The Quarterback DadCast
I’m Casey Jacox, the host of the Quarterback Dadcast. As fathers, we want to help prepare our kids—not only to enter the professional world but to thrive in each stage of their lives. Guests of this show include teachers, coaches, professional athletes, consultants, business owners, authors—and stay-at-home dads. Just like you! They share openly about failure, success, laughter, and even sadness so that we can all learn from each other—as we strive to become the best leaders of our homes! You will learn each week, and I am confident you will leave each episode with actionable tasks that you can apply to your life to become that ultimate Quarterback and leader of your household. Together, we will learn from the successes and failures of dads who are doing their best every day. So, sit back, relax and subscribe now to receive each episode weekly on The Quarterback Dadcast.
The Quarterback DadCast
Embracing Fatherhood: Lessons in Gratitude, Resilience, and Humor with Larry Thompson
After a thought-provoking conversation with my daughter about gratitude sparked by a client's storm preparation in Tampa, I realized how perspective shapes our lives. Join me on the Quarterback Dadcast as I sit down with Larry Thompson, a seasoned staffing professional and die-hard Georgia Bulldog, to explore the unexpected joys of fatherhood and the profound impact of family and community. Our chat rooms will feature tales of resilience, including personal battles with illness and the unwavering support from our mothers, who taught us the true meaning of perseverance. However, without a heartfelt introduction from a former guest (Mark Nussbaum), today's episode never happens. Thank you, Mark!
Parenting transitions are no joke, especially when it comes to the bittersweet journey of watching our kids head off to college. Larry and I share the humor and challenges of letting go while ensuring our children grow with integrity and trust. With anecdotes of horseback rides and handwritten maps, we laugh about past life lessons and career leaps that led us to where we are today. From the trials of merging organizations to reshaping leadership development, we uncover valuable lessons in character and ethics that resonate in both personal and professional spheres.
To wrap up, please expect a lighthearted lightning round filled with fun tales of camel races and beach adventures. Our episode with Larry is a testament to the power of curiosity and continuous learning, bringing forth the reminder that humility and gratitude are key ingredients to a fulfilling life.
Tune in, enjoy the laughter, and walk away with a fresh perspective on the ever-evolving journey of fatherhood.
Please don't forget to leave us a review wherever you consume your podcasts! Please help us get more dads to listen weekly and become the ultimate leader of their homes!
Hi, I'm Riley and I'm Ryder and this is my dad's show. Well, hey, everybody, it's Casey Jaycox with the quarterback, dad cast. I want to say thank you to everyone who continues to listen. I also want to let you know that we will be having a few new sponsors as we get ready to head into 2025 and season six, which feels so cool, to say everybody, I sometimes it's still a pinch me moment that you know a project started nearly five years ago was just going to be for fun, and here we go we're still. We're still going hard and we're still going strong, and I don't see us stopping because it's so fun. It's fun for me as the host, learning about myself and trying to get better as a dad each and every week, and I hope you guys do feel the same. A huge favor I'd love to ask is if you've not taken time yet to leave us a review on Apple or Spotify, or even on YouTube, which we now have video. Please go ahead and do that. It'd be a great. Uh, I'd appreciate it. As the host, I know that our listeners would appreciate it, because that's how we're going to impact more dads who are striving to be that ultimate quarterback or leader of their home. So with that, I want to say thank you again for listening and let's get right to today's episode on the Quarterback Dadcast. Well, hey everybody, it's Casey Jaycox with the Quarterback Dadcast.
Speaker 2:We're in Season 5, getting to the tail end of Season 5, and I'm very excited for our next guest. He's someone I got introduced to by a former podcast Quarterback Dadcast esteemed guest, the one and only Mark Nussbaum, the talented Mark Nussbaum, and he called me one day. He says Jay Cox, I got a guy you got to meet and we went back and forth, we talked forever, and his name is Larry Thompson. He's a staffing veteran, he's a Georgia Bulldog, but that's not why we're having him on everybody. We're having him on because we're going to talk to further ado. Mr Thompson, welcome to the Quarterback Dadcast. Awesome, thank you, casey. Awesome as well. We always start out each episode with gratitude. So tell me, what are you most grateful for as a dad today?
Speaker 1:You know, it's a great question too, because there's so many things I'm grateful for. I think probably the one thing I'm most grateful for is that I have one daughter, and raising a daughter was. I was not prepared for that at all.
Speaker 1:What I'm probably most grateful for, though, is that, as she's gotten older and I've gotten older, we both kind of I've grown into. It is how close's how close we are, um, and you know the the scary part my wife reminds me she's a lot like me. So that's, um, and you know, just becoming really good friends, close friends with with my daughter, has been probably the thing I'm most grateful for.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Well, I they definitely. I have a daughter, I have a son and a daughter, but with with both children. As you know well know, they don't give us a manual and a step-by-step, which would have been great if I had that, but I don't.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:I'd say what I'm most grateful for today. I had a word. I'm actually going to post about this later on LinkedIn. I always like to post, I'm inspired by something and today I was inspired by a client who is in the Tampa area and I was just I'm grateful for the conversation I had with my daughter before she went to school. I said, hey, rye. I said you know what the word perspective means? She goes, yeah, I go. Maybe she was too too, too sleepy, so I go. You know where Tampa is? She's like I go, right, it's Florida. Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, sorry, dad, and we kind of laughed and joked about that. I go.
Speaker 2:You know why I'm so grateful for perspective today? She's like why I go because my client just said hey, hey, casey, we got to. If it's okay, can we move our training you're doing with our team on Wednesday for a few weeks out, because we have a huge storm about to hit us and we have to do storm prep for our houses. And it was just like just to stop me in my tracks. It made me think like man, we are fricking fortunate.
Speaker 2:I live in Seattle and we have risk of earthquakes and we get windstorms in the fall and winter, but like we don't get hurricanes, and I just can't even and there's I know that people are still struggling for the first one hit a couple weeks ago and then they got stuff on their lawns and it's like it could be freaking disastrous. And so I'm just grateful for one, grateful for our situation, seattle and health wise right now. But I'm also grateful just for the the time that I was able to kind of be present and slow down with my daughter riley, just kind of have a good, good conversation before she went to school and you don't know what that does, but hopefully kind of kind of gets her mind going the right way.
Speaker 1:You know so and Casey, you're you're spot on with that.
Speaker 1:I think it is perspective. It's funny because we had funny is not the right choice of words but we lived in in my wife and I and my daughter lived in Western North Carolina for a big chunk of our early married life and so we still have a lot of friends and we still have family there and so forth. And so we've kind of seen that with the storm that's gone through and we actually had a call this morning in the company we call it a business continuity plan, and whenever there's a storm that hits, particularly in our offices in Florida and so forth, we get together and talk about okay, how are we going to approach this, how are we going to make sure everybody stays safe? And it was the same thing. I've got two people on my team that are new dads, okay, literally within the last four months, and we have a meeting scheduled in our headquarters in McLean later this week and they're asking me are we still on? I said yeah, but you know what I'm going to tell you you should stay home.
Speaker 1:I said you need to take care of your family to make sure that you know you're there with them. Cause.
Speaker 3:I can't.
Speaker 1:That, to me, is like all the other stuff is unimportant. You got a storm coming in, you got anything that's impacting you. It's like you got to be there with them. You know it does. It forces you, I think, to look at things in a little bit bigger picture too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does. It's like you know, whether it's health. I mean, I do a gratitude journal every morning, larry and I, and one of the the two lines it's every I'd say at the same. I've been doing this for five years now and every time I write this down it gives me a little smile, like it just it's a subconsciously happens, and everybody says, like you know, god, thanks for waking me up today, and I say I'm grateful for my health, I'm grateful I woke up today and I got a chance to do something great today. Yeah, something as corny as that, but it just gets my mind going the right way.
Speaker 1:It makes a huge difference. You know it makes a huge difference because it's easy. I think you know we're humans, okay, it's easy to pull the stuff, the stress from yesterday into each day and kind of keep. I actually was reading something not long ago that basically said all anxiety and fear either comes from what hasn't happened that you think might, or what has happened that you can do nothing about.
Speaker 2:A thousand percent.
Speaker 1:I totally agree with that, you know, and and 90% of the things we worry about and stress over actually never do happen. But in the meantime we've lost that joy because we're focusing on that.
Speaker 2:So so true, so true All these things are. Can we can relate back and tie back to fatherhood in a hurry, because it's always like dad's part of the state's conversation. We're going to learn a lot about Larry, but we're also going to hopefully you're going to take away some actionable ways you can be thinking about. Be that better leader, your home, better leader, just yourself, better, better you know, craft the right mindset to enter your, your home after a rough day of work or after whatever it may be. But um, we're going to later in the conversation there. I want to learn all about your role at Dysus and learn, and we make sure that we can send people If they'd never heard of your company. We're going to make sure they know about it today. But before that, bring me inside the Thompson huddle. You said you got a daughter, but tell me a little bit about about her. And then I'd love to hear how you and your wife met.
Speaker 1:So so my daughter is actually. She's coming up. Hang on, I think about this. Yeah, she's coming up on 32 years old this next week and she's actually coming to visit. She lives just outside of Raleigh. Amazing kid, she actually, I will say, interesting. You talk about having a manual for raising children and I could have definitely used one, because those early, early years I mean inseparable.
Speaker 3:All right, I was not prepared for the teenage years at all.
Speaker 1:And it's funny because I remember when she was born, my brother-in-law, who had three kids, told me said hey, good news is it doesn't happen overnight. You got time to prepare. No, I was not prepared and yet, like I said, has been just an amazing journey. So just a huge heart on her, just a great person and probably and and probably one of the most thoughtful, caring people that I've. I've known um in a lot of ways and and incredibly empathetic, to where she kind of really connects with everybody. Um so, um, yeah, it's been, it's been fun to watch.
Speaker 1:I wish I could say I had some input on that. I probably had none. I think it was my wife probably that imparted a lot of that. But yeah, as far as how my wife and I met, it's really interesting. We met as sophomores. It's kind of a funny story. That does not paint a good picture of me, but I want to tell the story anyway. We were both going to a junior college in north of Atlanta and I was actually really good friends with her boyfriend at the time, who was a year older than both of us and he actually was head of the student government in our junior college and I had never been interested in any kind of student government function whatever.
Speaker 1:And he, he talked me into joining that student government, running for the election and so forth, and I was elected to it. As he was getting ready to leave to go to Georgia a year ahead of me, he pulled me aside and goes hey, he said I'm a little worried and I said can you just kind of keep an eye on Terry and, you know, make sure she's okay, she's like you know just. You know, sit with her, have lunch with her, you know, so forth. I've been doing that for almost 40 years now, you know. So we, we met first as friends and literally, just like I said, we just started kind of, you know, having lunch together, hanging out a little bit at school and talking and enjoyed each other's company, dated for, dated for two years and then got engaged and were engaged for another two years and got married.
Speaker 1:So in May of next year will be our 40th anniversary.
Speaker 2:Wow, congrats.
Speaker 1:I've said this as a joke before. It's like you know I'm still. You know I'm watching out for him. He's never come back for us, so I guess I'm good now.
Speaker 2:Well, hopefully he won't listen today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hopefully not. He was. I mean, he's a great guy and he was a good friend and I felt a little bit guilty about it. But, um, those things just happened and it was meant to be so. Um, yeah, and so we've known each other for a very long time. Um, her family was from North Carolina. She was born and raised in North Carolina. Um, we met in Georgia. I wound up leaving that junior college, went to the University of Georgia. She went to an alumnus school called Brunel College, which is Brunel.
Speaker 1:University now and wound up back in North Carolina, as happens a lot of times when you marry a girl from North Carolina and now settled in Southern Virginia, sort of that Western tip in the mountains in Virginia right now.
Speaker 2:Very cool, sounds awesome. Well, one question that's always fun for me to learn about my guests is to ask, when I ask them to go back in time and talk about the impact that your mom and dad had on you and what was life like growing up and what were some, like some key things that you took from your childhood that you used, you know, and when you were raising raising your daughter.
Speaker 1:Wow, this is. This is the part that I'm gonna. I'm gonna ask forgiveness up front because I may get a little emotional about this. My parents were pretty amazing. Actually, both of them came out of a little farm town in northwestern Missouri. High school educated, my dad worked in a factory Pretty much his whole life, worked his way up through the organization. I always said that he had an engineer's mind, but without the degree. One of the most talented guys I've ever known when it came to working with machinery and um, and still to this day it's like I, if I'm having trouble starting a lawnmower or starting something, that's like I want to pick up the phone and call him and it's like unfortunately he's no longer here, but um, just an amazing work ethic. And they both like I, like I said, uh, my mom was from a, from a large family, um, difficult childhood, um, basically they grew up that latter part, you know after the depression, but still in a farm community.
Speaker 1:My grandfather, her dad, was um, they call him a tenant farmer, but typically it's another word for a sharecropper. He was a was hired help on a farm farmer, but typically it's another word for a sharecropper. He was hired help on a farm and it was my gosh. I think she was 12 years old, maybe 11 years old, before they actually lived in a house that had like wooden floors, very, very poor, and when she was about 12 or 13, he just decided he had had enough of being a dad and husband and left and left my grandmother to raise. Well, two of them were old enough to kind of take care of themselves but raised four kids. Um, this was you know. So she was very focused on her family, very focused on raising me and my brother. Um, incredibly, um, the, the, I guess the, the impact, I guess probably the life lesson I learned most of all from her.
Speaker 1:So when, um and I'll shorten this, abbreviated a little bit, unless you'd like me to go into more detail, but when I was about six years old, I contracted a virus that turned into viral encephalitis and was hospitalized, actually in a coma for almost a week and a half, two weeks, you say. A coma, come out of it and paralyzed over three quarters of my body and couldn't walk, couldn't raise my left arm, literally, she would tell the story, she goes. It used to kind of creep her out a little bit because I couldn't close that left eye so I would sleep with one eye open. And, um, at the time the neurologist and the doctors pretty much said this is good, he's going to get, he's never going to recover from this. And this was back in the mid sixties, late sixties I guess, and said um, your, your best option for him is to put him in a home okay institution.
Speaker 1:And my mom, who was again high school educated, grew up on a farm sitting in a room with and my dad told this story but sitting in a room with three other neurologists and very, very, I guess, learned doctors and she pretty much called BS on him and she said no, I don't think you're right and she goes, I'm not putting him there and we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:And she basically became my physical therapist and over the course of the next several months started regaining some function, blinked my eyes, started to be able to move my fingers and my toes and within less than nine months we walked back into the doctor's office, the neurosurgeon's office, and when I mean walked back into it and they literally were shocked.
Speaker 1:So you know, if you look at the things that shape your life, there was that um, never give up kind of mindset, never accept things that face values sort of thing, um and um and fight through. So, um, both of them, literally that was, that was sign of the mindset you know for both of them, both for me, um, the uh, the work ethic, really, and the, the hard, the hard work, the effort, those sort of things probably have more of an impact on me than anything else. So, um, now I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I guess, enlarge that circle just a little bit, if you will, um, beyond that, after having recovered and so forth, it was probably as idyllic a childhood as you can imagine, okay, especially in that little farm town.
Speaker 1:Everybody knew you. Everybody knew who you were. They knew whose kid you were, and I love telling this story because I think it paints a picture of this little town. It's a farm town of maybe 300 people. At its peak it was 300 people and my grandfather used to race horses and I love horses. So basically whenever we would go visit, which was just about either every weekend or during the summer, we'd be there for several weeks. He'd have a horse saddled up for me and you know, at seven years old I've got my cowboy boots and my cat pistols on and I hop on that horse and I just rode. And the town was so small that if I got hungry I could ride up to someone's house and knock on the door and they would feed me lunch and I'd just keep going On your horse. And the interesting thing, it was an eye opener for me in what shapes you sometimes.
Speaker 1:It was probably five or six years ago. I had gone back to a funeral for my uncle, who was my mom's youngest brother and almost more of a big brother to me than an uncle, and the turnout was incredible. But what shocked me was how many people and I hadn't even been back to visit that town in a long time. Ok, but how many people knew me as a kid, remembered me, remembered my parents? It was. It was a feeling of home that you just don't experience very often and I wound up doing the eulogy for my uncle at the time. It shocked me because when I got up there and didn't realize I was going to say this, it's like they talk about the comment it takes a village. You don't realize who and what necessarily shapes you until you have an experience like that.
Speaker 2:I think probably between what my parents did and what this community did for me at that time, shaped who I am as a man, who I wanted to be as a man, kind of thing. Wow, okay, there's a lot to unpack there, so I got to get the visual. So did I hear you right? You would ride a horse at seven years old and just roll up to your people's houses and just like yeah, hey, can I get a PB&J?
Speaker 1:they all knew me. Yeah, exactly, they all knew me and said hey, you know it's, it's, you know one to stop by and say hi, that would be. One of those kids was like something smells good in there. What's for lunch, you know, and come on in, have a seat. And um, it was. Everybody knew they. I'm sure there was probably a little phone network that went on where they were calling my grandmother said hey, larry's over here, he's having lunch with us. But as far as I knew, it's like wherever I wanted to stop, they were.
Speaker 1:You know, come on in literally they would say, okay, you know, because of the farm community. So it's like, yeah, tie your horse over by the barn, come on in and have lunch.
Speaker 2:And I felt like a seven-year-old cowboy, I might start calling you White Herb.
Speaker 1:I was, and if you think about it, a year earlier I couldn't even walk, you know.
Speaker 2:And yeah, it was a pretty amazing childhood, to be honest, with you. Okay, so you get this virus and the thing that really hit me in the heart when you're telling that story is be your own advocate health-wise and shout out to all the doctors you guys are amazing. But I think personal opinion sometimes our health system is broken in many ways. But like it's, it's, you got to keep them on a schedule and in and out, and in and out and sometimes, like the, the really good doctors out there are super curious, which I think all of us salespeople the good ones are curious, the good leaders are curious.
Speaker 2:But sometimes that story also proves, I know, that moms and women, they have this secret superpower called mom's intuition that you do not mess with. Agreed, it's always, they're always right with that type of stuff. And then she deep down, she knew and what a fantastic you know, you know, just belief that no, it ain't going out like this. And I mean I would. I'd be willing to bet there's times later in your life, maybe as a dad or a business person. I'd be willing to bet there's times later in your life, maybe as a dad or a business person, do you ever, have you ever found.
Speaker 1:You're like reflect back on that moment of what your mom went through and your, you know oh absolutely For strength.
Speaker 1:There were, yes, yeah, there were a couple of things I remember. When my daughter cause it it, it kind of evolved or more from chickenpox okay, which is normal I mean, almost every child has chickenpox okay and it was just a fluke thing that happened and there were a handful that it happened to in that area around that time frame. But I remember when my daughter got chickenpox I was terrified okay, absolutely terrified okay, and lived through that. I think the other piece of it, too, it was those lessons that I've learned. Yeah, tried to help my daughter fight through certain things that were tougher.
Speaker 1:Now there's a balance there too Okay. Is understanding that, again, this was this, was learning to raise a dog. Okay, is that that there's? There's emotions that play into that that you don't always take into consideration.
Speaker 3:You can't just rub dirt on it and get back in the game.
Speaker 1:You can't just fight through certain things you know and and having to balance that out. But there's also that message that I tried to impart. It's like, yeah, you know what, pretty much if you put your mind to it and and persevere, there's not much you can't accomplish.
Speaker 2:So true, the mind is one of the most undervalued superpowers and tools we have. We, just we, and and the words I would talk to my kids all often about the words you say matter what we put in your mind. Majority of the things we do are in our subconscious. I don't even know in it. But when and and you know the power, I've done studies around the words I will just saying I will, or writing I will down. That's powerful. They can impact how we show up, whether it's in work, at home, like I will be on time or I will be patient, I will be a better listener. And when you put that in your brain weird, I started listening better and there's studies about it that show. So it's like I love that you, I love that you said that. But when you're saying that, you also made me think about empathy.
Speaker 2:Larry, I think sometimes we go through these moments of adversity or or tribulation, like it's easy sometimes to say, well, hey, I, I, I made it through this. Why can't you get through that? So maybe, as you know, other dads out there raising daughters, maybe they haven't quite connected with the daughter yet. I know sometimes I get my daughter in the morning when she's really tired and I sometimes get at the end of the day when she's really tired, so I always struggle with just trying to meet her where she's at, when she's ready to talk or open up, be there. But I'm hoping that I get experience with you, experience which is that later in life she comes back around and like dad, I remember all the time you used to rebound for me and all these stories but talk about empathy, um, back when your daughter was growing up.
Speaker 1:I could relate a lot to that when and I'm when I mentioned the, the, the teenage years Okay, I'm not sure that that my empathy factor was really good, as I wasn't raised around girls I mean, it was me and my brother. Okay, you know, even my mom was more of a tomboy, being raised with four brothers, and so I didn't really experience that that side of it and so, um, I don't know that I was incredibly empathetic when she was going through that and I think and we've talked about that afterwards I think there's some things that that, um, I'm incredibly proud of her, but I think there's some things I look back and I definitely could have done it better and definitely could have handled better. And had I been a little bit more empathetic in that regard, yeah, I would have, I would have, I would have. That's one of those where I wouldn't mind having to do over in some things.
Speaker 1:Now, as she's gotten older and, like I said, I've probably gotten a little bit, hopefully a little bit wiser is starting to understand that, while she's a lot like me in a lot of ways, she's also not like me in a lot of ways and understanding that side of it and really kind of letting her be her own person. I think that was probably a little bit of a challenge for me. You know, you see somebody that looks like you and thinks like you and, to a certain extent, and has a lot of similar characteristics, you want them to follow a similar path, and what I realized is her path is very unique to her and, in a lot of ways, probably better and healthier than my path was, you know, and kind of letting them I think you know it's funny because I thought about this the other day, casey you know what is that reasoning to tell? What is that? One of the biggest challenges and it's for me it was allowing them to learn from their own mistakes.
Speaker 1:Okay, Hard to do, it is and you kind of want to protect them, you want to kind of make you know hopefully they avoid some of the missteps and the screw ups that you had and you want to save them from that. But in reality we probably learn at least I do. I learn a lot more from my failures than I learn from my successes no-transcript themselves.
Speaker 1:Right to keep or keep that's a terrifying feeling too, that first you know when, when they're no longer it's one even when they're in high school, and they may be gone for a week or they may be gone for a couple of days you kind of know exactly where they are and what they're doing. And then that transition to college, when they could be hours away in some cases you know entire country away and you know, and they're also being in penances. They may not call you when you want to and they may not, you may not call you back when you call them, and all the little things like this, and you're going, I can't protect them any longer, and it's a terrifying or at least it was for me sort of a terrifying thing that it's like my job as a parent is to keep her safe, but it's, it's an adjustment.
Speaker 2:Well, so yeah, 100, when I I I wish people told me. I mean I think I think they did, I just probably didn't hear them. I mean I take it back, I heard them. I didn't listen to them because I didn't, it didn't, I wasn't ready to go through it. But like when you, when my son left for college, that first week was brutal, we were so sad and now now we're all, we're back to normal. We miss him, we wish he was here, but like he's thriving, he's having a great time and uh, it just, it's just that. You know. You know you go from four to three and yeah, it's, and you guys went from one to zero yeah, we did it wasn't, it was a big adjustment.
Speaker 1:It was um, you know there's there's a certain amount of, you know it's like, okay, we got this, we can do this. You know it's funny. I remember when we did the campus visit, my wife and I were both like, man, can we just kind of go back to school? This looks awesome, you know. But but then you drive away and yeah, the first thing was and like I said, fortunately my wife's been my best friend since the very beginning but all of a sudden, okay, what are we talking about? Right, you know, and it took a while to kind of get used to that again and enjoy that, yeah it's important.
Speaker 2:You got to learn to date again almost.
Speaker 1:It really was, you know, and it's interesting and it's very funny because, like I said, my daughter is 32 years old now and you know we'll do a trip somewhere and you know we'll tell us like, hey, we're ready to go here, and so forth. She goes well, thanks for inviting me and it's like okay, you're 32, you do your own trips now okay, right, we'll do a family trip that's different but it's still there's a. There's that bond expectation there um.
Speaker 2:So I want to go back and for what? And feel free to share what you're comfortable sharing. But one of the questions I always like to ask dads is an area of your dad game that maybe wasn't the best, or an area where you wish God you mentioned you could have a do-over. I got stories for days on that, but I think one theme for me that I always think about that I'm working hard to just find ways to get better each and every day is my patience and so, as a competitive dude I think this podcast I've interviewed over 270 dads, going on five years now, which is almost six, which is crazy to think, but I've definitely seen my patients improve just because I'm talking about it so often. For you, larry, maybe think back to a time when you raised your daughter and you're like, yeah, I was not my best, like that you might feel comfortable sharing. That might hit a dad at home, listening that might help him from making that same mistake that either you did or I did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's probably a lot of those. I wish I had better patience. I think probably two that popped to mind when my daughter was in high school and started dating. No dad ever thinks that the guy they're dating is good enough, all right and um, and I think I probably could have been a lot more understanding and a lot more patient. That it's a, it's a, it's a process and it's like they've got to learn. They've got to make the same mistakes that we did as kids, you know, and and understanding that and was probably overprotective. Ok, and so I know it doesn't answer the patient's question, but in a sense I really if I had the patience to trust her and do that.
Speaker 3:I think it probably would have been a better, different outcome.
Speaker 1:Better, different outcome. Um, I think the other thing too is going through the, the college years in the process and understanding again thinking I was one of those people that literally when I got into school it's like, okay, how quickly can I get out all right, how quickly can I finish I get my degree, get started making a living, earning money, that sort of thing. Her, her process was very different, okay, and so that where I got very frustrated was not having the patients that say you know what it is a, it is a journey sometimes and not just the destination, and you know. Again, I look back on my you know particularly, I mean really even the two years that I was at Virginia College and two years I was at Georgia. I wished I had taken the time to enjoy it more.
Speaker 1:Ok, because there's so many pieces about that that shape who you are and shape how you deal with people and how you communicate and how you you know, and to me it was always the destination. We still we still actually joke about that when my daughter and I hike together. We still actually joke about that. When my daughter and I hike together, we love doing it but we also hate it at the same time because we are two very different hikers.
Speaker 1:She is the one that takes her time and she'll wander off the path and she'll look at this and she'll look at that and she really gets into the moment and she enjoys it. I have a tendency to look at it more like it's exercise and I'm gotten to the finish line and so I'm usually, I'm usually anywhere from you know 20 to a hundred yards ahead of her going. Will you hurry up? And she's like dad, just take your time, enjoy it. So there are some things I'm obviously still working on to kind of kind of have those patients and honestly, logically, I know her route is better, I know her method is much better and much healthier than mine.
Speaker 2:I would allow you to be more present in her path.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:The old John Wooden be quick, but don't hurry.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly, exactly great. I love, I love there's so many John Wooden be quick, but don't hurry. Right, exactly, exactly Great yeah.
Speaker 2:I love, I love. There's so many John Wooden-isms out there, but okay, so you, the resiliency you had growing up, the grit, you know the horse skills like you could have been the next Kentucky Derby winner, but you weren't. You decided to join Dysus.
Speaker 1:I was. I was more of the John Wayne cowboy type than I was the horse racer.
Speaker 2:So okay, that was funny.
Speaker 1:It's very funny. We've done this as a, as you know with the team.
Speaker 1:You know, I think I mentioned this to you before, is it's interesting? I have one daughter, but I feel like I have about 50 kids with what we do and we've talked about the stories of growing up and so forth. And I remember we asked, we went around, we asked everybody what do you want to be when you grow up? And it came back to me and I was like, oh, it's the same as it was when I was seven years old. I still want to be a cowboy. Okay, it's pretty unlikely that's going to happen now. But yeah, that was that whole concept of you know, that was. That was. That was more of my goal there when I was seven years old.
Speaker 2:Well, if it helps you, Larry, for the rest of the week I'm going to have. When I think of Larry Thompson, I'm going to see the visual of you riding a riding a fricking massive black stallion just around the Virginia mountains the Virginia mountains.
Speaker 2:Um, okay, as you think about the, the themes that. So what you, what you took from your childhood, you obviously I'm, I'm jealous of your pops. He was a super handy dude. Um, that sounds a lot like my my father-in-law shout out to Bruce level. My, my father-in-law is the dude he can fix anything. Um, I, my dad God god love him, rest in peace was not the most handiest dude? Pretty handy, actually, I was, I am. If you google worst handiest man in the united states history and then click, images like my face will show up. You know, I can type, I can talk, you go fix it.
Speaker 1:We all have our skills right you know, it's it's very funny, my dad was that guy, but he was always the mechanical guy I got into. For whatever reason. I got into woodworking when I was in high school and that's my thing, but it's interesting there's a lineage there. My grandfather and my great-grandfather were both carpenters and so my dad could fix anything. There's not many things I can't build, but I'm fixing them. It's a whole different story for me If it's mechanical. I'm still phoning a friend for help on that one.
Speaker 2:Okay, good, you're one of me then.
Speaker 3:Hi, I'm Leslie Vickery, the CEO and founder of ClearEdge, a company dedicated to transforming the business of talent. Through our three lines of business ClearEdge, marketing, recruiting and Rising that help organizations across the recruitment and HR tech sectors grow their brands and market share while building their teams with excellence and equity. I believe we were one of Casey's very first clients. He helped our sales and account teams really those people on the front lines of building and developing client relationships in so many ways. Here are a few. He helped us unlock the power of curiosity. For me it was a game changer. I was personally learning all about TED-based that's, tell, explain, describe, questioning and that really resonated with me. We also learned about unlocking the power of humility and unlocking the power of vulnerability. Casey taught us to be a team player, to embrace change, to stay positive. He is one of the most positive people I know. He believes that optimism, resilience and a sense of humor can go a long way in helping people achieve their goals and overcome obstacles.
Speaker 3:And I agree Casey's book Win the Relationship, not the Deal. It is a must read. Listen. Whether you're looking for coaching and training or a powerful speaker or keynote, casey is one of the people I recommend when talking to companies. The end result for us, at least as one of Casey's clients our own clients would literally commend our approach over all other companies, from the way we were prepared in advance of a call to how we drove meetings, to how we follow up. It sounds really basic, I know, but let me tell you it is a standout approach that led to stronger relationships. I encourage you to learn more by going to CaseyJCoxcom. You have nothing to lose by having a conversation and a lot to gain. Now let's get back to Casey's podcast, the Quarterback Dadcast.
Speaker 2:But as you reflect back, like when you raise your daughter, um, that that maybe dads can take from our conversation today on um key themes or key values, maybe to talk. Talk about what were the values that were you and your wife talked about, that were really, really important for your daughter to learn early, that, and maybe there's a story or two that comes to mind of how you really reinforce those.
Speaker 1:As far as core values, I think it's always been integrity, character, trust, those sorts of things. Those have always been the things I remember as little, when she was very little and I know she got so sick of me saying this over and over again. But you know it would be the thing of if I can't trust you on the little things, I can never trust you on the big things.
Speaker 3:Okay, and it's the little things that would would make a difference.
Speaker 1:And I know that was the thing that we said over and over again and I know that that's one of those that I've been seeing her as an adult now, that I've been seeing her as an adult now she has an incredibly high bar for integrity, okay, and, and to the point where I've actually you know, we've had that conversation about balancing out with a little bit of empathy that somebody will actually do something that violates that in her mind and she'll write them off.
Speaker 3:It's like I can't trust that person anymore.
Speaker 1:It's like, okay, think about the consequence, think about the situation, not to offset it, but are there extenuating circumstances you may have? And I think that was a lot of what we focused on. I guess, as a kid it's really just, you know, I used to say this often, you know, and I still believe this is that we should not need written contracts. Okay, your word is your is your bond Okay, a little old school, but it basically was like if you say you're going to do something, do it. Okay, and and and live by that, and um, and we had we've had several conversations on that where things just didn't like anybody. All right, where she said she was going to do something, didn't do it, and we would sit down, we'd talk about it. It's like, okay, so what's the outcome of that?
Speaker 1:Okay, do you feel good about that conversation, that decision, all right, and ultimately it comes back to those where you know where is your moral? Compass really within anything else. And what drives you? If it's integrity, if it's trust, it's honesty, at least in my view, if you stand for those three things.
Speaker 2:Well, you hit a chord with me, my man, because I thousand percent agree with you, man, because I thousand percent agree with you and those. You know that that that lesson you learned from your family that you now pass down, I mean probably why you've been successful in business and sales and leadership, but because, just like you tell your customer you're going to do something, then do it. If you tell your teammate you're going to do something, you're going to do it. If you tell your employer you're gonna do something, then do it. And if you are someone that doesn't follow through on the expectations you set, then, wow, your trust is eroded, your relationships fail and, um, you know, in the state of this AI that we're living right now, and I think AI what I, what I love it. It helps really, really smart people be better, but I also think it helps the lazy get worse.
Speaker 2:You know, and I'm not going to name the AI company, but I was at a conference speaking recently and I went up to the AI company, big one, and I said hey, what, how do you tell me how you think this is going to impact sales, people and cause? I got some thoughts and then, and he asked, he said some stuff and I said I I think it's going to fricking make the shittiest part of my friend shitty salesperson worse because he or she ain't gonna be able to back up anything they're talking about. They have no stories to back up, and so I'm kind of taking conversation a little different route here. But I think I love that you, that those are little things that are going to be timeless until until, like, we get wiped off the earth and we and there's no reason for humans to talk. The stuff you taught your daughter is always going to be important.
Speaker 1:Sure, well, and I hope so. You know, I think, if we lose those things and they're no longer important, I'm hoping I'm gone by then.
Speaker 2:Yeah me too.
Speaker 1:But it's interesting your observation on AI because I tend to agree with that I think the thing that probably worries me the most about that. I think it's got some amazing applications.
Speaker 3:I think there's going to be some great growth, but it's like anything else that you know if something is created for good, it can also have negative effects.
Speaker 1:I worry that it's going to hamper creativity, right, okay, you I mean you know you, you've had a very successful sales career and a lot of that and what makes you successful is the ability to think outside the box.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, okay, it's, it's. It's how you actually deliver a solution, or how you support a client, or how you work with somebody in the future is, sometimes you have to be creative, and I kind of compare it to how we are, you know, used to be. We grew up having maps like we fold out, maps that you could never fold back together and you inherently either remembered how to get from point A to point B or you used a map. I swore when GPSs came out I was never going to use them because it was going to dumb me down. And I use them all the time now and the crazy thing is, yes, I probably could still read them, but it's made me lazy in remembering how to get from point A to point B. And it's a very simple example. But I worry about that, the use of AI, that we rely on something to take away that creative part of our brain.
Speaker 2:I guess, yeah, you still have to have critical thinking skills. I think for me, like when I, if I use it now and I teach my kids this, I'll say you know, take the first stab. Or hey, here, write me an outline for this, but then make it your voice, because if it's not your voice, people are going to know it's not the same. Um, I mean one man's opinion. And now we're probably and we joke before we start recording we're going to sound old here in a second, but uh, I think there's so much. But also to that point too, it's funny, my kids can't even believe this happened.
Speaker 2:So when I first got my license, I remember like, oh, I can drive myself to the golf course with my buddies, and we had to. We'd call a golf course to your map, example, and I'd say, okay, well, we live in Fairwood. Where is your golf? Oh, it's over in Auburn. Okay, well, how do I get there? Can? Is there anybody that can give me directions that works there? And they would literally okay, yep, take this road, turn left. I'm like writing down Like I can't imagine, like how scary that would have been for one, the distraction as a driver back then. And we worry about kids being distracted now with devices, all these things, but like I was distracted as it all could be handwritten notes, trying to figure out how to get to the golf course. What the hell, exactly, exactly, okay. So you, you, you, you grew up resilient, gritty. You have an amazing mom, amazing dad. I love the stories you've shared. How does one from you know riding horses get into staffing? Wasn't that, wasn't the hell? How'd that happen?
Speaker 1:I have no idea. And that's the crazy thing is it wasn't a direct line. You know, a lot of people's careers is a straight line from point A to point B. Mine was literally like a country road in West Virginia. It was all over the place. I actually came out of school with an MIS degree, which at that point in time was a combination of computer science and business, and, oddly enough, I thought I was going to be a programmer. I thought I was going to develop code and I did an internship, writing of all things. This is really making me sound old writing COBOL code so many years ago. And at the end of the internship, the person I was and I thought that was what I was going to do, I thought that was going to be my career and the interesting thing was I didn't enjoy it. But I didn't realize necessarily that I didn't enjoy it. I thought it was just okay, this is what I'm going to have to do, did the internship the end of the internship, enjoy it.
Speaker 1:I thought it was okay. This is what I'm gonna have to do. Did the internship? The end of the internship, my supervisor and boss at the internship took me to lunch. Walking out, he puts his hand on my shoulder, said Larry, listen, really loved having you here. Team really likes you. Great guy. He goes. I gotta be honest with you. He goes. Son, your code really sucks. He goes. Have you ever thought about a different career? And I was devastated because I'm going. What the hell am I going to do now? And I remember talking to an advisor and he said at that point in time he goes. Listen, he said you're really. Your only other option is to go into sales. And this was at a time again you got to remember my dad was a started off with an assembly line. He worked his way up. It was, like you know, sales was not a career you aspired to at that point at least in his mind.
Speaker 1:It was something that other people did, and so I remember having to tell him. It's like, look, I think this is the path I'm going to go. And, to his credit, he goes well, you think you can make a living at it. And I said, yeah, I think I can. And, to his credit, he goes well, you think you can make a living at it? And I said, yeah, I think I can. So went into the industry selling computer hardware like large mainframe systems. Like you know, we were a competitor to IBM. It's a company called Digital Equipment Corporation, which has long since disappeared, but we were number two computer manufacturer in the world at the time and hired by ultimately hired by one of my clients to manage our Salesforce.
Speaker 1:Interesting story too, because I was 27 years old, that I knew everything about leading a team. It was the most magnificent crash and burn in leadership you've ever seen in your life. It was just a disaster and I learned again. Learned from our failures, not from our successes. I learned more from that there. Ultimately wound up out of work. My wife had just we just found out that she was pregnant and was in a panic, and through some networking, I had a friend that said, hey, we've got, you know, got a need for a guy in the staffing company and at the time I literally thought it was like, oh my God, this is how far my career is falling, ok. And and what I found was I loved it OK. Once I was able to check my ego and really say, hey, you know what?
Speaker 1:this is actually a pretty exciting and pretty rewarding job and I actually did that for quite a while, was in staffing for several years, went through an acquisition of the company that I was in, was asked to stay and help with the transition and didn't particularly care for that company and how they did things, and again, it was an integrity thing for me and so I left left the industry for almost 15 years, went to work, actually bought a business with a buddy of mine and turned around, sold it a few years later and did nonprofit work for about seven years and loved it, absolutely loved it, and I actually thought that was going to be my path.
Speaker 1:This is basically the fundraising the public outreach, the public relations piece of nonprofit work, and a really good recruiter from Dysus called me and said hey, would you be interested in coming back to staffing? And when I stopped laughing hysterically I was like why would I want to do that? She goes, well, we'd like you to meet some folks and see what you think. And walking in the door talking to the team, it was like I kind of missed this. And that's how I got back into staffing and this was probably 10 years ago, was with Dysus for about three years and left to go to work for a company called Signature Consultants, all right, which is headquartered out of Fort Lauderdale, and then about four years, maybe five years after that, dysus acquired Signature Consultants. So I wound up going full circle back with the same organization and now it's Dexio.
Speaker 1:If I could write a script for my life, I would have never in a million years written that script, but it is probably one of the best. But it is probably one of the best. You know, sometimes I'm not even sure sometimes that I made the conscious decisions, other than I allowed God to kind of direct me in certain ways and listened for a change and and couldn't be happier, couldn't be happier in how this all worked out.
Speaker 2:Love it Well, I think, just like the story of you and your wife. I mean, things happen for a reason. You kind of like you surrender to that moment and like what's going to happen, and like when I first heard okay, mis degree, I'm like, wow, that's a secret weapon. Because now when you're out doing discovery with customers, you have a little bit of technical background. You probably can ask questions that most average seller might not be able to think about. Are you a Caddyshack fan by chance? I'm sorry, are you a Caddyshack fan by chance? Oh yeah, so when you thought when you, all I saw was Ty Webb being your boss when he said your code is not good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he did not listen to. Yeah, he did not Listen to this. He did not leave. There was no ambiguity in his evaluation there.
Speaker 2:Well, my code would stink too. Larry, we got that in common.
Speaker 1:You know, the crazy thing is it was in hindsight, you know, once I kind of got over the shock of it. It was a massive relief because I did not I mean, I envisioned that was going to be my future and yet for those entire, that entire internship, I was miserable because I was sitting in this little cubicle just crunching out code and yeah, I, I it was. It was probably some of the best advice I've ever gotten.
Speaker 2:Well, shout out to your leader for being honest.
Speaker 1:I know exactly. And again, if I could go back and find the guy and and uh and thank him, I absolutely would.
Speaker 2:That's it. That's a. I mean that's the same thing tied back to fatherhood. We I mean as dads, we can. We can either protect our kids or and lie to them or tell them the truth sometimes, and it might be awkward, it might be uncomfortable, but like that's where growth happens is when we get a little uncomfortable. And I mean I see it in the, in the work I'm doing now, which I did not plan on doing, but whether it's leadership work or coaching or working with sales teams, like I see so many leaders not being afraid to tell a salesperson hey, you just there's not that out for you. You've been here for X amount of years and you haven't closed one deal. Why the hell are they still here Exactly? Let them go do something else.
Speaker 1:It doesn't make sense. I'll go back to it because we've used it a lot internally Friends, don't let friends drive drunk. It's the same thing If you care about them which I think all good leaders should care about their people is if you truly care about them, you owe it to them. To be honest, all right, and I think it's that balance. The difference between being nice and being kind, okay, is you can be nice all day long and make them feel good about themselves, or you can be kind and help them with sometimes hard truth Yep, you know, if it helps point them in the right direction or helps, helps them along their path. So, and it's and I think that's what I see more often than not with young leaders is they struggle with that, that part of it of the of sharing that information, even though they know this is the best thing for them.
Speaker 2:They want to be liked.
Speaker 1:Exactly. It's uncomfortable because nobody likes to hear stuff that I like. I didn't like hearing that my code sucked, but in hindsight, like I said, best advice I've probably ever gotten, you know.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, as we get ready to wrap up here, people have if they've never heard Dexian and they're intrigued to like. Obviously that's the combination of signature and Dice is together, but like if people have never heard Dexian, tell us what does Dexian do? How can we learn more about this great organization and how can people learn more about you?
Speaker 1:Oh, terrific, thank you it is. Dexian is a combination of a handful of companies that have really been pulled together, the two of which, like I said, were Dice's and our digital intelligence systems and signature consultants. What's been interesting with that merger? When we did that and we call it a merger because it really was an acquisition, but the way the two organizations blended felt more like a merger and, oddly enough, when we came together there wasn't a lot of overlap. When you got two organizations that are of the size that we were in the staffing industry to not have duplication is really rare, okay, and so what it did is it created an organization that combined both this really efficient, large volume staffing operation with some offshore and near shore opportunities and resources to deliver talent with this other organization. That was very much a white glove relationship based, high touch environment and really kind of blended the two together.
Speaker 1:Um, what? What we've done as a result of that is kind of take our training and development model out of one and make it the core of who we are. We hire a lot of folks right out of school, put them through a really impressive, actually award-winning, training program. We're one of the I think I believe we're the only staffing firm that's ever been nationally recognized repeatedly for our training program, and, as a result, I think it's that same thing. You see the results and you see the surveys of best places to work. I think that plays a large part in why we continue to be ranked as one of the best places to work in staffing industry, and the idea is basically to take people from school that have the aptitude and have the attitude as much as anything, teach them our business and teach them how to be salespeople, and then carry that even further and teach them how to be leaders. You know, I think that's probably been one of the bigger gaps that I've seen in my career is, we tend to train people and teach people how to do a specific skillset. We don't focus as much on teaching people how to be good leaders, and that's something that we started a couple of years ago really really focusing on. So, as an organization, that's kind of our mindset and our philosophies, if you will.
Speaker 1:What we do, though, is we do traditional staff augmentation, contingent workforce staffing, we do managed service projects, we do a complete ERP division that focuses on providing talent and solutions for that, as well as huge presence globally we are the second largest minority-owned staffing firm in the world. Largest minority owned staffing firm in the world. I said world, I'm going to Don't hold me to the world part, but I think I know we are. Number two Sounds better. It does sound better and I'll probably be checked by our legal team on that one, but it's a pretty amazing organization. Like I said, having having spent a good bit of time in the staffing industry and in other industries, what we're creating and I say it that way, not what we've created, but what we're creating, I think, is changing a lot of how companies look at that flexible workforce if you will so cool and if people want to learn more about you.
Speaker 2:Uh, I get, is LinkedIn the best?
Speaker 1:way to Yep, yep, larry Thompson, I'm, I'm the one.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's anything you know what's funny?
Speaker 1:because I don't actually pay attention to my LinkedIn very often, so I don't even know what my it's. Um, there's a lot of Larry Thompson's that tend to pop up.
Speaker 2:Logan was a former attorney general. I am not that smart. Well, you're Larry Thompson the cowboy, and I think that that's that's how you know what.
Speaker 1:Honestly, casey, now you said that I might need to update my LinkedIn profile to have that in there.
Speaker 2:Cowboy of staffing.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 2:We'll rope and ride and find your talent. We'll lasso them. There you go. That's it. I like that. My dad jokes are coming out, okay, well, it's now time to go into the lightning round, where I ask you just random things. I say random things. I'm going to show you the negative hits. I've taken too many hits in college not bong hits, but football hits and it's your job to answer them quickly. It's my job to get a giggle out of you. Okay, are you ready? I think so. Okay, true or false? Uh, your first day ever working with Mark Nussbaum. You both rode a horse together to work. False, okay, um, true or false? You, you want some.
Speaker 1:That was a giggle because I could. I'm picturing Nussbaum on a horse.
Speaker 2:True or false? Uh, if Mark Nussbaum would ride a horse, he would go bareback.
Speaker 1:Oh true.
Speaker 2:Absolutely True. Love it Okay. Uh, true or false? I've ridden a horse on a beach in Cabo, uh, with a cowboy hat and no shirt. True, that is true, I can see that? Yep, what is? I learned the word vamanos, vamanos. That is a true story and one, I don't know why, I just shared.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you did though.
Speaker 2:Thank you. So first tell me your favorite comedy movie ever seen Young Frank and Sam Okay, wow, we've never had Young Franks on the podcast. Well played.
Speaker 1:Uh, tell me, the last book you read. It was um, and it was about the um, the Dust Bowl, um and shoot. The name of it is completely escaping me. It was a fascinating book about the Dust Bowl and how it impacted, how that came about in um in the Midwest, and there might've been, there might've been, a Brad Thor book in there in between too.
Speaker 2:So All right, hey, everybody's got their, their, their, uh, their literature of choice. Um, if I went into your phone and look at your music you like to to listen, to tell me what would be the one genre or song that would shock your daughter.
Speaker 1:That would shock my daughter. Oh man, that's the thing I raised her on on, uh, classic rock and roll and so forth. She knows I'm also a jazz fan. Um, probably Motown.
Speaker 2:Okay, big Motown fan Al Green.
Speaker 1:Oh God, yeah, Al Green the Spitters, Four Tops Temptations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so good. So my, my pops rest in peace. He was a huge al green fan and, um, when he was right before he took his last breath I I remember like someone the hospice I said you know, sometimes people are getting repassed play music they like to. And I remember I went straight to al green and I was like man, al green's got some cuts. I didn't realize how, like I had heard, like I had al on my, my whatever phone and there was like so many good songs I'm like he plays that one.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a great thing and not to go off. But basically, to me that genre of music was so perfectly produced without all of the, all the electronic stuff with it. It was just the, the, the timing. Everything was just beautiful in that stuff.
Speaker 2:Love it. Um, okay, if I, um, if there was to be a book written about your life, tell me the title.
Speaker 1:Um, that's a tough one, Casey. Um, I'm coming up with a couple of things. Never say never.
Speaker 2:Okay, there we go. Now. Never say never, um, it's, it's every, every person in the staffing industry, every person that ever got an mis degree, every airport, wherever this beast, this book, is being sold, larry, it's sold out. And so now, once, once that happened, now, netflix found out about hulu, found out about another fighting to make this movie, um, and now you've been named the casting director. I need to know who's going to star you in this critically acclaimed hit movie.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean the obvious would be probably Brent Pitt, but I mean just the similarities. Are you know that I'm going to go with Mark Wahlberg?
Speaker 2:Marky Wahlberg, a little tough East coast guy. I like it. I was thinking you might say Kevin Costner, just with the tombstone.
Speaker 1:That is possible. Yeah, that would be a second choice If Walbert couldn't do it.
Speaker 2:I'd have to go with Kevin Costner.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, and last question, then tell me two words that describe your wife Patient and amazing.
Speaker 2:There we go. Lightning round's complete. We both giggled. I think I'll give you the win because I laugh more at my own jokes, which should not count, but they are on my scoreboard Well it was funny because you were telling me about the horse riding combo and it was funny.
Speaker 1:I've got a picture floated around every now and then. When you do the little you know one thing nobody knows about you and I like to tell people I came in second in a camel race in the Sahara desert which is actually true. What I what I usually leave out is there's really only two of us, and it was me and the guy and, uh, he beat me on a race back from the pyramids.
Speaker 2:Hey, it's still silver. You're still on the podium.
Speaker 1:What I was missing, though, on that camel though, was my cowboy hat and my cap pistols. You know, that would have been complete.
Speaker 2:Well, I think if you had Spurs, you would have brought home the win for sure.
Speaker 1:That day.
Speaker 2:That is true. That is true. Well, I want to thank you for your time. It's been really, really fun getting to know you better. I want to thank Mark Nussbaum for making today's episode possible. I want to thank every dad who continues to listen. Thank you, guys, for your support. I want to thank our sponsors for continuing to support us and, if you're watching this on YouTube, everybody, thank you for your support there. We are on video now, which is fun. You get to see what this crazy bald guy from Seattle looks like, and.
Speaker 2:But dads just continue to be curious, continue to be vulnerable, to realize you don't have everything figured out and, like Larry said, larry told the story about checking his ego. Like, we all got an ego. Put it to the side. Um, there's always something we can learn each and every day from an online or maybe our wives or our kids or your friend or family. But, um, this is a blast. Um, just because I host this podcast, I got I got a lot to learn, too, from everybody else, and I want to just continue to thank everybody for your support. Um, but it's been really fun talking today, larry, and I wish you the rest of the have.
Speaker 1:It's been really fun talking today, Larry, and I wish you the rest of the have a great rest of your week. Casey, it's my pleasure. Thank you for doing this. I think this is very valuable, so appreciate, appreciate all you do.