Intangible Balance Sheet Episode 18: Harvey Klingensmith

Welcome to another Intangible Balance Sheet episode. Today Harvey Klingensmith joins us to share his story of growing up in Colorado, to beginning a career as an engineer in the oil and gas space and eventually running two different companies and eventually founding his own company Ajax Resources, LLC. Listen in for stories you'll both enjoy and learn from! 

Please feel free to like, and share this episode as well as subscribe to our channel!  

JOSH KLOOZ, CFP®, MBA
SENIOR WEALTH PLANNER

Phone 281.719.0036
Text 281.699.8691
Fax 281.719.0156
 jklooz@carsonwealth.com

1780 Hughes Landing | Suite 570
The Woodlands, TX 77380

Music by bensound.com

Please check out and subscribe to my Youtube Channel and Newsletter!

JOSH KLOOZ, CFP®, MBA
WEALTH ADVISOR

Phone 281.719.0036
Text 281.699.8691
Fax 281.719.0156
jklooz@carsonwealth.com

1780 Hughes Landing | Suite 570
The Woodlands, TX 77380

Music by bensound.com

Transcript

Joshua Klooz  0:01  
most people are aware of their own financial balance sheet. As soon as we buy our first car or house, we become aware of it. If you're of a certain personality type, you may track it quite a bit. But I'd submit to you that we're also unconsciously aware of another balance sheet. And this one is sometimes tricky to measure and even harder to manage. Sometimes we often find it hard to put into words, but it's real nonetheless. I call this our intangible balance sheet. What I mean by this are those life principles, experiences, memories and stories that given any amount of money, we wouldn't drain. They're the memories that bring tears of joy to our faces, because we simply can't imagine life without them. We feel fortunate to have had them. It could be our first jobs, proposals, wedding days, burrs, struggles, anxieties, or fears, and maybe even some hindsight. It's all those things that melt into a memory that bring a distance stare to our face, and maybe even a smile. We feel lucky to have had them because they're what has made us us. So that's what I'm talking about when I talk about the intangible balance sheet. It's those moments in life that may be financially irrational, but which are indispensable parts of who we are. So, these episodes are focused on the stories that bring us joy, happiness, fulfillment, and ultimately may hold unnecessary keys that will direct the future for our family, friends, and maybe even neighbors. So listen in with us as we discover some of those stories that are meaningful to our guests. And maybe you'll even uncover hidden value on your own intangible balance sheet. Welcome in again to another edition of the wisdom and wealth podcast. This is an intangible balance sheet episode, and it is my distinct pleasure today to invite to the podcast, Harvey Klingensmith. Harvey, thank you so much for joining us, and I can't wait to hear your story.

Harvey Klingensmith  2:04  
Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.

Joshua Klooz  2:07  
Again, the pleasure is all ours and Harvey is many of our returning listeners know, but for the sake of of anybody that might be joining in for the first time. The whole premise of the podcast is to focus in on those things that have a eternal value to us ultimately, like a value that you can't necessarily put a number on. And so it typically is those life principles that we've lived our life by. And there's a lot of neat stories sometimes that are that are bound up in them sometimes as well. So I promised not to take too many rabbit trails. But one of the ways that I find is helpful just to acquaint our guests to the to the show is for you to give us a better idea of your background, your upbringing, and where you're from.

Harvey Klingensmith  3:02  
Alright, born and raised in Denver, Colorado. Jesse Robert Klingensmith, Jr. My dad, Ellen Pinkett Smith, my mom, middle class family. My dad worked for Frontier Airlines was one of the early employees of the old Frontier Airlines. Catholic from the time I was old enough to be baptized until now with a good Catholic upbringing parochial schools K through 12 Jesuits the last four years at Regis High School in Denver. So I was I was brought up with religion, Catholicism, going to Mass every Sunday I was an altar boy, I enjoyed being an altar boy at six in the morning. Just good values instilled into me by my folks started working when I was young, again, I said we were very modest means my family. I had got a paper route when I was 10 years old, learned the value of $1 had 80 Customers cost me a buck and a half a month to buy a paper for each customer. I collected two bucks a month. So I made 50 cents per customer per month. paper route and believe it or not every now and then people couldn't pay the two bucks. Can you come back next month? Well, that was money coming out of my pocket. I understood. Things were kind of tight. But I also understood if somebody gave me a 25 or a 50 cent tip any particular month, that was huge. I would double my profits on that person. So I was making 40 bucks a month as a paperboy and I did that for four years and I put all my money into western Federal Savings in Denver, Colorado and save every penny. I take a few bucks a month you could buy a Coke for a dime and ice cream bar for a nickel and every now and then I do that. And occasionally my brother and I'd sneak off in We'll play putt putt golf, which was I think 50 cents for around a putt putt but it was worth it.

Joshua Klooz  5:06  
Now, was there any gambling involved in the pot? Or is that? Is that to be talked about in another podcast? No, there was no. Okay. Now, so what time did the paper get delivered? I'm curious. It was

Harvey Klingensmith  5:19  
an afternoon paper route. So I'd come home from school, the papers were waiting for me. Mr. Coleman was our route supervisor, he dropped the papers off. I had a bike with a big paper bag on it, I fold the papers wrapped with a rubber band, put them in a bag if it was inclement weather, ride my bike, I could, I could toss papers with either hand and I could hit a porch with either hand. Sunday mornings, though the papers were delivered early in the morning. Most days, it was the afternoon Sunday, it was Sunday morning. So I get up about 430 papers were waiting for me. And I tried to have the papers on everybody's porch by six o'clock.

Joshua Klooz  5:57  
Oh, goodness. So this that was a good experience from a business perspective, for sure. Well,

Harvey Klingensmith  6:04  
and it was it was seven days a week, 365 days a year, there's no time off. If I if I was going somewhere sick, I had to get my brother to fill in for me. Or if my folks said, we're going to take a week's vacation, which we did. Occasionally, I had to get a friend to fill in. And I had some friends on the street who would help me and I'd have to pay him. So I was an independent businessman when I was 10 years old.

Joshua Klooz  6:26  
Now, how long does it take you to deliver that many papers?

Harvey Klingensmith  6:32  
The Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, the papers were not real big. I could get them folded in my bag delivered and usually about an hour, Wednesdays. And Sundays, they were bigger. They had inserts a lot of ads, I used to usually had to make two if not three trips. So it took a little bit longer.

Joshua Klooz  6:54  
Gotcha. Now. I'm curious, you know, just for your perspective, but were there what beliefs stood out to you is as important to your parents that you remember is from an early age.

Harvey Klingensmith  7:08  
We said grace before every meal. We it was it was basically a traditional Catholic upbringing. The belief that this life we were here, temporarily make the most of it but live a good honest life. Don't lie, don't cheat. Try not to get in fights, although that happens occasionally. Because you always run into a jerk out there. Go to Mass on Sundays. Listen to your parents get along with your brothers and sisters. Very traditional Catholic upbringing. That was that was the basis for my whole upbringing. Nothing extraordinary. But just the 10 commandments.

Joshua Klooz  7:56  
Yeah. And Harvey I'm also curious. In relation to that. Do you remember the first person that stands out to you is the first person that enjoyed what they did? Does anybody stand out?

Harvey Klingensmith  8:09  
That enjoyed what they did? Ah, well, as a matter of fact, this is gonna sound funny. After four years of the paper route, I passed it off to my brother, and my second job a summer job because I was now in high school. A job for the summer was working for a roar, Ash and trash. I was 15 years old. My first day on the job at five in the morning, I reported to the parking lot of a Safeway store in downtown Aurora, Colorado, where we kept the garbage trucks. And I was introduced to my partner, Herbert. Okay, so this was 1967. My partner was a 34 year old gentleman, he would have been born in 1933 with the name of Herbert Hitler Strider Oh, so unfortunate. Very unfortunate German. His father was German when he was born. Hitler was coming to power and he thought what a great middle name. First day on the job said herb. Herb says hard you know hard to drive. I said, right drive my dad's three speed pickup. He said close enough. Threw me the keys to the trash truck driving. I don't even have a license. He said that doesn't matter. And off we went. First stop was the little bakery where we got doughnuts and coffee and I know why he wanted me to drive so he could sit there and eat donuts and drink coffee. And off we went. He enjoyed his job. Here's a 34 year old man working on a trash truck. We had a different route every day. Different parts of town we would clean out ashes out of the incinerators into backyards, and then we'd bring out the trash didn't burn, but it didn't look Truck, a route might take four hours, one day, it might take six hours one day, we'd load the truck up, we'd always finish we'd head to the dump which was out on the east side of town. You know out in the country, we would stop Wolf's liquor store on the way to the dump. Every day, Herb would go in come out with three beers to for him, one for me. 15 years old, driving a garbage truck drinking a beer, thinking Life is good. I made 10 bucks a day whether I work four hours or six hours, they paid me 10 bucks. And Herb was just we'd go to the dump, empty the truck, sit there, drink our beers and talk and we look through the trash and see what people were throwing away. And he was just happy. And I was kind of happy. It was kind of fun.

Joshua Klooz  10:50  
How many stops

Harvey Klingensmith  10:52  
it was a great lesson for me. Because I was determined to not be driving a trash truck when I was 34 years old. I had been a good student. I've was always a pretty good student. I became a diligent student went to college.

Joshua Klooz  11:09  
Now so in line with that, what study or what subjects stood out to you the most what what made your brain fire the most?

Harvey Klingensmith  11:17  
Math and Physics. I was a math nerd and I loved I had a teacher in junior my junior year of high school Father Jack Lemoine. He made physics come alive. I just loved it. I ate it up. And that led me to the Colorado School of Mines. And I majored in geophysics because it was math and physics oriented. And it was just a natural for me. But he was a huge influence on me Father Lemoyne. He just it physics is how how everything works. And he just made the class so interesting. And it was natural for me.

Joshua Klooz  11:54  
Did he have any specific case studies that he used that you remember? Or any examples?

Harvey Klingensmith  12:00  
You know, the one example we were studying wave phenomena wave motion, and we had these little wave generating tanks. And we were it was fascinating to me. Of course, this is what geophysics is all about is wave phenomenon. waves moving through the earth. I happen to have a keychain. And for some reason it had a tiny little surfboard on it. So my partner and I were doing our project with the waves. And I pulled the surfboard off my keychain. And I had it in the wave tank and we're watching the surfboard go up and down. And all of a sudden I become aware of it. presence behind me. And it was Father Lemoyne. And he says, Mr. Klingensmith, are you having fun with that? Well, as a matter of fact, I am and he said, Are you learning anything about the lesson and I said our little bit reached in, picked up the surfboard, dried it off and handed it back to me and said let's get back to work.

Joshua Klooz  13:02  
So within your family was Was there any pressure on you to go to the car to School of Mines? Or did you did you choose it on your own? What What was the draw?

Harvey Klingensmith  13:14  
Well, a couple of drawers one, it it. There was no pressure but my folks were kind of pointing me that way. We drove up to Golden 20 miles away and visited the campus visited the school. I was very fortunate. I had a very good academic career and going to a Jesuit High School, a lot of schools came to us and I rank very high in my class. And so I was without even applying to schools. They were offering me scholarships to go academic scholarships. And I received the full academic scholarship to the Colorado School of Mines and it just seemed like a natural fit. Plus, I could live at home because room and board was almost out of reach of the family. I could live at home, had a car, drive up to and from campus every day and made it easy and then worked while I was in college. So by the time my sophomore year ended, I was able to move out, get an apartment with some buddies and then live on campus. And by then I was just immersed in the school. I loved it. I was getting into my geophysics option. As part of a geophysics geophysical engineering degree. I had to take geology courses, I took geology one on one from a Dr. Fred Moore. Threat more and he made geology come alive like father Lemoyne and make physics come alive. I looked at the course studies I had a five year scholarship, believe it or not, but I can get two degrees and five years and just set my sights on getting two bachelor's degrees in five years and that's what I did. And it was fun. I just I loved college. I just had met a lot of people. I loved my professors. I loved what I did. And when I came out, I graduated in 75. With both degrees I decided a couple years before I was going to go into the petroleum industry. I wanted to be an oil finder, because that's what you can do with geology and geophysics to a certain extent, the Arab oil embargo and hit and 74 companies were hiring. I had eight job interviews and he had a job offer. So it was it was a no brainer.

Joshua Klooz  15:32  
So there's a you've shared the story before, but there's a story about a pizza.

Harvey Klingensmith  15:40  
Well, I met my wife at Texaco. I went to work for Texaco in Denver. She was a land man at Texaco, one of the first females, the text code hired in the Land Department, office romance. We were married a year and a half later, she was looking at changing companies. I was not thrilled at tech school wanted to find oil. They weren't doing much. She was going up to Boulder. She'd gone to the University of Colorado and was going to talk with a recruiter Headhunter up there. asked, Would you like to come to Boulder with me? And I said, Man, there's a great pizza place up there called recepies. Let's go up there. You can meet with Ben Richardson was the gentleman's name. I'll wait and we'll go get a pizza. Just have these. Off we go. She spends 45 minutes with Ben comes out of his office, he comes out introduces himself said, Well, I understand you're a geophysicist at tech school? Yes. Are you going to make a career tech school? And I say, No. I'm learning some things. But I want to find oil and gas and they're not much interested in right now. Took my name and number. Couple weeks later, he called me and he said, Have you ever heard of Diamond Shamrock? I said, Nope. He said, look up the company. They're looking for a geophysicist and they're going to be busy. One thing led to another month and a half later, I've got a job offer in hand and I'm working for Diamond Shamrock. And six months later, they're drilling one of my prospects in the Wilston base. And it was a discovery. And off we go. Now, it was not some grand plan. Here's why I'm going to map out my career. It was let's go to Boulder and have a pizza. And I ended up getting a job out of it.

Joshua Klooz  17:27  
Now are there within that first, that first venture there any stories that stand out to you any any memories that that are meaningful?

Harvey Klingensmith  17:39  
You mean, within Diamond Shamrock? Yeah. Well, it was I was there. I was at the company and its successor long story. I won't go into all of it. But 17 years I was there. I had been in Denver for joined in November of 77 in the spring of 80. So I've been there two and a half years. The senior vice president from Amarillo, Texas, a gentleman named Roby Clark and just a fine gentleman walked into my office one day he was up from Amarillo. And he said we'd had another discovery and nice discovery in the Wilston basin in North Dakota. And he said, Harvey, you're pretty good at this. I said, Well, yeah, get lucky. Gotta be lucky. He opens his briefcase. And he pulls out a well log from a well in the Gulf of Mexico. And we've been looking at the well we had drilled up there had about 20 feet of good pay. And the Ordovician Red River deep made a 400 barrel day oil well. He starts unfolding this well log in there is pay afterpay afterpay stacked up on the side of assault, known main pass block 73, the B five will never forget it. And it just starts rolling this out on my drafting table. You did a lot of work on drafting tables and and he said, what's all I said, that's all pay and he said that's paid. So we're 400 fee to pay and as well stacked up on salt dome. And I said, I've never seen anything like that. He said, Well, he said I'd like you to go to Houston will give you a promotion. You can head up the geophysics department down here in the Gulf of Mexico and help find more of this stuff. Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather I figured I'd be in Denver my whole life. And my wife who happened to be picking me up that night for an occasion they have to work I always drove I said you drive and I got a car she said what's wrong? I said I've been offered a position in Houston Texas, a promotion. Never thought about going to Texas would you go to Texas with me? And she looked at me and said When do we leave? Well, okay, that takes care of that issue. I didn't know what she think. And that started a started it was a good career move for me and it kind of put me on an upward trajectory it now I'm in Shamrock, which led ultimately to an opportunity to join a much larger company, the coastal Corporation led by an awesome gentleman named Roger Wyatt, who's kind of a legend was at the time, I had a chance to go to work for Mr. Wyatt, Senior VP in charge of worldwide exploration for coastal and fire to move back to Houston. I moved a few times with Diamond Shamrock Denver to Houston to Denver, Dallas to Denver to Dallas. And did this matter move back to Houston, but it was good opportunity. And I took it in 1994. And that turned out to be a good move also. So I've explored for oil on five different continents, found oil on most of those continents all over the United States. Ended up going to Canada as president of El Paso, Canada after coastal and El Paso merge, this would have been in 2001. I won't get into all the particulars there. But the the Canadian sub was sold in 2004. Upon the sale, I left El Paso and stayed in Canada and started my own company working with private equity group out of New York.

Joshua Klooz  21:28  
Were there any specific what what were the I guess what what were the conditions behind starting your own company?

Harvey Klingensmith  21:37  
Well, I had, I had gotten to know some folks. here in Houston. There's a company called Quintana run by a gentleman named Corby Robertson Orbeez. Father, or B Sr. had married a woman named Wilhelmina color. She was the Cullen family. The column family had found a lot of oil and gas in South Texas. Corby senior came in, took over the company ran the company grew it Corby Jr. Took it over private company. I knew some of the folks at Quintana when the El Paso thing when it was going away. The Quintana folks said what are you going to do? I don't know. They said we'd like to start a company in Canada. We had one before sold it. Why don't you work with us and starting a company again. That's how that came about. It was just an opportunity out of the blue. So I worked with Quintana and a private equity group out in New York, we put some money together. We ended up we bought a public company took it private, ran NAT found a bunch of gas in North East British Columbia in the orange River Basin, a huge gas play up there, never made a lot of money on that thing. And there's a lot of reasons I won't go into it. But it had a lot to do with the Canadian government. Their failure to put pipelines in to get gas to the west coast to put in LNG facilities, which they missed it they missed a bet on that. And then, while I was running that, we kind of had it in maintenance mode waiting for an opportune time to sell. I got a call from the Wyatt Family. Mr. Wyatt had left coastal after the merger with El Paso it started a another company that done very well in Indonesia and Thailand. Thailand, in particular, sold it had put a lot of money in the bank and at the age of 90 decided he wanted to start another energy company. I was called by the family who knew me and I knew some of the family and they knew what I'd done. They trusted me and agreed to come down while still running the Canadian office and help Mr. Wyatt startup basically a family office family energy company. Put together for properties in Utah, in the Midland basin, Permian Basin of Texas. That led to another opportunity I just had a lot of things fall in my lap to work with another private equity company and put a larger sum of money together and buy some properties from a public company. In the Midland basin, the public company had some pretty good properties, but they were mainly an offshore company. And they weren't really sure what to do with them. Well, I knew what to do with them. We be we bought the company put a team together. Why it owned part of the Comp So it was basically for part of the family office grew the company, took, took the production, tenfold, increased tenfold, and basically sold it three years later for over three times what we paid for the properties. So it worked out well, for the private equity folks, for the Wyatt folks for myself. And when we sold it, I was 44 years into the business. I was 67 years old. And I said, that's enough time to quit.

Joshua Klooz  25:40  
So you missed

Harvey Klingensmith  25:41  
it was I mean, it's quite a ride, I loved the business, loved every minute of it, good people, providing a product that is used all over the world. And had son, it was sorry, the clock.

Joshua Klooz  25:58  
Oh, it's beautiful, beautiful sound. Love it.

Harvey Klingensmith  26:02  
It's just a great business, good people, big treasure hunt, I would go to high schools. One point over the years on behalf of the School of Mines that speak to high school classes, and try to tell students about geology and geophysics and the oil business and tell them Mother Nature has hidden these pearls all over the world that are oil and gas fields. And it's a huge treasure hunt, can you literally put an X on a map and you say dig here. And you drill a well, that's changed quite a bit since I started. But you're still doing that you're trying to figure out not only where to find it, but now it's how to get the most out how to get maximum recovery. And this is where the fracking, the horizontal drilling, all of that is coming in. It's it's it's a game changer.

Joshua Klooz  26:55  
So I feel like you've given short shrift to this skill set a little bit. But what do you attribute your ability to see value or see opportunity where others others may have passed over it?

Harvey Klingensmith  27:10  
You know, I have asked myself that because I'm looking at the same information a lot of people look at. But what I did at Texaco and what I really did at Diamond Shamrock a lot of people right away would start looking at well logs and they would start interpreting things I would I'd literally I'd hang a half a dozen well logs on a wall or I would hang a half a dozen seismic lines over known fields. And I would sit in my office for hours. And I would just stare at the seismic data, I would look at the well logs. And I'd say what is this telling me? There's, there's a reason this oil and gas field is here. This is the only physical expression we have are these pieces of information we could work with. And I would just look at it. And in my mind, I could start discerning patterns and seeing things that I thought. I think that's what that oilfield looks like in this part of the world. I'd start looking at seismic lines or shooting seismic lines where I see hints of things and looking for more of that. And it worked before well locks the same thing. This This looks like pay over here. Why wouldn't it be pay here? For some reason people wouldn't test it or Well, this didn't look right, or that didn't look right. It was pay. Not always I mean, I'm wrong. But I was right more often than I was wrong in in this business. That's pretty good. So I don't know it was it was a lot of thinking looking there a bit of luck. And then as I got into management, I was doing less of the real hands on stuff but I still spent a large part of my day with other people in their offices looking at stuff with him just pointing things out looking at this looking at that and then when prospects were being presented because you have a group of people working up stuff, I could sit down look at half a dozen prospects and I could rank order them in my mind and go like we're going to drill these two first. So I had a whole team of people generating stuff and it was I mean it was great fun

Joshua Klooz  29:33  
there any any roadblocks or struggles or pitfalls along the way that you look back on and you're thankful for the more you think about it

Harvey Klingensmith  29:45  
well yeah, first time you drill a dry hole and I drilled a few dry holes you kind of go well what because you got to have a lot of self confidence in this business. Did I miss what went wrong? Why did this not work and do there's some self doubt comes in, and you start questioning yourself but you get over it, you learn from it, you learn from everything, every dry hole, you drill, you learn something every successful, well, you drill, you learn something, and you just kind of it all goes into that gray mass up between your ears. And you just carry that with you on to the next project.

Joshua Klooz  30:26  
So one of the topics that we that we cover, in this this podcast is it comes to me from Arthur Brooks, you may be familiar with him, he ran the American Enterprise Institute for a period of years. So in National Review circles, he frequents many of the same, the same circles. But he, in study studies have shown that, you know, our happiness in life determined is determined somewhat by our genetics, somewhat by big life events. But the smaller portion, the portion that we can control is our habits. And he talks about the happiness portfolio, and it's our faith or family, or friendship, community and meaningful work. And so it's funny, without even realizing it, pretty much every guest talks about almost all four of those quadrants without even realizing it. But I'm curious to you just hear from you. Does that ring true as far as and what are your observations about those four quadrants over the course of your life? How have you been able to build upon them and even keep them in balance?

Harvey Klingensmith  31:34  
Well, faith is what rooted everything. When I was brought up, family. I was blessed with a very flexible wife, because we've been married 46 years this year, going on 47. We've moved 19 times. We moved my kids seven or eight times during their formative years in through high school. That's not easy, uprooting kids and moving them and families. I always had an office to go to and a job to go to Sean, my wife and the kids, new neighborhood, new school, start all over make friends. What are you going to do? Luckily, they were very changed resilient, if you will. So the family was a huge support, I could focus on my job, knew things would be taken care of friends, because we were going from one town back to another town, we had friends, we could go back to we made we've always been able to make new friends wherever we've gone. We're kind of outgoing people we'd like to meet people and friends have been important. And then the last part work. Luckily, I always liked what I did. But I'd never come home at night and kick the dog and complain about stuff because it was just so I can I see those four aspects and been very blessed in my life that I've been very lucky. Just lucky. My kids my daughter, when she wrote her essay for college for college application. Her essay was about the Mayflower moving van, which would show up every couple of years and it's type of kids here we go with the kids hated it early on, but we're not moving. I said this is not a democracy. You don't get a vote we're going but they came to realize and they've now got friends, they are adaptable. They go anywhere, anyplace meet people and get comfortable and they didn't like it at the time. But they said man that paid dividends.

Joshua Klooz  33:48  
As you as you think through the transition from you know, being fully engaged in your career to take a step back. How has meaningful work changed for you or evolved for you in this this new season of life?

Harvey Klingensmith  34:06  
Well, after like I said, after 44 years, I was ready for a break because I went pretty hard. Fortunately, within a year, I was considered for a board position on a board of a large service company and was lucky enough to be selected and elected to the Board of core lab. I had been a customer of Core Labs for 40 years and use their services all over the world for 40 years, knew the company knew what they had knew the people now lucky enough to be serving on your board and it's just enough. It keeps it keeps my finger in it. I really enjoy being on the board. I enjoy the work. I said the other side of the fence from what I did, but I understand it and it's just enough for me. I love to read I'm a voracious reader, until a few years ago was a pretty serious bike ride, or I don't do as much bike ride now. But the bike ride kept me busy. And so it's been a nice transition when my board work is done. I turned 70 this year. When I'm off the board, whatever that is, I'll be ready to just putter. Figure out something to do. But how I'm

Joshua Klooz  35:35  
curious with with all the moves that you've had, how did you maintain friendships, like any creative ideas there as far as how you've managed to maintain long friendships.

Harvey Klingensmith  35:49  
No real creative ideas. If you have good friends, if there's a natural affinity for folks you enjoy, you will keep in touch, you will find ways to maintain a friendship. We still have good friends in Denver, having lived there on four different occasions. When we traveled to Montana. For the summer, we always go through Denver friends and family there and we spend days there visiting, just catching up with folks. Folks will come visit us in Montana, they'll come down here, if they want to get out of winter, they'll come to Houston and we'll come down and warm up a little bit. Denver get kind of cold. We have friends in Dallas. So that's just up the road. We've just maintained the friendships and people have scattered we have friends in North Carolina. Now we have friends in California and we keep in touch. We may not see them as often. But we keep in touch. We just today my wife and I spent couple hours today getting all our Christmas cards, we always have a picture and a little letter when we address them all. We put personal notes on him we sent out 100 some Christmas cards. We did all that today that is great fun to receive cards and to send the cards out at we just enjoy that.

Joshua Klooz  37:08  
Absolutely. And my last question on the happiness portfolio would be were there any rhythms with as many moves as you had with your family? Were there any rhythms that were essential to keeping everything together? You know, keep it keeping them constant, anything that that stands out to you.

Harvey Klingensmith  37:29  
The rhythms were pretty much dictated by the circumstances. And it was a rhythm it was I go to the office. Sean would get the kids ready for school. The kids are off to school. Sean has always been busy. She worked until our second child was born and then said I'm done. But she's always kept busy as a volunteer. She volunteers for lots of things. So wherever we went, they were always looking for volunteers at the church or at the school primarily. So the rhythm was wherever we moved, you kind of get back into the community here. The kids school, Shawn volunteers, me work. My rhythm was in the mid 80s, when I was really out of shape and overweight. My old country doctor in Denver said how are we going to die soon, he said you better get your acid in shape. I did, I started swimming. And pretty soon I joined the wire and pretty soon I'm doing a rowing machine and pretty soon I'm doing this and that that would have been 19 that 1986 or 87. And from that time on, I've been a five in the morning guy I'm at the gym, I'm a morning person work out and go to the office. I've now gotten lately I sleep in till six or 630 And I'm not working out quite as diligently as I used to but the first of the year I'm going to start all over again. That's that's kind of the rhythm, the rhythm. It's not something we said it was kind of dictated by circumstances. And we've adjusted the rhythms change and you change with it as you as your kids get up, go to college. As you get a little bit older, you can't do everything you once did. You just have to adjust with it. And you got to realize that and you've got to mentally realize that you can't fight it. It's going to happen.

Joshua Klooz  39:24  
Yeah, absolutely. So as you think about the principles that you hold dear and you know that have made you successful and that you want to pass on your to your family and to your your friends, your community. What are some of those principles that might be on your ethical will as some people would call it

Harvey Klingensmith  39:53  
when these there's a whole list of things Personally, it really helps if you have some faith. I'm a Catholic. We've got friends that are discop Aliens are Protestants are Methodists are Lutherans are Mormons, all faiths? That's kind of a basis. That's the foundation for everything. That because you realize we're only here temporarily, there's something bigger and better waiting for us. You want to enjoy your time here. But don't. This is not the be all and end all are waiting for us. And just keep that in mind. When you're dealing with your family, you want respect, you want them to respect you. That's important. You want to pass on values to your children, I think my wife and I have done a good job of that. Our daughter's a little more liberal than I would like, but that's okay, that's, that's fine.

Joshua Klooz  40:54  
Keeps Thanksgiving dinner table lively, right?

Harvey Klingensmith  40:56  
Oh, yeah, we've got to avoid the politics. She lives out in California in the Bay Area. And that's all I'm gonna say about that. So we have to be careful, my wife will remind me about that. And then in dealing with people when you're working, unless you are independently wealthy, and you're doing exactly your own thing, you are working for either a set of shareholders, or you're working for a group of people who have invested something with you, you owe them your best, you owe them an honest effort you owe them. I'm going to do the best job I can for you. And you just have to keep that in mind. You can't be complacent. And you have to be honest with them. Tell them what you think you're capable of. And if you're if it's if they're asking you to do something, you can't do it say, timeout. I'm pretty good. But I can't do that. Or I'm going to need some help. You owe them honesty.

Joshua Klooz  41:58  
Absolutely. Anything else that that cursed you that that? You think?

Harvey Klingensmith  42:05  
Well? I've used the word. I liked what I I do I've been happy. If you don't like what you're doing, do something else. I had a geology professor. One of the classes I took it was paleontology. It's all a different rock types. Metamorphic, sedimentary igneous hard rock, soft rocks, and it's just going through all the minerals in the rocks and Rudy Efest, Dr. Episode, early on first week class, he said, I see a few folks out there and I see their eyes kind of rolling in the back of their head. And he said, I'm going to stop right now. And I'm going to tell you, if you don't like this, if this is not for you, this is something you carry with you through your life. If you don't like what you're doing, do something else. Life is too short. And I always kept that in mind. Luckily, I loved what I did. But if you don't, it's never too late. Find something else you'd like to do, and pursue it. And you'll be good at it and you'll be more successful.

Joshua Klooz  43:09  
I am thankful that I've lived according to that as well, but that it's served me very well. Thank you so much, Harvey. For your time. This has been a treat. I can't think

Harvey Klingensmith  43:25  
I'm sitting here thinking all I've done is talk about myself and this and that. And I hope

Joshua Klooz  43:29  
that's the point of it.

Harvey Klingensmith  43:31  
That's the point of it. Yeah. I've enjoyed it. Thank you, and I'll look forward to hearing myself.

Joshua Klooz  43:41  
There you go. Well, Harvey, we wish you Shawn and your family, nothing but truth, beauty and goodness in the year ahead. Thank you again.

Harvey Klingensmith  43:48  
All right, Josh. Thank you. Enjoyed it.

Joshua Klooz  43:51  
Thank you again for joining us for this week's conversation. We trust that your time has left you both enriched and inspired to better invest your own intangible balance sheet. As always, we wish you and your family continued truth, beauty and goodness on the road ahead. The opinions voiced in the wisdom and wealth podcast or Josh cleaves for general information purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. investing involves risk including possible loss of principal. No strategy assures success or protects against loss. Guests are not affiliated with Carson Wealth Management LLC. To determine what may be appropriate for you. Please consult with your attorney, accountant, financial or tax advisor prior to investing. Investment Advisory services are offered through CWM LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. Alright, dress locally a 1780 US landing Boulevard Suite five Saturday, The Woodlands, Texas 778

Transcribed by https://otter.ai