White Fence Living
"White Fence Living: Real stories from New Albany, Ohio, hosted by a local dad, youth sports coach and community member. From community leaders to everyday voices, we share what makes 43054 tick—with a history sprinkle, no politics. Uncurated chats over the white fences."
White Fence Living
Kids, Career, and Community: How Dr. Shirck Built His Life in New Albany
From driving a 1998 Toyota Corolla long after he could afford an upgrade to opening his first orthodontic practice during the 2009 recession with a baby on the way, Dr. Jeff Shirck's journey exemplifies calculated risk-taking and unwavering financial discipline.
Dr. Shirck takes us behind the scenes of building Shirck Orthodontics from a single Pataskala location to five thriving practices throughout the Columbus area. With refreshing candor, he credits much of his financial wisdom to his wife Zhenya, who immigrated from Ukraine at age nine with just $300 to her family's name. Their partnership demonstrates how clear financial boundaries and thoughtful decision-making create both business success and family stability.
As a father of three active children, Dr. Shirck shares his evolving philosophy on parenting in today's complex world. He discusses the delicate balance of keeping kids engaged in activities without overwhelming them, finding appropriate mentors beyond parents, and teaching financial literacy in an era where spending opportunities are endless. His approach includes requirements like piano lessons (despite protests from his children), maintaining good grades, and staying physically active – creating structure that builds discipline regardless of natural inclinations.
The conversation explores the fascinating evolution of youth sports from seasonal activities to year-round commitments, with Dr. Shirck questioning whether early specialization truly benefits children's development. His experiences coaching youth sports despite having no prior experience highlight how community involvement creates unexpected connections and opportunities to positively influence young people beyond one's immediate family.
Through stories about exploring Ohio with his family, participating in New Albany community events, and watching the thoughtful development of the area, Dr. Shirck reveals how business success and genuine community engagement create a fulfilling life rooted in relationships rather than material possessions.
Join us for this insightful conversation that will inspire you to reconsider your approach to financial decisions, parenting challenges, and community involvement. Subscribe now and share your thoughts on what resonated most with you from Dr. Shirck's journey!
Dr Shirk, how you doing.
Jeff:Fantastic, thanks for having me on. Yeah, no problem. How do you feel about doing a podcast? So I've done one podcast interview in my life. It was like four years ago maybe. It was an orthodontic specific podcast that one of my friends had where he just interviewed people in the industry, whether it be orthodontists or like vendors that support it, so, but this is like way more high tech before you know it's funny, because I texted you. I was like, oh, do we just like jump on a?
Justin:phone call. Are you just gonna call me? Yeah, so like uh, four years ago, that's really what it was like an app, yeah I think a lot of people do podcasts like they'll just virtually, but I mean with this one being hyper local yeah I'm like we need a place to meet yeah, for sure and I have to mention brick house blue.
Justin:Yeah, I mean, this place is awesome, it's impressive, it is, it's uh, it's funny because, like I don't know however many people I've brought in now and they're like I had no idea this was here I mean, we were just talking about like. I drive by it almost every day yeah, I know, I mean, it just looks like an office building. Yeah, it's.
Jeff:It's awesome for anybody that's never been been here take a tour. It's incredible. Yeah, it is.
Justin:It's a cool spot and there's literally a lounge area with complimentary drinks.
Jeff:Yeah, today's Waffle Wednesday. Yeah, Like waffles. It's awesome Chicken and waffles.
Justin:Yeah, for sure, cool. So where do you want to start? Where I'd like to start is who you are. Your family ties to New Albany. You could do it in any order that you want. We just want to get to know Dr Shirk.
Jeff:Sounds good. I am a Columbus guy, so I grew up in Worthington, I went to Worthington-Kilbourne High School and ended up staying at Ohio State for undergrad, ended up staying at Ohio State for dental school and then ended up staying at Ohio State for residency, and then, you know, I was getting close to 28 when I was about to graduate and at that point we decided we wanted to start a family and this is where we wanted to be. You know, there was a period my wife's first job was with CNA Insurance, which is headquartered in Chicagoago, and she went out there for like a training seminar. They put, you know, I think it was like 80 trainees up at a apartment in um, on michigan avenue, and so in the summer, so it's like 80 22 to 23 year olds where they just, like you know, have class from like eight to four every day and then they just get to go out in chicago so she's like we're're moving to Chicago when you get done.
Jeff:And it would sound great until I ended up doing all the schooling and then decided, you know, columbus is a great city. She's from Cleveland, so it was really coming down to between Cleveland and Columbus where our families were. But Columbus was growing then. It's growing, you know, at a crazy clip. Now we're super happy that we stayed.
Jeff:So, you know, when I was coming out of residency it was March I graduated March of 2009, which was a really bad time to graduate, you know, and come out needing a paycheck. So there were, you know, no orthodontic practices that were, uh, going to be sold because most people lost a lot of money in the stock market and people who had maybe thought about retiring were deciding they're not going to retire. So my wife, jeanne, at that time worked at L Brands, which they have different headquarter locations, but the one that she was at was on East Broad, and so we lived in Gahanna, and so the two fastest growing areas up to that point were Pataskal and Marysville, and Pataskal was very close, marysville was very far away. So we're like, okay, if I have to start up a location in order to employ myself, then I'll do that. So we started Shark Orthodontics and I was building it out while I was finishing my residency. So I graduated March of 2009 and we were open for business April of 2009. Wow yeah, it was incredibly stressful.
Justin:Wow. So you were you weren't even done yet.
Jeff:No no, not, not at all. Yeah, so talk about scary, terrifying, terrifying. And then you know, our oldest son, jake, was born September 2009. So we had like a baby on the way, like terrible, terrible economy. It was just. It was a lot of stress, a lot of stress and you're getting almost debt. You have a student loan debt. I mean, thank God she had a job at L Brands. Yeah, she could pay our bills, but it was. It was an incredibly stressful time.
Justin:She wanted to go to Chicago, and here she is stuck in Pataskala.
Jeff:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but Pataskala's awesome. I never would have thought what Pataskala's become what it would be. So I remember picking Pataskala and they used to publish this thing on their city's website like the master plan, and there was going to be growth. There was supposed to be like a Walmart and a Kohl's that were going on 310 and all this stuff, and the community didn't want that to happen because they wanted to keep it more rural. I don't think anybody could have predicted you know the New Albany company buying up all that land. That's technically like Pataskala Jersey Township, I guess, is what it would be and it's like man I used to. So in 2012, we opened the New Albany office and then we moved from Gahanna to New Albany. Actually, we moved a day before Jordan, who you know, my 12-year-old son was born, and so we opened that.
Justin:You got a knack for timing.
Jeff:We always joke that like so we have five locations and but we have three kids and for a while, every time we had a kid we opened an office and then after three, we're like, yeah, this is, this is a lot, but we still kept going with a couple more offices.
Justin:But yeah, I used to be able to. That was economically sound decision.
Jeff:You know. So I just had this conversation with my son, jake, the oldest one, because we're starting to. I'm trying to teach him like financial fitness and you know kids nowadays, you know they have video scrolls all the time, and so he was asking about Dave Ramsey because apparently you know they must be on his algorithm you know, there could be worse people to be on his uh algorithm, you know.
Justin:And so there could be worse people to be on.
Jeff:Oh, a thousand percent, a thousand percent he's asking me, dave ramsey, and he's like, can you believe some of the stupid things people do with their money? I'm like, yeah, you know, but like debt, all debt is not equal. And so I tried to explain to him like student loan, debt for the right reasons, is is good debt? Yeah, starting a business good debt? You, if you have no money and you're buying a crazy expensive car, that you can't afford bad debt, you know. And so you know, I drove a 1998 Toyota Corolla until it just I mean forever.
Jeff:My staff always had like nicer cars than me, but like it was paid off and it was my wife's car originally and it just I mean I could never justify getting a new car. So I mean I like stopped changing the oil. I mean I was like this car needs to die and it just would not die and so finally I just gave in to it. I was like this is never going to die and we had two kids. That's why I need a new car. We need more room than the Corolla can afford me.
Justin:It's funny you say that because I am limping my truck along and now I refuse to stop, like I'm going to drive this truck forever. Totally, I love it. I've toyed with new trucks and looked at new trucks and I just had the front end rebuilt. Now I'm like talk about financial fitness. I'm like all right if I pay X for a truck or borrow whatever, pay cash for whatever, and then like what can I put into this truck and what can I get out of it? And I don't know if it makes sense Right now it absolutely doesn't, because I spent like three grand to have the front end rebuilt. But I'm going to keep going.
Jeff:Just out of principle, it's a game now, yeah, so that's a good like when you can reframe it. So it's a game, so you feel good about it, that's right.
Jeff:So like that was it. It was like me against this Corolla, like it was never going to die and I was going to stop taking care of it. You know, and we'll see who wins it's going to die, and but so yeah, so you know, when talking about like financial fitness and stuff, you know, I think kids nowadays there are so many more things to spend money on than when we were kids.
Jeff:Oh, yeah, and so and especially, you know, with there's this expectation, I think, amongst a lot of kids I'll just speak about my kids. You know, they're in all these different sports, you know, and so it's like, well, I want to do this camp, and it's like, forget about how much it costs, right? Yeah, like I want to do this, I want to do that. You know, my son Jordan, I need a new lacrosse stick. Obviously I'm like, but that other one's fine.
Jeff:He's like, no't know, I mean, it still works right and it's tough actually like teaching really good, I think, money management, because it feels good to spend money. I mean for sure, for sure.
Jeff:It feels good, but it's a fleeting moment and then you're stuck with the debt. So you know, I'm super fortunate to have picked a good spouse where you know. I think she's really taught me the value of money. I'm not sure I had a great grasp of it. I think I was one of those dumb 18 year olds that, like, got a credit card for, like I don't know, you got a free pizza, or something like that.
Justin:I don't know.
Jeff:You know, it's so stupid.
Justin:My first credit card was I was in an Ohio State game in college and I think they were giving away towels. Yeah yeah, and so I got an Ohio State towel and I got a credit card and it was like the next week I got a speeding ticket and I was like, can I use this to pay?
Jeff:for my speeding ticket. Yeah, and you know, one of my cousins, you know so she racked up kind of a decent amount of credit card debt and her brother was like, yeah, she thinks as long as she pays with her credit card, it's not real. And I remember like he was joking about that and I was thinking like sometimes it felt that way when I was a kid.
Jeff:Oh yeah, or a kid, 18. I mean, but you know Zhenya. So she was born in Ukraine and moved to the United States when she was nine, to Cleveland, and so they came to the United States with no money. Actually, it was $100 per person, so she's an only child. Today, $300 for their family Came to the United States. Neither parent could speak English. I mean, just like incredible challenges.
Jeff:Their degrees from the Soviet Union, which are engineering degrees, didn't transfer here, so her mom would work in a bakery during the day and go to night school. Her dad would work in a bakery during the day and go to night school. Her dad would work as a roofer during the day and go to night school.
Justin:I mean it's crazy.
Jeff:What part of Cleveland, mayfield, okay, mayfield, east side. Yeah, yeah, there's like a pretty big, you know, eastern European community. So, like you know. So she's from Ukraine, but there's a lot of people from Russia and Belarus and. Slovenia and a lot of those Eastern European countries. So when she came to Ohio State, everything was on her. She had three jobs to pay for college herself. She's very self-sufficient and was super good at money management. So we started dating at 19 years old, and so I'm 44, so we've been together a really long time yeah and uh.
Jeff:So she, I think, really taught me budgeting like yeah, which is? I say that like sounds silly, but like it's a real skill that I'm not sure I really would have learned very well so the kids do like.
Justin:So sierra's going through the whole biz town thing.
Jeff:Yeah, I love it, it's cool and she's like asking about checks.
Justin:And so my wife still writes checks and everybody makes fun of her, but like that's just how she likes to do it, she likes to sit down, write the checks, put them in the mail, yeah. And so my daughter's, like you, used to have to like keep track of how much money you had. And I was like, yeah, yeah, like you'd a registry and you would look and go, okay, I have this much money and this is what I'm writing the check for. Now I have this much money. Like that was a lot easier to manage, totally Way easier.
Justin:So how do you? You talk about like coming, not having you know, generational wealth, right, and so you built what you have. We're all super fortunate to be in this community. And how do you manage that with your kids? I tell my kids all the time tough times create hard men, right, hard men create easy times. Easy times create weak men. And I just hammer that home to them because when they ask for something that isn't necessary, whether we can afford it or not, you don't just go do it just because, yeah, um, but you also like I find myself. Sierra wanted a softball bat, so she's playing travel. She's been doing it for a while and we have a hard rule in the house of like you need to prove that you're going to stick a sport out and like continue to do it before we're going to invest in it, because we have four kids like they spent a thousand dollars that played against sports this spring.
Jeff:Finally, we're like you know what she knew lacrosse stick because it got bent.
Justin:Yeah, can you throw with it, yeah, but I can't, I don't throw as far well that's you, not the stick. So we got her a you know like a $500 bat for her travel team, but like yeah, so how do you balance that? What are your thoughts there?
Jeff:God, it's so hard. So I didn't come from generational wealth but I didn't grow up super poor at all. So my dad, who's retired, was an ear, nose and throat doctor, but he grew up super poor. So his father was a Lutheran minister. My dad is one of six kids, just grew up very poor and so he always his joke my whole childhood was he's a child of the child of the depression, which was his way of saying we don't throw things out.
Jeff:You know like, uh, I remember, um, when jake was like an infant, like we left a bottle out at like outside and all the milk like curdled and it was nasty and I was like I'm throwing this away. My dad's like why would you throw away a perfectly good bottle? You just wash it? And I'm like I know, but it's so gross, um, so no, so my my dad, you know, definitely provided us a very good um upbringing, but it wasn't um, it wasn't just you got anything you want. I remember distinctly like wanting umbro shorts when I was a kid and my dad saying you definitely are not getting those.
Jeff:You're gonna get the Kmart ones because they're like a quarter of the price and they're the same. And going to school and getting teased about like why do you have fake Umbro shorts? But looking back, it's a pretty good lesson that you don't need to have the fanciest things whatever Because, especially as kids, you grow out of it the fanciest things whatever because, especially as kids, you grow out of it. So I feel like he he did a good job of framing money that it's not. It doesn't grow on trees and it's to be valued and like you know, you know, think before you really spend.
Jeff:And so my dad. I have learned a lot from him when it comes to financial fitness, in the sense that he was always opposed to a lot of debt. And so he did help me when I first opened up my first office, because everybody's trying to sell you on something and my dad's given me lots of really good advice over the years. But one thing he said at the time was pay people for advice, but never let anyone do your thinking for you.
Justin:Yeah.
Jeff:And that was great, because if it doesn't feel right, like you know, don't do it, and so back then I don't know how it is now for new grads, but back then it was very easy to get money. That's what put us in that financial turmoil, right? Yeah, you know, like I could.
Justin:Anybody could get a loan.
Jeff:You could get a loan for, like, you know, no money down. You know you have, I mean, no credit whatever. They'll do it. But like when you took a step back and you think, like, is this smart? Even though these guys are selling me on this, is this a smart thing to do? Probably not. So I think that was helpful. So you know, he definitely tried to bench me in that. But then you know, for kids now gosh, I don't know it is it is really hard. We try hard. I think we fail in many ways to hold our kids to a standard because it feels good to do nice things for your kids, right you know, and so you know it's like we have chores for them.
Jeff:Do they always do them? No, you know, and we still. You know I don't think we hold them as accountable as we want to be, but I guess at the end of the day our number one rule of thumb is if you have good grades, that's your first job, and so I like that. You know. So, like, if the grades start to fall, then privileges start to get taken away. So every kid, all our three kids, have very good grades and they're very well aware of that. So other things that we kind of make them do.
Jeff:So I don't have too many regrets in my life, but a couple for sure, and one of them is I was terrible to my parents when they made me play piano when I was a kid, and so I made it so miserable for them that they're like fine, I'm not going to pay for you anymore. I don't want to pay for you to take piano lessons, and it's definitely a life regret. I'm so jealous of, when I can. My sister she kept playing. She can sit down at any piano and play 50 songs from memory. Really it, sister, she kept playing. She can sit down at any piano and play 50 songs from memory.
Jeff:It's amazing and it's like incredible and I don't. I took maybe five years. I know where middle c is, that's it. It's terrible, and so you know.
Jeff:So there's certain things that we do make the kids do so. Um, taking piano is one thing. They all hate it, hate it, but it's just part of they have to do it, um, and it's so nice, it's like you know they give it, they're all good enough now that, like, when we make them practice, it's like a concert, so that that's pretty cool. Um, so grades piano and then need to stay active, um, so that would be. I don't care if they're like very good athletes, um, but they do need to stay active and try to make that a part of their life, just because that's a time management skill, and so it's like I try to balance. You know being strict with chores, with you know being aware of their time. You know like there's so many hours of the day and so you know you see, with your kids, I mean they're asking to do these extra sports, these extra things. And then the sports themselves we were talking about. You know DBAT as a business, cool business. I grew up playing baseball.
Jeff:They did not have that you know when I was a kid, so, like you know, baseball lasted like three months and then there was no real off season. And now, excuse me, there was, there was no, there was a nine month off season, you know you get to do other things. Now there's no real off season, so you know there's every sports going year round every sports going year round, and so it's like uh for D-Bat, that's awesome.
Jeff:I mean I, I, uh, I wished kind of previously that my kids played baseball, cause I love baseball, but now it's kind of a good thing that they all do sports that I don't know anything about. So I can't be that dad, you know um, because that you know they're big into wrestling and I don't. I I try to learn wrestling but never did it. So you know I I never say anything um to my oldest because he'll just roll his eyes at me like dude, you never did it, yeah what do you know?
Justin:so it's cool, I get to be you should have just told him a cheerleader, a national champion wrestler right, yeah yeah, no, now they can look it up.
Jeff:Yeah, right, so but like one time I took my son jordan to d-bat and I was like this is amazing you know what a cool facility, um, and so I could see like if, if my kids did like baseball and I like baseball and you have this cool facility, oh, it'll get out of hand. Like sign me up, here's my money right, and so that just didn't exist when I was a kid.
Justin:Yeah.
Jeff:I don't think so. It was a lot easier to get your chores done because there were a lot more hours in the day.
Justin:Yeah, no, 100%. It's weird With all this rain we had lately, there were some evenings where we didn't have anything and it was like crickets, what are we doing? I don't know what to do with myself. Oh yeah, it's because you're just nonstop going, which I'm with you. I think it's great. The kids, they need that. Kids don't want to sit at home.
Jeff:No, and we've been lately the past few years. We've been trying to take vacations that they're relaxing but they're active, so like hiking vacations. So this spring break we went out to Utah and went to Canyonlands and Arches and Canyons, nice and Capitol Reef National Park. Yeah, so a lot of hiking. Get them off their iPads and tablets and phones and stuff, so that's. I think that's super hard. I don't know. We're also not good at that. I'm so impressed with parents that, like my kid, you know, they're not allowed, you know, to watch tv monday through friday and then they get an hour on saturday.
Justin:Yeah, that's awesome I question how real, but it's just I don't know.
Jeff:I feel like, okay, you're getting your work done, you have good grades, you've practiced piano, you've done all these things like.
Justin:I mean, your kids are all playing sports every season. It's like you know with you there yeah so, but yeah so, financial.
Jeff:Going back to the financial things, I don't know, I mean I'm really hoping to expand on debt. Talk with them, so you know, see how this goes with with jake, with trying to explain what good debt is versus bad debt. Um, right now, you know, because he was asking like well, what about you know those companies where you know they resell it? Like you know, there's kids his age that are like buying shoes, and then reselling them and they can make good money.
Jeff:It's like, okay, but like, think about the cost. So like, if you're spending $150 on those shoes and you can make $100 off them, if you can do that overnight, amazing. But what happens for most stores? Go look at that store that's over by Cinemark. It's a shoe store. There's no way they're moving every pair of shoes every week and getting new ones in, so it's tying up all your money and so now, in order to buy more shoes, you're getting more debt. Okay, so if you take out a business loan to buy more of those those shoes, is it worth paying? You know an interest rate on that, and so there's all these different um business models and I can appreciate that. That. It's cool that kids are are.
Justin:Oh yeah, you know, try even thinking about thinking about it, for sure like the best I got was like trying to sell candy bars in middle school. Yeah, that was my, my education on business oh, totally.
Jeff:Oh. There was this period where jake, when he was like uh, I think a seventh grader, um, he was buying like candy and he would sell it at school and uh, making money.
Justin:Then he got in trouble for it because like you can't do that and he's like what um, but there's a market Right.
Jeff:He's like, uh, you know what's the big? No one, no one's heard, and and so he told me he tried to tell the teacher, like I'll give you free candy, I was like dude now it's bribing with candy?
Jeff:Um no, but I think you know there's something very nice about being like working in a small business. You know, um, I corporate's awesome. They get a lot of great benefits. And you know, like I don't get paid vacation from on vacation, like I don't make any money because I'm not seeing patients, and so there's that aspect that you know, I know a lot of dentists, um, that are my friends. It's, it's hard to take vacation because it's not only the cost of the vacation, it's the cost of the loss.
Justin:It's the opportunity cost. Yeah, the opportunity cost.
Jeff:But at the same time, working in a small business, you do get some flexibility.
Justin:We're doing a podcast. We're doing a podcast on Wednesday.
Jeff:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's also like I don't know, I've never really worked in a corporate company in that way, but there's some satisfaction in having direct, um, you know, responsibility for growth and, I guess, maybe direct responsibility if things don't work out, if you make a bad decision, you know you're spending money on. You know this piece of equipment that was a hundred thousand dollars. You think it'd be great and it's like, oh, we don't really use it.
Justin:You know, um, yeah, so um, but sometimes it's nice to make those like making those decisions on your own and owning it like. That's what I want.
Jeff:Like.
Justin:I want to be able to make the decision good or bad, like I want to own that process, yeah yeah, I think there's.
Jeff:So I think the kids there's benefit to seeing, I think, a parent who is a small business owner. You know, maybe also they see like the grind of it, you know. So it's like I'm seeing patients. Typically I'll see patients four days a week, but I work so much more than that, you know, like on the day off, normally it's like a day of doing like, catching up on notes, like, and you know, working on just different projects, and that spills over to the weekend and all kinds of stuff. So they do see it's definitely a business ownership. It doesn't matter what you do. It's not a nine to five, no, and especially my wife runs our practices now, and so I feel like in many ways we're always on, we're always talking about it.
Jeff:Yeah constantly At all times and we try to stop like I don't know, it's hard, it's kind of like become, you know, it's a big part of our, our personality, I guess, and and um, and so I know people are always like dreaming of retirement. But I don't know. Work gives purpose and I, I think, um retirement. My dad used to say he wanted to retire at 60 and my whole life he said he's gonna retire at 60 and then he ended up not retiring till he was 72 and it was kind of like at that point, you know, kids are grown, you're still good at what you do, you still like it like how much golf can one guy play?
Justin:yeah, you know, yeah, you need something else to do, you need something else so um podcasting maybe, yeah, yeah there you go, get a podcast, but no so, with the kids parenting.
Jeff:there's no playbook, right? Yeah, but it's so fun.
Justin:It is, it is, and I think it always comes down to a balance, right? You want your kid to have good experiences. I want my daughter to have success in softball and part of that is a bat. Believe me, like I'd have told you you're crazy five years ago, but the difference between a hundred dollar bat and a five hundred dollar bat is real, yeah, um. But I do think like it's definitely a balancing act and, man, you get like one small victory, like thinking about the baseball bat thing. So we're at at Played Against Sports in Westerville. We're getting softball stuff for Gemma because she's trying softball. Jackson's trying lacrosse, so we're getting all the lacrosse gear. Vinny's upgrading some gear. Sierra needs, you know, everything that she needs for travel softball, and I'm not kidding, like including the $500 bat still, but it was like $1,200.
Jeff:Yeah, and Jackson may ball and I'm not kidding.
Justin:It was like including the 500 bat still, but it was like it's like 1200, yeah, and jackson may never play again. I have no idea, jemma may never play again. So, um, so we're in there and at one point I can't remember if it was vinnie or somebody was like you know what we're getting a lot, like I probably don't need this and like went and put something back and I was like holy smokes, that's awesome, like that was huge, huge. Small win, but huge in my mind yeah, yeah, I did you.
Jeff:Did you like tell them after the fact? Oh yeah, oh yeah, appreciate it 100, yeah, that car ride home.
Justin:I was like I was so impressed with how they acted in there.
Jeff:Um, then they all got something, so maybe that's why but you know, though I mean again, it's it, it's, it's a memory that you know, I'm sure he'll he'll keep. Just because it's like it pointed out. You know, just because you want it doesn't mean you should get it yeah, you know there should be a reason for it so and I was with, uh, this.
Justin:I always try to tell them like, like physical things, right, material things they're. You said it like that's short-lived, like I'm like vinnie, remember that drone you wanted, where's it at?
Justin:he's like it's in the closet I'm like exactly, but you would have sold a limb for that drone a year ago. Um, I always this is what I do with them, and I don't know where I heard this, if I heard it somewhere, but I'm, I'm, I'd like to take credit for it. I don't know where I heard this, if I heard it somewhere, but I'm, I'm, I'd like to take credit for it. I don't know if I can, but I was like how many like football cards do you want? He's like I want them all. Like how many like new footballs do you want in the house? Oh, I, all of them. Like as many as I can get.
Justin:No, I was like well, don't you need another? Like more of everything is better. And he was like no One's good. I'm like how many more siblings do you want? He's like I definitely don't want any more of those. And I was like see, that's what you value, Like that's what's important to you and you can't replace it, you can't add more to it. But if you buy a car, you and that's fine. But if that's what your fulfillment is, there's going to be a lot of disappointment there.
Justin:But if you value a relationship. If you'd rather have a good friend than a new pair of shoes, then you're going to have a life of fulfillment.
Jeff:Yeah, it's weird nowadays with social media and how kids are exposed to it at a really early age. The celebrities on instagram and athletes I mean even before athletes could be your hero, but you really you really didn't see their day-to-day you know, every day. It was really just. You see them at the ballpark. They look amazing, they're, you know, in great shape. You know maybe they wear fancy clothes or something like that, but like it wasn't a daily occurrence.
Jeff:Right, and now, I guess you know one worry I have for my kids is in in why we we do talk about it is like those people are not your mentors. You know like don't, don't emulate them. You know, maybe emulate some of their work ethic, but we've tried like pretty hard I guess, and maybe it's just come this way, but you know to surround them with with mentors. That that you know we believe in. So, like I use my oldest as as an example. So he's super into wrestling, he's super into Brazilian jiu-jitsu and he's super into like mixed martial arts, yeah, and so that's like he trains six, seven days a week, year-round and he just loves it and it's like the community that he gets surrounded by is like full of like really hardworking people. You know they're not doing at least the people that surround him. They're not doing stupid things on weekends. You know these are adults grounded in reality and demand hard work, and so make him work so much harder than I would if.
Justin:I was like that.
Jeff:And so I think there's something to be said for trying to surround your kids with positive mentors. So, like our kids, for example, jordan and Vinny, with lacrosse. So, like Brent Lewis, I had the opportunity to, we got to coach with him in football. Like our kids for, for example, jordan and vinnie, you know, with lacrosse. So, like brent lewis, I had the opportunity to, you know, we got to coach with him in football. And matt mcsweeney, same, just great guys, right. And so it's like you know, even if jordan didn't love lacrosse, I mean he loves it, but like it's awesome, they're his, they're his main coaches and he gets to be surrounded by two really good guys, yeah, that are given positive life advice. That aren't aren't me, because you know, a lot of times you know when it's your own kid they'll roll their eyes most of the time yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeff:So it's like you know, um, and and they're really fair and reasonable guys and and push all the kids and so even that, in the sense of like trying to surround your kids with you know role models that are and mentors that are reinforcing the values that you're trying to hold at home.
Jeff:Yeah absolutely, and so even you know going back to Jake with wrestling, so it's like you know. He goes to Colin Palmer and he so that's a wrestling club in Black Lake and Colin is a great guy, pushes Jake super hard. He goes to Gracie, ohio. Robin Giesler is the owner of that. He's got like eight kids and Mike McClain is one of the head instructors there. They're like two really influential people in his life and so it's like these guys that he really looks up to. Thank goodness they're like good guys right, yeah, yeah.
Jeff:And so hopefully you know he doesn't want to disappoint them. You know, yeah, and so I think you know mentorship's important. And then at home having these conversations, you know, with kids it's really hard, I don't know. I mean like they're exposed to so many things. And you know just my 10 year old daughter, it's like she comes home and just some of the conversations that you know it's like they hear at school, like sometimes you're just not prepared for yeah, um, and especially at their ages, yes, yes, so you know it's parenting's not easy, but it's.
Jeff:it's a lot of fun. Working in the community has also been fun. That was weird too, though, being a football coach this year or the past two years. So how that started. I was sitting with Nate at Colin Palmer this was a couple years ago and I was telling him Jordan's going to quit soccer and he's going to switch to football. And he's like, oh, that's awesome. Well, you know, nate's the ninth grade football coach, but because Hank's in that grade, that's why he was also the youth football coach. So he's like well, I always need people to help. Do you want to help volunteer? I was like, yeah, no problem. And then football season's starting and I get this email and I was listed as assistant coach. I'm like I don't know anything about football.
Justin:And he's like oh, it'll be fine To your point, though, like I found myself coaching, I'm helping with lacrosse.
Jeff:I don't know anything about lacrosse right.
Justin:But Matt McSweeney's like no, you're going to coach, you're going to come out and help, and I love it Like, I just like being out there with the kids right, and I think a lot of that to your point is just as important, if not more important than, like, especially in youth, having somebody that knows what they're doing is having quality people around them. Oh yeah, like that is way more important.
Jeff:For sure.
Justin:You can learn youth lacrosse. You can learn youth football. I mean it's not that complicated.
Jeff:Yeah, yeah, although I don't know with the wing tee, they certainly tried to make it that complicated. I'm like can we just get a playbook?
Justin:Nope, coach Bush won't do it Super anti playbook, but he's like no, because then they'll just think of the playbook and they won't understand why Exactly.
Jeff:I was like, yeah, but I can't answer any questions.
Justin:I need to. I need a playbook. Can you give me a playbook?
Jeff:We won't tell anybody it. I cannot, yeah, but it was funny though, because like, uh, I'd go, like I spend all day, um, you know, working. Well, 80 of my patients are kids. Um, but there's plenty of that like this is like, even though braces is not a big deal in the sense of like it doesn't hurt, like I don't even own a needle, it's just not not that, not that bad. Um, this could be the first real dental thing a lot of kids have had, because preventive dentistry is so much better now than it used to be.
Justin:Oh, it is Bubbles when you walk in. It's like yeah, they're so well taken care of, they're not getting teeth drilled on very much, Right right.
Jeff:So they'll be freaking out and I'll just be like you're doing great. And then I was supposed to turn that side of my personality off where I'm like you're doing great even if they're not doing great, and then go to football and even when they're doing great I'm supposed to be like you got to put harder and that's so not. My personality is to be like. So for the most part You're not hurt, get up Right right right.
Jeff:It was like so, not me. So I was like the football coach where, like I was in the back and then I was just kept trying to get kids in. You know, at least I could, I could do that Like hey coach, you know he hasn't been in a bit because I'm just not a yeller like at all.
Jeff:And I don't even have a good, real stern voice as it is. So, like you know, I was not that coach, but I will say I loved being out there, like it was fun being part of the that that group the coaches were great but also just getting to know the boys. So it's like so many of those football players are now playing lacrosse for the sixth grade and it's like it's awesome Cause I actually know them more so than just their name in the stands and stuff.
Justin:Yeah, and it, it, it's and it makes you feel too about like they go out to the wall. Oh yeah, so they're at the wall. Was it two days ago? It's raining. They've been there for like three hours and I feel good about who they're with Totally. If I know Will or Jordan or Cohen or many of those guys are out there, I'm like they're in good company.
Jeff:For sure, for sure.
Justin:And going back to and maybe one of them could be a voice of reason.
Jeff:I don't know which one, but you know, but if they're staying busy, that means they're staying out of trouble. Yeah, and what's our job as parents? It's just to, you know, guide them through their childhood, try to mentor them, you know, as best they can Just keep them out of trouble.
Justin:Yeah, you know, keep them from.
Jeff:You know every kid. You know we all make mistakes, we're all human, you know. And so it's just, especially if you're in a group setting. You know if idle hands, you know, can be bad. So if they're at the wall for three hours that's way better than if they're just hanging, you know, for three hours at market or something.
Justin:I got busted I don't know how old I was. Many of my friends thought it was a good idea to go like fresh prints and spray paint, like a culvert or something. Yeah, and I forget how. I think they just like we must have painted something on our way to it and so like they just followed the paint and they're like what are you guys doing? So we had to do community service or something like that.
Jeff:But yeah, they're better off with the lacrosse wall than doing that you know, I'll tell you so when I first met nate bush, um, who has become one of my better friends, um you know he he like he keeps his kids very busy, and um well he has 19.
Jeff:I know he's got a ton of kids, so I always like how do you do this, owning your own business, coaching a million sports and all these kids, and he's's like Tiffany's a saint, um, but uh, I remember asking him. You know we're at, we're at Colin Palmer there one night, and um again, you know this wrestling club. You're there for two hours. You had nothing to do and just to talk, right.
Jeff:And so I was like do you feel like you're overloading Willem's schedule and he goes? No, you know, you know he's been a football, a freshman football coach for like 20 years. He goes. I am telling you, the busier you can keep a 15-year-old kid, the better it is for them and keep them out of trouble, because he's just seen when kids have too much free time and now that I have a 15-year-old I do see that it's way better to load their schedule.
Jeff:My son when there's five days a week of stuff, he budgets his time so much better because he knows like right, when he gets home from school he's got to study.
Jeff:He's got to get that out of the way yeah there's no time to play video games, there's no time for any of that stuff. He's got to get it done so because he's got practice at like 6 30 and then he's going to get home from that at 8 and that's dinner time and then there's just just not gonna be enough time versus when he doesn't have anything. It's just too easy to like jump on computer and play video games.
Jeff:Yeah, yeah and then all of a sudden it's like, man, it's it's eight o'clock, I have all this work to do. I don't really want to do it, you know. So, yeah, I, I totally am a believer and I mean I guess there's like a balance you can. You can overload things, but you know, I, I I do like agree with Nate's point as far as, like, you need to keep these kids busy. You know they're going to learn lots of valuable lessons in that, but you know it's also going to keep them from, you know, maybe doing dumb stuff, doing dumb stuff that like they think would be funny, you know, but it's not necessarily the best best decision yeah, because they're kids.
Jeff:Spray paint, you know Crap and you know when you get a group of 14-year-old kids, you know it just takes one to. You know, implant an idea and then have them go for it.
Justin:So yeah, and I think, as long as like fill their schedule lots of sports, lots of activities, whatever those may be, and not like not put pressure on being the best winning championships, those are all important. I want my kid to be the best, I want to win games, but it's not the most important. And I think you'll, because loading the schedule too much and maybe one of your concerns was like is it going to fizzle out? Are they going to get burned out from wrestling because we're wrestling so much? Well, if the emphasis is on you have to win every match, you have to win every period, you have to pin them. Like if that becomes the emphasis, then yeah, you're gonna get burned out. Like it's just, that's just too much pressure versus like work your butt off, go win as much as you can. If you don't, it's seventh grade Like you'll survive. Yeah.
Jeff:Man. It is funny, though, how crazy some parents though they take it. No, I'm with you. I think there's value in the effort, and so we do talk about that at home, like, well, did you try your best? If you tried your best, then it is what it is there's and I've talked about this with Jake too. I keep using him as the example because he's my oldest and he's our- trial kid right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the test baby. The test baby 100%.
Jeff:It's like okay, like you know, there's few things that can really derail your life or really change it irreversibly, so to speak. It's like teen pregnancy that can derail certain things Drugs and alcohol, and then car accidents. So otherwise, a bad grade on a test, you're fine, you lost whatever match.
Justin:You're fine, live and learn.
Jeff:You live, learn it's. It's really not a big deal and uh, and so it's, it's. It's important to have those conversations all the time, because these kids, I mean, they really do feel a lot of pressure, you know oh yeah on themselves. Like you know, we don't even have to put pressure on them, but there's like there's a standardized test every month.
Jeff:I feel like oh, dude, like between map tests and the ost and the regular tests and all this stuff, it's it's like very stressful. You know for sure to be kids and there's a lot of pressure.
Justin:You know to be gifted nowadays and advanced classes and yeah, yeah, you can't just take regular math Now. We take calculus in fifth grade.
Jeff:Yeah, yeah. And you know, I get to see it like with our, with our patient pool again. Like 80% of my patients are kids and um and ortho is so awesome because you get a chance to really meet families, cause, like, maybe families will have four kids or three kids or something, and so you're, you're probably meeting families and kids that you wouldn't otherwise, right?
Jeff:oh, totally, they're not, totally yeah but it's like I've I've gotten to see a lot of kids where they were like a superstar athlete at seventh and eighth grade and the parents like, yeah, they're definitely going to be, you know, playing d1 baseball and it's like that is awesome, you know. And then by the time I'm treating their third kid or fourth kid, you know, their oldest is a senior I'm like, so is he going to go play baseball somewhere? Or, you know, is she going to go play softball? Like ah, they're just really burnt out, you know, they just want to. You know, godo it.
Justin:And I think sometimes that burnt out really means I was either told the best, that I was the best, or I was gonna be the best and I'm not, and therefore it's easier not to do it because I can't live up to that.
Justin:And I, you know, I, I I've coached a long time and I've seen the same thing. There's the rare ones, right, I've coached guys in the NFL right now. When those kids were coming through that's a Division I athlete you could just look at them and you know. But I mean, so much is going to change from when they start to, let's say, the Pinnacles High School. For most people it is. There's so much ebb and flow. So much is going to change. Whoever you think is going to be the star now. They might be, who knows? But you actually have no idea. So I think sometimes it's like I tell my kids all the time you don't want to be the best early on.
Justin:It's not good because you don't learn to work early on, it's not good. Because you don't learn to work, you don't learn to like grind it out and see improvement. And jackson playing lacrosse, he's good, he's one of the better. He he's in third grade but he's one of the our second grade. He's one of the better ones out there but he plays with his brother all day right. So like he's at an advantage for some of those kids who don't have an older sibling playing lacrosse. So he's had a stick in his hand. He comes to all the Vinny's practices now for two years. Like he's going to be more advanced. So yesterday he was. He's like they wanted to jump in the pool because that's what you do in training out and he was like I don't want to go to practice. He's like I'm the best anyways. And I'm like, oh, here we go.
Justin:And so yeah, at a conversation I'm like you might be one of the better kids out there right now, but you're not better than a kid in another town. You're not going to. You know you'll be the kid that I've told you about forever. That has success early on. That's not the attitude to have.
Jeff:Yeah, I think you know, if you're the best early on, you also have a hard time dealing with, uh, failure losing. Yeah, you know, yeah, it can break you, um, but yeah, it's, it's stuff like so jake used to only do jujitsu and it was kind of like this awesome thing because there's no scholarships in jujitsu like it's not a heist, it's not a team sport or school sport so yeah he was there, um know, putting in what he wanted to put in, and um, and then now with wrestling, which I've grown to love.
Jeff:wrestling, I mean, he's done it, he's ninth grader and he's started doing it in seventh grade. I've grown to love it. But, man, there it does creep into you as far as like, oh well, you could do this in in college, maybe like a D three kind of thing, like like, do you want to do that? And and then you know, I that's probably never the best conversations to to let creep in, because then you run the risk of like, I don't know the sport, you know feeling the pressure, yeah, you know.
Justin:and so it's especially early on there's plenty of time and you're getting close right and that's probably why these things are creeping in your mind like there's plenty of time for that. You're getting close right and that's probably why these things are creeping in your mind Like there's plenty of time for that, but prior to, you know, maybe freshman year, but prior to getting into, like varsity, sports. I don't know why there's so much conversation like that, because it's just, it's again. There's rare anomalies You're going to look at somebody and say they're a Division, I athlete.
Jeff:But for the most part, like there's so much to be determined, yeah, I mean it's crazy, you're right. So, um, my cousin's probably at the end of his career, he, he plays in major league baseball and, um, and growing up I mean he was like always a super elite athlete and so it's funny, even though, like again, if my kids are baseball players, I would totally take them to d-back because it's funny, even though, like again, if my kids are baseball players, I would totally take them to d-back because it's awesome and the place is impressive.
Jeff:But, um, it's funny looking, looking back on my cousin's childhood, where, like he was a multi-sport athlete, like he played football, basketball and baseball, and he only played baseball during the baseball season and yeah there wasn't any like off season.
Jeff:He was from st louis so it was cold weather. You know area and um. Elite is elite, right, and and I grew up um in worthington, like I said, and and on my travel baseball team growing up was nick swisher who ended up playing in the major leagues. And again, elite is elite I mean everybody knew nick was like special right. So like perry park, is I, I still I. Nick probably doesn't even remember why he's a switch hitter, but I promise this is why he's a switch hitter I haven't talked to him since we were kids, so not even like I'm friends with him
Jeff:but I just it was such a cool memory because to show like how elite he was compared to all the rest of us at baseball. So perry park is in these three diamonds in worthington and that's where, at that time, um, in the early 90s, the worthington travel baseball played. Well, yeah, perry, four, whatever. When you're like 14, in the right field there's there's trees, um, that come up next to the, the fence. And so nick was like I'm gonna learn he's left-handed thrower and when we were kids he batted right hand, but in the majors he's a switch hitter yeah and so you probably like, oh, he probably always switch it like that's so wrong, because he didn't when we were little kids.
Jeff:And so that year, when we were 14, he's like my goal this year I'm gonna hit it over those, those trees and like I mean I could never. I mean, if I was like a right-handed hitter which I was I'm like, okay, this year my goal hit left-hand, I'm just going to get a base hit right, sure enough. I mean, it didn't take the whole season, he just bombs over those trees, and so it was just like he was special and the rest of us were just normal.
Justin:Yeah, you can't look at him and be like, well, I got to do it like that, right, like because genetics are going to take over. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing. There's so many things that you can impact, but you can't impact the genetics. Like, you're going to be as tall as you're going to be.
Jeff:Yeah, you know there's, and unfortunately I'm not very tall. No, me neither I tell my kids that I'm like it's, you're probably not going to hit that six foot mark.
Justin:Yeah, and and I, dave, who was one of the co-founders of Brickhouse Blue, and we talked about his AU program and and he talked about like analytics of division one, basketball players and what, what is the height of a guard, and it's like you can't deny the analytics of it right.
Justin:Like there's not, like if you're not six foot or taller, the odds of you doing that aren't very good. I mean like there's nothing wrong with having success at every other level. It doesn't have to be professional or Division I, because really it's about like the kids love doing it, like they're having fun. Yeah, I mean they're like. You know they're enjoying it, so keep doing it. Well, I mean they're enjoying it, so keep doing it.
Jeff:Well, and I think back to, I have really good high school memories from baseball and I wasn't good enough to play past high school and great, great memories just being on the team, and it's not even like I remember individual hits or games, it's just like being around your buddies, and so that's one of the sad things. I think. Well, at least in new albany, um, and in some of these bigger d1 schools, like there's so many kids that you have to be very good at the sport just to like be on the team. Yeah, and I mean the, the age of like multi-sport athletes seems to be like closing. You know it's a. I mean you can do a sport and then do track or something like that. You know, because it's it's complementary to a lot of sports.
Jeff:But you know, if there's like I don't want to say tracks on a skill sport, but you know what I'm saying yeah, yeah, yeah um, I think track can complement so many other sports and but if, like you know, we were talking about lacrosse, like those really good lacrosse players, um, do they really want to wrestle?
Jeff:if they're a good wrestler or they want to do box lacrosse, I mean, a lot of them are feeling pressure like why I can't take the winter off yeah, I bet you could, I bet you'll still be just as elite if you don't do box lacrosse, you know, but there's like this massive pressure that, like after freshman year, I think you need to specialize in something or else you're not going to make the team, and maybe there's some truth that I mean probably is and I don't know.
Justin:It's just kind of unfortunate because I feel like our kids gonna lose the opportunity to play a sport they may enjoy, just for the enjoyment of playing the sport, because they haven't been exposed to it. To your point, if you're playing baseball, like nowadays, you've got to be a really really good baseball player, like those are the best of the best. Well, if you're playing baseball, like nowadays, you've got to be a really really good baseball player, like those are the best of the best. Well, if you just focus on baseball all the way through and it doesn't work out for you, can you just go jump on the basketball team or jump on the track, or like that's hard because you haven't been exposed to it. He's been, you've been, on one track, mind well, even, like you know, new albany football.
Jeff:You know, I saw that, you know, this year. So my oldest never played youth football and he goes and plays freshman football. Well, they run the wing tees from third grade on, and so any of these kids that start playing in ninth grade they're really at a disadvantage as opposed to other schools where the middle school is very much separate from the high school, or maybe there's two different middle schools that are feeding into high school, and where day one everybody has a clean slate like, hey, I know, maybe you ran this in middle school. This is, this is our system.
Jeff:we're going to get everybody coached up, you know ninth grade it's like, hey, 90 of the team already knows this, you know, you just catch up, you sit back and watch, and it's that's a tough thing to thing to do, even from a non-physical standpoint, and these other sports that are real, skill-based I mean, like, if you're 14 and you're like, you know, I think I like golf you have no chance of making New.
Justin:Orleans' golf team, if you like it.
Jeff:I mean one of my buddy's sons plays on the junior high team and, like I mean, there were like four kids or something like that that shot par. I mean, how is that a possibility?
Justin:I have no idea.
Jeff:It's crazy. So it's like you can't just like enjoy golf at 13, 14, and it's got to be your life. And now there's you know we're talking about year-round facilities there's these year-round indoor golf facilities with coaching year-round, and they have, you know, a swing at least like all that stuff, at least golf it like that's a life sport, that's the yeah carry that on for life.
Justin:You're. It's funny. I just. I got a text yesterday from somebody. My high school hurdle record got broken yesterday oh yeah, so it's like 20 years standing.
Justin:I'm like that's great. Yeah, because there were so many people had gotten close and I haven't really thought about it in a long time. Yeah, and then somebody sent it to me and I'm like, good, I hope great, it's awesome Because there were so many people that had gotten close and I haven't really thought about it in a long time. And then somebody sent it to me and I'm like, good, I hope it's a good kid.
Jeff:I don't know the kid Heard. He's a good kid.
Justin:So congrats. But yeah, some of those sports I can't go run anymore.
Jeff:You know what I mean you get to go.
Justin:Uh no, I tore my hamstring like racing a sixth grader at lacrosse um but yeah, at least those life sports.
Justin:Like you're going to continue to play those tennis, golf, yeah, um, I mean, like your, your your youth sports. Time is so short, you know, like it's such a small window and then you've got the rest of your life. Like that I I try and tell that to the kids too. Like, enjoy it, do the best you can go out and try and be the best, but like keep in mind what's probably more important is, like where your academics are yeah and being a good human being, because you're going to be a human being for the rest of your life.
Justin:You're going to be a football player for such a short time yeah, yeah, and I don't know.
Jeff:the tough part with academics, too, is is it is probably similar to coaching styles, like there's certain kids that respond really well to a strict coach and there's certain kids that just melt, you know in not a good way you know, maybe there are our school setup is like really good for like 85 percent of the kids and there's that 15 percent.
Jeff:Yeah, that, uh, traditional school setting is is is kind of like tough and but so it's like those kids may need some, some extra. I don't know um perspectives, but then it's like there's also this pressure to do all these extracurriculars and I don't know, like we talked about, it's so hard. Being a kid I do sympathize, you know, with these kids. I mean, you know, between the nonstop social media, the pressure I mean even just to get into college, like when I went to ohio state. It was, it was just a joke to get in, it was so easy, everybody in ohio got in and now it's like incredibly hard to get into ohio state.
Justin:Yeah, you see, t's at like 28 or something or higher.
Jeff:And yeah, it's you're right, there is we, we had curriculum night, uh, a couple months ago, because I I guess how, how New Albany does it is most of the freshmen take very similar classes and then after freshman year there's curriculum night where you can kind of like set your own pathway I got so much anxiety over it because it's like they're like well, you need this many credits in order to like.
Jeff:This college wants this many credits of foreign language. This college like. I don't remember any of that from high school. I just remembered and never thinking about it and just assuming I was going to get into ohio state and like, yeah, it was going to be fine. That was it I never once thought about.
Justin:Now there's so much top of mind discussion, you know, um well that that happened in going into middle school, like we had a curriculum night and it's like, okay, here's uh, you know if you take this course in this course. And then here's the track yeah right, you can start getting college credit as a junior or whatever. And I'm like we're in going into middle school, we're talking about um, you know, we're taking advanced math classes and it's like do you want to take eighth grade science?
Justin:and it's like what do I need to score on my oet, like I'm we're going into middle school?
Jeff:I know, and then it counts towards your high school GPA, all this stuff, yeah, and yeah, I just, I don't know, maybe I was just oblivious to it all, but I just don't remember there being this much pressure. You know, like I mean, jake will ask me, like you know, were you stressed out all the time? I'm like no, I like was thinking about. You know, I played golf and baseball in in high school and like just thinking about like when can I play? And you know, when can I? You know, I, I was like you know, I, I had pretty good grades, you know, growing up, but it just wasn't.
Jeff:I don't think I really understood the uh, the need to work really hard until I got to college and I was like, oh, you need that to get into dental school, Okay, like, yeah, so like I've figured out how to study and and it is weird, like I, I definitely figured out how to study for myself, but I don't know if kids nowadays, if anybody's, ever coached them on how to study, like I mean, you know, for for test taking and um, well, I'm going to send my kids to your house because I can't help them with that.
Jeff:Yeah, you know, so I'll tell you, like I said, my dad's given me a lot of good advice. So when I was in college, you know, because college it's like you know in high school you can get really good grades just by doing your homework and then doing OK on tests. But in college a lot of it's like 25 percent midterm, 25 percent midterm, 50 percent final. So it's like you better learn to take a test. And so I remember complaining about that to my dad and so he, for maybe 10 or 15 years, wrote the board exam. He was one of the writers for board exams for ear and throat doctors.
Jeff:And so he was like you know, it's really, really hard to write a fair test. And a fair test is where you know you don't have a lot of gotcha questions but you have a reasonable distribution. So you want to make sure you reward the people who put in the work and, you know, acknowledge the people that maybe didn't. Yeah, yeah and uh. So he's like it's really hard to write a fair test where you know you have 80 percent of like pretty easy questions, 10 percent of hard questions, five percent extra hard and then 5% that are very hard, yeah, right. And so he was like if you go into your studying like you're writing a fair test, I guarantee you'll write a test harder than you'll ever take. And 100%. That happened Like 100%. So you wrote tests for yourself, totally, totally.
Jeff:So I would I would sit down and I would read through the notes once and I would read through the notes twice and then the third time I would go through and be like, okay, I'm going to write a test, I'm going to write down. You know, if it's going to be 50 questions, I'm going to write down. You know 40 concepts that are like the most basic. Yeah, and then do that and it really worked because I mean, I mean, I graduated college summa cum laude.
Justin:I was number one in my dental class. Something worked.
Jeff:Yeah, I had like 99% on boards and so that little piece of advice was remarkable, because if you're trying to write a test, you do internalize the question so much more than just trying to memorize.
Justin:It's got to be way harder to write it, way harder, way harder.
Jeff:And then you're like you know you're writing it and you write a question down and you're like, nah, they're never going to ask. That that's way too. You know that's not a good point, you know.
Justin:Yeah.
Jeff:And it was amazing how many times I'd write a question where, like, something very similar would be on the test. Okay, I've seen that before, um, but yeah, so I would always write a harder, harder.
Justin:So are you going to start writing tests for the board? No, no, no, I'm not going to do that. You volunteering?
Jeff:No, you know it's it's hard enough with all all the stuff. No, I won't be doing that, but it was. It was good piece of advice. So I've talked to, uh, my oldest about that. Um, you know about like trying to do that, but it's very weird for me to to help them study because everything's on that tablet and I am.
Jeff:I need a book, I need to like it feels good to highlight to me and it doesn't feel good to use my finger on a tablet and highlight. Yeah, um, so I am that like old guy that I don't know, I I would struggle with school right now where everything is just have you helped, vinny, with anything?
Justin:oh, yeah yeah, I don't it's. I would struggle with school right now where everything is.
Jeff:Just have you helped vinny with anything?
Justin:oh yeah yeah, I don't, it's miserable, it is, so I just we. I keep paper in the drawer. Yeah, and it's like, whatever he's working on, I just gotta grab a piece, dude I.
Jeff:I bought a used chemistry textbook this year so I could like if jake had chemistry questions. Because, like at first, he was like here, like I don't really understand this and and I try to find it on the tablet I'm like this is so you're looking at the book now yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeff:So I bought a textbook and it's like why can't they just have a textbook? You know like it's textbooks are written, so they're they're, you know, well organized and like they're easy to understand and you can everything right there. I just I don't get it.
Justin:I mean our textbooks gone. They gotta be like. I'm wondering new albany. Yeah, I wonder it, uh, like even in college, like are they still, I mean they get? Are they selling physical textbooks? I don't know, I don't know.
Justin:Yeah because I was the same way like highlight, like even now when I read, like folding corners different ways, so I know where to go back and reference things. Yeah, totally, and I don't. I talked to colleen barber about this. Uh in. Uh, the way that they can manipulate the tablet when they're doing homework is particularly math.
Jeff:It's like I, I can't wrap my head around it, can't do it no I need a piece of paper and I was like good at math and I like I, I cannot. However, they're doing it, I can't do do it. And then in chemistry they have this like paper notebook that they take notes in. But, like, if you're a kid like Jake has terrible handwriting, so like, at least to me, I can't read it. So I'm like trying to read his terrible notes and I'm trying to help him. I'm like can't they just have a textbook Like this would make it so much easier. Yeah and um, but then the problem, the textbook is like, you know, maybe the teacher added something, you know, different flavor to it than than what they have, and I don't know.
Justin:It's uh, I I think college has got to be a completely different experience than we had like what has to be. I mean with ai yeah, you can write whatever you want yeah, I mean have ai write it, so I don't know how they dodge that.
Jeff:I'm sure there's a way.
Justin:But yeah, like the best we had was all the time, All the time right.
Jeff:Like there's nothing better for trip planning.
Justin:And it's like hey.
Jeff:I'm going to go to New York City for a week with my family. Give me like 20 restaurants, 20 museums, like everything, and it's like that sounds like a great idea that you're gonna go to new york. Yeah, you're gonna make life-lasting memories and it gives you like the most incredible stuff.
Justin:It's like wow yeah, uh, yeah, I. I even pay for one of them, um, because it remembers things. Oh okay, so like I use it in, how do I use the heck out of it? Which one do you?
Jeff:so I use grok grok okay, yeah, yeah, I I've only used gemini and chat gbt, but, um, I know grok is supposed to like have different voices and different personalities. Like you can fit your hilarious yeah you could do you.
Justin:You sky's the limit, but I I mean they're all I think, fairly capable I guess. But yeah, I use it for everything I used. The other day Vinny got so mad at me because I used Grok to like prove a point, and he was like I'm not. Oh, it was something about the order in which our kids take showers. This is big fight, like who's going to go first, who's going to go last, and. And so I was like hey, grok, how would you handle this? Just being funny. And it was like, oh, just make a list, like give me all these suggestions. I was like I'm going to take one of these suggestions. And the kids were like no, we're not listening to a computer, like you didn't think of this, what?
Jeff:were the suggestions.
Justin:Yeah, so it was like one was to incentivize for going early. The one that I really liked was set a time that they have to be done by like nine o'clock. Everybody has to be done. I don't care what order you go in, but here's what happens if you're not done by nine o'clock. Yeah, I like that one because then they can figure it out with each other get done by nine. If you don't, if you don't be last, because if it was my sibling and I was in there at 8 30, I wouldn't walk out till nine. Yeah, um, yeah, so that's kind of like, and then you know, charting it, like, okay, you go first, you go second, you go third, you go fourth, um, which I didn't want to do or manage or think about, but so I I kind of stuck on the like got to be done by nine, that's it I don't think it's working.
Jeff:But yeah, it's, it's awesome. I you know, I referenced, like, my dad saying he's the child of the child of the Depression. So on my mom's side, my grandfather, I mean they all lived through the Depression and I remember him telling me this story where there was one bathtub and so that was one water, and so if you were the last, one, it was not, yeah, it was like oh man, it's like fighting over who you know the you know the order of the showers. At least they get like fresh water.
Justin:Right yeah, here we are, we're selling.
Jeff:I read this article one time where like lives overall, kind of a worse standard of life than some of you know our poorer people, in the sense of, like you know there was no anesthesia, you know so, like you know, if you needed you know anything dental, you know like oh terrible, you know just sanitation. You know you'd walk around, you know the streets and there'd just be manure everywhere because everything was horses and so infections were all over the place.
Justin:And these were the wealthy people back then.
Jeff:Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, like the richest people. And no air conditioning, no heat, really just like really a terrible standard of living by today's standards. And you can go to the store and get a little smartphone that's disposable almost, and so it's always good to, I think, bring it back when kids are complaining of whatever it's like. Do you like how lucky we are to?
Justin:live in. This is how you know you're old, by the way.
Jeff:Yeah, when you start having these conversations oh 100, 100 uphill both ways for sure, I mean that the textbook thing like I think, my kids think I'm like totally ancient right, um, and I'm fine with that. I've like like, if I'm not in bed by nine, 30, like I'm like kind of irritated, like.
Justin:I'm that guy too, where it's like.
Jeff:Oh, my gosh, we were driving. Uh. So I love pizza. Pizza is kind of like my favorite thing, and so, um, for my birthday, which was in March, I love hound dogs pizza down down by campus. The smoking, joe's crest is amazing. So we go down there. And then there's this milkshake place I love down there called Shake Number 8. It's amazing. They have these gigantic milkshakes Phenomenal. So anybody who's listening, hound Dog's Pizza with the Smoke and Joe's Crest, shake Number 8, campus, awesome. Shake Number 8. Shake Number 8. Awesome. So, anyway, anyways, we're driving by and uh, and I think it was like jordan was like I think I'd rather just like live at home, like these, don't you know these, I don't know if I want to live down here if we go to ohio state.
Jeff:And I was like no, you're gonna want to not live at home. He's like well, why would I do that? Like I have a bed, and because I've described my, my, what was your dorm like? And my dorm was like as big as this podcast room and there were three guys living there, smelled terrible, right. And so that's when he was like I think I just want to live at home and I was like no, no, no, because you know, when it's Thursday and it's eleven thirty at night and you're like, should we go out? Like you can just like go out? And if you're at home, we're like like the hell, you're going out yeah, you're you're staying here and he's like, why would I go out that late?
Jeff:and I'm like I don't know. I don't know why anybody does at this point. You know I'm like in bed by day three, but I definitely remember it happened, it will happen it will happen, you will, you will, uh, love staying out late and being up late, and now, though, like I just I don't know. I'm, like you know, talking about me being an old man. It's just like if I eat too much pizza, then I get heartburn all night. So it's like youth is a wonderful thing for many reasons.
Justin:I'm telling you it's 40. Everybody says 40 when it happens.
Jeff:I had 40.
Justin:Everything changes.
Jeff:I would agree with that. I was bitching about that to my dad right around when I was 40. I was like God, my back is really starting to hurt. He's like wait until you're 50. Then wait until you're 60. Wait until you're 70. So I'm sure it just gets worse.
Jeff:But, like you know, I was the New Albany Wrestling, had this thing like a duel last weekend and Jake lost a match to this kid who's like a national Greco wrestler and this kid body slammed him, like flipped him over, body slammed him. It looked so painful and he got up and, you know, lost that match but then went on and wrestled three more matches and won and looked good. And afterwards he's like, oh, my neck is killing me. And I was like what happened? He's like, well, that second match when he flipped me, like I landed on my neck and I'm thinking, how great is it to be a kid? You can land violently and still wrestle three more matches. And he's like, yeah, my neck's a little tight. I think I'd have to miss work for like three months. I she's like, yeah, my neck's a little tight. I think I'd have to miss work for like three months. I don't know, I mean something terrible, right, you know, this is like being 15. You know, you just stretch your neck a little bit, you're like yeah, I'm all right.
Justin:We were doing something in the yard I was mowing or something like that and Natalie was like headed towards me. I was like out by the fire pit or something, something. And I turn around and she's on the ground crying. Well, she's laughing, crying or hurt crying. But she rolled her ankle just like in a hole in the ground. Oh, it's swollen. The next morning she's like gotta unlace her shoes to put them on. I was like, oh man, how it's the same spot that all of our kids play football and everything on yeah, they've probably rolled their ankle in that hole and then it got hurt.
Jeff:Yeah, well, it's like bevelheimer, where the kids are playing football. No one ever gets injured, except the coaches. We're just like walking by, damn it like ow, and it's like can't they turf this?
Justin:yeah, for us, you know really I have to fight all this grass, right, come on now. It's terrible. Um, that's funny. Uh well, let's, let's wrap up a little bit. Um, I would like to finish with like what, what are, what do the shirks do in new albany? What do you guys? What do you guys so outside of school and sports? Like you get a, you get a weekend where you don't, somehow, you don't have something. What are you gonna do?
Jeff:yeah, so you know, before the kids really started getting activities, um, we used to every weekend explore Ohio and so that was like our thing was to, whether it be, you know, going hiking or going to like parks in the state, or even going to like just cool, just random things, like you know. Ohio, roscoe village, you know like you know, so there, or like you know, Mohican, which is beautiful, you don't think you're in Ohio.
Justin:Yeah.
Jeff:But even like fun things like you know, gosh, what is it? It was this state park that's kind of near Springfield, because we would like go hike there and then have Young's Dairy, which is delicious ice cream, so that really we were always trying to like explore Ohio. That's cool. And then, you know, the kids got old enough and now they're in all these different activities.
Justin:But I feel like I don't leave town yeah.
Jeff:Yeah, I mean it's like Westerville, new Albany and like Gahanna. It's like our little piece of pie of Columbus. We randomly will go downtown, but for the most part everything like our whole life is like right there. But I'll say you know, so we moved to New Albany in 2012. And it's awesome, I mean having you know Market Street and having like a very walkable community. I mean I don't think we leave just because we don't need to, right? I mean everything's just kind of right here. We have a dog, so walk and hank when the weather's nice and just hanging out here. I think it'd be great if we could get just a few more restaurants, then I'd never have to leave.
Justin:But so that seems to be. It always comes down to the restaurants, and I don't disagree. But yeah, it seems to be. I mean, there's all this development going on right, so we're going to get more restaurant options.
Jeff:Yeah, it's wild to drive by. You're talking about the one that's like north, the 605 and Central College, right, yeah, so I don't know enough about that. What is happening with that? Because I remember there was going to be a development and then it got no.
Justin:And then now I drove up there and everything's the trees are gone. Yeah, it's uh, wow, what's the movie? Uh, where they it's like cartoonish they harvest all the trees, yeah, for the cotton, or like the, the the material. But anyways, um, yeah, I think it's going to be like I, I've, I think if you go to the website, they have like the plans for it, but it's going to be like mixed. So I think they're going to have some retail, probably some office space, but I also think there's going to be like living there too. Oh, ok, I mean, it looks pretty cool.
Jeff:Yeah.
Justin:It looks really it almost looked like an outdoor Easton, like a miniature version of it.
Jeff:Yeah, it looked neat. You know, definitely noticed and just observed, whether it be pataskalo or. You know, like we talked about earlier new albany or whatever, at the end of the day you can't really stop growth and you can, you can try to, you know, just to slow it down. But you know if investment's gonna come, you know it's gonna come and you know it's like go back to worthington, you know, in the in the 60s there's like tons of farmland still and now it now it's completely developed and landlocked and that's just kind of how it's going to be and I understand people wanting to preserve you know, the community that it's been.
Jeff:But I do feel, like New Albany, the planners do a really good job of trying to keep a small field and sustain the growth. I mean like it is to me. Me, I mean, I don't know enough about it for sure, but as a resident of the community it seems like they they try very hard to to put a lot of effort and planning and not just like, okay, well, all this stuff's happening, we'll figure it out later.
Justin:Yeah, yeah, it's easy to criticize, right yeah like there are people way smarter than me making the decisions, and is it the best, I don't know, but it's a pretty cool place to be. Yeah, I mean, it's like I can't complain, you know founders day parades, like saturday, right and um.
Jeff:It always is the most amazing thing to me, because during the parade there's just insane amounts of candy all over the street and then 30 minutes later it's gone gone all the city streamers, the sweepers are out and it's just like it's gone, as if it's like a parade, did not happen.
Justin:Movie set it's unbelievable.
Jeff:So it's like you know, there's these amazing things.
Justin:The events are awesome too. Like founders day is really cool. Yeah, um, the fourth of july is a huge hit, yeah, every year, um, and some of that stuff's changing now. So some of those events are uh, with the city. So there was like the, the new albany community events, like managed a bunch of it, and then the city manages some of it, and then the chamber managed some of it. Um, the city's taking some more of those events on, okay, um, so they're going to change. They're just going to get bigger and better yeah, yeah, like oktoberfest is going to be a new location.
Jeff:Oh really, I actually like Oktoberfest, like where it is right now.
Justin:So yeah, it's going to be at Rose Run, like where the bridge is, where they do Taste of New Albany if you've ever done that.
Jeff:So they're going to use that space, so they'll just close off the street.
Justin:They're going to yep, they're going to close. So for Oktoberfest is going to close, dublin-granville yeah, they're going to have a huge TV screen, like if you're standing on the bridge looking at the school. Yeah, and I don't want to give it all away, but there's going to be some really cool stuff there. Yeah, that's cool. And then 4th of July, same thing. Some things are going to change there. It's just going to keep getting bigger.
Jeff:Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. I feel like the people who are planning these things are well-intentioned.
Justin:Oh yeah, 100%.
Jeff:And it's great.
Justin:Yeah, yeah, cool. Anything else?
Jeff:No, I mean, I don't know if we talked about the stuff you want to talk about. We dove into parenting and finances and stuff. But yeah, this was a lot of fun.
Justin:Yeah, it was. It was just like I was just hanging out at a ball game, that's yeah, and I'm looking at the time it's been, like it's been an hour and 20 minutes and oh nice I feel like we just keep going yeah, we just keep going, so another time we'll come back, yeah absolutely I. I'm kind of looking forward to that, like some of the people that I've sat down with, um to be able to do it again yeah like to see where it goes, uh, but no, we touched on new albany.