Supporting Your Marriage While Navigating Kids & Business

Chris Nordyke, a seasoned entrepreneur and family man, engages in a deep conversation in this episode of the Bringing Up Business podcast. 

They explore the intricate balance between business and parenting, discussing how Chris's upbringing shaped his leadership style and parenting approach. 

Chris also shares his journey of self-discovery, the importance of humility in relationships, and the impact of financial stability on family dynamics. 

The conversation delves into the challenges of maintaining a successful marriage while navigating the complexities of raising children and running a business. 

Through personal anecdotes and insights, Chris emphasizes the significance of commitment, self-awareness, and understanding family patterns in fostering healthy relationships.

More About Chris Nordyke

Chris brings a robust background in entrepreneurship and sales leadership to his role as Co-owner and President at Floodlight Consulting. His journey began at age 19 when he entered the world of direct sales with Vector Marketing, where he quickly rose to prominence as a top sales leader and branch office manager in Los Angeles. During his tenure, he was instrumental in overseeing a team of over 40 sales representatives, spearheading initiatives in recruiting, training, and team development. This experience laid a strong foundation in entrepreneurship and sales leadership, which Chris continues to leverage today, particularly in the restoration industry.

Before his current venture, Chris had a significant tenure at State Farm Companies, where he owned and operated a successful agency for five of his eight years with the company. In 2014, Chris transitioned to Summit Cleaning and Restoration, where he played a pivotal role on the leadership team. Until late 2019, he led the company's business development and marketing efforts, placing a special emphasis on customer experience, culture, and commercial sales operations.

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Transcript

Speaker 00: 0:00

Welcome to the Bringing Up Business podcast, where we talk about business and parenting. I am your host, Kaila Sachse, toddler mom and owner of a marketing and creative agency called Yumari Digital. I'm excited to chat with today's guest, Chris Nordyke. He is a serial business guy, sales thought leader, teacher, and podcaster, besides being a husband of 23 years and a father to three teens. Before founding Bloodlight Consulting Group, Chris worked as a sales executive in the disaster restoration industry. And prior to that, he spent roughly 10 years working with State Farm Insurance, both as an employee and agency owner. Today, we're going to be diving into what it's like to maintain a thriving marriage, family, and business. Chris, I'm so happy you're here with me. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 02: 0:58

Yeah, same. Thank you so I'm glad we met and I've been looking forward to our chat today.

Speaker 00: 1:04

Yeah, it's going to be a good one. Let's dive right in. Tell us about your journey with parenting, your career, which came first. What's the story?

Speaker 02: 1:15

Yeah, well, so my wife and I, we started dating my senior year of high school. And actually, this is a bit of a point of contention with my wife and I, because I took her to see the movie Picture Perfect with Jennifer Aniston. And Jay Moore, I think, was the other star in that. And I took her to ice cream after that. I've always considered that our first date. And that was the summer before our senior year. She contends that that wasn't a date. That was just friends hanging out. So... So anyway, it started early days. We're one of those weird couples that high school sweethearts. And so my wife's been with me through all of it, all of it. In fact, my very first kind of businessy job or what turned out to be a sales job was selling knives for Cutco Cutlery. Some listeners may have their own experience with Cutco or have some in their kitchen. And my wife got a recruiting letter. then girlfriend got a recruiting letter and I, she read it to me and I'm like, wow, $15 per appointment. I'm 45. So this was however many years ago. 25 plus years ago. And $15, how long does an appointment take? An hour? Oh my, $15 an hour? It's amazing. Can I go to the interview with you? Little did I know they recruited anybody that could fog a mirror and cut a penny with some scissors. But that ended up kicking off my sales career and ultimately business experience. I was an independent contractor for them. And so my wife and I were still dating at the time. I ended up taking an opportunity and opening a sales office for Cutco down in Los Angeles while my wife was going to nursing school up in Oregon. And then ultimately, I just came to realize my wife is not going to move to California. She's not going to move to LA. So I'm either going back to Oregon or we probably don't have a future for this relationship. So I ended up moving back and One thing led to another and there's been a whole series of experiences since then, but my wife's been with me through it all.

Speaker 00: 3:22

Wow. Oh my goodness. So you started as an associate for Cutco and then you opened your own office. I mean, how did that happen? How did you climb the ladder in that way?

Speaker 02: 3:34

Yeah. Yeah. Good question. Well, so I was 19 when I started selling and it was my first sales job, really. I mean, I'd mowed lawns and stuff in my neighborhood, kind of little business-y kind of thing, sort of. But it was my first time really being taught how to sell. And I did pretty well with it. But of course, you know, to be honest, honest, right? Like I'm selling knife sets to my parents, friends, to my parents, to all their friends at church, you know, so I'm kind of shooting fish in a barrel, so to speak. But I was good at it too, you know, and I think everybody recognized that, wow, you know, Chris has, he likes to talk to people and he's not afraid to pick up the phone and call referrals, you know, which of course is a really important thing. If you're going to be in sales, you got to be willing to pick up the phone or knock on a door. And I seemed to, be able to do that. And, um, so I spent a summer, I think I sold about $25,000 worth of knives, uh, during that summer. And then of course my upper management, they tapped me on the shoulder and say, Hey, do you want to be a part of our branch management training program, uh, to run your own sales office? And I was like, well, I don't know, maybe I'd be good at that, you know? And so it was very much just kind of whimsy serendipity that I did pretty good. They told me I should do this management program. And then I spent the whole subsequent school year while I was going to my sophomore year of college, driving back and forth from Oregon to Seattle for these branch manager training things. And then I was given the option, do I want to open an office in Seattle? or Bellevue, Washington, or do I want to go to Los Angeles?

Speaker 01: 5:17

And small town

Speaker 02: 5:18

kid, I was like, I'm going to LA. And that was the beginning of it all. So I was just, you know, it's like, and this has really been true of most of my career. I was pretty, I got seen for being good at the thing that I was, you know, kind of asked to do and then just kind of got promoted up from there. Yeah. So it was fun. I did that for maybe three years. Unfortunately, it was like I either moved back from L.A. or I'm probably going to have to write off this relationship with my girlfriend and I didn't want to lose her. So I came back up to Oregon and got a regular job. But that ultimately led me to my next business. And one thing after another. Right.

Speaker 00: 5:59

Yeah. Yeah. How did you. So what was the prompting? I picture you. You're down in L.A. You're running this office and you're Was it your girlfriend who was like, hey, I'm struggling in this relationship. You got to come back up here. Or what were the warning signs that you were on the rocks?

Speaker 02: 6:16

Oh. Oh, goodness. Well, so my wife, my now wife, broke off the engagement. So we actually got engaged.

Speaker 01: 6:28

Oh, wow.

Speaker 02: 6:28

Yeah, we're really young. It's just funny now at 45 to look back at some of this. I'm like, wow. I think I first proposed to her... right before I moved to LA when I was 20 years old. Oh, wow. And she said yes, right? And so the ring, the whole thing. And then we were kind of long distance. She came down to LA a couple times during that subsequent year and a half or so. to visit me. And I think it was just a really formative time in my life where I started to get really caught up in the whole LA scene. One of the things I realized is that I wasn't making a ton of money. I mean, when I first opened my office down there, I mean, I was really scraping along. I was a 1099. I was basically self-employed. I employed a... I had a full-time receptionist that would answer calls for me. I was placing ads in the LA Times to recruit sales reps. I was flyering at USC and UCLA and recruiting these college kids. And... I just got caught up in it. I was 20 years old and I had sales reps working for me. There were 21, 22, a lot of them from rich parents. They're driving up in fancier cars than I'm driving to the office and I'm the boss. And I just kind of got caught up in all the ego of it. And I'd spend all of my earnings on taking my sales reps out to dinner after team meetings and kind of kind of flaunting the money, just wanting to be cool and being cool boss, Michael Scott. That was me, kind of. It was like a 20-year-old version of me. And a lot of that arrogance and a lot of that sort of superficiality, I just become really superficial about appearances and money and talking the talk and And my wife came down to visit me one time. And by the end of the trip, we were just strife between us. And she's like, I just I don't even know if I want to be with you anymore. Like, this is a version of you that, wow, is not not what I'm into.

Speaker 01: 8:32

And

Speaker 02: 8:33

I was like, wow, okay. It was a bit of a wake-up call for me. I bet. So anyway, she gave me the ring back. I went home to visit my family that Thanksgiving, and I took the ring back to the jewelry store where I had it made, and I put it on consignment. And I just kind of resolved inside myself. I said a prayer. I was like, okay, Lord, if it's still here when I come back at Christmas– Or I don't remember what the timeline was exactly. It was more than that. We were broken up for maybe almost six months.

Speaker 01: 9:07

Oh, wow.

Speaker 02: 9:08

I'm like, if it's back here when I move home, then that's a sign. And I'm going to do everything I can to salvage the relationship and move forward. And that's what happened. I ended up deciding to close my office down there and move back to Oregon. And we linked back up. And we had kind of a new common friend group that we established. And... One thing led to another and here we are. It's been 23 years, March 22nd.

Speaker 00: 9:35

Wow. Congratulations. Oh my goodness. It's been

Speaker 02: 9:38

hard fought. Yeah.

Speaker 00: 9:41

So during that time when you were engaged, I would say the first time, right? Because I'm assuming there's a next

Speaker 02: 9:47

time. The first go around. Yeah.

Speaker 00: 9:49

Yeah. Yeah. Spoiler alert. He gets engaged again. But during that first engagement, were you in the middle of planning a wedding or was that still a future to-do item?

Speaker 02: 9:58

It was kind of like before we ever got into that, we end up putting it on pause. Yeah, yeah. We never got into the full throes of all that stuff.

Speaker 00: 10:10

Yeah, yeah. And in one way, I can imagine that being– making the breakup a little bit easier because now you're not having to tell people, hey, the wedding is off and go through that. Oh, the embarrassment of

Speaker 02: 10:23

all that stuff. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 00: 10:24

Yeah, yeah. So when you move back up, you realize like, okay, the ring is still here. I can salvage this relationship. I'm moving back to Oregon. What was your relationship with Cutco? Did that completely end or did you reenter now?

Speaker 02: 10:40

Yeah, pretty much, pretty much, you know, I think too, this was an example, it was one of the first times in my career where I hit part of the experience, aside from me just moving up to be close to my girlfriend, was that as I transitioned from being a sales guy to managing people and leading... I really struggled. And of course, that was part of that whole identity conflict that I was having with the arrogance and the flashiness. And I had just kind of taken on this LA kind of persona. But it was also just, I think, connected to my immaturity of... Unbeknownst to me, I used to lead worship in church growing up. I was very much like a stage guy. I would speak. I did drama. I did a lot of different things. And so even though I never did sales, I was never the lemonade stand kid, the fact that I fell into sales, it was pretty obvious to everybody else why, because I've always been that talker, kind of easily matching up with people and so forth. And so I learned to kind of lean on that to a fault. And when I moved down to LA and at one point I had like 40 sales reps on my team, what got me there wasn't gonna get me to the next level. Like me knowing how to sell and communicate with people and persuade and influence and those kinds of things and earn people's trust was not the same mix of stuff that was gonna help me effectively manage and develop people over

Speaker 01: 12:24

time.

Speaker 02: 12:25

And not only that, but manage the business of the business. I didn't have discipline around my financial management and all of that kind of stuff. And so I really hit a wall and I've done this since, It's really been in my 30s and 40s where I've started to really touch into this pattern I had myself, whereas once it gets really hard and things get unfamiliar, my tendency earlier in my career was to look for an exit route, to go to the next thing or the next business opportunity where I could really just hang in that natural talent and skill that I had and not have to do the hard work of getting over that hump.

Speaker 01: 13:05

and

Speaker 02: 13:07

leveling up my skill and my discipline and all of those things required for me to go to that next level of kind of leadership and entrepreneurship. And so that's really what broke down there in addition to that. And so I actually forgot your question. What was your original question?

Speaker 00: 13:28

That's okay. You know what?

Speaker 02: 13:29

Where was I going with that?

Speaker 00: 13:32

I'm noticing a pattern between Leadership, effectively running a business, sales being an important element too for running a business. I mean, how do you connect the dots between sales, leadership, and running a business?

Speaker 02: 13:51

Wow. I mean, in some ways, it almost demands three different people.

Speaker 01: 13:58

Yeah.

Speaker 02: 13:59

You know, in the sense of like, it's really work. I don't know very many people who are good, like naturally gifted at all, at all of them, right? And I certainly wasn't and am not. I have learned, I have... I have built up some of those deficiencies to a point where they no longer cause me harm. Right. And they're good at establishing and setting up systems and processes and like they're task oriented and all that kind of stuff. But then oftentimes people that are wired that way, they have call reluctance or they feel sheepish in front of crowds. They don't like public speaking or they bristle at the idea of, quote, selling. Right. And so it's pretty rare that people embody that. both of those types of skill sets at the same time. And so I think the connection is that regardless of what somebody is sort of naturally born with, there's a leveling up that I think every single one of us has to do. Here's one way I heard it described. There's this guy named, I always forget his name. He was the founder and CEO of Infusionsoft, which now I believe is called and it's a marketing automation platform. Anyway, I wish I had his name. That would have made this moment a lot better. That's okay. But I remember he was speaking to a group of entrepreneurs and he said, any CEO is capable typically of leading a company through one, maybe two growth cycles, significant cycles of growth. He said, but beyond that, they'll struggle. And his message wasn't, hey, you can only lead a company through two growth cycles. It was, as a CEO, you almost have to completely reinvent yourself in order to be the leader manager that the business is going to need to grow through another season, right? And that was kind of a profound message to me. And I realized in that moment, it was really just the beginning of understanding and consciousness around this, is that, wow, I have to reinvent myself. And these are some of the key areas in terms of sort of process development, detail management, time management, some of these things that I'd been able to sort of... improvise on and kind of fumble my way through because I was so good at the public speaking, the sales stuff, that type of thing. I could kind of cover up and obfuscate my lack of attention and my lack of intentionality around all those other things that later on in life just became more and more fundamental to, hey, like when I owned a state farm agency. I was trying to get by on my persona and my charisma and my ability to kind of draw people in. But then slowly I was turning over my employees because they get so frustrated of just how ADD I was. They liked me. But they couldn't stand working for me because it was just so unpredictable and so inconsistent and unreliable in a lot of the ways that an employee wants their employer to be reliable. You know what I mean? And so that's been a really interesting growth path for me is working to– continue to develop my strengths and get the very most out of the talent I have while at the same time shoring up some of these areas. And sometimes it has been hiring employees to, to really own some of those areas, but that can also be a crutch. And it has been for me. Um, you know, I think about, can you tell me if I'm talking too much, but

Speaker 01: 18:12

one of

Speaker 02: 18:13

the, one of the learning experiences that I had, um, when I opened my state farm agency, I had five employees. And I remember as I was interviewing to hire those employees, I would tell them things like, Hey, listen, um, something you should know about me is I'm not great with details. I'm not super consistent, not great with paperwork. I'm not great with really like task management, that kind of stuff. It's not my thing, but I'm great at sales and I'm great at, um, I'm great at working with clients. I'm great at earning their trust and all these things. But the reason I'm hiring you is to take care of all that stuff I don't like. I would actually say things like that in my interview process. And at the time, I was really coming from this place of like good Strength Finder. Remember that book, Strength Finder 2.0 by Gallup? Yeah. And one of the premises they talk about is, hey, don't worry about like turning your weaknesses into a strength, focus your attention on what you're good at and what your core strengths are. That's way more valuable than trying to like build up your weaknesses. I took that and I ran with it. I'm like, oh yeah, I don't need to be good at details. I don't need to do, you know? And so I brought this into my interviews, but in hindsight, right? With 20 years of hindsight, I realize now that I was just really, you know what I was doing in that moment? was I was avoiding the shame and embarrassment of those employees catching me in the act

Speaker 01: 19:50

of

Speaker 02: 19:52

failing on the details and not following through. So it was like I was preemptively saying, hey, you can't be mad at me once you start here because I told you it was going to be this way. I'm not good with details. I'm not good at remembering things. I don't take great notes and put them in the system. And this is why it might be hard to work for me. And so if they still sign on, It's like, hey, you can't be mad at me if I– you know what I mean?

Speaker 00: 20:15

It's like you signed on the dotted line. Now you're working for me. You already know all the details. Yeah, your

Speaker 02: 20:21

problem, not mine.

Speaker 00: 20:22

Exactly.

Speaker 02: 20:23

Yeah, and of course that wasn't my attitude per se because I like people and I appreciate people and all the things. But it was just– again, it was another indication of my immaturity just as being a business owner of, yes, delegation is important. And– There is a baseline level of competency and discipline that I think every owner has to learn

Speaker 01: 20:46

in

Speaker 02: 20:47

order to not drive their people crazy, to create a stable work environment, to create an environment where people can thrive and really succeed and they feel supported. All of these things that I've learned since. But it's just funny to look back at prior versions of ourselves and see And you have so much more clarity. You're like, oh, well, that's what I was doing. That's really what I was doing in that conversation. I was ashamed of the fact that I suck at these things and I didn't want them to be able to use that against me later on.

Speaker 00: 21:18

Yeah. How did you realize that you were the problem and not your employees? Well, I wish I

Speaker 02: 21:28

could say I realized it later. when I was owning and running that business. But it really, frankly, it wasn't until much a number of years later. Um, I think some of it, uh, some of, some of it I became conscious with or of, um, during various like counseling types of things that I do with my wife, you know, as our marriage, as we were kind of growing in our marriage, we did all kinds of over the years, we've done a lot of different counseling modalities and groups and, retreats and all that kind of stuff. And you learn about yourself. What you start to see is a pattern. You start to realize that. And I think this is the other thing that has just become so real and true and just fundamental for me is that business people, and I think this is less true of like younger people without putting any definition to that. But I think a lot of us grew up with parents, grandparents, really kind of segmenting, well, that's my professional life, that's work.

Speaker 01: 22:32

This

Speaker 02: 22:33

is home, this is my personal, you know, and there was a real distinction between somebody's personal and professional life. And I think what a lot of us have come to see and understand is that there is no, there really is no distinction. Like who I am at home absolutely affects who I show up as And vice versa, right? So if I've got any kind of dysfunction or brokenness or bad behavior or poor habits or that kind of stuff in either one of those zones, it's inevitably affecting my performance or the way I show up to all of it, you know? Yep. Relative to my marriage was a big part of it. And of course, that offered insights into my parenting. And all of it pointed to these patterns in how I protected myself and what other people thought of me. And all of that, well, we're getting really deep here, aren't we? All of that kind of pointed back to my family culture growing up, which was really heavily predicated on reputation.

Speaker 01: 23:46

What other

Speaker 02: 23:47

people think of you? My dad was a public school teacher, very, very successful, very well regarded, and a wonderful person. And it's never the whole story, right? But so there was a little bit of this family culture of, like, here's a very funny example about reputation in our family. And I'm sure other people can relate to this. Like, we had this pattern. My parents used to invite people over a lot. It was a bright spot in my growing up. We'd have people over after church. We had friends. My parents would host sleepovers with my friends. It was great. Sounds like a great time. It's funny. We had a nice house, middle class. Dad was a teacher. Mom was a nurse. We had a nice house, but nothing fancy. Our house, when people came over, was always very tidy. The counters in the kitchen were all cleared off, right? The door to the laundry room was closed. Guess what was behind the door to the laundry room? All the stuff that used to be out on top of the kitchen counters, right? I developed a pattern of when I was cleaning up my room for company, everything got shoved in the closet. So there was this appearance of us being put together, us being tidy, us being conscientious.

Speaker 01: 25:04

And

Speaker 02: 25:05

the reality was a lesser version of that, for sure. And so that's just one example, I think, of how we adopt these ways Behaviors and patterns. I think many of us from our core family unit and we carry those things forward. And if we're not conscious of it, I mean, I know, I mean, I'm sure this is true even to me of me in some ways today. We carry that forward for the rest of our life unless we become conscious of it and start to actively change our behavior, you know.

Speaker 00: 25:39

1000%. The way that we grow up wires who we are. And it's not until we find an issue with that wiring and are forced to confront it that we have the opportunity to rewire. I definitely had the same issue growing up. We always look like we had it together. Until the doors were closed and we were able to be fully expressive of ourselves and deal with all of our demons. And to be frank, it was rough living what felt like a double life. Yeah. Living this life where I was told, hey, you have the best parents. You have the most amazing family. That must be super cool. And in my head, I'm like, wow, yeah, I wish I could feel the same way about

Speaker 01: 26:26

our

Speaker 00: 26:27

family. And this isn't too– To say anything negative about my parents, we had a very difficult set of cards to work with. I had a deaf and autistic brother growing up, fully disabled, needed 24-7 care. Raising him was unlike raising any other type of child. Raising him definitely wasn't like raising me. So I found myself having to hide in a corner and be the good girl and just stay out of the way. I would often have to step in and help with household things, not in an empowering way, but in a way to keep the family unit running and functioning. So I felt like I had to grow up faster than what I should have. But all that to say, I ended up having to deal with perfectionist tendencies later on. And that came to light when I ran into walls of, oh my gosh, I'm spending so much time focusing on these little teeny tiny details that don't matter. I'm not making any real progress on my business or on myself. So all that to say, completely agree. The way that we grow up definitely affects who we are today. So- Okay, so you have this opportunity to learn about yourself through the State Farm Agency. At what point did you and your wife decide to have kids and what was that whole process like?

Speaker 02: 28:10

That's funny how that question sounded, right? It's real. I know what you mean. Yeah, it's real. Well, let's see here. So I had my daughter about a year. before I opened my state farm agency, a year and a half. In fact, I was in the throes of starting a franchise business with a friend called Rapid Refill Ink. It was through this heyday 20 years ago of companies remanufacturing and refilling ink cartridges and laser toners, that kind of stuff. And so we started a business that way. I was right in the middle of that when we got pregnant. Another interesting little data point on our story is at the time we were living in a big six bedroom house with two other married couples.

Speaker 01: 28:58

Oh, wow. One

Speaker 02: 28:59

of whom already had twins and a third child that they just had and another that had a child 10 months before us while we were living in that house. So we conceived our first child in there and we lived with these couples. It was an incredible experience, actually, especially in our early days. So this would have been like... from 21 to 24 years old we were living in this kind of communal we weren't wearing white robes we weren't all sleeping with each other it wasn't some crazy you know lascivious kind of environment but it was actually we were all friends from church and it was this perfectly laid out house it was incredible and and so i was starting that business that rapid refill inc business my other buddy was getting ready to go to law school we were all kind of in this this soup of life. And, uh, it was, it was really incredible. But, um, so we left there, my buddy went to law school that kind of affected the whole mojo of the household. And eventually we just kind of all disbanded. Um, and, and after I sold my interest in that business is when I went into state farm. And I It was very uncertain. Like when I first started with State Farm, they gave me a $20,000 line of credit, which they give all agents when they get an agency. But you're a 1099. I mean, I was self-employed. I had a LLC that I set up. And so I had to create all the income. And so my first year owning an agency, I think I netted, I took home maybe $28,000. Now, of course, this is 20 years ago. It's a little bit more equivalent now, but it was meager. And I remember... I remember my wife and I buying trays of Costco cookies, you know, those big, huge monster cookies they make, and then repackaging them. This was pre-COVID, obviously. Nobody would do this anymore. But we'd repackage them in these cellophane little gift bags, and I'd take a huge box of those, and I would literally take my daughter with her stroller– And sometimes my wife would come with me. My wife's an operating room nurse. And so she had work shifts that she was doing as well. So either she was with me and we were all walking neighborhoods, knocking on doors. Hey, I'm the new State Farm agent in the neighborhood. I'm a couple of my offices a couple blocks down. And I'm like, I'm trying to get clients. And my daughter's in the stroller at the sidewalk. And it was, you know, looking back on it, It was overwhelming. It was overwhelming at the time, but it was a good life. And we were actually like, our marriage was, it was a challenging season in our marriage. Those early days, very, very hard. And of course, as probably a lot of people listening know, you had kids into an already sort of struggling young marriage.

Unknown: 31:56

Yeah.

Speaker 02: 31:56

It doesn't make it easier. No,

Speaker 00: 31:59

it does not.

Speaker 02: 31:59

You got a business on top of that. So my wife and I, we were struggling. I would say it was, I would define it as the highs were really high and the lows were desperately low. But we held it together. And then my son, all of our kids are about three years apart. My son was born a little over a year into agency. And so that just added, you know, to the complexity and the magnitude of that whole experience. But I started to make more money. The business grew. I was doing well. And so that gave us a little more bandwidth as a family. Started to be able to resume some vacations, you know. And just, you know, started to create a little bit of comfort kind of in our situation again. But it was... It was difficult.

Speaker 00: 32:47

Yeah, yeah. It was

Speaker 02: 32:49

very

Speaker 00: 32:49

difficult. Do you think that the increase in income helped your marriage and your family situation, or do you think that was just a band-aid? I mean, how do you think that contributed?

Speaker 02: 33:00

Well, I think it's pretty common for us to– poo-poo just how big of an effect money has on somebody's happiness and situation. There's all this research, right? It's like once you make over 80 grand a year or 100 or something like that, your happiness doesn't go up very much. It

Speaker 00: 33:21

just plateaus, right?

Speaker 02: 33:22

Yeah. And I have found that to be somewhat true myself. I don't know if the numbers are all correct, but up to that point, making more money absolutely did help reduce some of the anxiety and strife because Let's face it, I was running up my line of credit, investing in the business, doing marketing, all that kind of stuff. And so seeing the balance at the time, seeing a $25,000 balance on my line of credit or having to dip into it for payroll on any given month, it's like, whoa. And to my wife, she wasn't super connected to the business because she was busy being a mom. And she had her own part-time. She worked a couple days a week back then at the hospital. So she couldn't really be super vested. in kind of the operations of the business, she didn't really understand. So if I was stressed out, she'd ask me, what's going on? I'm like, well, you know, I just put another six grand on our line of credit. And to her, it's like, whoa, what does that, you know? So to her, it adds a different kind of anxiety

Speaker 01: 34:25

that are

Speaker 02: 34:26

we not doing good, you know? And then I'd have to make sure, no, it's okay, you know? And so it was just, it's just a lot. It's a lot of these different things in those early days.

Speaker 00: 34:37

Yeah.

Speaker 02: 34:37

To try to put together, you know?

Speaker 00: 34:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting having to balance the, we'll call it good debt. Having a line of credit, it can be considered good debt. You're literally investing into your business in expectation of a payout. There's also that stress of having something like a line of credit, which can hold a higher interest rate. It does need to be repaid at some point. And if you don't have that money right away- there's that stress point. So, okay, so you're making more money. You are what we'd call more successful in the business. How did you find success within your marriage and with your kids?

Speaker 02: 35:24

Well, we could really turn this into like a 10-part series and four or five hours of conversation, right?

Speaker 00: 35:29

Let's do it.

Speaker 02: 35:31

I think for us, like, My wife and I really, I don't, I honestly don't know what it is. I mean, sometimes like both of us reflect and we're like, wow, I feel so lucky. We're so grateful that somehow we were able to hold all this together. I think, I think part of what helped us was us being together from the beginning.

Speaker 01: 35:52

Like

Speaker 02: 35:53

we just, everything we've ever known was really together, like since the end of high school. And so, um, So I think that somehow kind of fortified us. It's like it was enough of a kind of a hurdle. Like the idea of starting over with somebody else, even early on, this kind of held us together. You know, the fact that we've been dating since we were 17, that was a fair bit of glue for us. But then I think the other because of that. So that motivated both of us. to when we were presented with opportunities to join a marriage group at church or to go to a weekend retreat or to sign on to a couples group. Both of us kind of pretty much on the same timing were like, yeah, we should do this. And that's not typical. Unfortunately, like everybody else, we've had a lot of friends who have divorced over the years. And a lot of times, one of them was ready to really work on the marriage and the other wasn't.

Speaker 01: 36:57

One of

Speaker 02: 36:59

them was willing to put in the time, effort and energy and the other wasn't. And I just feel really lucky that my wife and I, for whatever reason, we were inclined to like, hey, let's try to make this work. Let's do this thing, see if it'll help us. And ultimately we settled into a group of, it was called Soul Care, which sounds really woo-woo, but it was just like a biblical counseling. It was a Christian thing. And it was incredibly revealing. It was basically cognitive behavioral therapy with sort of an evangelical Christian wrapper on it, language around it. But that cognitive behavioral therapy basically helped my wife and I understand some of the patterns that we were bringing to our relationship that were really predicated on our family culture growing up.

Speaker 01: 37:47

These

Speaker 02: 37:47

things that we just couldn't even quite put words to

Speaker 01: 37:50

were

Speaker 02: 37:51

causing strife and struggle between us. Once we discovered the source of that, and we had somebody externally who was kind of like describing these patterns they were hearing and seeing in our conversations. That combination, right? Like having other people's input as to how they were experiencing us.

Speaker 01: 38:12

And

Speaker 02: 38:14

then us connecting the dots together.

Speaker 01: 38:17

In

Speaker 02: 38:17

those behaviors and kind of natural tendencies, what they were connected to in terms of our family culture is really helpful.

Speaker 00: 38:25

It's like the cognitive behavioral therapy was a major help for you and your wife to recognize previous patterns and help rectify those. Was there anything that were there any patterns that you noticed that were pre-wired from your upbringing that eventually came into play with your parenting were there any patterns that felt negative or felt positive that played into your your parenting both solo and as a couple

Speaker 02: 39:02

oh man yes well so one of the patterns was um my dad my dad was a school teacher i think i mentioned that and he was an elementary school teacher and again, a really, really good one, accomplished one, naturally gifted working with kids. And I had the opportunity occasionally where my school would be out of session. There'd be like an in-service day or something like that for my teacher. And so when that happened, I would go to my dad's school oftentimes. And I'd like I'd like stay in his classroom with him. And I got to watch my dad teach and it was really fun. That's

Speaker 01: 39:43

pretty cool.

Speaker 02: 39:43

One of the, one of the, one of the funnest is funnest. Yeah. One of the things I enjoyed the most was getting to see my dad in that context. I got to see a different version of my dad who was carefree and footloose and goofy and like allowed himself to kind of goof with the kids and the kids loved it, of course. And my dad would like dance. My dad was a musician also. And so he would, he would incorporate a lot of music in with his classroom. And so he would sit down at the piano and like lead the kids in these songs or he'd turn on a ghetto blaster, you know, like a boom box. We don't know what those are anymore, but he'd throw a CD in the boom box and, and do like the chicken dance and lead the, all these kids and in a, in a group dance. My dad was, never did that kind of stuff with my sister and I, with rare exception. There's some exceptions, but that had a really profound impact on me because what did I experience with my dad? And he's a good person and has a great legacy with what he did leave me. But oftentimes I'd come home from school and my sister and I, we'd walk in, she's five years younger than me. We'd walk into the house and you go into my house and there's a piano and in the living room to the right. And then you walked in the kitchen. And what a lot of times we do is we'd set our bags down at the door and we'd go right into the living room where my dad's playing the piano and we would just play. And then ultimately playing would turn into loud, like arguing, fighting. And I remember my dad, this was the pattern. He would kind of stop playing the piano. He'd be like, hey, you know, he'd get all irritated with us.

Speaker 01: 41:21

Hey,

Speaker 02: 41:21

too much noise. Can you guys go somewhere else? Because he had just spent time all of his patience, all of his kind of life force on his students. And not intentionally, right? It was just, this was his life. This was his profession. And also my grandfather was a teacher and frankly did the same thing. And so where I saw that come up for me later is as I started having children is I was bringing that same irritable, annoyed frustrated version of myself when i'd come home in the evening i just couldn't i couldn't do it or right and so i couldn't goof around with them i was mr serious my wife who's naturally very sunshiny and goofy and eclectic and artsy and the things that i really love about her and enjoy about her like all of this was starting to collide and i couldn't even really goof off and enjoy my wife and and who she is i'd get irritated by the noise and the chatter and the laughing and the goofing off and i was kind of that irritable frustrated dad sitting at the table at dinner trying not to be upset trying to manage my anger and my frustration and and then at some point Through all this, I was able to make this connection and that started to break it down for me. I started to realize, oh my gosh, like I'm doing the same thing my dad did, you know? And I'm spoiling or I'm wasting the gift of my wife. Like the very thing, the essence of her that made me want to marry her, I'm pushing her away right now. And I'm doing the same thing to my kids. So I'm doing exactly the same thing that my dad, I experienced my dad doing.

Speaker 01: 43:07

Ouch.

Speaker 02: 43:09

That was a hard... It was a hard realization and I'll be perfectly honest. It was a process of years for me to really start to turn that corner and to recognize what was going on. But that was an important thing for me to connect with. I

Speaker 01: 43:27

wish it would happen

Speaker 02: 43:28

sooner. My daughter, my eldest daughter, she'll be 20 this year. She probably bore the brunt of that, of irritable dad and annoyed and angry dad. Whereas my boys... you know, them being three and six years behind her, they really got a different version of me, right? And so I've, I've been spending, I've been really, really trying to invest in my relationship with my daughter, even just in these last three, four years, just trying to not make up, you can't make up for those things per se, but, but really trying to address it and, and cultivate, you know, just new, new levels of relationship with her that we just weren't able to do when she was younger, you know?

Speaker 00: 44:08

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I'm learning? with my toddler. He's two. He takes a lot of patience. He's a toddler. Even just today, I found myself losing my cool over something that he's just trying to express and figure out. He's learning the world. I found myself apologizing to him and saying, look, I messed up. I'm sorry I raised my voice or I'm sorry that I got snippy. I'm having a rough time right now. And that is my way of trying to model for him. Like, look, we're not perfect. We're still human. We're still working through things on the daily. What does repair look like to you with your kids? What has that looked like?

Unknown: 44:56

Yeah.

Speaker 02: 44:57

Well, it's looked different right over the years. So like I said, I wasn't really conscious of this and I wasn't super tuned. I wasn't tuned in at all for, for a number of years, but I think what repair looks like now with my boys. So my boys have, again, they've had a different version of dad than my daughter did for the most part. Um, what repair looks like is I try to do it same day.

Speaker 01: 45:19

It's

Speaker 02: 45:20

like I try to do as much in real time. It's like, ooh, hey, listen, I'm really sorry about that tone. I'm sorry I kind of freaked out on that thing here just a moment ago. Here's what was going on inside me. Here's what I was reacting from. I'm sorry. I don't ever want to talk to you that way. I don't want to use that tone of voice with you, right?

Speaker 01: 45:39

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 02: 45:40

So that's a lot of times what it sounds like in the moment now. But to my daughter, I think part of what I've had to just acknowledge is that My daughter had a lot of feelings and emotions flowing out of that experience she had of me. And thankfully, there was never what people think of as abuse or anything like that. But it was just this general unavailability of me emotionally, not playful, often sarcastic. short irritated like that's the dad that a lot of times she got and there was a lot of fallout from that

Speaker 01: 46:25

yeah

Speaker 02: 46:26

and so as I there's times where those stories or situations will come up with my daughter and I and she'll bring it up and she's like man that was really hard and I've learned over time not to be defensive

Speaker 01: 46:40

because I

Speaker 02: 46:40

often will my first response is I'll feel ashamed

Speaker 01: 46:44

yeah Understandably. I was

Speaker 02: 46:46

a bad dad, you know?

Speaker 01: 46:47

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 02: 46:48

And, but of course, when I take that tact, right, I'm not necessarily helping her feel seen and understood by me having this visceral, gosh, I was a bad dad. Like what she really needed from me was to acknowledge that, hey, I'm really sorry that that was so hard. And I'm really sorry that I couldn't have been more there for you.

Speaker 01: 47:10

Yeah.

Speaker 02: 47:10

Sorry that I didn't, that I couldn't be more present.

Speaker 01: 47:15

Yeah.

Speaker 02: 47:16

I regret that. You know, I regret my attitude. I just like, you know, I wish that had been different.

Speaker 00: 47:22

Yeah. And now a quick message from our sponsor. Looking for a smarter, more secure way to manage and protect construction or remodel funds? At BuildSafe Escrow, they offer simplified escrow and draw services tailored specifically for the construction industry, ensuring your funds are protected every step of the way. As a trusted, neutral third party, they release funds only when agreed-upon milestones are met, providing transparency, security, and peace of mind for everyone involved. Whether you're building from the ground up or renovating a single room, BuildSafe Escrow ensures every project moves forward with confidence and clarity. BuildSafe Escrow milestone payments, transparent processes, trusted results. Visit BuildSafeEscro.com today and learn why milestone-based payments and escrow are the future of construction. Thank you for staying with us and back to the show. So you've done this repair work with your sons, and it looks like the repair work with your sons is more same-day work. acknowledging your actions. The repair work with your daughter, it sounds like it's taken place over time and you've learned how to truly listen to what she has to say, hold space for how she's feeling. How do you think that has transposed into your leadership skills within Floodlight

Speaker 02: 48:55

Group? I think it has helped me. I think probably the biggest way that It's helped me develop and grow. My leadership is, it's created a sensitivity in me to how others are experiencing me. It's created a level of self-awareness now in me where I'm just much more tuned in to what's happening in the relationships around me, whether that be employees or clients or subs. I think it's also over time, it's kind of developed that change muscle in me to where when I identify an area where I've been misbehaving or I've been negatively affecting somebody in my orbit in a particular relationship or not leading well or whatever it is where I need to make amends or I need to fix a situation or shore up a relationship or whatever, I feel like I'm coming more from a place of humility. I think it's helped me cultivate humility in my heart and in my life. And I think part of that, again, it goes back to that family culture of reputation's everything. And I developed so many strategies from watching my parents and also just internally my own success strategies or avoidance strategies for making sure that people liked me. Even when I was misbehaving, I had all these strategies for getting people to like me in spite of These behaviors are patterns that I would exhibit. And so I think over time, if I started to recognize those patterns and those ways of being, it's created more humility in me. It's like, you know, I don't have it all together. I'm not always a nice person. I'm not always thoughtful of others. And this is part of me. I'm learning. And some people are going to be upset with me because I'm going to offend people. I'm going to let people down. And when I do, it's not necessarily a reflection on my character and my reputation. It doesn't necessarily identify me. And so I don't have that same inclination to sort of cover up

Speaker 01: 51:17

or

Speaker 02: 51:18

obfuscate or minimize my own behavior. I'm getting to the point now. In fact, I just had one of my downline employees, which really does him a disservice because he's really like, an incredibly pivotal leader in our company, but he's an employee of mine. He's not one of our owners. He corrected me. He brought something to my attention here this last week, and it was actually rather embarrassing. I felt some of that old shame of like, oh, they see this part of me that I'm embarrassed about, right? But it was just my reaction, my natural internal reaction when he brought this up to me was just so much different than what it would have been 10 years ago.

Speaker 01: 52:03

You know what I

Speaker 02: 52:03

mean?

Speaker 01: 52:04

Because

Speaker 02: 52:05

I just, I was able to hear what he was saying. I was able to be like, you know, yes, I can, I can understand this. And I didn't feel that pull to change the way he thought of me. I was able to just accept what he was saying. I was able to say to him, his name's Wayne. I was saying, Wayne, listen, I, I am so appreciative that you had the courage to, to share this with me so that I have the option of doing something with it. I wasn't tuned in to this, obviously, or I wasn't applying the proper priority or focus to this thing. I wasn't honoring you in the way I was handling this thing, but I really wasn't tuned into it. And I really appreciate you bringing it up to me. So I have an option to do something.

Speaker 00: 52:51

Yes. Oh, it's so beautiful how you shifted the... Yeah. rectify the situation, do better, and actually move forward with that relationship instead of getting caught up and then it all falls apart. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that is so cool. Oh my goodness, Chris, this has been such an amazing conversation. Please tell me, what is your dream for your career and what is your dream for your kids and your marriage?

Speaker 02: 53:46

Oh. You know, my father passed away this last year. In fact, this Thursday will be the one-year anniversary of his death. And somewhat ironically or whatever, it's actually my son's birthday as well. My dad died on his son's birthday.

Speaker 01: 54:09

Wow.

Speaker 02: 54:10

My little boy's birthday. And so I've been thinking about this a lot. My dad's death... stirred up a lot of things in me. But one of the things that it just hyper-focused me on is the legacy of my dad. And then what is my legacy going to be? And the way I think of it sort of in a big picture way is, you know, my dad was handed a set of circumstances and privilege. My dad didn't grow up, you know, dirt poor, some sort of sob story. My dad, my grandfather provided for my dad. And in many ways, my dad had a maybe better than average start compared to other people. But there's also a lot of darkness in his family of origin and his family culture. And somehow my dad was able to carry the ball further downfield for me and my sister and my mom, create a different life, a better life than my grandfather was able to create and provide for my dad. And all of that just kind of came into full view. And if I was able to be there with my dad when he died and it was a really powerful experience where I just, I felt like there was a passing of the torch of like, hey, my dad was able to carry the family forward. forward so much. And now it's my job. This is, this is my task. Like this is the dream is to somehow carry it further and to take it as far as I can possibly go. And, and meaning like one, I think that's me trying to find the edges of what am I capable of as a man and as a business person. And just like what with the genetics and the opportunity and the, all the things that my dad was able to give me. What am I going to do with it?

Speaker 01: 56:07

And

Speaker 02: 56:13

so, you know, when you ask that question about what's my dream, well, you know, my dream is that I would be able to carry the ball downfield further than my dad and that I'd be able to create some things and experiences and a connection with my kids and a type of marriage where I'm able to learn from my dad and some of his perhaps shortcomings like we all have and just be able to make good on that and carry the family forward. So I think about my wife and I, like I want to have the kind of marriage where my wife and I like each other and continue to play together and

Speaker 01: 56:56

to

Speaker 02: 56:58

explore and be curious about our life together. and stay healthy and all the things. Both of us have a passion for travel. So I think creating freedom and opportunity from the businesses that I'm involved in to enable us to explore and have freedom to move and travel and explore together. I think for my kids, I think what we all want for our kids is for, not for them to have an easier life than us necessarily, Yeah, maybe we do. My kids were able to dodge and sidestep.

Speaker 01: 57:36

I

Speaker 02: 57:36

had to go through. But I think ultimately that they would be just that much more self-aware

Speaker 01: 57:44

that

Speaker 02: 57:47

they would become conscious of things that I wasn't really conscious of until my 30s. So I'm really trying to have conversations with my kids and be open and transparent and to engage in a different kind of conversation with them now at 13, 16, 19, the kinds of conversations that I wish I'd had with my dad,

Speaker 01: 58:08

you know? Yeah.

Speaker 02: 58:11

So that, you know, by the time that they're 45 and they're having a conversation like this, their story sounds radically different.

Speaker 00: 58:18

Not perfect. No. Right? That's unrealistic.

Speaker 02: 58:23

Right, but healthier and... But healthier,

Speaker 01: 58:30

you

Speaker 02: 58:31

know, and healthier sooner. And hopefully they don't struggle through 10 years of marriage like my wife and I did. Like hopefully, you know, through my wife and I modeling our commitment and love and care for each other, we'll accelerate that for them. And they'll enter their marriage with a little bit more awareness and intentionality than we did, than we knew to, right?

Speaker 01: 58:54

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 02: 58:55

Um, and same thing goes with like work ethic and risk taking and everything else. Like I, I think my dream is just to hopefully model what it looks like to really explore our edges as a person and to try to become the best version of ourselves that we can possibly muster. Yeah. And then to have the greatest positive effect on the people in our orbit. Yeah. Um, yeah. I don't know that there really is much. I have other material dreams, but they're minimal. You know, it's funny, like the older I get, the less concerned I am with the Lamborghinis and the fancy hotels and things of that sort that maybe at one point were enticing to me. I feel like I have certain things that I want materially. One of the things is my wife and I have a dream of having a house in the forest.

Unknown: 59:48

Yeah.

Speaker 02: 59:49

For some reason, that's just always like occasionally we'll rent an Airbnb by the river and the forest. And it's just both of us. It just feeds our soul. You know, my dad always growing up, my dad's thing, his luxury, his big expense was he had a Mazda Miatas. You know, those little convertible

Speaker 00: 1:00:08

roadsters. Little roadsters. Yeah.

Speaker 02: 1:00:10

So he had two of them over the course of my life when I was in the house and I got to drive it when I became driving age. I took my wife on dates in it when we were dating and I just have this natural affinity. And of course now with my dad, you know, passing away. Yeah. I feel that much more connected to little things like that. So right now, one of the things on my so-called dream board, my proverbial dream board, is to get an old Miata and fix it up, do an engine swap, do something fun, and have a weekend car that I take my wife out in and putz around in. I

Speaker 00: 1:00:42

love that.

Speaker 02: 1:00:43

But beyond that, it's like all my other dreams and goals are really built around connection and relationship. It's like I want to have the financial resources and the flexibility with the businesses I own to– create moments and experiences for our kids to join us on things and someday hopefully maybe bring their kids along with. So that's really kind of what it all centers around for me now.

Speaker 00: 1:01:08

Beautiful. Oh my goodness. What a gift to yourself, your kids, your marriage, the world, the way that you have thought so deeply past the material items, which are fun. Material things are fun to dream about. We can't discount that. But the deeper stuff, the legacy leaving, the connection. I don't know about you, but that's my definition of success. More and

Speaker 02: 1:01:38

more. Yeah, yeah. I think the other thing too, and you probably see this in your work, like I work with a lot of business owners. Some of them are fantastically successful financially. Yeah. And some of them are also simultaneously very successful in their social relationships and their marriage and everything else. More rare.

Speaker 01: 1:01:55

Yeah. More rare.

Speaker 02: 1:01:56

But they're there. But then, of course, there's ample examples of folks with a lot of success financially who All of the trappings of success that you would imagine or otherwise want, but the relationships around them are broken and fraught with dysfunction and disappointment and anger and frustration. And it's like, oh, I actually can't imagine a worse outcome to have it all and to basically be alone.

Speaker 00: 1:02:30

It's almost better to not

Speaker 02: 1:02:32

have it.

Speaker 00: 1:02:32

100%. To be alone, right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you're in total agreement about that. Chris, where can people find you?

Speaker 02: 1:02:46

Well, so LinkedIn forward slash in slash Chris Nordyke is one way people can follow me. They can also follow... I hope it's okay with me saying this, our podcast at Head, Heart, and Boots.

Speaker 00: 1:02:58

Of course, yes.

Speaker 02: 1:02:59

Google Head, Heart, and Boots. It's my business partner and I do that. And then floodlightgrp.com. Floodlightgrp.com is our consulting website. And I've got my bios on there and you can reach me through there as well. But those are the big ones. Somebody's on Facebook. We got Facebookers. You can look for Chris Mordyke. Look for the guy with the beard in the lineup. And that's probably my profile. Yeah. people who find me there too.

Speaker 00: 1:03:27

Perfect. This was a wonderful chat. Thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge with us. I am definitely feeling inspired and I hope to lead a life of humility the way that you have learned to. So thank you.

Speaker 02: 1:03:40

Great questions. Thank you for bringing me on. I appreciate

Speaker 00: 1:03:44

it. Thank you for joining us on Bringing Up Business. If you could, please take a moment to subscribe to and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Say bye-bye. See you later. Bye-bye. Thank you for watching. are subject to risk including possible loss of capital individuals should seriously consider if a decision is suitable for them by referencing their own financial position thank you