Managing through an Unexpected Career Pivot with Jack Oujo, Too Smart to Be an Umpire: Show Notes & Transcript

In this episode of Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business, Jack Oujo shares lessons on navigating career pivots. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!

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Managing through an Unexpected Career Pivot with Jack Oujo, Too Smart to Be an Umpire

Life can throw us curveballs. At the time, it can definitely feel and be the worst thing to happen to us. Whether it’s getting reassigned, a business closing, losing a job, or even job expansion, these moments can fill us with fear, dread, panic, stress, and anxiety. How do you persevere through those moments and make them a home run? We wanted you to learn from someone who knows unexpected career pivots AND baseball analogies extremely well, so we welcomed on Jack Oujo. He’s the Bestselling Author of Too Smart to Be an Umpire, and the Founder of Oujo Wealth Strategies. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• One lesson from baseball that paid off big in the 2008 financial crisis
• The power of putting the “pity pot” on a shelf and staying focused on something positive
• Handling adversity and high-pressure situations
• Deciding to split from business partner Brendan Pearson over philosophical differences, not character issues
• Investing in yourself even without the money to do so

And as always, if you need help in building your Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

• Managing through an Unexpected Career Pivot with Jack Oujo, Too Smart to Be an Umpire
  • [0:29] Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business
  • [01:24] Welcome to the show, Jack Oujo!
  • [03:45] Jack’s story: getting released from AAA baseball and the identity crisis that followed
  • [06:37] Using education (CPA exam, master’s in taxation) to work through Depression and rebuild identity
  • [09:32] The power of putting the “pity pot” on a shelf and staying focused on something positive
  • [12:19] Drawing on core beliefs and points of view during transition
  • [16:01] Handling adversity and high-pressure situations, lessons carried over from umpiring into wealth management
  • [19:36] Building trust through radical transparency: giving clients a free written financial plan upfront
  • [22:25] The letter-writing campaign that landed the first job at Ernst & Young aka EY, and how reputation travels
  • [26:19] Years of financial struggle before the wealth management business took off
  • [27:38] Going back to “the process” (borrowed from Nick Saban) instead of fixating on outcomes
  • [29:59] Being action-oriented, not passive
  • [32:21] Deciding to split from business partner Brendan Pearson over philosophical differences, not character issues
  • [36:04] Anne & April’s own partnership: philosophical alignment, transparency, and weekly deep conversations
  • [41:22] Advice to his 30-year-old self
  • [43:44] One lesson from baseball that paid off big in the 2008 financial crisis
  • [47:58] Good financial advisors are good coaches — coaching skills translate to business ownership
  • [48:21] The story behind the book title Too Smart to Be an Umpire
  • Quick-Fire Questions
  • [50:11] Jack’s book recommendations including E-Myth by Michael Gerber
  • [51:27] Most underrated travel spots
  • [53:51] is the ABS good or bad?
  • Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
  • Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn

What is Strategic Counsel?

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

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Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:01
Welcome to the Strategic Counsel by Forthright Business podcast. If you’re looking for honest, direct and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business, you are in the right place. In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking to reveal a fresh perspective. This unlocks opportunity for you, your team and your business. Now let’s get to it.

00:29
Welcome to the Strategic Counsel Podcast. I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And today we’re going to talk about how to manage through unexpected career pivots. Now the truth is sometimes can life can throw us curveballs we didn’t expect or want. And at the time it could definitely feel and be the worst thing to happen to us. Whether it’s getting reassigned, a business closing, losing a job or even job expansion. These moments can fill us with fear, dread, panic, stress.

00:58
all the negative feels. Yes, but please don’t worry. We’re not going to get all philosophical on you by saying these things happen for a reason, although we often do find that that’s true. Instead, we’re going to dig in today into what is happening at that moment and talk about how to persevere through it, even with all those negative feelings and emotions and things that work. Kind of like coming out of a batting slump with a home run.

01:25
And why all the baseball analogies today, like, or at least more than usual, I’d like to, you know, throw them in where I can just even to put April off kilter just a bit. Baseball is one that I can always roll. You got baseball, but it’s it is just after the All-Star break, right at the time of this recording. But we also wanted to do that to honor our special guest today, who is Jack Oujo, author of Too Smart to Be an Umpire. So.

01:54
Jack, it’s great to have you. Would you like to introduce yourself and tell everybody a bit of your story? Sure. And in April, it’s a pleasure to be with you today, first of all. So thank you for having me on. But yeah, I have an unusual background in that I officiated my way through college and I had an accounting degree from Seton Hall University and I tried out to be an umpire. And um they took me and I ended up doing a life sentence in the minor leagues eight years.

02:22
And by the time I was 30, I got released. The major leagues didn’t take me. And I had a pregnant wife and no money. Ready, go, start your life over again. And I ended up creating a multimillion dollar business that I just sold to two of our employees on a contingency sale and lived an unimaginably positive life despite going through that horrible setback back then. Yes. So.

02:50
exemplifies the whole reason why we’re having this conversation. Pivots can, I’m sure in the case that you had, Jacque, and you’re going to share about this, about that. But in all context, just hear the fact that pivots are, can be scary. That transition period can be really, really hard. It’s not something anybody takes lightly. So we’re going to dig into that and be really intentional about that piece today, because I think a lot of times people kind of gloss over it. It’s like,

03:18
Well, I started off here and then I went here and we glossed over that part in the middle that is like, people are like, but what did you do? How did you feel? How did you decide what you wanted to go do and how did that all work out? And we’re gonna actually dig into that today with Jack. So Jack, let’s talk about that moment that your career did pivot. You kind of mentioned it here and that it was a little unexpected.

03:45
You had life situations happening at that moment. Can you just kind of set the stage for us and kind of give us the full picture? Sure. I was in AAA and I was on a really good path for the major leagues, by the way. I remember thinking that I don’t have to fall back on a plan B. I thought I had a really good shot at the major leagues, even though it’s a lottery ticket when you first start. But at the end of my eighth season, I received a letter in the mail with a checkmark saying you have been released. My wife.

04:15
told me I got it, along with many other umpires at the at the time. They they got rid of a bunch of us all in one shot. And at the time, it’s it’s shocking. It’s your identity being in professional baseball. And then all of a sudden you have nothing ready. Go start your life over again. And I realized I remember staring up at the ceiling uh thinking I can feel sorry for myself for the rest of my life or I could try to do something about it.

04:45
And my wife and I that night had a very extensive conversation about our future. And we always knew that the day could come, even though we didn’t think it was going to come, especially then. So we put a plan. We put a written plan together of what to do over the next three, five years or whatever. And I was heavily influenced by a book I read by former Chrysler chairman Lee Iacocca when I was umpiring Winter Bowl in the Dominican Republic.

05:13
And he said for somebody to be successful in the business world, they should get as much education as they can and then do something. You to do something with this education. So what I did was from a career point of view, first of all, I had to have a job. I knocked on the door at Ernst & Young, EY, and they hired a 30 year old minor league baseball on par to do tax returns for rich people. So I guess I impressed somebody there. So I got in with a a big eight, now big four accounting firm.

05:42
And that was a very good start because having that on your resume is pretty cool for an accountant. And then I took the CPA exam after being in the minor leagues for eight years, and I passed all four parts in one sitting. when I say I did that, I studied my butt off. I remember I did an assessment to see my level of knowledge. And on a multiple choice exam with four choices, I got a 37 out of 100.

06:11
before I started studying. my wife was, you could get a 25 for filling in the names. Anyway, and then I got a master’s degree in taxation. I got an insurance license and securities license. I didn’t even know wealth management was a job back then. I was just throwing, educate. I’m like, I’m gonna become the smartest person in the room. And it helped me by the way, deal with my depression from baseball. I could not watch a baseball game for years.

06:37
After my release took place, it was the equivalent of the death of a close person, not a child. God forbid. I hope that never happens while I’m alive. But but I would say a very close relative. My release was the equivalent of a death. It hurt that much. But being self aware of this depression, I decided to go, you know, get all these letters next to my name. And every time I passed the class, passed the test or I was back on a college campus again, it was invigorating for me. It gave me like

07:06
It helped me get over this hump. I also put a written plan together again using math. What do the numbers look like? Re-educating myself. How long is this going to take? And I figured if I could make an extra $10,000 a year, within 10 years, my student loan debt would be paid off. So I had that in math, even though that plan changed. I also sought out other people. What are you doing with your life in accounting or finance?

07:33
I’m trying to evaluate what I could do all along while I was still working full time. And then I decided to get with a partner, a guy named Brendan Pearson. We put a business plan together to start a business, account, just accounting. And we borrowed on credit cards. We had no money again, nothing. So you might say you’re a freaking CPA and you’re borrowing on credit cards. That doesn’t make any sense. It did make sense because we put a plan together using math.

08:03
And we figured if we could pick up a few clients a month for a few years, we would get over this hump and we’d be off to the races. And then we discovered wealth management and we discovered wealth management. The business skyrocketed. It became a big thing. And Brendan and I were partners for about 10 years. We split up. We didn’t need each other anymore. Around the time of the terrorist attacks in 2001 and I operated Ojo wealth strategies through this year before.

08:33
I transitioned it. So but it was not easy. It was not. There’s depression. But I think the things I did back then that were really good were seeking meant asking questions. I wasn’t afraid to fall flat on my face like this podcast. People are listening. They want to find out, you know, what do I need to do? And I was not afraid to ask. And I would say I would have learned so many lessons the hard way had I not asked people for help at the beginning, which were there.

09:02
more than willing to give me. So I’m grateful for that. Well, and I mean, I think first of all, it’s just an amazing, amazing journey. And there’s so many things we could pull on from all the things you just said, you know, the hard work and getting back at it and all of that. But I would love if you could kind of double click into the whole idea that your identity was tied to baseball, right? And that loss and how do you

09:32
figure out, like, obviously you did all these things, right? All these degrees, all of these, I love the conversations with people, we push for that too, all of the things you did. But on top of that, with that depression and that loss of identity, how did you work through that and keep going? I did it by the go in the school, April. I was in school every night and studying and I had a child. We also had a surprise second child 17 months later, Christopher.

09:58
So we had a boy and a girl within 17 months and no money. That’s motivating, by the way, that you want because you want these kids to be able to have the best versions of themselves, if you will. That every time I saw a baby crying or smiling at me, that that was the biggest motivator that I needed. so they were were a blessing that that that happened. But that’s what I worked through it. I was self-aware. Like I found out when there’s a crisis, you got to put it on the shelf.

10:27
and you have to deal with your life, but put the crisis on the shelf. So in my mind, I’m like, all right, you’re frigging depressed and we’re not going to, nobody’s going to feel, I intellectually know nobody’s going to feel sorry for me. I understand that they might show sympathy for a little bit, but everybody gets home with their life. So we got to put this pity pot in a compartment and really try to stay focused on something, try to do something positive for yourself. And so like passing the CPA exam in one sitting,

10:56
That was an enormous high. know, oh getting my degree with my kids there, you know, in attendance, that was a high. So so there’s these small wins that are taking place and you don’t know what they’re building up to. You know, when I started the wealth management business, all of a sudden I’m dealing with wealthy people and they’re like, you know this stuff, you know, and I think they like the baseball war stories, throwing the manager out of the game and all that other sort of stuff. So, you know, I was able to relate.

11:25
to people very well. I mean, when you’re an umpire, you learn to do the right thing in the face of adversity. Okay. I’m one of the few, maybe the only financial advisor that’s been booed by 30,000 people for doing the right thing. I’m not afraid to stand up to clients under work. there. so, and by the way, being able to turn around people when they’re panicking over the stock market or they owe money to the IRS, how do you take that?

11:53
and keep them in the game without throwing them out of the game. Situational handling. I learned so much in baseball. I learned a lot in baseball that I translated into business. But being self-aware um was helped. And working through it was helped get me through it. I want to kind of dig into that a little bit more because, you know, definitely there’s a motivating factors. Like life is life. you knew.

12:19
you have to make a choice about whether not you’re gonna be in life or, know, life is just going to kind of own you as you’re kind of going through what you’re going through. But as me and April talk about, there’s this element we call personal brand or your personal brand characteristics that you have to, especially in times like this, you should go back to and really draw upon and they help to give you some clarity about where to potentially go next. And it sounds like,

12:45
you really dug into that there was, there’s something that self-awareness, was something about what you knew about yourself that helped here. And I would love if you could, if you could articulate that, because I think this is so important for people because it isn’t, it wasn’t arbitrary. mean, you didn’t make arbitrary decisions about what to go do and how to go do it. So I’d love if you could speak to a little bit, if you can recall, like, what are those characteristics? What are the, what was that that you really

13:14
you know, drew upon in order to be able to, really persevere through what you were going through. In my mind, I didn’t announce it to the world in my mind. I felt like I got a bad deal from baseball. I feel like I was cheated out of a career in major league baseball. And if that was true, if that’s true, if I do the same work in the business world, my chances of succeeding in the business world are going to be far greater than the chances of succeeding in major league baseball.

13:39
I learned I dealt with famous people when I was in baseball and I learned they’re just human beings like the rest of us Right, you know when april april was talking prior to us getting on about, know Iconic people I had weekly meetings in the instructional league in west palm beach with hank arron I meant hank arron I had meetings every week for 10 weeks and he’s and he’s a great guy and very insightful

14:05
Okay, but i’m like and and I remember talking to ted williams about the strike zone for for 30 minutes haven’t and I realized these people that we idolize Are just human beings like the rest of us and you know mike shashevsky wrote in his book the first thing you have or rick patino rather Said the first thing you have to do to be successful is deserve it That’s why i’m like if i’m going into business i’m going to again work my butt off and get credentialed with education And I believe if I do that

14:36
And if I did get a raw deal in baseball, that skill set, that core belief I had in myself should translate to the business world. And what’s the worst thing that can happen? The worst thing that’s going to happen is I spend four years in school and I have some student loans to pay. That was the downside. OK, I’m like, what’s the worst thing that can happen? Maybe my kids didn’t see me come home at six o’clock at night because I was in school for a few years. They’ll get over that. All right. That’s that’s the worst that can happen here. So.

15:05
It’s your question. It was a core. You have to have anybody that’s going through a reinvention process must start must start with a good and positive attitude. And it really helps to have a partner that’s supportive in that role. If you don’t have that, you’re I mean, the partner you may or may not have. But you have to have a core belief in yourself, because in this world where there’s so much negativity that people are going to try and knock you down.

15:31
You’re going to pass the CPA exam after you’re an umpire for eight years. That’s not going to happen. The odds of passing it alone are 20%. You’re not going to be able to do that. You’re going to start an accounting firm. What are you crazy? You know, you know how many businesses fail, all this negative talk. It’s all bull crap. Okay. If you do the work, connect the dots, you need some luck along the way, but things should work out and you have to believe that you must believe that. I love it so much. Just looking inside to find that wherewithal. And I agree with you. If you have a partner, that’s great too.

16:01
But when you talked about, what’d you call it? The pity pot, putting the pity pot on the shelf, which I love that analogy, but I do think it’s so important and Ann said this too, you know, that you have to decide how you’re gonna show up in these moments, right? And so you could have wallowed in it and sat in it and felt sorry for yourself and hated baseball for the rest of your life and all those types of things, but.

16:26
the application of the things that we learn in life and understanding, yes, what’s inside of us, but also what experiences we’ve had. I love what you said about, I was dealing with celebrities. So yes, I can get people out of the situation of feeling bad about the stock market. Even high wealth individuals who also some people look at as celebrity status, right?

16:47
And so I’d love if you could talk a little bit more about additional things that you just learned and knew about yourself through that experience of being an umpire and how you continue to leverage that and tap into that as you were on this journey that eventually led you to the wealth management company. First of all, as far as wealth management is concerned, doing again, doing the right thing over and over again, and in the face of adversity, I watch these Ken Fisher commercials on TV for being a fiduciary.

17:16
I think they’re the dumbest things I’ve ever seen in my life. I was thinking, imagine if an umpire said, I’m a fiduciary, let me umpire your game. Cause I’m going to do my best. You know, if it makes it sound like there’s so many badge of honor. So again, just doing the right thing in the case, in the face of adversity, being part of a team, being a leader on a team, when you’re a crew chief as an umpire, you’re, you’re in charge of your whole crew. learned sales skills.

17:45
because I had to go out and negotiate car deals, hotel deals, because baseball certainly didn’t do that for us, negotiating with baseballs to try and get uh upgraded to cars. And again, handling, situational handling. Right now, umpiring is, it’s uh on a cell phone. You can call balls and strikes and safes and outs with artificial intelligence so the human being may not be needed so much in the future. But in my day,

18:12
your ability to handle players and managers was what got you to the next level. Okay. Being able to handle people in high pressure situations. Those lessons are invaluable. And, um, you know, one of the reasons why I wrote too smart to be an umpire is I have a lot of respect in the business community, but they don’t know the baseball background lessons from lessons learned in baseball that, that I used in the business world. And I’ll give you one prime example that I think was a cornerstone.

18:40
to our success that I learned from baseball. When I write, when we did financial plans, the way we did them is we would gather data from a client. I’ll try and be brief with this. Gather data from a client, put a plan together for them and not charge them for the plan and send it to them in writing. And most CPAs short circuit it when I said that. You’re not charging them, you’re crazy. And the reason why I did that goes back to baseball. When I was an umpire,

19:08
I was in the business of trying to get respect from players and managers as quickly as possible. And that only came from doing a good job with clients handing over their life savings. They’re not going to give their money to somebody unless they respect them. And so I was trying to get respect from the client as quickly as possible. Here is a written plan. I’m putting my heart out to you. This is how I see your insurance, your investments, your income taxes, your estate plan. This is everything I think you ought to be doing.

19:36
And if they took it and stole it from me, which happened one or 2 % of the time, I would chalk that up to experience. But in almost every case, I was able to close those transactions and start a relationship based on mutual respect. People use trust, I say mutual respect between me, our staff and the client. And I learned that from baseball. And all these accountants that were laughing at me, I made more money in a year than most of those people made in 10 years because I did that when they would not.

20:05
do something like that. That would be an example. Yeah, I think that’s super, super rich. want to I just want to hit on a few things that I heard that I think it’s really important that is so applicable no matter what business people are in. One is the power of the point of views like you just I mean, a bit articulating them and over and over and over again, so many different ones, just the one about mutual respect and the one we share about is our ability to be able to

20:34
do just about anything. There’s just like a resilience there. So a lot of times when we talk about characteristics, we want to say traits and values, but these points of view that you start to indoctrinate into your characteristics and your personal brand becomes so powerful, especially when you’re in these moments of transition, when you’re in these moments of pivot, when you’re like, what do I believe in that’s going to help me get through what I’m getting through? You go back to these. And so it’s really important to articulate those.

21:02
I think the other thing that I heard you say that I really want to point out is that there is always a choice. And a lot of times we get in these situations and we can take that position that, I got a bad deal and it wasn’t, oh that’s just kind of happened to me and the world’s against me. But there’s always a choice about what I want to do in that situation. We can sit and wallow or we can go do something about it. And so I want everybody to hear that we always have a choice and that it takes time. Like some of these things don’t transition overnight.

21:29
You went and you had a plan, put the plan in action and sometimes a plan, I’m sure the plan is evolving. I’m going to ask you that in just a second as you’re kind of going and as you were kind of learning and as you were adopting new truths about your reality. But it does take some time. And part of the whole process is working that plan. And I know when you and I talked early and like, you know, we talked about like the fact that, okay, you you’re going to get this accounting degree and then you’re going to go get a job. that wasn’t easy either.

21:57
So maybe you could speak to a little bit about like, okay, yeah, we’re putting this plan in place and then, you know, it doesn’t, wasn’t like, we just clicked our fingers. All of a sudden we had a multimillion dollar, you know, wealth management company. So speak to a little bit to that part and how, like what it took to actually get that first job at E and Y. That first weekend, back in the day, people sent out resumes and my wife and I, instead of just going to an employment agency, we sought out 50 CPA firms.

22:25
that we thought would be a good fit. identified them. We did this over, I got my release on a Friday afternoon. We did this on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday and Sunday, we identified 50 CPA firms that we thought would be a good fit. I wrote a cover letter and on Monday morning, those letters went out. Within two weeks, we had four job offers, one of which was the one from EY. The other one was from a medium-sized accounting firm and there were two other small firms. So I had four offers.

22:53
within two weeks, given that it takes a couple of days for the letters to arrive in the mail. And there might have been more offers if I didn’t take the job with Ernst & Young. Instead of your, when you mentioned your personal brand, Ernst & Young back in the day did the audit for Major League Baseball and did all their accounting and tax work. They went back to baseball to get a reference on me about uh whether or not they should hire somebody like me. And baseball said, we wanted to keep Jack as a supervisor. He turned us down.

23:23
We wanted to keep them in the game. So your reputation does travel with you. Even though I was bitter at them, I still left on, I still put my happy face on and left on very good terms. So it was an old fashioned letter writing campaign with Ernst & Young. I followed up, I went into New York City at 51st and 7th Avenue and I walked up to one of the partners and I found out one of the reasons why they hired me. Because I’m thinking, why are they hiring a 30 year old? It’s because I worked for a boss that was so mean.

23:53
OK, that was so mean that the partner there was ready to fire this person. And they said, this guy is a freaking umpire. OK, he should have a very thick skin. If he can’t handle working for her, then we’re going to have bring in somebody else. And that’s why they hired me, which I was fine with. OK, but that’s that’s what I found out why they hired. They saw you were an ex-professional umpire and thought you could handle how abusive she was to people. And she was really mean. But but but but.

24:23
But but anyway, you’re asking the minutiae like I’m going into the weeds here with you. That’s great. That’s that’s what and I was happy to do it, by the way. You can hire me for the dumbest reason you want. I’m good with it. But there were other jobs that were waiting as well. There were three other offers that I could have accepted as well. So that’s that was job one. And then, you know, I applied to Seton Hall University and Fairleigh Dickinson University for my master’s degree. I’m undergraduate Seton Hall University.

24:52
They wanted me to go take another management exam to get into the school. Fairleigh Dickinson called me on the phone and said, we want you, we want you right now. And I enrolled with them and the education I received from them was phenomenal. I mean, the master’s degree I received from Fairleigh Dickinson really helped me compete with wealthy people as opposed to a regular financial advisor or CPA on complex tax strategies. Like I knew this stuff.

25:19
from my master’s in taxation at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Seton Hall would have taken me right away. I probably would have went there. Whoever wanted me first, they were getting, because you don’t know, you don’t know. you know, things evolve over time, but that’s, they were, I went into this like abyss for four years, if you will, like hiding from the world and being in school and working and making sure these kids were okay. you know, was barely, my wife and I,

25:49
We’re struggling with paying bills for my CPA society dues. Okay. Things along those lines. There was, this was a four or five year period where you really had to believe, but once things started to hit, think my income in the early 1990s went from $60,000 a year to $200,000 a year. Okay. Within seven years of my release from baseball, I was making more money than the highest paid umpire in the major leagues. Okay. But the first five years, okay. There was nothing.

26:19
There’s this build up, build up, build up. And it was like, all right, here we go. Then all of a sudden the public embraced it. that’s basically what happened. There was a big, big investment, but there was a big, dividend at the end of the road. I think it is so important. One of the things, Anne, you called out before we got into this part of the conversation was the hard work that goes in and then the fact that you don’t necessarily know where you’re going. And I was thinking as you were talking, I was with a client this morning.

26:49
And we were talking about the trajectory of her career and where it might go. And one of the things that we talked about, which I think is important in what I’m hearing you say is the fact that number one, you can’t control it. And number two, you can’t look at every next thing as the be all end all of everything, right? And so I love, you your journey and not just because there’s baseball involved.

27:13
I love baseball. But but, you know, I mean, I think it is really interesting as I’m hearing you talk. It’s paying attention, doing the next thing and doing the hard work, not knowing necessarily what the outcome is going to be, but believing that you’re going to get there. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s very fair. And, know, one of the things that that I learned from sports

27:38
that I applied to business very successfully. And anybody that’s successful in sports will mention this. Nick Saban talks about it all the time. Let’s suppose you’re a home plate umpire and you miss a call in the seventh inning. You call a ball, strike a ball, whatever it is. And umpires know when they miss pitches too, by the way. Generally speaking, you call a pitch and you’re like, oh, I screwed up. missed. What do you do? You have to go back to your process.

28:02
So I have an un-party game in a really long time, but I remember my process was to peek at the bottom of the strike zone as I was getting set, set my eyes at the top. I could see the inside and outside corner. I’d lock in and call the pitches with slow timing. That was the process. Okay. And I knew the process worked. So you go back to the process. What I’m trying to do in business is what are the processes that will make for a successful business? So at the beginning, I put in a process for writing a plan.

28:32
Delivering a plan onboarding a client client service and follow-up which had to be at a level better than anybody else All these processes were all I ever focused on I was the number one advisor using math with our firm for over a decade Not once did I ever sit with the people in our office say our goal is to be the number one advisor or increase sales But our goal was always we never talked about it like on the outside world. They talked about we never talked about it We always talked about our process

29:02
Our process, let’s, the initial client, you know, with a financial advisor, 90 % of clients decide whether they’re going to do business with a financial advisor within the first 10 minutes of interaction. I know that. So what happens during the very first minute, okay, of that meeting? What takes place? Drill it down, drill down everything. And so we had processes for everything. And Nick Saban always talked about the process, the process, the process.

29:31
And that’s what people have to do with their reinvention, figuring out a process that’s going to work in their career or business or what have you. So we talked about POVs, we talked about choice, we talked about time. The other ones, and this is just like so much gold here. So the other nuggets is the act being action oriented, not passive. So I think that was a really important thing that continued to drive you just.

29:59
You talked about working the process and I think that just now and I think that’s really speaks to put something in place and go do it. April, you just said like you do the next thing. This is not a passive wait around. Like you didn’t send like five resumes and sit there and see what they said. You know, even nowadays you said you can’t do that. You have to follow up. You have to engage. You have to like show intent. I mean, you sent out 50 resumes.

30:28
And then you went knocked on the door of one of them and being like, Hey, I’m here. And they’re like, okay. I mean, it takes a lot of gumption in order to be able to go and do these things. And I think that’s another one of the characteristics that you drew upon that I think a lot of the people that we talk to in transition, they kind of struggle. kind of want to kind of sit there with the passivity of just kind of trying to wait for it to happen.

30:54
I also think there was an element of investment. I you talked about it, you know, that, you know, just trying to get the dues, just paying the dues. And how many times, April, that we talk about, you know, when the people get in this transition, they’re like, I don’t have any money for that. It’s like, this is where you do use the credit card. You go and invest in yourself and you have faith that you’re, one, you’re going to figure it out and that this is a choice that you’re making with the intent that it’s going to pay off at some point. And that’s the faith piece is like having faith in ourselves, I think is like,

31:23
one of the most powerful things. And it’s something that I think is like extremely lacking because especially in these pivots, like we’ve already thought, oh, I’m not good enough. Something’s wrong with me. I mean, I’m, I’m a failure or whatever. And so we kind of lose a lot of those really important characteristics and that faith in ourselves that help us, you know, bring us back. And I know that’s like brought you to, you know, so many different steps along the way. And I’m going to fast forward here a second, cause I want to go into the one where

31:53
and you don’t have to get into a lot of details, but I think this is a really important circumstance that a lot of people face. And April, this is not ours, so don’t worry when I ask this question. When you decided to part ways with your partner, you know, because a lot of times we, you know, these people, talk about people being in your life for a minute, for a season, for a lifetime. What was that process like for you? How did that feel? How did you kind of come to that decision?

32:21
along in your journey when you’re making that choice, when you’re making that vision about what’s where we’re going and all those sorts of things. So speak to me a little bit about that. My partner was Brendan Pearson, who’s a great guy, college basketball player at Fordham. And as our business was evolving, we had a couple of philosophical differences. OK, was not about splitting money or like there’s so much that goes on in the business. And we got along really well on a day to day basis.

32:49
Brendan wanted to get involved in some other things, payroll company, children’s museums, things along those lines. And I said, Brendan, you know, for the first time in my life, I’m making real serious money. And I worked my butt off to get these letters next to my name. And we have all these clients and we have more business than we know what to do with. I don’t want to be Mr. Entrepreneur going into other businesses. So it was a philosophical difference that we had.

33:19
When you start out, reason, one of the reasons why I think it’s good to have partners at the beginning is you’re splitting expenses, maybe splitting employees, okay, tax software. There was a lot of practical issues for having a partner sharing expenses. And as the business grew, we really didn’t need each other anymore. Okay. I had enough of my clients. He had enough of his clients. He could like, we could go our separate ways financially. Like we just didn’t need each other. Like to this day, we’re friends with each other.

33:48
Okay, we play golf together. There’s there’s no animosity. There’s no lawyers. I know when we were splitting up, I was very conscious of whatever Brendan wanted. I was going to acquiesce to on the thinking that in the long run, it really doesn’t matter much which client gets which client would employee gets because there’s a minutia with all that whatever he wanted. I rolled over on okay, what I’m not going to there’s not going to be any animosity when this thing ends.

34:16
and then we’ll go from here. And his business right now is very successful and my business became very successful. So we went our own ways and his payroll company has done very well for himself too, by the way. But it was just a philosophical difference that was an important philosophical difference that caused us to split. Most day-to-day operations were really good, but it’s also good being on your own. I always wondered why.

34:42
you know, these musicians went their separate ways and it was probably a similar situation. But it was very good when it was just my toy. You know what I mean? And now, you know, I remember Brendan and I would disagree maybe on, but we didn’t have fights over it. Like on employees. I believe in hiring the best people. Brendan was more price conscious on infrastructure in the office. I wanted the best of everything. Brendan was more price conscious.

35:07
on things along those lines. So as soon as we split, I told our computer, I want the best of everything. Hiring people, I believe in the value uh of quality things, if you will. So things along those lines, but they were just minutiae. But I will say this because of what you said earlier, Anne, about your reputation carrying you, that Brendan can say that about me or I can say that about Brendan. There’s no character issues. Brendan has no character.

35:37
faults that caused us to split. And that would be a problem if that was the issue, but that was not it at all. Okay. Yeah. I think it’s the thing about partnerships, right? It’s so interesting. And, um, I mean, for me, I was always hesitant to even have a partner. I took the opposite view of you from the beginning of my career because I had seen no, none of them go well. I’d seen trios, I’d seen partnerships, I’d seen, and it’s because

36:04
They didn’t have the transparent conversations like you did. Right? So the first time Anne and I went, and I talk about this all the time and our listeners know, I went kicking and screaming. I didn’t want to work with her. didn’t want to meet with a proctor and gamble person. I didn’t think that I was at a point where that’s what I wanted. And three hours later, we were still talking. And in all the years that we’ve been partners, we spend three hours together every week talking. And that has gotten us through.

36:29
a lot of really tough things, right? So Ian said, like, I’m not trying to worry you, I’m not exiting the partnership, right? But we’ve had those conversations. I mean, we are in very different life stages. I still have small children. Anne’s daughters are in college or graduated, right? And so we have these pivotal times. And sometimes you’re right, it is the minutiae, but we talk about all of it and make sure that we are very, very aligned with each other constantly in order to ensure that our

36:56
clients get the best of us, but also that we know where the other one is. And in busy times, it helps because we can go our separate ways and trust each other to do the work, similar to what happened with you, where it’s like, you handle this, I don’t even need to know, just tell me what I need to know, right? And with Brendan and I, I consider our partnership to be extremely successful, by the way. It’s not like it, because we started with borrowing on credit cards and we left with successful businesses that we split.

37:24
That to me is a success. And that happened within a 10-year period of time, too, by the way. So that, even though it ended OK, because he’s very happy in his life, I’m very happy. I’ll be married to my wife 40 years this year. That partnership. Congratulations. If she killed me, they would have let her out by now. uh So that’s the most important partnership. That’s worked out pretty good.

37:51
I think it’s so important. The philosophical alignment is so important and specifically what I wanted to get to because a lot of people ask us, you know, whether or not they are founders and they’re looking maybe for a co-founder or just looking for a business partner. I mean, any kind of context where you’re bringing two people together and you’re trying to decide, am I going to go do this thing with you? The one thing that people always ask us is like, what has made it work for you in April? And the first thing I say is we were philosophically aligned from the beginning.

38:21
We have different points of view on things. We have different talents. have different, you know, I mean, we can argue like, you know, we could be like an umpire and argue with like a manager. that could be us like on the field. I mean, we could go back and forth. I mean, in front of people too. And everybody’s like, what is going on here? We’re like, we’re just discussing this. There’s nothing wrong, you know, but we were very transparent with each other. We were philosophically aligned from the beginning.

38:46
And that has been core to the fact that it is like, well, what do you guys argue about? Like, we don’t argue. We just don’t. We debate. We never have a fight. We never been like, oh, you know, I can’t believe she did that because we would say, I can’t believe you did that. I think partnerships are very powerful. I am not anti partnership at all. I want to be clear about that. I think having two heads better than one. mean, when the clients came in, they liked it, that they had a couple of points of view.

39:13
that they could point counterpoint. If we had a free exchange of ideas, or I’d say, go talk to Brendan without me and ask the same questions. We can do that. What if something happens to you for other, that there’s somebody there that was very comforting to clients and having somebody to bounce ideas off of. Because you can come up with a really stupid idea and not realize it when you’re the lone ranger out there. But when you have a partner, what are you nuts? We can’t do that. We don’t have those conversations, we, April?

39:43
No, no, but I think they can really work very, very well. I think, I think with partnerships, cause I’ve advised business owners and my capacity is as a, as as a CPA, um, character is the ultimate issue with that character. You have all the fricking lawyers you want, but you have to believe that you’re dealing with an honest person that’s working for the mutual benefit of the partnership. Yeah. I think that’s, you know, right on. then me and April, like nodding our heads is like, yep. I mean, all of those things is, you know, kind of the

40:13
been was to find our relationship and continue to be the impetus for the love the conversations that we have about how we continue to business, but why our partnership has worked so well that, you know, having people to bounce things off of having somebody to check you that’s usually April checking me.

40:28
um As you were talking, was like, this is what she’s going to respond. I know it. Yeah, it definitely that’s definitely the case. So I love that. think that’s really important. I’m glad that we had that conversation about that, because I think it’s really important for people to hear that. And when they’re even in like a C-suite kind of context, when you are looking at that as a partnership, these are a similar approach can be taken in order to really solidify how you’re to operate together. How are you going to divide rules and responsibilities? How are you guys going to show up?

40:58
in front of your organization, all those sorts of things. It’s a very similar philosophy. So I wanted to hit on that. I love if we could talk about a little bit now that we’re kind of gone through and we’re just look back again for a second. Well, we can ask this question a couple of different ways and you can decide how you want to answer it. Either is there something you would have told?

41:22
now you know what you know, would you go back and you, you tell your, you you were 30 when this all happened, would you tell your 30 year old self something different? And you can answer both questions if you want, or what would you tell somebody who’s going through it now? I would be taking advice from the 30 year old version of myself, cause I’m very happy with that person setting up our life that we have right now is, is have that core belief in yourself. Um, even when you’re in doubt,

41:47
Okay, I think you have to have I’m a person of deep religious faith too. And I think that helps me a lot because I believe there’s there’s another power out there. So I pray every day and I always have so that so always do the right thing morally stick to your core beliefs and never never give up. It’s not going to be easy. And it’s not just coach speak that there’s going to be tremendous. When I wrote my book, Too Smart to be an umpire, there’s so much self-deprecating humor with all the things that I went through that were negative.

42:16
that the average person can identify with so many things that from a practical point of view go wrong in your life. You just can’t give up. You just can’t give up because you have to believe, you know, you can almost make it comedic. Like try to find people that you know are rich that aren’t the frickin brightest bulbs in the world. And like if they could do it, then so could I. OK, you have to start thinking in those terms like that guy’s a schmuck. don’t know how he made so much money in his career, but if that person can do it, so can I.

42:45
You have to look at it from with that lens. And I remember too, with my dad, my dad always wanted to have his own business. And my mother always told him, you’re no businessman. Okay. People are going to take advantage of it. You need a steady paycheck. And I saw where he regretted it his entire life. Always thought the boss was taking advantage of it. go, dad, why can’t you be the boss? ah Too much of an investment. Like what investment? Like, like tell me more. And then he would end it. And I realized,

43:15
that he was being held back, that he was and he regretted it his whole life. And at some point you have to make these decisions. And I think the decisions can be much easier to take again, doing, I hate to sound like a nerdy account here, but by doing math, doing math with, if you want to go into business or reinvent yourself, put it on paper what those numbers look like and your decisions become self evident. I remember when our business started doing really well.

43:44
You know, now we’re making all this money. This is great. And the stock market was doing really well. What if the stock market goes down 50 %? What happens to those numbers right there? What if 20 % of the clients fire you because they blame you that the stock market went down? What are those numbers? And I did that. I ran those scenarios and I would look at it I’m like, you know, that’s not so bad. I like I can live in that world. Why am I watching this stupid television for red and green arrows every day? Okay, I can live in that world. And I learned that

44:13
Because of the worst case scenario I had with baseball getting released I based my whole Financial planning business on worst case scenarios with clients if you were clients of mine I would take you through whatever advice I gave you what would happen if the stock market did nothing for the next 15 years What would happen if we had another 50 percent down downfall in the market? What would happen in your life based on that scenario and I take clients through that? Okay to show how we protected them

44:42
And when 2008 took place, even though our revenues went down, my business went up by over 400 % in the next three years after the 2008 financial crisis. It took us to a level I never thought we’d ever see, uh like fantasy land with the business, because we planned for worst case scenarios. And when they took place, all of our clients stayed and we’re picking up people all over the place. I embrace, as a financial advisor, I embrace downturns. It’s tough to go through, but

45:10
On the other side of it, if you’ve been doing the right things, your business will be much further ahead. That was that was another thing I learned from baseball, how to deal with worst case scenarios. it out. Well, and I think, you know, a couple of things there is the discipline by which you continued to move through. Right. And one of the things that came to mind for me is.

45:31
we talk about anxiety and those things that you worry about a lot with our clients, right? And so I love the idea of putting things to paper and making it as real and factual as possible, because those are the things that combat that voice in your head that just starts to conjure up all of these things. What ifs, what if this happens, what if, and a lot of those what ifs aren’t real and most of them never happen, right? And so I love the idea of being able to look at it be like, okay, I need to quell that monster inside of me.

46:00
What do I need to do? Well, let me map it out so it becomes real. And then once it’s real, like you said, it’s not so bad. And you know something, when you put numbers to, I try to be an advisor, like Dr. Phil, I want my clients to come up with the right answer, even though I’m not with the right, that way. them down the path. Yeah. Right. And so when I put the numbers in front of them, I’ll often say, if you were the financial advisor, what would you say to yourself about this? Like, look at this, what do you see here? And they go, well, we could definitely do that. Am I missing? We could, and I yeah, you can do that. Or you heard.

46:29
This would be stupid if you did that. The things become very self-evident and they give you a calm that they allow you to go about your life and go about the decisions with reasonable assurance that you’re doing the right things. And that’s where it helps people in my view, just doing math. you don’t have to be a freaking CPA to do it. A lot of this stuff that people can use Claude or AI or an Excel spreadsheet, doesn’t take a lot of work. Most things you could do in 30 minutes.

46:58
to figure out your life, where you wanna go with certain things. And map out the good parts, have fun with it. When I’m dealing, I always had fun in my business. I’m dealing with people, sometimes people will receive an inheritance and I go, you can have a sad face because so-and-so passed away, but financially, you’re in a very good spot here. Let’s start with some smiles here, okay? And, people get themselves into a tizzy over that stuff and they don’t need to.

47:28
Talk therapy and accounting. never thought that those two things would be. When you said Dr. Phil, I was like, oh, that’s interesting. does. He asks all the time. And how is that working for you? if you’re a good financial advisor, you’re a good coach. OK? If you’re a good business owner, you’re a good coach because a good business owner will learn that you have to coach up your employees so you don’t have to do as much work and the business runs well. if somebody felt like they had good

47:58
coaching skills or teaching skills. They’re very good candidates to be self-employed and own their own business. Very good candidates. Love it. All right. I’m going to bring this home a little bit, but before we have some rapid fire questions, if you’re open to it, but before we get to that, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you to share more about the title of your book. Sure.

48:21
Because I mean, I was definitely curious point for me. So I’m sure our listeners are probably like, where did that title come from? So maybe you share a little bit about that and what they’re going to get from the book and then we’ll go into the rapid fires and let you close this out. It’s a reluctant title because the book was always when I decided to write a book, it was always called Plan B about the reinvention process. And I told a story in the book where it was my last year in AAA. I was on part at the old Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska, where they played the college world series.

48:49
And an American league supervisor of umpires, Dick Butler was at the game and he surprised us. He didn’t tell us he was there and he took us out to dinner after the game. And I said, Mr. Butler, I’ve been in the minor leagues eight years. I’d like to get an evaluation of where, where I stand with you guys. And he goes, Jack, think you call a really good ball game. He goes, you do a really good job out there. I only disagreed with one pitch to be honest with you. I think you’re too smart to be an umpire.

49:14
And this came from Major League Baseball. It came from Major League I was thinking I’m too smart. No, trust me, I’m not that smart. I’m not that smart. But it comes across in the book a little bit because because I tell a few war stories in there. But that’s the specific answer to your question is that came from Major League Baseball. We think you’re too smart to be an impart. It’s not how I feel. It’s how they felt. It definitely works, though, in.

49:42
kind of getting people interested. was like, huh, what do they mean by that? So I didn’t want to insult. have too much respect for umpires in general that I felt that way. I want you to know it came from that came from a supervisor with major league baseball. Thanks for sharing that way. All right. Are you open to some rapid fires? Sure. All right. Start with one that we usually start with. What are you reading or listening to right now? If you like to listen to podcasts. I’m listening to so many podcasts right now. um

50:11
My favorite book that I’d recommend to your readers is the E-Myth by Michael Gerber. Oh yeah, we like that one. Why most small businesses fail. In your business and on your business, we say it all the time. Yeah, I do an audio book almost every month. I’m a nerd in that I love American history. And I think a book that I just finished was JFK and the Unspeakable, which was about the Kennedy assassination, was probably one of the best ones. uh

50:40
that I read recently, JFK and The Unspeakable. It’s probably the best book I’ve ever read. I’ve read, when I was in the third grade, I could name every president in order and I’ve read every biography of every president. American history, yeah, I love American history and I’m a history nerd. You just couldn’t make, I didn’t figure out a way to make money at it, but that’s…

51:03
Ironically, my mom is too and she writes historical fiction. So there you go. And by the way, I completed the entire Bible too, which I read the entire Bible. Even numbers, even read through numbers? Leviticus, which was not easy. I set out a goal to do it. took between 80 and 90 hours, but I read the entire Bible. That’s something. Yes.

51:27
Yes. I was raised Catholic. think I’ve probably read it all in some capacity, but definitely not. You never read numbers. oh thing. Place you have been that is totally underrated. I would say the boot in Italy. I love Italy, but I was in Puglia, if I can say it right, Puglia, which is a non-touristy part. I went there for the wedding of the son of a friend of mine.

51:57
And I just thought it was, I loved Italy. I thought it was fantastic. And at this wedding, the night before the wedding at 10 o’clock, everybody gathered in the street and the groom was standing in the street and the bride came out like a Romeo and Juliet scene from out of a balcony and he serenaded her at 10 o’clock at night until about 10.30. And then the father of the bride invited everybody into his house for a party. And so go into a wedding and in

52:26
the south of Italy in the boot where no tourist was around was was very underrated. And if there is a place for tourists to go that I’d highly recommend, it would be going to Normandy or Omaha Beach in France and the site of the D-Day invasion is probably my wife and I were there on the day of our 25th anniversary. And that’s a place I’d recommend every American go to. I agree. I’ve been there as well. And I’ve done the tour there. And it is.

52:52
It’s like nothing you’ve never there’s just no words. There’s just no words. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And by the way, my daughter works with the United States government in China. We were in Beijing and we spent a week in China. That was pretty cool to see. I think Americans would be shocked if they saw what that life was like. We were just in Vietnam and China and Singapore for like a retirement trip. And it was really cool to see all that stuff. We did a Vietnam tour.

53:21
two weeks from Hanoi all the way down to the old Saigon, all the sites, the Vietnam War. And that was really cool. Very cool to see. So is your wife a history buff too, or did she just… No, I drag her over. This where John McCain got shot down. All right, when’s dinner? Yeah, that was my childhood. I always say if I have to see one more cannon and one more cannonball pyramid, I think I’m going to totally lose it. Yeah, yeah, sorry.

53:51
All right. So you’re not going to get up the hook without a baseball question. right. So the last question, ABS, good or bad? The ABS is there in my judgment because all the gambling that’s taking place in sports and you need positive answers. The positive of the ABS is you’re getting more consistent strike zones from the umpires. The negative, which nobody talks about is that it’s actually wrong. The strike zone in baseball is a prison. you like the home plate is five uh sided slab.

54:21
And the ABS judges pitches linear in the middle of home plate. So pitches that enter the beginning of home plate and then started heading down are registered as balls, possibly, even though they hit the strike zone. So the technology is not correct yet. And because I’m friends with a lot of major league umpires, they question the heights that are assigned to a lot of the batters. they say inside and outside is perfectly fine. But the heights.

54:49
they’re questioning. I am I am in favor of it. The negative thing on that, I will say you mentioned your son’s plans sports before April. I think the abuse of youth sports officials in this country is the most horrible thing I’ve seen. And games are getting canceled. And and I think if you can tell ball or strike with your phone or say for out, the public doesn’t have the tolerance for an amateur official making a bad call in a game.

55:19
And I think that’s the negative side of all the technology and pro sports is the horrors that are taking place with youth sports, shaming volunteer officials for a call that was missed. don’t want to do it. so anyway, in my book, I wrote a lot about that, but it’s awful in my opinion. I mean, so my son will be 11 you this fall and we don’t have enough umpires.

55:49
There is a short, there’s a true shortage for that exact reason. For 20, by the way, I found my love for baseball again after going through my, I going to ask, I was going to do a bonus question on it. Cause I was like, my son’s going to ask me this. I need to know. I taught a youth umpire course for 20 years. I umpired college baseball for a years. I coached a high school team for several years and I coached a little league state championship team and seeing the kids, the state of New Jersey. oh We won a New Jersey state championship in 2005.

56:19
Seeing the kids jumping into a pile was really a very cool experience. Really cool experience. I didn’t think that would ever happen when I got out of baseball as an umpire to be able to coach a championship team like that. That was really cool. Oh, I love that. That just me all the chills. I know. I like, I’m not going to be able to talk here in a minute. So, I’m sorry. Well, thank you for all of that, Jack. Take us home. Is there anything else that we missed that you would like to

56:49
share and put a bow on this. Obviously, tell people where they can find your book. Sure. If people want to find me, they can go on oujo, oujowealthstrategies.com or there’s a website for the book, Too Smart to Be an Umpire.com. uh My email address and contact information is on there. I just at this point in my life, because I sold the business to two of our employees and they’re doing such a great job with it. I mentored them for years. I just want to give back to society and

57:17
in some way. That’s why I wrote the book at the end of my career. I don’t want somebody to say I wrote the book to get clients because I released the book two months before I retired. And I think there’s a lot of good lessons in that book for people, especially if you’re baseball fan. If you like the war stories and people getting thrown out of the game and all that other stuff, how somebody starts a business, grows a business, gets out of a business, it’s all in there and it’s an Amazon top 10 bestseller now. congratulations. Thank you.

57:44
So it’s pretty cool. But right now, in the last 10 months, my wife and I, we have three kids and each of them had their first child. So we’ve gone from zero to three grandchildren in last 10 months. So it’s pretty cool. So that’s what I’m doing. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It’s all good. That’s that’s the real stuff right there. Yeah. That’s what it’s about. And then I’m sure then they’ll be getting tips from grandpa about how to.

58:10
how to play baseball, they’re gonna have a good guy there. Yeah. Well, my two boys, my son Matthew played at Florida Atlantic at our top 25 team in the country. And uh my other son Christopher pitched on a state championship high school team. uh So they know enough about baseball without me, uh it’s seeing your kids like right now do well, know, is that means everything. It does. does.

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We have a my, so my dad was a college pitcher at the University of Cincinnati here and my son’s a pitcher. oh And I say that the conversations that I pick up on that happened between them while they practice our memories that my son’s going to carry with him forever. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I can’t wait to do that. Grandchildren. I can’t wait. I it’s so cool. I want to stay healthy for them. Yep. So we got out the pitching machine yesterday. It was my dad’s 70th for three hours.

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Really? And my siblings and my two kids hit off that machine with him and man, he’s smoking home runs over the fence at 70 years old. So make sure he’s having fun and doesn’t overuse his arm. Well, we did. We got we got the pitching machine for that reason. So he’s not throwing the pitches. Yeah. Just make sure he’s having fun. Just there’s so much negativity in baseball. Just make sure he’s having fun. That’s the important thing. It’s true. Awesome. Jack, thank you so much for being on. This has been a real

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just treasure trove of all kinds of just really fantastic nuggets. And I know people are, they’re going to really be able to embrace that when they’re going through their transitions and any pivots that they may have, whether it’s unexpected or even plan. So, and with that, we encourage all the listeners to take at least one powerful insight you heard and put into practice. Cause remember strategic counsel is only effective if you put it into action. Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further? Reach out to us through our website, ForthRight-People.com

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