Ryan Sitton: Intangible Balance Sheet Episode 65

Thank you to Ryan Sitton for stopping by to some of his life experiences which make up his Intangible Balance Sheet. You'll hear stories of growing up amongst a household of life-long learners and educators, Father Rock, business mentors, starting his own company, running for elected office and so much more! 

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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

Josh Klooz 

Hello and welcome in again to another episode of Wisdom and Wealth. Today is another of our Intangible Balance Sheet series, and it is my distinct pleasure to introduce to you Ryan Sitton as he's agreed to come on the show and share a little bit more about his Intangible Balance Sheet. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us, and welcome to the podcast.

Ryan Sitton (08:01.046)

That's it.

Ryan Sitton (08:24.182)

Thanks Josh, it's great to be here.

Josh Klooz (08:26.603)

Ryan, before we dive in, could you just briefly introduce yourself to our listeners?

Ryan Sitton (08:34.03)

Sure, I'll do a brief one. You'll have to ask me for more details because I can get long-winded introduction. Grew up in Irving, Texas. Parents are both teachers. So I say it because you start off right there when you talk about intangible balance sheet. Having been raised by two people who taught you from as early days as you could remember that you will learn the rest of your life is an incredibly.

Josh Klooz (08:38.434)

Absolutely.

Ryan Sitton (08:59.326)

valuable lesson that I have already tried to pass on to my kids and get them to pass on others. But grew up in that household, went to Texas A&M for college, met my wife there, both got degrees in mechanical engineering. We got out, I went to work for a oil and gas company, chemical company, in fact had basically four, I've had four jobs, five if you count my time in elected office, but worked for a chemical company, then a refinery.

then worked for a small consulting company for about five years, then started Pinnacle, which is where I currently serve as the CEO. I've been, this company's been around for 18 years, almost now, and I had a brief six year hiatus where I was not the CEO here while I was serving as Texas Railroad Commissioner. This was 2014 to 2020. As I said, I'm married to my wife, Jennifer. We've been married about 20, coming up on 25 and a half years. We have three kids, Sarah, Luke, and Lance, who are 20.

18 and about to turn 15. And it's interesting that you would, as you were briefing me on the podcast, talk about durable lessons. I think about that a lot with kids who are just coming into their own adulthood and what things they will get from me that are actually worth something.

Josh Klooz (10:10.807)

Yep, and so I myself have four children as well. Mine are not allowed to get as old as yours are because the smaller they are, the smaller their problems. But I hear, they tell me that it gets far more humorous and far more fun than you could ever imagine the older they get, so more to be told. Thank you so much for that introduction. One of the ways that I find that it's sometimes easiest to dive into this conversation is to ask

guess about their grandparents? Are there any pivotal stories that are on your family's balance sheet that you draw back on that are shaping, you mentioned your parents and them both being educators and the ability to be a lifelong learner. What about your grandparents?

Ryan Sitton (11:01.138)

You know, all of my grandparents passed away. I say all, three of my four grandparents, I actually should say four of my five, because my grandmother got divorced and remarried, and four of my five grandparents passed away when I was pretty young. So I only knew my mother's mother into adulthood really. And so the stories that I know of are secondhand, and how I will say it is the stories are,

Josh Klooz (11:03.648)

Okay.

Ryan Sitton (11:29.174)

The important, I like how you put it, balance sheet items are a conglomeration of stories. I'll start with my mother's family and a couple of anecdotes. Mom, in fact, first of all, of my four biological grandparents, three of them were severe alcoholics. Basically two of them died from alcohol and the other one, my granddad's dad.

had eventually gotten sober and lived a few more years, but had ruined his, had all but ruined his life from alcohol. My dad has never had a sip of alcohol in his entire life. My mom's mother got divorced from her husband because of his drinking, even though this, she's Catholic, and that with nine kids, if she was a single mother of nine kids having only, you can imagine how hard it was to get divorced, but only would have done so because of alcohol. So why I say that is, you know, our family was, that's a big part of our family history.

is alcoholism. And so when you look back and reflect on what my parents went through growing up and what was really hard. I mean, to compare, I've never gone through anything in my life is hard, and some of their just everyday life. And so while it wasn't, I do have some individual stories I can tell you about my dad dealing with his father drinking. And I mean, it's just wild, but the conglomeration of those stories is really, I think something that tells you something about the Sitton name.

I'll fast forward to both my parents were the first in their families to go to college. And my dad, of course, I said my mom, both teachers, not only that, both have multiple degrees. My dad got his undergrad in math, then his master's in both math and physics. My mom got her undergrad in chemistry, then her master's in chemistry and theology and counseling. So they just were learners and intellectuals and man, talk about what, what

that meant to be a Sitton growing up in that household as opposed to what it was like growing up in their household. In fact, I'll end all that with a story, a very brief anecdote. I was giving another, I was doing a, I think it was a podcast, no, it was an interview I was doing after giving a speech one time and the reporter asked about Sitton and said something about how I had been asked during the speech about Sitton being a great name. And I reflected on it in the interview afterwards and I told the reporter, because he had said, well, you made Sittin a great name. That is not true.

Ryan Sitton (13:44.414)

my parents made Sitton a great name. You just didn't know about it until I came along. And that sounds really, really quippy and sharp now, but it just was from the heart because you realize how much they had to shape life. And what was instilled in me, I just were followed in their footsteps, even though it didn't, it wasn't easy to see that from.

Josh Klooz (13:49.583)

Hmm.

Josh Klooz (14:05.107)

I will say the older I get, the more I look at the hand. You mentioned your parents and you look at the hand that your parents were dealt and you're like, man, they played their hands so well. I have no complaints. The older and more experienced I get, it's just like, wow, I am so grateful. It sounds like your parents specifically fed off of each other intellectually, literally. Like they're just, we're constantly, it sounds like it was a very interesting home to grow up in.

Ryan Sitton (14:15.81)

Fah!

Ryan Sitton (14:32.942)

it was.

Josh Klooz (14:34.763)

You probably see life in a different dimension because of it for sure, but I can only imagine. Now, are there mentors that are on your intangible balance sheet that stand out to you and or stories that are pivotal to you taking steps professionally or maybe even intellectually?

Ryan Sitton (14:54.922)

Yeah, well, in addition to my parents, the two that come to mind most easily whenever I'm asked something like this. First was when I was in school from fourth grade to 12th grade at a private school called Sustursen, which is run by Hungarian monks in the Dallas area. And I had a priest who was with our class the entire way through. So he became what was called a form master for us. He's a Father Rock. And Father Rock was our form master from grade.

So from fifth grade and he was our foremaster all the way through. So that man knew me for eight years.

Josh Klooz (15:29.614)

Wait a minute, that was a last name or a nickname?

Ryan Sitton (15:33.162)

That was actually his Hungarian name was Rokáreski and he shortened it for Father Rock and lived to be 94, I think, when he passed away just three or four years ago. And he, a few times in my life have I seen somebody who more clearly carried the Lord with them in every, in how he just did life every day.

Josh Klooz (15:37.375)

Incredible. That's awesome.

Ryan Sitton (16:02.186)

And I was just, man, I was a hard kid to like. Like, I'm telling you, the worst behaved kid in the whole class for eight years straight. Kind of getting into trouble, bucking the system, just, you know, whatever, acting out. And this man, for eight years straight, just demanded excellence of me and did not compromise on his expectation that I would be the man.

And I struggled with faith and I think there's probably times I would have never said probably I was an atheist, but I certainly would have talked about I didn't go to church, I mean, just really disrespectful. And he was uncompromised in his belief that I had something special in me and would demand that. And to tell you, it was a decade or longer after I left school before I really began to appreciate what I had gotten from Father Rock in those eight years of him pouring into me with zero gratitude until...

you know, some decade later. The other I'll mention is I mentioned I had four jobs that we were warming up and I said, in my intro, my third job worked for a small consulting company called Burwanger. It was a year and a half, four and a half years I worked there. And the owner of that company, Pat Burwanger, who was...

almost seven feet tall basketball player, but also a very eccentric guy, borderline crazy guy. But man, talk about learning how to run a business and how to be a leader and learning how to do things on principle and watching him. I learned a ton from him and he gave me a lot of opportunities as well. So I had lots of others along the way, but those two big time poured into me and I owe them both an unpayable debt.

Josh Klooz (17:42.935)

Thank you so much for sharing those anecdotes. And so the next piece that I find that's typically a pivot point for most guests are those events that you think are critical decision-making points in your life. And it typically revolves around your marriage and or just even professional. And sometimes it's even people will have a shift intellectually of what they're interested in and what they start studying.

Are there any, you know, kind of pegs in your background that you hang your life's story or narrative on specifically?

Ryan Sitton (18:21.338)

They, I would love to say they were really, I've made some brilliant decisions or, but they weren't. They were, they were times where I didn't get the hand I was hoping for. The first one was I mentioned my three jobs. So I really have had, as I said, I've had four jobs and believe it or not, I have been fired from two of them. The first two, I sort of job at Oxy, I quit to go to work for Marathon and I quit Marathon to go work for Burwell. I was fired from Burwell. In fact, Pat Burwell, you're how you just talked about fired.

Um, he had decided to sell the company and the, his number two guy was going to be sort of taking over running the operation, that number two guy and I did not get along and there was a lot of tension and strife around that. And Pat decided that, you know, I was the one that needed to go. And, um, obviously.

I said, obviously at the time it was one of the most painful moments of my life. I had poured so much of myself into running and starting a new division of this company and growing there and being integral and bonding with Pat. And then to be sort of unceremoniously told, yeah, your service is no longer needed. Man, that was rough. Um, my wife would tell you that was the closest she's ever seen me to depressed was really being down for a couple of weeks and just hurting from that. But.

As a result of that, six months later I started this company. And obviously it turned out to be a just insane blessing. Cause I probably wouldn't have left on my own. I'm a very loyal person. So by the time I personally bonded with the group there, I, I needed to nudge. So that was one. So that was a very defining moment in my life to have left there and then subsequently decided to start Pinnacle. And, um,

and all of the things that happened since then, building this company and the team here and being blessed to be surrounded by unbelievably talented folks here and all the things we've gotten to do together. It's been very empowering. So that's a big one. The other one is a decision to run for public office and to spend time. Why that's so formational for me was, you know, people think of when you're serving office, you know, they think about what that looks like, but the job serving office is...

Ryan Sitton (20:28.318)

You are some days interacting with a general public who gives, who just doesn't care. They think you're the elected official, you are pond scum. And so I will treat you like pond scum. And then you have to deal with that and you have to try to serve the public good. Knowing very well, you're going to get treated like garbage just because you're a politician. That's like the worst, the most, the worst title you could be given.

But at the same time, you also get to do some really cool things. Like you get to make some big impacts in the public domain. You get to go in and make an impact on a community. And sometimes people really appreciate that. And you realize the magnitude of what you can do when you're in one of those roles and how much it can be meaningful to a community or an area. Also, one of the really cool things is you, you know, people who get involved in politics in a big way are often very successful leaders in their own right. So you get to go in and meet with those folks and ask for support, ask for donations, but you.

in those meetings get to associate with people. I'll tell you a very short story about meeting Ross Perot Jr., Ross Perot's son, Ross Perot Jr., very successful entrepreneur in his own right. He's not as well known as his father was, but I went in to meet with him. It was supposed to be like a 15-minute meeting, and it was supposed to be a donor meeting. I go in, and he always support me for railroad commissariat. Can I get a donation? And I started asking about raising kids and what it was like to grow up with his father the same way you're asking me. What's it like to work to grow up with Ross Perot as your dad?

He extends the meeting by like 45 minutes and tells the president of Albania he'll call in later or something. And I'm just stoking this up, man. And so you, to meet people who have gotten to be around, to be in those environments and to operate, you run massive businesses and to be in, to make decisions that have major economic impacts, that was incredibly formational for me. Met the Dunn family, Tim Dunn, who runs, who's...

Josh Klooz (21:57.123)

Hehehe

Ryan Sitton (22:17.782)

kind of a political lightning rod, but I have known to be one of the wisest men I've known. And the way he thinks about his wealth and making an impact on the world in a positive way, in an uncompromising way, just really, you can't imagine how fortunate it is to get those nuggets of time with those people. So yeah, that was really, really formational as well.

Josh Klooz (22:38.339)

And I would imagine it just reaffirms the belief of, and it's a luxury to be able to have honest disagreements with people and say, hey, who's bringing the potato salad? You know? Hopefully you can get to that point, but I'm not naive. It's all in today's environment. Sometimes it's difficult. Now, Ryan, I want you to think four generations from now. I think that would be your great, great.

Ryan Sitton (22:50.866)

I know.

Ryan Sitton (23:00.95)

Yeah.

Josh Klooz (23:08.943)

generation in their community. You mentioned a few of the events that are pivotal. What do you think are some of those events that best illustrate your first principles that you want to pass on to them?

Ryan Sitton (23:25.866)

Uh, so you try four generations from now. So a couple of things that I think are.

how to word this succinctly. One is to, it's gonna start with a not to do, but it's gonna turn into a principle. Man, the world I think today is consumed, especially in the worlds that we, you mentioned the neighborhood you live in and mine too. These are upper middle-class neighborhoods and those neighborhoods are, and people across certainly the developed world, the United States are so consumed with status.

And I watch it play out in almost every arena. It's really bizarre to see it. And I see it making people miserable. I mean, people who have plenty of wealth and opportunity and family, they should be living their best days and instead are miserable through fear of missing out. And I'm not doing enough stuff. My vacations aren't fancy enough. I'm not making enough money. And I'll drive a nice car in my house. It just, it's wild to me. And people will say, by the way, someone will listen to this podcast and go, oh, easy for you to say, Ryan, you've got.

you know, unlimited money. And let's be candid, I am very blessed to, you know, finance our business has done well and at the age of 49, certainly. But what I find is the more that I have had access to that kind of wealth and more obvious in this, when I say wealth, money is not by happiness, nothing could be further, nothing could be more true. Certainly, security is important and knowing where your meals are coming from, it doesn't take a lot of money to do that. And...

But money aside, it is the status. It is how many likes people get on Facebook and job titles. And I mean, just what houses you live in. And all the way getting back to you, I wanna communicate to my offspring and my children and their children, their children. Man, I'm just telling you, if you wanna be happy in life, ignore status. And it will feel weird. Because at least today, in ways, I don't think we're around even a generation or two ago, but today...

Ryan Sitton (25:23.934)

It's so consuming for people. It's driving entire generations of people to be on antidepressants and just know that literally 95% of the population has a problem. And if you can divorce yourself from that, I'm not going to be consumed with status. Then what I want to be consumed with, be consumed with purpose, right? Be consumed with is what I do matter. Does it make somebody else's life better?

Josh Klooz (25:44.974)

Amen.

Ryan Sitton (25:47.722)

It doesn't have to be something massive, like I'm curing cancer or ending world hunger. When I go out and serve a customer at my business, I'm making their life better. When I go out, I go to the Taco Bell drive-through line. Do I just say hello and compliment how well they were doing their job? Do I live life with purpose as opposed to status? That is probably the biggest thing that I hope will land with people.

And in there, by the way, you could take that in so many different directions. So many people leave jobs or accept jobs based on status and end up miserable in their job, but it gives them status as opposed to, man, I've got a job. What's your job? Man, I'm a welder and I welded a facility up on Northside, but I love my job. I love being a great welder and I like, and it's not sexy, it's not status, but man, if they're into it, great. So that might be the biggest defining thing for me.

I could get another principles too, but that one is a big one.

Josh Klooz (26:49.923)

I couldn't agree more. Thank you for that. The next piece that I always talk about with guests is it rolls around what some people would term your ethical will, but more commonly probably known as your eulogy. I'm curious, have you written your eulogy? And if so, what do you hope is in there? What do you hope that other people remember you for?

Ryan Sitton (27:17.834)

I have not, although I have done some exercises that are really close. So for intents and purposes, you probably could say that I have. And it would be, you'd be surprised how close that is to what I just talked about. I'll mention something more specific and, you know, this ties in a little bit into the notion of wealth. We're very blessed. We own, we started a company. I'm saying we, my Wi-Fi.

Josh Klooz (27:21.688)

Mm-hmm.

Ryan Sitton (27:43.658)

Company is very valuable and we've gotten lots of inquiries about selling Pinnacle. And it's been obvious along the way that any number of times we could have sold the company and you know.

hundreds of millions of dollars that we could have taken for ourselves. And, um, it is, it's interesting to me how that the interest in that has never been high and it has only waned from there. And, um, now what we are really committed to, and I say committed just to ourselves is how do we teach the next generation of people who are here today to take ownership of this, not because I want any SOP or a tax benefit, but man, how cool would it be?

to share the lessons I've learned, to shape the values of the people around me so that they would then take this over and instead of just, oh, my kids got it and they sold it, had a bunch of money and ruined their lives, that the next group of people take this on and say, let's run this thing and go out and continue to have purpose and make a difference in the world and also think about how we, that next group, we'll hand off the next generation after them. So there are anecdotes in that eulogy, my point is, beyond just the print,

the idea of status and purpose into things like they might write about me. Ryan and Jennifer, Ryan started a company, did something that few entrepreneurs had ever done, created a sustaining company because it became about teaching other people at that company how to go out and do bold things in the world. And their company was founded on that. They own that. And the people who work at that company today, 50 years down the road, maybe some, maybe my kids will work here.

that they know that their ownership in that company is transient. That it's not about flipping it and get a bunch of money out. It's I take ownership from the older shareholders who are retiring and I shepherd it for 10 or 15 years. I hand it off to the next group. We're going to shepherd it after me and man, this thing for generations of employees go with this company is well known about do really bold things in the world because they are untethered by public investors or analysts or stock markets or whatever else.

Ryan Sitton (29:51.594)

So my eulogy would feature anecdotes that prove up this idea about purpose versus status.

Josh Klooz (29:59.267)

Ryan, this has been such a treat and such a gift. Are there any other thoughts and or topics that we didn't get to during our talk today?

Ryan Sitton (30:09.01)

You know, one thing since you, since you act, I've never talked about this before, except with my wife, but I'll share it with you because, um, it's very poignant to the conversation we're having. I'm actually in the last year realized, so I have, I wrote one book it's, it's published, it's out today. It's called Crucial Decision Decisions. And it's about how do you use quantitative methods to make better decisions? Um, I plan to write another book and this other book will be something like.

hey, here's what it means to be a citizen. And I haven't outlined, but I've not written it yet, but I expect, I'll be shocked if I don't, probably the next five to 10 years write this book, and it won't be, I may publish it, I may not, but it will be real, and it will be something I hand to my kids, Sarah, Luke, and Lance, and I'll ask them, you need to add onto this too. Like these are principles by which we raise kids, and some of them will be very high-level principles, some of them very tactical ones. Like our kids, we don't buy our kids' cars.

We will match whatever they spend on cars, but they have to go buy their own car. We'll help. And so how does that teach lessons, right, about self-assurance and work and those sort of things? So point is, you asked about this balance sheet. I think that you mentioned telling stories. Telling stories is a dying art, because used to that was the only way history got passed out and now we just assume all the stories are on Facebook.

Josh Klooz (31:28.463)

Yes.

Ryan Sitton (31:33.034)

So our ability, and I share that with you, because maybe your other podcast listeners will do that at some point too, say what are our family lessons, our family values, and how do we raise, how do we teach those growing up? And then hopefully kids will take their version of that and add, hey, mom and dad did this, they screwed this part up, so we're gonna do that with our kids, but that becomes a living, breathing thing. I share that because I think that's the culmination for all of us is that we do, we don't just hope that those lessons are told, we write them down.

And I think the world would be at our place if we did that.

Josh Klooz (32:06.059)

Ryan, thank you so much again for this time. Appreciate your generosity and at the end of the day, please know that we wish you and your family and your team continued truth, beauty and goodness on the road ahead, okay?

Ryan Sitton (32:18.478)

Thank you, Josh. I appreciate you too.