Let's Ride w/ Paul Estrada
Who else is trying to figure $hit out?
Welcome to Lets Ride w/ Paul Estrada – the podcast where a dad tackles the big questions of life, career, and everything in between, by talking to interesting people that have the answers!
When I turned 18, I lost sleep at night with questions that Google was not yet sophisticated enough to answer: What career should I pursue? How can I be more than just average? And how do successful people get to where they are (was there a secret handbook I didn't know about)? After 22 years of pondering these existential dilemmas, I’ve finally pieced together some answers – An answer that is sufficient for now, but one always in need of refinement.
Join me each week as my 6 ½ year old son, Adrian, throws out a thought-provoking question or idea, and I invite a guest to help me sufficiently respond to him. From learning about money and investing, to finding a passion in life, and exploring careers that can be meaningful for you, we cover it all with a dose of humor and some soundbites of wisdom.
So, if you’re a parent or a young adult navigating these tricky waters, or if you want confirmation that other people are sometimes just as lost as you, you’ve come to the right place.
Let's Ride w/ Paul Estrada
Travel Ball Dad & CEO: Sideline to Boardroom Balancing Act
What happens when the boardroom mindset collides with youth sports sidelines? This episode takes us on a deeply personal journey with a successful CEO whose competitive drive propelled him to the top of his industry—until he found himself struggling with his reactions to his 10-year-old son's club soccer experiences.
The conversation unfolds with remarkable candor as our guest reveals how watching his son play triggered unexpected emotional responses, leading him to question his parenting approach and values. "I'm laying up at night, waking up at 4 AM—I'm not thinking about my business, I'm thinking about this ordeal," he confesses, describing the inner turmoil that prompted his viral LinkedIn post on the topic.
We explore the fascinating psychological territory where high-achievement meets parenting, unpacking the complicated feelings many parents experience but rarely discuss. Our guest articulates the core dilemma perfectly: "Am I helping facilitate giving the opportunities and training I never had? Or am I scarring this little kid by the way I'm reacting?" This question resonates deeply with anyone who has found themselves invested—perhaps too invested—in their child's activities.
The most powerful moments come when our guest recognizes the fundamental difference between his relationship with competition and his son's perspective. While he "loved to compete and hated to lose," his son "loves to compete but doesn't really affect him if he loses"—a healthier outlook that challenges the parent's assumptions. We also hear about a transformative email from a club coach imploring parents to remember that their primary role isn't to be another voice coaching from the sidelines, but simply to be supportive parents.
Whether you're navigating youth sports as a parent, coaching young athletes, or simply interested in the psychology of competition and family dynamics, this conversation offers valuable perspective on finding the balance between supporting excellence and allowing children to develop their own relationship with achievement. Listen in and reflect on how we might all bring more joy and less pressure to the next generation's playing fields.
When you're batting or on the field, can you hear the parents and stuff that are cheering and yelling and stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So what do you think about that?
Speaker 2:It doesn't really distract me. I mean, they're not really yelling that much.
Speaker 1:I think everyone was very good right there. Everyone's just cheering and supporting everybody. Huh.
Speaker 2:It's not as low as the Dodgers Stadium.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not as low as the Dodgers Stadium.
Speaker 2:No, it's not as low as no, it's not.
Speaker 1:No, it's not not even close and when the game was over, did you think about it anymore, or did you just kind of move on to the next thing?
Speaker 1:I never think about stuff just move on yeah so you don't feel like a lot of pressure basically, do you? No, because you know one thing about your baseball is you're all your family wants to see you do really well, and sometimes I get like nervous for you, but dad's just, I'm just a nervous person, I think yeah but I try not to like. I want you to feel like we're just supporting you and being being there for you I'm a calm you're very, you are very calm.
Speaker 1:You know what I think, adrian. What I'm learning about you is that you're a very confident person. Do you know what confident means?
Speaker 2:I've heard that word. I think I forgot.
Speaker 1:It basically means that you really believe in yourself.
Speaker 2:How could you tell?
Speaker 1:Because you just don't get stressed out and you don't get sad. You believe that you can do stuff and then you just do it.
Speaker 2:That's not you.
Speaker 1:You're not that type of person I stress out a little bit and sometimes I'm not very calm no, stress out a lot.
Speaker 2:Even if you forget something, you're like oh shoot, I forgot this. And then I'm like so you should be.
Speaker 1:Why do you?
Speaker 2:have to get so stressed out. Wait once. I've actually told you that yeah, you're.
Speaker 1:And you're like, oh my gosh, I forgot that You're right and honestly and then it's really not a big deal and I just need to calm down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, maybe that's something else that you could teach me how to be a little bit more calm. Hi, let's Ride. Listeners, it's your friend, paul Estrada. The episodes. I'm here to ask you to pause this episode and take a moment to subscribe to the show wherever you're listening to this podcast. If you're a real go-getter, please take a moment to leave a review of the podcast. I'd be indebted to you forever. Thank you for supporting and listening to the show and for going on this journey with us. Pause, subscribe and let's ride. Our guest today is a CEO with a relentless drive that has made him a successful executive, most recently starting a multi-million dollar company. He has built a career by outworking everyone in the room, grit, discipline and a deep hunger to win, but none of that prepared him for watching his 10-year-old son go through the journey of playing club soccer. This is one of the most candid conversations I've had on this podcast. Where the boardroom meets youth sports, we explore the pressure parents silently place on their kids. How's ride on through the rain?
Speaker 2:Come on and take me anywhere that you want to be All right.
Speaker 1:So, Shannon, I'm going to do something out of turn or out of the order that I typically do these conversations in, because I got to tell you so last week. I was getting ready to go to a dinner with a supplier and I had a couple minutes. So I'm sitting in the parking garage scrolling through LinkedIn, which I try to stay away from. But just happened to be scrolling through LinkedIn I said, oh look, there's a good friend, Shannon, on there posting some content on there, and there's so much stuff on LinkedIn. It's like, do I stop and read this? And I've known you pretty well. So, yeah, I'm going to give this a pause. And so I start reading the first sentence, right, and just to bring everybody up to speed.
Speaker 1:So it starts like this as a relatively new and struggling club sporting parent, I'm often shocked at the way it's challenged me, my values and certainly my parenting skills or lack thereof. Well, I want my young boy to play club sports soccer, dot, dot, dot. And then it goes on to this whole thought process about your kid and sports and clubs and games and how to parent. And you're a well-known guy in the industry. You post a decent amount on LinkedIn and, as I was going through your historical feed, nothing has gotten as much traction and reaction as that post and it's like that's a work website, that's not really a family thing, but yet you posted that and thing blew up. So I said a lot of things there, but yeah, what was going through your thoughts when you posted that?
Speaker 3:It's just been such a journey, man. I mean, obviously you mentioned the industry, right, we're building a business and that's got its own layers of joy and pain and all that. But then what I found myself on over the last few months. You start thinking about my boys. Just for context, my boy is a pretty good little athlete, played in the recreational leagues last year.
Speaker 3:The season that ended about three or four months ago was his first ever club sports season and I enjoyed it. Right, you compete, you do the tournament thing, you've got the dollars out, but, man, the kids get the jerseys that they love. They love playing with team all year. It's a longer season, right, because you're not playing recreational sports. But then there's this other side of it, which is just the time commitment and then the competitive commitment and then the angstiness of the parents, and then I don't know man, it's been this wild journey over a year and then you get to the point where literally the day the season ended. So what's been going on with me is the day the season ended, the boys were eliminated in the semifinals. My boy's 10, right, sweet kid, not as crazy as his father Can be as competitive, but certainly not as consistently at the ripe age of 10.
Speaker 3:I think I mentioned in the post, or I should have my wife often reminds me, as maybe other some people struggle like he also reminder he's 10, first thing she tells me, and secondly, he's also not you right, and so like I don't know how to take that right because it's like we all like live quasi vicariously, uh, through our children. And so I've just been really struggling with the whole journey of club sports. What's best? Do you sign again? What do you demand from them if they want to sign up again? What are the commitment levels change? How do I balance this emotional journey? That is, if I pull them out, does that harm them or help them?
Speaker 3:It has been this complexity. From a business perspective. I feel like there's complexity there. Naturally is In life, there's complexity, but this club sport thing has. I'm laying up at night, I'm waking up at four in the morning. I'm not thinking about my business, I'm thinking about, like, this ordeal and this opportunity and my actions and my reactions. And I'm a good parent, I'm a bad parent. So honestly, I was just like you know.
Speaker 3:let me ask a bunch of pros on LinkedIn and see what journeys and a lot of people came through with some really cool tips and really cool takeaways, which I love.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think what's interesting is you're very well connected and so I'm reading through the comments and again, like I said, a ton of comments, a lot of reactions, and these are people with big titles, high-end jobs. So there you would think, at least, as I'm the third party looking at this, I'm saying man, a CEO, svp. So these are people that have had very successful professional careers at least on paper, that's what it looks like and they're there giving their thoughts. And so the one common thread when you have these high-end executives is there's this competitiveness that I can read in the commentary and everybody kind of struggling to find the same balance you did, and it's like they've had the same thoughts you had. It's just you were the one that had the courage to put it on paper and put it out there to the public.
Speaker 3:Yeah, look, I just feel lost in it. If I'm being honest, I would tell this if my wife was here and if she watches this, just for a disclaimer. We're built differently. I am way more competitive than my wife, right? So her saying not me, it's like well, is he like you? Because, like you know, like I got here because of this, you know what I mean. It's such a quandary, right, even in our own household, cause there's some families where, like, both parents are wildly competitive and all the families are super good. My wife just didn't grow up in like sports and that is like the core thing. So she has her other amazing attributes, which is solid, balance and the greenhouse, but like we don't even see the world the same way. So it was like talking to her doesn't really help me either. So I'm like can someone help me with how they think about this?
Speaker 1:So when I first started this podcast, my second guest was Tim Salmon, who was a professional baseball player. He was the rookie of the year I mean all the accolades he won the World Series and so I had this very question for him and we spent a lot of time talking about that. And what was fascinating about his journey was he came from this divorced family, so he was living with his mom. He's like my dad. He was there, he was a good dad, but he couldn't care less about sports. My mom used sports as my babysitter because she was working all day, so like she needed me to be somewhere.
Speaker 1:So he's like I grew up all through youth sports without my parents being actively involved making sure I had my equipment, making sure I got to practice on time, looking at my every single thing that I was doing, all these decisions and things that we're thinking about was not on his family's mind, and he became a professional athlete. And I think you know most of us are not maybe our I don't think our plan is for them to be professional athletes, but I think the point was um, you know he's just like I had to be self-driven all the decisions, everything. It just it was, it was on me and I think, maybe as parents, when a lot, a lot of us are guilty of myself all these people on LinkedIn that were responding of wanting to take control of their kid's journey and make sure it's the most perfect thing for them, and when, in reality, it's like man, look at this guy His parents were super hands-off and he loved it, and look where he ended up.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And then there's the duality of it where there's 20% up. And I want to also quantify this with I do not have expectations, nor feel that my son is going to play professional sports. So I'm not that parent, right, I'm not in that belief system. But it's about that lessons, it's about the learning and the push.
Speaker 3:But I'd tell you, like 15% of professional athletes when they tell their story, I mean I'll give you a perfect example. I just watched this. Like special was amazing, right, everyone is just applauding the talent, the ability of jalen brunson. Right for the new york mix right now. Yeah, right. Then they showed the video last night. Like his 30 for 30, whatever program it was showing this story.
Speaker 3:His dad was all in the chili, I'm talking like, but like his dad quantified it with this. His dad would ask him after everything hey, is your goal still to play professional basketball? His answer was yes, but I mean you're talking daily routines, you. I mean they showed a video of him in the park and his dad's just dressing him down. You know what I mean Like, but his dad would still come back to like hey, is this your dream?
Speaker 3:What I probably miss and I've learned over the last few months. Is that question that, jalen? Not that my son needs to play professionally, but like hey, bud, did you have fun? Right, that's one tip I tell you like I've taken out of this multi-month experience and journey I've been on. It's like hey, bud, was it fun? Because my first reaction is to do exactly what probably 50%, if not maybe more folks that are wired like me. It's immediately like what you see, that you didn't like, where they think they could be better, what they didn't do on that play, how you didn't like their attitude, and that is like it rips me every time, instead of just hey, but did you have fun?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, a hundred percent. And I think you know trying to take yourself out of the equation. I'm just thinking. You know we're just wrapping up baseball season here and my son, my oldest son, at six years old, he's going to turn seven in July. They just started doing kid pitch and I didn't think he was going to be pitching at all this season.
Speaker 1:You know, I find him out there one game and I just like immediately go from you know casually sitting on the bench talking to another parent, to standing behind home plate pacing back and forth. You know I'm not the kind of parent that's like yelling out on the field or do like. I try to like stay as far removed. I don't want him to see me, but after that it's like man, I just felt like I just did a workout. I'm sweating, all this stuff right, I'm just like he's six years old. Of course he's not throwing strikes. They're all trying to figure this out. None of them can, and I'm like, but I've put these huge expectations. Now I made dang sure that when that was over and he struck one kid out, it was cool, but it was pretty rough, honestly.
Speaker 1:A lot of ups and downs putting things in perspective and saying he's six, they're out there having fun. And as soon as we got in the car, my first thought was to be like, hey, let's talk about that pitching performance. And then I bit my tongue and I said hey, how was school today? What do you want to eat for dinner? And we just went home. We didn't talk about baseball and we just moved on. But man, I guess the moral of the story there being these kids six years old, 10 years old, 12 years old, 14 years old, for that matter it just really is not that important. And as parents, how do we remind ourselves this is not the World Series, they're not professional athletes. How do we make sure that they have fun and not put undue pressure on them, on ourselves, et cetera?
Speaker 3:I love that you did the 6, 10, 12, because my rebuttal or counter to you would be like my boy's 10. And then you'd say he's only 10. And then he's 12, he's still only 12.
Speaker 3:And he's 12, or he's 15, and you know he's not going to play, maybe for the Dodgers right, I know that's your dream. But if a team, it may be apparent that maybe that's not his path. You know what I'm saying. But he still may want to play baseball. You know what I'm saying. So, no matter what age I think it's, you can always rationalize it.
Speaker 3:But that pacing, that angst and I've tried to like internalize it, to figure out the root cause, so like I could unpack that post in so many ways. But I've literally also sat up and had to have these introspective moments. I'm interested in your thoughts too. Is this a deficiency in the things that I wanted, wished I had done, and now I'm trying to vicariously live through them? Is this me willing and pushing for them to have that same level? Because that's how I attribute my success and I believe that if they don't find that same thread, then they too won't be successful. Am I just solely going on the premise that I've already given my kids a lot more financially and playing club sports and all these things that I never did, and so now I have this raised expectation because they're getting things that I never had, so they should be appreciating and digging and loving it even more than I did.
Speaker 3:You could go to the gamut, right. So I'm just interested when you're unpacking that angst, where do you think that angst sits? Because it's not about like, hey, they need to take care of the family. If he doesn't make the pros, we're not eating 12 years from now if this doesn't pan out. It's not survival. So what is the thing? What is the thing?
Speaker 1:For me and this answer may change over time Right now, it's about just him finding success in whatever he's doing, and I think the pressure from a parenting standpoint is and that's really the premise of this podcast. The whole kind of rationale behind this was I want to go talk to people, I want to go learn things that I didn't know growing up and my parents were fantastic. They gave me a lot of resources, they're really great parents.
Speaker 1:But there are certain things that parents can only know and do so many things right, but we can leverage other people in our networks to teach them things and maybe skip a couple steps right and just say, hey, it took me forever to figure this out, or I never figured this out. And for me, when I think back on my baseball career, for example and I barely made it to high school and that was a struggle at that was I was always and actually I read a post of yours similar to this. I think we had a very similar perspective, which is undersized. I think I'm 5'9". When I graduated high school, I was 130 pounds, soaking wet.
Speaker 1:So everything that I worked for from a sports perspective, I just always felt like I was behind, behind, behind, and I had the mentality to work hard, which made me serviceable as an athlete. But I couldn't be or at least in my mind, I couldn't be exceptional or elite because I was under. At least that's what I'm telling myself. That growing up was what I was telling myself in my head. And so, but I said, but man, maybe if I would've gotten better training, if I would've gotten blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, maybe I could have done better. And so now it's like, hey, okay, this is, this is the second go around, even though it's not me right, it's my, it's my kid's experience in his life. I can learn from what I didn't have or didn't do, and let's see how far he could take it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, You're going to appreciate this and I don't know if you've ever brought it back to you. I would ask you, and I'll fill in my gaps too with my parents. So I did that post and then someone had asked me offline how was your dad? And literally I almost teared up. One of the reasons I'm on this journey is to my dad his passion, his sickness, all this stuff. But I teared up because I literally would share it with you. I said I don't have.
Speaker 3:And this is where I felt guilty, really, really guilty, and like a poor parent. Honestly I don't have, because sports were so formidable in my life. Right, I grew up as a hooper, baseball played all the sports. I wasn't like a club athlete, I didn't focus and specialize, you know what I mean. I played them all, I loved it and like sports, I played them all, I loved it and, like sports, I just love competing. And then I grew up and my buddies, we would compete at everything, from wiffle ball, whatever it was, just compete.
Speaker 3:But then they asked me how was your dad? I don't, and we all have memories, right, Good and bad, tragic and not, and like this, you know, borderline emotional, as I shared this with you, but it's like I don't. I have told my dad all of our experiences ever walking off a field, ever getting dressed down, ever having you tell me what I didn't do right and I'd be lying to tell you that I don't have a whole fricking closet of those with my boy, and so that eats at me a little bit, because this thing that I love, the thing that's such a special part of what I am and how I grew up and all the time and experiences I had with my dad, I sat there and I've wondered not that I can't improve it, but have I already scarred it? Have I scarred it where my son's now? Hey, if I don't do this, my dad reacts this way my kid has walked in the house and told mom, and she's like bud, what's wrong. Hey, dad's coming at my dad. My kid has walked in the house and told mom like, and she's like bud, what's wrong. Hey, dad's coming at me and like blah, blah, blah. And I'm I'm not even in the door yet, Right Cause he hopped out of the car and it's like what am I doing and am I helping?
Speaker 3:So the real cornerstone of the post, like with that emotional piece, is like am I helping facilitate, like you did, giving the opportunities and the training and the dollars and the touches and the gear and the tournaments and all these things I didn't have. Or am I scarring this little kid, by the way? I'm reacting Because what he's going to remember about playing is when something didn't happen or he didn't have his best, or maybe he just had it off game, or maybe he didn't want to play, but his dad just was in his shit and treated him in a way that was so not loving and kind and that eats at me dude regularly and I am nowhere close to good at it, and I have to believe that I am not the only one in that struggle.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're 100% not, and I don't want to play psychologist here. I'm not one in real life and I'm certainly not a podcast psychologist. But, as you were telling that story, what I thought about what you just said with your dad, which is, like I don't have a bad memory of my dad playing sports, and so you look at, maybe, the way he brought you up, and it's like some of the things that you're worrying about with regards to your kid. It's like, man, you freaking grew up to become a CEO of a company, so you did pretty damn well without that pressure and whatnot. So it's like you're kind of a spitting image of what it's like to just let the kids do their thing and whatnot, but everyone's different, but I really appreciate your candidness and, honestly, man, I see it all the time I'm on that field and I'm just cringing sometimes Kind of some of the things you're saying.
Speaker 1:I'm just like gosh, man, this is so what has youth sports? It's? It's pretty brutal. I think the key thing, though, is you at least kind of looking in the mirror and acknowledging it. I guarantee you, a lot of those people out there are just kind of clueless or unwilling to acknowledge that very thing, and that's why these kids burn out right when they're teenage. I keep hearing like, hey, they get burned out by teenagers or you know, it's not fun anymore and they just kind of totally lose interest, so physically and emotionally.
Speaker 3:My first boss in freight, one of my first bosses in freight his kid was ridiculous. I mean I'm talking like one of the national traveling soccer team at the age of 12. These kids were 12. I walked out there. I was like I never seen 12 year olds play soccer like this. Right, I was just about a decade ago. And we walked out and I was just wow and his, his boy, was like 5, 11 could run like a 4, 5, 4. I mean gifted 12 years old. Like you, I was smaller than you in high school. I think my permit had 5, 1, 105, but you know.
Speaker 3:You know what I'm saying, so you want to talk about anyways, I'm watching this 5 11 kid but can run like a 4, 5, 4, 6 playing center defensive back for this. Really, I'm like, who are these kids? Travel north carolina vegas, national tournaments, this, that and getting some injuries? Time he got to 15, didn't even play the game at all. That was four years, five years. It was just burnt out physically, emotionally, probably like and it's like and hey, maybe still has great lessons and all that, but he didn't even. He didn't go on to to do the full thing, and so I got a chance to watch that firsthand and, look, I am trying to embrace it, part of that share in that vulnerability that you saw. Yeah, it was like, look, in order to embrace it. You can't be an echo chamber, because the echo chamber is, is not it's. You need other folks, you need that perspective, you need a little bit of validation. But look, maybe they got some cool tips and tricks and you saw in that thread that they had some, which was awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you. It's cool that, like, you came to that realization and you're kind of having this self-reflection moment. When was that? And, like, where do you see yourself going from here?
Speaker 3:So really, I think my, my bottom point was that end season ender right, because I left that field. Love my boy, much sweeter than me, much kinder than me. We're walking off the field. I just remember being so upset because, like he really didn't play hard, he really didn't compete hard, he wasn't very aggressive, we had spent the entire weekend. As most of these parents know, when you get into the tournaments you know friday night, all day, saturday, sunday they like to say that's not traveling, living. I live in LA and I guarantee you I could put some tournaments in the LA market. It'd feel like traveling.
Speaker 3:And so like Clinton, phoenix are like 45 minutes from your house and the games are at. We got Friday at seven, saturday at 10, saturday at four. I'm like, so what do you do in between? You're not traveling? I'm like, yeah, and then Sunday AM at like 9 AM, so all you're doing is driving back and forth, and so you put a lot on that too, because you feel like man, we're all invested as a family and so a lot of pressure on a 10 year old. So bottom moment would have been then he walked off super excited, because the other thing that I realized in my boy and I also I'd ask you this too and I was more about the competition. I would say it this way I love to compete and hated to lose. My boy loves to compete.
Speaker 3:Doesn't really affect him if he loses, which I actually appreciate because I've borne many scars and a lot of pain with that level of intensity and commitment to competing. And then the other thing that he just absolutely loves about the sport is the friendships which you saw, where people called out like his couple of his buds were on the team and like that's where he lights up and I realized that some of my best friendships that I have still today my best friend Mark, like forged in the fires of all the sports. Him and I played together and we are best buds and neither of us are getting paid to play sports today, but we have these great memories that were all forged on those fields and I'm like man, don't take that away from him. Really, let him embrace those because these may be his buddies for life and then they may experience life together, like I have with some of my closest buds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, look, you're setting the bar high and I'm going to transition a little bit into your business. But it's like again, you're a CEO, you founded a company, you've been building that and all the challenges that come along with that. You got to be wired a little bit differently to begin with, right, and so it makes sense that that would kind of manifest itself in different ways of competing, whether it's your kid's youth sports or like when you get into the boardroom or at a negotiating table. It's probably, I would imagine, it's kind of hard to turn that switch on and off too right.
Speaker 3:It is a very hard thing and, like I said, it's probably one of the biggest challenges in my personal relationship with Summer is that I am a hyper competitor and with her not you know what I'm saying and so she's constantly trying to remind me like it's not all, that doesn't all have to be that way.
Speaker 3:He doesn't have to be that way, because when you're wired like that and you attribute like I attribute most of my success to those lessons, to that attitude, to that be willingness to outwork people, to like never being as talented in the school on the ball field, like you know none of it, that was never the reason. But like, if you stack me up, like no one cared more, no one was going to apply themselves more, no one was going to try to play smarter, no one was going to be a better teammate than me, and so then you're like that gets you to wherever you get to right Everything you've accomplished, your wins, your losses, your career, your business, the team that follows me here today, which is over 140 people you know what I'm saying and you're like, yeah, but don't be that person. When don't be that person. When should I, to your point, turn that, switch off, because I don't know what that line is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's hard to. I don't know how you find that balance. To be honest with you, I'll tell you again. When it comes to my oldest son, I find myself not wanting to be so forward and in my head sometimes I want to do those things. I want to jump and shout, I always bite my tongue and then it's always just. But how could I Jedi mind trick him into giving him the same lesson? You're shaking your head over there because you know what I'm talking about, right? It's like, okay, how can I get him to think this?
Speaker 1:is his idea to want to go practice right now, right?
Speaker 1:So, even when I'm trying to not be so obvious, I'm still doing those things. But I'll tell you, even this afternoon he had a half day and we're at the table and I'm like, hey, sonny, because he does a lot of these intros with me for the podcast, I was trying to send something over to the editor and I was like, shoot, I didn't save the cold opens that we've been working on, and I got a little bit upset with myself and I was telling him the story as we're eating lunch. He's like hey, dad, people make mistakes. It's fine, we can record again tonight. I'm like you're right, we can do that.
Speaker 3:I don't think.
Speaker 1:I taught him that, but I think part of that was from sports too, though, in the sense that hopefully he's not getting that pressure. He strikes out a decent amount, like any good player does too. They always say baseball is a game of failure. You hit the ball three times out of 10 and you're a world-class athlete. So it seems like those lessons are getting across in some way shape or form. So I'm happy for that, and it's like that's kind of always good reminders of keep chill, keep it calm and everything's going to work out. He's learning the lessons that we want him to learn and just like kind of trust the process.
Speaker 3:You said something about 10 minutes ago I'd give you some credit and maybe a tip that I also that, yes, kind of how am I handling it today? So work in process, for sure. Certainly you know we could go back not but 24 hours when I walked off the practice field yesterday and was not so happy with my young Tristan with the last practice with his club team before a two month break. So still a work in process. But you said something cool and I would highlight this as an opportunity and that when I'm trying to take away because, like I said to, every year in your mind it's always the Jedi mind trick the criticality, if that's the appropriate word of like, where you want to be critical of the kids, but someone's like, hey, why don't you do a thing where you have to say three positive things before you even get critical, and I'm like, damn okay.
Speaker 3:So now I've shifted my mind, so it's like every part of my being wants to go the one direction, yeah, and now I catch myself being like, oh god, like I'm talking like true personal mental work, which is what are the three positive things you're going to say? And then not just immediately roll number four, five, six and seven that I want to get to right. So very interesting challenge. So I give that to you as a potential right when you lead with the positive and you have to it's not one to get to the four criticals, it's the three. Or you ever even give maybe one potential critical event. You want to try doing that. That's hard to do.
Speaker 1:You know what, shannon, I'm smirking over here because, as you're talking about that you mentioned this too I now run a team of 140 people. You're responsible for payroll and making sure that they get their checks, that their families are fed, that they're living their lives, and now that you're talking about this, I'm thinking about, okay, the interactions that you're having with your son. And then how do those interactions translate in a business environment? Because now you're dealing with grownups, people that you're paying money to do a certain job. Do you find yourself taking that same approach, or are you softer in that environment? How does that translate?
Speaker 3:No, I think the last two weeks. It's funny you say that One of my big takeaways was, as I'm having that lesson and that challenge, I did think about leadership. As you're working through a freight recession, you're building a business, you're trying to be an innovator. It hasn't been pleasant as a provider, as you're probably well aware for most, and so I had that same thought over the last few weeks and have really leaned into giving some really kind, not following with the critical pieces, because what you end up finding yourself is.
Speaker 3:I think there was a comment by Elon months ago. He talked about being a CEO. He's like everybody wants to be a CEO. He's like all I ever do is chew on glass and go from problem to problem. And so because of that, when you see it, you're seeing the problems, you're going towards the problems, you're going to talk about the problems, and one of the takeaways I had on the business side was hey, man, two things. You got to find the joy, you got to figure out how, similar to that commentary for Tristan, you have anything positive to say, or is it only going to be what's not working and what's broken? And so, honestly, it's been pretty interesting. Over the last few weeks I've leaned into that and been not giving positive just to give you like, really just being positive, giving people credit for something hey, that's really cool. And leaving it, letting just be positive.
Speaker 1:It's that I know that that's true because, again, as I was doing my detective work in preparation for this conversation, you did also post something that I've never seen before, and that was a shout out or announcement of somebody on your team that had been promoted, and I thought that was really cool because I had not seen that before. So was that kind of all part of what you're talking about here, where you're just like, hey, I got to do something cool, or what was that all about?
Speaker 3:No, that was before. We've always prided ourselves on trying to be a little different, especially with social, and I felt like man Andrew has been such a special teammate, right, one of the most loyal people. I wouldn't be here without Andrew Zasimovich, and what a cool opportunity for him to become an EVP here for all his hard work, his dedication, just the grit and what it takes as far as being a leader here. And so I was like I could do a post or I could do nothing Right, and Andrew could update his LinkedIn profile, which, if we looked at statistics, would be 95% of the way it happened, right. Or then people do like what's the next standard thing? People would do a picture with a face, with the new thing we want to congratulate great five years. Everybody's seen that a thousand times. So I'm like, hey, I want to do something special. So literally I spent two, three hours filming the video, cutting the video, editing the video all myself.
Speaker 1:We don't have a production here All right.
Speaker 3:But then when I put it out right, like Andrew came in here emotionally and was like, dude, that was so special. Right For you to deliver that and for Andrew to know the work that I put into that to celebrate him, for the team to see that, like people always say, it's that extra bit, it's that same thing that you talked about being an underdog right, and when you were young you were willing to put in the extra work. I remember shooting hoops in the rain. I was just always willing to do the work. But we get into professional. It's like where's that line? And I was willing to do that work to celebrate Andrew. That was months before this sporting club journey, but even that, I think, is a testament to having really good people but also being able to do a little bit extra even when time's tight and energy's tight and commitments are tight and business is tight. It's like you know what you want to celebrate your people. You got to put in the work and that was just my attempt to do so for Andrew.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think money is a great thing. Compensation, dollars and cents we all need that. I think a lot of people aspire for that. I think something that often goes overlooked is just how the culture, the team that you're on, the person that you're working for or under the leader that you're working for, that goes. It doesn't get talked about a lot. Compensation gets talked about a lot, titles get talked a lot about, but rarely this component of it, and I think it's much more important than people give credit for or realize. So it's just really refreshing to see that.
Speaker 1:I mean, I can tell you from my own personal experience I've left the company that I was at to go be a high school teacher for a year. It took a big pay cut, but I thought I just had this itch, or I just really, really wanted to. I felt like I just wanted to educate people. The whole idea of teaching somebody something really fascinated me, so much so that I was willing to take a pretty decent pay cut to go test those waters. So I went and I taught at the high school. My alma mater that I graduated from realized probably within six months. I'm like, yeah, no, this was not. I like the school. I like the people. I'm not a high school teacher, but I did do some self-reflection in that I was like you know what I do like teaching, but I do like business and I do like the industry that I'm in. So how do I tie those two things together? And then I realized at my company I could have been doing that all along. It was just more my approach to being a manager. And so once I decided, hey, I want to be the type of manager that is a people leader, but a teacher, that's really. And so now when I fast forward, that was probably shoot, I don't know, 10, 12 years ago.
Speaker 1:Now my approach to being a manager has totally changed and I would hope that if you went and talked to any of my team, they would tell you that that is how I approach everything. So when we go sit in a meeting and you talked about, hey, people only bring me problems. And when my wife asked me like, hey, what did you do at work today? It's like I don't really work. I look at other people's work and I give them feedback and perspective and look for issues. That's what I do now.
Speaker 1:That's basically 90% of my job today and I love it. I love when I give them that piece of feedback or that thing that they didn't think of, and they have this light bulb, go like man. That's a great. That's what I mean, the money. Everything else is great, but that's really what I wake up for. Number one thing is going into that office and being back in the office. That's a whole other topic, but I love being in there listening to conversations, sitting in these small meeting rooms and just talking through numbers, figuring stuff out. So went off on a tangent, but yeah.
Speaker 3:But that impact, man, and you talk about breaking through those self-imposed boundaries, right To your point. I could have been doing this all along. I convinced myself that I didn't need to, I wasn't getting compensated, whatever it might've, but you're like I could have been doing that all alone. I think that comes a little maturation and then like kudos to you on the teaching, like look I, uh, part of my story goes back to teaching too, so share a little bit of that passion. Might be both.
Speaker 3:My parents were lifelong career elementary school teachers, right, and so I often tell people like I watch my parents back, I watch my sacrifice. I watched my parents give to other kids every single year for every single piece of my life, and we certainly didn't have everything everybody had. I tell people all the time we took one plane trip to Hawaii. I remember it so vividly though, going back to the kids and parents, I remember that trip forever because I was 12 and we had saved up and I never got to be on a plane. And now we're in Hawaii and so I also.
Speaker 3:You know you could take this from sports. We talk about club, you talk about your success, and then where do you find the line with your kids, like I share that story, to say like I think we all struggle with that, like I want my kid to have that Tim Salmon-like grit where it's like, hey, you go, get what you want, kid a little bit, but at the same time I'm giving them things that I've never had. How many times have your kids been? I'm saying my kids have been in a plane. You know what I'm saying. Your goal is to give them better then, but you're not sure if the things you're giving them are actually better then.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you were saying that too, 12 years old, same thing. We went on a cruise out of Florida and I remember my mom stopping. This is back when there was travel agencies, so you can think about how long back that was. You're old man, you're old, yeah, and I remember every couple of weeks we would go there and she would drop off an envelope because she was paying for the trip a little bit at a time. People put stuff on credit cards and pay it for years. She was submitting a check and so, yeah, we went on the trip and, to your point, one of the most vivid vacations that I ever had to this day, I was 12 years old. I still remember a lot of the details about that, so it's amazing, like those little things that do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I did that. The other thing I shared I'll share with you offline and maybe you could put out however you want, but Tristan's organizer of the club actually was pretty formidable in this whole journey because I think they even realized from a club. He wrote this amazing email that I'll share with you and literally so emotional that I even shared it with my entire team because I feel like as people were going through it, but it was around parents and parenting and being on the sideline, and I'll give you kind of the bullet points because I think it's really applicable for this conversation. He basically unpacks in this like look, I get it. You all want your kid, you want the things that we all want.
Speaker 3:He said I've got older boys now and I'm responsible for this club that has hundreds and hundreds of young soccer players here and you know the RSL league and Chandler. He said I've seen my boys grow older, though, and let me give you some lessons for a guy that's I'm responsible for this club. I love that your kids play club soccer, but let me tell you something you know you're going to grow up and these are going to be the best times. Don't make them bad times. By the way I've got professional coaches on these sidelines. You've paid for these coaches to be on these sidelines. If every one of the kids, every I get it. You want your. But here's the deal my coaches, the ones you pay for, the ones that are professionally trained to coach these, kids, they can't coach if every parent of every kid on every sidelines also yelling at all the kids.
Speaker 3:I implore you to basically shut the f?
Speaker 3:up yeah, and let that play out, so he had a little bit of like a little bit of that right, which I did it in like this, such an artistic way, though You'll love this email. And then he goes into the joy and you said something that sparked that thought and I wanted to get to this story because you did it with your son and I applaud you for it. He said I'm going to challenge every one of you and I get it. You want to critique a burger? Like go take them out for a piece of pizza, like go do something joyous, because the best experiences you will have is just being mom and dad when you get in that car. You don't need to change their life, like I promise you I want.
Speaker 3:There will be kids that grow up in this club. There will be kids that grow up in this club. There will be kids that go up and play in professional ranks and all that. But you will be absolutely defrauding yourself when you get in that car. It is not about love and joy and being a mom and being a dad. You don't need to be the coach, and I mean that hit me, still hits me so hard and I need to remind myself, even telling you of this email that I got to read four months ago and I'll share it with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that I got to read four months ago and I'll share it with you. Yeah, that's great and I appreciate that, and I, you know, the more we're having this conversation and maybe this is a good way for us to wrap this up is it sounds like we had similar experiences. You know, as I think back and reflect on this conversation, it's been. I don't remember my dad ever getting in the car and you were talking about this too, saying this and that, nothing, none of that. But the more I think about it but I have strong work ethic and I have a drive and I have all these things and the more I've been thinking about it, it's I think he was.
Speaker 1:I was picking up on the things that he wasn't saying. I was noticing that he was working overtime on the weekends. I was noticing that when he would get home, instead of going and sitting on the couch because he just worked a 16 hour shift, he was fixing something in the house that was broken. That he was helping my mom with something. That, and same thing with my mom too, just like always. So they never had to sit me down and explicitly say son, you got to put in this much work and you got to do this, but I was watching this at my house day in and day out and it's just transferred onto me without me even knowing it, and so I guess maybe the best things there's like, hey, it doesn't need to be said, If you're setting a good example at home with your family, you're doing the right things. They're smart kids, they're going to figure this stuff.
Speaker 3:out your envelopes, brother. Think about your envelope story.
Speaker 1:My envelope. Oh, you remember that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's it, your envelope.
Speaker 3:You remember what it was like and I bet there's a piece of you that appreciates, like, all that and what she did and you want your kids to have that. But you'll never forget those envelopes because now you realize as a grown man what those envelopes represented, right, right, it's got to be, you know, like the sacrifice and the planning and the whatever went into that, to drop those damn envelopes off because otherwise you don't get to do that and you don't probably have to think about life that same way you've done, you know, maybe better economically than maybe you were there before, but what?
Speaker 3:a special, fricking cool thing to think about those envelopes and when you want to get down into like the roots of who you are and like what made you so.
Speaker 1:Well, hey, I thank you so much for being so candid. You know, parenthood is like one of those things where it's all over social media now and you don't know what to make of it. But to be able to have somebody come out of that noise every once in a while, just be real right. It's just really refreshing, and so I really appreciate you putting yourself out there in that way, and it sounds like myself and all those people got a lot out of it, and so wish you the best on that journey. Man, we're all trying to figure this stuff out.
Speaker 3:So, I'm learning from you figure this stuff out, so I'm learning from you. Thanks, I think I did and I appreciate your share and I'll send you that article. It has a cool close with I'll leave a cliffhanger with Lionel Messi on the sidelines and you're going to really appreciate the email and the overall close when I give it to you, maybe something you share with your team or some of your folks here, right on.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Shannon.
Speaker 3:All right brother, Appreciate you the.
Speaker 2:Rockies ain't too far from here. If we drive all night, the cold, that will do you well in the mountain morning light. So let's ride, let's ride on through the rain, come on and take me anywhere that you wanna be. Let's ride and let's ride. Let's follow the skyline and when we make it to the other side we'll find all the bluest skies, with skies.