How IOL Global Began | Leadership, Legacy, Faith & Purpose | Episode 15

How does a mission grow into a legacy?

In this special episode of the Lead with Legacy™ Podcast, Amanda Chambers and Dr. Jim Chambers share the story behind IOL Global—how it began, the challenges along the way, the faith that sustained it, and the vision that continues today.

This conversation explores leadership, perseverance, family legacy, organizational growth, helping others succeed, and why true impact is always about people.

From humble beginnings to serving organizations around the world, this episode is a reminder that meaningful leadership is built through service, conviction, and consistency.

🔔 Subscribe for leadership insights, honest conversations, and practical wisdom you can apply immediately.

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www.iolglobal.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Lead with Legacy, the official podcast of IOL Global. Here we will explore leadership that outlives titles and trends. Through conversations with faith-based and marketplace leaders, we will discuss integrity, conviction, and purpose. To learn more about us, visit us at iOL Global dot com. Hello, and welcome to the Lead with Legacy Podcast. Today we have some interesting things going on. Actually, in Fayetteville, Arkansas, at the Fayetteville Public Library, which is massive and really incredible. They have a podcast booth here that we were able to rent to get an idea of what a podcast studio looks like and the different equipment that they have. So you can see that my setup today is a little bit different than we normally see. I am here with Dr. Jim Chambers, the founder of IOL Global. And we are going to talk a little bit about the beginnings of IOL and the Institute of Organizational Leadership, how it began, why it began, and what the original mission is for the company, and then where we are now. So thank you for being on with me. This is also my dad. And so we're excited to kind of talk about the history of IOL today.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Very exciting.

SPEAKER_04 1:16

Yeah. Tell us a little bit about how did IOL first begin? What was the original vision? What problem were you trying to solve? And what did the early days look and feel like?

SPEAKER_03 1:28

Well, so I was working at um I was working at a really large church, big mega church in Georgia. I had been a college professor prior to that, came down to Atlanta to work at this church, finished up my doctoral work while I was doing that. And uh so in the midst of that, I started the pastor that I worked for really didn't like consulting with people. And so when other large churches or organizations would call in and have questions about how to do something or how we were doing something, he would pass that off to me. So I started going around looking, and I did a lot of writing in small groups, writing small group curriculum and different curriculums for education. But basically I started realizing because we are a very large and very fast-growing church. And so I think we were one of the top 10 fastest-growing churches in the United States and one of the largest churches uh anywhere, really. So um doing these unique programs, I would go and look at other churches. And one of the things that I noticed was that um the way churches were organized had a lot had a lot to do with whether or not they would grow numerically. And that was a big thing back then in the early, late 80s, early 90s. You know, why are some churches grow in size? Why do some not, et cetera? So there were all these theories about that, all kinds of books being written about it. Some of them I the authors I knew, some I just read. And it was all good, very good stuff, but it just seemed like something was missing. No one really addressed how the church was organized. I ran across Carl George from Fuller Evangelistic Institute, and uh we compared notes about various things, and I just began to get this idea in my head that maybe, maybe, the way a church was organized and ran administratively had something to do with that. So I got really focused in on that. One of the things I learned very early was that the majority of churches did not have a long-range plan. They didn't operate from, you know, any kind of a long-range strategic plan. And so I began messing around with trying to see if I could resolve that issue. So it really started out a lot of it, the beginning was was me looking at church and nonprofit, you know, parachurch organizations in those days, and uh and looking at the problems they were facing and the challenges they were facing, and seeing if I could come up with some reasonable, you know, understanding of that in order to help. And I think the looking back, I a big part of what started IOL was my desire to be helpful to people. Because one of my, I think, my spiritual gifts is not only teaching, but also just helping. And I get a lot of pleasure out of that. So I was trying to solve problems. So we came up with this idea that our original mission statement was to improve the organizational effectiveness of our clients. And our clients were primarily at that time some churches, some parachurch organizations, and some educational institutions. So we were just trying to figure out what the problems were that they were facing and how would how would we help address those? So I ended up just kind of flying around a lot of my time off and so on, helping look at those, kind of look at those things. Well, and so what I what I did discover, number one, there was no plan going forward. Churches would change pastors, organizations would change leaders. There's no real plan going forward except the mission of the organization, but no real concrete planning. And uh so I began working on a planning model that would resolve that, that would help go in and help them set that up, get that out of the way. So uh three to five years, they would know where they're going. The other thing I noticed was that for churches, they would never get larger than their organizational structure. So systems, strategies, and structures, the three things in organizational development. So what I discovered was is if a church was organized to care for, and care is the issue, this is what I got from Carl helping him work on some of his research and books called the Metachurch books. So what I learned was if you if you're organized to care for 200 people, you're gonna be around 200. And if you get above, you might go to 300 or 350, but then you're gonna default back to 200. If you're organized to take care of 500 people, you're gonna probably get up to about five or six hundred people and then level out over time, a couple years. If it's a thousand, it's a thousand. If it's 5,000, it's 5,000. So I went around, I looked at these megachurches, I looked at medium, small, startups, et cetera. And how they were set up to operate on a daily, weekly, monthly basis is right where they would set. And they would, some of them would be there for 10 years, some of them forever, and so on. So then I had an opportunity because of my work academically and with the church. I would have the opportunity then to go in and say, okay, well, let's let's take a church of 200, organize it to be 600, let's say, all right, and let's just watch it for a couple years and see what happens. And miraculously, it would just grow. And people would look at me and say, Well, you know, what's the solution? And I would say, well, the way it's organized, and you know, and that means a lot, how it's organized, how it's managed, how it's run week by week. So it's not as simple as just the organization side. But what you know, they would look at me and go, you know, well, can you do that for us? And then I would go try another one and another one and a bigger one. And so over time, it just it got to the point where I couldn't do my work at the church and keep up with everything. So with the help of Mount Perrin with Dr. Paul Walker, I invested some money and resources into allowing me to go out on my own and try it. And I had a board of directors at that time. Good friend Glenn Henderson, still with us and many others, said, Well, why don't you just go, you know, give it a try and see if we can have an organization. So then, a short time later, I'll just throw one more thing in. So we started out that way, and then all of a sudden, because of some writings and public appearances and so on, we started getting calls from corporations. Our first corporate client was uh Bell South. They called and said, Hey, we see what you're doing. Uh, we've we've talked to people. How about coming over and talking to us? So we ended up being the people who evaluated when the Ma Bell thing kind of broke up and these companies had to separate up and so on. We were some of the people called in to try to understand what to do next and so on. So we got a lot of PR from that. And then IBM, and then you know, the US Navy, banks in the US, military, and so on. So it's kind of we had two approaches, the nonprofit, faith-based, and then being pulled into the other side.

SPEAKER_04 9:18

So you talk about uh the strategy, and you guys ended up really honing in on this and then creating it and copywriting it. And so you ended up naming the the faith-based one, the ministry-based strategic planning. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_03 9:33

Yeah, ministry-based strategic planning and organizational development. So we had a number of products, if you will, or services that had product. So the planning was one, which we call ministry-based strategic planning. And then we had team-based strategic planning for the business side. Then we had we developed, and it was all of this was out of the need of the clients. What the clients kept saying to us, this is what we need. So we developed a ministry management model, which really was amazing. I mean, it's been used in thousands and thousands of organizations across the world. It's just a way of managing every ministry in the local church the same way. So if you had five ministries, you organize them and manage them a certain way. If you had a hundred, do it the same way. So then we started doing that for businesses. And then inside that was leadership development because there's always people who are coming up or they need to hire in. So they would, you know, people would say, well, what about, you know, how do we hire the right people? How do we assess our people? How do we prepare people to go into higher level roles? You know, moving up from a technical role. It's just what I did with IBM early on was how do you take IT workers, IT knowledge workers they're called, and move them into management without, you know, making a mess of everything. That was not an easy task. I did that for six years off and on with the mid-range group of IBM. And I think we made great, you know, progress in helping figure out if you're an IT person and you want to be a team leader and then a project manager. Uh, we didn't call them PMPs back in that day in those days. They were just managed projects. And so, how do we help those people get another set of skills? We adopted this thing from Dan Sullivan in Canada up in Toronto. Knowledge, skills, attitudes, and habits. Those are the four things we focused on. So let's say you're an IT worker, you're a coder or whatever, and you want to move into management or the organization wants you to be a project manager. What knowledge, what skills, what attitudes, and what habits do you need to develop to move into that next role in your career path? So that became a big part of, you know, first my interest because I'm just weird like that. I if I don't understand something, I want to dive in, get a deep dive, and then figure it out, and then bring it out and use it to help other people.

SPEAKER_04 12:08

Yeah. So you guys created these strategies, and then um, I remember we're gonna go back a little bit. So when we first started, when you first started the company, it wasn't named the Institute for Organizational Leadership, it had a different name. So we'll talk a little bit about that, and then we'll talk we started in um in the basement of our house there in Marietta, um, and it quickly evolved. And let's talk about the the name structure, and then let's talk about a little bit about the culture of the people that you had um helping and volunteering during those years and how that shaped how the company was structured and how you guys were able to work and accomplish the things that had you know you had set out to do.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

Yeah, I originally really struggled figuring it out. Originally it was just Dr. Chambers, and I didn't like that because I thought, wow, that's not gonna work. Anytime an organization is named after the person who was there at the start, then it's hard to have a legacy, right? It's hard to pass that on. And, you know, if something happened to me, which it did, you know, the future of the whole thing could fall apart. So we used to name Marketplace Resources. And that came actually came out of a Sunday school class that your mother and I taught for many years, a very large, it's almost bigger than the church, but uh it was called Marketplace Christianity. And the people in the class, quite a few of them actually were the original board members of the organization. They put up money, they put up resources to help it start. They all believed that we could do it. And even when I didn't really think so, so we named it that. And then later, I don't know, we were in a meeting somewhere, we couldn't figure out what, you know, we were kind of overwhelmed with customers and all of that. And uh Glenn Henderson, who, like I said, is still, you know, originator of AFC Worldwide Express and still a close business partner, uh, Glenn said, well, you know, I was looking online and I saw this website and it's called IOLglobal.com. Why don't we get that? I think he even got it for us. Up to that point, you know, in the beginning, like you said, we we had about 2,000 square foot. No, we had about a thousand square foot in the basement of our house. And uh we turned that into offices and uh moved into there. I moved out of the church and moved into there. And uh your mother was still at the church. The agreement that I had with the church that she was administrator of the uh Marietta campus, 65 acres of that campus. So the agreement was they would give me all the resources, technology, furniture, volunteers, whatever, but she could not leave. That was the deal. You can go, goodbye, God bless, glad to get rid of me, but she had to stay on for a year. So we moved in there and we had volunteers, Joyce Ward, many others, Charlotte Howler, Donnet Patterson, and others that eventually became employees, many of them did, as we grew and were able to do that. But it started out kind of just providing some resources for the marketplace. And then the Institute for Organizational Leadership idea came along and it fit in with this thing Glenn was talking about, like a website that was available at the time. And uh so we just reorganized under that name. Then we filed for nonprofit status as an educational institution. The board at that time felt like, and I did too, that we didn't want to be a for-profit consulting company. We wanted to be nonprofit. Uh, we could do a lot more for people if we if we were nonprofit. And uh and we had people wanting to donate money and so on. And so, you know, so we we went down that path. That was a two-year journey.

SPEAKER_04 16:10

It was a long journey.

SPEAKER_03 16:11

But I tell you, for all the bad press that IRS gets, they did a great job with their advocacy program. They provided us with a person who was kind of prickly on the front end, but once he got the idea of what we were trying to do and believed that we were honest about it, he really helped us and we got that status, and then that helped us to do a lot of things.

SPEAKER_04 16:36

Yeah, yeah, it really did. Um, let's talk a little bit about mom's influence. Lynette Chambers. How did she shape the thinking about leadership and service? What did she model that still influences the company today? And what part of her legacy lives inside of the organization? Because after she left Mount Perrin, she came on full-time with IOL. Um, and she did uh a lot of work. So let's talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

Yeah, without her, I don't think the thing would have even happened. Of course, she was, you know, my big proponent, you know, big push. You should do it. She actually wanted me to leave the church three years earlier. She's like, you're done here, you know, that they don't they're not see what value that you have. You're just kind of going through the ropes. But you and your brother were still in school, so it's like I didn't want to exit too quickly. And um, but she was like, Yeah, you need to just, you know, get out of this and do your own thing. So, but she has a long history of being an administrator. She had been, you know, the executive assistant to the dean at the college where I worked. She came to Mount Perrin, worked at the school when we expanded to high school, grade school, um, as an administrator over various things, moved over to the church side, very capable administratively, any of that stuff. That's one side, I think, of her skill set. The other side was she just loved people. In my case, I like organizations, I like systems, I like stuff that doesn't have flesh on it. And your mom loved people, and people loved her. She just, we couldn't even go to dinner without people just talking to her, even if they didn't even know her in the airport or whatever. So she just loved people. She was like everyone's mama, everyone's grandma. Well, when she came on board full-time, and that was only for a few months before we were able to start hiring people, she's very good with finances, but the clients loved her. They would much rather talk to her. And so they would be on the phone with her for hours, talking to her about their problems, telling her what char issues were going on, and this and that and the other. And eventually we had to open up a whole side of the business for her to do char consulting because we were just overwhelmed with it. And I would go speak at a conference and I might talk to 2,000 people about something important, I thought. And then I'd take a break and they'd go, hey, uh, you know, can you think Lynette could come over and you know talk to us? I'm like, did I not just uh listen to me? And they're like, Yeah, you're you're entertaining, you're funny. We thought it was good, but maybe she could come over and fix the problem. And so that actually just became a whole business. And then we hired other people to take her place administratively because that freed her up to do, and she always wanted to be a writer. She, from a very early childhood, she loved reading novels and wanted to be a writer. So eventually we were able to carve out some, you know, resources and space for her to start writing. She always wrote short stories and poems and so on, but never, you know, professionally. So that was a she eventually did.

SPEAKER_04 20:07

She you guys wrote a children's series together, and then eventually she wrote several novels and other books. So she did get hundreds of yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Short stories, chicken soup for the soul, all kinds of she's published in a lot of magazines and things like that.

SPEAKER_04 20:24

So I think that one of the reasons that people were so drawn to her, and they really were, she led with a lot of emotional intelligence and empathy. She really cared what people were saying, um, and she really listened to what they were saying, and she had a heart for that. And I think that was um, not that you don't, but I think she just had this really unique way of connecting with people, and it was really unkenny. Like people would always think that they knew her from somewhere, and then when she got older, they always thought she was Paula Dean, which is kind of funny.

SPEAKER_03 20:55

She changed her hair. Yeah, I think I think a lot of it, she definitely had expertise, organizational expertise, you know, from knew how to run an office. I I remember working so on a project with this is a good example. We were doing some work with the Royal Bank of Scotland in the Bahamas in their international division, and they were having some serious challenges sorting things out. And the first one was in the Treasury Department, and she walked into this office. There were, I think there were around 70 employees, something like that, in this one one level of this building. And she walked in there, spent a few hours talking to people, this and that, submitted a proposal about how to reorganize the space, the people, positioning. I mean, after a just a few hours, it's crazy. Just after a few hours, and the uh managing director looked it over and he goes, I can't believe we didn't see this. They they restructured everything over a weekend. Everybody came back to work, she promoted had some. People promoted, some people shifted around into teams. The whole thing, all the problems just went away almost overnight. You know, I didn't do anything. I just was kind of the showing up to meetings. And so she had kind of a way about that. She would, she loved doing banks, she loved doing small businesses, helping doctors' offices grow, accounting firms, consulting, hairstyling. It didn't really matter. She just had a way of, you know, dealing with the human side of all of that.

SPEAKER_04 22:32

Yeah, she was very good at the administrative. And so there was a time there for a long time, because I worked with you guys off and on for, you know, throughout that whole process. Sometimes it was just in the basement putting together manuals, so many manuals.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

Right.

SPEAKER_04 22:46

And um, and then there was a time that we were doing some work with Right Path Resources where we had contracted with them to do personality profiles within the companies and corporations and churches that you guys were working with, which was really interesting. And you guys took a lot of courses on that to learn how to do that. And I think that helped grow you guys and your leadership as well as grow the company.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

Right. We got very interested in the early two, well, kind of late, early 2000s in psychometric testing, you know, looking at personality, looking at values, communication styles. We were doing work with uh Larry Burquette over Christian Financial Concepts, Crown Ministries, some other, you know, parachurch, serendipity, a lot of those people, and they were interested in that. And so I remember I worked on a project with Christian businessmen organization in in Chattanooga, who had video series out, and they were interested in that. So I just kind of got exposure to it and interested in it. And so she was able to really go with that because of the HR connection with it. And so that became a big part, you know, up until not long ago, we were still hired to do a variety of psychometric testing. We did that for the U.S. Navy, for lots of lots and lots of organizations around the world, helping with helping them understand why they would want to do these things, improve communication styles. It really went back to a lot of teams, you know, when people need to work on a team and they can't get along or they can't communicate and so on. And that's kind of what drove it was a shift to two things, a shift to team-based activity, more so, and also a shift into the use better use of technology for assessments. I used to do these things, you know, by hand. I'd have to fill them out by hand, sit down with the person and so on. And I had a background, my academic background helped with that too.

SPEAKER_04 24:58

Having been it was a it was a great collaboration too between IOL and Right Path because you guys kind of set up a collaboration between the two companies to where it was reciprocal. It worked out really well for everyone, everyone was able to benefit from that, as well as the companies that you guys are working, were working with at the time. So then I remember when I first started, like you guys first started doing that work, and I would hear, oh, you know, you're a high D and you're a a C. And I was like, what are they talking about? And but it was it was really interesting once you dove into it and really learned about it, and you could really be better at communicating with people because you understood how they communicate and how they listen and how they learn. And so it's it's a really interesting process.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:47

And it was a really interesting time that stretch of time that we were doing all that.

SPEAKER_03 25:52

The psychrometric testing really was a big deal. And I think it still is now. It's much more sophisticated now with the use of technology. But in the early days, we did it all by hand. We we met with people individually and all of that. And I think that's where our team, as we began to build our team, that really it helped us too to find the right people, you know, so on.

SPEAKER_04 26:15

Well, and to know what those people's strengths are, um, so that you can really pull upon. I know that's a lot that we talked about when, you know, when you guys were growing the company, is it's really important to know what a person likes to do. We don't always get to do what we like to do. Um, but it's important to know that I, you know, the things that I like to do are are something that I get to do so that it kind of it's kind of goes back to that Maslow's hierarchy of needs there. And what what motivates you? You know, what are your motivators? What do you like to do? You're gonna have to do some things that you don't like to do, but let's focus on the things that you really like to do. And I think that helped a lot in the organization when you guys were building and hiring because your team had the autonomy to do the things that they enjoyed doing. Um, and so they were very motivated to come in and do the things that that were set out before them.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Um Yeah, the I think the key there when I first read this, it just resonated with me. I think um our former financial planner, Bill Youngblood, gave me a tape. It was either him or or Jerry Keene, gave me a tape. And on this tape, I used to listen to cassette tape. That's how old I am. Cassette tape. Uh, used to have a Walkman, and I'd get out and walk in in the morning and evening and listen to these tapes. And this guy was talking about your genius. You know, you you probably are really good at something. You know, what is it? You know, have you ever tried to figure that what is it that you love? In my case, believe it or not, helping people was sometimes I would just listen, and people would come up with their own answer, and they just thought I was a genius, and I never recognized that. And you know, I could go into, let's say, a board of directors at some large organization, sat there for hours listening to what's going on, trying to figure it out, asking some questions and so on. They resolve their problems and they think I'm a genius. And I'm like, I don't even know what you're talking about. But there are things that you're good at and you love doing, and they energize you, they get you up in the morning, you never lose your energy for it. And then there are things that we just have to do. They're just administrative stuff that we have to get done. And it doesn't energize us. And if you put people in the wrong position, and this is kind of what it was a learning curve for us, it seems normal today, but you put people in the wrong position, um, and this is a this is a key point, I think. Good people leave first, really smart, intuitive, energetic, bright, whatever you want to categorize them. They have the most options to move jobs, change organizations, do another career path, something that they love, something that that gets them up every day. Well, what we began to realize is, and during this time, we're we're interacting with all these hundreds of organizations, nonprofit, religious, business, military, government, so on. And we're realizing how genius that is, how wonderful that is. If you could get people in a job, they go home at night, they don't sleep because they're so excited about getting stuff done. And so we began to try to help our clients with that, and that became very helpful, I think. Very useful. Today, we kind of take it for granted. But back in those days, people didn't know a lot about that.

SPEAKER_04 29:46

Yeah, and what I always thought was really interesting about the company, too, is money is important, right? And it's good that we all make money, that we have a good income. And it is, you know, it's a natural important thing. But you guys had a lot of people who were motivated because they were allowed to do the work that they like to do. So they just volunteered to work for you. Right.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

A lot of people we had so many people that worked at Iowa that never took a dime. I mean, your mom took care of them. She told us one time, told me one time, she said, people don't work for money. And we rarely ever had an argument about anything, but I'm like, yeah, people work for money. And she's like, no, they don't. They work for hugs and kisses and appreciation. And she would teach that to our clients. She would say, look, there's at some point they don't work for money. And they work because they're appreciated. And they will go the extra mile, stay over late, do whatever's necessary to get the done right, get the work done right for the right appreciation. And she learned that working with volunteers, obviously. Well, it took me a while to really get that. It it I mean, I I didn't discount it, I just didn't think it was that important. But I was proven wrong, thankfully, not only in our organization, but other organizations. Yeah. You know, a lot of times you're not.

SPEAKER_04 31:11

Now when people are appreciated when they know that the work that they're doing for you is important and it has meaning and impact in that they have the ability to do that work without being criticized all the time, that they they can learn and they can grow. And then, you know, mom was really great, and I try to, I learned a lot from her in this, but she was really great about, you know, just surprising people with stuff. Um, that's probably one of the things I miss the most about her is that like, you know, she's always a surprise, you know. And just something, and and she was very good about it, it was something that she knew you would really like. It wasn't some random item. It was something that she had really listened for a long time and knew you would really like this, or the ladies would really like this, and she would make that happen.

SPEAKER_03 32:01

Well, a good example, a good example of that is, you know, we lived in and out of the Caribbean for a long time because we had so many clients down that way. She might visit a, let's say, a bank. Go to a bank, we're visiting, they show you around, you're looking at meeting different people, meeting the leadership, the managers, et cetera. Um, she would notice things. So then she would go, like to the straw market back then, it's a big straw market in the day down there, down in uh Nassau. And she had friends there, so she would go into the straw market, and she might take $50 or $25, whatever. And she would go through there and she would buy things. She would buy silk scarves, she would buy hair things, she would buy little stuff that didn't matter. Or Puerto Rico. We did a lot of work down in that area, and there were lots of beautiful little stores that had stuff in them, women's stuff mostly. And so she'd buy doily, she'd buy a little something, whatever, a figurine, whatever. I don't know, know what this stuff was. I just had to carry it around. And I'm thinking, why are we doing this? We can't just constantly give people stuff, you know. But she would put this stuff in a suitcase, bring it home, or put it in our little condo. And then when we would go back to that company, if we got that client or whatever, and then she would go around to those people in those offices and give them things when we would come to visit. Oh, I have this for you. And it was all just out of her heart. It wasn't like a bribe or trying to get you to favoritism or whatever. She just had it, and their eyes would light up, and you'd go that you'd come back to their desk a year later, and there it is right on their desk. And so there was something about that that brought her a lot of joy or whatever. And uh it made a huge difference. In business, we we developed a business model too. We didn't talk about that, but we developed a small business development model. So if you wanted to start your own business, we would come in and help you with that. And a lot of times we did it for free. And in that business model, we have client generation, you know, client fulfillment, and client care. The client care piece uh for IOL, which we we would buy all the stuff and we just give it away to people. And it could be an expensive pen worth, you know, $300. It could be a silk scarf worth $2 from a flea market, I don't know, or from a straw market. But whatever it was, it just seemed to be meaningful to people.

SPEAKER_04 34:39

Yeah. Yeah. When I was getting ready for this trip to come out here to Fayetteville, our director of operations, Sloane, she shows up the day before with this huge basket just full of stuff that I would love. And I literally got tears in my eyes because I was like, this is something my mom would do. And she said, Well, I thought it was something that you would do.

SPEAKER_03 34:56

Absolutely. Yeah, that would definitely be your mom. She would she would leave. We would go to serve a client, be there usually you know, four or five days or a week. They would put stuff there in the room for us, you know, whatever, be nice. Or when we'd leave, we'd leave more stuff than we I believe that, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:16

That's true.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

I know we had one client, we had one client that had a bakery. They had a they had seven restaurants, I think. They had this bakery make these little desserts that had her initials on them, so that every time we came, they would have these chocolates and stuff in the room with a a card made up for her with her initials on top of all the little desserts. I'm like, well, what about me?

SPEAKER_04 35:44

What about that sounds exactly like her? All right. Well, what does IOL look like now that we've we've reopened? Let's talk about why we reopened it, why we closed it, and why we reopened it a little bit. And then kind of where we are, what the work we're doing together now looks like as versus what it used to look like.

SPEAKER_03 36:01

Well, we closed up IOL primarily because I was exhausted. Lynette was diagnosed with cancer. She wasn't given very long to live. And at that time I was pretty burned out from you know flying constantly. Years had not taken a uh take some breaks, but not enough, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

And she was diagnosed with with terminal cancer. And uh we had made a transition. We were gonna move over here to our little property in Arkansas and kind of get out of the mainstream and focus more on writing and things like that. And then when we did that, when we were about to do that, is when she was diagnosed with cancer. I was doing a lot of work in the healthcare space then, and so I I had to keep working. She we had four and a half years of cancer treatments. It was just uh nonstop. It took lot hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's a good thing she was a good saver because if it had been left to me, there wouldn't be any treatment. But we were kind of caught in between the Obamacare thing, and we lost our insurance. We had to pay cash for most of her treatments, for at least for the first three years. For a while in the beginning. Yeah, and so I just had to keep working. You came over to help, other people helped, stepped in to help. But it was rough. It was a rough four and a half years. During that time, I just kept going the best I could. Our goal was to move over to Arkansas, reopen the offices, hire staff over here, you know, and expand from here as opposed to Atlanta. But because of the cancer, you know, everything slowed down. By the time we got to the end of life in uh 2020, I was completely exhausted. You know, I I'm like flying three or four or five times a week, coming and going to work, working on the East Coast, flying back and forth. And uh so I just felt like I, you know, I just I'm not any good to anyone anymore. And so a lot of the resources were depleted paying for cancer treatment, which I would do again, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 38:36

Yeah, so so everyone understands the dynamic was I came out here when she was diagnosed, and then I would take care of her during the weekdays for the most part, and you were flying up to like I think Pennsylvania for a while and yeah, Pennsylvania, New York, Philadelphia, all of the things. And then so I would get like Saturday, Sunday, and I would try to take a break and recoup because it was it was 24-7 care. But she was diagnosed, she she had they gave her six weeks, and we we made it a little over four years, and there was some really, really good quality of life that during that time. But she wasn't able to drive, she wasn't able to work, and so ultimately we kind of made the family decision like, okay, well, we're just gonna close down the company. This isn't, you know, lucrative. We can't really we couldn't really keep the company going while we were trying to deal with, you know, all of the cancer treatments and the things that we were doing there. So that's kind of how we came to the conclusion, okay, we would we would close it down, we wouldn't renew the the 501c3 status anymore. And so we just kind of left it at that for a few years.

SPEAKER_03 39:42

Yeah, we kind of put everything on hold. And I would fly back, uh, get in about, you know, um midnight or two o'clock in the morning uh on a Friday, and then you would leave, go take a rest for a couple days. I would take care of everything along with help from family.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:02

And uh, and then I'd get on an airplane Sunday night or Monday morning, fly back to wherever I was working and and keep going with that. And uh we were able to make it work, but at the end of it, we were both exhausted.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:16

Um, and uh, you know, I just couldn't do it. So we we needed to close down. And then the reopening was I was hoping that someday maybe you or your brother or somebody that we knew might want to continue on. And so I made, you know, I kept things going. I kept stuff alive enough to make that happen. Well, your brother, you know, he owns Chambers Custom, which is his own company. He owns several companies, farms, very much an entrepreneur, very successful. And IOL never was, he worked for us, but it was never his vision. He has his own vision for his own his own company and work and has certainly made a name for himself in his own industry. Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the world's finest 1911 builders, you know, and and that's amazing. And then with your work, you were working for one of my colleagues for a long time. And uh so that was a blessing. It kind of came at a good time for for you and me. And so, and it and it blessed him too to have someone capable. You had run your own businesses in Atlanta, so you had experience. So when the time came, um a year or so, how long how long ago it was.

SPEAKER_04 41:31

It was August. It was well, it was last summer. You know, you'd been on me for a while about why don't you read with the company, and I just really I couldn't kind of see the forest from the trees and that. And to be honest, I didn't want to run another company. Um I had run a company before. It was really, I mean, it wasn't bad. It was it was a good experience. It was 11 years I did that, and from the ground up, and I just kept thinking, Oh, it's so much work, it's so much work, it's so many hours and I don't know that I want to do that again. And we just kept kind of going back and forth, and you're like, you should really do it. I still have the website, I still have this, I still have that, we should do it, we should do it. And and so I just kept praying about it and just really kind of seeking the Lord in it, and just really eventually just kind of came to a piece about it, okay. Like, you know, maybe I just do a little bit, maybe I reopen the company and just do a little contract work here and there. Just me. And um, you know, and then whatever dad wants to do, because we've talked a lot about doing recordings. My background for for people who don't know, I I'm also in a lot of learning and development background, project management, program management, product management. And you had done so much learning and development. So we had talked about what if we take the stuff that you guys had done all those years and and kind of renew it into um this day and age in in 2025, 26 going forward um to make it a legacy, you know, to record it all because it's not in current recording form. And then what would that look like? How do we go forward with that? And so that was kind of the talks. And so it kind of aligned, it started lining up, and then I was like, well, I'll just do a little bit and we'll get dad's stuff um going and recorded so that we have that. And then I put a few messages, I think it was five messages out that I put privately on LinkedIn. And I was like, hey, just looking for a little bit of contract work. If you know anything, let me know. And it was just crazy. It just went crazy.

SPEAKER_03 43:28

Yeah, we had some clients that we had served with in the past, some consultants that we work with, you know, come back. Great, been waiting for this to happen. It had to be the right timing. I think God had uh his hand in that had to be the right timing. And um and and it was interesting. The so when we first started uh IOL, our financial advisor, Bill Youngblood, then he said, Well, how much money do you need to make to survive? And I had no idea. And so he had this little formula that he made up for me. And he's like, well, you know, so what happened was um I think it took me about three months to match my salary from the church. And another three months I had tripled the salary from the church in the first, well, in the first year for sure, tripled my salary. And then when your mother came on, then she took it over and she tripled the size and income the first year. So the board of directors actually wanted to take the back, take my job back. And then board of directors were like, nah, we'll just let her do it. She seems to know what she's doing. And she's a saver, not a spender like you.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:42

So um right. With with her running things, I flew coach. I flew in the back of the plane, many more. No longer in first class, no longer in those big fancy hotels, staying in the budgetel. So when you wanted to get back and start, I remember telling you, you know, well let's, you know, let's go three months. If you can't make it in three months, you know, if you can't match your salary in three months, we'll get out. And then boom, everything, you know, yeah exploded. Well yeah I want to add one thing in there and a lot of thoughts going through my mind, thinking back. One of the things that happened at the beginning of this whole journey was in we started a I started this thing in 1990, officially 93, when we filed for you know a formal company. I think it was 92, 93. But 1990, the thing that I had to come to grips with it it was that this doesn't belong to me.

SPEAKER_04 45:42

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 45:43

Not a possession, which is one of the reasons we wanted to do a nonprofit in the beginning because the danger was that it would be all about me and a lot of people around me were like we're trying to protect you from yourself. Okay. Not that you're a real ego nut or whatever, but we want to protect you. The whole idea wasn't my idea. I didn't want to do it. I was fine staying in an academic role teaching at different universities, seminaries and so on. I was doing okay financially with that. But it was something I think that God wanted done to help people. I don't know if that sounds too esoteric, but it just, you know, that's what I felt in the beginning. So we tried to set it up in a way where it didn't look like it's all about me and it's all about my ownership and it's something that I own and yada yada yada. And so then passing it on to you, we prayed together, you know, if this is something that God wants to do to help other people, I know that's if you're just a secular business owner and you're listening to that, you're like, nah, that's crazy. No, you gotta be you're in business to make money. That's what you got to do, blah, blah, blah. But it's more than that for me in the beginning. I didn't need to own a business to have a job. I already had a, you know, a good reputation, a good track record, a good education, so on. But I wanted to help people on a broader scale. So with you coming back on, taking over, you had the same heart. You don't, I mean, I know you can get a job tomorrow. I know that. You know, anyone who knows you knows your credentials, knows your background, but you wanted to do something that would serve people in a broader way and then also provide an income for other people.

SPEAKER_04 47:35

Yeah. Yeah, my whole design when we were talking about all this is I want my sincere heart on is that I want to be able to give other people an opportunity to have some of the opportunities that we've had to work from home to, you know, raise their kids, but still have an income and still have something that they love doing, that they enjoy to doing. And so that was one of the first things we talked about is, you know, I want I'm also very blessed. Our family is very blessed that we, you know, God has blessed us in that one, we don't live outside of our means and two, I didn't need to bring an enormous amount of income. And so that was a unique opportunity. My problem is I like to work. And so that can kind of take over sometimes. And but I knew very quickly when we started this last August, I took on a couple contracts and then I got busier and more people were reaching out and I want to do this and I want to do that and can you help me and I have this book. So many people with books and never in a million years as I imagined there was there was a lady who worked at the local library who I had become friends with and we go to church together and the Lord was like you need to call her and check on her and I was like really you know thinking what and so I did like a toxic text on my phone. I was going to pick up the kids and I said hey I said I I just have you on my heart right now and I just want to check on you. I want to see how you're doing you know hadn't talked to you in a little bit and she texted me right back and she said oh my gosh today my whole world fell apart and I won't go into all the details but that was Sloan. And so I I called you and I said dad you know this is what happened I said I I don't know you know I don't I I feel like we need to to do something and you were like well who is she what's her credentials and I I told you you know this is who she is this is her credentials and you said you better hire her before somebody else does and I said I can't hire anybody we just started and you were like nope you better hire her right now. And so I texted her back like a day or two later and I was like hey could you like send me your resume because I was still really worried I'm like I can't hire somebody and she did she she sent her resume uh to you and I we looked over it and you told me again you better hire her before somebody else hires her. And so we did I brought her in and and and hired her and she was originally going to work remote and then she just loved coming in and working with me which was kind of weird because I worked by myself for a long time. But now she and I we love working together. We love her coming to the office she helps with the kids and she'll get up and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if she needs to and then just a few weeks ago we were again you know not really I've been working a lot of hours and everybody you were helping a lot Sloan was helping a lot but it's just getting really exhausted and God opened an opportunity for Amy who I've known from a Bible study I've been doing for like three years with her. And God just really opened that door and and so we were able to hire her on which again just kind of blows my mind because I had no idea we would hire anybody and it's really a testament to it's really not about us. It's about the vision that God has to bless other people. We've been able to bless their families um and and to really do some really interesting unique work and then we somehow came across doing this podcast which is kind of weird and I've had so many people ask me why are you doing that I'm like and eventually we stopped on the way here to the library here in Fayetteville at a at a coffee shop I think it's called Words. And so the the gentleman who was helping us who was serving us he said well you know what are you guys doing today and I said we'll have a podcast and so we rented a a podcast because we wanted to see what the studio looked like and we want to look at some different cities. He's like oh really what is it and and so I said hey I can give you my car and he's like oh I want to watch it and I was like absolutely I would love that you know it'd be so great and it's he's like why are you doing it and I'm like I don't know like you know it's it's just a God thing. And that's what I told him I said it's really just God like I God put it on our hearts and um as something that we wanted to do to collaborate with people, get their information out about what they're doing. And I don't know what the purpose is it's his purpose.

SPEAKER_03 51:47

So that kind of well yeah I think you know the vision going forward the things that we're providing the the products and services that we're providing are different. It's a different time now. However we've got like you said all these books I think we have five or six authors a lot a lot maybe more than that now and I I lost track so these people write books that are helpful they need help pushing that out on social media they need editing they need to turn those books into educational courses they need to get exposure to marketing advertising promotion but also education in that setting up their own companies to run their companies the way they want to we have expertise in these areas so the shift has been in the the actual thing that we provide which is now more marketing more editing more this and that we've kind of always done a little bit of it but the focus of that but the mission of helping people achieve their vision for what they're doing whether it's a book whether it's a podcast whether it's an organization that needs help the vision of helping people is still the vision of Iowa today and that to me that would be the legacy for me that's what means a lot to me is we're still helping people fulfill their vision. One of the things that really drove us for many years is we try to stay in the background. We're not trying to be superstars we it's not about us it's about you we're using our platform which might be a pretty good sized platform to push out what you're doing to and we always had that drive and that perspective of the client is a gift to us and we we're here to help you fulfill your vision that's our vision is to help you and I think we're still doing that today.

SPEAKER_04 53:49

Yeah a hundred percent and it's interesting that you would say that as like the behind the scenes because I say to people all the time I'm like I'm your behind the scenes girl I can get anything done behind the scenes and then God's like nope you're gonna do a podcast what a podcast that's not you know my thing but I think the vision behind the podcast is is like I said to collaborate with other people what are you doing? You know what's your company? What are you what's your vision? Let's tell people about it. And that's really where that kind of developed from and then the long range vision I think that we have that we talked about and we have a lot of stuff in the works right now that's not front facing that we're going to be doing or we are doing a lot of learning and development stuff or developing courses but in a little bit different way than maybe people have seen that incorporates some online learning, some workshops and some in-person consult we have Brian Leander Dr. Leander he was early on a consultant with IOL and has come back on he has a book and another one that he's working on and so we're working on doing some L and D stuff with him. Dr. Casey LaFrance we're working on um a book and some and some coursework with him as well and there's multiple people in the works that we're doing that with and that's kind of like my heart on it is really I really want to do is that long range course learning and development. But also God has a way of going well I want you to do this first. And so this front facing stuff is going to come out first and then just growing the company which I didn't think we were going to originally do this this quickly but he's really just made a way and opened a door for this person and that person and for us to be able to bless people that way and that that's what makes my heart happy.

SPEAKER_03 55:38

Well you know back in the beginning so we would go we would go to a client site and listen to listen to the issues that were going on let's just say manufacturing company we'd go there look at what's going on find out what the problems the challenges the barriers you can call them whatever you want what's happening that's keeping them from doing what they want to do and then we would go home and we'd figure it out sometimes you know I'd have to consult with people I'd have to talk to smart people because this is not my world so you know my background for my doctorate program is in higher education but it's about learning about you know research it's a research based degree so I knew how to do homework you know I knew how to dig it down go deep find a problem find a solution so on so that's a big part of it. You can't do that if you don't talk to people so podcasting is this you know and I let's listen to podcasts all day long when I'm not working if I'm on the out fishing or playing music or whatever you know when I'm busy but in my normal routine of my protocols my day I listen to quite a few podcasts because I like listening to interesting people. So I would go talk to people. If it was a manufacturing company I'd talk to those people if it was a a financial company if it was something if it was a university I would talk to the people that knew what what to do. So podcasting the IOL you know legacy podcast is about talking to interesting people we got to get better at it as we go we'll get better we'll get better studio set up and so on. But so far it's been really successful because I think a lot of people like me I like listening to interesting people and I like to find out what best practice is for this how did you solve that problem as a leader how did you endure that you know I've been on a couple of podcasts and as you know 2005 I had a very horrible accident that nearly took my life it took a couple years to recover you know and I've had people call and say you know can you talk about that? You know how why didn't you just give up why didn't you just throw in the towel you know why fight back so hard so these kind of things you know from a leadership perspective leaders are very unique people I think they just put up with a lot so listening to people talking to interesting people finding out about the transition of of a company from the original people to the next generation or whatever the case may be. So I think there's enough out there that people are interested in.

SPEAKER_04 58:24

Yeah I think so too and I think I think one thing too we talk about this in our home group is telling your story. It's important that we tell our story um that people know that our you know our family knows or other people it can be far reaching that learn that's how I learn a lot from hearing people's stories. How did you overcome this like you said and how did you keep going and how to you know how did you keep such a positive attitude and things like that. So I think it's really important and to listen to those stories and just give people the opportunity and maybe that's maybe that's the purpose of this I'm not sure yet, you know, but I know I know this is what God wants us to do. I know he led us down this um it's not it's not the breadwinning of the company for sure it's just a way to collaborate with people and listen to their stories. While we while we wrap up I want to ask you the same questions that we ask everybody else because that's only fair. Tell us what leader has really impacted and I know there's been a lot and we've talked about several of those but what leader has really impacted you the way that you led the company before the way that you're leading now since we won't let you retire yet and if you could pick one person who would you pick?

SPEAKER_03 59:40

Wow as many times as I've asked that on these podcasts I don't trying to think I probably honestly I would probably say Paul Walker Dr. Paul Walker he's deceased now. I worked with him for about nine ten years the thing about him was he was consistent in his leadership. It wasn't so much what he did it was more of who he was he kind of showed up. If he showed up at a meeting he was the leader he didn't have to say a much his integrity his personal integrity was intact he wouldn't lie to you he beat around the bush you know he just but his kindness at least to me he was always that way that's one person I think I think working with Carl George many years ago he was an amazing academic consultant all the above the time I spent with him was extremely helpful for me. He helped me see things he helped me see the connection between my faith and the application to business. It's like he you're not you're not a faith person and you're restricted to talking about your faith in a religious environment your faith has to do with who you are as a person whether you're it whether you sell donuts doesn't matter right your values of being a person of faith transpose over the problems with the discussions I had with him many times with the problems that churches have organizationally leadership wise management financially all of the above that you have in churches large churches particularly are the same problems that people in business face. Yeah that they're not spiritual or unspiritual right they're just issues of organization. And so Dr. George had a tremendous impact on my life in that respect. Oliver McMahon Dr. McMahon you know he was one of my teachers early in life he I succeeded him in teaching his position and uh and then later came back and we worked together to establish um you know uh help establish a doctoral program at a at a seminary and then other schools I think for him it was his uh his mannerism yeah he was a kind gentle caring person and uh I was more like bottom line just get the job done and he was he helped temper me a lot he's like well you might want to just you know he was a very unique person um and he he was the same as like you were explaining about Dr.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:42

Walker he commanded a room but not because he wanted to or desired to but because there wasn't a single person who didn't respect him.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:53

He was so intelligent and so calm and so he just had an air about him that was just so Christ like there's a thing in leadership you can read about what's called show up leadership the leader shows up I don't care how many leaders in the room one person if she or he shows up they are the leader and you don't have another I'll mention one more person because I don't know if I have one person but Dr. David Franklin so who is a lifelong friend colleague we were driving I'll tell one last story before we go so we're driving from a board meeting we're both young guys young pastors in Missouri at the time we're driving from St. Louis down somewhere in southern Missouri together oh back back towards southern Missouri and we're in a car we come in from a board meeting and he said to me are you going back to school going back to college because I had dropped out to go play music and do the whole you know musician thing and I said no I'm just too old to be doing that to go back now and finish. And he said well you're how old and I said well 28 which is like an old man right and he goes so how long do you think it would take you if you go back this year this was in the summer if you go back in the fall how long is it going to take you to get it get your degree and I said I don't know if my courses are going to transfer you know maybe three years you know I don't know and it's just driving along he he had a blue Cadillac at the time I remember this riding in this Cadillac and he goes he silent for a long time and he says uh so how old will you be in three years and I said well I'd be like 31 when I would graduate which seemed like I'd just be way too old to be going to college and big long silence long silence driving along he said so how old will you be if you don't go back to school I said 31 are you a moron he goes so if you go back to college and finish your degree you'll be 31 but if you don't you're still going to be 31 he never said another word the entire time driving home he just let me mull on that so the following week I enrolled in school for the next very Dr.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:23

Franklin so I had the opportunity to grow up with the Franklins as well and we had his brother on the podcast a few weeks ago and I would say he's probably one of the more influential people in my life too he'd probably never even think that at this point but um just growing up in their household growing up with their family our family and their family together and I think that they're their family and he shaped I can see where he he shaped you he shaped our family and he was just a very a very dynamic character but also just what he I know when when we were growing up, his daughter Denise and I were very, very close friends. And we they lived in Cleveland and there was a mall there. We always wanted to go to the mall. And I think I told this story on the other podcast, but he would say we would go, Oh, you know, can we go, can we go to the mall? You know, can we go hang out at the mall? And he'd go, Well, I'm gonna pray about it. And we go, can we go to the movie? And he's like, Let me pray about it first. And he would, he would legitimately pray about it. And I've always remembered that. And he's just such a wonderful person. And it's been it's been a long time since I've talked to him, but yeah, I would agree with him. I I can look back on our lives and see that he very much helped shape um you and how you grew in different areas. And so I think that's a great answer. All right, so last question What does leading and legacy mean to you? What does that look like to have a legacy of leadership to you?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:01

I really honestly until we started down this path, never occurred to me. I've always been grateful that you know, your brother and you both have been very successful with your careers. That's probably the best thing that I think your mother and I could have hoped for is that our kids would grow up with a sense of well, with confidence, with a lot of personal confidence that you can go out there and do things with your life that make a positive impact on the culture, on people, and so on. You can live beyond yourself, you know, you can push beyond what you think limitations are or what limitations other people put on you, you know, because people will put you in a box and they'll say, Well, you know, you need to stay in your box. And uh, so that means a lot to me. Your brother and his success has pushed the limit in his industry multiple times. He's considered to be a world-class innovator and so on. There was a time in his career where he was put in a box and worked for someone who said, Well, this is all you'll ever be able to accomplish. You need to get comfortable with it. He was not. I think it had a lot to do with his growing up because we didn't, that's not how we thought in our in our family. If you want to do something, let's do it. You know, let's let's make it happen. And so, even without the resources, let's let's try it. So, from a very early age, he started his first business when he was just in in early high school. $25 lawn care business, which I thought was the dumbest idea any human being could ever come up with, but it paid his way for years.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:49

It did.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:50

He made serious money, employed many people. The same with you when we started your automobile painting company, uh, your little furniture business that you painted furniture. So I think for legacy for me is we have two children and now grandchildren and so on who are doing well. You don't have limits on you. You can try new things, you can get out there and do stuff, you can believe in yourself. God believes in you, we believe in you, you can do it. Beyond the kids side of it, the family side of it, I think legacy is about other people. We now have people on the podcast and clients of IOL who have gone on. Dr. Leander's a great example.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:39

Met them years ago. He needed to go back to school, he needed to do this, that, and the other. He's now teaching at Berkeley, uh, very renowned, astute scholar, well respected in his field. I'd like to think we had a little bit to do with pushing him out there. Uh my last two uh doctoral students that I helped get through. They're both out there, along with the, I guess, hundreds of others. But that's a to me, that's legacy, is looking at looking back out there and going, wow, look, look what that person did. Look, I recently was going through stuff at the shop, and I I pulled out a picture from an intern that worked with us. We used to have interns in the summer, and this young man really went through a lot. And but he was one of our interns, and he wrote me this beautiful note on the back of a picture telling me how life-changing just spending one summer at IOL was. That's that's a legacy. Yeah, there's a young couple online, the Abneys. Trey was my intern for a summer, and uh then married a student of mine and uh went on to become a very, very successful church leader up on the East Coast, him and her both. And so I think looking at looking, when you get older, you back up, you look, and you realize it's not about me, it's about all these other people. They are the people are the legacy. That's not what you accomplished, it's not your years of education or things you've achieved or whatever. It's the people that you leave behind that look back at you and go, yeah, that that person added value, added value to my life. That's what did you do?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:31

Yeah, I and I think you guys, you and mom were no better example at that. I mean, truly, we all have our faults. We have all have, you know, things that we walk through, but the both of you, like you said, were always when we were growing up very encouraging. If you want to do something, let's do it. But do it and do it with your whole heart and put everything into it. If you if we're gonna have a dog, then you're gonna take care of the dog. You're gonna go get a job, then do your very best at at that job. Because I know I wanted to work when I was 15, and now I look back on that and think how ridiculous that was. Now that I'm older.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:08

We drove you, we drove you to the place. I said, You said, I want to work at a veterinarian office, you know, veterinarian place. I'm like, what what are you gonna do there? You can't even keep your room up. And you're like, Okay, so I remember driving you up there to get, or maybe your mom did, drive drive you to get the first resume. I took you to take it back and turn in your application, I guess. But you had to wait.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:32

Yes, they told me I had to wait until I was 15.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:35

Right. But you did. I did. If you're gonna do it, you gotta do it. And then your first job was scoop and poop.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:41

It was cleaning kids.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:43

And but the thing was, if you're gonna do it, just go all in and do it. And you worked there for years and it provided.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:50

Yeah, the lady, the lady who was my boss there when I first started, not to be gross, but I threw up for the first month literally every single day. It was so disgusting. And this was a huge kennel. Um, a lot of people around where we live probably can't really conceptualize it, but during the holidays and stuff, we would board upwards of 150, 200 dogs and and probably 60 cats. And so in the holidays, and I started, I turned 15 in October. So I started right before Thanksgiving and right before Christmas. And I was the newbie, so I had to work every day. And so I was going to school and I would leave school and I would go over there and I would I would just throw up and throw it, but I keep doing it. And she kept, she kept coming up to me, you this is not the job for you. And I kept telling her, it is. I promise you, I've wanted to do this for years. I know that this is where I'm supposed to be and I'm gonna do it. And finally I did. And and I loved it. I worked that at that particular job for four years and moved up. And I I loved it. I still to this day, I tell people, I'm like, I just loved doing that. It was where my heart was at the time. Um, and then I I worked in the veterinary field for nine and a half years, and then and God picked me up and moved me somewhere else. And but that's something that you guys really instilled in us our whole lives. If you're gonna do it, do it with your whole heart. Do it no matter what. Don't quit until God tells you it's time to move on.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:10

And that we were very much raised like that. And I think that helped with our determination that when we say we're gonna do something, we're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:19

You know, that reminds me, maybe we get this down on recording while I'm still breathing. What we left Missouri to go to North Dakota to go so mom and I could go back to school. And I was about to graduate from I was about to graduate from Missouri Southern, and we moved, went to a different school. But for two years, I think it was two and a half years, we cleaned bathrooms and classrooms at night for the privilege of going to school. And I'm not saying that, you know, it's that we're special. There were other people that did it too. But the thing is, we wanted to get a good education. We couldn't afford it to raise a family and do it another way. So she would take care of you guys up, or I'd take care of you while she worked during the day so I could go to class. And then when you got out of school, we'd swap around. And then at 11 o'clock at night, um, I would go over to the she would go over first after dinner and clean certain things and vacuum and clean up the offices and pick up trash and so on at the campus. And then at 11 o'clock, I would go to work and I would clean the bathrooms and vacuum classrooms and do the stuff in the other place to get it all done while she came home and got some sleep so she could go to class in the morning after dropping you off at school and so on. And I think for us, it was, you know, it was all about if you want, if you really feel like that's what you need to do and that's what God's calling you to do, it doesn't matter if you gotta clean bathrooms. And if someone's listening to this, so oh, he's just trying to show that he's a humble guy. No, I don't like cleaning bathrooms, but if it meant the difference between paying for school and uh and you know getting an education, you do what you gotta do. And I think sometimes people look at people that you know are are successful in their field or whatever, and they think, oh my gosh, they just you know, they were handed this on a golden platter, they had a silver spoon in their mouth, you know, everything was easy for them. A lot more times than not, success comes from just hard work. From cleaning the bathroom, doing whatever, cleaning up other people's mess, doing whatever is necessary to to fulfill the vision, running an organization, whether it's a business, a ministry, whatever. Sometimes you just gotta dig in and do whatever's necessary to get the job done, to serve your clients, do what you feel like God has called you to do. Just, you know, maybe a better modern way of saying it, just suck it up, put your big girl boots on, and go after it and get the job done. And if you do that, your probably chances of success are much better than if you sit around and wait for somebody to hand you something.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:11

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. But thank you for having this conversation with me. We felt like it was a good conversation to have to learn for people to learn more about you and me and the history of IWL and why we're doing what we're doing. So I appreciate it. I love you very much. I'm grateful for all of your leadership over the years and all the things that you've taught me and for supporting me and encouraging me and for coming out of what you to not fishing to doing stuff like this for a little while until we I just want to fish, I know, music and ride around in my hot rod.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:43

That's all I need.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:44

I know, I know. So now you can go go pick up your grandson, go fishing, whatever you guys are doing.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:50

I've got ice cream and pizza and and pancakes ready to roll.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:54

He'll be so excited, he'll love it. Well, thank you so much for being on with me today.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:58

Thanks.