The Quarterback DadCast

Your children are watching everything you do, so make it count - Tim Glennie, Managing Partner - Bridgeview

Casey Jacox Season 6 Episode 295

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This episode only happened thanks to the annual TechServe Conference, where I met BridgeView's Managing Partner, Tim Glennie.

In this vulnerable, wide-ranging conversation, Tim shares the intentional practices that have shaped his approach to fatherhood. From instituting daily gratitude exercises during school drop-offs to family dinner "highs and lows" discussions, he's created frameworks for meaningful connection with his three children. These seemingly simple rituals have transformed how his family communicates, especially during the challenging teenage years when one-word responses typically dominate.

When Tim notices his son offering to help plan family meals instead of complaining about mom's chicken dinners, he recognizes something profound: his parenting is working. Small moments like these reveal character development happening beneath the surface of daily family life.

Tim reflects thoughtfully on the contrast between his own latchkey childhood in 1970s New York and today's more protected parenting environment. He describes creative ways he's maintained his father's legacy of curiosity and hands-on learning while adapting these values for a new generation. His garage workshop has become a sacred space where his sons develop problem-solving skills and respect for tools—mirroring experiences from Tim's own childhood.

The conversation takes a powerful turn when Tim opens up about his journey to becoming alcohol-free at age 50. After struggling with anxiety since age 17 and recognizing patterns of alcoholism in his family history, Tim made a life-changing decision that has transformed his mental health, physical wellbeing, and family relationships. His willingness to share this struggle offers hope and perspective for listeners facing their own challenges.

Beyond the practical parenting strategies, Tim articulates what matters most: raising children with personal responsibility, realistic expectations about life's inevitable struggles, and confidence in their ability to handle whatever comes their way. His authentic approach reminds us that effective parenting isn't about perfection—it's about creating meaningful connections that prepare children for their own journeys ahead.

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!

Speaker 2:

Hi, I'm Riley and I'm Ryder and this is my dad show. Hey everybody, it's Casey Jaycox with the quarterback dad cast. Welcome to season six, and I could not be more excited to have you join me for another year of fantastic episodes and conversations really unscripted and raw and authentic conversations with dads. If you're new to this podcast, really it's simple. It's a podcast where we interview dads, we learn about how they were raised, we learn about the life lessons that were important to them, we learn about the values that are important to them and really we learn about how we can work hard to become a better quarterback or leader of our home. So let's sit back, relax and listen to today's episode on the Quarterback Dadcast. Well, hey, everybody, it's Casey Jaycox with the Quarterback Dadcast.

Speaker 2:

We are in season six and we are continuing to roll right along, and our next guest is someone I met at the Wide World of TechServe. He is a board member at TechServe, His name is Tim Glennie and we actually met in like a breakout session and he asked a great question that we ended up just kind of shooting the you know what, and next thing, you know, I ran into him again and next thing you know, he somehow got convinced to come on the old quarterback dad cast. But he's the managing partner of Bridgeview Technology Consulting, a fantastic firm doing really great, great things. He's a South Florida Bull. Maybe we'll learn a little bit more about that. As I mentioned, he's also a board member of the TechServe Alliance. So if you're a staffing company out there and you don't know anything about TechServe, make sure you check him out. It's a great organization. So shout out to Susan Donahoe and team.

Speaker 2:

But, with all that said, that's not why we're having Tim here. We're having Tim here to talk about Tim the dad and how he's working hard to become that ultimate quarterback or leader of his household. So, without further ado, Mr Glennie, welcome to the Quarterback Dadcast. Casey, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here, you bet man. Well, I'm grateful you're here, and so, with that word in mind, we always start out each episode with gratitude. So tell me, what are you most grateful for as a dad today?

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, something specific happened last night. I actually talked about it with my leadership team this morning. So we were finishing up dinner and at the end of dinner, once a week my wife has these deliveries like a home chef, where they deliver all the ingredients and you have to cook it up and make a dinner. At the end of dinner, one of my sons said hey, mom, after dinner can I go on the Home Chef site with you and order next week's dinner? And she's like sure. And I was like, oh, that's great initiative, rhett. And she said, yeah, she goes. Well, he doesn't like it because I always order chicken. I said you're right, but you know what? He didn't complain about it. He was proactive and just wants to look for a different option and is becoming part of the solution and not part of the problem and complaining. So I viewed that as something as a parent like wow, I like how that you know, integrated into his DNA.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a great story and yeah, and when they get to be a part of it it's even better. Yeah, it's proactive, it's a little show and a little curiosity and shout out to mom and dad you obviously have created the environment for him to feel comfortable to come ask you to be a part of that too.

Speaker 1:

A hundred percent, yeah, and I think you know it's cool with kids, because he's one of my more curious kids in the kitchen and we'll try to create his own concoctions. And I was like, hey, you know, if you ordered, are you good cooking it too? Right, and just, I think a lot of times the parents get used to just preparing the food. I think it's important to bring the kids into the kitchen and stimulate their curiosity and how it goes to help prepare things.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, spot on, man. Well, I'm grateful for a couple of things. One we're recording on February 20th. This episode will come out in a month or so. Today is my 26th wedding anniversary, so I'm grateful for my wife. I'm grateful for our two amazing kids that we've. One I got off into college, which makes me feel I still don't feel like I'm almost 49 years old, but I am, and it's just crazy to think. And I have a junior in high school and I'm grateful I get to watch her play in a playoff game tomorrow night, which is going to be so much fun and, fingers crossed, the basketball gods are on our side and can bring home a dub. But just grateful for my wife and 26 years of marriage, so I thought I'd give her some shout out today.

Speaker 1:

Well, a big congrats on that. I mean, we've been married almost 24 years and 26 is a testament, you know, and I'm assuming it's a pretty good, 26 years, right, you guys are still together, have the kids, and so congrats to both of you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thank you. Believe it or not, man, we actually met in seventh grade. Oh my God, that's amazing. Yeah, so like I'm see, 40, she's 49. I'll be 49 next month, in March, and so we met when we were 12.

Speaker 1:

What's a 26,? 25 silver right? I don't know what 26 is what's?

Speaker 2:

uh, 26, 25 silver, right, I don't know what 26 is? Uh, I don't. I don't cubic zirconium, I mean I don't know. Um, well, bring me inside the uh, the glenny huddle. Um, well, I'm guessing you're the quarterback. Most wives are the general manager um, but tell me how you and your wife met and then about each member of the team.

Speaker 1:

Sure, yeah. So my wife and I met up in Boulder, colorado. I had you mentioned, I'm a South Florida Bull. So I graduated school and packed up everything I owned. I bought a pickup truck and got a topper, drove out to Boulder, got a job and I was working and, ironically, a guy that I went to college with, I used to play in bands in college, and he moved out to Boulder and said, hey, you want to join this band? I said, sure, I'll do it.

Speaker 1:

And we were playing a gig and my wife showed up at the gig it was a house party on St Paddy's Day and her friend had a crush on the singer in the band and she just came along, didn't really want to come, and we ended up striking up a conversation and talking to you and learn how to snowboard. I was like, hey, I snowboard, let's go snowboarding sometime. And I remember she wrote me a cool little note, like with a snowboarder and like, hey, let's go snowboarding sometime. And just hit it off and there was like immediate connection. And, yeah, that was, let me see, 20, 28, 28 years ago.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, very cool. Then tell us about the kids.

Speaker 1:

I've got three kids. My oldest is my daughter, ireland. She just turned 18. She's a senior over at South High School. I've got twin boys, logan and Rhett. They're 13, in eighth grade.

Speaker 2:

I love those names. Thank you. Is there any story behind that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there is actually. So, you know, my wife and I, you know, once we were together and I think it might even been before we're married like we just start dreaming about our future together. We both have come from Irish heritage and love the name Ireland and thought that'd be a really cool name for a kid, and so we're like, all right, we got one in the bag and then the name Logan we also liked for similar and different reasons. When we were dating, we both lived on Logan Street here in Denver. She lived on one end, I lived on the other and there, um, and there was also a show when I was a kid called Logan's run, you may remember and I just always thought like Logan just had a really cool sound to it. Um, just a, a great name. And, and, and both names could go to either gender, right, I mean, they're kind of just flexible names. And uh, yeah, so we had my daughter and it was immediately like boom, that flexible names. And yeah, so we had my daughter and it was immediately like boom, that's going to be Ireland, right. And then so we had one in the bank, we had Logan in the bank, and then four years later, we get pregnant with twins. We're like, oh, you know what, what we got Logan. What about the other one? And it's funny because the first two came really quick, right, and then the third one we talked for months during the pregnancy about oh, we're going to do it.

Speaker 1:

And you know, I'm a musician, I'm really into music and I was thinking of names like Hendrix and Paige, like great guitar players and stuff like that, and just again trying to think of something unique as a first name. My wife's first name is Anastasia and her parents didn't give her a middle name. So you know, she got married and wanted to take my name, that she could use her maiden name as her middle name, which I thought was really cool. And then we did the same with my daughter. We're like Ireland and we won't give her a middle name, and then you know, she gets married and wants to take that name. She can keep her maiden name as a middle name. So just kind of a technique we have.

Speaker 1:

But anyway, so we're going through all these names, can't find anything, and like she'd shoot me names and I'm like nope, nope, I'd give her names. I'm like nope, nope, we just weren't getting on the same page and it was right around Christmas and we're putting together the Christmas tree and my wife does a real nice job getting all these ornaments that mean something to her. And we had these two ornaments from Gone With the Wind at Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler and it says their names on the ornament right and she put up the Rhett Butler you know with the handsome Clark Gable on there and she goes what?

Speaker 2:

about.

Speaker 1:

Rhett and as soon as she said it I said yep, and we got the name and it stuck and yeah, really glad we got it. That's cool, that's cool.

Speaker 2:

That's cool. How did you get into music out of curiosity.

Speaker 1:

That's a great question. You know I'm a child I was born in 72 and born in New York and you know a couple older brothers and an older sister and my oldest brother he you know had had a vinyl collection and he's always playing like the led zeppelins and kiss and arrowsmith and all that stuff I'm sure you can run same time as you, um, and it was all great. And you know my dad had a, a nylon string acoustic guitar, classical guitar and and I remember listening to led zeppelin like a whole lot of love and you know when it has like the little pick slide on it and I used to to led zeppelin like whole lot of love, but you know when it has like the little pick slide on it and I used to just pick. You know I was like five years old and I just pick the guitar out of the case and try to make that you know pick sliding sound and that kind of really got me started. But when I was 12 I I got uh hold of the first jimmy hendrix record and that blew my mind right and and became a disciple of Jimi Hendrix. And it's funny because at the time that was in the 80s and here's a guy from the 60s and I just locked on to it and just really connected with him and I'm like I want to learn how to play guitar.

Speaker 1:

And that year I was 12 years old and my birthday's in October. And my mom says, well, what do you want for your birthday? And I said, well, I want to roll my birthday and Christmas present into one thing, you know. And because I and white tape on it and everything, and you know she's like, all right, forget about it, put it under the christmas tree. And uh, I remember I got the guitar and I started playing it. I'm like god, I can't really hear anything. I didn't know anything, right like about guitars and electricity and uh, and then I was like I figured out, mom, I need an amp. You know that's going to cost more money. And so we went to the store and you know there's a little you know 10 inch amp. And uh, there's like another a hundred bucks or something. And she's like, all right, well, I'm gonna give you a dollar a day for doing dishes. So you got a hundred days worth of doing dishes, you know. And and then I found out later I could also press my dad's shirts for a dollar. So I started knocking that out pretty quick and, yeah, once I got that it took some lessons and just off to the races Do you still play? I do, yeah, yeah, it comes and goes.

Speaker 1:

I got really serious about it in my mid-teens and started joining some bands and during college I got in a couple bands. One caught a lot of traction right around the early 90s, kind of in the grunge era, and we were playing all original music and opened up for some national bands, did some touring and played probably biggest crowds 1,200, 1,500 people played a bunch of theaters and clubs. And we had some bands coming up at the same time as us, like Marilyn Manson was in our neck of the woods so we were playing with those guys and you know they were like one of the first bands. They got signed to Trent Reznor's label and a couple other guys and you know we kind of saw the pathway and I just decided at a certain point, like you know, for the band I was our quasi manager, you know, because I had a.

Speaker 1:

I was kind of a business guy and, uh, it's just an ugly business I didn't want any part of you know like I'd see these guys, like one of our friends, got signed to capital records and they, you know they immediately made the band change their name, change their sound and plus, you know they had to borrow two hundred thousand dollars from the record company and go into debt and the chances of them ever making that back or slim. And I was like, okay, so you sell your soul to make the record go in debt and it's not even the music you want to make. You've got a different name, you're in a different genre. You know they're like oh, grunge is hot right now, do that. Or indie pop is, you know, do that. It's just, it wasn't very appealing to me yeah, no, I hear you, it's you.

Speaker 2:

It's funny. I am self-taught guitar. I love playing. I mean I play in spurts. Sometimes. The more beers I have, the more I play. Yeah, but it's fun to like. Just, I don't know how to pluck, but I can strum and I just go to like those like guitar tab sites. You can kind of like see the music. Yeah, I want to kind of change. If I and I can hear it, I know how to pick up a strum thing which is but I'm not musically trained in guitar, but it's very, very therapeutic um yeah, yeah, so it sounds like you've got.

Speaker 1:

you know, some people have a natural ear for music. I had that, like I used to, you know, listen to cassettes and cds and I would just listen and, and you know, figure out what chords they were playing, and and then I, you know, you just kind of assume everybody knows how to do that, right, and then when I would listen to records, I could isolate the tracks in my head. You know, listen to the bass, or you know there's a cool thing like I'm sure you listen to guns and roses, and you know the appetite for destruction was a huge album. And one thing I learned is if you pan it left, you only hear slashes guitar and if and if you pan it right, you hear Izzy's guitar, and you know Slash was lead and Izzy was rhythm and and when you isolate their tracks, it, you get a better understanding of what they're actually playing. Versus the blended. You know, when you put it in stereo, you're hearing, you know, the panoramic sound. Yeah, but I'll tell you, or just anybody listening to this, like with picking.

Speaker 1:

First I say, is you? You do what I? I, when I watch musicians, I always study what they're doing, if they're playing with the pick, if they're playing with their fingers. Some people use their finger as a pick or they have, like if you listen to blackbird by the beatles, which I think is one of the best songs out there, you know, you know, paul um paul was, like you know, kind of a failed guitarist. He took over bass in the Beatles and he just uses two fingers on that and it's like two strings for the most part and he's just plucking. But it's this beautiful song with these augmented chords and you got guys like Billy Strings that could do anything on a guitar. But to me I think some of the most beautiful is when you just see people kind of create their own way to play, and that's the beautiful thing with the guitar. Just see people kind of create their own way to play, and that's the beautiful thing with the guitar. You know, like it's just if it sounds good, do it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, my father-in-law can play that song Bluebird. He learned it in college and he doesn't play much but he still can play it and it's pretty cool. It's a really really good song.

Speaker 1:

It's fun. Yeah, I, I learned it. We had friends that got married and they asked me and another buddy to do kind of like an instrumental set and that was one of the songs I did just kind of solo there and it's not a super complex song, you know. I think it's in G but there's all these just augmented chords and you have to remember the transition because it's not like playing an A, g, you know F type thing. It's like two little, two note chords all up and down at like the A and the B string and it's you just kind of got to. Once you get it, it's easy. But it's just it's funny because certain songs I remember how to play forever and some I could never remember. You know, some just get sticky in my brain and some I can learn them, and especially the more complex they are, but then it just goes away.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm going to give some love to. So I met a guy named Adam Hood, who I met at Staffing World. He was the music that they brought in and I met I actually met a couple other executives and we and I was just being a curious person and networking for my whole life in business development. I'm like he's a dad. I want to talk to him. Yeah, I just got to put it out there. Well, he's like a his. I love his music. He's like really really good country music guy. Okay, about our age, private, um, um, but his music he's, I think, one of the songs up for a. And then there's also my buddy. Actually he's from where I live in Seattle area. His kids are in the Denver area and they have a new band called Marfa M-A-R-F-A. Oh nice, and they're like blowing up.

Speaker 1:

I'll have to check that out. Marfa, I'm going to write that down.

Speaker 2:

M-A-R-F-A. Yeah, so give those guys some love.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, denver's got a good music scene. That's where I'm at and, um, the lumineers are probably the latest big band out of here. Before that it was, uh, the fray and nathaniel ray lift and the night sweats and, uh, yeah, we we've got, you know, big head todd and the monsters that's from back in the day and we've got a number of bands that have come through, uh, out of denver. So we have a real, a real music scene, like they do something called the underground music series every July and there's like 10 clubs on Broadway, which is one of the main strips kind of in a fun, funky part of town, and they'll have like 300 bands play, you know, and it's just amazing Wow.

Speaker 2:

Well, I want to transition um back to what was like what was life like for Tim growing up? And talk about mom and dad and the impact they had on you.

Speaker 1:

now that you're a dad, life like for Tim growing up and talk about mom and dad and the impact they had on you. Now that you're a dad, yeah, sure, two different tales right how I grew up and how I'm raising my kids. Yeah, I was born Greenlawn, new York. My dad worked in the city in New York City. He worked for Citigroup. He was like a banking kind of like consulting kind of executive type guy and help regional banks do stuff. So he would bid me a lot. He traveled a lot because he was going out to see regional banks and help them out.

Speaker 1:

Um, my mom was stayed home. Uh, I was the youngest of four kids. Uh, so you know my siblings helped out a lot. My sister was the oldest. You know she's eight years older, so she was kind of like mom number two. Um, yeah, my, you know my dad loved to death.

Speaker 1:

He passed away six years ago but he was more of an isolationist and I think it was kind of talking to a lot of people my age, kind of a product of the time. He was more interested in his own pursuits than being like a full-time dad and you know, and if you'd like to do what he did, you got his time and if you didn't, you didn't see him. You know he wasn't like the go through the football or baseball in the backyard type dad. He's like hey, I'm working on a project in the garage, you want to come help me? Or I want to go sail my sailboat, you want to go sailing. So you know I would just adopt whatever interest he had, like yeah, or do whatever and just to get time with them, right, because I crave time. And you know my mom was kind of the opposite. She was a nurse before they got married and you know she's a really great caretaker and, you know, always shuttling us around and doing different stuff.

Speaker 1:

But I grew up, you know it was kind of like a little hamlet, greenlawn, new York. It was very safe. I won't say rural, I mean here in Long Island, new York, people might have one conception, but we had a lot of open space, lived in a good neighborhood on a cul-de-sac and we had open space behind our house where I could. I was riding my bike to school by myself. In first grade.

Speaker 1:

I remember going to Pee Wee what do you call it, t-ball games, you know where I would have my cleats on my handlebar, my glove on the other side, and I was six years old and I was writing myself to to play in games, which I look at my kids now and I'm like that never and I live in the city, but you know I'm like still, like never would have happened. So I was the latchkey kid, I had a lot of space, you know. It was kind of like, you know, in the summers, like hey, come home when the uh, when it gets dark, right, and you just might be and my, my brother that's closest to me, is two years older, so we would just go off with our friends and, you know, go play imaginary games out in the neighborhood and the woods and stuff like that.

Speaker 2:

Isn't it crazy how much time's changed. I mean, you live in the Sandlot movie. You're a character of that movie, a hundred percent.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, it's. Uh, I feel fortunate for it. Um, and I'm glad we made it through, cause you know, I, I definitely my brother and I are still really close and I'm like, did we really do that? Or go hop that fence or go do whatever crazy thing we were doing? And you know, put a bunch of you know bottle rockets and something, and you know whatever happened and like, yeah, because like we um, I know you're from the pacific northwest but, like on the east coast, we used to have these things that are enabled, called sumps, you know, which were like uh, kind of look like a football field but inverted in the ground for flooding and stuff, but for the most time it was just like this big, huge area that was fenced off that you were dying to get into, you know, but it was generally overgrown, overgrown.

Speaker 1:

There's probably possums and whatever else, raccoons and stuff in there, and you know anything that you could sneak into. We wanted to sneak into scale a big fence or, you know, go climbing up trees and we did a lot of tree climbing. And you know we did Cub Scouts when I was young and I don't know if you did Cub Scouts, but, like you know they do a lot of adventure based stuff and you know kind of you make things and you know figure out games and kind of a lot of survival stuff.

Speaker 2:

Are you handy now? See, I am. I've made fun of myself multiple times on this lovely podcast where, like, if you Googled worst, handiest douchebag, you'll, and then click images. I'm probably going to come up.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I wish I was click images.

Speaker 2:

I'm probably going to come up. Yeah, I wish I was.

Speaker 1:

I think I'm accidentally handy, like out of necessity. I think more than anything I'm a seeker. I'm a curious guy right, and I like to figure out how stuff works. Like when I was a kid they used to have these little way before Game Boys. They'd have these little handheld games that you just you'd play one game on it, like Frogger or something like that, or you know Tetris or whatever, and I would sit there and look at the you know the package, you know the plastic case it was in and I'm like what makes this thing run? And sometimes I broke them open just to see you know there's a chipboard in here and then this chip and where does the battery go in and how is it connected and how are the wires? Like, I'd always try to get like my parents, like Radio Shack they used to have, like these erector sets or you make your own radio, and I was just always curious how you put things together, how they work, and that kind of back-ended me into like handy stuff.

Speaker 2:

It's funny, I'm a great secondhand though, like if I just don't have that, that mind to see it. Yeah, I'm like crazy curious from like an EQ perspective, from like, but IQ I just don't. But once it's built, I'm like, oh, that makes total sense in the world.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so my, my buddies, I yeah, I think a lot of what I've learned in life, casey, and I'm curious if you went through something similar is I learned things by figuring it out and not getting the proper instruction. My dad was not a handy guy. It's funny. I remember my early years when we lived in New York and we had a basement. He had a little workshop area. Anytime something would break in our house, like a toaster oven, a hairdryer, whatever it was. He'd say, oh, don't throw that out, I'll fix that. And there was this pile in the basement next to his workbench there was like five hairdryers, a couple of toasters, you know, whatever it was that wasn't working and he never.

Speaker 1:

But he so I know that he had that curiosity and you know, probably overconfident, that he could fix things, or you know whether you know, as an adult looking back, either he didn't have the time or he just. I never saw him fix any of that stuff, but he did have a pretty good tool set up. And one thing that just relates to me being a dad is I love being in the garage. I've got a workbench, I've got a lot of tools and I remember my dad. He had this workbench and a lot of tools. I never saw him doing it, but I always had this curiosity like hey, what does this tool do? Or what is this? I remember we used to have something called liquid gold. I don't know if you ever saw that. It was like.

Speaker 1:

Scott's liquid gold, and it was kind of like a heavy cement kind of glue thing and I'd try to find applications. I just like, oh, this packaging looks cool, packaging looks cool, what can I use that on? And you know, fast forward to now and I've got this cool workbench set up and my boys have really gravitated. I could tell when they've messed in it. And then I make rules like, hey, these are my tools, you could use them, but you got to respect my tools. If you use them, they go back in this certain spot. So I know where to find it. You know cause, like if you call me asking for a tool, I can tell you exactly where it is left-hand bottom drawer. You can get the power drill and the drill bits Right and there's a reason for the system. And so, and they're learning, you know. I mean I love that they have that same curiosity, like they've got these new e-bikes that they're always modifying and stuff and using my tools, and and I just love seeing that same curiosity in my kids.

Speaker 2:

It's awesome. That's so cool. Well, sorry, your pops passed my dad. I lost my dad December 29th 2021. So we have that in common. Yeah, as you reflect back from like the values that mom and dad taught you, yeah, tell me what comes to mind, maybe through a story too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, sure, I, I definitely grew up in a pretty well. It's interesting because I was the fourth of four kids and and I come to meet other people that were that way as well, and I kind of learned this, looking back on it when you're the fourth of four, your parents are kind of worn out by the time you're born. And I relate to this because I know when we had my first kid, my daughter, when you're setting up your house, you want everything clean and sterilized and you want to do everything, perfect, right, and oh, you got to make sure to sanitize this bottle and do this and do that. And once you go through a few iterations with the kid and dirty diapers and, oh, just grab whatever bottle you can. The time the second set kids came around, I was like, it's fine, you don't need to sterilize that, you're not going to kill them. You know like these kids are resilient. And so I use that analogy because I think when I was coming up, you know, my parents were a bit looser with me than they might've been with my older kids, cause they're like, oh well, we didn't break these ones, so that one should be fine, you know, and yeah, and, yeah. So, but as far as values, I think, definitely commitment.

Speaker 1:

You know I grew up in a Catholic household and, like every Sunday was church. You know rain or shine you didn't, unless you were hospital sick. You went to church, right, whether you wanted to go or not. You dressed up, nice, right, so and we had to do. You know it's called catechism, but Sunday school to most other people that go to church, and so you know it's tough when you're a young kid you don't have attention span right and to sit in church. And you know in the Catholic church it's basically the same exact thing, except for the five minute sermon every mass. So it's very repetitive and I think hard for a young kid to focus. And then you know Sunday school after at least with some variety, learning different stories. You know about Jesus and the disciples every time and even though I didn't like going to it, I realized in hindsight the moral fiber that it was building within me.

Speaker 1:

And you know the difference between right, wrong and knowing that if I did something wrong I had to go to confession. And you know atoning for transgressions. You know whether it's like stealing the last Twinkie. You know having two Twinkies so somebody else didn't get one or whatever it was when I was a kid. You know that type of stuff and it gave me a good compass when it came to hard work. You know, my dad definitely put us to work at an early age and you know whether it was cutting grass, pulling weeds, washing his cars and doing all that stuff, and I always kind of felt like he was outsourcing it to us. So he didn't have to do it Because I did a lot younger than most of my, like I was. I was using a ride on lawnmower at 10 years old. I didn't allow a lot of 10 year olds driving uh you know, a ride on lawnmower, um and uh.

Speaker 1:

I'll tell you this my, my dad, when, when he would do chores and he, he was a finance guy, right, he had his MBA and CPA and worked in banks, so he's very specific about money and he worked with a lot of wealthy people and we were not, we were middle class and he would tell me stuff about the wealthy and what they did different and stuff like that. And when he would pay us for chores he said I'm going to pay you minimum wage and he'd back out what taxes would be. So if it was $3 for minimum wage, it's like here's $2 and 13 cents. I'm like where's the $3? It's like, no, when you work, they take taxes out.

Speaker 1:

And I thought, you know, no other parents were doing that and I was like, dude, that's pretty hardcore. You know, now, as an adult, you know he was teaching me the value of a dollar and trying to prepare me for the world and what was to come instead of just, I mean, he could easily paid me $5 instead of $3, you know, and not taking any tax out, but he was trying to teach me something and it wasn't about the money. I didn't get it at the time, but I get it now.

Speaker 2:

I actually had a friend that did that. He did, uh, he did tax, he did 401k. Yeah, um, and his kids like what the hell? But it's like I think that's genius. I mean you're, you know you're what? 52? Yeah, my math's right, 51. And you remember that still to this day?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, now have you applied that same lesson to your kids In different ways. Yeah, I mean, it's different times, right. So I, you know I've been very fortunate in my career and successful financially, but I'm very tight with my kids. You know, like there's a lot of stuff they want that I could easily get them and stop doing, but I make them work for it, right, and I really instilled like if you want something, you have to work for it. And when you do work you know there's a phrase that's common but I use it a lot Anything worth doing is worth doing, right.

Speaker 1:

And if I see them do something half-assed, I call it out and I explain the importance of doing it. You do something half-assed, somebody else has to go fix it. Now, twice the amount of time has been wasted in what you're doing and you're putting a burden on somebody else. And really try to teach them the principles that align with, with, with, with the outcome of what their actions are. Um, yeah, so like we, they have a small allowance. Um, and they have to do chores to get it. And um, yeah, we've used all kinds of stuff like that to, to, to work them through. We've used all kinds of stuff like that to work them through.

Speaker 1:

It's not the exact example of my dad, but I think an iteration that I've done with them is really exposing them to what things cost, because my kids have experienced a lot more at a young age than I did. For example, my kids have been to Hawaii multiple times. I didn't go to Hawaii until I got married and paid for a nice honeymoon there. You know my kids have been to Mexico. They've been to Costa Rica. You know they're going to Europe this summer, like, and I'm like this stuff costs real money and I'm like you're going to have a different challenge than me. I was motivated when I was a kid because I never went to those places and my parents, like my parents would go to Hawaii. My dad would go on a boondoggle business trip and we'd get left at home with some crazy babysitter that was chasing me around the house, you know, hello everybody.

Speaker 3:

My name is Craig Coe and I'm the Senior Vice President of Relationship Management for Beeline. For more than 20 years, we've been helping Fortune 1000 companies drive a competitive advantage with their external workforce. In fact, beeline's history of first-to-market innovations has become today's industry standards. I get asked all the time what did Casey do for your organization? And I say this it's simple. The guy flat out gets it. Relationships matter. His down-to-earth presentation, his real-world experience apply to every area of our business. In fact, his book Win the Relationship and Not the Deal has become required reading for all new members of the Global Relationship Management Team. If you'd like to know more about me or about Beeline, please reach out to me on LinkedIn. And if you don't know Casey Jaycox, go to CaseyJaycoxcom and learn more about how he can help your organization. Now let's get back to today's episode.

Speaker 1:

My kids are getting to go on these things. But I talk about the cost and I'm like, hey, do you know how much this hotel costs that we're staying in when you go to work and you're 20, you're not going to be able to afford this and do this yourself, unless you hit it out of the park. So I want you to appreciate it and what we're having, but know that it takes a lot of hard work to get here, to experience these things and to really have an appreciation for it. Um, cause, it's just, you know, it's a different. We're in a different situation than I was in.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, the power of um money management I think is a is a really is a really a skill that a lot of kids miss. I think a lot of. I don't know about in Denver but, like in Seattle, I don't think our schools do a really good job of teaching finance and money management. I have friends who are in wealth management now and one of them, he actually went out and started like a literacy program for schools and for colleges and I have to get like my my wife is. She was really good at I mean, my parents did a lot of things I don't remember, like learning, a lot of checking but, my wife when we were in college.

Speaker 2:

I remember she was like we were saving money before we even got married. Like, all right, you're gonna take 25 bucks out of your checking. Yeah, I'm like, what are you talking about? She's like, yeah, we're gonna use that to save part of our honeymoon. I was like, so she was teaching, I was getting teached by my wife.

Speaker 2:

But even kids will do like they'll work at their summer job and then we take that money, we split it up by the number of months are in school and like, here's your, here's what you get each month, and when it's out, it's out, so yeah, so yeah. And you got to have this many days. So you got to pick and choose like what in the same thing? We could easily give them things, but but I think what you know, things that are really important to us and our families, like keeping kids grounded.

Speaker 2:

I love the word humility, I love the skill set of humility. I've been around um people who've done a really good job of keeping me humble my whole life and I'll be. I'm addicted to like never feeling like you've arrived, and I want that same for my kids because, yeah, um, we're all replaceable. Um, yeah, one of us and as much as some people think they're not, you are and the world will move on and um, yeah, I don't know and I think it's important too to let your kids know your success or your failure isn't theirs, you know, for better or worse, Right?

Speaker 1:

So, like you know my dad, we had some ups and downs growing up. You know, my dad was in the banking industry and he worked at Citigroup for a good number of years and then he got hired away to run a small local bank in the New Orleans area and in the eighties there was a lot of merging of banks and, you know, the bank got bought, he lost his job, he wasn't working for six months and then get hired for another bank and they get acquired and he loses, and he was the head guy, Right. So, like you know, I saw these flashes of what life could be. And then the brutal reality, like what's my dad doing home for four months, you know, and just going through this stuff, and so it was very humbling, you know, and and and. When your friends are coming over, they're like why is your dad home, you know? Why isn't he at work? And uh, you know, trying to cover up for it and being embarrassed like my dad doesn't have a job, you know. And uh, I think you know my kids have just kind of seen my career, you know, gone, gone, generally up over time, and just assume that's the normal right.

Speaker 1:

And I saw the struggle within my dad, what he went through, and I appreciated that and wanted to have my path be a little bit different, which obviously I figured out.

Speaker 1:

But I have a lot of friends that I've been involved in, EO and other organizations where I work with a lot of other entrepreneurs and founders that you generally are their first generation and have done well, right, and we're all sitting there talking about you know, like hey, if you've been fortunate enough to have a certain amount, you know, is giving it to your kids the right move? If so, when do you give it, how much? And then, realizing they're not going to have the same struggles as us, they may see some of the struggle over time but they're just coming, not by any fault of their own, but they're coming from a different circumstance and there's been studies of inheritance and it does more damage than good and everything else. And so I think it creates a real conundrum for people. Whether you're, whether you're giving your kid just, you know, 10 grand, a hundred grand, a million dollars, there could be an impact that it's not always good.

Speaker 2:

No, I know it's like the scariest thing. Like, when you said that story about Hawaii, it made me think like I went my first time I went to Hawaii was like a senior trip with like buddies and another mom and I think we work really, really hard to make sure that the kids know that this is. You know, we are very blessed and very lucky to do what we've done and don't feel guilty about it. But but, like and to your point, like I love, our mindsets are somewhere on appreciation, like making sure you educate Um, like when the when I left corporate um and was trying to figure out what was next, I remember we, we went to Hawaii with the kids and my wife and I use miles to upgrade to first and we made them sit in the back. Yeah, and it was the best. We'd waved to him like hey guys, what's up?

Speaker 2:

And we're like, yeah, when you work hard and you got a job and you do well, this is where you can sit.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but you don't have and I've joked to my kids about that. They don't like that joke and I don't sit in first class but I've wanted to.

Speaker 2:

It's worth it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I might hit you up on that more about the technique, but I could appreciate that. One thing I wanted to talk about, because I know it's coming on this show and I think it's important. I don't know that we'll hit it this show, and I think it's important. I don't know that we'll hit it, but, um, you know you talked to, you, started this off and I love that. You started with gratitude, right. And um, one thing that I started with my daughter, who's my oldest, when she we, where we live, we live two blocks from the elementary school and middle school, right. So my kids, you know the first eight years they walked to school and you know so sometimes we'd walk with them. Sometimes, you know the first eight years they walk to school and you know so, sometimes we'd walk with them. Sometimes, you know, when they're old enough, they want to walk on their own and be cool and not see us.

Speaker 1:

And then, but once my daughter started going to high school in ninth grade, it's like 10 blocks away, so I would just drive her and drop her off on my way to work and I realized, you know, she's a teenager now. What do I want to talk to her about? And you know I practice meditation and journaling and gratitude, right, and all that stuff. And I started with her and I said, hey, we're going to practice gratitude. I'm like, give me two to three things that you're grateful for, give me two to three things that you're grateful for. And when we first started doing it, she was fighting it and she couldn't think and I'm like I'd say, well, let me just go. I'll give you some examples. I'm glad I get to, you know, have this time to talk to you on your way to school. I'm glad it's finally springtime and there's no snow outside and it's sunny today. And I'm glad, start doing it, you know, and it's a little rough. And then we're doing it. And then after a couple of weeks I'd always have to prompt her and like, she's like, you know, begrudgingly, you know, teenager being like. Then she started asking me. She's like, oh, I'm grateful for, and she just started doing it, naturally, right, and and now she's 18. So this is probably when she was 14, we started and it's just a natural part of the conversation to bring up gratitude.

Speaker 1:

And you know, fast forward now my boys are right at that age and you know I've been driving them and I've got twins and they're paternal, so very different personalities. And one of them followed in her footsteps and, you know, as soon as we get in the car, he's like here's my gratitude, and he goes, and it's funny because his brother sometimes will just copy his gratitude and we're like no, no, no, no, we don't care what you say, as long as it's not what he said, you know, and but it's just cool with them, it's just different because it's like the struggle, right, they're different personalities. Um, and, and I've asked him before, I'm like do you know why we practice gratitude, you know? And and hear what they have to say, right, cause it's one thing to do it, but then to kind of pull back the covers a little bit and say this is why you practice gratitude, right, and there's a reason for it. Um, and then my wife, on the same tip, just to give a shout out to her um, we try to do, you know, a few family dinners a week where we all sit down and eat together when schedules permit, and we do what we call highs and lows, or some people call it the rose and the thorn. Right, I mean, it's a common thing, I believe. But if not, here you go.

Speaker 1:

Everybody goes around and they give their highlight from the day and their low light and it's great to do.

Speaker 1:

And sometimes all people are like I got two low lights, you know, I don't have any eyes, you know, and it's like then you might prompt them like wait, didn't you go on a field trip today? And you guys get to go see that cool thing or whatever. And they're like oh yeah, you're right, but it's something that's ingrained in our family and just really gets us talking, you know. And and it's because you know, when you ask an eighth grader, how was your day, they're like oh, school stinks, I hated it. It's like OK, next question. You know, but the highs and lows really causes them to reflect. And it's interesting, Like we did it last night and one of my sons was very specific about two things that day, and then my other son was looking, had to go back a day to find a high, a low, and then went forward a day of something coming up as a high. You know, and again, I don't care where it comes from, because they're engaging in the process.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I don't know if you realize you did this, but I teach something you did. And so, at age 41, I learned a framework called TED, which stands for tell, explain, describe, and it is like to me, it's like cheat codes. It's amazing how it changes conversations. So I use it. I learned it in a business perspective, but I use it on my kids. So, and what you did is you put a number in the question, or the number of the gratitude. So if I just said, hey, tell me what you're grateful for, I don't know, but you for I don't know. But you said, tell me one or two things you're grateful for, right, like the mind goes to the number, we'll have to tell two things. I don't know why it works, but it works every single time, every single time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, um, I was going to tell you one thing. If you want to try this, I learned this from another dad I interviewed. Shout out to matt miller he, we did this during covid, because that's when I interviewed him and it was, um, we're big into family dinners too, when we can. Obviously I got a kid in college now, but it's just three of us, but they'd go around and say what's that? The trick was, I mean the, the exercise was.

Speaker 2:

You have to say one thing you're grateful for, um, for yourself, about you and maybe the day or your what's going on in your life. And one thing you're grateful for each member of the family. Well, that's good, yeah, it's, and it's kind of interesting to see, like, what your kids, like my kids, were at the time. They were, like would have been, you know, 10 and 12 or whatever, and or no, the lord of that, maybe 14 and 12, and just to hear them say I love, dad, you make me laugh. Or I love, I'm grateful that you always rebound for me, or I love, we gotta go play golf together.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love how organized mom is. I really dig that. My wife has a similar tradition. When we do I'm mixing up my head it's either on Valentine's Day's cards that we give each other or on birthday cards. But I think it's on birthday cards, when the kids give birthday cards to the parents, and she taught them to write I love you because da-da-da, and it's interesting to see each age that they go through what they're like. Hey dad, I love you because you taught me how to mountain bike and you take me skiing right or something like that. Or, hey, dad, you know my daughter. Like during COVID we did a lot of math and had a lot of tears. You know through math homework, through COVID. So it's just interesting to see you know, when you put it on them, where their head goes and what they appreciate, because it's generally not what you would think it would be.

Speaker 2:

Well, when A goes up, does she have plans yet?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, she's going to go to college. She applied to 11. She's only heard back from four. She got in all four and waiting to hear from another seven. But her goal is to go to college in Southern California, either in LA or San Diego. So she just will know within a month where she's going. Some of the schools are just a bit slower getting back.

Speaker 2:

I just we'll know within a month where she's going. Some of the schools are just a bit slower getting back. I will warn you, brother, yes, it is brutal, oh, yeah, oh, and so he's, ryder's been home three times. Every time he leaves I cry Every time, yeah, and we meet my buddies, we talk about it and it's like I'm glad I'm not the only one. It's's like, but it's. It is so weird when they go.

Speaker 2:

But what's awesome when they go is the growth you see in them and all the things like, all these things you're teaching them when they come back, like I mean, I'm a, I'm obsessed with curiosity. Like my son's girlfriend texted me or she snapchatted me. She's in a reading a magazine, the word curious, she circles it. She goes, thought of you. I'm like, okay, yes, you can marry her please. She's amazing, right, and just seeing like things. Like one day my son texts me, goes it's a picture of my book. And I go do you know how to read, dude? I was just like busting balls. He's no doubt I'm actually reading. This is actually. I think you know there's a few people I know that might want to learn how to set better expectations. I'm like what? I mean I didn't ask him to do it, but it's like these moments of like growth when they go, it is, it blows your mind, man.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I, I've kind of been preparing myself and, um, you know, we just call like daddy daughter dates. You know where we just try to cause. I have twin boys, as I mentioned, and we had a lot of stuff in common with the boys, right, but she was first born and her and I used to do like we'd go out and see. Like the new Cinderella movie came out and I'm like, hey, let's go see that or let's go like whatever our common interest is, like she's craftsy and I'll take her to like Michael's or Joanne's and, you know, help her get the stuff and help her put it together if she doesn't know how to and stuff like that. And I'm a bit of a tech dork and she is too, and so it might be putting together some computer thing or learning some new app on. She's very creative, so like editing video, for she has a YouTube channel and does a lot of stuff with social, and so we'll bond over that stuff. And it's stuff that my wife's not, it's just not her cup of tea, right?

Speaker 1:

And this year I'm like man, I'm kind of thinking where you know, where your head's. You know, you already know I've had buddies who've sent their kids off to school. And I'm like I'm like hey. I'm like hey, can we, um, can we go get a daddy daughter ski day, you know, or or something like that. And um, we have a place up in the mountains here, you know, some weekends my boys can't go. And I'm like, hey, you want to go, you and me, and go up there and do it. And it was funny, she reached out a couple of weeks ago and she's like, hey, she goes. I think it was before a long weekend, she goes. Hey, how about we both play hooky on Friday and get up to the mountains to get a day skiing in before the crowds come, you know? And I was like yes.

Speaker 1:

And before I responded, I'm like oh wait, I got to run this by my wife first, you know, to make sure she's all like hey, you know, and it was so cool, we went up there, you know, we had our ski day, we went out to dinner together, we, you know. One form of bonding I've done with her is like she has a certain interest in shows, like when she watched Stranger Things or shows like that, and she didn't want to watch them by herself, she wanted a buddy, you know. And then I'd start, I'd watch a couple episodes and then we'd watch the whole series together, so like Stranger Things, whatever, four seasons. And then she started watching, like Emily in Paris which, yes, I do like, and but we bonded together and it's like, hey, we can't watch an episode without each other. That's awesome. It's 30 minutes of just sitting together talking about the show and enjoying it. It's just finding our commonalities of what we like to do.

Speaker 1:

The last thing I'll tie it up with. There was a movie that we both oh, it was the new Dune movie. Dune 2 came out, I think last summer. Her and I went to go see it in the theaters together, cause nobody else was really interested in it and we're sitting there in the dark theater and we looked at each other and we were both sitting here like this with our hands up in the same exact way, watching the movie, and we just kind of looked at each other and just smiled because you know, we we have so much sometimes in common or commonalities. It's just like you are my daughter.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's. It's crazy when you, as they get older man, like all the things, the good, the good things we do, the bad things we do, you know it's in them. And when it comes out it's like yeah, I only. I mean, as we all know, it just keeps getting better and better and better.

Speaker 1:

One thing I will say to caution. I've told this to other parents. I know this is the QE, dad right, this is, you know, a thing. I learned not to do as much and you know, you and I know each other a little bit but you know, growing up I kind of had a quick wit and probably a heavy dose of sarcasm in the way I communicated and you know I like to think of myself as a comedian and you point out the irony or sarcastic things and you know, when my kids were small, I don't think they really got it right.

Speaker 1:

And then, once they're teenagers, when they started saying stuff back to me in a sarcastic way, I'm like I have nobody to blame for that but myself. And then I really changed my approach on sarcasm and and you know, I always thought it was funny and biting comments. But when it got served back up to me, you know, a dirty, ashtray, greasy pork sandwich, I was like I do not like that at all. And and I need to look in the mirror and and and kind of fix myself a little bit and and be a better role model to them Because, as you said, they are a reflection and unfortunately, you know, I'm not perfect and and and. When I see things reflected that I don't like, I'm like I need to clean up my act.

Speaker 2:

Was that a weird science reference? Yes, Solid, See my buddies. I have one buddy shout out to, Josh McFadden, former guest on the podcast, who is a huge Pearl Jam fan, by the way. Oh great, he goes, Jaycox. If it wasn't for 80s movies, you wouldn't be funny.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's good, so I'll. And this is I'm curious to explore this with you because your kids are a little bit older than mine, but the reason that reference is fresh in my head.

Speaker 3:

So I watched Weird Science probably a hundred times on Betamax when I was a kid.

Speaker 1:

My brother, steve, and I would watch that movie. We knew every line. I used to dream if I had a house as cool as theirs and actually had my own bathroom instead of sharing it with three siblings, and you know the scene where they're like pretending to shave in there, anyway. So I love that movie and, like any parent, there's certain movies from your childhood you want to show to your kids. Like I remember when we showed our kids ET. You know, I remember I saw ET when I was eight years old, right, and I remember showing it to my kids and in the opening scene, you know, they're sitting there talking about dick jokes and smoking cigarettes and like blowjob and like all this different stuff and the mom's like smoking cigarettes in the house and I'm like holy crap, like I did not remember this being.

Speaker 1:

You know there's so much gratuity. You know gratuitous behavior within these 80s movies and just you know, always nudity and stuff. But anyway, a weird science always held a special place in my heart and I was up in our mountain place with my boys and another buddy and his son and we always talk about, you know, go skiing in the day and watch a movie at night and I'm like let's watch Weird Science, you know, and I was just hoping it held up, you know, and that I didn't have to fast forward too much and I think, to my honest opinion, I think it held up great. And you know, my boys in eighth grade in the movie the guys are in ninth grade, right, and the opening scene when they're sitting there looking at the cheerleaders and gymnasts and the gymnasiums and then Robert Downey Jr pulls down the shorts behind them, I'm like that's going to be my sons next year and I'm like this is so on target, like awkward young dudes wanting to have girlfriends and stuff, and yeah love that movie.

Speaker 2:

We're hip, we're popular, we're dear, we're studs. That's right. No, check us out. Yes, you know I could. We should not have said that, dude Cause. Now I. Next time I see I'm going to be quoting weird science Every time I see it. Yeah, you're stewed, but one. Okay, If you were to think about all of the things you and your wife are doing to raise your kids, Like what? Tell me the top three most important values you hope you leave them with?

Speaker 1:

Uh, yeah, I first I would say, uh, personal responsibility, owning your stuff right and knowing things start, and with you, um. Second, I would say, um, realize that life is a struggle. Don't buy into the fairy tale. Uh, happiness is a temporary state, not something you aspire to. You know, people say all I wanted to be was happy, and it's like that's the biggest thing on earth you could ever ask for. You know, like life is constant up and downs and happiness is something you enjoy for a couple of minutes, you know, and I think, third, you know, realize life will generally will never give you more than you can't handle, and know that you are equipped to do the job.

Speaker 2:

That's really good, dude. It's funny. You make me think of when I was 23. We got married young.

Speaker 2:

My dad, he had about a 20-year run of just health issues in and out of us, in and out of like psych ward, um, bankrupt himself almost, uh, in and out of sister living and it was like me and my wife taking care of him and I used to tell myself all that I was like god only challenge only put. He knew I can take it and I had an amazing wife and the the um, you know the vows of death and sickness and health. Like Carrie, my wife, she stood up and there were days where I remember taking the phone and throwing it at the couch because my dad, he couldn't like listen to me but he could listen to my wife, you know. So it's like I think you're right. It's really good advice. Um, really good advice.

Speaker 2:

Um, okay, I know we're we're getting up on time. Yeah, no worries. Um, okay, I know we're we're getting up on time. Yeah, no worries for that. But, um, if you had to think of an area your dad game that maybe it's not where you want it that might relate to dads at home. That if, if you feel comfortable sharing. I'm more happy to go first. But if an area that you're dagging, you're like this, is an area that you know, sometimes it's not always the best side of tim, but but but I, I know it and I'm working on it and I I realized that it's a you know it's a lifelong journey to get better. But tell me what comes to mind.

Speaker 2:

For myself, not my dad. Right For you, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I think something for me is, you know, I grew up Irish Catholic, right, and so you know I grew up in a environment where, you know, drinking and partying was normal part of the thing and I lived a good bit of my life that way. But once my kids, we live a very social life in our neighborhood. Especially in the summer, there's people at our house, their house, and we'll carry on for hours at a time, and there's kids running around and I think when they're little we could get away with a lot more. And but you know, once they start getting around 12, you know they're like hey is so-and-so drunk or whatever, or um things that you say when your tongue gets looser, um could be quite dangerous. And you know I, actually I I quit drinking about a year and a half ago and um, yeah, and I'm I'm grateful for that Um, but I think it's something you know that that I'm sure at certain points I was careless with.

Speaker 1:

You know, um, just kind of caught up in things and and I've seen other people do it because behavior does change once the drinks start flowing. And I think, um, again, we're mirrors, right, and no-transcript, and when I heard that statement it rang so true to me and you know, I think when you know myself or I see others drink, you know there's what you think you're showing and then what you're actually showing, right, you know, kind of like the beer goggles and, um, I, I just I would, I would just say to any dad out there um, you know, we convince ourselves oh, I have a tough day, it's my time to unwind, or you know this and that is that we're signaling through our behavior that this is okay and, just like the sarcasmasm, if we're doing it, they're gonna do it right. And um, I think it's just a real slippery slope and and I'm grateful for I am now, um, and I definitely probably had some slip-ups, you know, in the past and uh, I think it's just something uh, to to be really cautious of.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, um, just because I I'm asking you don't have to answer, but was there a moment that's triggered? You said, hey, I got to stop because of this, or was just like you know what? I'm going to wake up one day and I don't want to do it anymore.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I'll lean into this one. It's definitely a vulnerable thing for me. But I've had anxiety disorders since I was 17. And when it came on it was 1990. And there was not a lot of talk about mental health and if you went and saw you know, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, people thought you needed to be in an institute, like oh, you're seeing a shrink, and like today it's so well embraced and that's why I'm comfortable talking about you know cause people lead with that now, right, and I think there's more of a general understanding and there's books coming out called Anxious Nation, you know, and stuff like that. So I think it is important to talk about.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, so I've struggled with my anxiety disorder, you know, all these years, right, and to any anxious person out there, you know if you're getting ready to have a panic attack or you're feeling anxious in a situation, people have all different types of anxiety and when you have a drink, guess what happens to your anxiety? It goes away a little bit. Have another drink goes away a little bit. But the trick is the next morning when you wake up and some people call it anxiety or waking anxiety levels Like if I didn't drink, wake up on a scale of one to 10,. My anxiety is at a two, which is very manageable. If I drank and felt great the night before, when I wake up in the morning, my anxiety level would be at a six or seven, right, and then you get in this loop and you're like, oh, you know what makes that feel better. It's called self-medication, right, and you know I was always aware of it and was careful with it. But as I worked on myself and you know I've seen a number of therapists over the years I just realized I'd take a step forward and kept taking a couple of steps back and was not making noticeable progress. And when I turned 50, which you're about to do I just had a hard look in the mirror and be like, hey, I want my life to be better. You know I'm tired, like I, I I would.

Speaker 1:

When I would share this story with you know, in intimate circles people would ask about it. I talk about cysts, you know, like rolling the rock up the hill and rolling back down, because you know my anxiety would get better and I'd work on it really hard and do this and you know, and it would roll back down. You know cause there's, you know, uh, exposure, therapy and certain things you do to work on your anxiety, and um, and it just got frustrating, you know cause I'd make progress and then roll back down and make progress and at a certain point you kind of get tired of the fight, you know, and it's just like I'm exhausted from just trying. Why do I have to try so hard to get over this? And I was like you know I'd gone through periods like dry January or just, you know, quitting for a couple months to clean up my act or lose weight, whatever.

Speaker 1:

So I knew I never had a problem not drinking. You know, like I quit drinking liquor, like 12 years ago, and it was like, hey, that was, you know, once I gave it up and I just drink beer and wine and I promised myself I said, if you get in that spot where you're not progressing, you just need to give it all up. You know, and my dad was an alcoholic, a functional alcoholic. His dad was a alcoholic and so I knew it was in my DNA and I always promised myself, if I saw you know kind of problems arising, that it's time to bow out. You know, and I wanted to do it on my terms, I didn't want to end up getting myself in a problem where I had an intervention or my wife's like, hey, if you don't stop that, I'm going to leave you, or things of that nature.

Speaker 1:

And I stopped Casey 18 months ago and it's been a life changer. My anxiety is, I would say, 70% better. My relationship with myself, with my wife, with my business partner, with my kids is just. My energy levels are so much better. I've lost a considerable amount of weight from it. I work out a lot more. I snowboard and mountain bike a lot. My recovery ability I've already got 25 days in this year and usually by this point my knees will be killing me and I feel great, you know. So, uh, I, my plus column is so stacked high and and my cons, there's not really anything in there. Um, so I I just feel fortunate that that I saw the light for myself and and and put myself on this path.

Speaker 2:

Shout out to you, dude, that's awesome. I've interviewed a lot of people that have talked about um, a getting help, no matter what it is, whether it's addiction, whether it's whether it's mental health, um, and I've talked to a lot of dads who went sober. So shout out to you. Actually, josh McFadden, my buddy, he talked about it and um, um, I, uh, I, you know, I, I have alcoholism in my family. I have not quit yet, but it's definitely something that I'm definitely aware of and we'll go. I only allow myself to do a couple nights, whatever it is a week, just because I want to stay on it. And when he talked to someone else about it, he said the fact that you think about it that way, I'm not worried about you. It was the people who get. Really, his perspective was you're having a pre-funk before the pre-funk, right, you know?

Speaker 1:

and so um, there's a movement afoot, I mean, and there's a great guy, he's a former footballer out of the uk um, he has this movement called alcohol free. You know he, he had a similar story to mine and I've listened to his uh podcast and you know he was a famous footballer and you know I think there was a lot of stigmas associated with. You know it's quite big over in Europe, obviously everywhere but the US and it was I listened to it after I made the decision, but I felt the interesting thing and I'll just steer it this way for a second. He really said you know, people kind of look at this dichotomy like, hey, the only people that have a problem are people like you know, alcoholics or heavy drinking. But that's not true. There's what they call kind of middle lane, right, which is the people do what you just described yourself as being and where they think, hey, as long as I'm not an alcoholic, I don't have a problem. But if you read any news out there, science is getting better and the technology all the time about the impacts of certain things. There's a lot of talk about microplastics and all that stuff right now, but people used to only look at alcohol like, hey, I'm fine, I don't need to drink every day or whatever, and my liver is okay. Well, now it's hey, if you are that middle lane drinker, the cumulative effects over time on cardiac health, on cancer risk, on I mean, there's a long, dirty list of things that, even for moderate drinkers, that can really affect your quality and length of life. That, I think, is giving a lot of people an opportunity to again.

Speaker 1:

Sober is one term, right, I mean that's more of an AA thing. Alcohol-free, uh, is something. Uh, I think if we talk sober, it usually means it got quite problematic right For folks. And, um, you know when how to go. Maybe get a go to in treatment program, like me. I just quit Like I didn't go to a program.

Speaker 1:

Um, I've been in therapy for plenty of things and I felt like I was on a good track and I knew where I needed to go. And I'm not saying my way is right for everybody, but it worked for me Right and like the way you asked me about it. I have so many people ask about it and I can always tell they're waiting to hear about the car crash or getting kicked out of the house or like something traumatic, and they're always kind of disappointed that I don't have that and I'm sorry that I don't. But that's why I like to call it out, because I spent years where I couldn't talk about it to anybody for risk of being a pariah or people looking down on me or like, oh, you shouldn't be in the position you're in if you have that and that's all BS.

Speaker 2:

I applaud your vulnerability. When I started this podcast almost six years ago well, actually over six years ago I wanted to create spaces to have these types of conversations with dads, because most dads don't open up about this type of stuff and, um, it's been really, really fun to impact people and have the right person. If we can get the right person to listen to it maybe he's going through what you just went through that says huh, if Tim did it, why can't I do it? Yeah so thank, thank you for being honest, yeah.

Speaker 1:

No, Casey, I appreciate you. I mean, I know, when we met in person I instantly liked you. I listened to your presentation and Ted and everything else and I had to leave early for a flight and I was really bummed. I didn't get to see the whole thing. But you're a special guy. I appreciate you. I appreciate what you're doing. I've listened to earlier versions of this podcast and just the way you connect with guys and I think you're quite thoughtful in your approach and I think you're doing this for the right reasons.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, man, that means a lot. I really appreciate you saying that. Yeah, okay, I want to give some love to Bridgeview. Talk to us about what you guys are doing. If people want to learn more about the company, let's make sure that we, because I really liked how you approached yourself at that presentation our conversation so I think it'd be cool to just make sure everybody else knows about what you guys are doing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I appreciate that and I'll be quick with it and you've been in the industry so I know you get it. But just to the listeners that aren't in the industry and know we do so yeah, broadly we're a technology consulting firm. What that means in reality. We started as an IT staffing firm in 2005 and quickly kind of found ourselves as an outlier because we were doing a lot of hybrid work with our clients and kind of getting some special air with them as a go-to vendor and clients would ask us more and more about consultative work. And then we built out a consulting division and then from that we built out what we call the blended solution, which is IT staffing plus consulting. And people may say, well, what does that mean? Well, it staffing is just hey, you have a clearly identified problem, you need specific skill sets for a certain duration of time and get me those skills right.

Speaker 1:

What we learned is that sounds clean, it's usually not that clean and they would get these resources that they're paying a lot of money for and they don't get the outcome they want. And they needed a bit more strategy and advisory in what they were doing, in their approach, instead of just pure manpower. And so through lessons learned and working with hundreds of clients on numerous engagements, and it all comes down to like you know, they're generally implementing something or they have a proof of concept or they had a failed implementation or failed adoption of it. Is we have experts that could come in and just really meet our client where they're at in the journey. And that's the consulting piece, like really synthesizing the situation quickly and then giving the right prescription for their situation. Like, hey, we think you need a little bit of consulting fairy dust on this just to help out with the strategy and get alignment.

Speaker 1:

But you don't need a bunch of bench consultants, you know, we, we think you know at a better cost for you. You know we're going to, we're going to have two of our consultants help out on the strategy, kind of guide this project, but then we're going to plug in some traditional staff aug into kind of the meat and potatoes work that they're doing, cause you've been around when you're you're K4 stays where. But we realized when we went into clients, especially large enterprise clients they have Accenture in there, they have Slalom in there, they have K-4 in there, they have Bridgeview in there, and everything was kind of bit by bit. You know it wasn't one person owning the whole thing and we really wanted to help put a wrapper around things and make sure we were looking out for the client and not just getting their business but actually helping them hit their objectives and understanding what the objectives were and the deadlines and the goals. And so it's really hey, the core of it is the IT staffing, but making sure they're using it in a meaningful way.

Speaker 2:

I like that. That was really well said. Are there specific industries that people might, that you guys find yourself doing more work in?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'll talk about industries and also technology With industries. We do a lot of work in the financial services industries and FinTech and you know large financial companies typically because they have they have a lot of custom in-house applications, very transaction based, and a lot of regulations around it. We work in the technology space, we work in aerospace, do a lot with a lot of companies putting satellites in the sky, ground control systems, systems that work within rockets. Also within healthcare and within government are the main core segments that we work in. You know, the wrinkle with us, compared to average firms, is we tend to work with highly complex clients that it's not just getting a rec and being an order taker, but somebody could understand. Like if a client comes to us and says we need a Java developer, we don't go okay, tell us about the Java developer. We say why do you need a Java developer? What are they doing? What are they part of? Are they part of a team? What are their deliverables? Look like Right. So we don't want to just know the skills, we want to know the context and the scope and the scale of what they're doing. You know A, so we can truly find the right fit for them and make sure that it is staffing and not a staffing and consulting, or more of a consulting than a staffing, because we're again, we're focused on the outcome and if we help them achieve success, they're going to keep coming back to us and you know, they might just be looking at the immediate kind of aggravation which is like, hey, I need another person. But we're looking at, well, tell us why you need another person. So the why is more important to us than the what.

Speaker 1:

And then, as far as technologies, we definitely skew towards the app dev side of the world. You know so most things we do around application development, cloud technologies, replatforming, you know again, from older legacy systems to newer systems, or getting people, you know, from on-prem to in the cloud, or re-architecting the cloud solution that they're in, you know, if they're on Oracle Cloud and they want to go to AWS. Additionally, we do a lot of work with data. Everything involves data. So, whether it's data architecture, data integration or data engineering and dashboarding a lot of that work. And then our other third practice that we do a ton with is around integrating AI and machine learning, either building native systems to that or augmenting systems with that technology.

Speaker 2:

Love it. You know, I'll give you a shout out. Sometimes, executives, brother, they don't, they can't, they don't have the sales chops or the communication skills. You're keeping yourself sharp. I like to. I like to see this.

Speaker 1:

I try. What came up is that, you know, I started recruiting in sales and worked my way up. So I think, um, you know, chris and I my business partner, like we always say, we're willing to jump into any role in the company and stay current, and so, whether it's jumping in with the recruiting team, the consulting team or the sales team or the marketing team, so we, we, we jump in a lot and really try to keep our chops up. So I appreciate that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's. Hopefully you're, hopefully your company appreciates that bike, Cause I know, I've, I've seen, I've seen a lot in the industry and I've seen a lot of times companies where people, they, you, lose track of the why and it causes a lot, a lot of problems. So where can people find you? Um, if, if people have been intrigued by your story, they want to connect with you, they want to find Bridgeview, tell me what's the easiest way people can find you and your company.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean and hopefully you could drop it in the show notes too but the website is bridgeviewitcom, so it's like a bridge over water and view like a view out your window. Itcom, linkedin. They could go on there and easily find me. Just type in Tim Glennie, last name's G-L-E-N-N-I-E. We do a ton on LinkedIn with educational videos, links, logs, articles etc. So that's kind of our main go-to platform there. Yeah, I appreciate that People can reach out if they want to talk about something business-related, they want to talk about alcohol-free or they want to talk about anxiety.

Speaker 1:

Casey, I've been very fortunate in my life and I'm 52 and at this stage I try to spend as much time giving back and mentoring or advising or just sharing my experience. I'm an experience based teacher. I don't tell people what to do. I tell them what I did and let them draw their conclusions out of it, versus saying go, do this. I'm always going to tell a why not just go what to do, but why you should do it and what the balance looks like of the different options. So that's my approach and what you get when dealing with me.

Speaker 2:

Love it. I will make sure this is all connected in the show notes. It is now time to go in to what I call the lightning round, and thanks for hanging with us everybody. This is one of our longer episodes, but it's been too good to not end it so, but I want we're going to end it here with the lightning round. This is where I show you the negative hits have taken too many hits in college not bong hits, but football hits and your job is to answer these questions as quickly as you can. My job is to try to get a giggle out of you. Okay, okay, true or false. You have a purple haze tattoo on the lower back of your self False, okay, uh, true or false. You are considered the, the, the Chet in the staffing industry False, uh.

Speaker 1:

last book, the last book you read, was uh, the last book I read, uh, was green light by Matthew McConaughey.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I read it. It's really good book.

Speaker 1:

If I went into your phone and played some music, what would be?

Speaker 2:

one song that might surprise your employees. Bullet in your Head by Rage Against the Machine. Hardcore. There we go. If you were going to go on a vacation right now.

Speaker 1:

Just you and Anastasia, where are you going? If just the two of us were going on vacation, I'd say probably go to Costa Rica, probably go to uh by R and all up at the Springs up there.

Speaker 2:

Okay, Um favorite comedy movie ever is.

Speaker 1:

God, that is a tough one, um, but this is quick. So, uh, caddyshack.

Speaker 2:

Solid. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I could. I could go on that one forever too. Yeah, um, if I came to your house for dinner tonight.

Speaker 1:

What would we have? Oh, thursday night. Well, I'm going to the nuggets game meeting there, so you'd be eating with my wife and two of my kids because I'm taking the other kid to the game. But if you're eating there tonight probably wouldn't be chicken, because we had that last night. So I'm gonna guess tonight is either going to be a salad with a protein or some sort of Mexican taco burrito dish.

Speaker 2:

There we go. I'm jealous. You have an NBA team. We are lovely. Sonics are gone. Hopefully we'll be back. We're now hot, gary.

Speaker 1:

Payton Back in the day.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean Sean camp debtless shrimp, yeah 1995.

Speaker 1:

First ever do it in a seven game series. Yeah, five, uh, first ever do it in a seven game series.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, it's class, yeah we got a great team right now, so I'm trying to enjoy it. Yeah, okay, and then last question would be actually two last questions. If there was to be a book written about your life, tell me the title uh, seriously, question exclamation point okay, so seriously, question mark exclamation point now is crushing it.

Speaker 2:

Every airport is selling out of this book. Every airport, every Barnes and Noble Amazon. They can't print enough copies because everybody wants to read it. So now Netflix has decided to make a movie about it. You are now the casting director and need to know who's going to star Tim Glennie in this new, critically acclaimed hit new movie. Oh, jason Segel. Okay, here we go. And last question Tell me two words that would describe your wife.

Speaker 2:

Beautiful and smart. There we go, lightning rounds complete. Uh, we both giggled. Uh, I always laugh at my own jokes. That's what good dads do. Uh, this has been an absolute blast. This has been one of the longer episodes.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for hanging in with everybody. Thank you for, tim, just your honesty, your vulnerability and spending some time with me today. I want to make sure that, if this episode has touched you at home, please do us a favor, go to where you listen to your podcast and leave us a review, or or, even better yet, share this episode with somebody who you think can can gain value out of it. Um, I do this for free, everybody. Uh, I get paid back in this thing called karma. Um, and there's a lot of people think oh, you're like a podcaster, is that your job? I'm like no, it's just like a project and it's so fun and I've met some amazing people. You're one of them, tim. But I wanted to say thank you, guys for your continued support and, tim, hopefully our paths will cross again where I can see you live in person. Appreciate you, brother.