, you know, they’re sort of like, you know, I call them an escalator, but they’re not. I, my kids used to call them the magic carpet ride where you get on and you travel and then you, you end up where you’re going, you don’t even step. It’s just sort of pre programmed for you. I think a lot of time for, for adults or for, for children. They are on that magic carpet ride. They go to school, they know first grade to second grade, second grade to third grade, so on and so forth. They, their parents sort of influence their sports, their parents influence their activities and sort of foster and those helicopter parents as you talk about, they’re there. And then at some point, that magic carpet ride stops. And how well are your kids prepared to take on that transition of knowing what do they want to do in life? How can they take it and, and understand that it’s not. First of all, it’s not a live or die decision. Right. That’s another thing. But, but then where do I get a job? How do I get a job? Where do I live? How do I find a car? What’s the right way to get a car? All of these things, how to be an adult, are really things that are all of a sudden thrown at our kids. In many cases, if they weren’t prepared for it, they’re overwhelmed, they can’t do it, they can’t cope. It’s very difficult for them to cope in those situations. So we really try to focus. And I know I’m guilty just like you are. Three girls, one boy. I can guarantee you that my girls knew very quickly if there was something wrong with their car. It’s just. Daddy, there’s some light going on in my car. Can you get. Oh, sure, sweetheart. I’d run, you know. Of course I’m going to go do it. You know, my sweet little princess isn’t going to have to go to a gas station. That’s what Dad’s for. Right. And so, but ultimately, when they move out, she lives on her own. Oh, dad. That light’s been on for about a week. You weren’t around. I knew you were coming to visit in a couple of weeks. So I just let that light go on until I ran on the rim. Right. So it’s, it’s those things. It’s getting your kids to understand that they, that they have to take care of themselves. That’s, that’s the excitement of being an adult, the fun of being an adult.
[00:19:57 – 00:21:17]
Well, and people have to realize that no matter what you do, how you educate, think about my existence and finance. Do you think my kids are all financial wizards? No, because I can only prepare them for so much. I had had one daughter that was so proud of what I. She wanted to shadow me. She had to. She was allowed a day of school. Shadowing professional. I took her through what I do and, and stuff and taught her things. But today, fast forward. Did she learn stuff from back then? Not really. It’s when they get adults and have to face that pressure of, of, you know, paying the bills, making sure their vehicle’s running okay, that if a red light’s on, they take care of it themselves. And it’s a, it’s a, that’s a tough balance to deal with. What do I push my kids with and what, what isn’t worth pushing my kids? Because they’re gonna have that hey, dad moment like you’re talking about when they’re adults, young adults out in their first job. Your daughter, for an example, finishes school and, and jobs are offshore. That sucks. How could you have prepared her for that when she was younger? Impossible. So we, as parents.
[00:21:17 – 00:21:55]
But here, here’s the thing, though. I actually, instead of that, I think if I gave her some of the skills that are required to get a job, right? Yes, there are some, there’s, there’s some more spiritual. There was, there was some bigger, like, emotional things. Right. It’s, it’s like it became overwhelming. Right. It’s almost, you’re, you’re almost powerless in indecision. Right. It didn’t know where she was going to live. She didn’t know where she was going to work. She didn’t know what she wanted to do. So she didn’t know where she wanted to live and, and so on and so forth. But there are foundational things that we can teach our kids that will help them become more successful through this adulting transition.
[00:21:55 – 00:22:00]
Oh, I agree. There is. Foundational pieces, like networking, for example.
[00:22:00 – 00:22:40]
Right. That most people, a lot of kids don’t realize are young adults. I say kids. I shouldn’t. I say young adults. Most young adults don’t realize that to get a job, you come out of school. It’s not just like the Indeed or the LinkedIn Easy Apply button isn’t going to get you a job. You actually have to learn how to network with companies. You need to learn how to talk to people. Heaven forbid you actually talk to people, not text talk. And these are skills that if you start training younger and you start helping your young adult early, will help them exponentially going forward in life.
[00:22:40 – 00:24:23]
Oh, I agree. Teaching. Teaching kids how to communicate is with. I’ll add to that, though. Like when I talk to my kids, we used to talk all the time about. They’d ask, you know, I’d stop and talk to somebody I didn’t know and would have conversation and they’d say, dad, why did you say that? Why did you do that? So we had those kind of conversations that, you know, when you communicate with somebody, though, and you are in a form of networking, you go to that same store all the time and the clerk sees you and they wave because they recognize you because you said kind words to them and you show appreciation and genuine conversation. I used to talk to him about that all the time, having that genuine conversation and that connection. Well, dad, how did you meet this person? Oh, I went over and I spoke to them. I did. I was uncomfortable, but I knew that we, we could maybe become business connection, connection or maybe it was a personal connection networking. But they learned that also from when they were younger. They don’t anymore. I still do. But when they were younger, they were involved in youth group, they’re involved in church and they learned how to network and communicate. They’d come and talk to me. So you’re right. You can set up and prepare your kids for a lot of different things, but there’s a lot of things that are out of, out of our ability to know where they’re going to go. So we give them hopefully enough tools in their toolbox where they open it and they can find a tool. And one of those tools now is, hey, dad, what do you think about this? Even my, even my oldest, she’ll ask me questions and have advice, but not very as frequent as my youngest, who’s going to be 26 next month.
[00:24:23 – 00:24:24]
Yeah.
[00:24:24 – 00:24:37]
Because they start learning things themselves and it’s from that network. Maybe they found a good friend or a mentor. Mentorship is huge. That’s one of the things I was going to get into. But before we do that, do you have any last comments about what we were just discussing?
[00:24:38 – 00:24:56]
I think it’s just, it is important that we talk about, you know, mentorship. And I’m glad you, I’m glad you brought that up because I was going to ask you. So in the church groups in the past, have you were your kids exposed to also adults? Because I think that’s an important thing. It’s not just, not just putting them in a church group and having them with, with kids. Right. That is good for social organization.
[00:24:56 – 00:27:38]
But no, they’re all controlled. There’s youth ministers and stuff that, that ran. So there was always adults that ran, but they’d also have. And years later, now they’ll run into people that were part of the youth group that are now part of the ministry or have become preceding. For an example that that helped run the youth group. Did they did everybody in youth group that they met and networked worth. Were they good? No, not really. Just because you stand in a church or you go to church doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily networking with the best quality of people. Doesn’t mean that the people there aren’t good quality. But yeah, they were run by adults. They had over. They Were overseen. They. They went on adventures together as a group. They went skiing or. Right. But they enjoyed youth group. They learned a lot from it. Few of them. Few of them are also in. In the youth choir. Right. Some of them did readings and volunteered, and they. They. They had a good mixture, in my opinion, of the different people life has to offer in a group setting, which I think helped set them up regardless. If they go to church as adults, help them set up for being able to communicate and deal with people outside of church. And they’re. When, you know, as they become young adults and now they’re older adults and they have their own kids and who knows, maybe somebody that just puts their kids in. Whatever. Let’s say they’re in a sport. My kids did that too. They were. So they had networking on both ends. Right. They had youth group, they had youth choir, they had sports, they had dance, they had soccer, gymnastics, all that stuff. And I think one of the things that I excelled at, though, is I always talk to them about their stuff, and they communicate with me about their. Their feelings. Were. Did they all do the same level? No, but there’s. Communication is important to raising kids and being that mentor and acting like the person that you are, telling them that you are. How many people do that, Rob? They present a facade, but their kids are standing behind them, beside them, growing up, knowing that’s a bunch of crock. Right. That they’re not genuine. So it’s back to that. I always taught my kids to be genuine. Be who you are. At home, when the door closes, you’re the same person. Yes. Maybe you’re a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more flowing. But outside of here, if you’re a kind, good person to everybody outside your home, why aren’t you being that kind, good person at home? Why do you talk to your sibling like that? Why are you talking to me like that?
[00:27:39 – 00:27:40]
Oh, maybe that.
[00:27:40 – 00:28:11]
Maybe. Maybe those people you’re having that conversation with, tell me what you said to them and they’ll tell me. Well, here’s. I. I just figured out what happened. You said this, and it probably triggered them. Maybe you triggered a memory or a thought. Maybe next time watch their body language. If they shift a little bit, just go, oh, did I say something that was wrong? Be genuine. Apologize and say, you know, maybe I could have said that better. Right. Mentorship comes in all forms, but it starts with us as parents.
[00:28:11 – 00:28:12]
Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:28:12 – 00:28:13]
Right.
[00:28:13 – 00:28:13]
300.
[00:28:14 – 00:28:52]
Right. So you have a commitment to mentorship, education, and integration of technology, which I like that for the Next generation of leadership. I know many do not grasp the connection of these three points though at any age, right, that, that you can have mentorship, education. And as you mentioned earlier, YouTube would have been a blessing for you and I, right, that tech, that technology. So what have you learned and taught that true success, why true success requires mentorship to continue to learn. And how do you integrate technology or how do you discuss technology when you’re talking about mentorship and education?
[00:28:53 – 00:32:31]
So I think, you know, mentorship is critical and I think for the past 25, 30 years that I’ve been running a business, I’ve been hiring young people, right, and, and getting these young people and elevating them in their careers. And it’s, it’s very, it’s, it’s, it’s a very, it’s a passion project for me. Things that kids are not even young adults aren’t even prepared for. Like I’m usually the first one that’s taken them to a business dinner. I had a, I had a great experience where I had, I was entertaining and a group of clients or a client, and I was at a client dinner and I brought one of my young analysts, brand new analyst in and I was talking to, to these, to the client and it was a very important deal. We were discussing a very intense negotiations and we were at dinner and I go to my, my analyst, I say listen, just order some apps for the table so I can continue talking. Right. I didn’t want to, didn’t want to break up the conversation and comes back, the waiter comes back and he ordered soup for himself. And I realized like, you know, he’s never been to this before. Nobody’s trained him. And they don’t teach this stuff in school, right? There’s so many things that they don’t teach in school anymore. You know, basic budgeting, basic auto, basic home maintenance. Right. They just, they don’t teach this stuff. But also from a business perspective, I don’t know if there’s a college course on how to, how to have a business meal, how to, how to interact in a business setting. And so a lot of the mentorship that I do is either with young adults who are coming into the workforce and they want to elevate themselves in the workforce. They need to know how to handle it, how to handle situations. I also mentor a lot of young entrepreneurs who are first time entrepreneurs and they’re trying to start a business or a side hustle and they’re, they’re trying to grow and, and quite frankly, I just become a Sounding board. I’m not. I’m offering advice. I think just like when we talk about giving advice to your kids, sometimes your kids actually want your advice. Sometimes your kids actually just want a sounding board, right? Just something to, to come back to that they can, they can feel good about and just say, you know what? At least I know I’m not doing something completely crazy. So that’s where, that’s where I come in with, with the, with the mentorship. I also think it’s incredibly important that as a community, the adults in the community mentor all of the kids and anybody that they can. And for that reason, that’s why I was asking before is like, you know, when, when your kids were at your church groups or their other organizations, were they associated with adults? Because back to this point, I don’t think your kids will listen to you. Your kids will hear you, but not always the same, not always to the same level. My kids will listen to you, right? If you came over and you said, hey, you know what? Rob’s kid, you’re acting like an idiot. Don’t act like that, right? He would listen to you, right? He would say, oh, okay, yeah, all right, you’re right. Or if, if my daughter asked you, hey, you know, is, is. Can I have, do I need a bank account if I have Zelle, right? You could, you could answer that, right? And so those are the things that, that mentorship and, and having a solid base around your kids is important that they’re providing good advice because your kids do want that mentorship. They do want that leadership. They just might not want it from you all the time. Ultimately, they will look for you, but getting it from your, your community is, Is critical.
[00:32:31 – 00:33:40]
Well, like I tell people and coach on it all the time, why are you shocked? Kids become parent deaf. They just do. And that outside extracurricular activities, as you mentioned, that have adults involved kids who are involved in cheerleading, gymnastics, soccer, baseball. They were involved in all these different sports. And I as a parent would gauge communication between the coaches and like the teachers, coaches of people that are dealing with, with my children, and we should, all of us should deal with that because some of the advice or some of the things and some of the. Just because somebody is a community coach or even if it’s at a higher level of community sports doesn’t mean that they’re good for your kids because of how they treat somebody, how they favor, if there’s favoritism and your kids see all that stuff. So we still, in my mind, as my kids were Growing up, I still had to be very cognizant. And there were circumstances where I pulled my kids out of certain things because the adults weren’t a good influence. What do you think about that?
[00:33:40 – 00:33:54]
How is that a lesson for your kid, though? I mean, not to challenge you, obviously, but. But to me, I don’t know if, if that. Is there a different way? Could you explain it to them instead of saying, hey, listen, do you notice.
[00:33:54 – 00:34:58]
How when we got to the. By the time they’d get removed, it was well past that. We’d have conversations and I would coach them how to communicate with those adults. And after that, if it didn’t change, I communicate with the adults. But I’m not going to get into details of. There was a couple times where those adults weren’t accepting to the fact that they had flaws. Let’s say, maybe that’s the wrong word for it, that they weren’t. They weren’t. They were segregating or treating kids differently. And it was well known. It wasn’t just me as a parent. It was always. Usually be a group of people that were seeing the same thing because I networked with all the parents. Networking happens in all ways, shapes and forms. So could I. Did I teach them to deal with it on their own? Absolutely. But there were circumstances that, as a parent was my point, that we need to step in and do protect our kids. So you. You may not agree. You may agree it doesn’t. We’re all hey dads in the sense that we do what we think is best. Right?
[00:34:58 – 00:35:01]
Right. And that’s. You’re absolutely right. I wasn’t.
[00:35:01 – 00:35:01]
Yeah.
[00:35:01 – 00:35:11]
I don’t mean that. There’s no right or wrong. Right. I mean, we all know that parenting is probably the most difficult job in the world. Right. You know, you’re always wondering if it’s. If you’re right or wrong or.
[00:35:12 – 00:36:05]
I still look back and think that I always make the right choices, but I don’t have regrets about what I did because it also shows a foundation of. This is what dad is willing to do once we’ve exhausted all the other possibilities. So I don’t want you to think that they were just. I just was a, you know, a dictator and. Okay, you’re coming out of there. I don’t like that person. I made them. My kids used to have to. If they didn’t like something that they were trying, they had to stay until the end of this, until the end of the season or the end of whatever we paid for. Even piano lessons. My one daughter Absolutely hated it. I said, well, too bad you’re staying in from fall till spring. And, you know, she, she made it through and she started enjoying it. Once it ended, she didn’t want to go back, and that was fine. But I wasn’t going to let her be a quitter. Right.
[00:36:06 – 00:37:17]
So that’s perfect. Yeah. I just think it’s. To me, I, I think there’s all types of people in this world, right? And you’re, you’re gonna have to learn to navigate with all types. And, and I think that’s, you know, that’s, that’s part of the, you know, one of the chapters in the book is, is on being an adult. Right. And, and, and it’s finding, you know, being a good person, a good human. Right. Because that is important. That’s no matter what you are, whether or not you’re a young adult or, or a kid or, or an adult, and being a good person, but having manners and etiquette and respect for other people, I think that’s a really important thing. That, that. And I don’t know if you, I mean, you can, you can read it in a book and you can, you can read it and you’re going to learn examples in this book, but you’re going to know what’s right and what’s wrong. And that’s, that’s sort of the, that’s the key concept of that, which is just, you’re going to deal with people, you’re going to deal with jerks, you’re going to deal with bullies, you’re going to deal with all sorts of people. And as you said, you don’t know. They could just be having a bad day. That person who honked at you in the car could just be having a really bad day. They might have just lost their job. And you don’t know. You don’t know what’s going on. So don’t, don’t put judgment on other people. Just judge your own actions and live by what you can do.
[00:37:17 – 00:38:24]
Oh, yeah, of course. And, you know, with my kids and, and dealing with circumstances and stuff, I always believe in that. Advocacy is important. I advocate. Advocated when they were younger, but I had always challenged them to deal with things, whether it was a, a student or a teacher or it was extracurricular, a coach. I always challenged them. But they also knew that there had become a point in time that maybe they needed dad to advocate for them because it, you know, they weren’t, they were being respectful. They were learning. They had dealt with it differently than Maybe they initially dealt with it wrong, but as an adult, that adult looking at that young adult or that child, sometimes they don’t deal with it correctly or they label that kid. And at some points in time in life, you have to advocate for your kid because maybe there is a communication problem. Maybe that person, like you said, it’s not honking the car, honking the horn part of me. Maybe that person’s having some challenges at home and they bring it into the coaching world or the teaching world. And that’s hap. We’re all.
[00:38:24 – 00:38:25]
Yep.
[00:38:25 – 00:38:45]
We’re all guilty of that sort of stuff happening. And sometimes as adults, we need to correct other adults and put them into check. Hey, my child didn’t mean to do that or my child was this and that. They’ve tried talking to you. Is there a reason why you won’t. You’re not open and willing, like stuff like that. Not confrontational, though. Never confrontational. That just doesn’t solve anything.
[00:38:46 – 00:38:49]
Right. Right. No, absolutely. No. That’s a, Those are good points.
[00:38:50 – 00:39:24]
So we, we’re. We’re not. I was going to get into a little bit about, if you want to share a few minutes. I was kind of curious about the farming initiative and stuff too. I know this is about your book, but just for us to understand more about how, how did you get into the agricultural, you know, sustainability and what drew you to that? Yes. I know you grew up in, in rural, but what, what decided, what was the decision or who maybe guided you to get into that form of thought process and agriculture?
[00:39:24 – 00:43:12]
So I, it’s, it’s the love of land. I think that, that comes back from my growing up and, and just who my parents were. Right. My, my mom had a garden, my dad had a garden. My, my, we had bees and, and you know, whatever we could. And it was, it was part of our life. And as I grew up and with my own kids, having them have the responsibility of having animals. So we had chickens and we had donkeys and we had cattle. And so, you know, we started building up. So, so they learned the responsibility, but also more importantly, they had respect for animals and also where their food comes from. And so that was, that was an important concept they understand of where food comes from, how it’s raised, what, what it does and how it, how it results in, in your, in your body. But it was also a great place to learn work. Right. It was a good work ethic. You want to see hard workers, go look at a farmer. Right? You know, they’re, they’re from sun up to sundown, non stop working. It’s not seven days a week and it never stops. And I think it’s important that I wanted my kids to see that. I wanted my kids to see that, that work ethic, that that was responsible. As it turns out, I also, coming from that entrepreneurial mind, was realizing it. It did not take a math scientist or, you know, a finance major to realize if you put $100,000 worth of chemicals on your fields every year and you only produce $100,000 worth of crops, it doesn’t really tie out right. The business. That’s not a really good sustainable business model. And so I really started looking into ways to maximize soil soil production to produce better crops and more crops without having to put chemicals into it. And that led me down this rabbit hole and the YouTube world that I live in, which is not just one. It’s hours, right? So it’s, it’s hours and hours of consuming content on soil regeneration and an understanding this, this, the biodiversity that’s in our soil is critical to healthy soil. And I soon realized that my farm, the soil was dead. I was just artificially growing crops because I put things on top of it that just grew. But then I would take all of it away every year I had to put stuff back on. And I was just using chemicals to mask the fact that what was wrong was my soil. That is what I do is I come in and I work and I’ve built a company that works on improving soil and soil quality through natural ways, right? Everybody knows you go reach into dirt and that has a bunch of earthworms in it. You’ve got some pretty good soil, right? You’ve got all the microorganisms and the fungi in it. And that’s going to create great soil and that’s going to create great plants and healthy plants and you won’t have to put stuff on top of it. So that’s where the interest of, of, of farming is farming. I love farming. I love being out in the land. I love seeing the animals. We don’t have a lot of animals anymore that I’ve just sort of, that, that’s too much work. But, but we have our, you know, we have our small manageable herd of goats and chickens. But it’s important that I just, I love it. I love being a part of the soil. I love being part of the land. I love being part of it. I also have big German shepherds and they love running wild and at the farm.
[00:43:12 – 00:45:28]
So your passion for it is awesome because I think back again for the listeners, my, my listeners of the shore viewers know a lot of my history, right? So growing up in a farming community, my dad owning a farm equipment dealership, being out at the farmers all the time and understanding why the larger farmers, maybe not the smaller farmers, it was harder for them. Why they, dad, why didn’t they, why didn’t they put a crop in over there? Well, they’re letting their land rest. There’s. They’re, they’re doing summer fall over. They’re going to keep it for a year and they’ll end up because this would be in the spring. He says, he says they’ll eventually till it. They’ll do all this stuff, stuff over the over, you know, and they’ll let it sit till next year sometimes if they can afford to. They’ll let it sit for two years and hey dad, what are you selling that for? What’s that for? Oh, he says that’s a, that’s a takes. He says we’re going to use that. This is a. Farmers that have lots of cattle and have lots of manure, they’ll use manure spreader and they’ll spread that out into the fields, right. To give nitrogen and different things into the soil. And I learned a lot from my dad owning that business, especially because he’s one of 18 kids and majority of his family are farmers. Right. My mom was one of nine and most of them were farmers. So I hung out at farms all the time around the chickens and pigs. And you’re right, you learn a work ethic and people that are, that are listening or watching farmers are underappreciated. Like honestly the pressures that they have. And you being that farmer that sprayed the chemicals is because you’re desperate. You don’t know any other way because you’re not getting mentored to know any different ways. So YouTube became your mentor, which is a good thing. But there’s so much biodiversity in soil that is destroyed and lost because they’re trying to get higher yield on, you know, how many bushels per acre and these then, then on top of that, you, you know, if you’re in a hail storm area like a tunnel, then you got to get hail insurance and you got to pay so much per acre and then I get it all. That’s why I brought it up. But I had to. No, I had to know. I, I wanted to know what you’re passionate about it. So that’s why I asked. Right? Yeah.
[00:45:28 – 00:45:36]
No, no, and you should. And look, I honestly, I know I’M here to like promote a book. But I mean in fairness, like, I’m not a, I’m not a, I’m an author, but I’m not. Yeah. This is not how I, I want.
[00:45:36 – 00:45:43]
To know more about you is what I’m, I’m getting at. Right. And I’ll tell you, it’s, it’s just I’m a curious person. So.
[00:45:43 – 00:45:53]
Yeah, no, no, no. And that’s my point. Like I think farming, I, you know, talk about ingenuity. I mean you, you go. I would encourage every listener, go spend a little bit of time on a farm.
[00:45:53 – 00:45:54]
Go.
[00:45:55 – 00:46:05]
And, but, but what? These, they’re, you know, a farmer is a mechanic, They’re a, you know, an electrician. They are a, you know, they do.
[00:46:05 – 00:48:03]
Everything, they do everything. I know, Everything. I know I got old once I was able to drive and it was harvest season. My dad would be tired because he’d work sometimes 18, 20 hours. If a farmer called at 12 in the morning and the phone, you know, phone would go off. Sometimes he like at time, you know, there’s a couple phones on the wall, people, right? And my dad would yell down, hey Dwight, go to the shop, it’ll be 2:00am okay. Right. Because the farmers were harvesting and they got the lights on and they’re out giving her. And, and he wanted to make sure he supported them. No after hours service charges. They paid the same if they bought the part at one in the afternoon, if they bought it at two in the morning and you know, they’d ask questions and I’d learn because I’d go to the heavy duty mechanics and I’d push tools to them. My dad didn’t spoil me, right. I had to learn hard. I was 12 years old working, right. And then I worked there every summer and I worked there throughout the school year and I learned going out to the farms, he’d go out and farmer was having trouble timing his baler right. For those less lean, you know, you take your straw and it makes it into a square bill. My dad was an expert at that. He could hear it and he could time it and he, and they couldn’t get it. He’d drive out there for no cost. I come along with him and in the evening and you know what I mean? He’d do whatever and he earned respect because of it. Because he understood that really at the core of our society, without farmers we’re screwed. And then we got a world that wastes food, forcing farmers to either quit and sell out to the bigger farmers because they can’t afford the hail insurance, they can’t afford all the chemicals. They can’t afford to heal their land because that’s their only source income and they only got maybe a half section or a section of land. Right. So I understand that. I have huge, huge respect for farmers.
[00:48:03 – 00:48:51]
Oh yeah, absolutely. That’s why I think everybody, everybody should go visit a farmer. Go support your farmer’s market, go support them. Because I’ll tell you, it is, it’s, it’s, you know, not to keep on going on farming but, but the, when you think about it, it’s in farms are farms, right? Especially with animals, right. They lose livestock and that’s, you know, a calf could be fifteen hundred dollars. I mean this is real money. And it’s, and, and for me it’s, you know, it’s, it’s a, you know, it is a business, but it’s not my, you know, if, if I get, if I don’t have a good crop, my family still eats. Right. And so it’s a very different. But I, I, I can tell you, with all due respect, I have the most utmost respect for farmers like it and I, I hope everybody does. So.
[00:48:51 – 00:50:02]
Absolutely. So we’ll, we’ll go on from that. But thanks for sharing and indulging me because I didn’t know if you’d want to because again, remember I told you I felt a connection to you just reading about you, right. And your life and I just, I had, because we have that commonality. Right. Obviously I’ve never been a farmer. Have I helped out in farms? Yes. Have I been in a combine? Have I been on a swather? Have I been in a grain truck? Absolutely. Have I, have I watched, watched animals going from barn to table? Yes. Won’t get into the details because that grosses people out, but yes. Right. So I do appreciate it. So, enter the book. Hey dad. Everything you should have learned about life but didn’t. A practical and entertaining guide filled with real world advice, expert insights and hilarious personal stories to help young adults survive and thrive in the real world, which we’ve touched upon. Right. The book covers a lot of things about jobs, money, cars, even etiquette. Did you include youth in a discussion of what to include? And how did you eventually narrow down what you ended up putting in the book?
[00:50:03 – 00:52:45]
That is a great question, Dwight. So what I really tried to do was I tried to build these foundation blocks. Right. And I think that’s what it is. I, I, as we said, every, every young adult is going to go to this Time where they’re now going to have to be an adult. And so I really wanted to focus on the things, the first thing which is what have some purpose in life, right? Because if you don’t really know and quite frankly, just because you thought you were going to get a major in whatever, you know, your, your biochem major or your accounting or finding whatever your major was, doesn’t mean that that’s going to be your career, but also to sit back and relax, right? You’ve just graduated. You don’t have to make all your decisions. Your life decisions are going to happen for the next, for the rest of your life. So don’t worry about it, but just get out and launch. So, so it started out with just sort of the first thing is sort of to thy known self be true, find purpose, find sort of something that’s going to get you up and get you going. The next is now you’ve sort of figured that out, let’s get going and get a job. So foundation things. What. And so the, the important part with this, this book too is I actually interviewed all these experts and interviewed over 30 experts in all sorts of things. I, a professional race car driver and his crew chief on how to maintain a car because nobody knows how to beat up a car more or how important a car is than a NASCAR race car driver. This is guy who also won the Daytona 500 and he’s like, you know, so he and his crew were like real to tax experts, to insurance experts, to a special forces Navy SEAL on what to do in emergencies and everything in between. And I, I tried to limit because I didn’t want it to be overwhelming. Right? You can, as we said, if I wanted to write a book on truly on what it being an adult is and everything you should know, it would be, you know, it would be the Encyclopedia Britannica, right? It’s just, it would be Google. There’s too many things. But I wanted people to have a foundational sense, more importantly, the confidence to be able to go out into the world and take it with full gusto. And that was really the whole purpose. So it’s not about how to tie a tie, but rather, hey, if you’re going to go for a job interview, you might want to wear a tie. You might want to see what they’re wearing to know if you need it or hey, you’re going to a wedding, how to find out if you’re going to wear a tie or not. So those are the things. It was more about the foundation building Blocks that every adult needs to know. You’re going to master it on your own level and your own time and your own need. But you needed those, that base. And that’s, that’s what I came up with on, on the book.
[00:52:45 – 00:52:55]
Wow. And when, before the book was published, did you, did your kids read the book? Did you let them check it out to see what they thought?
[00:52:55 – 00:55:10]
No, because my kids were like, whatever you do, don’t tell stories about us. So they’re already mad because, so the first story, I, I always give it away. So the first story I have, and really what prompted writing this book was, it was the middle of the night and like any 55 year old man, I’m asleep. You know, if I, if I can sleep, I’m. I’m asleep. Middle of the night, phone rings. And for any adult who has kids, you know, middle of the night phone calls scare the crap out of me. Excuse my language. And so I pick up the phone, I’m like, oh my gosh, what’s wrong? Is my daughter on the other side of the phone and she’s like, can I put the green gas in my Jeep? And of course it’s like middle of the night, I’m like, hearts racing, I have to sort of dial in. I’m sorry, green gas in your Jeep? What are you talking. And she was almost upset, she was mad at me for having to even ask back on this question. She’s like, yeah, green gas. I’m like, are you asking if you can put diesel in your Jeep? And she’s like, yes, can I put diesel in my Jeep? I was like, sweetie, no, your, your Jeep is a gas engine. It’s, it’s, this is diesel. No, you can’t do that. And so I, at that moment I realized, like, have I taught all my kids, like all the stuff that they should know? And, and I get bombarded, like you do with these hey dad questions or texts or whatever. And so my wife was like, yeah, you know, we talked to other parents and we’re getting the same stuff. We all have sort of similarly aged kids. We’re getting all this stuff all the time. And so she said, you know what? You really enjoy writing books. Why don’t you go write a book on all these questions? And so that’s what I did. And so I didn’t, I didn’t tell my kids other than I said I, I masked your names. And you know, I did have some stories about you guys in it because they’re funny. But that was, that was the early Question. They didn’t read it. They’ve read sections I’ve given, I’ve given Mike. One of my daughters was looking at banking stuff. She was. She needed get a bank account. So I gave her the chapter on banking but in budgeting and things like that. But I haven’t given them the full book yet.
[00:55:10 – 00:55:35]
Did you, when you wrote the book, did you realize things about yourself like you said, you talked about the green gas and whether or not. How many more epiphanies did you have while you were writing the book? Was it cathartic for you? Did it teach you that you were better than you gave yourself credit for or. And did it also give you kicks in the pants that you needed to do more?
[00:55:36 – 00:57:03]
What surprised me and it came out to the final thing, which is you’re always learning, right? As an adult, you’re always learning. And there are things I didn’t know about, there are things I thought I knew about because I’m a 55 year old adult. I know what I’m doing. No, there’s things that I didn’t know. And I think a lot of it comes down to also. Times change, right? Things change. Things that were. That I took for granted because that’s the way I did it have changed. And so the questions that I was getting asked by my kids were a combination of technology advancements in the world and just sort of practical common sense. But it was absolutely, for me writing this, I was like, huh, I didn’t know that. I haven’t. So I learned a lot doing it, which was a lot of fun. Which is also why I asked experts, right? One, one person’s perspective, isn’t it? I’m not a, not a NASCAR race car driver and crew chief. I’m not a. I don’t run AAA and in driver driver safety. I’m not, I don’t run, you know, a million units of apartments. Like the person who I interviewed on apartments, I’m not a banking CEO. Like these are the people that I asked and I asked them specifically. Give me advice as you would your. Your own child coming through this, this time. And a lot of them had kids at the same point. And so it was really good. They were just like, yeah, here, here’s the advice.
[00:57:04 – 00:57:13]
That’s awesome. Like to have that epiphany to write this book though. And it comes out on the 19th of April. Correct.
[00:57:13 – 00:57:27]
28 comes out on the 28th. Sorry, 28th. 28th. 29th. Actually going to be at Barnes and Noble in New York doing the official launch and Signing. But yeah, it’s, it’s available now on, on pre sale on Amazon.
[00:57:27 – 00:57:28]
You can find it.
[00:57:28 – 00:59:49]
Yeah, yeah, Amazon. And yeah. And one of the things I, I if anybody who buys the book and please, I hope you buy it but what I really want people to do, the real intent was this was it goes back to this mentorship that you and I spoke about earlier and we both I think are very passionate about it and understand the importance I believe and the reason why I want this book to come out on the 28th and 29th is it’s in time for graduation. Right? High school graduation, college graduation. And what I really want is I want people, adults or people who care about other people to give this book to a young adult. But I want them to take the time to go look through it and provide their own little bits of advice. Right. And I think that’s where I’m starting to see like I’ve. We’ve given out some, some pre advances of the books and, and I’ve seen a grandmother write a little passage in it for, for her granddaughter. She’s going to give it to her granddaughter, but she’s adding her own advice. The grandmothers and I’m like that’s what I want. That to me is makes it so much better because just listening to me is one thing great. Listening to 30 experts, that’s so much better. But then to have somebody who actually knows you and cares about you write their own little bits of advice. It was great. She was talking about how it was a grandmother and she was actually talking about. There’s a section on and it seems strange that we have to put it but how to clean and what’s acceptable clean and cleaning your house and maintaining a clean life. And she wrote down that her husband of like 60 years or some long period and he would, he had passed but how he really had this, this idea of hanging up sheets outside because that made the smell so much better and it helped him for allergy season. I don’t know what is something like that, but she wrote the advice of like make sure you have at least one piece of clothing that’s been hung outside and things like that. It was just, it was such a special thing. Like it was just such a special memory. So that’s my ask for anybody who buys the book, please make it personal. Add your own advice that you want to give to, to the reader.
[00:59:49 – 01:00:22]
That’s awesome. I like that. Nothing better than generational knowledge transfer. Whether or not it’s valid to everybody or not, it’s that granddaughter, that person that’s going to get that book. Grandma is put in what, from her heart. Right, right. This is what, what I believe is good for you. And, and, you know, this is what your grandfather believed with the sheets and. Oh, that’s just amazing. It’s the connection. It’s that internal connection that. That sells a book.
[01:00:23 – 01:00:49]
Right. And that’s what I want. So I’m asking people, like, look, write something if you’re. If you’re willing to share it with me, please, because that’s what’s going to get me excited and just happy about doing what I’m doing. You know, it’s. Writing books is a. Is sort of. Unfortunately, it’s sort of a lost. It’s. It’s lost. Right? I mean, you write a book and it’s hard to write a book, and it’s really just a passion of love. It’s not really a business venture.
[01:00:49 – 01:01:50]
Well, it’s not something that. Because I’ve dealt with publishers, if a book does 5,000 copies, they’re, like, ecstatic. And I was shocked when one of the people I talked to years ago said that. 5,000 copies. He says, yeah. He says, if you’re thinking of becoming wealthy operating books, you’re doing it for the wrong reason. That’s what he said. And I said, okay, what’s it going to cost? What have I got to do? And then I got different quotes, and then I decided on a. He’s a good friend of mine. He’s actually in Pittsburgh. It’s actually in the US He’s a friend of mine. But, you know, at the end of the day, I just want to touch one person and, you know, the story of the, of that young high school girl that will resonate with me the rest of my life. Her dad reaching out to tell me about that, to show me, to encourage her with my book. You know, stuff like that. I wish there might be way more stories than that, that. But how. People don’t share with us, Rob. So that’s what.
[01:01:50 – 01:01:51]
But that’s what I want. That’s what I’m.
[01:01:51 – 01:01:53]
I hope I. I hope you do.
[01:01:53 – 01:02:24]
I. I’m begging people to be like, please, just, just one little patches. Because that’s, that’s, as I said, that’s what makes it. That’s what makes it nice. That’s what will make it special. Other than that, it’s, it’s. And, and because people have that, you know, there’s a. You know, the gentleman I said, always have a hundred dollars. He gave his advice to to his kids. Like, like always make sure you have a hundred dollars in your wallet, have it rolled up and put it. You always have to have emergency cash because kids don’t use cash anymore. Right. It’s like you always need to have it. So it’s just things like that.
[01:02:24 – 01:03:33]
I love that advice because I’ve given that advice about always have an emergency cash. And you know, another thing that I would put in if I was writing at the front of your book, because people have asked me this so much. If you had to give yourself advice, you know, when you were younger, what would you tell yourself? I said, well, I. If I could tell my younger self, be a good listener. Be that person that’s not always wondering what am I going to say in response. And I’m not really listening to what Rob’s saying. Be that person that truly is engaged. He’ll always have the opportunity to share your opinion. If it’s warranted, yes. But you’ll never have that opportunity again to hear the heartfelt conversation of what that person is trying to share with you. So we listen more than you talk. I know it sounds like everybody says, oh, I’ve heard that before. But apply it to your life and you’ll, you’ll, you’ll connect with people more. You’ll have a more fruitful life, kind of. And it wasn’t that. My dad didn’t teach me that or I didn’t see that within his business. I didn’t really have anybody tell me, you need to listen more. Right. You know what I mean?
[01:03:33 – 01:03:50]
So I think you’ll hear that in the book. You know, there was the gentleman who was giving advice on, on getting jobs. He’s like, listen, you know, you have like a 30 second rule. You talk, you answer, and then you shut up. Right. It’s like, yeah, so it’s, it’s. And you listen, listen, listen. Actively listen. Yep.
[01:03:50 – 01:05:17]
And that’s what I’ve been told, though. I’ve worked so hard with my podcast to be a better active listener. And I, when I first started, I used to take pages and pages of notes. Now I just put the odd little comment as I’m showing you, just to just refresh, because I go over all this after the fact when I’m working on the show, notes and stuff before it goes up to my editor. And at the end of the day, I realized that I have this going on in my life, I have this going on in my life. What am I going to focus on? And my focus needs to be giving Rob 100 of my attention during the podcast or during a conversation, if we’re my client or we’re face to face, because that fleeting moment will never come back again. And maybe they were reaching out in a conversation for advice, or maybe they’re reaching out in a conversation just to get something off their, off their heart. Right. Being a good listener has been something I practice because I never used to be one. And then being honest with ourselves is crucial. Right. So one of the big themes of your books is finding a job, plus also the discussion about starting a business. And you did mention a little bit about that. Do you feel that we should steer our youth towards being in a job first before starting a business? What’s your thought process on that?
[01:05:17 – 01:05:21]
Yes, yes. I, and I look, I think it’s to thy own self betrayed.
[01:05:21 – 01:05:21]
Right?
[01:05:21 – 01:06:35]
I’m, I make these generalizations. Me personally, having started businesses, knowing how hard it is, I don’t know if I, if. And I, I don’t, I don’t think I would recommend it to almost anybody. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s tough starting a business. But there are ways for young adults, which is very practical this day and almost necessary in many cases to do these side hustles. Right. I’ve actually spoke to a, to a young man who’s, who’s in the book, who started a side hustle. Now he’s doing a million dollars a year. So it’s, it’s not, you know, they, they start small. But I think, I think it’s important that a young adult understand what it, like, what it’s like to work first, to be in a business. Right. Or, or to do something before they, they go out on their own. Now, that’s not to say that you have to spend 10 years at a job or 20 years at a job that you’re going to build up. But it’s good to just understand somebody’s different perspective. Being an employee is really easier to be a boss if you’ve been an employee. And so I think that’s why it’s. Instead of just being, instead of just coming out saying, hey, I’m the boss, never worked for anybody. So I don’t know how, I don’t know what it’s like being on the other side of the table.
[01:06:35 – 01:07:11]
Well, yeah, it’s. And even those that are young adults, if you’re an older adult listening to this, you’re in your late 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, whatever. Key on what Rob said, side hustle. I created side hustles. Working at a job. When I created my first IT business, I was a side hustle. I was doing it on the evenings, I was doing it on the weekends. And the company I was working for ended up hiring me to do their stuff too. And then when I left, kept me on to continue to do their stuff. But it was a side hustle.
[01:07:11 – 01:07:11]
Right?
[01:07:11 – 01:08:24]
Right. One of my, one of my good friends, Tony Watley, he has a book, a best selling book called 360, Pardon Me, side hustle Millionaire. Right. And his brand is 365 driven. And he talks about how to create a business. He’s out of Texas. And side hustles aren’t given enough credibility because you really can. And people listening, think about how many hours you spend after your job. Are those times hours. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t watch some tv, hang out with family, but are you utilizing any of your hours to increase your 6 inches between your ears? Are you? Are you? Everything about you is, is it a, is it a drama you’re watching? Are you watching reality and personally developing yourself? You’re interested in doing something, research it, do like Rob talked about hours of watching YouTube. There’s nothing wrong with that if you’re, if you’re trying to take your indecisiveness and make it decisive about what you want to do and then start working those hours after, after work until eventually you get to a point where you can leave that job. I did it.
[01:08:24 – 01:08:24]
Yep.
[01:08:24 – 01:08:27]
Right. I understand it.
[01:08:27 – 01:09:53]
Yeah. Especially now where you have so many, like there’s so many skill sets in this, this remote work that we have going on now and, and stuff and, and the way that we, you know, you asked about technology earlier and, and I didn’t, I, I didn’t answer it. But what’s going on right now and in our world, in the, in the technology advancements, like it’s hard for me to understand how it applies and how it’s going to, I can see that it’s going to change my life. But do I have the skill set, the knowledge or the desire to learn the intricacies of it and do it? Whereas a young adult might say, geez, you know what, I use GPT all the time and I use Claude and I actually, I like creating my own foundational models and I understand machine language and, or you know, machine learning and I’m going to create these models and I’m going to learn AI and I’m going to learn all the tools. Those are highly sought after jobs and it doesn’t take a four year College degree. It doesn’t take a two year master’s degree. It takes you spending some time. And you’re right, that, that six inches between your brain, it’s. It’s important. And that’s part of being an adult. You don’t want to just be stagnant. Right. You don’t want to be in the same job. You want to be growing. And so if you apply your time to, yeah, you can have free time downtime, but if you take some time and you learn some skills that not only can help you achieve goals and business goals, but also help improve yourself, it’s great.
[01:09:54 – 01:10:46]
Improving ourselves. Like I had mentioned, I don’t know if it was before recording or during recording. Our brain doesn’t know the difference between a truth and a lie. It’s a giant computer that requires constant input. And those that get camped in life, your brain get camps in life. You turn to negative thoughts or you, you can turn to addictions because your brain wants to know more and more information. It doesn’t want to be stagnant. It wants to learn new things. I don’t care how old you are. I have people in their 70s and 80s that are still learning, learning things. My parents, people told me, including my siblings, they’ll never ever want to use a computer. Baloney. They’ve had, they had a laptop. Then I got, then we got them into both having iPads. They use. They both use Facebook and social media to share pictures. And they’re 84. 84 years old.
[01:10:46 – 01:10:47]
Right.
[01:10:47 – 01:11:16]
They’re still my dad’s. My mom’s already burned one iPad out. She loves it. Like, do they get addicted to it? No, they still have their chores. They do their gardening, they do this. But it’s another. And my mom will say, do you hear about this? And I’ll go, what? Well, I clicked on this, so I kind of fall down. She doesn’t use these words, but down a rabbit hole. And I was researching this. This is pretty neat. That’s good for their brain. It’s good for our brain to always be adding new inputs because our brain needs it.
[01:11:16 – 01:11:18]
Yes, yes.
[01:11:18 – 01:11:19]
Good information though.
[01:11:19 – 01:12:30]
Yes. Well, that’s. I just want to back back. Come back to a point you made. We were talking about side hustles and stuff. I think one of the challenges for, for young adults is, is sort of going back to that. And I use this expression all the time, is to thine own self be true. It’s from Shakespeare. And actually my grandfather used to, used to tell us this all the time. And a Lot of times our young adults are looking at social media and that’s where they get their reflection and that becomes almost their barometer of how they’re doing. And I think it’s really important that they understand the difference between real and fake. And I think a lot of times if you’re looking at side hustles, yeah, side hustle is great and you’re going to learn it and you’re going to learn a business, you’re going to learn to trade, whatever it is. But remember, when you’re looking at somebody on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, just because they’re presenting something doesn’t mean that that’s real, right? That’s, that’s the outward ex. You know, if somebody’s telling you on, on, you know, on, on Tick tock that they’re doing a side hustle and they’re making a million dollars a day doing a side hustle, that’s probably not real, right? So, so being able to realize what’s, what’s real and what’s fake.
[01:12:30 – 01:13:46]
Well, yeah, you do your research and if you have a mentor, reach out to them and say, hey, this is what I’ve heard. I’ve done some research on, on AI and researched and I’ve done some things on Google. I just want your take on this. Sometimes we just need that to shake up our thought process. We can’t believe everything that people present. Look at all the influencers out there that presented that they were wealthy, had millions of followers and you go do research on them. They don’t have two nickels to rub together. Like my dad would say, they don’t have any real great advice that isn’t regurgitated from somebody else. They and all information started out somewhere, but are they, they’re not really presenting it as an individual really to make a difference in society. They’re just regurgitating. So I agree. People need to really put some thought process into what they’re listening to, reading, right? Do, do credible, credible research. What role in your book, like you know, in my life, teaching youth and we’ve talked a little bit about it and working with our kids and stuff. How much? So in your book, you interviewed all these people. How much did personal finance play in, in your book of hey dad?
[01:13:46 – 01:14:47]
Oh, a lot, A lot. I think, I think personal finance, right, you want to ruin your life, ruin your credit and not have money, right? Not, not know how to balance money, right? How to, how to budget and live within your means. That’s the first way to make a Miserable life. And I only speak from experience. I was, I was in a situation where I was a brand new father and no idea what I was 26 years old, I had no idea what I was doing, right? And all of a sudden I have a kid I have to be responsible for. I could barely keep track of myself, let alone a family. And getting out of hand very quickly, right. I have this concept of good interest and bad interest, right? Good interest is what you earn on your money. Bad interest is what you pay people. And you know, if you’re paying 28% on your credit cards and you’re just sort of building up credit card debt, that’s a bad place to be. So personal finance and understanding and living within a budget was very, very important because that you need to have the money first come in. But second is you need to know.
[01:14:47 – 01:17:39]
How to keep it well, because we aren’t educated as children in North America. Not religious North America. I talk to people in Europe and other countries on how to understand the inflows and outflows of money. And we learn bad behaviors and habits from our parents. Maybe our uncles are aunts or we see things that stick with us and that becomes our money monster. We don’t know how to escape it yet. You know, I’ll sit down with young people. I do a lot of education with young people. I enjoy it. And tell them why. It’s important to understand that if you have X amount of days in a month and you’re on the 15th of the month and you have more month left than you have money, there might be circumstances as to why. But let’s figure out why. Let’s understand what is a need and a want. I taught my kids that since they were little. What’s it? Is that a need or a want? Oh, they get upset. Yeah, we know that’s a want, dad. And you know, just telling people like there’s so many different ways of education to our youth and to. And it’s never too late to learn to give a heck about your life and learn about financing. But budgeting, I smiled when you said that because I believe that’s the de facto standard. Along with your goals and your budget, you tie the two together, you can accomplish a purposeful life even if you’re in debt. I will teach you how to consolidate your debt for no cost, right? I’ll teach you how to do it very simply. And usually you can catch people where you teach them how to save for their future, pay off debt still and then live off, you know, live off the difference. If you’re making a dollar, save, save 10 cents. Minimum 20 cents if possible. Budget, 80 cents. Oh, you can’t figure that out when we’re budgeting. Okay, let’s go through these. Need, want, need, want. You know what I mean? Even teaching adults that is very satisfying because I was the person that needed that. Remember, I educated myself to teach this to people because I didn’t have it. Budgeting is so key for our, for our youth, and it’s just not given enough credibility. I look at adults and you talked about 28% interest. I have adults that, let’s say, have $40,000 in an investment account and they’re making 8, 10%, yet they have a credit card they’re paying 28% on. And I’ll look at their numbers after we go through it, and I’ll say, well, what would be one thing you’d recommend for us today? I’d recommend you take this account and pay off that debt. Why? Because that’s bad interest. You’re, you’re, you’re not making good interest. You’re bad. You’re making a little bit of good interest, but your bad interest is greater and you’re never going to get ahead.
[01:17:39 – 01:17:39]
Yep.
[01:17:39 – 01:18:12]
So it, it doesn’t make sense. If we can teach you how to live within a purposeful life, get rid of the debt. Yes. You’re not going to have that investment because your debt’s that high. But now you can start over on the positive side, and we’re going to control it so that you only using credit cards if it’s a need and a car breaks down or you need a new fridge or something, but you’re not going to use that unless it is something you can pay off every single month. So knowledge of money is, is very simple. The rules of the money game aren’t hard. People just got to learn them. And you got to be willing to.
[01:18:12 – 01:18:17]
Listen and write them down. Right. I think a lot of it is just comes down to, like, exposure, I.
[01:18:17 – 01:18:19]
Think, you know spreadsheets, baby.
[01:18:19 – 01:18:24]
Yeah, but it was not even spreadsheets. You don’t even need to scare kids. Right.
[01:18:24 – 01:18:27]
I’m not saying kids, but with adults. Oh, man, I.
[01:18:27 – 01:19:25]
There you go. Yeah, well, because it’s all about that financial freedom. And people, I think, assume. Like when my kids first heard budgets, they were like, oh, Dad’s got us on a budget. Well, as in a negative thing. And I’m like, no, actually, a budget is not really is a negative thing. It’s financial freedom. And I guarantee you, you can live a wonderful financial freedom life by knowing how much money you come in and allocating how much you’re going to spend. It doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have fun. It doesn’t mean you’re never going to go out to dinner. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to go out and do this. But instead of, you realize that you spent 300 every weekend going out with your friends and going out to dinner. Well, you know what? That’s going to, you’re going to be able to write that down and you’re going to be able to see that and you’re going to be able to make that decision yourself. Would I rather have money saved up or would I, would I like to eventually buy a house? Would I like to buy that nice car? Or do I want to go out and get drunk with my friends this weekend?
[01:19:25 – 01:19:57]
Well, and teaching youth, or even teaching again. 20 in my 23rd year doing this as a financial educator and lifestyle coach, I find that a lot of the times I’ll say to the kid, I say to my own kids, you know, you’re gonna go out and spending this money tonight. Is that a long term gain or is it a short term gain? Right. What are you gonna accomplish tonight? You’re gonna have fun, but you’re gonna spend all this money. And what are your goals?
[01:19:57 – 01:19:58]
Yeah.
[01:19:58 – 01:20:15]
What do you want to. Well, dad, I want this. Let’s say they’re younger. I want new, new rollerblades or this and that. Okay, well, how is going out to do this with your friends? Maybe not going to a bar or club at that. They’re going, whatever. And it’s going to spend 60, 70 bucks. Is that going to get you towards your goal?
[01:20:15 – 01:20:16]
Right.
[01:20:16 – 01:20:37]
Sometimes they’d go, we don’t care. Okay, well, we had the conversation. Other times that would be like, oh, yeah, I used to have envelopes with my kids as money and we’d go on holidays. And the ones that saved the most, oh, I want to buy stuff. Okay. And the other kids will, that’s not fair. Well, I told you to save money, but you wanted to go buy this at the store.
[01:20:37 – 01:20:38]
Yep.
[01:20:38 – 01:20:44]
The other sibling put it in the envelope because they wanted to have something for a rainy day. I did things like that with my kids all the time.
[01:20:44 – 01:21:21]
Absolutely. I think one of the things I did early on with my kids too is, was teach them about compounding. Because I do think that when they start realizing, like how powerful it is, they truly understand it, then it becomes A. It becomes a positive it almost for mine, I’ve been very fortunate that they understood it early on. And now they. They do put as much as they can almost. And I’ve got. And you know how we are with our kids and how I’m sure your kids are. One’s probably a really good saver one’s maybe not as good. If I say. Right. They all. They all range in the. In the buckets, but at least they. Getting them to understand the concept is key.
[01:21:21 – 01:21:47]
Yeah. Oh, you hit the nail on the head. The concept. All we can do is give knowledge and, and mentor if they want it. But they have to be willing. No matter who I sit with, whether it’s. And I get young clients. Right. All the time. Their parents or I run into them, they dislike my personality and I’ll just tell them, you have to want it more than I want it. I can educate you and spend all this time. Are you really willing?
[01:21:48 – 01:21:48]
Right.
[01:21:48 – 01:21:50]
Are you willing to learn? Right.
[01:21:50 – 01:22:11]
Once they have that freedom. I really do believe there is that time because as I’m sure you see it, I mean, I’m sure you. I mean, you see it and know this much more than I do. But living in financial despair when you don’t, when you can’t make ends meet is. Is probably. Is probably such a depressing, horrible place. And I. I would hit that on anybody.
[01:22:11 – 01:22:29]
Well, I call it quiet desperation. I talk about it in my book and there’s struggles I went through. Right. And being. Living in. Living in a world of quiet desperation is tough. So lastly, if readers had to take one lesson away from hey dad, what should it be? What would that lesson be?
[01:22:30 – 01:23:16]
Relax. Relax. The decisions that you make today, yes. They’re important decisions. Yes. Obviously, the sooner you start saving, the better. Right? But relax. You’ll have your entire life to be an adult. You don’t need to figure it all out. Day one. You’re going to be under a lot of pressure, but take this foundational approach that’s in hey dad. To give you the building blocks that will make you successful or at least confident going into this new unchartered territory of being an adult, being dependent. Right. Or to be independent on. From. From your parents. And that’s what I want people to take away from this book. And also the other point is, is make it personal if you’re giving it as a gift.
[01:23:16 – 01:23:29]
That’s sweet. What would be the earliest or youngest age group you think that would be able to, you know, actually appreciate this book? Would it be people in high School.
[01:23:29 – 01:24:03]
I, I see we are getting a lot of traction from high schools and, and people in that age because quite frankly, not everybody’s going to college now and, and you know, there’s a lot of people going into trade schools and, and a lot of young adults that are, they’re facing the same thing. They’re just doing it years earlier. So. Yes, absolutely. Look, the earlier you can start training people and educating people, giving this kind of mentoring advice to results, the better. Are they going to take from it some, you know, if, if you like, you can budget. I wish I budgeted in high school. I would have had it much easier. I wish.
[01:24:03 – 01:24:04]
Oh, me too.
[01:24:04 – 01:24:24]
I wish I knew about cars. I wish I, you know, one of the things in the, in the, in the book, I bought my first car because I could, I could get a payment for it. It was the stupidest car in the whole world. It was a sports car up in New Hampshire. I couldn’t afford the insurance, I couldn’t afford the maintenance and I couldn’t afford the tires. You know, it’s stupid. I wish I had, I wish I had read that first.
[01:24:24 – 01:24:59]
Well, I love how you say that. I, I’ve, yeah. I think many of us have gone through purchases of whatever where it didn’t make sense. My one son did, my only son did what you’re talking about, bought a car that he couldn’t really afford to insure. And he learned from it though, right. It. And I just supported him. I’m dad. Like, hey dad. So this question is about our listeners in general. If you had to give them one last closing message, what would you tell them in regards to giving a heck and never giving up?
[01:25:00 – 01:25:28]
I think it’s the same thing. Is, is, you know, I, I said the expression today, don’t self be true. Right. And that’s coming in and really understanding that your life, you have a purpose and you do have the ability to create and be anything that you want. Right. And that you don’t need to be beholden to jobs, you don’t need to be beholden to anything other than yourself. And I think that would be my, my sort of my one takeaway for your listeners.
[01:25:28 – 01:25:34]
Wow, this has been awesome. What’s the best way for people to reach you, my friend?
[01:25:34 – 01:26:25]
So they can. I can go to the website heydadbook.com you can go to my website as well, which is rob finlay.com and then I’m all on the social media stuff if, if you like. The Instagram stuff is more fun because I, I’m Unfiltered. I get to throw farming stuff in there. You’ll see. Goats. We had it. Sorry. It’s goat baby season. So now it’s like we’re filled with goats. And so, you know, those are good content. As. As you know, I need to produce the content for stuff. But, yeah, Instagram, LinkedIn, wherever you want to reach. And as I said, if. If you’re kind enough to read the book and give the book away to somebody, please, and you write something that’s. That’s. I would love to see it. I would love. It would really make my day when I. I see people writing something and giving their own advice to somebody.
[01:26:25 – 01:26:59]
Right on. I appreciate that. And for those new to the show, go to giveaheck.com go up to the top hit podcast. You’ll open up the page, you’ll see a picture of Rob, and you’ll be able to find the show notes, all his links to all the social media that he’s talking about, his website. There’ll also be chapter summaries and a complete, unedited transcript as well. If you want to look up specific sections and read about what we discussed today. Any last words before I wrap up the show?
[01:26:59 – 01:27:09]
Rob, Bob, Dwight, I love what you’re doing. I love your show. Thank you so much for having me. It’s. It’s been. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s. I think you just set my record. I think this is the longest one I’ve been on, so.
[01:27:11 – 01:27:16]
I warned you that sometimes it happens with good conversations. It’s hard to escape.
[01:27:16 – 01:27:23]
Absolutely. No, I. Look, I could sit here and talk out. We probably could have narrated, talking about farming or something, because I could.
[01:27:23 – 01:27:49]
Yeah, I couldn’t help. I couldn’t help it, though. That’s my curious nature. And. And I was thinking when we talked about that we could have a show just on environmental stuff in regards to farming, because of my experiences and your knowledge that you’ve learned, it would be a great. We could have conversations. Yeah. We could have multiple stage podcasts, because I really do resonate with you. I think you’re an amazing person. Thank you so much for being on the show.
[01:27:50 – 01:27:52]
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
[01:27:52 – 01:28:04]
So thanks so much for being on Give a Heck. Rob. I appreciate your time and sharing some of your experiences so that others, too can learn. It is never too late to give a heck.
Chapter Summaries(Full Unedited Transcript follows):
00:00:02
Introduction to Rob Finley: Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author and Entrepreneur
Rob Finley, a successful entrepreneur and author, is introduced. His background in commercial real estate, technology integration, and agriculture is highlighted. The host emphasizes their shared interests in farming and parenting, setting the stage for an engaging conversation.
00:06:27
Rob’s Origin Story: From Immigrant Roots to Entrepreneurial Success
Rob shares his background as the son of an immigrant airline pilot. He discusses how travel and exposure to different cultures shaped his worldview. Rob describes his journey from struggling student to Wall Street professional, and eventually becoming a successful entrepreneur and father of four.
00:15:17
The Challenges of Transitioning to Adulthood
Rob discusses the difficulties young adults face when transitioning from dependence to independence. He shares personal experiences and emphasizes the importance of preparing children for adulthood. The conversation touches on the need for practical life skills and the value of mentorship.
00:24:23
The Importance of Mentorship and Communication Skills
The discussion shifts to the significance of mentorship and developing strong communication skills. Rob and the host share experiences of teaching their children to network and interact with adults. They emphasize the value of genuine conversations and active listening in personal and professional settings.
00:39:24
Rob’s Passion for Sustainable Agriculture
Rob explains his interest in sustainable farming practices. He discusses his journey from conventional farming methods to focusing on soil health and regenerative agriculture. Rob shares insights on the importance of understanding where food comes from and the value of hard work in farming.
00:50:03
“Hey Dad”: A Guide for Young Adults
Rob introduces his book “Hey Dad,” explaining its purpose as a practical guide for young adults transitioning to independence. He discusses the process of interviewing experts for the book and highlights key topics covered, including job hunting, personal finance, and essential life skills.
01:13:46
The Importance of Personal Finance Education
The conversation focuses on the critical role of personal finance education for young adults. Rob and the host discuss budgeting, understanding good and bad interest, and the power of compound interest. They emphasize the need to teach financial literacy early and its impact on long-term success.
01:22:30
Key Takeaways from “Hey Dad” and Closing Thoughts
Rob shares the main lesson from his book: to relax and approach adulthood with confidence. He encourages readers to use the book as a foundation for independence. The host and Rob discuss the target audience and the importance of personalizing the book when giving it as a gift.
Full Unedited Transcript:
[00:00:02 – 00:01:31]
Good day and welcome to Give a Heck. On today’s show, I welcome Rob Finley. Rob is a Wall Street Journal best selling author, seasoned entrepreneur, renowned speaker and father of four. He is a successful entrepreneur and commercial real estate investor. He has built and sold four companies. Rob’s success is providing innovative solutions for his clients. Constantly thinking ahead of the curve, he brings strategic insights and inspires the next generation of leaders with his commitment to mentorship, education and integration of technology. When Rob is not at his day job, he is passionate about agriculture, exploring new practices and sustainable methods to enhance environmental stewardship in farming. Despite his success in the corporate world, Rob’s most important role has always been as a dad. As the go to source for his kids late night hey dad, how do I calls? He realized that young adults everywhere needed a resource to navigate adulthood. Enter hey Dad. A practical and entertaining guide filled with real world advice, expert insights and hilarious personal stories to help young adults survive and thrive in the real world. I’d like to welcome you to the show Rob. Thanks so much for agreeing to come on and share with us some of your life journey.
[00:01:31 – 00:01:35]
Well, thanks Dwight. Thank you so much for having me. That’s quite an intro. So, so, wow.
[00:01:35 – 00:04:21]
Thank you. You’re welcome. I, I looked at your, at your, your one sheet and I looked at Pod Match and when I went onto your website and I was researching you and I thought, you know, wow, there’s a lot I can really grab on and hold onto when it comes to communicating with you. I’m a dad, five kids, right. Based in agricultural. My dad owned a farm equipment dealership. He’s been retired now for quite a few years. I grew up in that industry. Most of my relatives are farmers and the agriculture industry. I’ve heard it all, I’ve seen it all. Listening to the farmers that come in and talking about, you know, yield of what they’re growing, if they’re growing wheat or oats or whatever it is. And so I thought it was quite interesting. And I honestly believe for myself I’m faith bearing as a Christian, I believe God puts people in my path, that I’m designed to communicate with where we can resonate and there’s connection before we even connect. Right. If that makes sense. Right. Somebody, somebody that I can just relate to and, and have that wholesome open conversation and you know, when I have conversations with people or it focuses on younger audiences like you and I are talking about, I’ll literally reach out to some of my younger adult kids, I’ll tell them about it or I’ll reach out to parents and I’ll say hey maybe your kids should listen to my podcast. And you know, you asked about age range and I’m going to add, add this in for your own information before we get rocking on your origin story. One of my earliest listeners she was in high school and I, I released my book in 2020 or 2021. Pardon me. And in March I released my book and her dad bought two books and he lives down in Alton, I believe it’s in Texas. And listening to he sent me and said I bought two yearbooks. I bought one for my daughter, she’s in high school. Well here’s where this story goes. She, he sends me pictures. Days later she’s sitting in the basement on their big screen TV because my podcast is also on YouTube and she’s in high school and she’s watching my podcast. He says, you got a fan. She likes your show. And then he sent me a message or showed me, sent me a picture and she’s reading my book in the airplane. They went on a trip together. Then he sent me a link. Months later he says she wrote an article about her two favorite authors. You and this other person are two favorite authors. And she wrote this for the high school newspaper.
[00:04:21 – 00:04:22]
That’s fantastic.
[00:04:22 – 00:05:18]
If you want to know is my show impact people? The analytics aren’t like I said, they’re only so accurate. How is it going to gauge somebody in high school that listens to my show? My one grandson’s 12 years old and he list he listens to my show the odd time because he says he likes hearing papa’s voice, right. I said do you actually, do you actually get anything out of it? He says, oh yeah, grandpa. He says I do sometimes I think I should ask you about what that meant. Right. He’s 12, right. So, so we tracked people but anyway I thought I might just popped in my head I thought I should tell you that story because you asked about the analy so that was a person in high school and she’s still a friend of mine. We’re friends now. We message one another and she’s, she’s a young lady that’s owns. She’s a part owner of a yoga studio and she teaches yoga and she’s like you know what, let’s say she’s 21, maybe now 22.
[00:05:18 – 00:05:32]
Yeah. Well look at what you’ve done. You’ve impacted a life. I think that’s even bigger than any any analytics, right? You’ve if you’ve helped a young person become an Adult and so well done to you. So obviously your book is. Is impactful, so that was great.
[00:05:32 – 00:06:27]
Yeah, no, she loved my book. She. She said it really set her on a path and a course that she didn’t realize that she could achieve because it’s really easy, it’s easily digestible. Right. Give a heck how to live life on purpose and not by accident. And guess what? It focuses like my pod. Like my podcast starts out with the origin, builds, takes you through hills and valleys, and wraps up to where I started my podcast. Right. So it was. It was a journey, just like for yourself. We’re going to talk about your books though, too. So that being said, Rob, as I mentioned, I really like understanding a person’s origin story. Like, I just shared a little bit about mine. Tell me what your origin story is. You know, things that happen, key things that happened. Whatever you want to be, whenever, wherever you want to start of me is fine. Bimbi, you know, from your earliest recollections to where you are today, please.
[00:06:27 – 00:10:37]
Sure. So my father was a immigrant from Bermuda, traveled to this country and had myself and my brother and became an airline pilot. And so having a father that’s an airline pilot, you get sort of a unique perspective on the world. First of all, you get to travel, which is really nice, because back then, airline, you know, airline pilots would, Would be able to fly their, their families around. And so, so from that standpoint, I was able and had this, this great appreciation to travel and see other places, other. Other countries. I think more importantly, I think one of the early things that I learned was about respect for all others and, and other cultures and having respect for, for people and societies that are different than your own. And living in my years, even though I grew up in different places, but my younger years, I remember living in rural Connecticut. Well, when you live in rural Connecticut, and I shouldn’t say rural Connecticut, I mean Fairfield county, so it’s still a very populated area near New York, but we lived in the country. But I was able to take that microcosm of a place and expand it and see different perspectives. So an early age, it was. It was about understanding different people. I also saw from my dad’s perspective that if you’re an airline pilot, you’re not traveling all the time. You’re. You’re having different things. So I learned my entrepreneurial spirit from my dad. My dad was not only an airline pilot, but he would do things differently. He would have businesses here and there, try to sell things from, from Timberline, stoves, wood Burning stoves to. He was. Wanted to be a lobsterman. So all of these things sort of built me as a character of becoming an entrepreneur. Fast forward. The one thing I wasn’t very good at, though, I wasn’t really a good student. And so the perspective of wanting to be something and having options wasn’t really afforded to me because I was not a good student. I didn’t apply myself. I really struggled with school and I struggled with the learning that though, taught me that I needed to learn if I wanted to be successful in life. And I wanted to do different things. I needed to learn and I needed to figure out a way that I could learn. And so a lot of things I Wish I had YouTube back when I was growing up, because I think I would have learned a heck of a lot more than I had. But that being said, I was able to get through college. I was able be by sheer will and sheer determination, actually go to Wall street, work on Wall street, where I realized that that really wasn’t what I wanted to do. I actually wanted to go back to my. Go become an entrepreneur. So I started a business. And for the last 25 years, I’ve built and sold multiple businesses. I’ve been known as an entrepreneur, as a real estate investor, but that’s not really who I am. That’s just part of me. What I’m really most proud about is I’ve been a father. I’ve raised four. Four kids. I’ve gone through this, this time. And I think a lot of it is, you know, the goods and the bads, the sacrifices you make as an entrepreneur, the sacrifices that you think are important. I. I thought my kids wanted money and they wanted to be able to travel and have all the things that, that all the trappings of success, when in reality what they really wanted was a father. Right? They wanted somebody who gave them the time and attention. And. And so the book that I wrote was really almost a. A thing for me to say, you know what? I didn’t teach my kids everything I should have. Right. I was more focused on building on what I thought was important, which was building businesses, than making sure, are my kids ready for adult life? And so that is my backstory. So now I spend my time providing advice to my kids, providing advice and mentorship to young adults. But also. So the other things that you said, I still run businesses, I still do all these other things.
[00:10:37 – 00:12:20]
Oh, wow. So you, you’ve had a full plate, full life, but you’re still on the climb, which I find with many Successful entrepreneurs, they’re always out searching and for knowledge. They’re always growing. And I find many entrepreneurs are like yourself, even myself. I wasn’t a great student. I didn’t apply myself. The, the best I could have possibly applied myself. You know, I got through high school, went into college, and if my first go around a college, I was in the partying stage. I was in the like, you know, I moved away from my small rural community of like how a city went from back then it was 10,000 people to, you know, Edmonton at that time. Now it’s one and a half million. But back then it was probably what, 800,000, 700,000. It was a shock, right? All of a sudden I’m out doing whatever. And then my second go around when I went to college for electronics engineering, I had more skin in the game. I had responsibilities that I had gotten because I had already been out of school. And I got. It was in a career putting in alarm systems and. And commercial camera systems and stuff. And then I went back to school. But it was like a switch turned on and I just decided I needed to be. I needed to apply myself and to learn. And personal development really wasn’t introduced to me immediately, but by 1993, shortly after I got out of college, it was. And I’ve been a lifelong learner ever since and, and still have it in the back of my mind that I wasn’t a great student.
[00:12:21 – 00:15:22]
Try not to live in the past. Yeah, well, you know, it’s interesting though, you had that. That aha moment that a lot of people have, which is that. That moment where you’re now an adult, right, when you weren’t applying yourself. There is a point in people’s times where they have to face that. That. That perspective that they are now an adult and they now have to get out of the dependency of. Of what they’ve been used to for their entire life and be able to be independent, be able to go on their own and be able to. To do the things that they need to do. I had a very similar story my first year in college. The college I went to, the only reason I went to it was because you didn’t have to fill out any essays, they didn’t require any standardized tests. It was like almost like a postcard. Now, in similar to you, I grew up in rural New Hampshire. So New Hampshire, in the state, it doesn’t have. I mean, my graduating class, I think was maybe a couple hundred people. I went to a college from rural New Hampshire to the College of Boca Raton in Boca Raton, Florida. So clearly ill prepared for any type of just open, you know, free, free for all. Right? So that lasted about a semester before they said, you’re not coming back. And so I, at that moment I had to face reality of becoming an adult because my parents were like, okay, you just failed out of college. You cannot just come back here and live here. Don’t think you’re just coming back here and living. And you have, you have really have three choices. You can either go join the military, you can go back and get a job and go support yourself, go get away and do that, or three, go to college. Otherwise you’re not just staying around here, you’re not going to stay in our basement and just mooch off of us. And so I was very fortunate. Where I do believe also that life is, is a balance of. There’s, there are things that happen in your life that are very special that are somewhat considered luck. Some will think they’re spiritual. There’s a lot of, a lot of stuff, but things in your life that happen for a specific reason. And I met a gentleman at an admissions in admissions at a local college back in New Hampshire, New Hampshire College. And I, I went to go see him and I begged him, I said, listen, I really screwed up, but if you accept me, I will promise I will get good grades and I will graduate. And so he said, okay, well, this is Mike de Blasi, who is, who is a great person up there. And so I went, took summer classes, said, okay, if you get Bs or better, I’ll accept you. I got Bs are better. And I ended up graduating in about three years. I worked full time, went to school full time. Never really had that great funds college experience like so many people have, and I wish I had in some cases, but I was able to do it and get on with, with my life. But that comes back to every person has that point where they have to come to reality to be an adult.
[00:15:23 – 00:16:12]
Oh, absolutely. And, and for those out there that are helicopter parents, let your kids grow up great. You got to let people make mistakes. And I’ve been guilty for it. I’ll be honest with you. There’s Adam, you know, four daughters and a son. And I’ve, I’ve been guilty of it where I, you know, should have just nodded my head instead of giving advice. Sometimes advice isn’t required, right? Sometimes interaction isn’t required. But it’s, it’s tough when you want to be that caring individual. You want to stop your kids from getting the boo boos. But I find the best lesson is getting that boo boo. It’s tripping, falling, getting up, putting a band aid on and moving forward.
[00:16:12 – 00:19:57]
Yeah. One of the things that I’ve seen and, and you know, I know we’ll talk about the book in a little bit but, but you know, I went out and I interviewed 30 experts in all sorts of things when I wrote this book. Hey dad. Because I didn’t want just my perspective. But one of the things that we really focused on in the first chapter of this book, because the book is really about foundational building blocks of being an adult. It’s not a, you know, it’s not like how to tie a tie and all that kind of stuff. It’ why you should wear a tie. And you know, so it’s, so it’s foundational components. But the first part of it, which was actually the most difficult was the point. And I know you help a lot of people in your, in your job with this is helping people through these unknown of life transitions. And it really was impactful. When I saw my daughter, one of my daughters, she started going to college and she had a technical major and when she was doing it she was very excited because when she started the major was in high demand. And unfortunately when she graduated those jobs were all offshore. And so the poor thing was like graduated thinking for the last four years she was going to get this great job and she was going to move on and she was going to go do this and all of this. She had already had her life planned for her but in reality when it didn’t happen, she became lost. She became sort of what is her purpose. And I think a lot of young adults go through this, this transition where I think you and I were talking about like traveling before, you know, those, those walkways at an airport that are like motorized, you know, they’re sort of like, you know, I call them an escalator, but they’re not. I, my kids used to call them the magic carpet ride where you get on and you travel and then you, you end up where you’re going, you don’t even step. It’s just sort of pre programmed for you. I think a lot of time for, for adults or for, for children. They are on that magic carpet ride. They go to school, they know first grade to second grade, second grade to third grade, so on and so forth. They, their parents sort of influence their sports, their parents influence their activities and sort of foster and those helicopter parents as you talk about, they’re there. And then at some point, that magic carpet ride stops. And how well are your kids prepared to take on that transition of knowing what do they want to do in life? How can they take it and, and understand that it’s not. First of all, it’s not a live or die decision. Right. That’s another thing. But, but then where do I get a job? How do I get a job? Where do I live? How do I find a car? What’s the right way to get a car? All of these things, how to be an adult, are really things that are all of a sudden thrown at our kids. In many cases, if they weren’t prepared for it, they’re overwhelmed, they can’t do it, they can’t cope. It’s very difficult for them to cope in those situations. So we really try to focus. And I know I’m guilty just like you are. Three girls, one boy. I can guarantee you that my girls knew very quickly if there was something wrong with their car. It’s just. Daddy, there’s some light going on in my car. Can you get. Oh, sure, sweetheart. I’d run, you know. Of course I’m going to go do it. You know, my sweet little princess isn’t going to have to go to a gas station. That’s what Dad’s for. Right. And so, but ultimately, when they move out, she lives on her own. Oh, dad. That light’s been on for about a week. You weren’t around. I knew you were coming to visit in a couple of weeks. So I just let that light go on until I ran on the rim. Right. So it’s, it’s those things. It’s getting your kids to understand that they, that they have to take care of themselves. That’s, that’s the excitement of being an adult, the fun of being an adult.
[00:19:57 – 00:21:17]
Well, and people have to realize that no matter what you do, how you educate, think about my existence and finance. Do you think my kids are all financial wizards? No, because I can only prepare them for so much. I had had one daughter that was so proud of what I. She wanted to shadow me. She had to. She was allowed a day of school. Shadowing professional. I took her through what I do and, and stuff and taught her things. But today, fast forward. Did she learn stuff from back then? Not really. It’s when they get adults and have to face that pressure of, of, you know, paying the bills, making sure their vehicle’s running okay, that if a red light’s on, they take care of it themselves. And it’s a, it’s a, that’s a tough balance to deal with. What do I push my kids with and what, what isn’t worth pushing my kids? Because they’re gonna have that hey, dad moment like you’re talking about when they’re adults, young adults out in their first job. Your daughter, for an example, finishes school and, and jobs are offshore. That sucks. How could you have prepared her for that when she was younger? Impossible. So we, as parents.
[00:21:17 – 00:21:55]
But here, here’s the thing, though. I actually, instead of that, I think if I gave her some of the skills that are required to get a job, right? Yes, there are some, there’s, there’s some more spiritual. There was, there was some bigger, like, emotional things. Right. It’s, it’s like it became overwhelming. Right. It’s almost, you’re, you’re almost powerless in indecision. Right. It didn’t know where she was going to live. She didn’t know where she was going to work. She didn’t know what she wanted to do. So she didn’t know where she wanted to live and, and so on and so forth. But there are foundational things that we can teach our kids that will help them become more successful through this adulting transition.
[00:21:55 – 00:22:00]
Oh, I agree. There is. Foundational pieces, like networking, for example.
[00:22:00 – 00:22:40]
Right. That most people, a lot of kids don’t realize are young adults. I say kids. I shouldn’t. I say young adults. Most young adults don’t realize that to get a job, you come out of school. It’s not just like the Indeed or the LinkedIn Easy Apply button isn’t going to get you a job. You actually have to learn how to network with companies. You need to learn how to talk to people. Heaven forbid you actually talk to people, not text talk. And these are skills that if you start training younger and you start helping your young adult early, will help them exponentially going forward in life.
[00:22:40 – 00:24:23]
Oh, I agree. Teaching. Teaching kids how to communicate is with. I’ll add to that, though. Like when I talk to my kids, we used to talk all the time about. They’d ask, you know, I’d stop and talk to somebody I didn’t know and would have conversation and they’d say, dad, why did you say that? Why did you do that? So we had those kind of conversations that, you know, when you communicate with somebody, though, and you are in a form of networking, you go to that same store all the time and the clerk sees you and they wave because they recognize you because you said kind words to them and you show appreciation and genuine conversation. I used to talk to him about that all the time, having that genuine conversation and that connection. Well, dad, how did you meet this person? Oh, I went over and I spoke to them. I did. I was uncomfortable, but I knew that we, we could maybe become business connection, connection or maybe it was a personal connection networking. But they learned that also from when they were younger. They don’t anymore. I still do. But when they were younger, they were involved in youth group, they’re involved in church and they learned how to network and communicate. They’d come and talk to me. So you’re right. You can set up and prepare your kids for a lot of different things, but there’s a lot of things that are out of, out of our ability to know where they’re going to go. So we give them hopefully enough tools in their toolbox where they open it and they can find a tool. And one of those tools now is, hey, dad, what do you think about this? Even my, even my oldest, she’ll ask me questions and have advice, but not very as frequent as my youngest, who’s going to be 26 next month.
[00:24:23 – 00:24:24]
Yeah.
[00:24:24 – 00:24:37]
Because they start learning things themselves and it’s from that network. Maybe they found a good friend or a mentor. Mentorship is huge. That’s one of the things I was going to get into. But before we do that, do you have any last comments about what we were just discussing?
[00:24:38 – 00:24:56]
I think it’s just, it is important that we talk about, you know, mentorship. And I’m glad you, I’m glad you brought that up because I was going to ask you. So in the church groups in the past, have you were your kids exposed to also adults? Because I think that’s an important thing. It’s not just, not just putting them in a church group and having them with, with kids. Right. That is good for social organization.
[00:24:56 – 00:27:38]
But no, they’re all controlled. There’s youth ministers and stuff that, that ran. So there was always adults that ran, but they’d also have. And years later, now they’ll run into people that were part of the youth group that are now part of the ministry or have become preceding. For an example that that helped run the youth group. Did they did everybody in youth group that they met and networked worth. Were they good? No, not really. Just because you stand in a church or you go to church doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily networking with the best quality of people. Doesn’t mean that the people there aren’t good quality. But yeah, they were run by adults. They had over. They Were overseen. They. They went on adventures together as a group. They went skiing or. Right. But they enjoyed youth group. They learned a lot from it. Few of them. Few of them are also in. In the youth choir. Right. Some of them did readings and volunteered, and they. They. They had a good mixture, in my opinion, of the different people life has to offer in a group setting, which I think helped set them up regardless. If they go to church as adults, help them set up for being able to communicate and deal with people outside of church. And they’re. When, you know, as they become young adults and now they’re older adults and they have their own kids and who knows, maybe somebody that just puts their kids in. Whatever. Let’s say they’re in a sport. My kids did that too. They were. So they had networking on both ends. Right. They had youth group, they had youth choir, they had sports, they had dance, they had soccer, gymnastics, all that stuff. And I think one of the things that I excelled at, though, is I always talk to them about their stuff, and they communicate with me about their. Their feelings. Were. Did they all do the same level? No, but there’s. Communication is important to raising kids and being that mentor and acting like the person that you are, telling them that you are. How many people do that, Rob? They present a facade, but their kids are standing behind them, beside them, growing up, knowing that’s a bunch of crock. Right. That they’re not genuine. So it’s back to that. I always taught my kids to be genuine. Be who you are. At home, when the door closes, you’re the same person. Yes. Maybe you’re a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more flowing. But outside of here, if you’re a kind, good person to everybody outside your home, why aren’t you being that kind, good person at home? Why do you talk to your sibling like that? Why are you talking to me like that?
[00:27:39 – 00:27:40]
Oh, maybe that.
[00:27:40 – 00:28:11]
Maybe. Maybe those people you’re having that conversation with, tell me what you said to them and they’ll tell me. Well, here’s. I. I just figured out what happened. You said this, and it probably triggered them. Maybe you triggered a memory or a thought. Maybe next time watch their body language. If they shift a little bit, just go, oh, did I say something that was wrong? Be genuine. Apologize and say, you know, maybe I could have said that better. Right. Mentorship comes in all forms, but it starts with us as parents.
[00:28:11 – 00:28:12]
Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:28:12 – 00:28:13]
Right.
[00:28:13 – 00:28:13]
300.
[00:28:14 – 00:28:52]
Right. So you have a commitment to mentorship, education, and integration of technology, which I like that for the Next generation of leadership. I know many do not grasp the connection of these three points though at any age, right, that, that you can have mentorship, education. And as you mentioned earlier, YouTube would have been a blessing for you and I, right, that tech, that technology. So what have you learned and taught that true success, why true success requires mentorship to continue to learn. And how do you integrate technology or how do you discuss technology when you’re talking about mentorship and education?
[00:28:53 – 00:32:31]
So I think, you know, mentorship is critical and I think for the past 25, 30 years that I’ve been running a business, I’ve been hiring young people, right, and, and getting these young people and elevating them in their careers. And it’s, it’s very, it’s, it’s, it’s a very, it’s a passion project for me. Things that kids are not even young adults aren’t even prepared for. Like I’m usually the first one that’s taken them to a business dinner. I had a, I had a great experience where I had, I was entertaining and a group of clients or a client, and I was at a client dinner and I brought one of my young analysts, brand new analyst in and I was talking to, to these, to the client and it was a very important deal. We were discussing a very intense negotiations and we were at dinner and I go to my, my analyst, I say listen, just order some apps for the table so I can continue talking. Right. I didn’t want to, didn’t want to break up the conversation and comes back, the waiter comes back and he ordered soup for himself. And I realized like, you know, he’s never been to this before. Nobody’s trained him. And they don’t teach this stuff in school, right? There’s so many things that they don’t teach in school anymore. You know, basic budgeting, basic auto, basic home maintenance. Right. They just, they don’t teach this stuff. But also from a business perspective, I don’t know if there’s a college course on how to, how to have a business meal, how to, how to interact in a business setting. And so a lot of the mentorship that I do is either with young adults who are coming into the workforce and they want to elevate themselves in the workforce. They need to know how to handle it, how to handle situations. I also mentor a lot of young entrepreneurs who are first time entrepreneurs and they’re trying to start a business or a side hustle and they’re, they’re trying to grow and, and quite frankly, I just become a Sounding board. I’m not. I’m offering advice. I think just like when we talk about giving advice to your kids, sometimes your kids actually want your advice. Sometimes your kids actually just want a sounding board, right? Just something to, to come back to that they can, they can feel good about and just say, you know what? At least I know I’m not doing something completely crazy. So that’s where, that’s where I come in with, with the, with the mentorship. I also think it’s incredibly important that as a community, the adults in the community mentor all of the kids and anybody that they can. And for that reason, that’s why I was asking before is like, you know, when, when your kids were at your church groups or their other organizations, were they associated with adults? Because back to this point, I don’t think your kids will listen to you. Your kids will hear you, but not always the same, not always to the same level. My kids will listen to you, right? If you came over and you said, hey, you know what? Rob’s kid, you’re acting like an idiot. Don’t act like that, right? He would listen to you, right? He would say, oh, okay, yeah, all right, you’re right. Or if, if my daughter asked you, hey, you know, is, is. Can I have, do I need a bank account if I have Zelle, right? You could, you could answer that, right? And so those are the things that, that mentorship and, and having a solid base around your kids is important that they’re providing good advice because your kids do want that mentorship. They do want that leadership. They just might not want it from you all the time. Ultimately, they will look for you, but getting it from your, your community is, Is critical.
[00:32:31 – 00:33:40]
Well, like I tell people and coach on it all the time, why are you shocked? Kids become parent deaf. They just do. And that outside extracurricular activities, as you mentioned, that have adults involved kids who are involved in cheerleading, gymnastics, soccer, baseball. They were involved in all these different sports. And I as a parent would gauge communication between the coaches and like the teachers, coaches of people that are dealing with, with my children, and we should, all of us should deal with that because some of the advice or some of the things and some of the. Just because somebody is a community coach or even if it’s at a higher level of community sports doesn’t mean that they’re good for your kids because of how they treat somebody, how they favor, if there’s favoritism and your kids see all that stuff. So we still, in my mind, as my kids were Growing up, I still had to be very cognizant. And there were circumstances where I pulled my kids out of certain things because the adults weren’t a good influence. What do you think about that?
[00:33:40 – 00:33:54]
How is that a lesson for your kid, though? I mean, not to challenge you, obviously, but. But to me, I don’t know if, if that. Is there a different way? Could you explain it to them instead of saying, hey, listen, do you notice.
[00:33:54 – 00:34:58]
How when we got to the. By the time they’d get removed, it was well past that. We’d have conversations and I would coach them how to communicate with those adults. And after that, if it didn’t change, I communicate with the adults. But I’m not going to get into details of. There was a couple times where those adults weren’t accepting to the fact that they had flaws. Let’s say, maybe that’s the wrong word for it, that they weren’t. They weren’t. They were segregating or treating kids differently. And it was well known. It wasn’t just me as a parent. It was always. Usually be a group of people that were seeing the same thing because I networked with all the parents. Networking happens in all ways, shapes and forms. So could I. Did I teach them to deal with it on their own? Absolutely. But there were circumstances that, as a parent was my point, that we need to step in and do protect our kids. So you. You may not agree. You may agree it doesn’t. We’re all hey dads in the sense that we do what we think is best. Right?
[00:34:58 – 00:35:01]
Right. And that’s. You’re absolutely right. I wasn’t.
[00:35:01 – 00:35:01]
Yeah.
[00:35:01 – 00:35:11]
I don’t mean that. There’s no right or wrong. Right. I mean, we all know that parenting is probably the most difficult job in the world. Right. You know, you’re always wondering if it’s. If you’re right or wrong or.
[00:35:12 – 00:36:05]
I still look back and think that I always make the right choices, but I don’t have regrets about what I did because it also shows a foundation of. This is what dad is willing to do once we’ve exhausted all the other possibilities. So I don’t want you to think that they were just. I just was a, you know, a dictator and. Okay, you’re coming out of there. I don’t like that person. I made them. My kids used to have to. If they didn’t like something that they were trying, they had to stay until the end of this, until the end of the season or the end of whatever we paid for. Even piano lessons. My one daughter Absolutely hated it. I said, well, too bad you’re staying in from fall till spring. And, you know, she, she made it through and she started enjoying it. Once it ended, she didn’t want to go back, and that was fine. But I wasn’t going to let her be a quitter. Right.
[00:36:06 – 00:37:17]
So that’s perfect. Yeah. I just think it’s. To me, I, I think there’s all types of people in this world, right? And you’re, you’re gonna have to learn to navigate with all types. And, and I think that’s, you know, that’s, that’s part of the, you know, one of the chapters in the book is, is on being an adult. Right. And, and, and it’s finding, you know, being a good person, a good human. Right. Because that is important. That’s no matter what you are, whether or not you’re a young adult or, or a kid or, or an adult, and being a good person, but having manners and etiquette and respect for other people, I think that’s a really important thing. That, that. And I don’t know if you, I mean, you can, you can read it in a book and you can, you can read it and you’re going to learn examples in this book, but you’re going to know what’s right and what’s wrong. And that’s, that’s sort of the, that’s the key concept of that, which is just, you’re going to deal with people, you’re going to deal with jerks, you’re going to deal with bullies, you’re going to deal with all sorts of people. And as you said, you don’t know. They could just be having a bad day. That person who honked at you in the car could just be having a really bad day. They might have just lost their job. And you don’t know. You don’t know what’s going on. So don’t, don’t put judgment on other people. Just judge your own actions and live by what you can do.
[00:37:17 – 00:38:24]
Oh, yeah, of course. And, you know, with my kids and, and dealing with circumstances and stuff, I always believe in that. Advocacy is important. I advocate. Advocated when they were younger, but I had always challenged them to deal with things, whether it was a, a student or a teacher or it was extracurricular, a coach. I always challenged them. But they also knew that there had become a point in time that maybe they needed dad to advocate for them because it, you know, they weren’t, they were being respectful. They were learning. They had dealt with it differently than Maybe they initially dealt with it wrong, but as an adult, that adult looking at that young adult or that child, sometimes they don’t deal with it correctly or they label that kid. And at some points in time in life, you have to advocate for your kid because maybe there is a communication problem. Maybe that person, like you said, it’s not honking the car, honking the horn part of me. Maybe that person’s having some challenges at home and they bring it into the coaching world or the teaching world. And that’s hap. We’re all.
[00:38:24 – 00:38:25]
Yep.
[00:38:25 – 00:38:45]
We’re all guilty of that sort of stuff happening. And sometimes as adults, we need to correct other adults and put them into check. Hey, my child didn’t mean to do that or my child was this and that. They’ve tried talking to you. Is there a reason why you won’t. You’re not open and willing, like stuff like that. Not confrontational, though. Never confrontational. That just doesn’t solve anything.
[00:38:46 – 00:38:49]
Right. Right. No, absolutely. No. That’s a, Those are good points.
[00:38:50 – 00:39:24]
So we, we’re. We’re not. I was going to get into a little bit about, if you want to share a few minutes. I was kind of curious about the farming initiative and stuff too. I know this is about your book, but just for us to understand more about how, how did you get into the agricultural, you know, sustainability and what drew you to that? Yes. I know you grew up in, in rural, but what, what decided, what was the decision or who maybe guided you to get into that form of thought process and agriculture?
[00:39:24 – 00:43:12]
So I, it’s, it’s the love of land. I think that, that comes back from my growing up and, and just who my parents were. Right. My, my mom had a garden, my dad had a garden. My, my, we had bees and, and you know, whatever we could. And it was, it was part of our life. And as I grew up and with my own kids, having them have the responsibility of having animals. So we had chickens and we had donkeys and we had cattle. And so, you know, we started building up. So, so they learned the responsibility, but also more importantly, they had respect for animals and also where their food comes from. And so that was, that was an important concept they understand of where food comes from, how it’s raised, what, what it does and how it, how it results in, in your, in your body. But it was also a great place to learn work. Right. It was a good work ethic. You want to see hard workers, go look at a farmer. Right? You know, they’re, they’re from sun up to sundown, non stop working. It’s not seven days a week and it never stops. And I think it’s important that I wanted my kids to see that. I wanted my kids to see that, that work ethic, that that was responsible. As it turns out, I also, coming from that entrepreneurial mind, was realizing it. It did not take a math scientist or, you know, a finance major to realize if you put $100,000 worth of chemicals on your fields every year and you only produce $100,000 worth of crops, it doesn’t really tie out right. The business. That’s not a really good sustainable business model. And so I really started looking into ways to maximize soil soil production to produce better crops and more crops without having to put chemicals into it. And that led me down this rabbit hole and the YouTube world that I live in, which is not just one. It’s hours, right? So it’s, it’s hours and hours of consuming content on soil regeneration and an understanding this, this, the biodiversity that’s in our soil is critical to healthy soil. And I soon realized that my farm, the soil was dead. I was just artificially growing crops because I put things on top of it that just grew. But then I would take all of it away every year I had to put stuff back on. And I was just using chemicals to mask the fact that what was wrong was my soil. That is what I do is I come in and I work and I’ve built a company that works on improving soil and soil quality through natural ways, right? Everybody knows you go reach into dirt and that has a bunch of earthworms in it. You’ve got some pretty good soil, right? You’ve got all the microorganisms and the fungi in it. And that’s going to create great soil and that’s going to create great plants and healthy plants and you won’t have to put stuff on top of it. So that’s where the interest of, of, of farming is farming. I love farming. I love being out in the land. I love seeing the animals. We don’t have a lot of animals anymore that I’ve just sort of, that, that’s too much work. But, but we have our, you know, we have our small manageable herd of goats and chickens. But it’s important that I just, I love it. I love being a part of the soil. I love being part of the land. I love being part of it. I also have big German shepherds and they love running wild and at the farm.
[00:43:12 – 00:45:28]
So your passion for it is awesome because I think back again for the listeners, my, my listeners of the shore viewers know a lot of my history, right? So growing up in a farming community, my dad owning a farm equipment dealership, being out at the farmers all the time and understanding why the larger farmers, maybe not the smaller farmers, it was harder for them. Why they, dad, why didn’t they, why didn’t they put a crop in over there? Well, they’re letting their land rest. There’s. They’re, they’re doing summer fall over. They’re going to keep it for a year and they’ll end up because this would be in the spring. He says, he says they’ll eventually till it. They’ll do all this stuff, stuff over the over, you know, and they’ll let it sit till next year sometimes if they can afford to. They’ll let it sit for two years and hey dad, what are you selling that for? What’s that for? Oh, he says that’s a, that’s a takes. He says we’re going to use that. This is a. Farmers that have lots of cattle and have lots of manure, they’ll use manure spreader and they’ll spread that out into the fields, right. To give nitrogen and different things into the soil. And I learned a lot from my dad owning that business, especially because he’s one of 18 kids and majority of his family are farmers. Right. My mom was one of nine and most of them were farmers. So I hung out at farms all the time around the chickens and pigs. And you’re right, you learn a work ethic and people that are, that are listening or watching farmers are underappreciated. Like honestly the pressures that they have. And you being that farmer that sprayed the chemicals is because you’re desperate. You don’t know any other way because you’re not getting mentored to know any different ways. So YouTube became your mentor, which is a good thing. But there’s so much biodiversity in soil that is destroyed and lost because they’re trying to get higher yield on, you know, how many bushels per acre and these then, then on top of that, you, you know, if you’re in a hail storm area like a tunnel, then you got to get hail insurance and you got to pay so much per acre and then I get it all. That’s why I brought it up. But I had to. No, I had to know. I, I wanted to know what you’re passionate about it. So that’s why I asked. Right? Yeah.
[00:45:28 – 00:45:36]
No, no, and you should. And look, I honestly, I know I’M here to like promote a book. But I mean in fairness, like, I’m not a, I’m not a, I’m an author, but I’m not. Yeah. This is not how I, I want.
[00:45:36 – 00:45:43]
To know more about you is what I’m, I’m getting at. Right. And I’ll tell you, it’s, it’s just I’m a curious person. So.
[00:45:43 – 00:45:53]
Yeah, no, no, no. And that’s my point. Like I think farming, I, you know, talk about ingenuity. I mean you, you go. I would encourage every listener, go spend a little bit of time on a farm.
[00:45:53 – 00:45:54]
Go.
[00:45:55 – 00:46:05]
And, but, but what? These, they’re, you know, a farmer is a mechanic, They’re a, you know, an electrician. They are a, you know, they do.
[00:46:05 – 00:48:03]
Everything, they do everything. I know, Everything. I know I got old once I was able to drive and it was harvest season. My dad would be tired because he’d work sometimes 18, 20 hours. If a farmer called at 12 in the morning and the phone, you know, phone would go off. Sometimes he like at time, you know, there’s a couple phones on the wall, people, right? And my dad would yell down, hey Dwight, go to the shop, it’ll be 2:00am okay. Right. Because the farmers were harvesting and they got the lights on and they’re out giving her. And, and he wanted to make sure he supported them. No after hours service charges. They paid the same if they bought the part at one in the afternoon, if they bought it at two in the morning and you know, they’d ask questions and I’d learn because I’d go to the heavy duty mechanics and I’d push tools to them. My dad didn’t spoil me, right. I had to learn hard. I was 12 years old working, right. And then I worked there every summer and I worked there throughout the school year and I learned going out to the farms, he’d go out and farmer was having trouble timing his baler right. For those less lean, you know, you take your straw and it makes it into a square bill. My dad was an expert at that. He could hear it and he could time it and he, and they couldn’t get it. He’d drive out there for no cost. I come along with him and in the evening and you know what I mean? He’d do whatever and he earned respect because of it. Because he understood that really at the core of our society, without farmers we’re screwed. And then we got a world that wastes food, forcing farmers to either quit and sell out to the bigger farmers because they can’t afford the hail insurance, they can’t afford all the chemicals. They can’t afford to heal their land because that’s their only source income and they only got maybe a half section or a section of land. Right. So I understand that. I have huge, huge respect for farmers.
[00:48:03 – 00:48:51]
Oh yeah, absolutely. That’s why I think everybody, everybody should go visit a farmer. Go support your farmer’s market, go support them. Because I’ll tell you, it is, it’s, it’s, you know, not to keep on going on farming but, but the, when you think about it, it’s in farms are farms, right? Especially with animals, right. They lose livestock and that’s, you know, a calf could be fifteen hundred dollars. I mean this is real money. And it’s, and, and for me it’s, you know, it’s, it’s a, you know, it is a business, but it’s not my, you know, if, if I get, if I don’t have a good crop, my family still eats. Right. And so it’s a very different. But I, I, I can tell you, with all due respect, I have the most utmost respect for farmers like it and I, I hope everybody does. So.
[00:48:51 – 00:50:02]
Absolutely. So we’ll, we’ll go on from that. But thanks for sharing and indulging me because I didn’t know if you’d want to because again, remember I told you I felt a connection to you just reading about you, right. And your life and I just, I had, because we have that commonality. Right. Obviously I’ve never been a farmer. Have I helped out in farms? Yes. Have I been in a combine? Have I been on a swather? Have I been in a grain truck? Absolutely. Have I, have I watched, watched animals going from barn to table? Yes. Won’t get into the details because that grosses people out, but yes. Right. So I do appreciate it. So, enter the book. Hey dad. Everything you should have learned about life but didn’t. A practical and entertaining guide filled with real world advice, expert insights and hilarious personal stories to help young adults survive and thrive in the real world, which we’ve touched upon. Right. The book covers a lot of things about jobs, money, cars, even etiquette. Did you include youth in a discussion of what to include? And how did you eventually narrow down what you ended up putting in the book?
[00:50:03 – 00:52:45]
That is a great question, Dwight. So what I really tried to do was I tried to build these foundation blocks. Right. And I think that’s what it is. I, I, as we said, every, every young adult is going to go to this Time where they’re now going to have to be an adult. And so I really wanted to focus on the things, the first thing which is what have some purpose in life, right? Because if you don’t really know and quite frankly, just because you thought you were going to get a major in whatever, you know, your, your biochem major or your accounting or finding whatever your major was, doesn’t mean that that’s going to be your career, but also to sit back and relax, right? You’ve just graduated. You don’t have to make all your decisions. Your life decisions are going to happen for the next, for the rest of your life. So don’t worry about it, but just get out and launch. So, so it started out with just sort of the first thing is sort of to thy known self be true, find purpose, find sort of something that’s going to get you up and get you going. The next is now you’ve sort of figured that out, let’s get going and get a job. So foundation things. What. And so the, the important part with this, this book too is I actually interviewed all these experts and interviewed over 30 experts in all sorts of things. I, a professional race car driver and his crew chief on how to maintain a car because nobody knows how to beat up a car more or how important a car is than a NASCAR race car driver. This is guy who also won the Daytona 500 and he’s like, you know, so he and his crew were like real to tax experts, to insurance experts, to a special forces Navy SEAL on what to do in emergencies and everything in between. And I, I tried to limit because I didn’t want it to be overwhelming. Right? You can, as we said, if I wanted to write a book on truly on what it being an adult is and everything you should know, it would be, you know, it would be the Encyclopedia Britannica, right? It’s just, it would be Google. There’s too many things. But I wanted people to have a foundational sense, more importantly, the confidence to be able to go out into the world and take it with full gusto. And that was really the whole purpose. So it’s not about how to tie a tie, but rather, hey, if you’re going to go for a job interview, you might want to wear a tie. You might want to see what they’re wearing to know if you need it or hey, you’re going to a wedding, how to find out if you’re going to wear a tie or not. So those are the things. It was more about the foundation building Blocks that every adult needs to know. You’re going to master it on your own level and your own time and your own need. But you needed those, that base. And that’s, that’s what I came up with on, on the book.
[00:52:45 – 00:52:55]
Wow. And when, before the book was published, did you, did your kids read the book? Did you let them check it out to see what they thought?
[00:52:55 – 00:55:10]
No, because my kids were like, whatever you do, don’t tell stories about us. So they’re already mad because, so the first story, I, I always give it away. So the first story I have, and really what prompted writing this book was, it was the middle of the night and like any 55 year old man, I’m asleep. You know, if I, if I can sleep, I’m. I’m asleep. Middle of the night, phone rings. And for any adult who has kids, you know, middle of the night phone calls scare the crap out of me. Excuse my language. And so I pick up the phone, I’m like, oh my gosh, what’s wrong? Is my daughter on the other side of the phone and she’s like, can I put the green gas in my Jeep? And of course it’s like middle of the night, I’m like, hearts racing, I have to sort of dial in. I’m sorry, green gas in your Jeep? What are you talking. And she was almost upset, she was mad at me for having to even ask back on this question. She’s like, yeah, green gas. I’m like, are you asking if you can put diesel in your Jeep? And she’s like, yes, can I put diesel in my Jeep? I was like, sweetie, no, your, your Jeep is a gas engine. It’s, it’s, this is diesel. No, you can’t do that. And so I, at that moment I realized, like, have I taught all my kids, like all the stuff that they should know? And, and I get bombarded, like you do with these hey dad questions or texts or whatever. And so my wife was like, yeah, you know, we talked to other parents and we’re getting the same stuff. We all have sort of similarly aged kids. We’re getting all this stuff all the time. And so she said, you know what? You really enjoy writing books. Why don’t you go write a book on all these questions? And so that’s what I did. And so I didn’t, I didn’t tell my kids other than I said I, I masked your names. And you know, I did have some stories about you guys in it because they’re funny. But that was, that was the early Question. They didn’t read it. They’ve read sections I’ve given, I’ve given Mike. One of my daughters was looking at banking stuff. She was. She needed get a bank account. So I gave her the chapter on banking but in budgeting and things like that. But I haven’t given them the full book yet.
[00:55:10 – 00:55:35]
Did you, when you wrote the book, did you realize things about yourself like you said, you talked about the green gas and whether or not. How many more epiphanies did you have while you were writing the book? Was it cathartic for you? Did it teach you that you were better than you gave yourself credit for or. And did it also give you kicks in the pants that you needed to do more?
[00:55:36 – 00:57:03]
What surprised me and it came out to the final thing, which is you’re always learning, right? As an adult, you’re always learning. And there are things I didn’t know about, there are things I thought I knew about because I’m a 55 year old adult. I know what I’m doing. No, there’s things that I didn’t know. And I think a lot of it comes down to also. Times change, right? Things change. Things that were. That I took for granted because that’s the way I did it have changed. And so the questions that I was getting asked by my kids were a combination of technology advancements in the world and just sort of practical common sense. But it was absolutely, for me writing this, I was like, huh, I didn’t know that. I haven’t. So I learned a lot doing it, which was a lot of fun. Which is also why I asked experts, right? One, one person’s perspective, isn’t it? I’m not a, not a NASCAR race car driver and crew chief. I’m not a. I don’t run AAA and in driver driver safety. I’m not, I don’t run, you know, a million units of apartments. Like the person who I interviewed on apartments, I’m not a banking CEO. Like these are the people that I asked and I asked them specifically. Give me advice as you would your. Your own child coming through this, this time. And a lot of them had kids at the same point. And so it was really good. They were just like, yeah, here, here’s the advice.
[00:57:04 – 00:57:13]
That’s awesome. Like to have that epiphany to write this book though. And it comes out on the 19th of April. Correct.
[00:57:13 – 00:57:27]
28 comes out on the 28th. Sorry, 28th. 28th. 29th. Actually going to be at Barnes and Noble in New York doing the official launch and Signing. But yeah, it’s, it’s available now on, on pre sale on Amazon.
[00:57:27 – 00:57:28]
You can find it.
[00:57:28 – 00:59:49]
Yeah, yeah, Amazon. And yeah. And one of the things I, I if anybody who buys the book and please, I hope you buy it but what I really want people to do, the real intent was this was it goes back to this mentorship that you and I spoke about earlier and we both I think are very passionate about it and understand the importance I believe and the reason why I want this book to come out on the 28th and 29th is it’s in time for graduation. Right? High school graduation, college graduation. And what I really want is I want people, adults or people who care about other people to give this book to a young adult. But I want them to take the time to go look through it and provide their own little bits of advice. Right. And I think that’s where I’m starting to see like I’ve. We’ve given out some, some pre advances of the books and, and I’ve seen a grandmother write a little passage in it for, for her granddaughter. She’s going to give it to her granddaughter, but she’s adding her own advice. The grandmothers and I’m like that’s what I want. That to me is makes it so much better because just listening to me is one thing great. Listening to 30 experts, that’s so much better. But then to have somebody who actually knows you and cares about you write their own little bits of advice. It was great. She was talking about how it was a grandmother and she was actually talking about. There’s a section on and it seems strange that we have to put it but how to clean and what’s acceptable clean and cleaning your house and maintaining a clean life. And she wrote down that her husband of like 60 years or some long period and he would, he had passed but how he really had this, this idea of hanging up sheets outside because that made the smell so much better and it helped him for allergy season. I don’t know what is something like that, but she wrote the advice of like make sure you have at least one piece of clothing that’s been hung outside and things like that. It was just, it was such a special thing. Like it was just such a special memory. So that’s my ask for anybody who buys the book, please make it personal. Add your own advice that you want to give to, to the reader.
[00:59:49 – 01:00:22]
That’s awesome. I like that. Nothing better than generational knowledge transfer. Whether or not it’s valid to everybody or not, it’s that granddaughter, that person that’s going to get that book. Grandma is put in what, from her heart. Right, right. This is what, what I believe is good for you. And, and, you know, this is what your grandfather believed with the sheets and. Oh, that’s just amazing. It’s the connection. It’s that internal connection that. That sells a book.
[01:00:23 – 01:00:49]
Right. And that’s what I want. So I’m asking people, like, look, write something if you’re. If you’re willing to share it with me, please, because that’s what’s going to get me excited and just happy about doing what I’m doing. You know, it’s. Writing books is a. Is sort of. Unfortunately, it’s sort of a lost. It’s. It’s lost. Right? I mean, you write a book and it’s hard to write a book, and it’s really just a passion of love. It’s not really a business venture.
[01:00:49 – 01:01:50]
Well, it’s not something that. Because I’ve dealt with publishers, if a book does 5,000 copies, they’re, like, ecstatic. And I was shocked when one of the people I talked to years ago said that. 5,000 copies. He says, yeah. He says, if you’re thinking of becoming wealthy operating books, you’re doing it for the wrong reason. That’s what he said. And I said, okay, what’s it going to cost? What have I got to do? And then I got different quotes, and then I decided on a. He’s a good friend of mine. He’s actually in Pittsburgh. It’s actually in the US He’s a friend of mine. But, you know, at the end of the day, I just want to touch one person and, you know, the story of the, of that young high school girl that will resonate with me the rest of my life. Her dad reaching out to tell me about that, to show me, to encourage her with my book. You know, stuff like that. I wish there might be way more stories than that, that. But how. People don’t share with us, Rob. So that’s what.
[01:01:50 – 01:01:51]
But that’s what I want. That’s what I’m.
[01:01:51 – 01:01:53]
I hope I. I hope you do.
[01:01:53 – 01:02:24]
I. I’m begging people to be like, please, just, just one little patches. Because that’s, that’s, as I said, that’s what makes it. That’s what makes it nice. That’s what will make it special. Other than that, it’s, it’s. And, and because people have that, you know, there’s a. You know, the gentleman I said, always have a hundred dollars. He gave his advice to to his kids. Like, like always make sure you have a hundred dollars in your wallet, have it rolled up and put it. You always have to have emergency cash because kids don’t use cash anymore. Right. It’s like you always need to have it. So it’s just things like that.
[01:02:24 – 01:03:33]
I love that advice because I’ve given that advice about always have an emergency cash. And you know, another thing that I would put in if I was writing at the front of your book, because people have asked me this so much. If you had to give yourself advice, you know, when you were younger, what would you tell yourself? I said, well, I. If I could tell my younger self, be a good listener. Be that person that’s not always wondering what am I going to say in response. And I’m not really listening to what Rob’s saying. Be that person that truly is engaged. He’ll always have the opportunity to share your opinion. If it’s warranted, yes. But you’ll never have that opportunity again to hear the heartfelt conversation of what that person is trying to share with you. So we listen more than you talk. I know it sounds like everybody says, oh, I’ve heard that before. But apply it to your life and you’ll, you’ll, you’ll connect with people more. You’ll have a more fruitful life, kind of. And it wasn’t that. My dad didn’t teach me that or I didn’t see that within his business. I didn’t really have anybody tell me, you need to listen more. Right. You know what I mean?
[01:03:33 – 01:03:50]
So I think you’ll hear that in the book. You know, there was the gentleman who was giving advice on, on getting jobs. He’s like, listen, you know, you have like a 30 second rule. You talk, you answer, and then you shut up. Right. It’s like, yeah, so it’s, it’s. And you listen, listen, listen. Actively listen. Yep.
[01:03:50 – 01:05:17]
And that’s what I’ve been told, though. I’ve worked so hard with my podcast to be a better active listener. And I, when I first started, I used to take pages and pages of notes. Now I just put the odd little comment as I’m showing you, just to just refresh, because I go over all this after the fact when I’m working on the show, notes and stuff before it goes up to my editor. And at the end of the day, I realized that I have this going on in my life, I have this going on in my life. What am I going to focus on? And my focus needs to be giving Rob 100 of my attention during the podcast or during a conversation, if we’re my client or we’re face to face, because that fleeting moment will never come back again. And maybe they were reaching out in a conversation for advice, or maybe they’re reaching out in a conversation just to get something off their, off their heart. Right. Being a good listener has been something I practice because I never used to be one. And then being honest with ourselves is crucial. Right. So one of the big themes of your books is finding a job, plus also the discussion about starting a business. And you did mention a little bit about that. Do you feel that we should steer our youth towards being in a job first before starting a business? What’s your thought process on that?
[01:05:17 – 01:05:21]
Yes, yes. I, and I look, I think it’s to thy own self betrayed.
[01:05:21 – 01:05:21]
Right?
[01:05:21 – 01:06:35]
I’m, I make these generalizations. Me personally, having started businesses, knowing how hard it is, I don’t know if I, if. And I, I don’t, I don’t think I would recommend it to almost anybody. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s tough starting a business. But there are ways for young adults, which is very practical this day and almost necessary in many cases to do these side hustles. Right. I’ve actually spoke to a, to a young man who’s, who’s in the book, who started a side hustle. Now he’s doing a million dollars a year. So it’s, it’s not, you know, they, they start small. But I think, I think it’s important that a young adult understand what it, like, what it’s like to work first, to be in a business. Right. Or, or to do something before they, they go out on their own. Now, that’s not to say that you have to spend 10 years at a job or 20 years at a job that you’re going to build up. But it’s good to just understand somebody’s different perspective. Being an employee is really easier to be a boss if you’ve been an employee. And so I think that’s why it’s. Instead of just being, instead of just coming out saying, hey, I’m the boss, never worked for anybody. So I don’t know how, I don’t know what it’s like being on the other side of the table.
[01:06:35 – 01:07:11]
Well, yeah, it’s. And even those that are young adults, if you’re an older adult listening to this, you’re in your late 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, whatever. Key on what Rob said, side hustle. I created side hustles. Working at a job. When I created my first IT business, I was a side hustle. I was doing it on the evenings, I was doing it on the weekends. And the company I was working for ended up hiring me to do their stuff too. And then when I left, kept me on to continue to do their stuff. But it was a side hustle.
[01:07:11 – 01:07:11]
Right?
[01:07:11 – 01:08:24]
Right. One of my, one of my good friends, Tony Watley, he has a book, a best selling book called 360, Pardon Me, side hustle Millionaire. Right. And his brand is 365 driven. And he talks about how to create a business. He’s out of Texas. And side hustles aren’t given enough credibility because you really can. And people listening, think about how many hours you spend after your job. Are those times hours. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t watch some tv, hang out with family, but are you utilizing any of your hours to increase your 6 inches between your ears? Are you? Are you? Everything about you is, is it a, is it a drama you’re watching? Are you watching reality and personally developing yourself? You’re interested in doing something, research it, do like Rob talked about hours of watching YouTube. There’s nothing wrong with that if you’re, if you’re trying to take your indecisiveness and make it decisive about what you want to do and then start working those hours after, after work until eventually you get to a point where you can leave that job. I did it.
[01:08:24 – 01:08:24]
Yep.
[01:08:24 – 01:08:27]
Right. I understand it.
[01:08:27 – 01:09:53]
Yeah. Especially now where you have so many, like there’s so many skill sets in this, this remote work that we have going on now and, and stuff and, and the way that we, you know, you asked about technology earlier and, and I didn’t, I, I didn’t answer it. But what’s going on right now and in our world, in the, in the technology advancements, like it’s hard for me to understand how it applies and how it’s going to, I can see that it’s going to change my life. But do I have the skill set, the knowledge or the desire to learn the intricacies of it and do it? Whereas a young adult might say, geez, you know what, I use GPT all the time and I use Claude and I actually, I like creating my own foundational models and I understand machine language and, or you know, machine learning and I’m going to create these models and I’m going to learn AI and I’m going to learn all the tools. Those are highly sought after jobs and it doesn’t take a four year College degree. It doesn’t take a two year master’s degree. It takes you spending some time. And you’re right, that, that six inches between your brain, it’s. It’s important. And that’s part of being an adult. You don’t want to just be stagnant. Right. You don’t want to be in the same job. You want to be growing. And so if you apply your time to, yeah, you can have free time downtime, but if you take some time and you learn some skills that not only can help you achieve goals and business goals, but also help improve yourself, it’s great.
[01:09:54 – 01:10:46]
Improving ourselves. Like I had mentioned, I don’t know if it was before recording or during recording. Our brain doesn’t know the difference between a truth and a lie. It’s a giant computer that requires constant input. And those that get camped in life, your brain get camps in life. You turn to negative thoughts or you, you can turn to addictions because your brain wants to know more and more information. It doesn’t want to be stagnant. It wants to learn new things. I don’t care how old you are. I have people in their 70s and 80s that are still learning, learning things. My parents, people told me, including my siblings, they’ll never ever want to use a computer. Baloney. They’ve had, they had a laptop. Then I got, then we got them into both having iPads. They use. They both use Facebook and social media to share pictures. And they’re 84. 84 years old.
[01:10:46 – 01:10:47]
Right.
[01:10:47 – 01:11:16]
They’re still my dad’s. My mom’s already burned one iPad out. She loves it. Like, do they get addicted to it? No, they still have their chores. They do their gardening, they do this. But it’s another. And my mom will say, do you hear about this? And I’ll go, what? Well, I clicked on this, so I kind of fall down. She doesn’t use these words, but down a rabbit hole. And I was researching this. This is pretty neat. That’s good for their brain. It’s good for our brain to always be adding new inputs because our brain needs it.
[01:11:16 – 01:11:18]
Yes, yes.
[01:11:18 – 01:11:19]
Good information though.
[01:11:19 – 01:12:30]
Yes. Well, that’s. I just want to back back. Come back to a point you made. We were talking about side hustles and stuff. I think one of the challenges for, for young adults is, is sort of going back to that. And I use this expression all the time, is to thine own self be true. It’s from Shakespeare. And actually my grandfather used to, used to tell us this all the time. And a Lot of times our young adults are looking at social media and that’s where they get their reflection and that becomes almost their barometer of how they’re doing. And I think it’s really important that they understand the difference between real and fake. And I think a lot of times if you’re looking at side hustles, yeah, side hustle is great and you’re going to learn it and you’re going to learn a business, you’re going to learn to trade, whatever it is. But remember, when you’re looking at somebody on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, just because they’re presenting something doesn’t mean that that’s real, right? That’s, that’s the outward ex. You know, if somebody’s telling you on, on, you know, on, on Tick tock that they’re doing a side hustle and they’re making a million dollars a day doing a side hustle, that’s probably not real, right? So, so being able to realize what’s, what’s real and what’s fake.
[01:12:30 – 01:13:46]
Well, yeah, you do your research and if you have a mentor, reach out to them and say, hey, this is what I’ve heard. I’ve done some research on, on AI and researched and I’ve done some things on Google. I just want your take on this. Sometimes we just need that to shake up our thought process. We can’t believe everything that people present. Look at all the influencers out there that presented that they were wealthy, had millions of followers and you go do research on them. They don’t have two nickels to rub together. Like my dad would say, they don’t have any real great advice that isn’t regurgitated from somebody else. They and all information started out somewhere, but are they, they’re not really presenting it as an individual really to make a difference in society. They’re just regurgitating. So I agree. People need to really put some thought process into what they’re listening to, reading, right? Do, do credible, credible research. What role in your book, like you know, in my life, teaching youth and we’ve talked a little bit about it and working with our kids and stuff. How much? So in your book, you interviewed all these people. How much did personal finance play in, in your book of hey dad?
[01:13:46 – 01:14:47]
Oh, a lot, A lot. I think, I think personal finance, right, you want to ruin your life, ruin your credit and not have money, right? Not, not know how to balance money, right? How to, how to budget and live within your means. That’s the first way to make a Miserable life. And I only speak from experience. I was, I was in a situation where I was a brand new father and no idea what I was 26 years old, I had no idea what I was doing, right? And all of a sudden I have a kid I have to be responsible for. I could barely keep track of myself, let alone a family. And getting out of hand very quickly, right. I have this concept of good interest and bad interest, right? Good interest is what you earn on your money. Bad interest is what you pay people. And you know, if you’re paying 28% on your credit cards and you’re just sort of building up credit card debt, that’s a bad place to be. So personal finance and understanding and living within a budget was very, very important because that you need to have the money first come in. But second is you need to know.
[01:14:47 – 01:17:39]
How to keep it well, because we aren’t educated as children in North America. Not religious North America. I talk to people in Europe and other countries on how to understand the inflows and outflows of money. And we learn bad behaviors and habits from our parents. Maybe our uncles are aunts or we see things that stick with us and that becomes our money monster. We don’t know how to escape it yet. You know, I’ll sit down with young people. I do a lot of education with young people. I enjoy it. And tell them why. It’s important to understand that if you have X amount of days in a month and you’re on the 15th of the month and you have more month left than you have money, there might be circumstances as to why. But let’s figure out why. Let’s understand what is a need and a want. I taught my kids that since they were little. What’s it? Is that a need or a want? Oh, they get upset. Yeah, we know that’s a want, dad. And you know, just telling people like there’s so many different ways of education to our youth and to. And it’s never too late to learn to give a heck about your life and learn about financing. But budgeting, I smiled when you said that because I believe that’s the de facto standard. Along with your goals and your budget, you tie the two together, you can accomplish a purposeful life even if you’re in debt. I will teach you how to consolidate your debt for no cost, right? I’ll teach you how to do it very simply. And usually you can catch people where you teach them how to save for their future, pay off debt still and then live off, you know, live off the difference. If you’re making a dollar, save, save 10 cents. Minimum 20 cents if possible. Budget, 80 cents. Oh, you can’t figure that out when we’re budgeting. Okay, let’s go through these. Need, want, need, want. You know what I mean? Even teaching adults that is very satisfying because I was the person that needed that. Remember, I educated myself to teach this to people because I didn’t have it. Budgeting is so key for our, for our youth, and it’s just not given enough credibility. I look at adults and you talked about 28% interest. I have adults that, let’s say, have $40,000 in an investment account and they’re making 8, 10%, yet they have a credit card they’re paying 28% on. And I’ll look at their numbers after we go through it, and I’ll say, well, what would be one thing you’d recommend for us today? I’d recommend you take this account and pay off that debt. Why? Because that’s bad interest. You’re, you’re, you’re not making good interest. You’re bad. You’re making a little bit of good interest, but your bad interest is greater and you’re never going to get ahead.
[01:17:39 – 01:17:39]
Yep.
[01:17:39 – 01:18:12]
So it, it doesn’t make sense. If we can teach you how to live within a purposeful life, get rid of the debt. Yes. You’re not going to have that investment because your debt’s that high. But now you can start over on the positive side, and we’re going to control it so that you only using credit cards if it’s a need and a car breaks down or you need a new fridge or something, but you’re not going to use that unless it is something you can pay off every single month. So knowledge of money is, is very simple. The rules of the money game aren’t hard. People just got to learn them. And you got to be willing to.
[01:18:12 – 01:18:17]
Listen and write them down. Right. I think a lot of it is just comes down to, like, exposure, I.
[01:18:17 – 01:18:19]
Think, you know spreadsheets, baby.
[01:18:19 – 01:18:24]
Yeah, but it was not even spreadsheets. You don’t even need to scare kids. Right.
[01:18:24 – 01:18:27]
I’m not saying kids, but with adults. Oh, man, I.
[01:18:27 – 01:19:25]
There you go. Yeah, well, because it’s all about that financial freedom. And people, I think, assume. Like when my kids first heard budgets, they were like, oh, Dad’s got us on a budget. Well, as in a negative thing. And I’m like, no, actually, a budget is not really is a negative thing. It’s financial freedom. And I guarantee you, you can live a wonderful financial freedom life by knowing how much money you come in and allocating how much you’re going to spend. It doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have fun. It doesn’t mean you’re never going to go out to dinner. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to go out and do this. But instead of, you realize that you spent 300 every weekend going out with your friends and going out to dinner. Well, you know what? That’s going to, you’re going to be able to write that down and you’re going to be able to see that and you’re going to be able to make that decision yourself. Would I rather have money saved up or would I, would I like to eventually buy a house? Would I like to buy that nice car? Or do I want to go out and get drunk with my friends this weekend?
[01:19:25 – 01:19:57]
Well, and teaching youth, or even teaching again. 20 in my 23rd year doing this as a financial educator and lifestyle coach, I find that a lot of the times I’ll say to the kid, I say to my own kids, you know, you’re gonna go out and spending this money tonight. Is that a long term gain or is it a short term gain? Right. What are you gonna accomplish tonight? You’re gonna have fun, but you’re gonna spend all this money. And what are your goals?
[01:19:57 – 01:19:58]
Yeah.
[01:19:58 – 01:20:15]
What do you want to. Well, dad, I want this. Let’s say they’re younger. I want new, new rollerblades or this and that. Okay, well, how is going out to do this with your friends? Maybe not going to a bar or club at that. They’re going, whatever. And it’s going to spend 60, 70 bucks. Is that going to get you towards your goal?
[01:20:15 – 01:20:16]
Right.
[01:20:16 – 01:20:37]
Sometimes they’d go, we don’t care. Okay, well, we had the conversation. Other times that would be like, oh, yeah, I used to have envelopes with my kids as money and we’d go on holidays. And the ones that saved the most, oh, I want to buy stuff. Okay. And the other kids will, that’s not fair. Well, I told you to save money, but you wanted to go buy this at the store.
[01:20:37 – 01:20:38]
Yep.
[01:20:38 – 01:20:44]
The other sibling put it in the envelope because they wanted to have something for a rainy day. I did things like that with my kids all the time.
[01:20:44 – 01:21:21]
Absolutely. I think one of the things I did early on with my kids too is, was teach them about compounding. Because I do think that when they start realizing, like how powerful it is, they truly understand it, then it becomes A. It becomes a positive it almost for mine, I’ve been very fortunate that they understood it early on. And now they. They do put as much as they can almost. And I’ve got. And you know how we are with our kids and how I’m sure your kids are. One’s probably a really good saver one’s maybe not as good. If I say. Right. They all. They all range in the. In the buckets, but at least they. Getting them to understand the concept is key.
[01:21:21 – 01:21:47]
Yeah. Oh, you hit the nail on the head. The concept. All we can do is give knowledge and, and mentor if they want it. But they have to be willing. No matter who I sit with, whether it’s. And I get young clients. Right. All the time. Their parents or I run into them, they dislike my personality and I’ll just tell them, you have to want it more than I want it. I can educate you and spend all this time. Are you really willing?
[01:21:48 – 01:21:48]
Right.
[01:21:48 – 01:21:50]
Are you willing to learn? Right.
[01:21:50 – 01:22:11]
Once they have that freedom. I really do believe there is that time because as I’m sure you see it, I mean, I’m sure you. I mean, you see it and know this much more than I do. But living in financial despair when you don’t, when you can’t make ends meet is. Is probably. Is probably such a depressing, horrible place. And I. I would hit that on anybody.
[01:22:11 – 01:22:29]
Well, I call it quiet desperation. I talk about it in my book and there’s struggles I went through. Right. And being. Living in. Living in a world of quiet desperation is tough. So lastly, if readers had to take one lesson away from hey dad, what should it be? What would that lesson be?
[01:22:30 – 01:23:16]
Relax. Relax. The decisions that you make today, yes. They’re important decisions. Yes. Obviously, the sooner you start saving, the better. Right? But relax. You’ll have your entire life to be an adult. You don’t need to figure it all out. Day one. You’re going to be under a lot of pressure, but take this foundational approach that’s in hey dad. To give you the building blocks that will make you successful or at least confident going into this new unchartered territory of being an adult, being dependent. Right. Or to be independent on. From. From your parents. And that’s what I want people to take away from this book. And also the other point is, is make it personal if you’re giving it as a gift.
[01:23:16 – 01:23:29]
That’s sweet. What would be the earliest or youngest age group you think that would be able to, you know, actually appreciate this book? Would it be people in high School.
[01:23:29 – 01:24:03]
I, I see we are getting a lot of traction from high schools and, and people in that age because quite frankly, not everybody’s going to college now and, and you know, there’s a lot of people going into trade schools and, and a lot of young adults that are, they’re facing the same thing. They’re just doing it years earlier. So. Yes, absolutely. Look, the earlier you can start training people and educating people, giving this kind of mentoring advice to results, the better. Are they going to take from it some, you know, if, if you like, you can budget. I wish I budgeted in high school. I would have had it much easier. I wish.
[01:24:03 – 01:24:04]
Oh, me too.
[01:24:04 – 01:24:24]
I wish I knew about cars. I wish I, you know, one of the things in the, in the, in the book, I bought my first car because I could, I could get a payment for it. It was the stupidest car in the whole world. It was a sports car up in New Hampshire. I couldn’t afford the insurance, I couldn’t afford the maintenance and I couldn’t afford the tires. You know, it’s stupid. I wish I had, I wish I had read that first.
[01:24:24 – 01:24:59]
Well, I love how you say that. I, I’ve, yeah. I think many of us have gone through purchases of whatever where it didn’t make sense. My one son did, my only son did what you’re talking about, bought a car that he couldn’t really afford to insure. And he learned from it though, right. It. And I just supported him. I’m dad. Like, hey dad. So this question is about our listeners in general. If you had to give them one last closing message, what would you tell them in regards to giving a heck and never giving up?
[01:25:00 – 01:25:28]
I think it’s the same thing. Is, is, you know, I, I said the expression today, don’t self be true. Right. And that’s coming in and really understanding that your life, you have a purpose and you do have the ability to create and be anything that you want. Right. And that you don’t need to be beholden to jobs, you don’t need to be beholden to anything other than yourself. And I think that would be my, my sort of my one takeaway for your listeners.
[01:25:28 – 01:25:34]
Wow, this has been awesome. What’s the best way for people to reach you, my friend?
[01:25:34 – 01:26:25]
So they can. I can go to the website heydadbook.com you can go to my website as well, which is rob finlay.com and then I’m all on the social media stuff if, if you like. The Instagram stuff is more fun because I, I’m Unfiltered. I get to throw farming stuff in there. You’ll see. Goats. We had it. Sorry. It’s goat baby season. So now it’s like we’re filled with goats. And so, you know, those are good content. As. As you know, I need to produce the content for stuff. But, yeah, Instagram, LinkedIn, wherever you want to reach. And as I said, if. If you’re kind enough to read the book and give the book away to somebody, please, and you write something that’s. That’s. I would love to see it. I would love. It would really make my day when I. I see people writing something and giving their own advice to somebody.
[01:26:25 – 01:26:59]
Right on. I appreciate that. And for those new to the show, go to giveaheck.com go up to the top hit podcast. You’ll open up the page, you’ll see a picture of Rob, and you’ll be able to find the show notes, all his links to all the social media that he’s talking about, his website. There’ll also be chapter summaries and a complete, unedited transcript as well. If you want to look up specific sections and read about what we discussed today. Any last words before I wrap up the show?
[01:26:59 – 01:27:09]
Rob, Bob, Dwight, I love what you’re doing. I love your show. Thank you so much for having me. It’s. It’s been. It’s been a lot of fun. It’s. I think you just set my record. I think this is the longest one I’ve been on, so.
[01:27:11 – 01:27:16]
I warned you that sometimes it happens with good conversations. It’s hard to escape.
[01:27:16 – 01:27:23]
Absolutely. No, I. Look, I could sit here and talk out. We probably could have narrated, talking about farming or something, because I could.
[01:27:23 – 01:27:49]
Yeah, I couldn’t help. I couldn’t help it, though. That’s my curious nature. And. And I was thinking when we talked about that we could have a show just on environmental stuff in regards to farming, because of my experiences and your knowledge that you’ve learned, it would be a great. We could have conversations. Yeah. We could have multiple stage podcasts, because I really do resonate with you. I think you’re an amazing person. Thank you so much for being on the show.
[01:27:50 – 01:27:52]
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
[01:27:52 – 01:28:04]
So thanks so much for being on Give a Heck. Rob. I appreciate your time and sharing some of your experiences so that others, too can learn. It is never too late to give a heck.