EP119: What You Can Learn From A Challenging Childhood

Interview with Verne Marble / Veteran, Advisor, Father

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Verne Marble is one of four and the father of four. His childhood was a bit haphazard. But he's a committed father who was clear-eyed about what mattered for his family. After college he wanted to serve his country but a few years into his Naval service he made a change so he could be more present for his family. Listen to what he did and why the lessons in those early years have informed what he's done in business and in life. 

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Transcript

00;00;05;25 - 00;00;24;03
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, silly, strange, and sublime aspects of being a lead D&D. In a world where men who are the go to parent aren't always accepted at work, among their friends, or in the community for what they're doing. I'm your host, Paul Sullivan. Our podcast is just one of the many things we produce each week at the company of dads

00;00;24;04 - 00;00;46;25
Paul Sullivan
We have various features, including the lead dad of the week. We have monthly meetups. We have a resource library for all fathers. The one stop shop for all of this is our newsletter, the Dad. So sign up today at the company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Today our guest is Verne Marble, director of business development at Private Advisor, a financial advisory firm.

00;00;46;27 - 00;01;02;26
Paul Sullivan
But that's not why we're talking today. We're talking about Byrnes background as a child, a Navy officer, a brother, a father, and a husband. He's one of four and the father of four. He's been married for 33 years and lives in Overland Park, Kansas. Welcome, Verne.

00;01;02;29 - 00;01;03;11
Verne Marble
Hey, Paul.

00;01;03;15 - 00;01;04;12
Paul Sullivan
Hey, dads. Podcast.

00;01;04;13 - 00;01;07;21
Verne Marble
Yeah, thanks for having me on. I've been looking forward to it.

00;01;07;23 - 00;01;25;23
Paul Sullivan
You know, key question here. You know, part I left out in the intro on your bio. You've got some skills that that people might be, envious of. What's the secret to the big the big green Egg? What? Come on, baby, be honest with us. What is the secret to the Big Green Egg? We've all seen these things.

00;01;25;24 - 00;01;33;10
Paul Sullivan
You go into any Home Depot? It's sitting there. It looks, you know, intimidating. But then they have these competitions around it, like.

00;01;33;12 - 00;01;54;06
Verne Marble
Yeah. How does it really work? If you live in Kansas, you have to know how to smoke meat. So it's just something you have to do, whether it's whether it's, a big Green Egg or a Traeger, you've got to have a smoker in your backyard, you patio, your deck, whatever the the case is. So, you know, here's here's the funny story behind how I got a bigger unit.

00;01;54;08 - 00;02;15;17
Verne Marble
I've got friends that have them. And some years ago, I'm not very good about grill maintenance, gas grill maintenance. And so, several years ago, and this might be like, ten years ago, I was grilling out on my back deck. Using a little too much heat. Hadn't cleaned the grill properly. My grill caught on fire.

00;02;15;18 - 00;02;35;07
Verne Marble
Almost caught my my deck on fire. So, you know, so I needed a new I needed a new grill because I burned mine up. And it was it was in the middle of summers, right around Father's Day. And so, lo and behold, my wife, who's just awesome. It's sort of reading my mind, bought me a big green Egg, and it's like, here you go, you know?

00;02;35;07 - 00;02;54;12
Verne Marble
So. So I had no choice but to use it and to learn how to use it. So I think the secret is the secret is to getting one. Like damage your your current grill so that you have to get a replacement. Number one, because they're not cheap. But then number two, which is like trial and error and patience, I love the thing I cook on it as as much as I can.

00;02;54;17 - 00;03;09;12
Verne Marble
Some diehards would would scoff at me a little bit, because I don't use it when it gets particularly cold outside, because I just don't want to be outside when it's, you know, zero here in the Midwest and it's icy and all that. But there are a lot of people that, that do. But it's it's fun to get out there and tinker a little bit.

00;03;09;12 - 00;03;17;05
Verne Marble
So it's great in the summer with a cold beverage of your choice and, you know, some steaks or ribs or whatever, whatever, you know, suit your fancy.

00;03;17;07 - 00;03;33;08
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, I love it. Great story, great story. You know, onto you as it is is a is a dad and husband, you know, in your bio, you know, your parents are divorced and you, my mine were as well. And and I always say, you know, my parents are bad at being married. It turns out they're worse. It being divorced.

00;03;33;08 - 00;03;35;15
Paul Sullivan
So I know what that experience is like.

00;03;35;15 - 00;03;36;19
Verne Marble
Yeah. Yeah. Similar.

00;03;36;26 - 00;03;53;04
Paul Sullivan
But you, you live with both your dad and your mom at different times, you know, after they got divorced. How is that influence, that experience. How did that experience influence, you know, the dad and husband. You, you want it to be.

00;03;53;06 - 00;04;24;00
Verne Marble
Yeah. It's a, it's a really good question you know and, and in the days leading up to, to today and having this chat with you, I've had a chance. You know, it's caused me to reflect a lot on, you know, what, what questions you may ask. And you know what what my experience was, growing up. And so I think the best way for me to answer that is it, in particular the time with, with my dad, taught me what I didn't want to be, as a as a father.

00;04;24;00 - 00;04;47;09
Verne Marble
That was probably the biggest thing, because while he certainly, gave me, you know, a lot of, I'll call it sort of independence because I had to be independent, you know, when you're, when you're, a young child or an early teen, you don't want to be independent. You know, my my kids say all the time, it's like, dad, you're such a great cook.

00;04;47;14 - 00;04;59;17
Verne Marble
Like, how do you how do you get to be a great cook? I'm like, well, if I wanted to eat, I had to. I had to cook because he wasn't he wasn't home. He wasn't necessarily around. So I think that's that's probably the biggest influence on me today.

00;04;59;20 - 00;05;22;10
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And what about when you, you know, you're also the father for your one of four? How did the, you know, experience with your siblings when you were younger? You know, because I always say I'm an only child, so. So I've gotten better. Like when, when my kids five got three kids, you know, when they fight. At first it was a little difficult, but now I sort of understand the dynamic better.

00;05;22;18 - 00;05;40;16
Paul Sullivan
But when you think of, you know, the influence and the relationship you had with your siblings growing up with, you know, people living with your dad, people looking at your mom, how is that, you know, influence the type of sort of family system you wanted to create in your own home with, with your own kids?

00;05;40;19 - 00;06;09;08
Verne Marble
Yeah, that's that's another really good one. Gosh, how should I, I should there's a lot of dynamics and complications here. For a long time I didn't live with my siblings, so I sort of lived as an as an only child, like, from, you know, and, and there were periods where we were together when we were younger, but for the most part, I lived independently with my dad until I was about 13 years old and had had finished eighth grade.

00;06;09;08 - 00;06;33;03
Verne Marble
And then at that point, my dad, my dad was an alcoholic. So, you know, my, my, my childhood was very tumultuous and sort of up and down. And so at, at, you know, when I got old enough, I basically said, look, I can't that I can't, I can't live like this anymore. So, so I think the best thing for me to do if and my dad was, not on a path to getting himself.

00;06;33;03 - 00;06;53;24
Verne Marble
Well, I said, so if you're not really, going to go down this path of getting yourself. Well, like, I got to go live with mom, like I need some stability. Yeah, and so up until I was about 13, I didn't really have a lot of interaction with, with my siblings. So when I, when I did, sort of reunite with them, if you will.

00;06;53;26 - 00;07;15;10
Verne Marble
What what I found was that. And this is the way that I am today, you know, I became a caretaker. And so I always wanted to ensure, safety for them. And I always wanted to ensure that they were being taken care of. Now, it took some time for me to kind of get into that role, because I also felt like as the big brother, like I was the boss, right.

00;07;15;10 - 00;07;39;01
Verne Marble
And I have some elements of that come out in my personality, not necessarily my best quality, but some. And I think some of this is what I kind of experienced and learned, from, from my dad, which was just like, it's my way or no way. Right. And that's sort of how I treated my siblings for, for a long time and under the guise of, well, I'm the older brother I know.

00;07;39;01 - 00;08;14;23
Verne Marble
Well, you know, better. So kind of just do what I say or or don't. Do you know what I tell you not to do? So over time that that that morphed into more of a true brother type of relationship. But as I think now about my my children and I have adult children, my oldest being 30, my youngest being 20, what I want is harmony amongst all of them and and what I try to impart on them is, look, at the end of the day, you can have differences, amongst one another.

00;08;14;23 - 00;08;41;08
Verne Marble
And it would be, it would be weird if you didn't have differences. But you have to learn how to resolve those differences and be you have to you have to stay close because in life people will come and go. But if you can keep your family close, those are the ones that you should be able to turn to in the middle of the night when things are not going well, or you need help navigating life or or doing life.

00;08;41;08 - 00;08;57;29
Verne Marble
And so I think for the most part, they're, they're living into that. They're learning how to lean on, on one another. But that's sort of how I wanted to take, like the lack of that when I had, or what I had early in my life and then try and impart that, upon upon my kids.

00;08;58;02 - 00;09;20;06
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. You know, we mentioned in the intro that you're a, former Navy officer, and but that came after, you know, going to the University of Kentucky, you know? Yeah. That's cool. Go cats. Yeah. My wife is a my wife is an alum, so she'll particularly like this podcast. Yeah. For sure. Cats, cats, cats. But you finish u k and then, which is remarkable.

00;09;20;08 - 00;09;30;29
Paul Sullivan
Either in Lexington, you could do any number of things and you decide to enlist in the Navy. Talk about that decision and why you decided to to to do it then.

00;09;31;01 - 00;09;57;28
Verne Marble
Yeah. And I'll give you, and I'll try to keep this, keep this brief. I'll give you the run up to to why I made that that, decision. So 13 years old, as I mentioned, I moved from San Francisco, which is where, I was living with my dad at at the time, and I moved to eastern Kentucky, very rural, in Appalachia, a little small town in eastern Kentucky.

00;09;58;00 - 00;10;21;18
Verne Marble
Didn't even live in the town. I lived out in the county and this is the coal mining region of, Kentucky. So number one, it was a huge culture shock for me going because I had never, like, I always lived sort of on the West Coast and in the mountains. States had never really been east of the Mississippi, much less into that sort of environment.

00;10;21;20 - 00;10;41;13
Verne Marble
So number one, it was culture shock for me coming from like the big city. But number two, I looked different than everyone else. My mom is Japanese. My my dad is German. So I'm half, half Asian. So I go there and I don't look like anyone else. And I come from San Francisco and they're like, who's this kid?

00;10;41;14 - 00;11;00;18
Verne Marble
Right? So. So I had to then quickly fit in. Now, the one thing that I learned, growing up with my dad, is how to be independent and really, I learned a lot of survival skills, like how to how to survive life like you, just how to figure things out on my own because I didn't really have someone to kind of show me how to do that.

00;11;00;23 - 00;11;20;26
Verne Marble
So what what I in my four years of high school, which were great, and I developed such great friendships that that persists to this to this day. And I love that that part of the country. And I feel like that is when people ask me, where are you from? It's eastern Kentucky, and I certainly identify with with that part of the country, and I have such a love for it now.

00;11;20;28 - 00;11;41;22
Verne Marble
But one thing that I, you know, a lot of my life, as I mentioned, is shaped on, like, what I don't want to do, or have learned. And what I saw was my stepdad, who was a coal miner. I knew I didn't want to do that right. And I was surrounded by, all of these very hardworking people who who struggled in life.

00;11;41;22 - 00;11;59;16
Verne Marble
And I said, you know, there's got to be a better way to to do this and to sort of get out of here. And that was kind of my, my objective. So college was the path, and my parents didn't have money to put me through college. So I had to work and through scholarships and loans and grants and all that sort of stuff.

00;11;59;16 - 00;12;21;01
Verne Marble
I self-funded my way through school and through the University of Kentucky. So my junior year, I was a business major. My junior year, I happened to be walking out of the business school after class one day, and it wasn't a job fair, per se, but there were some, you know, employers who had some booths set up, and one of them was a Navy officer recruiter.

00;12;21;01 - 00;12;39;04
Verne Marble
And I was like, that's kind of interesting. I wonder what that's all about. And I went and I talked, you know, I talked to this this lieutenant and, he sort of shared with me what life in the Navy could look like. And he asked me, hey, well, let's at least, give you this exam and see if maybe you would qualify if you're interested.

00;12;39;04 - 00;12;56;07
Verne Marble
And I was like, sure happy to do that. And so the exam was something like 8:00 on a Saturday morning. And of course, you know, like a very responsible college student. I think I was out Friday night till like 1:00 or something like that. But I go in, I take this test and I actually, I do, I do pretty well on it.

00;12;56;14 - 00;13;18;27
Verne Marble
And he basically says, hey, you, you can kind of do whatever you want. Like, are you interested in flying and submarine things like that? And so, you know, we decided on a particular career track for me, but the reason that I decided to go that route was, I think, number one, I just didn't feel like I was ready to go into, the private sector.

00;13;18;29 - 00;13;45;11
Verne Marble
I think I struggled with some confidence issues around, like, can I really go out there and get a job? Like, am I learning the right things? And I don't really have connections, and I didn't come up in like the right environment to, to go out and, and sort of network and things like that. So for me, I was like, the military can teach me, I can leverage potentially my business experience and I can get leadership, I can earn money, which is important to me.

00;13;45;11 - 00;14;02;06
Verne Marble
Right. And and then lastly, it provided stability. And as I reflect back on my life, I think a lot of what I seek and the path that I have chosen, is because I value stability, because I had so much chaos kind of early in my life.

00;14;02;09 - 00;14;08;26
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And so then you sign up for the Navy. Do they pay for your last year or so at Kentucky or is.

00;14;09;02 - 00;14;22;11
Verne Marble
No, no, they did not. So I went, sort of a nontraditional route. I went through Officer Candidate School, so I wasn't on a Rocky scholarship or or anything like that. So just commission straight through. Officer candidate school.

00;14;22;14 - 00;14;43;16
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And it's part of your story that you realize sort of, you know, two years into it, that it's probably not conducive with the family life you want to have. And now we've had a lot of Navy Seals on, on the podcast have been the dads of the week. And those guys, they flat out say you had no choice like you had to, you know, life or death.

00;14;43;16 - 00;14;59;16
Paul Sullivan
You you had to choose your career. Yeah. But you were on a ship. What was it about? Was it being away from your now wife? What was it that you made you realize early on, you know, okay, this is amazing. Great. I love serving, but I don't think it's for me for what I want in life.

00;14;59;16 - 00;15;23;20
Verne Marble
Yeah, well, it wasn't quite as early as that. It was in that it was after my. It was the second year of my second tour. So once I commissioned, I did a three year tour on a ship. That's where I met my wife. And I was four deployed to the island of Guam. And this is back in sort of the, early, well, late 80s, like 89, 90, 91, 92.

00;15;23;23 - 00;15;49;21
Verne Marble
When I was on Guam and we deployed a lot like my ship as a foreign deployed ship, I think cumulatively of the three year sea tour that I had, I was probably at sea two years, of course. Not consecutively, but three months here, six months there a month here. Right? Like but combined two out of the three years I was deployed and and away, my wife and I got married.

00;15;49;21 - 00;16;15;17
Verne Marble
I met her, pretty quickly after I got to the island, but we got married fairly, fairly young. She was 20. I was 24. And what I experienced being deployed was that I saw a lot of broken men because of, because, number one, I think their marriages weren't just that, that strong. And as sort of their division officers, I'd have to counsel them on sort of family dynamics.

00;16;15;17 - 00;16;43;24
Verne Marble
And, I was, I was typically younger than the men that, that I led, or around the same age. And, you know, then I'm responsible for their, their, their well-being. Right. But I did see a lot of sort of broken family dynamics and, and that sort of made an impact, on me, but nonetheless had a really good three year, tour, on my ship and then had an opportunity to go back to the States and, and be part of an Admiral staff, which I did.

00;16;43;26 - 00;17;04;26
Verne Marble
And that was the two year tour, I think that you you reference. So we moved to San Diego. Have a really great tour and, essentially can I was department head selected in the Navy and, and was preparing to go to department at school, then going back to DC to, to run a department. However, my wife and I had a child.

00;17;04;26 - 00;17;25;10
Verne Marble
We had our first child. And what I share with everyone is how do we not had children? I think Lori and I, our marriage could have survived. My my time away. Right? Three months here, six months there. We could have survived that. But I didn't want to do that to my children. I wanted to be present, for them.

00;17;25;10 - 00;17;35;22
Verne Marble
So that's really the catalyst. Having children is really what caused me and Lori to make the joint decision to to leave the Navy after about about six years of active duty.

00;17;35;24 - 00;17;40;18
Paul Sullivan
And then when you left, is that when you became a financial advisor? Did you do other things before then or that.

00;17;40;18 - 00;18;04;02
Verne Marble
Oh, no. Yeah. And yeah. So so having having a business degree, I knew I wanted to get back into the business world. And actually, I'm not a, I'm not a true financial advisor. I work and my company works with financial advisors, and we provide certain services, to them. But I've always been either, you know, working with financial advisors or working in the investment management space.

00;18;04;02 - 00;18;27;02
Verne Marble
So. So leaving the Navy, I joined a company and spent 13 wonderful years, with, with that company. And they were based in Philadelphia, suburban Philadelphia. So we made the trek with, you know, our pets, our our at that point, six month old daughter and, moved across the country, to Philadelphia and, you know, began a wonderful journey of of civilian life.

00;18;27;04 - 00;18;44;14
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. You know, one of the things you've talked about and I think a lot of a lot of people who are dads now who were, you know, children of divorced parents or had, you know, challenging childhoods, you know, they would say what you said, which is I knew what they didn't want to be. I knew what I didn't want to do.

00;18;44;16 - 00;19;05;17
Paul Sullivan
But you have four children, as you said, age 20 to 30. As a dad, how did you how did you parent so that they would get through life and say, this is what I want to do, as opposed to we all know things that we don't want to do, but they could have a more sort of proactive, positive view on what they wanted their careers to be.

00;19;05;17 - 00;19;06;09
Paul Sullivan
How did you do that?

00;19;06;13 - 00;19;26;07
Verne Marble
Yeah. That's a really good question. And I made a lot of mistakes. And I, you know, I, I like to think that a lot of fathers make mistakes and, you know, probably made the most mistakes with my oldest and the least mistakes were with my, my youngest and, and I get, I get a lot of grief from, from my daughters.

00;19;26;07 - 00;19;42;11
Verne Marble
So my three oldest are girls, and then my son is my oldest son is my, my youngest. But my, my older girls give me a lot of grief of, hey, you know, Christian gets away with murder and, you know, you would never let us get away with that. And I just tell them at this point I'm just very tired and as tired.

00;19;42;14 - 00;20;08;08
Verne Marble
Tired. Yeah, exactly. But but, what what what I would share with, with you and the listeners is, is this, not having a, you know, a a role model for a dad. And as much as I love my stepfather, he, you know, he wasn't my dad. He sort of married a woman who brought four kids with her, ranging in ages from, like, you know, 13 to to eight.

00;20;08;14 - 00;20;34;06
Verne Marble
And, and so he was wonderful in taking us all on. But, you know, he wasn't he didn't know how to parent either. And he did the best that, that he could. So I kind of had to figure things out as, as I went. And there's been an evolution in my parenting over, over the years. And I think number one, it early on, I, I thought my, my primary role was disciplinarian and provider.

00;20;34;06 - 00;21;01;03
Verne Marble
Right. Make the money and and make sure that like there's discipline in the house with the kids and all that. And my wife was the nurturer and and she still is, however, over time, I think what I've, what I've learned and what I've evolved into is this. And I, I to one of your podcast the other day and I think and I, I'm not sure when this was, time wise, but you said at some point, like, you just you stopped yelling, right?

00;21;01;06 - 00;21;25;24
Verne Marble
I was like, you know, I just it doesn't serve any purpose. And, and and that's kind of where I'm at now is like, okay. And and it's easier when my kids are older. But this transformation has happened over, you know, over a period of time for sure. So I think at this point where I'm at is much more nurturing, advising, coaching.

00;21;25;27 - 00;21;55;18
Verne Marble
Cheerleader. Right. Friend? If they want me to be a friend but don't have to be a friend, but just providing really good guidance and sharing. You know what I've learned in 57 years of of life? If they choose to, to listen or to come and ask and and they do, which is, which is awesome. And, you know, I think I'm at a great spot with these kids, but it's because I've, I've listened, I've learned my wife has helped me quite a bit and sort of working on things like, hey, I, I think you could have handled that better or differently.

00;21;55;18 - 00;22;12;28
Verne Marble
And here's what you might, you know, want to do next time and things like that. But then also talking to my kids about these things as well, it's like, hey, you know, you know, when you're doing something wrong, you can just see it on their faces and just reflecting, on those things and really making sure it's like, being present.

00;22;12;28 - 00;22;36;23
Verne Marble
So I listened to the John MacAskill, podcast the other day. That was awesome, by the way. He's he's so good. But just being present and being aware. Right. And and so for me, a lot of my time, even in the financial services business, I was away like I was visiting clients, right? I was managing business. I was I for the most part, been a remote employee.

00;22;36;23 - 00;22;59;10
Verne Marble
So my headquarters locations, you know, are not where I live. So frequent travel to, to meet with teams and things like that. And whether it's San Diego, Philadelphia, wherever, you know, my headquarters have have been. So there's been a lot of time on the road. And my wife has essentially taken on the lion's share of the the daily rearing of the kids for a long time.

00;22;59;12 - 00;23;18;00
Verne Marble
And I've missed out on a lot of that. And so she's had to share with me, like, these are things that are going on. And so I've kind of had to come in and figure out, like, how do I pick up from there and actually be present in my kids lives on a day to day basis? Because I'm now really since the pandemic, I'm home almost every single day.

00;23;18;00 - 00;23;20;17
Verne Marble
So which which is awesome to.

00;23;20;20 - 00;23;42;02
Paul Sullivan
Very marvel, this has been a great conversation. You know, one one last question for you as a guy who's who's, you know, figured it out. I mean, you know, I, I knew I knew you were going to say that I could have plug that in before you even said it. But, you know, you admit, you know, that self-awareness is such a huge part of being a dad, being a great father, and you're like, hey, I made some mistakes.

00;23;42;02 - 00;24;03;01
Paul Sullivan
I tried this, you know? I didn't make the mistakes in a malicious way. You just made mistakes. You got that didn't work. And you try to try to fix it. You looking back with kids going from age 20 to 30, you know you've made it. You're on the other side, you know, about to pivot. And you probably already pivoted with the other girls into a different type of the dad or to a different type of role as a father.

00;24;03;03 - 00;24;28;08
Paul Sullivan
But, you know, we all figure out parenting on our own, whether we have the greatest parents in the world or we have parents who are struggling themselves. When you, you know, advice that you might give to other dads listening to this dad to whose parents were divorced, dads who've had to figure out a lot of this, on their own, what are some of the things that come to mind and that you could say, I could share this with you.

00;24;28;10 - 00;24;35;00
Paul Sullivan
Here are a couple of things that that really worked for me. And maybe they'll work for you.

00;24;35;02 - 00;24;57;09
Verne Marble
So a couple things. Number one, and, I had alluded to this with the John MacAskill reference. Be be present. Like, put the phone down, turn off the ballgame. Right. And just take things in around you so that that is a big piece of who I am today is just being present with your kids and being available, right?

00;24;57;10 - 00;25;26;29
Verne Marble
Just let them know you're available. If they call, pick up the phone or if they text, respond right and just offer advice and guidance, when they when they need it and sort of take their temperature from, from time to time. So I think being present is really, really important. I also think and and it took me like a really long time to learn this is it's okay to be vulnerable, with your children and to show emotion with your, your kids.

00;25;26;29 - 00;25;52;27
Verne Marble
And, and I do that often now because I had a health scare in 2021. You never know how long you're going to be here. So you really need to let people know how you feel, right? And what you think about them. So letting my kids like just being an open book with with my children and for that matter, people who matter in your life, showing that level of vulnerability, I think is really, really important.

00;25;52;29 - 00;26;10;09
Verne Marble
The other thing that so the other thing that I would say maybe two other things. Number one, take care of yourself so you can take care of others and be there for others and have some have some outlets for for yourself because you have to have some self, enjoyment and, and you have to do things for yourself.

00;26;10;09 - 00;26;27;21
Verne Marble
So carve out time in your day to do that. And then I think the last thing is, to the extent that you can. And that's why I love sort of your, your mission and your company have other men in your life, whether it's one several. I don't have a huge circle, but the circle that I have is really, really tight.

00;26;27;21 - 00;26;47;09
Verne Marble
And these are men that I love and I trust implicitly. So, you know, have 1 to 2 or however many that you need, friends that you can talk to and share experiences, because that's how that's how we learn, right? We talk these things over. And then I think the last thing is, just know that you're doing the best that you can.

00;26;47;11 - 00;26;54;19
Verne Marble
And and you're right. There is no playbook. Trust, trust your gut and your instincts. Oftentimes those things are right.

00;26;54;22 - 00;26;59;15
Paul Sullivan
Vern marble, thank you again for being my guest today on the Company Dads podcast.

00;26;59;17 - 00;27;02;09
Verne Marble
We appreciate it. Well, thank you.

00;27;02;11 - 00;27;27;21
Paul Sullivan
Thank you for listening to the Company Dads podcast. I also want to thank the people who make this podcast and everything else that we do. The company dads possible hell, their mirror, who is our audio producer Lindsay Decker and is all of our social media, Terry Brennan, who's helping us with the newsletter and audience acquisition, Emily Servin, who is our web maestro, and of course, Evan Roosevelt, who is working side by side with me.

00;27;27;21 - 00;27;45;10
Paul Sullivan
And many of the things that we do here at the Company of Dads. It's a great team. And we're just trying to bring you the best in fatherhood. Remember, the one stop shop for everything is our newsletter, the dad. Sign up at the Company of dads.com backslash. The dad. Thank you again for listening.